SILK COCOONS. 
173 
make better tops than when budded in the nur¬ 
sery. I make it a point never to graft, unless I 
have seen a sample of the fruit of the tree from 
which the scions have been taken, or at least, 
that which has been recommended by a friend, 
or some other reliable authority. 
As grafting and budding are very simple op¬ 
erations, a person may learn either with only a 
few minutes’ instruction. All the knowledge I 
ever gained on the subject was from reading 
agricultural works. 
I think that pruning apple trees in the winter 
or early in the spring a very bad practice, as it 
leaves the wound open to the wind and weather, 
while the sap is in a dormant state, and after it 
commences its flow, it begins to ooze from the 
wound and often causes the trees to become dis¬ 
eased, and bring on premature decay. They 
should not be pruned before June or July, when 
the sap is up, and as it descends it will heal 
over the edges of the wounds. One of the 
greatest errors that farmers commit, is, that they 
do not prune at all, or at such long intervals as 
to be under the necessity of taking out large 
limbs, which require a long time, if ever, to heal. 
Pruning should be done often, and when the 
limbs are small. Then the wounds soon heal 
over, without any injury to the trees. 
Hawley B. Rogers. 
Long Island , March , 1850, 
Silk Cocoons.— Silkworms will have wound 
their cocoons from the 1st to the 20th of this 
month. Those you wish to reel, may be left 
in the hot sun a day or two, or they may be ex¬ 
posed a few hours in an oven or kiln, heated 
sufficiently warm to cause bees’ wax to melt. 
Those intended to produce eggs for the next 
crop, must be selected and placed on sheets of 
moist paper, in a cool, dark room. From 100 to 
120 pairs of millers will produce an ounce of 
eggs. Each female lays from 300 to 500 eggs, 
averaging about 350. An ounce of eggs con¬ 
tains about 40,000. If well saved from good 
millers, and safely kept, they will nearly all 
hatch and produce good worms. Our climate 
is admirably adapted to the production of the 
silkworm, as is shown by the fact, that while 
an average of 30 to 60 per cent, of the worms 
are lost in Europe, from climate, food, and dis¬ 
ease, scarcely five per cent, are lost in this 
country. 
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 
A recent number of Blackwood’s Magazine 
contains an article entitled “ British Agriculture 
and Foreign Competition.” It gives, among 
other things, the price of wheat in several 
countries, the cost of transporting it from those 
countries to England; and, adding the present 
nominal duty, the cost price of this foreign grain 
in the British market. At present rates of rent 
and present duties, it is contended, English 
agriculturists cannot compete with these foreign 
wheat growers. It would be foolish to contend j 
that they can compete with farmers who can | 
purchase equally as good land as much of that j 
in England for the money annually paid in rents ' 
and taxes by the English. But the assertion 
might be ventured that the mode of culture em¬ 
ployed in England may have more to do with 
the embarrassment of the English farmers than 
we or they are perhaps aware. 
I do not propose to enter upon a discussion of 
the principles nor policy of protection, for this 
would not be an appropriate place for such a 
discussion; but I must say that, from what few 
observations I have been able to make on the 
husbandry of England, I am convinced that the 
repeal of the corn laws is not the only cause of 
the present embarrassed situation of the Eng¬ 
lish farmer. If this is so, protective duties are 
not his only hope and remedy. I have not 
visited every part of England, nor have I ever 
examined every implement of agriculture in use 
there, but from what I have seen, I have not 
found the mode and manner of tillage there so 
scientific nor economical as it might be, nor as 
might reasonably have been expected from the 
reputation English farmers enjoy as agricul¬ 
turists. 
The article in question contains an estimate of 
the expense of putting in and harvesting an acre 
of wheat in the wheat-growing parts of the 
Mississippi Valley. Including two dollars for 
plowing, it makes it out at seven dollars. Let 
us see how the English farmer puts in and 
harvests his field of wheat. 
Not many years ago, I passed the seasons of 
seed time and harvest in one of the best wheat¬ 
growing districts, in Staffordshire, England. I 
had therefore an opportunity of seeing how 
these important operations were there per¬ 
formed. I never saw less than three, and many 
times I saw four and five horses drawing, at a 
slow pace, a single plow. Most American 
farmers would have plowed the same land, 
equally as well, and in half the time, with a 
pair of horses. But to do so, of course, an Ame¬ 
rican plow also would be necessary. Then 
two, three, and even four horses were employed 
to draw a harrow, and frequently have I seen as 
many as eight drawing a spiked roller. Now 
these horses are only kept at a great expense, 
far greater than would be in this country, where 
provender is less valuable. Let the English 
farmer, then, either improve his implements of 
tillage, so that they can be worked with less 
power, or increase the speed of his horses, so 
that more can be done in the same time, and an 
improvement and a gain will be effected, which 
will, to a certain extent, relieve him from 
the ruinous effects of the present anti-protec¬ 
tion policy. This will most certainly be the 
result. In America, we have been led into im¬ 
provements and expedients of every kind to 
meet the high price of labor, and now we can 
put in and harvest an acre of wheat for seven 
dollars. The English will find it necessary to 
resort to these same improvements and expe¬ 
dients to meet the low prices of which they now 
so bitterly complain. 
I But this will be difficult and mortifying to the 
| English, they have such a notion of solidity and 
| stability. They seem to have also an extra- 
| ordinary reverence for certain old customs and 
