S THE CULTIVATOR. 
be seen, they may be renovated by letting the seed get ripe, and 
shell out, on such places, or they may be sown with new s-ed.— 
A soil more moist than dry is generally best adapted for this plant, 
but it has been tried on high lands and on the Alps, where it likewise 
perfectly throve. 
After grain or potatoes (or other hoed crop,) a shallow tillage 
is sufficient. After clover or lucerne a deeper tillage is necessary, 
but on old meadow it is advantageous to cultivate first a crop of 
potatoes or grain, and after these being harvested in the fall, sow 
the Lolch. These meadows are treated like other meadows: every 
three years they receive a manuring—top-dressing—and the first 
one is incorporated with the soil at the time of sowing the seed.— 
The ground ought to be well harrowed. The seed is sown broad 
oast—about 40 pounds to the acre. If sown in the spring, 8 to 10 
lbs. more are necessary, and one chooses as much as possible, a 
wet time to sow it. After the seed is sown, harrowing may be dis- 
Densed with, but the ground ought to be rolled with a heavy roller. 
This operation has the double advantage to press the seed into 
the ground, and smooth the land for mowing. 
II. D. GROVE. 
Hosick, Rensselaer Co. N. V., Jan. 31, 1835. 
Receipt for the cure of Jlmerican blight, or mealy aphis, on apple 
trees. —“ Dilute three-quarters of an ounce measure of sulphuric 
acid with 7J ounces of water, made slowly.” This liquor to be ap¬ 
plied all over the bark of the stem and branches, by means of rag- 
mops, taking care not to let it touch the young shoots, which it 
would kill, or the operator’s clothes, which it will injure. This 
fluid kills every insect it touches.— I. Couch , in Gardener's Mag. 
Train oil, applied with a brush, or soot and oil, laid on in the 
same way, or ei'en clay and water appl ed like a coat of paint, are 
all used for destroying this destructive insect. Nor is there occasion 
for applying the remedy to the entire bark, as the insect is found 
almost entirely at the separation of the branches, or near the surface 
of the ground, where alone the application need be made. 
How to preserve piers in good health and in good appetite during 
the period of their fattening. —Mix with their food a few gall nuts, 
bruized with charcoal. We are unable to account how this ope¬ 
rates so beneficially on the economy of the health of these animals, 
but we are wishful to make it public, as we have experienced the 
result to be decidedly good.— British Farmers' Magazine. 
It is known to every farmer, that hogs, when fattening in a 
close pen, are liable to lose their appetite, become sick and die. 
There are several preventives for this evil—as occasionally mixing 
a little sulphur with their food, giving them charcoal, rotten wood, 
or permitting them to root in a small yard appended to the pen.— 
Some of these precautions are necessary. 
Hot Beds, we are aware are very little employed by farmers; 
yet many would employ them, we believe, if they were aware of 
their advantages, and knew how to construct and manage them.— 
The expense is trifling. They are employed to raise early salads, 
early cabbage plants and cucumbers, and to bring forward plants 
of other garden products, as tomatoes, egg plants, flowers, &.c. 
and which may be transplanted into the open ground as soon as the 
season will permit. By means of hot beds, under ordinary ma¬ 
nagement, salads may be had for the table in April and May, cu¬ 
cumbers in May and June, and cabbage and other plants in May, 
or earlier if desired. There is no specific rule for making a hot 
bed, yet we will give such directions as will enable those who 
wish, to make an experiment of their use. 
The first thing is to obtain, say three sashes, which are usually 
about 6 feet long by 3 feet four inches broad. They consist of a 
stout frame made of plank, with five longitudinals astragals or strips, 
for the glass to rest upon without any cross pieces, so that each 
sash will contain six strips of glass, 6ix inches broad, which lap 
slightly, to throw off the rain. These are the most common form, 
though the size is not material. Whatever may be the size of the 
sash, a frame, generally made of plank, must be provided to fit 
two or three of them, with strips running from front to rear, for 
the sash to slide upon. The frame may be 14 to 18 inches on the 
back side, and about 7 inches less in front, so as to give the glass, 
when on it, a slope nearly at right angles with the rays of the me¬ 
ridian sun. Having thus a frame and sashes, lay down the former 
in the place designed for the hot bed, mark out a space extending 
round the frame 8 to 12 inches, and take out the earth from the 
enclosed space to the depth of 12 to 15 inches deep, and fill this 
with unfermented horse dung, separated and equally distributed 
with a fork, and rai e the dung at least 18 inches above the sur¬ 
face of the ground. Put on to this the frame and the glass, and 
in a short time a rapid fermentation will take place. In two or 
three days, the dung may be covered with four to six inches of good 
earth, and if cucumbers are intended to be planted, a hole should 
be made in the manure under each sash of four or six inches, for 
the hill?, that the depth of earth may be ten or twelve inches. Whe¬ 
never the violence of the heat has sufficiently subsided, which will 
be in two or three days more, seeds may be planted, which will ap¬ 
pear above ground in 24 to 48 hours. Care must be taken to raise 
the upper ends of the sash occasionally, to let off the heated air, 
and to draw them partially down, after the plants are up, when 
the weather is mild, and to cover the glass with a mat when it is 
cold, and during a merid an sunshine, to protect the plants from 
frost and sun. The middle of March or first of April is early 
enough to prepare a hot bed for plants designed to be transplant¬ 
ed into the open ground. 
THE NEW THEORY. ” 
We endeavored, in a late number, to show' the fallacy of the new 
theory, which teaches, that the matter thrown off in the soil by a 
species of p’ants is poisonous to the same species, and that this is 
the reason why a rotation of farm crops is rendered necessary in 
good husbandry. We instanced the fact, in disproof of its correct¬ 
ness, that in our western counties, wheat was frequently growm 
fifteen or twenty successive years without material diminution of 
crop. We have since been assured of the same fact in regard to 
oats, in the south part of Erie and Chautauque counties. As a 
further corroboration of our position being correct, that the excre- 
mentitious matter of plants is not prejudicial to ihe like species, we 
state, from a letter before us, from a highly respectable corre¬ 
spondent,, that in the valley of the Sciota, near the Ohio river, 
h many fields have been cultivated in corn for 20 or 30 years in 
succession.” The soil of that valley is a rich alluvial deposite, 
possessing like fertilizing properties to the depth of 15 or 20 feet, 
and containing so inexhaustible a stock of the specific food of 
maize, that the supply has not been sensibly impaired by 20 or 30 
successive crops of that grain. 
The article which we publish to-day, from Professor Low, on ma¬ 
nures, is graduated for the husbandry of North Britian, where 
the climate is more humid and cold than with us, and where Indian 
corn will not ripen. Hence the remarks relative to partially fer¬ 
menting manures, previously to their being applied to the soil, lose 
their force in our practice. The necessity there arises from the 
fact, that decomposition will not take place in the soil in time to 
nourish the crops which they raise, on account of the cool climate. 
Here the fact is different, as is also the main crop to which fer¬ 
mented manure is principally applied. Manure upon which fer¬ 
mentation has not begun, will, with us, if spread broad cast, and 
well ploughed in while moist, invariably decompose, in a warm 
corn soil, in time for the wants of a corn crop. Tbe heat of cli¬ 
mate, too, and the present state of our husbandry, render unneces¬ 
sary, or too expensive, some of the more tedious processes which 
are resorted to in Europe for preparing manure. 
Madder. —We are authorized to say, that any gentleman dispos¬ 
ed to embark in the culture of Madder, can be supplied with some 
thirty bushels of roots, in Bridgewater, Oneida county. We refer 
to Russell Bronson. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Canaan Centre , Feb. 14th, 1835. 
Sir —In the February number of the Cultivator, I noticed an ex¬ 
tract on wintering sheep, to which I would wish to call the atten¬ 
tion of wool growers, and to the truth and importance of which, 
I can fully attest. I have long believed that the principal cause of 
any great mortality among sheep, arose from want of sufficient 
feed, and proper care. It is undoubtedly very wrong to let sheep 
ramble over the fields after the nutriment of the grass on which they 
