THE CULTIVATOR. 
109 
as much hay as all the rest of the field (7 acres,) and the mower said 
I lost eight tons of hay by not plastering the whole. I also sowed 
half a bushel on an acre of a field which had been left unseeded, and 
produced nothing but natural red top, bent and blue grass; a thick and 
luxuriant coat of white clover in a short time marked the spot, which 
was eaten bare by my cattle, and had a very singular appearance in 
the midst of the coarse grasses which they left untouched. I also 
found plaster beneficial, though in a less degree, to spring wheat. 
The soil of the three last mentioned fields is a deep sandy loam, con¬ 
taining a good many limestones. In my garden, my experiments were 
attended with very different results; it contains exactly one acre of 
deep rich vegetable mould, and was never submitted to spade or plough 
till last September, when it was all manured with long dung and trench 
ploughed ; last spring it was well dragged and cross ploughed, and af¬ 
terwards well worked with the cultivator, and the part intended for 
small seeds dug with the spade; a part having been planted with aspa¬ 
ragus, rhubarb and seakale early in last November. I tried plaster 
here on peas, rhubarb, seakale, onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, French 
beans, cellery, melons and potatoes, and on none of these, except the 
beans, which were evidently, and the potatoes, which were greatly be- 
nefitted, did it produce any beneficial effects—on the melons, it posi¬ 
tively operated as a poison, destroying every plant submitted to its in¬ 
fluence. Hence it seems that on over rich or highly manured lands, 
plaster is of little or no benefit, but that its good effects on dry, light 
soils are most extraordinary, I am thoroughly convinced. I must add, 
that I last week saw a field of oats, the soil of which was a pure run¬ 
ning sand, that could not without such assistance as it received, have 
produced a return of the seed—sown after peas, and yet on six acres 
thereof, where the peas had been plastered, the crop is certainly not less 
than sixty bushels to the acre, while on the rest of the field it is not 
worth cutting. 
I hope, sir, many of your readers will be induced by what I have 
said, (and I am sure, though I write anonymously, for reasons before 
stated, that you who know me, will vouch for my credibility,) to use 
this cheap but most valuable manure, and their success, of which I am 
confident, will highly gratify a sincere well wisher to the agricultural 
enterprize of your countrymen, and a warm admirer of your own 
praiseworthy exertions in so good a cause. COLONUS 
Upper Canada, September 5th, 1836. 
WILSON’S MOWING AND GRAIN CUTTING MACHINE. 
Among the thousands of labor saving inventions, which form one of 
the most prominent features of the present age, it is natural to expect 
that many splendid and plausible plans may prove abortive, and deceive 
the inventors, and often the public ; and therefore, few men, if any, are 
capable of deciding with certainty on the merits of an invention, until 
experience shall sanction the decision. 
A machine has been recently exhibited in this city and its vicinity, 
by the inventor, Capt. Alexander M. Wilson, of Rhinebeck, for mowing 
grass and cutting grain. I will predicate my remarks on what I saw, 
and leave time and experience to decide on its merits. 
The machine consists of a carriage on two wheels, propelled by one 
or two horses, oxen or other beasts of burden, travelling in the rear 
and pushing it forward. In the front, at the bottom, is a horizontal 
wheel upon an upright shaft, which shaft and wheel receive a rotary 
motion, communicated by gear from the main axle, which revolves with 
its wheels, as the machine goes forward. The diameter of this hori¬ 
zontal wheel, with the addition of the knives projecting from its edge, 
measures the width of the swath, which is cut with the knives as the 
wheel goes forward, revolving rapidly and lying close to the ground. 
The apparatus which sustains the cutting wheel is so constructed as to 
accommodate its height to any inequalities in the ground, and to give 
it any inclination required. The knives are sharpened byt heir own 
operation, without stopping the machine. There is also attached to 
the upper side of the cutting wheel, a rim which gathers the grass as 
it is cut. and lays it in a swath more regularly than it can be laid by 
the scythe. 
I saw it in operation, propelled by two horses, and cutting a swath 
about six feet wide, as fast as the horses could walk; and though the 
ground was very uneven, and the grass somewhat dry and in bad order, 
it performed the work as well as it could be done by hand. 
I know not what objections experience may raise against i t, but I 
would venture to say, if this most tedious and yet most important la¬ 
bor of the husbandman, is ever to be successfully performed by ma¬ 
chinery, I think this machine more likely to effect it than any other 
plan I have seen. It would be absurd to expect this or any other mow¬ 
ing machine, to operate on new and rough land, among stones and 
stumps—but our country affords numerous large tracts of meadow, 
with fine smooth bottom, and the proportion is rapidly increasing; and 
in the great western prairies, such a machine cannot fail to be one of 
the most useful improvements of the age. I would therefore advise 
every agriculturist, who has smooth meadows, or those which can be 
made smooth, particularly those at the far west, to see this machine, 
and endeavor to promote its introduction, so far at least as to give it a 
fair trial. S. BLYDENBURGH. 
Reference may be made to the patentee, Rhinebeck, Dutchess co. or 
to George Hanford, No. 409 South Market-street, Albany. 
THE CUT WORM AND HESSIAN FLY. 
The history and habits of these devouring insects, hitherto a mere 
matter of conjecture, continue an object of intense solicitude to inquiring 
farmers; and more especially, the present season, inasmuch as their 
hopes and prospects of the corn and wheat crops, have been with litt'e 
exception, alike prostrated. American entomology is in its germ : Mr. 
Melsheimer, a Lutheran clergyman of this state, may be regarded us 
the progenitor of the science in this country; he published a catalogue 
containing thirteen hundred and sixty native species of insects of one 
order, or group, in 1806; without descriptions or a history of their ha¬ 
bits. Professor Say, has also been engaged for many years in an un¬ 
finished work, describing scientifically, the unnoticed insects of this 
country. Fortunately for the farmers, his occupation, in its present 
extended march of improvement, embraces personages characterized 
by that noble and disinterested zeal, which brings to the task an ardor 
far superior to the sordid ambition of merely amassing wealth, too 
often at the expense of a broken constitution and green old age. 
The cut worms, are evidently the numerous progeny of some familiar 
insect. The question arises, to what species can they be attributed ? 
Some are led to conjecture, that they are propagated by the order Cole- 
optera, or beetle: although I have examined with some care, the seve¬ 
ral species of the beetle tribe common in this country, among which 
the pellet beetle is most numerous, yet I have invariably found their 
larvae of pale yellowish, or light brown colour; whereas the cut worm 
is nearly black, and very different in its habits. The conjecture, that 
the cut worms are the larvae of the beetle, or any other perpetual in¬ 
sect, should be humbled by the single circumstance that the cut worm 
is periodical in its devastating visitations, and consequently can be the 
progeny only of a periodical insect. I know none of that character 
bearing a semblance of suspicion, excepting the sicada septembecem, of 
the order hemiptera, genus cecada, and species grilli or grillus, of Linn, 
(here very improperly mistermed locust, for those visiting Europe and 
Africa, whose history present a series of calamities, inspiring all people 
with superstitious horror.) The American cicada is remarkable for its 
regular and simultaneoues reappearance every seventeen years, in count¬ 
less millions. They appeared here in 1817 and 1834, several years 
succeeding each of those dates, have been marked, by the destruction 
of the cut worm. And as some of the cicada appear every year, we 
also find some, however few, of the cut worm every year. It is ascer¬ 
tained, that the cicada deposite each from 600 to 1,000 eggs, forming of 
course a numerous progeny. 
This conjecture of mine, relative to the cut worm, although strengthen¬ 
ed by observation and experience, yet should any of your observing and 
enlightened correspundents offer an idea more plausible, the above shall 
be freely yielded notwithstanding. 
Many practical farmers have prescribed remedies to counteract the 
ravages of the cut worm, stating the consummate success of their mo¬ 
dus operandi; but it is matter of regret to know, that an effectual reme¬ 
dy is still wanting, to expel or dislodge them when once in possession of 
the corn hill. There are, however, preventives, well worthy the farmer’s 
attention. The most effectual prevention consists in ploughing sward 
ground intended for corn in autumn, previous to planting; but if this 
be not convenient, a stubble field should be chosen, if ploughed in the 
spring; the rationale or philosophy of the mode is simply this, the sod 
being turned up to the frost of winter, it becomes so meliorated and 
consolidated by spring, (if well ploughed,) that there will be no green 
thing scarcely of vegetable kind left for the larvae of the insect to sub¬ 
sist upon, and consequently they either desert the field or perish. The 
•same parity of reasoning holds good for stubble ground, it being also 
