SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
Poultry Under Plum Trees — We have been presented 
with some specimeas of a very fine Plums raised in this 
city. Until last season, the fruit upon these trees was 
very imperfect, owing to the ravages of the curculio ; but 
for this season and the past, the fruit has been good ; 
owing, undoubtedly, to the fact that poultry has been kept 
under the trees. It is an experiment easily tried: — Hart- 
ford Courant. 
A New Machine Wanted. — A correspondent from 
Montgomery, Ala., states, in his letter, that a machine for 
cutting corn shucks into shreds would find a ready sale 
in that section of the country. Corn shucks split into 
shreds find a ready sale at to 3 cents a pound, for the 
purpose of making mattrasses, and when so cut are also 
much better for mules, horses, and cattle, as food, than 
when cut cross wise, by common stalk cutters. “On most 
plantations at the South,” the letter says, “a simple ma- 
chine to be operated by the hand, and would do its work 
well, would find a ready sale.” 
These shucks are split by hand at present, by pulling 
them over a number of nails or sharp spikes driven into a 
board. The work is slow and tedious, but it affords pro- 
fitable employment for many aged and infirm hands who 
are incapable of out-door labor. — Scientific American. 
LEACHED ASHES. 
Mefisrs. Editors — In a late discussion on this subject, 
one of the speakers gave it as his opinion, that the value 
of wood ashes as a manure consisted in the quantity of 
potash that they contained ; which was considered by 
many, and very properly, an erroneous supposition ; for 
after the most careful leaching, the residuum is found to 
be about as effective as would have been the application 
before such leaching ; and in all cases this has been found 
to be the fact. But why has this fact remained until now 
to be questioned I It would be the easiest thing in the 
world to test it by means of a single bushel of leached 
ashes tried alongside of the same quantity of unleached 
and under the same circumstances, and there you would 
have it, grown as your own fact. But I have long since 
been satisfied of the result, that the difference, it' any, 
would be so trifling, as wholly to do away with the idea 
that potash is the cause of the fertilizing property of ashes, 
much as it may be thought to militate against pubhe opin- 
ion, and that is one step gained; the next question being, 
how is this to be accounted for*? which I leave to be set- 
tled by our scientific friends who profess to know how 
these things are, but I beg leave to say they are bound to 
make known for the benefit of those who still believe that 
the value of wood ashes, as a manure, consists in the 
quantity of potash they contain ; and in the meantime, I 
would say, with all due deference, that,, in my opinion, 
their virtue is to be found in the carbon they contain, hav- 
ing myself imbibed the strange doctrine lately promul- 
gated, that the use of alkali and acid in nature is, by this 
union, to bring on fermentation and, consequently, decom- 
position, and the creation of carbonic acid gas, which gas 
— am I right in the supposition I — is the only gas that is 
heavier than atmospheric air, and consequently falls to 
the earth by its own density, there to become food for 
plants, whilst all others, by their levity ascend into the 
atmosphere, there to form new combinations and return 
again to perform these never-ceasing evolutions prescrib- 
ed by the Great Creator of this wonderful frame of things ! 
So that, although oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and all the 
other gens and ammonia are absolutely necessary to bring 
aboift this state of things, the result is carbon, the natural 
food of plants, always to be found at the surface of the 
earth, and in close proximity with these and their lungs 
and leaves and roots and moisture, by which alone plants 
are able to take their food, 
This, I am aware, will be considered a very simple(7) 
theory by the learned, but I trust, not unworthy of their 
regard ; and I should be pleased to find that I am not alone 
in my conjectures. The beauty of every thing created by 
the Almighty, consists in its simplicity ; and nothing ap- 
pears to me more strikingly simple than the theory that I 
have here ventured to advocate, namely : that this gas that 
is heavier than atmospheric air, is designed to fall to the 
earth — while others rise up and pass away — to become 
the food of the plants in her bosom ; which I must be al- 
lowed to say, appears to me an all-wise, all-important, 
and all-sufficient argument. — Boston Cultivator. 
Potatoes Planted in Wood Ashes. — Messrs. Eds . — 
About the middle of April, plant them in rows about two 
feet apart, and about two feet apart in each row — plant 
the sets whole, putting about two handsful of wood ashes 
with each set. Hoe them deep and well. The best and 
largest yield I have seen this season, were grown in this 
way — soil generally light and sandy. Mr. W. Shaw’s 
averaged about 28 to each set, some of the potatoes weigh- 
ing over 16 ounces. P. Sidebotham, 
\in Country Gentleman. 
AGKICTTLTURE SCIENTIFICALLY CONSIDERED IN 
CONNECTION WITH LABOR. 
Capt. Danley; When labor shall have vindicated itself 
from the shame which false pride and erroneous sentiment 
has clothed it in the filth and rags of, the cultivation of the 
soil will be esteemed to be, as it assuredly is in truth, the 
most respectable and exalted of occupations. Our educa- 
ted youth now, are being brought up to believe that be- 
yond the pale of commerce, law, and medicine, respecta- 
bility is not to be found; that the tilling of the earth is a 
dirty business, entirely beneath the dignity of a gentle- 
man’s son, which he should never condescend to think 
seriously about making a profession of. This detestible 
and preposterous fallacy can only be gotten rid of by the 
practical education afforded by agricultural schools. 
When boys shall be taught to work as well as study, when 
science is blended with practice, they will learn to know 
that to be an agriculturist requires something more to 
qualify them for pursuing it, than holding the plow, and 
saying gee and haw. That an understanding of the 
knowledge requisite to explain it in its various details, 
circumscribes a vast area of information : that to render it 
successful, profitable and pleasant, they must know natu- 
ral philosophy, to understand the mechanism of the va- 
rious implements of husbandry ; chemistry, to enable 
them to analyse the soil, ascertain its adaptation to the 
different products of its growth, and the quantity and qual- 
ity of matter suitable to them; botany, to know the na- 
ture of vegetation ; horticulture to raise fruits and vegeta- 
bles ; besides many other beautiful and highly interesting 
branches of study proper to be known. In mentioning 
them, however, we would not wish to be understood by 
any means, as understanding them ourselves , we only 
know they are important to be understood by the accom- 
plished agriculturist. 
If youths were taught to look at the subject of agricul- 
ture through these, its proper mediums, their minds would 
be disabused, and they would see it was in every way en- 
titled to respect, and aspire to be farmers, as well as law- 
yers, doctors and merchants; that its duties involved as 
much learning, and required as close and constant study 
as that ofany other of the “learned professions.” That an 
extensive library, philosophical, chemical and astronomi- 
cal apparatus are much more needed in the farmer’s studies 
than in those of the doctor s and lawyer’s. 
Of all pursuits, it is certainly the most profitable, rational, 
and happy, as could be shown by the lives of the most 
eminent men of every age of enlightenment and civiliza- 
