310 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



CURCULIO. 

 Hang rags, dipped in gas tar, on the limbs of the trees. Curculio 

 hates the smell. Dip them again when the smell is diminished, and your 

 plums will be good. 



WEEDS. 



Prof. Buckman, in his prize essay for the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, says : 



"We have found in a bushel of red clover seed, 1,920^000 seeds of the 

 heavy narrowled plantain." 



In a bushel of Saint Foin seed, 23,040 seeds of false barnet poterium 

 sangiusorta. This weed grows so much faster than the saint foin, that it 

 sometimes smothers it. 



Sinapis arvensis — mustard — whose seed is like turnip, has covered 

 whole fields of turnips and others with a blase of yellow. This weed is 

 eaten by cattle, and many a fine bullock has been killed by its powerful 

 stimulating effects. The microcsope is excellent to try yoitr seeds. Black 

 mustard invades flax. 



The aggregate amount of the fertility of soil, destroyed by weeds, is 

 enormous. 



H. Meigs. — We should never buy, and never sell weed seeds. See that 

 all is pure before you put it into the bosom of your soiL 



CULTURE OF GRAIN. — BY VICTOR CHATTEL (dEVIBE). 



Campandre-Valcongreun (Arrondissement de Caen,^ > 



October 16, 1859. } 



It sometimes happens in the course of many years of bad crops, that 

 good seed of the cereals can be procured, and then at a high price. Then 

 we see many farmers us-e the poor seed for economy sake, and always lay 

 the fault on weather, frost or something else besides poor seed. From 

 comparative trials, which I have made, of thirty varieties of wheat, I find 

 that the wheat of the year, shaken out of the ears or which remains in the 

 ears until the time of sowing, will yield the same results as the wheat of 

 the year of equal quality. 



My observation teaches me that smut and rust attack the grain on the 

 shortest stalks in the field. Too late sowing is apt to cause less perfect 

 growth. 



[Journal of the Royal Agricultnral Society of England. Volume 19.], 

 HORSE POWER CONSIDERED. 



The average cost of keeping a horse, a year, in England, is about $100 

 a year — some do it for $80. M. Melvin uses twenty horses to cultivate 

 675 acres — part ploughed from eight to eleven inches deep, the rest seven 

 or eight inches deep. The twenty horses consume food, worth about 

 $3,300. The crops, wheat, forty-four bushels an acre, the barley, fifty 

 bushels. 



All the expense of horse power, men, annual depreciation &c., &e., sum 

 up about $5,500 a year, for the 675 acre farm, or about $40' per acre. The 



