THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



293 



I take the fact to be that the love of 

 flowers is born with us. How eagerly 

 will the little girl, even before she can 

 lisp a word, snatch the flower from the 

 hand of her sister or mother, and how 

 her eyes will sparkle at the sight ! As 

 we grow older, and, I may say, as our 

 hearts become filled with other and gross- 

 er objects, we may, in a degree j forget 

 the beauty of flowers, and cease to love 

 them, — but that is hardly probable. 



We had at our exhibition many of our 

 older citizens, gentlemen and ladies, 

 who seemed to enjoy, with the younger 

 people, the beauty of the scene before 

 them, and we doubt not, went away 

 with the thought that the festival was 

 one which should not hereafter be dis- 

 pensed with. Here the poor and the 

 rich, the aged and the young, met on a 

 common level, and all 8eemed to be hap- 

 py in each other's society. Is not even 

 that a suflicient object once a year to 

 pay for getting up a floral festival ? 



But there are other objects of impor- 

 tance to be considered in this connec- 

 tion. The exhibition of flowers, where 

 all are gathered to observe and admire, 

 creates a desire to procure the plants, 

 to cultivate them about our dwellings, 

 and to excel in their cultivation and the 

 procuring of fine varieties. No doubt 

 that it is to your Horticultural Society 

 that you are indebted for the fine display 

 of shrubbery in almost every garden 

 in Springfield, and in which some are 

 are found in flower from the opening of 

 spring until the arrival of winter. 



Did you ever, sir, know a gentleman 

 or lady who loved flowers, who delight- 

 ed in cultivating them, that was not a 

 good neighbor and a good citizen ? Do 

 you see the cottage, poor it may be, but 

 neat, with shrubbery and flowers about 

 it, and not feel that there is taste, intel- 

 ligence and virtue there ? How many 

 gentlemen love home, because it is sur- 

 rounded with these beautifiers, made 

 doubly dearer by the dear hand that as- 

 sists in their cultivation ? 



I hope that our example will be fol- 

 lowed by other towns. Why do not 

 Bloomington and Jacksonville, and Car- 

 linville and Peoria and other places 

 have these Spring Floral Festivals ? — 

 Cannot get them up ? They can. A 

 few spirited young men and ladies can 

 do the work. From year to year they 

 can enlarge and increase their interest. 

 I hope to see more of these festivals. — 

 They remind us of scenes and incidents 

 of other days and other lands, made 

 lovely by poetic descriptions. They are 

 festivals without alloy, — whore party, 

 religious, -clannish feelings are laid aside, 

 — where we give the hour to the full en- 

 joyment of those beauties from the hand 

 of God which come down to us as they 

 were presented to Adam and Eve in the 

 garden of Eden. H. 



Sowing Timothy with Buckwheat. 

 Editor of the Farmer : — Will it not 

 answer agoodpurpose to sow timothy with 

 Buckwheat ? I have a field I wish to 

 put in grass, and I have thought that I 

 might make a crop of Buckwheat and of 

 timothy at the same time. I reason 

 thus. If I sow timothy with Buckwheat 

 when the soil is moist enough to make 

 the seed of both germinate, the Buck- 

 wheat will soon be up high enough to 

 protect the timothy. My fear is, that 

 the Buckwheat, which has a very fast 

 growth, will injure the timothy by too 

 dense a shade. If any one of your 

 readers has experience on this point, I 

 would be glad to hear from him through 

 the pages of the Farmer. 



. An Enquirer. 



■' — ~^' — "*' — ' — ' 



Strawberries. 



Mr. Editor : — There are now a great 

 many varieties of Strawberries cultiva- 

 ted, and there is an increasing desire 

 among the people to secure supplies of 

 this luxurious fruit. A little experience 

 has shown that the plant can be easily 

 cultivated, so as to produce large crops. 

 It seems to me to be an important ques- 

 tion now in regard to the best varieties. 

 What we want, is a large, handsome, 

 prolific Strawberry, that is sweet enough 

 to eat with little or no sugar. Many of 

 the varieties are so acid, that to make 

 them palatable, you must use enormous 

 quantities of sugar. Wilson's Albany is 

 a very large, prolific Strawberry, hard, 

 and consequently good to send to mar- 

 ket, but it is very sour. So of other 

 large Strawberries. If some amateur 

 would give a list now of three varieties 

 of sweet Strawberries for home consump- 

 tion, and of as many for market purpo- 

 ses, he would greatly oblige the writer. 



A Time to Make an Impression. 

 Editor of the Farmer: — -I do not 

 know of a better time than the present to 

 make an impression on the public mind 

 of the value and importance of land 

 draining. Go into the country now — 

 look at the wheat land. What has kill- 

 ed the wheat on this section of your field 

 — three-fourths of it drowned out and 

 the rest too yellow to hope for any good 

 from it? Water, water — it has been 

 overflowed, and soaked in water for 

 months. Wheat can never be made un- 

 der such circumstances, and, in this coun- 

 try, on our flat lands and where we are 

 subject to heavy rains as we are here, — 

 we never can sow our wheat with any 

 reasonable certainty of a crop, unless 

 our lands are drained by surface or 

 blind ditches. This thing is true — eve- 

 ry sensible man knows it is true, and 

 with the fact on his memory that he has 

 lost two crops of wheat on the same kind 

 of land, we will venture to say that some 



persons will repeat the plowing and sow- 

 ing on the same land, without ditching 

 it, the coming fall. We say this because 

 it has been repeatedly done, and we see 

 no reason why it will not be done again 

 by the same persons! , 



Well, one thing is a fact, that sucH 

 men do not take Agricultural papers. — 

 They plow and sow as their fathers did 

 before them, and they will be likely to 

 continue to do go. Here people com- 

 plain of " hard times" — ani don't they 

 make them *' hard ?" Don't they, by 

 neglect of common sense, contribute all 

 they can to make themselves poor and 

 the country poor ? I think they do. 



Central Illinois is not a wheat country. 

 If wheat is made here, the ground should 

 be put m excellent order, should not be 

 subject to be drowned in winter, spring 

 or summer, requiring much care to se- 

 cure a reasonable certainty of a crop. — 

 For any crop, the ground should be well 

 drained, but for this it is absolutely nec- 

 essary. On new, dry prairie, one or 

 two crops can be made — after that the 

 best cultivation is necessary. 



Central Illinois is a corn country. — 

 Drain your ground well and we can beat 

 the world in crops of corn ; and this 

 corn can be used most profitably in rais- 

 ing stock. Our stock farmers — those 

 who give their attention to the raising 

 of horses, mules, cattle, sheep and hogs 

 — make money. Those who give their 

 time and land to the cultivation of wheat, 

 lose money. They may make a good 

 crop one year, but in the two that fol- 

 low, very likely there will be a failure. 



I suggest that farmers in central Illi- 

 nois devote less attention to wheat and 

 more to stock ; that they get out of the 

 business of raising wheat just as fast as 

 they possibly can, and give their atten- 

 tion to stock. The hog crop can be 

 raised in the same time required for 

 a wheat crop, and it always pays. 



A. 



t*^ 



Mr. Editor : — How late will it ans- 

 wer to sow Hungarian Grass ? 



[Answer. — Last year some was sown 

 in the middle of July and yielded a good 

 crop.] 



What time should Buckwheat be 

 sown? 



[From the 2d week in July to the 

 first of August.] 



Is it too late to sow the seed of the 

 Rutabaga? 



[The seed of the Butabaga should be 

 sown from the 10 th to the 20th of 

 June.] 



When should the seed of the Manguel 

 Wurtzell be sown? 



[It will answer to sow it now, but it 

 would have done much better sown six 

 weeks ago.] 



How much seed of the Sugar Cane 



