126 



Crossing Seeds. 



Vol. X. 



season. You have that excellent variety of 

 qnicks, known to us as the New Castle 

 thorn. On sites suited to its growth, it 

 forms a good and durable enclosure. Tim- 

 ber fences have advantages in interior situa- 

 tions, being easily removed and giving less 

 harbour to intrusive vegetation. The liedge 

 is the most permanent fence; but in many 

 localities it may be fairly questioned if it be 

 cheaper than timber structures. We have 

 noticed the locust; not inferior to wiiich 

 perhaps, is the red cedar. It is of sponta- 

 neous growth; requires but small space, and 

 is easily trained to make a fair bole. The 

 cedar is a highly protective tree, and it has 

 been represented by experienced engineers, 

 as preferable for rail-road sills, to any spe- 

 cies of oak of this region, or even the locust. 

 By some it is hunted out as a nuisance more 

 noxious than the ox-eyed daisy. 



"Farming has been too much confined 

 with us to the culture of annuals, or of 

 plants of few years duration. The time 

 is fast approaching when we should think ot 

 growing the oak and the pine, which require 

 more than a century to mature, and wliich 

 will endure for many. If they be planted 

 " it must be for posterity and the immortal 

 gods," as Lucian makes an old man answer, 

 when he was interrogated for whom he was 

 planting an oak. The largest trees during 

 their growth may be made to give present 

 value to the ground they occupy. I have 

 seen a white pine tree, within twenty miles 

 of Philadelphia, growing in the open air, 

 with a bole one hundred and fifteen feet 

 high. This is an interesting fact. Twenty 

 trees of similar dimensions could have stood 

 on the ground around the mansion, little oc- 

 cupied by anything else. This was on a 

 soil very inferior to that upon which this 

 tree grows in the valley of the Susque- 

 hanna." 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Crossing Seeds. 



To THE Editor : 



Sir, — 'Through the medium of your valu- 

 able work, I would give to the public a new 

 idea on the growing of grain. I call it new, 

 because I never saw it in print or heard it 

 advanced by any. person : — and that is, to 

 cross all grain in sowing. If you have a 

 good kind or quality of wheat, never sow it 

 longer than two or three years without get- 

 ting some of the same from a neighbour, 

 and mix it well on the barn floor previously 

 to sowing. By this means, when the grain 

 blossoms, the farina will cross with such 

 grain or blossom as it had for a long time 



not come in contact with, and will produce 

 a more thriving and healthy stalk than if we 

 sow the same grain for a long period without 

 mixing. To make it plain, — I put it upon 

 the same principle as crossing in the ani- 

 mal creation ; we know, if we have the best 

 stock of any kind, it must be crossed with 

 others, if we would keep up its character. 



It is well known that hogs, sheep, or any 

 other stock, will soon degenerate if left to 

 run together without crossing; and I Iiold it 

 is equally necessary in grain and seeds of 

 all kind. This idea occurred to me some 

 five or six years ago, and I have practised it 

 since on ni}'^ farm, and have recommended 

 it to my neighbours; and among others, to 

 several medical gentlemen, who concur with 

 me in opinion. I think I must have taken 

 the idea from seeing corn mix, and observing 

 single stalks growing in the garden on which 

 I never saw a good ear of corn, being dimin- 

 utive, or only speckled with a few grains 

 over the cob, its own farina not having fully 

 impregnated it. We know that corn will 

 cross, and why not wheat, rye, oats, pota- 

 toes, and every plant of the same species? 

 Women who attend their gardens, know that 

 cabbage will cross, and radishes run out, &c. 

 Some may suppose if grain will cross in the 

 blossom, that wheat and rye would mix, but 

 this does not necessarily follow, they being 

 different kinds of grain. 



It is a generally received opinion among 

 farmers, that it is necessary to change the 

 grain from one soil to another, to ensure a 

 good crop; this, in my opinion, is erroneous; 

 the changing from one soil to another is of 

 little or no benefit ; it all depends on cross- 

 ing the blossom, and if this is done every 

 two or three years, the grain will never de- 

 generate; it will answer equally well to 

 cross different kinds of wheat, if they ripen 

 at the same time. Several farmers whom I 

 have spoken to on the subject, remarked it 

 so happened that they mixed up different 

 kinds of wheat in sowing, not having seed 

 sufficient of one kind, and they had always 

 a better crop, without suspecting or knowing 

 tlje reason. 



I have sown the red chaff white wheat, 

 sixteen years, and now raise as good crops 

 as at first sowing ; for the last six years I 

 have crossed it regularly, and since I mixed 

 my potatoe seed with my neighbours, alter- 

 nately, with one and another, I can raise a 

 much better crop than before I did so. If 

 my opinion be correct, I consider it a matter 

 of much importance in agriculture; farmers 

 will give up the erroneous idea of changing 

 from one soil to another, and persons need 

 not speculate by offering or advertising a 



