122 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
EXPERIMENTS. 
Sowing Indian Peas broadcast. —Several times in 
my life, I have plowed in seed peas, broad cast, to be 
used either for crop, manuring or sheep pasture. The 
quantity to the acre, according to the quality of the land, 
from one to two bushels. One who has surplus peas, 
and ground too poor to grow clover, may do well to sow 
them for improvement; but as they make superior pas¬ 
turage for sheep, perhaps one may afford to buy seed for 
such purpose, even on poor land. The Indian pea 
yields well on poor land, (cold clays excepted,) and 
abundantly on ordinary; but on rich ground, a heavy 
crop of vines, but no peas. When sowed sufficiently 
thick, broad cast, the raising kind of this pea stands well 
for mowing. 
Pumpkins and Cimlins in corn field. —It is folly to 
plant either pumpkins or cimlins in any other than rich 
land, and such, if properly seeded with corn, will pro¬ 
duce with us, by the middle of July, a corn crop suffi¬ 
ciently luxuriant to smother every vine, pea, turnep, 
weed and grass. Whatever a corn field, properly plant¬ 
ed, may yield in addition to corn, is just so much sub- 
stracted from the corn. 
Oat and Orchard Grass pasture— Three years 
past, I sowed 8 or nine acres in oats and orchard grass. 
These acres lay in detached spots, and all within a pas¬ 
ture inclosure of about 200 acres; and which, not being 
fenced separately, vras grazed closely from the beginning 
to this present time. The oats made an excellent pas¬ 
ture a good portion of the first year; and the orchard 
grass, where the land is rich, has made a good pasture 
ever since. New land of medium quality, will produce 
orchard grass very well, provided the soil is retained on 
the surface, to do which the coulter should be used to put 
jn the seed. 
Irrigation. —Seeing the many and great advantages 
arising from casting water on lands or crops, I am sur¬ 
prised and mortified to see so little of it done in my 
neighborhood, yea, and my country. 
Arthur Young, in his Travels in Spain, says that “ in 
the midst of an arid, wretched desert, he came to a 
spring which was immediately conducted into a reser¬ 
voir, and thence used to irrigate maize, hemp, cabbages, 
and beans, which were all fine. As soon as the land is 
sown, it is watered, and periodically till the plants are 
up; moderately, while they are young, but everyday 
and sometimes twice a day, when full grown. The ef¬ 
fect is surprising, and infinitely exceeds that of the rich¬ 
est manure that can be spread on any land.” 
I can turn a creek on a portion of my bottom lands at 
pleasure, and have ascertained its effects on the following 
vegetables. Moderate irrigation improves rye at any 
stage of its growth, but there is danger of its rusting. 
When corn is in silk and tassel, it will grow and thrive 
wonderfully in mud the balance of its days. Irish pota¬ 
toes and cabbages like frequent flashings, but as the cab¬ 
bage should be worked often and during the whole sum¬ 
mer, the farmer should calculate accordingly. Red clo¬ 
ver likes a wetting, and white clover likes many. Pro¬ 
fuse irrigation does not suit oats, peas, artichokes, pump¬ 
kins and cimlins; and will rot all the lower end of car¬ 
rots, parsneps, beets, radishes, turneps, &c. Irrigation in 
the slightest degree does not suit tobacco or wheat, anil 
to excess, is destructive. 
Every person will of course know that casting water 
on a crop is useless labor when there is abundance of 
rain and consequently, the hotter and dryer the climate, 
the more necessity for irrigation. I wish some one, own¬ 
ing a few hundred acres of poor sandy land, which could 
command water sufficient for its irrigation, would ex¬ 
change with me for as many acres of the richest kind of 
mountain land. Or if he will not do this, I wish he 
would go about its improvement, and let me know the 
result. 
To kill wire worms and cut worms. —I have never 
been pestered with worms of any kind in my corn when 
the land has been thoroughly plowed in winter; but have 
always suffered on rich ground, when this has been neg 
leered. 
Early planting and sowing.— The earlier we plant 
or sow spring crops, the better, provided they are not in 
danger of being frosted; and the earlier we sow wheat 
and rye, the better, provided they are not in danger of 
premature heading. The objects and advantages of early 
seeding in both cases are the same, viz: 1st, less labor 
and risk—2d, earlier maturity—3d, fewer weeds and 
grass to contend with—4th, less exhaustion of the soil by 
evaporation, because of the timely shelter afforded the 
earth—5th, a lower and stouter vegetable. 
Manuring in advance. —The greater portion of my 
manures are spread broad cast on the surface one or two 
years in advance of a crop; and the ground generally not 
grazed. If any person can do better, let him goaboutit. 
Ditch Mould.—I am now engaged carting on my 
meadow about 200 loads of mould, taken from a reser¬ 
voir about 15 months past. It is black, rich and friable, 
and perhaps worth as much as so many loads of dung; 
particularly on that portion of my meadow on which it 
is spread, it being a red stiff clay. The ditch or reser¬ 
voir is now filling again by means of a small stream, 
which is made to run out at either end at will. 
Amherst, Va., Feb. 1845. Za. Drummond. 
THE VALUE OF THE SCOTCH LARCH IN ARTI 
FICIAL PLANTATIONS. 
Mr. Editor —One of your correspondents in the Oc¬ 
tober number of your interesting journal, seems desirous 
of some information as to the adaptation of this valuable 
tree to our country, and also as to the distinguishing dif¬ 
ference in the natural habit of growth, quality of wood, 
&c. between the foreign and the native species, more 
commonly known as the “ Hackmatack.” 
Having paid considerable attention to the Scotch Larch, 
and imported some thousands for the purpose of ornamen¬ 
tal plantations, I am happy that it is in my power to 
communicate some observations respecting this compara¬ 
tively rare tree, that may not prove uninteresting. 
Since the decline of the oak in England, from the vast 
inroads made in these once,noble forests for the purpose 
of ship-building, the Larch may now be considered as 
the great timber tree not only of that country, but of Eu¬ 
rope ; and if it does not entirely and eventually super¬ 
sede the oak, it will at best give it that breathing space 
that it so much requires to again equal those specimens 
of which so few, alas, now remain. 
The European Larch, claims its birth among the Alps 
and Appenines; there its great hardihood causes it to 
flourish, where no other tree can survive; hanging over 
rocks and precipices, which have never been visited by 
mortal foot, it assumes that wildness that renders it inva¬ 
luable as a picturesque tree. Strabo speaks of Larches of 
a very great size; many of them he says would measure 
eight feet in diameter, and at this day even, masts of 
larch from 100 to 110 and 120 feet in length, have been 
floated down the Valois thiough the lake of Geneva and 
down the Rhone to Toulon for the French dock yards. 
In the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Paris for the year 
1787, there is an Essay by the President, M. De La 
Tom D'Aigue, on the culture of the Larch, in which it 
is celebrated as one of the most useful of timber trees; he 
tells us that he has in his own garden, rails that were put 
up partly of oak and partly of larch, in 1743. The for¬ 
mer he says have yielded to time, while the latter are 
uninjured. Experiments to test the durability of this 
wood, have also been made within a more recent date in 
the river Thames; posts of equal thickness and strength, 
some of oak and some of larch, were driven down in the 
river, where they were alternately covered by the tide, 
and there left to dry by its fall; this species of alterna¬ 
tion being of course the most trying to timber, and ac¬ 
cordingly the oak posts decayed, and were twice renew¬ 
ed during a few years, while those of larch remained al¬ 
together unchanged; a particular advantage this tree pos¬ 
sesses for naval architecture, is that the wood is almost 
indestructible by fire, and not liable to splinter in engage¬ 
ments. It is also valuable to the cabinet maker, as be¬ 
sides its great clearhess and hardness, it is susceptible of 
so fine a polish as to be almost transparent, and may in 
this state be wrought into the most beautiful wainscot. 
Before the use of canvass became general by the old mas- 
