deep planting is best And if it shall be found that in our 
more northern climates and clayey soils, deep planting 
will yield the best crop, there is another advantage at¬ 
tending it, that will recommend it to those who cultivate 
this valuable grain. Corn that is planted deep is not so 
easily blown down by winds, and will not be bent and 
tangled at cutting time, like that which is planted on 
the surface. As this is a question involving no depth 
of reasoning or scientific knowledge, it may perhaps be 
passed over, with less attention than it deserves. But 
if it be duly considered, it will be found to be a question 
of interest, and it is hoped that all who can communicate 
facts, will contribute their aid to a correct settlement of 
the question. In the case mentioned above, the corn 
was planted in a sandy soil, of but moderate fertili¬ 
ty, and it will occur to all that in experiments which 
may be detailed, the character of the soil should be 
given. 
Another question of interest to myself, is now forcing 
itself upon my attention; and I would be glad to hear 
the opinions of those, whose experience may enable them 
to speak upon the subject. To state the question more 
clearly, I will premise that for near twenty years, I have 
been cultivating a small farm upon the four field system. 
When it. first came to my hands, a part of it, though ori¬ 
ginally fertile, had been greatly exhausted by bad ma¬ 
nagement, and all my efforts were directed to its im¬ 
provement. My crops have been corn, wheat, clover, 
clover, and by a free use of plaster, and some degree of 
economy in saving manure, my farm is now greatly im¬ 
proved and may be said to be in good heart. The soil is 
a tolerably stiff clay, based upon what we call blue 
slate, the rock lying at a good depth below the surface. 
I have preferred mowing to grazing, and as the hoof is 
injurious to clay lands, the stock have been kept off the 
fields as much as possible, when the ground was soft. 
But little has been sold off the farm except wheat, clo¬ 
ver seed, cattle and hogs. 
Having but a small farm, and being desirous of culti¬ 
vating more land than my farm will allow, upon the four 
field system, I am inclined to divide my land into three 
shifts, and this forces upon my attention the question, 
whether I can preserve the degree of fertility which my 
land has attained, by cultivating corn, wheat, and clover, 
and letting the clover stand but one year, instead of two. 
By letting the clover stand two years, the land has im¬ 
proved; and now if it shall stand but one, will the land 
deteriorate, and will the crop be reduced ? Let it be 
supposed that the corn shall be fed upon the farm ; that 
the clover shall be in part mown, and in part glazed by 
hogs; and that a reasonable degree of economy shall be 
used in savingmanure. 
As he who asks information from others, should be 
willing to communicate any which he may have, and 
thereby show his readiness to contribute to the common 
fund, I will mention, that my practice, has been to sow 
plaster broad-cast upon corn, instead of patting it on 
the hill, believing, that at earing time, which is the most 
important, the roots have spread over the whole surface, 
and that the plaster being sown broad-cast, will then be 
in a situation to contribute more to the growth of the 
corn, than it would be if placed immediately at the 
stock, as it is the ends of the roots that take up nourish¬ 
ment: and believing, too, that when sown in this way, 
the plaster will benefit the succeeding wheat crop, and 
the young clover which shall be growing with the wheat. 
I have indeed thought, that sometimes the young clover 
is thereby saved from being killed by drought. 
For some years past, my attention has been turned to 
hogs, and having been successful in my efforts, I will give 
you my opinions upon that subject. The more common 
practice with us, is, to let our hogs shift for themselves, 
or to feed them but sparingly the greater part of the 
year, and then during the fattening season, to feed them 
to excess. We then attempt to do that by force, which 
might previously have been accomplished by an easier 
and cheaper process. By feeding too sparingly during 
the winter, the hogs are kept alive only; they do not 
grow; become stinted, are worth no more in the spring 
than they were in the fall, frequently not so much, and 
of course what has been fed has been wasted ; and then, 
during fattening season, they are fed to excess, and loss 
is sustained by undigested corn. My plan has been to 
feed well, to start my pigs fat, and to keep them in uni¬ 
formly good condition. They are always growing and 
increasing in value; are fed a small quantity of grain 
when running in clover pasture, and by cutting up corn 
for them as soon as it is in good roasting ears, they are 
ready for market, as soon as the weather is cold enough 
for slaughtering. Theyare, in this way, fattened during 
moderate weather, and all agree that hogs fatten faster 
in moderate than in cold weather. I prefer fattening 
in a field, to a close pen, and from my observation, I am 
satisfied the field is the best. The field is used that is 
intended for the corn the following year. The grass 
and clover roots which they get, contribute to their 
health, and save corn, as any one may be convinced, by 
observing that they will feed a part of the day on the 
clover, however plentifully they may be fed with corn. 
If hogs be well fed, and kept dry, and clean, and warm 
in winter, and be furnished with shade and plenty of wa¬ 
ter in summer, they will, I think, be always profitable. 
A good breed should be selected, as some breeds are 
certainly more profitable than others. The feeding of 
hogs presents another question of interest, and we ought 
to inquire, whether clover grazed by hogs, will improve 
the land as much as if it be grazed by cattle; and whe¬ 
ther corn fed to hogs upon a field will improve it as 
much as if it were fed to cattle. These are questions 
which I would not undertake to decide from my expori- 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
ence, and upon which I would like to hear the opinions 
of others. If these inquiries shall receive any attention 
from the correspondents and readers of the Cultivator, 
I may be encouraged to trespass again upon your atten¬ 
tion. _ GEORGE H. CH RISMAN. 
On Ashing Seed Wheat—The Poppy a Protection 
against Insects. 
J. Buel —Sir—While living in the State of New-York 
and being a mechanic, I was a subscriber for the first 
volume of the Cultivator with which I was much pleas¬ 
ed; and now having moved to Michigan, and commenc¬ 
ing a new business with which I am unacquainted, I 
feel the need of instruction in this, (tome) anew branch 
of business: therefore I have taken the fourth, and am 
taking the fifth volume, and I want you to send me the 
sixth, and also, the second and third volumes. I think 
that I have been more than paid for all the expense in 
taking the Cultivator, in one small crop of wheat, in 
as much as that paper instructed me to soak seed wheat 
in brine, and roll it in lime; but as I had no lime, and 
as it was impossible to obain clean seed, I soaked it in 
a strong brine, and then rolled it in wood-ashes, as a 
substitute for lime, and to my great satisfaction, after 
sowing very smutty seed, I harvested a clean crop.— 
And I am convinced that wood-ashes is better than lime 
to prevent smut; and more, if wheat is soaked in salt¬ 
water and rolled in good strong ashes, I venture to say, 
it will never be troubled with the insect. 
And now, Sir, as I he grain-worm is spreading its de¬ 
vastation through many parts of our country, and as 
you have offered a premium of fifty dollars, and the 
editor of the Yankee Farmer, a premium of thirty dollars, 
for a preventive of this great destroyer of our wheat 
crops, I will venture to give the farmers of our coun¬ 
try, through your columns, a preventive, or what I think 
will prevent the wheat-fly from hovering around our 
wheat crops or any other crop. If the farmer will either 
in the fall, or early in the spring, sow the common pop¬ 
py among his wheat, he will not be troubled with the 
wheat-fly, unless they are invincibles indeed, for I have 
for twenty years sown poppies in my garden, and where 
they were, I have not been troubled with fly, bug, nor 
insect on any vegetable, even in my field among my 
wortzel and ruta bagas. The common poppies have 
prevented the ravages of all flies, bugs and insects.— 
And now, Sir, if I am not entitled to the above premi¬ 
ums, let no man look for them, for if the above is not 
a preventive, nothing but that power that dispersed the 
flies in Egypt, will disperse the wheat-flies in America.* * * * § 
SMITHFIELD BEDEN. 
Hadley, Michigan , Dec. 24, 1838. 
* Mr. Beden’s prescription shall have a fair trial. 
EXTRACTS. 
\Fi •omthe ( London) Farmers' Magazine .] 
Essay upon the Breeding of Live Stock, and on 
the Comparative Influence of the Male and Fe¬ 
male Parents in Impressing the Offspring. 
By John Boswell, Esq. of Balmuto and Kingcausie. 
CONCLUDED. 
I would next look a little at the influence the male 
has in the ox. Here, although I still see the male have 
by far the greatest influence, I would say that there was 
a shade of difference, perhaps five per cent, less than in 
the horse. The cow appears to be an animal whose 
progeny is often much affected by her imagination dur¬ 
ing the time of conception, or rather during the period 
when she is in season. We have the most ancient as 
well as the highest authority for this in the peeled rods 
of Jacob: and from what my own experience, as well 
as the information of trustworthy men, has taught me, 
I am inclined to think that the calf very often takes af¬ 
ter the beast that has been jumping on the cow (whe¬ 
ther ox or cow) previous to her being taken to themale. 
One of the most intelligent breeders I have ever met 
with in Scotland, Mr. Mustard,* an extensive farmer on 
Sir James Carnegie’s estate in Angus, told me a singu¬ 
lar fact in regard to what I have now stated. One of 
his cows chanced to come into season while pasturing 
on a field which was bounded by that of his neighbors; 
out of which field an ox jumped, and went with the cow 
until she was brought home to the bull. The ox was 
white with black spots, and horned. Mr. Mustard had 
not a horned beast in his possession, nor one with any 
white on it. Nevertheless, the produce of the following 
spring was a black and white calf with horns. I have 
twice had pure Ayrshire cows, which are. uniformly 
what is called red and white, with horns. The first of 
those I put to a brown bull without horns; the produce 
was very dark red, with out any white, and polled. The 
next sow was put to a jet black bull with horns. The 
first produce was dark red, without any white, and the 
next was jet black, and also without any white ; and in 
both cases the make of the progeny took greatly after 
the sire. On settling in the North of Scotland as a far¬ 
mer, I soon perceived that one of the greatest defects in 
the cattle was a tendency to be knock-kneed behind, and 
in my endeavours to get rid of this, I procured a bull 
from the South of Scotland free from that defect, and 
with him crossed the best looking cows of the country. 
I instantly got rid of that narrowness behind observable 
in all cattle where no attention has been paid to the 
breed; and, in a few years, by drafting such queys as 
* This gentleman’s stock are all jet black and polled, and 
so remarkably alike, that they show much care in attending 
to the breed. 
209 
did not please me, and breeding only from good shaped 
ones, I made a breed for myself, which I had done be¬ 
fore I knew it, for, having one season lost almost all my 
own calves, I was, in consequence ot this misfortune, 
forced to buy in calves. These were treated in the 
same way as to food, fkc. as my own, yet those from my 
own cows soon shot far a-head of them, both in size and 
condition; and on examination of the two sets of ani¬ 
mals, an evident superiority of form existed in those of 
my own, especially in the smallness and beauty of the 
head, with a prominent eye; and, a fact not hitherto 
mentioned, that of the tail being one-half less as to thick¬ 
ness than in the unimproved breed, while a wide chest 
(that unerring sign of a good and quick feeder) was 
very conspicuous.* It would seem that horns had been 
given to the cow by Nature, and that the polled breed 
have been procured by selection of some of those varie¬ 
ties we so often see, as I observe that it more frequently 
occurs, when a polled bull is put to a horned cow, that the 
produce resembles the mother in that particular, than 
when a horned bull is put to a polled cow, when horns 
are almost always the consequence.f A great many 
years ago, the present Sir Alexandar Ramsay, of Fas- 
que, brought a few of the Lancashire cattle to Scotland, 
a breed then much in fashion, and, as every one knows, 
remarkable for having uncommonly wide spreading 
horns, and all with some white, especially on the back. 
These cattle were intermixed with the cows of the 
country ; and when Sir Alexander came to his estate, 
the cattle were all horned. About that time the polled 
or dodded cattle came greatly into vogue in Angus; 
and Sir Alexander purchased, from time to time, jet 
black polled bulls, so that in a short time all his cows 
were of this sort. Nevertheless, every year, even to 
this day, one or two of the calves “cry back” to the 
Lancashire, having white, and horns ; and, what is sin¬ 
gular, it is almost invariably in the male that this takes 
place. 
An instance of the influence of themale in the proge¬ 
ny of the cow is narrated by Bewick, the natural histo¬ 
rian. He is treating of the original breed of wild cat¬ 
tle which still exists in a few parks belonging to noble¬ 
men in the north of England, and in one or two places 
in Scotland. They are uniformly pure white, with black, 
or sometimes red ears and noses, and always extremely 
wild and fierce. At Chillingham Castle, in Northum¬ 
berland, says Bewick, cows used frequently to be turn¬ 
ed into the park when in season, which were covered 
by the wild bull; and what is strange, the produce from 
all those cows were uniformly white, with red ears and 
noses, and greatly partook of the character and quali¬ 
ties of the wild buli. Here, then, is a very strong proof 
of the influence of the male parent, and others equally 
strong could be quoted, did I not think it better to pass 
on to another animal, the sheep. 
Here the influence of the male parent is most strik¬ 
ing. I have stated in a former part of this essay, that 
I have been in the habit of purchasing a couple of scores 
of Highland ewes every year, to put to the Bakewell 
ram. Let us look a little at the characteristics of every 
breed in a wild, or at least nearly wild state. We find 
them muscular, active, restless in quest of food, ever in 
motion, and refusing to lay on fat.t Such I found the 
Highland ewes; they were all small, with black legs 
and faces, and had horns. On being put to the Bake¬ 
well, they produce lambs of a totally different breed 
from themselves, all having the greatest tendency to get 
fat, the wild wiry appearance of the Highlanders being 
entirely gone; and in its place we have a round fleshy ani¬ 
mal, resting peaceably in the fields, the desire to break 
over fences having likewise disappeared; and what is 
remarkable, not a single lamb is to be found with black 
legs or a black face, and scarcely one with any sort of 
horn,§ while all are of a very large size. They thrive 
remarkably well, any that I have allowed to grow up 
as an experiment; and I have always found them much 
more free from disease than either the Bakewell or the 
black-faced sheep, particularly the rot of the liver, 
which makes dreadful havoc amongst the Bakewell; 
nor does it spare the Highlander, especially when put 
on high keep. I cannot speak much of the appearance 
produced by a Highland ram with the Bakewell ewe. 
Being fully convinced of the power of the male on the 
offspring, I have always accounted it as loss to put a 
bad male to a high bred female, and have never done 
so. I have, however, observed, where the country peo¬ 
ple have purchased high-bred sheep at any sale of mine, 
and bred from them with the ordinary rams, that the 
breed very quickly got bad ; whereas when a Bakewell 
ram had been purchased, I have seen a most remarka¬ 
ble change on the quality of the sheep ; and in several 
instances where the ewes had been tolerable from which 
they had bred, the cross was so nearly resembling a new 
Leicester, as to deceive any one who was not a thorough 
judge. As I wish to confine myself to facts which have 
* “An observation which Dr. Jenner made to me about 
ten years ago (the truth of which 1ms been since confirmed by 
my own experience) that no animal whose chest was narrow 
could easily be made fat, applies particularly to the Merino 
sheep, which are in general contracted in that part, and is 
well worth the attention of those who wish to improve this 
breed .”—Sir J. Sebright- 
f An old French writer on agricultural subjects imagines 
that polled cattle are degenerated. He says, “Meme en 
Ecosse on trouve la race tres petite, et fort sou vent sans cor¬ 
nea.” 
f Look at the hare and the goat, however well fed, they 
refuse to lay on fat. 
§ Some few have a sort of shrivelled horn, which drops off, 
or more commonly they rub them off in the autumn. 
