No. 1. 



Thorough Tending of Corn. 



31 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Horse-Rake for Grain. 



As it should be the duty of farmers to 

 make known to each other the improvements 

 they discover for mutual benefit, I am willing 

 to suggest one which I have tried for some 

 years past, and it has proved to me, in the 

 busy season of harvest, much saving of time 

 and expense in gathering my wheat and oats, 

 which I cradle. Having a common hay-rake, 

 the teeth of which were rather dull, to run 

 as easily as I could wish into the hay before 

 it had dried considerably, I thought to get 

 one with the teeth iron-pointed, and did so ; 

 and the old one I spliced, and made it so 

 much longer, as to add two more teeth at 

 each end. I have ever since used it for rak- 

 ing up my wheat and oats, in the same way 

 we do hay, by letting the horse walk between 

 two rows of swarths ; and I think I can rake, 

 in this way, two rows at a time, as fast as 

 six men can bind. In general, I rake morn- 

 ing and evening, and not when the sun is 

 most powerful on the grain in the middle of 

 the day, lest it should shell it out; and I 

 thereby save more grain as well as labour, 

 than when I used to rake with the hand- 

 rake. To rake good, the swarths should be 

 very long, to prevent frequent turning of the 

 horse over the ends. 



Andrew C. Ridgway. 



Upper Freehold. Monmouth Co., N. J., 

 7th mo. 6, 1842. 



Thorough Tending of Corn. 



We extract from the communications of an intelli- 

 gent correspondent of the Marlborough Gazette, and a 

 firm friend of the Cabinet, a very interesting account 

 of the effects of a destructive fresh, which took place 

 in that part of the country on the 14th day of July last ; 

 for the purpose of introducing his rational reflections 

 on the proper times and seasons for the cultivation of 

 the "king of grain-bearing plants." To us they ap- 

 pear to go far to answer the question, " How is it, it 

 so often happens that corn, which has, by some means 

 escaped its last workings, turns out a better crop than 

 that which has been tended to the end?" We invite 

 the attention of our practical friends to the subject, as 

 the present season will afford innumerable instances 

 of partial tillage, the extremely wet summer having 

 rendered thorough working absolutely impossible. — 

 Ed. 



A current of this tremendous fresh 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 manipulation. There they were, 

 stretched along the course of the ravine, on 

 the surface ; the force of the current, after 

 the earth had all been nicely washed away, 

 having collected the threads and spread them 

 together like a tangled hank of white-brown 



thread. It struck me in an instant that I had 

 never seen, and might never again see, so 

 good a specimen to exemplify the extent and 

 process of the growth of the roots of this 

 king of grain-bearing 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 be- 

 fore me, suspended from a nail at the top, 

 and falling below the bottom, of a " twelve- 

 light" window over my table — looking- much 

 like what a gentleman guessed it was, a 

 large 'bunch of sea-grass? measuring fully 

 four feet in length ! 



I shall send it to be preserved in the 

 botanico-agricultural department of the Na- 

 tional Institute ; an establishment, by the 

 bye, which all American husbandmen should 

 cherish, as it is so admirably fitted, by its 

 collections and researches, to gather uncom- 

 mon and valuable seeds and plants, and ad- 

 vance in every way the science and profits 

 of agriculture. This bunch of roots, spread- 

 ing as already stated, 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 reflections on 

 the growth and culture of that noble plant. 

 Pray, will you invite some more practical, 

 and otherwise better qualified correspondent, 

 to take up these threads and follow them to 

 useful conclusions, as to the proper times 

 and depths of hoeing and ploughing and ma- 

 nuring in reference to the propensity of this 

 greedy plant, as here established, to open a 

 hungry mouth, in every minute sub-division 

 of the soil, where a particle of nutriment can 

 be found 1 



The corn in this case was probably planted 

 about the 20th of May ; — it was very good, 

 without being very extraordinary. These 

 facts, among others, are established by this 

 specimen : that up to the 15th of July — say 

 in two months — the growth of the roots in 

 length much exceeded the stalk — that is, the 

 solid portion of it ; — that from each main root 

 thousands of fibres branch off in search of 

 food, and that it would not now, though the 

 crop has not been " laid by," be practicable 

 to plough, even one furrow through the mid- 

 dle of the row to the depth of eight or ten 

 inches, without severing some of the main 

 roots, with their innumerable fibres, search- 

 ing subsistence in all directions, 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 circum- 

 stances, beneficial'? and do its effects depend 

 chiefly or entirely on the weather — or does 

 not the fact, that these roots are lying near 



