Newspaper Page Text
14
AGRICULTURAL.
DANIEL LEE, M. Editor.
SATURDAY, JUNK 2, 1860.
PLANTATION ECONOMY.
We have often had occasion to regret that
planters of equal skill and experience are so un.
willing to write for the press, and let their
brother planters learn the secrets of their suc
cess. This reluctance to communicate profes
sional knowledge to agricultural readers, arises
not so much from any wish to conceal jnforma
tion that would be useful to others, for some
selfish purpose, as from mingled diffidenco and
modesty which shun publicity and notoriety.
In private conversation, the best economists and
most successful planters are perfectly communi
cative, and are ever happy to aid any one to ri
val them in good management. They are liber
al in feeling and purpose, and sincere friends of
progress aud improvement, yet they fail to ren
der the groat interests of agriculture a little of
the service which, as patriotic citizens, it de
serves at their hands. Without their co
operation and teachings the agricultural press
loses much of its value, aud the public its taste
for rural literature. The lords of the soil must
hold the pon as well as direct the plow, before
agricultural journals and books will become
what they ought to be.
Wo have just returnod from riding over the
plantation of one who has the elements of a
skillful planter aud husbandman, although now
laboring nuder somo disadvantages. Prof. Ruth
erford has to give five days in a week to his
duties in Franklin College, and can only visit
his plantation on Saturdays, which is some four
miles from Athens and joins the farm on which
the writer resides. Ho has owned the place
only two years, and took it in a pretty low con
dition. The force on the plantation is small,
consisting mainly of females who are rearing
as fine negro children, (somo seventeen in num
ber,) as we ever saw. Wo found the mothers
of these children at work in the field without
an overseor, steadily and industriously, (judg
ing from the many acres cultivated, andtlio eon
ditiou of the crops,) yet cheerful and happy. If
our humble judgment is not at fault in the mat
tor, the wise government of servants, and
proper system in their labor, are tho two
moHt important elemonts ol plantatiou ocouo
my. Whero the government is bad the no
groes will soon bo no better than tho power that
rules thorn; and whero there is much want of
system in their labor, the plantation and its net
proceeds from year to year, will reveal tho groat
defect. To make government all that it ought
to be, servants should see that their mastsr
takes an interest in their welfare and conduct
and learn to respect alike his firmness, bil jus
tice, and his kindneess.
In visiting plantations, we rarely discover any
want of foresight so prominent as the effort to
plant too much surfaco to tho hand, by which
neither the plowing nor the hoeing is done in
the most thorough manner. Weeds and grass
draw tho strength of the soil that Bhould go to
mako cotton or corn. By planting fewer acres
to the hand, and doing all the work better, any
givon force will gather more cotton, corn, wheat
and oats as tho fruit of a yoar’s toil, than eau bo
mado whore tho yield per acre is redticod by im
porfoct cultivation. Prof. Rutherford has be
tween fifty and sixty acres of corn that looks
very promising, and he will plant some sixteen
acres more of now ground. Ho plants peas in
overy row of corn, which are valuable for hay,
and tho seed for fattening hogs. Tho winter
was very sovero on his oats, of which he had
some fifty acres. A part of this ground has
been plowed up and sown to pcaß. His wheat
has suffered loss from wintor killing. Tho
hoods, although short, are plump and well tilled.
There will bo much more wheat harvested in
Georgia than was expected a month or two ago.
Prof. R. has somo sixteen aero* of wheat, on a
part of which ho has experimented with Hoyt's
Superphosphate, cotton sood, Ac., tho results of
which we shall probably publish hereafter. A
few good mules, raised on tho farm, were the
only livo stock we saw. In timo wo expect to
seo more young horsos or mules reared on this
plantation, aud at least one hundred acres of it
woll set in perennial grasses. It can never pro
duce largo crops per acre until far more manure
is made at homo, or purchased. As a general
thing the formor is tho hotter economy. Wo
have seen the seed of tho tall oat grass sold at
fifty cents a bushel; and at this prico tho cost
of putting in fifty acres would have beon no
more than Mr. K. incurred last full in sowing
tho more tondor annual oat, which at best must
be re-seeded overy year. Our friend yards all
his stock every night, which is an excellent
practice to enrich a little land for growing tur
nips and other roots. Wo are apt to noglect to
employ goats, sheep, aud neat cattle, to gather
fertilizers from all waste places and deposit
them whore tuny will be better to us than mo
ney at compound interest.
———- i»> »
No. 1 Ketcham’s Improved Two Horse
Mower —Price SBS, with cut of 4 feet 6 inches.
—This machino is a decided improvement on
the old Ketcham; the draft is much less, and
it possesses othor advantages worthy the atten
tion of the public.
We clip the above gratifying information from
the Journal of tho Now York State Agricultural
Society. Mr. Ketciiam was a near neighbor of
the writer when he invented his first mowing
machine, which has had many imitators, some
rivals, but no superior. It is a valuable labor
saving implement that will soon bo needed on
many a plantation in the cotton-growing States, j
The last time we were in Ohio (1848 or ’49) wo i
saw' good hay sold pn tho railroad north of
Springfield at three dollars a ton, which was 1
cut by hand—horse-power not being introduced j
there at that time. We told some of our friends i
TMM BQTCiEK3Or JUH) YXUBXDS.
there that the manure oue might make from
2000 pounds of good hay, would soon be worth
three dollars, even in the rich farming districts
of Ohio. This State has sent down the Ohio
river and down lake Erie much of the cream of
its soil.
-
AN EPITOME OF NEW YORK AGRICULTURE.
A writer in the Country Gentleman, in discus
sing the question “is farming profitable,” pre
sents the following facts and fignres taken from
the last census of New York:
Value of farms ... $799,355,367
Value of Stock 108,776,053
Value of Implements 26,927,502
Total value $980,056,922
Or in round numbers, nine hundred and thirty
millions of dollars, which may be regarded as
permanent capital and the annual product of
which is exhibited in the census. In order to
ascertain its value we will estimate the result of
the various articles at the prices which they
have been for the past ten years. The result is
given below, the first column containing the
names of the articles}; the second, the quantity;
the third, the price; and the last the total value.
Name of Articles [ Price, j Total value.
nay, tons, •. 8,256,948' SIO.OO $82,569,480
Grass seed, bushels 120.866 8.00 862,598
Spring wheat do 2,038,858 1.00 2.033.853
Winter do do 7.059,049 1.60 10,588,578
Oats do 27,015,296 40 ) 0,806,118
Kyc do 3,039.48 S 1.00 3.039,486
Barley do 3,568,M0 75 2,672,655
Buckwheat do 2.481,079 50 15,482,552
Com do 19,290,69! SO 4,557,555
Potatoes do 15,191,852 80 852,988
Peas do 705,967 50 244,079
Beans do 244,079 1.00 246,880
Turnips do 87,093 25 87,093
Flax seed do 4,907,560 1.00 490,755
Flax lint, pounds 7,192,254 10 719,225
Hops do 946,502 10 94,650
Tobacco do 18.608.830 10 4,090,649
Apples, bushels 18,068,880: 30 278,686
Cider, barrels 278,869 1.00 498,581
Maple-sugar, pounds 4,935,815' 10 2,336,660
Cheese do ....36,944,249 6 18,M3.960
Butter <lo ... :90,293,073 15 11,266,900
Milk, gallons 20,965,861 15 8,144,879
Beef cattle 225,888 50.00 8,692,783
Wool, pounds 9,281,959 40 2,487,271
Value of poultry & eggs I 1,188,'682
Market-gardens j ' 1,000,000
Other products 1 :
Total value $129,797,000
This immeuse product was tho result of tho
labors of 321,030 farmers, and estimating their
seevices at two hundred dollars per annum,which
is certainly not an unreasonable value to put up
on them, and one less than tlio most of them
would consent to work for, we shall have the
result about as follows, in round numbers;
Value of farm produce $129,000,000
labor 64, .'8)0,000
Profits of farming. $64,500,000
This result is by no means a flattering one,
for tho interest of nino hundred and thirty mil
lions, at the legal rate of interest in our State,
and one at which it has been extremely difficult
to procure money for the last seven years, is up
wards of sixty-five millions, showing a decided
loss in tho farming operations of that year. It
should, however, be borne in iiiiiud that these
are the returns for the year 1854, tmo long to be
remembered as a period of unparwled drouth,
when in many parts of the Stato Jtlie parched
earth was unvisited by a solitary refreshing
shower for more than a month. The marshals
were instructed to inquire as to the amount of
the diminution from the usual yield caused by
tho drouth, and tho average of them seen to
ngreo in estimatipg it at a third, or there was
but two-thirds of tho usual yield that year.—
Making this correction, the account will stand
thus:
Usual yield 193,500,000
Deduct value of labor. 04,500,000
129,000,000
This lust result, although having a decidedly
bettor look than tho other, is by no means such
an ouo as will tempt those who are gotting a
livelihood at other employments to leave them
for farming, nor is it such an ono as will satisfy
tho oagor anxiety to bo rich, for which tho Ame
rican people are distinguished.
It will be seen that tho hay crop of New York
is estimated at more .than twice tho value of any
other; and this, notwithstanding all the corn
fodder, wheat, ryo, oat and barley straw, used
as forage in that largo grain-growing State.
Our lack of good hay is ono of tho most se
rious defects in Southern husbandry.
WHITE BEANS.
The growing of white beans as a general farm
crop, will no doubt receive a new impetus from
tlie success of experiments in feeding them to
farm stock the past winter. It has been found
that they are of high value for sheep, fed whole
and raw, and when mixed with other grains and
ground, mako meal or provender, readily eaten
by cattle, hogs and horses, aud that of the most
nutritious kind. Poultry can also be fed upon
them, if first cooked, and wo have seen them
oaten raw by hens. Os their culinary uses wc
need scarcely speak—they have long been known
and prized by the human raco as a hearty and
nourishing vegetable food.
Belonging to that class of plants which draw
lightly upon the soil, and being planted in rows,
so as to admit of the use of the horse-cultivator
and clean culture, they may profitably take the
place of tlie summer fallow before wheat and
other autumn crops. And if fed out upon the
farm, their culture will constantly enhance the
fertility of tlie same. We have that faith in
these statements that leads us to put them into
practice, and in resuming wheat culture, shall
grow beans as a fallow crop, and for feeding
sheep and cows, for which we have already em
ployed them to a considerable extent, mid with
very satisfactory results.
Beans do well on any dry mellow soil, if we
except muck, but are best suited with the best
corn soils, moderately fertile, but not directly
manured. A clayey loam will grow good beaus
—even a clay soil, thoroughly manured, will do
so. Wc may safely say, that on any soil suffi
ciently warm and deep’ to produce wheat, we
may grow beans profitably as a fallow crop.
After the other spring crops are sown, and
the corn planted, getting in the bah crop fills
up the few weeks which intervene before “hoe
ing and haying.” Turning under a clover sod or
any loam land greensward with a flat furrow,
and then harrowing thoroughly, so as to get a
mellow soil, we would be ready to plant about
the first of June. This can be done with a com
mon seed-drill, arranged so ns to drop single
beans two inches apart, and two and a half leet
distant in the rows. They are more conveni
ently hoed, as well as pulled, if planted in hills,
the same distance apart in tlie rows, and from
fourteen to eighteen inches distant in the drills,
according to the strength of the land and the
habit of the variety planted. For hill planting,
we first mark out the drills with a marker,
making three or four rows at once, two and a
half feet apart, and then plant across these with
a hand-planter—putting from four to six beans
in the bill. It Is sometimes necessary in using
these planters to go ove* the ground with hoes,
so as to make sure work of every hill —some al
ways failing to get covered with mellow earth.
On such land weeds are seldom troablesome
—if any should appear, as soon as the beans
got three or four rough leaves, we would on a
dry day turn in a flock of sheep. They must
not be too hungry when they come in, or remain
after their work is done, or they may injure the
beans. Then, when the plants are six inches
: high, the passage through the rows of a horse
hoe, set so as to throw a light furrow of soil
toward the beans, would finish the culture, for
they would by that time branch out so as to cov
er the ground. It should be remembered that
beans will not bear working while wet; the
earth falling on tho wet leaves, rusts them, and
injures their growth. On foul land the .horse
hoe should be used early, as soon as the weeds
appear, and frequently, as fast as they grow up,
and it will be no great task to exterminate them.
Clean culture should be the rule with this crop
and especially so if we grow it, instead of sum
mer fallowing preparatory to a wheat crop. The
growth and yield of the beans will be much
lessened by a weedy state of the soil, and their
even ripening hindered.
Though they may not bring as high a price in
market as some other kinds, the small or “ me
dium beans ” are found the most profitable on
several accounts. They yield well, ripan early
and evenly—both important considerations—
and are more easily cured and fitted for market,
than the larger and later varieties. Their value
for feeding purposes, is no doubt fully equal to
that of any other.
Another inducement to attention to this crop,
to wool-growing farmers, is the value of the
stalks or straw for fodder. We have frequently
referred to its use when speaking of winter for
age for these animals. Tlie subject of harvest
ing may be left until a more seasonable period.
We clip the above from the Country Gentle
man ; and we are not at all surprised to learn
that the cultivation of a plant so valuable as food
for man and his domesticated animals as the
white bean should be on tho increase at the
North. It there takes tho place of our cowpea
for live stock and os a renovating crop; and it
may be grown in Georgia quite as advantageous
os in New York. We have frequently seen
wliito beans sown broadcast in lUinois on rich
prairie land and do remarkably well. In former
years, many bushels were sent annually from
St. Louis to New York and Boston, where they
are largely consumed as ship stores for seamen.
Neither beuns nor oow-peas should ever be
gathered by hand. They should bo cut with
good grass scythes, well dried in the sun, hauled
in wagons or carts to a thrashing floor in a barn
or elsewhere; and trod about by horses or mules,
as English peas are. In this way a couple of
hands will get out some fifty bushels of our
southern peas in a day; whereas they cannot
pick by hand ono tenth the quantity. Almost
every man knows the value of a machine to pick
cotton sit'd from Unr-wUr haml-piffcfng, for be
has long seen a cotton DM operate; but machine
ry for sowing, harvesttltoend shelling beans and
cow-peas, sow have haifen opportunity of seeing
and studying. { *
AN AGRICULTURAL BUREAU IN WASHING
TON.
We have received a communication in favor
of establishing a Bureau of Agriculture in the
Department of tlie Interior of the Federal Gov
ernment. It can do no good to publish it. In
1849, President Taylor recommended such a
bureau to Congress; which was again twice
urged in the annual messages of President Fill
more. The measure has sinco been before tho
National Legislature by petitions and otherwise,
but with no success. Many of tlie friends of
agriculture in different States are trying to in
duco Congress to establish not a Bureau but a
Department of Agriculture, with a member of
of the Cabinet at its head, to protect and ad
vance tlie great farming aud planting interests
of tlie country. Our notion is, that farmers
and plantors have little cause for complaint so
long as they placo the whole powers of Gov
ernment in the hands of a few lawyers to use
as they please. The people of France chose an
Emperor to rule over them to save themselves
the trouble of thinking a little to maintain a
rational system of self-governmont. We, in
America, choose several politicians to do the
same work in place of one.
■ in
THE SCARCITY OF FORAGE IN ENGLAND.
Mr. Caird, the distinguished agricultural cor
respondent of the London Times, in noticing the
backwardness of the spring and the dearth of
roots and fodder, makes somo valuable sugges
tions, which we copy below:
“ The unusual lateness of tho season, and the
extraordinary dearth of roots and fodder, espe
cially in the North and West, and in Ireland, are
driving stock farmers to their wits’-end for the
maintenance of sheep, cattle, and dairy stock.
The cost to which they have been put for pur
chased food and com is quite unprecedented,
and the quantity of com thus consumed will
undoubtedly enhance the price of bread, while
the reduced condition of all kinds of live stock
will limit the supply of meat, butter and cheese.
An early spring would liave been invaluable,
but that hope is lost.
“ Tho first remedy we can look for is early
Grass, and it may be useful at present to remind
farmers that all young Grass or‘seeds’, and
good meadow, may not only be greatly increased
in produce, but forwarded a fortnight or three
weeks by the application of certain portable
manures. The most sure in its action, either in
dry or wet weather, and probably also the most
rapid, is nitrate of soda. I have been buying it
at Liverpool at 13s. 6 d. a cwt., and shall use
it pretty largely at the rate of 2 cwt. an
acre. No outlay can pay better, aud at this
price it is undoubtedly the cheapest manure in
tlie market.
“ The addition of 1 cwt. of Peruvian guano or
2 cwt. of the best superphosphate of lime will
materially increase the produce, and cannot fail
to bo remunerative this year, either for grass or
corn. No time should be lost in applying the
manure, and damp weather is peculiarly favor
able to the success of the last-named substances.
“If in ordinary times it is good to make two
blades of Grass grow where one grew before,
that result will this season be doubly useful and
important.”
The nitrate of soda, like common salt, is quite
soluble in water, and is therelore fitted by na
ture to serve as food for all growing plants at
once. Hence, grass, corn and cotton, half or
two-thirds grown, that lacks manure, may be
greatly benefltted by a top-dressing of this salt,
as suggested by the agricultural editor of the
Times. Peruvian guano also contains much
more soluble matter, which is highly nutritive to
plants, than phosphatic guanos that have been
washed and leached by rains for unknown ages;
while the whole object of treating these guanos,
fossil bones and common bone dust, with sul
phuric acid, is to render the phosphoric acid
present therein, more soluble, and immediately
assimilable. Agricultural science enables Mr.
Caird to inform the farmers of Great Britain bow
they can bring forward their grass and corn,
(meaning by “com”, wheat, barley and oats,)
two or three weeks earlier than their usual time,
and thus save the heavy expense of buying
wheat and other grain for the support of large
herds of cattle and dairy cows, as well as for
horses and numerous flocks of sheep. Hay is
much higher per 100 lbs. in the Southern States
than in England, and much scarcer; while Chili
nitre, or nitrate of soda, ought to be as cheap in
Savannah, Charleston or Baltimore, as in Liver
pool. A good article of superphosphate of lime
can be bought in London and other cities in
Great Britain for $25 for 2,240 pounds. If we
can succeed in giving to our planting friends a
good superphosphate for the same money, most
assuredly they will owe something to the sa
gacity aad independence of the Southern Field
and Fireside.
fouiTTeed.
Few are aware of the serious damages done
to the community at largo by the almost uni
versal practice of buying and selling foul seeds
in wheat aud other grain annually sown, in
clover and grass Beeds, and in those used only
, in garden culture. An enterprising farmer buys
i from Maryland or Virginia a new and really
i valuable variety of wheat, sows it on rich land,
i and finds before harvest that he has filled his
• soil with the seeds of the wild onion, which is
i almost ineradicable, with those of the wild car
• rot, which is nearly as great a pest, with cockle,
and other weeds that will spread over the whole
i plantation, unless the greatest pains are taken
to destroy them. Chess or cheat, thistles and
daiseys, are widely disseminated by similar
agencies. In the grass seeds that we have
sown from Tennessee and Virginia, we have
• seeded our land with at least six or eight new,
and very injurious weeds which shall exter
minate with the utmost care; and we advise
our readers who may have sown or planted any
new seed, no matter where it came from, to
watch for new weeds, and to exterminate them
at once. In England, and on tbo continent «f
Europe, the evil is far greater than in this coun
try. The London Agricultural Gazette is giving
much attention to this subject; and as it is one
of great importance we shall condense its arti
cles for our paper. It says :
Let us now lay before our renders iu a more
connected form than we have hitherto done, tlie
results of some of our analyses and investigations
into seeds of the four following groups, namely:
OloTerg, Common Ryo-grass, Italian Rye-grass,
and Meadow Grass Seeds. The results are placed
in tabular forms, and it will bo seen that our
computation of the amount of admixtures of the
seeds of plants other than that of the crop nam
od is made up for bushels. The calculations
have been derived from an examination both of
bulk and of small market samples, and it may
be stated that in some instances three distinct
samples of tho same seed have been subjected
to examination, in which case the mean has
been given. Os course greater or less difference
in the number of mixed seeds are observable in
different samples of the bulk, so that it is next
to impossible t<\ be absolutely correct. At the
same time it may be repeated that the error is
more likely to be one of omission than of addi
tion, as the seeds of many grievous weeds are
so small that the best eye and glass will often
lose sight of individual seeds; besides which
the seeds mentioned as interlopers are those only
which do not belong to the same species as the
crop. The adulteration arising from bad' sorts
or old worn-out and useless seed, it would be
impossible to calculate. We now present
Table I. — Analyses of Clover Seeds, etc.
No. Copy of Label. Wool In aj
bushel.
1 Red Clover 2.560
2 Ditto 66.560
8 Ditto 140,880
4 Ditto 245,700
6 Ditto 807,200!
6 Ditto 1,085.440
7 Ditto 2,524,160;
8 Bed Cow-Grass Clover 2.560'
9 Ditto ditto 40,960
10 .Ditto ditto 102,400
11 Ditto ditto 307,200
12 Dttto ditto 409,600
18 Ditto ditto 768,000
14 Ditto ditto 778,240
15 White Dutch Clover 40,960
16 Ditto dftto 256,000
17 Ditto ditto 1,024,000
IS i Ditto ditto 1.299.540
19 Ditto ditto ! 1,813,200
20 Ditto ditto i 4,505,600
21 Ditto ditto 7,650,060
j, The label is by
22 Genniue Imported |.J a respectable
Alsike Clover .. ( 7 London seeds
, ' man.
23 Trifolium Hybridum.. 865,6101
24 Milled Hop Clover 25,600 A. very -good
[sample.
j l Mostly plan
-25 Lotus corniculatus 179,200 < tain, here quite
(inexcusable.
26 Egyptian Clover .. 855.400
27 Tri'follnm incarnatuni 245,760
i , The weeds
) consist for the
28 Sainfoin 276,720 j most part of
i 1 ’ False Burnet
In offering a few remarks upon this table, we
would first detest especial attention to Nos. 1,8,
and 15, at the head of the samples of Red Clo
ver, Cow Grass, and Dutch Clover; as consider
ing the nature of these seeds and their minute
ness, the weeds here tabulated are reduced al
most to the smallest possible quantities. These
samples were obtained from a respectable seeds
man, and are an evidence of a striking kind—
especially when compared with the other sam
ples—of what may be done towards getting
cleaner clover seeds to market than we have
yet been accustomed to. Os course such sam
ples ought to command a higher price—taking
for granted that the true seed in all is equally
good—than these respectfully below the above
numbers; and is is plain that the agriculturist
ought in his own interest to be' able to distin
guißh and separate the weeds in choosing his
seed stock. If he concludes, as we have long
done, that dirty seed is usually dear at any
price, while clean seed is a matter of the utmost
importance, he will hesitate to buy impure seed
at any price, while any reasonable demand will
not be considered too much for seed that has
been carefully grown and well cleaned.
Indeed, care in growth is all important, as if
clean seed be demanded; it will be more profita
ble to grow than to clean it afterwards, so that
from aU these considerations we cone, ude that
watchfulness on the part of the farm ?r would
soon bring about a most salutary reform in the
seed market.
Now if we just glance at the kinds of weeds
we usually find in clover, we shall see that they
are of those that they may produce from one to
three crops of seed before the clover crop is de
veloped ; thus, let any one look to patches of
.creeping crowfoot with its useless green and
gold flowers; of creeping buckwheat with its
wiry arms that have killed yards of clover, as
witness the bare patches of winter; and then
again see the perennial green mat of the chick
weed. We have this week been in a field of
clover sown with last year's barley, more than
half of which is weeds, and we happen to know
that they are mostly the result of what the
fanner has himself sown. Surely such compa
ny is enough of itself to make the clover sick!
And yet some sturdy stocky plants seemed to
look as though this might have done well if it
only had had fair play. As regards the fourth
division of this table we would especially call
attention to the labal of sample 22, genuine al
sike clover, and this from a respectable house.
We can only conclude from this label that the
seed had not been subject to admixture since its
importation, or that the seedsman was not well
skilled in his calling, for surely the ever-ready
adjective, however conventional, would other
wise hardly be so used by respectable men.
The quantity of Plantain amongst the Lotus
corniculatus must have been by design, as its
separation from so small a seed must have been
ensured by proper treatment -
The quantity of False Burnet in Sainfoin is so
important a subject that we shall direct atten
tion to it at at a future period. Reference to
our analyses of rye-grass seeds must also be
postponed for a week. Let us add that in any
future parcels of seed sent for our examination,
correspondents should name their seedsman.
Wo have lately visited a number of wheat
fields and been astonished that sensible men
should neglect to pull up all cockle and smut
heads before either is ripe enough, to supply liv
ing germs for another year. After the heads of
smut wheat form their black dust, this scattered
over the ground may live until wheat is again
sown on the same land, or until corn, oats, or
some other cereal, or nutritive grass is sown or
planted, when the fungus reproduces its kind
perhaps a million fold. Pains ought to bo taken
to sprout and kill all seeds in all kinds of mi
nurd made on the farm; and every farmer should
enenhrage the production of really pure seed by
cheerfully paying a remunerating price for the
MiMk It costs much more wheat,
gam and clover seed, than to harvest and sell
a sogry mixture of good and bad, in which the
latter often predominates.
—*•>-♦•4- ■■
International Exhibition or 1862.— The
following letter has been addressed to the Sec
retary of the Society of Arts by command of
the Prince Consort, President of the Society,
expressing the readiness of his Royal Highness
to place his name on the list of guarantors for
the sum of 10,000/. so soon as the sum of
240,0001 has been subscribed:
Windsor Castle, April 9,1860.
“ Dear Sir: I am commanded by his Royal
Highness, the Prince Consort, to inform you that
his Royal Highness has given his best attention
to the proposal made by the council of the So
ciety of Arts for the formation of a guarantee
fund, in order to enable them to give effect to
the wish of the Society to hold another Great
International Exhibition in 1862. As Presi
dent of the Society, it is ever the wish of his
Royal Highness to assist, as for as it is in his
power to do so, any well considered plan pro
posed by the Society which has for its object
the advancement of art and science as applied
to industrial pursuits. But feeling at the same
time that the favor of the public to any such
plan should be dono to the merits of the pro
posal alone, he has in general made it a rule to
decline giving his name to any undertaking
which had not already such an amount of pub
lic support as would ensure its ultimate success.
In the present case, however, considering the
conditions under which it is proposed to raise
the guarantee fund—one of which provides that
‘no liability shall be incurred by any person
subscribing to the agreement, unless the sum of
250,000/. be subscribed within six calendar
months ' —his Royal Highness will so far depart
from his ordinary practice as to intimate his
readiness, when the public interest in the pro
posed Exhibition shall have manifested itself to
the extent of subscribing 240,000/. to contribute
the further sum that shall be necessary to com
plete the full amount of the proposed guarantee.
“ I am, Ac., C. Grey.”
— i ■»
FOWLS AFFECTED WITH LICE OB BOUP—
TREATMENT.
In your paper of April 5, 1860, the iuquiry is
made as to the best remedy to effectually des
troy lice on poultry, and, if you will allow me,
I will state what I have always found to be the
most successful and speedy of the many reme
dies which I have seen and tried ; and that is,
take lard and thoroughly mix with it spirits of
turpentine sufficient to cut or soften it well;
put this mixture in a vial that can be kept cork
ed, and with a mouth large enough to admit the
finger, and then, when wanted, thoroughly rub
with the finger a little of it into the feathers
around the top of the fowl’s neck, and on the
head as far as there are feathers, also under each
wing and around the vent, and repeat the appli
cation in about ten days if necessary. The lard
in a measure neutralizes the turpentine, and pre
vents it from making the fowl sore when applied
under the wings, where small chickens, espe
cially, are very tender, and apt to get sore if the
mixture is too strong of turpentine, and they are
exposed to wet immediately after its applica
tion. This soreness, however, is readily cured
by applying to it a little sweet soiL
As to giving sulphur to fowls, a little ofit occa
sionally is not only very beneficial to keep them
in good health where they are confined, but also
to improve their plumage, as it makes their
feathers soft and glossy, T>ut for lice I have never
found it so effectual either to drive them oft' the
old ones, or to destroy their nits, as the lard and
turpentine.
Weeds mostly
consisting of
Plantago lan
ceolata, Ran
'unculus repens
and Polygo
num, and oth
ers.
As above, with
Sherardia ar
' vensis, Ac.
Sherardia.Stel
laria, small
U m b ellifera',
' and Compos! -
tae as Chamo
miles.