1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



835 



application does this fact exhibit of the remains of 

 the ancient, world! While our habitations are 

 sometimes built of the solid agtrrogale of millions 

 of microscopic shells— while^ as we have seen, 

 our apartments are iieated and li<rhted with the 

 wreck of mighty Ibrests that covered the primeval 

 valleys— the'chaplet of beauty shines with the 

 very sepulchres in which millions of animals arc 

 entombed ! Thus has death become the hand- 

 maid and the ornament of life. Would that it 

 were also its instructer and guide V—Ed. Review. 



THE SPRIXG-WHEAT HUMBUG. 



To tlic Editor of ttie Farmers' Register. 



Back river, Elizabeth-city county, 

 July, 1838. 

 I have just read with much pleasure, and pro- 

 bably profit, your remarks in your Register of 

 April, 1838, (lust borrowed,) upon "Agricultural 

 Hobbies and Humbugs ;" and although I am not 

 much pleased with the terms, so far as they de- 

 pend upon the beauties of style, yet they force 

 upon me that which Blair himself could not more 

 convincingly have done, with all his beauties of 

 composition; and, whilst I might have been 

 pleased with his sounds, without conviction, your 

 number has at least had the benefit of inducing 

 me to the belief^ that we will ride oar hobbies, and 

 so long as we do so, we are ever in the road to be 

 humbugged. Man has always been, from the 

 days of Adam up to the present time, the mere 

 creature of fancy, and I believe always will be so, 

 place him where you will ; and hence his liability 

 to be always taken m with any thing new, or 

 which has the appearance of being so. I believe 

 that we shall always be in search of the " philoso- 

 pher's stone ;" and although satisfied of the fruit- 

 lessness of the search, yet, but attack our fancy, 

 and we immediately let loose the reins — our rea- 

 son becomes blinded — and, before our career of 

 fancy is fully over, we are not bad representatives 

 of Phaeton, in his career of rashness. We are 

 always too ready to believe, at least to credit, all 

 Buch statements as may be sounded in the gazettes 

 or papers of the day, particularly when they shall 

 be blazoned forth by a few remarks from our 

 worthy editors, who are all men of the people, 

 ever on the alert, placed high on the watch-tower, 

 to sound the alarm ; and when, instead of the 

 alarum bell, they are sounding to us news of crlad- 

 tidings, how ready are we to believe all their 

 statements, and particularly ^o, if an editorial 

 commendation backs them. This though is not 

 very remarkable ; because the farmer or agricul- 

 turist, relying much upon facts, yet is very credu- 

 lous, and is apt to believe that most of the state- 

 ments which reach him, whether communicated 

 in the pamphlets or papers of the day, or in any 

 other way, so far as they are introductory to any 

 new variety in grain, or any thing else in his line 

 of business, are true. For he, poor simple man, 

 never once thinks that all these great products in 

 xiorn, wheat, &c. sounded so repeatedly and invit- 

 ingly to his ears, in many various ways, are for 

 efTeci; and being honest himself^ believes all 

 (Others so, and hence his liability to imposition. 

 Such then being the state of the case, let us 



bring into review one or two instances where this 

 too ready belief has led some of us into error ; and 

 I, for one, having fallen into it, take at least ihia 

 modeof endeavorins, throuirh you, to guard othera 

 against it. And although I by no means admit 

 ihat there is error in the substitution of ilic twin, 

 or prolific, or Baden corn, (having succeeded in 

 making better crops of that than of any other of 

 the large varieties of white corn,) for the Iar<re 

 corn, Tagree with you perfectly so flu- as the 

 Italian spring-wheat is concerned ; which, upon 

 this second year's trial, I consider almost an entire 

 abortion. I purchased, in the winter of 1837, of 

 Mr. Hathaway, of Troy, New York, a barrel of 

 the Italian spring-wheat, said to contain 3-| bush- 

 els, although, from some cause ar other, I do not 

 believe that there could have been in the barrel 

 more than 3 bushels. The barrel was of the large 

 size of flour barrels, and it wanted at least 3 pecks, 

 if not a bushel, of being full ; and with this a 

 large proportion of the grains therein were oats — 

 I think at least half a bushel. To one of my 

 friends I parted with a half bushel, (oats inter- 

 mixed,) and to another a gallon, in the same con- 

 dition ; the remainder I kept and sowed. I picked 

 the oats out of the wheat, before seeding, clean 

 by the hand, and obtained a peck and a half; the 

 remaining part, being wheat, say two bushels, I 

 sowed, at least a part of it, upon very rich land— 

 a chocolate mould, high and light for our section of 

 the country. The richest part was drilled in about 

 three-feet drills or rows. This received, in the 

 course of the spring, two workings with the cul- 

 tivator or hoe. The other, upon land not manur- 

 ed, was sown broad-cast, in beds 5^ feet wide, 

 and divided only by a narrow cart-road of about 

 ten feet; the land nearly of the same description, 

 with the exception of the difference made by 

 manure. The growth of the drilled wheat was 

 very fine; but the rust attacked it badly. The 

 growth of the wheat not drilled was about as 

 good as the fall or winter-wheat upon our fields in 

 general. But this was perfectly clear of rust ; in 

 fact, I could perceive no injury to its growth from 

 any cause. The wheat, both drilled and broad- 

 cast, was seeded between tiie 5th and 10th of 

 April. Its promise, with the exce|)tion of the 

 rusted part, answered ray most sanguine expecta- 

 tions ; and this appearance held good until its 

 change for maturity. I then discovered that 

 climate, or some other cause, had its effect. The 

 grain had all the appearance of wheat badly rust- 

 ed, or injured from scab or blast; and I should 

 have attributed its shrivelled state to the rust, but 

 as much the larger portion of the grain seeded had 

 no appearance ^of rust or any other disease, (I 

 drilled only a gallon,) in its stalk, whilst growing, 

 and as the grain in that part which had no rust, 

 was no better, in any way, than the drilled, which 

 had the rust, 1 could not account for it, and have 

 not endeavoured to do so, further than the belief 

 that climate had its effect. To cut short, I reaped 

 it, and stacked : and in February last I got it out, 

 and cleaned 25 bushels. This product from wheat, 

 seeded as late, although the grain was indifferent, 

 I thought a good one, and believed that this year 

 I could make it turn out much better, provided it 

 kept clear of rust, scab, &c., which I was induced 

 to believe would be the case by earlier seeding. I 

 parted with 8 bushels of the wheat, and seeded 

 the balance, 17 bushels, to about ten acres of land. 



