VO!^ XIV. NO. 30. 



AND G A R D E N E R'S J O U H N A L 



2»r 



liat the tiller of the soil slioiild enjoy the full 

 enefit of their enriohin'; qualities, and that these 

 Jiiinal remains which now [irescnt nothing hut a 

 oathsoine spectacle, slionid lie employed to heau- 

 ifv and fertilize the soil which once afforded them 

 uhsisonce, and instead of presentinf;; an eye-sore 

 their late masters, ho to them a source of profit ? 

 I regret tTiat circumstances so occurred as to 

 irevent mo from having it in my power to present 

 on with more practical results, than are ahove 

 tated. As it is, I hope it may induce some one 

 f your reailers to heslow some attention on a 

 iieans of inipix)ving tlieir exhausted farms, within 

 reach of almost every farmer. I anticipate 

 hat the heuefit which the wheat crop may receive 

 i"om the application of the bones, will be as de- 

 ided as has been that of these four rows of corn 

 A. NicoL. 



STATEMENT OP TILLAGE AND PRODUCT 

 of Corn on Slaiintou Bottom Laud. 



I'o the Editor of ttie Knrnjcrs' Register :— 



I have been requested by two or lliree of my 

 Iriends, who saw a small tield of corn growing the 

 iresent year on my premises, to give an account 

 'fits produce, to the public, through the columns 

 if the Fanners' Register. I have measured and 

 ■enned the corn that grevv on three actres of the 

 Ibove-mentioncd field, and will confine my re- 

 narks to the three acres, which were the best in 

 he field. I do not recollect the precise time when 

 his corn was planted. I commenced planting 

 bout the time my neighbors did, and the field 

 vas planted several days later than my first plant- 

 ng ; so that 1 conclude it was neither late nor 

 arly planting. The ground it grew on was the 

 lest Staunton river bottom, which bad been clear- 

 td upwards of a century. In the year 1833 it 

 as not cultivated, and iiroduced a fine coat of 

 egetable litter which was suffered to rot (un- 

 !;razed) on the land. The succeeding year, 1834, 

 It was cultivated in tobacco, and in 1835 planted 

 corn. T he spring ploughing was a bed upon 

 two shovel-plough furrows for half of the three 

 icres, and the other half was bedded on two coul- 

 ;er furrows. The bedding was done by two-horse 

 Bagon ploughs, as deep as practicable. 1 gener- 

 lly prepare my flat land with three-horse ploughs, 

 Dutthis field had been woll broken, under the prc- 

 irious tobacco crop, and the two-horse ploughs 

 ffected as deep ploughing as a three-horse plough 

 would, on a naked fallow. The beds were about 

 four feet apart : rather under that distance. The 

 corn was planted eighteen inches apart in the bed, 

 (in the step, as it is usually termed,) and two 

 stalks were left in a place after weeding. At 

 weeding, the beds were thrown down by a dagon 

 plough, and a deep coulter furrow run on either 

 side of the young corn — as near to it as practi- 

 cable. The second and last working was done 

 by a single-horse dagon plough, the rows being 

 too near to admit two horses abreast. The pro- 

 duce of the three acres was fiftyfive barrels of 

 sound corn and several barrels of rotten, that were 

 not measured ; making upwards of eighteen bar- 

 rels of sound corn to the acre. 



My ]irincipal object in making the above com- 

 munication is, to direct the attention of corn 

 planters to the subject of thick planting on rich, 

 moist land. There is tnuch land in this vicinity 

 as fertile as the land above-mentioned, and yet, 

 the product to the acre seldom exceeds nine or 

 ten barrels. 



I 



The throe acres were accurately miiisuri'd, and, 

 to prevent niisapprehension, it may he proper to 

 add, that ten bushels of corn in the ear were al- 

 lowed to the barrel. Two rows were permitted 

 to stand with only one stalk in the hill : these 

 were gathereil and measured with two adjoining 

 rows with two stalks in the hill ; the latter mea- 

 sured between a fourth and fifth more than the 

 former, thus conclusively determining the advan- 

 tage of thick planting. The two rows with only 

 one stalk in the hill were thinned at weeding time. 

 The I'ttio experience I have in farming and 

 planting, has convinced me of the great impor- 

 tance of making the land we cultivate rich ; ' cul- 

 tivate less lanil, and make it rich,' should be the 

 n)otto of every planter, without an exception, of 

 my acquaintance. 



The corn that grew on the three acres was 

 made at a fourth, at least, of the expense of any 

 equal quantity of the balance of my crop — the 

 corn in the same field with the three acres except- 

 ed. In the first place, when a small crop is cul- 

 tivated, so much time may be devoted to the first 

 preparation of the field, that but two workings 

 are necessary. Less land and less labor is re- 

 quired to produce the same result. I observed in 

 getting up the corn, (it was hauled on the stalks 

 to the farm-pen,) that the carts were filled more 

 rapidly than they were in the poorer fields, owing 

 to the fact of the thick corn being more concen- 

 trated. The cutter would generally at one stroke 

 take down two stalks ; the laborers that picked up 

 the stalks have less walking to do ; the fodder and 

 tops are also gathered with less expense. 



The ratio of increase of the number of ears, as 

 the distance between the corn stalks is diminish- 

 ed, is greater than one would, at first thought, 

 suppose. For instance, if one plants his corn 

 three feet apart every way, he has 4S40 corn hills 

 in tiie acre ; if he just doubles the distance and 

 plants six feet apart, he has only 1210 corn hills 

 in the acre : increasing the distance by the multi- 

 plier two, diminishes the number of hills by the 

 divisor four. So that, if the ears of corn were as 

 large, and the same number of stalks in the hill, 

 an acre of land that would i)roduce five barrels 

 when the hills were six feet apart, would produce 

 twenty barrels when the hills were three feet 

 apart. This fact at once shows the great loss 

 from not planting corn as thick as the land can 

 hear it. The advocate for thin planting would 

 say, that " what is gained in number by thick 

 planting, is lost in the size of the ear ; " but in the 

 two cases put above, the ear must be four times 

 as small in the thick acre in order to reduce the 

 quantity to an equality with the product of the 

 thinly planted acre. Nothing is more common 

 (when instituting a comparison between two fields 

 of corn) than the remark, "that one field is better 

 than the other, because the ears of corn are larger," 

 and, "that the corn in the small eared field was 

 planted too thick, because the ears might be larger 

 by thin re-planting;" whereas, in nine cases out 

 of ten, if the corn in the two fields was Iirought 

 to the measuring tub, the thickly set field would 

 be found to yield the most corn. 



The size of the ears that grew on the thrse acres 

 above-mentioned, was so large, that I am con- 

 vinced the corn was not thick enough, and have 

 in mind to try still thicker planting next spring. 

 The experiment will, of course, be confined to low 

 moist land : as the want of moisture would as ef- 



fectrially check ihe gionih of extraordinary thick 

 corn, as the want of lerlility. 



I will add, in conclusion, that a good cart load 

 of pumpkins grevv on the three acres, and that 

 Mr .lohu J{. Elain witnessed tlio corn accurately 

 measured. G. W. Read. 



Chartuilc County, Va., .Vui). 5, 1835. 



Mammoth Apple Tree. — AVc arc indebted to 

 a highly respectable gentleman of Hardy county, 

 Va. for the following facts relative to a manunoth 

 apple tree, on the fiirm of C;ipt. Daniel McNeil, 

 of that coimty. Our informant says, he took the 

 dimensions of this nnuiunoth ajiple tree carefully 

 and accurately, and found it to be 45 feet in h('ight 

 and 55 in breadth ; ciicumference of the triuik 9 

 feet 4 inches. About seven feet from the root 

 there are eleven branidies, the average siz ; of 

 which are 3 feet 10 inches in circumference. But 

 the most remarkable fact about it is, the qiumlity 

 of fruit it bore the [iresent year: one hundred 

 and eighty bushels of apples were taken from it 

 this fall. Four or five bushels, of such as were 

 bruised and partially and entirely rotten, were left 

 under the tree : and a good deal of its fruit must 

 have been taken away by different jiersons through 

 the summer and fall; so that the real quantity it 

 bore jnust have been very near, if not quite two 

 liunilred bushels. The apples are very large. It 

 stands near the South IJranch, on very rich soil. 

 1 have been informed that it did not bear any fruit 

 until after it was twenty years old. It grew spon- 

 taneously where it now stands, and, although forty 

 years old, continues to grow. — Romney Intel. 



Inflcence of the Stock on gp.afted Fr;uiTs. 

 — On a recent visit to a friend in Hartford, Conn. 

 we had ocular demonstration of the influence of 

 the stock upon the fruit. Our friend had in his 

 garden a pear tree bearing large suininer fruit, 

 which ere it was ripe became rotten at the core. 

 The fruit being consequently worthless, he en- 

 grafted the St Germain pear upon several of the 

 side shoots, and the Vergalue upon the top. The 

 effect has been, to enlarge the fruits last grafted, 

 and to accelerate their ripening at least a month. 

 The St. Germain, of which we took several, are 

 of double the size of those grown on the tree 

 from which the grafts were taken ; the Vergalue 

 is somewhat increased in size, tliough deteriorated 

 in quality, and one of the fruits which we ate 

 showed a ])artial rottenness at the core. I'he ef- 

 fect of growing Butter, or Melting pears, on the 

 quince, a practice general in France, is to imjiart 

 more solidity to the flesh. These facts may be- 

 come important, as they seem to suggest a new 

 means of crossing fruits, by which the maturity 

 of those that ripen too late for a northern climate 

 may be acceler.ited ; and those which ripen too 

 early for winter use may be retarded in their ma- 

 turity. The grape affords a good subject for ex- 

 periment ; and the Isabella, Catawba and Blands, 

 may thus be brought to ripen their crops with 

 more certainty and in greater perfection among us. 

 — Cultivator. 



The raising of silk, (says the New York Tran- 

 script) has been introduced into some of our pri- 

 sons ; and will, with some assistance from the 

 State Treasury, be made ultimately a source of 

 profit. The Auburn State Prison has, the last 

 year, produced a clear profit of near ; 



