286

REPLY TO REVIEW OF MARCH NO.

have seen them, but never dared touch. It rises from 3 to 6 inches, and branches off, and continues to branch, until the close of the season. I have seen, on good land, where 8 to 12 quarts had been sown to an acre, the peas so rank that a horse as stout and fleet even as Boston, could not make his four miles through them, in a day.

What, good for?" "haulm." You say too much. How know you that they have a haulm? But, never mind, I care not to ferret you out. "What good for?" Like the negro's rabbit, "good for ebery ting." The vine, if pulled or cut before frost, and cured, will feed horses, cattle, and sheep. The pea, if gathered and kept from spoiling, will feed man and beast, will fatten superior to corn.

week in May peas can be sown between rows of corn, these will cover the land entirely before the 15th of September. The first frost will kill the vines. In September or October sow down rye or Egyptian oats; these will feed stock during winter, will protect land from rain measurably, and from washing, and can be turned under in February or March. Here are two crops; but if desired to turn under at different times, do so in fall, sow grain, and then turn under the grain. If desirable to turn under again another crop, sow oats in February and March; turn these under about June, when heading out, and plant for corn. Here are three crops turned under. But it is better to sow peas in March, say about the 15th; these will cover the ground in May, plow in, and sow again, and I believe a third crop can be plowed in time enough for grain. Last year, and the two preceding years, I plowed in as much rye as my plows could turn under, in March, having had the pea-vine on it in the previous summer. I think that good lands can be kept good; and I believe I have land now with the twentieth crop on it, that will yield more corn or cotton than it did in 1830, or about that time, comparing with the best crops of the period. To prove it, my crop in my orchard, cut, gave me last crop, on one part, over 1,600 lbs of seed cotton; on another part, about 50 bushels of corn. In 1833 Feeding hogs on cotton seed and peas,'ground! -'4, my cotton was 900 lbs. per acre. I remember From February to August we have as much as we that year, by my first experiment with Gulf seed; can all do to kill grass, then pull fodder, and then the past year I tried a similar one on the same land. enough to gather our crop, that feeds and clothes And it is this that led me to remark on the negli-one-half of you all, until February. We can make gent cultivation of my brother " planters." We cotton at 4 cents per lb., and buy meat at 4 cents, planters" here, not because we are all large better than go to all that sort of work. But no "planters," nor that "a farmer" is a disreputable need for it. I can show you clover two feet high; name, but that we confine ourselves to one crop. I can show you feed for hogs without fences.

are "

To tell you what sort of planters we are, would require time; but we are a very clever set of fellows, and you Northerners may thank your stars that we are not more attentive to our own interests; if we loved money more, you would see less of it; we make a great deal of money, and spend it in all sorts of "Yankee notions," and sometimes spend it before we make it but this is personal-excuse me. You may ridicule, but, sir, as sure as you live, we can turn under a coat of cow-peas every year, fully equal in value to your best clover leys, and as it is killed by early frost, of course we can sow grain and plow that in, for March or April planting.

size.

We sow the pea, or drop it, either at second working of the corn, if in hills, or when we plow to lay by, which is generally done when corn is in bunch-that is, when the tassel is in a bunch of leaves at the top, but has not quite appeared-that is what we call "in bunch." The vine is cut or pulled as late as we can, to avoid frost. seldom gather peas but for seed, and then when most are ripe, about frost or a little after, we feed the residue on the land to hogs, or by giving them the run of the field. Coke has to gather peas, for want of corn.

We

This may be plain English in your latitude." Why, sir, suppose my friend S. were to send me his boy, to live with me, and I was to direct him thus:-S. Jr., I wish you would not spend more time from the cotton field than would suffice to gather rye, oats, and peas, for seed, to plant our next crop. Would it not mean that we reaped and gathered for seeding alone, not for selling or for feeding? Why, sir, at this very time, I have some 10 acres, more or less, of rye, that will not be cradled, because I have cut enough for seeding all the land I desire to seed. The seed is the crop; the balance of the rye and peas is left on the ground for hogs or cattle. Is there anything mysterious in this, only that we have no need to gather anything? Have you never heard of the West feeding large fields of corn to stock, not gathering the crop?

The cow-pea"-we generally call all this family cow-peas-differs in every particular from the garden pea, which we country people call the English pea"-they differ in shape, color, and The black crowder is about as large as The grass that follows oats and rye, is crab grass, the marrow fat. The grey crowder nearly as and equal in nutritive qualities to any grass in the large. These are rounder than the real cow-pea, Empire State, or among the prairies, near the which is nearly as large, but more kidney-shaped, "North Pole." We cut our grain from the 5th to and of a russet color. Then comes the red ripper, the 15th of June, crab grass then springs up on smaller, and not quite so long, but still kidney-good land, and will cover the earth before frost, so shaped; then the stock or tory pea, lady pea, cala- as to give nearly two tons of cured hay. vanse, &c., the latter of greyish color, and about the I have no" poor starved niggers." So far from size of duck shot, a very delicate table pea, and to my notion is just ahead of any of your foreign English peas. The vine will grow, I verily believe, 20 to 100 feet, in a season, if we take the branches, and add to the main vine. The stem is frequently as large as a town lady's little finger-I

it, I guess they dine on as nice bacon, cabbage heads, beans, and Irish potatoes, these days, as any other man-white or black. Of course they cannot starve even if they get no othe meal, as I can prove by one white man, who is content with one good meal a day.

About fencing-why should I quarrel about of fineness. As soon as the smallest layer of earth this matter, although the editor of the Agricul- is formed on the surface of the rock, the seeds of turist has something on this subject? We cannot lichens, mosses, and other vegetables of the kind, teach "Wahoo Indians" that we can do without which are constantly floating in the atmosphere, fences. and which have made it their resting place, begin to vegetate; their death, decomposition, and decay, afford a certain quantity of organizable matter, which mixes with the earthy materials of the rock; in this improved soil more perfect plants are capable of subsisting; these in their turn absorb nourishment by the agency of water and the atmosphere; and, after perishing, afford new materials to those already provided; the decomposition of the rock still continues; and at length, by such slow and gradual processes, a soil is formed, in which even forest trees can fix their roots, and which is fitted to reward the labors of the cultivator.

"Write again, Doctor." Thank you, friend Reviewer; but this liberty is already secured to me by our A. B. A. But if he would not admit my articles, I would write for somebody else, or burst. The steam gathers so fast, that I must let off occasionally. But, friend Reviewer, be ye careful, you may drive some valuable pens off; many are wary, they can't bear to be ridiculed. M. W. PHILIPS. Edward's Depôt, Miss., June 14, 1846.

GARDENING.-No. 7.

The formation of peaty soil is produced from

THE next step in the study of the science of gardening, is to consider the natural agents of vege-very opposite causes, and it is interesting to contable culture.

The earthy matters which compose the surface of the earth, the air and light of the atmosphere, the water precipitated from it, the heat and cold produced by the alternation of day and night, and by chemical composition and resolution, include all the elements concerned in vegetation.

Where suc

template how the same effect may be produced by different causes, and the earth which supplied almost all our wants, may become barren alike from the excessive application of art, or the utter neglect of it. Continual pulverization and cropping, without manuring, will certainly produce a hungry, barren soil; and the total neglect of fertile Earths are the productions of the rocks which tracts will, from their accumulated vegetable proare exposed on the surface of the globe, and soils ducts, produce peaty soils and bogs. are earths mixed with more or less of the decom-cessive generations of vegetables have grown upon posed organized matter afforded by dead plants and a soil, unless part of their produce has been carried animals. Earths are, therefore, variously com-off by man, or consumed by animals, the vegetable posed, according to the rocks or strata which have matter increases in such proportion, that the soil supplied their particles. Sometimes they are approaches to a peat in its nature, and if in a situa chiefly formed from slate rocks, as in blue clays;tion where it can receive water from a higher disat other times from sand stone, as in siliceous soils; trict, it becomes spongy, and permeated with that and mostly of a mixture of clayey, slaty, and lime- fluid, and is gradually rendered incapable of supstone rocks, blended in proportions as various as porting the nobler classes of vegetables. Lakes their situations. Such we may suppose to have and pools of water are sometimes filled up by the been the state of the surface of the dry part of the accumulation of the remains of aquatic plants; and globe, immediately after the last disruption of the in this case a spurious peat is formed. The fercrust; but in process of time the decay of vege-mentation in these cases, however, seems to be of a tables and animals forms additions to the outer sur- different kind. Much more gaseous matter is face of the globe, and constitutes what are called evolved; and the neighborhood of morasses, in soils; the difference between which and earths is, which aquatic vegetables decompose, is generally that the former always contains a portion of vege-aguish and unhealthy; while that of the true peat, table or animal matter. or peat formed on soils originally dry, is always salubrious.

Soils may generally be distinguished from mere masses of earth, by their friable texture, dark color, and by the presence of some vegetable fibre or carbonaceous matter. In uncultivated grounds, soils occupy only a few inches in depth on the surface, unless in crevices, where they have been washed in by rains; and in cultivated soils their depth is generally the same as that to which the implements used in cultivation have penetrated.

The manner in which rocks are converted into soils, Sir H. Davy observes, may be easily conceived by referring to the instance of soft granite. This substance consists of three ingredients, quartz, feldspar, and mica. The quartz is almost pure siliceous earth in a crystalline form. The feldspar and mica are very compounded substances; both contain silica, alumina, and oxide of iron; in the feldspar there is usually lime and potassa, and in the mica, lime and magnesia. When a granite rock of this kind has been long exposed to the in- Systematic order and an agreed nomenclature fluence of the air and water, the lime and potassa are as necessary in the study of soils, as of plants contained in its constituent parts are acted upon by and animals. The number of provincial terms for water or carbonic acid; and the oxide of iron, soils which have found their way into books on which is almost always in its least oxidized state, cultivation, is one reason why so little use can be tends to combine with more oxygen; the conse-made of their directions. A correct classification quence is, that the feldspar decomposes, and like- of soils may be founded on the presence or absence wise the mica; but the first the most rapidly. The of organic or inorganic matter in their bases. This feldspar, which is, as it were, the cement of the will form two grand classes: viz., primitive and stone, forms a fine clay; the mica partially decom- secondary. These classes may be subdividedinto posed mixed with it as sand; and the undecom-orders, founded on the presence or absence of posed quartz appears as gravel of different degrees saline, metallic, and carbonic matter. These orders

288

WOOL-GROWING IN WESTERN NEW YORK LANDS.-ETC.

may be subdivided into genera, founded on the prevailing earths, salts, metals, or carbon; the genera into species founded on their different mixtures; the species into varieties founded on color, texture, &c. ; and sub-varieties founded on moisture, dryness, richness, lightness, &c.

Plants are the most certain indicators of the nature of a soil; for while no practical cultivator would engage with land of which he knew only the results of a chemical analysis, or examined by the sight and touch a few bushels which were brought to him, yet every gardener or farmer, who knew the sorts of plants it produced naturally, would be at once able to decide as to its value for cultivation. For example, the garget and striped maple are generally found on a warm, loamy soil: the rush on a clayey soil; the mullein and sorrel on a dry, sandy soil; and the cranberry on a peaty soil. But these plants, however, are not to be absolutely depended upon, as. they are sometimes found in soils directly opposite; as climate and natural irrigation have much more influence on these plants than mere soils.

The remaining natural agents of vegetable culture, I shall treat of in another number; and shall here close the subject of earths and soils by stating that, according to the chemical analysis of Bergman, the soil best suited for the culture of most vegetables, contains four parts of clay, three of sand, two of calcareous earth, and one of magnesia. L. T. TALBOT.

WOOL-GROWING IN WESTERN NEW YORK
LANDS.

grain land may be decreased, or the flock increased. Twelve tons of hay for 100 sheep is an ample allowance for the winter. If fed on grain they will not eat so much. Ten tons of hay and 50 bushels of corn would winter a flock of 100 in the very best manner. I have allowed 20 acres of pasture, 10 of meadow, and 3 for grain, for every 100 sheep. Eight acres for meadow is sufficient, for there is little meadow land in that section that will not average at 13 tons to the acre, and two acres of grain is all that need be given. I have not therefore overstocked the farm. An active enterprising man could realize as much from his capital here as in any other section of the Union.

In making the estimate, I have allowed 300 acres for wood land and waste, about the usual quantity on that number of acres. This could be diminished by at least 100 acres, and adding at least $300 per annum more to the income. I divide the cleared land; 420 pasture, 210 meadow, and 70 grain. If I AM glad to see so much interest manifested in the manure made by the sheep and horses is proour Western New York lands. They are not pro-perly returned to the land, both the meadow and perly appreciated. There is no better grazing land in any state, or situations more healthful or pleasant. All that "Western" says on the subject is true, as I know from my own experience. We have two small farms lying upon the high land, back of our main farm, and upon the Genesee slate, which underlies the most, indeed, nearly all of this section of the country. When it came into our possession, some twelve years ago, it had been worn out, as the owner supposed. We stocked down all that was under the plow, and have used it for a sheep-walk and meadow ever since. The land that with difficulty carried three sheep to the acre, will now carry six well, and serve better than it did three at first. There are thousands of acres I am really glad you are closing that sheep conwhich can be purchased at from $6 to $12 per acre troversy. Like Mr. Bingham, I rejoice in all_real -that 40 acres will carry 100 sheep well, both improvement of sheep. But let the public have summer and winter, and after a few years the same some other proof than the "guessing" of owners can be done on 30 acres. I can pick out a great about heavy fleeces, and all that kind of "gammon." many farms with good buildings, and the land very | Mr. Bingham takes the true course, and I venture fairly fenced and cultivated, that it is safe to calcu- to say will have but few competitors. late 300 sheep to every 100 acres of cleared land, which can be bought for $10 and $12 per acre.

Darien, July 4, 1846.

T. C. PETERS. FEEDING LARGE DOGS IN TOWN.-I would advise horse's flesh, or bullock's liver, well boiled, to be given once a day, from 1 lb. to 14lbs., according to the size of the animal. Potatoes, or odd pieces of bread, soaked in the liquor that the mea has been previously boiled in, may be given for breakfast. The dog must have a constant supply of good water; he ought not to be fed more than made a twice a day. WALTHAMSTOW.

To make it profitable, no man should undertake without adequate capital. A man wants at least 1,000 acres, and the money to stock it, and enough to carry it on for a year, without looking to the avails of the farm. Thus situated, with a good flock of sheep, and a few breeding mares, he can be about as independent a farmer as need be. Indeed, none can be more so in any country.

To show what might be done, I have

LADIES' DEPARTMENT.-B2 DEPARTMENT.

Ladies' Department.

WHAT IS A PARAPETTICOAT? WE are astonished at the numerous inquiries that have reached us about this article. Its name reveals its nature. It is a hybrid between a parasol and a petticoat. This is not banter, but fact. And why should there not be such a thing? What is there in rerum natura to prevent an ingenious person from applying those two needful articles of shelter and dress to gardening purposes? They will fade, and wear thin, in the custody of the most economical gentlewoman, and to find a use for them afterwards is an adaptation of means to end which cannot be too highly commended.

Let us give a receipt for making a parapetticoat. First find a good-sized parasol, or small umbrella, covered with cotton, and not rubbed into holes. Then select a cast-off petticoat, not a crinoline, which Mrs. Malaprop calls a Kremlin, nor yet a flannel, but some other form of the vestment; it need not be very full; indeed, it will be the better for being scanty; sow up the opening, and it is ready for attachment to the parasol. For this purpose the latter instrument must be opened, and kept so; then the upper end of the petticoat is to be sowed to the edge of the parasol, and a staff six feet or more long is to be secured to its handle. Thus the parapetticoat is constructed.

Boys' Department.

289

A CHAPTER ON GRASSES.-No. 2. THE following definition of a true grass is copied from a lecture delivered before the class of the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Sciences, by Dr. Darlington, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, an excellent botanist and practical farmer; brief and simple as it is, it will be found to contain the most striking characteristics of the tribe:-" Whenever we meet with a plant having a cylindrical, jointed stem; with the joints solid, and the intervening portions hollow-or, in a few instances, filled with a pith-like substance the leaves alternate, one originating at each joint, embracing the stem with its base, and forming a sheath, which is slit on one side, down to its origin-and the flowers protected by those peculiar envelopes known by the name of chaff, we may take it for granted we have before us a genuine grass." To the same lecture I am indebted for many of the facts here stated, but as I quote from memory, I dare not make another answerable for my inadvertencies.

Botanists enumerate upwards of three hundred species of grasses indigenous to the United Statesyet all the cultivated kinds, and their almost innumerable varieties, are believed to be introduced.

66

The uses of this interesting tribe are almost too well known and too various, to require enumeraBut what a word! cries Sir Erasmus Verbal. tion-some few I will point out, and the boys may What a barbarous compound of Greek and Saxon! do the rest. Those considered of most value to the The thing may be well enough, but its name is un-agriculturist in the Middle and Western States, as endurable. Pray call it a parachiton, or a para-affording the best hay and pasture-though if I do chitonisk. We can have no objection to the not place them in their proper order of excellence, change, if the world prefers it; and we agree with the same young observers must set me right—are, Sir Erasmus, that it will be as well to adopt it when" Meadow grass" (Poa pratensis); "blue grass" parasol is called parahelion, and parapluie a para- (Poa compressa); " Timothy" (Phleum pratense); ombrion-but not till then. "red top" (Agrostis vulgaris); fescue grass" And what is the parapetticoat for? For, (Festuca pratensis); "orchard grass" (Dactylis Madam for a most important purpose. It is an glomerata); " ray grass" (Lolium perenne); and instrument of execution; it is the shirt of Nessus;"sweet-scented vernal grass," (Anthoxanthum odoit is the robe of Atropos. It is to enable the gar-ratum), which gives a delightful perfume to the dener to dispatch his mortal enemies. It is to re- hay. Some others are occasionally cultivated; lieve his rose bushes from that foe which he assails but, I believe, not to any great extent or advantage. in vain with snuff, gas water, and smelling salts. The sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum) is a true It is to kill green flies. grass, which, in its structure and habit, bears a strikThe instrument is used thus. In the first place, ing resemblance to Indian corn; but unlike it, the the petticoat is drawn up till it rests upon the out-chief value consists in the rich juice with which the side of the parasol. The staff of the latter is then stems abound-and if any boy should be so ignorant introduced perpendicularly into the centre of a rose bush, and secured in its place by being pushed into the ground. The petticoat being then drawn down, the bush is completely covered in by the garment. The gardener then blows his tobacco smoke beneath it; in a few minutes the rose bush is enveloped in a cloud which has no outlet; the green-fly seeks in vain to escape from the fatal at-ter, which are filled with a cool, pure liquid, mosphere which enters every fold and lurkingplace; he clings in vain to his beloved rose-buds; his grasp relaxes; he falls; he dies, and with him

Unnumber'd corses strew the fatal plain. Five minutes suffice for the execution. The veil may then be raised; the instrument removed, and the operation repeated upon a new horde of delinquents.-Gardener's Chronicle.

as not to know that it furnishes sugar and molasses, he should be made to learn the lesson before he is again allowed anything better than sour apple pie, or dry bread for his luncheon.

A species of seed, which in Brazil forms impenetrable thickets, grows to the height of thirty or forty feet, with hollow stems six inches in diame

capable of quenching the most burning thirst. Of this the hunters are so well aware, that, when in need of refreshment, they, with their machitis, or large two-edged chopping knife, cut off the young shoots just below a joint, and drink the delicious beverage so bountifully supplied by nature.

A very coarse paper is manufactured in this country, from oat straw, which is found to resist the effects of damp better than other kinds of cheap

paper. In the native country of the "Bamboo," ness to them, and protection from outrage and op Bambusa arundinacea, the stately culms, or stems, pression. A portion of the humane spirit of those furnish spars for sail boats, as well as stout walk- precepts has pervaded all countries, and descended ing-canes, much valued by pedestrians; and of in a particular manner to the nations of the East. some of its congeners are made the pretty "rattans" One of the tales of a philosopher of India, elucidates and "supple jacks-and fishing rods," such as good this fact in a striking manner. A traveller who was old Izaak Walton never dreamed of. permitted to visit the place of punishment of cri. minals, saw there every part of the body of a man of high rank in flames, except one of his feet. Upon asking the reason why that part of his body, alone, was exempt from the rage of the fire, he was told, that the only kind action that man had performed during his whole life, was to liberate a lamb which had been entangled, by one of its feet, by means of a brier, in crossing a field, and that, as a The creeping suckers and tangled roots of seve-reward for that act, his foot was exempted from ral species of otherwise useless grass, are exten-punishment.

Excellent mattrasses are made from the soft inner husks of Indian corn, properly dried and hetchelled. Nothing affords a warmer thatch for outhouses than rye straw; and in Great Britain the cottages of the laboring classes are universally roofed with it; and what could our neat housewives do without the aid of the fine branching panicles of the broom corn? (Sorghum saccharatum.)

sively useful both in Europe and America, in fixing We are also bound to study the diseases of dothe shifting sands of large tracts of sea coast, and mestic animals, and the remedies that are proper to preventing the ravages of the winds and tides for cure them, by a principle of gratitude. They live this purpose the Arundo arenaria and Cynodon only for our benefit. They require in exchange dactylon are most valuable. But I should weary for their labor and all the other advantages we demy young friends, as well as myself, were I to save rive from them, nothing from us but food, shelter, them the pleasant labor of finding out all the ways and these often of the cheapest and coarsest kind, in which grass contributes to our comfort and luxu- so that there is constantly due to them an immense ry-mats, bags, ropes, ladies' bonnets, boys' hats, balance of debt from us. This motive to take care and a hundred other useful and ornamental articles. of their health and lives will appear more striking Even the melancholy sounding whistle, which when we consider the specific benefits we receive every schoolboy can make of a green rye straw from each of them. The horse is not only an imnot knowing or dreaming perhaps, that he is doing what men did thousands of years ago, when they first invented the musical instrument, since called 'Pan's pipes," which after various modifications became the soul-entrancing flute !

I dare not mention among the useful productions the much abused whiskey distilled from rye, nor the rum and ratafia from the sugar-cane.

portant appendage, but a necessary part of the cement of civilized society. He plows our fields, he draws home our harvests and fruits to our barns and cellars. He conveys them from distant parts of the country, oftentimes over rough and difficult roads, to our sea-ports and market towns. He receives, in exchange for them, the products of foreign climes, and transports them to the interior and reStraw, kept dry, appears almost incorruptible, mote parts of our country. He administers to our which is owing to the abundance of silex which health and to our pleasures under the saddle, and pervades the cuticle or skin, for they have no bark in the harness. In short, he adds to the increase that it is so filled can easily be proved by burn- of our commerce, national wealth, and happiness. ing a straw upon a piece of glass, when the vege-To the horned cattle and sheep, we are indebted for table portion will be consumed, and the complete many of the blessings and comforts of life. The skeleton left in the silex.

It would be an agreeable and useful employment for the boys, to collect and preserve a specimen of each kind of true grass, and arrange them according to their natural affinities, in books made of straw paper, loosely stitched together. Each specimen should have a label of writing paper, with the scientific and common names, neatly written, the place and mode of growth, cultivated, naturalized or indigenous, time of flowering and of ripening the seeds, with the several uses it can be made to answer in rural economy, to man or to animals. Eutawah.

strength and patience of the ox in the plow and in the team, have added to the wealth of the farmer in every age and country. The cow has still greater demands upon our gratitude. Her milk, in its simple state, furnishes subsistence to a great part of mankind. Its products in cream, butter, and cheese, form the most agreeable parts of the aliment, and even the luxuries of our tables. Her flesh affords us food. Her skin protects our feet and legs from the inclemencies of the weather in the form of boots and shoes. The sheep affords us, by her wool, a great portion of our clothing during every year of our lives, and likewise furnishes us with a wholesome aliment in the form of mutton and lamb. The BOYS, BE KIND TO DOMESTIC ANIMALS. dies. But this is so far from being true, that he is hog is said, like the miser, to do good only when he ONE of the patriots and heroes of the War of In-dishonored by the comparison. He fattens upon dependence, who died suddenly, some years ago, the offals of our kitchens, and is also made to perin his barn-yard, said, with his last breath, to his form the office of scavenger in cleaning our streets. servant, near by, "Take care of these creatures." At his death he bequeaths us his flesh for food, his By the same kind direction we are bound to study hair for brushes, and his fat for culinary purthe means of preserving the health and administer-poses, and is useful in the arts. Other benefits are ing to the wants of domestic animals, by all those derived from the ass, the goat, the cat, the dog, and precepts in "Holy Writ," which recommend kind-other animals.

E. L.

*W.