125 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
the manner the China Mulberry is said to grow; in clumps with strong 
sprouts and succors starting out from the roots and at the bends of the tree, 
and bore pretty large fruit sparsely over the main branches. The leaves, 
a drawing of which I have herewith enclosed, marked No. 2* is of the 
exact dimensions of several leaves taken from different parts of the tree. 
These leaves were of a bright green, more smooth than any American 
mulberry I had before seen, and very tender, and when given to my silk 
worms with the white Italian mulberry leaves, they appeared to prefer 
these large leaves. I attempted to inoculate these on the branches of my 
Italian mulberry but failed. They did not take. 
Drawing No 3' is taken from a leaf raised from the seed of the China 
mulberry. This drawing does not describe the actual size of the leaf as 
.t was much puckered and very uneven on the surface, but the size is 
sxact as to the circumference, for like all the rest the leaf was laid down 
on the paper and a pencil tun accurately round the edge.—Thus much for 
the mulberry h aves on which I feed my 500 worms. I shall now describe 
the progress of my brood. 
My silk worms began to hatch on the 29th May, 1S35, when the mul¬ 
berry leaf was a little larger than a shilling piece; I fed them to the 20th 
July, on three trees, two years’ growth from lays. Th n obtained leaves 
fmin a wild mulberry on the mountain at Rosendale. Up to this time I 
did not discover that more than two worms had died. I now fed them 
with the wild mulberry leaves to the 26ih July, when they began to spin. 
1 he distance to Snyderville being about two miles, and the weather very 
warm, I only went twice for leaves, and kept them in a cellar wet, in 
which state they were fed with occasionally some young leaves that would 
come on my Italian mulberry trees. Under this treatment, I lost 5 or C 
"<>ims before they all had spun; that of 500 worms not more than 3 died 
during their whole progress from the egg to maturity, and all but two died 
I think by reason of feeding w et leaves 
On the whole, I conclude, from my self-taught experiment, (for I have 
never seen any worms but those I have reared this season) that it would 
require very few Italian mulberry trees to feed 60 or 100,000 silk worms. 
And 2d, I am led to believe there are such an extensive variety of native 
mulberries, ttiat some of them may on experiment be found to be equally 
suitable tortile feeding silk worms as the Italian, or Chinese mulberry, 
and ol all that I have seen there are two sorts or varieties at the Rosen¬ 
dale, that appear host calculated for that purpose. These grow conve¬ 
niently: the leaf is very large and succulent; the tree appears inclined, if 
it had room, to grow low with spreading boughs, and the worms eageily 
cat the whole lea! with the exception of the spine, and if liillv grown, a 
few of ihe largest ribs. __ AGRICOLA. 
Science of Agriculture. 
Fran Clmptal’s Chemistry appijil to Agriculture. 
SUCCESSION OF CROPS. 
A soil may be forced, by extreme care, enormous expense, and the use 
of manure w ithout measure, to produce all sorts of crops; hut it is not in 
such sort of proceedings that the srience of agriculture consists. Agri¬ 
culture ought not to be considered as an object of luxury; and whenever 
the produce of agricultural management does not amply repay the care and 
expense bestowed upon it, the system followed is bad. 
A good agriculturist, will, in the first place, make himself acquainted 
with the nature of his soil, in order to know the kind of plants to which it 
is best adapted; this knowledge may be easily aequ.red by an acquaintance 
with the species of the plants produced upon it spontaneously, or by ex¬ 
periments made upon the land, or upon analogous soils in the neighbor¬ 
hood. 
But however well adapted the soil and climate may he to the cultivation 
of any particular kind of vegetable, the former soon ceases to he produc¬ 
tive if constantly appropriated to Ihe culture of plants of the same or ana¬ 
logous species. In order that land may tie cultivated successfully, various 
kinds of vegetables must he mised upon it in succession, and the rotation 
must he conducted with intelligence, that none unsuited either to the soil 
or climate may be introduced. It is the art of varying the crops upon the 
same soil, of causing different vegetables to succeed one another, and of 
understanding the effect of each upon the soil, that can alone establish 
that good order of succession which constitutes cropping. 
A good system of cropping is, in my opinion, the nest guarantee of 
success that the farmer can have; without this, all is vague, uncertain, 
and hazardous. In order to establish this good system of cropping, a de¬ 
gree of knowledge is necessary, which unhappily is wanting to the great¬ 
er part of our practical farmers. I shall h-re state certain facts and prin¬ 
ciples, w hich may serve as guides in this important branch of agriculture. 
More extensive information on this subject may be found in the excel¬ 
lent works of Messrs. Yvart, and Pictet j 
Principle 1 . AH plants exhaust the soil. 
Plants are supported by the earth, the juices with which this is impreg- 
* See note on page 121. 
t “ Coins compleld’Agriculture," articles Assnlement et Succession de Cul¬ 
ture, par Yvart. “ lraue de Assolemens," par Ch. Pictet. 
1 nated forming their principal aliment. Water serves as the vehicle for 
conveying these juices into the organs, or presenting them to the suckers 
of the roots by which they are absorbed; thus the progress of vegetulion 
tends constantly to impoverish the soil, and if the nutritive juices m it be 
not renewed, it will at length become perfectly barren. 
A soil well furnished with manure may support several successive crops, 
but each one will be inferior to the preceding, till the eaith is completely 
exhausted. 
PitiNci ple 2. All plants do not exhaust the soil equally. 
Plants are nourished by air, water, and the juices contained in the soil; 
but the diff-rent kinds of plants do not require the same kinds of nourish¬ 
ment in equal degrees. There are some that require to have their roots 
constantly in water; others are best united with diy soils; and there are those 
'again, that prosper only in the best, and most richly manured land. 
The grains and the greater part of the glasses, push up long stalks, in 
which the fibrous principle predominates: these are garnished at the base 
by leaves, the dry textuie and small surface of w hich do not permit them 
to absorb much either of air or water; the principal nourishment is absorb¬ 
ed from the ground by their roots; their stalks furnish little or iio food for 
animals; so that these plants exhaust the soil, without sensibly repairing 
the loss, either by their stains, which are cut to he applied to a particular 
use, or by their loots, w hich are all that remain in the ground, and which 
are dried and exhausted in completing the process of fructification. 
Those plants, on the contrary, that are provided with 1 irge, fleshy, po- 
ious, green leaves, imbibe from the atmosphere carbonic acid and water, 
and receive from the earth the other substances by which they are nou¬ 
rished. If these are cut green, the loss of juices, which the soil has sus¬ 
tained by their growth, is less sensibly felt, as a part of it is compensated 
for by their roots. Nearly all the plants that are cultivated for fodder are 
of this kind. 
There are some plants which, though generally raised for the sake of 
their seed, exhaust the soil I ss than Ihe grams; these are ol' the nume¬ 
rous family of leguminous plants, and which sustain a middle lank be- 
I tween the two of which I have just spoken. Their perpendicular roots 
I divide in the soil, and their large leaves, and thick, loose, porous stalks rea¬ 
dily absorb air and water. These parts preserve for a long time the juices 
with which they are impregnated, and yield them to the soil, if the plant 
be buried in it before arriving at maturity; when this is done, the field is 
still capable of receiving and nourishing a good crop of corn. Beans pro¬ 
duce this effect in a remarkable degre- ; peas lo a less extent. 
Generally speaking, (hose plants that are cut green, or whilst in flow¬ 
er, exhaust the soil Out little; till this period they have dt rived their sup¬ 
port almost exclusively from the air, earth, and water; their stalks and 
roots are charged w ith juices, and those parts that are left in the earth after 
mowing, will restore to it all that had been received from it by the plant. 
From the time when the seed begins to be formed, the whole sjstern 
of nourishment is changed; the plant continues to receive nourishment 
for ihe perfecting of its seed, from the atmosphere and the eaith, and also 
welds to the grain all the juices it had secreted in its own stalks and roots: 
by this means the stalks and roots are dried and exhausted. When the 
h ulls have arrived at maturity the skeleton remains of the plant, if aban¬ 
doned to the earth, restore to it only a small portion of what had been taken 
from it. 
The oleaginous seeds exhaust the soil more than the farinaceous seeds; 
and the agriculturist cannot be at too much pains to free his grounds from 
weeds of that natuie, which so readily impoverish them; especially Imm 
the wild mustard, sinapis arvensis, with which cultivated fields are so often 
covered. 
Principle 3. Plants of different kinds do not exhaust a soil in the 
same manner. 
The roots of plants of the same genus or family, grow in the soil in the 
same manner, they penetrate to a similar depth, and extend to correspond¬ 
ing distances; and exhaust all that portion of the soil with which they come 
in contact. 
Ttio.se roots which lie nearest the surface, are more divided than those 
that penetrate deeply. The spindle or tap roots, and all those that pene¬ 
trate deeply into the earth, throw out but few radicles near the surface, 
and consequently the plant is supplied with nourishment from the layers 
ol soil in contact with the lower part of the root. Of the truth of this I 
have often had proof, anil I will mention an example. If when a beet or 
turnip is transplanted, the lower portion of the spindle be cut off, it will 
not grow in length, but in order to obtain its supplies of nourishment from 
the soil, it will send out radicles from its sides, which will enable it to 
obtain tiie necessary supplies from the upper layers of the soil; and the 
root wiil become roundish instead of long. 
Plants exhaust only that portion of the soil which comes in contact with 
their roots; and a spindle root may he able to draw an abundance of nou¬ 
rishment from land, the surface of which has been exhausted by short or 
creeping roots. 
The roots of plants of the same and of analogous species always take a 
like direction, if situated in a soil which allows them a free development; 
and thus they pass through, and are supported by, the same layers of 
earth. For this reason we seldom find trees prosper that take the place of 
