194 
03SME3Z 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
June 
the roots which run nearest the surface of the ground. 
It kills nearly all the weeds, keeps the ground loose, and 
as it decays, enriches the land. The roots of my trees 
have completely intersected each other, and many of 
the roots were near the top of the ground, so that it 
would, in my opinion, be very injurious to plow amongst 
them. Once a year I run a spade two or three inches 
under the surface and turn it over, so that the grass and 
weeds serve to enrich the land.” 
IMPOSITION. 
A. D. Coulter, Herriotsville, Pa. after mentioning 
a case of one of his friends having been imposed on in 
what was called a Cotswold ram, says-— 1 « Our farmers 
here are often imposed upon in cattle and sheep, by de¬ 
signing persons. I have been to see several herds of 
Durhams this winter, but the greater number had no 
mark by which I could trace any Durham blood in them. 
This might be easily avoided if the farmers would take 
a good agricultural paper. For no one can examine 
the portraits of the noble animals which we find in the 
Cultivator, without being convinced that three-fourths 
of the cattle purchased by our farmers for Durhams, 
have nothing but the name.” 
LAYING- DOWN GRASS LANDS. 
Mr. Editor.— -As the time has now arrived when 
something can be learned in farming as well as in every 
thing else, and it is not considered advisable to follow 
altogether in the footsteps of our predecessors, I will 
state that a practice is gaining ground with us of sow¬ 
ing grass seed alone in September and October for mea¬ 
dow. The mode is to prepare the ground exactly as if 
for wheat, and then after harrowing thoroughly both 
ways sow the seed; it falls in the small furrows made by 
the harrow teeth and the roller following covers it suf¬ 
ficiently deep. The advantage is a hay crop instead of 
a crop of wheat, the hay being worth more than the 
wheat, even supposing the wheat to be a tolerably fair 
crop, which has not been the case of late years with us. 
Another advantage is, that you get rid of an exhausting 
crop, for I believe that a heavy crop of wheat straw, 
standing upon the ground and being permitted to ripen 
its seed, exhausts the soil more than a hay crop would 
in several years. It is the opinion of some intelligent 
farmers, that if ground in good heart he laid down to 
grass without a grain crop, and the after-growth be not 
pastured off or mowed, but permitted to grow, and die, 
the standard of the soil will not be materially lowered 
even for a length of time. It is by constant ploughing 
and sowing and reaping and not making a due return to 
the soil in the shape of manure and other fertilizing 
matters, that some of our best land has been reduced 
from a state of fertility to almost barrenness. The past 
season has been one of almost unparalleled severity on 
this Island. The drought which commenced in the be¬ 
ginning of May, and may be said to have lasted till Oc¬ 
tober, together with the ravages of the grub worm, 
seemed to defy the energy of the farmer, and render fu¬ 
tile all attempts to get even a moderate return for his 
labor. In proof of this, I state my own experience in 
the cultivation of three acres of potatoes. About one 
acre was sod, the remainder ground on which cabbages 
had grown the year before; all ploughed the first week 
in March, being a deep rich soil, inclining to clay. 
The drills were opened three feet and a half apart, and 
the potatoes being cut, bearing not more than three 
eyes in apiece, were set nine inches apart. The plant¬ 
ing was performed between the 20th of March and the 
10th of April. The manure a compost of stable, barn¬ 
yard and hog-pen, about equal parts, and applied at the 
rate of thirty-five ox-cart loads to the acre in the drills, 
and in a partial state of fermentation. The potatoes 
came up and grew finely, but owing to the dry weather 
the vines w r ere entirely dead by the middle of July, giv¬ 
ing a yield of not over seventy five bushels to the acre. 
The damage done by the grub-worm has also been more 
serious than ever before known, and it is feared may 
extend to another season, inasmuch as on many fields 
they have eaten the roots of the grass entirely off, and 
of course there will be nothing but what may grow 
spontaneously another year. In September last, I saw 
some of our finest grass farms in New-Durp which look- 
ed as if a fire had passed over them; nothing visible but 
the dead stubble, and here and there a green stem of a 
daisy, which the grub in his fastiduousness had left 
standing in bold relief to the destruction around. 
On many of these farms the plan has been adopted of 
turning under the grass stubble shortly after harvest, 
giving a dressing of short fermented manure and seed¬ 
ing anew with timothy at the rate of half a bushel or 
three pecks to the acre, which, by-the-by, I conceive to 
be sufficient, although Mr. Pell uses more. On land 
thus treated the seed came up well and looked promis¬ 
ingly in the fall, and I anticipate a good yield next har¬ 
vest unless the young grass roots should suffer for want 
of rain in April and May, which is a critical time for 
them. 
Having seen in your paper for January a singular 
cause of death of a cow, I am induced to give an ac¬ 
count of a cow of mine which died under circumstances 
which lead me to believe that death was produced from 
the same cause. This cow had failed getting with 
calf for the last two years, although constantly in com¬ 
pany with a bull. Nothing was observed indicating a 
loss of health, except a redness about the outer rim of 
the eye, which made its appearance about three months 
before her death, until going into her pen on the morn¬ 
ing before she died, she was found to be very much 
swollen, her stomach distended, and with symptoms of 
inflammation. She died next day. Upon examination the 
uterus was found to contain a large quantity of decom¬ 
posed matter supposed by those who saw it to be the 
remains of a calf. She fed regularly and gave milk up 
to the time of her death. G. 
Southfield , Richmond County. 
INDIAN CORN. 
In regard to the culture of this article by the Iroquois, 
or Six Nations, there are some interesting obseervations 
in Mr. Schoolcraft's Report. “It is,” he says, “conce¬ 
ded on all hands that this is a tropical, or at least, a 
southern plant.” He remarks that it was not known in 
Europe before the discovery of this country, and that 
we learned the mode of cultivation from the Indians, 
and not they from us. “ It was, he says, “ cultivated 
by the Iroquois in large fields, and gave them a title to 
agriculturists.” It was undoubtedly highly prized as an 
essential article of their support. Mr. Schoolcraft states 
that the warriors of the Six Nations were in the habit 
of undertaking journeys of thousands of miles in extent, 
carrying no other food than a little meal from parched 
and pounded corn, relying on the forest for meat. 
“ One table-spoonful of this meal,” says Mr. S. 
“ mixed with a little sugar and water, will sustain a 
warrior for twenty-four hours, without meat.” What 
grain would do more? The art of converting the sap 
of the maple into sugar, it seems, was known to the 
Indians before their acquaintance with the whites. 
Mr. Schoolcraft states also that the Iriquois cultiva¬ 
ted an indigenous kind of bean, which he thinks may 
have been “ the same called frijoles by the early Span¬ 
iards.” They had likewise, according to Mr. S., “ some 
species of the cucurbitee ” pumpkins and squashes. 
MANURE FROM BATS, 
A writer in the Gardener's Chronicle, states that in 
the churches belonging to the “ ruined missions,” near 
San Antonio, Texas, numbers of small bats build their 
nests. He states that in one of those churches at La 
Concepcion, which he visited in 1843 and 1844, there 
were countless numbers of nests, and that he “observed 
a large quantity of bat’s dung, covering the whole of 
the bottom of the church, in some places a foot to a 
foot and a half thick, and the stench arising therefrom, 
intolerable.” He adds, “ were manure necessary for the 
lands on the San Antonio, this bat guano might be of 
service.” 
