THE CULTIVATOR. 
9 
rest, that gives the most nutritive matter with the least 
manure. No doubt to this circumstance must be attri¬ 
buted the extension which has taken place in the culture 
of this plant in the last 30 years. It may be seen in the 
following tables, that in two years the carbon taken from 
the air, from the surface of a hectare, rose to 13,237 kil- 
logrammes, and the weight of azote over that contained 
in the dung was almost doubled.” 
These facts are interesting, as proving that water is 
decomposed during vegetation; that carbon is derived 
from the air as well as from the earth; and, what we 
believe had never before been satisfactorily established, 
that azote, one of the most important agents of animal 
nutrition, can be assimilated from the atmosphere by 
vegetables. Do they not also furnish an explanation of 
a system which has been found very satisfactory by some 
of our wheat growers, but which, on the commonly re¬ 
ceived principles of husbandry, would hardly seem to 
warrant the results which have flowed from it. A friend 
of ours who sows annually some fifty acres of wheat, 
has never drawn a load of manure upon much of his 
most productive wheat lands. He sows clover with his 
wheat, plasters his wheat and clover* and has a crop of 
wheat on the same fields every third year. He keeps 
some 300 sheep to pasture down his clover, but they are 
not put into the fields until a heavy growth is on the 
land. What they do not eat decays on the soil, and as 
the growth of clover is luxuriant, the matter returned to 
the earth in the shape of manure, decaying clover, and 
the vigorous roots when the fields are broken up for 
summer fallow, unquestionably exceeds in weight that 
of the wheat crop taken from the land. As a large part 
of the substance of the plants grown, both of the wheat 
and the clover, is derived from the atmosphere, as the 
above experiments of M. Boussingault demonstrates, 
(and the experience of every farmer would indicate,) 
there could be no good reason given why such a course 
should not continue to be productive, unless indeed the 
soil should have become exhausted of some of the princi¬ 
ples required in the perfection of the wheat plant, to 
restore which, rest and a different succession of plants 
may be adopted; though in the example alluded to, no 
such necessity has yet appeared, the crops under the sys¬ 
tem indicating a decided improvement. 
The following, selected from the tables of M. Bous¬ 
singault, will be found interesting, as showing the pro¬ 
portion of the several elements alluded to, in the sub¬ 
stances named in the table. 
THEIR. ASHES COMPOSED OF 
Substances. 
Dry matter 
Water. 
Carbon. 
Hydrogen. 
Oxygen. 
Azote. 
Ashes. 
Wheat,. 
0.855 
0.145 
46. 
1 
05.8 
43. 
4 
02.3 
02.4 
Rye,. 
0.834 
0.166 
46. 
2 
05.6 
44. 
2 
01.7 
02.3 
Oats, ••••••«■••• 
0.792 
0.208 
50. 
7 
06.4 
36. 
7 
02.2 
04.0 
Wheat straw,.. . 
0.740 
0.260 
48. 
4 
05.3 
38. 
9 
00.4 
07.0 
Rye straw,.. 
0.813 
0.187 
49. 
9 
05.6 
40. 
6 
00.3 
03.6 
Oat straw,. 
0.715 
0.287 
50. 
1 
05.4 
39. 
0 
00.4 
05.1 
Potatoes,. 
0.241 
0.759 
54. 
0 
05.8 
44. 
7 
01.5 
04.0 
Field beet,. 
0.122 
0.878 
42. 
8 
05.8 
43. 
4 
01.7 
06.3 
Turneps,. 
0.070 
0.925 
42. 
9 
05.5 
42. 
3 
01.7 
07.6 
Jerusalem Art’e, 
0.203 
0.392 
43. 
3 
05.8 
43. 
3 
01.6 
06.0 
Yellow pea,. 
0.914 
0.086 
46. 
5 
06.240. 
0 
04.2 
03.1 
Pea straw,. 
Red clover hay,. 
0.832 
0.118 
45. 
8 
05.2 
35. 
6 
02.3 
11.3 
0.792 
0.210 
47. 
4 
05.0 
37. 
8 
02.1 
07.0 
Stem of Jeru. art. 
0.871 
0.129 
45. 
7 
05.4 
45. 
7 
00.4 
02.8 
Manure (mean,) 
0.204 
0.796 
38. 
8 
04.0 
23. 
6 
01.9 
36.7 
terest in the discussions, and the paucity of topics intro¬ 
duced. To do away these objections, we propose the 
following method. Let the members of these neighbor¬ 
hood clubs, provide themselves with a number of the 
best agricultural publications of the country, each one, 
if he chooses, making his own selection; let these publi¬ 
cations be a common stock for the benefit of the mem¬ 
bers ; let meetings be held once a month, at which these 
publications shall be returned, exchanges made, the va¬ 
rious matters found in them discussed, and the practical 
experience of the members for or against the several opin¬ 
ions advanced, be made known. We can hardly imagine 
that in such case the meetings would be uninteresting 
or uninstructive. At the close of the year, the numbers 
of each volume could be collected and bound, and ere 
long an agricultural library for the use of the club would 
be established, of the most valuable kind. Few indivi¬ 
duals are found who are able to procure all the journals 
of this class they would like to read, nor can any one 
journal embody all the valuable papers and facts that 
are furnished for the information of the public. In this 
way an individual can command the reading, and avail 
himself of the information given in, the best farming 
periodicals of this country or the world, without any ex¬ 
tra trouble or expense. 
Should any neighborhood of cultivators be disposed to 
adopt our suggestion, we may be permitted to recom¬ 
mend, after our own Cultivator, The New England Far¬ 
mer, The Farmer’s Monthly Visitor, The Maine Far¬ 
mer, The Farmer’s Cabinet, The Franklin Farmer, The 
Yankee Farmer, American Farmer, and particularly 
Ruffin’s Farmer’s Register, one of the best publications 
in this or any other country. Of European works, the 
London Farmer’s Magazine is the best. 
Gov. Hill’s Agricultural Address. 
The October number of the Farmer’s Monthly Visi 
tor contains an address delivered at Keene, N. H., Sept 
1839, by the editor of that paper, the Hon. Isaac Hill. 
The address is a sound and able production ; character¬ 
ized by the strong and clear common sense views, anc 
straight forward practical manner of the author,—qual¬ 
ities most important in the man who wishes to impress 
valuable truths upon plain, hard laboring, but close rea- 
Mutual Improvement—Clubs. 
What, we would ask, is there to forbid farmers’ soi¬ 
rees, or converzaziones ? or, if such words would be con¬ 
sidered too much in the fashionable or boarding school 
style for the farmer, let the word “ club” be substituted, 
and then we shall have farmers’ clubs,—meetings we 
think both desirable and practicable. Intercourse with 
each other is what the cultivators of the soil need, to 
enlarge their views, diffuse information, promote inqui¬ 
ry, and create a feeling of unity of interest and concert 
of action, so necessary in all communities. It is the con¬ 
tact of mind with mind that brightens the faculties, and 
elicits light, as the collision of the flint and steel produ¬ 
ces the spark and the flame. Horticultural meetings 
of any kind have a tendency to these good effects; insti¬ 
tutes, societies, clubs, all co-operate to the same end, 
and with different degrees of effectiveness, contribute to 
the same result. 
In England, where the science of agriculture, and the 
means of improving it, are as well understood, to say the 
least, as in any part of the world, clubs, or neighborhood 
meetings of farmers, for the discussion of agricultural 
topics, have been found among the most effectual aids 
the cause of the farmer could receive. That such would 
be the case in this country, we see little room to doubt; 
in fact the influence of our county and town societies, 
furnishes the most conclusive evidence on this point. It 
may indeed be said that the greater diffusion of agricul¬ 
tural periodicals in this country, renders such meetings 
less necessary than in the old country, where such pa¬ 
pers or books are rare. This may in part be true, but 
could not these two means of improvement be brought 
to act together, and thus exert an influence more favor¬ 
able and more powerful, than both acting singly and de¬ 
tached from each other. 
The difficulty in originating and sustaining such clubs, 
has been found to arise from the want of continued in- 
soning men; such as constitute the great mass of our 
agricultural population. 
We would willingly lay a large part of the address be 
fore our readers, but our limited space forbids, and we 
shall give a few disconnected paragraphs, cordially re¬ 
commending the careful perusal of the whole to such as 
are fortunate enough to possess it. In speaking of the 
great advantages of New England, in point of morals, 
education, means of wealth, and general excellence of 
habits in her population, Gov. Hill remarks that “ Man’s 
Necessity is his greatest temporal blessing.” 
Strange as this assertion may seem to the man who 
obtains his bread by the sweat of his brow, by labor 
either physical or mental, there can be no proposition 
more strictly true. That New England owes her ex- 
emption at this time from the curse of slavery that once 
like a dark cloud overshadowed her hills and plains, to 
the stern necessity imposed upon her sons, by her soil 
and her climate, that each one should exert himself for 
his own subsistence, is not made more clear by Gov. 
Hill, than the position that to the same necessity she 
owes her healthy state of intellectual feeling, and high 
tone of moral cultivation. Look at the world, and see 
where intellectual effort and moral light the most abound! 
where man approaches the nearest to his destiny, a state 
little lower thanffhat of angels ; or where he is sunk in 
apathy and idleness, and in physical or mental energy 
rises but a shade above the brute. Men rise the highest 
in the scale of being when necessity induces activity of 
both mind and body; when the physical partis employ¬ 
ed in carrying out the ideas and conceptions that spring 
from the active energies of the instructed mind. The 
great truth is, there is never any advance made in civil¬ 
ization, knowledge, and their attendant blessings, till 
want is realized. The voluptuous, imbecile inhabitant 
of the Southern Pacific isles, whose wants are sponta¬ 
neously supplied by nature, whose bread is produced on 
the trees that overhang his hut, whose clothing is limit¬ 
ed to the merestfragment, whose cloudless skyprecludes 
all care for shelter, except perhaps from an occasional 
shower,—have been found the most difficult of all peo¬ 
ple to rouse from their listlessness to the hope of a bright¬ 
er destiny; and why ? Because it was impossible to 
convince them they had any wants. Widely different 
has it been with the New Englander; from the landing 
on the Rock at Plymouth, necessity has forbid any pause 
to exertion, and the beneficial results are such as cannot 
be mistaken. 
In illustrating the position that “ The practice of far¬ 
mers in New England [and, we may add, elsewhere,] is 
to go over too much ground ; he relates the following: 
“A rich man of the society of Friends, who owns estates 
in the vicinity of Wilmington, in the state of Delaware, leas¬ 
ed a single acre of good land to a poor man in his neighbor¬ 
hood, with the condition of furnishing him with a horse and 
cart twice a week to go to market. The product of the acre 
was to be divided equally ; and the owner’s annual share, 
on an average of five years, was $174.20, making the income 
of the acre $248.40 a year. The owner and tenant did well 
for five years on the single acre ; but the latter thought he 
had not business enough, and asked for another acre, the use 
of which was granted with the same division, on the condi¬ 
tion of adding the use and services of a man, a horse and a 
plough occasionally. To the owner, and to the tenant of 
course, the whole proceeds were less from the two acres, for 
a second term, than they had been from the one acre for the 
first term.” 
The benefits of agricultural associations are enforced 
by Gov. Hill in the strongest terms, and the example ad¬ 
duced as illustration could not have been more fortu¬ 
nately selected. We have passed over those hills and 
valleys, and know that the Berkshire Agricultural So¬ 
ciety has added thousands, if not millions, to the wealth 
of that county. 
“ Associations, even where only ‘ two or three are gath¬ 
ered together,’ is more potent than individual effort alone: 
the experience of several collected, is better than the expe¬ 
rience of one. Where much time is not consumed—where 
too much expense is not incurred—where the shadow is not 
grasped for the substance—where a passion for extended im¬ 
provements does not outstrip and leave common sense be¬ 
hind—we may expect to derive much benefit from agricul¬ 
tural societies. ***** Berkshire, in Massachusetts, 
was the first to institute, and has been the longest to perse¬ 
vere in her agricultural society. Her mountain region can 
find at this time no superior in the United States, in fertility 
and production. Magnificent cattle range in her pastures; 
ten thousand fleeces are taken from her mountains; the fat- 
lings of the flock are hers. The crops of wheat and corn 
groan as the burden of her hills and valleys.” 
Gov. Hill has seen fit to put his hearers on their guard 
against some of the humbugs or speculations of the day, 
particularly those belonging to agriculture ; and the in¬ 
troduction of such plants as he conceives unsuited to the 
climate or soil of New Hampshire. Of this class he 
considers the Multicaulis, the Chinese corn, and the su¬ 
gar beet, when grown for sugar. The success of the 
silk manufacture he is inclined to think is doubtful; the 
Chinese corn an imposition, and the sugar maple more 
certain than the beet. In the middle states the case may 
be different, and both silk and sugar succeed. 
The address speaks highly of the Black Sea wheat, 
of the Brown corn, and of the Rohan potato. Of the 
wheat it is said, in comparison with the Tea and the 
Siberian wheats, that “ It requires not so long a season 
to grow and ripen—it better stands the blight, which is 
the great danger of all wheat sown so late in the year 
as to avoid the grain worm and weevil—and it produces, 
in the absence both of the blight and the worm, quite as 
large a crop as any other kind of spring wheat.” Of this 
wheat, Mr. Critchett, of Epsom, N. H., raised 42 bushels 
of clear grain this year, from four pecks of sowing. 
The Brown corn has received its name from a gentle¬ 
man who first cultivated it on an island in the Winni- 
piseogee Lake, and who last year raised of this corn one 
hundred and seven bushels to the acre. Gov. Hill pro¬ 
cured some of it, for planting, last spring, and speaks of 
it in the highest terms,—it having fully ripened by the 
first of September, or as early as any corn known, and 
yielding nearly double to the Canadian, which approach¬ 
es the nearest to it in early maturity. The address says 
with justness, 
“ The Brown corn carried south, will be quite as sure of 
an ample space of time to grow 7 in a short season, as perhaps 
any other. We had better pay a four fold price for seed corn 
raised and brought to us from one hundred miles north, than 
to have the gift of the same kind of corn, brought to us from 
a climate which, either by elevation or by distance on the 
map, measures theydiinate of two degrees south.” 
Gov. Hill’s experience with the Rohan potato, seems 
to justify the favor with which it has generally been re¬ 
ceived, and adds new proof of the inherent natural vigor 
of the plant. He was, in addition to a quantity from 
other quarters which he planted last spring, favored with 
one, direct from the garden of Prince Rohan, in France. 
“ It was shrivelled, and looked as if it might have pas¬ 
sed perils by sea as well as perils by land; but every 
sprout of the eighteen cuttings into which it was divided, 
has sprung up and has become a fruitful vine.” The 
roots have not been gathered, but the promise was fine, 
and he had the satisfaction of finding, that in appear¬ 
ance, those from the growth of this country, and the ones 
from the last imported, were similar in every respect. 
Of the cultivated roots, the address gives the prefe¬ 
rence to the ruta baga. In speaking of a common ob¬ 
jection to the turnep, Gov. Hill remarks: 
It is a mistake to suppose that the ruta baga spoils either 
the meat or the milk of the animal fed upon it. This mis¬ 
take originated in the fact, familiar to many practical far¬ 
mers, that the turning of fat cattle and cows into fresh feed 
where turneps, cabbages, and onions have been raised and 
cleared out, leaving tops and leaves, will make them liable, 
when slaughtered or milked, to leave the meat-or the milk 
tainted with the flavor of the articles upon which they have 
fed. Milch cows, fed once a day on ruta baga, will commu¬ 
nicate no taste to the milk; and if there be any doubt about 
fat cattle, the leaving off the ruta baga one week, and sub¬ 
stituting corn, or other food, will leave their meat in as good 
flavor and quality as if they had been fed exclusively on 
corn.” 
We have had considerable experience, both in raising 
and feeding the ruta baga, and consider it of the great¬ 
est value. From the use of the bulb itself, we have rare¬ 
ly found any inconvenience, arising either to meat or 
milk; but the tops give to milk and butter a most disa¬ 
greeable flavor, and should never be fed to milch cows, 
or animals that are to be slaughtered. Care in this res¬ 
pect might do away some prejudice against the turnep, 
and would doubtless prevent the spoiling of sundry lots 
of butter annually. 
Those parts of the address devoted to the importance 
of freeing soils from weeds and keeping farms clean— 
illustrating and enforcing the use and value of salt for 
animals—the necessity of freeing soils from surplus wa¬ 
ter by draining—and the loss which the farmer, more 
than most other men, sustains from neglecting the roads, 
are well conceived and forcibly expressed. If agricul¬ 
tural societies produced no other good effect, than the 
