THE CULTIVATOR. 
Am. 
244 
ther for air, exercise and water. Ail of these purpos¬ 
es being regarded as very essential to their health and 
comfort. They are furnished with some slop in sum¬ 
mer, but are much more liberally supplied at other sea¬ 
sons of the year, especially in winter. Shorts, meal of 
Indian corn, and oil meal constitute the slop referred to. 
The quantity fed to each cow is various, and when a 
large quantity of milk is desirable and practicable, the 
feed should be such as to neither increase nor diminish 
the flesh of the animal. 
u Formerly it was my practice to change nearly all 
my stock annually. More recently about one half, 
(quite as large a proportion of the whole raised as is 
worth keeping) are allowed to bring calves. The re¬ 
mainder are milked until they are fit for the shambles,, 
when they are sold and their places supplied by others. 
u Ordinary keeping is not calculated, in my opinion, 
to develops the milking properties of the best cows. 
Those that I have purchased, have rarely given more 
than two-thirds the quantity of milk the first, as in sub¬ 
sequent seasons, the feed in both cases being the same. 
They should be in good condition at the time of calving, 
or generally with liberal feeding afterwards, their ten¬ 
dency will be to flesh rather than to milk. ?? 
S©mTI€fJLTUMAL DEPARTMENT. 
CONDUCTED BY J. Ji THOMAS. 
Experiments ia Grafting, 
Contact of bark not essential. —It is well, but 
not absolutely necessary that the bark of the graft and 
stock should touch to insure success. A shoot that has 
been cut in season, will, if kept moist, throw out a 
woody substance at its lower end—this will fill the space 
between the graft and the stock. I have made the 
wedge of the graft so thin on the outside, that when 
placed in the stock, the bark of each did not approach 
nearer than the twelfth of an inch in any place—they 
were waxed and all grew, and were only a few days 
later in starting. 
Grafting Wax .—The following proportions suit me 
best:—3 lbs. rosin, 2 lb. beeswax, 10 ozs. tallow,— 
melted together and well stirred while cooling; parti¬ 
cularly the latter part—on this depends the light color 
which is essential to prevent heating by the sun’s rays. 
When used, it may be softened in warm water, if other¬ 
wise too cold, the hands to be rubbed with lard to pre¬ 
vent sticking. In this way, it may be applied in the 
best manner and with great facility. 
Grafting Knife .—The tool figured in the Feb. No. 
will not be likely to be used by such as set 4 or 500 in 
a day. If it answers as well (which I doubt) there is 
much picking up and laying down in using it. The 
knife here used (Fig. 6,) is merely a crooked one with 
a wedge for opening the stocks, made as part of the 
blade at right angles near the handle. A blow with a 
small mallet will split the stock, another under the 
point will withdraw it, the wedge is then driven to open 
the cleft, the graft put in and no time lost in changing 
tools. 
In grafting apples and pears, the best success has 
attended those put in when the trees are in full bloom- 
of one lot of over 250 set at that period last spring, not 
one failed to grow. M. Quinby, Coxsackie, March, 
1848. 
Remarks .—One who has never used the tool descri¬ 
bed in the second number of the Cultivator, cannot con¬ 
ceive of the ease and perfection of its work. Such is 
the facility with which it is used, that a hundred stocks 
may be headed down for graftiug in the most perfect 
manner, in as many seconds,' a perfectly smooth slit for 
the graft is made with equal facility, by a single motion 
of the hand; an iron wedge opens this slit; using the 
head of the tool as a small mallet; all with no more 
picking up and laying down, than the knife and mallet 
described by our correspondent, while the work is both 
more radid and more perfect. These remarks are found¬ 
ed on the experience of years, in the insertion of many 
thousands of grafts with this implement. 
New Mode of Grafting.— In some of the high 
winds, early in June last, I had some pear grafts bro¬ 
ken off, which had been inserted a year before, and were 
of strong giowth. Wishing to preserve the kind, it 
occurred to me that it was possible to do so by cutting 
©If the short branches from the main branch, and using 
them as scions. These scions were from an inch to 
three inches in length, and were cut out of the main 
branch in the same way as in budding, and were graft¬ 
ed the same as in T budding; being carefully tied with 
matting. The stocks in which they were engrafted, 
were cut off a little above the place of insertion. 
The result of this experiment has been highly satis¬ 
factory, for not one of the scions failed; but all com¬ 
menced growing in ten or twelve days, and grew from 
two to three feet in the eourse of the season. 
I have tried various other methods of grafting and 
budding, but never with as good success as in the man¬ 
ner here described. P. D. S. Hartford, Ct., Februa¬ 
ry, 2846. 
Destruction of fruit buds by Frost. 
M. Quinby of Coxsaekie informs us, “ For the last 
ten years, whenever the mercury has fallen more than 
eight degrees below zero during the winter, the fruit 
buds of our peaches have been invariably frozen to 
death ; when it remained above that point we have al¬ 
ways had fruit. Two years during that time, the cold¬ 
est weather was exactly eight below zero; one year it 
killed all the fruit t.he other about half. ^Consequently 
that is about the last degree of cold the peach can en¬ 
dure. The fact ean be ascertained that the fruit buds are 
killed any time in the winter after weather warm e- 
nough to take the frost out ; the centre then turns 
black. On the 11th January the mercury was 21 deg. 
below zero. I expected to find peaches killed, but not 
cherries and plums, which appear to have shared the 
same fate. It has been suggested that cherries and 
plums would not have suffered, had it not been for the 
warm weather the first part of winter, starting the 
buds. How is it ? Hid the buds start, and were they 
killed by the subsequent cold; or is there a limit to 
their endurance of cold, as well as the peach I” 
Our correspondent is referred to the remarks on 
181 of the present volume of the Cultivator, showing 
that it is. not low temperature alone which destroys 
fruit buds. Indeed the fact that the point at which 
they are killed is placed quite differently by different 
cultivators, proves this to be the case. When peach 
buds have been much swollen by warm weather in win¬ 
ter, we have known many, of them destroyed at a tem¬ 
perature of only five degrees below zeroj, leaving how- 
