VOL. XII. NO. 13. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



101 



If Mr. Hall and the other gentleman alluded to 

 would furnish us for publication all the particulars 

 respecting the soil on which the crops were raised, 

 the previous situation, and manner of preparation, 

 sowing, &c. they would render an essential ser- 

 vice to the agricultural part of community. 



We are informed that General Harmon and his 

 five brothers have raised, the y.ZZl SSasOT^ JBOfS 

 than eleven thousand bushels of wheat. If we go 

 upon the principle that every farmer in western 

 New York ought to make his wheat crop clear, in 

 the common course of farming, then this family 

 are making rather a comfortable business of it. 



This exposition brings up the inquiry which we 

 have before made — '.' what are the lands in this 

 section of country worth?" 



If Mr. Hall's lands gave him fifty-four bushels 

 wheat per acre, and we. deduct ten bushels per 

 acre for cultivation, then we have forty-four bush- 

 els for profit, which sold at ninety-four cents per 

 bushel, the present price in this market, then we 

 have fifty dollars and twenty-six cents as the an- 

 nual nett profit of an acre, or the interest of more 

 than seven hundred dollars. Allowing that but 

 one-third of a farm could be cultivated for wheat 

 the same year, and the other was entirely useless 

 for the two years it lay uncropped, then such farms 

 would pay the interest upon the whole, at the rate 

 of two hundred and thirty-three dollars per acre. 



THE CHASSEUR ANTS AND THEIR PREY. 



One morning my attention was arrested at Lau- 

 rel Hill, (Trinidad,) by a number of black birds 

 whose appearance was foreign to me ; they were 

 smaller, but not unlike an English crow, and were 

 perched on a calabash tree near the kitchen. 1 

 asked D. who at that moment came up from the 

 garden, what could be the cause of the appearance 

 of so many black birds. She said, "Misses, dem 

 be a sign of the blessing of God ; de are not the 

 blessing, but only de sign, as we say, of God's 

 blessing. Misses, you'll see afore noon time, how 

 de ants will come and clear de houses." At this 

 moment I was called to breakfast, and thinking it 

 was some superstitious idea of D.'s, I paid no fur- 

 ther attention to it. In about two hours after this, 

 I observed an uncommon number of chasseur ants 

 crawling about the floor of the room ; my children 

 were annoyed by them, and seated themselves on 

 a table, where their legs did not communicate with 

 the floor. 



They did not crawl upon my person, but I was 

 now surrounded by them. Shortly after this the 

 walls of the room became covered by them, and 

 next, they began to take possession of the tables and 

 chairs. I now thought it necessary to take refuge 

 in an adjoining room, separated only by a few as- 

 cending steps from the one we occupied ; and this 

 was not accomplished without great care and gen- 

 eralship ; for, had we trodden upon one, we should 

 have been summarily punished. There were sev- 

 eral ants on the step of the stair, but they were not 

 near so numerous as in the room we had left; but 

 the upper room presented a singular spectacle ; for 

 not only were the floor and walls covered like the 

 other room, but the roof was covered also. 



The open rafters of a West India house at all 

 times afford shelter to a numerous tribe of insects, 

 more particularly the cockroach ; but now their 

 destruction was inevitable. The chasseur-ants, as 

 if traiued for battle, ascended in regular thick files 

 to the rafters, and threw down the cockroaches to 

 their comrades on the floor, who as regularly 



marched off with the dead bodies of cockroaches, 

 dragging them away by their united efforts with 

 amazing rapidity. Either the cockroaches were 

 stung to death on the rafters, or else the fall killed 

 them. The ants never stopped to devour their 

 prey, but conveyed it all to their store-house. The 

 windward windows of the room were glass, and a 

 battle now eSSHSu bclWCSIl the ants and the jack- 

 spaniards on the panesof glass. The jack-spaniard 

 may be called the wasp of the West Indies : it is 

 twice as large as a British wasp, and its sting is in 

 proportion more painful. It builds its nest in 

 trees and old houses, and sometimes in the rafters 

 of a room. The jack-spaniards were not quite 

 such easy prey, for they used their wings, which 

 not one cockroach had attempted. Two jack- 

 spaniards, hotly pursued on the window, alighted 

 on the dress of one of my children. I entreated 

 her to sit still, and remain quiet. In an almost 

 inconceivably short space of time, a party of ants 

 crawled upon her frock, surrounded, covered the 

 two jack-spaniards, and crowded down again to the 

 floor, dragging off their prey, and doing the child 

 no harm. From this room I went to the adjoin- 

 ing bed-chamber and dressing-room, and found 

 them equally in possession of the chasseurs. I 

 opened a large military chest of linens, which had 

 been much infested ; for I was determined to take 

 every advantage of such able hunters; I found the 

 ants already inside ; I suppose that they must 

 have got in at some opening at the hinges. I 

 pulled out the linens on the floor, and with them 

 hundreds of cockroaches, not one of which escaped. 



We now left the house, and went to the cham- 

 bers, built at a little distance ; but these also were 

 in the same state. I next proceeded to open a 

 store-room at the other end of the house, for a 

 place of retreat ; but to get the key I had to return 

 to the under-room, where the battle was now more 

 hot than ever : the ants had commenced an attack 

 upon the rats and mice, and, strange as it may 

 appear, they were no match for their apparently 

 insignificant foes. They surrounded them, as they 

 had the insect tribe, covered them over, and drag- 

 ged them oft* with a celerity and union of strength, 

 that no one who has not watched such a scene 

 can comprehend. I did not see one mouse or rat 

 escape, and I am sure I saw a score carried off" 

 during a very short period. 



We next tried the kitchen — for the store-room 

 and boy's pantry were already occupied; but the 

 kitchen was equally the field of battle, between 

 rats, mice, cockroaches, and ants killing them. A 

 huckster negro came up selling cakes, and seeing 

 the uproar, and the family and servants standing 

 out in the sun, he said — "Ah, Misses, you have 

 got the blessing of God today, and a great blessing 

 it be to get such a cleaning." I think it was about 

 ten when I first observed the ants ; and about 12 

 the battle was formidable ; soon after one o'clock 

 the great strife commenced with the rats and mice ; 

 and about three the houses were cleared. In a 

 quarter of an hour more the ants began to decamp, 

 and soon not one was to be seen within doors, but 

 the grass round the house was full of them ; and 

 they seemed now feasting on the remnant of their 

 prey, which had been left on the road to their 

 nests ; and so the feasting continued till about four 

 o'clock, when the black birds, who had never been 

 long absent from the calabash and pois deux trees 

 in the neighborhood, darted down among them, 

 and destroyed by millions those who were too 

 sluggish to make good their retreat. By five 



o'clock the whole was over ; before sun-down the 

 negro houses were cleared out in the same way ; 

 and they told me they had seen the black birds 

 hovering about the almond-trees close to the ne- 

 gro houses as early as seven in the morning. I 

 never saw these black birds before or since ; and 

 the negroes assured me that they never were seen, 

 but at such times. — Mrs. Carmichael's Domestic 

 Manners and Society in the West Indies. 



TREES. 



Since a growing attention has been manifested 

 in this city, and other places also, to the cultiva- 

 tion of ornamental trees, we take occasion to in- 

 vite the public attention to the Ailanthus trees, 

 fronting the Messrs. Thorburn & Son's establish- 

 ment in Liberty-street. All who behold must ad- 

 mire them for their luxuriant growth and graceful 

 oriental foliage. We should admire much to see 

 those trees freely introduced in our streets ; a work 

 which can very easily be done, since their growth 

 is very rapid. They are as hardy as hickories, and 

 are never marred by vermin — being always clean 

 and tasteful as those of which we are speaking at 

 this moment. They are called in China, their na- 

 tive country, the "Tree of Heaven," from their 

 stateliness and graceful beauty. Their cost is not 

 greater than the horse chesnut, and the Messrs. 

 Thorburns have a fine supply. — .V. Y. Commercial. 



TO PRESERVE WINTER APPLES SOUND. 



After the fruit has arrived to perfect maturity, 

 gather it by hand from the tree, in dry weather; 

 select the finest, wrap them carefully in paper, and 

 place them in fresh barrels in a dry cellar. The 

 barrels should be tightly headed. Or, after the 

 barrel has been carefully filled with apples uithont 

 the wrapper, pour over them dry sand from a brick 

 yard until the barrel is filled ; the sand will easily 

 find its way to the bottom and completely fill the 

 crevices. We have tried both ways with much 

 success, but prefer the former, as it is difficult per- 

 fectly to remove the sand from the apples preserv- 

 ed in it, which renders their effect upon the teeth 

 somewhat like Mr. Chandler's " grind-stone ap- 

 ples." We have now, perfectly sound apples of 

 last year's production, which have been kept in 

 papers. The paper of the Messenger, we think, is 

 admirably adapted to this purpose ; and those of 

 one year's subscription would be sufficient to paper 

 a barrel of apples, and would in this way alone 

 amply compensate the subscriber. — Crawford Mes- 

 senger. 



ON THE FLOWERING OP VINES. 



It is often observed that healthy and vigorous 

 growing vines, even in favorable seasons, never 

 produce any, or but very little fruit. This is 

 sometimes occasioned by the plants producing on- 

 ly male flowers, and in these cases the anthers are 

 sessile, or if the filaments are present the anthers 

 are wanting. A second cause of this failure is, 

 when only female organs are developed, which, 

 however, are sometimes impregnated by insects 

 with the pollen of other vines, and therefore pro- 

 duce berries only very sparingly. A third, and 

 very prevalent cause is, when the calyx opens on 

 the top and forms a basin, which retains water 

 about the organs of impregnation, and thereby 

 hinders them from performing their respective 

 functions. All such plants should be either de- 

 stroyed entirely, or grafted from a free bearing 

 vine that flowers perfectly — Gardener's Magazine; 



