86 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
nected, effects no useful purpose; the carrying a weight 
from one point to another and back again ; or the tak¬ 
ing a walk without any object in view, but the negative 
one of preserving health. Thus it is not only a condi¬ 
tion of our nature, that in order to secure health we 
must labor; but we must also labor in such a way as 
to produce something useful or agreeable. Now of the 
different kinds of useful things produced by labor, those 
things surely which are living beings, and which grow 
and undergo changes before our eyes, must be more 
productive of enjoyment than such as are mere brute 
matter—the kind of labor and other circumstances be¬ 
ing the same. Hence, a man who plants a tree, a hedge, 
or sows a grass-plat in his garden, lays a more certain 
foundation for enjoyment, than he who builds a wall or 
lays down a gravel walk; and hence the enjoyment of 
a citizen, whose r creation, at his suburban residence, 
consists in working in his garden, must be higher in the 
scale, than that of him who amuses himself in the plot 
round his house, with shooting at a mark, or playing at 
bowles.” 
A strong illustration of this truth lately came with¬ 
in our knowledge. An esteemed friend, who had be¬ 
come wealthy and retired from active business, at 
the middle age of life, had become particularly dis¬ 
eased in body and mind. We advised him to recre¬ 
ate himself in horticultural pursuits, as an antidote to 
both maladies. He replied, that he had no taste, and 
could not acquire a relish for these pursuits. We 
thought otherwise ; and as he was going to spend the 
summer with a relative, on a farm which belonged to 
him, we presented him with half a dozen trees, asked 
him to plant them on his farm and to report to us in 
autumn, whether they had afforded him any gratifica¬ 
tion. When he returned from his summer residence, 
he confessed with gratitude, that they had been to 
him a source of high interest and gratification; that 
they had received his constant care and attention; 
that the had watched, with a kind of paternal feeling, 
the development of the leaves, and the growth of the 
branches ; that he had examined them almost daily, 
sedulously guarded them from injury, and watered 
them with his hand ; and that these cares and labors 
afforded pleasures without alloy. Had our regretted 
friend made this experiment two years earlier, he 
would, in all probability, have been now numbered 
among the living, and probably among the hale and 
hearty. 
But to return to our quotations from Mr. Loudon— 
“ One of the greatest of all the sources of enjoyment 
resulting from the possession of a garden,” remarks our 
author, “ is the endless variety which it produces, ei¬ 
ther by the perpetual progress of vegetation which is 
going forward in it to maturity, dormancy or decay, 
or by the almost innumerable kinds of plants which 
may be raised in even the smallest garden. Even the 
same trees, grown in the same garden, are undergoing 
perpetual changes throughout the year; and trees 
change also in every succeeding year relatively to that 
which is past; because they become larger and larger 
as they advance in age, and acquire more and more their 
characteristic and 'mature form.” “Independently of 
the variety of change resulting from the variety of plants 
cultivated, every month throughout the year has its 
particular operations and its products: nay, it would 
not be too much to say, that during six months of the 
year, a change takes place, and is perceptible in the 
plants of a garden, every day; and every day has in 
consequence its operations and its products.” 
In conclusion : A bountiful Providence has given 
the vegetable kingdom for our sustenance, employ¬ 
ment and highest intellectual enjoyment,—and has 
scattered these elements of happiness, with a profuse 
hand, every where within our reach. It is left with 
us to enjoy them in a greater or less degree, as we 
learn to appreciate their value, and exert ourselyes 
to apply them to their proper use. The brute is con¬ 
tent to satisfy its animal wants. Man, the lord of 
the creation, should have a higher aim—because he 
has higher sources of enjoyment than the brute, and 
higher duties to perform—he is the husbandman ap¬ 
pointed to take care of and nurture the great vine¬ 
yard, and to carry out the wise purposes of the all- 
bountiful Giver. 
We intend, ere long, to name and describe some 
of the ornamental shrubbery, and perhaps perennial 
plants, best adapted for the embellishment of court 
yards and gardens. In the mean time we advise the 
young to cultivate a taste for rural embellishment, as 
a preventive of bad habits, and as the source of sub¬ 
stantial and innocent pleasure. 
Liquid Manures. 
All urine, says Davy, contains the essential ele¬ 
ments of vegetables in a state of solution, that is, in 
a condition immediately to beconje the food of plants. 
The Flemings and Chinese save and apply all thip 
fertilizing material, either mixed with earths or dung, 
or in a liquid form, diluting it first with water. Three 
hundred acres are kept in a condition of great fertili¬ 
ty by the liquids which flow from a part of the drains 
of the city of Edinburgh. The meadows thus ferti¬ 
lized, says Mr. Oliver, let for £24 to £30 per imperi¬ 
al acre per annum, equal to $106 to $1361 and in 
one case, in 1826, the Earl of Moray’s meadow fetch¬ 
ed £57 an acre!! Some of these lands were, till 
lately, absolutely barren—sea-sand—and yielding no¬ 
thing. Thirty acres were levelled and prepared to 
be irrigated by the liquid filth of the town, in 1821. 
They now let for £15 to £20 per acre, and are con¬ 
sidered susceptible of much higher improvement.— 
The great value of liquid manure is particularly illus¬ 
trated in the following quotation which we make from 
the veteran in horticulture, Mr. Knight. 
“ I have shown in a former communication,” says this 
distinguished physiologist, “ that a seedling plum stalk, 
growing in a small pot, attained the height of nine feet 
seven in a single season; which is, I believe, a much 
greater height than any seedling of that tree was ever 
known to attain in the open soil. But the quantity of 
earth, which a small pot contains, soon becomes ex¬ 
hausted relatively to one kind of plant, though it may 
still be fertile relatively to others; and the size of the 
pot cannot be changed sufficiently often to remedy this 
loss of fertility; and if it were ever so frequently 
changed, the mass of mould, which each emission of 
young roots would enclose, must remain the same. Ma¬ 
nure, therefore, can probably be most beneficially given 
in a purely liquid state ; and the quantity which trees 
growing in pots have thus taken, under my care, without 
any injury, and with the greatest good effect, has much 
exceeded every expectation I had formed. 
“ I have for some years appropriated a forcing house 
at Downton, to the purposes of experiment solely upon 
fruit-trees, which, as I have frequent occasion to change 
the subjects on which I have to operate, are confined in 
pots. These at first were supplied with water, in which 
about one-tenth by measure of the dung of pigeons or 
domestic poultry had been infused; and the quantity of 
these substances, generally the latter, was increased 
from one-tewth to one-fourth. The water, after stand¬ 
ing forty-eight hours, acquired a colour considerably 
deeper than that of porter, and in this state it was 
drawn off clear, and employed to feed trees of the vine, 
the mulberry, the peach, and other plants; a second 
quantity of water was then applied, and afterwards* 
used in the same manner, when the manure was chang¬ 
ed, and the same process repeated. 
“ The vine and the mulberry tree being very gross 
feeders, were not likely to be soon injured by this treat¬ 
ment; but I expected the peach tree, which is often 
greatly injured by an excess of manure in a solid state, 
to give early indications of being over fed. Contrary, 
however, to my expectations, the peach tree maintain¬ 
ed, at the end of two years, the most healthy and luxu¬ 
riant growth imaginable, and produced fruit in the last 
season in greater perfection than I had ever previously 
been able to obtain from it. Some seedling plants had 
then acquired, at eighteen months old, though the whole 
of their roots had then been confined to half a square foot 
of mould, more than eleven feet in height, with numerous 
branches, and have afforded a most abundant and vigo¬ 
rous blossom in the present spring, which has set remark¬ 
ably well; and those trees which had been most abun¬ 
dantly supplied with manure, have displayed the great¬ 
est degree of health and luxuriance. A single orange 
tree was subjected to the same mode of treatment, and 
grew with equal comparative vigor, and appeared to be 
as much benefitted by abundance of food, as even the 
vine and the mulberry tree.” 
To introduce a comparison between the animal and 
vegetable, we may compare the roots of the latter to 
the locomotive power of the former, which enables 
both to go abroad for food —constantly to seek new 
pasture ; and the liquid food of the plant to the chyle 
in the animal stomach—fitted to nourish and become 
an integral part of the living organic structure. So that 
liquid food is more readily converted into vegetable 
matter, than forage and grain is into the flesh of the 
animal. And the continued extension of the roots is 
superseded by giving to the plant this cooked food, in 
the same way that the locomotive power of the ox is 
superseded by feeding him constantly at the stall. 
The above facts may be rendered profitable to the 
professional gardener, as they suggest a source of im¬ 
mediate fertility always at his command. They will 
not fail to indicate to the fair, who mourn at the de¬ 
clining beauty of their parlor plants, a ready means 
of renovating and imparting to them new vigor. The 
farmer who has hitherto disregarded his liquid ma¬ 
nures, and who has suffered to go to waste, the high¬ 
ly fertilizing matters of his dove-cote and poultry- 
house, will see, at once, from the preceding state¬ 
ment, that he has lost a treasure to his land from his 
neglect; and if he is not unchangeably wedded to his 
old habits, he will at once set about availing himself 
of these valuable sources of fertility. 
A weak solution of soda, (one pound in fourteen 
gallons,) produces upon soils, (says the Sussex Agri¬ 
cultural Express,) the most admirable fertilizing ef¬ 
fects. 
Mr. Coleman’s Agricultural Report. 
We regret that our limits do not permit us to ex¬ 
tract liberally from this excellent report; but we are 
obliged to be content with a brief notice of its princi¬ 
pal points. We cannot withhold our admiration of a 
people who by industry and perseverance, have main¬ 
tained a high reputation as agriculturists, educated 
large families, and surrounded themselves with the 
substantial comforts of life, upon a rocky primitive 
soil, “no part of which can be advantageously culti¬ 
vated without manure.” The farmers of Essex are 
richly entitled to this commendation; and yet we con¬ 
sider their husbandry defective in many points, and 
capable, with their habits of application and close ob¬ 
servation, of being doubled or trebled in product. 
But we resume the thread of the report. The next 
subject in order, is 
Fruit Trees —which are cultivated to a considera¬ 
ble extent, and are a source of profit. The trees of 
one of their best apples, the Baldwin, were principal¬ 
ly destroyed by the severe winter of 1833-4; yet in 
ordinary years the farmer markets 300 barrels of des¬ 
sert apples. They are hand-picked, packed in dry 
barrels, placed in a cool cellar, and not generally sold 
till May. Eight hundred dollars a year, says the com¬ 
missioner, is not an unusual product of his orchard. 
These facts present a strong inducement for the cul¬ 
tivation of orchards; and if we superadd the consi¬ 
deration, that apples are now made to constitute a 
valuable food for all kinds of farm stock, the or¬ 
chard cannot fail to be regarded as a source of great 
and certain profit to the farmer. The commissioner 
notices a new mode of keeping the apple trees free 
from the canker worm, which until lately has much 
annoyed them. It is to surround the collar of the 
tree, or that part which is at the surface of the ground, 
with a belt o f adhesive clay, and then to cover this 
with tar—the application of tar directly to the trunk 
of the tree having been found to be injurious. 
We cannot pass over the subject of fruit, without 
paying a merited compliment to one of the inhabi¬ 
tants of Essex, who has distinguished himself as a 
pomologist—Robert Manning, Esq. of Salem. Mr. 
Manning has been indefatigable for years, in collect¬ 
ing the best fruits from European and American nur¬ 
series, in cultivating, comparing and testing their re¬ 
lative qualities; and he has just published the result 
of his labors in a work upon fruits, which i.s highly 
spoken of, though we have not yet met with it. A 
choice selection of orchard and garden fruits, adapted 
to our climates, is a desideratum with all who know 
how to appreciate the relative value of those kinds 
which are intrinsically good. 
“ A taste for flowers,”—we resume our quotations 
from the report—“and the external rural embellish¬ 
ments of the houses and grounds, is every where 
springing up. Besides its strong tendency to multi¬ 
ply the attachments to home, among the best safe¬ 
guards of virtue, and furnishing sources of delightful 
recreation, it is highly conducive to intellectual and 
moral improvement.” * 
To preserve plum trees from being destroyed by 
what is termed the black canker, Mr. C. mentions 
the successful mode adopted by the Rev. Mr. Perry, 
and which we have practised for twenty years. It is 
to cut off all the affected parts, and immediately to 
consign them to the fire. 
Forest Trees. —The commissioner very properly di¬ 
rects the attention of the farmer, to this subject, and 
cites several cases to show that the growth of forest 
trees is a profitable appropriation of land—in one 
case, an acre yielding 60 cords of wood, the growth 
of 25 years—worth, on delivery, $5 per cord, or 
$300 for the 25 years—being $12 per acre per ann. 
Planting forest trees has but commenced in Essex. 
Among the trees named as springing up, we presume 
spontaneously, are the white and yellow pine, white 
birch, &c. Among the cultivated trees, the locust, 
Scotch fir, and oak are named, and we venture to 
recommend the white ash and soft maple—the former 
for dry, and the latter for moist soils, in addition.— 
The seeds may be readily gathered in quantities at 
proper seasons ; they vegetate freely ; their growth 
is rapid, and they are excellent for firewood and tim¬ 
ber, far superior to the white birch. 
Fences are principally of stone. The commissioner 
suggests, that to prevent their being thrown by frosts, 
as they are apt to be when laid in a trench, that gut¬ 
ters be made on each side of the wall, at a short dis¬ 
tance from it, by which all the surface water which 
would otherwise settle under it, should be immedi¬ 
ately conveyed away. 
The Farm Buildings are generally of wood. The 
commissioner recommends stone for buildings, with 
which the country abounds. The approved mode of 
constructing barns on the slope of a hill, giving the 
basement for manure and vegetables, and the second 
story for hay, grain and cattle, is beginning to be 
followed. Much benefit is supposed to result to the 
manure by keeping it from the weather. 
Slaughter-house offal, is bought by the managers 
of the poor-house, at 32 cents for every beef killed, 
and so husbanded as to be rendered profitable to the 
establishment. The meat from the head is consumed 
by the inmates ; the heads are then boiled for the ex¬ 
traction of the tallow, and thrown to swine; and after 
being thoroughly picked, they are sold for animal 
carbon; the jaw and leg bones are sold to the button 
