THE CULTIVATOR. 
mum, which will probably be sixty or seventy bushels 
per acre, on land of first quality. 
Having, as I confidently believe, pointed out an appli¬ 
cation by which our farmers can greatly increase their 
wheat crops, I shall now proceed to inform them how 
they can obtain an ample supply of the material, at a 
price that will enable them to use it freely. Glass of all 
kinds is a silicate of either potash or soda, and I think it 
can make no difference which is used, as both will pro¬ 
bably produce the same result; it being well known 
that nitrate of soda is as effective when used as manure, 
as is the nitrate of potash. Hundreds of tons of bro¬ 
ken bottles can be collected in New-York annually, and 
will only cost the labor of collection and grinding. I 
think it could be furnished as cheap as plaster. A sand 
paper manufacturer has offered to supply any farmer de¬ 
sirous of trying it, at fourteen shillings per barrel, ground 
as fine as flour; and as one barrel per acre would proba¬ 
bly be an ample supply, the cost of trial would not be 
very heavy. Broken crockery of all kinds would furnish 
a supply of an inferior quality to glass. An inexhausti¬ 
ble supply could be obtained by calcining silecious sand 
with potash, and at a very cheap rate. It is more than 
probable, that fine ground silex, mixed with wood ashes 
or potash, would answer just as well as when chemically 
combined, for nature can produce combinations far better 
than man. Burnt clay would probably ans wer every pur¬ 
pose, by mixing it with wood ashes or potash, as clays 
contain from thirty to sixty per cent of impalpable silex. 
The other constituents of clay would be a valuable addi¬ 
tion to the soil. Wm. Partridge. 
New-York, 34 Cliff st., May, 1842. 
TOBACCO—ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, &c. 
Its Discovery and name. —Tobacco is a native pro¬ 
duction of America, and was in common use among 
nearly all the Indian tribes when this continent was dis¬ 
covered by Europeans. Its original name among the na¬ 
tives of the islands, was “Yoli,” and with those of the 
continent, it was termed “ Petum.” The Spaniards how¬ 
ever, chose to call it Tobacco, a name in the Haytian 
dialect, designating the instrument in which the herb 
was smoked. But the systematic name, as understood 
and acknowledged by Europeans, is Nicotiana, after, or 
in honor of one Nicott, who first introduced it upon the 
continent of Europe. 
Introduction—European Objections. —We learn 
that this plant was first introduced into Spain, then into 
Portugal and France, and at length into the countries of 
the eastern continent. Sir Walter Raliegh carried it from 
Virginia to England, and taught his countrymen the vari¬ 
ous methods of using it. But its introduction was attend¬ 
ed with ridicule and opposition; pamphlets in various 
languages were issued, dissuading the people in the 
strongest terms from the use of it. James I. of Great 
Britain, circulated his “ Counterblast to Tobacco.” Pope 
Urban excommunicated those who took it into churches. 
Queen Elizabeth also prohibited its use in houses of pub¬ 
lic worship. An edict was published in Transylvania 
threatening confiscation of property to those who should 
plant it. The Grand Duke of Moscow and the King of 
Persia, prohibited its use under the penalty of the loss of 
the nose and even life. Notwithstanding the objections 
of those larger worms, that are now no more, and of the 
almost prohibitive duties laid on the article by foreign 
governments, the plant is in demand; although of itself, 
it is a nauseous weed, of an acrid taste and deleterious 
quality, yet its charms are such as to insinuate itself in 
the favorable opinion and use of men of every grade and 
shade, from the red man of the forest, to the priest who 
officiates at the sacred altar. 
Its manner of Cultivation in Maryland —As 
early in February and March as the weather will permit, 
we commence by selecting (if we have it,) a rich south 
hill exposure, or the best we have, even to a cowpen in 
the open field. Some burn on their beds much brush, 
others cannot, while all dig well, rake and perfectly 
clean and pulverize the earth. The seed is sown, raked, 
and then patted or rolled; they are by some covered with 
a light layer of brush, as a protection from frost. We have 
now, to be successful, to keep under or rather eradicate all 
the grass, or it will outgrow the plants. Our tobacco 
lots, having been prepared by fall or spring plowing, in 
good order, i. e. being checked off from two and a half 
to three and a half feet apart, and made into hills, giving 
from four thousand to seven thousand hills to the acre, 
as each one fancies best, we are now ready with the first 
good rain in the last of May, for transplanting, which is 
done similar to planting cabbage plants; and we con¬ 
tinue at every rain to transplant and replant until the 
1st of August; but it is often the case, such late work is 
left to the frost. We have now to keep the grass from it 
with the hoe, and work it every week, if we can, with 
the plow and cultivator, until its size stops such opera¬ 
tion. It now becomes necessary to top it; and it requires 
some judgment to do this so as to suit the soil and the 
season, and allow no more leaves to remain than will be 
made perfect. If not cut in two weeks after this, it be¬ 
comes necessary to go through it again; and the planter 
will find instead of Hercules’ Hydra producing two heads 
for one destroyed, he will often find a half dozen shoot¬ 
ing up from the joint of as many leaves, which had bet¬ 
ter be taken off. His attention will be arrested often at 
twilight, with the swift winged, gray butterfly, darting 
under the bottom or underside of the leaves, and there 
fixing her egg or embryo of a similar fly; in a few days 
he will see his tobacco disfigured and destroyed, and for 
his own interest,with all his humanity and mercy, be com¬ 
pelled to commence the work of death, or lose the re¬ 
ward of his labor. This tobacco, or horn worm, as it is 
generally called among us, is similar to the silk worm in 
crawling out of his old skin at certain periods, and lastly, 
o-ohw into the earth and through the crysalis to the but¬ 
terfly. This fly may be seen at eventide, thrusting his 
long sucker down the petals of the jimstone and honey¬ 
suckle. The number of worms which we have, vary 
much from one to twenty to a plant, though it is rare to 
be so much overrun as was the case a year ago, when 
many fields were abandoned. When the tobacco is ripe, 
it turns spotted or a yellow green; in the meantime all 
such leaves as become yellow at the bottom, are taken 
off, and hung up and cured as scrub or ground leaf; those 
who straddle the stalk upon the stick, splint it standing 
before cutting. All cut it alike and let it lay to limber 
or fall; when at the house, some straddle across the stick, 
others drive a peg in the butt end and hang it up, and 
others dart it upon a stick by means of a dart made for 
the purpose, to receive the sharpened end of a stick. It 
is then either scaffolded in the sun a few days, or hung 
up in the house, to be fired or not, as suits the planter. 
In Nov. and Dec. we commence stripping, rarely finish¬ 
ing before it is time to commence a new crop. The to¬ 
bacco is generally assorted when stripped, hung up to 
dry and condition at the time of stripping by some, and 
after being dry and again in good order, taken down to 
pack; others winro w by laying it in long rows one bundle 
deep and two or three high, and pick a time to pack, 
but the old time is best as I know from experience, 
which is to put it down in bulks of any size as stripped; 
weight it down. This course appears to be the chemi¬ 
cal one pointed out by Liebig, who says it must absorb 
oxygen; but too high a heat must be avoided to secure 
a proper odor, and in this way, the substance necotin, 
which was not present before, will be produced by com¬ 
pactness and a proper heat,when the bulks get warm: they 
are then shook out, and handled afterwards to condition, 
as others tried to do at first by winrowing and hanging 
up, and when in order taken down and bulked for pack¬ 
ing; this is a sure way, besides it gives a delightful fla¬ 
vor to the article, and there is no fear of having it con¬ 
demned. The next job, once much dreaded, is packing; 
in the old way, one a day was called good work, but 
since improvement and invention is all the go, we have 
a screw press made by Mr. Elliott Richardson, of West 
River, Maryland, which he informs me, pressed for its 
owner, a Prince George planter, fourteen or fifteen hogs¬ 
heads of tobacco, with inexperienced hands. This press 
appears to be worthy the attention of the planter. Its 
durability, faithful workmanship and cheapness, will re¬ 
commend it to the notice of the public. The price, per 
advertisement, is $125, to be worked with hand or horse 
power. 
Its use and abuse —According to Dr. Culling's No¬ 
sology, as seen in Hooper’s Dictionary, we find tobacco 
used as a narcotic, as a sialagoge, as an expectorant, an 
emetic, a cathartic, and a diuretic. In Eberle’s Materia 
Mediea, we read that tobacco destroys the heart, by ren¬ 
dering it insensible to the action of the blood, and causes 
death. It has been successfully employed in cases 
of dropsy and dysury. Dr. Fowler says it will produce 
copious diaresis. It is good nephritis calculoso. Mr. 
Earl advocates tobacco injections in certain cases as being 
very good. Dr. Westburg administers the tincture of 
tobacco in ischaria; and many other medical writers 
could be named who found tobacco a useful article, and 
there may be some few out of the host who use tobacco 
from a perseveringly acquired habit, that know and feel 
its worth. As to my own experience and knowledge 
upon this head, it is profitable to raise, when I can clear 
forty to fifty dollars to the acre, and keep the stocks and 
trash to smoke the musquetoes away from my cottage in 
summer. More than this I desire not, believing, that by 
habit it is abused by a large portion of its consumers. 
Its effects upon the soil. —General opinion is that 
the culture of tobacco exhausts the soil; from the cir¬ 
cumstance of so large a crop of vegetable matter produced 
in so short a time, it gives weight to this opinion; when 
we see forty and fifty thousand pounds of vegetable mat¬ 
ter produced in three or four months, and yet it is a good 
crop to get one thousand pounds of the leaf cured. To 
repeat this crop in the old way, it is without doubt a 
great exhauster. But by such systems in rotation, as I 
have advocated in a former number of this paper, I have 
given positive proof it may be no exhauster, but a great 
convenience. Liebig says, “ on soil containing potash, 
both wheat and tobacco, may to advantage, be raised in 
succession; the first taking up the phosphates of salts, 
the latter the alkalis and food containing nitrogen.” A 
correspondent, “I. C.” in the Phil. Cabinet, says, “it is 
not to be forgotten, that no crops exhaust (comparatively,) 
the soil until they begin to perfect their seed; blossom 
buds are not furnished with returning sap vessels, and it 
is therefore they that exhaust the soil.” Taking for 
granted, his theory to be correct, I desire no better argu¬ 
ment; the matter is settled, and why—because every good 
planter will prevent the like taking place, and only turn 
out as much to seed as may be wanting for another 
crop. The chemical opinion of the two gentlemen just 
named, will confirm my position and settle my practice 
in this matter; that is, that fallowing clover in the spring 
for tobacco, succeeded by wheat, gives almost an extra 
crop, and by suffering the same to remain to be turned 
up in July and August, and then sowed in wheat, is not a 
difference of more than ten or fifteen per cent, in favor 
of wheat. Yours respectfully, 
D. G. Weems. 
Tracy’s Landing, Anne Arundel Co., Md. t 1842. 
REARING CALVES—CARE OF STOCK. 
Messrs. Editors —I have seen in your Cultivator, dif¬ 
ferent ways of rearing calves, none of which did I think, 
was preferable to my own, which is as follows:—I take 
the calf after he has sucked a few times, tie him up un¬ 
der shelter, as near the house as convenient; feed him 
8 or 10 days on new milk, and then on skim milk as long 
as convenient. I take a trough about three feet long and 
nail or fasten it down on the sill, so as not to be easily 
moved. I then make a small rack over the trough, 
against the side of the building; tie one calf on each 
side so that I can go between to feed them; put hay in 
the rack, which the calf will soon learn to eat. I make 
a floor raised a little above the ground, for the calf to 
lie upon, that he may not have to lie in the mud; and 
there I keep them until after harvest, or until fall feed 
comes; then the milk, whey, &c., is turned into the swill 
tub, out of which I feed my hogs and calves, putting in 
occasionally a little meal or bran, if it gets too thin. 
The calves will soon learn to drink any thing that I see 
fit to give them; it needs to be a little warm; always 
careful to keep hay in the rack; they will never scour, 
and when they become cows they will eat any kind of 
slop, which in my opinion is all-important in a cow. I 
had rather have one cow that will eat anything I see fit 
to give her, than two that are dainty, and will not eat 
their slop unless it is just so nice and clean. 
I believe the greatest error our farmers run into, is 
the miserable manner of wintering their stock. There 
are very few stocks of cattle that I am acquainted with, 
that are wintered as they should be, to make them pro¬ 
fitable to the owner. The general calculation is merely 
to keep them alive until grass comes, and then it takes 
them until midsummer to get recruited, and by that time 
the flush of feed is over, so that they give but a small 
quantity of milk, and the final result is there is little or 
no profit arising from their cows over and above their 
keeping; when if they were fed as they should be, they 
might be made to pay for their bodies every year. I have 
been in the habit of feeding my calves at least once a day 
for the first year. When I turn them out after harvest, I en¬ 
deavor to keep them in some field near the house, and give 
them drink out of the swill tub every day. The conse¬ 
quence is, they are large and sleek, and attract the notice 
of strangers, who inquire what breed th ey are of. Through 
the winter I feed my cows in the stable, and when I turn 
them out, I learn the calves to go in, and there I feed 
them on roots regularly every day, and they are sure to 
come in at two years old, when they are larger than com¬ 
mon three year olds, and make first rate cows. They 
are always ready to eat anything I see fit to give them; 
always saleable, and command a good price. 
I was formerly in the habit of fattening my calves if 
they did not come in as soon as April, but now I care but 
very little what time they come. If I have a choice cow 
and wish to raise her calf, I raise it with very little ex¬ 
tra trouble. 
In the fall previous to our temperance reformation, 
our minister was anxious to form a temperance society. 
I met him one day in the road, when he told me he had 
just had an interview with one of our neighbors on the 
subject of temperance, who asked him what wu should 
do with our overplus grain if the stills were put down. 
He said he wished that that question could be answered 
satisfactorily, as it had been put to him a number of 
times, and he did not know how to answer it to his own 
satisfaction. I told him there was no such thing as over¬ 
plus grain. It was a contradiction in terms. A farmer 
might as well inquire what he should do with his over¬ 
plus manure; there would be as much propriety in it as 
to ask what we should do with our overplus grain. One 
man might have more than he wanted, but there was no 
more in the country than was wanted by the country. 
All the grain that was distilled was wronged out of the 
stock to which it might have been fed to greater advan¬ 
tage and better profit than to distil it, even if alcohol had 
been a good thing. Look over into that slaughter yard, 
and see those cattle brought there to be slaughtered, in 
nothing more than good wintering order; our pork is 
tolerably good, but our beef is wretched; I presume there 
is not a solitary animal there that has been stall fed. All 
the coarse grain in the country might be fed to our beef 
to good profit. Sending it to the distillers, is like the 
farmer selling his manure because he could realize the 
avails sooner than he could by putting it on his land. 
Galway, Saratoga Co., N. Y. 1842. P. Otis. 
CUTTING GRAIN AND HAY. 
Messrs. Editors —As the time is rapidly comingwhen 
this important branch of husbandry must be done, it will 
be well for the farmer to study this point well. With 
regard to cutting grain, I believe that most farmers are 
apt to wait too long. Some seem to be governed by the 
color of the straw, and think it necessary that the straw 
should be all turned, before they cut it. The grain itself 
is the thing to be watched, and when you find the kernel 
is filled and projects out of the ear, then don’t delay in 
cutting it, be the color of the straw what it may; and you 
will find the grain to be more full and better, than if you 
let it stand till the straw all turns yellow. We noticed 
last season, that we cut our crop when the straw was quite 
green, and we noticed also when we threshed that they 
retained a green fresh color, and do so at the present 
time. With regard to cutting grass, as to the best time, 
farmers will of course differ. I think grass should get its 
growth before it is cut, and I like to have it cut and cured 
so that when we pitch it off the mow in the winter, it 
