THE CULTIVATOR. 
Ill 
wood, Va. has 3,000 acres of land, on the Blue Ridge, Orange co. 
Va. eminently calculated for sheep pasture, and is desirous of asso¬ 
ciating with some gentlemen of the north, of enterprise and capital, 
familiar with the business. Mr. G.’s letter may be seen at this of¬ 
fice, or he may be addressed, as above, by letter. 
Madder. —Jas. Eaton, of West Winfield, who cultivates this crop, 
is convinced, from experience, that it is best to let it stand four or 
five years. A single hill, thus left, afforded him eight pounds nine 
ounces of the best ground madder. An acre, he says, will contain 
1,200 hills, thus affording, at this rate, 10,000 pounds. Mr. Eaton 
will take up a crop in September, and will furnish seed (offsets,) at 
$3 per bushel. 
The Borer .—We have received from L. U. Lawrence, of Hud¬ 
son, a specimen bug, which, in its larvae or caterpillar state, becomes 
destructive to the peach and quince trees, and we suspect the apple, 
by entering "near the ground, and perforating the wood. The speci¬ 
men sent us is the Saperda bivittata of Say. Prof. Say, in a letter to 
the conductor, in 1825, states that he has 130 species of this family 
of insects in his cabinet. The insect leaves the pupa and becomes 
perfect in the latter part of April, and the eggs are soon after depo¬ 
sited at or beneath the surface of the soil. The professor recom¬ 
mends the application of bricklayer’s clay around the base of the 
tree, as a preventive, and states that it has been successfully em¬ 
ployed by Mr. Shotwell. Lime and ashes, we think, by their caus¬ 
tic quality, will equally serve as a preventive. We are very much in 
doubt whether the specimen sent us is the peach borer, though we 
recognize it as the apple borer, and a Saperda. It may have been 
caught in a strange garret. 
Ants .—A Salisbury, Ct. correspondent, complains that himself 
and neighbors are very much pestered with large black ants, and 
also to some extent by the small red ones, and requests that some 
one will prescribe a remedy that will prevent the incursions of this 
army of thieves. Ants cohabit in numerous parties, and maintain a 
sort of republic, like bees, and like them to collect and lay up provi¬ 
sions for time of want. The readiest way to destroy them, is to turn 
scalding water, from the nozzle of a tea-kettle or coffee-pot, into 
their haunts. Or, put four ounces of sublimate into two gallons of 
water, and with a painter’s brush, wash the shelves and walls which 
they frequent with the solution. A mixture of quick-lime and soot, 
strewed upon the shelves they visit, is said to keep them off. In 
the south, we are told, they are very troublesome; and that the on¬ 
ly effectual mode of preserving provisions from their depredations, is 
to place the latter upon a table, and to set the legs of the table in 
small vessels of oil, so that the ants cannot get access to it. 
ID 3 Mr. Ingham’s communication will appear in our next number 
without charge; and other favors of correspondents, now unavoida¬ 
bly omitted, will receive proper attention. 
_ C OIIR E S V O N 6 y E N T C E. 
ADRIANCE’S PATENT CORN-SHELLER. 
Mr. Buel—Sir—O f all the labor- 
saving machines yet offered to the 
public, Green’s Straw Cutter and the 
Corn Sheller stand pre-eminent. 
The Corn Sheller is one of the 
most convenient and useful imple¬ 
ments that the practical farmer has 
in use. Various machines for this 
purpose have been invented, from the 
handle of the frying-pan and fire sho¬ 
vel, up to the machine figured above ; 
the most improved and best adapted 
for common use, as it is quite simple 
in its construction, and durable in 
operation, being made of iron, and no 
way liable to get out of order. A 
man to turn and a boy to feed it, will 
shell from twelve to fifteen bushels 
per hour. On a trial, to ascertain 
how much could be shelled in a cer¬ 
tain time, two bushels of ears were shelled in three minutes. By 
substituting a pully or wheel for the crank, it may be attached to a 
horse power, and a much larger quantity may be shelled in the same 
time. It is so light and portable, that it can be moved from place to 
place with great case. 
There are various kinds, and some on the same principle of the 
above, differing only in the frames being of wood instead of iron. 
There are, also, double ones, with wooden frames, shelling two ears 
at the same time. 
I have used one to shell my corn, and was much surprised, from 
the rapidity with which it operates, that it does not injure the ker¬ 
nel ; and, judging from what little experience I have had, the ex¬ 
pense of the machine may be soon saved in measurement, as it com¬ 
pletely strips the ear of every kernel. Besides, it may be worked 
in a room in the evening, when threshing with horses or the flail 
would be entirely out of the question. 
By means of a spiral spring and screw, it may be graduated for 
large or small sized ears. 
They need only to be known to be used; and a person might as 
well think of eating soup with a fork, as to shell corn the old fashion¬ 
ed way, after seeing one of these in operation. 
The above cut, (fig. 38,) represents one of Adriance’s patent iron 
frame machines, manufactured at Poughkeepsie, and kept for sale at 
the Agricultural Repository of Mr. William Thorburn, No. 317 N. 
Market-street, corner of Maiden-Lane, Albany. Price 815. Dou¬ 
ble ones, with wooden frames, $16, delivered at the store. 
Having used one of the above and tested its qualities, I cheerfully 
recommend them to the public. CALEB N. BEMENT. 
Three Hills Farm, August 15, 1836. 
THE GRAIN WEEVIL. 
Mr. J. Buel —I have lately become acquainted with your very 
useful periodical the Cultivator, and have become one of your pa¬ 
trons. I observe in your number for the present month a communi¬ 
cation on weevils, signed “ A Miller and subscriber,” which induces 
me to throw out a few observations or remarks on the subject, 
which, if worth inserting, you will give a place in your paper. In 
the year 1808 I was under the necessity of repairing my dwelling 
house; whilst the mechanics were at work, we were obliged to re¬ 
sort to the barn to eat our meals. Previous to which the barn was 
pretty thoroughly cleaned out,,the floor was scrubbed, the timbers 
swept, the poles turned over, the ground under the floor and bay 
scraped out, and all the litter taken out that could be got at, which 
had been accumulating for several years previously. During seve¬ 
ral years prior to this cleaning, my barn had been infested with 
weevil to an alarming extent; after the cleaning, as I have men¬ 
tioned, the weevil were constantly on the move, crawling over the 
table and dishes in every direction. I put my wheat and rye har¬ 
vest into the barn that and every succeeding season since, and have 
not, from that time to this, (which you will observe is thirty years,) 
seen a weevil about my barn, and I am fully convinced that any 
barn or mill may be cleared of weevil by cleaning, but it must be 
well done. A. B. W. 
Hamptonburgh, July 25th, 1836. 
ENEMIES OF THE WHEAT CROP. 
Mr. Buel — Dear Sir —As the section of country in which I live 
is peculiarly a wheat country, and owing to which the farmers here 
have particularly devoted their time and their talents to the cultivation 
and improvement of that crop, as affording the greatest profit from 
the least labor and expense, you may well suppose that a consi¬ 
derable degree of anxiety will be felt about every thing that in¬ 
volves the safety and stability of this important article of agricul¬ 
ture and consumption. 
So far as I have been able to discover, there are three kinds of 
insects, committing altogether a considerable damage to the wheat 
crop in this neighborhood, whose operations, though known, are as 
yet without the reach of any adequate remedy. The species which 
has caused the greatest mischief, is the wheat fly, (Cecidomyia 
Tritici) whose mode of operations, so far as I have been led to ob¬ 
serve, differ materially from that laid down in your paper as charac¬ 
teristic of this insect. Cultivator, vol. 1st, page 124, is the follow¬ 
ing—“ It lays its eggs within the glumes of the florets, in clusters 
varying in number from two to ten, or even to fifteen, and the larvae 
feed upon the grain. They are produced from the eggs in the 
course of eight or ten days ; they are at first perfectly transparent, 
and assume a yellow color a few days afterwards ; they travel not 
from one floret to another, and forty-seven have been numbered in 
one. Occasionally there are found in the same floret, larvae and a 
grain which is generally shriveled, as if deprived of nourishment; 
and although the pollen may furnish the larvae with food in the first 
instance, thev soon crowd around the lower part of the germen- and 
Fig. 38. 
