THE CULTIVATOR 
163 
Cylindrical Straw Cutter. - -(Fig. &.) 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker— Observing frequent in¬ 
quiries from various parts of the country for a ma¬ 
chine adapted to cutting of straw, corn stalks, fodder, 
&c. by horse power, has induced us to send you a cut of 
the Cylindrical Straw Cutter, which has been in use in 
this state many years, and is probably the best machine 
of the kind in this country, particularly for those who 
who wish to cut large quantities by horse power. There 
are also two smaller sizes made suitable for horse or 
manual power, which cut GOO to 1000 bushels of straw, 
&c. per day. The former is much more powerful and will 
cut 1500 bushels of stalks or straw in the same length of 
time. The letter A represents two cast iron cylinder 
heads, to which are attached two spiral cast steel knives 
which act on a steel bed in such a manner as to cut with 
great ease and neatness; C, a pulley 14 inches in diame¬ 
ter, which should be driven 250 revolutions per minute; 
D. a cast iron fluted roller, intended to compress the 
straw, &c. and to assist the endless leather apron F. to 
bring forward the strawy which may be cut short or long 
by a trifling alteration in the gearing; E, an inclined 
slide board intended to direct the straw, under roller D. 
K, a large balance or resistance wheel. L, L, two 
cranks to work the machine when applied to manual 
power. F, D, are operated upon by several spur wheels 
H, I, I, simply constructed and intended to move up the 
straw at suitable intervals. The box G, is about 44 feet 
long and ISiches wide, which, with the operating part is 
supported by a strong frame work, as represented. Prices 
$75, $45 and $30 each, according to size, and extra 
knives per set $S, $5 and $4. 
Yours, very respectfully, 
R. SINCLAIR, Jr. & Co. 
P. S. We are prepared to supply any number of our 
patent Thrashing Machines and Horse Powers, which 
are made on the same plan as those sold the last several 
years, and which have given entire satisfaction to all that 
have used them. 
They will be sold at the following prices, viz : 
Two horse powers, with the thrashers and fixtures, $160 
Four horse,. 210 
Baltimore, August 16, 1841. 
u Protection against Drouth.” 
Messrs. Editors— I noticed in your paper of August, an arti¬ 
cle signed “ An Onondaga Farmer,” in which, after quoting se¬ 
veral authors in support of his opinion, he congratulates him¬ 
self in having detected an inconsistency in an article copied 
from the “Yankee Farmer,” entitled “Protection against 
Drouth.” The principle at which he takes umbrage is that ad¬ 
vanced by the “ Yankee,” which reads as follows :—“In tillage 
the best protection against drouth that can be conveniently 
practiced to a great extent is, frequently stirring the earth, so 
as to keep it light and loose. In this way the earth at the sur¬ 
face is in many small particles, which serve as a nonconductor 
of moisture and retains it below, where the roots obtain a sup¬ 
ply.” The fact he admits, but denies the principle. Now the 
whole of this quotation appears to me to be strictly correct, 
and for these reasons :—It is a well known fact, that water rises 
in capillary tubes to a greater or less degree in proportion to 
their size, it rising higher and more rapidly in fine than coarse 
tubes. It is also well known that evaporation produces cold, 
or, in other words, carries off heat very rapidly. Apply these 
principles to the soil, and what is the result ? The harder and 
more compact the earth is beaten, the smaller are the intersti¬ 
ces between its particles, which constitute the capillary tubes, 
and consequently the more readily will the moisture in the 
earth be raised to the surface, and thence be carried off by eva¬ 
poration. Not only so, but the more compact the earth is made 
by bringing its particles closer together, the better conductor of 
heat does it become, and that heat which should be retained 
near the surface (or at least that portion of it which is not car¬ 
ried off by this rapid evaporation) is conducted off into the body 
of the earth, raising the water far below the surface into vapor 
and dissipating it. The surface is thus left cold and unproduc¬ 
tive. 
On the other hand, if the surface is loosened up, the intersti¬ 
ces (or capillary tubes, if you please,) are enlarged, water rises 
with more difficulty through them, and is consequently dissi¬ 
pated more slowly. The loose earth forms a very good absorb¬ 
ent, but a poor conductor of heat, which, not being carried off 
by a too rapid evaporation, is of course retained near the sur¬ 
face for the benefit of vegetation. The same course, however, 
that makes the loose earth a good absorbent, makes it also a 
very good radiator of heat. Consequently, as soon as the sun 
declines, it rapidly gives off the heat from its immediate sur¬ 
face into the atmosphere, until it is cooled below the tempera¬ 
ture of the air, and causes it to deposit its moisture in the form 
of a copious dew. This dew is only temporary in its effects, 
for it is commonly all dissipated by nine o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing. It does not increase the general moisture of the soil. It 
must not, however, be supposed that because the loose soil ra¬ 
diates heat rapidly that it becomes too cold; for being a pretty 
good nonconductor of heat, the same principle that prevents its 
heat from being carried off into the bowels of the earth pre¬ 
vents it from cooling lower than its immediate surface. 
From this I would infer that loosening the soil—though upon 
the principle last stated it increases the quantity of dew—ope¬ 
rates much more effectually in obstructing the rise of water by 
capillary attraction. If this is its effect, it is no less useful in a 
wet than in a dry season; for as in the one case it prevents the 
moisture necessary for vegetation from being carried off too ra¬ 
pidly from the surface, in the other it prevents the rise of the 
superfluous water which would injure the roots of the plants. 
I, however, do not believe in too frequently stirring the sur¬ 
face. If the top of the ground is loose and open, no advantage 
is to be derived from disturbing it; but on the contrary, great 
injury, if the weather is very dry, as fresh moisture is every 
time exposed tb be carried off from the newly turned earth. Nor 
should the surface of the earth be disturbed at all times with¬ 
out some regard to the temperature of the air, for by this means 
the injury done to vegetation by these sudden changes in 
temperature to which in our latitude we are so liable, are 
greatly increased. For instance, while our corn is struggling 
for a doubtful existence in a cold spring, the weather suddenly 
rises to 75 deg. or 80 deg. Then is the time to push the plow, 
for the power of the earth to absorb heat is in proportion to the 
looseness of the surface, and moreover the warm earth is turn¬ 
ed under, and the cold exposed to the sun. But supposing the 
weather has been some time warm, it suddenly becomes colder. 
By working the ground at such times, you turn up the warm 
earth from below—the heat is more rapidly radiated—and all 
the evils of a sudden change of temperature are increased four 
fold. 
1 have thus stated to you some of the thoughts that have oc¬ 
curred to me at different times, as I have been following the 
plow through my corn fields. The style in which they are writ¬ 
ten will render it unnecessary to say that I am unpracticed 
with the pen. A. M. 
Plattekill, Vlster co., N. Y., Aug. 7. 1841. 
Young men, learn wisdom. Spend less money than you earn 
and you will every day grow richer. Never run in debt, and 
lawyers and constables will have to become farmers. 
Traveling; Memoranda-—No. 3. 
Madison, (la.) Aug. 12, 1841, 
Editors of Cultivator— The road from Logansport to Indian¬ 
apolis, 70 miles, lies through a country of mostly level clay 
land, covered with a great growth of timber and but little im¬ 
proved and the road less improved. In fact it appears as though 
the settlers of that region consider it a total loss to work upon 
the highway—at all events they build but few monuments to 
prove the contrary. 
As I progressed south, I became more and more sensible of 
the effects of the severe drouth. In many places corn will not 
yield a bushel to the acre, and pastures and meadows, where 
such things happen to exist, would burn like tow. 
There is a great defect in agricultural knowledge in this part 
of the world, or we should find more attention paid to the cul¬ 
tivation of grass and stock. Around Indianapolis, there are 
some slight indications of improvement in this respect. But the 
fact that an agricultural paper was not adequately supported at 
that place, proves that the country is more rich in soil than any 
thing else. It is painful to learn that the agricultural society at 
the seat of government of such a state as Indiana, after strug¬ 
gling through a brief existence, now sleeps too sound to be 
awakened by the ordinary cries of a community suffering for 
the want of a better system of agricultural education. 
The editor of the Indiana Farmer, after having actually sunk 
his own small fortune in the attempt to do good to his fellow 
creatures, was compelled to abandon the enterprise. Oh, In¬ 
diana ! when will she arouse from her lethargy ? 
Between Indianapolis and Madison, 80 miles, the country is 
older and more improved, and in places not so bad and in others 
worse affected by the drouth. 
Like a great many individuals, this state of late years has 
been so engaged in “great works,” that minor ones have been 
much neglected. Consequently, whoever has occasion to travel 
by stage here, must make up his mind to have a great deal of 
riding for a little money. Not but what the charges per mile 
are ample, yet in crossing miles of pole bridges, one gets a vast 
amount of perpendicular movement without any extra charge. 
Strange as it may seem to Yankee ears,and as discreditable as it 
is to Hoosier enterprise, in traveling 250 miles upon one of the 
most prominent stage routes in the state, I did not see the in¬ 
dication of a tithe of $250 worth of work having been done up¬ 
on the roads this season. I therefore have a suggestion to 
make to agricultural societies; that they offer a premium to that 
road district which shall keep the roads in the most perfect re¬ 
pair during the year. Nothing gives more character to a coun¬ 
try than good roads. And I am firmly impressed with the belief 
that with very few exceptions, good common roads are more 
advantage to the farming community than rail-roads. Between 
Vernon and Madison is one end of a rail-road between the capi¬ 
tal of the state and the Ohio river. 
It is a good piece of work, but poor stock to the state, and not 
half as useful to the people as a good turnpike would be. But 
I found it a great relief in traveling, after having undergone 
so much perpendicular motion upon the more common “ rail¬ 
roads” of this country. The face of the country between Ver¬ 
non and Madison is uneven and rocky, and all the streams are 
at right angles with the course of the track, and the general 
level of the country several hundred feet above the Ohio, so 
that the grade from the town to the top of the hill is a very ex¬ 
pensive one, and is not yet completed. 
Madison is a fine flourishing town, and what is no little to the 
credit of several of her merchants, I found the well read numbers 
of the Cultivator upon their desks, and some fine Berkshire 
pigs in their yards. 
What a proud satisfaction it would be to me to be able to say 
the same of every business man in my dear adopted state. There 
I witnessed another creditable indication of an improving state 
of society, in a very large temperance meeting at which I saw 
“ female influence” fully exerted in a most glorious cause. 
But fear of becoming prolix, warns me once more to say adieu, 
SOLON ROBINSON. 
NoT^. 
Prospect Hill, near Washinton , Ky. Aug. 22. 1841. 
Editors of Cultivator —For ten days past, I have been in 
such a busy interesting scene, that my memoranda have fallen 
behind; but to-day I am domiciled in the house of Judge 
Beaty, and enjoying one of the many real Kentucky wel¬ 
comes that I have found in this free-hearted state, with an op¬ 
portunity to bring up my notes. 
I wish my readers to understand that I am no flatterer of per¬ 
sons, and that in speaking of them, I only wish to show what a 
good, kind, noble feeling exists among agricultural brethren, 
which is forming a “band of brotherhood” that will prove a 
blessing to this nation. 
I took the Frankfort stage at Madison early in the morning of 
the 14th, and after being detained waiting for the horse ferry 
boat till nearly sun rise, we were at length on board, when the 
cry of “the fog is coming,” brought every eye towards a great 
dark mass that seemed to be rolling down between the high 
hills that bound the river on each side, like some mighty ava¬ 
lanche, threatening to overwhelm everything im its way. Crack 
went the whip, and the poor horses had to suffer for the drowsy 
tardiness of their masters; for strange as it may appear to 
strangers, so sudden does the fog come on here, that we had 
scarely time to make the passage of the river, which the great 
drouth has rendered but a diminutive stream,before the fog set¬ 
tled down so thick that no object could be distinguished across 
the water, and any attempt to make the passage at such a time 
is not only fruitless, but sometimes dangerous. It not unfre- 
quently happening, that the boat after a toilsome attempt, 
comes back to the same shore it left an hour before. 
From Madison to Frankfort, 52 miles, the country is extreme¬ 
ly hilly, and at present, parched with drouth to a distressing 
degree. 
The town of Newcastle, which is a large country town, has 
but one small spring, and no wells, and the stream that usually 
supplies the town, as well as nearly all the cisterns, is quite dry. 
Much of their water has to be hauled several miles. The town 
is situated in a valley, and upon a limestone rock, that as yet 
has defied all attempts to penetrate through to water. In the 
settlement of a new country, slight circumstances induce the 
settlement of a place that afterwards grows into a town. Here, 
it was the fine spring, convenient and ample for the first set¬ 
tlers, but insufficient for the present population. 
Frankfort, the capitol of this capital state, is upon the east 
side of the Kentucky river, 60 miles from the Ohio, surrounded 
by wild, high, rocky, and romantic hills, and is a very different 
spot from what modern taste would select for a city. Here the 
beginning was induced by a favorable location upon one of the 
hills for defence against the Indians, and upon the “great Buf¬ 
falo tract” that raffged through “ from Limestone to Beargrass,” 
now the flourishing cities of Maysville and Louisville. It may 
be interesting to some, that I should mention, that in the first 
settlement of Kentucky, the whole surface was covered with a 
thick cane brake, and the only method of passing through the 
country with any ease or rapidity, was to follow the Buffalo 
trails, or along the beds of creeks. Now that dense vegetable 
mass has entirely disappeared from the face of the country, 
except now and then a farmer has had the good taste to pre¬ 
serve a little patch as a memento of olden time. Olden time ! 
did I say? Why some of the first settlers of Kentucky, yet live 
upon the land they won through a long struggle with the abo- 
riginee, who fought manfully to retain his favorite hunting 
ground. / 
When I arrived in Frankfort, I ordered the stage to set me 
down at the door of Thomas B. Stevenson, the energetic editor of 
the Kentucy Farmer. Much to my own, and more to his regret, 
his wife had left home that morning on a distant visit, and 
when I arrived, I found him also absent; but I found “ the way 
prepared;” my name was familiar to the servants, and I went 
into possession of comfortable quarters with a feeling of free¬ 
dom and pleasure that I always feel when I know I am welcome, 
and which I was sure of here, even before I saw the index of it 
upon the fine open manly countenance of my friend when he 
came in shortly after my arrival. 
I spent a couple of days at Frankfort very agreeably; saw 
some fine stock and farms in the neighborhood, took note of the 
noble improvements of the Kentucky river, by which the state 
is making a slack water navigation from the great coal, iron 
and timber region on the head waters, to the Ohio river; also 
visited the Penitentiary, and took particular notice of the great 
bagging manufactory; examined the fine specimens of beauti¬ 
ful marble that abound in the hills : and on the evening of Mon¬ 
day, the 16th, by special invitation went out on the Lexington 
rail-road, five miles, to the plantation of Robert W. Scott, Esq. 
one of “ nature’s noblemen,” dignified and improved by a loca¬ 
tion in “ glorious old Kentuck.” 
In Mr. Scott, I found one of the best specimens of “ a lawyer 
turned farmer,” that I have ever met with. In his wife, I found 
those delightful charms that make a wife lovely. It is impos¬ 
sible for me to speak of this city bred pair, retired to and enjoying 
the comfort, contentment and happiness only to be found upon 
a farm, as I feel that the amiability of their character deserves. 
But their remembrance is impressed upon my heart, and forms 
one of those links of union, “that can, that must, that will” 
be made to exist between the friends of agricultural improve¬ 
ment. 
Mr. Scott’s farm is a perfect illustration of what may be done 
upon worn out land, by the improved system of husbandry. His 
farm is in a high state of cultivation—every acre, woodland 
and all, yields a good interest upon the valuation of $60 per acre. 
The entrance to every lot is through a well hung, self-shutting 
and fastening gate, and every lot numbered with conspicuous 
figures upon the gate post. 
Not a bush, or weed or brush, or old rotton log is permitted 
to disfigure the beautiful lawn-like blue grass pastures, which 
are covered by some of the finest specimens of Duiham cattle 
in the state. 
The greatest cultivated crop is hemp. Here for the first time, 
I witnessed the operation of the hemp cradle; and although I 
had looked upon it as a doubtful improvement, I am bound to 
say, after conversing with the proprietor, and more particular¬ 
ly with the field hands, that it is a decided improvement, and 
a highly useful agricultural implement. 
After spending one of the most agreeable days of my life, I 
took the evening train of cars, and arrived in Lexington, Tues¬ 
day evening about dusk. The distance from Frankfort to Lex¬ 
ington, 28 miles, over a very rough rail-road; the cars propelled 
by horses. 
I had no sooner registered my name at the hotel, than I found 
sundry old acquaintances, not of me personally, but by name. 
Around Lexington, the garden of Kentucky, I visited so many 
fine plantations, and met with such a universal hospitable re¬ 
ception, that I should become prolix and tiresome to you and 
your readers, were I to go into particulars. I however spent 
a night with William P. Curd, the great Berkshire hog breeder 
of Kentucky. His fine farm is 24 miles south of the city, and 
is a part of the original plantation originally settled by his 
grandfather. He has about thirty full grown Berkshires and 
several fine Irish graziers. Five of his Berkshires are imported. 
Old Ben Shaker, a monstrous hog, is yet active and vigorous. 
Mr. Lossing’s old Maxima and her companions had just arrived 
and looked full as well as could be expected after so long a 
journey in such hot weather. Mr. C. has one Berkshire barrow 
that will weigh near a thousand pounds. He finds ready sales 
for pigs at $30 a pair. On Thursday, Mr. Curd took his buggy 
and drove me up to Dr. Martin’s, where I experienced the morti¬ 
fication of finding him absent from home. We were however, 
very politely received by his son, and after spending a few hours 
among the doctor’s numerous hogs and cattle, we took the road 
in the cool of a very hot day towards Lexington. By previous 
arrangment, I stopped at the delightful mansion of Richard 
Pindle, Esq. whose plantation adjoins that of the Hon. Henry 
Clay. 
Mr. Pindle is another fine specimen of a lawyer farmer, he 
still following his profession. In the morning, after examining 
his own and the adjoining plantations, and the beautiful show 
of fine stock, Mr. Pindle took me in his carriage, and spent the 
whole day upon those unrivaled plantations, that abound in 
that most beautiful and unrivaled country around Lexington. 
I have taken copious notes of many things that gave me great 
pleasure that day, but I have already spun this letter out to 
such a length, that I must beg permission, if what I have writ¬ 
ten should prove interesting, to refer to those notes at some 
future time. 
There is one fact that I must not omit to mention, that speaks 
