AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
143 
as early; although in regard to this latter point 
it is true that an inferior plant will often ripen 
what seed it hears earlier than one which takes 
a better hold of the soil, and remains green and 
growing a longer time. Corn planted north of 
lat. 41° before the middle of May ought 
not to be much soaked. There is too much 
danger of a cold rain setting in which will 
cause the seed to rot in the ground. But planted 
during or after the third week in May, it is com¬ 
monly safe enough to soak it. If it be soaked 
in water containing blue vitriol, seeds of smut 
will be destroyed. A good plan is to use com¬ 
mon pine tar, (not coal tar,) dissolving a quart 
of tar to a gallon of warm water, and stirring 
the corn in the fluid. Then dry it with plaster; 
a small quantity of lime may well be added to 
the plaster, to destroy any smut. This prepara¬ 
tion is not only a fertilizer, but renders the seed 
distasteful to crows, blackbirds, squirrels, etc. 
Corn planting implements are very desirable, 
and labor-saving. Billing’s planter is one of 
the oldest and best. It plants corn in hills or 
drills at distances varying within certain limits, 
drops a fertilizer in the hill if that be desired, 
and art the same time plants beans between the 
hills and without manure, if it be arranged for 
this purpose. There are doubtless other corn 
planters, perhaps equally .good or better, but 
with this we are more familiar. It is seldom 
worth while to plant field corn before the 15th 
of May, north of this latitude, and at the far 
north it is seldom possible. We advise planting 
all varieties of flint corn (that is the white, and 
yellow, or red 8 or 10 rowed varieties which are 
the common field corn of the northeastern States) 
in drills so that when finally thinned out, it shall 
average about one stalk to 10 inches—the 
drills 8 to 8,£ feet or more apart, according to 
the kind of corn. Manure applied in the hills or 
drills is often of marked benefit, and very small 
quantities are often quite as effective as larger. 
Even soaking the seed in water containing ni¬ 
tre, or nitrate of soda, has a great effect. Stall 
manure applied on the surface, and harrowed in, 
is most available to the corn crop, whether the 
soil be deep or shallow, rich or poor, hard or 
mellow. On very sandy land, lightly plowing it 
in,.is better than harrowing. 
Sorghum Syrup Produced at the far North. 
Our call for information in regard to the cul¬ 
ture of the Chinese sugar cane above latitude 44° 
is responded to by a subscriber to the Agricultur¬ 
ist, in southern Minnesota, whose experience is ■ 
instructive. He writes: “ I have experimented 
with sorghum for three seasons. The first year 
I made eighteen gallons of miserably poor mo¬ 
lasses from one fourth of an acre of cane so 
nearly ripe that about one seed in twenty would 
grow. The second year I made fifty gallons, 
good, bad, and indifferent, from half an acre of 
perfectly green canes, not a seed colored and 
many seed heads were not in sight. Last year I 
made of entirely unripe canes, beautiful molas¬ 
ses, needing no ‘refining,’ at the rate of one 
hundred gallons per acre. My practice is, to 
keep everything clean; to grind the canes as 
soon as cut, and boil the juice speedily, in a 
shallow vessel; to reject all purifiers, especially 
alkalies; to remove the green coloring matter 
which gives the unpleasant flavor, by frequent 
strainings and thorough skimming. Having 
ascertained that with the rudest kind of appa¬ 
ratus, prime molasses can be made from unripe 
canes, I intend next season to plant several 
acres, and procure better apparatus for manu¬ 
facturing the syrup. At half the present prices 
of ‘ sweetening,’ it is the most profitable busi¬ 
ness to which we can apply our industry, here in 
Southern Minnesota.” Wm. M. Bunnell. 
Timothy Mowing Lands. 
Timothy is a poor pasture grass. That every 
body knows. The close browsing herd will 
soon rid a field of it, except in the hedge rows 
where they can not crop close. The reason of 
this is not because the root is somewhat bulbous, 
for we can not understand why that should af¬ 
fect it one way or another, but the fact is that 
the dormant buds at the crown of the root or 
the base of the stem need the influence of some 
foliage to cause them to start. The root alone is 
very likely to be unable to produce another vig¬ 
orous shoot, and so it dies, or is greatly injured. 
Thus it is the very worst policy to let cattle of 
any kind closely feed down Timothy mead¬ 
ows at any time of the year, and particularly in 
Spring where the full vigor of the root should go 
to the unimpeded development of the plant. 
Timothy appears to receive more of a shock from 
cutting than almost any other of our common 
grasses, and almost uniformly makes a poor 
aftermath. A dressing of manure upon Timo¬ 
thy mowings immediately after haying, seems 
to counteract this evil. Not only may a good 
aftermath of Timothy be secured, but all other 
grasses, so far as we know, are more benefitted by 
manuring at this season than at any other. * 
Prepared for the American Agriculturist. 
Gleaning in Foreign Fields. 
BT ElilHU BUBRITT. 
Utilizing - Uondosa. Sewerage.—One of 
the greatest works of modem times is proposed for 
forcing London to give back to the lands that feed 
it, some compensation in the shape of fertilizing 
material. The amount of sewerage it has hitherto 
poured into the Thames from its subterranean ar¬ 
teries, is estimated at 368,667,090 tuns per annum. 
Its value, in the diluted state, is estimated at 4 cts. 
per tun, which would make the whole annual vol¬ 
ume amount to over $10,000,000. It is proposed to 
force this up into elevated reservoirs, at some dis¬ 
tance from the city, on each side of the river; each 
reservoir to be 15 feet deep, and cover a space of 
from 10 to 13 acres. From these it is to be distrib¬ 
uted by a system like that of the Croton Water¬ 
works. Any farmer who wishes to turn a fertiliz¬ 
ing stream upon his land, will be furnished with a 
supply pipe, and a meter, to register the amount he 
draws from the main, for which he is to pay as for 
gas or Croton Water, at a certain stipulated price. 
Should this experiment succeed, who knows but 
that it may cheapen the price of guano in America, 
by lessening the English demand for that article. 
Uectiive osi 0*igs. —{Illustrated by Speci¬ 
mens.) —Mr. Stevens, the Prince of the Pig Ring in 
England, who has taken the highest prizes at the 
National Exhibitions, recently delivered a lecture 
on the subject before the Farmers’ Club, at Fram¬ 
ingham, Suffolk Co. He made a grand entree into 
the town with a procession of ornamental cars, 
containing living specimens of the White Suffolk, 
his favorite breed. These were introduced into the 
hall, and behaved with much decorum, and showed 
good breeding as well as breed. Specimens of the 
feeding troughs, and of the pens, were also exhibit¬ 
ed. In his address he advised making the floors 
of asphalte, and keeping the pigs warm and dry, 
washing and scrubbing them frequently, feed¬ 
ing them with warm food, etc. To prevent the 
sows crushing the pigs by lying down on them, he 
placed a railing around the inside of the pen, from 
9 to 13 inches high, and about a foot from the wall, 
so that the pigs could, pass between the sow and 
the wall without a'ffy danger of being hurt. To 
prevent the sow eating her pigs, he had their side 
teeth nipped out, when they were three or four 
days old, in case they projected. This put a stop to 
their biting the sow, and being bitten in return. 
Mr. Stevens thought he had reached the extreme 
point of progress, in producing pigs weighing 300 
lbs., when five months old. Many an American 
farmer can tell a larger story than that. Why 
would it not be a good and proper thing to chal¬ 
lenge Uncle John Bull to meet Brother Jonathan in 
the lists of cattle, sheep, and swine next Christmas? 
We doubt if he could turn out a bullock in the 
Three Kingdoms that would outweigh John San¬ 
derson’s ox. (And it is a question if we can next 
Christmas.—E d.) 
Agvieultiwal Machinery.—Those Amer¬ 
icans who visited the Great Exhibition in London 
in 1851, will remember how meagre, at first sight, 
was the show of American art and genius, as com¬ 
pared with the contributions of some other coun¬ 
tries. They well remember the satires of Punch , 
and the ponderous wit of the London Times, at 
our expense. They will remember with what su¬ 
percilious distrust the American Mowing Machine 
was peered at, even by English farmers; how back¬ 
ward they were even to allow it to be tried on their 
fields. But, before that Crystal Palace was taken 
down, the London Times had the grace to admit, 
that if nothing else but the American Mowing Ma¬ 
chine had been brought to the notice of Europe in 
that grand edifice, its expense would have been 
well repaid. In 1859, it is stated, that 4,000 reaping- 
machines were at work during harvest, in England, 
capable of cutting more in a day than 40,000 able- 
bodied laborers. 
Curious Mantu-ial Estimates.—Pro¬ 
fessors Hembstadt and Schubler recently brought 
out an interesting table, showing the comparative 
virtues of different fertilizers, which the farmers 
might work at with profit. It is assumed that or¬ 
dinary land without manure-will produce a crop of 
grain equal to 3 times the seed sown; manured 
with herbage, grass leaves, etc., 5 times ; cow dung, 
7; pigeon’s dung, 9; horse dung, 10 ; sheep’s, dung, 
13; human urine, 13; human manure or bullock’s 
blood, 14. The last, consequently, is the best fer¬ 
tilizer in the world. It has been estimated that a 
single individual produces 500 lbs. of urine per an¬ 
num, which Prof. Johnston shows is worth $50 per 
tun. A village of 1000 inhabitants would consequent¬ 
ly produce 350 tuns in a year, which would be worth, 
at this rate, more than $10,000. The population of 
New-York and Brooklyn would furnish annually for 
country farms $10,000,000 worth of this fertilizing 
material, if it could all be saved for that purpose. 
Bee Culture.—Austria would seem, from au¬ 
thentic accounts, to be ahead of all other countries 
in bee-culture. The annual production, in honey 
and wax, is valued at $15,000,000. Hungary leads 
all the other departments of the empire, producing 
90,000 quintals (100 lb.) of honey annually; Galicia 
comes next, with 85,000 quintals; Transylvania, 
50,000; while Upper Austria yields only 1,800. The 
total number of bee-hives is put at 3,733,000; aver¬ 
aging 370 to the square mile. If there were as 
many cows to the square mile, truly Austria might 
be regarded a land flowing with milk and honey. 
Winter Irrigation in Italy.—This is 
an operation of great importance to Italian farm¬ 
ers. The right to water their meadows begins on 
the 8th of September, and ends on the 35th of 
March. The constant passage of the water over the 
roots of the grass stimulates the growth, but it also 
carries off a considerable portion of surface soil, 
renderin^ft necessary to make up this exhaustion 
by manuring the meadows twice a year. Five crops 
of grass are generally obtained on them in a 
year. To prepare them costs from $50 to $60 per 
acre, and the annual produce gives a profit of 
about $30. Others, near Milan, yield twice this 
quantity, as they are cut in November, January, 
March, and April, for stall feeding; and in June, Ju¬ 
ly, and August, give three crops of hay, with abun¬ 
dant pastprage for September. They thus give 
seven crops a year, and the annual yield is immense, 
