164 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
some counties. To avoid having any of the 
grass protrude itself between the lurrow-slices, 
they have here what I have never seen in the 
United States, a skim-coulter, that i», a minia- 
ture plowshare, or blade, placed under the beam 
and so adjusted as to cut an edge from the fur- 
row-slice as it is turned over ; this piece so cut 
off, at once dropping down, and being buried 
under the lurww-slice as it goes over. The 
consequence fc, that there is no grass on the 
edge of the furrow-slice to show itself, and 
great neatness is therefore given to the whole 
work. There is another mode of plowing 
which I have sometimes seen practiced, by 
which the furrow-slice is not merely lifted, but 
may be said to be rolled over, or twisted in a 
sort of bag-fashion. This seemed to me to be 
principally owing to the concave form of the 
mould-board, for no workman could have done 
it with a straight or convex form of mould- 
board. It would seem to render the soil more 
friable and loose j but every departure from a 
straight line, or wedge form of the mould- 
board, evidently much increases the draught. 
The skim-coulter to which i have referred 
above, somewhat increases the draught, but in 
a very small degree. 
The great object of the English farmers in 
plowing seems to be the thorough pulverization 
of the soil, and they are therefore very seldom 
satisfied with one plowing, but their land is re- 
peatedly plowed, scarified and harrowed. They 
cross-plow their land, and think it desirable to 
reduce the sward land to a fine tilth, tearing it 
to pieces, and bringing all the grass and roots, 
and rubbish to the surface, that they may be ra- 
ked up and burned or carried to the manure 
heaps. The propriety of this practice is, in my 
mind, quite questionable. It would seem to me 
much better to turn the sward completely over, 
and then cultivate on the top of it, without dis- 
turbing the grass surface, leaving that, when 
thus turned over, to a gradual decomposition, 
that it might in this way supply food to the 
growing crop, whereas the abstraction of so 
much vegetable matter must greatly diminisfc 
the resources of the soil. Where, however, 
the field is infested with twitch grass {iriticum 
repens') — in which, indeed, many of the fields in 
England abound to a most extraordinary extent 
— there may be no getting rid of it but by actu- 
ally loosening and tearing it out; but where it 
is a mere clover ley, or an old grass pasture or 
meadow, the taking out and removing the ve- 
getable matter seems to be a serious waste. 
Even the twitch might be managed where the 
crop is to be hoed, though in grain crops, its pre- 
sence is extremely prejudicial. 
Nutritive Properties of Peas and Beans* 
Experience and observation induced us, long 
since, to form a very favorable opinion of ihe 
nourishing properties of peas and beans. The 
hardy lumbermen of Maine, in laying in a stock 
of provisions for their wintersupport, while en- 
gaged in cutting down the forest, never fail to 
secure a large supply of these articles; and we 
have been repeatedly assured by men engaged 
in that laborious business, that their ability to 
labor was greater when their food consisted, in 
a large degree, of peas and beans, seasoned 
with fat pork, than when feeding on other sub- 
stances. 
Oats and peas are known in some pans of our 
country, as forming the very best food for hard 
■working horses. And we have formed, also, a 
favorab'e opinion of peas and beans for fatten- 
ing. We cannot, however, say that their value 
is not greater for laboring, than for fattening 
animals — as chemical analysis seems to indi- 
cate — but we know that sheep have been fatten- 
ed rapidly on beans and bean meal, and we 
have often seen hogs well fattened on meal of 
oats and peas ground together in the proportion 
of one part peas to two of oats, by measure ; 
which would make the proportion by weight 
about equal. We have never heard any objec- 
tion tothe quality of pork so made. 
But we think careful experiments are neces- 
sary to show the relative value of peas and 
beans compared with other substances, (Indian 
corn, for example,) in feeding different animals 
for difierent purposes. If peas and beans are, 
as contended by some chemists, better than corn 
for the production, of wool, let it be practically 
demonstrated:; if corn is belter for making mut- 
ton, let it be shown— let us have facts^ and no 
theories but what are based on them. 
The value of peas and beans for human food 
is strongly set forth in the following extracts, 
which we take from an article by Dr. Buckland, 
published in an English paper. He remarks 
that the seeds of leguminous plants, “especial- 
ly peas and beans, are loaded with the constitu- 
ents of muscle and bone ready prepared to form 
and maintain the muscular fibre of the body of 
animals.” “ Hence,” he says, “the rapid re- 
storation of the shrunk muscle of the exhaust- 
ed post-horse by a good feed of oats and beans. 
Hence the sturdy growth of the Scotch children 
on oat cake and porridge, and of broth made of 
the meal of parched or kiln-dried peas; on this 
a man can live, and do good work, for l^d. a 
day; while the children of the rich, ■who are 
pampered on the finest wheat flour, (without the 
pollard or bran,) and on sago, rice, butter and 
sugar, become tat and sleek, and would often 
die, as sometimes they do, from such non-nutri- 
tious food, but for the mixture of milk and eggs 
they eat in cakes and puddings, 
“An old laborer at Atbridge complained to 
his master, Mr. Symons, (who died in 1844,) 
that laborers feeding now on potatoes, could not 
do so good a day’s work as when he was young, 
and when they fed on peas. ‘ Peas, sir,’ said 
he, ‘stick to the ribs.' He uttered the very 
truth of organic chemistry. 
“In beans we have vegetable ‘ caseine,’ or 
the peculiar element of cheese. What is more 
restorative or more grateful toman, when fa- 
tigued by labor or a long walk? As we heat or 
toast it, it melts, and ere it reaches our mouth, 
is drawn into strings of almost ready made 
fibre; and who has ever dined so fully as not to 
have room left for a little bit of cheese. 
“ What is so restorative as beans to the jaded 
hack or the exhausted racehorse? Sepoys on 
long voyages live exclusively on peas. The 
working and healthy man and beast want mus- 
cle, and not fat ; fat encumbers and impedes 
activity, andever> excess of it is disease. We 
seldom see a fat laborer or a fat soldier, except 
among the sergeants, who sometimes eat or 
drink too much. 
“Charcoal, which, next to w'ater, forms the 
chief ingredient in potatoes, is subsistency to 
life, though not to strength. The same is true 
of the charcoal, which is the main ingredient 
ol rice, sago, sugar, butter and fat. The wo- 
man atTutbury, who pretended to last for many 
days and weeks, sustained life by secretly suck- 
ing handkerchiefs charged wiih sugar or starch. 
During the manufacturers’ distress in Lanca- 
shire, five years ago, many ol the poor remain- 
ed in bed covered with blankets, where warmth 
and the absence of exercise lessened materially 
the need of food. When Sir John Franklin and 
his polar party travelled on snow nearly a fort- 
night without food, they fell no pain or hunger 
alter the second day; they became lean and 
weak by severe exercise and cold, but sustained 
lile by drinking warm water and sleeping in 
blankets with their feet round a fire. Alas, a 
knowledge of such facts may become needful 
and useful in the approaching winter. 
“ It has already been stated, that the most nu- 
tritious of all vegetable food is the flour of peas, 
which was the staple food in Europe before po- 
tatoes, The flour of kiln-dried peas stirred in 
hot water makes a strong and pleasant Scotch 
brose, on which alone a man may do good 
work. Barrels of peas brose flour may be 
brought from Scotland, or prepared in England 
wherever there is a malt-kiln. 
“In England, pea-soup and peas pudding are 
still a common and most nourishing lood. Our 
fore-fathers and their children, we know, from 
nursery rhymes, ate 
‘Peas pudding hot, peas pudding cold, 
Peas pudding in the pot and nine days old.’ 
“ Let US lor a part of this and next year once 
live as they lived 300 years ago. , Boiled or 
fried slices of peas pudding are not unsavory 
food; and what boy would not prefer parched 
peas to nuts? 
“Oat cake is the bread of all Scotland, and 
of much of Ireland, and of the north of England; 
and oafraeal made into broth and porridge, is 
the universal and almost the only food of high- 
land children Let those who have quailed un- 
der the charge of a highland regiment tell the 
results. 
“Bread made of rye is the chief food of far- 
mers and laborers in Germany and the north of 
Europe; it is of a dark color, and little used 
with us, but it is very nourishing, and in time 
ol scarcity is a good substitute lor wheat, 
“ Indian corn or maize is the food of man ov- 
er a large part of the world, and makes bread 
and cakes, not very palatable to us, but belter 
than nothing ! in time of scarcity.” 
Dr. B. places a low value on our much es- 
teemed Indian corn— admitting only that it 
makes “bread and ca'kes” which are “better 
than nothing in times of scarcity.” The taste 
lor different articles of food is undoubtedly form- 
ed in a great degree by habit. The Esquimaux 
relish the raw flesh and blubber of the seal — 
our American Indians their parched corn and 
bear’s oil— the Scotchman his broth of oats or 
peas, or bread made from those articles — while 
we in this country, who have duly learned the 
“ art and mystery” of cooking corn, consider it 
equally as “palatable” as any other ailicle oi 
bread-stuffs.— paper. 
[From the Olive Branch ] 
Green Crops. 
The subject ol turning in green crops as a 
means of enriching lands, has already been so 
frequently and ably discussed in most of our 
agricultural publications, that any allusion to 
its propriety at this time may appear absurd. 
Yet there are some points connected with the 
theory in which this practice is based, that it 
may not be improper to dwell upon, especially 
as the rationale of the system appears to be 
somewhat obscure to most minds, or involved 
in the intricacy of the principle which many 
of our farmers do not appear fully to understand. 
That the mere turning in of a crop should ac- 
tually conduce to the fertility of the soil on 
which it has grown, is what many have found 
it difficult to believe. There is, indeed, a diffi- 
culty with many in supposing that plants can 
actually grow and be matured without exhaus- 
tion of the soil which they contemplate as the 
only and sole medium through which all plants 
derive their nutriment, and to which, conse- 
quently, the plarits or vegetables so grown, can 
return no more paiwfrm than they receive. The 
vegetable physiologist, however, assumes a 
widely different position in relation to this im- 
portant point. He recognises the vegetable 
kingdom as divided into three grand and distinct 
orders or classes, and characterizes them, ac- 
cording to their different modes or habits of 
growth, by the three distinctive appellations of 
terrestrial, aquatic and ccrial; the first compri- 
sing that extensive order, the individuals of 
which are indigenous to dry and arable lands, 
and which derive the most important part of 
their pasturage Ircm the soil; — the second em- 
braces all plants to which the classical appella- 
tion aquatic mtiy justly be regarded as belong- 
ing, whether they be in their nature strictly ma- 
rine or submarine; — the third division con- 
tains only such as are known to derive a large 
portion of their subsistence, or the whole of it, 
from the air, and which are not, or appear not 
to be sensibly influenced by the nature of the 
soil to which they are confined. 
To illustrate each of these orders bj adistinct 
reference to individual plants would require 
more space than we have at present to devote. 
It will be necessary, however, to say that in se- 
lecting crops to be turned in, those ought in- 
variably to be preferred which derive their sus- 
tenance principally Ircin l;.e air. A slight 
