1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



543 



all suspicion of having excited any unkind or unplea- 

 sant feeling. It is true that his former communica- 

 tion was considered as more jocular than serious — 

 but his joke was deemed a very good joke — and not 

 the less amusing, or the less acceptable, because of its 

 supposed bearing on the editor's "hobby." But if we 

 mistook the purport of his piece, we hope that the 

 mistake will not cause him to abandon his pen, as he 

 intimates — but rather that it will induce him to lay 

 aside his incognito character, and as a "bona fide" and 

 correspondent, under his proper name, as well as "bona 

 fide marler," will prevent all future mistakes of his 

 intentions, and command respect and credence for his 

 statements.] 



From the Somerset Journal. 

 A WORD TO FARMERS. 



It is not perhaps generally known, that the po- 

 tato tops sustain through the winter a worm very 

 destructive to grain. Mr. Chapman, of Madison, 

 in this country, showed me a few days since a 

 piece of wheat, on ground where potatoes grew 

 last season, on a part of which the tops were 

 collected together and burnt last fall. Where they 

 were suffered to remain, at least three fourths of 

 the wheat has been destroyed by worms; and what 

 they have not destroyed is small and sickly — 

 While the wheat where the tops were removed 

 shows no mark of their ravages. 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 osage orange — ( Madura aurantiaca.) 



The following extract respecting the Madura, 

 is from Loudon's Encyclopedia of Plants: "A 

 spreading deciduous tree, about twenty or thirty 

 feet high^ with a yellow axillary berry, the size 

 of an orano-e — nearly as succulent, and said to be 

 as agreeable, when fully ripe." 



The fruit is beautiful, and tempting to the eye, 

 but disagreeable to the taste. It is, properly speak- 

 ing, a compound berry, or berry-like aggregate — 

 growing on very short peduncles, and attaining at 

 maturity, a considerable size. It is globular in its 

 form, with a warty surface; of a pale yellow cast, 

 and rather fragrant than otherwise. A tree grow- 

 ing in my garden yielded this year about one hun- 

 dred and fifty — many of them weighing eighteen 

 or nineteen ounces. 



The berries are formed at the axils of the leaves, 

 and when they are as large as sycamore buttons, 

 which, in that state, they exceedingly resemble, 

 the pistillate organs become fully developed. 

 These organs are filiform; like the silk of Indian 

 corn, very numerous, and about an inch in length. 

 The seed, however, are frequently abortive, owing 

 probably, to the partial fructification by the pollen 

 from the staminate plant. 



The branches of the tree are armed with a 

 number of very rigid spines, which have induced 

 many persons to suppose it maybe profitably used 

 for hedges. It flourishes in almost any tolerably 

 fertile soil — is extremely hardy, and with sufficient 

 clipping, it is highly probable it may become valu- 

 able for that purpose. 



It has also been suggested, that the Madura 

 might be usefully employed in the arts. The 

 whole tree, including the fruit, abounds in a thick 

 milky fluid, which might doubtless be convened 

 into caoutchouc. It readily assumes a viscid and 

 elastic consistence when exposed to the air. This 

 gum, however, is obtained in such immense quan- 

 tities from South America, and at so cheap a rate, 

 that it may not be profitable to cultivate any of 

 our plants for the purpose of obtaining it. 



T. S. 1*. 



THE GREAT POPLAR OF DINWIDDIE. 

 To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Amelia, Nov. 20, 1835. 



Your complaint in the last number of the Re- 

 gister, of the want of communications of matters 

 of fact for your work, will excuse my sending you 

 for insertion, an account of a tree growing near 

 the borders of this county, (in Dinwiddie, on the 

 lands of John Hamblin, Esq.) It is a poplar (Tu- 

 lipefera Virtri)uana : ~) perfectly sound, straight, and 

 flourishing; measuring thirty-four feet six inches 

 round the body atsix feet from the ground, and forty- 

 three feet eight inches at three feet from the 

 ground — its height to the first limb ninety feet, 

 without a limb, knot, or any irregularity whatever, 

 up to this first limb — and is indeed the most beau- 

 tiful and remarkable tree I ever saw, or read of in 

 this country. I understand the late Bishop Mad- 

 ison once visited this tree, at which time its di- 

 meter at three feet from the ground was thirteen 

 feet. If so, its growth within the last thirty years 

 has been considerable. The owner has cleared 

 the land around if, and it stands in solitary gran- 

 deur. It is remarkable that no one approaches it 

 without disappointment. Until you are very near 

 to it, you are not at all struck with its enormous 

 size and height. Nor indeed, when at it, can you 

 believe it is so high to the first limb, until you 

 make the effort to throw to it, which very few men 

 can do. 



In the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agricultu- 

 ral Society, there are accounts of several remark- 

 able trees in this country — but I believe none of 

 them, taking size, height, soundness and beauty 

 together, equal this. 



A SUBSCRIBER. 



From the New England Farmer. 



LARGE AND SUCCESSIVE CROPS OF INDIAN 

 CORN, RYE AND HAY. 



The following system of cultivation, by which 

 three valuable crops, of Indian corn, and rye, and 

 clover, mav be obtained in two years, I would re- 

 commend as highly deserving of trial by farmers 

 generally. 



While once on an excursion, on the river Mer- 

 rimack, and at Haverhill, I was politely shown, 

 by Mr. David Howe, his spacious and well stored 

 barns, and large stacks of hay, the produce of his 

 extensive and fertile fields, lying on that river, 

 which were cultivated by this same, or a very sim- 

 ilar mode. 



In the spring of the year early, or what would 

 be preferable, in the course of the preceding au- 

 tumn, or winter, the manure, in a suitable quanti- 

 ty, is applied equally over the whole surface of the 



