258 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Aug. 
/ ] 
Vegetable Manures;. 
Nature, when untramelled by art, rears most luxuri¬ 
ant crops upon her fields, and yet the surface continually 
I increases in fertility, never exhausted, but becoming 
I richer each succeeding year. Let us suppose some 
I few seeds to be borne by the wind from a distance to 
some naked surface entirely destitute of tree, shrub, or 
even a blade of grass, but still of a nature fitted to sup¬ 
port vegetation, i. e. containing the inorganic constitu¬ 
ents of plants. The seeds take root, and struggling, 
at length send forth their tender leaflets to the light. 
The process of vegetation then goes on with greater 
rapidity: the dew of heaven, or the grateful shower 
supplies it with certain necessary constituents, and its 
leaves gather the carl?' hie acid contained in the air. 
Thus the plant comes to maturity and then withers and 
dies, but all the elements which it has drawn from the 
earth are returned to it, and besides, a large amount 
of carbon, which has been gathered almost wholly from 
the atmosphere. As the tender plant of a succeeding 
year springs up, it receives part of its substance from 
the decaying vegetable matter of a previous growth; a 
more vigorous vegetation is the result, and still the de- 
posite of the previous year is only in part taken up by 
the second growth; thus there is an accumulation of 
carbonaceous matter from year to year. If the vegeta¬ 
tion thus springing up, be of such a nature that the 
plants do not die annually, but flourish for years and 
even centuries; still there is a continual accumulation 
of vegetable matter by reason of the annual deposits of 
leaves and decayed branches; such deposits give the 
soil a dark rich appearance, and when the land has 
been cleared and broken up, it yields fine crops for a 
[longtime. In many localities, the carbonaceous mat- 
iter, having accumulated for centuries in the manner 
^described, has become so thoroughly incorporated with 
Ithe soil, extending sometimes to the depth of several 
leet, that the fields will continue fertile for many years; 
such is the condition of the prairies of the west. When 
the suhstances mentioned accumulate upon the surface 
of low swampy grounds, they do not become mixed 
with the soil, but there is finally presented, a deposite 
of black, half decomposed vegetable matter; this mate¬ 
rial has received the names, vegetable, mold , muck , and 
peat. 
We learn from the natural changes given, that nature 
has made ample provisions for the return of the raw 
material of which plants are made, to the soil; and she 
does not stop here, but continually increases the fer¬ 
tility of her fields, providing a surplus of vegetable 
Surishment. 
The art of cultivation should so far imitate nature as 
f to supply a sufficient return for the matter taken from 
the soil by each crop. Not that there should be a re¬ 
turn weight for weight, for that would be impossible 
and wholly unnecessary, but unless the soil has a boun¬ 
tiful supply of fertilizing material, the process of con¬ 
tinued-cropping will immediately exhaust it. There is 
no more economical method of preventing this result 
than the application of vegetable manures, either in the 
form of refuse straw, hay, &e., of the farm-yard, or 
that of vegetable mold from the swamp; not that these 
substances alone will in all cases be sufficient, but they 
are easily obtained and contain most of the constituents 
of plants.— Eaton’s Agricultural Chemistry. 
Nutriment in different Crops. 
The different kinds of crop usually raised differ ma] 
terially in the proportions which they contain of the 
different essential constituents now enumerated, as 
required for the support of animals, and the practical 
deductions to be derived from the chemistry of the sub¬ 
ject, will at once be apparent from an examination of 
the following tables. If we suppose an acre of land to 
yield the following quantities of the usually cultivated 
crops, namely:— 
Of wheat. 
Of barley 
Of oats.. 
Of peas.25 
Of beans.25 
Of Indian corn.... 30 
Of potatoes.12 
Of turneps. 
Of wheat straw.. . 
Of meadowhay.. . 
Of clover hay. 
The weight of dry starch, sugar, and gum,—of glut¬ 
en and albumen—-of oil or fat, and of saline matter, 
reaped in each crop, will be represented very nearly by 
the following numbers:— 
Woody. Starch, Gluten & Oil or Saline. 
.25 bushels, 
or 
1500 lbs. 
35 
— 
or 
1800 — 
,50 
— 
or 
2100 — 
,25 
— 
or 
1600 — 
25 
— 
or 
1600 — 
30 
— 
or 
1800 — 
12 
tons, 
or 
27,000 — 
30 
— 
or 
67,000 — 
3000 — 
n 
— 
or 
3400 — 
2 
— 
or 
4500 — 
Fibre, 
Sugar, &c. 
Albumen 
, Fat, 
Matter. 
Wheat, 220 
825 lbs. 
180 
45 
30 
Barley, 270 
1080 
210 
50 
36 
Oats, 420 
1050 
290 ? 
100 
75 
Peas, 130 
800 
380 
35 ? 
45 
Beans, 160 
640 
450 
40 
50 
Indian corn, 270 
900 
180 
150 
30 
Potatoes, 1350 
3240 
600 ? 
90 
24 
Turneps, 2000 
6700 
800? 
335 ? 
600 
Wheatstraw 1500 
900 
40 
60 
15 
Medowhay, 1020 
1760 
240 
120 
220 
Clover hay, 1120 
—English Paper. 
1800 
420 
200 
400 
Agricultural Shows. 
New-York State Society. —At Syracuse, 12th, 
13th, and 14th of September. 
Wayne County, N. Y.—At Palmyra, 26th and 27th 
of September. The same society will hold an exhibi¬ 
tion at Rose Valley, the 3d and'4th of October. 
Oneida County, N. Y.—At Hampton, 26th and 
27th of September. 
Maryland State Society. —At Baltimore, 10th, 
11th, and 12th of October. 
Suffolk County, N. Y.—At Greenport, October 
2d. 
Herkimer County, N. Y.—At Herkimer, 27th Sep¬ 
tember. 
Wool Depot. —Mr. H. Blanchard, of Kinderhook, 
has erected a large building for a wool depot, at Shore- 
ham landing, on Lake Champlain. So far as we 
learned, in our late visit to this section, it is the gen¬ 
eral intention of the wool-growers to send their wool 
to this depot. We were pleased to notice the improve¬ 
ment which has been made in cleansing and putting up 
fleeces for market. 
Horse-chestnuts made edible. —The bitter, green 
oil, is removed by first grating them to a pulp, then 
adding one-fiftieth (1-50) by weight of carbonate of 
soda - The mixture is then thoroughly washed and 
racked, by means of a clear fountain, and a white and 
agreeable paste subsides, which is manufactured into 
bread and cakes. 
Antidote to poison. —It is said that a desert spoon¬ 
ful of ground mustard, mixed in a tumbler of warm 
water, and drank immediately, acts as a speedy emetic, 
and may be used with safety. In the absence of any 
thing better, a large draught of warm water is one of 
the best general antidotes for poison, as its immediate 
pendency is to dilute it and soften its virulence, and in- 
Jbe vomiting. 
Black Ants. —Gum Camphor laid in the tracks of 
ants is said to be excellent for keeping away these trou*. 
Mesome invests, __ 
