THE CULTIVATOR. 
123 
PORTRAIT OF DR. MARTIN'S BERN ICE.—[Fig. ee] 
The above portrait was taken by Mr. Foster, for the Western Farmer and Gardener, from which paper we copy it. Ber¬ 
nice was from a Woburn sow by a while Berkshire boar, and weighed, when 8 months and 7 days old, 354 lbs. We shall 
in our next, give a portrait of Dr. Martin’s Woburn sow, the dam ol Bernice. 
Feeding Figs, Stc. 
In the June number of “ The Agriculturist,” is Dr. 
Martin’s account of his method of feeding his pigs in 
the experiment of feeding Berkshires against Woburns, 
noticed in our last number, page 106. At first, every 
morning and evening four pints of meal were made into 
mush, and this, mixed with sufficient milk to enable 
them to swallow it with ease, was found to agree with 
them, and was never all eaten. Afterwards they had 
their meal made into bread, and fed to them in the mid¬ 
dle of the day. Six pounds were allowed, but they 
were unable to eat it all. One pound of cracklings a 
day was allowed part of the time, but it disagreed with 
the pigs, and was discontinued. As the feeding pro¬ 
gressed, the meals, morning and night, were mush and 
bread, and vegetables of some kind at noon. After 
they began to receive their vegetables, which were ap¬ 
ples, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets, &c. they gene¬ 
rally eat the whole of their food. Under this system of 
feeding, one of the pigs, Bernice, a portrait of which is 
given above, (fig. 66,) in 90 days gained 176£ pounds, 
and the other, Bertha, 187 pounds. On the 11th of 
April, Bertha, was bred to one of Mr. Martin’s boars, 
and from the 13th to the 20th she gained thirty pounds, 
being at the rate of four and a half pounds per day. 
“ But a part of this was filling up after living on half 
allowance for some days.” Such experiments as have 
been made by Messrs. Fanning and Martin, are al¬ 
ways interesting ; but they may be made more accurate, 
by ascertaining the quantity and value of the food con¬ 
sumed, by feeding different pigs at the same time on 
different kinds of food, and thus ascertaining the nutri¬ 
tive poAvers of each, and a register of the results drawn 
up in a tabular form, which will give at a single view 
these several points, which are of the most consequence 
to the farmer. The great Valley of the West offers the 
most extensive field of agriculture in the world, and 
present appearances indicate that the men who inhabit 
it are happily not deficient in the energy and enterprise 
which will be required to develop its resources. Tennes¬ 
see, in the amount of corn grown, has exceeded any other 
State in the Union, but if, as is asserted, she has paid 
out in the past year, more for flour than her cotton and 
tobacco crops have netted, it is clear a different system 
is demanded. There must be more roots, more grass, 
more cattle, more swine, and, as a natural consequence 
of the preceding, more wheat grown, if the farmers of 
that fertile State will make the most of their position. 
Fortunately there are examples before them of the best 
kind, and with these, and the promptings of the “Agri¬ 
culturist,” it is scarcely possible a better state of things 
should not soOn prevail. _ 
Signs of Better Times. 
1 . All agricultural produce commands a fair, steady, 
compensating price, alike removed from the depressed 
state which sometimes has existed, or the unnatural in¬ 
flation through which we have just passed. 
2. Speculation has had its day, and the thousands 
who have been ruined, have had time to repent at their 
leisure. The mass of the nation are convinced that ho¬ 
nest industry, and slow and sure profits, are far prefe¬ 
rable to the haphazard and demoralizing influence of 
such haste to be rich. 
3. Agriculture, it is evident, is assuming its proper 
place in the estimation of the public. This may be at¬ 
tributed in part to the knowledge respecting it, which 
has been distributed by agricultural journals, and in 
part to the results of the agricultural census, the results 
of which have demonstrated the paramount importance 
of this interest. 
4. We find evidence that the mass of reading men be¬ 
gin to think and demand information on the subject of 
agriculture, in the fact that all our leading newspapers 
and most influential journals, are in the habit of devot¬ 
ing a part of their publications to the dissemination of 
papers interesting to the farmer. 
5. In the processes of farming, yearly advances are 
making. We have this year seen crops of the heaviest 
growth, where, only a few years since, a quaking boa 
existed ; better and more productive kinds of corn and 
other grain have been brought to notice ; the culture of 
roots has been introduced, and found a most important 
auxiliary to the farmer ; and more attention is paid to 
the cleaning of land, and the destruction of weeds, than 
formerly. 
6. Superior breeds of cattle, sheep and swine have 
been introduced, and are rapidly spreading over the 
country ; in short, the elements of individual and na¬ 
tional prosperity were never more fully developing 
themselves than now. Let the farmer be thankful. 
Planting Trees. 
We hope those who, during this sultry weather, are 
enjoying the coolness and beauty of foliage from trees 
planted by the hands of others, will reflect, whether 
they are not under some obligation to do something in 
the same way for the benefit of others. Grounds plant¬ 
ed with trees do not add more to the beauty of the land¬ 
scape, than they do to the comfort and health of the in¬ 
habitants. That wise provision of Providence, by 
which the leaves of trees are the great purifiers of the 
air, absorbing the carbon and liberating the oxygen, 
has rendered it necessary that plants should exist, and 
there are few that so well unite beauty and utility as do 
trees. How certainly, when traveling through a coun¬ 
try, if we find a farmer, the roads through whose 
grounds are planted with trees, his farm buildings em¬ 
bowered in fruit or ornamental trees, and a few clumps 
or single trees scattered about his fields for the com¬ 
fort of his animals, do we set down such a man as one 
of intelligence, taste, and usually of thrift. There is 
nothing more detrimental to the proper arrangement of 
farms, and their adaptation to the comfort and conveni¬ 
ence of the owner, than the continual shifting and mi¬ 
gration so common among our farmers. That man 
rarely has patriotism or love for his fellow-men strong 
enough in his breast, to pay much attention to beauty, 
or even comfort in what he does, who is expecting or 
intending to change his residence the first opportunity 
that offers. Men may, and doubtless do, sometimes 
better themselves by selling and removing, or by ex¬ 
changing farms, but the reasons for removal should be 
well weighed, and the prospects of advantage or disad¬ 
vantage fully considered, before any such movement is 
made. We would particularly advise the young man, 
about to commence life, to be very cautious in purchasing 
his farm, but when once bought, unless imperative rea¬ 
sons forbid, to consider it his home for life, and to set him¬ 
self in earnest to make such arrangements as shall, at a 
future day, or as soon as possible, make his farm a resi¬ 
dence so desirable, that change shall be regarded as a 
positive evil, a thing not to be thought of. Let him 
construct his buildings with regard to permanence ; ar¬ 
range and plant his grounds so as best to unite taste 
and comfort; and let him remember that every one is 
under obligation to contribute his share to that eleva¬ 
tion of mind and enlarged intelligence that should cha¬ 
racterize the American farmer. 
But we are here met with the common objection :— 
“ It takes trees so long to grow, that if I plant them I 
shall never derive any benefit from them, so I will leave 
that matter to those that want them.” This course of 
reasoning is most objectionable ; if carried out it would 
nearly annihilate progress or improvement of any kind. 
But it is rarely true with respect to the individual, and 
never so with regard to the results. It does not take as 
long for our forest trees to become both useful and or¬ 
namental, as some seem to suppose. Those who con¬ 
tributed to plant Washington Square at Philadelphia 
with the Linden, have for years, many of them at least, 
enjoyed their beauty and their fragrance. Many of the 
majestic elms of New-Haven and Boston, contribute to 
the comfort of those who planted them, and parents look 
on with pleasure at the graceful collonades and deep 
shades, a little forethought has provided for the happi¬ 
ness and health of their children. Some sixteen years 
since, we bordered our avenue with the maple, going 
into the forest and taking up small trees, two or three 
inches in diameter, and transplanting them into holes 
previously dug for their reception. Some few of them 
died, as was to be expected, but of the forty or fifty 
that remain, some are more than a foot in diameter, 
and more beautiful trees are rarely seen. Two acres 
planted out with the maple in the same way, would 
now have furnished a family with all their sugar, and 
given one of the most beautiful woodland pastures that 
can well be imagined. 
What is there to hinder the planting of trees by the 
road side becoming part of the common system of high¬ 
way management? In Germany, the roads for hun¬ 
dreds of miles are bordered with trees, and contribute 
as much to the beauty of the country as to the comfort 
of the traveler. A little time spent every year in each 
district, in transplanting trees, would, in a short time, 
wholly change the character of large sections of our 
country, so far as appearance is concerned. Our fo¬ 
rests will furnish abundance of suitable trees, particu¬ 
larly in those places where the large timber has been 
cut out, and young trees from such places are more 
likely to succeed than if taken from the depths of the 
woods. Let the experiment be tried ; let the maple, 
elm, ash, linden, or, indeed, almost any other forest 
tree be planted out, and the most of those who assist in 
the labor, will participate in the pleasure and the benefit 
they will assuredly confer. But if those do not, others 
will ; the present generation is not the last, and if taste 
and intelligence increases, as we hope they may, there 
are few claims on the gratitude of posterity that will be 
more cheerfully honored, than the one arising from the 
improvement of the country by the planting of trees. 
Currant Worm. 
We have noticed that in many parts of the country 
the currant has this year been extensively attacked by a 
new enemy, or, if an old one, in far greater numbers 
than ever before known, in the shape of a small green 
worm, which multiplies so rapidly, and is so voracious, 
that bushes attacked by them are stripped of every leaf 
in a very short time, and the fruit, if it does not fall off, 
is consequently poor and worthless. It feeds on the 
gooseberry also, but prefers the currant, and is a differ¬ 
ent worm from the gooseberry depredator, the Abrax - 
us grossularia. The following description of this cur¬ 
rant worm, we copy from McIntosh’s Orchard and Fruit 
Garden, as it is very accurate and divested of technical¬ 
ities : 
“ Early in March, if the weather he favorable, the first flies of 
this insect, the Nematu§ ribesi, issue from the chrysalis, a few 
inches below the soil, at the foot of the bushes. Soon after the 
females deposit, on the under surface of many; of the leaves, 
along the ribs of each leaf, a series of eggs, which appear like 
strings of small, pellucid, delicate, oblong beads. A single fly 
will fill up the ribs of many leaves; and as many generations 
are produced in one season, the destruction of a single fiy at an 
early period, is the prevention of some thousands of voracious 
successors. The following times of hatching, &c., may be reli¬ 
ed upon as accurate. On the 9th of April the eggs are laid ; on 
the 19th they are hatched ; and, if the temperature be mild, the 
caterpillars grow rapidly, and from their numbers, soon de¬ 
stroy the foliage on the chosen bush. They usually continue in 
the caterpillar state about 10 days, when dropping to the earth, 
they penetrate below the surface, and change into a small brown, 
chrysalis; in which dormant state they remain from 14 to 17 
days, and then come forth as flies, which in a day or two lay 
their respective quantities of eggs.” The writer adds, “ I am 
not aware that any limits of season act as a check, unless at¬ 
tended with a decrease of temperature, which of course puts a 
period to their progress. The grub or worm is of a green color, 
(from three to five-eighths of an inch long,) covered with many 
very minute black tubercles, which it loses at its last moult. 
Its ravages arc worse than that of the gooseberry worm.” “ The 
most effectual remedy,” says the same work, (( yet discovered, is 
syringing the bushes over, on the first appearance of the enemy, 
with clear lime water, making use of the bent or inverted syringe 
for the purpose of throwing the water on the under side of the 
leaves.” 
The currant is a valuable fruit, and as yet in the States 
has been remarkably free from insects. It may, howe¬ 
ver, become as infested here as abroad, and a few such 
strippings of the foliage as some gardens have received 
this year, would destroy the bushes entirely. It would 
be well, therefore, for gardeners and others who have 
such bushes to be on their guard, and by timely at¬ 
tacking the worm, prevent the certain spread of the evil. 
Strawberries. 
“ ‘ The strawberry should have a place in every gar¬ 
den ’—says the Albany Cultivator. Perhaps it should 
around Albany, Avhere few or no strawberries grow 
spontaneously in the fields ; but here, in Maine, we be¬ 
lieve straAvberries should have a place in no garden ; 
we have so many millions of them in our fields, that 
there is no necessity for cultivating them.” So says 
our friend Drew, of the Maine Cultivator, and sorry 
Ave are he has said it; since fertility, and “millions” 
of straAvberries, are never, Ave believe, associated in 
the mind of the farmer. We have never knoAvn a pas¬ 
ture Avith a close sAvard of Avhite clover, timothy and 
blue grass, a pasture that produces fat kine, or fills the 
dairy Avoman’s pail; or ameadoAV that Avould cut three 
or four tons of hay per acre, that had millions of straAV- 
berries groAving in them. And further, Ave have found 
that Avhen Ave Avere so unfortunate as to have straAvber¬ 
ries in our meadoAVS, the damage done to the grass 
and the increased difficulties of moAvin®, greatly out- 
Aveighed all the profits of the berries. The farmer does 
not ahvays have strawberries brought to his door a< 
three pence a quart, nor can his Avife or daughters al- 
Avays leave their work to ramble over the fields to ga¬ 
ther them. We still say, therefore, to every farmer 
have a straAAffierry bed in your garden. They are easi- 
ly cultivated, Avill produce bountifully, maybe gathered 
readily, and every one knoAvs straAvberries and cream 
make a dish not to be sneezed at. 
Correction. —A correspondent Avishes to correct the 
statement made by Mr. Edgerton of Mt. Moriah, in the 
April No. of the Cultivator, respecting the quantity of 
carrots raised per acre, it being stated too high by 140 
bushels ; and he Avishes to ask ivhether, Avhen it is sta¬ 
ted that some of the roots Avere 18 inches in “ diarne - 
ter,’’ it ought not to read “ circumference ?” 
