THE CULTIVATOR. 
125 
through the like strata in chamber B, from which latter it may be 
drawn by a cock at c, perfectly pure and fit for use, or raised by a 
pump. The gravel employed should be coarse and clean ; the char¬ 
coal pure, and well pounded. There are three strata of gravel, as 
indicated by G, and two of charcoal, C. 
Fig. 40. 
New Drill Barrow. —We have received from the inventor, Mr. 
Niram R. Merchant, of Guilford, Chenango co. the compliment of 
a Drill Barrow, of peculiar simplicity and cheapness; and if we are 
permitted to judge from its appearance, without having given it a 
trial, it will be found a very economical and useful implement in the 
hands of every farmer and gardener in the country, who is not already 
provided with a drill barrow. Mr. Merchant has been selling the 
machines at $2 each. It may be adapted to the sowing of turnips, 
onions, radishes, beans, beets, &c. by manual power, and by multi¬ 
plying the wheels, or rather, by uniting several machines, for horse 
power, it may be used in field culture, for mangold wurtzel, wheat, 
&c. Thus combined, we think it would resemble the drill used in 
France, in sowing the beet for sugar, which Mr. Pedder highly com¬ 
mends, and which there sells at 100 francs. This barrow is repre¬ 
sented in the cut below. A, A, are the two sides of the frame, 16 
inches long, connected at each extremity by cross pieces. B, is a 
wheel, 10 inches in diameter, and 4 inches broad, made of wood. 
C, is a coulter attached to the forward cross piece. D, is the hop¬ 
per, in which the seed is placed. F, F, are the handles, by which 
the machine is impelled and guided. Back of the hopper, is a roller, 
attached to which is a metal slide, not perceptible in the cut, perfo¬ 
rated with a hole of the size of the seed to be sown, which slides 
close to the bottom of the hopper. The roller is moved when the 
machine is in motion, by stout wires seen in the diagram. When the 
machine is in motion, the coulter, C, makes the drill, into which the 
seed immediately drops; two pieces of round iron project down di¬ 
agonally, from the sides, which throw the mould upon the seeds, 
and the wheel then passes over, and operates as a roller. 
Fig. 41. 
Wilson's Mowing Machine. —This machine is figured and describ¬ 
ed in another page, to which we refer the reader. It was received 
so late that we have only time to say, that we have seen it in ope- 
raton, and think it well adapted to economise labor in large, smooth- 
bottomed meadows, where the inventor designed to have it operate. 
Wheat Worm. —We observe, in the Genesee Farmer of the 3d 
of September, an interesting article upon this insect, from the pen 
of Wdlis Gaylord, one of the best agricultural writers of our country. 
Mr. Gaylord closes his paper with the remark, that “ since it appears 
that in many instances the fly is perpetuated by the eggs of worms en¬ 
closed in the wheat sown, would it not be good policy to use wheat 
two years or more old for seed, as such wheat, if it were originally 
affected with the worm, must have lost them by their previous trans¬ 
formation!” If the egg of the worm is deposited on the seed, of 
which we have strong doubts, it is not exclusively so. In 1834, we 
obtained select seed, from the mouth of the Genesee river. The 
crop looked very flattering, till the heads were developed; and yet 
we estimated that seven-eighths of the crop was subsequently de¬ 
stroyed by the worm. The seed was sown late in October. Last 
fall we received a sample of wheat from New-Jersey, which was 
sown in our garden. The worm has literally destroyed it all. A 
few grains of spring wheat from Rome, was sown in our garden late 
in May. It is now, Sept. 9, in the milk. On a close examination, 
we do not find any of the worm in it. The seed from Genesee and 
New-Jersey, could not have contained the egg of the insect. Our 
observation seems to confirm the opinion, that the insect appears 
about the time that wheat, sown the last of September, or the early 
spring sown varieties, come? into ear, and that it remains but a few 
days in the maggot state ; and that the early fall, or late spring 
sown crops will be most exempt from its attacks. We have used 
salt and lime, in all the ways suggested, without discovering in them 
any preventive of the evil. 
The Season has been highly inauspicious to the farmer, and to the 
country. The hopes, feeble as they were, of tolerable fall crops, 
have, in many uistricts, been already blasted by the early frosts.— 
A letter from Seneca Falls of the 10th Sept, says, “ Our corn is all 
cut off by the frosts. I am cutting up mine. Our buckwheat is 
equally destroyed. Our wheat, in threshing out, produces not much 
more than half what the bulk of straw warrants the anticipation of.” 
We learn that the frosts have been equally severe in many other 
sections of the state. We ascribe our exemption from frosts, to the 
circumstance of our land being well underdrained, by which humi¬ 
dity has been prevented, and the soil become charged in a higher 
degree with caloric, while our neighbors’ crops have suffered. 
The prospect before us strongly admonishes to prudence, and the 
husbanding of all our means. As one of the available means, we 
mention the products of the orchard, as applicable to the sustenance 
and fattening of hogs—in place of corn and other grain, and for the 
winter feeding of all farm stock. Another and a great saving may 
be made by grinding all the grain which is fed out, and by cooking 
all our hog-feed. By these items of economy, good judges have es¬ 
timated that a saving of one-half is effected. Nor should we fail to 
economise our hay and corn-stalks; for although hay has been a 
good crop, the scarcity of grain and roots will enhance its value. 
Remember that a saving of 30 per cent is effected by the use of 
Greene’s Straw Cutter ; that in feeding 30 tons of hay, this saving 
amounts to 9 tons, which at $10 per ton, gives the round sum of 
$90—enough to buy three Straw Cutters, or one and $60 worth of 
New-Year’s presents for the wife and girls—or a snug Farmer’s 
Library. 
After we had penned the above, we learnt verbally, and by the 
public journals, that the frosts have been more extensive and inju¬ 
rious than we anticipated ; and that most of the corn and buckwheat 
in the north have been partially or wholly destroyed, A Maine pa¬ 
per represents, that the corn in that neighborhood has been killed 
before it had become fit to boil; and we are told in the Buffalo 
Whig, that the frost of the 12th ult. had “swept all before it,” in 
the south towns of that county. On the other hand, the late warm 
weather has been highly advantageous in ripening the fall crops, in 
districts which had escaped frost. Our corn crop was harvested in 
fine condition before the frost affected it. 
Top-dressing Grass Lands. —An important fact in regard to this 
matter, has been communicated to us by an intelligent visitor, viz. 
that the same quantity of manure is twice or thrice as beneficial on 
young as it is on old meadow. Plants, like animals, if stinted or 
half starved when young, seldom acquire great vigor or luxuriance 
