T HE CULTIVATOR: 
A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, DEV OTED TO AGRI CULTURE. 
ALBANY, MARCH, 1S36. 
THE CULTIVATOR-MARCH, 1836. 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
OUR THIRD VOLUME 
Commences with this number. We feel extremely grateful to 
the gentlemen who have assisted to give a high character to the 
Cultivator, by their communications; and the many who have con¬ 
tributed to extend its circulation, are no less entitled to our warmest 
thanks. We trust and believe, that they have all felt a high gra¬ 
tification in the consciousness, that they have done a substantial 
public good, and that this consciousness, to men of enlarged and 
philanthrophic minds, is to them a greater source of pleasure, than 
any acknowledgments we can make to them. If we are right in 
this conclusion, any request on our part, that they will continue 
their useful labors, will be wholly superfluous. 
The Cultivator was not established from pecuniary considera¬ 
tions. The object was truly to disseminate useful information, to 
the agricultural community, in the cheapest possible form, in order 
to increase the profits and respectability of agricultural labor. 
It was hoped that it might at least contribute to excite in the 
youth of our country, a desire to improve the mind as the readi¬ 
est way to improve and render profitable the culture of the soil. 
In aiming at this object, our calculations were graduated in the 
outfit, too low ; for, notwithstanding that the services of the con¬ 
ductors were gratuitous, the establishment at the close of the first 
year, was more than five hundred dollars in debt. The second 
year, the advance of price has enabled us not only to extricate 
it from debt, but to afford a moderate compensation for its ma¬ 
nagement. Although the subscriptions must necessarily be renew¬ 
ed at the commencement of each volume, the subscribers amount¬ 
ed, for the last year, to nearly 12,000. It is the intention of the 
conductor, to expend, in pictoral embellishments and illustrations, 
and in other improvements, any excess of means which may arise 
from increased subscriptions; and at all events to make the com¬ 
ing volume as valuable as the last. 
We commence, in this number, several essays on interesting 
subjects, which we shall be obliged to continue, on account of their 
length, in several consecutive numbers. Of these, the treatise on 
lime, is one of the most valuable of the kind we have met with. 
That on the silk business will be interesting to a great portion of 
our readers. The subject of grasses is one of universal interest, 
and the authorities from which we draw our facts, are of undisputed 
pre-eminence. The compend of Flemish Husbandry will be worth 
an attentive perusal, as it gives the practice of probably the best 
cultivated agricultural districtin Europe, and will afford many hints 
serviceable in our practice. It will be remarked, that the analysis 
of the soil is always given, as determinating the mode of culture, 
and rotation. The extracts in regard to Sheep Husbandry will be 
found valuable to all who are engaged in this department of hus¬ 
bandry. We have also in store for our readers, many valuable 
articles from Low, Chaptal and Loudon, suited to our husbandry. 
We promise, too, more attention to the young men’s department; 
and, though last in the enumeration, not least in our regards, the 
floral and household departments of the ladies shall not escape our 
notice. The works from which we extract the pith and marrow, 
would cost the reader a large sum, and some of them are either 
not accessible to the many, or are beyond their means. From a 
computation we have made, we find that a volume of the Cultiva¬ 
tor contains as much matter as five volumes of ordinary duodeci¬ 
mo, which sell at eight to ten shillings a volume. We have adopt¬ 
ed the two column form in the page the better to receive the cuts ; 
though the matter is not thereby decreased, but will be rather in¬ 
creased, by the introduction of more small type than usual. 
NOTES ON FLEMISH HUSBANDRY. 
East and West Flanders, to whose agriculture our notes refer, is a 
district of flat open country, of about eighty miles by fifty, bounded 
north-west by the North Sea, north-east by Holland, south by French 
Flanders, and east by Dutch Brabant, lying between fifty deg. forty-five 
min. and fifty-one deg. twenty min. north latitude, the climate much re¬ 
sembling that of latitude forty to forty-two deg. here. The soil is of 
various qualities, but in general naturally poor and sandy, resembling, 
in no small degree, the maritime districts of New-Jersey and Long 
Island, and the sandy districts of Saratoga and the upper level on the 
Connecticut river. The country is intersected by canals, which serve 
to facilitate the transportation of manure from the cities and villages, 
of which there are many, and of farm produce to market. Notwith¬ 
standing the natural infertility of the soil, these provinces are made to 
yield the most abundant returns to agricultural labor. In the Low 
Countries of which Flanders comprises a part, and in the valley of Po, 
in Italy, agriculture first revived after the overthrow of the Roman em¬ 
pire, was reduced to system, received its earliest improvements, and 
probably still maintains an ascendency. The practices of such a coun¬ 
try cannot but afford some useful hints to the farmers of our own. 
The high commendations bestowed on Flemish husbandry by Sir John 
Sinclair, induced the directors of the Farmer’s Society in Ireland to 
commission the Rev. Thomas Radcliff to visit that country, and to re¬ 
port on the condition of its husbandry. It is from his report that we 
have drawn the facts which we are about to narrate. 
Among the characteristics that distinguish Flemish husbandry is the 
perfect pulverization of the soil, by frequent and deep ploughings, or 
by trenching;—the subjecting most of the lands to alternate husbandry; 
—the extensive culture of clover, of root crops, and tares, for soiling 
and winter feeding their cattle;—the careful extirpation of all weeds;— 
a remarkable attention to the saving and a judicious application of ma¬ 
nures particularly of liquid manures;—the constant occupation of the 
ground with crops ;—and a judicious rotation, varying in almost every 
district on account of the difference in soil, and adopted and settled af¬ 
ter long experience, such as is best suited to the local market—as will 
best repay the farmer’s cost and toil by an abundant return—best culti¬ 
vate the soil for a succeeding crop—best enrich it for the purpose of in¬ 
creasing fertility, and most effectually prevent, by judicious alternation, 
that natural disgust which even good soils manifest to reiterated sow¬ 
ings of the same description. 
Our author has divided the country into eleven districts, distinguished 
by peculiarities of soil, and treated of each separately. We shall fol¬ 
low his arrangement, and quote whatever may seem calculated for our 
improvement. 
District No. 1 — Wheat soil, containing fifty-two and a half parts 
alumine, or clay; twenty-one silex or sand; nineteen carbonate of lime; 
and seven and a half oxyde of iron. This is the strongest and heaviest 
soil described. The crops which are cultivated in this district, are wheat, 
horse beans, winter and spring barley, oats, and partially potatoes and 
flax. The average product is, of wheat twenty-eight bushels, beans 
nineteen, barley forty-seven, oats fifty-nine bushels per English acre. 
There is sown per acre, two and a half bushels of wheat, four of beans, 
two and a half of barley and oats. Here fallows are resorted to. The 
rotation is so arranged as to have a root, bean or clover crop intervene 
between the wheat, barley and oat crops. A considerable portion of 
this district, laying at the mouth of a stream, has been reclaimed from 
the water by drains and embankments. Manure is applied to the fal¬ 
low, upon which is sown wheat or winter barley after four ploughings; 
the subsequent crops receive but two. The practice is general to pickle 
their seed wheat in salt and water, with a proportion of Roman vitriol, 
to escape all malady in the ensuing crops. 
Division No. 2 — Turnip soil —Silex seventy-six ; alumine eighteen; 
carbonate of lime four; oxyde of iron two—denominated a good loam. 
The crops in this district are, wheat upon manured fallow, clover top 
dressed with ashes, oats followed the same season with turnips, flax 
manured with urine—occasionally rye, tobacco, beans, hops, and rape. 
The preparation of the soil for flax is scarcely to be surpassed by that 
of the neatest garden. The ground, after two or three ploughings and 
harrowings, is backed up in the centre, so as to leave it without any 
furrow. A heavy roller follows, the liquid manure is then spread 
equally, the ground again harrowed, the seed sown and harrowed in 
with a light wooden-toothed harrow, and the operation completed with 
the roller. 
Liquid manure, universally used for flax, and often for clover, &c. 
consists of the urine of cattle, in which rape cake has been dissolved, 
and in which the vidanges conveyed from the privies of towns and vil¬ 
lages, have also been blended. This manure is collected in subterane- 
ous vaults of brickwork, at the verge of the farm, adjoining the main 
road, or contiguous to the stables. They are generally forty feet long 
by fourteen wide, arched, with conveniences to fill and empty them. 
This manure is distributed in the fields by carts, or tonneaus, a large 
