AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (AomcoLTunAL Wakehouse.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



VOL.XXI.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 31, 1842. 



[NO. 9. 



N. E. FARMER. 



SEEDING ON GREEN-SWARD FURROWS. 



To the Editor of the Mass. Plowman : 



Sir — I observe that you call your plan of sow- 

 ing grass seed in August on the green furrow, the 

 " New Husbandry," or at least one branch of the 

 new system wliicli you for three or four years have 

 been recommending. But I noticed in another pa- 

 per of last Saturday, I think it was the Boston 

 Cultivator, a statement made by the editor of that 

 paper, which was, in substance, that the plan which 

 jyou call new, has been long known and practiced 

 upon by tiie best farmers in the State. That edi- 

 tor says he has known it to be the practice of the 

 best farmers from his early childhood, and he names 

 the last week in August as the time ; also the very 

 mode of getting in the seed which you are now 

 jrging farmers to adopt. 



Now, sir, I confess I have but a limited knowl- 

 ;dge of the practices of (arniers out ot the county 

 jf Essex; but I am constrained to say that so far 

 ts my knowledge extends, none of the farmers here 

 lad ever tried the plan of seeding down to grass 

 it once, on the green sward furrow, before you 

 )roposed it when you commenced publishing the 

 Cultivator in 18.3'J. 



And now I find that most farmers are extremely 

 )ackward in altering their course. They are cau- 

 iously looking on to see how the plan will work 

 inder the trial of others who have more faith. 



If this system has, in truth, been pursued for a 



I ong course of years, I should like to know in what 



1 )art of the State it was, and how the farmers liked 



j t. I shall try one field this month, and I want all 



he light I can have before I commence. 



Yours, respectfully, ESSEX. 



August, 1843. 



dl/'We do not take the Boston Cultivator, and 

 ve do not often see it. Last Saturday, however, a 

 riend showed ns that paper, and the article alluded 

 o by " Essex," was pointed out. It was headed. 

 Nothing New," and then follows a statement by 

 he editor, in substance as represented by our cor- 

 espondent. 



If such has been the practice of "the best far- 

 ners, ever since our boyhood," as that editor says, 

 ve too should like to know in what county those 

 armers live, and why they could not have been 

 tind enough to publish, in some paper, an account 

 if their success. We have conversed with no 

 ess than three thousand farmers within one year, 

 ind have brought to their view this subject, which 

 IBS made no light impression on our mind. And 

 ive most positively declare that not an individual 

 las ever told us that this was an old practice of 

 armers. 



On the contrary, we have had much difficulty in 

 rying to persuade the farmers we have met, in the 

 iix counties lying nearest the capital, to adopt the 

 lew mode we have been recommending. 



But this statement from us is unnecessary. 

 There is not a farmer in the Commonwealth, who 



has the least regard to truth, who will confirm the 

 assertions made in the Cultivator. Every intelli- 

 gent farmer knows they are false. — Ed. Plownian. 

 gj^-We last year gave Mr Buckminster, editor 

 of the Mass. Plowman, credit for being the first 

 writer, as far as we knew, who had strongly and 

 earnestly recommended " seeding to grass on green 

 sward furrows." We believe him entitled to this 

 credit — and it is no small credit, for the course is 

 as good and economical as he represents it. But 

 as some Essex farmer seems to think that the course 

 had never been thought of there until 1839, and as 

 he wishes for information, we can state to him that 

 it was tried by Mr Daniel Putnam, of North Dan- 

 vers, some fifteen or twenty or more years ago, on 

 a small part of his pasture where the rocks were 

 not so thick as to forbid rough plowing. The bene- 

 fit of the course was obvious — and the preference 

 which the cattle give to the grasses there, indicate 

 that its good effects are not yet gone. The great- 

 er part of the pasture is so thoroughly paved with 

 rocks that (he plow can do nothing. This (the 

 rocks,) stood in the way of the extension of the 

 course in the pastures; but on moist lands in the 

 fields it has been so much resorted to by Mr Put- 

 nam as to become a part of his system of culture ; 

 and it was commenced, we believe, long before Mr 

 Buckminster, publicly recommended it. But these 

 facts make Mr B. none the less an originator of 

 the course, for he knew nothing of them. Wo 

 have no knowledge that the practice ever exten- 

 sively prevailed any where. — Ed. N. R. F. 



From the New Genesee Farmer. 



SEED WHEAT.— CAUTION TO FARMERS. 

 The subjoined is a very important communica- 

 tion. Some years since, having taken great pains 

 to get some celebrated wheat from a distinguished 

 cultivator, we received a few bushels very much 

 mixed with rye, oats, &c. We undertook to clean 

 it by picking out with the hand all the "foul stuff"." 

 The undertaking was most tedious ; and being 

 obliged to leave home before it was finished, we 

 left it in charge to a man in our employ. He be- 

 ing very impatient, and not destitute of that self- 

 conceit of superior sagacity so common in such 

 cases, immediately after we left, took the whole to 

 the mill and passed it through the smut machine. 

 The consequence was, its germinating power was 

 destroyed, and with the exception of a very few 

 straggling plants, we Inst our seed and our labor; 

 to say nothing about our temper. — -Erf. Gtn. Far. 



Mr Colman — Through the medium of your pa- 

 per, I wish to caution the farmers of Western New 

 York, against sowing wheat threshed with a ma- 

 chine, for I believe it is one great reason, if not the 

 only one, why we do not have wheat grow as thick 

 now as it did before machines come in use. I came 

 to that conclusion last fall, and threshed my seed 

 with flail, and the result is, my wheat came up 

 twice as thick as my neighbors, according to the 

 quantity of seed sown per acre, threshed with ma- 

 chine, which was about one bushel and three 



fourths per acre, and it stands so yet. I further 

 believe wheat should be sown as soon as the last 

 week in August, for as far as my knowledge ex- 

 tends, wheat sown at that time has not failed to be 

 of a good quality, when that sowed ten or twelve 

 days later has been very much injured by the rusL 

 JOS. WICKOFF. 



IMPROVEMENT IN THE QUALITY OF 

 WHEAT. 



Too much cannot be said, if it produce corres- 

 ponding action, upon the importance of improving 

 the various kinds of seed. Wheat, being eo im- 

 portant a staple, much pains should be used in 

 bringing the seed as near to perfection as possible. 

 Select some of the largest and plumpest heads be- 

 fore thrashing, say enough to make a half bushel or 

 more, and sow it by itself, and see if it does not 

 produce a finer crop than that which has not been 

 selected. The following we find in the Albany 

 Cultivator. — Union Agriculturist. 



" Col. LeConteur, the most skillful grower of 

 wheat in England, in some tables lately published 

 in one of the English periodicals, has given the re- 

 sults of some of his loiig-eontinuod experiments in 

 improving wheat by crossings and selections. By 

 continuing to select and propagate only those va- 

 rieties that gave the most and best flour, with the 

 least bran, he now obtains over 2,400 pounds of su- 

 perfine flour to the acre, and so thin is the skin of 

 his wheat, that, from an acre of 53 bushels, only 

 542 lbs. of bran, middlings, and shorts were given. 

 One hundred pounds of this flour, as repeated and 

 careful experiments have proved, will make from 

 6 to 10 per cent, more bread, of the first quality, 

 than the same quantity of the best common market 

 flour. The beauty, purity and weight of some of 

 the specimens sent by the Col. to the Fair of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society, surprised all who no- 

 ticed the samples, and most strikingly proved the 

 improvement that skill and perseverance can effect 

 in the most common cultivated plants." 



To Prepare Green Corn for Use in Winter. — A 

 few months since, a farmer ate some green corn at 

 our mother's table,'which he liked so well that he 

 requests us to furnish the process of curing to our 

 readers. 



She has a large copper boiler of boiling water, 

 which she fills with ears of husked corn, such as 

 are used for roasting ears, and after boiling about 

 ten minutes, the corn is scraped off" witli an iron 

 spoon, and spread in the sun to dry, either on 

 plates, boards or cloths. When thoroughly dried. 

 It is hung up in bags, and makes in the winter a 

 most delightful dish — almost as good as fresh green 

 corn. The best kind is the sweet corn, of which 

 the best variety is that which shrinks most in dry- 

 ing. — Chicago Jlgricult. 



Massachusetts has a population of 94 1-2 to a 

 square mile. If all the States were as densely pop- 

 ulated, we should be a nation of nineiyfive mil- 

 lions. Who shall say we may not arrive at this ? 



