Part 16

We would advise a more sparing use of it. Let _every other_ tree be a Locust, and the alternate maple or elm, oak, tulip, etc. By this method the Locust will afford immediate shade, and when they become unsightly the intervening trees will have grown to a goodly size. The Locust should be transplanted just as the buds are ready to burst; they should be protected by frames as soon as set. Good cases may be made at a trifling expense, by taking strips of inch and a half stuff, three inches wide, and nine or ten feet long, sharpen the lower end, and drive it into the ground four or five inches, and in a box formed about the tree let crosspieces be nailed at the top. Be careful that the tree does not _rub_ upon the case, although the wound will heal over, yet in the first high wind, it will be apt to break off at that point. This tree is rather peculiar in that respect.

The Locust was introduced to Europe by a Frenchman named Robin. From him the genus (_Robinia_) took its name. There are but four species belonging to it, and they are all indigenous to North America, viz.:

_Robinia pseudacacia_ (common Locust). _R. viscosa_, confined to the southwestern parts of the Alleghany Mountains, bearing rose-colored blossoms and being even more ornamental than the former; it is equally hardy, and if it could be introduced among us would form a valuable addition. Locusts nowhere appear to a better advantage than when planted in clumps of six or eight on a lawn, and if the _R. pseudacacia_ and _R. viscosa_ were contiguous, blending the pure white and the rose-colored blossoms, the world might be challenged for a finer effect.

The _R. hispida_ (_rose-acacia_ of our gardens) is a highly ornamental shrub, its branches are, like the moss-rose, covered with minute spines, which give it a fine appearance. A fourth species is said to exist in the basin of Red River. The favorable opinion here expressed of the Locust, will remove any impression of prejudice when we say, that _they are altogether too much cultivated_. Our forests are full of magnificent shade-trees whose claims can never, all things considered, be equalled by the Locust.

ELM (_Ulmus Americana_), commonly called White Elm. Of the four species of elms indigenous to the United States, but two are particularly worth notice, the White Elm, and Slippery Elm (_U. pulva_). But the former of these is so incomparably the superior, that it should be selected wherever it can be had. It attains a height of one hundred feet, is very long-lived, grows more and more beautiful with age, its long branches droop over, forming graceful pendulous extremities; and no one who has seen the Boston Mall, or the New Haven elms, or those scattered along the villages of Connecticut, will think that Michaux exaggerated in pronouncing this tree to be _the most magnificent vegetable production of the Temperate Zone_. It is unquestionably the monarch among shade-trees, as superior to the oak for avenues and streets, as the oak is to it for parks and forests. The great main-street of every village should be lined with White Elms, set at distances of fifty feet, and Locusts between to supply an immediate shade, and to be removed so soon as the slower-growing elm has spread enough to dispense with them.

THE MAPLE.—The following varieties are in our forests, and are beautiful shade-trees for the borders of farms, door-yards, public squares, avenues, streets, etc. The Sugar Maple (_Acer saccharinum_), White Maple (_A. eriocarpum_), Red Maple (_A. rubrum_). This last variety shows beautiful red flowers before its leaves put out in spring, and, like the sugar-maple, brilliant scarlet leaves in autumn. The maple is a beautiful tree of fine form, the leaves of the different varieties are variously shaped and all beautiful, it is free from disease and noxious insects.

Besides these, the ash, oak, tulip, beech and walnut, are all worthy of being transferred to our streets. Shade-trees for door-yards, and public squares, and pleasure-grounds, require a separate notice, as in some material respects they should be differently treated.

We warmly recommend in lining streets, that each alternate tree only be locust.

It is better for _effect_ that each street, or at least continuous portions of each, have _one kind_ of forest tree, so that an avenue of similar trees be formed. In planting grounds, it is well to group trees of different kinds, but in streets an avenue should be of elms, or of oaks, or of sycamores, or of maples, and not all of them mingled together.

A PLEA FOR HEALTH AND FLORICULTURE.

Every one knows to what an extent women are afflicted with nervous disorders, _neuralgic_ affections as they are more softly termed. Is it equally well known that formerly when women partook from childhood, of out-of-door labors, were confined less to heated rooms and exciting studies, they had, comparatively, few disorders of this nature. With the progress of society, _fevers_ increase first, because luxurious eating vitiates the blood; _dyspepsia_ follows next, because the stomach, instead of being a laboratory, is turned into a mere warehouse, into which everything is packed, from the foundation to the roof, by gustatory _stevedores_. Last of all come _neuralgic_ complaints, springing from the muscular enfeeblement and the nervous excitability of the system.

Late hours at night, and later morning hours, early application to books, a steady training for _accomplishments_, viz. embroidery, lace-work, painting rice paper, casting wax-flowers so ingeniously that no mortal can tell what is meant, lilies looking like huge goblets, dahlias resembling a battered cabbage; these, together with practisings on the piano, or if something extra is meant, a little tum, tum, tuming, on the harp, and a little ting-tong on the guitar; reading “ladies’ books,” crying over novels, writing in albums, and original correspondence with my ever-adored Matilda Euphrosyne, are the materials, too often, of a fashionable education. While all this refinement is being put on, girls are taught from eight years old, that the chief end of women is to get a beau, and convert him into a husband. Therefore, every action must be _on purpose_, must have a discreet object in view. Girls must not walk fast, that is not lady-like; nor run, that would be shockingly vulgar; nor scamper over fields, merry and free as the bees or the birds, laughing till the cheeks are rosy, and romping till the blood marches merrily in every vein; for, says prudent mamma, “my dear, do you think Mr. Lack-a-daisy would marry a girl whom he saw acting so unfashionably?” Thus, in every part of education those things are pursued, whose tendency is to excite the brain and nervous system, and for the most part those things are not “_refined_,” which would develop the muscular system, give a natural fullness to the form, and health and vigor to every organ of it.

The evil does not end upon the victim of fashionable education. Her feebleness, and morbid tastes, and preternatural excitability are transmitted to her children, and to their children. If it were not for the rural habits and health of the vast proportion of our population, trained to hearty labor on the soil, the degeneracy of the race in cities would soon make civilization a curse to the health of mankind.

Now we have not one word to say against “accomplishments” when they are _real_, and are not purchased at the expense of a girl’s constitution. She may dance like Miriam, paint like Raphael, make wax fruit till the birds come and peck at the cunning imitation; she may play like Orpheus harping after Eurydice (or what will be more to the purpose, like a Eurydice after an Orpheus), she may sing and write poetry to the moon, and to every star in the heavens, and every flower on earth, to zephyrs, to memory, to friendship, and to whatever is imaginable in the spheres, or on the world—if she will, in the midst of these ineffable things, remember the most important facts, that _health_ is a blessing; that God made health to depend upon exercise, and temperate living in all respects; and that the great objects of our existence, in respect to ourselves, is a virtuous and pious character, and in respect to others, the raising and training of a family after such a sort that neither we, nor men, nor God, shall be ashamed of them.

Now we are not quite so enthusiastic as to suppose that floriculture has in it a balm for all these mentioned ills. We are very moderate in our expectations, believing, only, that it may become a very important auxiliary in maintaining health of body and purity of mind.

When once a mind has been touched with zeal in floriculture it seldom forgets its love. If our children were early made little enthusiasts for the garden, when they were old they would not depart from it. A woman’s perception of the beauty of form, of colors, of arrangement, is naturally quicker and truer than man’s. Why should they admire these only in painting, in dress, and in furniture? Can human art equal what God has made, in variety, hue, grace, symmetry, order and delicacy? A beautiful engraving is often admired by those who never look at a natural landscape; ladies become connoisseurs of “artificials,” who live in proximity to real flowers without a spark of enthusiasm for them. We are persuaded that, if parents, instead of regarding a disposition to train flowers as a useless trouble, a waste of time, a pernicious romancing, would inspire the love of it, nurture and direct it, it would save their daughters from _false taste_, and all love of meretricious ornament. The most enthusiastic lovers of nature catch something of the simplicity and truthfulness of nature.

Now a constant temptation to female vanity—(if it may be supposed for the sake of argument, to exist) is a display of person, of dress, of equipage. In olden times, without entirely hating their beauty, our mothers used to be proud of their spinning, their weaving, their curiously-wrought apparel for bed and board. A pride in what we have _done_ is not, if in due measure, wrong or unwise; and we really think that rivalry among the young in rearing the choicest plants, the most resplendent flowers, would be altogether a wise exchange for a rivalry of lace, and ribbons, and silks. And, even if poor human nature must be forced to allow the privilege of criticising each other something severely, it would be much more amiable to pull roses to pieces, than to pull caps; all the shafts which are now cast at the luckless beauty, might more harmlessly be cast upon the glowing shield of her dahlias or upon the cup of her tulips.

A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and in connection with personal instruction, unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraitened, ardent piety.

KEEPING YOUNG PIGS IN WINTER.

There is both negligence, and mistake, in the way of wintering pigs. I am not talking to those whose manner of keeping stock is, to let stock take care of themselves; but to farmers who _mean to be careful_. Hogs should be _sorted_. The little ones will, otherwise, be cheated at the trough, and overlaid and smothered in the sleeping-heap. There should not be too many in one inclosure; especially young pigs should not sleep in crowds; for, although they sleep warmer, they will suffer on that very account. Lying in piles, they get sweaty; the skin is much more sensitive to the cold, and coming out in the morning reaking and smoking, the keen air pierces them. In this way, young pigs die off through the winter by being too warm at night. If you have the land-shark and alligator breed, however, you should crowd these together, for the more they die off the better for the farmer.

SWEET POTATOES.

Although our practice has been more extensive, and is more skillful, in eating sweet potatoes than in raising them, we yet adventure some remarks: No root can live and grow without food from the leaf; if the tops be permitted to root, so much nutriment is subtracted from the tubers as is diverted to these new roots. Those who are best skilled in their cultivation, raise their vines up so as to detach the roots, but do not twist them round the hill; which, by crushing or covering the leaves, would render the vines unhealthy. As to vines of the _Cucurbitacæ_, their fruit not being under ground, it is not necessary that such an amount of prepared sap should go to the root as if tubers were formed. There is, in such vines, a great liability to disease and injury near the hill. The vines shrink and dry near the base; and however flourishing the running end may otherwise be, it is destroyed. If roots are secured at several points along the vine, we remove the chances of its prematurely dying, without withdrawing any sap necessary for the maturation of its fruit.

MANAGEMENT OF BOTTOM-LANDS.

Almost every kind of soil requires a management of its own. That proper for clays, and that proper for bottom-lands, cannot be interchanged. Bottom lands are usually composed largely of vegetable matter and sand; and are therefore light, and easy to work; yet, as they are now managed, they admit a less variety of crops than the tougher and more unmanageable clay lands.

BOTTOM-LANDS FOR CORN.—Our corn-lands, strictly so called, consist of rich intervales and river bottoms. On these corn is raised year after year, without manuring, fallowing, clover, or any change; but one constant, successive corn, corn, corn. It is supposed that corn may be had for an indefinite period, so far as mere exhaustion of the soil is concerned, if the right course is pursued. Some of the best farmers in this region _hog_ their corn lands. _Hogging_ is turning the hogs in upon the ripe corn, and letting them harvest it in their own way. The saving of labor of gathering the corn and feeding it out is very great. Some single farmers fatten from one to five hundred head of hogs; but if this number were fed by hand and the grain gathered for them it would require a force which would eat up the profits. When the fatting hogs have eaten off the field (temporary fences divide large fields into inclosures of convenient size) they are turned into another, and the stock-hogs for another year, are let in to glean and root for the waste and trampled corn. In this way nothing is lost.

This method _takes very little off from the land_; for the droppings of the hogs returns a great amount of food for the soil; and the corn stalks being burned or turned under, the land continues in good heart. Land being hogged will be _free from cut-worms_; for the continual rooting of the stock-hogs, which continues until the ground freezes, throws up the eggs or insect to be destroyed by the winter. This method of cultivation is peculiarly suited to large farms, where extensive tracts of ground are kept under the plow.

But in the course of eight or ten years, this process renders the soil extremely light. The action of frost upon it, after the hogs have snout-plowed it, leaves it in the spring as light and dry as an ash-heap. The corn will still _grow_ as well, but every high wind will throw it down; the soil has not tenacity enough to hold up its crop. _Clovering_ has been resorted to by some good farmers as a remedy; but without pretending to know certainly, we suspect that clover will not fully answer the object. Clover on hard soils, separates the particles and renders the ground lighter, and adds vegetable matter to its composition. This is not what bottom land needs. It is _too_ light, and rich enough in vegetable matter.

We believe a better course will be found in putting _bottom-lands to small grain_. To be sure, there are difficulties in the way of this; but good farming is nothing but a compromise of difficulties. If the month of May be cold and backward, wheat will do well and yield freely. But if the spring is forward, May warm and wet, the grain will run rank, break down when the head begins to fill, and, of course, the berry, however plump and well it might have looked in the milk, will, after it falls, for want of nourishment, light, and air, shrink and shrivel. But even in such springs, might not an over rankness be prevented by pasturing the grain; or even mowing it, when, as it sometimes happens, it gets ahead of what cattle are put upon it. But, at the worst, the grain is not lost; for if it lodges, and is spoiled for the sickle, hogs may be turned upon it and they will thrive well.

But now comes the advantage of small grain to the soil, which will be the same whether the crop is reaped or hogged. The straw or stubble, in either case, remains upon the ground. This should not be _plowed in_, but _burned, and the ashes plowed under_. To do this a strip of eight feet should be plowed about the whole field; and fire put to it, _on every side at once_, so that it may burn towards the centre; for fire, driven across a field, would leap many feet of open space at a fence. The more stubble the better, and the more weeds the better. The ashes will give to the soil just what it lacks, cohesion or firmness, and moisture. For, to make a dry soil moist, requires some substance to be added, which, having an affinity for moisture, shall attract and retain it. This is the nature of wood or straw ashes. A gentleman who will recognize in the above much of his own practical experience, mentioned to us a singular fact in corroboration of this reasoning. Having a very heavy wheat or oat stubble on a bottom-land field, which made it very hard for the plow, he burned it over; but a smart thunder-storm coming suddenly up, the fire was extinguished, leaving about five acres in the middle of the piece, unburned. The whole field was then plowed. It was found that the soil in the part burned over was more firm, and moist, all the ensuing summer; and the corn more even, and darker colored, than that upon the five acres which escaped the fire, and whose stubble had been plowed in.

At all events, there can be no doubt that wood-ashes would be very advantageous to bottom lands. And we are persuaded that such soils may be kept in wheat and corn for any length of time, if thus managed. In conclusion, corn your bottom-lands till they are too light, hogging instead of harvesting them; then put in wheat or oats; leave the stubble long, burn it over, and put it into wheat again, or to corn, as the case may be.

CULTIVATION OF WHEAT.

There are two opinions which will prevent any attempt to improve the cultivation of wheat, or, indeed, of anything else. The first is the opinion that, what are called _wheat-lands_, yield enough at any rate: the second is the opinion of those who own a soil not naturally good for wheat, that there is no use in trying to raise much to the acre. We suppose that wheat will not _average_ more than twelve bushels to the acre, as it is now cultivated in some parts. At that rate, and with too low prices, it is not worth cultivation for commercial purposes. The cost of seed, of labor in preparing the soil, putting in the crop, harvesting, threshing, and carrying it to market, is greater than the value of the crop. At fifty cents a bushel, and twelve bushels to the acre, the farmer gets six dollars, which certainly does not cover the worth of his time and the interest on his land.

Is it possible, then, at an expense within the means of ordinary farmers, to bring a double or treble crop of wheat? If nature has set limits to the produce of this grain to the acre, and if our farmers have come up to that limit, there is no use in their trying to do any better. But if their crop is four fold behind what it ought to be, they will feel courage to reach out for a better mode of cultivation. Vegetables collect food from the atmosphere, and from the soil; and different plants select different articles of food from the soil, just as different birds, beasts, insects, etc., require different food. One class of plants draws potash largely from the soil, as turnips, potatoes, the stalk of corn, etc. Another class requires lime, in great measure, as tobacco, pea straw, etc. Liebig partially classifies plants according to the principal food which they require; as silica plants, lime plants, potash plants, etc.

Every plant being composed of certain chemical elements, requires for its perfection a soil containing those elements. Thus chemistry has shown, by exact analysis, that good meadow hay contains the following elements: Silica (sand), lime (as a phosphate, a sulphate, and a carbonate, i. e. lime combined with phosphoric, sulphuric, and carbonic acids), potash (as a chloride, and a sulphate), magnesia, iron, and soda. Whatever soil is rich in these will be productive of grass.

The grain of wheat (in distinction from the straw) contains, and of course requires from the soil, sulphates of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, iron, etc.

Any vegetable, in its proper latitude, will flourish in a soil which will yield it an abundance of food; and decline in a soil which is barren of the proper nutritive ingredients.

A practical, scientific knowledge of these fundamental facts, will give an intelligent farmer, in grain-growing latitudes, almost unlimited power over his crops. A good cook knows what things are required for bread; he selects these materials, compounds them to definite proportions—adding, if any one is deficient; subtracting, if any one is in excess. Raising a crop is a species of slow cooking. Here is a compound of such materials (called wheat) to be made. Nature agrees to knead them together, and produce the grain, if the farmer will supply the materials. To do this he _must_ understand what these materials are. Suppose a cook perceiving that the bread was wretched, did not know exactly what was the matter; and should add, salt, or flour, or yeast, or water at hap-hazard? Yet that is exactly what multitudes of farmers do. They find that their fields yield a small crop of wheat. They do not know what the matter is. Is the soil deficient in lime, or sand, or clay? Is magnesia or potash lacking? Perhaps they do not even know that these things are requisite to this crop. “The land must be manured.” Now, manure on an impracticable soil, is _medicine_. Of course if the farmer prescribes, he must tell _what_ medicine, i. e. what manure. Is it vegetable matter or phosphates? alumina or silica? Suppose a doctor says: “You are sick and must take medicine,” without knowing what the disease is, or what the appropriate remedy; and so should pull out a handful of whatever there was in his saddle-bags and dose the wretch? That’s the way farming goes on. “The ten acre lot wants manure.” To the barn yard he goes, takes the dung heap, plows it under, and gets an enormous crop of—straw. Nitrogenous manure was not what the soil wanted. He has added materials which existed in abundance already; but those elements, from the want of which his crop suffered, have not been given it. The land is sicker than it was before. It languishes for want of one element, it suffers from a surfeit of another. We are prepared to sustain these observations by a reference to authentic facts.