6 feet in circumference, and 6 feet deep, will require three barrels of lime, two loads coarse sand and two loads of rubble stone, and a day and a half labor for three hands. In the diagram below, the dimen sions are assumed to be eight feet square; b is a partition passing through the centre, with an aperture at the bottom, for the water to pass from chamber A, to chamber B; a and c are two close partitions, rising three feet from the bottom. The water is conducted into the cistern, by the spout d, falls upon the alternating strata of gravel anded with the worm, must have lost them by their previous transforma. sand, G C, which are each 6 inches in thickness, passes to the aperture D, in the main partition, rises through the like strata in chamber B, from which latter it may be drawn by a cock at c, perfectly pure and fit for use, or raised by a pump. The gravel employed should be coarse and clean; the charcoal pure, and well pounded. There are three strata of gravel, as indicated by G, and two of charcoal, C. Ild 8 feet. New Drill Barrow. We have received from the inventor, Mr. NiRAM R. MERCHANT, of Guilford, Chenango co. the compliment of a Drill Barrow, of peculiar simplicity and cheapness; and if we are per mitted to judge from its appearance, without having given it a trial, it will be found a very economical and useful implement in the hands of every farmer and gardener in the country, who is not already provided with a drill barrow. Mr. Merchant has been selling the machines at $2 each. It may be adapted to the sowing of turnips, onions, radishes, beans, beets, &c. by manual power, and by multiplying the wheels, or rather, by uniting several machines, for horse power, it may be used in field culture, for mangold wurtzel, wheat, &c. Thus combined, we think it would resemble the drill used in France, in sowing the beet for sugar, which Mr. Pedder highly commends, and which there sells at 100 francs. This barrow is presented in the cut below. A, A, are the Wheat Worm.-We observe, in the Genesee Farmer of the 3d of September, an interesting article upon this insect, from the pen of Willis Gaylord, one of the best agricultural writers of our country. Mr. Gaylord closes his paper with the remark, that "since it appears that in many instances the fly is perpetuated by the eggs of worms enclosed in the wheat sown, would it not be good policy to use wheat two years or more old for seed, as such wheat, if it were originally affect. tion?" If the egg of the worm is deposited on the seed, of which we have strong doubts, it is not exclusively so. In 1834, we obtained se lect seed, from the mouth of the Genesee river. The crop looked very flattering, till the heads were developed; and yet we estimated that seven-eighths of the crop was subsequently destroyed by the worm. The seed was sown late in October. Last fall we received a sample of wheat from New-Jersey, which was sown in our garden. The worm has literally destroyed it all. A few grains of spring wheat from Rome, was sown in our garden late in May. It is now, Sept. 9, in the milk. On a close examination, we do not find any of the worm in it. The seed from Genesee and New-Jersey, could not have contained the egg of the insect. Our observation seems to confirm the opinion, that the insect appears about the time that wheat, sown the last of September, or the early spring sown varieties, comes into ear, and that it remains but a few days in the maggot state; and that the early fall, or late spring sown crops will be most exempt from its attacks. We have used salt and lime, in all the ways suggested, without discovering in them any preventive of the evil. two sides of the frame, 16 inches long, connected at each extremity by The Season has been highly inauspicious to the farmer, and to the country. The hopes, feeble as they were, of tolerable fall crops, have, in many districts, been already blasted by the early frosts. A letter from Seneca Falls of the 10th Sept. says, "Our corn is all cut off by the frosts. I am cutting up mine. Our buckwheat is equally destroy. ed. Our wheat, in thrashing out, produces not much more than half what the bulk of straw warrants the anticipation of." We learn that the frosts have been equally severe in many other sections of the state. We ascribe our exemption from frost, to the circumstance of our land being well underdrained, by which humidity has been prevented, and the soil become charged in a higher degree with caloric, while our neighbors' crops have suffered. The prospect before us strongly admonishes to prudence, and the husbanding of all our means. As one of the available means, we mention the products of the orchard, as applicable to the sustenance and fattening of hogs-in place of corn and other grain, and for the winter feeding of all farm stock. Another and a great saving may be made by grinding all the grain which is fed out, and by cooking all our hogfeed. By these items of economy, good judges have estimated that a saving of one-half is effected. Nor should we fail to economise our hay and corn-stalks; for although hay has been a good crop, the scarci ty of grain and roots will enhance its value. Remember that a saving of 30 per cent is effected by the use of Greene's Straw Cutter; that in feeding 30 tons of hay, this saving amounts to 9 tons, which at $10 per on, gives the round sum of $90-enough to buy three Straw Cutters, or one and $60 worth of New-Year's presents for the wife and girlsor a snug Farmer's Library After we had penned the above, we learnt verbally, and by the pub. lic journals, that the frosts have been more extensive and injurious than we anticipated; and that most of the corn and buckwheat in the north have been partially or wholly destroyed. A Maine paper represents, that the corn in that neighborhood has been killed before it had become fit to boil; and we are told in the Buffalo Whig, that the frost of the 12th ult. had "swept all before it," in the south towns of that county. On the other hand, the late warm weather has been highly advantageous in ripening the fall crops, in districts which had escaped frost. Our corn crop was harvested in fine condition before the frost affected it. Top-dressing Grass Lands.-An important fact in regard to this matter, has been communicated to us by an intelligent visitor, viz. that the same quantity of manure is twice or thrice as beneficial on YOUNG as it is on OLD meadow. Plants, like animals, if stinted or half starved when young, seldom acquire great vigor or luxuriance afterwards; the or gans of nutrition become adapted to the early supply of food, and cannot be readily enlarged, on its being increased in advanced age. Hence the advantage of employing rich soils for nurseries-of keeping young farm stock well-and of applying manures to young grass. A gentle man top-dressed some grass lands at one, two and three years old, and he found the benefit to the first, double what it was to the second, and treble that shown by the third. The hint is one of some importance to husbandry, and we hope it will be improved upon. The rule does hold good in regard to animals. Nothing is bestowed on man in this life, without great labor.-Horace. Wealth, fame, influence and power, can none of them be attained without much pain and application. PLANTING, No. IV.-METHOD OF PROPAGATION. The modes of propagation are, by seeds, by suckers which spring from the roots, by layers, by cuttings, and by grafting. By seeds. These may be sown in nursery beds, in drills or broadcast, or in the ground where they are intended permanently to grow. In both cases, where practicable, the ground requires the best preparation that it ought to receive for a corn crop; and in both cases cattle must be wholly excluded, the plants kept clean, and the ground kept in a loose friable state, till the plants are of size to plant out. For the oak, chesnut, walnut, and, indeed, for most other forest seeds, the drills should be four feet apart, and the seeds placed at the distance of two inches in the drills. The plants should be thinned, so as to leave them one foot apart, if in the plantation, the second or third year. Farinaceous seeds, covered with shells, as the cak, chesnut, beech, plane, maple, ash, &c. are least adapted for keeping good out of the soil. They should be well dried in the sun and air, if intended for spring planting, and continue spread in layers on a cool dry floor. The smaller kinds of seed, after being sufficiently dried, may be kept in smaller space. The elm, soft maple and plane, we can say from experience, may best be sown in May, as soon as they are gathered. These seeds require dif ferent degrees of covering in the soil. The larger seeds, as of the chesnut, oak, &c. should be covered with two inches of mould; for the smaller seeds, of the hard maple, linden, ash, &c. it will be proper to mix with them sand, in quantity about equal to their bulk, placing the mixture on the ground a foot in thickness, and covering that an inch thick with mould. Hard seeds, or stones, as cherry, mountain ash, thorn, &c. with the exception of the first, remain in the soil one or two years before they begin to vegetate. To save trouble, these seeds may be kept the first summer, in sand as above directed for the hard maple and ash, and sown in the autumn or spring following. Cover the smaller seeds, when sown, with one inch of earth. The seeds of the common and honey locust, may be covered also an inch. The like rule applies to seeds of evergreens-the largest seeds the deepest. By suckers.-The common locust and the poplar afford these in abundance, as does the pear, plum, cherry, &c. They are generally sufficiently rooted the first season of their production, and they should not be suffered to remain longer than two seasons attached to the root of the tree, for if continued longer, the support they derive from the parent root, prevents them from making independent roots of their own, in such abundance as they do when separated or taken up at an earlier period. By layers.-Among the trees that may be propagated in this way, are the maple, beech, ash, birch, mulberry, lime or linden, and elm. We described the mode of propagating by layers, and also by cuttings, in our April number. By cuttings, the plane, poplar, willows and maiden hair tree may be propagated. Shoots of one year's growth should be selected, from the most healthy and free growing branches. By grafting. Even grafting is resorted to, in forest tree propaga tion, for those varieties of trees which lose their distinctive characters when reproduced from seed, and which make finer trees when grafted on free growing stocks of their own species. We have in our grounds, many elms, ornamental ash and horse chesnuts, imported from Great Britain, which have been thus propagated by grafting. In forest planting, the trees are set at the distance of three to five feet apart, according to their species and nature of the soil; and are generally thinned every five years, to suitable distances, to accommodate their growth. They are pruned, to increase their growth and improve the quality of the timber. The branches should at all times occupy one-third of the heighth of the bole or stem-the leaves of this portion being at least necessary to elaborate food for the tree. MODES OF TRANSPLANTING. The different modes of transplanting are termed, 1. Slit planting; 2. Holing, or pitting; 3. Trench planting; and 4. Furrow planting. Slit planting is the most simple, and is practised on soils in their natural state, without any preparation of holing, ploughing or trenching. It is performed by three kinds of instruments, viz-by the moor plant er, (a, fig. 1.) by the diamond dibble, (b,) and by the common garden spade. 1. The moor planter, (a,) or prairie planter, is a heavy instrument, consisting of a wooden shaft and handle, two feet nine inches in length, two and a half inches broad at the insertion of the shaft, and gradually tapering to the point. The handle is made sufficiently large to be grasped by both hands, and the operator, with one stroke, drives the prong into the ground to the depth required for seedling trees, and by depressing the handle, the point of the instrument raises up the earth, leaving a vacuity or opening in loose earth, into which, a second person, (a boy will suffice,) holding a plant in readiness, places the root, and with the foot fixes it in the soil. 2. The diamond dibble, (b,) is made of a triangular plate of steel, fur nished with an iron shaft and wooden handle. The sides are each four inches long, and the upper part or side four inches and a half broad. It is used for planting on sandy and gravelly soils, where the surface produce cf herbage is short. In this case, the planter makes the ground ready with the instrument in one hand, and inserts the plant with the other. He carries the plants in a bag or basket suspended from his waist; he strikes the dibble into the ground in a slanting direction, so as to direct the point inwards, and by drawing the handle towards himself, an opening is made, and kept open by the steel plate for the reception of the rocts of the plant by the other hand. The instrument is then removed, and the earth made firm about the roots of the plant by a stroke with the heel of the instrument. a Fig. 1. d It K P 3. By the spade, a cut is made in the turf, and crossed by another at a right angle: the two cuts thus made resemble the figure of the letter T. The handle of the spade being depressed backwards, forces open the edges of the cuts, and in the opening thus made, the roots of the plant are inserted; the spade is then withdrawn, and the turf replaced by the pressure of the foot. Mattock planting is confined to rocky ground, and to soils containing many coarse, rough roots of herbage, heath, &c. Here the mattock is indispensable. The handle is three feet six inches long; the mouth or cutting edge is five inches bread and sharp; the length of it, to the eye or shaft, 16 inches; the small end or pick is 19 inches long, (e, fig. 1.) The broad end is to be faced with steel. It is effectual in pairing furze, heath, ferns, &c. and the pick is equally so for thoroughly loosening the soil to be operated upon with the spade or planter, (d.) The Hackle prongs are recommended for clayey, tenacious soils. It is made with two or three prongs; the former of two, for the soil just mentioned, and the latter of three prongs, for stony or gravelly soils. Holing.-Holes or pits are dug out, and the loosened soil left for a season to the action of the weather, to ameliorate and reduce its texture. These must be, for plants of one and a half to two feet high, two feet broad and 18 inches deep, and filled to a suitable heighth with pulve rized mould. The holes should be 6 to 12 inches broader and deeper than is sufficient to admit the roots of the plant, that the latter may shoot freely, and in tenacious soils, that they may be freed from stagnant water. The holes being prepared, the process of spade planting is readily performed, care being taken not to insert the plant more than half an inch deeper than it stood in the nursery, to spread the roots in their natural position, to fill with fine mould, and to tread the earth about the plants. In all cases of planting, it is a good practice to dip the roots in a puddle made with water and rich mould, which coats them and prevents their becoming dry; and they should be kept covered with earth, and a few plants taken out at a time, as they are wanted. Furrow planting is performed by opening a furrow with a trenching plough, or two common ploughs, following in the same furrow, and opening the soil to the depth required for the roots of the trees. The plants are set in the furrows at the proper distance, and the earth filled in with the spade. Distance. In profitable forest tree planting, seedlings of three years growth, or plants which have remained two years in the seed bed and one year in transplanted nursery rows, should be planted on their timber sites, three feet apart every way, the soil being thin, light or sandy of the age alluded to, will vary from nine to twenty inches in heighth On stronger land, well prepared, the distance may be four feet. Trees say the English writers, but with us they will generally much exceed this, particularly the elm, soft maple, plane, and many other species It is always desirable, that seedling beds should be sheltered by trees buildings or tight fences, from the inclement winds of winter. Loudon's Encyclopædia of Agriculture, Planter's Kalendar, Pontey Works that may be referred to.-Useful and Ornamental Planting Profitable Planter, &c. TO CORRESPONDENTS. Marl.-J. M. M. who dates at Valley, Pa. is advised, that he will fin his inquiries answered in the extract upon marl, which we commenc to-day, from the Farmers' Series of the Library of Useful Knowledge Marl is found combined with sand and with clay, and sometimes in a almost pure carbonate of lime; and it is of various colours, though: is generally of a light brown, specifically light, and abounds more c less in fragments of shells. The presence of carbonate of lime ma be detected with good vinegar-as this causes an effervescence when comes in contact with the dry carbonate. The request in regard to the manufacture of cheese shall receive early attention. Ground Moles.-A. Foote, of Williamstown, complains of great injury done to his fruit trees, in winter, by the moles or mice, and asks to be informed of some mode which will preserve them from like depredations the coming winter. There are two modes of preserving fruit trees from the depredations of moles, near the surface of the ground, in ordinary winters, though neither of these would have been suffi cient to protect all in such a winter as the last; for in many instances, where the snow was compact and impervious to them near the ground, they passed over it, and barked the plants two, four, and even six feet above the ground. One mode of prevention consists in treading the early snow firmly about the collar of the tree. There is generally grass or weeds about trees, which keeps the snow loose, and permits the passage of the mole under it. We have been in the practice, several years, of having the sod about our fruit trees, in grass grounds, turned over in September or October, and trodden down, and this has saved them from the mole. Another mode, recommended in the proceedings of the Society of Arts, is, to take seven parts of grease and one part of tar, blend and mix them well together, and with this composition brush the trunks of the trees, from the ground upwards as far as may be required. The tar is offensive to all animals, while the grease mollifies it so as to prevent its becoming injurious to the trees. Our correspondent at Augusta, Georgia, W. J. HOBBY, asks to be informed of a remedy against the worms, which destroy the culinary productions, particularly those which prey upon the cabbage. "I have known," says he, "a decoction of tobacco, of snuff, and of salt, of ashes and lime, sprinkled over them, and the worms appeared to thrive upon them all. I do not know that snuff even made them sneeze." Will some correspondent suggest a remedy for the evil? We know of none. The Silk Business.-We have received a communication from a respected female correspondent, Mrs. P. B. WESCOTT, which contains some useful hints to silk growers-that they sow the seed, and plant the trees before they erect costly silk factories; that they should take care that their worms do not hatch before there is food for them; that the black mulberry affords leaves some days earlier than the common white or multicaulis, &c. The reader is desired to correct an error in the former communication, in line 11, p. 165, vol. 2, by adding not between "would" and "have." [The cuts which follow, belonging to this volume, were omitted in their order, in printing the second edition, in consequence of their having been lent out.] GATE FASTENING. H B. Mather, Esq. of Scaghticoke, has described to us a gate fastening, in extensive use in his neighborhood, which for simplicity and cheapness and convenience, we have not seen surpassed. We will try to make our readers acquainted with it, by the aid of the annexed cut. The gate is constructed like the one figured in our last volume, with its principal weight towards the heel, a strong bar on the top, and so hung that it shuts readily by the force of gravity. The latch is a piece of hard wood, about 2 ft. long, 24 inches broad, and 14 thick, or it may be made of iron. It is suspended by a small chain attached to the upper bar, as shown at (b,) so that when it strikes the bevel of the catch, on shutting the gate, it falls back, fastens, and when at rest passes to he opposite side of the catch, behind the shoulder. It is so adjusted is to allow of little or no play, except lengthwise. The catch (a) may e also made of a piece of hard wood or of iron, and driven into an ugur hole in the post. It is like a common door catch, except that the The above is a portait of a Saxon merino ram, the property of Lord Western, and used by him extensively and beneficially in the improve ment of his Spanish merinos. It will be seen that his frame differs materially from the Spanish merino; there is more roundness of carcass and fineness of bone, and that general form and appearance which indicate a disposition to fatten, and are tolerably certain pledges that the carcass will not be entirely sacrificed to the fleece. (See page 30.) PROPAGATION BY LAYERING. (a) Shows a stool with two branches laid, (b) an entire branch or vine laid, (c) the stick to hold them in their place. When sufficiently rooted, the layer is separated from the parent stock, and planted out, (d d) two branches. (See page 21.) CORRESPONDENCE. Fig. 2. IPMROVED HARRROW. Geddes, February 10. The teeth, c c, are curved, otherwise the JESSE BUEL, Esq. GEO. GEDDES. plank,) and accommodated with a large window, having a sliding shutter. On the sides of the building, you board down from the plate with three Albany boards, remembering to have a strip of plank about six inches wide to tie them together in the middle. It will be well also, to cut pieces of board along the ridge under the board that rides,-this to prevent rain or snow from driving in. Your barrack is now completed. In mowing away, you drive under, and fill one joint, or the compartment included by four posts, at once; when you get to the last end, that must be filled from the outside, through the window. These buildings are cheap; they preserve grain and hay in a perfect state; they obviate the necessity (often a very galling one) of employ. ing an artist to stack; grain never grows in them; this may appear like repetition; but I must be excused for contrasting them with stacks; in this important particular, they will shelter several loads at a time, when you are threatened with showers; or, you drive under several loads at night, and let your hands store them away before breakfast; being a part of the day often wasted, even in the busiest season of the year. In winter, when the exterior sheaves of stacks are penetrated to the bands with snow and sleet, so as to prevent thrashing for days, the grain in these buildings may always be got in, in order, excepting perhaps a very little on the windward side, which should be kept by itself till dry; poultry make no impression on grain in these buildings. The last one which I built, (being No. 3,) was calculated for forty loads, and this cost me (exclusive of timber which was cut on the farm) $65.20. Persons who have not locust for posts would do well to char the surface which is to go under ground. Permit me now to ask a question. Are you familiar with the use of the horse-rake, the revolving rake; and did you intend to apply your remarks about curing hay in cock, to a country where this rake can be used?* With high respect, your obed't serv't, A SUBSCRIBER. P. S. In mowing grain under these barracks, it is best to keep the middle of the mow highest, and to give the outer course of sheaves a good pitch. Moreover, a floor of poles, or rails laid upon stones so that cats can go under, answers a good purpose. EXPERIMENTS WITH PLASTER OF PARIS. JESSE BUEL, Esq.-DEAR SIR-I now, in conformity with my promise, send you the result of the various experiments which I have made with Plaster of Paris. Early in the spring I ordered 50 barrels from Oswego, but owing to some unknown cause, they did not reach me till the middle of May. I immediately had six barrels sown on 22 acres of clover and timothy, in a field which had not been half seeded by my predecessor; the seed was sown in the preceding spring on winter wheat-in less than a fortnight the effect was evident, and I cut over two tons an acre where I am certain I should not, without the plaster, have cut 15 cwt. The field being large and rather undulating, the sower missed his line in several spots, and on these there was scarcely grass enough to stand the scythe. The field had been cleared more than 20 years, and hardly cropped without ever having been manured previous wheat crop not over 18 bushels per acre after summer fal low-soil a deep loam, rather light than heavy. Having a field of fifteen acres of peas sown after a poor crop of wheat, which had been much winter killed, on the 20th May when then plants were just appearing, I ordered one barrel of plaster to be sown on about four acres thereof, merely to try the effect, which was so great that in less than a month it appeared to have increased the crop at least three-fold.Vexed at having plastered so small a part, when I beheld the result without expecting to remedy my error in any considerable degree, as CHEAP STRUCTURE FOR GRAIN AND HAY. the peas were all now more than a foot high, and those which had Huntington, August 15, 1836. been plastered much higher, I ordered my head man, an excellent JESSE BUEL, Esq.-Sir-The remarks upon "stacking grain," con- in less than three weeks these last manured were fully equal to the seedsman, to sow another barrel at the rate of half a bushel per acre; tained in your August number of the Cultivator, induce me to recommend a kind of barrack, which I have used for several years, and others, while the five acres unplastered were so inferior that they which I think pays for itself in a short time. We will suppose that might be distinguished two miles off, though these were more than an you wish to erect one which shall contain one hundred loads of grain average crop. The plastered peas were so luxuriant that I feared or hay. Take twenty posts of twenty feet in length, and about eight they would neither ripen nor pod well, but they are now nearly all cut inches in diameter, and set them in two rows; let the rows be sixteen and I find my fears were groundless. An experienced farmer, who for feet apart. and the distance between the posts the other way, twelve more than 30 years successfully tilled a very extensive farm in the Eas feet; the posts must be put four feet in the ground; frame plates on Lothians of Scotland, walked over the field with me the day before these posts from end to end of the rows, and bind them together cross- yesterday, and he declared that he never had seen a finer or more pro wise by girts, let in about two feet from the top; strengthen this cross-ductive crop in any country; indeed the ground could scarcely contain work by braces eight feet long; you will understand, of course, that more plants, or the plants more pods; the tops, however, of the plas the braces go from the girt to the posts. Set on the plates, rafters of tered peas continued to grow and blossom till they were cut, and wil such length as will allow an Albany board, (when laid on for covering,) make excellent fodder, but the peas were quite ripe nearer the bottom to project one and a half feet below the plate; make use of one and a In a field which had been slightly seeded with timothy in 1834, and whic quarter inch stuff for lath, laying one row at the ridge, another about last year was scarcely worth mowing, I sowed on three acres of th midway of the rafter, and a third just clear of the plate. In putting shallowest and worst part, a barrel of plaster; these produced twic on the roof boards. every other one rides, and ought to lap upon the We are familiar with the revolving horse-rake, and commend it greatly of edges of its supporters one ani a half inches. The ends of the build-old or thin meadows. Clover belongs to alternate husbandry, where the gras ing are to be boarded from the peak till within six or eight feet of the ought to be too heavy for its use; and it is not used in our mode of makin ground, (this makes a string picce or two necessary, which may be of clover hay, till after the crop has been carted from the field.-Cond. as much hay as all the rest of the field (7 acres,) and the mower said the upper side of the cutting wheel, a rim which gathers the grass as I lost eight tons of hay by not plastering the whole. I also sowed it is cut, and lays it in a swath more regularly than it can be laid by half a bushel on an acre of a field which had been left unseeded, and the scythe. produced nothing but natural red top, bent and blue grass; a thick and I saw it in operation, propelled by two horses, and cutting a swath luxuriant coat of white clover in a short time marked the spot, which about six feet wide, as fast as the horses could walk; and though the was eaten bare by my cattle, and had a very singular appearance in ground was very uneven, and the grass somewhat dry and in bad order, the midst of the coarse grasses which they left untouched. I also it performed the work as well as it could be done by hand. found plaster beneficial, though in a less degree, to spring wheat. I know not what objections experience may raise against it, but I The soil of the three last mentioned fields is a deep sandy loam, con- would venture to say, if this most tedious and yet most important lataining a good many limestones. In my garden, my experiments were bor of the husbandman, is ever to be successfully performed by maattended with very different results; it contains exactly one acre of chinery, I think this machine more likely to effect it than any other deep rich vegetable mould, and was never submitted to spade or plough plan I have seen. It would be absurd to expect this or any other mowtill last September, when it was all manured with long dung and trenching machine, to operate on new and rough land, among stones and ploughed; last spring it was well dragged and cross ploughed, and af stumps-but our country affords numerous large tracts of meadow, terwards well worked with the cultivator, and the part intended for with fine smooth bottom, and the proportion is rapidly increasing; and small seeds dug with the spade; a part having been planted with aspa-in the great western prairies, such a machine cannot fail to be one of ragus, rhubarb and seakale early in last November. I tried plaster here on peas, rhubarb, seakale, onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, French beans, cellery, melons and potatoes, and on none of these, except the beans, which were evidently, and the potatoes, which were greatly be nefitted, did it produce any beneficial effects--on the melons, it positively operated as a poison, destroying every plant submitted to its influence. Hence it seems that on over rich or highly manured lands, plaster is of little or no benefit, but that its good effects on dry, light soils are most extraordinary, I am thoroughly convinced. I must add, that I last week saw a field of oats, the soil of which was a pure running sand, that could not without such assistance as it received, have produced a return of the seed-sown after peas, and yet on six acres thereof, where the peas had been plastered, the crop is certainly not less than sixty bushels to the acre, while on the rest of the field it is not worth cutting. I hope, sir, many of your readers will be induced by what I have said, (and I am sure, though I write anonymously, for reasons before stated, that you who know me, will vouch for my credibility,) to use this cheap but most valuable manure, and their success, of which I am confident, will highly gratify a sincere well wisher to the agricultural enterprize of your countrymen, and a warm admirer of your own praiseworthy exertions in so good a cause. COLONUS Upper Canada, September 5th, 1836. WILSON'S MOWING AND GRAIN CUTTING MACHINE. Among the thousands of labor saving inventions, which form one of the most prominent features of the present age, it is natural to expect that many splendid and plausible plans may prove abortive, and deceive the inventors, and often the public; and therefore, few men, if any, are capable of deciding with certainty on the merits of an invention, until experience shall sanction the decision. A machine has been recently exhibited in this city and its vicinity, by the inventor, Capt. Alexander M. Wilson, of Rhinebeck, for mowing grass and cutting grain. I will predicate my remarks on what I saw, and leave time and experience to decide on its merits. 2 The machine consists of a carriage on two wheels, propelled by one or two horses, oxen or other beasts of burden, travelling in the rear and pushing it forward. In the front, at the bottom, is a horizontal wheel upon an upright shaft, which shaft and wheel receive a rotary motion, communicated by gear from the main axle, which revolves with its wheels, as the machine goes forward. The diameter of this horizontal wheel, with the addition of the knives projecting from its edge, measures the width of the swath, which is cut with the knives as the wheel goes forward, revolving rapidly and lying close to the ground. The apparatus which sustains the cutting wheel is so constructed as to accommodate its height to any inequalities in the ground, and to give it any inclination required. The knives are sharpened byt heir own operation, without stopping the machine. There is also attached to" the most useful improvements of the age. I would therefore advise THE CUT WORM AND HESSIAN FLY.. The cut worms, are evidently the numerous progeny of some familiar insect. The question arises, to what species can they be attributed? Some are led to conjecture, that they are propagated by the order Cole. optera, or beetle: although I have examined with some care, the several species of the beetle tribe common in this country, among which the pellet beetle is most numerous, yet I have invariably found their larvæ of pale yellowish, or light brown colour; whereas the cut worm is nearly black, and very different in its habits. The conjecture, that the cut worms are the larvæ of the beetle, or sect, should be humbled by the single circumstance that the cut worm is periodical in its devastating visitations, and consequently can be the progeny only of a periodical insect. I know none of that character bearing a semblance of suspicion, excepting the sicada septembecem, of the order hemiptera, genus cecada, and species grilli or grillus, of Linn. (here very improperly mistermed locust, for those visiting Europe and Africa, whose history present a series of calamities, inspiring all people with superstitious horror.) The American cicada is remarkable for its regular and simultaneoues reappearance every seventeen years, in count. less millions. They appeared here in 1817 and 1834, several years succeeding each of those dates, have been marked, by the destruction of the cut worm. And as some of the cicada appear every year, we also find some, however few, of the cut worm every year. It is ascer tained, that the cicada deposite each from 600 to 1,000 eggs, forming of course a numerous progeny. This conjecture of mine, relative to the cut worm, although strengthen. ed by observation and experience, yet should any of your observing and enlightened correspundents offer an idea more plausible, the above shall be freely yielded notwithstanding. Many practical farmers have prescribed remedies to counteract the ravages of the cut worm, stating the consummate success of their mo dus operandi; but it is matter of regret to know, that an effectual remedy is still wanting, to expel or dislodge them when once in possession of the corn hill. There are, however, preventives, well worthy the farmer's attention. The most effectual prevention consists in ploughing sward ground intended for corn in autumn, previous to planting; but if this be not convenient, a stubble field should be chosen, if ploughed in the spring; the rationale or philosophy of the mode is simply this, the sod being turned up to the frost of winter, it becomes so meliorated and consolidated by spring, (if well ploughed,) that there will be no green thing scarcely of vegetable kind left for the larvae of the insect to subsist upon, and consequently they either desert the field or perish. The same parity of reasoning holds good for stubble ground, it being also |