440 



FARMERS' R E G I b; r E R 



[No. 



selling "two-crop" mammoth eggs, but that all 

 who are trafficking in mammoth worms and other 

 varieties Iruai the vegetable and animal Kingdoms, 

 are "over much righteous," I am slow to believe. 

 I have just had small parcels oi' recenily depos- 

 ited eggs ol'the "mammoth yellow" to hatch, and 

 much larger proportions of new varieties produced 

 by cros.s li?cundation. Now is my time lor setting 

 up a humbug shop— but all my liur prospects are 

 blighted — my real opinion is out and gone, and 

 I have neiiber ingenuity, nor impudence enough 

 to hide it from public view. 



EFFECTS OP LIMING. 



To the Editor of tlie Farmers' Register. 



Fairfax county, June I6th, 1839. 



My corn which has been made without the use 

 of the plough, is now throwing out the tassel, and 

 is of the blackest green; very little of it is manured, 

 for the land was too remote or precipitous thus to 

 be treated. By the way, I planted two ears of 

 "Chinese tree-corn," upon land well manured and 

 limed; the result will prove it absolutely worthless; 

 and more like a rush than a tree. My wheat is 

 fine when compared with crops made upon the 

 same land without lime. I believe I am within 

 bounds when I say the improvement is from 50 to 

 100 per cent. My oats must make 100 per cent, 

 more than I ever made without lime. My clover 

 is short, but I am cutting it with a view to seed; 

 otherwise I should not cut it. This crop got no 

 root last summer, and the spring was too dry for 

 its growth. Dear old Virginia must be resuscita- 

 ted, and stand forth in green and gold among her 

 sisters. The pride of her children gives me war- 

 rant of this result. 



I can assure you and your readers that the use 

 of plaster of Paris after lime, works strangely and 

 wonderlially. You may explain why it is so ; for me, 

 it is sufficient to see and know that it is so. Where 

 the great father of nature has placed the limit of 

 fertility, when lime, plaster and their produce of 

 vegetable matter is turned back, and reacted upon, 

 time only will show. 1 shall be greatly disap- 

 pointed, if the "far west" does not find in the tide- 

 water of Virginia its rival. If 1 live, I shall j 

 make some report to you on the subject. 1 am i 

 amused to see the sharp controversy that is going 

 on in the agricultural papers, about the proper ap- j 

 plication of manure. My experience of 40 years 

 and more, authorizes me to say, that the tiiffer- 

 ence between ploughing it in, and applying it to 

 the surface is much like that between "tweedle- 

 dum and tweedle-dee,^^ save that the surface appli- 

 cation only takes half, or less than half, of the 

 other. Of course it is not so durable, because of 

 the diminished quantity. Choice however, in the 

 mode of application, with me, is out of the ques- 

 tion; for 1 find that after collecting my spring and 

 fall supplies of oyster shells, and the wood neces- 

 sary to burn them, I have no choice left ; my ma- 

 nure must go out as we can, not as we would. 

 Our timothy grass is bad, unless upon limed land. 

 Upon that it is very good, 



I will close this, by remarking iliat my corn 

 was planted upon a poor field, directly upon the 

 main southern road, and limed lor public observa- 

 tion. I have not used plough or coulter in its cul- 



tivation. The plough I have long since disused, 

 as a barbarous and inapplicable implement lor ihe 

 cultivation of corn. The coulter, I hiive, until 

 the present crop, freely used lor the early cultiva- 

 lion; this 3 ear we had no heavy rain 10 bake the 

 ground, and it was not used. I cannot speak of 

 the crop, without appearing to speak of my owri 

 smartness, which I could tioi do in good laith to 

 my owa conviciions; for I assure you, sir, that 

 every day convinces me that I am but an infant 

 in the science of agriculture. Lijie. 



FIRST TRIALS OF SILK-CULTURE. 



For tlie Farmers' Register. 



Farmville, June25ih, 1899. 

 My attention was first drawn to the silk business 

 by a letter of Dan Bradley, republished in one of 

 ihe first volumes of the Register, and has ever 

 since been directed steadily to it, although the fail- 

 ure of a mulberry dealer in the spring of "37 10 

 furnish 1000 cuttings purchased in the fall of '36, 

 has ihrown me back very much in the business. 

 I hatched, on the 29th and 30ih of April, what had 

 been purchased for a fourth of an ounce of the two- 

 crop worm; supposing 10 be from subsequent esti- 

 mates, about 3000. They were kept at first in a room, 

 the temperature of which could be very well con- 

 trolled, ranging during the first age fiom 70 to 80^. 

 Their first moulting took place the 5ih day after 

 that of the hatching. They commenced spinning 

 the 25th of May. A few were lost in the fourth 

 moulting by feeding too plentiliilly before all had 

 recovered from their torpor, and covering, in the 

 litter, those which were latest in moulting. The 

 spinning apparatus was of planed laths, as de- 

 scribed in the Register by Mr. T. S. Pleasants. 

 It was evidently too smooth, although eventually 

 probably two-thirds spun among the laths. As 

 they commenced spinning much earlier than was 

 anticipated, the ladders had not been prepared ; 

 one was hastily prepared across the middle of each 

 hurdle, and the deficiency supplied with sticks. 

 They did not mount well on either. The cord of 

 the ladders was too small ; and they were very 

 torpid and sluggish during the whole spinning 

 season, which continued more than a week. Af- 

 ter the first two or three days of their spinning, 

 the weather became wet and cold, and continued 

 so, the thermometer being on one occasion as low as 

 50'^, and generally ranging in the morning from 54 

 to 58"^ in the house. They had been removed be- 

 fore spinning to a house where no fire could com- 

 monly be maintained, and which was too open for 

 the temperature to be controlled even by a fire; 

 Some became so torpid as to be unable to spin ; 

 part of these died and a few passed into the chry- 

 salis state without spinning ; most, however, were 

 healthy and made good cocoons, mostly white, a 

 lew of straw color. Taken as they came from 

 the laths, including some imperfect cocoons they 

 weighed 378 to the pound. Of the straw colored, 

 taken without selection, 290 made a pound ; 240 

 of some cocoons from the common worm, raised 

 by Capt. Stevens in this neighborhood, weislied 

 a pound. The Messrs. Kings fed 30 to 40,000 

 this season hatched about the first of May. They 

 think they did not lose 100 by disease. About 3000 

 were purchased as "mammoth white," the rest as 



