>l.. XX. NO. 1. 



A N D HO R T I C U L T U ii A L ii E G I S 1" K R . 



3 



11111^;, and m lliey JiJ iiol coiiir up to (Im slaiuliiril 

 wliicli llioy hml ronreil in llioir iinnniiintiDii, lliey 

 feci ilispo»cil ti> cry llicin down hv\o\v tlicir jiisl 

 value. \Vc know of eoinc furnicrs in lliis virinily. 

 who liavo had a number of years cipcrience in llie 

 culture and use of llie ruta bngu, and wlio would 

 not be Without thcin during lln" winter on any ac- 

 count. One of thcin winlora his cattle (and he 

 keeps a Inrjje stock,) on straw and rnta bajja prin- 

 cipally, and he winters ihein well too. Now if the 

 ruta baga will do this for one man it will for anoth- 

 er. We should prefer to have them planted by 

 Uie tirst of May, but they will do very well if not 

 planted till the 'iSth of June. The common flat 

 turnip may be planted in July. But very few 

 plant many of this kind. It is true there is not so 

 much nutritive matter in it as in sonic other roots, 

 and yet it is worth cultivating. It has added more, 

 and continues to add more to the wealth of Kng- 

 land than perhaps any other root. If it will fatten 

 cattle in England, the land fumed for beef and mut- 

 ton chops, surely it will here. Indeed we have 

 ourselves done it with them, and we believe, con- 

 sidering the ease with which they are raised, it was 

 done as cheap as with any other material, though 

 it took more bushels to do it. The mild winters of 

 England enable them to turn their cattle out among 

 them to help themselves, but we believe that when 

 we consider the waste which is made by the biting 

 and trampling them into the earth, that it would 

 be as economical or more so, to gather and house 

 tliem, as we have to. 



In regard to buckwheat, it does best to be sow- 

 ed from the VJOth to the 30th of June. If sowed 

 earlier, it is very apt to blight. More of this 

 should be cultivated. Every one likes buckwheat 

 flitters, and we are sorry to say that a good deal of 

 the buckwheat flour is brought into the State from 

 abroad, when we might raise enough to supply the 

 whole Union — Maine Farmer. 



Flora the Farmer's Cabinet. 



SL.ABBERING IN HORSES. 



Sir — In the No. of the Cabinet for .April, a cor- 

 respondent attributes the slabbers in horses to the 

 plant called the Spurge, (Euphorbia maculata,) 

 which is generally found in second crop clover, 

 and not to the clover itself. Now, at that time, I 

 was not prepared to believe that this account was 

 correct, for I had never noticed that plant to infest 

 particularly the lecottd crop of clover, and not the 

 Jirst ; besides, I had always been taught to believe 

 that it was the clover itself which was the delete- 

 rious substance; and never before having heard 

 that the thing had been doubted, I confess that 

 your correspondent's new notion had hut little 

 weight with me. 



I find, however, that the idea is by no means 

 new, for in the 2d volume of the Memoirs of the 

 Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, 

 page 350, there is a valuable paper on this subject, 

 written by Mr A. Parlee, dated Wilmington, Del., 

 1610, in which it is made evident by experiment, 

 that this plant is at least one of the causes of that 

 singular disease, and goes far to exonerate clover, 

 in any stage, from the charge of any poisonous 

 quality whatever. Permit me to copy it for your 

 pages. 



"I communicate to you the result of some ob- 

 servations and experiments which I have made on 

 the spotted Spurge (Euphorbia innculatn,) relative 



to Its being the caiisn of tlio Haliviition that oroiirs 

 so frrqucntly amongst hoises while feeding the 

 second crop of clover. The occurrence of a pro- 

 fuse discharge of saliva from horses, and its rapid 

 production of great debility and emaciation, had 

 not only excited the surprise of many of the far- 

 mers, but had also given rise to various roiijectun's 

 aa to the cause of it : o|)inions were founded on no 

 substantial data, but nf\en originated from the 

 most vague surmises. By many it was imputed 

 solely to a peculiar quality inherent in the second 

 crop of clover, as it generally first appeared when 

 the animals were put to pasture on it; and the dis- 

 ease being almost exclusively confined to that de- 

 scription of pasturage, this was considered a cor- 

 roborating evidence of the correctness ot the hy- 

 pothosis ; but its not having occurred for many 

 years after clover had been extensively cultivated, 

 and never having occurred in many places where 

 horses are pastured altogether on clover, surticient- 

 ly proved that opinion to be erroneous. It was 

 then attributed to the cflin'ts of plaster — but from 

 the occurrence of it on many farms where plaster 

 had never been used, as well as its not. having oc- 

 curred where it had been used very copiously, this 

 opinion was proved to be equally incorrect with 

 the former. 



" For the purpose of ascertaining the fact by ex- 

 periment, I procured a small quantity of the Eu- 

 phorbia maculata, and gave it to a horse, envelop- 

 ed in a small quantity of clover, carefully gathered, 

 stem by stem, and perfectly free from all other 

 vegetables or extraneous matter whatever: — a pre- 

 ternatural discharge of saliva took place in half an 

 hour. This experiment was frequently repeated, 

 and invariably with the same result. Again, to 

 prove that clover did not contribute towards it, in 

 some cases other grasses were used as an envel- 

 ope, with the same effect ; and when the horse was 

 perfectly free from slabbering, a considerable 

 quantity of clover, carefully gathered without the 

 Euphorbia, was given to him, and no such effect 

 was produced. These experiments I considered 

 sufficient to prove that the Euphorbia maculata 

 would produce salivation, and I am induced to 

 think it is the general, if not the only cause of it. 

 This plant, delighting in the wellcullivated clover 

 ground, sends off many slender spreading branch- 

 es about the height of the second crop, and is then 

 very liable to be taken in with the clover by the 

 larger-mouthed animals ; but whether this species 

 of Euphorbia has flourished for a long time in this 

 part of the country, or has hut lately migrated into 

 il, I have not ascertained ; but in either case, its 

 having but recently intruded itself into the pasture 

 fields can be easily accounted for: it cornea for- 

 ward, flowers and ripens its seed about the same 

 time with the second crop cf clover ; and as clover 

 seed is generally gathered from the second crop, 

 it must be very liable to have some of the seed of 

 Euphorbia gathered with it, and may in this way 

 be extensively diffused over the country. The 

 slabbering was observed in the neighborhood nf 

 Westchester before it was seen in this neighbor- 

 hood ; and as the farmers here have generally ob- 

 tained their clover-seed from thence, it seems high- 

 ly probable that it has been introduced in that man- 

 ner. 



"All the plants of the genua Euphorbia contain 

 an extremely acrid juice ; many of them stand at 

 the head of the catalogue of vegetable poisons; 

 some of them when rubbed on the skin will pro- 

 duce excoriation ; and the least acrid of them, 



when taken into tli" iiioiilh, ai-t n.i powcrl'ul inusti- 

 catories ; but the inaciiliria pus-ense" its grenteat 

 acrimcmy when in flower, or a little before, and at 

 that time the salivation has been observed to be 

 most prevalent. .Most planlH, when thoroughly 

 dried in the sun, lose iiiiicii of their virtue ; and 

 tins is also the case with the Euphorbia: and lor 

 this reason hay, when containing it| if thoroughly 

 dried in the sun, will not be near so productive of 

 salivation as when It has been dried in the shade; 

 and this circiimstanco should bo attendcil to when 

 gathering hay containing it. From the foregoing 

 observations, therefore, I think it extremely proba- 

 ble that the plant in question is the general cause 

 of salivation in horses. There are other plants 

 which act OS masticatorics, but there arc very few 

 of tlieiii that are liable to be eaten by the gramini- 

 vorous animals. I am, however, certain that the 

 Euphorbia miculala will jiroduce it, and liave al- 

 ways observed it to abnund in the fields when slab- 

 bering was prevalent." 



This plant begins to he in flower in July or be- 

 ginning of August, and continues to bloom for seve- 

 ral weeks, during which time it no doubt possesses 

 the greatest acrimony ; and it is at this time that 

 horses are most commonly affected with the disease 

 called slabbering. JOHN DALY. 



CORN HUSKERS. 



Nothing can be more astonishing or disgusting 

 to a genuine South-westerner, than to hear the 

 people of the North talk of machines t.> shuck corn. 

 Why if such implements were introduced into this 

 country, they would cut off one of the richest 

 sources of pleasure to our sable population. An 

 old fashioned corn shucking is worth more to our 

 negroes than all the horse races, chases, theatres 

 and other sports are to the whites. It is indeed 

 exciting, and touched a little with the sublime, to 

 hear the "corn songs" of the darkies. They are 

 animating in the highest degree to this portion of 

 our population, and it will never do to deprive 

 them of the autumnal sports of corn huskings. It 

 is a light matter to have three or four hundred bar- 

 rels shucked out in a single evening, and we enter 

 our solemn protest against all such interpolations 

 on this score Mtshville ^i3gricuUurist. 



Cultivate a little land well, and it will be more 

 profitable in proportion to the labor expended, than 

 the cultivation of much land carelessly. The do- 

 ing of any thing unfaithlully, is bad policy. Thia 

 skimming over a large surface, building long fen- 

 ces, paying high taxes, and travelling overmuch 

 land to secure what might be obtained from half 

 the same land, with half the plowing, half the hoe- 

 ing, half the fencing, half the taxing, and half the 

 travelling, is the way for farmers to complain with 

 reason that their business will hardly support them. 

 —Ibid. 



We know the effecta of many things, but the 

 causes of few ; experience, therefore, is a surer 

 guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjec- 

 ture. But those physical difficulties which you 

 cannot account for, be very slow to arraign, for he 

 that would be wiser than nature, would be wiser 

 than God. — Lacon. 



Pride is a voracious tyrant and requires the moat 

 cosily food — iu keeper's happiness. 



