29 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Some twelve feet from the ground, the tree 
divides one side is maple, the other oak. 
The maple throws out a branch that has be¬ 
come entirely surrounded by the oak, and 
offers on that side the singular appearance 
of a white oak tree throwing out a maple 
limb. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
OUR WATERLOO CORRESPONDENCE. 
Home-made Guano—Wyandott Corn—Drouths, &e. 
We have here a farmer who has tried the 
experiment of making his own guano. He 
put one-half his stable-manure made in the 
winter and spring under a shed, and the 
other half into the farm yard. Last fall he 
gave his wheat fallow a dressing from both. 
That from the shed was reduced by slow 
fermentation to about half its original bulk; 
while that in the yard had increased to dou¬ 
ble its original weight from the addition of 
rain water alone ; thus making it four times 
the labor to haul it to the field and spread it 
thereon. Both were distributed separately, 
and worked in at the last harrowing of the 
wheat field before seeding. Where the shed- 
manure Avas applied the wheat came up 
sooner, more even, and continued the next 
spring to keep ahead of the other ; and not 
only was the straw larger, but the cereal 
yield was one-fifth more—in fact, the midge, 
which was not very destructive this season, 
did riot touch this part of the field. 
This experiment, I take it, gives the prac¬ 
tical reason why guano from the rainless 
region of the Peru Islands is Avorth so 
much more than the rain-washed Mexican 
guano. It should also open the eyes of 
farmers to the importance of keeping all 
their animal manure under cover, in order 
to retain its most valuable but most volatile 
part—its ammonia salts. It is not only 
worth, by weight, four times as much as the 
washed dung of the yard, but it thus saves 
three-fourths the labor in distributing it to 
the field. True some attention must be paid 
to manure under cover, to prevent its too 
rapid fermentation, by which' much ammo¬ 
nia would be lost. 
Wyandott Corn. —I, too, have, this season, 
grown four stalks, twelve feet high, from a 
single kernel of Wyandott corn ; but he who 
is not short of seed corn, had better plant of 
that variety Avhich gives only one stalk to a 
kernel—at least, in this most genial section 
of western New-York. Although Jack Frost 
spares us those intrusions which he some¬ 
times inflicts on Illinois, yet this corn will 
not ripen Avith us, should he even conde¬ 
scend to postpone his visits until November. 
Planted early in May, it did not begin to ear 
until the 10th of August; then three or four 
ears set on each stalk, two only of which 
have kernels formed on the cob, and those 
only at intervals. No frost to this time— 
first of October—has yet touched the leaves, 
but the silk has dried, and the cereal yield 
s naught; yet I have eight-rowed yellow, 
planted after peas were grown and the vines 
removed, which is iioav beginning to glaze. 
But this Wyandott corn would make an ex¬ 
cellent manuring crop, to plow in after the 
cattle had stripped it of its leaves and incip¬ 
ient ears, leaving as a quid pro quo their drop¬ 
pings on the field. One stalk, ears and all, 
Aveighed eight pounds; after the cows had 
denuded the great inedible stalk, it weighed 
four pounds. Had it been a stalk of the 
coarsest variety of northern corn, in its green 
state, all would have been devoured. 
No wonder that the Illinois farmer avers 
that corn grocvs best on A\ r orn land, when 
one half the vegetable product, Avith the drop¬ 
pings of the hogs and cattle, is left on the 
field. The Ohio Dent corn ripens and yields 
Avell in this region on drained land, under 
good culture ; but as it has no suckers, the 
fodder is little, and our farmers do not ap¬ 
preciate the value of its large ligneous stalks 
as a manure. But methinks that which is 
foolishness to our farmers, is wisdom in the 
farmers of the western bottoms and prairies 
—under the circumstances both are right. 
The Renovating Influence of Drouth .— 
There can be no doubt but that the great 
drouth of 1854 has largely contributed to the 
extra vegetable products of the present cool, 
wet season, particularly to the grasses, cab¬ 
bage, &c. ; Avhile Lima beans, tomatoes, and 
even the Avurzel beets, did better on a well 
manured soil the last unusually dry season, 
than they have done the present. Is it not 
a little singular that a beet, containing 85 
per cent of water, will luxuriate in a drouth, 
side by side with cabbages that are naught. 
But this season, on the same spot, cabbages 
are abnormal monsters, while beets are only 
medium. N’Importe. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
THE OREGON PEA. 
The Oregon pea has been forwarded to 
this State (Virginia) for trial, and has real¬ 
ized all that we previously heard of it as 
regards growth—it having reached eleven 
feet in hight, and promising an abundance of 
seed. In bearing it resembles the famous 
black-eyed pea, and as an improver, I should 
suppose, owing to the rapid and luxuriant 
growth, it has few equals. The pea, in 
itself, is small, and gives no indication of 
producing such rank growth. It would, in 
my opinion take less peas in measure, or 
rather bulk, to soav an acre, than of any other 
kind, owing to its being so small. I have 
not been enabled to try it on a large scale, 
not having a sufficient quantity of seed, but 
so far it has proved quite satisfactory, and is 
considered by good judges to be an improver 
of the first class. W. Summersbey. 
September 26, 1855. 
The Produce oe a Single Pea. —Last 
spring, Mr. McIntyre of Northampton, 
Mass., planted a small pea which he took 
from a lot of Western corn. It produced 
five main stalks full six feet in hight. 
From these there were twenty-five other 
stalks averaging three in length, and from 
these there were other branches, so that the 
length of the whole was full 150 feet. The 
vines bore 212 pods, which produced 906 
peas, averaging nearly 41 to each pod. 
The voilet was the national flower of 
Athens, which city, personified by sculptors 
and painters, was represented as a majestic 
female wearing a wreath of violets. 
ILLINOIS AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT — THE CENTRAL RAILROAD — 
STATE AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION. 
Our thanks are due to Col. R. B. Mason, 
Chief Engineer of the Illinois Central Rail¬ 
road, for a polite note inviting us to make a 
trip over that road, for the purpose of exam¬ 
ining the extensive agricultural regions 
through which it passes. We exceedingly 
regret that a pressure of other engagements 
has thus far prevented our embracing this 
opportunity of becoming better acquainted 
with central Illinois, as Ave hope to do at no 
very distant day. A continuous ride from 
the north-east to the south-west of the 
Prarie-State—from Chicago to Cairo—we 
fancy must be the next thing in grandeur to a 
trip across the Atlantic, with a sea unbroken 
by tide or storm Avaves. 
A friend writing from Chicago, speaks in 
the highest terms of the excellent arrange¬ 
ments and the great success attending the 
State Agricultural Exhibition, Avhich closed 
on the 12th of October. He alludes partic¬ 
ularly to the collection of specimens secured 
by the officers and others employed on the 
Central Railroad. We also find some pleas¬ 
ant allusions to this matter in the Chicago 
Journal, of 12th ult., from which we make 
the folloAving extracts, Avhich are very 
readable : 
That Avas indeed a beautiful idea of Col. 
Mason of the Illinois Central Railroad, to 
collect from field and forest and mine, speci¬ 
mens of the rich and varied materials Avhere 
of this great State is made, and to strew 
them in such rich profusion “ under canvas,” 
on an occasion like this. 
There is another lesson in this magnificent 
grouping of Nature’s products, for it indicates 
in a sort of has relief, one grand mission of a 
Railway—not merely to bring the world into 
a region, but to bring a region into the world; 
to bring out to the light its treasures—the 
gold of the harvest and the gold of the mine; 
to unlock the great store-house of fuel for a 
million of fires ; in a word, to hasten on the 
future and the greatness of the State. 
Indeed there is more upon the trains of a 
great railway, flung over such a country as 
ours, than conductors and freight agents 
ever dream of. 
Among all the works of art and beauty 
that so embellish the Fair grounds to-day, 
there is nothing that so impresses us as 
embodying and appropriating an eloquent 
thought, as this tent wherein we are now 
standing, strewn with the fruits of the gar¬ 
den, the orchard, the field, the river, the 
valley and the mine. They are a picture 
to contemplate; representatives of the 
State ; the State itself in epitome. 
Here this iron ore, representing exhaust¬ 
less mines in Union County—the material, 
black and rude as it is, of which this age of 
ours is made, this age we are so blest as to 
live in. 
And here, the glow of a myriad hearths, 
packed avvay in Carbondale and Danville, in 
