THE CULTIVATOR: 
A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE. 
I KNOW OF NO PURSUIT IN WHICH MORE REAL AND IMPORTANT SERVICES CAN BE RENDERED TO ANY COUNTRY, THAN BY IMPROVING ITS AGRICULTURE.— Wash. 
Vol. VL ~~ NO. 5, WASHINGTON-ST. ALBANY, N. Y. JUNE, 1839 . No. 4. 
Conducted by J. IIUEL, of Albany. 
TERMS. —One Dollar per annum, to be paid in advance. 
Subscriptions to commence with a volume. 
Special Agents. —L. R Hill, Richmond, Va.; Bell <fc 
Entvvisle, Alexandria, D. C.; Gideon R. Smith, Baltimore, 
Md.; Judah Dobson, bookseller, D. Landreith, and M. S. 
Powell, seedsmen, Philadelphia; Israel Post, bookseller, 
88 Bowery, Alex. .Smith, seedsman, P. Wakeman, office of 
the American Institute, Broadway, N. York; Hovey & Co. 
Merchants’ Row, Boston; Alex. Walsh, Lansingburgh, and 
Wm. Thorburn, Albany, gratuitous agents. For general 
list of agents see LNo. 12, vol. v. 
The Cultivator is subject, to common newspaper postage. 
The pubtUbeil volumes are for sale at the subscription price, or, 
if bound, the cost of binding added. The bound volumes may be also 
had of our Agents in the principal cities, 
i/ri v \t<»«?-. _ 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
O’ To our Patrons. XU 
In order that our next volume may begin with the 
commencement of the year 1840, the time when most of 
the periodicals commence their volumes, we propose to 
finish volume VI. in the current year, by publishing a 
number on the 15th of August, and another on the 15th 
of October, in addition to the usual monthly publications 
—if serious objections are not raised to this arrange¬ 
ment by our patrons. 
JjP Failures by Mail. 
0©- We are in the receipt of notices, almost daily, of 
moneys being sent to us by mail, which have never 
come to our hands. The amount thus lost is too great 
to suffer without repining; nevertheless, as we have 
assumed the risk of this mode of transmitting moneys 
to us, we must suffer the loss, -where satisfactory proof 
is rendered, that the moneys so presumed to be lost, were 
actually mailed —a condition which we are obliged to 
insist on. 
$3- We would suggest to publishers and others, that 
that notify the General Post-office of all failures in the re¬ 
ceipt of moneys by mail, with dates, &c. in order to fa¬ 
cilitate the detection of the rogues who violate their 
duty. __ 
Horticultural Society of the Valley of the Hudson. 
$3“ In another column will be found a notice for a 
semi-annual exhibition of this society, to be made at 
the City-Hall in Albany, on the 25th of June instant. 
The object of this association is stated in the notice. 
Should the institution be sustained, as we think it ought 
to be, by the liberal and enlightened inhabitants of our 
valley, it cannot fail of becoming highly serviceable in 
introducing among us all the more valuable varieties of 
fruits and ornamental plants, in diffusing a taste for ru¬ 
ral embellishment, and in multiplying our domestic and 
social enjoyments. The descriptive catalogue of Pears, 
which we this day publish, will serve as an indication 
of the public service that may be rendered in the fruit 
department, by the labors of the association. We cul¬ 
tivate much fruit, but we cultivate but comparatively 
little which may be considered of the first quality.— 
Our garden productions are as susceptible of great 
improvement in their qualities as are our fruits. We 
tinite our earnest invitation to that of the secretary, 
for contributions to the exhibition, and for the counte¬ 
nance and support of the friends of horticultural im¬ 
provement. The exhibition will probably be kept open 
two days. 
Aid to Agriculture. 
We haive refrained from noticing any of the proceed¬ 
ings of the legislature in regard to the encouragement 
of agriculture, from a conviction forced upon us by past 
experience, that nothing would be done to aid this great 
branch of industry. 
Mr. C. E. Clarke, of Jefferson, chairman of the com¬ 
mittee on agriculture in the assembly, introduced two 
bills into that house, one appropriating $25,000 annually 
for five years, to be awarded in premiums in the seve¬ 
ral counties, and to pay the expenses of a board of agri¬ 
culture, and the salary of its secretary—and the other 
to encourage the growth of silk, by awarding bounties 
to those of our farmers who should raise it. These 
4 
bills were each accompanied by a very able report, set¬ 
ting forth the many and manifest advantages which 
would result to the state from the passage of these bills 
into laws. Both bills passed the house of'assembly, by 
respectable majorities, and were sent to the senate.— 
The silk bill was rejected in senate, and the one to im¬ 
prove the agriculture of this state, was virtually rejected 
there on the last day of the session, by an order to lay 
it on the table. The motion was made by Col. Young, 
who said “ he could not in conscience seffei such a mis¬ 
chievous and dangerous bill as the agricultural bill to 
pass without fully discussing it.” 
We give the vote upon Col. Young’s motion, in order 
that our readers may be enabled to censure or applaud, 
as they think meet, the conduct of their public servants. 
Ayes. —Messrs. Beardsley, Clarke, Dickinson, Hull, 
Hunter, Huntington, Johnson, E. P. Livingston, Paige, 
Powers, Skinner, Spraker, Sterling, Van Dyck, Wager, 
Young—16. 
Noes —Messrs. Fox, Furman, Hawkins, Jones, Lee, 
H. A. Livingston, Maynard, Moseley, Nicholas, Peck, 
Tallmadge, Verplanck, Works—13. 
We confess that we are not familiar with the details 
of either bill, and therefore feel unqualified to speak dis¬ 
tinctly of their merits; yet we are persuaded that some¬ 
thing ought to have been done, and might have been 
done, had there been a disposition to do it. And we 
are wholly at a loss to conjecture what could have been 
the “ mischievous and dangerous” principles in the bill, 
which so alarmed the sage senator and his compeers. 
We cannot but regret, that in a matter which most deep¬ 
ly concerns the interest of every class of community, 
party feeling should seem to have smothered the nobler 
impulse of public duty. Several of the gentlemen who 
voted against this bill, have professed to be friendly to 
its objects, and one of them reported, not long since, a 
bill of very similar import. If the details of the one 
now rejected were defective, they might have had it 
modified, or at least have made the attempt to do it. 
It requires no great discrimination to perceive, that 
party spirit—the thirst for power and office, in the lati¬ 
tude in which it is now indulged—holds a paramount 
sway in our legislative halls, as well as in political 
meetings;—that it is the bane of whatever is generous, 
and disinterested, and patriotic, and great, and good ;— 
that it infuses its poison not only into our legislative 
halls, but into the cup of our social enjoyments; and 
that its tendency is to impair the public morals, and 
loosen the bonds which unite us as a people. The ques¬ 
tion now, is not, what will best subserve the public good ? 
but—what will best promote the interests of party ?— 
and in the scramble for power, whatever measure is not 
likely to increase the political capital of a party, will 
pretty surely be opposed on party grounds—and whate¬ 
ver measure is advocated, or whatever individual is 
supported, by one political party, is as sure to be oppos¬ 
ed and traduced by the other.* 
Banks have, for a long time, been the locomotives of 
power, till the country has become far too full of them, 
and until they can no longer be made to exert a favora¬ 
ble political influence. Millions have been expended in 
canals, to subserve political ends, which are not likely 
to pay the interest on their cost for a longtime to come, 
if ever. The eye of the politician is now directed to 
rail-roads, as the great avenues to public favor; and 
bills involving the responsibility of the state for many 
millions, have been in progress of passing into laws, 
for the construction of rail-roads, in the stock of some 
of which a prudent man would hardly make a perma¬ 
nent investment, at one-filth of the par value of the 
stock. We are not opposed to canals or rail-roads, to a 
reasonable extent, where they promise manifest public 
usefulness, or any thing like ultimate remuneration for 
the outlay; but now-a-days they come in batches, as 
,banks came formerly—the bad with the good—and by 
modern arts of legerdemain, they are so intimately join¬ 
ed and interwoven, that it is difficult to separate them; 
so that thei e is no alternative but to reject all, or adopt 
all. 
We have been drawn from our purpose, which was 
merely to recommend to the friends of agricultural im¬ 
provement, a steady perseverance in their praiseworthy 
efforts for the substantial improvement of their country 
—by the diffusion of useful knowledge, and in encourag¬ 
ing and honoring rural labor. In this way, the next 
generation which comes upon the stage, may be made 
to appreciate the value of our agriculture, and the po¬ 
licy and the duty of encouraging its improvement. 
# “ Our institutions do not cultivate us,” says the Rev.Dr. 
Chanriing, “as they might and should; and the chief cause 
of the failure is plain. It is the strength of party spirit; and 
so blighting is iis influence, so tatal to self-culture, that 1 feel 
myself bound to warn every man against it, who has any de¬ 
sire of improvement. 1 do not tell you it will destroy your 
country. It wages a worse war against yourselves. Truth, 
justice, candor, fair dealing, sound judgment, self-control, 
and kind affections, are its natural and perpetual prey.”— On 
Self Culture, 
In what condition should Manure be applied? 
While one 1 set of men, embracing both practical and 
theoretical, contend that manures should be buried by 
the plough, at the bottom of the furrow, another set a> 
pertinaciously insist that they should be covered only su¬ 
perficially with the harrow—the first contending that 
the fertilizing matters which they afford, rise to the sur¬ 
face, and the other, that they sink below the cultivated 
stratum. We copy to-day two articles from the Yankee 
Farmer, maintaining the opposite doctrines. A mate¬ 
rial distinction seems to have escaped the notice of both 
the writers, and that is—the condition of the manure to 
be applied —whether fermented or unfermented. 
There is no fact better established, we believe, by 
chemical experiment, than that stable manure loses one- 
half of its fertilizing properties, by fermenting in mass, 
in a situation exposed to the influence of the sun ana 
winds. A partial decomposition takes place, and the 
gaseous and most soluble parts are either scattered by 
the winds, or carried off by the rains. It is an equally 
well established fact, that if the fermentation takes place 
in the soil, these gaseous and soluble portions of the 
manure are retained there, are imbibed by the spon- 
gioles, or mouths, of the young crop, and that they 
contribute essentially to its growth and product. Now 
if long manure is spread upon the surface, these gase¬ 
ous matters are lost, for they are specifically lighter 
than atmospheric air, as any one may see by observing 
the steam which rises from a fermenting dung heap. If 
long dung is only superficially covered with a harrow, 
it will but partially decompose, for lack of moisture, an 
indispensable agent in the process of fermentatii n. If, 
on the other hand, the manure is buried with the plough, 
it not only benefits by its gaseous matters, but it gene¬ 
rates heat and benefits mechanically, by rendering the 
soil more open, and permeable to heat, air and moisture; 
it facilitates the decomposition of vegetable food, acce¬ 
lerates growth, and increases the product. And fermen¬ 
tation having exhausted its powers during the first sea¬ 
son, in the culture of the hoed crop—for to such alone 
do we advise that long manure should be applied,—the 
plough turns to the surface, the coming spring, the car¬ 
bonaceous parts of the manure which remain, where 
they operate most beneficially upon the coming crop. 
The only plausible objection to burying long manure 
with the plough, in preference to mixing it with the sur¬ 
face by the harrow, is that adduced by Prof. Jackson, 
that the rains carry down its fertilizing matters into the 
subsoil—into wells and springs, beyond the reach of the 
roots of plants. With the highest deference for the Pro¬ 
fessor's opinion, we must be permitted to doubt the cor¬ 
rectness of his conclusions in this matter. If the soiuble 
salts were carried into the subsoil, as he supposes, this 
subsoil would be rendered fertile by them when it is 
turned to the surface, a proof that seldom occurs, until 
the subsoil is rendered fertile by long exposure to atmos¬ 
pheric' influence. Nor do we admit that springs and 
wells are prejudiced by them, unless the water which 
holds them in solution, finds a direct passage into suck 
springs or wells from the surface of the earth. We do 
know that impure water is purified by being filtered 
through charcoal and sand, and that pure springs burst 
forth from impure soils. 
When we speak of fermented manures, or of such as 
are to undergo but a moderate fermentation, as rotten 
dung, bone dust, horn shavings, poudrette,&c. a different 
rule applies, and a different practice should be adopted. 
Those give off no gaseous fertilizing matters to the 
winds. Their only tendency is to sink in the soil.— 
Hence if they are blended by the harrow with the sur¬ 
face, they are calculated to act more efficiently than if 
buried deep by the plough. 
Catalogue of Pears. 
The varieties of the pear, until within a few years, 
have been few. and the quality, with some exceptions, 
indifferent or inferior. But through the active exertions 
of Dr. Van Mons, of the Netherlands, Mr! Knight, and 
other distinguished pomologisls and horticulturists, the 
varieties have been greatly increased; and among the 
number now cultivated we have some of excellent qua¬ 
lity, that are in eating during eleven months in the year. 
The pear is used for the table, for stewing and bak¬ 
ing in the kitchen, and for Perry. As most of the va¬ 
rieties now found in our nursery catalogues are new 
and their quality, time of ripening, and the uses to 
which they are particularly adapted, but imperfectly 
known, even to nurserymen, great difficulty is experi¬ 
enced in making a judicious selection, that shall give a 
succession of fruit. We have frequently experienced 
this difficulty ourselves. To assist both the purchaser 
and the seller, and to disseminate a knowledge of the 
best varieties, we publish the catalogue below. 
The London Horticultural Secietypublished, in 1831, 
a list of 677 varieties of the pear, which were then 
growing in their garden. Of these, 278 kinds only had 
then fruited. These are described in a tabular form, 
