224 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
garden, and that they are evidently of different species. 
Their qualities, also, as he and some others seem to have 
proved, are very different—the poison-oak, when eaten 
by cattle or other animals, occasioning no bad effects, 
and the other plant producing sickness or death, when 
fed to calves, cows, oxen, and even men, as has been 
shown by experiments. Mr. Hinde thinks the plant 
which produces the sickness is a nondescript; though he 
is inclined to think it belongs to the genus Rhus , of 
which, as above mentioned, the poison-oak is a species. 
Some communications have lately appeared in the 
Prairie Farmer , designed to show that the milk-sickness 
is caused by poisonous mineral substances held in solution 
by water, or from poisonous springs. From the facts 
cited, there seems to be no doubt that the water of par¬ 
ticular places has produced sickness, both in men and 
cattle, but we are unable to say that it was the true milk- 
sickness. There is at least this objection to the theory 
that this sickness is caused by poisonous water, viz: 
that it has greatly prevailed in many situations where no 
such water has ever been discovered. The Mud river 
valley, in Ohio, for instance, a region noted for the 
abundance arid purity of its water, was formerly very 
subject to milk-sickness. It seems that cultivation, and 
the substitution of cultivated grasses for the plants of 
wild growth, have there, as in other places, banished 
this dreadful malady. 
We would feel obliged if Mr. Hinde would send us 
a leaf of the plant growing in his gai’den, which he 
thinks is the cause of the disease above mentioned. 
ULTRAISMS. 
A paper from Dr. Muse, president of the Dorchester 
(Md.) Farmers’ Club, was read before that association in 
April last, a copy of which, by a resolution of the Club, 
has been forwarded us for publication. A great press of 
other matters prevents our giving space to the whole; 
the following extracts, however, exhibit the substance 
of the article: 
“ The mind of man is too apt on most subjects, and espe¬ 
cially those of deep interest, to run off, unconsciously 
into a state of “ ultraism ”—and from one point, discovered 
to be defective, to an opposite one equally at variance 
with the sober dictates of reason, whose counsels, if seri¬ 
ously invoked, would readily afford a corrective to the 
frequent and fatal errors of extravagance; leading to the 
disappointment and frustration of our hopes, and pur¬ 
poses. 
On the subject before us, this error has, in my humble 
opinion, been committed—and some of the novelties, in 
relation to the improvement of crops and soils—by a 
short recipe—have been too highly appreciated, and 
may thereby become pernicious; yet, I hold it to be quite 
reasonable to anticipate advantages, from some of them, 
as auxiliaries—but unreasonable to conjecture the possi¬ 
bility of such great results as are promised by their in¬ 
ventors. 
Chemical solutions—poudrette—guano, and electricity 
are each, offered by their respective advocates, to the 
practical farmer, as an agricultural catholicon —a remedy 
curative and preventive of all the ills and diseases inci¬ 
dent to his various crops. 
In respect to the chemical solutions, it is wholly in¬ 
conceivable that a grain of wheat, or other seed, should 
absorb from a steep of the highest degree of concentra¬ 
tion all the requisite food contained in ordinary manures: 
it is admitted that one essential element—nitrogen—is 
required in but small portions—but it is very doubtful 
whether all the demands of the plant for this material, 
may be supplied in this manner, with the aid of the 
atmospheric source alone; these contribute a large por¬ 
tion, unquestionably of this element, as well as of car¬ 
bonic acid, &c., &c., but the structure of the spongioles 
of the roots demonstrate that the roots as well as the 
leaves —the earth as well as the air furnish a share of the 
nutritive gasses and other soluble substances placed in it 
by accident or design; which experience has settled be¬ 
yond the power of a possible refutation. 
Where, I would ask, will he found the potash—the 
soda—the lime—the magnesia—the silicates—the phos¬ 
phates, an<l the other essential materials of the plant, not 
in the barren sand before named; neither will they be 
found in the air, for they are not vaporable—nor in the 
steep, and yet the plant must find them or perish. 
Be assured, gentlemen, we must hold on to the com¬ 
post heaps; if properly made, these will supply the deficit 
essentials, which the steeps did not possess, and which 
the small volume of the seed could not contain.” 
Dr. Muse thinks it is probable that the use of steeps, 
as well as the application of electricity, may prove of 
essential service in agriculture; and he states that he is 
himself conducting several experiments in regard to these 
subjects, the results of which will be made public. 
ENORMOUS OAK TREE. 
Six miles W. S. W. of Saintes (in the Lower Cha- 
rente) stands an old oak tree, which promises yet to live 
many centuries, if the axe of some Vandal does not cut 
it down. The following are the dimensions of this mo¬ 
narch of the forests of France, and probably of all 
Europe:— 
Diameter of the trunk at the ground, 27 to 30 feet. 
“ at the height of a man,... 20 to 22 « 
“ at the base of princ’l br’lis, 3 to 6 « 
“ of the whole head,.120 to 130 « 
Height of the trunk,. 24 “ 
“ of the branches,. 66 “ 
A room, with a circular seat, has been cut out of the 
heart wood of the trunk, from nine to twelve feet in di¬ 
ameter. and nine feet high. A table may be placed in 
the middle, round which twelve persons can sit. It is 
adorned with a living carpet of ferns, lichens, &c. Upon 
a plate of wood, taken from the trunk, about the height 
of the door, two hundred concentric annual rings have 
been counted, whence its results, in taking a horizontal 
radius from the exterior circumference to the centre of 
the oak, there must have been from 1800 to 2000 of these 
rings, which makes its age nearly 2000 years. 
CULTIVATION OF WHEAT. 
An interesting experiment, showing at the same time, 
the benefits of stirring the soil, and also the danger of 
drawing false conclusions, is given by L. Vernon Har- 
court, in the agricultural department of the London 
Gardener's Chronicle. 
He had seen a statement that the tailings of wheat, 
called “ ehickenscraps,” being, in fact, only the refuse 
of the grain, would yet produce a good crop of the 
heaviest, fullest seed. Disbelieving it, and being desi¬ 
rous of undeceiving the farmers by proving its fallacy, 
he proceeded to try the experiment. Accordingly, a 
small plat of ground was sown, one-half with good 
wheat, and the other half with tailings. On returning 
home after an absence of some weeks in the spring, he 
was surprised to find the latter covering the ground as 
thick as the grass on a meadow; but found, upon inquiry, 
that the person having charge of the experiment, consi¬ 
dering the seed good for nothing, had sown five or six 
times as much of it as of the other. As this thwarted 
the design of a comparison, half the thick sown was di¬ 
rected to be hoed out till of the same thickness as the 
other from good seed. The other half of the thick 
sown was left to take its chance. At harvest, the first 
twelve plants in one row of each sort, were taken as a 
sample; and the produce weighed as follows: 
Av. ears 
Grains, pr. pl’t. 
12 plants from good seed weighed. 926 6.6 
12 plants from tailings left thick weighed . 351 3.8 
12 plants of the same thinned, weighed... 1133 7.8 
It is of course evident to every intelligent person that 
the increase in the product of the hoed portion was ow¬ 
ing to the cultivation by hoeing, which is further proved 
by the meagre supply from the unhoed wheat from the 
tailings. But the experiment performed under other 
circumstances, and with other seed, might have led to 
very erroneous conclusions. 
