THE CULTIVATOR. 
36 
cold temperature, while the Lima bean will rot in a cold or wet soil. 
Hence, in planting, regard is to be had to the hardiness of the plant 
which is to be sown. 
The present month is an important one in the operations of the 
garden. If not already done, no time should be lost in sowing the 
seeds of onions, sallads, early cabbage, peas, radishes, and in plant¬ 
ing some early corn and potatoes. The beet, carrot, parsnip, and 
summer squash may also be sown. Cabbages for winter use may 
be sown m time, from the 20th to the 30th. As soon as the soil 
and the season are warm enough to bring up corn, which here is 
generally from the 15th to the 20th, plant your melons, pumpkins, 
and cucumbers, though it will do equally well to plant the latter, for 
t ickles, in the early part of June. The 15th will ordinarily do for 
,ima beans, which are the best of the bean family. Soak the seed 
of these in warm water, a few hours, and cover them slightly. My 
practice is to save this crop for winter use. They afford a great pro¬ 
duct. When frost is apprehended, the beans are all picked, the un¬ 
ripe ones shelled and dried; and, if soaked before cooking, are 
nearly as good as when first gathered from the vines. An acquain¬ 
tance digs a large hole, in which he deposites a barrow of dung, 
which he covers with six inches of earth, and plants the Lima beans, 
and puts down poles upon the border of the manured circle. In 
this way they are said to grow luxuriantly, and to produce in great 
abundance. Of the pumpkin, there are several new and much es¬ 
teemed varieties, as the Valparaiso, Porter and acorn squashes. 
These are rather later in coming to maturity than the old yellow 
kind; though they have been successfully cultivated among corn. 
We would commend the planting out, or sowing seeds of parsley, 
balm, wormwood, tanzy, garlick, hyssop, rue, sage, thyme and other 
herbs which are often required in a family. B. 
The Plum Tree is subject to a disease called canker, cancer and 
by various other names, which destroys thousands. It is a kind of 
vegetable gangrene, if the term may be allowed, which, if not time¬ 
ly arrested, generally proves fatal to the tree. It is a vegetable ex¬ 
crescence, upon the stock or limbs, at first green, and afterwards be¬ 
coming black. The affected branch soon dies, and the whole tree 
gradually perishes. It is generally supposed to be caused by some 
insect whose poison, injected into the tree, vitiates the sap. The 
only preventive known to prove successful, is to cut off all the 
diseased parts, as soon as it appears, and commit it to the fire. 
This plan has been adopted in the writer’s garden, and in the Al¬ 
bany nursery, for some years; and hardly an instance of the disease 
occurs in a season. 
The Peach Tree is often destroyed by a grub which preys upon 
the bark of the root, the eggs of which are said to be deposited 
about midsummer. The maggot works a passage down through 
the inner bark, below the surface of the ground, where it remains 
secure for the winter. There are two ways, and perhaps more, of 
preventing or remedying this evil; one is to surround the collar of 
the tree with something which will destroy the insect; the other, to 
cover the lower part of the tree, during summer, so that the fly can¬ 
not deposite its eggs near the ground. Lime and ashes laid around 
the tree at the surface of the ground, have been found efficacious in 
destroying the grub, as the rains, which saturate these, become 
strongly impregnated with alkali, find a passage into the holes and 
kill the insect. The other is most readily effected by straw, the 
buts buried in the ground, set upright round the tree and secured 
to it by two or more straw bands. If the egg is deposited above 
this, and the straw removed in autumn, the grub, not having reach¬ 
ed the ground, is destroyed by the cold of winter. 
Lucerne, (medicago saliva ,) sometimes called French clover, may 
be advantageously cultivated on farms adapted to its growth, to be 
used either in foiling farm stock, as cows, horses, pigs, &c. that is, 
to be cut and fed green in the yard or stable, or as auxiliary to pas¬ 
ture. No crop gives so great a product of forage during the sum¬ 
mer, and all domestic animals are fond of and thrive upon it. It is 
in condition to cut from the 15th to 20th May, and will give three or 
four cuttings in a season. An acre of good lucerne will keep six 
cows well from the first cutting; and as soon as the whole has been 
cut over to supply this number with food, the earliest mown will be 
fit to cut a second time. I have cultivated lucerne ten or a dozen 
years, and it has been almost my whole dependence for the summer 
support of my cows and a yoke of oxen. An acre has been worth 
to me fifty dollars a year. But to ensure a profitable crop, certain 
requisites are necessary, some of which I will name. 
Lucerne must be sown on a dry soil. The roots penetrate four to 
six feet, and these will neither grow nor live where there is water. 
Sand, gravel or loam are the best soils for it. 
It should be sown on a rich and clean soil. Without the first the 
crop will be diminutive; and if weeds abound, they will rob and 
choke the young lucerne, which is feeble during its early growth. 
The best preparation for it is a crop of potatoes, well manured and 
well cleaned in tilling. 
Sow 16 pounds to the acre, broadcast, with half a bushel of winter 
rye, early in May, in ground well pulverized, harrow in the seed, 
and follow with the roller. Or the seed may be put in with a drill 
barrow, at 12 to 18 inches between the drills, at the rale of 10 lbs. 
the acre, and in this case the intervals should be kept clean with 
the hoe, or otherwise. The duration of lucerne is 6 to 10 years; 
though it sometimes, like clover, suffers from the winter. The seed 
may be had at the seed shops in our cities at 25 to 30 cents per 
pound. 
To make lucerne into hay, it should lie in the swath to wilt and 
then be put into small grass cocks, with a fork (not rolled) to cure. 
After standing a day or two, the cocks may be opened two or three 
hours, under a bright sun, the hay turned, and soon after housed. 
If spread, like ordinary grass, the leaves dry and crumble ere the 
haulm or stalks are cured, and thus the best part of the fodder is 
lost. I have mixed lucerne, partially cured, in alternate strata with 
dry barley straw, on the mow, and found that cattle greedily con¬ 
sumed both, in winter, when fed out in the yard. B. 
THE DRUNKEN FARMER. 
It is important to every youiiir farmer to establish habits of indus¬ 
try and sobriety. The former will lead to wealth, and the latter ensure 
its enjoyment. Our habits, for good or evil, are easily formed, but 
when once established, are very difficult to change. In early life is 
the time to guard against a propensity for drinking; for a taste for 
liquor once acquired, the fruits of the past are squandered, and I he 
prospect of the future is only poverty and suflering. No matter 
how fortunate the man has been in life, in the acquisition of wealth 
or reputation—no matter how strong and numerous are the ties of 
friendship or connexion, nor with what endearments he is surround¬ 
ed and blest—the habit of intemperance once formed, he may bid 
an eternal farewell to all that has heretofore constituted his highest 
enjoyment—to all that has made toil a pleasure and himself the en¬ 
vy of the malignant, and the boast of his friends—he lias now had 
to the full his draught of felicity—he has nothing hereafter to an¬ 
ticipate, but a life of degradation for himself—a trial of endurance 
and suffering for his family—and, to his friends he has now become 
an object of painful reflection and remark. It is right it should be 
so. The act on his part is voluntary. He has renounced all these 
ties and enjoyments, for the most beastly intoxication; and if the 
world and friends desert him, he deserves his fate, because he has 
rendered himself unfit to associate with those whose reason has not 
been impaired by so gross an indulgence. Farmers, avoid intempe¬ 
rance as you would the approach of cholera; for as certainly as you 
become its victim, your farms will be taken from you, and your 
wretched families become the dependants of others. You have on¬ 
ly to lood around you, and see these observations exemplified in nu¬ 
merous instances: for you can sit by your firesides, and soon name 
this man and that man, and yet another and another, who started in 
life perhaps with much better prospects than yourselves, but who 
are now laborers for others, or, what is still worse, dependants up¬ 
on your alms-houses for their bread and shelter. The establishment 
of little groceries, or taverns, in a small neighborhood of farmers, 
has a most injurious tendency. Often have we known sober men, 
ignorantly, and apparently innocently, plead for them as a conve¬ 
nience ; but as often have we seen these same men become their most 
willing but unsuspecting victims. As soon as one of these esta¬ 
blishments is opened in a small but thriving agricultural community, 
it becomes the scene of revelry for the young, and the place of re¬ 
sort of the old. There they congregate to spend their evenings, to 
hear the news, to attend trifling lawsuits, to buy small necessaries 
for their families, and the thousand other occasions that they can 
find excuses for;—but at each time they meet a friend, and they 
must either treat or be treated. The taste for liquor and company 
is soon acquired, and then their ordinary business becomes irksome ; 
they lose their relish for labor; the farm is neglected; the family is 
