THE CULTIVATOR. 
33 
thirty acres. Average seed —wheat 2 bushels the acre; potatoes 32 bushels; 
rye 1 i bushels; clover 8 lbs.; oats 2a bushels; flax nine pecks. Average pro¬ 
duce —potatoes 320 bushels; wheat 20a bushels; rye 25 bushels; clover, green 
for soiling, 12 3-4 tons; oats 41 bushels; flax, value of crop standing, $45 per 
acre. The first quality of lands sell at $200 the acre; second quality at about 
$135. and the third quality at about $67. 4 good work horse about $100—a 
cow $35—a sheep $3.75. 
REMARKS. 
From our earliest recollections of agricultural matters, Flanders has been 
considered proverbial for fertility; and it would seem from the examination 
which we have given to the work before us, that its agriculture justly merits 
the high character which it has acquired. And yet, with partial exceptions, 
the soil is not naturally rich —it is poor, such as we should denominate very 
poor. It is mostly a flat, wet, cold, sandy district. Whence then its produc¬ 
tiveness 1 The answer, which may be gathered from our notes, may afford 
useful lessons in American husbandry. Its productiveness arises, 
1. From the small size of farms, and keeping them constantly in crop—no 
man attempting to manage more than he can manage well. 
2. From a just estimate of the value of manure, the food of plants, and a ju¬ 
dicious husbanding and application of it, frequently for years in succession to 
the same field. The urine, sweepings, and other animal and vegetable mat¬ 
ters, which we waste or disregard, contribute more to the fertility of their soil, 
than all the manure we apply, does to the fertility of our soil. 
3. From a rotation of crops, two of the same kind never following each other, 
found, from long experience, to be best fitted to promote the farmers’ ultimate 
profits. 
4. From the extensive introduction of clover and root crops, which amelio¬ 
rate the soil, feed and fatten the farm stock, and make large returns in the form 
of manure. 
5. From the cutting the forage, and grinding the grain, for their cattle, there¬ 
by greatly lessening the expenditure. 
6. From the farmers giving their undivided attention to their farms—and from 
their industrious, frugal habits of living. No lumbering, no fishing, no specula¬ 
tion, no hankering after office. 
In the work under consideration, there are other matters irrelevant to our 
practice, as an account of the forests which have been planted, descriptions of 
Flemish farm implements; and there is one sentence worth quoting entire, for 
the good example it holds out to us, viz: “ No farmer is without a well culti¬ 
vated garden, full of the best vegetables, which all appear at his own table.” 
"A beggar is scarcely to be seen, except in the towns, and but few there.” 
Manure is an article of commerce; and the demand for it is so great, thatevery 
material for it is sought after with avidity, and the towns and pavements are 
hourly resorted to, with brooms and wheelbarrows, as a source of profit, and 
even the chips which accumulate in the formation of wooden shoes, are made 
to constitute a part of the compost dung-heap. Hence the towns and farm 
buildings are remarkably cleanly and neat. In winter, cows receive sixty 
pounds of turnips, sometimes boiled, with straw, per diem. 
There are also in this work, directions for cultivating and preparing foi mar¬ 
ket, madder and woad, which we may hereafter copy into the Cultivator, 
should any one express a wish to this effect. 
AN ESSAY ON GRASSES.— ( Continued from page 12. J 
Sec. II. Lucerne — Medicago sativa, L. Diadel. Euan. L and Laguminosece, J. 
Lucerne is a deep rooting perennial plant, sending up numerous small and tall 
clover-like shoots, with blue or violet spikes of flowers. It is a native of the 
south of Europe, is extensively cultivated in Spain, Italy, France, Persia and 
Lima, in the two latter, being cut all the year round,—and is partially cultivat¬ 
ed in Great Britain and the United States. With us it is found to be as hardy 
as red clover. It was extensively cultivated by the Romans, and commended 
by Calumella, as the choicest of all fodder. Three-quarters of an acre of 
it, he thinks abundantly sufficient to feed three horses during the whole year. 
The soil for lucerne must be dry, friable, inclining to sand, and with a sub¬ 
soil not inferior to the surface. Unless the suhsoil be good, deep and dry, it is 
in vain to attempt to cultivate lucerne. A friable deep sandy loam is excellent 
for it. No land is too rich for it. 
The preparation of the soil consists in deep ploughing and minute pulveriza 
tion. Loudon recommends trenching for it. But a good preparation is a pota¬ 
to crop, heavily dressed with long manure, the ground ploughed very deep 
and the manure buried at the bot tom of the furrow, and the crop kept perfectly 
free from weeds. 
The season most proper for sowing in the northern and eastern states is about 
the first to the fifteenth of May, when the ground has become sufficiently warm¬ 
ed to promote quick germination. 
The manner of sowing lucerne is either broadcast or in drills, and either with 
or without an accompanying crop. Broadcast, and a very thin crop of winter 
rye, is most generally preferred in the United States; though drills, by enabling 
the cultivator to keep out grasses and weeds, promises the greatest permanency 
to the crop. A gentleman who has sown in drills, three feet apart, and culti¬ 
vated alternate rows of mangel wurzel with the lucerne, speaks in high com¬ 
mendation of the practice. Arthur Young recommends drilling at nine inches. 
The quantity of seed, when the broadcast method is adopted, is from fifteen to 
twenty pounds; in the United States, sixteen pounds is the usual quantity,— 
and when drilled, eight to twelve pounds suffices. The ground should be per¬ 
fectly pulverized, the seed put in with a fine harrow, and the operation of sow¬ 
ing finished with the roller. 
The after culture of lucerne, sown broadcast, consists in harrowing, in the 
spring, to destroy grass and weeds; rolling, after harrowing, to smooth the soil 
for the scythe, and such occasional top-dressing of gypsum, ashes, or rotted ma¬ 
nure, as the plants may require, or the conveniences of the farm best afford. 
The harrowing may commence the second year, and the weeds collected 
should always be carefully removed. In succeeding years two harrowings may 
be applied, one in spring and the other in the latter part of summer. If in drills, 
the crop must be kept clean by the hoe, drill-harrow, &c. Liquid manure from 
the cattle yard, is an excellent manure for this crop. 
The taking of lucerne, by mowing for soiling, or hay, or by teethering, hurd¬ 
ling or pasturing, may be considered the same as for clover. Lucerne frequent¬ 
ly attains a sufficient growth for the scythe from the lOlhto the 20th May; and 
in soils that are favorable for its culture, it well be in a state of readiness for 
cutting in the course of a month or five weeks longer, being capable of under¬ 
going the same operation, at nearly similar intervals of time, during the whole 
of the summer season. In the United Slates, in a good soil, it may be cut, for 
soiling, four, and sometimes five times, in the season. 
The application of lucerne, is with us generally for the purpose of soiling, 
with the exception sometimes of the last cutting. It is advantageously fed in 
its green state to horses, cattle and hogs; but as a dry lodder, it is also capable 
of affording much assistance, and as an early food for ewes and lambs, may be 
of great value in particular cases. All agree in extolling it as food for cows, 
whether in a green or dried state; and is it said to be much superior to clover, 
both in increasing the milk and butter, and in improving its flavor. In its green 
state, care is necessary not to feed too much at a time, especially when moist, 
as cattle may become hoven or blown with it. It is a good precaution to cut it 
the day before it is used, and to let it wiltin the swath. When made into hay, 
lucerne should never be spread from the swath, but managed as directed for 
clover. It may be housed before it is perfectly dry, if it is alternated on the 
mow, with layers of straw, which imbibe the superabundant juices, and there¬ 
by become grateful and nutricious to the farm stock, when fed with the lu¬ 
cerne. 
Soiling is a term applied to the practice of cutting herbage crops green, for 
feeding or fattening live stock. On all farms, under correct management, a part 
of this crop is cut green for the working horses, often for milch cows, even 
when at pasture, and, in some instances, both for growing and fattening cattle. 
On small farms, this crop is of immense advantage, as affording a ready substi¬ 
tute for pasture. 
The produce of lucerne, cut three times in a season, has been stated from three 
to five, and even eight tons per acre. In the first volume of the Memoirs of the 
Society for the promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, in New- 
York, is the detail of various experiments made by the late Chancellor Living¬ 
ston, with lucerne; and one of the results gives twenty-five tons of hay, at five 
cuttings in a season, from an acre. In soiling, one acre is sufficient for five or 
six cows during the soiling season. One of our farmers has kept eight cattle, 
two oxen and six cows, upon an acre of lucerne, during the season, with a 
range of three or four acres of pasture. Say, however, that the produce is 
equal to a full crop of red clover, in value, then, if continued yearly for nine 
or ten years, (its ordinary duration in a productive state) at an annual expense 
of harrowing and rolling, and a triennial expense of top-dressing, it will be of 
sufficient value to induce farmers, who have suitable soils and climates, to lay 
down a few acres of this crop near their homesteds. 
To save seed, the lucerne may be treated precisely as red clover, i. e. obtain¬ 
ed from the second cutting, or even the third, the crop being left to ripen its 
seed. It is easily threshed, the grains being contained in small pods, which 
readily separate under the flail, threshing machine or clover mill. 
THE SILK BUSINESS .—( Concluded from page 4.) 
Having planted our trees, and got them under good way, and provided a co¬ 
coonery, let us now look for our 
Eggs .—These are received densely clustered upon paper, where the parent 
moth has deposited them. It is well to remark here, that the product of these 
eggs, is a small caterpillar, which, after undergoing several metamorphoses, 
becomes again a moth, or sort of butterfly. “ The color of the worm, for the 
first eight or ten days after hatching, is an obscure black. It casts its skin at 
stated periods, until it has attained its largest size, when it becomes yellow. 
It is about three inches long when full grown, covered with scattering hairs, 
and has a small fleshy tubercle on the upper end of the last ring. After con¬ 
structing its cocoon, which is usually about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and 
similar in shape, it is transformed into a chrysalis, and subsequently to a moth. 
After remaining in the cocoon about twenty days, it forces its way out, and 
dies immediately after depositing its eggs, to the number of 500 or more, which 
are attached together by a gummy substance. The several ages of the worm 
amount to thirty-two days, but have been known to extend to sixty.” The 
cut below shows the appearance of the silk worm in its different stages, and of 
the moth. 
Fig. 10—Eggs. 11—First age. Fig. 12—Second age. 
“o ?" 
-gh-r-ng. 
» • * 0 » o 
oo 
Fig. 13—Third age. Fig. 14.—Fourth age. 
Fig. 15.—Fifth age. 
“ It is time to hatch the eggs when the mulberry leaves are about the bigness 
of the thumb,”—so says the maxim, and so says reason—for nature has fitted 
the young worms to subsist on the young leaves. Bring your eggs lrora tl e 
cellar, or whereverthey have been deposited for safe keeping, and expose them 
t> the action of the air of the sitting-room. In a day or two, the worm 3 w ill 
