306 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



The names of 22 candidates for election at the next 

 Meeting were then read. 



American Seeds. — Mr. Colman, the Agricultural 

 Commissioner from the United States, favoured the 

 Council with the following account of the American 

 seeds he had presented to the Council at the former 

 meeting ; and which had been distributed among 30 

 Members of the Council for trial, and their reports re- 

 spectively on the results of their cultivation : — 



" The Millet is cultivated both for its seeds and its use 

 as Hay. I have never myself cultivated it for any other 

 purpose than as Hay ; and when well grown and cured, 

 no fodder is more relished by cattle. Of its nutritive 

 properties I have no doubt ; but I do not know 

 that it has, for this object, been subjected to any chemi- 

 cal analysis. It requires a rich, well-tilled soil. The 

 advice is to sow a peck of seed to an acre ; but the pro- 

 duce, in thac case, is coarse. I advise a bushel to an 

 acre, and the crop is much finer, stronger, and better. It 

 is sown broadcast, as other Grass seed is sown. It is an 

 annual. It should be sown in May, and the earlier the 

 better. I have sown it on good land in May, at the rate 

 of one bushel of seed to the acre ; and having cut and 

 well-made the Hay, have had the land cultivated, exactly 

 measured, and the product weighed by a sworn measurer, 

 at the public scales. The crop was at the rate of three 

 tons of 2000 lbs. (which is our customary ton) per acre 

 of as good fodder as I could place before my stock. In 

 another case, when the crop of Grass was very short, I 

 ploughed up a Clover ley, from which a crop of Clover had 

 been taken, and sowed it with Millet, and obtained a very 

 good crop, as well as I can remember, of more than a ton 

 per acre. The Hay, however, in this case, was of the 

 nature of rowen or second crop. If I could have had 

 access to my Farm Journal, I could have given the exact 

 amount in either case. I cannot see any reason why it 

 may not be a good crop in England ; though I will not 

 say that it has preference over other Grasses already cul- 

 tivated in England, and especially over the Italian Rye- 

 grass, which I never saw until I came here, and of which, 

 last year, I saw the surprising growth of thirteen feet in 

 three successive cuttings, samples of each cutting being 

 shown together. 



** The Broom Corn (Sorghum saccharatJim) is a plant 

 much cultivated in New England for its brush or seed- 

 head, which is used in the manufacture of brooms, espe- 

 cially for carpet-brooms. A good deal of this brush i6 

 imported into England, to be manufactured into brooms. 

 It is a beautiful and hardy plant, an annual, but requiring 

 in order to ripen its seed rather a long season. The 

 average yield of seed is about 35 bushels per acre, and of 

 brush about 700 lbs.; half a pound or more being the usual 

 complement for a single broom. I have known more than 

 100 lbs. of seed obtained per acre — but this was a very 

 extraordinary case — and 1000 lbs. of brush. The seed 

 for feeding stock is estimated at two-thirds the value of 

 Oats. By some of the best farmers in New England the 

 blades and stalks are saved for feeding their young stock 

 in winter, and the produce of an acre in this way is 

 estimated as equal to a ton of Hay. I do not think that 

 the plant can be ripened in England ; but the brush, if 

 gathered and dried in a green state, is deemed to make 

 better brooms than when gathered in a perfectly dry and 

 mature state. I am inclined to believe that to this state 

 it may be grown in favourable situations in England ; and 

 if so, it would add to her useful products, and in the 

 manufacture of brooms furnish much useful occupation. 

 The Society will understand, however, that I express no 

 strong confidence in the case. My knowledge of the 

 average temperature of England would not justify me in 

 doing that ; but the experiment may be worth making, 

 as it may be made in this case with little trouble and no 

 expense. The customary way of sowing it is in drills 

 2 feet apart, and to drop the seed in the drills about 

 18 inches apart, putting 30 or more seeds in a place ; and 

 if it comes up well, allowing 8 or 10 plants to stand. It 

 requires to be kept clean from weeds, and the land should 

 be rich, dry, and friable, with a warm aspect. It is 

 gathered by breaking off the stem bearing the brush about 

 2~ feet from the top ; and when it is well dried, the seed 

 is scraped off, usually by a machine for that purpose, but 

 it may be easily done by drawing it through a common Flax- 

 comb or hatchel. The brush is then made into brooms, 

 and the remainder of the plant gathered for fodder. Many 

 farmers, however, in my opinion, with culpable improvi- 

 dence, suffer it to lay waste, and when dry enough, burn 

 it upon the ground. 



" The Herds-Grass or Timothy (Phleum pratense), 

 is certainly not unknown in England ; but I have not 

 seen it cultivated in those parts which I have visited. It 

 is a hardy Grass, perennial, and, in good land, yields well; 

 and, as Hay, ranks among the most valuable Grasses. It 

 delights in a strong soil, and should be sowed at the rate 

 of half a bushel or three pecks of seed to an acre. With 

 us in the United States it is sown with Clover and Red- 

 top, a species of Agrostis, mixed with it; but while the 

 others pass away, this retains its place. I have known 

 more than four tons obtained upon an acre ; and in one 

 case, 29 tons and a fraction, chiefly of Herds-grass, well 

 made into Hay, were obtained from six acres in one 

 season. The principal objection to it is that it does 

 not return again as soon after it has been cut as other 

 Grasses ; but probably this is somewhat owing to very 

 sparse sowing. 



" Of the several kinds of Indian Corn (Zea Mays) 

 which I present to the Society, I can have little hope of 

 any of them being brought to maturity in England, unless 

 peculiarly favoured by a warm season. The sweet Corn, 

 with a shrivelled kernel, is deemed in the United States 



a most delicious vegetable, eaten in a green state ; and 





so is the Tuscarora (so called from the tribe of Indians 

 among whom the seed was first obtained), but they 

 require a long season for ripening ; yet they may be 

 sufficiently advanced to be eaten erreen. In this case the 

 ears are gathered when in the milk, and being boiled the 

 grain is eaten from the cob with butter and salt. As it 

 would be difficult for an Englishman to eat Oat-meal 

 porridge with, if I may so express myself, a Scotch 

 accent, it may be equally difficult for him to relish boiled 

 Indian Corn as a new Englander would do ; but I know no 

 better vegetable. The Parker Corn, a large yellow ear, is 

 an earlier variety than either of the two above mentioned, 

 but the small yellow ear is a Canadian variety, and very 

 early, coming to perfection in from 60 to 70 days. It 

 is possible that this may succeed. This plant requires 

 rich, warm land, strongly siliceous, and may be cultivated 

 like the Broom Corn, in drills two and a half feet apart, 

 and 18 inches apart in the drill, depositing five or six 

 kernels in a place, covering it about an inch or two deep, 

 and leaving about four plants to stand. The ground 

 should be well enriched with manure spread, or the pro- 

 gress of the plant would be hastened by putting a small 

 parcel of manure in the spot where the seeds are depo- 

 sited, under them, and covering it before planting with 

 a little of the soil. After that the ground requires to be 

 kept clear of weeds, and occasionally stirred with a hoe. 

 I am strongly inclined to believe that Indian Corn might 

 be cultivated in the more southern parts of England as 

 a crop to be fed to cattle and horses, green, as here 

 Vetches are fed to them. No plant yields more stem and 

 leaves, and no fodder can be better. With us it is often 

 grown in this way for milch cows, and the quantity of 

 green feed obtained is absolutely amazing. I have it on 

 the most credible testimony, that 39 tons of green feed 

 have been obtained in this way to an acre ; and one gen- 

 tleman, who measured a small parcel, has stated that 

 much more could be obtained. This supposes the plant, 

 however, to have arrived at nearly a perfect state. It 

 may be cut to advantage a long time before this. I con- 

 sider the experiment as well worthy of being made. In 

 such case, I would advise it to be sowed on warm friable 

 land, well manured, in drills, sprinkled quite thickly in 

 the drills ; the drills about 18 inches apart, and at the 

 rate of more than a bushel per acre. It may be sowed 

 early in April, judging from what I have seen of the 

 climate of England, the present spring, and so on 

 through May, or even later ; and though its yield would 

 be very mnch larger after it has come into blossom, and 

 the ears are formed, yet it may be cut as wanted, when 

 two and three feet high ; and in general, this first cut, 

 in such case, will start again, and yield a second cutting. 

 No feed ever placed before cattle, according to its weight, 

 is more nutritious and healthful. The Society will do 

 me the justice to believe, that in presenting these seeds 

 to them, I am not led away by any unreasonable pre- 

 sumption of their success; but simply from a con- 

 viction of the great value of the plants in my own coun- 

 try, and a hope that an experiment might result favour- 

 ably, as it sometimes and often has happened, that 

 valuable plants become naturalised by cultivation, to 

 climates and localities very different from those where 

 they are first found. In any event, I know that with 

 that liberality which belongs to the intelligent and public- 

 spirited everywhere, and nowhere more than in Eng- 

 land, they will kindly appreciate even the most humble 

 efforts to advance the highly useful and most important 

 objects of their Association. '* 



Turnip-Fly. — Mr. Beards, Agent to his Grace the 

 Duke of Buckingham, communicated to the Council the 

 result of his experience in the destruction of the Turnip- 

 fly : — n The Turnip-sowing season is fast approaching, 

 and with it, no doubt, that continual pest, the Turnip- 

 fly, will also make its appearance, for the destruction of 

 which, a great deal has been said and written, without 

 much good resulting therefrom ; for, during thirty-five 

 years' experience in various districts, I have given fair 

 and repeated trials to numerous recommendations for 

 its destruction, without experiencing the effect sought, 

 until eight years ago this season, being then engaged 

 extensively in a Turnip district, when the insect began 

 to make dreadful havoc on a fine plant, in a field of 

 thirty-four acres. I then tried an experiment, which I 

 had not before heard of, and which was simply as 

 follows :— -I took an old sack, had it ripped open into 

 the form it was when cut from the roll of canvass, had it 

 nailed to a pole, the thickness of a pitching-fork handle, 

 leaving the pole about eight inches at each end, longer 

 than the sacking. I then had one side smeared over 

 with tar, made two men, one at each end of the pole, 

 draw the sacking (the tarred side downwards), regularly 

 over the field, letting it sweep the ground, carrying it at 

 an angle of about forty-five degrees, fresh tarring with a 

 brush every " bout," or oftener if required ; on examina- 

 tion I found great numbers of flies sticking to the 

 tarred sacking; I repeated the operation once a day, for 

 four days, and saved the plant of Turnips. Since that 

 time, when I have discovered flies on the plants, I have 

 pursued the same plan, and have not, from that time till 

 thi?, had occasion to plough up a single acre from the 

 effects of the fly. I have several years past used gas- 

 tar, in consequence of its leaving a stronger scent in pass- 

 ing over the plants than common tar, and which pre- 

 vents the flies that are not caught from devouring the 

 same ; I do not mean to assert that once going over a 

 field will prevent the destruction of a crop ; it must be 

 persevered in according to the strength of the fly, and 

 the state the laud is in. To force the plant into rough 

 leaf, with good farming and this preventive, I do believe 

 if a farmer lose his plant of Turnips by fly, it is in a 

 great measure his own fault." 



Mr. Jas. Sherring,farm-bailiti to M^HennTng~F~~ 

 House, Dorchester, Dorset, also favoured the Con ^'i 

 with the following communication on the same sub'** 

 — " A great deal has been published, and many exDeri 

 ments tried, to prevent that ravenous of all other insect!" 

 the fly, from devouring that valuable root, the Turn 

 After 20 years' experience with the greatest success'^' 

 beg to submit to your notice the following receipt •— !i 

 th at least before I begin sowing my Turnips I , 



mon 



vide vessels for the reception of such, adding to ~ev»* 

 20 lbs. of seed half-a-pint of linseed-oil, taking care to 

 have it well mixed ; I add 1 lb. of the flour of nnlnk H . 



chase the different sorts of seeds I may require' 'I 



J* 



ing 



°* 8u 'pW 



every morning, I have the whole rubbed between the 

 hands to get the seed in a proper state for drilling* the 

 drillman must be apprised of what seed he has to use 

 or he will not drill a sufficient quantity, as the sulphur 

 will choke the cups ; this of course must be looked to 

 As I before stated, I have practised this experiment for 

 the last 20 years, without a single failure, and I believe 

 I can safely say without losing a plant. The earlv 

 part of last season the fly made great ravages in some 

 parts of this country, but not one did I perceive in a field of 

 my employers. For the benefit of those of my Agricul- 

 tural friends that may be inclined to try the experiment 

 I lay the same before your most honourable Society 

 trusting it may be tried with the greatest success." 



Colonel Challoner informed the Council of the uniform 

 success which had attended his management of the Turnip- 

 crop, since the year 1830, by the adoption of the follow- 

 ing simple process in the manipulation of the seed, pre- 

 viously to sowing. He procured double the quantity of 

 seed required, under ordinary circumstances, for a single 

 sowing ; one-half of this seed he steeped in diluted tank- 

 water for 18 or 24 hours, and sowed it on the land in the 

 usual way : in about a week afterwards he sowed the other 

 half of the seed (which had undergone no preparation) 

 over the same land. The result proved that, by this ar- 

 rangement, a tendency to germinate one fortnight earlier 

 was given to the Turnip-seed, by being thus previonsly 

 steeped, over the remainder sown in its dry state, and the 

 consequence was that a full crop of Turnips was uni- 

 formly secured ; for if the soaked seed came up in dry 

 weather, it was devoured by the fly, which being thus 

 apparently satiated with the first supply of green food, 

 was found to leave the succeeding plants arising from the 

 dry seed untouched ; if, on the contrary, the soaked seed 

 came up in wet weather, it remained the standing crop, 

 as the fly, from the uncongeniality of the atmosphere for 

 its development, had not then made its appearance, and 

 consequently reserved its ravages for the plants of the 

 second sowing. Colonel Challoner had, by this simple 

 but effectual application of the principle of early germina- 

 tion, found the means of preserving, in a natural and 

 comparatively very economical manner, crops of Turnips 

 varying from 50 to 70 acres in extent. 



Mr. Woodword, of Little Comberton, near Pershore, 

 Worcestershire, thought that every fact which increased 

 our knowledge of the destruction effected by the Turnip- 

 fly, and the circumstances under which its development 

 and ravages were effected or retarded, was most important. 

 He had, in his own case, experienced a most singular 

 result in reference to this subject. He had last year pre- 

 pared a field for Turnips, and brought the whole of it 

 into the same state of cultivation ; but having sown one- 

 half of the field on the 1st of June, and the other half on 

 the 2d of June, with the same seed, in the same condi- 

 tion, he had the surprise and mortification to find, with- 

 out any obvious solution of the mystery, that the first 

 sowing went, while the second only stood. 



Milk Pans and Syphons.— Mr. Apsley Pellatt, oi 

 the Falcon Glass Works, Blackfriars, presented to toe 

 Council an English specimen of glass milk-pans, made « 

 his own manufactory, of the strength and dimensions oi 

 those sent over to this country, at Sir John L ubD0CK 

 suggestion, by Captain Stanley Carr of Lubeck, ° atma °* 

 of the ordinary transparent flint-glass, instead ot in 

 dark-coloured bottle-glass, which constituted the nwten 

 of the German ones. He had already had half a dozen 

 of them made for use at his own dairy at Knowle ureec, 

 and would report on their merits and advantages in 

 time. With regard to the price at which they j» u ™ d 

 supplied, under the present Excise restrictions, he i ^ 

 that, allowing a very moderate profit, they ■ v"B 

 made at &c M. each, or for 5*. each, provided tn e^_ 

 extended to a dozen to be made at one time.- J» ^ rf> 

 burne, director of the extensive glass-works or * 

 Cook,on, Cuthbert, & Co., of South-Shields, Lmr 

 requested leave to inspect the model of Captai ^ 

 glass milk-pan, in order that they might, witn w _ 

 currence of the Society, take measures for manuiat 

 similar articles in England, at so low a P nce Jr. hiin . 

 them within the means of ordinary farmers, oe i , 

 self an amateur farmer of 300 acres, he shooi 

 much interest in trying the glass milk-pan s on an ^ 

 sive scale in his own dairy ; and would feel nappy ^ 

 times to undertake the trial of any «P^> men ' s m 

 trivances suggested by the Society in which g .w 

 in any way be connected with agricultural con** 



or improvement. rcnnebam. 



Mr. Henry Overman, of Weasenham, near KW 

 Norfolk, informed the Council, that he "" n *ny 

 whether the use of milk trays made of lead wa* gc ^ d 

 known among the dairy farmers of the country. fl 



reason to believe that so serviceable and econ ^ 

 material might be very advantageously employeu^ 

 purpose, he himself not having heard any 1^ ^ 

 objection made against such trays by perso us ^ 



adopted them, either ou the score of ™9*™* ^i 

 metal, or on that of any chemical action wnica 



s 



