18 THE CULTIVATOR. Jan. 
without germinating, until by subsequent cultivation of 
the soil, they are nursed into life. It may be, that if 
they are buried to a great depth, by the first plowing 
after wheat, and the subsequent plowings are not quite 
so deep, that they will remain unchanged for years, and 
the farmer may suppose that his soil is free of the pest, 
until deep plowing brings them to or near the surface, 
where the conditions are favorable to their germination. 
Prof. Lindley, in the third edition of his Introduction to 
Botany, mentions that he had three plants of Raspber¬ 
ries, which had been raised from seeds found in the 
stomach of a man whose skeleton was found thirty feet 
below the surface of the earth, near Dorchester, in 
England. He had been buried with some coins of the 
Emperor Hadrian, and it is, therefore, probable that 
the seeds were 1600 or 1700 years old. A new kind of 
Pea has lately been grown in England from seeds found 
with a mummy, in Egypt, where they had been en¬ 
tombed perhaps thousands of years. There is no doubt 
but that the seeds of Lithospermum arvense will, under 
favorable circumstances, retain their vitality without 
germination during many years. Seeds, to germinate 
easily, must be near the surface. This is an established 
law of nature adapted to the circumstances in which 
most seeds are placed that grow upon the surface of 
the globe. They grow, ripen, and fall to the ground 
to be washed into the soil by rains, or commence ger¬ 
minating at the surface and send their roots into the 
ground. Therefore, to eradicate Pigeon Weed, we would 
recommend, if the ground be wet, or sufficiently moist, to 
have it thoroughly gone over with a sharp toothed har¬ 
row, early in the fall, succeeding the wheat harvest. 
That is generally a busy time with farmers, and the 
harrowing could be done much easier than a shallow 
plowing. Besides, if the business is well done, the 
seeds will be covered to the depth which nature re¬ 
quires, and hence they will germinate, and can easily 
be destroyed by plowing the ground for a crop in the 
spring. If plowing be done in the fall to cause the 
seeds to germinate, it should be as shallow as possible, 
not to exceed two or three inches in depth, and then the 
ground should be immediately harrowed. This will be 
very effectual, and by plowing the ground in the spring, 
the weed will be killed. Another excellent method is to 
plant the wheat stubble the succeeding spring with corn, 
well manured, and then sow with barley the next spring. 
We have remarked that the Lithospermum, if there be 
any seed in the ground, generally germinates in the fall on 
corn stubble. By this course, if the manure contain any 
seeds, they will also be destroyed by the succeeding 
spring’s plowing for barley. If our farmers will practice 
the above methods, and be careful to have clean seed 
wheat, they will soon rid themselves of this great pest to 
the wheat crop. S. B. Buckley. 
WINTER CALCULATIONS FOR FARMERS. 
Fuel.' —Every farmer knows that a green stick of 
wood is much heavier than a seasoned one. If a stick 
of beech or maple, or of any other wood commonly used 
as fuel, be weighed when first cut, and again when 
thoroughly seasoned, it will be found to have lost about 
oM third of its weight, which is, of course, the water 
in the wood, evaporated by drying. How much water 
is there, then, in a single cord of wood 1 There are 
128 cubic feet ; deducting two-fifths for the interstices 
between the sticks, leaves 77 solid feet of wood. One- 
third, or 26 cubic feet of this is water, which is equal to 
more than six barrels, the quantity in every cord of 
green wood. The teamster, then, who draws in one 
winter, a hundred cords of wood to market, loads, 
draws, and unloads, more than 600 barrels of water, 
which he need not have done had the wood been cut a 
year sooner and properly seasoned. How much would 
he charge for drawing those 600 barrels, in water, 
separately ? 
Again—In burning green wood, the water, in the 
wood, being cold, is heated from freezing to boiling. 
In the consumption of every cord of wood, therefore, six 
barrels of water are thus made to boil, the heat of the 
wood passing into the water, instead of being liberated 
and becoming available, as would be the case if the 
wood was dry, and no water to heat. Many of our 
villages, containing two or three thousand inhabitants, 
consume each year five thousand cords of wood, one- 
third of which, at least, or sixteen hundred, is green. 
Hence, the people of such village are at the needless 
expense of boiling about ten thousand barrels of cold 
water yearly. How many village taxes would the ex¬ 
pense of doing this, pay ? 
Again—It is ascertained that the heat required to 
evaporate a barrel of water, after it is heated to boiling, 
is more than five times that required for the heating. 
That is,—if a vessel of cold water be placed over a fire, 
and a half hour be required to heat it from the freezing 
to the boiling point,—then it will be found to require 
five more half hours to evaporate all the water. Con¬ 
sequently, in burning a cord of green wood, the heat re¬ 
quired to drive off the six barrels of water in steam? 
which must be done while the wood is burning, is five 
times as great as the mere boiling of the water, or 
equal to heating thirty barrels to boiling. Hence, the 
farmer who burns twenty cords of green wood in a win¬ 
ter, as many do, also performs the needless task o 
evaporating sixty barrels of water, which is equal to 
heating to the boiling point no less than six hundred 
barrels. 
Is there any mistake or error in these calculations ? 
Then let it be pointed out. The weight of water in a 
green stick, may be easily known by first weighing it, 
then seasoning it by the stove a few weeks, and weigh¬ 
ing again. In this way the quantity of water in a cord 
may be determined without mistake. The heat required 
for evaporating can be ascertained by experiment. All 
the other calculations follow as a matter of course, and 
contain no material error. Now is the time for every 
one to have his wood cut a year in advance, and, if 
possible, two years, so as to season one year under 
shelter. 
Again-—It has been found that in a common fire¬ 
place, the loss of heat which escapes through the chim¬ 
ney, is nine-tenths of the amount caused by the con¬ 
sumption of the wood ; that is, nine-tenths are lost. 
This has been determined by comparing the quantity of 
wood needed to heat the same room equally, where a fire¬ 
place, and a stove with forty feet pipe, were each used. 
Hence, the village which burns a thousand cords of 
wood in fire-places, expends nine-tenths of this amount, 
or nine hundred cords, in heating the air above the 
chimney-tops. Through the chimney of a large fire¬ 
place, there is a current of hot air, a foot square, and 
moving four feet a second. That is, four cubic feet of 
hot air are sent out into the wide atmosphere every 
second, which is equal to eighty-six thousand cubic feet 
in twenty-four hours, the amount which every farmer, 
