Read Ebook: The Rural Magazine and Literary Evening Fire-Side Vol. 1 No. 06 (1820) by Various

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would perish, from inability to penetrate and divide.

The "Sterilis tellus medio versatur in aestu" of Virgil, shows the opinion he entertained of a husbandry that left the fields without vegetation.

The good effect of these mixtures was known to the ancients, from whom the practice has descended to us.

Of Practical Agriculture, and its necessary Instruments.

We begin this part of our subject with a few remarks on the instruments necessary to agriculture, which may be comprised under the well known names of the plough, the harrow, the roller, the threshing-machine, and the fanning mill.

It is among the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, that the arts most useful to man, have been of later discovery--of slower growth, and of less marked improvement, than those that aimed only at his destruction.--At a time, when the phalanx and the legions were invented and perfected, and when the instruments they employed were various and powerful, those of agriculture continued to be few, and simple, and inefficient.

This beau ideal, this suppositious excellence, in the mechanism of a plough, has been the object of great national, as well as individual research. In Great Britain, high prizes have been established for its attainment; and in France, under the ministry of Chaptal, 10,000 francs, or 00, were offered for this object, by the agricultural society of the Seine. In both countries, the subject has employed many able pens; those of Lord Kaimes, of Mr. Young, of Mr. Arbuthnot, of Lord Somerville, and of Messieurs Duhamel, Chateauvieux, Bosc, Guillaume, &c. It is not for us, therefore, to do more than assemble and present such rules for the construction of this instrument, as have most attained the authority of maxims.

The resistance made to the plough being produced less by the weight of the earth, than by the cohesion of its parts, it is evident, that the head should be shod with iron, and rendered as smooth as possible. This remark applies equally to the soc and to the mould board.

See Arbuthnot on Ploughs.

It is a general opinion, that a heavy plough is more disadvantageous than a light one; because the draft of the former, being greater, will be more fatiguing to the cattle: but the experiments of the agricultural society in London, establish a contrary doctrine, and show, that in light grounds, the labour is more easily and better performed, with a heavy, than with a light plough.

Its clod-breaking and pulverizing property is much increased, by surrounding the roller with narrow bands of iron, two inches broad, three inches thick, and six inches asunder; or by studding it with iron points, resembling harrow teeth, and projecting three or four inches.

Mr. Levi M'Keen, of Poughkeepsie.

ON BONES, &c. AS MANURE.

The carbon and hydrogen abounding in oily substances fully account for their effects; and their durability is explained from the gradual manner in which they change by the action of air and water.

Bone dust, and bone shavings, the refuse of the turning manufacture, may be advantageously employed in the same way.

The basis of bone is constituted by earthy salts, principally phosphate of lime, with some carbonate of lime and phosphate of magnesia; the easily decomposed substances in bone are fat, gelatine and cartilage, which seems of the same nature as coagulated albumen.

According to the analysis of Fourcroy and Vauquelin ox bones are composed

M. Merat Guillot has given the following estimate of the composition of the bones of different animals.

Phosphate of lime. Carbonate of lime.

The remaining parts of the 100 must be considered as decomposable animal matter.

-- The less informed attribute this uninterrupted succession of harvests to the inexhaustible fertility of the soil; but intelligent and well-informed travellers attribute it, on the contrary, and with the best reason, to the indefatigable industry of the inhabitants, and to a highly improved mode of culture, of the details of which they themselves are ignorant, and which beside, from their complication, and the great variety of the productions of the soil, require a profound study, of many years duration, to which few of them have either the inclination or the leisure to apply."

In Flanders, wheat yields 20; rye, 26; barley, 26; and oats, 40, for one.--Wheat holds only the fifth rank in value in the harvest of Flanders. In England, wheat never yields more, on an average, than 10 or 11 for one; barley, something less than 10 to 1; and oats only between 8 and 9 for one. In some highly ameliorated farms in the county of Suffolk, Arthur Young reports a produce of 36 bushels of wheat, and 64 bushels of barley to the acre; and that in the county of Kent, soils of middling quality, equally ameliorated, yield per acre 52 bushels of wheat, and the same quantity of barley. But in Flanders, there are soils which yield much more than this--namely, 72 bushels of wheat, 120 of barley, 128 of beans, and 72 of coleseed.--These, however, are extreme cases, which do not affect the general question of comparative growths; while, however, they shew that the amelioration of land, in any country, is calculated greatly to increase its productiveness.

This correct, though "bird's eye" view, of Flemish husbandry, merits farther amplification, in order to furnish distinct data to the intelligent and enterprising agriculturist. My subsequent communications will be directed to that subject.

Respectfully, yours,

GEO. HOUSTON.

LINCOLN CORN POUNDER.

This machine I saw last summer in operation, on the road between Lincolnton and Morgantown. It was a horizontal shaft with a beater at one end, poised by the weight of water falling into an excavation at the other. The shaft or helve was about fourteen, possibly sixteen feet long. At two thirds of its length from the beater, it rested by a notch across the sharpened edge of a piece of timber lying in a transverse direction, serving as a pivot or fulcrum for the shaft to move on. The beater was a piece of wood two feet, or rather more, in length, fixed by a mortice and tennon to the end of the shaft; its face was about two inches and a half in diameter, and plated with iron. The mortar which received this pestal, or beater, was the hollowed end of a log, wide at top, narrower at bottom, and would contain nearly a bushel. The other, or shorter end of the shaft, was excavated into a trough about three feet long, eight inches wide, and the same in depth. The extreme inner end of the trough formed an angle of ascent from the line of the bottom of about 35 degrees, affording thereby an easy exit to the water when depressed by its weight. This very simple machine, for I have described the whole of it, was placed upon the small run of a spring branch, where there was a descent of about two feet. The water was conveyed into the trough by a spout which approached it at right angles, and the trough was filled and discharged about twice in a minute. Every morning, and again at evening, this mortar was filled with ears of corn, which in twelve hours were found reduced to a very fine meal. It was capable of converting to meal three or four mortars full in a day, but two were sufficient for the use of the plantation, and the mortar was attended to only when it could be done with convenience. In a wet season, when the spring run afforded more water, it moved with increased celerity, and was capable of increased work. The machine was without cover, and I observed barn-door fowls around it, but afraid of the motion of the shaft, they never ventured to purloin from the mortar. The whole expense of this, I think, could not have exceeded four or five dollars.

CALVIN JONES.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Though the flavour of the Alpine varieties is generally approved, they are not much thought of while the larger varieties continue in perfection, and are valued only as an autumnal crop. I was therefore led to try several different methods of culture, with a view to obtain plants that would just begin to blossom when the other varieties cease; conceiving that such plants, not having expended either themselves, or the virtue of the soil, in a previous crop of fruit, would afford the best and most abundant autumnal produce. Under this impression, I sowed the seeds of the best Alpine variety that I had ever been able to obtain, in pots of mould, in the beginning of August, the seeds of the preceding year having been preserved to that period; and the plants these afforded were placed, in the end of March, in beds to produce fruit. This experiment succeeded tolerably well; but I was not quite satisfied with it; for though my plants produced an abundant autumnal crop of fruit, they began to blossom somewhat earlier than I wished, and before they were perfectly well rooted in the soil. I therefore tried the experiment of sowing some seeds of the same variety early in the spring, in pots which I placed in a hotbed of moderate strength in the beginning of April, and the plants thus raised were removed to the beds in which they were to remain in the open ground as soon as they had acquired a sufficient size. They began to blossom soon after midsummer, and to ripen their fruit towards the end of July, affording a most abundant crop of very fine fruit. The powers of life in plants thus raised, being young and energetic, operate much more powerfully than in the runners of older plants, or even in plants raised from seeds in the preceding year; and therefore I think the Alpine strawberry ought always to be treated as an annual plant.

OILING FRUIT TREES.

Sir George M'Kenzie has discovered that oil rubbed upon the stems and branches of fruit trees destroys insects, and increases the fruit buds. Mr. John Linning has added to the discovery, by using it successfully upon the stems of carnations, to guard them against the depredations of the ear-wig. The coarsest oil will suit, and only a small quantity is required.

CULTURE OF FOREST TREES.

Sir Watkin Williams Wynn has planted within the last 5 years, in the mountainous lands in the vicinity of Langollen, situated from 12,000 to 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, 39,000 oaks, 63,000 Spanish chesnuts, 102,000 spruce firs, 110,000 Scotch firs, 90,000 larches, 30,000 wych elms, 35,000 mountain elms, 80,000 ash, and 40,000 sycamores, all of which are at this time, in a healthy and thriving condition.

TO PREVENT DECAY IN TREES.

This seems to be analogous to the condition of a frost bitten joint or limb, which is recovered by the application of cold water; but injured, sometimes destroyed, by being brought near a fire, or the influence of sudden warmth.

THE GREAT LAKES.

Lake Superior, in its greatest length, is 381 miles; its breadth is 161; and its circumference is little less than 1152 miles--it is as remarkable for the transparency of its waters as for its extraordinary depth.

Lake Huron, from west to east, is 218 statute miles long; at its western extremity it is less than one hundred miles broad; and, at about one hundred miles from its eastern shore, it is barely 60 miles broad; but near the centre it suddenly bends away to the southward, and is a hundred miles in breadth; making a circumference of little less than 812 miles.

Lake Michigan deepens into a bay of 262 miles in length, by sixty-five in breadth; and its entire circumference is 731 miles.

From the Boston Gazette.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES, &c.

The first Americans who are known to have visited the Western country, were James M'Bride, and several others, who in the year 1754 descended the Ohio river, as far as the mouth of Kentucky river.

In 1769, Colonel Daniel Boon, and a few others, undertook to explore this vast wilderness, then so little known. After many hardships and fatigues, they reached the neighbourhood of Lexington, where they remained until 1771.

In 1775, Colonel Boon, with a party of soldiers and emigrants, built fort Boonsborough, which was the first settlement made in the state of Kentucky.

Notwithstanding many obstacles, the inhabitants of Kentucky were estimated, in 1784, at 12,000 souls.--No settlements were made north of the Ohio, until three or four years afterwards.

On the 1st of March, 1786, the "Ohio Company" was formed at Boston, consisting of officers and soldiers of the Revolution, who, by an act of Congress, were entitled to a military grant of land, in the territory northwest of the Ohio. This company completed a contract with Congress for one million five hundred thousand acres, on the 27th of Nov. 1787. An association of 46 men, under Gen. Rufus Putnam, proceeded to take possession of the purchase; and on the 7th April following, they pitched their camp and cleared the ground where Marietta now stands.

In 1788, Congress passed an ordinance establishing a colonial government over the Northwest Territory. Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor.

Cincinnati was first called Losantiville, but Governor St. Clair, in 1790, altered its name. In 1789, the population of this place consisted of only eleven families.

In 1792, a Presbyterian church was erected at Cincinnati; and the citizens were compelled by law, to take their fire arms with them, when they attended church. The first school was also established this year, and consisted of about 30 scholars.

In 1792, the small pox broke out among the soldiers at Fort Washington, and one third of the citizens and soldiers fell victims to its ravages.--

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