316 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. S 



vor. I doubt the fact ; but would always recom- 

 mend that it be not given quite fresh to a cow, 

 particularly at an early period after calving. If 

 the required quantit}'' be cut over night, it will be 

 fit for the stall by ten o'clock of the following 

 morning ; and again, the afiernnon meal phould 

 lie exposed to the sun for two or three hours before 

 it is used. 



A well prepared field, if kept clean by the fork- 

 ing, will remain productive for more than ten 

 years ; but as a change of crop always promotes 

 abundance, it would be advisable to prepare a suc- 

 cessional plot every six years. 



The grass and weeds raised by the fork, and 

 raked up with the small quantity of earth, adher- 

 ing to the roots, if salted and sprinkled with quick- 

 lime and placed in a heap, will form a most excel- 

 lent manure for the lucerne. The cuttings here 

 are usually over by the end of October ; the herb 

 then becomes, as it were, torpid, and whatever 

 manure is applied should be given as a top-dress- 

 ing during the winter's state of repose. The sur- 

 face must not be disturbed at that season, nor till 

 the herb begins to grow, then, as I have before 

 said, the fork-digging will effect all that is abso- 

 lutely indispensable; it will turn in the remaining 

 manure, remove the encroaching weeds, and open 

 the soil, burying a fresh surface into contact with 

 the advancing rootlets. The experience of one or 

 two seasons, under commonly favorable auspices, 

 will verily all that I have asserted. 



Somewhat resembling lucerne in character and 

 habits is the French grass or saintfoin (Hedysa- 

 rum Onobrychis), a lovely flowering plant, rich in 

 herbage, and also a native of Britain. The grand 

 object of agriculture ought to be the renewal of 

 soils, and the adaptation of crops ; and as science 

 advances, and its sons become more influential, 

 these objects will be attained.* 



SEEDLING TREES FROM THE SEED OF THE 

 MORUS MULTICAULIS, OR CHINESE MUL- 

 BERRY. 



There has been much said in this journal, during 

 the last four years, as to the kind of products from the 

 seed of the Chinese mulberry. We were the first in 

 the United States to announce that the seeds could 

 not be relied on to produce plants like the parent 

 stock; which being itself an accidental variety, would 

 generally produce other varieties from its seed. This 

 information was totally disregarded by the agricultu- 

 ral public; and one effect of this disregard was the 

 permitting the success of extensive frauds which were 

 perpetrated in sales of what was called Chinese mul- 

 berry seed — which seed, was in fact, 710I the product of 

 the morus multicaulis, (and was so admitted, after the 

 cheat had been discovered,) and which, if it had been, 

 would most probably have been worth no more. 



In one of our pieces on this subject, we promised 

 an experimental proof, which will now be furnished. 

 In the editorial remarks on page 711 of vol. iv, it was 

 said that " though believing that the seeds of this 



* The climate of Scotland is far from being genial 

 to the growth of either lucerne or saintfoin. — Editor. 



plant are not to be relied on for reproducing their own' 

 kind, we are not inclined, in any case, to trust to re- 

 ported opinions, or authority that is the least doubtful, 

 when the facts can be tested by accurate experiment. 

 We have the means of making such an experiment, 

 in seeds of the morus multicaulis taken last summer 

 from trees which grew within the enclosure of the 

 high walls which surround the Penitentiary of Virgi- 

 nia; and near which no other kind of mulberry grew, 

 to affect the seeds by a mixture of the fecundating fa- 

 rina. If these seeds will not produce the morus mul- 

 ticaulis, it may be thereafter safely pronounced, that 

 seeds are not only not to be relied on to produce this 

 kind, but that the result of reproduction of the hke 

 kind rarely, if ever, occurs." 



The seed were procured, at our request, by Dr. 

 Lewis W. Chamberlayne, of Richmond, who, as at- 

 tending physician, visits the institution every day, 

 and by whose direction the seed were saved by one of 

 the attendants, and delivered to him as soon as they 

 were gathered and separated from the pulp; and were 

 placed in our hands very soon after. The trees are in 

 the yard, surrounded and overtopped by the very high 

 walls that enclose the buildings, and no other kind of 

 mulberry is near. For these reasons, there was as 

 much security as any situation and circumstances 

 could possibly offer against the access of fecundating 

 farina of other trees to the flowers of these trees; and' 

 there was equal security against any change or mix- 

 ture of the seed, after they were gathered, by mistake, 

 or even by design, if there could be supposed any 

 possible object in the gatherer to produce such decep- 

 tion. We placed the seed in the hands of our friend 

 and near neighbor, S. D. Morton, esq., whose taste 

 and fondness for the higher departments of horticultuTe 

 furnished security for his strict attention to so inter- 

 esting an experiment. Some of the seeds he planted in 

 the open ground of his garden; and of these very few 

 germinated, and only after a long time. The balance 

 were planted in his hot-bed, sprouted soon, and grew 

 well, and were transplanted afterwards to open ground. 

 Though, to our mind, the result was satisfactory in the 

 first summer's growth, we have waited for the second, 

 and for the larger size and full development of the 

 leaves, to make report. For this purpose, the plants 

 have been again carefully examined, on the 23d July. 



There are now standing twenty-six trees — the largest 

 about five feet high. The few which had been plant- 

 ed in the open ground, and not transplanted, have suf- 

 fered by their close and shaded positions, and are not 

 more than eighteen inches in height. There is much 

 variety in the appearance of the plants, in the shape 

 and sizes of the leaves, &c. But there is not one 

 which is not entirely and manifestly different from the 

 morus multicaulis, of which there is a row parallel 

 to, and within a few feet of the transplanted seed- 

 lings. None of the leaves of the latter are so large, 

 nor so smooth, nor have they the convex form which 

 is so marked in the morus multicaulis. In general ap- 

 pearance, the young trees are more like the common 

 native mulberry, (morus rubra,) than the white — 

 and far more so than the Chinese. 



