MEDITERRANEAN WHEAT.—TOPPING COTTON—MARL. 
343 
marl to best New York city manure for all grains 
and grapes. 
Mr. M. has the old English yew thriving in 
open air in winter. The European mountain ash, 
white and red linden, red maple, weeping ash, 
weeping beech, weeping elm, Madeira nut, (one 
five years old bearing fruit,) Spanish chestnut now 
in fruit, (this tree has also some blossoms on it at 
this time.) Apricots grafted on plum stock are 
very thrifty. 
A Remarkable Horse.— In passing through Mr. 
Maxwell’s barn-yard, I noticed a couple of horses, 
one of which was hoppled with a strong iron chain. 
What mischievous young horse have you there? 
He replied, it is my old family mare Kate, who 
has carried me, and my wife and children, safely 
lor the last one and twenty years ! I bought her 
when she was about four years old, but she will 
break fences now (wooden ones) with her irons 
on, she is so active and cunning. 
Locust Eggs. —I remarked at Nyack the work 
of the locust, and Mr. M. and Thomas Addis Em¬ 
met, Esq., examined with a good microscope, a 
twig worked by the little insect. The twig being 
split in the line of the work, exhibited the whole 
process of the egg deposite. The twig is pierced 
nearly to its centre at every three quarters of an 
inch, or nearly so; the wood is rendered fibrous, 
it is then lifted up, and the eggs, which are of a 
long, oval form, are deposited side by side at an 
angle of about 45 degrees to the grain of the twig, 
and the fibrous tuft of wood placed over them, 
with its end sticking out; these incisions being 
repeated every inch on a line for some few inches 
in each twig. With the microscope, we saw the 
eyes of the young locusts always heads to the 
centre. The general outline of the young animal 
was perceptible through its delicate membranous 
cover. They moved slightly on being disturbed. 
Almost every twig so operated on by the locust 
was entirely dead. The magnifying power of the 
microscope was perhaps 40 or 50. 
Value of an Orchard.— I visited an apple 
orchard at Nyack, which arrested my attention by 
its regular and healthy appearance. I found young 
Van Houton at home, who, with perfect good 
feeling and true politeness, gave me the account 
of the orchard which I desired. When his father 
was about fifty years of age, he undertook to plant 
150 winter pippin-trees on that spot. His neigh¬ 
bors thought him an old fool to plant twigs of 
apple at his time of day. Young Van Houton, 
then about 16 years of age, held the little nurslings 
in the holes while his father filled in the soil. 
The old gentleman continued to prune them, so 
that they are widely branched and open for air 
and sun within the mass of branches. For twenty 
or twenty-two years past, the old gentleman has 
often received $1,000 a year for his apples. 
Sometimes $6 per barrel; sometimes sold in the 
orchard for $1 per barrel. That old gentleman 
and his wife are now, between them, 174 years 
old. Let no man be afraid to plant winter pippins 
because he is fifty or sixty years of age. 
I have been highly pleased with my excursion. 
When gentlemen of high rank in learned profes¬ 
sions are found turning that intellectual force 
which has influenced the most wealthy and intel¬ 
ligent portion of mankind, from law, politics, &c., 
to that greatest, best of all arts—agriculture, I 
look for good results and I find them. The old 
world is hard at work in this direction, and I hope 
that we shall watch her operations with the eye 
of our own bird, and see to it, that we be not ex¬ 
celled in any good thing. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
MEDITERRANEAN WHEAT. 
'Wheatland , Va., November 2 , 1843. 
I have noticed your remarks in the October No. 
of your paper, on the Mediterranean wheat. Your 
views coincided with mine when I first sowed this 
variety of wheat; but I have sown it now for two 
seasons, and the change has been so great in the 
color, as to convince me that by cultivating it here, 
it will lose its dark color, and become as good in 
that respect, and yield as much flour as any wheat 
we have. The two seasons I have raised it, it 
has been the best wheat I had. I have doubts 
whether it will tiller as much as some other varie¬ 
ties, and therefore sow it much thicker. 
Robert L. Wright. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
TOPPING COTTON—MARL. 
Sumpter District , S. C., Nov. kth, 1843. 
In those excellent matter-of-fact articles on the 
cultivation of cotton, which have appeared in the 
late numbers of your paper, by Dr. Philips of 
Miss., and which, by the way, are the best I have 
ever seen on the subject, I do not recollect that he 
has touched upon the subject of topping cotton. 
I have made one experiment in this, and was 
pleased with the result. Some planters north of 
us, I understand, have also tried this method, and 
find the cotton is not so apt to shed, as when it is 
not topped, especially in wet seasons. Ordinarily 
we reckon the first week in August the best time 
for topping; but this, of course, will depend upon 
the season, and the forwardness of the crop—for 
sometimes it must be earlier, and sometimes la¬ 
ter. 
I tried the effects of what I suppose to be marl, 
on a small spot in one of my fields, say about one 
acre. The marl I judge to be of poor quality, yet 
can not say, positively, as I have no analysis of it. 
I dug it out in January last, and spread it broad¬ 
cast, at the rate of 30 loads to the acre, as large 
as an ordinary pair of mules would carry. It seem¬ 
ed to pulverize well, exposed to the severe frost 
of last winter, and I plowed it in deeper than I 
usually plow, and harrowed the land well. The 
result is, I shall get full one third if not one half 
more cotton off of this piece than any other part of 
the field, which more than pays me for the trou¬ 
ble. 
I need not say that we read the articles on ma¬ 
nures in the Agriculturist with much interest; for 
many of us are beginning to learn that it is not only 
easier and better, but even cheaper to renovate our 
old lands, than emigrate to a new country and 
bring new lands into cultivation. C. McD. 
