148 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
and if he is, he would he under the additional influence 
of that natural partiality which all his countrymen feel 
for every thing that comes from Scotland. Should this 
be so, Mr. B. will labor under two disqualifications for 
deciding fairly on the comparative merits of the two 
breeds of cattle, and of course, has even less right than 
he is willing to allow Mr. Allen, to determine between 
them. I myself, Mr. Editor, have no interest whatever 
in this matter, being neither a breeder nor vender either 
of Durhams or Ayrshires; but having formerly made 
some comments on one side of this controversy between 
two of your correspondents, who are both personally un¬ 
known to me, I deemed it nothing but right to offer a 
few remarks on the other side. Both have appealed to 
your readers, and as one of them, I have thought that I 
had a right to express an opinion. 
Or your correspondent, Mr. F. Burt, I shall say no¬ 
thing at present, as the remarks upon myself, which you 
have lately received from him, do not appear in your pa¬ 
per. Perhaps I ought to rejoice at this, for he might 
have “ kilt” me, as the Irishman says, but still I should 
have been willing to incur the risk, so strong and reck¬ 
less is my curiosity. Upon his scheme to promote agri¬ 
cultural knowledge, I shall leave it to others to decide, 
being myself content with that scheme which at present 
prevails, I believe, in every civilized country on the 
face of the earth. — 
I presume your correspondent, D. G. Weems, who has 
given us an article on tobacco, must be a doctor, for he 
has used more hard words in the short compass of 21 
lines, than I have met with in 21 months reading,—at least 
on agricultural subjects. Beg him, therefore, my good 
sirs, wnen he writes again for us farmers and planters, to 
use somewhat plainer language; since, “ to tell the truth 
and shame the devil,” I must say that very few of us are 
£ * high larnt” enough to understand him, when he talks 
of the use and abuse ” of tobacco. Its “use” with us, I 
know very well, has been to destroy thousands upon 
thousands of acres of our very best lands; but as to its 
“abuse,” I should like to see the man who could abuse 
it half as much as it deserves. If temperance societies 
could succeed against the use of that, as they have done 
against intoxicating liquors, they would merit immortal 
honor. — 
“A. of the North,” I hope will accept my very best 
thanks for the compliment which he has been pleased to 
pay “ Commentator,” and gladly would I tell you and 
your readers, how highly I think of him and his commu¬ 
nications, if I were not afraid that you would all think I 
was trying to tempt him to a game of “scratch me, and 
I'll tickle you.” It is a very pleasant game they say, 
wnere two can play at it without being detected; but 
mere is the difficulty,—there is the rub! 
Your correspondent, “ Economist,” has given us an 
excellent and very amusing article, under the head— 
“ Making joints with the axe and jack-knife.” He has 
sketched to the life, our “ penny-wise and pound-foolish” 
brethren, and has flagellated them with so much good 
humored ridicule, that I wish he would lash them again. 
It is the only process, I believe, by which they can be 
made sensible of their folly. 
Mr. J. Horsfield’s method of fixing gate posts ap¬ 
pears to be a very good one; but I believe that such 
careless cartmen as I have been accustomed to see, would 
jostle even his out of place, unless they were guarded 
both before and behind, (as I have often seen practiced,) 
by strong posts about 4 feet hig'h, strongly planted in the 
ground, at the distance of 4 or 5 feet from each post. 
They may be so neatly finished as to be rather ornamen¬ 
tal than unsightly. — 
Agricola, I think, is right in what he says of the lit¬ 
tle attention, comparatively speaking, which has been 
paid to horses by yourselves and correspondents. Among 
all our domestic animals, the horse is certainly much the 
most valuable, and therefore should receive, at least, an 
equal share of our regard. There is quite as much dif¬ 
ference between the various breeds of our horses, as there 
is between the various breeds of our other stocks; and it 
is more important to the farmer to know in what this 
difference consists, than to gain all the knowledge which 
books can give him, (valuable as I admit it to be,) of 
cattle, hogs, and sheep, although we see scores upon 
scores of communications from your correspondents re¬ 
lative to them, for one that we get in regard to the horse. 
Mr. Lewis C. Beck’s plan of describing from time to 
time, ££ the weeds of agriculture,” is a very laudable one, 
and may be made highly useful, if he will give us, inie- 
gard o every weed he describes, the best mode ofextii- 
pation. Among the weeds mentioned in his first com¬ 
munication, he speaks of the yellow melilot, but says 
nothing of the white, which is the only kind, I believe, 
that is known in the middle States. It is a great pest, 
although it might easily be extirpated, as it is only an 
annual plant. The height is at least six or seven feet, 
the root nearly or quite as long, the flowers white and 
offensive to the smell, as are also the bruised leaves of 
the plant; take it altogether, I should say it is utterly 
worthless. In Mrs. Lincoln’s Botany there is a descrip¬ 
tion of this kind of melilot, but not of the yellow. The 
white is also described in Mr. Eaton’s Manual of Botan} r , 
and strange to say, he says it is ££ sweet scented;” but 
with due deference to his nose, I should call its scent by 
any other name. Mr. Beck will pardon me, I hope, for 
suggesting that it will hardly be of any use to farmers 
and planters of the United States, to describe any foreign 
weeds of agriculture, unless they either have become 
common among us, or are likely to become so. My rea¬ 
son for making this suggestion, is, that I have never seen 
a plant which would answer his description of the 
££ Avena fatua;” and since it is not mentioned either by 
Elliott, Barton, Torrey, or Muhlenburg, as I have been 
informed, it is probably neither a native weed nor a fo¬ 
reign interloper. — 
Mr. C. N. Bement’s letter recommending the Wor¬ 
cester plow, reminds me of a plan which I have often 
thought would be as highly useful as it is practicable. It 
is to have an annual trial, at Washington, during the sit¬ 
ting of Congress, and at the public expense, of plows, 
wheat machines, cutting boxes, and corn shellers. Let 
it be made by scientific and practical men, who should 
be required to publish the result of their trials. The 
great advantage to the agricultural community would be, 
that all would then soon know which machines were 
best; and none would be under any necessity to incur the 
risk of purchasing such as were of very little, or no 
value. As the matter now stands, thousands of dollars 
are annually thrown away in buying worthless machines 
or implements, merely for the want of some such public 
and comprehensive mode of testing their comparative 
merits. Our Congressional committee of Agriculture, 
might then render some real service to American hus¬ 
bandry, by acting as judges of these trials, instead of be¬ 
ing a merely nominal thing, as it has been from its crea¬ 
tion to the present day. — 
I once more hail with pleasure, the name of our friend, 
£C Solon Robinson,” and hope that we shall very soon 
see again some more of his £C notions” about matters and 
things in general. He has been much missed by all your 
readers of my acquaintance, for a long time past. 
The “ cure for worms in children,” which you quote 
from the Farmer’s Register, is an old acquaintance of 
mine, and I can assure you will do what is there promised 
for it. A friend, long since dead, who owned a number 
of negroes, used to give it the children every summer, as 
soon as the seed of the Jerusalem Oak was well formed. 
I have often seen the children eat it with much apparent 
pleasure, and my friend informed me it always had the 
effect intended. The leaves of the plant, or the seed 
boiled in milk, were also very commonly given to chil¬ 
dren in my younger days, and the dose, (say a large tea 
cup full taken fasting in the morning,) was deemed an 
excellent vermifuge. By the way, I cannot help think¬ 
ing that if our modern doctors would make more use 
than they do, of the medicinal plants of our own coun¬ 
try, it would be much better, not only for their patients 
but themselves. Can their neglect to do so, be attributa¬ 
ble to their being too lazy to make the study of medical 
botany a necessary part of their college course? Say, 
gentlemen, aye or no, since it is a question that cannot 
be answered by Commentator. 
A QUERY. 
Editors of the Cultivator —A few days since, I 
was informed that there was an instance in this neigh¬ 
borhood, of a bunch of Nimble-Wili growing contiguous 
to a wheat field, and from the pollen of the wheat this 
grass had been impregnated, and was now in bloom, 
with perfect heads of wheat! 
Yesterday, I visited the place. I found in the angle of 
a fence a patch of about 4 by 10 yards of grass, a sample 
of which I enclose you. This I found in a rich alluvial 
soil, in a southern exposure, growing under the shade of 
a locust tree; in the field, a crop of wheat had been cut 
some 6 or 8 days; across one of the fences which formed 
an angle of 45 degrees, there is growing a crop of corn, 
and within the corn field, there were a few spears of 
this grass which had escaped the plow. Underneath the 
locust, this grass grew as thick as timothy usually does, 
about 3 feet high, and was then in bloom; from an ex¬ 
amination, as well as the assurances of the gentleman 
who owns the farm, I am satisfied this land has not been 
disturbed by the plow for several years; the situation of 
the fence forbids it, and the growth of the locust would 
otherwise protect it. As you will see, it has a small, solid, 
hard stem, with joints and blades resembling the nimble- 
wili, which is very common here; as in grass or grain, 
there was an undergrowth of the same character which 
had not formed any heads, and this bore a stronger resem¬ 
blance to this grass. 
I have never seen anything of the character before, nor 
have I been successful in finding any person that can say 
what it is. The patch will be protected until the grain 
matures, and if it should turn out to be worth attending 
to, I will have some of the seed preserved. You, who 
never suffer anything of the kind to pass unnoticed, which 
is either useful or curious, will use it as you think pro¬ 
per; but if you can inform us what it is, and why it 
should be found there, the information will be accepta¬ 
ble. Yours, J. Laidly. 
Guyandotte, Va. June 30, 1842. 
Note by Eds. —We have received the plant described 
by our correspondent, but at this stage of its growth are 
unable to determine its character; and are inclined to 
consider it one with which we are not acquainted. When 
mature, however, it may be different. The specimen 
sent much resembles ears of spring wheat, gathered im¬ 
mediately after they have left the sheath, except that the 
beards or awns are not so long. Like that plant too, it 
has five florets on each spikelet, but the rachis or central 
part of the ear, though jointed as in that grain, is not, as 
is that, curved between each spikelet. It more resem¬ 
bles rye grass, Lolium perenne, than any other, but is 
very different from that. At present we think it a grass, 
but cannot determine the precise kind. There are two 
objections to considering it a hybrid, as proposed by our 
correspondent: 1st, such a cross fertilization would be in¬ 
consistent with those recognised laws which govern 
plants; and 2d, if such a cross had been effected, it could 
not affect the form of the ear the present season, as its 
influence would be felt in the seeds only, and become 
visible next year in the ear. 
The circumstances attending the appearance of this 
plant, as well as the plant itself, are, however, curious, 
and we hope will receive the attention from our corres • 
pondent, they seem to deserve. When matured there 
may he no doubt about the character of the plant. The 
seeds in the specimen sent were so shrunk as not to be 
distinct without a glass; when ripened, their kind anc 
qualities may be known at once. We shall be pleased 
to learn the result. 
GREEN MANURES, &c. 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker —I have now been a 
reader of the Genesee Farmer and the Cultivator for six 
years, the perusal of which has afforded me both infor¬ 
mation and amusement, far beyond the value of my sub¬ 
scription. I have often felt disposed to endeavor to make 
up for the balance thus against me by contributing to 
your columns, what may be information to others. 
Walter Scott said “ he never met with a man he could not 
gain some information from.” I believe most have 
found this true in their own experience. Now if every 
man who is sensible he is possessed of information that 
is not generally known, would make it his business to 
communicate it to the world, all professions, particu¬ 
larly agriculture, would rapidly improve. But too ma¬ 
ny, like myself, remain satisfied with reading the infor¬ 
mation procured by the industry of editors, until they 
get roused, as I have, by reading the different articles 
lately on C£ Green manures.” The one, page 92, has 
stirred up the furor scribendi, and to ease my conscience, 
I find I must tell you what I know on the subject. 
The remark, ££ it is evident that green manuring can 
only be used profitably in a warm climate, or during the 
warmest part of our seasons,” recalled to my recollection 
the many trials I formerly witnessed in the West Indies, 
where, from the exhausting nature of the sugar cane, 
great exertions are required to keep up the fertility of 
the soil. To give your readers an idea, 50 and 60 cart 
loads of manure to the acre, is considered a medium 
quantity by a good planter, when he plants a field with 
canes. The difficulty of procuring this large quantity is 
so great, that many green crops have been tried with va¬ 
rious degrees of success; turf with a good growth of 
grass; the bonaris, a small white bean well known in 
the states, and the palma christi, (castor oil plant;) but 
nothing has equalled the Angola or pigeon pea, which is 
a large bushy shrub, 5 or 6 feet high, full of small branch¬ 
es, the fibre of which is equal in toughness to the branch¬ 
es of most of the soft woods, although it comes to perfec¬ 
tion and full size in six or seven months. I am particu¬ 
lar in stating this, because it is directly opposed to your 
statement, ££ it is evident that to produce the best effect as 
an enricher of the soil, the plant used as manure should 
have a rapid growth, as in that way, more of its bulk is 
drawn from the atmosphere than the earth.'”* A soft, 
half matured plant, it is well known, does not afford near 
the nourishment to a beast, that hard ripe food does; and 
considering that ££ dry leaves are nature’s choice morsels,” 
the soil would be benefitted in about the same proportion 
by soft quickly grown buckwheat and a tough fibrous ve¬ 
getable. 
The following I know to be a fact:—A person brought 
up as a farmer in Scotland, was sent to an estate in one 
of the Windward Islands, to improve the system of til¬ 
lage. Not being able to manure a field of six acres that 
had been much exhausted by frequent cropping,he resolv¬ 
ed to give the pigeon a fair trial; he accordingly sowed 
them so thick that in a few months the ground was ef¬ 
fectually covered to the height of six feet; he then cut 
down this mass of vegetation, and immediately buried 
the whole under the large banks that are raised in dig¬ 
ging cane holes. Conceive land thrown into furrows 18 
inches to two feet deep, and measuring 5 to 6 feet from 
ridge to ridge, and you have the appearance of a cane 
field, when holed ready for planting. These large banks 
thus gave great facility for burying such a quantity of 
bushes. His first crop gave him but six hogsheads of 
sugar; instead of allowing the canes to shoot up again, 
as they will, he planted the pigeon pea, and proceeded 
as before; this second crop yielded 12 hhds. of sugar, as 
the benefit of the first decayed bushes was then felt. He 
* We thank our correspondent for his valuable paper, but 
must be permitted to say that we do not consider his statement 
respecting the Angola pea, to be ‘‘directly opposed” to our re¬ 
mark respecting the proper plants, and their mode of growth 
for manures. It appears evident to us that a vegetable which 
shoots up to the height of six or seven feet in a few months, 
must at that time more resemble a vigorous annual in its sub¬ 
stance, than a hardy perennial; and though the pea resembles a 
shrub, it is hardly considered or treated as such by the natives. 
Roxburg, in his Flora of India, says “ the natives consider them 
as an annual, because they do not bear well the second year, 
and after collecting the first crop, pull up the plants, dry, and use 
them for firewood.” It is clear, therefore, that the Angola pea 
comes within the class of plants we have designated most sui¬ 
table for green manuring. Its growth is rapid, as that of all 
such plants should he, and it appears that in the cases named 
by Quercus, it was put under the earth before the fibres had 
time to harden, while it was the fullest of juices, and therefore 
in that condition in which it would decay most rapidly. Alto¬ 
gether it is a beautiful illustration of the value of green ma¬ 
nures. 
