THE CULTIVATOR. 
pride have sought gratification in conquests and in the 
homage of the fine arts. But it must not, it cannot be 
so here, where the agricultural interest is sovereign, 
and as it furnishes all the means, rightfully supplies 
the motives, and directs the action of the government. 
“ Every acre of cultivated land could be made to yield, 
with the expense now bestowed upon it, products ex¬ 
ceeding by one-third in quantity and value of its present 
fruits. The diffusion among the cultivators of the earth 
of the science belonging to their art would enlighten 
their minds, enlarge their views, elevate their motives, 
and refine their sentiments. Let it be remembered, that 
all this is necessary if we would not see the power re¬ 
siding with them steal away, as has always before been 
the case, to other classes, whose pursuits secure intel¬ 
lectual cultivation and superior wealth. Agriculture 
appeals to us as republicans, therefore, with peculiar 
earnestness, not only by our desire to increase the pub¬ 
lic wealth, enlarge the public intelligence, and elevate 
the standard of public virtue; but as we would pre¬ 
serve the ascendency of that policy of peace and im¬ 
provement identified with the existence of democratic 
institutions. 
“ Among the plans of improvement which have been 
suggested, is the formation of a Board of Agriculture. 
I respectfully commend it to your favorable attention. 
Such a board might be usefully employed in introduc¬ 
ing new species and varieties of productions, and im¬ 
provements in implements of husbandry, and in carry¬ 
ing on a general correspondence with a view to promote 
the interests of agriculture. 
I submit also whether it would not be well to require 
that a popular treatise upon agriculture should be con¬ 
tained in the district school libraries; and whether le¬ 
gislative sanction and patronage could not be so extend¬ 
ed as to encourage the organization of agricultural so¬ 
cieties, free from the defects which have hitherto prov¬ 
ed fatal to their permanency and success.’' * 1 
Prof. Shepherd’s Horticultural Address. 
We have been kindly furnished with a copy of 
the address of Prof. Shepherd, delivered before the 
Horticultural Society of New-Haven in Sept, last, 
and have read it with great pleasure. It inculcates 
not only greater attention to the fruit and kitchen 
garden, as highly conducive to health and comfort, 
but it urges the culture of flowers, and the planting 
of ornamental shrubs and trees, as sources of intel¬ 
lectual pleasure, and as means of improving the pub¬ 
lic taste and promoting rural embellishment. 
“The supply of fine vegetables, for the every day sup¬ 
ply of the table,” the Professor justly remarks, “ has not 
yet received, in our country, all the attention it deserves. 
The people are every where too much engrossed by 
what they believe more pressing objects than the rais¬ 
ing of vegetables. The farmer is too apt to sacrifice 
his garden to his staple crops. It is only after his hea¬ 
vy planting is finished, that he finds time to throw in 
his early crop of garden seeds; and these, when up, 
receive uo care, except at odd moments, and on rainy 
days. Few vegetables with him, therefore, attain per¬ 
fection; and these only when circumstances happen to 
prove propitious. The mechanic, the tradesman, and 
the professional man of villages and smaller towns, 
where garden spots are within the means of every per¬ 
son, bestow but little more attention than the farmer 
upon the culture of vegetables. The kinds produced, 
the modes of cultivation, and the quantity of supply, 
each admit of great improvement.” 
We believe but few persons, who have ever en¬ 
joyed the fruits and comforts of a good garden, are 
willing to forego them, or are apt to remit in their 
culture. In this respect, a taste for gardening is 
much like a taste for reading—the more it is cultivat¬ 
ed, the more interesting it becomes, the more it 
grows upon us. The great point, in both, is to be¬ 
gin—to taste,—t.o realize the pleasures and the pro¬ 
fits which they confer. If the farmer, or the village 
cit, would but begin , properly, to cultivate the gar¬ 
den, and persevere through one season, we might 
count upon his progressive improvement. But if 
the ground is but half prepared, a circumstance which 
often occurs, the seeds put in late, and the culture 
neglected, the product will consequently be trivial, 
and the quality inferior ; and it is no wonder that the 
owner considers the garden unworthy his care, or 
meriting only his secondary consideration. In the 
garden, as on the farm, things should be done in 
time, and well done—“ a stitch in time saves nine 
an hour spent in destroying small weeds, will often 
go as far as a day spent in destroying large ones; 
and the crop, if timely cleaned and thinned, may give 
a liberal reward to labor, while if left crowded, and 
choked with weeds, may fall far short of it. We 
pledge our belief, that if the farmer of occasional 
leisure, the mechanic, or the professional gentleman, 
he he even the clergyman, will spend one half of the 
time he can spare from his business, in the practical 
business of the garden, for one season, he will find 
his health improved, his mind enlarged, and the ra¬ 
tional pleasures of life much increased. To the 
young, a taste for gardening may avert many evils, : 
and lead to much positive good; to the middle aged, 
it will be a source of high intellectual enjoyment; 
and to the aged it will afford a healthful exercise to 
199 
the body, and a pleasant recreation, without alloy, to 
the mind. 
In its bearing upon health, which we all ought to 
cherish as one of the first blessings of life, the gar¬ 
den and its products, in the opinion of the Professor, 
have a benign influence. 
“Tt is conceded,” says he, “by those who express 
opinions upon the science of hygiene in the United States, 
that the very free use of animal food is a vice in the 
dietetics of our people. The fact I hold to be intimate¬ 
ly connected with the poverty of our gardens. I do not 
indeed deny, that our supply of the cerelia is often in¬ 
adequate; but bread, though called the staff of life, is 
not intended to be the sole vegetable accompaniment 
of our meals. Man cannot live by bread alone; and if 
you deprive him of other varieties of vegetable diet, he 
will inevitably indulge to excess in the use of animal 
food. In order to preserve that due adjustment of the 
vegetable to the animal diet, intended for us by nature, 
it is not enough to give him, along with the potatoe, an 
occasional taste of the common sorts of the leguminous 
and cruciform families of vegetables, but the variety 
must constantly be rendered as complete as possible, 
embracing productions the most widely asunder in fla¬ 
vor, as well as in the quality of nutricious matter which 
they contain.” 
Perhaps there are no people in the world, who 
consume so large a proportion of meat with their 
daily food, as the people of the United States—and 
very much, we believe, to the prejudice of their 
health. The mass of the population of Asia, as also 
of middle Africa, and of middle and southern Europe, 
subsist almost entirely upon vegetable diet. An er¬ 
roneous opinion is entertained by many, that a great 
portion of meat is necessary to the laboring man.— 
And why 1 Not because meat affords the most nutri¬ 
ment. According to Vauqnelin and other eminent 
chemists, as quoted in the Encyclopaedia Americana, 
meat contains far less nutriment than many vegeta¬ 
ble substances. One hundred pounds of bread is 
said to contain 80 lbs. of nutritious matter; 100 lbs. 
of peas 93 of nutrient matter; 100 lbs. of beans 92 ; 
and 100 lbs. of meat but 35 lbs. of nutrient matter; 
while the potatoe affords of nutrient matter 25 per 
cent. Thus showing that three pounds of potatoes 
are more nutricious than two pounds of flesh. 
The Professor not only complains of the small pro¬ 
portion of vegetable food which we consume, but of 
the injudicious mode of preparing it for the table. 
“Increased attention,” says he, “must likewise be 
devoted to the preparation of vegetables for the table, 
which subject, I think, comes in (appendix-wise if you 
please,) among the objects of our society; and particu¬ 
larly recommends itself to the regard of those ladies of 
the association who occupy the very honorable station 
of heads of families. Already several delicious vege¬ 
tables are becoming common in our gardens, which 
nevertheless but rarely find their way to the table, or 
when there, are found unpalatable, solely from defective 
modes of cooking. 
“ I trust, therefore, that one good result of our soci¬ 
ety will be the proper regulation of diet; for it appears to 
me, that well cultivated kitchen gardens and fruit yards 
are much more likely to effect the object, than the wis¬ 
est dietetic rules, or the most stirring lectures, in the 
absence of such necessary provisions.” 
In speaking of the peach, Prof. S. says, “it is only 
necessary to plant the r.rees in a deep rich soil , where 
they will enjoy a shelter from cold winds, and to 
prune them annually, with a bold hand, in order to 
secure a constant and abundant crop.” This loca¬ 
tion for the peach, with us, we should consider a 
very bad one, as the growth would not cease so ear¬ 
ly, nor the wood consequently ripen so well before 
winter, as on a light dry soil, and in a more unpro¬ 
tected situation. Nor can we agree with the Pro¬ 
fessor in recommending the pruning knife to be used 
annually, and with a bold hand, upon standard trees. 
The branches may be cut in to a thrifty sprout, after 
having fruited two or three seasons, but we believe 
the policy of close pruning, and especially of cutting 
young healthy laterals, has been thought wrong by 
professional gardners. 
In recommending the cultivation of flowers, and 
ornamental trees and shrubs, Prof. S. pertinently 
asks— 
“Need I speak of the inducement to cultivate such 
plants within and about our houses ! While their deli¬ 
cious odors regale our senses, their form and beauty may 
be said to improve our taste. The inspection of [exo¬ 
tic] plants, so dissimilar to our native productions, is 
calculated to awaken in the minds of the young a curio¬ 
sity in favor of botany; a science whose study has been 
found to he highly propetitious to early mental culture, 
—operating as it does to sharpen the habits of observa¬ 
tion, to promote discrimination, and to impart, in a re¬ 
markable degree, the perception and love of order.” 
The Professor recommends, particularly, an atten¬ 
tion to the domestication and culture of indigenous 
plants, and ornamental shrubs and trees, of which 
we can boast of many that are truly beautiful; 
he enumerates a great number of this description ; di¬ 
rects the mode of mixing and grouping them ; and 
recommends planting not only in door-yards, and in 
streets, but the vacant grounds in the neighborhood 
of the city. Pie complains of the neglect of the ap¬ 
ple orchards, which have either disappeared, or ex¬ 
hibit a melancholy emblem of neglected old age. 
Without at all interfering with the temperance < ause, 
the apple orchard is now found to be a valuable ap¬ 
pendage to the farm. Giving a succession of fruit 
during the whole year for the dessert and kitchen, it 
is capable of contributing largely to the sustenance 
of the family ; while every kind of farm stock, it is 
now satisfactorily shown, may be fed and fattened 
upon the fruit with economy and profit. 
The Professor dwells with minuteness upon the 
policy of beautifying the streets and public grounds 
with ornamental trees, and he forcibly illustrates this 
policy, by referring to the monuments of past ages—■ 
the stately elms which embellish the college green, 
and which have been the admiration of all strangers 
who have visited New-Haven. The circumference 
of some of these trees is said to be from 12 to 18£ 
feet. One of them was planted by the Rev. James 
Pierpont in 1688. An interesting fact is also stated, 
viz: that five generations ago, the parishioners join¬ 
ed their gifts to erect for their pastor a dwelling.—• 
One poor individual, who had no other offering to 
give, brought from the woods an elm tree, and 
planted it before the door of the parsonage. The 
last vestige of the mansion has been devoured by 
time, and the liberality of those who built it forgot¬ 
ten, while the tree lives and towers in majesty, pro¬ 
mising to carry down to other generations the name 
of William Cooper, the poor man who pluched it 
from the forest, and planted it where it stands. 
Hints for the Master. 
Hay that is made in the shade retains its colour and 
its sweetness much longer than that which is made in 
the sun, but it requires a longer time to dry. * * * 
I have found hay which has been made in the shade, 
after being exposed to the free action of the air for 
three months, smell as sweet as on the day when the 
mass irom which it was taken was stacked— Smith on 
Improved Agriculture. These remarks go to corro¬ 
borate what we have often stated, that hay cured in 
cock, is much superior to that cured by being spread 
to the sun. 
The same writer suggests, that fodder may be 
greatly augmented by mixing the hay from" the 
field with dry straw in the mow or f tack; and that 
where this is to take place, the hay may be housed 
much greener than otherwise. The straw is enrich¬ 
ed by the surplus juices of the grass. We have 
practised this with the third cutting of lucerne, and the 
cattle apparently relished the straw as much as they 
did the hay. 
Experiments in drying wheat.— “ Taking three 
separate quantities of wheat ears, all of equal weight 
and cut the same day, the first exposed lor seven 
days to the full influence of the sun, was found to be 
dry, thin and steely ; the second, laid in the shade 
where the air would have its full effect upon it; this 
after laying twelve days was rather thin than other¬ 
wise,) very dry but not steely—its weight was one 
tenth more than the first;—the third lay very near 
to the second in the shade, was moistened by having 
a little water sprinkled over it for the first six days, 
and then left eight days to dry; it was thin, dry, 
good body, very mellow, but not quite so bright as 
the second, although the flour was of quite as good 
'quality, and its weight one-ninth more than the se¬ 
cond.— Smith on Improved Ag. 
The same writer affirms, that if wintered in com¬ 
fortable warm and dry sheds, cattle will thrive better 
upon good straw, than those fed upon good hav, in a 
wet, cold and comfortless yard ; that if the straw be 
cut and mixed with a small quantity of hay, it will all 
be consumed ; and that by these two modes of im¬ 
provement in feeding, the farmer would be enabled 
to winter more than twice the quantity of stock, that 
he can do under present existing circumstances. 
OF THE ARRANGEMENT OF FARM LABOR. 
The importance of order and system (says Lou¬ 
don, Enc. Ag. p. 734,) has been already insisted up¬ 
on, and the subject cannot be too often repeated.—■ 
To conduct an extensive farm well, is not a matter 
of trivial moment, or to the management of which 
every one is competent. Much may be effected by 
capita], skill and industry; but even these will not 
often ensure success, without judicious arrangement. 
With it, a farm furnishes an uninterrupted succes¬ 
sion of useful labor during all the seasons of the year j 
and the most is made that circumstances will admit 
of, by regularly employing the laboring persons and 
cattle, at such works as are likely to be most profit¬ 
able. Under such a system it is hard ly to be credited 
how little tune is lost, either of the men or horses, in 
the course of a whole year. This is the great ob¬ 
ject, for each horse may be estimated at three shil- 
lings (66 cents), per day, and each man at two 
shillings (44 cents.) Every day, therefore, in which 
a man and horse are unemployed, occasions the 
loss of at least five shillings to the husbandman. 
