THE CULTIVATOR. 
149 
cape from fermenting manure, in the soil, are prepared food, are im¬ 
bibed immediately by the mouths of plants, and cause a rapid growth. 
On the other hand, as a general rule, the cow does not take on much 
fat while she yields a great supply of milk,—the fruit trees does not 
make much wood while it is sustaining a heavy burthen of fruit, nor 
do the small grains that mature a heavy crop of seed, generally show 
a rank luxuriant growth of straw. The decomposition of rotten 
dung (for even this must undergo decomposition ere it becomes food 
for plants) is more slow,—little or no heat is evolved, and the pro¬ 
cess of nutrition goes on in its natural course, without artificial 
stimulus, which unfermented manures may be considered as impart- 
ing. 
It may be alleged, that corn, if not potatoes and turnips, affords 
an exception to the proposition we have laid down, inasmuch as it is 
cultivated for its seed, and is not injured by long manure. A mo¬ 
ment’s consideration will show a marked difference between this and 
the small grains. The latter mature their seeds during the intense 
heats of the summer, when the fermentation of vegetable matter 
in the soil is most rapid, and when long manure is most prejudicial 
in its influence upon the seed. A surfeit of food, at this time, by in¬ 
ducing rank growth, often causes a disrupture of the sap vessels, 
and destroys the organization of the plant. Not so with the vora¬ 
cious maize : This season of heat and fermentation is precisely the 
time when its appetite craves an abundance of gaseous food, to ma¬ 
ture its stocks and leaves ; and before the grain is formed, fermen¬ 
tation has nearly subsided, and the soil then imparts only the food 
which is congenial to the perfection of the seed. Thus the stock 
and the seed are supplied with their appropriate food at the precise 
time when each stands most in need of it. The same remarks will 
apply in a great measure to the potato and the turnip—their roots 
are produced after fermentation has exhausted its force upon the 
manure. Perhaps, indeed, the rule may be narrowed down to this 
—that long manure be exclusively applied to crops which come to matu¬ 
rity in autumn ,—and that for all crops which ripen their seeds about 
midsummer, fermented manure is most suitable, or long manure ap¬ 
plied to a previous and hoed crop. 
Our own practice has afforded striking evidence of the superior 
value of long manure to the corn crop. In the winter of 1823, we 
had a quantity of stable dung taken on to a field designed for corn, 
and before planting, it had undergone a pretty thorough fermenta¬ 
tion. It was applied to one part of the field. On to an adjoining 
part we carried a good supply of long dung from the cattle yard, 
principally corn stalks, straw and the droppings of the stock. It had 
been trodden under foot, and had apparently undergone no fermen¬ 
tation—we were obliged to cut it with an axe in order to load it. 
The dressing of the long manure was about equal to that which had 
rotted when taken into the field. Both were planted with corn, and 
treated alike. The part dressed with rotted dung had a manifest 
advantage in the early part of the season, and until the long dung 
began to ferment, when this part of the field gained rapidly, and at 
harvesting had a manifest advantage. An acre was gathered in 
an afternoon, husked, weighed and measured, by about twenty per¬ 
sons. It was a general opinion that the long manure gave from a 
fourth to a fifth more produce than the short dung. The product in 
shelled corn was over one hundred and eighteen bushels. The shrink¬ 
age to the first of May following was nearly twenty per cent, or one- 
fifth. 
AMERICAN SILK. 
We have received a sample of exquisitely beautiful silk, produced 
on the farm of E. Goodrich, Esq. of Hartford, Conn, which we design 
to exhibit at the anniversary of the State Agricultural Society. The 
sample was reeled on the Italian reel. It is worth from five to six 
dollars per pound. A young girl, after, one day’s practice, can reel 
a pound per day. 
Mr. Goodrich, we believe, has planted out more mulberry trees 
than any other person in the United States; and while we tender 
to him our thanks for the beautiful specimen of silk which he has 
sent us, we cannot be unmindful of his ability, nor can we doubt his 
willingness, to lay us and the public under still greater obligations, 
by communicating, for the Cultivator, some results of his experience 
and observation in the silk business. Under these impressions, we 
respectfully solicit from Mr. G. in behalf of the public as well as of 
ourselves, answers to the following queries, and such other informa¬ 
tion upon this interesting subject, as he may please to communi¬ 
cate. 
1. Can the silk business be profitably managed by the generality 
of farmers—or by any particular and what class of them 1 
2. What is the nature of the bounty offered by the state of Con¬ 
necticut for the cultivation of silk, and its probable advantages or 
disadvantages'? 
3. Does there promise to be a ready and permanent market for 
cocoons—and can the reeling process be managed with economy and 
profit by the cultivator ? 
CHENOPODIUM QUINOA—AND THE POTATO. 
The first is the botanical name of a Mexican plant, the culture of 
which is now arresting the public attention in England.. Humboldt 
says, that this plant, in Mexico, ranks in utility with the potato, the 
maize and the wheat. The leaves are used as spinach, or sorrel, or 
as greens; and the seeds in soups and broths, or as rice. The plant 
is an annual, and resembles French spinach. The seeds are small, 
yellowish white, and resemble somewhat those of millet. In 1834 
seeds ripened in abundance in England for the first time, and as a 
field plant, it is considered a great acquisition. It is believed it may 
be cultivated as common as barley, and on any ground which will 
produce that grain. The Quinoa will no doubt ripen its seeds in the 
United States, even in our latitude, better than in England, and our 
consular agents, naval officers, or commercial men, might render a 
public service by introducing it among us. 
When we consider the comparative recent introduction of the po¬ 
tato (Solanum tuberosa') among many civilized nations, the preju¬ 
dices which in many nations for a long time retarded its introduc¬ 
tion, and the large spice it now occupies in domestic economy, as 
food for man and beast, in almost every part of the civil-zed worlu, 
these considerations should induce us to give a fair trial lu every fo¬ 
reign plant which promises to be useful in our husbandry. The first 
field culture of the potato in Scotland was in 1739, less than a cen¬ 
tury ago. They were left in the same spot of ground from year to 
year; a few tubers were perhaps used in autumn, and the parent 
plants well covered with litter, to save them from the winter’s frost. 
The progress of the culture was afterwards greatly retarded, by the 
fact, that “ potatoes are not mentioned in the bible,” which was 
deemed a sufficient reason for rejecting them. Ignorance of the 
proper mode of cooking them, (an evil which has not wholly ceased 
at this day) also retarded their culture. “A person who had been 
invited to taste the first potato in the county of Forfair, about 1730, 
related that the roots had been merely heated, and that they adher¬ 
ed to the teeth like glue, while their flavor was far from agreeable. 
The food was about to be condemned through the ignorance of the 
cook, when the accidental arrival of a gentleman, who had tasted a 
potato in Lancashire, caused the rejected roots to be remanded back 
to the hot turf ashes, till they became as dainty as they had before 
been nauseous.” “ It is only within these forty years that any par¬ 
ticular attention has been paid in France to the cultivation of pota¬ 
toes. They were long regarded as an unwholesome plant, and on¬ 
ly fit to be eaten by cattle and the most wretched human beino-s.” 
It required all the efforts of royal authority, supported by royal ex¬ 
ample, to eradicate the popular prejudice against them. Now so 
diversified is the manner of cooking the potato in France, that a gen¬ 
tlemen is said to have dined a party of friends, sumptuously, entirely 
upon potatoes, cooked in thirty-two various modes. “ The compo¬ 
sition of the potato root is very similar to that of the seeds of the 
maize and wheat; though, from the dissimilarity in taste and exter¬ 
nal appearance, this would not be at first suspected ; and hence ari¬ 
ses the corresponding fitness of all three for food. The principal dif¬ 
ference between wheat and potatoes consists in the presence of a 
substance called gluten in wheat.” 
The detection of this similarity between grain and potatoes, by 
chemical analysis, led to the experiment of extracting sugar from the 
potato. As we have been inquired of, as to the process of extracting 
sugar from the potato, we subjoin the particulars, as we find them 
in the Edinburgh Quarterly Journal of Agriculture—the discovery 
and the experiments having been first made, we believe in the state 
of New-York. 
The potatoes are first ground or grated in a mill, similar or the 
same, as w r e denominate the grater cider mill, by which they are re¬ 
duced, with surprising rapidity, to a fine pulp, and from which, by 
the aid of a sieve and water, the starch, in great purity, is readily- 
obtained. The starch thus obtained, is then dissolved completely in 
water, heated by steam let into it. A certain quantity of sulphuric 
acid, or vitriol, is then mixed with it, and heat being applied, the 
