20 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
or three days with Indian meal scalded, and 
as much of the common red pepper as they 
would eat, which never failed to restore a 
healthy appearance in my flock. But as a 
preventive, I always kept their roost-house 
well ventilated by day, and night too; in warm 
weather, well cleaned, and often sprinkled 
with lime and plaster ; and in winter, their 
roost-poles covered with cloth. For feed, 
white or yellow corn, wheat and barley in 
the fall and winter, with a plenty of clean 
water, and fresh oyster-shells pounded, and 
a good range; hens, if good, and other things 
equal, will lay 250 eggs per year apiece, or 
they did for me, and I tried the business for ten 
years. Such hens as I kept on the above 
feed would eat per day, equal in value to one 
quart of corn to every ten hens, allowing the 
corn and barley to be the same price, and 
wheat double to that of either, the hens 
having always at hand as much as they 
could eat. Barley will cause hens to be 
broody; and hence must be fed sparingly 
except in cold weather and early winter. 
Rye will stop them from laying or anything 
else, as it is very purgative to fowls. H. 
Morristown, N. J. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
THE GLACIERS. 
It is well known that, at a certain height 
above the level of the sea, mountains are 
covered with snow throughout the year. 
This point of elevation is called “ the line of 
perpetual congelation.” Many suppose that 
the snow never melts above this line. Here¬ 
in is a mistake. The line of perpetual con¬ 
gelation is determined solely by the fact, 
that, during a single revolution of the sea¬ 
sons, all the snow that falls in that year is 
melted, and no more. If the snow never 
melted, the highest mountains on the globe, 
would be continually increasing in size and 
elevation. But such is not the fact. At the 
equator, the line of perpetual congelation is 
at 16,000 feet above the sea. In Swit¬ 
zerland, it falls to 8,700 feet. The line varies 
with the latitude. Every snow-clad moun¬ 
tain is not a glacier. The glaciers are not 
found, in all places, where the cold is suffi¬ 
cient to form them. They are peculiar to 
certain ranges of mountains. They fill the 
valleys among the Alps. Each glacier re¬ 
sembles a mighty river instantaneously con¬ 
gealed. Its surface corresponds with the de¬ 
clining bed on which it rests ; except that it 
is thrown into swells and ridges, resembling 
the waves of the ocean in a storm. It is, 
literally, a frozen torrent. The snow that 
falls upon it in winter, disappears in sum¬ 
mer, and the frozen current is constantly in 
motion, advancing to the plains below. How 
remarkable is this phenomenon : Its lower 
extremity is daily thrust forward into the 
green and sunny vales at the foot of the 
mountain. Immense quantities of earth and 
rocks are forced along, by this solid mass of 
ice, into the cultivated regions below. The 
glacier, therefore, is wasted at the base and 
renewed at the top. 
The progress made by these frozen 
streams varies in different valleys, and in 
different years. The “ Mer de Glace ” the 
largest of the Swiss glaciers, moved one 
year only 40 feet; in another year, 442 feet. 
The velocity of different portions of the 
same mass also varies. The middle moves 
faster than the sides. The lower end of the 
glacier is always invading the cultivated 
fields of the peasants. If the motion be slow, 
the extremity melts away as fast as it ad¬ 
vances, yielding a cold, turbid stream of wa¬ 
ter at its base. If it moves more rapidly, it 
often presses forward a mound of earth and 
gravel and buries the arable land to a great 
depth with the debris of the mountain. 
These hills or ridges thus formed are called 
“moraines.” Sometimes the fruits of au¬ 
tumn ripen within a few feet of the melting 
ice. Travelers say that they have picked 
ripe cherries from trees while standing upon 
the glacier. In 1820, at a place called, 
“-Hameau des Bois,” the glacier made a sud¬ 
den descent upon the arable lands, driving 
huge blocks of granite up to the very doors 
of the inhabitants, and leaving, within a hun¬ 
dred yards of their homes, a formidable bul¬ 
wark of earth and boulders, beyond which all 
vegetation ceases. Huge rocks are also car¬ 
ried by these moving torrents of ice upon 
their surface ; and, when they are gradually 
undermined by the thawing of the ice, they are 
pitched into the green valley below. Thus 
the citizens live in constant peril, in those 
places where this resistless foe of agricul¬ 
ture drives forward its desolating engines. 
The cause of the motion of glaciers has 
never been clearly ascertained. Different 
theories have been proposed to solve the 
problem. The most important of which are 
those of “dilatation” and “gravitation.” 
According to the theory of dilatation, “ the 
ice is supposed to be pressed onwards by an 
internal swelling of its parts, occasioned by 
rapid alternations of freezing and thawing of 
its parts, or rather by the formation continu¬ 
ally of minute crevices, into which water, 
derived from the warmth of the sun and the 
action of the air on the surface, is introduced 
and where it is frozen by the cold of the 
glacier whose bulk it thus increases.” It is 
well known that water expands when it con¬ 
geals. “ On the theory of gravity, the 
weight of the superincumbent mass of ice is 
the sole cause of its motion. The ice lying 
on an inclined plane or rock, is supposed to 
slide over it, by its natural tendency to de¬ 
scend, aided by the action of the earth’s 
warmth, which prevents its being frozen at 
the bottom.” Lieut. Forbes, who has spent 
much time in investigating the matter, finds, 
as he thinks, insuperable objections to both 
theories, and advances a third of his own in¬ 
vention to-wit, “ that a glacier is an imper¬ 
fect fluid, or a viscous body, which is urged 
down slopes of a certain inclination, by the 
mutual pressure of its parts.” This he con¬ 
firms by very plausible reasons. 3@“ 
For the American Agriculturist. 
EGYPTIAN OR WINTER OATS-NEPAUL OR HIN- 
DOSTAN BARLEY. 
The Egyptian oats in this climate, endure 
the winter as well as wheat. I have culti¬ 
vated them for years. I began with two 
quarts of seed, and now have 100 acres of 
them growing. They tiller equal to rye; 
have a very strong straw ; and in my opinion 
are the best kind of oats to grow on rich land. 
I have raised 70 bushels per acre, and this 
year hope to obtain 100 bushels per acre. 
This may be a well established English 
variety of oats, yet I have not been able to 
find any that equals or resembles it. Some 
one has suggested it may be the Poland oat, 
changed by a southern climate. 
The Nepaul Barley has no beard or awne, 
and tillers remarkably when sown on rich 
land. It is a spring grain, but should be 
sown early. Richard Peters. 
Atlanta, Ga., March 12, 1855. 
We have samples of the Egyptian oats, 
obtained from the central part of our State, 
where they have been cultivated with great 
success for several years, and yielding most 
abundantly of a heavy, nutritive grain. They 
are represented as very hardy, not liable to 
disease, and resist drouth better than the 
common oat. From the specimen of growth 
we have seen, we deem them a distinct and 
valuable variety, well deserving the attention 
of our farmers. We have a small sheaf of 
straw with the head on in our office. The 
heads are the largest of the oat variety we 
ever saw ; they measure from 10 to 18 inches 
long._ 
For the American Agriculturist. 
DRAINING-QUACK GRASS-WHEAT MIDGE- 
EARLY AND LATE WHEAT. 
In your paper of the 7th instant, your 
correspondent F. I. B. says. “ Draining to 
destroy Couch, Twitch, or Quack grass, is 
out of the question. For it will grow as well 
on upland, (if not too arid) as upon land that 
needs draining.” Your correspondent is 
right in some respects, and wrong in others. 
That draining alone will kill Quack grass, 
I know is out of the question ; but without 
draining on our stiff soil, it is impossible to 
kill it, and I never saw land producing Quack 
without seeding or planting, that did not re¬ 
quire draining. I never saw Quack grow on 
low land, but always upon upland, with a 
cold springy subsoil. F. I. B. appears to 
labor under the same delusion of hundreds— 
I may say thousands of others—who thinks 
that upland needs no draining, when in fact 
unless the upland is drained, you can never 
thoroughly drain the adjacent low land. In 
almost all cases, the low land requires 
drains chiefly to carry off the water that 
springs on the upland, and with which the 
land is gorged in winter, spring, and fall. 
When Quack land is thoroughly drained, and 
the following season is thoroughly tilled, 
the earth pulverizers like a sand hill, and the 
Quack roots harrow out as white and clean 
as potatoes out of a dry loam. If not drained, 
you may plow, harrow, and cultivate stiff 
Quack soils for a life time, and the Quack 
will be as strong and healthy as ever. I never 
had any experience with Quack on my own 
land, but I have watched it for the last five 
years on a farm adjoining, which came in 
possession of a friend of mine at that time. 
The former owner had been endeavoring to 
kill Quack for about twenty years—but en¬ 
tirely without success. Now, in five years, 
by thorough draining and good tillage, it is 
all killed, root and branch. 
I will now tell F. I. B. how he will know 
when land needs draining : Dig holes about 
two and a half feet deep in different parts of 
the fields ; put a cover over the holes so that 
rain water can not get into them, and if they 
fill with water until within afoot or so of the 
surface, in ten or twelve hours, then his land 
requires and will pay well for draining. I 
think I hear F. I. B. and many others say, 
that those holes will fill up on any land, if 
the ground is wet at the time. But I tell 
them, that is not the case. You may dig as 
many drains as you please on drylands, and 
they will never run water, unless the snow r 
is melting on the surface. If F. I. B. had 
stood over the making of between forty and 
fifty miles of drains, as 1 have done, he would 
be a better judge of what was wet and what 
was dry land. To the unpractised eye, 
much land that looks dry, is gorged with wa¬ 
ter six inches below the surface. That is 
the kind of land to produce Quack. Nou< 
mind that F. I. B. says, “ for several years 
the writer lived on a farm, all of which was 
literally overrun with this pernicious grass, 
except about six acres of low pasture land. 
On all sides of this field, the ladjacent ones 
being upland for wheat and corn, this grass 
grew rankly.” I have no doubt whatever 
that if F. I. B. will go back to that upland 
for wheat and corn, and dig a drain through 
it, he will get a stream of fine, pure water, 
and if not too distant, I will accompany him, 
and lay out the draining, and pay for the 
drain if there is no run of water. 
Now for the result of draining upland. 
