1837] 



FAR M I-: R S ' REGISTER. 



481 



I separated all my moths afier six hours, and to 

 my moriification one h.ilCmy etrirs were not fecun- 

 dated. A Tier that, I allowed tlu; mollis to take 

 their own coursi-; m this affair, and all my eggs 

 were ihencelbrlh good. 



In conclusion. I wo. ild recommend lliose who 

 desire to enter upon the silk Imsiness, in the first 

 place to secure a supjily of njorus malticaUlis trees, 

 and establish an orchard; then go ahead— leavinji 

 experiments and improvements upon the well 

 known and successful methods and furniture to be 

 suggested by experience as they |)rogres5. 



GiDEox B. Smith. 



TO TAKE OUT WIRE GUASS. 



In Hlilyard's 'Practical Farming' there are the fol- 

 lowing directions for getting rid of the very trouble- 

 some weed cd^Wed couck ov twitch grass in England, 

 and well known as wire grass in lower Virginia. 



"When land has become very full of twitch, it is a 

 good plan to half-plough it— that is, turning over one 

 furrow, and then another opposite, to meet it; this done 

 in November will check the growth of the twitch du- 

 ring the winter. The land when ploughed in a contra- 

 ry direction, early in the spring, will lie in heaps, and 

 thus become qiite dry, when the twitch may easily 

 be got out, and a gooJ turnip fallow made. A sandy 

 soilis the most liable to be overrun with it,; but it is 

 one from which it is easily extirpated." 



From the Turf Register. 

 TAJIIXG WILD HORSES — AGAIK ! 



Mount Farm, Clinton. County, III. ? 

 June 10, 18.37. S 



Mr. Editor: — In your March number, at pasfe 

 316, you have made so.ne remarks on an article ol 

 mine on the subject which is at the head of this 

 communication, calculated to inspire doubts as to 

 the truth of my statements, although you vouch 

 for the respectability of my character. Your cor- 

 respondent 'G.' in the same number, also seems 

 to question their accuracy, and not only those of 

 mine, but also those of previous correspondents on 

 the same interesting subject. A desire is also ex- 

 pressed, both by yourself and him, that pains 

 should be taken to obtain the secret by Tvhich 

 Mount was enabled to conquer, in so short a time, 

 that most vicious animah Since the receipt of 

 that number of the Magazine, I have been to 

 Kaskaskia, my former residence, and made more 

 particular inquiries into the case reported to you, 

 and of which I was an eye-witness, and have 

 held conversations with those who are in posses- 

 sion of the secret. They all concur in my account 

 of it, and further assure me that they are in the 

 constant habit of u=:ing the menns with which 

 Mount operated, and have never failed of success, 

 no matter how devilish the horses were* I amal- 

 80 in possession of the secret, and can teach any 

 man acquainted with horses to subdue and render 

 tractable the most ungovernable, in one or two 

 hours, jlbout this there is no mistake. By the 

 same means, the most baulky horse can be made 

 to pull as true as the best dray horse in your city, 

 and oxen can be broke to the yoke, and to pull 

 without flinching, in an hour or more. 



Some further facts in relation to 'the roan' on 

 which Mount operated at Kaskaskia were given 

 Vol. V— 61 



to me, in sulisiance thus: that the next day, in ta- 

 kinir him 'roui the wagon, the driver went behind 

 his loiTs, uahdrheil the traces, gave him a kick, 

 and he iroited oil to the slal)le like an old stage 

 hors;^.; and furihor, when he left town, 'Roan' was 

 turned loose and trotted after the wagon, never of- 

 fering to run awav, and this, a horse raised in the 

 woods, and but for a few hours under the domin- 

 ion of man! All this, I admit, is a severe draft up- 

 on credulity, but it is as true as that control has 

 been liiven" to us over the whole brute creation. 



I have ascertained to my perfect saiisiiictionj 

 that liie means used have no injurious etlects what- 

 ever, on the spirits of the horse; upon his disposi- 

 tion they act like a charm, and seem to attach him 

 to the person who administers them. 



A gentleman who has practised the art assured 

 me tluU he caught, for his little sister, a wild Point 

 horse, and in one week had so completely gentled 

 him that she rode him every where witli the most 

 perli-ct safely. That the means used, properly ad- 

 ministered, will produce the eti'ects spoke of, there 

 is no more doubt than that you have an exis- 

 tence. SiG.WAi 



Remarks by the Editor of the Turf Register. 



The subject of the above article from 'Sigma' 

 becomes more and more interesting every dayi 

 Thp facts slated by various persons are so strange, 

 so "out of the usual course of things" that "Sig- 

 ma" himself need not wonder that many people 

 continue to doubt, though they are affiirmed to by 

 persons ever so respectable. The facts asserted 

 by "Sigma" and various other respectable gentle- 

 men, are neither more nor less than what are al- 

 most universally believeil to be impossibilities. If 

 we were to assert that we could take a wild horse, 

 and in one hour so completely chanire his disposi- 

 tion and habits as to render him docile and tract- 

 able, so that he can be ridden by any person or 

 driven in a carriajre, there are iew people in the 

 world that would believe us; and yet this is simply 

 the very tact asserted by "Sigma," and which we 

 now candidly believe can be done. We did not 

 intend to cast a shadow of doubt on the statement 

 of "Sigma," nor do we believe that 'G,' did. We 

 know the character of '-Sigma" too well to doubt 

 what he asserted as a fact within his own knowl- 

 edsre. 



The editor of the Turf Register has now the 

 pleasure of announcins; that he is in possession of 

 the secret; it has, however, been acquired at too 

 late a day for a trial before the present number 

 goes to press. He is not at liberty at present to 

 publish it, nor communicate it to others, but hopes, 

 after a lair trial shall have been made of if, to ob- 

 tain permission for its publication. Not having 

 Tied the experiment, we cannot speak practically 

 of its results; but we are led to believe, from recoU 

 lections of analofjous things and circumstances, 

 rhat not only horses may be rendered docile, but 

 many, if not all other animals may be domesticated 

 and tamed, or stripped of their wild ferocious pro- 

 pensities by the application of this singular prac- 

 tice. We vvo.dd remark to 'G,' and several oth- 

 ers who have suggested what they supposed wa» 

 ; he secret, that nothing mentioned by any them 

 forms any part of it. There is no stoppinrr the 

 ears with wool, nor applying the effluvium from 

 'he arm pits to the nose of the horse, nor •ever* 



