47 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
comparison with the value of the privilege of having a plant just 
where we want it. As soon as they were in the rough leaf, I thinned 
them out at from eight to twelve inches distance from each other. 
1834. Expense of Cultivation. Dr. 
4 mo. 26—Ploughing, § of a day, 12s.$1 00 
6 “ 2— do do “ . 1 00 
6 “ 30— do i day, “ . 0 75 
6 “ 30—Ridging, l day, “' .... 0 38 
6 “ 30—4 day, sowing, three men and one boy, at 5s.. 1 25 
Seed, 1 lb. 8s... 100 
7 “ 22—Weeding and thinning, 12 days, 5s. 7 50 
7 “ 21—Weeding, 24 days, 5s. 1 56 
8 “ 16— do 14 days, 5s. 94 
11 “ 8 —Drawing from the ground, five days, 5s. 3 12 
Covering, one day, 5s. 62 
Interest on land at $50 per acre, . 1 75 
$20 87 
Cn. 
By 40 bushels, sold at 2s.. $10 00 
By 486 do. certainly worth Is.. 60 75 
526 bushels. $70 75 
Nett gain, $49 82 
But in my opinion, when corn is worth 50 cents the bushel, tur¬ 
nips ought not to be estimated as low as 12| cents. I have not, 
however, made experiments sufficiently decisive to show what the 
relative value is, but I have fattened three oxen upon them, and 
those who had opportunities of judging, acknowledged that ani¬ 
mals could hardly thrive better than they did. 
Errors in Cultivation. —I think, unless for house use, they 
should not be sown later than the 15th of 6th mo. The first weed¬ 
ing was put off much too long—labor more than doubled on that 
account. They should be sown 24 or three feet apart, that the 
cultivator may be used. WM. R. SMITH. 
Field Culture of Beans. —Beans may be cultivated in drills or 
in hills. They are a valuable crop; and with good care, are as 
profitable as a wheat crop. They leave the soil in good tilth. 
The China bean, with a red eye, is to be preferred. They ripen 
early, and are very productive. I cultivated beans the last year, 
in three different ways, viz. in hills, in drills, and sowed broad¬ 
cast. I need not describe the first, which is a well-known pro¬ 
cess. I had an acre in drills, which was the best crop I ever saw. 
My management was this :—On the acre of light ground, where 
the clover had been frozen out the preceding winter, I spread 
eight loads of long manure, and immediately ploughed and har¬ 
rowed the ground. Drills or furrows were then made with a light 
plough, at the distance of two and a half feet, and the beans 
thrown along the furrows about the 25th of May, by the hand, at 
the rate of at least a bushel on the acre. I then gauged a double 
mould-board plough, which was passed once between the rows, 
and was followed by a light one-horse roller, which flattened the 
ridges. The crop was twice cleaned of weeds, by the hoe, but 
not earthed. The product was more than forty-eight bushels, by 
actual measurement. The beans brought me one dollar the bush¬ 
el last fall. The third experiment was likewise upon a piece of 
ground, where the clover had been killed. It was ploughed about 
file first of June, the seed sown like peas, upon the first furrow, 
and harrowed in. The drought kept them back, but about 65 rods 
of ground, on which the experiment was made, gave a product of 
twelve and a half bushels. The crop was too ripe when it was 
harvested, and as it was cut with a scythe, I estimated that about 
two and a half bushels were left upon the ground. No labor was 
bestowed upon them from .the time they were sown till they were 
harvested.— J. B. in Ag. Tracts. 
Durable Whitewash. —I am enabled to certify the efficacy of 
marine salt in fixing whitewash made of lime. In the year 1795, 
when I was director of the naval artillery at the port of Toulon, 
I was commissioned to ascertain the utility of a method proposed 
by the master painter of that port, M. Maquilan, for whitewash¬ 
ing the ships between decks, and likewise their holds, in a durable 
manner, by means of lime. Our report was in favor of this pro¬ 
cess, which consists in saturating water in which the lime is slaked 
with muriate of soda, (common salt.) The whitewash produced 
by it is very permanent, does not crack, nor come off upon one’s 
hands or clothes. The experiment was made only on wood. It 
appears from M. St. Bemarde’s account, that it succeeded equal¬ 
ly well on walls.— Annales des Arts et Manufactures. 
Canada Thistles. —I have practised mowing the thistles every 
month successively during the summer for three years. I have 
found this to be the most effectual method I have tried. Continu¬ 
al cutting will prevent the seeds from reaching maturity : and the 
same operation will in time destroy the plant from the root. The 
next season after I begun cutting them once a month, there was 
not more than half as many, they have so diminished that there is 
only now and then a scattering plant left, which by another season 
will be wholly exterminated. The spot which contained about 
one-fourth of an acre, now affords good pasture, which before was 
unproductive of any thing else but the detestable weed.— Genesee 
Farmer. 
Young - Men’s Department. 
Lecture on Self-Instruction, delivered before the Young Men’s 
Association in Albany, by J. Buel. (Concluded.) 
Self-instruction does not consist alone in reading, even good 
books. The mind must be disciplined to analyze what is said, 
and to select and treasure up what is best adapted to its wants and 
its improvement. It must be taught to separate the wheat from 
the chaff. The particular business in which we are employed in 
life, ought first to engage our attention, as administering imme¬ 
diately to our w’ants. When our personal concerns are provided 
for, we have high duties to perform to our friends and our coun¬ 
try. We may be greatly aided in these private concerns, and 
public duties, by the example and advice of others, capable of 
instructing, which are to be found in books. These furnish us 
with the experience of every age and country. Nor are the phy¬ 
sical powers to be overlooked, in our efforts to improve the mind. 
The body must be trained to temperance and exercise, if the 
mind, its consort, would attain to distinction and usefulness.— 
The mental powers can only be kept in a healthy tone, with the 
consent and co-operation of the body. Hence men who have dis¬ 
played the greatest efforts of mind, have in every age courted ex¬ 
ercise, in order to impart a healthful vigor to the body. I do not 
mean to quarrel with any one’s habits, by the remark, that most 
of the men who have distinguished themselves by successful lite¬ 
rary and philosophical research, have chosen the dawn of morn¬ 
ing as the favorite time for study and contemplation. It is not a 
little singular, that most, and I believe all, of the brute creation, 
except beasts of prey, which subsist on the substance of others, 
obeying the power of instinct, retire to rest and repose with the 
sun, and rise with it to renew their daily employments; while 
man, endowed with reason, perverts the seeming designs of Pro¬ 
vidence, and ignobly wastes, in slumber, the choicest hours, 
which wise men have consecrated to study or to business. 
Self-instruction is a means of improvement that lies within the 
reach of every individual in this favored nation. In this respect 
we enjoy high privileges, and sustain high responsibilities. In 
most of the Asiatic countries, the influence of caste has a paralys¬ 
ing effect upon the development of genius and culture of intellect. 
Every son is born to the business of his father. He cannot rise 
above it. The mass of population are virtually serfs to the privi¬ 
leged classes. Nor is the condition of the people of Europe much 
superior. The advantages of education, and the opportunities of 
self-instruction, to the laboring classes, are comparatively limit¬ 
ed. They are not permitted to look up to the honors and distinc¬ 
tions of society. A restricted education best fits them for the me¬ 
nial condition which they occupy in the social scale. And even 
in Great Britain, whose inhabitants justly boast of more learning 
and more freedom than any other portion of the old world, the 
maxim, “ Let every one who is below, or under me, stay there,” 
lias unlimited sway among all classes, and tends very much to re¬ 
press the march of intellect in the middle and lower portions of 
society. With us, the case is altogether different. The honors 
and distinctions of life are open to the competition of all. Wealth 
confers no civil distinctions ; and if it did, such is its tendency to 
dissipate itself, under the peculiar structure of our government, 
and the free scope which it imparts to individual enterprise, that 
there is little danger of its becoming an heriditary evil—for it sel- 
