In this second edition, we have retained all the matter that can now be of use to the reader-the receipt of moneys, Price Current, &c. being omitted.

ALBANY :

FROM THE STEAM PRESS OF PACKARD, VAN BENTHUYSEN & Co.

1838.

A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE.

ALBANY, MARCH, 1836.

THE CULTIVATOR-MARCH, 1836. min, an' fifty-one deg. twenty min. north latitu le, the climate much re

TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND.
OUR THIRD VOLUME

Commences with this number. We feel extremely grateful to the gentlemen who have assisted to give a high character to the Cultivator, by their communications; and the many who have contributed to extend its circulation, are no less entitled to our warmest thanks. We trust and believe, that they have all felt a high gratification in the consciousness, that they have done a substantial public good, and that this consciousness, to men of enlarged and philanthrophic minds, is to them a greater source of pleasure, than any acknowledgments we can make to them. If we are right in this conclusion, any request on our part, that they will continue their useful labors, will be wholly superfluous.

sembling that of latitude forty to forty two deg. here. The soil is of

various qualities, but in general naturally poor and san ly, resembling, in no small degree, the maritime districts of New-Jersey and Long Island, and the sandy districts of Saratoga and the upper level on the Connecticut river. The country is intersected by canals, which serve to facilitate the transportation of manure from the cities and villages, of which there are many, ani of farm produce to market. Notwith stan ling the natural infertility of the soil, these provinces are ma le to yield the most abun lant returns to agricultural labor. In the Low Countries of which Flan lers comprises a part, an I in the valley of Po, in Italy, agriculture first revived after the overthrow of the Roman em pire, was re luce 1 to system, received its earliest improvements, and probably still maintains an ascen len y. The practices of such a country cannot but affor 1 some useful hints to the farmers of our own. Sinclair, in iuced the directors of the Farmer's Society in Ireland to The high commendations bestowel on Flemish husbandry by Sir John commission the Rev. Thomas Radcliff to visit that country, and to reThe Cultivator was not established from pecuniary considera-port on the con lition of its husban try. It is from his report that we tions. The object was truly to disseminate useful information, to have drawn the facts which we are about to narrate. the agricultural community, in the cheapest possible form, in order Among the characteristics that distinguish Flemish husbandry is the to increase the profits and respectability of agricultural labor. perfect pulverization of the soil, by frequent and deep ploughings, or It was hoped that it might at least contribute to excite in the ||by trenching ;—the subjecting most of the lan is to alternate husban fry; youth of our country, a desire to improve the mind as the readi--the extensive culture of clover, of root crops, an I tares, for soiling est way to improve and render profitable the culture of the soil. and winter feeding their cattle;-the careful extirpation of all wee ls;In aiming at this object, our calculations were graduated in the a remarkable attention to the saving and a judicious application of ma outfit, too low; for, notwithstanding that the services of the con- ground with crops;-and a judicious rotation, varying in almost every nures particularly of liquil manures;-the constant occupation of the ductors were gratuitous, the establishment at the close of the first listrict on account of the difference in soil, and adoptel and settled af year, was more than five hundred dollars in debt. The second ter long experience, such as is best suited to the local market-as will year, the advance of price has enabled us not only to extricate || best repay the farmer's cost and toil by an abundant return-best culti it from debt, but to afford a moderate compensation for its ma- vate the soil for a succeeding crop—best enrich it for the purpose of innagement. Although the subscriptions must necessarily be renew-creasing fertility, and most effectually prevent, by judicious alternation, ed at the commencement of each volume, the subscribers amount-that natural disgust which even good soils manifest to reiterated sow. ed, for the last year, to nearly 12,000. It is the intention of the ings of the same description.

con luctor, to expend, in pictoral embellishments and illustrations, Our author has divi led the country into eleven districts, distinguished and in other improvements, any excess of means which may arise by peculiarities of soil, and treated of each separately. We shall fol from increased subscriptions; and at all events to make the com-low his arrangement, and quote whatever may seem calculated for our improvement. ing volume as valuable as the last.

alumine, or clay; twenty-one silex or sand; nineteen carbonate of lime; District No. 1-WHEAT SOIL, containing fifty-two and a half parts and seven and a half oxyde of iron. This is the strongest and heaviest soil described. The crops which are cultivated in this district, are wheat, horse beans, winter an i spring barley, oats, and partially potatoes and flax. The average product is, of wheat twenty-eight bushels, beans nineteen, barley forty-seven, oats fifty-nine bushels per English acre. There is sown per acre, two and a half bushels of wheat, four of beans, two and a half of barley and oats. Here fallows are resorted to. The rotation is so arranged as to have a root, bean or clover crop intervene between the wheat, barley an oat crops. A consi-lerable portion of the water by drains an l embankments. Manure is applied to the fal this district, laying at the mouth of a stream, has been reclaime from low, upon which is sown wheat or winter barley after four ploughings; the subsequent crops receive but two. The practice is general to pick e their seed wheat in salt an 1 water, with a proportion of Roman vitriol, to escape all ma'a ly in the ensuing crops.

We commence, in this number, several essays on interesting subjects, which we shall be obliged to continue, on account of their length, in several consecutive numbers. Of these, the treatise on lime, is one of the most valuable of the kind we have met with. That on the silk business will be interesting to a great portion of our readers. The subject of grasses is one of universal interest, and the authorities from which we draw our facts, are of undisputed pre-eminence. The compend of Flemish Husbandry will be worth an attentive perusal, as it gives the practice of probably the best cultivated agricultural district in Europe, and will afford many hints serviceable in our practice. It will be remarked, that the analysis of the soil is always given, as determinating the mode of culture, and rotation. The extracts in regard to Sheep Husbandry will be found valuable to all who are engaged in this department of husban lry. We have also in store for our readers, many valuable articles from Low, Chaptal and Loudon, suited to our husbandry. Division No. 2-TURNIP SOIL-Silex seventy-six; alumine eighteen; We promise, too, more attention to the young men's department; carbonate of lime four; oxy le of iron two-fenominate l a good loam. and, though last in the enumeration, not least in our regards, the The crops in this district are, wheat upon manure i fallow, clover top floral and household departments of the ladies shall not escape our dressed with ashes, oats followel the same season with turnips, flax notice. The works from which we extract the pith and marrow, manured with urine-occasionally rye, tobacco, beans, hops, an l rape. would cost the reader a large sum, and some of them are either The preparation of the soil for flax is scarcely to be surpassed by that not accessible to the many, or are beyond their means. From a harrowings, is backe up in the centre, so as to leave it without any of the neatest garden. The groun 1, after two or three ploughings and computation we have made, we find that a volume of the Cultiva-farrow. A heavy roller follows, the liquid manure is then spread tor contains as much matter as five volumes of ordinary duodeci-equally, the groun l again harrowed, the seed sown and harrowed in mo, which sell at eight to ten shillings a volume. We have adopt-with a light wooden-toothed harrow, and the operation completed with ed the two column form in the page the better to receive the cuts; the roller. though the matter is not thereby decreased, but will be rather increased, by the introduction of more small type than usual.

NOTES ON FLEMISH HUSBANDRY.

Liquid manure, universally used for flax, and cften for clover, &c. consists of the urine cf cattle, in which rape cake has been dissolved, an in which the vidanges conveyel from the privies of towns and vil lages, have also been blen led. This manure is collected in subteraneEast and West Flan lers, to whose agricu'ture our notes refer, is a ous vaults of brickwork, at the verge of the farm, a ljoining the main district of flat open country, of about eighty miles by fifty, bounded road, or contiguous to the stables. They are generally forty feet long north-west by the North Sea, north-east by Holland, south by French by fourteen wide, arched, with conveniences to fill and empty them. Flanders, and east by Dutch Brabant, lying between fifty deg. forty-five"This manure is distributed in the fields by carts, or tonneaus, a large

eask carried by two men, by means of poles, and scattered over the surface with shovels or long handled dishes. Two thousand five hundred gallons of this liquid are applied to an acre of flax.

Division 3.-RYE SOIL-Silex eighty-four; alumine fourteen; oxyde of iron two;-somewhat similar to the preceding, but more abounding in sand; the crops much the same. Rape, manure 1 with liquid manure, yields forty bushels of seed the acre, which sells for $32. The expense of manure, plants and labor about $33-leaving a profit to the cultivator of nearly $50. Rape belongs to the cabbage (brassica) family, and is cultivated principally for the oil expressed from its seeds. The oil is used in lamps, and for various domestic purposes, and the cakes, from which it is expressed, are employed, as already stated, as manure. We do not know that this plant has been cultivated in this country, although it seems it might be profitably. Should any one ask for information, we shall cheerfully hereafter detail the mode of culture, and of express ing and purifying the oil. The rents here average about $5.30, and the taxes $1.50 per acre. The liquid manure from forty-four head of cattle, upon one farm, sufficed to manure in the best manner twenty-one acres annually. Our Rev. author dwells with great emphasis upon this species of manure, and earnestly recommends it to the notice of his countrymen. The horses are in the finest condition. They perform all the farm labor. They are kept in the stable in summer and winter. Their straw and hay is always cut, and their grain always given to them in the form of meal, and generally mixed with their drink. Their daily food, in winter, is fifteen pounds of hay, ten of straw, and eight of oats: in summer, clover is substituted for hay. In this way every grain of corn is converted into nutriment. A farmer will work fifty acres with two horses, and maintain them in excellent condition.

THE SILK BUSINESS.

We have promised to give directions for the culture of the mulberry, and the management of the silk-worm-and we shall now proceed to redeem our promise. In the meantime we will recommend, that every person who designs seriously to enter into the business, should either purchase one of the half dollar publications which have recently come from the press, or subscribe for one of the dollar periodicals, which are specially devoted to this business. Either of these will afford all the instructions, in a compact and handy form, necessary for the perfect management of the business. We shall be obliged to be somewhat brief; for were we to publish all that is written upon this subject, it would engross our whole paper.

We will remark in the outset, that we do not doubt but the silk business will succeed in our country, and that it will ultimately become a matter of great national concern. Yet we believe that many who em bark in it will fail to realize their golden dreams; and that when the fever has passed its crisis, it will be found to depend for success, like every other money making undertaking, upon the knowledge, prudence and economy with which it is managed. We are an enthusiastic, and often an inconsiderate and fickle people. When the fever of public feeling is excited upon any great subject, be it turnpikes, banks, canals, railroads, or the culture of silk, we are apt, for want of prudence and forethought, to permit it to assume a dangerous type, that baffles the counsels of reason, and sometimes terminates in extreme lassitude and prostration of strength. Local rivalship and private interest, the spirit of speculation, and the aggrandizement of party, are so profusely employed to stimulate the patient, and to deaden him to a sense of dan ger, that it is a long time, after they cease to operate, before he is re stored to a sane state of mind, and a sound healthy condition of body. And though he does apparently recover from the shock, we have serious fears, that these repeated attacks are imperceptibly underminding his constitution. We have seen the turnpike bubble burst.-Few of these roads are at this day productive-many have been abandonedmuch money has been expended upon them-and still the public is not greatly benefitted,-for in general they are not enough better than common roads to make up for the tolls they exact. Had the number been limited to one-third, or one-fourth, and these well made, the interests both of the stockholders and of the public would have been much bet ter subserved than they now are. They have besides led to the culpa. The Clover crop, is managed most successfully; "indeed, upon the cul- ble neglect of our public roads. We have seen that several of our tivation of this plant, hinges apparently, the whole of the farmer's banks have turned out to be mere bubbles; and, if we mistake not, prosperity. It is here, and every where, except when vetches are sown, some of our canals, and many of our projected rail-roads will in the end the summer support of all his stock. Here are very few pastures. prove to be not much better-public sacrifices at the shrine of private The clover cut and carried to well littered stalls, becomes an abundant gain. We profess to be the ardent friends to public improvements of source of manure of two descriptions-the urine being conducted, by every sort; but we insist that prudence, which is wisdom applied to channels, to the urine cisterns-and thus the cattle are made profitably practice, is as commendable, and as necessary, and as much a virtue, subservient to the production of their own nourishment. Without clo- in the management of the public concerns, as it in the management of ver, no man in Flanders would presume to call himself a farmer." one's private concerns. What individual has ever been renowned for When seed is to be taken, the first crop is used for soiling, after which his wisdom or for his justice, who lavished upon one or two favorites, the plants are permitted to mature their seed. The seed is threshed at the patrimony which belonged equally to his whole family, or who, to the barn, and then sent to the mill to be cleaned, for which a time of benefit his children, has encumbered his farm with an enormous debt. frost is chosen. They seldom fail to roll their clover, and to manure it|| We would neither creep nor run, if we meant to make haste in a long with ashes, at the rate of forty-five bushels to the acre. journey.

Division 4-WHEAT SOIL-Silex sixty-three and a quarter; alumine thirty-five; oxyde of iron three-fourths; carbonate of lime one-half; vegetable fibre one-half-a good sand loam. The crops and course here, are: 1. wheat with dung; 2. clover with ashes; 3. flax with urine; 4. wheat with short dung and sweepings; 5. potatoes with farmyard dung or night soil; 6. rye with urine; 7. rape seed with urine; 8. potatoes with dung; 9. wheat with manure; 10. clover with ashes; 11. oats without manure; 12. flax with urine; 13. wheat with dung; and 14. beans, beets or tobacco, with dung or rape cake. Turnips are also grown, but are taken as a second crop, after rape, flax, wheat or rye.

Division No. 5-POTATO SOIL-Silex sixty-five and a half; alumine thirty-two and a half; oxyde of iron two-inferior to the preceding. The crops flax, rye, potatoes, oats, buckwheat; secondary products, rape seed, turnips, carrots, wheat and clover. In the best parts the rotation the same as in the preceding district; in the interior ones rye is substituted for wheat; potatoes made to commence, and buckwheat to terminate the rotation.

Division No. 6-RYE SOIL-Silex ninety-one; alumine eight; oxyde of iron one-rich sandy loam. Chief products, wheat, rye, rape seed, flax, oats, potatoes and buckwheat; secondary produce, turnips, clover and carrots. The rotation very similar to No. 2. Carrots are sown with oats, flax or rye. Where intended to be raised as a first crop, the ground is ploughed after harvest, which buries the stubble. It then lies till spring, when it is ploughed eleven or twelve inches deep, and about twenty tons of manure spread on the acre. The seed is sown broadcast, at the rate of three pounds per acre, and covered with a harrow, in the month of April. The produce is about one hundred and sixty bushels to the acre. About twenty-five pounds of carrots are given to a horse with oats, in twenty-four hours, in place of hay.

No sooner has the silk business become a theme of public favor, than we see capitalists, or speculators, clubbing their means, and already erecting large s lk establishments, as they have an undoubted right to do, but in too many cases we fear, from a hope of getting a profit on the stock, rather than on the business-on their cunning, rather than on their labor. They should remember, that the first requisite in cooking fish, is to catch them. Children sometimes recreate themselves with a play called "Robin's alive"-and this seems now to have become a fashionable game with men-though many a "6 burnt child," we apprehend, will have cause, hereafter, to dread the fire. But we will go back to our starting point, from which we have been inadvertently drawn.

The silk business may be safely undertaken by every farmer who has a family of females, or children, willing to pick the mulberry leaves and take care of the worms, or, if he begins with seedling plants in the nursery, who has this aid in prospect, and he may enlarge his scale of operations, as his prospects of help and profit increase. His outlay will be comparatively trifling. An ounce of mulberry seed, or a few hundred plants, and some eggs when his trees afford leaves, will constitute the principal expense. The money which he obtains for his cocoons, or his silk, will be so much added to his nett income. But if the business is to be managed by hired labor, or without the supervision of the master or mistress, we cannot guarantee success, at least Average produce-Wheat twenty-three bushels the acre; rye twenty-not to the extent that many sanguinely anticipate; and we should by eight bushels; oats fifty-two bushels; flax seed six and a half; rape all means advise such as thus intend, to begin with moderation, and thirty-two bushels; potatoes three hundred bushels; carrots one hund- to satisfy themselves, from experience, that they can manage the busired and sixty-two bushels. Rent $4 to $5.75 per acre; land tax one-ness with profit, before they venture to embark in it to a large extent. fifth of the rent; price of land $100 to $140 per acre; farms from seven We ought in candor to state two other facts, one of which we have

Average seed in divisions, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6-wheat two bushels to the acre; rye one and one-fifth bushels; oats two and a half bushels; flax two bushels; rape one quart; potatoes fourteen and a half bushels.

to one hundred and seventy-five acres; labor eleven cents per day with not seen published, and which may be doubted by many till they have board. it confirmed by their experience. One fact is, that even the common