18 



NEU ENGLAND FARMER 



AUG. 34, 1843. 



SILK CONVENTION. 



To Silk Growers and Silk Manufacturers in JVeiv 

 England : 

 Ge:»tlemen — At a nieetin(j of silk growers in 

 Northampton, last November, the subscribers were 

 appointed a committee to call a Convention for 

 New England the present season. Notice is, 

 therefore, given, that a 



New EiNGLAND Silk Cowvention 

 will be held in Norlliampton, on Wednesday, Sept. 

 28lh, at i) o clock, A. .M. The object of the meet- 

 ing is to collect and embody fads ; to consider 

 what further legislative action may be required on 

 the part of Congress, and the several New England 

 States ; and to discuss whatever questions con- 

 nected with the silk business that may come before 

 the meeting. 



For three years this business has been making 

 silent, yet rapid advances in New England and 

 throughout the country. It has outlived the sad 

 revulsion of 1839 ; — it has gained for itself the 

 confidence of the well informed ; and is quietly 

 surmounting the whims and the prejudices of the 

 ignorant. It has made its way through the House 

 of Representatives and the Senate of the United 

 States; and, for the first time in the history of our 

 protective tarifl^s, it has been permitted, without re- 

 buke, to take its place among kindred interests as 

 equally worthy of a liberal protection : and, if it 

 has died in the hands of the E.xecntive, it has died 

 only where other, and older, and larger interests 

 could not live. All this the business has accom- 

 plished, solely as the result of the labors of practi- 

 cal silk growers, amidst the multiplied discourage- 

 ments that have beset our path. 



We will come together, therefore, to rejoice in 

 view of the advances gained, and to consult and 

 act for the future, ftlay we not expect a full and 

 an interesting meeting ? We trust the members 

 will come prepared to give us fads, and fact's as 

 accurately stated as may be, according to the Cir- 

 cular issued by the Committee in March. Gentle- 

 men who cannot attend personally are requested to 

 write by the 18th of September, giving us fads, 

 together with such suggestions as they may deem 

 useful. Direct to D. Benedict, Postmaster, Paw- 

 tucket, R. I. 



I. R. BARBOUR, Mass., 

 D. BENEDICT, R. I., 

 L. SEVERANCE, Me., 

 P. BROWNELL, Conn., 

 A. ROBBINS, Vt., 

 L. JENNISON, N. H., 

 Aug. 15, 1842. Committee. 



An Illinois Farm. — Mr Isaac Underbill, of Peo- 

 ria, has a farm at Rome, about 18 miles above Peo- 

 ria, of 2300 acres, which has a straight line of 

 fence on one side three miles long One field of 

 200 acres is enclosed with a good board fence, at 

 an expense of $I2G.5 — another of 500 acres, has a 

 Virginia fence, 8 rails high. The wheat on the 

 Qth of July was ready for harvest, overtopping the 

 fence .5 feet high, and was expected to yield from 

 25 to 3.5 bushels per acre. The breaking or plow- 

 ing of this farm cost $2 50 per acre. — Silcded. 



John Smith has said many good things, and 

 among the rest, that "a newspaper is like a wife, 

 because every man ought to have one of his 

 own." 



We lake the following article from the Ameri- 

 can Parmer, and ask our readers to remember its 

 doctrines until the time when we shall be able to 

 give them the results of a trial we are making 

 with the corn crop. Our principle has been, this 

 season, deep and thorough stirring of the soil very 

 near the plants, while they were small — and a mere 

 scratching of the surface with small harrow-teeth 

 set in the cultivator frame, for the subsequent 

 forking. We shall have no very extraordinary 

 crop, compared with such as are often obtained on 

 good lands, but at present we have no distrust of 



the soundness of our principle of tillage Ed. N. 



E. F. 



LENGTH OF THE ROOTS OF CORN— SUG- 

 GESTION AS TO rrs MODE OF. CUL- 

 TURE. 



We make the following extract from a communi- 

 cation which appeared in the Upper Marlbro Ga- 

 zette, of the 2l3t ultimo, with a view of recording, 

 what to us appears as important facts, not only in 

 connection with the growth of the corn plant, but 

 from which its proper mode of culture may be de- 

 duced with unerring certainty. 



The writer, in the previous part of his letter, was 

 describing the ravnges of the freshet which oc- 

 curred on the 15th July, ultimo, in Prince George's 

 county. We mention the date, because it is all 

 important in the consideration of the question 

 growing out of the facts mentioned by him. And 

 what are those facts ? Why, that from the 20th 

 of April till the 14th July, a period of 85 days only, 

 the roots of a corn plant, which had been washed 

 out by a freshet, had grown to the enormous length 

 of four feet, extending horizontally across the fur- 

 rows, so as to render it impracticable, " to plow, 

 even one furrow through the middle of the row to 

 the depth of fight or ten inches, without severing 

 some of the main roots." Now we ask the reflect- 

 ing corn-grower, whether the facts here disclosed, 

 should not teach us that there is danger in ploxving 

 corn after the plants attain any considerable size ? 

 We think there is, because we believe that nature 

 intends every root and rootlet attached to a corn 

 plant, as a mouth, whereby it is to receive its sus- 

 tenance, and that every injury, by severance, which 

 they receive is an impairment of some function es- 

 sential to the integrity of the plant, either in the 

 growth of its stalk, or the ripening of its grain. 



If those roots, in their entire ramifications, were 

 not necessary to sustain and keep up a healthful 

 and vigorous action in the plant, wo take it for 

 granted that nature never would have furnished it 

 with them : to suppose otherwise, is to presume 

 that Providence is but an indifferent workman. If 

 they be necessary, why should we lacerate and tear 

 them to pieces some three or four times in a sea- 

 son ? It may be, and doubtless is, very proper to 

 give the corn one or two good plowings in the ie- 

 ginning of its growth, before the side roots have 

 time to extend across the furrows ; but after that, 

 it surely would be best to use some other and more 

 suitable implement, to keep down weeds and grass, 

 and the earth open and free to the action of the 

 rain and atmosphere: and in our view, the most 

 appropriate implement is a well constructed cidti- 

 vntor. Wilh such an implement, the great ends 

 of cultivation can be secured ; for without indulg- 

 ing in exaggeration it may be assumed as a truth, 

 that twice the quantity of land may bo worked 

 with that implement, in the same time, as with the 

 plow, and by going close to the stalks, except un- 



der peculiar circumstances of soil and weather 

 the work can be so effectually done, as not to neet 

 the aid of the hoe. 



The following is the extract from the communi- 

 cation above alluded to : — 



"But I am digressing; so I will give you anoth- 

 er leaf, plucked from the great volume of nature, 

 which I should not have seen if I had not kept my 

 eyes open, for I was riding at a sweeping canter 

 through Mr Wm. F. Berry's farm, when I saw 

 something that prompted me to rein up my horse 

 as suddenly as you have seen an old huntsman to 

 avoid riding across the trail ahead of the track. 



"A current of this tremendous freshet had 

 crossed the road and washed up some stalks of 

 corn ; leaving the roots more perfectly bare and 

 clean than could be done by the most careful man- 

 ipulation. Tliere they were, stretched along the 

 course of the ravine, on the surface; the force of 

 the current, after the dirt had all been nicely 

 washed away, had collected the threads and spread 

 them together like a tangled hank of white brown 

 thread. It struck me in an instant that I had nev- 

 er seen, and might never again see, so good a spe- 

 cimen to exemplify the extent and process of 

 growth of the roots of this king of grain-bearin" 

 plants. So I leaped from my horse, plucked a few 

 of the roots close from the foot of the stalk, wound 

 them into a large ball, put it into my pocket, and I 

 wish you could see it, as it hangs now before me, 

 suspended from a nail at the top, and falling below 

 the bottom of a twelve-light window oyer my table 

 — lookina>piuch like, what a gentleman guessed 

 it was, a large "bunch of sea-grass," measuring 

 iuW four feet in length! 



"This bunch of roots, spreading as already sta- 

 ted, from a single stalk, in all directions around to 

 the extent of more than four feet, before it was 

 washed up, and permeating as it were every inch 

 of ground, suggests interesting hints and reflec- 

 tions on the growth and culture of that noble plant. 

 Pray will you invite some more practical, and oth- 

 erwise better qualified correspondent to take up 

 these threads and follow them to useful conclusions, 

 as to the proper times and depths of hoeing, and 

 plowing, and manuring in reference to the propen- 

 sity of this greedy plant, as here established, to 

 open a hungry mouth in every minute subdivision 

 of the soil where a particle of nutriment can be 

 found ? 



" The corn in this case was probably planted 

 about the 20th of April ; — it was very good, with- 

 out being very extraordinary. These facts, among 

 others, are established by this specimen: that up 

 to the 5th of July — say in three months — the 

 growth of the roots in length must exceed the 

 stalk — that is, the solid portion of it; that from 

 each main root thousands of fibres branch ofl^ in 

 search of food; and that it would not now, though 

 the crop has not been 'laid by,' be practicable to 

 plow even one furrow through the middle of the 

 row to the depth of eight or ten inches, without 

 severing some of the main roots, with their innu- 

 merable fibres, searching subsistence in all direc- 

 tions, and forming a closely matted web-work. 

 Here, as to the effect of occasional and of partial 

 severance of the roots: Can it be, under any cir- 

 cumstances, beneficial .-' and do its effects depend 

 chiefly or entirely on the weather — or does not the 

 fact that these roots are lying near to, or below the 

 surface, in reference to the presence of their ap- 

 propriate food, and in proportion to the depth of 



