66 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
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compeer in brawny strength and stateliness; 
but for the last twenty years a fell disease has 
so afflicted it, that unless it soon recovers, it is 
wasting time to plant it. 
After all that has been said, we advise the 
planter of shade and ornamental trees, desiring 
the full attainment of success, as a general rule, 
to watch the trees in the forests near to him, 
and in his selections to plant those kinds mainly, 
which appear the most vigorous, healthy, and 
flourishing in tho soils like those into which he 
is about to transplant them. When selected 
from tho forest, it is better to take very young 
trees, not over three to five feet high, otherwise 
they are very liable 10 die, especially when set 
out in exposed situations; and in any event, in 
five to seven years, the smaller tree will have 
overtaken the larger one, and after that rapidly 
pass it. 
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AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 
We welcome to our columns the author of 
the following, which is one of that class of 
well-written articles—containing food for the 
thought—with which we delight to store our 
columns from week to week. We do not recog¬ 
nize the writer by his initials, and we hope that 
he will favor us with his name and further ac¬ 
quaintance. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Knowledge is an accumulation of facts; from 
these are deduced principles, which, formed into 
a system, become a science. Experience, that 
teacher of age and celebrity, is simply an obser¬ 
vation of occurrences, extending over a greater 
or less period of time, and depending for value 
upon the skill and accuracy with which the ob¬ 
servations have been conducted, and upon the 
extensiveness of application of which their de¬ 
ductions are capable. From the earliest periods 
of civilization to the present, all arts and sci¬ 
ences have been greaty indebted to experiments, 
conducted for the express purpose of ascertain¬ 
ing some fact by which to establish a principle. 
It is true, that many of the arts have derived 
much valuable aid from accident, or rather from 
observation made upon accidental occurrences, 
and that the truths and principles derived there¬ 
from have rendered large service to the cause of 
progress. Yet ere the crude suggestions fur¬ 
nished by accident could be matured into prin¬ 
ciples of value, there has been required in every 
case, much of laborious research and patient 
investigation, by which to determine the true 
value of the suggestion, and to bring it into a 
state of the greatest utility. 
Agricultural science is preeminently a science 
of fact; its ramifications are as extensive as the 
earth, with its fruits and the influence which 
affect their production—its animals, and the 
causes which may injure or benefit them. Here, 
then, is a field for experiment, for careful and 
thorough experiment. Theory in this scienco 
is worthless, unless it be sustained by an array 
of convincing facts, and the manner in which 
these are to be procured is by investigation. 
Farmers, as a class, possess excellent facilities 
for the prosecution of experiments, and there is 
assuredly ample room and verge enough, in the 
matter of choosing a subject, for the same. 
There are many valuable discoveries in natural 
science yet remaining to be made. There are 
many “ mooted points” in the economies of ag¬ 
riculture, concerning which the men of theory 
will never form a harmonious conclusion, and 
even if they succeed in so doing, their determi¬ 
nation will be of small value, if not supported 
by the testimony of facts, deduced from careful 
observations. 
The season of life, growth, and activity, is 
opening upon us, and even now is passing the 
last “day of grace” in which the cultivator of 
the soil may chalk out the plans for the coming 
campaign. To let each and every one who 
would add to the knowledge of his time, bene¬ 
fit his fellows, and lend a legacy to the future, 
select some point upon which he desires addi¬ 
tional information, and proceed to make it the 
subject of thorough study, and careful experi¬ 
ment, conducted with all the skill and intelligence, 
of which he is master. 
In choosing a subject upon which to expend 
thought and labor, each farmer should be guided 
by the desire to render the results of his work 
of the greatest possible utility, hence he should 
select some point, for the elucidation of which, 
he has the most extensive natural facilities, and 
with which he is most competent to grapple. 
I counsel none to attempt any thing which 
will subject them to loss or inconvenience, but 
let each act according to his means and ability. 
If these are large, he can take up some point of 
the greatest intefest, and be able to expend 
means and labor upon it without injury to him¬ 
self, and with much benefit to society. 
The man of smaller means can choose a task, 
requiring in its prosecution less of time and la¬ 
bor, with no other expense, and yet produce, 
by thought and care, a result which will benefit 
himself, not only by the fact arrived at, but also 
by the very labor and thought required in the 
process itself. 
True it is, that the results of experiment are 
not infallible, not always valuable, even, yet if 
they be conducted with care and skill, they can 
scarcely fail to add something to the fund of 
useful knowledge. Suppose that the foregoing 
suggestions be carried into practice, and at the 
close of the experiment, the results be written 
out and furnished to our friends—the agricul¬ 
tural editors—who doubts that something useful 
may result therefrom. I, at least, do not, and 
hence throw out these few crude suggestions, in 
the hope that some person may be spurred to 
action. J. G. R. 
Dryden, H. Y. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
HOVEN IN CATTLE. 
A REMEDY WmCH HAS BEEN TRIED AND FOUND 
EFFECTUAL. 
Being in “ the cars” a day or two since, I was 
compelled to play the eaves-dropper to the con¬ 
versation of a couple of intelligent-looking farm¬ 
ers. They were talking of the cause and cure 
of “ Horen ” in neat cattle. I was really in hopes 
to learn something new; but not so, for after 
discussing the merits of many exploded reme¬ 
dies, they came to the conclusion that ‘‘ stick¬ 
ing” the dumb sufferer—as they called it—was 
the best cure, which was explained by a descrip¬ 
tion, as near as I can remember, “ to stick a 
knife between two of the animal’s short ribs, a 
little way from the back bone, deep enough to 
reach the paunch, and he’ll get well at once.” 
Now, without a word in condemnation of this 
barbarous practice, it is plain that the cause 
still remains, although the effects may be in 
some measure removed. Recent conversations 
with those who have the care'of neat cattle, con¬ 
vince me that there are many people that are 
ignorant as to some of the causes, effects, and o f 
a single humane cure, for the dumb sufferers. 
Although I am no veterinarian, yet I have in 
years past seen many valuable animals suffer 
and some die of nothing but “ wind hoven,” as 
it was then called; and by numerous inquiries 
and observation, I found that hoven was pro¬ 
duced by several causes, such as gorging large 
quantities of green clover, green corn, cabbage, 
and such like vegetables, apples, potatoes, new 
corn, oats, or other grain; and occasionally by 
violent exercise, such as jumping a fence, run¬ 
ning after eating heartily, and by drinking while 
very warm. 
When an animal gluts on any food, imperfect 
mastication is the result, and if the quantity 
thus eaten is large, the temperature of the sto¬ 
mach is lowered to such a degree that fermenta¬ 
tion is favored, which generates carbonic acid 
gas, and unless it finds an exit, the animal is at 
once “ hoven.” I remember to have seen one 
animal opened that had died of hoven, and it 
was found to have originated from the stoppage 
of the orifice leading from the large to the small 
stomach, by a small wad of com husks. 
I opened one that died of hoven produced by 
leaping a fence; and found that about one foot 
of the intestine that leads from the small stomach 
was completely closed by inflammation. 
But from whatever cause hoven is produced, 
the effect sometimes is a swelling of the en¬ 
tire chest of the animal, often to such a degree 
as to stop the breath, at others a rupture 
of some one of the intestines, or if not a rupture 
an inflammation sets in, dropsy ensues, and too 
often death is the final, result. After I had 
learned the above facts, I thought that a remedy 
might be administered that would remove the 
cause without injury to the dumb sufferer, and 
my first trial was attended with a happy result, 
nor have I known it to fail, though it would do 
so unless given in proper season, which is as 
soon as the animal is found to be hoven. 
The remedy is simply to give to a common 
sized cow, a quart of white-wash, larger cattle 
more, and smaller ones less. Repeat the dose 
when relief does not follow, in thirty minutes. 
It would be well to move the animal so as to 
mix the medicine well in the stomach, and thus 
bring the lime in contact with the gases, which 
it readily absorbs, reducing the bulk, and leav¬ 
ing not over half a pint of powered lime to oc¬ 
cupy the space of gallons of tho gas. Every 
chemist knows just how the whole acts, but 
lest some one may not know how to prepare . 
the white-wash, I will give the best method, or 
what I have found to be so : 
Take a lump not larger than a hen’s egg of 
fresh burned lime, such as is commonly used for 
white-wash, slack it in warm water, adding 
enough to make the wash not quite as thick as 
cream. Administer it cold. In the whole of 
the above, I have tried to avoid any technicali¬ 
ties by using the common language of our farm¬ 
ers. J. H. D. 
Morristown, March. 
We once had a herd of cows break into a field 
of corn while the grain was in the milk. They 
gorged themselves, but all got over it except 
one, which died the third day. The usual rem¬ 
edies were resorted to, in order to effect a pas¬ 
sage, together with injection — administered i 
through an unbreeched gun-barrel, instead of a 
syringe which was not at hand—but all without 
effect. On opening her, the upper and lower 
stomach, together with the intestines, were 
filled with stalks and husks of green corn, all as 
dry as if they had been lying in the sun. The 
white-wash would scarcely have effected a cure 
in this case. 
- 1 -»«-- 
A Cow woRTn nAviNa.' —John W. Wilson 
writes to the Hampshire Gazette: “I have a 
cow from whose milk sixty pounds and five 
ounces of butter were made in twenty-eight 
days, in the month of December, 1853. This 
