82 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE OLD AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
We renew our notice of the first volume. 
EFFECTS OF SEA-WEED AS MANURE. 
Mr. L’Hommedieu, who was a large contributor to these volumes, gives 
a communication on manuring with sea-weed, and with shells. He con¬ 
tracted for one hundred tons of sea-weed, at fourteen pence per ton, 
which was applied to five acres of poor dry land, on which little grew but 
five-fingers and ground pine, and the land was sown with wheat and clover. 
The product was about seventeen bushels of wheat the acre, and the se¬ 
cond year a ton of clover; and the nett profit sis dollars and fifty cents 
per acre on the wheat crop. The value of the land was enhanced from 
forty shillings to five pounds the acre. 
DESTRUCTION OF HEDGES. 
Mr. L’Hommedieu, in another communication, in 1794, gives an ac¬ 
count of the entire destruction of the prim and black thorn hedges, 
amounting in the aggregate, in the towns only of East and Southampton, 
to four hundred miles of good fence. No cause is assigned for the sudden 
death of all the prim; but the black thorn was destroyed by a fly, “ which 
makes a hole through the bark of the thorn, and there deposits its eggs or 
maggots; the sap of the thorn runs out at this hole and hardens on the bark, 
and becomes a hard bunch round the limb,” prevented circulation, killed 
the limbs, and ultimately the plant. This is the same enemy that has at¬ 
tacked and destroyed many of our plums and morello cherries Mr. L’H. 
recommends the native thorn as a substitute for hedges, which, he says, 
makes a better fence than the European; but the same difficulty, of getting 
the haws to grow, which we now experience with the seed of the north¬ 
ern thorn, prevented its culture then. Mr. L’H. also recommends the 
sowing of apple seeds, or apple pomace, on the banks of ditches, that the 
plants, when grown a few years, may serve as a hedge. 
ON IMPROVING LANDS BY CLOVER. 
To improve a very poor piece of land, which grew’ only moss, five-fin¬ 
gers and a few daisies, Mr. L’Hommedieu succeeded by sowing upon it 
clover seed alone, four quarts to the acre. It gave a tolerable product, and 
improved the land. He considers this preferable to sowing clover with 
gvain upon very poor land, as the grain exhausts the little fertility which 
the soil possesses, and the clover is consequently starved. The hint is 
worthy of notice. 
ON RAISING CALVES, 
Also from L’Hommedieu. The importance of taking calves early from 
the cows, and of keeping them well through the first season, that they 
may not be stinted in their growth, is particularly enforced. And calves, 
says the writer, do best in pastures where there is no w’ater; as, from the 
habit of taking all their food from the cow’ in a liquid form, they are apt to 
drink too much, where they have access to water, and become pot-bellied. 
“Last year,” says Mr. L’H. “I saw in a pasture without water, more 
than twenty calves, in which they had been kept from the time of their 
being taken from the cows till some time in the fall. I frequently saw 
them, and observed them more attentively on account of the particular 
manner in which they were kept. They were all thrifty, and particularly 
gaunt or small-bellied, which the owner, a gentleman of Suffolk, imputed 
to their not having water, and observed that he never had calves do so 
well before.” “ When there is no water in the lot, the calves, he sup¬ 
posed, are obliged to feed on grass which contains some moisture, and 
soon learn to allay their thirst while the dew is on, and for the sake of 
the moisture or dew on the grass, eat much more than they would do if 
they could go to water, and soon get accustomed to feed in the night and 
in the morning, before the dews are exhaled.” Mr. L’H. attaches vir¬ 
tue to herbage when impregnated with dew, and thinks it possesses pecu¬ 
liar nutritive properties at that time. He instances a horse, which ate 
freely coarse sedge grass, and throve upon it, when charged with dew, 
but would not eat it when the dew was exhaled. 
FREEING SEED GRAIN FROM OATS. 
Barley and spring wheat are apt to be mixed with oats. The following 
is the mode recommended in the transactions for separating them. Take 
a large tub, filled with water, and let the barley or wheat run slowly 
into it; the oats and light grain will swim on the surface, and must be 
skimmed off—-the heavy and vigorous grains will sink to the bottom, and 
are preserved for sowing. 
LUCERN. 
A paper on the culture and products of this grass, by P. De Labigaire, 
Esq. affords some facts worth noting. He says, plough twice, at least 
twelve or fifteen inches deep, and completely pulverize the soil. He pre¬ 
fers sowing the seed by itself, without grain or other grass, twenty pounds 
to the acre. The best dung for top dressing lucern, is hen and pigeon 
dung, first dried and pulverized, and sown sparingly, and the next, mud 
taken from creeks and swamps. The lucern acquires its full strength the 
third year, when, at three cuttings, it will yield 2,500, 1,400, and 600 
pound's of hay. It may then be fed off. It should be mown when in 
flower, and alternated, in the mow, with barley or other straw. 
aiULBF’JRT HEDGES 
Mr. De Labigaire gives us the European practice in this matter. And 
he states, too, what we commend to the particular notice of our prairie 
patrons, that red elm and birch aie. reckoned among the best plants for 
hedges, on account of their flexibility to be interwoven from the foot to 
the top, so as to be impassable. We can confirm this remark, in regard 
to the elm, from our own experience. Its top and branches may be in¬ 
tertwined in any direction, and yet live and grow. In the environs of 
Lyons, the mulberry had been successfully used for hedges, and not only 
made an efficient fence, but afforded abundance of food for the silk-worm. 
Hear what this correspondent adds: 
“ The 20th April, 1784, after the silk-worms were out of their first 
mewing, about 1,200 of them were spread upon a mulberry hedge. They 
remained exposed to the intemperance of the season, which, having been 
very cold, left little hopes of their succeeding. We took care to visit them 
every day, and particularly during the violent rains and most boisterous 
weather. They w'ere never seen very sensitive to the cold, nor exerting 
themselves for shelter. On the contrary, they remained motionless, and 
bore well the storm. In short, neither the cold nor the heat appeared to 
make much impression upon them. They were free from the disorders 
commonly attending those attended with the greatest care and trouble in 
the houses. Notwithstanding the bad season, which we might have sup¬ 
posed would have killed them all, out of the 1,200 we gathered 450 co¬ 
coons, which proved to be the fine9tsilk ever raised in France; the3e co¬ 
coons gave two pounds seven ounces raw silk.” 
TO RAISE THE MULBERRY HEDGE, 
Mr. De Labigaire directs as follows: “ Round the field to be enclosed, 
dig up a ditch three feet wide and two feet deep; the. longest roots of the 
young plants being cut off near the hairy fibres, must be planted about 
eighteen inches deep,-at the distance of three or four inches [twelve we 
think near enough,] from each other. After the ditch is filled up, every 
shoot must be cut at the height of two or three inches above the ground. 
Whether the plant is big or not, there is no matter, provided it is at least 
one year old. The time to plant these hedges is the beginning of April, 
[last of April or first of May here.] The second year 4 * s necessary to 
cut again the shoots about six inches above the giound, in order to give 
more strength to. the sprouting branches, which will form a pretty strong 
hedge the third year, and at last grow so thick as to be impassable by cat¬ 
tle. It may be twisted and interwoven a great deal easier than the haw¬ 
thorn. If you choose to make a strong hedge, you may plant it in double 
rows. For three years the young wood must be defended against cattle. 
No insect attacks the mulberry.” 
The subject of mulberry hedges is deserving of all attention from silk- 
growers; and the experiment of making the home of the worm upon the 
hedge, is worthy of experiment, at least in the milder sections of our coun¬ 
try- _ 
The common Mullein, (Verbascum,) Harkhermerinforms us, after be¬ 
ing properly cleared of the adhering earth and other impurities, is exten¬ 
sively used in German granaries, roots, stocks and flowers, in order to 
prevent the depredations of mice, and that it affords a complete protection 
against these vermin. Bundles of it are placed in every corner, and on 
the grain itself. The mice will suddenly disappear from barns where it is 
placed. 
Cellars —It is a practice in Germany, worthy of our imitation, to keep 
open a communication between the cellars and the principle chimney of 
the house, to enable the noxious air, more or less generated there, to es¬ 
cape. It also promotes the draft of the chimney. The air in cellars often 
becomes highly deleterious to health, and the sickness of families may 
frequently be traced to the stagnant and noisome air in these under¬ 
ground apartments. Where there are different apartments in acellar, ven¬ 
tilation should be provided for, by leaving a passage open over the doors of 
communication. 
AGRICULTURAL PUBLICATIONS. 
The JYew- York Farmer, published at New-York by Messrs. Minor & 
Shaeffer, hitherto a monthly publication, is now to be published semi¬ 
monthly, on a sheet of 16 pages, of the size of the Cultivator—price $3 a 
year, in advance. This wa9 the earliest agricultural periodical established 
in this state, after the Ploughboy. 
The Farmers' Cabinet, is the title of a neat, well conducted, agricul¬ 
tural periodical, of 16 octavo pages, published the last ten months at Phi¬ 
ladelphia, by Moore & Waterhouse, at one dollar per annum, the num¬ 
bers of which have recently first met our observation. 
The Western Agriculturist, devoted to agriculture and the mechanic 
arts, has just been commenced at Ravenna, Ohio, by E. R. Selby, S pages, 
small quarto, monthly, at one dollar a year. 
Cure for the Bloody Murrain. —J. J. Deming, of Mishawaka, la. writes 
us under date of May 15—“ I have recently saved a valuable ox, which 
had the bloody murrain, (of which great numbers of cattle die in this coun- 
try,) by giving a gallon of a strong decoction of red cedar boughs—then 
another gallon after three hours. 
