Vol. X.-No. 28. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



221 



two bushels a day, and will consume hardly any 

 hay, and requires no drink. 



Product ajid cost. — My average crop has been 

 600 bushels per acre, though others have raised 

 much heavier pi-oducls. Tlie cost, in manure and 

 labor, when they are secured for winter, has been 

 from two and a half to three cents per bushel. 



N. B. Cattle or sheep, fattened upon this root, 

 should be kept from eating them for eight or ten 

 days before they are slaughtered, otherwise the 

 maat will havo an unpleasant flavor. J. B. 



Albany, Dec. 26. 



HEDGING. 



In a land so generally arable as the western 

 parts of New York, — where the inducement to 

 clear off the primitive forest is so strong, where 

 timber for fences is continually becoming scarcer, 

 and where good stone in most places is not easily 

 procured, — hedging is a subject of increasing im- 

 portance. Almost in the first settling of this coun- 

 try, some farmers foresaw the result ; and though 

 twenty years have elapsed since a few attempts at 

 this business were made, I know not of one 

 hedge in this region which serves to protect a 

 grain field. 



I have doubted the propriety of employing er- 

 otic plants for this purpose. After continuing 

 many years in a flourishing condition, the privet* 

 or prim hedges of the southcjistern part of Penn- 

 sylvania, as well as those on Long Island, perish- 

 ed from some unknown cause ; and those of Eng- 

 lish thorn soon after shared a similar fate. Al- 

 ready fears are entertained that the hedgesf in 

 the vicinity of Philadelphia will not be durable.— 

 Some English thorns\ in tliis quarter have been 

 greatly injured by insects ; and a sweet briar 

 hedge of our own planting, which for a while was 

 very flourishing and beautiful, and which fully re- 



* ' SincB the destruction of the prim and the English 

 black thorn, few attempts have been made to raise hedges. 

 In the town of East Hampton, in Suffolk county, by the 

 best computalion, at least two hundred miles of good prim 

 hedge died in the course of two or three years, which 

 was a greater loss lo the inhabitants than if every house 

 in the township had burned down at the same time. It 

 has not as yet been discovered what occasioned the de- 

 struction of ihe prim. The English black thorn in South- 

 ampton was nearly equal to the prim in East Hampton. 

 This has lately all died there, as it has in every other 

 part of the country where it grew. A certain fly makes 

 a hole throuf;h the bark of the thorn, and there deposits 

 its eggs.' — V Hommedieu in Transactions of the [New 

 York State] Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, &c. 

 (1794.') vol. 1, page 136. 



' The prim did some years ago promise something of 

 the kind ; but this has been long since dead, and there 

 appears no probability (hat it will ever flourish again. — 

 The black thorn has been destroyed by a worm that preys 

 upon its twigs.' — Havens in the same vol. p. 288. 



t In a letter from Bucks Co. Pennsylvania, dated 11 

 xno., 1, 1831, my correspondent says, ' The thorn hedges 

 near Philadelphia appear to be declining rapidly in con- 

 sequence of the ravages of some insect — 1 shall not be 

 disa|ipoinled if our hedges should die as suddenly as the 

 Privet (Prim) hedges did about the year 1765.' I have 

 not understood whether the hedges near Philadelphia are 

 of English, or of Washington, thorn. Neither the privet 

 nor the sweet briar are irTdigenous to this country. 



X Genesee Farmer, Vol. 1, p. 373. ' Where the Eng- 

 ligh thorn was tried, that part of the hedge which was 

 clipped, was mostly destroyed by a small snow-white in- 

 sect, with which it was in many cases literally covered. 

 That which was not clipped did better" — because the in- 

 sects preferred the young shoots and leaves, and left the 

 older and more rigid leaves to perform their necessary 

 functions. Last summer my English and Norway maples 

 vere greatly infested by such an insect. Is it a native 

 tf our country? 



alized my hopes in lessening the severity of the 

 bleak winds on the west side of my garden, is 

 visibly on the decline. 



I have often admired the appearance of our wild 

 thorn in the old Indian clearings which remained 

 a few years ago in a waste state. Many of these 

 shrubs, in consequence of being nipped by sheep 

 and cattle, presented very thick, neat, and regular 

 sides from the ground upward, and were .several 

 feet in diameter. A hedge is evidently stronger 

 when each plant has room to attain a good size ; 

 and I have been disposed to question the advan- 

 tage of setting thorns so thick that they must ne- 

 cessarily be kept in a stunted state. 



In elucidation of this view it may be observed 

 that a plant wliich branches and covers a given 

 space, will be preserved in better health and vigor 

 than several other plants of the same kind which 

 are crowded together in a space of the same di- 

 infusions. In cultivating the taller kinds of In- 

 dian corn, a few supernumeraries are destructive 

 to the crop ; and all are familiar with the sickly 

 aspect of culinary vegetables surrounded by weeds. 

 Now a stunted quick in a hedge, feeble from 

 starvation, must be less capable of recovering from 

 the ravages of insects, or of withstanding extraor- 

 dinary vicissitudes of the weather. 



Light is essential to the healthy vegetation of 

 those plants ; and from this cause, neglected hedges 

 soon become open near the ground. The branches 

 which form the lower part of the hedge, ought 

 therefore to be but sparingly shaded. Witli this 

 olijec*. in view, the hedge is often trimmed with a 

 slope from each side, so as to form a sharp edge 

 at the height of five or six feet. For the same 

 reason from this point, the main stems ought to be 

 naked for two or three feet higher, and then the 

 top may be allowed to spread and extend itself 

 without any restraint. 



A hedge, crowded with plants in the usual man- 

 ner and annually cut down to the level of five or 

 six feet, presents a collection of rods, which if not 

 interwoven, may be readily parted and passed by 

 unruly animals. If these rods are spiny however, 

 most of the live stock of a farm will be repelled ; 

 and if these are elevated on a good bank with 

 ditches, which breaks the force of heavy cattle, it 

 will be \ery effectual. 



Although spiny plants have been commonly se- 

 lected for hedges, it is not quite certain that such 

 are always the best. In Hart's account of his 

 travels in the southeastern part of Germany, pub- 

 lished about the middle of the last century, he men- 

 tions hedges of horn beam which bordered the road 

 for miles in continuous lines. The hedge consisted 

 of two rows, bent in different directions. Where 

 the opposite trees were brought to touch, a piece of 

 bark was removed from each, and they were then 

 tied together by some single bandage. In the 

 course of a short period, they were firmly connect- 

 ed by the new w-ood. 



The American horn beam (svi'amp beech) seems 

 to be equally well adapted for hedges ; and as far 

 as I have observed, it is less infested by insects, 

 and less liable to be injured by mice, than many 

 other shrubs. Some forest trees have this proper- 

 ty also in an eminent degree, and some have been 

 proposed for hedges ; but it may be well to consid- 

 er whether their great and vigorous growth will not 

 be difficult to manage and restrain ; and whether 

 such can be reduced to a dwarfish state without 

 impairing their constitutions or lessening their 

 durability .' 



Some of the American thorns have been found 

 rather difficult to raise from the seeds ; but those 

 of the crab apple grow as freely as the seeds of the 

 common apple, and the plant is very formidable. 

 Very respectfully, 



David Thomas. 

 Greatjield, Cayuga co., 12 mo. 20, 1831. 



FEEDING CATTLE. 



' In young growing animals the powers of di- 

 gestion are so great, that they require food which 

 is less rich, than sudi as are of mature age. They 

 also require more exercise. If rich food is supplied 

 in lilieral quantities, and exercise withheld, diseases 

 are generated, the first of which may be excessive 

 fatness: growth is iutpedcd by very rich food, for 

 experience shows, that the coarsest fed animals 

 have the largest bones. Common sense will sug- 

 gest the propriety of preferring a medium course 

 between very rich and very j)oor nutriment.' — 

 Loudon. 



Regularity of feeding cattle is of prime impor- 

 tance. Three times a day precisely at a certain 

 hour, cattle, according to Mr Lawrence, should be 

 furnished with their food. Mr Dean observed, 

 that neat cattle and horses should not have so 

 much laid before them at once as will quite 

 serve to fill them. The hay they have breathed 

 on much, they will not eat up clean, unless they 

 are very hungry. It is best, therefore, to fodder 

 them twice at night, and twice in the morning. 

 Let neat cattle as \\cll as horses have both light 

 and IVesh air let iu upon their fodder when the 

 weather is not too cold and stormy to allow the 

 windows to be open. What one sort of cattle 

 leave should be thrown to another sort. Those 

 that chew the cud will eat the leavings of those 

 that do not, and vice versa. 



Liverpool and Manchkster Raii. Road. — 

 The first year of travelling on the Liverpool and 

 Manchester railway has expired — during a part of 

 the time, however, there was not full accommoda- 

 tion for either passengers or goods, yet it seems 

 that 416,000 persons have travelled its whole dis- 

 tance, and about 34,000 persons short distances — 

 a total of 450,000— and whose fares reach £99,600 

 sterling — a prodigious sum. The exact sum pro- 

 duced by the carriage of goods is not ascertained, 

 but it is estimated at £90,000. This is surely a 

 convincing ]iroof of the utility of Rail Roads, and 

 the favor with which they are regarded by the 

 community. In this country we have no doubt 

 they will prove as profitable and popular. 



THE WORLD S CHANGES. 



Today is ours, yesterday is past, and tomorrovr 

 may never come. I wonder that people can so 

 much as for;et death, when all we see before us is 

 but succession ; summer dies and winter comes ; 

 the dial marks the change of hours, every night 

 brings death-like sleep, and morning seems a re- 

 sun'ection ; yet while all changes and decays, we 

 expect no alteration ; unapt to live, unready to 

 die ; we lose the present and seek the future, ask 

 much for what we have not, thank Providence but 

 little for what we have ; our youth has no joy, 

 our middle age no quiet, our old age no ease, 

 no indulgence ; ceremony is the tyrant of this day, 

 fashion of the other, business of the next. Little 

 is allowed to freedom, happiness and contempla- 

 tion ; the adoration of our Creator, the admiration 

 of his works, and the inspection of ourselves. — 

 Mrs Elizabeth Montague. 



