18 



The Blackberry culture. — Glass. — Cutting Potatoes. Vol. VIII- 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Blackberry Culture. 



We sometimes hear farmers inquiring for 

 new articles to tlirovv into the market: — the 

 products of the old routine, say they, are 

 overdone; — they need something a little out 

 of the common line; — they want a new crop. 

 I could not help thinking of these wants, 

 quite amusingly to myself yesterday, when 

 I got out of the car, and found I had been 

 riding with eight bushel-baskets of dew- 

 berries, which were now placed on board 

 the boat to cross the Delaware for our mar- 

 ket. On speaking with the woman who had 

 them in charge, she informed me she had 

 sent six baskets to market, the day but one 

 before, and expected to send fifty more this 

 season. She gets from $2 to .*;2 50 a basket; 

 and I find they retail from 10 to 12^ cents a 

 quart. She has a field of about 10 acres to 

 go over: — the owner gives her one half for 

 picking, and then allows her 12^ cents in 

 the dollar, for selling his half A hand can 

 gather from one and a half to two baskets a 

 day, so that it will probably be quite as pro- 

 fitable an enterprise to her, as washing and 

 ironing would be: and some of the juvenile 

 readers of the Cabinet may calculate, if they 

 choose, whether the owner of the land, if he 

 gets 30 baskets for his share, at i^2 a basket, 

 may not pay the picker $10 for marketing 

 them, and still have quite as much rent for 

 his land, as if he had raised 20 busliels of 

 oats to the acre, worth 40 cents a bushel. 

 Now it seems to me, $5 an acre, clear, give 

 a pretty good rent for an old briar field, the 

 fee-simple of which, I suppose would hardly 

 be valued at $;20 per acre. The crop, I 

 judge, would not very soon be rooted out by 

 clover or timothy, and would need no ma- 

 nure. 



I shall not tell the readers of the Cabinet 

 where this neio agricultural product comes 

 from, nor the name of the grower, lest, if 

 he should chance to be one of themselves, 

 he should be vexed with me for publishing 

 his secret, and putting them upon his track. 

 Success to the dewberry culture ! 



A Philadelphian. 



Seventh mo. 13th, 1843. 



Glass. 



" It might dispose us to a kinder re- 

 gard for the labours of one another, if we 

 were to consider from what unpromising 

 beginnings the most useful productions of 

 art have probably arisen. Who, when he 

 first saw the sand or ashes, by a casual in 

 tenseness of heat, melted into a metalline 



form, rugged with excrescences and clouded 

 with impurities, would have imagined that 

 in this shapeless lump lay concealed so many 

 conveniences of life, as would, in time, con- 

 stitute a great part of the happiness of the 

 world 1 Yet, by some such fortuitous lique- 

 faction was mankind taught to procure a 

 body, at once, in a high degree, solid and 

 transparent; which might admit the light of 

 the sun, and exclude the violence of the 

 wind ; which might extend the sight of the 

 pliilosopher to new ranges of existence, and 

 charm him, at one time, with the unbounded 

 extent of material creation, and at another, 

 with the endless subordination of animal 

 life; and what is of yet more importance, 

 might supply the decays of nature, and suc- 

 cour old age with subsidiary sight. Thus 

 was the first artificer in glass employed, 

 though without his knowledge or expecta- 

 tion. He was facilitating and prolonging 

 the enjoyment of light, enlarging the ave- 

 nues of science, and conferring the highest 

 and most lasting pleasures: he was enabling 

 the student to contemplate nature, and the 

 beauty to behold herself" 



A century has nearly elapsed since Dr. 

 Johnson wrote this forcible and beautiful pa- 

 ragraph ; and nothing has occurred, in the 

 subsequent history of manufactures, to lessen 

 its truth or beauty. 



Cutting Potatoes. — Some farmers still 

 strenuously contend that slips are as valua- 

 ble to plant or propagate from as whole po- 

 tatoes; but our experience has produced in 

 our mind a conviction that they are not. It 

 is nevertheless true, that where one is short 

 of seed, or when the difficulty of procuring 

 a sufficiency is great, or where one has a 

 new variety, which he is desirous of " making 

 go" as far as possible, cutting may be expe- 

 dient, because it is prompted by necessity. 

 But if a farmer has plenty of potatoes, 

 whole ones, of a medium size, should be 

 used for seed. This, we thinfc, should be 

 the standing rule. No one selects his small- 

 est ears of corn for seed. Why, tJien, sliould 

 we not adopt the same principle in selecting 

 seed potatoes'! As to cuttings, or "seed- 

 ends," as they are generally denominated 

 by farmers, they are not, in our opinion, 

 worth planting, when whole potatoes can be 

 obtained at the usual price. It has been as- 

 serted that, by following this process, the 

 best and most valuable variety, may be 

 wholly "run out" in the course of a few 

 years. It is a good principle always to se- 

 lect the best for seed ; propagate from your 

 finest specimens, whetlier animal or vege- 

 table, and preserve the rest for use or sale. — - 

 Maine Cultivator. 



