376 
CULTIVATION OF THE STRAWBERRY, ETC. 
act, or exercise. It is rather a worthless weed, but 
it is not much inclined to spread, or be troublesome, 
on farm lands. The leaves are a convenient and 
popular dressing for blisters, and other sores; a 
fact which seems to have been known in the time 
of Shakspeare ; as we may learn from his Romeo 
and Juliet, 
“ Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. 
“ Ben. For what, I pray thee ? 
“ Rom. For your broken shin.” 
The plantain leaf continued in vogue, for that 
purpose, until a substitute was furnished by modern 
experimenters, in their empirical attempts to regu¬ 
late the national currency! 
That this interesting volume of Dr. Darlington 
was not written for profit, but for the love of his 
favorite science, and the benefit of those to whom 
he dedicated it, we learn from a note to a discourse 
upon agriculture, delivered a short time after its 
publication, in which he casually mentions his 
“ Farmers’ Flora,’’ as he chooses to call it, and then 
says : “I beg leave to add that I have not the 
slightest personal or pecuniary interest in the work, 
for I made a present of the manuscript to the first 
printer I found, who had the courage to risk the 
publication.” A Friend to Farmers. 
October , 1848. 
CULTIVATION OF THE STRAWBERRY. 
The result of the following experiment, the first 
of the kind in that section of the country, was 
given at the request of the editor of the N. Y. Far¬ 
mer and Mechanic, by 
Mr. C. H. Starr, of Gro¬ 
ton, Connecticut, who 
has been engaged some 
four years in his experi¬ 
ments, and has succeed¬ 
ed in producing some 
strawberries of unsur¬ 
passable fineness. 
The varieties raised, 
were Hovey’s seedlings, 
with a few English 
plants as fructifiers, and 
were set in April, in 
rows three feet apart. 
The soil was a moist 
loam, half an acre in extent, well pulverized by 
plowing, and manured at the rate of 20 cords to an 
acre, of sea weed and fish. The first year, beets, 
or other vegetables might be grown without detri¬ 
ment to the fruit. 
The product from the half acre under cultivation, 
last season, was 2,000 quarts of fruit, some of 
which measured 4g inches in circumference. 
ESTIMATED EXPENSE OF CULTURE PER ACRE. 
20 cords of manure or its equivalent, . $40 
Expense of plants, $10,000 at $2 . . 20 
Total expense of labor the first season . 100 
Total expense incurred the first year $160 
Total expense (labor only), second year . 160 
Ci “ third year . 160 
“ “ fourth year . 160 
$640 
VALUE OF THE CROP. 
50 bushels of beets the first year . . $20 
4,000 quarts of strawberries the second year, 
4,000 “ “ third year, 
4,000 “ “ fourth year, 
12,000 quarts of strawberries in all, at 12 cts. 1,440 
Total value of the crop for four years, $1,460 
Leaving a net gain for four years of . 820 
Or for each year,.$205 
The above is simply what has been done in the ordi¬ 
nary culture, without any particular effort or extra 
exertion, and we have no doubt the crop could be 
still further increased by improving the variety, and 
with a better opportunity of selecting the soil and 
varying somewhat the kind of manure. 
Planting Trees. —Trees should be transplant¬ 
ed in the autumn. The reason is this : Nature 
never does two opposite things at the same time ; 
thus, when she is busied about the roots of a tree, 
she neglects the stem, and reversely. Since, there¬ 
fore, in the autumn, she is employed on the roots, 
and, in the spring, on the stem, it is evident that 
autumn is the best time for transferring the roots 
from one place to another, just after the fall of 
the leaf. If, however, the soil to which a tree is to be 
transplanted is wet, early spring, just before the 
buds begin to swell, is the best time for transplant¬ 
ing— Geoponica. 
These are constructed with light, broad bodies, 
and will carry, on a good road, from two tons to 
two tons and a half of grain, or salt in bags, and 
will load well with hay or straw. The bodies are 
mounted on patent iron axles, and eliptical steel 
springs. They are designed for working two 
horses together in pairs, for market and farm use, 
and may be driven with ease, when loaded, at a 
speed of four or five miles per hour. Prices, $75 to 
$125 complete. 
Decay of Timber.— The durability of the oak 
is proverbial; yet how many instances are there 
on record of ship’s timbers having been found rot¬ 
ten, or unsound, so as to require replacement, even 
before the vessel could be launched. Other oaken 
timbers, of the same size, similarly situated, have 
served at sea for more than half a century ; then been 
sold as old ship timber, and set up as land posts, 
where they still remain almost as hard as bone. 
TWO-HORSE WAGONS. 
Two-Horsf. Wagon.—Fig. 95. 
