isc;.] 
AMERICAN AG-RICT7LTTJRIST. 
253 
tiling for painting wagons, and all kinds of farm 
implements and tools. On my farm it is partic- 
ularly needed, for I find itnext to impossible to 
get tbings put under cover, and tbe exposure to 
rain and wind, and sun, cracks tbe wood and 
opens tbe pores. Petroleum is better tban or- 
dinary paint, because it will penetrate deeper 
into these pores, and it seems to close them up, 
and makes tbe wood look firmer. 
We are digging a ditch through the swamp. 
I thought it would be a slow, tedious job, and 
dreaded to commence,but it is not half the work 
I expected. This loose, mucky soil can be 
thrown out with little labor. I do not propose 
to finish the ditch at once. "We cut down the 
brush and clear away the old logs, roots, &c, 
for a space of eight or ten feet, where the ditch 
is to be, and with potato hooks and spades make 
a course for the water, and then in dry weather 
we can make the ditch deeper. There are 
thousands of acres of such land, that could be 
easily drained, if the work was once commenced. 
If I had an}- inventive talent, I would try and 
get up an implement for preparing heavy land 
for corn. It is now a difficult matter to get the 
"clay spots" sufficiently mellow for planting. 
Had we an implement something like Crosskill's 
Clod Crusher, that would take two rows at 'a 
lime, and crush the clods to powder for a 'space 
of eight or nine inches, where the corn was to 
be planted, it would be just the thing. It would 
consist of two narrow rollers, with iron teeth, 
three or four inches long, like sheep's claws. 
Being so narrow, and sufficiently heavy, it 
would cut into the hardest ground, and crush 
the clods. The rollers, of course, should be set 
tbe same distance apart, as the corn is to be 
planted ; and in order to keep the rows straight, 
I would go twice in a row, as it would then do 
its own marking, and could be guided so as to 
crush a space of sixteen or eighteen inches. It 
would give a mellow soil to plant in, and the 
first, and perhaps the second, cultivating should 
be done with side blades, or shares, set so as to 
draw away the soil from the plants, so that 
there would be no danger of smothering them 
with tbe clods. After two or three cultivat- 
ing;;, the tramping of the horse, and the action 
of tbe center teeth, would break the clods be- 
tween the rows. I feel confident that the thiug 
could be done. Of course, if we had plenty of 
time, and the right kind of weather, it would be 
belter to work over the whole laud, and make 
it Tnellow, before planting. But as this is not 
often the case on such soils, an implement of 
this kind would be useful. It would get over 
six or eight acres in a day, and leave a foot or 
more of'ne soil, in which we could plant at 
once. "* .h our present implements it takes 
nearly I . long to harrow, anil roll, and prepare 
such land for corn, as it does to plow it. And 
then, by the time you have it all harrowed and 
marked both way.-;, we not unfrequently have a 
heavy rain, and the land has to be gone over 
in I Anything that will enable us to gel the 
crop-; in rapidly, is an especial advantage in our 
short seasons. Once get the corn planted in a 
nice hill of mellow soil, and there is no difficulty 
in afterwards making the intervening space 
loose and fine, by the use of the cultivator. I 
was going to say that one cultivating in hot 
weather, is worth a dozen harrowings when the 
ground i9 cold and wet in the spring. But this 
is hardly true. One cultivating docs compara- 
tively little good; we need half a dozen. If 
you weir making superphosphate from bones, 
and should smash up tin' bones with a hammer 
into pieces an inch or so in diameter, you would 
do comparatively little good ; because the acid 
could not " dissolve" them. But repeat the pro- 
cess long enough to make the bones into a fine 
powder, and you could then readily convert 
them into a good superphosphate. It is so with 
cultivating once or twice. It is better than 
nothing, but as the object of cultivating is to 
make the soil fine and mellow, anything which 
stops short of this is as unwise as it is to give a 
fatting pig only food enough to keep him alive. 
In tightening a bolt, the last turn of the nut is far 
more effectual than the first, and it is precisely 
the same in killing weeds and cultivating land. 
Unless you accomplish the object, you lose near- 
ly all the benefit of your labor. 
The Value of the Corn Husk. 
A NEW rXDUSTRT. 
Everybody is familiar with lmsk mats, and 
it is well known that excellent mattrasses can 
be made from this article, but a very small pro- 
portion of the crop is saved for these purposes. 
It is not generally known that the husk is applied 
in foreign countries to many other important 
uses. Some writers even assert that the value 
of the husk crop, if utilized, would be nearly 
equal that of the oat and barley crops of the 
country combined. "We have seen most excel- 
lent husk letter paper, and it is said better paper 
can be made from it than from either linen or 
cotton rags ; and, because it has great hardness 
and firmness, exceeding that of the best hand 
made English drawing papers, that it is es- 
pecially adapted for pencil-drawing, water- 
colors, and short-hand writing, for which latter 
purpose it is extensively used. Its durability, it 
is claimed, renders it peculiarh- valuable for 
documents, records, bank notr- uonds, etc. 
Corn husks contain a long, straight, strong, 
flax-like fabric, which can be spun, like flax, 
into a thread, and the thread, like linen thread, 
woven into cloth of great tenacity and strength, 
which excels all the coarse materials in common 
use, in resisting decomposition. This will fur- 
nish an excellent substitute for coarse flax and 
hemp cloths, jute and gunny cloths, and bagging. 
Again, in the course of extracting the corn 
fibre, long fibres are found at the bottom of the 
boiler in a spongy condition, filled with a gluti- 
nous substance, which, on closer examination, 
proves to be a nutritious dough. This may be 
dried and baked, aud furnishes a good, whole- 
some, sweet bread, especially when mixed with 
wheat flour. It possesses the peculiarity, that it 
keeps perfectly sweet for months, although ex- 
posed to the air. It will not mould, and excels 
almost all known vegetable substances in its re- 
sistance to decomposition. Mixed with wheat 
flour, it would probably make a very good ma- 
terial for ship bread and crackers. Cattle 
eat it voraciously. Of this farinaceous sub- 
Stance there are 15 pounds in a hundred pounds 
of husks ; of the long fibre, suitable for spin- 
ning, a hundred pounds of husks furnishes 35 
pounds, while, at the same time, 00 pounds of 
paper is afforded from the 100 pounds of raw 
material — the entire valuable products being CO 
per cent, of the weight of husks. 
These interesting manufactures are chiefly 
conducted under the patronage of the Austrian 
government, and it is stated that the knapsacks 
for the Imperial army, wagon tops, floor cloth?, 
fire buckets, and paper of all varieties, from the 
coarsest wrapping to the finest bank note paper 
used by the government, are manufactured al 
the Imperial mills. Beside these, there ate two 
private mills in operation near Vienna, conduct- 
ed on an extensive scale, the owners of which, 
it is said, became independently rich in the two 
first years of their workings, their mills being 
several times extended and kept running night 
and day to fill all their different orders. 
The importance of saving the husks will be 
fully appreciated, when it is remembered that 
they are simply incidental to the production of 
a most important cereal, everywhere cultivat- 
ed, and that they cost nothing beyond the care 
attending their collection and preservation. 
The chief reason of the inattention hitherto 
bestowed by capitalists on this article is tracea- 
ble mainly to the difficulty of procuring a suffi- 
cient supply of husks. "We are satisfied that 
the demand will abundantly warrant farmers in 
saving aud storing all the husks they can. They 
are easily baled and marketed, like baled hay, 
and will bring a good price for mattrasses alone. 
Our friends, who contemplate starting the 
husk manufacture in this country, must not, 
however, wait for the farmers to accumulate 
husks, but appoint responsible agents who will 
contract for the material at the farms. Farm- 
ers are beginning to appreciate their value as 
fodder, and probably will not be disposed to 
sell them for less than the price of hay. 
-•-* K9«- »-• 
Buckwheat. — This crop occupies a position 
in our farming which it would be very difficult 
to supply. Common millet is in some respects 
very much like it, especially as it may be sown 
in July, aud a crop of hay or grain harvested, 
and as it also does well upon sandy soils. Buck- 
wheat is a plant which makes the most of few 
privileges — a sort of self-made crop. If it has 
to struggle moderately, it does well. But if it 
has all its needs supplied, and especially if on 
freshly manured land, it is veryftkely to fail. 
It does not bear fermenting manure well at all, 
as it runs to tops and the seed blasts. It affords 
one of the most valuable green manure crop> to 
be used on light leachy lauds, for with 100 to 
150 pounds of good guano, or 3 to 5 cwt. of 
bonedust, a heavy crop of manure may be pro- 
duced on almost any soil. When sowed for the 
grain, it is not advisable to sow too early, as the 
firs flowers are apt to blight in hot, dry weather. 
In cool weather, reasonably moist, the grain 
fills best, but frost is fatal. It is usual, in order 
to avoid extremes, to sow from the 5th to the 
25th of July, according to latitude. The last of 
the month being preferred, where frosts hold off 
well. It is sown on sod without manure, at the 
rate of a bushel to a bushel and-a-half to the 
acre. It is best to prepare the land well by plow- 
ing some weeks beforehand, and harrowing to 
get a uniform surface. We have no idea how 
long the plant will continue to grow and blos- 
som, if frosts hold off. It is customary to cut, 
and cure in small isolated gavels, as soon as the 
first seeds are ripe, before they will shell out in 
handling. The straw is as good sheep fodder 
as need be, and the grain nutritious and fattening. 
The .Tewet. in Toads.— Shakespeare and 
other poets locate this "precious jewel in bis 
head," but they cultivated the flowers of poesy, 
and were poor observers in the garden. Watch- 
ing these ugly animals among the squash and 
cucumber vines, we shall discover the jewel in 
the stomach, in the shape of a healthy appetite 
for bugs and worms. Tin- quantity they will 
devour is enormous. "Their big bellies with 
fat black bug lined," proclaim their virtues. 
Toads are among our best friends, and they 
should have the" full freedom of the garden. 
