18G7.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
135 
Vit®, lliat bciii" the most commou evergreen of 
the region. Within tiiis inclosure he could raise 
the grape, the peach, and other fruits that would 
not mature outside. The effect of the screen 
was to give his garden the climate of New York. 
There can be no doubt of the economy of 
planting screens in cold climates around gar¬ 
dens and orchards, wherever there is sufllcicnt 
room for them. A screen, unlike a hedge, does 
not rc([uirc close planting, and not much shear¬ 
ing or attention of any kind, after it is once 
established. As to the plants that will serve 
this purpose, deciduous trees are letter tlmn 
nothing, but Uiey arc not nearly so effective as 
evergreens; and if one is to be at the expense of 
planting it is better economy to plant the best. 
There are several varieties of evergreens that 
make perfect shelter, and we should be govern¬ 
ed in their selection mainly by the cost of the 
plants and the facility of transplanting. We put 
at the head of the list the Norway Spruce, and 
this conifer has been so extensively imported for 
SCREEN OF NORWAY SPRUCE. 
the last dozen years or more, that almost every 
well established nursery has a large stock, and 
they arc as cheap as any other tree. Many nur¬ 
series have evergreen trees fit for no other pur¬ 
pose than screens, or to be cut up for stakes and 
jwles. The Hemlock is another admirable tree 
for this purpose, and if we could find plants 
that had l>cen properly grown, we should pre¬ 
fer them to the Norway Spruce. The foliage is 
moi'e beautiful, they are a perpetual feast to the 
eye, but unfortunately they are exceedingly im¬ 
patient of removal. It is rare to find a nursery¬ 
man that knows how to grow a Hemlock, and 
hardly ten per cent, of plants taken from the 
woods, with ordinary treatment, will live. Next 
to this we place the American Arbor Vitae, 
which is abundant and easily transplanted. 
The White and Black Spruce, and the Red Ce¬ 
dar, also, make good screens. So much de¬ 
pends upon keeping the roots of evergreens 
moist during transportation that we should be 
governed mainly by location and price in select¬ 
ing any one of the varieties here mentioned. 
If the soil is rich enough to bear sixty bushels 
of corn to the acre, it will require nothing but 
mechanical preparation—plowing with the sur¬ 
face and subsoil plow. It will pay to loosen 
the soil to the depth of eighteen inches. If en¬ 
riching is called for, use no fresh manures, but 
a compost made of peat and ashes, or muck and 
lime. Ashes are always a good dressing forever- 
greens. The distance of planting will be de¬ 
termined somewhat by the size of the trees, and- 
the immediate objects aimed at With Norway 
Spruces ten or twelve feet high, an effective 
shelter maybe made at once. We have suc¬ 
ceeded admirably with trees of this size, losing 
less than five per cent.—planting them so that 
tlie limbs just touched. They were put out, with 
good balls of earth, the same day they were 
taken up. It is safer, however, to plant smaller 
trees, and closer together, even if you have to 
take-out the alternate trees two or three years 
later. A screen for an apple orchard may be 
left to grow twenty-five or thirty feet high, and 
in this case the trees should be at least ten feet 
apart to give the requisite stronglh at the base. 
The screen will require much less attention than 
the hedge, but it is good policy to keep the 
ground cultivated for a few years after the plant¬ 
ing, and to bring out the bottom limbs well by 
shearing those above. All the different kinds of 
evergreens we have named bear the shears well, 
and can be readily trained in the way they 
should go, with a little timely attention. 
Smallness of Cob Very Desirable in 
Seed Corn. 
The selection of seed corn is one of the most 
important things which a farmer does at this 
season. Coarse cobs accompany late matur¬ 
ity, as a rule; fine cobs, well tipped out, in¬ 
dicate perfect maturity, adaptation to the season 
and soil, and a fixedness of character which it 
is important to maintain. The curing of corn 
takes place to a great extent after husking, and 
the presence of a great, soft, moist cob in each 
ear gives a tendency to mold, which should be 
sedulously avoided. The old experiment of fit¬ 
ting a paper cone to an ear of corn, then with¬ 
drawing the ear, shelling it and returning the 
kernels to the cone, is interesting and instruc¬ 
tive. If the kernels will all go easily into the 
cone, the cob is too large, and we should say, 
the corn unfit for seed. The cone should be 
made of brown paper, dampened, bound tightly 
around the ear, coming no liigher than the 
kernels, but covering all; the ends are trimmed 
off, and it is allowed to dry before the ear is 
drawn out. One may easily judge by the eye 
which ears have the smallest cobs—those which 
are best tipped out, which have the kernels in 
the closest rows, and all the rows running un¬ 
broken from end to end. These ears will not 
be found among the biggest round, nor among 
the longest, usually, but among those of medium 
size. A friend used to say, as he showed off his 
seed corn, “ every ear as regular and solid as a 
white-oak pin.” And so they were, as nearly as 
corn cars could be, firm, close, hard and solid. 
Cotton Culture. 
BT T , O. DWIGHT. 
[Our offer of two premiums for prize essays 
upon this subject has been responded to, and the 
first premium has been awarded to Joseph B. 
Lyman, a recent cotton planter in Louisiana, 
and the second to F. G. Dwight, wl^ose expe¬ 
rience has been in the Atlantic Seaboard Cotton 
Slates. Both essays will be probably published 
in one volume, in season for the next year s 
operations. For the immediate benefit of our 
readers in the cotton growing districts, and of 
the large class who are contemplating a removal 
thither, we give in this issue the first of a series 
of articles culled from these essays.— Eds.] 
Bedding Up.— After the fields have all been 
plowed the work of bedding commences. One 
hand leads off with a scooter plow, and marks 
rows, running through the whole length or 
width of the field; others follow with turn 
plows, and throw two or more furrows on each 
side of the marks, making a slightly elevated 
bed, the number of furrows to be turned de¬ 
pending on the width of the spaces between the 
rows. A small water furrow is left between the 
beds to serve as a drain after heavy lains. 
Where the land is not likely to wa.sh, and there 
is a good deep subsoil to readily absorb rains, 
flat culture is offen practiced. In this ca.se the 
land is thoroughly plowed as before, and if pos¬ 
sible cross plowed, bedding up being dispensed j 
with until seeding time, when slight beds are 
thrown up in the process of planting. 
Cotton Rows. —In marking out rows, it is 
recommended that they should be laid out east 
and west, in order to be as much as possible ex¬ 
posed to the sun at all hours of the day—cotton 
being of all others a hot weather plant. This 
distinction can be observed on level ground, or 
such as is slightly rolling, but where there is 
much fall, attention must be paid to safeguards 
against the land washing. On hilly lands, curves 
should be followed around the sides on a level. 
The probable productiveness of the soil must 
determine the distance between the rows; the 
poorer the soil the nearer should they be. On 
land that is not well known to be very good, 
it is safest to let the distance be about 20 inches 
or two feet, so that in getting twice as many 
rows on poor soil as would be put on land ad¬ 
mitting of four-foot distance, the difference in 
the yield of a crop grown on good and only 
tolerably good land would not be very great. 
Planting. —The cotton plant in its early 
growth is veiy tender, particularly when in a 
crowded state, it cannot withstand frost and is 
even very sensitive to cool weather. As early 
planting is generally recommended and will be 
found to be the most successful, caution must 
be exercised not to plant too early. To replant 
is discouraging worli, involving mucli loss of 
time. In the Gulf States from the 25th March 
to the 10th April is the usual planting season. 
Details. —The hands that are selected to 
drop the seed must be furnished with bags or 
“ w'allets ” large enough to hold about half a 
bushel of seed. These are suspended at the 
right or left side by a rope or strap over the 
shoulder. With the scuter plow, a seed furrow 
is opened to the depth of three or four inches in 
the middle of the bed, the hands following the 
plow and dropping the seed as even as possible. 
Careful supervision is needed. The best of the 
freedmen are not easily impressed with the im¬ 
portance of dropping the seed regularly. They 
soon get careless, and if you are not on the 
alert, the young plants wull come up in patch¬ 
es. Light furrows are thown towards the 
opened row to cover the seed, one on each side. 
If left in this condition the seed would be cov¬ 
ered too deeply; and after one field is planted, 
the wooden scrailfer, fastened to a plow slock, is 
drawn over the seed row, taking off all uneven¬ 
ness of surface, removing the excess of cover¬ 
ing, and leaving the bed in a neat condition, 
somewhat elevated above the ivater furrow. 
In Flat Culture, where there has been np 
previous “bedding up,” the seed furrows aie 
opened at proper distances. Seed dropped and 
covered as before; then successive furrows are 
thrown towards the seed row until the space 
between the rews is plowed up, leaving a shal¬ 
low water furrow midway between the beds. 
Again, on very good land, and 'where the soil 
is in fine working order, the labor of plowing 
previous to planting is sometimes dispensed 
with. This “ short cut ” way, however, is not 
to be recommended. Whenever this must be 
done, the process is simply to open furrow’s at 
the proper distance apart, drop the seed and 
cover as before. One or two farrows are then 
thrown up with the turn plow to complete a bed, 
and the middle broken out with the sweeps; the 
w’ooden scraper being used to level off the beds. 
Your Personal Supervision.— Every day 
during “planting season” is necessary to look 
after the furrow opening, planting, covering, 
plow’ing and scraping off. Permit no careless- 
