TOL,. XtX. NO. 4. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER, 



29 



expressed in the fullowing extract from tlie report: 

 — "I take particular pleasure in rpcominondinc; the 

 culture of silk 1o iny respected friends, the Shakers. 

 Thoy have every element of success ; intelligence, 

 skill, exactness, perseverance, abundance of labor, 

 land enoufjli, and buildings already prepared for 

 their operations. They, if any among us, would 

 be the fittest persons to undertake the artificial 

 method of M. Ueauvais. Their female aid is of 

 the best description for this culture. They inay 

 pursue it to any desirable e.xter.t ; and I cannot 

 have a doubt, if they should undertake it " ith their 

 usual care and determination, their enterprise would 

 be crowned with success." 



We should be pleased to extract largely from 

 these reports, and shall have occasi(m often to re- 

 fer to them as a magazine of facts collected with 

 great skill, and particularly valuable as illustrating 

 all subjects connected with the iriatters to which 

 they are devoted. 



WHEAT. 



The experiments which have been made, under 

 legislative encouragement, in some of the New 

 England States, would seem to have demonstrated 

 satisfactorily, (hat that part of the United States is 

 abnndanlly able to produce its own wheat, as well 

 as its corn or potatoes, although as circumstances 

 and prices are, the matter of profit does not seem 

 quite so certain. It has for some time appeared 

 probable to us, tliat in ordinary cases, v/hen the 

 ease with which wheat is raised in the west is con- 

 sidered, and the low price at which it is afforded, 

 taken into view, eastern farmers, or the most of 

 those in the Atlantic States, can better employ 

 their lands and labor in producing other articles 

 than in raising wheat. There are a multitude of 

 crops of great value, such as corn, grass, oats, roots 

 and other vegetables, of certain growth and ready 

 sale, affording perhaps, a greater profit than wheat 

 at the present time, and as well calculated to im- 

 prove the soil and promote permanent fertility as 

 that crop. 



It becomes, therefore, a calculation of simple 

 profit or loss with the eastern farmer, whether he 

 will at a great expense of labor and manure, raise 

 his own wheat, or by applying that labor and ma- 

 nure to other crops, usually considered more cer- 

 tain, find the means of purchasing what flour he 

 finds necessary for his consumption. In the west, 

 the attention of the agriculturist must necessarily 

 be turned to wheat, as it is the only crop that can 

 bear transportation to market, and of course, the 

 only one in which the fertile new lands of the west 

 can be brought into direct competition with the 

 more worn soils and laborious culture of the east. 

 As a material for bread, as a food for animals, and 

 as an improver of the soil, Indian corn is not he- 

 hind wheat in importance ; and so long as the 

 west is compelled to furnish us her flour at so low 

 a rate, it may be considered questionable whether, 

 as a general crop, corn should not be preferred to 

 wheat. 



The time will probably come, when the strong 

 vegetable properties of the western soils being ex- 

 hausted, labor and manures will be required to con- 

 tinue their productiveness, and then the natural in- 

 crease in the price of flour may render it proper for 

 the east to enter more fully into the culture of 

 wheat. 



There is a feeling among many eastern farmers, 

 notwithstanding the proof that the exjicrience of 

 the last few years has afforded, that the east can 



never, under any system of farming, be made to 

 produce wheat as it once did. This opinion is 

 absurd: wheat is properly the grain of the world, 

 and is now grown in increased quantities on lauds 

 from which it has been cropped since the days of 

 Julius Cff'sar. The renovation of lands, after be- 

 ing reduced almost to sterility, it is true, must be a 

 work of time, aid ri'(|uire3 u.su<illy far more skill 

 and labor than to preserve lanils, naturally in good 

 heart, permanently in a state of productivcnes.?. — 

 The true course seems to bo, to lesson the quantity 

 of land under cultivation, where it is nearly run 

 down, and thus give to less land the labor and the 

 manure now spread over a larger surface. '!he de- 

 terioration caused by naked fallows can and must 

 be remedied, by a rotation of cr{)ps, dec!per and fin- 

 er tilth, and liberal and judicious applications of 

 manures. Nsiked fallows should never bo permit- 

 ted, unless they become indispensably necessary 

 to free lands from foul stuff; and the cultivation of 

 hoed crops will, if the course is thorough, usually 

 eftect this object in a still more complete manner. 

 Green crops, (the roots, &c.) which, hiiving large 

 tops, draw much of their nulrimcnt from the atmos- 

 phere, must be alternated with the grain crops; the 

 skinning system abandoned ; the ambition to culti- 

 vate a great number of acres done away ; and in 

 its stead a desire to reap a large product from a 

 few acres, implanted ; the principles of the new- 

 husbandry be studied and practiced; and the time 

 will come when wheat crops of thirty bushels an 

 acre will not be a novelty on lands now pronounc- 

 ed utterly unfit for its culture. 



The excellence and nearness of markets in al- 

 most every part of New England ; the facilities 

 with which every product of the earth can be dis- 

 posed of at a handsome profit ; the varieties of pur- 

 suits, such as the manufacturing, mechanic, and 

 commercial, which furnish profitable employments 

 for multitudes, and prevent the weight of popula- 

 tion from pressing on the agriculturist, as it must 

 necessarily do more or less in the west; all con- 

 tribute to render the production of any single en p 

 of comparatively little moment, and perhaps that of 

 wheat, as a whole, the least of any. Nothing can 

 be more true than that the farmer, if it can be done 

 at a reasonable expense, should grow on his own 

 farm all that he requires in his family, of which the 

 soil is susceptible ; but it is also true, that if his 

 bread is the product of his own labor, it in eftect 

 matters little whether that labor has been given to 

 wheat, or corn, or vegetables for market, or silk, or 

 any tif the thousand things which by exchange can 

 be converted into food with mutual benefit to ell 

 parties. But whatever crop may be attempted, the 

 grand object to be kept in view is the permanent 

 improvement of the soil, and any one that efl^ectual. 

 ly accomplishes this, be it wheat, or corn, or roots, 

 cannot in the end be an unprofitable one. — Albany 

 Cultivator. 



less peltings" of the storms, with a snowdrift or an 

 ice cake for a lied, and with nothing but a scanty 

 pittance of prairie hay or musty straw for food, and 

 who now wonder that their rattle have the hollow 

 horn ! The wonder slv^ild be that they have any 

 cattle living. 



We will make the following proposals to all 

 those owning cattle. Keep thein under shelter 

 during the storms and cold weather of next winter. 

 A hovel, built of logs and covered with coarse hay 

 or straw, standing in a dry place, is sufficient for 

 this. Salt them twice a week regularly ; give 

 them a sufficiency of wholesome provender, and 

 water at all times, and each of them a rness of po- 

 tatoes or turnips at least two or three times a week. 

 Keep your working cattle shod, and if you work 

 them hard, feed and nurse them accordingly. Do 

 not beat them ; never let them stand in the cold 

 lonirer than is absolutely necessary; particularly 

 when you drive them to town with a load of grain 

 or wood or for any other purpose; do not let them 

 stand in the street hungry and shivering, hour after 

 hour, while you are in a grocery drinking and ca- 

 rousing. Follow these directions fairly, according 

 to their true intent and meaning, and in the spring 

 we will engage to pay for all the damage you have 

 sustained by the " hollow horn." — Fort JVayne Sen- 

 tinel. 



THE HOLLOW HORN.— A FAIR OFFER. 



Within a few days we have heard several far- 

 mers from the surrounding country complain 

 that their cattle have the hollow horn. We 

 have had a little experience in the management of 

 cattle, and know something about this "hollow 

 horn," and we are satisfied that it is nothing more 

 nor less than an attendant, a sort of hanger-on, of 

 that worst of all diseases among cattle, the hollow 

 beliij. We know men who have cattle that during 

 the whole winter have been exposed to the " pitti- 



HELIANTHUS, OR SUN-FLOWER PLANT. 



We presume that it is not genernlly known that 

 this plant, which is often regarded as a worse than 

 useless cumberer of the ground, is cultivated ex- 

 tensively in some parts of the United States, and 

 turned to a very valuable account in a variety of 

 ways. The versatility of its powers, so to speak, 

 are even greater than the morus multicaulis. We 

 have before us a letter from a firm in Pennsylva- 

 nia, which gives us some interesting facta, which 

 we think are worthy of publicity. 



The oil derived from the sun-flower seed is pret- 

 ty well known. Its excellence for fancy painting 

 and druggist use is said to be confirmed, and we 

 are even told that it is equal, if not superior to al- 

 mond or olive oil for table use. One acre of 

 ground will produce fVom forty to fifty bushels of 

 seed, and s;]metimes much more. Good seed will 

 produce a gallon of oil to the bushel, and the oil 

 has been sold at SI 50 per gallon when flaxseed 

 oil sto id at 90 cents. The refuse after the oil is 

 expressed, is said to be a valuable food for cattle. 



The leaf is manufactured into cigars of a mild 

 pleasant flavor, possessing, as it is said, powerful 

 pectoral properties, highly commended by physi- 

 cians in many diseases of the chest. The leaves, 

 properly cured, will bring from five to fifteen cents 

 per pound. 



The stalk, when stripped of the leaf and seed, 

 may be burnt, and a superior alkali made from the 

 ashes. 



The comb of the seed, or properly the filaments 

 of the flower, is excellent feed for cattle or hogs. 



The helianthus is cultivated in the vicinity of 

 York, (Penn.,) and a gentleman in 1837, cultivated 

 one hundred acres. — Madisonian. 



The produce of our country in cotton, tobacco, 

 rice and bread stuffs in the year 1839, has been 

 estimated to amount to nearly four hundred million 

 of dollars, thus — Cotton, ,$81,000,000, tobacco 15,- 

 000,000, rice 4,500,000, bread stuffs 275,000,000— 

 Probably upwards of $150,000,000 of this vast a- 

 mount will be exported to other countries. 



