182 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Straight; and the surface of the wheels should be fluted 
or hollow, so as to cause them to run more truly on the 
wire, and under the wire and cord. 
Also I send you a sample of grass, from the meadow 
of Mr. John B. Wallace of this place, which I think 
should be cultivated more generally, as it is a very 
hardy grass, and is nearly all leaf, the stem, on which 
the seed is formed, being so short as seldom to be cut by 
the scythe when mowing, and which produces more 
hay, and of a better quality, than any I ever saw. This 
grass is indigenous to this country; its merits, however, 
have not been fairly tested, though so far appearances 
are favorable. The fact of its having no straw I con¬ 
sider to be of importance, as the hay would be much 
finer, and I think more nutritious than where a large 
portion of the mass is stem or straw. Mr. W. is only 
engaged in experimenting on it as yet, though 1 shall 
feel much disappointed if it does not do better than any 
other grass now cultivated for hay. This spire which 
I send you I took no pains in selecting, though it mea¬ 
sured 4 feet 8 inches. Yours, &c. 
MICHAEL W. ROWE. 
The Mad Itch, 
Washington Co. Ia. October 21st, 1839. 
Dear Sib —There is a complaint raging to some ex¬ 
tent among the cattle in this country, called the “Mad 
Itch,” which appears to be incurable, and if you or any 
of your numerous subscribers could give information 
how to cure it, you would confer a great benefit to the 
public. 
Not having seen any account of it in the Cultivator, I 
t?ill describe it as near as I can. It takes the cattle 
with an itching on the nose or around the horns; they 
then commence rubbing and throwing their heads and 
frothing at the mouth, and in about twenty-four hours 
they are dead. If you or any of your subscribers know 
any cure or preventive, I want it published in the Cul¬ 
tivator. HERVEY DEMY. 
To Cure the Fowls in Cattle—Rohan Potatoes. 
Priceville, Wayne co. Pa. 
Take corrosive sublimate, pound and dissolve it in 
spirits, water will answer, pare and cleanse the part 
well between the claws, or where affected, apply the 
mixture one or twice is a certain cure; I have never 
known it fail in twenty years’s experience. 
From one potato which Mr. Rains purchased of you 
for me last fall, I raised four bushels; they were plant¬ 
ed four feet apart each way, one eye in a hill, thirty- 
two hills—not much manure was used. I am now sell¬ 
ing them, the large ones, for twenty-five cents each. 
Profit enough to pay my subscription for the Cultivator 
since its commencement. JACOB W. WELSH, 
Manchester. 
Double and Single Flowers. 
Manlius, Oct. 25th, 1839. 
“We invite, on all occasions, liberal criticism. It is 
the collision of flint and steel that elicits light.”— Con. 
Cul. 
J. Buel —Dear Sir—You will observe, at page 123 of 
the present vol. of the Cultivator, in answer to ques¬ 
tions propounded by Phineas Pratt, speaking of deteri¬ 
orating plants, flowers and seeds, “ Hence florists de¬ 
stroy single and imperfect flowers, lest they should fe¬ 
cundate and destroy the seed of double flowers.” I be¬ 
lieve, sir, botanists never select double flowers for ana¬ 
lysis because they are imperfect. Their stamins become 
changed to petals, and frequently the pistils too by cul¬ 
tivation ; their natural character is often destroyed: it 
is, therefore, difficult to determine by analyzing a dou¬ 
ble flower how many stamins or pistils belong to it in its 
natural state; consequently no true class and order can 
be given, although the beauty of flowers may be increased 
by cultivation. Yet their relative beauty, as subser¬ 
vient to scientific illustration, is certainly destroyed by 
the labor of the florist. Flowers in their natural state, 
unassisted by cultivation, are usually single, and are 
considered perfect by botanists. They should not, there¬ 
fore, be destroyed, or set down as imperfect, because they 
are single. Yours, &c. respectfully. 
FARMER C. 
The Tree Corn. 
Manlius, Oct. 25th, 1839. 
J. Buel —Sir—Having of late, in different prints, ob¬ 
served many harsh epithets used against Grant Thor- 
burn and his “tree hill corn,” I take the liberty of stat¬ 
ing a few facts in relation thereto. Last spring a friend 
of mine gave me 30 grains of the celebrated tree hill 
corn purchased at Thorburn’s at 25 cents per ear. I 
gave away 3 grains and 2 did not vegetate; which left 
me 25 grains to grow. These I planted on the 13th of 
May, in my garden; they grew to the height of from 8 
to 10 feet each. It was hoed three times. On the 2d 
of Oct. I harvested, of sound corn, 62 ears, with some 
10 and some 12 rows each; 2 ears were 10 inches in 
length; 5 others of 9 inches; 12 others of 8 inches; and 
the remainder were from 5 to 7 inches in length. Per¬ 
haps I should have come at the product more exactly 
had I shelled and weighed it; but as it is, enough is 
set forth to prove it a great yield, and the shrewd old 
Scott should not be ycleped the worst of beings by the 
good people of this country, even if he has sold them 
corn at 25 cents the ear. “ Look before you leap, and 
never cry for broken bones.” 
FARMER C. 
P. S. From 5 Rohans, of middle size, I raised over 
three bushels; they did not get quite ripe; they were 
planted 22d of May, and dug 3d of Oct. 
On Propagating the Peach. 
Kipton, ( Vt.) Sept. 30, 1839. 
Hon. Jesse Bijel —Dear Sir—In the Cultivator for 
Oct. 1838, page 133, I observe the following directions 
are given for raising peach trees: “The stones may be 
buried in the ground during the winter, and those which 
are not cracked by the frost may be broken before they 
are planted.” 
I pursued this method for several years, and not hav¬ 
ing been very successful, I began to suspect that, in¬ 
stead of aiding nature in her simple operations, by the 
application of frost, I had counteracted her efforts, and 
concluded to try the application of heat and moisture, 
instead of frost. Accordingly, I took a quantity of 
peach, cherry and plum stones, with a number of wal¬ 
nuts and butternuts, or, in the language of the south and 
west, hickory nuts, and white walnuts, wrapped them 
in a cloth, that I might more conveniently take them out 
of the ground in the spring, and buried them in a loose 
muck under a fence, where they were covered with a 
snow-drift during the winter. When I took them out 
in the spring the sprouts had perforated the cloth in all 
directions. When I opened the cloth I found the stones, 
as well as the walnuts and butternuts, all opened, and 
the young plants disengaged from them, which I placed 
in the ground, and they all grew. This was about forty 
years ago, since which I have always pursued the same 
method, omitting the cloth; and have generally found 
the stones opened in the spring; always, I have be¬ 
lieved, when they were put in the ground before they 
had become dry, and were kept sufficiently warm during 
the winter; and those which were not opened in the 
spring being planted generally came up. 
That either frost or the hammer is necessary to open 
peach stones and cause them to vegetate, is certainly an 
error; but since frost will not prevent, but only retard 
vegetation in this case, the correction of the error may 
not be of sufficient importance to find a place in the 
Cultivator; of this you will judge. 
Since I have a small space left, I will fill it with a 
few remarks in relation to raising potatoes from the 
seed. I believe that the seeds are generally taken from 
the balls in the fall, dried and planted in the spring; but 
I have found that if the balls are buried in the cellar 
when they are taken from the vines, and the seeds 
planted in the spring, they will come up sooner, and 
the potatoes will be larger in the fall. 
__ DANIEL CH IPMAN. 
Query. 
Near Rockingham, 22 d Sept. 1839. 
J. Buel, —Sir,—A few days ago six of my cattle were 
taken down with a disease caused by eating too much 
green corn, having broken through a very bad sod fence. 
Yesterday three more were taken in the same way. I 
could find no remedy for such a disease in any of the 
cattle books, and was totally at a loss what to do. An 
ox of a neighbor was taken down at the same time; he 
gave him about a half a gallon of soft soap and lard.— 
His ox died. Fortunately I had no soap, and could give 
no such dose. Some of mine I bled in the mouth, for 
others I did nothing. They are all getting belter but 
one, which I shall probably lose. 
The object of this letter is to learn from you, or some 
of your correspondents, what remedy should be applied 
in such a case. I do not mean a quack remedy, soft 
soap for instance, but some remedy based on medical 
principles. I should have added, that my cattle were 
taken with a violent purging, attended with extreme de¬ 
bility, and a dullness amounting in some to utter insen¬ 
sibility. Yours, truly, JAS. GRANT. 
Doing Good to Others. 
Chatham, 2d Oct. 1839. 
Jesse Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—“Recollect you have it 
in your power to do a great deal of good 1” This was 
your last and benevolent expression on parting from 
you a few weeks since. 
It has been my rule,- occasionally, when I observed 
worthy and energetic overseers, to subscribe for some 
agricultural work and send them by way of encourage¬ 
ment, and it has not only been the means of exciting 
their energies still further, but inclines them to habits 
of reading, and its results are gratifying to me, and be¬ 
neficial to them. So also, I have subscribed for some 
young and industrious farmers, without letting them 
know from whence it came, and have invariably found 
it to result in good, not only to them but to a circle imme¬ 
diately around them; in a few years after beets and 
ruta baga is a part of their crops, liming and manuring 
indispensable; and thus your Cultivator becomes the 
necessary adjunct, and I find it circulating in neighbor¬ 
hoods where otherwise it would not have found its way 
probabiy for years. And thus I try to fulfil your excel¬ 
lent admonition, although in a small way, doing some 
good to you and the cause of agriculture, (to which we 
are both enthusiastically devoted,) and more, perhaps, 
to others. How many are there, among the great and 
the wealthy, that might do likewise; be the means of 
disseminating the true science of agriculture, and of 
advancing the noble cause of agricultural education 
throughout our land, and never feel the loss of a few 
paltry dollars. N. P. C. 
A skillful agriculture will constitute one of the migh¬ 
tiest bulwarks of which civil liberty can boast. 
EXTRACTS, 
The Life of the Husbandman. 
“ I am a true laborer. I can earn that I eat, get what 
I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; 
glad of other men’s good, content with my farm, and 
the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and 
my lambs suck.”—S haksfeare. 
We have come to the conclusion, that nature’s truest 
nobleman is the man who earns his bread by the sweat 
of his face, upon his own bought and paid for planta¬ 
tion. An independent Farmer may stand upon his house¬ 
top, and say to himself as Selkirk did: 
“ I am monarch of all I survey 
My right there is none to dispute; 
From the centre all round to the sea, 
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.” 
He is truly a monarch—with a landed title more se¬ 
cure than that of feudal Lord or Baron,—more easily 
protected and preserved, not by deeds of valor, and 
through the shedding of blood, but by the lawful labor 
of the hands. His house is his castle, his acres are his 
dominions. His gardens are his parks, his grass plats 
his lawns, and his forests his groves. His cattle, sheep 
and poultry are subjects, and he becomes, at pleasure, 
either the executioner or the multiplier of such subjects. 
Tell us if the King upon his throne has more power 
worth possessing. His happiness we know is less, as 
he increases his toils, cares and sorrows in proportion 
as the cultivator of the soil diminishes his. 
In the spring time he sows, in the autumn he reaps. 
Providence has assured him that spring time and har¬ 
vest shall not fail, and he has the assurance of the Gi¬ 
ver of every good and perfect gift, that as he sows so 
shall he reap. His grounds are watered in the season 
of drought, with the rains and dews of Heaven, and in 
the damp season the sun shines to cheer, invigorate, and 
give promise to his labors. The severer tasks of the 
summer are succeeded by the lighter labors of the win¬ 
ter. As we have said in the words of Will Shakspeare, 
he “ earns that he eats, and gets what he wears,” and 
his philosophy is that of the shepherd who said that 
“ good pastures make fat sheep.” He may say truly, 
and with an honest pride— 
“ I eat my own lamb, 
My chickens and ham, 
I shear my own fleece and I wear it.” 
What could a man want more; and how can a farmer, 
capable of enjoying life, possessed of his farm house, 
his farm, and his necessary implements of husbandry, 
ever sigh for a residence within the enclosures of a city, 
—choosing bricks and mortar, for the elbow room of a 
spacious farm house, the smoke and dust of the town 
for the village, the three or four story brick house for 
the granary or the haycock,—the purest air of heaven 
for the atmosphere of a thousand smokey houses, and 
ten thousand unwholesome breaths ? How could a far¬ 
mer make such a choice as Ibis'? We would pause for 
a reply, did we not know that the only answer which 
could be devised, after a long study, would be the un¬ 
satisfactory one, that something better was anticipated 
only,—for it would be a miracle almost, for a man to 
find himself happier or in better circumstances after a 
a change of residence from the country to the city.— 
No,—no. The true Elysium,—the real Paradise on 
earth, is the country,—the green, fruitful, beautiful 
country. The city for the taskmaster and his hard-work¬ 
ing servant; but the country for the man who wishes 
for health and leisure.—contentment and a long life. 
The ancient Romans, venerated the plough, and in the 
earliest, purest time of the republic, the greatest praise 
which could be given to an illustrious character, was a 
judicious and industrious husbandman— Portland Ad¬ 
vertiser. 
The American Farmer. 
The following beautiful description of our most wor¬ 
thy and happy class of citizens, is from the address of 
the Hon. Mr. Rowan of Kentucky, to the citizens of 
Louisville. If any one would inquire why farmers are 
more worthy than any other class, this description will 
answer the question. They follow that profession which 
is most essential to the public good, and which is the 
foundation and support of all other useful employments; 
and the situation offarmers leads them to a higher state 
of moral worth than any other class will attain— Yan¬ 
kee Farmer. 
“ Who is there among us that beholds the condition of 
our farmers, and does not exult in the consciousness 
that he is an American citizen, and pant to superadd the 
character of a farmer? The house of the farmer is the 
abode of the virtuous. It is a school in which lessons 
of practical wisdom are taught. It is a temple in which 
the precepts of our holy religion are inculcated. It is 
the castle of sovereignty, foritis owned by its occupant 
and he is a freeman. It is the residence of peace, order, 
harmony, and happiness. Patriotism and piety unite in 
consecrating the place, and in suffusing every counte¬ 
nance with their unction. Indeed, what condition in 
life is so likely to produce that patriotism which will 
stand the country in stead upon emergencies, or that 
piety which will affoid solace in extremity, as that of the 
farmer ? He occupies a constant, intimate, and sensible 
relationship with Heaven. His mind is subdued with a 
love of order, by constantly beholding that which pre¬ 
vails around him. The regular successions of the sea¬ 
sons, of day and night, and of seed time and harvest, 
admonish him to the observance of regularity and order 
