398 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
Protection in the Garden. 
Plants recently set out may suffer from too much 
sun in mid-day, or be injured by cooling at night. 
In either case, a very slight protection may save 
them. It does not require a frame or even a mat. 
A sheet of paper will answer just as well as a more 
bulky covering to keep off too much heat from the 
■sun, and to prevent too great radiation in cool 
nights. If we use paper, and old newspapers are the 
most convenient material, we must contrive some 
means to keep it from contact with the grow¬ 
ing plants. Otherwise, the paper, (if used to protect 
the plants from too much cooling, if not from 
Trost), when it becomes wet from the condensation 
-of dew, wiM soon get so heavy as to press upon 
the plants, and thus injure rather than preserve 
them. Figures 1 and 2 show how such protection 
may be effectively given. Two twigs of any suita¬ 
ble bush at hand, being placed as in fig. 1, a paper 
is laid over them, and by means of a little earth or 
small stones upon its edges, is kept in place. This 
method will answer for single plants, but where 
Fig. 3.— ROW OF ARCHED TWIGS. 
they are in a row, the arched twigs may be placed 
as shown in figure 3 ; these are to be covered with 
paper,held in place in the manner shown in figure 2. 
The Elder as a Weed. 
The English works upon agriculture treat upon 
the propagation and cultivation of the Elder, it 
being regarded as a useful shrub, while farmers in 
this country are mainly interested in destroying jt. 
The two, the Elder of Europe (Sambucus nigra ), 
and our common Elder ( S. Canadensis), are so near¬ 
ly alike, that botanists think ours may be only 
a form of the other. The various uses made iD 
Europe of the flowers as a perfume and in medi¬ 
cine, of the berries in wine, syrup, etc., and even 
of the wood of the large stems, are little knowm in 
this country. The Elder of England is often a 
tree twenty feet high, while with us, it makes un¬ 
sightly clumps, rarely higher than six feet. Aside 
from its flowers and fruit, the Elder of England is 
valued for making a sort of hedge or screen, to 
shelter crops agaiust severe winds, and it is also 
used as a nurse-tree to shade and protect planta¬ 
tions of young forest trees, uses for which we have 
much better plants. Our Elder has wide-spread 
■roots, and merely cutting the stems causes the pro¬ 
duction of numerous shoots, which will increase 
the size of the clump. One of our writers, early 
in the present century, claimed that Elders could 
Ibe killed “if they were mowed five times.” He 
was probably right, if the times were at proper 
periods. To kill the Elder, or any similar shrub, it 
should be cut when in flower; at this time its 
■ energies have been expended in the production of 
leaves and flowers, and it has not yet begun to 
store up a supply of food for future growth. Cut¬ 
ting at this time, greatly checks the plant, and 
though it will produce shoots from the root, the 
-cutting of these, as often as they appear, will soon 
•exhaust it. This persistent cutting down of the 
mew growth is rarely faithfully done, and it is 
much better to trust the work to sheep, which, if 
•enclosed upon the field where Elders are to be de¬ 
stroyed, will keep down every green shoot. To 
those correspondents, who have asked about ex¬ 
terminating Elders, we have replied by mail that 
they might cut them while in bloom. If it is de¬ 
sirable to exterminate the bushes this month, we 
should grab out all that could be readily removed 
in this manner ; each clump will leave a number of 
long roots in the ground, which, if neglected, will 
only make matters worse. The shoots from these 
should be frequently cut, or eaten off by 
sheep, and as these have now gained 
strength, it may be necessary t'> continue 
their suppression next spring. One fact is 
well established : No plant, continuously 
deprived of its foliage, can live. Some 
have a larger underground store from 
which to form new shoots, than others, 
but if the cutting is continuous, the plant 
must eventually succumb. Mr. Tatnall, 
of Delaware, found that this was true 
with even the worst of all our weeds, the “ Horse 
Nettle ” (Solanum Carolinense ), if the man was 
determined to hold out longer than the plant. 
Farming that Pays.—An Illustration. 
Our readers are invited to come with us and take 
a look at two fields, side by side; real fields, not 
imaginary ones, as agricultural editors are some¬ 
times supposed to write about. We will not tell 
just where they are, as our host begged us not to ; 
and besides, a good many of our readers may think 
of neighbors who may be the owners of the farms 
referred to. There are thousands of similar farms 
all through New England, New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Southern Ohio, the Virginias, North 
Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the prac¬ 
tical lesson will apply in other States. 
The seven-acre field right before us has a mag¬ 
nificent crop of rye growing. The one right along¬ 
side of it is a ten-acre pasture lot. The stones on 
it remind us of a New Hampshire stage-driver, to 
whom we said, “That’s a terribly stony, jolting 
road we have just come over; our hat is all 
smashed in, and our bones as sore as if beaten 
with a hickory maul.”—“Yes,” said he, “but if 
you take them stones out, there w r ou’t be any road 
left.” The fields are on a hill-side, not steep 
enough to “ wash ” in ordinary rain-storms. They 
run originally alike in soil, in stones, and rocks, in 
apparent worthlessness. Here is an outline of our 
talk with the farmer while looking at that crop of 
rye, thick, tall, the heads long and well filled ; 
Editor. —“ How many bushels of rye do you ex¬ 
pect to thresh out from this field ? ” 
Farmer. —“Somewhat over forty, I reckon.” 
E. —“ Isn’t that a pretty high figure ? ” 
F. —“ I guess not. I have threshed out forty- 
six and a half measured bushels an acre on the 
field, when it didn’t look much better’n now.” 
E. —“ How much manure did you apply ? ” 
F. —“Well, I don’t know exactly. We kept 
hauling it out from the cow yards as we had time ; 
about forty two-horse wagon loads, p’rhaps fifty ; 
but call it just about forty-nine, if you want to, or 
seven loads to an acre.” 
E. —“ Have you manured it much before ? What 
rotation of crops do you practice?” 
F. — “We put in about the same amount of ma¬ 
nure every three or four years, more or less, as we 
have it, and time to haul it; an average of two 
good loads a year, perhaps, the larger part of it 
when we have corn on. Wc follow corn with rye, 
sowing plenty of clover and timothy seed in the 
spring, and then mow, or pasture two to four years, 
according as the grass holds out, and then plow 
again for corn or oats, to be followed with rye.” 
E. —“ Do you often get forty bushels of rye ?” 
F. —“ Not always. A bad spring, one when it 
thaws and freezes a good many times, partly kills 
the rye roots, and wheat won’t stand the cold, 
changeable weather we have here.” 
E. — “ How much corn do you get ? ” 
F. —“Corn is uncertain hereabouts; the spring 
often too cold, and autumn frosts too early. In 
good years I have had seventy bushels an aese of 
Fig. 1.— THE TWIGS. Fig. 2.— THE PROTECTOR. 
sound cora, and then again scarcely forty bushels 
of soft corn and nubbins, on account of cold, wet 
weather and early frosts. Rye, oats, and grass 
pay better.” 
E. —“Do you average thirty bushels of rye?” 
A.—“Yes, more’n that. I was talking it over 
with my sons only last week, and we calculated 
that that field has averaged about thirty-three 
bushels. That’s been a first-rate field ever since 
we got the stones off. There’s plenty of them 
left, but, excepting a few rocks, the stones are not 
larger than your fist, and we think these small 
stones are good for the land.” 
E. —“ What has rye generally sold for? ” 
F. —“ About one dollar a bushel, one year with 
another; sometimes more, sometimes less.” 
E. —“ How much does it cost an acre ? ” 
F. —“ I can’t tell. We do all the work ourselves, 
and don’t pay out anything, unless you reckon the 
seed, which would bring money, say one dollar and 
a half to two dollars an acre.” 
A 1 .—“If you reckoned for the cost of plowing, 
harrowing, harvesting, etc., one dollar and a half 
a day each for man and team for work, one dollar 
per load for manure, also for use of implements, 
would twelve dollars per acre cover the cost ? ” 
F. —“ Yes, and more. The straw usually pays 
all cost after the seed is in, and it has sometimes 
sold for the whole cost of the crop.” 
E. —“Well, then, calling the straw nothing, can 
you reckon on twenty dollars an acre clear profit ?” 
F. —“Yes, it seems so, as you figure it out. I 
never reckoned it before.” 
E. —“You say that field was once very stony ?” 
F. —“ Yes, I well remember when it was just as 
bad as that ten-acre field over there. They couldn’t 
raise ten dollars’ worth of anything on it. White 
beans couldn’t grow for want of space between 
the stones. Father and three of us boys, a yoke 
of oxen and a span of horses, worked five weeks 
in that field, and had a big job of it, besides 
paying a man twelve dollars to blast the rocks.” 
E. —“ If you estimate for men and boys one dol¬ 
lar and twenty-five cents a day, three dollars for 
teams, that would be eight dollars a day for fiye 
weeks, or two hundred and forty dollars, or two 
hundred and fifty-two dollars, including blasting, 
that is thirty-six dollars an acre ?” 
F. —‘“ Yes, as you figure, but it wasn’t half that. 
Two of us boys couldn't have hired out at more 
than fifty cents a day, and most of it was done 
■when we hadn’t much else on hand.” 
E. —“ No matter ; take figures two hundred and 
fifty-two dollars, or thirty-six dollars per acre. 
You allowed that the rye gave twenty dollars per 
acre over expenses, and the oats, clover, etc., paid 
almost as well, which I can believe, on such a field, 
after thirty-six dollars an acre was spent in fixing 
it. But cut down the rye profit twenty-five per 
cent, and reckon it only fifteen dollars, calling 
your work one dollar and fifty cents a day now, 
and allowing for other expenses. Let the straw 
go to the cow yard and stables for bedding and 
manure. We hear that the farms around here, 
with fair buildings, are worth about one hundred 
dollars an acre, or the land alone two-thirds as 
much. But call that field one hundred dollars an 
acre, and it returns you a good fifteen per cent ?” 
F—‘l can’t dispute your figures, but I never 
reckoned it up that way. Besides, this is a good 
field. That ten-acre lot alongside of it don’t pay 
anything, or not over three or four dollars an acre 
for pasturage, and so we have to ‘ average it up.’ ” 
E. —“ Yes, we see ; but I heard from one of 
your neighbors that you had over five hundred 
dollars in the savings bank from the sale of butter 
aDd cheese, and that you only get four per cent in¬ 
terest, and also hold a five hundred dollar mort¬ 
gage, bringing in six per cent. You said a little 
while ago that this splendid rye field was once just 
like the ten-acre pasture lot, which does not re¬ 
turn over three dollars to four dollars per acre a 
year, and that two hundred and fifty-two dollars, 
or thirty-six dollars an acre (or only half that, as 
you estimate it), made all the difference. Suppose 
you draw out of the bank three hundred and sixty 
dollars, and expend it on the stone-covered pas- 
