THE CULTIVATOR. 
109 
and the Spanish, and the latter is believed to be too tender for this 
latitude, though it succeeds well on York Island. The growth of 
this tree is rapid, and the uses to which the timber is applied on the 
farm are various and important. Large tracts are appropriated to 
its growth in Pennsylvania for charcoal. It will bear cutting over 
once in fifteen years for this purpose. A friend informed us, that a 
chesnut tree was cut, in his youth, to supply shingles for a barn ; 
that when the shingles were decayed so far as that the barn requi¬ 
red re-shingling, the sprouts which had grown from the old stump 
had grown so large as to furnish shingles for the purpose. A sandy 
loam produces the chesnut in the greatest perfection, though it 
grows well in clayey soils, if free from stagnant moisture. The 
seeds may be sown in early spring, and may be preserved in dry 
earth during winter. Michaux recommends that they be kept in 
earth in a cellar, where they will sprout before planting time. 
Plane —( Platanus ) or button wood tree. Sow the seeds imme¬ 
diately after they are gathered. The plane is also propagated by 
layers or cuttings. It prefers a moist loam, and grows rapidly. 
Elm —( Ulmus )—The seed of the elm falls from the 20th to 30th 
May. It should be immediately gathered and sown in drills, in well 
prepared soil. It often grows 18 to 24 inches the first year. We 
have gathered the seed of the elm, soft maple and plane tree (the 
latter of the preceding years growth) on the 25th and 28th of May, 
sown immediately, and had fine plants the same season. 
Whitewood —(Lyriodendrum tulipefera ) or tulip tree, is one of 
the most magnificent trees of our forest, whether we regard size, or 
the beauty of its foliage and flowers; and it is also a valuable tim¬ 
ber tree. We lately measured a log of this tree at Lockport, and 
found it 6 feet 2 inches in diameter. Michaux speaks of one which 
measured 22 feet 6 inches in circumference. The seeds may be 
gathered and sown like those of the linden. 
CONE-BEARING TREES. 
These are the pines, firs, larches, &c. which may be beneficially 
cultivated in plantations, in belts or clumps, for shelter, ornament or 
timber. The larch and Scotch fir, in particular, are extensively and 
profitably planted in Great Britain and Flanders, for forest timber. 
The seeds are enveloped in the scales of the cone, where they are 
best preserved till wanted for use, but from which it is difficult to 
extract some kinds of them. If thrown into an oven of moderate 
temperature, the scales open, and the seeds are separated with a 
flail. But where this is done, the seeds should be afterwards ga¬ 
thered in a heap, and slightly sprinked with water, that they may 
imbibe the moisture of which they have been artificially deprived, 
and which seems essential to the preservation of the vegetating 
principle. To extract the seeds from some of the large compact 
cones, it is common first to split them into halves or quarters, by 
driving a spike or sharp piece of wood into the pith of the cone, at 
the butt end. 
FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 
Agricultural improvement is receiving a new and vigorous impe¬ 
tus, from the active labors of eminent men in science and practice, 
associates of the Royal and Central Society of France. Science has 
been long made subservient to the improvement of the manufactur¬ 
ing and mechanic arts of that country; but it was not until recent¬ 
ly that associations of learned men directed their knowledge to the 
improvement of her agriculture, the primary source of national pro¬ 
sperity and greatness. In the sitting in April, M. Passy, minister 
of commerce and public works, presiding, prizes were awarded to 
the amount of several thousand francs, for improvements in agricul¬ 
ture, as for draining, for works, memoirs and observations on the 
veterinary practice, for plantations of the mulberry tree, and on va¬ 
rious agricultural improvements. Among the prizes awarded, we 
observe mention made of the splendid work on agriculture, 2 vols. 
quarto, of Olivier of Serres, an edition of which has been printed at 
the expense of the society. A gold medal was awarded to M. 
Graux, for having obtained, in his flock, a new race of sheep, with 
soft glossy wool, which he has succeeded, by continual pains for six 
years, to preserve and multiply in its purity. 
The prizes advertised for future competition, indicate an enlight¬ 
ened policy, which looks to the substantial improvement of French 
agriculture. They embrace, among other, the following ob¬ 
jects :— 
The introduction, into the different cantons, of new species of nu¬ 
tritive herbage. 
Biographical notices of theoretical farmers, cultivators or writers, 
worthy of being better known for the services they have rendered 
to agriculture. 
Translations of foreign works of merit on domestic and rural eco¬ 
nomy. 
For memoirs, &c. on veterinary medicine, and on irrigation—and 
for artesian wells. 
For plantations of the apple and pear into cantons where they are 
not grown; for plantations of mulberry trees ; for draining; for nur- 
-eries and plantations of cork trees ; and for the propagation of good 
species of fruit trees by means of nurseries. To the last object, a 
prize of 1,000 francs and two gold medals, are to be awarded in 
1848. 
For the discovery of a simple and cheap means, within the power 
of small cultivators, to preserve wheat from the attacks of insects, a 
prize of 1,000 francs. For the discovery of means to arrest the ra¬ 
vages of insects in grain already attacked, 500 francs. For good 
observations upon the natural history of these insects, medals of 
gold, silver, and works on agriculture. 
The prizes offered for improvements in the beet culture, and the 
fabrication of beet sugar, as stated in our last, amount to eight or 
ten thousand francs. The franc, our readers will recollect, is about 
18jj certs. 
From the report of M. Boffin, vice-secretary, we make the follow¬ 
ing extracts, which may afford useful hints to our exclusively wheat 
or tobacco farmers: 
“In times not very remote from our own, the production of bread 
stuffs, of wheat, above all, considered as the almost exclusive means 
of human subsistence, was, so to speak, the only object of agricul¬ 
ture, and that was an object not always actually obtained. Even 
yet, in many quarters, the idea of agriculture is associated almost 
exclusively with the plough ; with waiving fields of wheat; with 
harvests ready to fall beneath the sickle of the reaper. Artificial 
meadows were then unknown. Stock was rare, because the spon¬ 
taneous herbage on which their chief dependance was for subsis¬ 
tence, was rare also. The potato, still neglected in many places, 
was far from being supposed capable of furnishing a fifth part of 
the subsistence of a great nation! The introduction of esculent 
roots was then very far from being regarded as the commencement 
of a struggle with grasses and grain, in which the former are al¬ 
ready half victorious. The soil exhausted by the too rapid succes¬ 
sion of the crops of corn, was fast tending to the lowest degree of 
sterility. 
“ But in the labors, as in the institutions of mankind, the evil of¬ 
ten makes its appearance by the side of the remedy. The reduc¬ 
tion of the price of wheat, accruing from its almost exclusive culti¬ 
vation for human subsistence, became so excessive, as to counter¬ 
balance the effect of all that had been previously attempted for the 
amelioration of agriculture. When we consider this reduction of 
price accompanied with the consequences which have sprung from 
it in our own times, it may well be made a question, whether we 
ought rather to regard it as an evil or a blessing; or rather as a 
fact inherent in the nature of things, than a result which should ex¬ 
cite any profound inquietude 1” * * “Agriculture, then, if it 
would avoid the periodical phenomenon to which I have alluded, and 
from which it has suffered so extensively, must seek other sources 
of profit than the culture of bread stuffs alone.” 
“The beet root has come, at length, to sanction the scientific pre¬ 
dictions which were made of its capabilities, and the hopes to which 
they gave rise are in a rapid train of realization. The beet root is 
at last becoming a great, an incalculable source of wealth to French 
agriculture and industry, and never, of all the plants of the earth, 
has any vegetable produced for France and Europe, so extensive 
and so beneficent a revolution. I will not repeat here all that has 
been said upon this result. It is but fifteen years since Vicompt de 
Morel Vende, presented the beet root, which had just then been so 
warmly recommended for its properties, by Chaptal—presented it, I 
say, as the best possible substitute for following, in a quadriennial 
succession of crops; and that skilful agronomist (agronome) thus 
combined the universal improvement of our agriculture with the fa¬ 
brication of indigenous sugar. If then, we would improve our land 
and our culture, we ought to cultivate the beet, even if it yielded us 
none of the rich product of sugar. It is, therefore, that the Royal 
Society of Agriculture has deemed that it was rendering a signal ser¬ 
vice to the country, in seeking to propagate the culture of the beet 
root—in making it a general and common property of the soil, where 
natural circumstances would permit, and in introducing, even to the 
