J 24 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
state. It is of little use to petition the legislature, 
unless we have representatives at our capitol who 
will listen to our prayers. I observe you notify us 
that the three first volumes of the Cultivator are to 
receive a new edition. Why not include the fourth 
volume, so as to have all the small size in one book. 
I for one would like to obtain all the numbers up to 
the enlarged volume, and I believe others would.* 
JONATHAN P . HICKS. 
Culture of Spring Wheat, &c. 
Judge Buel—S ir—I am much more in the ha¬ 
bit of ploughing than writing, but thought that I 
would make a few statements relative to raising 
spring wheat. I sowed about fourteen and an half 
acres last year; the return four hundred and sixty- 
eight bushels, the most of it Italian spring wheat: 
five and an half acres in one piece yielded two hun¬ 
dred and ten bushels, about forty bushels to the 
acre. There was some difference in the piece; it 
was thought by the reapers that about two acres of 
the piece would yield full fifty bushels to the acre: 
land ploughed once; except about an acre, which was 
the poorest of the wheat. The land had lain to pasture 
I should think about six years. I sold the wheat for 
two dollars a bushel. I believe that I could have 
sold ten times as much if I had had it. The rest of 
my Italian wheat was sown on poorer land, and did 
not yield so much. The return of all my wheat thir¬ 
ty-three bushels on an acre. 
I will now state to my brother farmers what I think 
the most profitable way of preparing land for spring 
wheat, which I can do for four dollars an acre. As 
labor is dear it is of importance to use economy. 
In the first place, let about all the stones be taken 
off: if the land is in good heart, put on about ten or 
twelve loads of unfermented dung; if the land is 
somewhat worn, fifteen or sixteen; if it is very 
much exhausted, twenty or twenty-five will be all 
the better; this we shall make no account of; all 
this must be done if you sow winter wheat: plough 
the land once, the earlier the better, and do it well : 
make no bauks, ns the farmers say, but let it all be 
turned over ; that you can do for two dollars Give 
it a good dragging, no matter how soon : let the 
sheep and cattle run on it as much as they please, 
all summer : go over it now and then with your 
drag and cultivator, so as to keep the grass and 
weeds down : by fall, your land will be very mel¬ 
low : all this you can do for one dollar more. Sow 
your land, as early as you can in the spring, with 
Italian wheat, or Siberian spring wheat, which 
should be very clean; which you may do in the 
following manner : let your wheat be put into a 
tolerable strong brine the night before ; put about a 
bushel in a box, or tub ; put in as much lime or 
plaster as you can make stick to the wheat; lime is 
rather the best: if the land is rich, sow at least two 
bushels to the acre : I sowed ten rods of my piece 
two and a half or three bushels to the acre : the 
wheat was monstrous, and I could not perceive but 
that it was just as plump as any part of the field. I 
should think that the return of an acre of such wheat 
would be at least sixty bushels. As I stated, sow as 
early as you can : after sowing, go over your land 
both ways with the cultivator, and once with a fine 
patent drag : if the land is dry, let the roller pass 
over it once ; this you can do for one dollar more, 
which makes four dollars an acre, about half the ex¬ 
pense of preparing land in the old way for winter 
wheat. Your land will then be as mellow as ashes. 
If you have done the work well, you may calcu¬ 
late for about forty bushels an acre the first year. 
After harvest, as soon as you can, you may plough 
the same land again, turn the stubble all under, 
which will be a pretty good dressing for the land. 
I practice what I call a foot on my plough, to pre¬ 
vent it from clogging up, a piece of wood about 
eighteen inches long, perhaps six wide and four 
thick, with a mortice in the middle near the end of 
the beam, with a wedge the upper and under side ; 
it will crowd the stubble down before the point of 
the plough, and you will plough it about as well as 
if there was no stubble there. Drag your land once 
or twice in the fall: sow it the next spring, in the 
same manner as before : you may then calculate 
for about thirty bushels an acre. I would also re¬ 
commend to sow the same ground the third year,f in 
the same manner : you will be likely to get about 
twenty bushels an acre. Seed it down the third year 
with clover, if you want it for pasture ; if for mea¬ 
dow, clover and timothy : in about three or four 
years more you may plant the same land again. 
Perhaps it would be better to put different sorts of 
spring wheat every year; I have sown five different 
sorts of spring wheat this year; I .have the Italian 
bearded, the Italian bald, the Siberian, the old white 
* The three first volumes are re-printed on a page to match 
with the fourth, of which latter we made 25,000 impressions, 
so that the whole may be had bound together, or in two vols. 
f Bad! Bad! Very' bad I 40—30—20! 
chaff, and a sort that I call the Syracuse wheat, said 
to be a great yielder, sixty-two pounds to the bushel: 
the season was remarkably wet; and this season I 
began to sow the thirteenth of April and finished the 
twenty-fifth of May. I thought I should not have half 
a crop for a long time, but lately it has done remarka¬ 
bly well: if the remainder of the season should be 
good, I should think the crop would be abundant. 
I have but little doubt but that, in the great wheat 
growing districts in the west, where the winter 
wheat begins to fail, or on the rich prairies, that 
the Italian or Siberian wheat would yield forty or 
fifty bushels, in a common season, where the work 
was done well. 
One thing more, Judge Buel, and then I have 
done. I have read much in the Cultivator and Ge¬ 
nesee Farmer about bone manure, but how shall we 
prepare it? It has been said that it could be ground 
in a plaster mill: accordingly I collected a number of 
bones last summer, canned them to Ithaca eighteen 
miles ; the man said that he thought that he could 
grind them, and he would take pains and do them 
well, in a short time : I sent after them by my son : 
he informed him that it took him about half a day, 
with another hand with him, and he could not afford 
to grind them short of ten or twelve shillings a 
bushel; and they made such a smell the people 
wondered what he was about in the village ; but he 
charged me only twenty-five cents a bushel. 
I have lately heard that to mix a little lime with 
straw, as you thresh it out, will make it rot very 
soon. I should be glad of some information about 
that. I would also inform my brother farmers 
that wish to raise the Italian spring wheat, that it is 
likely I shall be able to supply some of them with 
seed this year : I expect to thresh my wheat with a 
machine this year, immediately after harvest: I shall 
clean it twice over, in a first rate mill, and make it 
very clean for seed : it is likely that I shall have a 
thousand bushels, if the rest of the season should be 
favorable. Any letters addressed to me, from any 
part of the country, post paid, will be promptly at¬ 
tended to : letters may be directed to Jonathan Ed¬ 
wards, town of Virgil, county of Cortland, state ot 
New-York. Perhaps I have written more already 
than you will be willing to print, or your readers 
will have patience to read. You are at full liberty 
to leave out any part, or the whole of it, as you 
may think proper. I subscribe myself yours sin¬ 
cerely. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
Cheap Horse Power and Thrasher,, 
Butternuts , July 20th, 1838. 
Sir —Farmers are aware of the loss of time and 
labor attending the practice of thrashing with flails: 
and thrashing machines would be more generally in¬ 
troduced were they not too expensive for the means 
of most of our farmers; for this appears to be the 
principal cause why they do not provide themselves 
with them. We have a machine and horse power, 
built by our neighbor, Mr. Botsford—cost fifty dol¬ 
lars —which will thrash one hundred bushels of wheat 
in eight hours, attended by three men and a horse. 
We have done our thrashing with one horse, but two 
or three may be attached if necessary. The ma¬ 
chine may be attended to very good advantage by 
a man and boy. It has been examined by several 
farmers and mechanics of our vicinity, and has uni¬ 
formly met their approbation. There are several of 
our neighborhood who will each have one built the 
ensuing winter. Any kind of machinery may be at- 
tached~to it capable of being propelled by one, two 
or three horses. We want a machine for shelling 
corn, which may be attached to it. Can you direct 
us?* Very respectfuly yours. 
_ NELSON B. PEARS ALL. 
*« Where did he get his Education?” 
Lake C. H. Ia. July 15tli, 1838. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—This question, which 
has so often been applied to the writer of this article, 
has just been brought forcibly to mind by (for the first 
time) reading in your first volume, an address to 
young men, in w T hich occurs this golden morsel: 
“ Although we may he learned by the help of others, 
we can never he wise but by our own wisdom.” 
That is our own exertion. There is also another 
article in the same volume on “ Self-Education,” by 
John Neal; which is worthy of a republication in eve¬ 
ry paper in the union. 
It is a settled point that some of the wisest men 
who have adorned our country were self-educated. 
Mechanics and farmers have “ found time” to acquire 
a useful education. Every one of them can still find 
time for the same purpose, if he will. It is self-exer¬ 
tion that acquire^ self-education. Who that per¬ 
ceives that the knowledge which hjs neighbor pos¬ 
sesses, and which gives him such a decided advantage 
in the world, is within his own reach, that will not 
extend his hand for the golden treasure 1 
* Yes—to Thorburn’s, Albany. 
What shall we do to incite young men to exert 
themselves to procure an education by their own ex¬ 
ertions! For they can no longer depend upon go¬ 
vernment. Not one half of the states have even pro¬ 
vided for the lowest grade of schools. And in those 
where the common school system is in the best ope¬ 
ration, what except the veriest rudiments, the mere 
A. B. C.’s of useful knowledge, can be learned. 1 ’Tis 
true this is a good foundation, but we want something 
to incite the community to add those elegant super¬ 
structures which ornament the world. We should 
have, we can have, shall I add, we will have, in eve¬ 
ry county and principal town in the United States a 
well founded agricultural school, in which young men 
and girls can acquire such an education as will be 
useful. Not a piano, French, Spanish or flower 
daub education, but one that will make the men sci¬ 
entific farmers and mechanics, and intelligent public 
officers and acting legislators, and the women fit to 
become the honored and husband-honoring wives of 
such citizens—who will never be ashamed to tell 
their daughters, that they obtained the education that 
has ever since rendered them ornaments to society, 
in a manual labor school, where, by their daily toil, 
they earned their daily acquirements. But let not 
toil be construed slavery or drudgery, for that never 
should be in any family, and much more in a school. 
Useful and healthy labor, judiciously applied without, 
slavish toil, should afford all the necessary means of 
enjoying life. If ever the false pride of labor hating, 
and the false and foolish, and for all practical pur¬ 
poses of life, the present prevailing system of fashiona¬ 
ble education is improved, it will be by such schools. 
There is evidently a growing disposition towards im¬ 
provement in the agricultural community; but until 
that disposition has grown to a greater maturity, the 
great ends and objects of the pioneer friends of im¬ 
provement cannot be brought about. Would not the 
foundation of “An American Society of Agriculture,” 
be the means of increasing the little band of pioneers 
now in the field, until every town boasted of its use¬ 
ful agricultural school, and every legislature its ma¬ 
jority of agriculturists, who would feel proud of being 
dressed, and elegantly too, in American silks and 
broadcloths 1 
Such a body of men would not need to be petition¬ 
ed, year after year, before they would enact laws for 
the purpose of preserving, improving and strengthen¬ 
ing the base upon which rests the whole superstruc¬ 
ture of civilized society. Fearing 1 am falling into a 
popular error, a tedious, lengthy list of words, I close 
abruptly. Your friend. 
SOLON ROBINSON. 
The Cotton Culture, and its Profits. 
Marlborough District, S. C. July 15, 1838. 
J. Buel, Esq.—A friend has just handed me the 
Cultivator of December, 1837, with the request that 
I would answer the following questions, propounded 
by your Princeton, (N. J.) correspondent, on the cul¬ 
ture of cotton, &c. 
Question 1. What soil and climate is the most 
suitable for cotton ? 
Answer. The first branch of this question would be 
difficult to determine conclusively, there being al¬ 
most as many different opinions as you would find 
planters. But for myself I should prefer a mixture of 
clay and sand in equal proportions, and for these rea¬ 
sons : Such a soil has the power ot absorbing both 
heat and moisture in a greater degree than where 
clay much predominates; the young and earlier 
growth of the cotton, hastens more rapidly to matu¬ 
rity (which is a matter of the first importance)—is 
more easily cultivated—and is more certain in obtain¬ 
ing a stand with an unfavorable spring. The climate 
most suitable for the growth of cotton, is between 30 
and 35 degrees. 
Question 2. What kinds of seed are found in the 
southern states to be the most productive and profitable l 
Answer. For upland or short staple, the Alverado 
or Petit-Gulf is preferred, as being easier gathered, 
yielding more, and having a longer and stronger sta¬ 
ple than the green seed and other varieties. I 
know not of any particular kind preferred by the Sea 
Island, or long staple planters. 
Question 3. What is the best method of, and the best 
time for planting ? 
Answer. The usual method is to drill upon the bed 
with a very simple plough made for the purpose, of 
a piece of timber a foot and a half in length, and from 
one inch and a half to two inches thick, and a foot in 
width; there is then attached another piece length¬ 
wise on the centre of its bottom, so as to make the 
drill from two to two and a half inches in depth and 
width at top, sloping to a half inch at bottom, with 
two handles, a beam and helve, and the plough is 
complete. The reasons why the drill is so made are 
these : it gives sufficient space at top for the seeds to 
enter, without requiring the sower to stoop too much; 
and at the same time brings them to a narrow com¬ 
pass at the bottom, which is a very great advantage 
