152 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
to the first week in June inclusive, some with poudrette 
in the hill, and some without any poudrette; but where 
lime and barn yard manure had been put on the land. Af¬ 
ter the corn had been planted about three weeks, I mea¬ 
sured some of it, and found that where poudrette in the 
hill had been applied, it was at least as large again as 
where no poudrette had been put. The com with pou¬ 
drette on it came up apparently stronger, with a dark, 
rich, green colour, and ripened from two to three weeks 
earlier in the field than it did in the garden where no 
poudrette had been applied. On the 18th of August, 
corn from the field was brought on the dinner table, and 
was found too hard and ripe to eat as green corn; and 
therefore I dare presume to say, that corn, manured 
with about one gill of poudrette in the hill, even in our 
worst and coldest summers in which we have been afflicted 
with frost, wouldhave ripened sufficiently early to make 
an entire crop. It was sufficiently ripe on the 1st Sep¬ 
tember to be cut up by the roots and put in shocks to 
ripen complete. The Mercer potatoes with poudrette 
ripened some two weeks earlier than other potatoes; 
and I never ate finer or saw larger potatoes in the month 
of August. A. DEY. 
September 13, 1839. 
EXTRACTS, 
Experiments with Manures. 
[ From, the Essex Agricultural Society’s Transactions. ] 
daniel putnam’s statement. 
To the Committee of the Essex Agricultural Society, on Expe¬ 
riments on Manures: 
Gentlemen —The following account of experiments in the 
use of unbleached wood ashes as manure, is submitted, that 
you may make any use of it which in your judgment will 
render it serviceable to the farmers of the county. In the 
latter part of August, 1837, I broke up about one acre of low 
land, (too low and wet to till with ease,) which had become 
so much bound out that it yielded not more than 14 or 15 
cwt. of hay, and that little was of poor quality. After 
ploughing, I rolled this land, and then dressed it with 40 
bushels of wood ashes, mixed with wash (mostly sand,) from 
the road-side, making probably about one and’a half cord; 
sowed half a peck of herds grass and three pecks red top 
seed; then harrowed thoroughly and rolled. The seed took 
well. In 1838, I obtained from this piece of land 35 or 40 
cwt. of very good hay, mostly herds grass. 
In November, 1834, 1 broke up a field, dressing it with 
about four cords of manure to the acre; on a part turning it 
under the sod, and the remainder putting it on the furrow. 
In 1835, planted with com, the crop large; in 1836, without 
mowing the sod, sowed oats and hay seed. Obtained 40 
bushels of oats to the acre. The hay seed took well, but in 
the following winter was killed by ice forming and remaining 
long upon the field. In 1837, obtained not more than 15 cwt. 
of clover to the acre. Thought I must take this field in hand 
again. In April, 1838, ploughed an acre and a half of it, 
rolled, dressed with forty bushels of wood ashes, unmixed 
with any other material, to the acre; sowed oats and hay 
seed. The oats had a fine growth and the hay seed came up 
well, but (for I think it best to tell the ivhole,) the rust which 
visited my neighbors’ oats was not kept out of my field by 
the ashes; I mowed forfoddder before the crop had ripened; 
there was growth enough for forty bushels to the acre. The 
young grass, too, did not find the ashes a matchless sanative, 
for its sickness, (in the scorching weeks of August,) which 
a draught of pure water would have cured, proved mortal. 
Shall I tell you, too, what virtue there is in bones ? From 
Mr. Ward, of Roxbury, I obtained, last spring, 20 bushels 
ground bone, (cost at Roxbury, 35 cents per bushel,) sold 
one bushel to a neighbor; mixed the remaining 19 bushels 
with about one cord of soil taken from the side of the roads 
in the fields where the mixture was to be used. Some of it 
was used in ten or twelve days after it had been mixed, and 
some remained in heap five or six weeks. About the 10th of 
May, when planting corn where four cords of manure to the 
acre had, the pervious autumn, been turned under the sod, 
and where I was putting four cords to the acre in the hill, I 
selected four rows through the centre of the piece, in which 
I put the bone mixture, at the rate of fifty bushels bone to 
the acre; no other manure in the hill. The corn here looked 
as well through the season as on the remainder of the piece, 
and ripened a little earlier. At the time of harvesting, 104 
hills on bone yielded 184 lbs. of corn on the cob. The same 
number of hills in the adjacent rows on manure, yielded 188| 
lbs. That on the bone was the dryest at the time of weigh¬ 
ing. 
The first week in May, I planted a piece of corn, where 1 
put three and a half cords of manure upon the furrow, and 
four cords in the hill, to the acre. Through the centre, I left 
four rows until about the 10th of May, when I planted them 
with bone, as in the other piece. Here, from 66 hills on 
hone,,! obtained 90 lbs.; from 66 on manure, 96 lbs. Here, 
too, the, corn on the bone ripened earlier, and of course 
weighed less. 
May 21st, when planting potatoes, where four cords of 
manure to the acre had been turned under the sod the previ¬ 
ous autumn, and where I was putting five cords to the acre 
in the hill, two rows were planted on hone, fifty bushels to 
the’acre. This ground was furrowed only one way, and the 
hills on the bone happened to be put nearer to each other 
than those,„on -the manure. When dug, equal quantities of 
ground were taken; of bone, 14 hills; of manure, 12 hills; 
the bone yielded-55 lbs.; the manure 52. 
Between the. 15th and 20th of May, I sowed sugar beet, in 
drills, three feet apart. In some used barn manure, six cords 
to the acre; in others muscle bed or sea marl, five cords; in 
others bone, fifty bushels. Three drills of each kind, about 
three rods .long,, yielded as follows, viz; from barn manure, 
247 lbs.; muscle bed, 355.; bone, 337§. 
At the same season I sowed carrots on barn manure, mus¬ 
cle bed and bone. Barn-manure, six cords to the acre; mus¬ 
cle bed, 4; bone, 50 bushels. Some of the bone and the 
other ffianures were spread broad-cast, and a part of the bone 
was put in the drill; rows fourteen inches apart. Two rows 
of each kind, three rods long yielded as follows: barn ma¬ 
nure 75 lbs.; bone in drill 105 ibs.; bone spread 82 lbs.; mus¬ 
cle bed 88§ lbs. 
I sowed with ruta baga, June 1st, ten drills, three feet apart 
and fifteen rods long; five drills on barn manure, part of it 
fresh from the barn cellar and part partially decomposed, 
nine cords to the acre. The other five on bone, fifty bushels 
to the acre. Those on the bone were less eaten by the fly 
than the others, though the others were not very badly in¬ 
jured. A strip (17 feet in length) across the drills, where 
live had bone and five manure partially decomposed, yielded, 
bone 248 lbs.; manure 228 lbs. 
Another strip 16J feet long, where there was bone and 
fresh manure, gave, bone 212 lbs.; manure 227 lbs. 
About the 10th of June, I sowed ruta baga on reclaimed 
meadow land; drills three feet apart; manure nine cords to 
the acre; bone fifty bushels. Soon after the plants came up, 
those on the bam manure were nearly all destroyed by the 
fly; it was necessary to sow a second time. Those on the 
bone were b ut very little injured. Four drills, two rods long, 
on bone, yielded 486J lbs.; four on manure 439 lbs. 
DANIEL PUTNAM. 
North Danvers, Dec. 5, 1838. 
MR. How’s LETTER. 
Methuen, December 5, 1838. 
Dear Sir —In compliance with your request, I suggest a 
few ideas, on a subject of no small importance; for success 
in farming depends principally on the quantity of manure 
that is made. And, in fact, a locomotive may as well be 
propelled without steam as a person have good success in 
farming without manure. There are various ways by which 
manure may be increased. Cellars under barns for the re¬ 
ception of manure are highly important, as its value is much 
increased by being preserved from drenching rains and dry¬ 
ing vvinds. Also, the quantity may be much increased by 
hauling muck or soil, or throwing in hay, straw, or some 
other materials to receive and suck up the urine, as this is 
supposed to be worth nearly as much as the droppings. A 
suitable plan for a cow yard is of no small importance. It 
should be much hollowing in the middle; the sides so ele¬ 
vated as to prevent the water from running in, consequently 
there will be but little to run out, to wash out the manure. 
A large quantity of manure may be made in such a yard, by 
hauling in muck, soil, or some other material, and ploughing or 
pitching it over occasionally. But it is said, we have no 
meadow from whence to get muck; there are no scrapings in 
the road to be collected; therefore, we have nothing to make 
compost of. But I would say, if they have nothing else, 
take the soil from the field, and with a little additional ma¬ 
nure, the field may again be restored to its former fertility. 
Another object of some importance is to have the manure 
applied in the best manner. I have until recently been of 
the opinion that it is best to be applied in a green state, and 
have the fermentation take place in the ground; but of late 
I have had a different opinion, although 1 have tried no expe¬ 
riment that is satisfactory in my own mind. I would sug¬ 
gest the idea of recommending a premium to be offered for 
the best experiment on the application of manure, that it 
may be ascertained which is the most profitable, to apply 
manure in a green state or to make a compost of it by mixing 
other materials, taking into the account ali the additional ex¬ 
pense of labor. 
Another thing is, to keep the hogs at work. By keeping a 
good supply of hogs and accommodating them with materials 
to work with, they will add much to a farmer’s stock of ma¬ 
nure. 
Some farmers are averse to the credit system; to supply 
their hogs with materials to work with; to fill their cow 
yards and barn cellars with muck, &c. and to give one, two, 
or three years credit is too much. This is one important rea¬ 
son why so little improvement is made in farming. I believe 
there are the materials on almost every farm, and means 
within the reach of almost every farmer, to enrich his farm 
to almost any extent. 
Suppose a person to make a certain additional quantity of 
manure; consequently in the same proportion the products 
of his farm will be increased, from which, by spending on 
the farm will again increase the manure, and so on, until his 
farm may be enriched without limit. Finally, I believe that 
if all the farmers would pay their attention to making ma¬ 
nure and enriching their farms that their interest requires, 
the western fever wouid be less prevalent among us, and 
our young men, instead of leaving the farms of their sires 
and engaging in speculation, or emigrating to the far west, 
would cultivate the land of their fathers and learn from ex¬ 
perience that they may be amply repaid for all their toil, and 
that the cultivation of the earth is second to no other employ¬ 
ment. Yours, with sincere respect, 
JOSEPH FIOW. 
Vegetable Kingdom, 
A term including all plants and roots which grow above 
and under ground; being nourished by the air, water, &c. 
Vegetables may be considered, botanically, as to the ap¬ 
parent parts of the plant, of which we have already treated 
under Botany ; or physiologically, as to the organization of 
the plant: or anatomically, as to its component, or chemical¬ 
ly, as to its constituent parts. 
In treating of Botany, we have given an account of the 
parts employed in classification according to the prevailing 
systems of Linnceus and Jussieu; the one founded on the 
sexual organs, the other on the cotyledons that envelop the 
seed. 
Physiologically, a plant may be considered as composed of 
roots, stem, branches and leaves. 
The roots are formed by the growth of that part of the 
seed called the radicle, whether by extension of parts already 
formed, or by apposition of new parts derived from the food 
according to the liws of organic crystallization, is not accu¬ 
rately known. The roots are the mouths of the plant: by 
tlie property of irritability dependent on organization, they 
are attracted to move in that direction where food is to be 
found. 
The food of plants consists in those substances only which 
are found by experiment to be universally, in all cases and 
in all places, the component parts of a plant, viz. carbon, 
hydrogen, oxygen, sometimes azote and alkali. The sili¬ 
ceous, calcareous, and magnesian earths, the earthy salts, 
and the iron and manganese found in plants, vary in quan¬ 
tity according to the circumstances of soil, climate, and ma¬ 
nure artificially applied. All of them may be wanting in a 
plant, and yet the plant be perfect. Hence manures that 
increase the substance of the plant, are such as are decom¬ 
posable into carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, azote and alkali: the 
other kinds of manure, are those that stimulate the irritable 
fibre of the plant to stronger action, as salt, plaster, lime, 
&c.—those that increase or decrease the tenacity of the soil 
in which plants grow—those that act by increasing or de¬ 
creasing the capacity of the soil to retain moisture. 
Plants, however, do not exclusively feed by their roots. 
A very great part of the nutriment of all plants is derived 
from the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, which the leaves 
decompose, feeding on the carbon and throwing out the oxy¬ 
gen—and form the atmospheric moisture which the leaves 
drink as well as the roots. The effect of atmospherical elec¬ 
tricity, as a stimulant or a sedative, we have not facts enough 
to form any opinion upon. Light is certainly consumed by 
plants, and enters into their composition, being almost the only 
source of colour, and probably of the light emitted during 
combustion. Leaves also perform the office of lungs to a 
plant. 
Plants may be considered anatomically, as composed of the 
epidermis, the thin skin that covers the bark—the bark ana¬ 
logous to the skin of animals—the wood (liber)—the pith— 
the sap—the tracheae, or air vessels—and the cellular tissue, 
analogous to the cellular membrane of animals. 
. The systems of the vegetable are analogous rather than 
similar to those of animals: they have the woody stem, ana¬ 
logous to the osseous system of animals—a system of vessels 
for the sap to ascend—another wherein the recent sap is eli¬ 
minated into the peculiar juices of the plant, analogous to 
our glandular system—a system of vessels wherein the 
charged sap descends and nourishes the plant—leaves analo¬ 
gous to lungs—and excretory vessels, as well as the secretory 
vessels which we have noticed as analogous to our glandular 
system. 
Plants are young, grow by feeding, digesting, and assimi¬ 
lating their proper food; they arrive at adult age and full 
growth, they beget offspring by sexual commerce, they are 
subject to disease, to accident, to be preyed upon by parasite 
plants, to grow old and die. 
They have irritable fibre, analogous to our muscular fibre, 
and like this, contractile on the application of stimulus. It 
has not yet been ascertained, that they have any system ana¬ 
logous to our nervous system, hence they have not (so far 
as we know) any apparatus to authorize us to ascribe to them 
sensibility, sensation, or voluntarily: though in some plants 
noticed by Dr. Smith, the English Botanist, when one part 
is stimulated a distant part contracts, so as to suggest a com¬ 
mon sensorium. 
All these properties of plants, depend upon their organi¬ 
zation: they are developed as the organization is developed, 
they are complicated and perfect in proportion to the organi¬ 
zation; they are injured when the organization is injured; 
and they disappear when the plant becomes disorganized; 
analogously to the faculties or properties called mental in 
man. What is the immediate cause of organization, vegeta¬ 
ble or animal—or in what way that principle causes an assi¬ 
milation of parts derived from the food employed for nourish¬ 
ment—or whether the lowest forms and modes of organized 
matter depend on accidental apposition or approximation of 
particles separately unorganized—we know not in our pre¬ 
sent state of knowledge. Whether life depends on the pro¬ 
perty of organization, or the property of organization on 
communicated life ? are questions, curious, but useless, in 
proportion as they are abstruse.— Domestic Encyclopedia. 
Wintering Bees. 
[From the Genesee Farmer .] 
Mr. Tucker —Agreeably to your request, I called on Mr. 
Eggleston, and obtained from him the following statement 
of his method of wintering bees, and the success attending 
it. 
In the fall of 1837, he buried 30 or more hives, and the fol¬ 
lowing spring they were taken out without the loss of any. 
In 1838 he buried 10 hives, with the same success, but lost 
7 or 8 hives of bees that stood in his bee-house through the 
winter. He says that he finds very few, or no dead bees un¬ 
der his hives that are buried, and that they winter on much 
less honey than when left in the house; some small swarms 
have lost but 3 lbs. in weight in wintering, and the largest 
but 10 lbs. He has buried his bees or some of them, each 
year, for four years past, and has not lost a swarm that was 
buried, and shall hereafter bury all that he intends to win¬ 
ter; he has now about 40 swarms. Another fact—those that 
are buried do much better, and swarm much earlier in the 
spring. 
Mr. Eggleston’s method of burying his bees, is to dig a 
shallow trench in the ground, long enough to set the number 
of hives he wishes to bury, with a gentle slope in the trench, 
to carry off the water if there should any collect, and then 
place the hives in the trench, raised a little from the ground 
by a small stone under each corner of eacli hive, then covers 
them with straw and lastly with dirt, to use his expression, 
as you would a pile of potatoes, so deep as not to freeze un¬ 
der the hives. 
As to the success of Mr. Eggleston in preserving bees, as 
described above, there can be no doubt, as it is known to all 
his neighbors, who (if necessary) will certify to the facts as 
stated. Yours, respectfully, ANSON ANDREWS. 
Reading, August 20, 1839. 
Agricultural Geology. 
[From Prof. Jackson’s Third Geological Report.] 
concluded. 
In order that a plant should absorb the requisite nutricient 
matters, it is essential that its rootlets should have free play, 
and hence the necessity of a proper texture in soils. It is 
also requisite that the materials should be rendered in some 
degree soluble; and that the soil remain permanently good, 
it is essential that it should not be too loose in its texture; 
for, against the opinions of some farmers, I still maintain 
that the principal and most active ingredients of manures and 
soils, are lost by solution and infiltration; the evaporation 
being as it were but a drop in the bucket. On this point 
