No. 9. 



Experiment with Lime on Corn. — Age of Plants. 



275 



agriculture cannot flourish, unless by an equal 

 progress of all the other useful arts : and 

 these require direct national encouragement; 

 while it can receive little, in our present 

 state, except indirectly, tlirough them. 



But even such journals are insufficient 

 for the great and regular purpose of bring- 

 ing about a diftu-ed skill in proper agricul- 

 tural science. Instructing only the grown, 

 they can instruct but slowly and miperfect- 

 ly. Regular institutions are needed to give 

 the young, who are designed for husband- 

 men, a complete elementary education, in 

 which tillage shall be the chief object to 

 which all the other studies tend, just as 

 much as arms are the main matter at West 

 Point. 



For this purpose, we see what they are 

 doing in England : and now why is it that 

 our great landed proprietors everywhere, 

 and our planters in particular, do not see 

 that it is time to consider whether they can- 

 not raise up something of the same sort, and 

 give at least a part of their sons an educa- 

 tion proper to their safest destiny] Would 

 there not be a thousand times more sense in 

 this than in breeding them all up to law, or 

 for politics, or in a very poor semi-literary 

 style, that has no application to their future 

 life, and can add nothing to its usefulness? 

 — National Intelligencer. 



From the Lancaster County Farmer. 

 Experiment Avith Lime on Corn. 



In the spring of 1845, I ploughed up a 

 small piece of meadow ground which lies 

 on a hill side, gently sloping to the south. 

 It is a thin soil, somewhat sandy; and was 

 so poor that it had produced very little grass 

 for several years. I planted it in potatoes, 

 putting a small fork full of half rotted straw 

 manure on each hill. The yield was at the 

 rate of about 250 bushels per acre. Last 

 spring I spread a small quantity of manure, 

 say about three wagon loads to the acre, on 

 the same ground, broke it up deep, and 

 planted it in corn — putting about half a pint 

 of slacked lime in each hill before the corn 

 was covered. I was told that so much lime 

 in the hill would "burn up the corn." But 

 it did not "burn wp," though it grew up 

 very fast; and, although the season was 

 very dry, it did not appear to suffer much 

 from drought. I ploughed and hoed it twice 

 only, ploughing deep the last time. And 

 now for the yield: on measuring the pro- 

 duct, I found it to be at the rate of ninety 

 bushels of shelled corn to the acre; while 

 another field, of much better soil, on which 

 I put about the same quantity of manure 

 without any lime, and which was planted 



on the same day, only produced thirty bush- 

 els per acre. This small yield was thought 

 to be owing to drought. 



I state the above facts without further 

 comment, only that I intend to try the ex- 

 periment again this year. 



Robert Seevers. 



West Carlisle, O., Feb. ]847. 



Age of Plants. — Some plants, such as 

 the minute fungi termed mould, only live 

 a few hours, or at most a few days, — 

 Mosses for the most part, live only one sea- 

 son, as do the garden plants called annuals, 

 which die of old age as soon as they ripen 

 their seeds. Some again as the foxglove 

 and the hollyhock, live for two years, occa- 

 sionally prolonged to three, if their flower- 

 ing be prevented. Trees again, planted in 

 a suitable soil and situation, live for centu- 

 ries. Thus the olive-tree may live three 

 hundred years; the oak double that number; 

 the chesnut is said to have lasted for nine 

 hundred and fifty years; the dragon's-blood 

 tree of Teneriffe, may be two thousand 

 years old. When the wood of the interior 

 ceases to afford room, by the closeness of its 

 texture, for the passage of pulp or sap, or 

 for the formation of new vessels, it dies, and 

 by all its moisture passing off into the young- 

 er wood, the fibres shrink, and are ultimately 

 reduced to dust. The centre of the tree 

 thus becomes dead, while the outer portion 

 continues to live, and in this way trees may 

 exist for many years before they perish. — 

 Farmer and Mechanic. 



A California. Farmer. — A gentleman 

 writing from California, to the editor of the 

 St. Louis Reveille, says his stock consists 

 of about 4000 head of oxen, 1700 horses and 

 mules, 3000 sheep, and as many hogs. They 

 all pasture themselves without difficulty in 

 the rich prairies and bottoms of the Sacra- 

 mento, and only require to be attended. 

 This is to be done by Indians, of whom he 

 employs 400. His annual crop of wheat is 

 about 12,000 bushels, with barley, peas, 

 beans, &c., in proportion. 



Kind Words. — If the happiness of others 

 is not motive enough for kind words, we 

 may find a motive in their influence on our- 

 selves. The habit of using them, will at 

 length conform our feelings to our language. 

 We shall become kind, not only in our 

 speech, but in our manners and in our 

 hearts. On the other hand, to make use of 

 carping, harsh and bitter words, seldom fails 

 to sour the disposition, and to injure the 

 temper. 



