380 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



MAY 31, 1S4 i 



PICKLING SEED WHEAT. 



Ws copy the following from the May No. of 

 the " Book of the Farm," by Henry Stephens, Esq., 

 of Scotland : 



"Seed wheat should be pickled; that is, sub- 

 jected to a preparation in a certain kind of liquor 

 before it is sown, in order to ensure it against the 

 attack of a certain disease in the ensuing- sunnner, 

 called smxd, wliich renders the crop comparatively 

 worthless. Some farmers atTect to laugh at this 

 precaution, as originalini,' in a nonsensical faith in 

 an imaginary specific. But the existence of smut, 

 and its baleful effects upon the wheat crop, are no 

 imaginary inventions ; and when experience has 

 proved, in numberless instances, that the applica- 

 tion of a steep has the effect of warding off the 

 evils of smut, the little trouble which pickling im- 

 poses may surely be undertaken, rather than the 

 whole crop be put in jeopardy. Jf'li)/ pickling now 

 should have the effect of preventing the smut at a 

 future period, is a different question ; and it is, 

 perhaps, because this question has not hitherto 

 been satisfactorily answered, that pickling is thought 

 lightly of by some farmers, rather than because 

 any valid objection can be urged against its prac- 

 tice. Indeed there cannot, for the palpable fact 

 stands obvious to conviction, that one field sown 

 with pickled wheat, and managed in the usual way, 

 ■will escape the smut, while an adjoining one, man- 

 aged in exactly a similar manner, but sown witlj 

 plain wheat, will be almost destroyed with the dis- 

 ease. I have seen this identical case tried by two 

 neighboring farmers, the Messrs. Fenton, late ten- 

 ants (if Nevay and Eassie, in Forfarshire. It is 

 true that on some farms, wheat sown in a plain 

 state, escapes the disease ; and it is also true that 

 pickling does not entireh) prevent the recurrence 

 of the disease on the farms; but such cases are 

 exceptions to the rule, which is, if wheat is not 

 pickled it mitij be smutted ; at least no one can 

 aver beforehand that it shall not be so ; and while 

 uncertainty exists in the recurrence of a serious 

 disease, the safer practice is to bestow the trouble 

 of pickling, the expense being very trifling, rather 

 than incur the risk of disease. It is now a well 

 ascertained fact, that inoculation will not insure 

 immunity from small poy, yet it will certainly 

 modify the attack when it occurs, and so it is with 

 the case of pickling wheal ; and as long as means 

 are used to ward off small pox, so long also, from 

 analogy, ought wheat to be pickled. 



" Wheat is pickled in this way. For some days, 

 say two or three weeks, let a tub be placed to re- 

 ceive a quantity of chamber ley, and whenever 

 ammonia is felt to be disengaging itself freely 

 from the ley, it is ready for use. It is belter that 

 the efHuvium be so strong as to smart the eyes, 

 and water added to dilute the liquor, than that the 

 ley be used fresh. This tub should be removed 

 to the straw barn, as also the wheat to be pickled, 

 and part of the floor swept clean, to be ready for 

 the reception of the wheat. Let two baskets be 

 provided capable of holding easily about half a 

 bushel of wheat each, having handles raised up- 

 right on their rims. Pour the wheat into tlie bask- 

 ets from the sacks, and dip each basketful of wheal 

 into the tub of ley as far down as completely to 

 cover the wheat, the upright liandles of the bask- 

 ets preventing the hands of the operator being 

 immersed in tlie ley. After remaining in the lii)- 

 uor for two or three eecojids, lilt the basket up to 

 drip the surplus ley again into the tub, and then 



place it upon two sticks over an empty tub, to drip 

 still more till another basketful is ready to be 

 dripped. Then empty the dripped basket of its 

 wheat on the floor, and as every basketful is emp- 

 tied, let a person spread by riddling through a 

 barn wheat-riddle, a little slaked caustic lime upon 

 the wheat. Thus basketful after bas-ketful of the 

 wheat is pickled, till it is all emptied on the floor, 

 when the pickled and limed heap is turned over 

 and over again, till the whole mass appears uni- 

 form. 



" Other substances beside chamber ley are used 

 for pickling wheat, such as brine of salt, suftjcient- 

 ly strong to float an egg; scdution of blue vitriol; 

 all good enough, ! dare say ; but when so simple 

 and efficient, and easily obtained an article as ley, 

 can bo had, it appears to me unnecessary to em- 

 ploy any thing else. It is a powerful ingredient, 

 destrowing vegetable life in the course of a few 

 hours, and it is perhaps to this property that is to 

 be ascribed its etticacy as a protection against the 

 attack of that vegetable enemy of the wheat crop 

 — smut. The wheat pickled with it should there- 

 fure be used immediately after the process ; and as 

 danger may be apprehended to pickled wheat be- 

 ing kept over night, the quantity pickled should be 

 sown at once, and no more should be pickled at 

 one time than can immediately be sown. The use 

 of the quick-lime seems to be to dry the ley quick- 

 ly, so that the grains may be easily separated from 

 on» another in the act of sowing ; but there may 

 some chemical change arise between them in the 

 circumstances, which may be serviceable to the 

 purpose for which both are employed. Can it be 

 that the lime fixes the ammonia of the ley, and 

 preserves it for use until wanted by the plant or 

 seed ?" 



HOW TO MESMERIZE LICE ON PLANTS. 

 A correspondent of the Macon Telegraph says: 

 "If you think the following is worth anything, 

 you can let your readers see it. I do n't think there 

 is any mistake in the matter. I tried it on two 

 plants that were covered with lice, and out of tlie 

 whole number I could not find one live one. I 

 have found great difficulty in saving ruta baga 

 seeds, and this year they were ruined before I 

 could find a remedy. After trying a great many 

 other things, I thought of the following, tried it, 

 and found it effectual. 



Take a little barrel that has but one head, and 

 enclose the plant that contains the animals to be 

 mesmerized under the barrel, then with a pipe, (or 

 ill any other way,) fill the barrel with tobacco 

 smoke, then draw the dirt carefully round the 

 mouth of the barrel, so as to prevent the escape of 

 the smoke. Let the barrel continue there for 

 twelve hours, (perhaps a less time would answer,) 

 and it will be found that the animals are one and 

 all, completely mesmerized. No mistake about 

 this matter. So if plants that have been left for 

 seed are treated in this way, it will be found that 

 their liceships are completely disqualified for doing 

 mischief. A Subscriber." 



To Cure Smoky Chimneys — (an excellent way.) 

 — Lay the fire as usual with coal and sticks, but 

 be careful not to light it. This has rarely been 

 known to fail, and is, at the same time, a great 

 saving of fuel. — London Punck. 



From the Louisville Faimer. 



CUT WORMS. 



Last spring I collected some cut worms and put 

 them into a glass jar with a sufticieucy of dirt, 

 where I fed them until they rolled themselves up 

 in mud balls. By cut-worm I mean a worm about 

 an inch long, of a grey color, that lives under the 

 ground, and comes out in the night, and dark 

 cloudy days, and cuts off a i)lant, eats part, and 

 endeavors to drag the balance into the ground after 

 it. When taken out of the ground, he puts his 

 head and tail together and rolls himself into a kid- 

 ney shape. Those cut-worms, after going into 

 the chrysalis state, produced a grey miller or moth, 

 such as we frequently see about our candles in 

 the summer time, and are called by us candle-flies. 



1 kept three of those millers in ajar, and they 

 deposited their eggs upon some clover leaves and 

 bloom that I put in the jar. On the 24th of June 

 those eggs hatched little caterpillars or cut-wcirms. 

 I fed ihein principally upon young clover leaves. 

 I think there must have been several hundred ; I 

 did not count them. When they were nearly 

 grown they became so voracious, and required the 

 jar, which held only three pints, to be filled so 

 frequently that I killed all but three of iliom 

 these wound up in mud balls on the 21st of July 

 came out millers, moths, or candle-flies, aa you 

 may choose to call them, from the 5lh to the 7tl: 

 of August. Unfortunately all the moihswereo; 

 the same sex, so that I lost the breed ; these I cali 

 the two-crop cut-worm. 



Other cut-worms that I put up at the same time 

 that is, early in the spring, did not produce motlii 

 until the llth of August; these were n.it quite ai 

 dark-colored as the first. These I call the (me 

 crop cut-worm. This will reconcile the statementi 

 of two writers upon the subject who have difierei 

 about the time the moth makes its appearance, th' 

 two-crop kinds appearing at both times. I sa« 

 also, the moth that produces the cut-worm, tolera 

 biy abundant in my clover field in October. 



This moth is a night-fly and is rarely seen i 

 the davtime, unless roused from its hiding placei 

 From the attraction that fire has for thu kind c 

 butterfly, (permit me to call a tnoth a butterfly, i 

 accordance with its common name,) it is probabl 

 that fires kindled in our fields with brush an 

 straw, of dark nights, might destroy a great nuir 

 her of them. Salt put on the ground might als 

 destroy the worm , but the best remedy that I hav 

 ever tried is fall plowing. This, by deetroyin 

 the vegetation, makes the fly seek other places i 

 depositing her eggs ; and it also destroys the roo 

 of the grass upon which the young worm n 

 live during the winter, I have had no ground 

 fested by them where I have had the ground plov 

 ed in the fall or winter. 



This moth that produces the cut-worm is th 

 phnlena devastator of entomologists. The 

 worm is a very voracious caterpillar, and get the 

 growth in the summer time in less than a iiiont 

 Cold weather retards their growth, and those th: 

 are hatched in the fall remain in a torpid sta 

 during the winter, and get their growth slowly : 

 the spring, at which time they do us the princip; 

 damage in cutting off the young corn and othi 

 young vegetables. Though they remain in a to 

 pid state during the winter, they require food i 

 soon as the weather gets warm in the spring, ar 

 if the vegetation has been all destroyed by fall i 

 winter plowing, which is rarely the case, the 



