344 



Blight — Mildew. 



Vol. V. 



For tlie Farmers' Cabinut. 

 Blight — dliidew. 



I HAVE been a good deal interested in look- 

 ing over Col. Smith's article in the last num- 

 ber of the Cabinet, and would before this 

 have said so, if an unusual press of business 

 had not deprived me of the necessary leisure. 



The wheat crops of the middle states have 

 of latter years become so precarious, that 

 every rational suggestion as to the " cause 

 and remedy," deserves the attention of the 

 farmer. Our wheat and rye, and Indian corn, 

 constitute, emphatically, the staff" of life; and 

 when there is so widely extended a failure as 

 there was of rye in 1836, and so serious an 

 one as there has several times been more re- 

 cently of wheat, every person who finds his 

 garners empty when he had hoped to have 

 them well filled, feels that the subject comes 

 home to his own individual interpst and com- 

 fort, in a manner that is of no trifling conse- 

 quence. 



Col. Smith thinks that the growth of grass 

 in our wheat fields, is the great cause of the 

 mildew, which so frequently and so suddenly 

 prostrates the hopes of the farmer. He talks 

 of the "elements of vegetable vigour and vi- 

 tality" — the " elaboration" of sap to the grain 

 — and the difference of temperature between 

 the soil covered with a coat of grass, and that 

 which is exposed to the sun, &c. Now, all 

 this I don't profes.s to understand much about, 

 being a plain matter-of-fact man, and literally 

 eitiug my bread in the sweat of my face : 

 but I acknowledge 1 have so many and strong 

 old-fashioned partialities in favour of sowing 

 grass seeds over our fields of winter grain, 

 that I am reluctant to yield it to any theory, 

 unless it shall be sustained by generally ac- 

 knowledged facts. Now, I put it to every 

 man who has raised wheat or rye for the last 

 dozen years — what has been his experience] 



Last season, and in the harvest of 1839, 

 we all know there were extensive failures of 

 the wheat crop, owing to the depredations of 

 the fly, and prevalence of mildews. In 1839 

 ray wheat — between the first and last sowing 

 of wliich in the autunm of 1838, there was a 

 difference often or twelve days — was all ex- 

 ceedingly injured by the mildews. The ear- 

 liest sown, however, was decidedly the best: 

 it was all sown with clover and timothy in 

 the spring. The lowest and best ground had 

 been the earliest sown with wheat; it was 

 the best adapted to the growth of grass ; and 

 there was, accordingly, a much more luxu- 

 riant coat in that part at harvest, than there 

 was in the higher and lighter part of the field. 

 The coat of grass, then, could not have caused 

 the mildews in the higher and lighter part 

 of the field; nor did it, apparently, increase 

 it in the lower part. The same observations 



would apply to my wheat last season ; I had 

 two lots, the soil of which was heavy and ra- 

 ther low, but well adapted to grass: at har- 

 vest, the grass in these lots was luxuriant, 

 while in the higher ground — and every body 

 knows that our dry lands in Jersey are not 

 very favourable to the growth of grass — had 

 very little grass scattered over it: the wheat 

 here was almost worthless, while that which 

 was standing with a fine coat of grass was 

 good. I believe the secret in both years was 

 in the early sowing of the wheat, the first 

 being put in about the 5th, and the residue 

 finished both seasons about the 20ih of 10th 

 month. 



Have I already taken up too much room, 

 or shall I remark in passing, that both last 

 year and the year before 1 had two or three 

 acres of Italian spring wheat; both lots were 

 sown on the 1st day of the 4th month, and 

 clover and timothy sown at the same time : 

 they were both in good order, and at harvest 

 the coating of grass was every thing I wished 

 it to be. The crop in 1839 yielded a little 

 more than twenty bushels per acre of fine 

 plump grain, and the straw was yellow, bright 

 and clean, as could well be imagined ; last 

 year the yield was but eight bushels per acre 

 of miserable grain ; the straw was covered 

 with mildew, and a great deal of it destroyed 

 by that other pest, the Hessian fly. I whis- 

 per in the Editor's ear, that 1 could not have 

 borne that my neighbours should have seen 

 me "sweeping the field with ropes while the 

 dew was on," for some of them might have 

 hurt themselves laughing, while others, tak- 

 ing it up more seriously, would have been for 

 sending me over the Schuylkill to your palace 

 for the insane ! 



Should I live to sow wheat again, I will 

 put it in early ; and if my good friend, the 

 Colonel, will excuse my obstinacy, I don't 

 mean yet to forego the scattering abroad my 

 grass seed, with a liberal hand, over my grain 

 fields. 



Z. Y. 



Gloucester Co., N. J., 5th mo. 7tli, 184]. 



The beautiful shade trees before )'our 

 dwellings which shield you from the heat of 

 summer, and shed an air of fragrance and 

 beauty around the spot on which they stand, 

 and your fruit trees from which you have so 

 often regaled yourselves, were planted by 



OTHER HANDS. 



It must be the destiny of the very best and 

 richest countries to degenerate, whenever 

 successive croppings of even the richest soils 

 shall be pursued, unless the requisite means 

 are adopted for renovation. 



