264 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGUTCULTURE. 



Prospects for Grain Growkus.— In our I a good stock of old wl;cat not consumed, and 



view of the news from Europe, there must be a 

 greatly increased demand, and one that will 

 continue, I'or our bread-stuffs and jjrovisions. 

 The fact is, that with long continued peace, tlic 

 population of England and the continent is in- 

 creasing beyond their means of supply. It 

 would be well worth the while of Indian com 

 growers to have a Convention and to adopt such 

 practicable measures as we arc fully persuaded 

 might be adopted to get Indian com introduced 

 into common use by the laboring, and even the 

 higher classes in England. One-tenth of the 

 money expended to make expei-iments in the 

 cotton culture in England by American agents, 

 would effect it. In tlie Mark-Lane Express of 

 the 22d Sept. we find the following : 

 Is there sufficient food in the United Kingdom 

 for the inhabitants vp to the time of the 7iext 

 h arrest? 



The harvest of wheat of 1844 may be consid- 

 ered the finest in quality and quantity ever 

 known, proved to be so from the great supplies 

 into the markets all over England, and also for 

 the continuance of them. The harvest of this 

 year, 1845, i.s, in the opinion of the writer, dif- 

 ferent in its nature and kind, the bulk of straw 

 is much greater, and tlie crop of wheat may be 

 considered about two-thirds of the quantity in 

 bread, the yield being much less per acre, and 

 the ben-y not so fine or pro<iuctive ; this quanti- 

 ty, with the remaining sui-plus of old wheat, 

 would have been likely to have carried us on 

 comfortabl}- till another harvest, with a little as- 

 sistance of foreign aid, and with a good crop of 

 potatoes ; but the question now is, our real situ- 

 ation, and what is best to be done ? The writer 

 cannot place the general failure of potatoes at 

 less than a loss to the country of three months' 

 consumption of v/heat ; and when we consider 

 that tlie quantity of wheat and flour viuder lock 

 is only equal to about two weeks' consumption 

 for England, we are likely before another har- 

 vest, to be in great want of food ; adding to our 

 calculations the state of the whole continent of 

 Europe ; in no one State is the crop of wheat 

 great ; in others, starvation has already reached 

 them. In Belgium, the government has secured 

 to their nation plenty, by taking off all hut nomi- 

 nal duties on all descriptions of grain. This 

 will be their happy state as long as their gov- 

 ernment is disposed to avail themselves of it, if 

 other nations do not adopt the same plan byway 

 of .safeguard : but what with the forecast of Bel- 

 gium, and the high price of wheat iu Holland, 

 which countrv' is already getting away from 

 England our little foreign .supply; and if the 

 British government do not follow the example 

 of Belgium, great di.stress and misery will, or 

 may, follow before the harvest of 1846 ; but if 

 the government should at once, to secure the 

 English merchant, by rescinding the grain du- 

 ties till the next harvest, it is likely they will 

 bring, before that time, fi-om far and near, a few 

 millions of quarters in wheat and flour, thereby 

 securing national plenty, at fair prices. 



It is said, Necessity has no law ; this is one 

 plea for rescinding the grain duties for the short 

 space of less than a year, and the example of 

 Belgium is another. One farther remark seems 

 to be called for. The present moderate piice of 

 wheat and potatoes isoccasioned by there being 

 (506) 



potatoes being sold at any price they will fetch, 

 because they v.'ill not keep. Pig meat is likely 

 to continue rea-sonable from the same cause, as 

 the best of tlie offal potatoes are given to them, 

 (iucry — will there be in tlie spring, potatoes for 

 human food, for pigs, or for seed ? ' The answer 

 is, at a very high price for seed. 



ELECTRO-CULTURE. 

 The results of experiments in electro-ccl- 

 TLRE are by this time generally ascertained : 

 our own and all others of which we have heard 

 show that no influence is exerted on the growth 

 of plants by an electro-conducting connection 

 between elevated and buried wires, airansred 

 either as Dr. Forster has recommended, oi-ac- 

 cording to other plans which have been tried. 

 The \^ord clcctro-cuUnre, in fact, must, for the 

 present, be considered a misnomer. 



There has been no want of electric disturb- 

 ance this season in the atmosphere — hail and 

 thunder-stonus have been more than usually fre- 

 quent — and we are, therefore, bound to believe 

 that the experiments which have been tried ai-e 

 conclusive upon the subject. Their results leave 

 every body at liberty, just as before, to form their 

 own opinions as to the influence of atmospheric 

 electricity on the grov/th of plants — they oiilj' 

 detennine our ignorance of any means by which 

 this influence can be increased or controlled. 

 'We understand that many hundred acres, in 

 various parts of the kingdom, have this year been 

 subjected to Dr. Forster's process." Has all 

 this labor been lost ? — that depends on the ob- 

 ject of those who undertook it. Doubtless, some, 

 believing in the evidence which previously ex- 

 isted on the .subject, have .^peculated in electro- 

 culture as a means of profit — their labor certain- 

 ly has been useless, and they must now blame 

 cither their own carelessness in not having pre- 

 viously .sufficiently examined that evidence, cr 

 their own credulity in reference to what we 

 must consider the imperfect observations of oth- 

 ers. But, wherever the .subject has been tested 

 by any one anxious merely to determine for 

 himself the accuracy of Dr. Forster's theory, 

 the expen.se :md labor which have been incur- 

 red cannot be considered lost, for the object of 

 their outlay has been attained. An intelligent- 

 ly-planned and carefully executed experiment, 

 if its results be ascertained and recorded, cannot 

 fiiil: it is .simply a question asked of Nature, and 

 what the experimenter wants is — an answer : 

 and thus the success of an experiment depends 

 not upon the character, butupon the ohriousHcss 

 of its results. Novi', the results of the experi- 

 ments we allude to have been most unequivocal, 

 and acconiingly those \\ho peribnned thejii 

 ought to be pertectly satisfied. 



The history of the excitement which has pre- 

 vailed on this subject during the past year is 

 very instructive : it strikingly exhibits the wil- 

 lingness of farmers to adopt the suggestions of 

 scientific men — a ^villingness ^^•hich greatly in- 

 creaises the responsibility of those \\ho set them- 

 selves up as guides to agricultural improvement. 

 lAgriculUu-al Gazette. 



An English paper in ansvi-er to a coiTespoud- 

 ent, says — '• Early autumn is one of the best sea- 

 sons of the year for sowing Italian rje grass, of 

 which fmm two to three bushels per acre can be 

 sown on land properly prepared and clean." 



