THE CULTIVATOR. 
com entire, when it is given alone, which passing through them in the 
same state affords no kind of nourishment, but all animals are known 
to derive nourishment from their solid food, in a certain degree, in pro¬ 
portion to the care with which it is chewed. 
“ 2. It is consumed in less time. 
“ 3. By the mixture of the materials, some portions of which, as da¬ 
maged hay, or straw, might be refused if given separately, an equal 
consumption of the whole is secured. 
“4. By its admitting of being more readily weighed, or measured, 
that when given separately, it can be more accurately distributed to 
each horse; on which it may be observed, that more injury is often 
done to horses by allowing them an unlimited quantity of rack-meat 
[uncut hay in the rack,] than even by stinting to a scanty allowance ; 
for they will not only pass whole nights in eating, when rest would do 
them more service, but, by this extraordinary distention of the stomach, 
its powers are weakened, and their general health is injured. 
“ 5. It prevents waste, and consequently goes farther.” 
Mr. Wiggins, whose daily business extends to the feeding of three 
hundred horses, estimates the saving by feeding entirely in this way, 
in the manger, at one-sixth. 
Rye is considerably employed as horse feed in America, particularly 
in Pennsylvania. It is generally coarsely ground, and mixed with cut 
straw or chaff, and moistened, by which the mass is incorporated. 
Barley is extensively used in the south of Europe, in Asia Minor and 
in Persia, for feeding horses, for the reason, probably, that oats, being 
indigenous to colder climates, do not grow well in these countries. In 
the first of these countries it is uniformly fed with straw. Six bushels 
have been found, on trial, to be equal to eight bushels of oats. Barley 
contains 20 per cent more starch than oats, 5 ,per cent more saccharine 
matter, and 27 per cent less husk. 
British writers have furnished us with estimates of the annual ex¬ 
pense of keeping farm horses. One of these before us gives the ag¬ 
gregate expense ol a two horse team and driver at about £90 ($400.) 
This includes the interest on the cost of the team and implements, 
(£270) and 10 per cent for repairs and deterioration. We state this 
fact for the purpose of calling the reader’s attention to it. It imports, 
that allowing for the days when the team cannot labor, and assuming 
260 working days in a year that a team and driver should earn more 
than $1.50 a day, for 260 days in a year, to pay cost; and that all they 
fall short in doing this, is, absolute loss to the owner. The keep, in 
Britain, is probably higher, however, than it is with us. Yet we,are 
persuaded that few among us duly reflect upon the cost of maintaining 
a horse team in a plight requisite for doing good service. In Britain 
a team of good horses is considered adequate to the cultivation of 40 
to 60 acres in tillage crops.” 
FARM ACCOUNTS. 
Few points are more essential to sucess in any business than well 
kept accounts; and these are as essential in farming as in other opera¬ 
tions. They are necessary in order to ascertain the relative profits of 
the several crops we cultivate, and the adaptation of our farms to par¬ 
ticular branches of husbandry. Without these, although the amount 
of profits or loss may be guessed at the end of the year, by the balance 
in hand, yet no comparative judgment can be formed of the value of 
different modes of culture, or of different kinds of stock, and though 
we sometimes hit right, we often hit wrong. We intend to publish ere 
long, a somewhat detailed account of the systems pursued by Gen. 
Bcatson and Mr. Gregg, upon two farms of stiff clay, in England. By 
keeping accurate accounts, and varying their systems as economy and 
good judgment dictated, Mr. Gregg in a few years, enhanced the pro¬ 
fits of a 240 acre farm more than £600, or about $2500 per annum. 
When Gen. B. took the management of his farm, the expense per acre 
of cultivating grain, under the old system of summer fallowing, in¬ 
cluding manure, rent and taxes, was £16 4s. per annum. In a few years 
he reduced this expense, by economical changes in iris system of cul¬ 
ture, without diminution of crop, to about £5 per acre, or a third of 
the former expense. 
The son of a farmer, arrived at years of discretion, might with a lit¬ 
tle instruction, be enabled to keep a journal, which would tend very 
much to benefit him, as well as to improve the profits of the farm. A 
preliminary step is to make a schedule of the stock and implements 
upon the farm, and to designate the different enclosures, as A. B. C. 
&c. with their contents in acres. Let him note down daily, the expen¬ 
ditures in labor, money, &c. for each field, the increase or diminution 
of stock, the products of each field, and its value for market or home 
consumption. This journal may be posted into a ledger, where each 
field may be charged with the expenditures made upon it, and credited 
the value of the products. Deduct the lesser from the greater sum, and 
the balance is the profit or loss. Continue the account with this field 
through a course of crops, and from the general result, you will be able 
to judge of the crops and courses best adapted to the soil and the market 
with a degree of certainty, and of the stock most profitable to be kept 
upon the farm. 
165 
NOTES FROM MY MEMORANDUM BOOK. 
The turnip.—-The napus (turnip) says Pliny, “requires a dry soil; it 
delights in cold, which makes it both sweeter and larger, while by heat 
it grows to leaves.” Pliny wrote for Italy, whose climate resembles 
that of the southern states ; and hence his remarks are particularly ap¬ 
plicable there. The turnip thrives best and is sweteest north of lat. 40. 
But even here it requires a dry soil, but one that is sandy and warmis 
preferable to a cold one. The earlier common turnips are sown, after 
midsummer, the larger they grow; the later, if before the middle of 
August, the fairer, the sweeter, and the better for table. A large top 
indicates a small or defective bottom. 
Gypsum.— Grisenwhaite, in his new theory of agriculture, states, that 
as in the principal grain crops which interest the agriculturist, there 
exists a particular saline substance, peculiar to each, so, if we turn our 
attention to clover and turnips, we shall find the same discrimination. 
Sanfoin, lucern and clover have long been known to contain, a notable 
quantity of gypsum. Clovers and lucern have their growth very much 
accelerated by the application of gypsum, though many other plants 
are not at all benefitted by its action. A series of accurate experiments 
can only enable us to decide, with precision, the plants and the soils to 
which the application of gypsum is beneficial. 
Snow, SfC. —The overcharge of the atmosphere, with moisture in frosty 
weather, when falling from a great height, forms snow in large flakes; 
and from that height which in warmer weather produces drizzling rains, 
it becomes sleet; but when only floating over the surface, the watery 
particles, too small to be visible, collect upon the ground and leaves of 
vegetables, and form hoar frost.— Dr. White in Georgical Essays. 
Mosses, lichens and insects, which are prejudicial to fruit trees, may 
be destroyed by a simple solution of quick-lime, any time between the 
fall and opening of the leaf) applied with a watering pot or gardener’s 
syringe. It does its office, and withal promotes the growth of the tree. 
T. Bishop, in Cal. Hort. Tr. 
Urine constitutes a rich manure. It may be used in winter on the 
currant and gooseberry—in summer upon all vegetables, diluted with 
double its quantity of water.— A. Gorrie in do. 
Sap of plants. —Knight teaches, that the sap of plants ascends through 
the whitewood, and descends down the bark, depositing the matter of 
the new wood in its descent, but without becoming changed into it. 
That the matter absorbed from the soil and air, is converted into the 
true sap or blood of the plant wholly in the leaves, from which it is dis¬ 
charged into the bark ; and that such portions of it as are not expended 
in the generation of new wood and bark, join, during the spring and 
autumn, the ascending current in the wood, into which it passes by the 
medullary processes. As the autumn approaches, however, and the as¬ 
cending sap is no longer expended in generating new leaves and blos¬ 
soms, or young shoots, that fluid concentrates in a concrete state in the 
sap wood of the tree, as in the tuber of the potatoe, and the bulb of 
the tulip, and joints of the grasses, whence it is washed out in the spring, 
to form a new layer of bark and wood, to form leaves, and feed the blos¬ 
soms and fruit.— Cal. Hort. Soc. Mem. vol. 11, p. 258. 
To stop the bleeding of. vines, Mr. Knight takes four parts of scrap' 
ed cheese, and one of calcined oyster shells, or chalk burnt to lime. 
This is to be pressed into the pores of the wood. In this way the longest 
branch may be taken off at any season with safety.— lb. 261. 
Melons. —Mr. Knight says the green fleshed and Salonica, or white 
fleshed, are alone worth cultivating.— lb. 163. 
The grasses. —Their relative nutritious properties are indicated hy 
the joints they contain—these abounding in concrete sap. Thus the 
florin, which contains many joints, is highly nutritious, and almost as 
much so if gathered in winter as if gathered in summer. 
Transpiration of vegetables is greatest in spring and autumn, when 
the temperature is variable—( Knight ) and is greater or less, according 
to the texture of the leaves, the soft and spongy displaying far the 
greatest powers, with regard to the elevation of the sap—the apple, 
peach, quince, walnut, &e. raising the mercury from 3 to 6 inches— 
the elm, oak, chesnut, &c. having glassy leaves, from one to two inches, 
and the evergreens scarcely affecting it.— Davy’s Ag. p. 214. 
In grasses, as well as in perennial trees, and shrubs, there is more 
soluble matter in winter than in summer, and its specific gravity is 
heavier than in summer, in consequence of the nutritive matter which 
nature lays up for the wants of the plant in spring.— Davy, 223. 
FLAX CULTURE. 
In a summer tour through West New-York, we saw large and nu¬ 
merous fields of flax in Seneca and Tompkins, cultivated merely for the 
seed, the fibre of the flax being not deemed worth getting out for market. 
We confess this struck with astonishment, after having published, 
in our April No. of this crop producing, in Jefferson, more than a ton 
of dressed flax the acre, and knowing it to be worth, to the manufac¬ 
turer, from 180 to $220 per ton, at the manufactory. Mr. J. O Dey, of 
