THE CULTIVATOR. 
81 
very ililuto sulphuric acid; and M. The. Sausseur found that 100 parts of starcii 
made 110 per cent of sugar, and he concluded that sugar is merely a compound 
of starch and water. According to 11. Berzelius, starch and com ton sugar 
are thus composed, though other chemists make the component parts of sugar 
somewhat difi'erenl. - 
Starch. Sugar. 
Oxygen, . 49.6 49.856 
Carbon... 49.5 43.265. 
Hydrogen,. 7.0 6.879 
Hence, the abstraction of a little hydrogen and carbon, would convert starch 
into sugar.— See Erevister’s Encyclopedia. 
The butternut affords sugar. VVe have a sample before us. The maker in¬ 
forms that the butternut yields as much saccharine matter as the maple. Our 
sample is not well granulated, having been merely made as an experiment. 
India Rubber, or caoutchouc, or gum elastic, may be dissolved in oil of tur¬ 
pentine or vitriolic ether, by the application of a gentle heat; and the direc¬ 
tions for varnish prescribe equal parts, by weight, of caoutchouc, linseed oil 
and essence of turpentine. 
FATTENING CATTLE—ELDER BUSHES. 
Jesse Buel, Esq— Dear Sir — Having recently become a subscri¬ 
ber to, and recipient of the valuable publication which you conduct, 
permit me to comply with the invitation you have given, of making 
known some of the practical observations which have proved useful 
in my agricultural pursuits. I have for some years, if not profita¬ 
bly, industriously, been cultivating and improving a worn out farm 
I have groped along without any guide, excepting such as the “ mo¬ 
ther ot inventions” has suggested ; but sir, I have succeeded, and 
the land which would hardly produce white beans, now produces 
first rate wheat and grass. The Cultivator is the only work on 
aoriculture 1 have had the opportunity of taking, and from the re¬ 
marks on various modes of practice I &hall improve them. There 
are two subjects I can recommend as having b en useful to me, and 
perhaps they have long been known and practised by you and otiiers. 
If they have been recommended, I am ignorant of it, and to new 
readers of your valuable publication they may prove useful. 
The first is the manner I treat my beef cattle, which I wish to 
fatten as cheap as possible. I begin in the fall by giving them the 
best pasture I have, to have them in good case for wintering; when 
fattening time commences, I put my steers by themselves in some 
clean field,* where water is convenient for them, having stacked 
some of my best hay in such parts of the field as needs manuring 
most, and as often as once a week or more, draw out and scatter to 
them straw, with brine scattered on it, a part of which they eat 
hastily and make beds of the remainder. My oxen and farrow cows, 
I keep at the barn yard apart, and feed them lightly once or twice 
a day, always reserving my best salted hay for spring foddering. 
When I wish to put them to grass, I take a sufficient number of 
trouo-hs to the pasture field, if not convenient to let them to the 
barn yard, the oxen steers be ng put together, and once a day I feed 
all my cattle intended for beef, from two to four quarts of oats and 
corn ground fine, cob and all together, say one part of oats to two 
of corn in the ear ground together. By this mode, I gain three or 
four weeks on my neighbors, who neglect it, for it prevents the 
young grasses acting too powerfully as a physic, which without 
some preventive, I have observed will sometimes last for three 
weeks, and cattle would fad away. After the grasses have grown 
and become solid, I slacken the feed and salt them oftener, and by 
the first of June omit feeding altogether, but continue giving salt 
plentifully.! I have by these means generally turned oft - my beef 
cattle early, and at little expense. 
* We would suggest, that a yard is better than a field for winter feeding and 
littering stock, and a barn, shed or barrack better than a stack for securing hay. 
If cattle are fed from a stack in a grass field, the sole of the sod is broken, the 
ground badly poached, the manure virtually lost, and the fodder wasted. All 
these evils are avoided by feeding in a yard, particularly if the stock are fed in 
mangers, under cover. They may be tied while feeding on hay, and loosen¬ 
ed in the day time, while feeding on the straw litter in the yard. The saving 
in manure and fodder, the great materials of fertility and profit, will far more 
than compensate for extra trouble and expense.— Conductor. 
t We beg leave to repeat our recommendation, to give cattle access to salt 
daily, and we do it after having pursued the practice for a dozen years, with 
high satisfaction. Salt is of the same use to beasts as it is to man—it is a 
healthful condiment—a preventive, and often a cure for disease. Man finds it 
most congenial to these ends, and most grateful to the palate, when taken w ith 
his daily food—and it is no less so to dumb animals. When permitted free ac¬ 
cess to salt, farm stock never take it in excess, and consume but very little, if 
any more, in a season, than when given to them once or twice a week. We 
learn from a work now before us, that in Spain, they attribute the fineness of 
the wool to the quantities of salt given to sheep; that in England 1,000 sheep 
consume at the rate of one ton of salt annually. Our practice is, to have salt 
VOL. II. 11 
The other subject I W’ould recommend to my brethren of the 
plough, is the manner which has proved easiest and most success¬ 
ful, in destroying one of the worst pests that infests the most of 
our farms, the elder. They generally grow along fences and ditch- 
banks and such places, out of the reach of the plough. I have de¬ 
stroyed many large bunches, by whipping them down two or three 
times. If they are of more than one year’s growth, I wait till they 
begin to blossom, when I take a pole, and beat them down, young 
and old, as close as possible to the ground, and repeat the opera¬ 
tion in August, if they sprout much. If they are sprouts of one 
season's growth, I leave them till about the time the older ones 
blossom, and then beat them down ; being tender and full of sap, 
they are easily beaten down, and the most of them perish by dis¬ 
charging from the wounds.* * In some cases, I have had to go over 
them the second year, when they generally disappear. If there is 
any easier and better mode of subduing them, I should like to know 
it. Has the elder berry ever been converted into any valuable pur¬ 
pose ? Sir, I have hastily and imperfectly made these remarks, 
and if there is any thing in them worthy of a place in your publi¬ 
cation, you will be good enough to put it in such a form as you 
think proper, and publish so much (if any) as you may think pro¬ 
per. I profess to be nothing but a plain farmer, and one wishing 
to promote the best interests of our profession, and that will pro¬ 
mote and perpetuate the best interests of our common country. 
Respectfully yours, SIMEON M’COY. 
Parpacoten, June Oth, 1835. 
QUERIES—ILLINOIS PRAIRIES. 
Princeton, Putnam co., III., March £0, 1835. 
Jesse Buel —Sir—We have procured ten subscribers for the Cul¬ 
tivator ; inclosed is a five dollar bank note, which I suppose, agree¬ 
ably to the statements in your prospectus, will entitle me to an ad¬ 
ditional copy. Our settlement being new, and not very densely 
populated, the list of subscribers forwarded herewith, is as large 
as we could conveniently obtain at present. One very important 
item of instruction which we hope to obtain, consists in the art of 
making live fences. This is a country in which we must resort to 
hedging, in consequence of the scarcity of timber, and the utter 
lack of materials for stone fence. As to materials which have been 
recommended and used for hedging, we have the crab apple and the 
common thorn, (Crataegus cius-galli Ph.) or c. punctata, as Ea¬ 
ton has it, on the authority of Willdenow. Dr. Darungton says 
this species is extensively used in New-Castle co., Del., and when 
properiy managed, makes a very sbstantial hedge. We have also 
the honey locust, (Gleditschia triacanthos ;) but I find the size it 
attains in our soil and climate, is generally considered an insupera¬ 
ble objection to its being used for a hedge, though I have seen no 
one who has made a fair trial of it. We perceive you propose 
giving us a wood cut occasionally in the next volume ; we hope 
you may be enabled to illustrate the manner of training hedges in 
that way. We should like also to see cuts of improved farming im¬ 
plements, particularly the revolving rake. I might fill out a sheet 
in enumerating the various matters in which we need instruction, 
but will trouble you with only one thing more, and that is the cul¬ 
tivation of grasses ;—not merely of timothy and clover, but all the 
various kinds which are considered valuable in American husbandry. 
The time and manner of sowing—soils adapted to each kind—com¬ 
parative value for hay or pasture—method of preparing such kinds 
of seed as do not readily vegetate, and where the seed may be ob¬ 
tained. 
It may not be amiss to give you a brief description of our soil. 
The surface of most of our prairies is gently undulating. The 
slight elevations form the first kind of arable land. The depressions 
seem fitted by nature to collect and carry off, though very mode¬ 
rately, the surplus water ; most of them having no channel for it 
troughs under our cattle sheds, where they are secure from rain, and to have 
saltTn them, accessible to the farm stock, at all times.— Conductor. 
* A good method of destroying the pests of the farm, whether shrubs or her¬ 
baceous plants. The cause of success may be thus explained: When the 
plant is in blossom, it contains the greatest volume of unelaboraled sap, and 
is in most immediate want of food to sustain its flowers and fruit. But before 
this sap can become food, it must be elaborated in the leaves, and if the leaves 
are at this time destroyed, this cannot take place, and the plant dies for want 
of sustenance. The leaves are at this time as essential to the plant as lungs 
are to the animal; and although the plant may survive defoliation the first sum¬ 
mer, it can seldom withstand a second or a third. 
