T777 



^nTAC? ill c l) L'Tu ii a l, 



there is some allu»ion made to Sir John Hersch el'i dis- 

 course on "Natural Philosophy." As I have not any 

 opportunity of consulting the •* Farmers' Magazine," I 

 w-ote to Sir John Herachel himself, and hare this morn- 

 ing received the following reply : — " I never gave any 

 uninjon of the kind you mention, about guano, gypsum, 

 or dunghills. I have read in tne Gardeners 1 Chronicle 

 that gypsum does fix ammonia ; but I never tried the 

 experiment, and have even some small doubt of the fact 

 that carbonate of ammonia, in a liquid or vapourous 

 state, will decompose solid crystallised sulphate of lime, 

 though I do not deny that it may." Those persons who 

 like my self are anxious to see practical men concentrating 

 their efforts for ascertaining the modes of applying science 

 to practice, in that only way which can be very certain 

 of saving them much time, trouble, and expense, have 

 quite enough of prejudice, ignorance, and apathy to con- 

 tend against without having their opinions misstated, and 

 their proposals perverted in a way which may induce prac- 

 tical men to fancy that science is in error whenever the re- 

 sults promised them by manure merchants fail upon their 

 making trials of their merchandise. I lately noticed a 

 communication from one of your anonymous correspond- 

 ents, complaining of his having been misled in someway 

 or other by " march-of-iutellect men." I see he has 

 •ince asserted that his remark was not intended as a 

 sneer, but as a caution. I readily offer him the right 

 hand of fellowship in maintaining that sentiment. I am 

 a humble admirer of all " march-of-intellect men," 

 though I belong myself to no other than the awkward 

 squad of their army. Whilst it has been my endeavour 

 to point out to agriculturists the advantages which must 

 follow from their listening to the suggestions of our 

 scientific leaders, I have constantly insisted, in language 

 as plain as I can command words to express myself, on 

 the absolute necessity of caution, en the exceeding absur- 

 dity of costly experiments, and on the great facilities they 

 have in their power for working a correct, secure, and 

 rapid method of arriving at legitimate conclusions. 



Possessing a hearty desire to see the most important 

 interest in the kingdom improving and flourishing, I feel 

 very unwilling that any little exertions I may ha've con- 

 sidered myself sufficiently qualified to make in favour of 

 that interest, nullified by misapprehensions and misstate- 

 ments of my own recommendations. This desire inclines 

 me further to allude to a statement which possibly some 

 of your agricultural readers may have lately noticed either 

 in the Times or its adjunct the St. James's Chronicle. 

 I may possibly be influenced by other motives as well as 

 the one which I have assigned, but I shall crave your in- 

 dulgence in introducing the subject here, because I think 

 the effort which has been made to characterise me as a 

 fool, may have some influence in preventing practical men 

 from attending to any future suggestions I may offer 

 them for the application of science to agriculture. A 

 reporter of the Times has chosen to say that I have re- 

 commended " fireworks as a mode of suppressing incen- 

 diarism in Suffolk ! " Certainly if 1 had done anything 

 so foolish, I should not deserve the slightest attention 

 from practical men to any suggestions I may in future 

 make to them. The facts are as follow : -There is in 

 London a Society, called the Labourers' Friend Society 

 which has effected much good in some counties, 

 by the introduction of allotments, and by various 

 suggestions for benefiting the labourer. A few 

 months ago it was publicly announced in our local 

 papers that it was in contemplation to establish a 

 similar Society in the west division of Suffolk. JBy way 

 of inviting attention to a variety of topics connected 

 with methods already adopted in different places for 

 assisting the poor, I determined to write a letter weekly 

 in the papers until the meeting preliminary to the for- 

 mation ot the Society should take place. The subjects 

 treated m these letters have been success! vely-VilIa-e 

 Ploughing-matches; Loan Libraries; Coal Clubs; 



!Wn?nL M p dlCal - Clubs; ° fficial Charities 

 Benefit C ubs ; Recreations for the people. In allnd- 



L D £ w i St ° f th6 * e £ubjeCts l noii <** a P^n 

 which has been pursued in my own village for the 



last seven years, of having a little annual exhibition, 

 for the amusement of the parish, chiefly with fireworks! 

 In recommending something of this sort as a means of 

 restoring periodic returns of amusement to the people 

 of which there are now very few or none of a credit- 

 able character in this part of Suffolk, I proceeded to 

 explain the great facility with which any country family, 

 taking delight in offering recreation and amusement to 

 their neighbours, might prepare such an exhibition in a 

 way that was comparatively unexpensive, and little 

 troublesome. Why this reporter has chosen to say my 

 object was to propose fireworks as an antidote to in- 

 cendiarism, I shall leave to the suggestions of his own 

 conscience. Any one is welcome to consider me a fool 

 tor recommending fireworks or any other works, as a 

 means of amusing our country folks. Such kind of 



ml fi 18 "I- lncora P atibl e with a power of giving advice 

 on the subject of the application of .cience to practice ; 



Jl£ "PP. 081 "* Jt P°«ible that I could give such 



advice as this reporter has strangely ascribed to me 



would necessarily be accompanied^^ a degree of"* 



credulity concerning my capability of giving good advice 



on any subject whatever, beyond that of squibs and 



crackers. As for incendiarism in Suffolk I have 



publicly stated my opinion on that subject, in a pamphlet 



I published last August. I believe the crime originated 



more immediately from the want of employment among 



a large number of the poor ; and I have not yet heard 



anything to shake that conviction. Why the people are 



less employed now than they were three or four years ago 



is a question which I am not called upon to discuss ; but 



• » ' » '-; 



a nether they may happen to be sufficiently employed or 

 not, those particular methods to which I have referred 

 are equally adapted to assisting, comforting, or amusing 

 them. I have never proposed either one or all of them 

 together, as substitutes for a want of sufficient employ- 

 ment, or as panaceas against any of the evil consequences 

 likely to result from a want of sufficient employment. — 

 J. S. Ilenslow, Hitcham. 



GAZETTE. 



[Oct. ]9 



Home Correspondence. 



Dressing Wheat. — I think, perhaps, the inclosed re- 

 ceipt for dressing Wheat will be acceptable to many of 

 your readers at the present season; its simplicity must 

 recommend it, and I assure you it is a certain remedy 

 against smut : — Shoot a sack of Wheat upon, a good brick 

 floor, and place upon it a pailful of boiling water ; put a 

 double handful of new lime into the water, and let it re- 

 main a few seconds till the water is well impregnated, 

 and then quench it with a quart of urine, or salt water 

 that will carry a new laid egg ', pour it over the Wheat, 

 and let two persons stir it well, taking care that every 

 grain is made wet ; it will be ready to drill in two hours. 

 The water should boil and the lime be new in lumps.— 

 A Norfolk Farmer, Fordham, Downham Market. 



Way to Store Cabbages. — Your correspondent 

 "Querist" wants to know the best way of preserving 

 Cabbages in winter. I have little to communicate on the 

 subject; but to what I have, if of any use to him, he is 

 welcome. I have been informed that Drumhead Cabbages 

 are preserved in some parts of Oxfordshire in a way 

 somewhat similar to that of storing Potatoes out of doors. 

 The Cabbages are taken up on a dry day and the stem 

 md loose leaves taken off; they are then put in heaps in a 

 manner like cast-iron bullets in an arsenal, broad at the 

 bottom and narrow at the top ; afterwards they are 

 covered with earth. Some years ago I tried to preserve 

 a few barrowfuls of early York Cabbages in winter ; I 

 stored them in an outhouse in two lots ; one lot was 

 covered with sand, and the other witfc sawdust; it was 

 done in October. I examined them about the beginning 

 of January, and found that the rats had nearly destroyed 

 them all ; the few that remained had the outside leaves 



rotten, but the heart was good. — Peter Mackenzie 



[To this we add the following from a correspondent] — 

 Dig a pit in a dry place, say ten feet long and five or six 

 deep ; put in a little dry straw at the bottom ; then place 

 your Cabbages (first depriving them of any decayed 

 leaves) on it ; put a little dry earth over them, another 

 row of the Cabbages, more earth, and so on till the pit is 

 full ; then cover them with dry reeds or Ferns, and put the 

 tarth that has been dug out of the pit over them in the 

 shape of a roof, beating it down well, so as to exclude 

 the air and heat : in this way I have found Cabbages to 

 last me till new ones came in, and much longer. — J. B. 



Warren, Crooks ton. In addition to this, 7?. G. 



says -.—About two years ago I was staying with a friend, 

 whose gardener was then about storing his Cabbages, of 

 the large drum-head kind. He cut them off, turned 

 them down, and let them drain for a day or two ; then 

 marked out a spot, on which he placed a few Pea-sticks. 

 On these he placed the Cabbages, with their heads 

 down ; then a few more sticks, or Pea-haulm, for the 

 next tier, and so on, just as you may have seen cannon- 

 balls piled. Outside he put a little straw or slight 

 thatch, just sufficient to throw off the wet, and to allow 

 a good circulation of air. In this way, he assured me, 

 he would keep them till March or April for the family use! 

 Iledgeroics, ^c— Having read with much interest in 

 your Paper, "I\otes of a Journey through Southern and 

 Western England," by a Strathern Farmer, I beg to sub- 

 mit a few remarks. Every agriculturist of the present 

 day cannot but deplore the very low ebb of farming in 

 those parts of England which your correspondent's 

 alluded to. Look at Sussex, where a considerable por- 

 tion of the soil is good, and under a favourable climate, 

 and contrast it with the high lands of Scotland, where 

 the bounties of nature are scarce. But there, in 

 respect to the system of cultivation, they are far in 

 advance of what they are in the south of England, where 

 the country is cumbered with slovenly hedgerows, large 

 brakes and covers, and useless trees, with which the land 

 is surrounded in small patches ; their system of ploughing 

 is generally with three horses in a line, with a plough as 

 rude as in the days of Pharaoh, walking in the furrows, 

 vvuile it is well known that if two are yoked properly 

 abreast they will have more power than three in a direct 

 line besides the injury they do to the subsoil by con- 

 s antly treading it down. From my early experience in 

 farming under disadvantageous circumstances, so far as 

 reg mis soil and climate, I do not hesitate to say that if 



farahTAr 5 " u UlilV *, ted L ' he 8ame as Scotland > the land is 

 SllP } " g d ° Uble the iQcrease ' To obtain this 

 won l^r. i aneWSySt r MUSt be ^opted-one that 

 hu frnxM y g | Ve r pl ° ymeQt t0 the labouring class, 



i«? n , ? , an abl V nd ? nt sup P ] y of f00d for ^ mereaa' 



ZL P ? a ^on; which certainly must be preferable to 

 sending the surplus population to a dis 



e .L- W| napoleon's intenrlli 



nvasion of this country, and how many writers thU 

 looked to the hedges of England as formidable u l!? 



;«~ « j i • • * - % ~ ** «*stant land, or hav- 



fnnfwlT? CC 0na /? reign countr yf°r a supply of 

 food, whilst our own land is uncultivated.-^. JlJsell, 



TurnhamGr.cn.-l agree with Mr. Grant of Exeter, and 



a correspondent m your Chronicle, regarding the waste of 



ands by hedgerows ; the impoverishing the ground by 



trees and thorns planted in them ; their being a harbour 



for weeds (with slovenly and bad farmers) ; the cost of 



keeping them in repair ; and, as in some of the provinces, 



heir being allowed to run so high round small fields 



that, owing to the scarcity of light and air, by them a 



■ vast deal of the crop is robbed of its light, and natural 



ood. Yet, on the other hand, in cold and bleak districts 



I the warm hedge has its advantages ; the horse, cow, and 



sheep are sensible of theprotection it affo7d7ihe m f z: 

 storm as well as sunshine. Moreover, I am oldTno?? 

 f!*!TL 1?!$! reraembr ance of Napoleon's fo^S* 



against an enemy. But, apart from heu g eaYn\ wlrUU 

 point of view, how tnste the land would picture to the it 

 of such men as a Goldsmith or a Wilson with immeaV^ 

 able plains without a break ! What would become of tK 

 merry singing warblers from hedgerows ? Their destrml 

 tion, perhaps, many a farmer thinks would be rtum 

 enough to have the hedges down. But whether are bta. 

 friends or enemies to the farmer ?— there is wide opinio! 

 concerning the general harm or good they do. Lt 



Failure of Potatoes.— As the cause of the failure of 

 the sets, when planted, is still involved in much obscurity 

 I mention the following circumstance :— One of mv 

 neighbours planted a ridge this year, with the kind called 

 here Prolines ; the sets were all cut at the same time 

 and from the same sample; part was planted in the 

 afternoon of one day, and the remainder neit morninjr 

 The first all grew, and of those planted the next day 

 nearly all failed. Tb" late of the land in each case was 

 perfectly similar ; the weather had been dry, and no rain 

 had fallen in the interval. The circumstance is curious 

 and to me perfectly inexplicable. Can any of your cor- 

 respondents account for it ? — Lusor. 



New and Old Land.— In answer to " Paddy," in 

 your last Number, I see no conflict between the prevail- 

 ing theory of the day and the practice stated in an ex- 

 tract from Cobbett's M English Gardener," because Peas 

 in a garden are invariably set at considerable intervals J 

 and if care be taken, they may be planted on the same' 

 border annually on a fallow of three years' standing. 

 Had the Peas been sown broadcast for 15 years, Cob- 

 bett would have had to tell a very different tale. — JF. C. 



Flax-seed —Having perused with interest the Articles 

 by Mr. Sproule upon the cultivation of Flax, and also 

 the details given as to the uses of Flax-seed as a food for 

 cattle, as practised by Mr. Warnes, I venture to ask 

 that gentleman to favour us with a little further informa- 

 tion as to his mode of preparing Flax-seed before making 

 it into jelly. Mr. Sproule seems to speak as if a common 

 corn-crushing machine was sufficient for grinding it 

 before it is boiled into jelly ; now, I have myself tried 

 this method, and made good thick jelly, but could not 

 satisfy myself that its effect in fattening cattle was at all 

 equal to that of the common oil-cake. The failure in 

 my own case may have arisen from the seed having been in- 

 sufficiently crushed, and a portion of it passing through 

 the animals without being digested. Is it possible to 

 grind Flax-seed in a common grist-mill, so as to make 

 linseed meal ; or would the oil be thereby expressed ? 

 The supply of good nutritious winter food at the cheapest 

 price, is at the present moment a subject of such para- 

 mount interest to most farmers, that I make no apology 

 for intruding it upon your columns.— A Gloucestershire 

 Subscriber. 



Fire-clay as a Manure. — While on a visit at the re- 

 sidence of Thomas Sprot Esq., Garnkirk, near Glasgow, 

 along with two or three other gentlemen whose names 

 will be furnished, if desired, I had the gratification of 

 testing the result of an experiment made between the 

 fertilising properties of stable-dung and fire-clay, which 

 I have no doubt will prove of interest to your horticul- 

 tural as well as agricultural readers. In the month of 



turai as wen as agricultural reauexo. *»* «-"^ C V.* a 

 April last, Mr. Sprot selected four Potatoes, of the kind 

 called in that quarter Red Droppers, of medium and all 

 of an equal size, which he planted whole. Two of these he 

 planted with a large spadeful of well rotted hotbed stable- 

 dung well incorporated with the soil. The two others 

 he planted alongside of the above, and about 18 inches 

 apart from them, incorporating with the soil about an 

 English pint of the Garnkirk fire-clay, ground to a 

 powder. The chemical constituents of this clay, which 

 is dug from a depth of about 20 fathoms, as tested by 

 Professor Thomson of Glasgow, are given below. Itae 

 whole four Potatoes came away, and those grown with 

 the dung at first took the lead ; but in a short time those 

 grown in the fire-clay gained upon and got In advance 

 of the others, exhibiting broader an ^mo^ luxuriant 



foliage. On 



3 



28 

 23 



it 



»> 



2 lbs. weight 

 4 



6* 

 5i 



n 

 »» 



both shaws not only 

 by the dung, but the 



Four of 



.uaaKc. ~~ -0th September, when the produce was 

 taken up, the stalks of the dunged Potatoes were quite 

 dry and'decayed, while those in the fire-clay we- green 

 and but slightly faded in the leaf, and might thus have 

 grown for some little time longer. These ore the results .- 

 Those in hotbed dung :— 



No. I. . 25 Potatoes 

 No. II. • 21 

 Those in fire-clay- 

 No. T. 

 No. II. . 



Thus the fire-clay produced in 

 about double the weight produced _ 

 Potatoes were larger and finer in appearance, 

 the fire-clay ones were boiled and found to be of excellent 

 quality, mealy, and finely flavoured. 



Analysis by Dr. Thomson, Professor of Chemistry, in the 



Ana> } University of Glasgow. 



Silica 53-4 



Alumina ™" 



Lime 00 



Peroxide of Iron J* 



protoxide of Manganese .... 0<> 



Phosphate of Lime 00 



100-0 

 —Isaac Anderson, Maryfield, Edinburgh. 



Transmutation of Species— Curiosity in C° rn -'T 

 What we may call a natural curiosity was brought 

 to our office by Thomas J. Biggs, Esq., of Garryhand- 

 kerdmore on Saturday. It was an ear of W ntat, witn a 



