THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
165 
knowledge of botany and the physiology of 
plants will be amply sufficient to direct tht 
operator aright in this matter, and to unfold to 
him some of the complicated system of laws 
by which the beautiful and wonderful economy 
of vegetable nutrition is so admirably governed 
and controlled. “Nature isa skilful worknaan,” 
and orders every thing so as best to subserve the 
great and important purpose for which it was 
designed— the welfare and happiness of man. 
Of the many crops usually selected by our 
farmers, for this purpose, buckwheat, peas and 
clover are probably in best repute, ft may 
here be further remarked, that all plants of the 
culmiferous character, or which are distinguish- 
ed by a profusion of broad and expansive fo- 
liage, are those which derive the largest portion 
of their nutriment from the air; — those plants 
having small leaves, being considered gross feed- 
ers, and consequently powerful exhausters of 
the soil. 
During the last ten years, the practice of turn- 
ing in green crops, has been extensively adopt- 
ed, and so far as our knowledge extends, attend- 
ed with the best results. Old worn out fields, 
which hardly repaid the cost of cultivation, 
have, by this means, been thoroughly renovated, 
and at a less cost than they could have been in 
any other way. In traversing through the 
country, we often seen farms which have been 
reduced by an erroneous and emasculating pro- 
cess of cultivation, to the state of barren heath. 
These, by turning in the slight vegetation they 
produce and following up the plan with a dress- 
ing of either of the above named crops, in their 
most juicy and succulent state, with afew bush- 
els of caustic lime to promote fermentation, 
and correct the acidity always to a greater or 
less degree traceable in such soils, would en- 
due them with a degree of productive energy 
that would render them fertile for years. 
“ ’Tis folly in the extreme to till 
Extensive fields and till them ill ; 
Shrewd common sense sits laughing by, 
And sees your hof^s abortive, die. 
For more one fertile acre yields, 
Than the huge breadth of barren fields.” 
The most proper time for turning in every 
species of green crop is w’hen the plants are in 
bloom. Some writers have recommended de- 
ferring the operation till the crop has become 
matured, but this is contrary to the dictates of 
experience, though the result may, in some ca- 
ses, have been attended with success, VV. 
From the American Quarterly Journal. 
Experiments on So^Tiug Corn for Fodder. 
It is not often in these advancing days of 
knowledge in farming, that we find a series of 
experiments conducted with more accuracy 
than were those which follow. I have procur- 
ed them from the son of the farmer who con- 
ducted them, and the notes are the original ones 
in the hand-writing of the farmer himself. I 
wish it were more common for our farmers to 
make accurate memoranda of everything they 
do. But to the experiments. They are as fol- 
lows: 
1. On the Istof June, 18’23, S. B. sowed in a 
drill bird corn, very thick, on account ol its 
smallness. The kernels were sown about one 
inch apart, or, in other words, one kernel to one 
inch square. The size of the bed sown was9i 
feet by 3 feet. The prod uce was cut on the 25th 
of August, and weighed fifty pounds in the 
green state. The proportionate produce per 
acre would be 34 24-100 tons, green fodder.. 
One month after, say about the 20th of Sep- 
tember, the product weighed, when perfectly 
dry, 17| pounds, which would give per acre 
about 12 tons dry fodder. This kind of Indian 
corn is called bird corn, and half a pint contains 
2,400 kernels, or 307,200 to the bushel. One 
quart will sow 66 square feet, and it contains 
9,600 kernels, 
Rhode Island corn is next best, and contains 
566 kernels to the half pint. One quart con- 
tains 2,264, and will sow sixteen square feet. 
Eight rowed corn is next, half a pint contain- 
ing 580 kernels; quart, 2,320 kernels, and will 
sow 16 square feet. 
Next is flour corn, halfa pint containing 360 
kernels; one quart, 1,440 kernels, and will sow 
ten feet square. Southerner gourd seed corn 
ranks the same as this exactly. 
2. Friday, May 29th, 1820. Sowed 19 quarts 
of flour corn on 150 square feet of ground. It 
yielded 14 bundles of corn fodder, which weigh- 
ed 58 pounds. It was cut on the 8th of Sep- 
tember, and secured on the 4th of October. 
Yield per acre, 7 tons, 10 cwt,, 1 qr., 15 lbs. 
3. Friday, May 29th, 1829, Sowed 8 quarts 
of Southern or gourd seed coru on 150 square 
feet of ground. It yielded 9 bundles, which 
weighed 38 pounds. It was cut on the 8th of 
September, and secured on the 4th of October. 
The yield per acre was 4 tons, 18 cwt., 2 qrs., 
3 lbs. 
4. May 30th, 1829. Sowed eight rowed white 
corn on 130 square feet ol ground. Gathered 
12 bundles, which weighed 51 pounds. It was 
cut on the §th of September, and secured Octo- 
ber 4th. Yield per acre, 7 tons, 12 cwt,, 2 qrs., 
8 lbs. 
in this experiment the quantity sown is not 
mentioned, but' was probably the same as in the 
2J experiment. 
5. June 12th, 1830. Sowed 3 bushels of tall 
corn for fodder, on apiece of land 92 by 32 feet. 
Cut on the 1st of September, Gross weight, 1 
ton, 10 cwt., 0 qr., 16 lbs. Neat weight 579 lbs. 
The weather was very dry from the I2th of 
June to the 1st of September, which is 2 months, 
18 days. 1 am confident it was not near half a 
crop. II it had been sown earlier it would have 
been better. 
I will here add one thing more from the note 
book of this farmer, for he seems to have been 
rather a curious man. 
May 3, 1832. Counted the grains or kernels 
in half a pint of broom corn. They are 4,850 
or 1,241,600 in a bushel. 
Now how easy it would be for every farmer 
to keep a little note book, in which he could put 
down anything he does, and preserve it for the 
benefit of others. It would produce habits of 
confidence in himself, and encourage such ha- 
bits in others, Every boy and girl brought up 
on a farm should be obliged every day to note 
down everything they do, and at night to make 
up a full journal of the whole day’s operations. 
By this course they would soon become intelli- 
gent and observing. 
From the Farmers’ Library. 
Cattle Trade. 
The curious fact in swineology is affirmed by 
a Kentucky drover, that his hogs which weigh- 
ed one hundred and fifty at starting, reached an 
average of one hundred and eighty on arriving 
at New York — being nearly half a pound a day 
while on the journey. On the other hand, the 
loss of weight— or “drift,” as it is called — of 
cattle is equal to one hundred and fifty pounds, 
which a bullock of one thousand pounds weight 
at leaving home, lessens on his way to the At- 
lantic butcher. This drift, or loss, it is observ- 
ed, is chiefly first in the kidney and fat of the 
entrails. It has been ascertained that a hog will 
set out on his journey to that bourne whence no 
such traveller returns, so lat as to have no cavi- 
ty or vacuum in his corporation. If, as he jour- 
neys on, you don’t feed him, he lives first upon 
and consumes his gut fat, then his kidney fat, 
and, lastly, his carcass wastes away, 
In driving cattle^ tlie practice is to stop (but 
not to feed) for an hour at mid-day, when the 
cattle, in less than five minutes, all lie down to 
rest, 
A drove of one hundred and twenty cattle, as 
easily driven as a smaller number, is usually 
attended by a “ manager”' on horseback and two 
footmen. One footman goes ahead, leading an 
ox the whole way, say eight hundred miles. 
The manager on horseback takes his station be- 
hind the first forty head, and the third man on 
foot brings up the rear. There are stations 
along the whole route— country taverns, often 
' teptby the owner of the adjoining farm, who 
^us finds a market for his own produce, and 
%eps at any rate a constant supply of what is 
needed for the drover. Wending their way 
through Ohio, the farmer supplies them with 
that glorious plant, the pride of oar country, In- 
dian corn, as they have feasted on it at home, 
stalk, blade and grain altogether; but, when on 
their melancholy journey, they touch the line of 
Pennsylvania, Mynheer brings forth his fragrant 
hay and corn already shucked, and finally, when 
they come late enough to market they are turned 
at night into grass lots, prepared and kept for 
the purpose. 
The cattle reared in the corn regions of the 
West, especially in Ohio and Kentucky, have 
been heavily dashed with the short horn blood, 
by which their average weight has been in- 
creased, it is said, about two hundred pounds, 
with great improvement in their fattening pro- 
perties and the quality of the meat. 
A Kentucky farmer would now be very loth 
to let a bull of the much vaunted old Bakewell 
breed, w’ith his straight back and long horns and 
fat all to itself overlaying the carcass, come 
within a ten foot pole ol his herd of cows. Cat- 
tle with a strong infusion of the improved short 
horn blood, as by the late celebrated grazier, 
Steenbergen, are still esteemed to be preferable 
to the full blood, as being more thrifty and ac- 
tive. 
For obvious reasons, cattle are not so much 
transported on railroads in this country as in 
England, where the distances from the feeding 
place to the market are so much shorter. 
Cattle will go very well on a railroad for 12 
hours together, but then they must lie down, 
which they cannot do in the cars like a bog, that 
lets himself down and sleeps on the space upon 
which he stands. The charge, too, oh the rail- 
roads in aur country is too high. For lame bul- 
locks that are sometimes sent from Harrisburg 
to the Philadelphia market, they charge half as 
much as it costs to drive them all the way— se- 
ven hundred and fifty or eight hundred miles — 
from Kentucky to New York— the one being $8, 
the other estimated at about $16, ' 
The last of the Western cattle arrive in New 
York about the 1st of August, when they are 
driven out ot the market by the grass-fed herds 
of more neighboring regions. The cost of road 
expenses of a drove of one hundred head from 
Kentucky is about $1500. Some of the latter 
droves come in on grass at a less expense; 
but, as before intimated, the decline or “ drift,” 
is greater than when fed on hay and corn, and 
the beef not so good. 
Agricultural Chemistry. 
No manure can be taken up by the roots of 
plants, unless water is present; and water or 
its elements exists in all the products of vegeta- 
tion. The germination of seeds does not take 
place without the presence of air or oxygen gas. 
Plants are found by analysis to consist prin- 
cipally of charcoal and aeriform matter. They 
give out by distillation volatile compounds, the 
elements of which are pure air, coally matter, 
inflammable air, and azote, or the elastic sub- 
stance which forms a part of the atmosphere, 
and which is capable ol supporting combustion. 
These elements they gain either by their leaves 
from the air, or by their roots from the soil. 
All manures from organized substances con- 
tain the principles ol vegetable matter, which, 
during putrefaction, are rendered either soluble 
in water or aeriform— and in these states, they 
are capable of being assimilated to the vegeta- 
ble organs. No one principle affords the pabu- 
lum ot vegetable life; it is neither charcoal nor 
hydrogen, nor azote, nor oxygen alone, but all of 
them together, in various states and various 
combinations. 
Plants require only a certain quantity of ma- 
nure, and excess may be detrimental, and cannot 
be useful. 
Slaked lime was used by the Romans for ma- 
nuring the soil in which fruit trees grew. This 
we are informed by Pliny. 
