Were I an English farmer, I should encourage this industrious and lively little fellow to take up his abode with me, under the full persuasion, more than compensated by the thousands of harmthat the little grain he would devour would be

for silk-culture. This precept first came from Eu- vices, in the grub-destroying way, are beyond rope, and doub'less is necessary to be strictly ob-es imation. There is no knowing what would be the disastrous result of his extirpation. The served in that moist climate. If not necessary common sparrow is a favourite bird with me. here, or at least if it may be partially neglected without certain loss-and that the experiments of Messrs. Pleasants and Archer go conclusively to establish the fact furnishes a new proof of the great superiority which we have in the greater dry-ful insects that he would destroy. The sparness of our climate, which seems to counteract the evil of too much moisture in the food and litter. Without supposing that there is any benefit to the worms in the water given, there will be a great gain to the feeder in his being relieved of all the trouble of drying, and delay in feeding, usually caused when the leaves are made wet by rain. The most interesting part of this statement, is that two successive generations of worms have been thus fed almost exclusively on wet leaves.

piece

rows have entire liberty at Walton Hall, the seat of our friend, Charles Waterton, esq.; but we of the choice fruit they take but a little, and this is hear no complaint of their depredations. Even not begrudged them by their generous protector. When residing in the interior of Pennsylvania, made an interesting experiment. Being food rearing poultry, I had a large stock at seed-time, between four and five hundred domestic fowls. My wheat field was near the house, and my farmer maintamed that, unless the fowls were locked up, there would be no crop. Not being disposed to Though Mr. Archer is a young silk-culturist, prison my favorites, I gave orders to sow a and has had very little opportunity to gain instruc-acre, with wheat, for the sole use of the poultry, of ground alongside the barn, about hall an tion from experience, there is no better authority I must confess that I did not suppose many grails for facts, and his testimony on this fact is as con- would have the liberty of vegetation, so thorough clusive as if he had stored up all the existing the wheat began to spring, and gave indications a scratching did the place undergo. However, knowledge, and errors, to be found in books, and of a crop. When the grain was ripe, my farmer also in old usages. If he had been previously said he thought it was worth cutting, as it apmore fully instructed and strongly impressed by all peared to have received but httle injury from the established authority, he would probably never did not, in our estimation, amount to two busbela owls. In short, the damage done by the lowls have made this interesting and useful experiment, of wheat, whilst we had the benefit of the produce of a practice, which all authors, from Dandolo of the poultry in eggs and chickens, of far greater down to D'Homergue, would have pronounced value than what they destroyed in the way of an egregious error, which could not have any in the insect-destroying way. My farmer was grain; to say nothing of their invaluable services other than fatal effects. This is is one of the thou-greatly astonished; and confessed that the hens, sands of cases, which we so much wish that all as he called them, were not so destructive as he our readers would imitate, in which even a begin ner, a mere novice in a particular agricultural pursuit, may make observations and ascertain facts, the communication of which will afford new and important light to long experienced and the best informed culturists. There are very few observing men, who cannot teach some new and useful ification of observing the good feeling of the Dutch, In my late journey into Holland, I had the grattruths; and there are still fewer, even of the best with respect to the leathered creation. Their fondinformed farmers, who are too wise to be instructedness of the stork is well known; but they also by the communication.-ED. F. R.

had always imagined they were. I must observe that it was my practice to feed regularly my poulquite as beneficial to the fowls as to myself. Let try; under the persuasion that a good meal was all those who attend to rural economy pay attention to this matter, and they will find their interest in it.

protect the rook, the jackdaw, the wood pigeon, &c. In Rotterdam, I lodged in a hotel, situated on the quay of the Meuse, called the Boompjes. This quay is ornamented with a row of venerable trees, which are inhabited by jackdaws, ringdoves,

REMARKS ON THE USEFULNESS OF BIRDS IN starlings, and sparrows; all living in friendship,

AGRICULTURE AND GARDENING.

By G. Ord.

From Loudon's Gardener's Magazine.

building their nests and rearing their young, in perfect security. A stranger, unaccustomed to such a spectacle in a busy commercial city, would be surprised, as I certainly was, on being awaked, I have been reflecting much upon the conver-chattering of the starlings, and the cooings of the at early dawn, with the cawing of the daws, the sation which we had together, a few evenings doves, in a place where no sounds would be exago, on the subject of the usefulness of birds to pected but those which are the concomitants of a agriculture. The farmers of Great Britain, as well maritime port. as those of North America, are influenced by pre-enjoy the morning air, the ringdoves would alight Whilst sitting in my window, to judices which a little investigation of the economy within a few feet of me, without manifesting the of nature would tend to remove. The rook is by least alarm; thereby affording me an opportunity many esteemed a noxious bird; and yet his ser- of admiring the graceful form, and glossy plumage,

of this beautiful bird. I really envied the Dutch
their happiness in this particular.
London, May 10. 1839.

NOTE ON THE JALAP PLANT OF COMMERCE.

By D. Beaton.

From Loudon's Gardener's Magazine.

TO KEEP SWEET POTATOES.
To the Editor of the Farmers' Register.

Columbus, Ga.

Some time last fall, as well as I now recollect, one of your Virginia correspondents asked for information upon the subject of keeping sweet pota toes through the winter; and perhaps the writer was desirous to obtain Virginia practice; but if our Georgia plan should not be altogether applicable to your region, (I know of no reason why it should not be,) your correspondents may derive some At the last November meeting of the Botanical useful hin's therefrom; and though I give our Society of Edinburgh, Dr. Graham stated that plan too late for any practical use the present seaIpomea purga is now believed to be the plant son, it will, if at all, be of service the coming one. which produces the true jalap of commerce. That There are various modes adopted in Georgia for he received a tuber of it from Dr. Christison, which saving potatoes, but as the one I practice, in comflowered freely in a stove, and proved to be quite mon with many others, has always been so successdistinct from the Ipomoea a hitherto in cultivation ful, I shall describe that only. As soon as the frost in our stoves as the jalap plant. In the Annals of slightly affects the potato vines in the fall, (about Natural History for this month, in which I read a the middle of October here,) I begin to make prenotice of the above meeting, the authority for the parations for digging; and by the time the vines specific name purga is not stated, and I cannot become thoroughly killed, I am prepared for the find it in any work to which I have access. The harvest. I select an elevated piece of ground, and true Ipomea, or Convolvulus Jalapa, was culti-throwing up circular mounds, or hills, twelve or vated in the Chelsea Botanic Garden in Miller's fifteen inches above the common surface, the ditime. After his death, the plant was lost to that ameter of which should be about ten feet, to congarden, and to the collections of this country, tain sixty bushels of potatoes. The situation and Sometime afterwards Ipomea macrorhiza usurped the elevation of the hills are objects of impor the place of the jalap plant in our stoves. Curious fance, to prevent the possibility of the potatoes collectors latterly had each his jalap plant in his getting wet. In order to make the potatoes lie on stove. At Haffield', we had our jalap plant, but the hill the better, the edges should be somewhat not Ipomea macrorhiza, elevated by drawing the earth from the centre, My present esteemed employer received a few giving it slightly the appearance of a bowl. Comtubers last year from his Mexican collector: they mon pine heart boards are now placed on the were from Xalapa; and from the appearance of earth, radiating from the centre to the circumfertheir foliage, when they began to grow, I took ence of the hill; and on these a layer one foot them to be a species of Dioscorea, (the venation of thick, of dry pine leaves. The hill being now the leaves in that genus being no index to its bo- ready to receive the potatoes, I select dry, mild tanical affinity), and paid little attention to them. weather, and commence digging in the morning, One I kept all the season in the Cacti house where and stop time enomgh in the afternoon to haul up it flourished well, and seemed quite at home, but all dug during the day; for if left out at night, the did not flower; another planted in the open frost, if any, would injure them. If possible, the garden, against a rhododendron bush, a good plan hiils should be filled and completed the same day, for all duplicate novelties from such a country as but if not, the potatoes should be well covered Mexico, from which both hardy and tender species with straw to protect them at night, and uncovered have been received. This latter plant showed a next morning. When the pile becomes two or considerable number of flower buds in September, three feet high, place a pole horizontally across, in twos and threes on short peduncles in the axils of sufficient length to pass entirely through the of the leaves. Only one of these, however, ex- hill. A better ventilator would be an oblong box panded, owing to the lateness of the season; and four or five inches square, with several auger it had a long narrow tube, and a spreading me- holes in it. The potatoes may now be put on till dium-sized limb of a delicate violet color; and the pile is about five feet high, and left in a comical the plant aliogether appeared a graceful climber. form. Next, procure dry pine leaves and lay them You may guess my surprise, on sending this flower all over the potatoes, at least six inches thick. to one of the first botanists of the age, to be told Pine heart boards like those used at the bottom of that it was the plant which produced the true jalap the potatoes, are now placed over the straw, and of commerce, Convolvulus Jalapa. I think from a covering of earth six or eight inches thick, is this statement we may safely infer that the true put over the whole, and patted smooth with a jalap plant will flower better in a cool house than spade. A small aperture should be left at the top in the stove. I expect our plant will flower well | of the hill, to assist in ventilation; or to be neater, out of doors this season, being preparing it now for a short oblong box may be inserted down to the that purpose. It was received last year in May, potatoes, and the earth drawn nicely up to it. If and, of course, lost much time of the growing sea-a pole is used as the horizontal ventilator, the earth son. If this is different from the Edinburgh I. should be removed from below it, where it projects purga I shall be glad to send a dried specimen of from the hill. All the apertures should be left it to the Botanical Society there; but I shall learn open, for a few days after the operation is finish. this "time enongh" from Mr. M'Nab, I am hap-ed, and then only closed during severe weather, py to see, is one of the councillors of that society. Kingsbury, April 6. 1839.

with a handful of pine leaves. Shelters should be erected over the hills to exclude the rain entirely. I consider it important to perform the whole business in dry weather. P. C. H.

ON THE CULTURE OF THE MUSHROOM.

By Alex. Forsyth.

From Loudon's Gardener's Magazine.

to heat. When the heat is getting pretty strong, let the bed be first beaten all over, then make holes with an iron-shod dibber, 9 in. apart, and deep enough to reach the stratum of loam: these will soon cool the bed; and when the heat has declined The mushroom is an acceptable article at table to about 80°, the holes may be bored by a conical all the year round; to supply this regular demand block of wood, to about 2 in. in diameter, at 2 in. various plans are resorted to, and that which I deep, in order to receive the spawn. These holes have proved to be the cheapest and most efficient must be filled up, to about 3 in. from the surface, mode I shall here detail. By cheapness, however, with loam and horse-droppings mixed; then inI must not be understood to mean that false econ-sert a bit of spawn, about the size of a hen's egg omy which short-sighted persons practise, of sav-in each, and fill the holes up level with the surface, ing in the first outlay, and afterwards paying a with the loam and droppings. The holes being greater sum, as it were, by instalments, or yearly closed, the heat will increase, and must be atten rent, without an adequate return, or the possession ded to: if violent, a few deep narow holes may be of a creditable and satisifactory article. The cul- made to let it escape; and, if too slight, it may be ture of the mushroom, in many of our gardens, is aided by a covering of dry hay, or a layer of warm an admirable specimen of this sort of economy. dung; and when all danger of violent heat is gone Instead of building workmanlike mushroom vaults, by, and the spawn beginning to run, put on the with bricks, mortar, and cement, not subject to the upper stratum of loam, mixed with a little cut hay dry-rot, nor to any other kind of rot, with the look or dry horse-droppings to make a tough firm crust, and the reality of stability and usefulness, we find about 1 in. deep. A temperature of 55° to 60o, I either ridges in the open air, covered with litter and consider is best for the atmosphere in the house, mats, which must be taken off and put on at every and about 90° of bottom heat will set the spawn gathering, or else, which is worse, the mushrooms actively to work. The beds must not be allowed growing in a shed behind the hot-houses, on shelves to get too dry, a layer of moist hay will prevent halt-consumed with the dry-rot, and the wooden this; and, if too wet, a dry atmosphere can be got roof over head, as a matter of course, in the same by gentle fires and open ventilators, which will and predicament. them a little but a bed once allowed to get thoroughly wet after spawning is, in my opinion, hopeless; and such a bed I should certainly remove without loss of time. Mushroom spawn, planted in loam and dung, or in either, and screened from sun and rain in summer, will produce this vegetable in abundance; and the same materials will produce the same effect, under favorable circumstances, in winter; such as being placed in boxes or baskets in a stable or warm cellar. In gathering mushrooms for present use, they may be cut; but, if they are to be kept a few days, they must be got with the stem entire. Half-dried droppings of highly fed horses, good spawn, and a gentle moist atmosphere, are the principal things to be attended to in cultivating the mushroom.

Preparing the Spawn.-Cake or brick spawn is the only sort that I consider worth making, and there is only one sort of materials that I think advisable to make it of, and these are, equal portions of horse-droppings, cow-droppings, and loam, well mixed, and pounded or beaten, adding just only as much water as will bring the materials to the consistency of brickmakers' moulding mortar. Then let a circular mould without a bottom, 9 in. in diameter and 2 in. deep, be placed on a table, with the wide end uppermost, and filled with this mortar and stroked level; before it is turned out of the mould, let three holes be made in each cake, with an iron-shod dibber, 1 in. deep: the mould must be shaped like the frustum of a cone, that the cakes may easily part with it. When the cakes are all but hand dry, let them be spawned, by putting a piece of spawn about the size of a pigeon's egg in each hole, enclosing it with a little of the original mortar. Then pile the cakes in pairs, with their spawned ends together, resembling a cask; and in this state let them be cased up in brick-shaped batches, and sweated and kept up to about 85°, by placing a layer of sweet dung alt around and over the batch, varying it in quantity, to obtain the desired heat. The spawn must be examined as it runs in the cakes, and when one is broken and appears mouldy all through, and smells of mushroom, it is mushroom spawn in the highest state of perfection. To preserve it, however, it must be thorougly dried in an airy loft, and kept dry for use. It will retain its properties for several years.

To grow the Mushrooms.-Collect a quantity of horse-droppings, dry them a little in a open shed, then lay a stratum of loamy turf, 2 in. or 8 in. deep, in the bottom of the bed, and over this three layers of droppings, each about 2 in. deep, rendered as compact as possible, by giving each layer a good pummeling with a hand-mallet. When the last layer is made up, thrust a few "watch sticks" into the bed, in order to ascertain when it begins

EMIGRATION.

[Extract from the Southern Agriculturist.] There are few of us who have not relatives or friends that have emigrated to the west, and whose flattering accounts of that region do not render us uneasy, not to say unhappy at our situation here. Many of us have been there ourselves, and their deep rich soil, their luxuriant fields, their boundless discourse of hundreds of thousands and of millions, have seldom failed to make us look back with absolute contempt upon our own barren and spiritless land. With imaginations fired by the glow which rests and shines on every thing around, many purchase at once, and return home to pull up stakes and abandon all the endearing associations of infancy, youth and manhood, for the glorious prospect of unbounded wealth in more favored climes. If any come back to look once more upon his own fields before he determines to give them up forever, and the lapse of time, the change of scene, the comforts of home and friends, wear away his first vivid impression, and deprive him of the resolution to go-still, in

GOVERNMENT AND AGRICULTURE IN MASSA-operations in every department of rural economy,

An address at the Annual Cattle shows of the Wor-country. But even in that reduced form, with the cester and the Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin Agricultural Societies, October, 1838. By HENRY COLMAN, Commissioner for the Agricultural Survey of the state. Boston: Otis, Broaders, & Company. 8vo. pp. 23.

and skill could create or introduce, from the prac- to as high a degree of perfection as that of any tice of any other age or country. Interest, know- other region, Massachusetts has been dependent ledge, and industry were, therefore, actively and on other states for a large portion of the most zealously united in a common cause, and the indispensable products of agriculture, which are beneficial results have been truly wonderful. With annually consumed; not from a deficiency of tera territory whose area is not a third, and whose ritory, for, compared with the population ours is population is only half that of France, and with a double that of England, -nor because it is not soil and climate not so propitious, the agricultural capable of yielding a sufficient quantity to meet products of England are quadruple those of that the demand, but mainly from an imperfect system empire. This astonishing difference is owing en- of husbandry, and the general disinclination of tirely to the superior methods of tillage which the people to submit to the quiet, noiseless, appahave been so successfully extended over the whole rently slow and doubtful process of acquiring an island, and have rendered it the most perfectly cul- ample, independent support, by a perpetual cultitivated, prolific, and beautifully embellished do-vation of the earth. Besides these adverse causes, main, in all the appropriate appendages which a commerce, navigation, the fisheries, manufactories, refined taste in ornamental planting can devise the mechanical arts, and the mighty tide of emiand execute, that has existed at any period in thegration have made rapidly increasing drafts from history of the human race; while, in large por- the agricultural population, and thus produced a tions of France, as well as Spain, Portugal, and continually augmenting difference, between those many of the Italian states, no favorable change who consume and those who produce, which has has been introduced since the time of Virgil, and long since made it indispensible to expend the the implements, as well as the whole process of wealth acquired from other sources of income in management in rural affairs, is that described by procuring supplies from other parts of the union; the Roman bard. But, within fifteen or twenty and ultimately, so great became the disparity beyears, the government of France has made highly tween the supply and the demand, that, as a commendable exertions to elevate the character nation, we have been compelled to resort to forand condition of its rustic population, by the estab-eign countries for the first necessaries of life. lishment of agricultural and horticultural societies, experimental farms and gardens, the introduction of new plants, and awarding premiums for valuable experiments in all those departments of national industry.

The same enlightened and patriotic spirit which induced many of the most intelligent and eminent men in Great Britain to combine in an application to Parliament, to aid them in measures for facilitating their honorable efforts to render the labors of the farmer more profitable to himself and more use ful to the country, was simultaneously evinced in this commonwealth, and with like happy consequences. The "Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture" was incorporated soon after that which was established in England; and the example has been emulously followed in most of the counties throughout the state, while all have been encouraged and fostered by the seasonable and liberal endowments of the government. Much has been thus accomplished within the present century; but, acting from a yet more enlarged and generous policy, the executive and legislature of the commonwealth, with a munificence which reflects upon them the greatest honor, directed, two years since, an agriculture survey of each county to be made; and a gentleman was appointed as the commissioner for performing that difficult and laborious duty, who, from his attain. ments, industry, ardor, and practical experience, was eminently qualified for the station.

It is our duty, then, to make every possible exertion to avert such alarming conjunctures in future; for no nation can be said to be truly independent, and secure in its position and institutions which is not at all times, and under all circumstances, fully capable of furnishing food and raiment, and whatever else is requisite, for the support and comfort of the whole people.

From the first report made by Mr. Colman, there is ample testimony to warrant the assertion that Massachusetts is capable of yielding more than triple the amount of agricultural products which have hitherto been obtained. There is not a county which the commissioner has visited, that has not presented examples of tillage, and experiments in all the branches of New England culture, which fully illustrate the immense advantages that are derivable from a skilful application of science to the practical arts of husbandry. This verified and consequently most useful of all kinds of knowledge, but which has been confined within very limited and far separate circles, will hereafter be as universally possessed, through the medium of the reports on each county, as that which has been collected and published on every other subject connected with human industry; and the whole, when completed, in the lucid, exact, and satisfactory manner in which the first has been presented, will, allowing for the extent of territory surveyed, form the most accurate and valuable agricultural cyclopædia which has appeared in any country. This may undoubtedly with propriety and jus- It will include the actual operations of each inditice be considered one of the most important mea-vidual, who has best perfected that portion of rural sures that have been adopted since the organiza-economy to which his attention had been most tion of the government; for it is immediately exclusively directed, from the nature of the soil, interesting, and must be directly benefic, not and geographical position as respects a market. only to every citizen who depends upon the culti- Hitherto all the publications which have appearvation of the earth for his support, but to the whole ed on agriculture, have been principally compilapopulation, of which the farming class constitutes tions from the various treatises that have been at least seven-tenths, being, at the same time, the written on that all-important subject, since the grand nursery and constant source of supply for period of the illustrious Columella; and, howfilling all the other diversified occupations in soci-ever laborious may have been the authors, and ingeniously faithful in design, or desirous of produWith a soil naturally as capable of tillage, and cing a work which might the most perfectly sub

ety.