170 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
June 
the wheat to the barns, a sheet of linen is tacked to the 
sides and bottom of the wagon rack. This, with the 
cutting before complete ripeness prevents quite all loss. 
Already the rye fields are plowed and dragged for the 
fall crop. Flint, red-chaff, bearded, and another varie¬ 
ty, of very large berry, I have noticed among the sorts 
of wheat. Potatoes are looking finely. They are 
generally in drills, not more than a foot and a half 
apart. New potatoes are in market. 
We came first among the forests upon a section of 
eight years old larches. They were not more thau 
three and a half feet high. Where any had died others 
of three years growth had taken their places. In a 
little marsh of only a rod square, the Prof, showed me, 
how, after years of failures to make larches grow, he 
had succeeded by inverting a spade-full of earth and 
sward upon the level surface, thus making a little hil¬ 
lock, and there planting the young larch. Throughout 
a distance of some miles, where formerly the road was 
about four rods wide, there are now on each side, regu¬ 
lar rows of larches, firs, and pines, occupying nearly 
the half of the former width. The macadam road ren¬ 
ders the original width unnecessary, and properly now 
it is appropriated to an increase of forest supplies. 
The whole tract of the forest land belonging to the 
Giessen circuit, is cut into blocks about a quarter of a 
mile square, by roads of from twelve to twenty feet 
wide. These serve in the removal of wood, and divide 
the different growths and sorts from each other. This 
remark in general is true, though the kind of timber is 
varied in hills and in moist lands, irrespective of any 
thing else than the soil and situation. Every spot 
where plants could, and apparently should grow, there 
they were seen. Sometimes in quincunx order and 
sometimes from broadcast sowing. The latter method 
is now esteemed the better one, the plants being per¬ 
mitted to grow altogether fifteen or twenty years. At the 
end of this time the straightest and best remain, while 
the indifferent are removed, always careful however to 
keep the ground thoroughly shaded. 
The nursery of forest trees was especially grateful to 
my eye. Here the varieties were grown less for trans¬ 
plantation to sites in forest lands, than as ornamental 
and shade trees. Many trees of other countries are 
here. An oak from Austria—another from America— 
as well as maples and pines from various lands. Aoove 
all the native and foreign trees in grace and beauty 
slood our New England elm. I could easily have fan¬ 
cied myself in a nursery by Pittsfield or New-Haven. 
It sells here as an ornamental tree at a good price. 
Varieties of ash, locust, maple, beech, thorn hedges, 
cherry, apple, and pears, were separated from each 
other in beds, and the whole kept freed from weeds by 
the labor of the peasant girls. 
Upon the southern exposure of a grove of beeches, 
we saw the effect of direct sunlight upon trees that in 
earlier life had been protected by shade. A strip of 
bark several inches wide had sprung from the wood, and 
through a number of square yards about the roots, the 
grass by reflected sunlight had been most manifestly 
injured. 
A singular trait of character in the deer which are 
encouraged to roam about here in considerable num¬ 
bers, was pointed out to me. When the season ar¬ 
rives in which the bucks begin to rub their horns, they 
seek young, slender trees, and rub and twist them about 
till much of the bark is removed. What is particularly 
singular, is that they fall upon the saplings of foreign 
trees, as if couscious the tree would be destroyed, they 
would spare the native growth. 
The muck that accumulates in the little ravines 
is gathered, much of it, and sold.* My attention was 
directed to a pile recently purchased by Professor 
Liebig. It is to be incorporated with the soil of a 
little farm called the Liebig Heights, commanding a fine 
view of Giessen and its surrounding points. Near this 
little farm the forest director is now laying out a net¬ 
work of walks through a grove of several hundred acres 
of pines. The expenditures are made by the city—a 
* Some of it is employed to enrich the earth about the roots of 
trees when transplanted. 
tribute of respect to the genius whose fame has made 
this little town known through the world. There can 
be no objection to my mentioning here, that the govern¬ 
ment of Hessia pay all the expenses of postage, and all 
the cost of transport of matters connected with chemis¬ 
try that would otherwise fall upon Prof. Liebig. 
To return. When the trees are from twelve to 
twenty years old, the trimming commences and employs 
hundreds of the peasantry when other labor is less press¬ 
ing. The branches and twigs are cut and made into 
bundles for fifty-four kreutzers per hundred—about 
eighteen cents a hundred. They are chiefly consumed, 
I think, by the bakers. The trunks and larger branches 
are saved instead of being chopped, and, as already in¬ 
timated, the stumps and roots are thoroughly dug up, 
dried, and sold. So economically managed are the ex¬ 
penditures of the laboratory, in order that the sums paid 
by students may be the least possible, that one of the 
apartments is warmed by the burning of little pine 
roots. 
I have given you but a hasty outline of what I saw 
and learned, and yet imperfect as it is, it may give 
some idea of an art which we may one day be obliged 
to prosecute in the new world. The necessity of such 
rigid economy in the consumption of our forests has not 
been felt by us. When it shall be, it will be fortunate 
that so safe and complete a guide has been furnished us 
in the experience of the Germans. 
Respectfully yours, E. N. Horsford. 
MANURES. 
L. Tucker, Esq. —It is a principle now universally 
conceded, we believe, by all good farmers, that con¬ 
tinual croppings, however favorable* circumstances may 
be, must continually impoverish the soil, and that 
in the end, blank sterility will take the place of abun¬ 
dant fertility unless returns are made to it, in some de¬ 
gree commensurate to the amount of production taken 
from it. This principle is in perfect accordance to the 
universal laws of nature. Stop the flow of the streams 
which supply the fountains and let the outlet continue 
its draughts, and the fountain will soon become dry. 
Let an animal accustomed to labor, continue to per¬ 
form his task, and although you may give him food suf¬ 
ficient for his subsistence in a state of inactivity, yet, 
if he continues to labor, and an additional quantity of 
food is not placed at his disposal, you will find his 
strength wasting, and his beauty and symmetry of form 
shrinking into contracted dimensions. So with the 
earth; let it labor and bring forth ever so abundantly 
of herb for use of man, and grass for his herds and 
flocks, and if this produce, the results of labor, be taken 
from it, and no equivalent returned, deformity and de¬ 
cay of its productive powers will be the sure result of 
such gross mismanagement. 
Now everybody knows that this restoring principle 
is found in manures or fertilizing substances which 
come within the reach of the farmer in various ways, 
and under different names, according as their different 
characters and qualities may dictate. Hence in lime, 
gypsum, salt, &c., we have mineral manures; clover, 
leaves from the forest, corn-stalks, furnish vegetable 
manures, and so on, through the whole vocabulary. 
The action of these different substances must of course 
be different, yet, their end is the same, to give fertility 
to soil exhausted by cropping, or as we would rather 
take business by the the foretop and say, to prevent ex¬ 
haustion. 
It was our design when we commenced this article to 
write more particularly at this time on the management 
and application of vegetable and animal substances, use¬ 
ful in improving the soil. And we have no doubt but 
every body will respond to the assertion, that the more 
of these a farmer can bestow upon his lands, the greater 
will be the produce of his harvests, and the more far¬ 
mer-like the look of his establishment. Then we take 
it for granted that every one will acknowledge the 
necessity of increasing these substances to the greatest 
amount, and applying them in the most judicious and 
economical manner. 
