231 
1850. THE CULTIVATOR. 
other lands, and an early crop may be put in, or if 
the field is designed for meadow or pasture, it is 
here that the first green mantle of spring is spread 
out, and it is here that the farmer’s cattle find the 
first herbage of the season, and indeed linger latest 
in fall, for with a few judicious waterings in sum¬ 
mer, it holds out later in autumn than other lands. 
I can point to a piece of tillage up-land, which a 
few years ago was a dry, barren spot, but is now 
like a rich garden, made so solely by water. A 
stream of what is called hard water, (rendered so 
^probably by the sulphate of lime it contains,) has 
been diverted from its course, and spread over the 
surface for about six months of each year, and by 
filtering into and through the soil, has deposited an 
immense amount of fertilizing matter, as was clear¬ 
ly shown by a recent crop of Indian corn. The 
hills below the line of the ditch, yielding double the 
quantity of those above the line, and but a few feet 
apart. It was also noticeable, that while worms 
had seriously injured the corn above the ditch, not a 
hill was molested below, as far as the water had 
reached. And here I will remark that on all irriga¬ 
ted lands the grasshopper ceases to be “a burden” 
to the farmer, and the same may be said of all the 
various insects and worms that prey upon vegeta¬ 
tion, whose combined depredations often deprive 
him of one-half of the product of the hay-field. 
Indeed, every description of vermin, which burrow 
beneath, or live on the surface, always to the an¬ 
noyance of the farmer, find no resting place on irri¬ 
gated land. 
Time will not now^permit me to go into a general 
detail of directions in relation to fertilizing land 
with water. I will observe, however, that all irri¬ 
gation, after vegetation has commenced in the 
spring, should be, if practicable, applied only in the 
night, or between the setting and rising of the sun, 
and gradually discontinued as the season advances, 
and by the first of August entirely withheld, ex¬ 
cept to supply the deficiency which may be need¬ 
ed in the absence of rains. I am aware that but 
small portions of a country can be benefitted by irri¬ 
gation, yet when we look at the extent it is practiced 
in the eastern hemisphere, where the surface is more 
flat and level than here, it certainly can be done to a 
still greater extent in many of these states. In¬ 
deed, there are methods adapted to both level and 
hilly districts, which can be as easily resorted to 
here as in foreign countries. When the least doubt 
exists with regard to the practicability of irrigation, 
the eye should not be trusted without the aidof a cor¬ 
rect leveling instrument. All streams seek and flow 
through the lowest grounds and valleys in their vi¬ 
cinity ; consequently by the laws of gravitation, aid¬ 
ed by the spring freshets and rains, the soluble salts, 
the finely divided organic matters, and the richest 
parts of all soils, are gradually moving towards the 
place where waters flow, and are continually pass¬ 
ing away with the current, and this forms one of 
the drawbacks upon the permanent fertility of soils. 
To arrest these matters from wholly passing away 
and being lost, is one of the important ends of ir¬ 
rigation. Even the smallest rills which flow but a 
few weeks in spring, may in most cases be diverted 
from their natural courses, and spread upon meadow 
or plow lands, in a few years rendering other and 
more expensive manures unnecessary as far as their 
waters reach 5 and it is certainly a great addition to 
the value of any farm, if the location admits of a 
portion of the same being fertilised by means of 
water, without going to an unreasonable expense. 
With this view, a careful examination of every 
stream which the farmer has at his command, should 
be made, and this, in most cases, can easily be 
done. A. B. 
On the Acclimation of Tropical Plants. 
Eds. Cultivator —By acclimation I mean, here, 
the capacity of vegetable productions to adapt 
themselvqs to a decidedly colder climate than that in 
which they originated; an adaptation accomplished 
usually, in a gradual manner. A plant may be said 
to be acclimated when, although its foliage may not 
have acquired that expansion, nor its fruit that fla¬ 
vor that it usually acquires in its native clime, yet 
both are of such a character as to render the plant 
available for the purposes of life, much as in its na¬ 
tive clime. 
The simple, and universally recognised fact, that 
nature has bestowed an appropriate vegetation up¬ 
on each clime, a vegetation marked, in most cases, 
by well ascertained limits,—limits which spontane¬ 
ous nature has, after no lapse of time, transcended; 
this fact, I say, would seem to answer the question 
of acclimation in the negative. What educated 
man thinks of meeting with apples, pears, cherries, 
wheat, oats and turneps growing at the equator; or 
who would look for coffee, oranges, or pine apples 
at Boston? All feel that here we are principally 
concerned in the cultivation of those vegetables 
that the hand of nature originated here, or some¬ 
where near this parallel of latitude. 
What then are the facts in regard to acclimation? 
Can tropical plants, by a progressive cultivation, or 
by a sudden but careful removal to the north, be 
brought at length to flourish, say at Boston or Buf¬ 
falo, as in their native clime? The answer in gene¬ 
ral, is—-no, not in a single instance. Not only will 
they not produce perennially, or through the whole 
year, or resist frost, but, during the short season of 
production, they will be exposed to liabilities un¬ 
known to them in their native climes. 
There are about seventeen tropical and semi-tro¬ 
pical plants cultivated here, besides numerous other 
plants and flowers that are occasionally seen. They 
are the artichoke, bean, cucumber, corn, egg plant, 
watermelon, muskmelon, nasturtion, okra, pepper, 
potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, squash, sunflower, 
tobacco and tomato. Most, and perhaps all of 
these present also varieties, and some of them very 
numerous. Now in what sense can these seventeen 
plants, (more or less,) be considered acclimated, 
some of them, as corn, potatoes, beans, &,c., having 
been cultivated at the north for more than two hun¬ 
dred years? I answer— 
1st. The least degree of frost kills them accord¬ 
ing to the degree of its severity, now, just as it did 
the first year of the introduction of any variety of 
these plants. Not the least power to resist frost 
has been acquired. Indeed, plants produced by 
seed fresh from the tropics, resist frost just as well 
as old varieties of the same plants that have been 
cultivated here for a century. In 1849, I cultivated 
a potato whose ancestor was imported from Bogota 
the year before, and also seedlings of the same, the 
seed being grown here in 1849. During the same 
year, I also cultivated a muskmelon and a winter 
squash from St. Thomas, in the West Indies. And 
yet they resisted the autumnal frosts just as well, 
and no better, than our old varieties of the same ve¬ 
getables.. 
2d. A cold summer, especially if it be wet, will 
sicken the most of these plants, so that they will 
die, or not fruit at all, or at least produce a fruit 
of little or no value. The potato, and proba¬ 
bly the nasturtion, are exceptions to this rule, from 
