A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, 
Vol. IV. 
ALBANY, FEBRUARY, 1838. 
No. 12. 
J. BUEL, Conductor. 
O’ Office No. 3 Washington-street, opposite Congress Hall. _m 
TERMS.— Fifty Cents per annum, to be paid in advance. 
Special Agents. —L. & R. Hill, Esqs. Richmond, Va.; Messrs. Bell & 
Entyvisle, Alexandria, D. C.; Gideon B. Smith, Baltimore, Md.; Judah 
Dobson, Philadelphia, Pa.; Messrs. Hovey, Boston, Mass; Israel Post & 
Co. Booksellers, 88Bowery; Alexander Smith, Seedsman, Broadway, N. 
Y. Alex. Walsh, Lansingburgh, gratuitous agent. Any gentleman who 
will enclose us $5, free of postage, will be considered also a special agent, and 
will be entitled to every eleventh copy, or its equivalent, as commission. 
p= The Cultivator, according to the decision of the Post-master General, is 
subject only to newspaper postage, viz: one cent on each number within the 
state, and within one hundred miles from Albany, out of the state-*-and one 
and a half cents on each number, to any other part of the Union. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
TO SUBSCRIBERS. 
Conformable to our conditions—the Cultivator will be discontinued, 
after this number, to all who do not renew their subscriptions, or have not 
already paid in advance for the fifth volume—except in Albany and its 
vicinity." A list of agents to receive and transmit subscriptions is printed 
with the index, and accompanies this sheet. $3- We beg that no bills of 
a less denomination than one dollar may be sent us, and that remittances 
may consist as far as practicable, of bills of New-York banks, or of those 
of adjoining states. 93= We promise, that our coming volume shall not 
be less interesting, or useful, than the volumes which have preceded it. 
CULTIVATOR PREMIUMS. 
In pursuance of the proposition we made in the first number of this 
volume, the following premiums are awarded, being all that have been 
competed for in the mode prescribed. The ten dollar premiums, it will 
be recollected, are payable in plate, and the five dollar premiums in bound 
volumes of the Cultivator and monthly Genesee Farmer. Those to whom 
the first are awarded, will please to intimate the articles of plate they pre¬ 
fer, as table or tea spoons, cups, &c. in order that the proper inscriptions 
may be made upon them. 
To Henry Hopkins, of Laurens, Otsego, for the most profitable acre of 
Indian corn, ten dollars. 
To W. Miller, of Georgetown >4 Roads, Md. for the second most pro¬ 
fitable acre of Indian corn ,Jive dollars. 
To Willard Cotton, of Madison county, for the most profitable acre of 
ruta baga, ten dollars. 
To J. J. Bullock, of Albany county, for the second most profitable acre 
of ruta baga ,five dollars. 
To J. Smeallie, of Schenectady county, for the best directions for mak¬ 
ing English imitation cheese, ten dollars. 
To the same, for the best directions for making butter, ten dollars. 
To Aaron Petrie, of Herkimer county, for the best directions for mak¬ 
ing American cheese, ten dollars. 
A premium for the best plan of a barn'and out-buildings will be an¬ 
nounced hereafter—having three plans on hand yet unpublished, illustrated 
by several drawings, and which we shall publish as soon as the cuts are 
prepared. 
We design to give notice in our next, of the premiums which we in¬ 
tend to offer for the coming year. 
CIRCULATION OF THE CULTIVATOR. 
The following is a statement of the number of copies of the present vo¬ 
lume of the Cultivator, circulated in the several states and territories, viz: 
New-York,. 7,428 
Virginia,. 1,647 
Massachusetts,.. 1,032 
Maryland. 1,114 
Pennsylvania,.. 969 
Vermont,. 939 
New-Jersey,. 796 
Ohio,. 780 
Indiana,.. 57S 
Kentucky,. 436 
Michigan,. 444 
Illinois,. 366 
N ew-Hampshire.. 284 
NO. 12 —VOL. IV. 
Delaware,... 196 
District of Columbia. 105 
Wisconsin. 104 
Georgia,. 99 
Missouri,. 50 
Maine,. 34 
South Carolina,. 30 
Mississippi. 8 
Texas,. 1 
Alabama, ... 40 
Rhoderlsland. 39 
Arkansas... 32 
Louisiana,. 17 
North Carolina,. 
... 219 
The Canadas. 
Tennesse,. 
Florida. 
Nova Scotia, 
GREAT CROPS. 
We invite the reader's attention to the statements we record in this 
number, of the ruta baga crops of Mr. Bullock and Mr. Cotton, and of the 
Indian corn crop of Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Cotton’s crop exceeded 1,100 
bushels, and Mr. Bullock’s came up to about 1,000 bushels, the acre; and 
Mr. Hopkins’ corn gave a nett profit of $155. Such results are highly 
creditable to the gentlemen who produced them, show the susceptibility 
of our soil for great improvement, and cannot fail to stimulate our farmers 
to profit by their modes of management. 
The fact will bear repeating, that 1,000 bushels of ruta baga will go 
more than six times as far in keeping farm stock as two tons of hay, the 
supposed product ol an acre. The ruta baga, at an allowance of one and 
a half bushels, or ninety pounds per day, will give 666^ rations; while the 
hay, at twenty pounds a day, will give but 100 rations; and the turnips 
will furnish the best and most manure, and will ameliorate and improve 
the soil. Surely these examples are worthy of imitation. 
In regard to the culture of the corn, we wish it to be remarked, as hav¬ 
ing a sensible bearing on the profit of the crop—1. That the soil was a 
warm sandy loam, the proper one for this grain; 2. That it was planted on 
a sward, ploughed in autumn, but not cross-ploughed; 3. that the crop had 
an abundance of unfermented manure; 4. That it was neither ploughed 
nor earthed in the culture; 5. That it was planted early; 6. That the crop 
was harvested by cutting it up at the ground; and 7. That it was well 
dressed with ashes. In most of these particulars Mr. Hopkins went coun¬ 
ter to the old practice, and was highly successful in his experiment. 
BREWERS’ GRAINS, 
Are extensively used in the neighborhood of cities and towns, by milk¬ 
men and others, as a cheap and beneficial food for milch cows, in winter. 
The scarcity of pasture in such places renders it desirable to store these 
grains up also for summer use, inasmuch as they are not to be had at the 
breweries during summer. This is done, on an extensive scale, about Lon¬ 
don and Edinburgh; and as the mode there adopted might be easily prac¬ 
tised here, we shall briefly state what it is. The grains are laid up in pits, 
lined with brick-work set in cement, from ten to twenty feet deep, and 
of any convenient size. They are firmly trodden down, and covered with 
a layer of moist earth, eight or nine inches thick, to keep out the rain and 
frost in winter, and heat in summer. The slow and slight degree offer- 
mentation which goes on, tends, say the daiiymen, to the greater develop¬ 
ment of the saccharine and nutritive principle. Some have been kept 
two, and in one instance nine years, and have been perfectly good at the 
expiration of that period. A cow consumes about a bushel of these grains 
daily, which constitutes her principal food, the cost of which, in Great 
Britain, is four or five pence, and here about half thatsum, or four or five 
cents. The pits should be kept closed till the grains are wanted to be 
used. In this way, hundreds, if not thousands of milch cows, are princi¬ 
pally subsisted about London and Edinburgh during the summer. 
Mr. Defreest, of Greenbush, put some grains into pits, made of plank, 
last fall, and covered them with straw. He opened one of them a few 
days ago, and found the grains in an excellent improved condition, except 
about three inches on the surface, which were injured by the access of 
air through the straw covering. Mr. D. is pleased with the result, but in¬ 
tends hereafter to cover his pits with earth. 
THE GRAIN-WORM, 
It is believed, has diminished the product of the wheat crop, in the dis¬ 
tricts which it has ravaged for two or three years, at least three- 
fourths— that is to say, it has prevented the sowing of the winter va¬ 
rieties to a very great extent, and it has destroyed, at a fair computation, 
one-half of the crop which has been sown. Most of the wheat now grown 
in these districts is of the spring varieties, and these, unless sown late, 
fare very little better than the winter kinds. When, four years ago the 
New-York State Agricultural Society memorialized the legislature upon 
this subject, urging the propriety of offering large bounties for the disco¬ 
very of a preventive of the evil, the Conductor of this journal was told by 
the chairman of the agricultural committee, who was from the west, that 
the subject was not worthy of a report, and consequently no report was 
made. We are only warranted in saying, that had a liberal reward been 
offered at that time, and had it led to the desired discovery, a million of 
dollars would have been saved to the farmers of the infected districts, and 
many millions more, in the coming years, to the state at large. And had 
no discovery been made no harm would have been done—no public money 
expended. 
