58 



JMoon Farming. — Potato Planting. 



Vol. VI. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Moon Farming. 



The readers of the Caliiiiet are indebted to a highly 

 respected and much valued medical corresponilfiit, for 

 the following article on a suhject which comes immedi- 

 ately within his province todetermine. Will he accept 

 our ackiiowledcments for a settlement of the question 

 in the only rational mode. — Ed. 



In looking over the pages of the last num- 

 ber of the Cabinet, I observed an article 

 headed " Moon P''arming," which contains 

 several statements that are so erroneous that 

 I cannot help takinir exceptions to many of 

 your correspondent's propositions. 



1st. Let me say to your readers who have 

 not had opportunities to examine the matter, 

 that Z is entirely wrong, when he says, that 

 *' it has long been admitted by those best able 

 to ascertain the fact," " that persons affected 

 with madness are much more irritable and 

 ferocious at the new and full moon than at 

 any other times." So far from this being the 

 case, allow me to say, that no such influence 

 is recognized by the medical men who at this 

 day have charge of the insane, and that our 

 facts will not prove the existence of such in- 

 fluence. If patients are more noisy at such 

 times, it is that the light of the moon and the 

 shadows of clouds passing before it have some 

 tendency to prevent sleep in those who hap- 

 pen to be particularly vigilant. 



Tt is very true tiie term lunacy was adopt- 

 ed on account of this supposed lunar influence 

 — but so false is its origin as applied to the 

 insane, that most authors reject it entirely; 

 and those who retain it, do so because it is a 

 well-uiulerstood term, and not because it is 

 either proper or expressive. 



2d. As regards cattle, I must also be per- 

 mitted to doubt some of the facts given in the 

 paper — or, at least, that such striking effects 

 were produced by the cause there given. 

 Let any of my agricultural readers, by a very 

 simple way, decide for themselves, — let them 

 note the birtli of every male and female calf 

 that occurs during a whole year, and by re- 

 ferring back it will be easy to see whether 

 the sex was dependent upon the state of the 

 inonn. So let them make a memorandum of 

 the l)irths of all the cliildren in their neigh- 

 boiirliiiod, !ind by the same process they will 

 ascertain whether 7/s propositions are con- 

 firmed, — I feel confident they will not be. 

 Bull calves and boy children are being born 

 every day in the year, and probably u"ill al- 

 ways continue to be, wiielher the moon is full 

 or not. 



'^d. I am le.=;s able to judge of the causes 

 of n/.s7 in wheat, but I feel confident some of 

 your intelligent correspondents can give 

 sounder reasons than those suggested by Z. 

 Is tt not generally the late wheat that Buf- 



fers'? — and is not the temperature then great- 

 er I — which might alone account for the dis- 

 ease in the late crop. But if the moon alone 

 produced this effect, why should one field be 

 lost when the adjoining one was saved] or 

 why should we not every year lose crops, if 

 the moon happened to be wrong ? T. 



August 27, 1841. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Potato Planting. 



The time for the preparation of this grand 

 crop is fast approaching. The land designed 

 for it, should be covered thickly with long 

 dung, and be turned deep, with a plough that 

 lays its furrow perfectly flat, early in the au- 

 tumn, care being taken to carry the furrows 

 so that they may take off" the winter rain, not 

 permitting it to lie and chill the land. In the 

 spring, the land is to be run back and care- 

 fully worked, when the manure will be found 

 perfectly decomposed, and in a fit state to be 

 thoroughly incorporated with the soil by 

 means of the harrows, &c. The sets are 

 then to be planted in drills twenty-two inches 

 apart, and the sets themselves ten inches from 

 each other; these are to be kept clean by flat 

 hoeing, but by no means to be earthed up, 

 that operation causing the formation of new 

 shoots and the production of small tubers, de 

 laying the ripening of the crop, deducting 

 from the quantity, and deteriorating the qual- 

 ity to a great and ruinous extent. When the 

 plants make their appearance in the spring, 

 strew well-rotted compost on the rows, and 

 let it remain as a top-dressing. By these 

 means, the writer has grown 750 bushels per 

 acre, while Gen. Barnum, of Vermont, is said 

 to Iiave grown from 1500 to 1800 bushels per 

 acre, giving it as his opinion that in a good 

 soil and with this mode of management, from 

 800 to 1000 bushels per acre might safely be 

 calculated upon. The largest crops grown 

 in Scotland are on land manured with long 

 dung in the autumn and turned down, top- 

 dressing the plants in the spring with com- 

 posted manure. The large.st crop of beets 

 grown the present year, has been raised from 

 precisely the same means; the top-dressing 

 having operated in a remarkable manner in 

 preventing the growth of weeds and protect- 

 ing the crop from the effects of drought. 



E. T. 



The rearing of a tree, the maturing of a 

 vegetable, the production of a flower, the 

 fbrminsr of a race of animals, with shapes and 

 dispositions and qualities modified to a great 

 extent according to your wishes, are, in them- 

 selves, miracles of a power delegated to man, 

 and which an intelligent mind recognizes as 

 divine. 



