THE CULTIVATOR. 
331 
the healthy growth of clover, in which New-Jersey 
farming seems very deficient; and, indeed, all grass 
seeds are too much neglected. We saw several 
fields which had been cropt with corn and rye, and 
turned into pasture without grass seeds. We suspect 
that another defect in New-Jersey husbandry is, the 
small number of neat cattle which are reared and fat¬ 
tened. In this matter, the Jersey farmers might learn 
a useful lesson from the neighboring counties of Penn¬ 
sylvania, where lean cattle are purchased in autumn, 
and fattened upon roots and coarse grain, for the great 
markets. They leave upon the farm the elements of 
fertility to the soil. If the products of the farm are 
consumed upon it, that is, the hay, straw and roots, 
and the dung carefully husbanded and applied, the fer¬ 
tility and profits of the farm will certainly, under a 
suitable alternation of crops, progressively increase.— 
But if these products are all carried oflf, and nothing 
returned, sterility will certainly ensue. Dung feeds 
crops, crops feed and fatten cattle, and cattle manufac¬ 
ture dung. We have another example to offer to our 
Jersey friends, of the facilities of enriching their lands. 
We called upon a gentleman upon the confines of their 
state, W. A. Seeley, Esq. of Staten-Island, who has a 
farm of 200 acres, which he has brought into an excel¬ 
lent condition from an impoverished state. His crops 
were all well manured and fine, and he showed us piles 
of surplus manure, estimated to contain 2,500 loads, 
composed of yard dung, peat earth, peat ashes, sea¬ 
weed and fish, all furnished by his own farm and his 
own shores. Such is the effect of capital and skill ju¬ 
diciously applied. We will not say we saw the best 
corn growing upon these grounds—but we think we 
saw as good as we saw any where in New-Jersey. The 
Jersey and Dutton corn were growing side by side; and 
we are promised a statement of their relative products. 
The means of fertilizing the lands of New-Jersey are 
abundant, the facilities of procuring them great, and 
a disposition to employ them rapidly extending. We 
saw near the boatable waters great quantities of lime, 
marl, green sand, oyster shells, ashes and manure, and 
in many places marl pits which had been extensively 
excavated, and were told that the use of all these fer¬ 
tilizing materials was sensibly increasing. 
The Morus Multicaulis is at present the staple pro¬ 
duct of New-Jersey, particularly about the cities and 
villages. On asking a grower near Burlington, what 
portion of the land in that vicinity was appropriated to 
the growth of this plant, he replied, between a third 
and a quarter. Many gentlemen have made fortunes 
by the sale of the trees and buds, and many, very many, 
expect to make fortunes in a like way, and some by 
feeding worms. We saw several extensive cocooneries, 
Jjut principally, at present, appropriated to the produc¬ 
tion of eggs, which have borne a very high price.— 
Lands have let for $50 an acre, for raising the multi- 
caulis. There are considerable failures in the crop, 
owing to the unfavorable spring, the plants having ge¬ 
nerally been grown from single buds. Actual sales 
have been made at 15, 20 and 25 cents. We heard of 
none being sold higher. The plants are from one to 
five feet high. In Virginia and Maryland, sales are 
said to have been made at 34, 50 and 100 cents. We 
saw at Haightstown, many of the multicaulis grafted, at 
the ground, upon the white mulberry. Their growth 
had been surprising. We measured some on the grounds 
of Mr. Coward, which had grown, during the season, 
8 feet 4 inches. 
Lime is principally brought from Pennsylvania, and 
sold at 10 and 12 cents per bushel, slaked. It is ap¬ 
plied, in rather an effete state, at the rate of 50 to 100 
bushels an acre, the poorer land receiving the smaller, 
and the richer land the larger dressing. It is generally 
mixed with arable lands by the harrow. Its benefits 
are palpable; and the increase of the first crop often 
pays the outlay. 
Marl, which includes green sand as well as shell 
marl, abounds in Monmouth county. That procured 
from the southern border of the county is deemed best. 
The expense of dressing an acre at Shrewsbury, w>th a 
charge of twelve miles of land carriage, is from $15 to 
$20. Inferior qualities are procured there cheaper, 
though a greater dressing of these is required. It 
amply repays charges in the first crops, and permanent¬ 
ly improves the land. 
Among other fertilizing materials, we saw barilla 
ashes, and the fleshings, hair and tan from morocco fac¬ 
tories, and great quantities of sea-weed, collected on the 
beach, and afterwards spread in the hog and cattle-yards. 
Sea-weed forms an important item of manure on the sea¬ 
board. We should be pleased to receive a communi¬ 
cation, from some gentleman familiar with the subject, 
as to the best mode of preparing it and applying it to 
the soil. 
Peaches are a profitable article of culture in the coun¬ 
try through which we travelled. The fruit is converti¬ 
ble into money in twenty-four hours after it is gathered. 
The profits would be far greater, if means could be 
adopted to prevent the early decay of the trees. The 
average continuance of a peach orchard is from six to 
eight years; and four crops of fruit are considered a 
liberal return. The disease which destroys the trees is 
termed the yellows. Would it not be commendable in 
tire New-Jersey State Agricultural Society, which has 
just been organized, or even in the legislature of that 
state, to offer a bounty for the discovery of a cure or 
preventive of this disease ? It is preferred by the peach 
growers to leave the trees without pruning, even in the 
nursery, that the branches may spread naturally. A 
Delaware peach grower practises cutting in the branch¬ 
es, after they have borne two crops, and thereby gets 
newer and better bearing wood. By planting thick, and 
heading in a portion every year, alternately, the fruit 
is very much improved, without being sensibly dimi¬ 
nished. 
The extent of the peach plantations will seem extra¬ 
vagant to some of our northern readers. Many grow¬ 
ers have 10,000 trees, one 30,U0O; and at one place in 
Shrewsbury, there are 50,000 trees growing contiguous 
and forming as it were one magnificent orchard. 
Melons also constitute one of the staple products of 
some parts of New-Jersey. Sloop loads are daily taken 
to the New-York and Philadelphia markets, and sold 
at ten and twelve dollars a hundred. Some idea of the 
profits of the melon culture may be formed from data 
which we obtained at Keyport. 
P. Hopkins bought twelve acres of land, in 1837, in 
Middletown, for which he paid $30 per acre. In 1838, 
he put four acres in melons; his crop averaged $150 
per acre. He put the same in rye in the autumn, and 
in 1839, got 30 bushels the acre. And in the present 
year he put six other acres in melons, the average value 
of which is estimated at $150 to $200 per acre. The 
expense of lime, manure and fish was $32, and of la¬ 
bor $10 per acre. The account for the two years would 
therefore stand as below. 
Cost of 12 acres of land, at $30,. $360 
Cost of manure and labor on 10 acres, at $42.... 420 
Total outlay,. $780 
Receipts from melons, 4 ac. $150 per ac. in 1837, $600 
do do 6 do do 183S, 900 
do from rye, 4 acres, 120 bushels,........ 120 
$1,620 
Deduct cost of land and charges,. 600 
Nett profits in two years,.$1,020 
and the land in the bargain. 
Green crop of Indian Corn. —N. Shotwell, of Rahway, 
has made an experiment with corn, as a green crop, 
which provedrhighly advantageous, and which, if we 
mistake not, affords a valuable suggestion to the farmer; 
a^ there is probably no green crop which will impart so 
much fertility to the soil as Indian corn. Mr. Shotwell 
sowed four acres with corn, broadcast, four bushels to 
the acre, at the usual planting time. When the corn 
was about breast high, he ploughed it under, affixing a 
chain to the whiflletrees, to break down the stalks; at 
the usual time, he sowed timothy seed, and obtained a 
greater crop of grass than he ever got after clover, buck¬ 
wheat, or other green crops. 
New mode of preserving Apples. —We were presented 
by our host, at Trenton, Aug. 10, with a pippin of last 
year’s growth, as crisp, juicy, and of as fine flavor as 
those we have eaten at midwinter; and on inquiry were 
told, that they had been kept in a tight cask in an ice¬ 
house. 
With regard to the state of society in New-Jersey, we 
are disposed, from the observation we were able to 
make, to think highly favorable of it. A greater equa¬ 
lity seems to exist among the inhabitants, and more 
good feeling and kind-heartedness towards each other, 
than is commonly witnessed. All seem to be well off 
to live; and there are few of those artificial or aristo¬ 
cratic distinctions which are the bane of social and 
friendly intercourse, and inimical to republican habits 
and institutions. 
Agricultural Geology. 
We are indebted to Prof. Jackson for his Third An¬ 
nual Report on the Geology of Maine, for which we 
tender him our thanks. We have commenced extract¬ 
ing from it, in to-day’s paper, an interesting article on 
agricultural geology, which cannot fail of being inte¬ 
resting to the enlightened reader. It furnishes another 
and a strong evidence of the great importance of esta¬ 
blishing professional schools of agriculture, as the most, 
if not the only, effectual means, of learning how to manage 
our soils, and of developing their hidden riches. The 
main objection to establishing such schools has been, 
the want of competent instructors. Do we want better 
instructors for the scientific department than can be 
furnished from the geological corps of the several states? 
And as for practical instruction, we have certainly men 
enough competent to undertake to give it. And if we 
had not, the geologists, with their zeal to apply science 
to this all important business, would soon become prac¬ 
tical men. They are now working, hard working men 
—and many of them xvould delight in blending science 
with practice, in schools of instruction. Four years, 
the period often devoted, in schools, to acquire a know¬ 
ledge of Greek and Latin, which Dr. Rush says makes 
learned fools, would suffice to make a young man fa¬ 
miliar with agricultural science, to give him the best 
practical instructions in the art or practice, and to fit 
him for the highest duties in civil life. And when he 
came forth from such an institution, upon the broad 
theatre of active life, he would not be as a light hid 
under a bushel, but would diffuse spirit, and knowledge, 
and improvement, all around him. 
Among other useful labors which Prof. Jackson has 
rendered to the agriculture of Maine, is the analysis of 
fifty-six specimens of limestone, taken from different 
localities, or quarries. Nearly every variety of lime¬ 
stone found in the state, he burnt in his laboratory, to 
know exactly how they burnt, the quality of lime that 
resulted, and the particular purposes for which they 
were fitted, as for agriculture, mortar, hydraulic uses, 
&c. These results are 
in a tabular form, and 
show, at a glance, the constituent parts, and the rela¬ 
tive value for particular purposes of each specimen.— 
We will publish in our next, the Professor’s directions 
for constructing lime-kilns, and burning lime, with dia¬ 
grams of lime-kilns. 
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do do do 1839,24.75 inch. 
Fair days in 7 months of 1838,. 128 
do do 1839,. 110 
Tropical Plants—Spices. 
Cinnamon, a tropical plant, growing in the East In¬ 
dies, and is largely cultivated in the island of Ceylon, 
where there are more than 16,000 acres in cinnamon 
plantations. The bark of larger shoots or thick branch¬ 
es is coarse, the finer kinds are obtained from the smal¬ 
ler or more delicate shoots. The best is thin, smooth, 
shining, and of a light yellow color, bends before break¬ 
ing, and is splintery in its fracture. 
Cassia. —The cassia of commerce is nothing but an 
inferior quality of cinnamon. The finest cinnamon 
brings two dollars a pound, the second sort from one 
dollar thirty to one dollar fifty cents, and the third sort 
about a dollar. These are the prices in England, where 
the duties are from twenty-two to seventy-five cents per 
pound. 
Pepper grows on a perennial climbing plant. The 
leaves are heart-shaped, with a glossy surface, and have 
little smell or pungency. Small white flowers grow 
abundantly on all the branches, and these are succeeded 
by the berries, which are green when young, and become 
of a bright red when approaching maturity. Theyhang 
in large clusters, like bunches of grapes; but the berries 
grow distinct, more in the manner of currants. It is 
raised in plantations of 500 to 1,000 plants, divided by 
hedges. Sumatra and the neighboring islands in the 
Indian Archipelago, produce the greatest abundance of 
this spice. 
Ginger grows both in the East and West-Indies. It 
has a perennial root, with annual stems. The roots 
creep and extend under ground in joints, from each of 
which a slender stem shoots forth in spring, and attains 
* We are indebted for these data to Dr. T. R. Beck, Prin¬ 
cipal of the Albany Academy. 
