UMASS/AMHERST 312066 0308 1412 9 VE COLLEGE EPOSITOR' ~ LIBRARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE uo.._LL53._.,.. DATE..'].- J335: SOURCE lx-.l.^.-._f!.^XQD p GY |S70 SPtCAu COLLECTIONS • «^ THE n^ jn i\U • DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTUEE, AND THEIR KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS OF COUNTRY RESIDENCES, FARM BUILDINGS, CHOICE FRUITS, ANIMALS, IMPLEMENTS, &C. EDITED BY SBION BROWN and STILMAN FLETCHER. NEW SERIES VOLUME IV. BOSTOIsT : PUBLISHED BY R. P. EATON & CO. 1870. Per f\'444 ILLUSTRATIONS. BUILDINGS. Barn, Cattle 184 Convenient Fanners' . . 63 a Dairy Farm . .100,101,292 for Hay and Grain, Cattle and Sheep 341 of Mass., Ag. College . . 140 141, 142 Plan of a 106, 125 ■with Drive-way to Second Floor 149 House, a French Roof . 196, 197 236, 237 for a Physician .... 428, 429 a Neat 324, 325 Plain Two-Story . . . 388, 38« Plan of a Hen 213 Village 285, 286 Village or Country ... 20, 21 Farm Animals, &c. Cattle, Ayrshire Cow ... 365 Dutch Bull, Van Tromp . 44 Short-horn Bull of Dairy Stock 116 Gorilla the 151 Horse, Memory and Sagacity of 260 Merino Buck, a Three Thou- sand Dollar 548 House, the Harvest .... 468 Sheep, Cotswold 53 Lincoln or Lincolnshire . 52 Short-horn Heifer Lucy . . 564 Fkuits and Plants. Carnation, "Gen. Grant" . 345 Currants, Dana's AVhite . . 244 Gooseberry, Mountain Seed- ling 164 Orchard Grass 393 Peanut, Flowers, Leaves and Fruit 276 Pear, Lodge 76 Mount Vernon 509 Pink, Dianthus Heddewigii Diadematus 189 Gen. Grant 346 Verbena t . , 250 Poultry and Birds. Catbird and Chewink . . . 436 Eider Duck 421 Brahma Fowls 450 Light Brahmas 450 Pheasants, EngUsh . . . 372, 373 Miscellaneous Boxes for Window Plants . 199 Bridge, Rustic 29 Cistern Filters 499, 500 Parts of 477, 499, 500 Cultivator, French's Patent 317 Froth Hopper 392 Gate-way and Lounge, Rustic 29 Incubator 544 Presser Roller 103 Probang, for Relieving Chok- ed CaUle 17 Wbiffletree, the Williamson 293 Worm, Thousand-legged . . 37 FNITIAL Letter A 279, 412, 452, 496 L B 32 C . . . . 308, 514 D . • . 474, 541 E 139 F 39, 77, 117, 305 480 G 322 I , . . . 157, 218 J . 13, 253, 301 L . . . 257, 422 M 68, 109, 225, 380 572 N 493 O 123, 161, 349, 445 8 . . 61, 198, 397 T 84, 146, 205, 356 370, 524 U 545 V 261 W . 242, 404, 460 GENERA.L INDEX 1870. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. ABSORBENTS in Barn Yard 572 Agricultural College, Labor in 160 Massachusetts . 145, 166, 442 Missouri 334 Students 24 Commissioners Report . . 148 Papers in England .... 4S3 Science and Colleges . . • 339 Agriculture and Science .... 357 Air, Importance of Pure . . . 319 Alders, Destroying 90 Alexander, J. T., Farm of . . . 32 Animals, Cruelty to 245 Domestication of 123 Kindness to 575 Antiopa Caterpillar 422 Ants, to Destroy 459 Apple, American Beauty ... 518 as Food 574 Crab, Preservde 283 Crop of 574 Dr. Shurtleffs 575 Feeding to Stock . . . 522, 525 in Maine 554 Pomace 573 Trout 575 Tree, Bark Louse ... 15, 232 Barren 54 Pruning . 35, 62, 254, 370, 464 Sprout, a Large 385 to make bear 72 Victoria 575 April, Farm Operations in . . . 157 Flower Garden for . . 238, 264 Garden in 158 Aqueducts, Pipes for 558 Architecture, Rural .... 285, 388 Ashes, — see 3lanures. Asparagus . 159, 208, 255, 352, 448 Associations, Mutual Benefit . . 431 Atmospheric Moisture 288 August, Flower Garden in . . . 354 Garden in 352 BACOI^ to Pickle and Smoke 53 Baker, Thomas, Stock, &c. 227 Balis, J. Farm of 560 Barley, Amount Raised .... 51 Growing 121 Baxonian 283 Winter and Spring .... 134 Bark Lice 486, 530 Barrels, to clean Musty . . .43, 559 Barn, a convenient Farmers' . 63 a small 197 Cattle 184 Dairy 98, 100, 291 Grass 240 Uay, Grain, Cattle and Sheep 341 how shall I Build? .... 272 Itch 212 Mr. Buttolph 330 ofMass.Ag'l College 140, 141, 142 with Drive-way to Second Floor 140 Barns, Arrangement of ... . 160 Constructiou of . . . i . i 37 Barns in Franco 459 Plans for 89, 100, 106, 125, 184 Snakes, to keep Vermin from 67 Bean Poles, &c 18 Beans, 208, 255, 306, 352, 400, 448, 474 Nova Scotia 248 Product of a 91 Bedding, Pine Sawdust .... 213 Beds, Husk 45 Beef Curing 71 Heavy 391 Packing in Texas 513 Prices and Cost of . . 234, 275 Bee Notes for April 2S4 Moth 411 Bees 263 and Fruit Blossoms .... 434 Destroyed by King Birds . 385 Daily Travel of 483 Do they Gather or Make Honey 492 Eaten by Toads 483 Fall Management of ... . 570 Feeding 139, 147, 233 in August 401 in September 447 killed by King Birds ... 408 Nmnbcr of Visits to Flowers 554 Queen Lost and Found . . . 467 Wintering .... 343, 363, 665 Beet, American Improved Im- perial Sugar 323, 387, 394, 506 Sugar 93, 326, 367 Sugar in California .... 554 Sugar in Iilurope 136 Beets, 159, 208, 241, 255, 261, 306, 352 448, 473 Binder, a New 508 Bins, to Measure 304 Birds, Blue, 248 Cat 4:36 Eggs destroyed bySnakes . 248 Spare the 34 Bits, Leather 545 lilackberries 144, 306, 352 Black Walnut Polish 300 Bluebirds in an old Boot . . . . 248 Boiler or Steamer, a Cheap . . 83 Bones, Dissolving 23, 280 I5ooks on Flowers, &c 297 Boots and Shoes Preserving . . 230 Style of 54 to Make Water proof . . . 559 Boston Market 549 Botanist and Florists 167 Boy's Composition on the Ilorse 540 Boxing at Fairs 458 Bread. Pompeii 217 Brookfield.SchooIDistrict No. 6 344 Bruce, M.N 172 Buckhorn 23 Burdocks, &c., to Destroy 423, 513 Buttercup .350 Buttermilk and Pigs 173 pABBAGE 111, l.W, 241, 255, 259 \J 272, 307, 320, 353, 400, 448, 473 Club-foot in 259,389 Cabbage, Lime for 195 Cultivation of 290 Worm 304, 385, 439, 467, 504, 517 52D, 532 California Grape Vines .... 263 Harvesting ^Vhcat in . . . 50 Woodgrowing in 528 Canada and the States 394 Season in 384 Thistle 359 West, Winter in 150 Canker Worms 465 none near Pine Trees . . . 467 Carbolic Acid 356. 358 Plant Protector ' 557 Carnation 345 Carrots 255, 240, 463 going to-.seed 555 Casks, Cleansing Foul ..... 546 Cat Bird 436 Caterpillar, an ugly 422 and Cherry trees 54 on apple trees 386 Red Humped 464 Cattle, Ayrshire . . 287, 365, 494, 534 for the South 256 Balls on Horns of 296 Barn for ]84 Barn Itch in 212 Bedding, Sand for 433 Bee', es. Heavy 231 Bone Gnawing Disease . . 176 Bunches on 347 Calf, a Weeping 172 Death of from Poke Poi- son 384 Calves, Early 434 Raising 226, 271, 333 Scours in 175 Sick 38 Twin .... 345, 394, 435, 536 Carding in Winter 49 Chewing Boards, &c . . . . 148 Cherry Loaves Poisoning , 176 Choked 17, 92, 118, 134, 175, 216 272, 273, 531 Cotton Seed Meal for ... 271 Cough in Heifer 134 Cows, Abortion among . 171, 317 Afterbirth of 438 p. good, on good Food . . 74 Bad Habits of a 504 Best for Butter 236 Bloody Milk 93 Bone meal for 75 Bunches on an Ox .... 235 Bursal Swelling 37 Butler from one 216 Calving, Treatment before 464 Care and Feed of . 95, 173, 556 Cotton Seed Meal for . . 30 Diseased 83 Excrescence on Back of a 89 103 Failure to Breed 373 Fever, Milk or Puerperal 42 89 Hard Milking to cure . . 353 Garget in SS, 575 INDEX. Cattle— Continued. Good, Importance of . . 290 Kicking 309,504 Larne . . , 439 Milk, amount in a year . 133 Condensed, amount of . 469 Bloody .... 174, 216, 600 Fever 249 weight of good and poor 231 Milker, importance of a £;ood 19 Milking kicking 309 Mouth and throat disease 119 New Milch, Spring care of 219 Pox 568 Scouring 134 Selection of 261 Sick 232,440 Singular cases 4S4 Sucked by a pig 226 Sucking themselves 83, 277, 231 Swapping 215 Teat, Malformation of a Heifer's 192 Withers, Removing , . . 463 Devons 494 Mr. Gleason's 661 Disease, a fatal 89 in Ohio • • • . 495 in Mass. . . . 214, 221, 226, 555 Prevention of 83, 249 Remedy for 271 Durham, — see SJwrt-hom, Dutch 227 in Vermont 227 Mr. Green's Importation . 127 Eye, Fihn on 273, 235 Fattening 169 Feed, value of different kinds for fattening 571 Feeding in Conn. Valley . . 327 Foot Disease .... 362, 408, 417 Foot rot in 230 Gall, Overflowing . . . 192, 249 Gai-get 93, 249, 332, 531 Grass-fed 536 Heifers, Twin 394, 435 Sick 361 Hereford 50 Cross 390 Oxen 179 Steers 93 Hoove 97, 568 Horn, ail 230, 273, 330 Itch, Barn 212 Jerseys 494, 534, 296 Price 2G3, 519 Lice, 195, 216, 232, 262, 278,295 518 Liver Complaint 192 Lung Disease in 176 Oxen, Bunches on 235 Diseased Lung 506 Foot, Wounded 418 Heavy 180, 291 Test at Fairs 557 Red Water 344 Roots, Feeding 279 Bales of 408 Saltpetre for Sick 73 Scours 217, 249 Scratches 134 Selection of 261 Short-horn Herd-book . . . 167 Short-horns . . . .494,507,531 Bull of Dairy Stock ... 110 J. 8. Kniery's 462 Peculiarity of horns . . . 195 Steers, good 92 Stalls for 170 Steers, breaking 229 Mr. Rich's 179 Straw for 174 Texas 531 Wens on 9S Cauliflower Ill Cooking 486 Harvesting 486 'Celery . . . .255,307,400,448,473 Cellar, a cold 106 Danger of Damp 319 Cellar made Tight 19 to prevent freezing .... 547 Vegetables in 215 Walls 252 Cement Water Pipe .... 3^2, 559 Centrifugal Threshing Machines 485 Cheese Factory Lamoille Vt. . . 576 Cherry Leaves, Eft'ects of on Cattle 122 Poisonous 176 Trees and Caterpillars ... 54 Chewink 436 Chicory 349 Cliilblains, cure for 122 Chinese Labor 467, 501 Cholera Morbus, &c., 453 Cider, Keeping 38, 497 as a Beverage 674 Making 527 Mills, Iron 523 Cisterns, Directions for Making 46 476 Filters, &c. 498, 500 Clam and Oyster Shells .... 359 Clark, W. S., President .... 277 Clarksburg, Mass., 148 Clay as a Fertilizer .... 120, 575 Climate of New England .... 302 Clover 308, 673 Alsike 172, 314, 673 Amount of Seed for ... . 107 as a Fertilizer 214 failing on Dairy Farms . . 304 Creeping 176 Ploughing in 107, 442 Red 489 White 489 Coal Oil, uses of 676 Cold Frames .... 18, 66, 111, 208 Connecticut, Stock in ..... 19 Valley Farming 418 Wheat in 150 Corn, . . .208, 255, 307, 353, 400, 473 and Roots 265 Bushels on one Acre . . . . 315 Cobs, Value of . . . 214, 216, 554 Cost of Raising 90 Crop, a heavy 125 in Georgia 369 Cultivation of 314 Fodder . 87, 91, 104, 119, 150, 173 217, 294, 472, 522 Effects on Cows 501 for Winter 338 Green and Dry .... 120, 145 Growing in Illinois . . . 233, 415 in New England 137 Harvesting 399, 504 on Dr. Nichol's Farm . . . 124 Premiums in N. H., . . 2S7, 316 Raising, Views on 267 Sanford's Premium .... 298 Seed, unreliable 25 Shall we raise all our ? . 129, 180 310 Stalks and Millet 119 Are they mean Fodder ? . 87 Fodder 217 Value of for Fodder ... 104 Stooking, to cure Fodder . , 91 Sweet 343 to Keep Cows froni .... 386 Value of, compared with Rye 135 Varieties of 566 What shall we do with ? . , 281 Cornell University 390 Cottage, a French Roof . .236,237 Cotton Seed Meal 30 Corn, Varieties of 566 Crab and Fox 540 Cranberry crop at Harwich, Mass., 291 Worm 385 Cranberries on River Bank . . . 505 on Upland 92 Cress 1.59 Cripple, an Industrious .... 38 Crops and Hoason in Merrimac Co.,N. II., 463 Green, turned in 416 Special 75 Crops in Virginia 518 in spite of Drought .... 546 Crows, to keep from Corn . 333, 386 Cucumbers . . 208, 255, 307, 353, 400 Bug 335 . Cultivation, Thorough . . . 409 Culture, clean 25 Curculio 287 Traps for 303, 367 Currants 143, 269, 307, 353 Black Naples 283 Cuttnigs 18 Dana's ^Vlute 244 Worm 298, 342, 383, 386 I'oke and Hellebore for . . 407 Cutter, Benj. F 488 DAIRY Barn 291 does it improve farms ? . . 569 in Bakerstield, Vt 197 in Vermont 282 Butter 279 amount of Milk for Pound of 246,570 Amount of Poor 178 Analysis of 433 and Milk, Turnip taste in 106 Color of 433, 449 Factories 433 Fancy, how to Make 438, 470 Firkins, to sweeten . 560, 576 from Jersey . . . 296, 663, 557 from one Cow . 115, 138, 216 Gilt-edged 566 good Feed for 256 great yield of 166 Making . . 112, 269, 297, 432 Making in Winter 86, 120, 148 Market at St. Albans, Vt. 412 Mr. "S\Tiitaker's 101 Premium 193 Preserving 279 Price in England .... 479 Rules for Making .... 198 Tubs, to prepare .... 576 Cheese 279, 282 Dairy, Apparatus for Small 316 Essay on 23 Factories 406, 423 Apparatus 29 Branch 482 Bytield. Mass 50 Cost of Small 453 in East Orwell, Vt . . . 67 in England 369 in Illinois 399 in Lenox, Mass 263 in Shoreham, Vt. . . . 315 Milton Falls, Vt. ... 122 of Massachusetts . . . 187 West Milton, Vt. ... 176 Improvement in Curing . 451 Making in Orleans Co., Vt. 181 Poison 24 Skim-milk 180, 433 Cream, Tempc<'ature of . . 112 Farm, Barn lor loO Farming '. . . 261 Farms, failure of clover on 304 Milk . . . .• 279 Adulteration of 149 and Butter from Native Cows 337 Bloody 108 for Cities 124 for Pound of Butter . 246, 570 from Different Cows ... 1 10 New Plan for Setting . . 451 Rich 1.50 Sending to Cities .... 183 Under the Microscoiio . . 77 Vessels, Scalding .... 191 Dairymen, American in Eng- land 409 Annual Meeting of the American Association . 130 Association in Vt. . . 23, 50 Rennet 181 I'repariug 223 INDEX, Daisy 286 D;ims and Sires 4'26 Deau'a Georgical Dictionary . . 333 Debts, Selling Stock and Hay to Pay 530, 558 December, Farm work in . . . 542 Reflections 541 Diarrhoea 410 Diseases, Causes of ... . 258, 338 Ditches, course of on Slopes . . 467 Dock 349 Does, Experience of one from Home 248 •with Sore Ears 559 to cure Egg-sucking .... 519 Domestic Economv. Animal Food and its Preser- vation 152 Apple Dumplings, Baked • 204 Beef I'ickle 71, 170 Biscuit, Potato 203 Bouquet, to Preserve , . . 484 Bubble and Squeak .... 204 Burns, Ointment for .... 304 Cake, Lincoln 60 Carpets, Cleansing 539 Cauliflowers, Cooking. . . . 486 Charcoal as a Cleanser . . 539 Chunney, to Extinguish Fire in 204 Clam Fritters 60 Corning Beef 154 Corning Pieces, best .... 153 Dumplings, Oxford .... 444 Ear-ache, Kemedy for . . . 204 Elder Ointment 224 Floriculture 247 Fowl, to Stew with Onions 156 Gloves, to Renew Kid . . . 539 Glycerine and Yolk of Egg 396 Hams and Bacon, Preserving 389 Hash, a Nice 60 Jelly, Peach 539 Liniment 156 Meats, how to Cook .... 200 Moths 348 Mutton 155 Pickles 400 Pies, Carrot 156 Partridge or Grouse . . 60 Lincoln 60 rich Mince 156 Pork 155 Pudding, a Pippin 204 Boiled Raisins 444 Roasting Pieces, best . . . 153 Rusk 444 Sausages 155 Silver, Cleaning 539 Smoking Beef and Pork . . 155 Soap without Lye 539 Stains, to Remove 156 Fruit 539 Tootli Powder 204 Vegetables. Beets 58 Cabbage 59 Care of and Cooking . . 66 Carrots, 56, 58 Celery 59 Corn. Peas and Beans . . 59 Egg Plants 59 , Green Corn 56 Lettuce, &c 59 Parsnips 59 Potatoes 57 Sweet 56 Purslane 59 Spinach 59 Succotash • 59 Squashes, Winter .... 59 Summer 69 Turnips 58 Whitewash ... 55, 357, 421 Yeast, Family 348 Hop 539 Raw Potato 203 Door Mat, Metallic 163 Drain, How to Lay a Stone . . 504 conptructing 558 Drainage iri England 371 Drainage, Co-operative .... 547 on a Farm in Scotland . . . 654 Lands that Need 133 Draining 410 Drilling 194 Drink for Summer 379 Drought, the 515, 545, 573 Deep Culture for 546 in Maine 518 Dysentery 471 IJ^ CONOMY in Small Things . 375 J Eggs, Physiology of ... . 82 Hatching, Natural and Ar- tificial 544 Plants 209, 255 Endives 307 FAIRS, Agricultural Can their Usefulness be in- creased? Horse at Management of Prize Ring at Farm, a Premium does draining improve . . . Going on to a Help . 64, 81, 88, 102, 133, Holding on to Letter from 322, Let them Leave Management of G. W. Lane in Derry, N. H permanent improvement of Pests of the Stick to the 65, Stock and Help for .... Farmer, a City-bred an Unsettled Farmers, Apprenticeship with . a Successful Boys Clubs are they Profitable . . . in Summer Management of Newport, Mo Randolph, Vt Stetson, Me Convention Home in June Meetings. Young Men at . . Wives, Hints to Farming and the Irish Attending Strictly to . 313, at the West Bad Cases of by a crippled Soldier .... Commencing with $500 . . Dairy Economy in in 1849 and 1869 in New Hampshire .... in other Lauds in Vermont Principles of Progress in Successful 35, Success in to make Money with Six Hundred Dollars . Farms and Scenery in N.H. . . Buying and Selling .... Children on made Fertile withoutManuro near Villages Renovating Exhausted . . Size of too Large February Fun in Garden in Feed, steaming for Stock . . . Fences, Board 'in Europe Willow Fertilizers, Conci'Utratcd . . . Field, Thomas, Farm of ... . 480 491 511 458 137 569 465 194 175 336 65 168 412 542 422 311 26 119 169 272 172 527 54S 114 321 105 67 266 74 165 253 48 487 362 344 213 430 90 441 261 375 78 412 493 77 35 287 520 133 376 484 457 383 466 496 466 520 167 526 61 62 66 559 479 426 401 148 536 Filters in Cisterns 498, 500 Wine 559 Firkins, to sweeten .... 560, 576 Flies 449, 475, 530 Floors, Painting those in Use . 297 Flowage, not Irrigation .... 378 Flowers, Culture of 418 Garden for April . . . 238, 264 for August 354 . for October 537 Fodder Corn. Analysis of . . . 402 Food, value of for fattening . . 571 Forests 379 trees, premium for growing 569 Fortune, an independent . . . 554 Fox and Crab 540 Frost 117 Froth Hoppers 392 Frozen Persons, Treatment of. 182 Sap 263 Fruit Affected by Soil 486 and Vegetables, early . . . 555 Books 275 Fruit Trees, Gnawed by Mice . 406 Mice and Borers, vs. . . . 440 Time for Pruning .... 370 GARDEN, Flower for April . 264 for July 346 in April 158 in August 352 in February 66 in January 18 in July 306 in June 255 in March Ill in May 208 in November 494 in October 448 in September 400 Making a Market 488 the Fruit and Vegetable 254, 265 Game Laws 559 Gardening by a Woman .... 459 Window . 126, 137, 185, 190, 233 for March 219 Garlic 159 Gate to prevent Sagging .... 15 Geese, old 483 Georgia, Agriculture in ... . 505 Cattle in 326 Letter from 360 Manufactures in 505 Girls and Women should read newspapers 543 American in Europe .... 104 in the City 323 Gleason, R., farm and stock of . 561 Gooseberries 269, 307 Barren 234 Cuttings of 12 Mountain Seedling .... 168 Gorilla, the 151 Grains, Harvesting Small .... 473 How to Sow 392 Grapes 307, 353,448 Vines 66 Winter Protection 530 Grass, Bunch of Montana . . . 249 Close cutting of 305 Clover, as manure 214 fed Cattle ' 536 Fowl Meadow, on Wet Land 505 Hungarian 334 Kentucky Blue 392, 489 Manures for 175 Meadow, or tall Oat .... 394 PreiJuring Soil for 218 Rcdtop 489 how to sow 461 seed per acre 461 Seed for Pastures 517 Seeding Land to ... . 293, 294 when to sow 315 Witch 246, 392 Grasses at the South 508 Native of Illinois 490 Orchard 392, 3^;$ Grasshoppers 392 Green Crops turned in . : . . 41t INDEX. H^IR Snakes 449 Uanipshirc County, Ag. of 108 Hardback 233 llay and Haying in Vermont . 467 and tstock iSelling to pay Debts 530 a iSpecialty 217 Bog Aloadow in N. E., . . . 409 Crop in liarre, Mass., . . . 418 Curing 259, 331 Cutting and Drying .... 350 Dusty C23, 345, 362 Early Cut 332 Equivalents of 266 Injured by Mowing Machine 392 in Maine 576 Making Macliincry useless . 427 Me;;dow 235 Mctiiod of Getting . S43, 361, 405 Mowing too Closely .... 275 put in Bam when merely wilted 165 Musty and badly Cured . . 364 Tumbling, Pitching, oiDeuing 425 Soiling to pay Debts . . . . 553 Wilted, samples of .... 195 Haying . , 254 Experiment in 4C6 Health 258 Hedgehogs and Raccoons ... 55 Hoeing 254 importance of 452 Hogs. — See Swine. Homes for City People in the Country 80, 86, 94 Hop Crop of 1870 508 Harvesting 473 Horse, a fcjleepy 213 at Agriculiural Fairs . . . 431 Black Leg, or Charbon . . 2D5 Blood, to Cleanse 2i:6 Bots in Urinal Bladder . . 380 Boy's Composition on . . . 54 Breeding, Mistakes in . . . 410 Bursal bwcUing 174 Collars 51, 427 Colt, Bunches on 134 Debility of 295 Humor in 249 Corn or sore on Foot , . . 272 Cribbing 529 Currying 195 Distemper .... 235, 272, 205 EHeclsof 407 Droves from California . . 403 Eating loo much Hay . . . 294 English K.'irm 82 Excrements, difficulty in Passing 271 Eye of a 85 Feeding Working 351 Floor of Blable for 277 Clanders causing death of a Man 304 how to select 335 Impregnation, Eflfects of first 426 in Fly-time 475 in Vermont Deteriorating . 406 John Morrill 171, 184 Lame in Stitle-joint .... 135 Lamjjas 235 Lice 295, 518 Marc, ago foi Breeding . . 280 Disowning Colt . . . 290, 391 Memory and Sagacity of . . 259 Meadow Hay for 235 New England 28,71 Peicheroiis in Paris .... 483 Sale of 3'Jl Physic for 2'JO Poll Evil 13G Hearing, to prevent .... 19 Salt and ashes for 92 Scratches 134,441,518 Shoulder, Lame .' 293 Sick, Treatment of .... 513 Soiling 408 Btables 224 Cement Floor for .... 246 •Stallions, running 576 Btiile, Swelling ou 316 Horse, Stub in side of 574 Swelled Sheath in ... . 74, 91 Three Abreast 435 Trot, a I'reccdent 382 Vermont Horse Stock Co. 40, 178 Warts on 92, 417 Watering 312 ^\■hite Hairs to Remove . . 304 Worms in 212, 449, 486 Yellow Water 273 Horse Racing at Shows .... 440 Radish 112 Horse-tail 333 Horticulture, School for Women in 288 Hot-beds 18, 66, 112 for Farmers 225 House, an Economical Village . 285 for a Physician 428 Plants 67 Husking Party 568 ICE House a cheap 97 Illinois Cheese factories in . 399 Corn Growing in . . . .233,415 Crops in 391, 272 Farmer 32 Farming in 289 Pastures and Meadows . . 489 Soils of 289 Implements 332 Improvements, Modern .... 382 Incubation, artiticial 544 Industry, Productive and Dis- tributive 510 Insects 209, 255, 307 not injurious to thrifty Plants 45 Iowa Agricultural College ... 51 Cattle Feeding in 335 Cost of Kaising Wheat In . 92 Farming, Prices in .... 315 Irish 1< armors 419 Farmmg and the 362 Irrigation, Hints on 258 orFIowage 22 TAMTJART, 1870 13 J Garden in 18 \V ork in 4 Julj% Flower Garden for .... 346 Garden in 306 Specialties of 301 June and Roses 298 Garden in 255 the farmers Home in . . . 253 KENTUCKY Blue-grass 392, 489 Knowledge, theoretical and Practical 33 LABOR, Cheap and Dear . . 501 Supply and Cost 209 Laboring man, Cash Value of . 434 Land, Cultivating too Much . . 343 too Much 526 Lead Pipe 73 Leeks 159 Lentils 277, 351 Lettuce 159, 209, 255, 449 Logs, Loading on Sleds .... 216 MAINE Agricultural College 219 Military Instruction . . 179 Board of Agriculture Meet- ing at Foscroft 612 Cattle Raising in 327 Clubs in Stetson and Garland 74 Crops in 177, 392 Farmers' Clubs in . . . 74, 111 New York, Fruit Trees in . 392 '•Sunrise' Farming .... 207 Wheat in 132 Man, Cash Value of 434 Manure, Absorbents in Barn- yard 572 Application of 226, 251, 378, 562 Manure,Artiflcial 69 Ashes Ill Coal 211, 234 for Apple Trees 483 of Pine Boughs 313 on Corn 409 Potash in 232 when to Apply 462 Bones. Decomposing ... 23 Ground 331 Permanence of 257 Preparing with Vitriol . . 330 Reducing with Vitriol . . 330 Value of 331 Clay, Value of 120 Clover as Manure 214 Compost 112 • Cultivation, without .... 242 Dry Earth 455 FertiUzers, Commercial 266, 270 332, 496 Fresh 259 Fineness essential 158 for Grass 175 for Potatoes 280 from Albany 304 Green Crops for 416 Guano, Pcruvi^m 275 Imported into England . . 484 Heaps in the Field .... 206 Home-made 266 Housing 251 Lime as 55, 248, 344 from Gas Works .... 292 hi Pennsylvania 304 Liquid 258, 455 Making 94, 251 Mortar, value of old .... 546 Muck, 218, 330, 337, 360, 446, 455 and Its Uses, 113, 273, 330, 474 and Patent Manures ... 193 as Bedding 275, 374 Experiments with .... 243 Injurious JiHects of . . . 296 Oyster fcincils . . 21. 329, 344 Pine Needles, Value of 233, 439 Potasli, Lune, Ashes ... 38 Plaster, old House 233 Piougliing Under 231 Removing 61 Salt for 248 Saltpetre as ..... 305, 416 Save tnc 375 Saw-dust, Value of . . 271, 345 as Bedding 213 Sheltermg 431 Special 360 Suporpiiosphate of Lime . 270 for Corn 247 for Potatoes 133 Trial of 79, 121, 122 Surface Manuring . . 284, 514 Top-dressing 270, 515 Low Land 216 Meadows 305 Marble Av orks at West Rutland, Vt 560 March, Garden for Ill Origin of Name 109 Window Garden 219 Markets, Boston 549 ■Union Cattle 552 Marls, Action of 19 Massachusetts Agricultural Col- lege 145, 180, 277, 413 Barn 140, 141, 142 Cattle 494 Agricultural Societies, Barn- stable County 99 Essex County 534 Hampden 07 Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Society . . . 423 Norfolk Farmer's Club . 323 Cattle Disease, Singular 214, 221 226 Cheese Factories 179 Crops in 365, 383 May 205 Garden ui 203 Meadows ;md Swamps .... 161 INDEX. Meadow Grass, or Tall Oat . . 394 Seeding 293, 294 Wet 293 Meat, Keceipt for Curing , , , 568 Supply 210 Tub, to Sweeten 461 Mechanic Turning Farmer . . . 383 Medal, N. H. Agricultural Soci- ety 226 Medical'Topics, . 258, 410, 453, 471 Melons 255, 307, 353 Men Wanted 26 Michigan, Cheese Factories in . 390 Dairy in 62 Fruit and other Crops in . . 363 Millet 170, 314 and Corn Stalks 119 Minnesota. Prices of Produce . 136 Mole, Star-nosed 406 Mother, a Berkshire County . 175 Mouse, Harvest 468 Mowing. Directions for .... 424 Machine Injurious to Hay . 392 Market, a Falling 209 Muck for Bedding 275 Mulch for Seeds 392 Mulching Fruit Trees, 376, 3S3, 408 MiistBcale 557 ATEW England Agricultural IN Society no, 414 Kew England Farmer, the "Old" 333 New Hampshire Agricultural College 481 Crops in 463, 522 Farms in' 457 Flood in 258 Scenery, &c., in 457 New Year's Observances ... 14 Newspapers for Women and Girls 543 November 493 Garden in 494 Norway Oats 65 Nut, Barcelona or Sicily .... 532 New Pl'blications. Barns, Outbuildings and Fences 190 Beautifying Country Homes 571 Cabbages, How to Grow . 208 Cincinnati Industrial Expo- sition 369 Cranberry Culture .... 355 Harris on the Pig 327 How Crops Feed 207 Johnson, B. P., Memorial . 368 Natural History, &c., of the Horse 435 New Brunswick Agl. Report 355 Peach Calture 369 Salt and "s Uses in Agricul- ture 208 South Land, the 278 The American Naturalist . 190 The Gentleman's Stable Guide 327 Vermont Dairymen's Asso- ciation 368 Walla-walla Farmer .... 303 OATS, Chapter on 209 Great Yield of Common . . 176 Norway ... 55, 171, 173, 575 Origin of 173 Raising 313 Surprise . . 121, 122, 316, 441 Varieties of 282 Washington 173 when to Cut for Fodder . . 408 with Wheat 180 October, Fancies and Facts . . 446 Flower Garden for 537 Garden in 448 Ohio, Live Stock in 482 Onions . . 159, 209, 241, 256, 307, 353 and Carrot, Petition of . . . 405 AVorm 304, 313 Orchard Grass 134 Orchard Grass in Kentucky . . 188 Orchards 379 in Exposed Situations . . . 219 Oyster Shells in 329 Oregon, Time of Seeding in . . 195 Oyster and Clam Shells .... 359 Oyster Shells 21, 329 Bark Louse 15 PAPERS, Who shall take Ag'l? 364 Partridges, time for selling 559 Parsnips 159, 256, 449 Pastures, hest Sou for 529 Clearing 556 Grass Seed for 517 Seeding for 214 to Destroy Bushes in . . . 573 Peaches in Massachusetts . . . 555 Peanuts, Cultivation and use . 276 Pear, Admiral Foote 575 Culture, Mr. Quinn's ... 74 Dr. Shurtleff 575 Lodge 76 Manning 575 Mount Vernon 509 Pemberton 575 Pears, best 275 on Sandy or Gravelly soil . 269 Picking 394 Peas 209, 256, 473 Fall 530 for Pork making 475 Peat 542 Samples of 572 Pencils, slate 562 Peppers 209 Pierce, Carlos 489 Pine Needles for Manure . . 233, 4:39 Trees make Soil Dry ... 430 Pink, Dianthus Heddewigii Dia- dematus 188 General Grant 345 Pipes, Dangerous Water . . . 504 for Aqueducts 558 for Conveying Water . .'. 73 Poison 473 Plants, Different Habits of . . . 563 Thrifty, Exempt from In- Plaster, Effects on Soil .!'.'. 404 Production of in Michigan . 513 Ploughing 226, 446 Fall 562 by Steam 421 Ploughs, Side-hill, Trial of . . . 336 Subsoil attaclunent .... 520 Plums, Bladder 306 Polish for Black Walnut . ... 300 Pork 446 fed on Whey 574 Peas for Making 475 Tainted suddenly 674 Poison in the Air and Water . . 319 Potatoes 209, 287, 296 Balls, Planting 199, 5.31 Brezee's Prolific 133 Bug 316 Changing Seed 72 Potatoes, Cultivation of 312, 478 in Maine 177 Davis Seedling 91, 172 Dinner 274 Dry Rot in 316 Early 206 Early Goodrich 172 Early Rose ... 91, 133, 171, 272 Experiments with 132 from Seed 233 Glcason 172 Harrison 172 Jackson White 91 King of the Earlies .... 133 Large 75 Light Seeding ISO Manure for 280 Mr. Ilussoy's 177 Beach Blow, N. Y^ .... 173 Prince Albert or Irish Pip- pins 91 Raising 119,280 Potatoes, Rot in 281,385 Sprouts, Poisonous .... 483 Stevens 91 Sweet 209 Washer 91 Pork, Stone Jar for 91 Poultry 446 Account 107,193 Best for Eggs and Chickens 72 Brahmas ^ 193 and White Leghorn ... 89 Light 4.50 Bones and Oyster Shells for ^\\ Bono Meal for 528 Poisonous 408 Carbolic Acid for Vennin . 423 Chickens can't Hatch . . . 361 Healthy 211 Cholera, Blue Pill for ... 108 Cost of keeping 108 Ducks, Eider 421 Muscovy 193 Early Rising 171 Eggs dropped out of Nest . 107 from Cochin China, and Brahmas 55 Hatching, Artificial and Natural 544 in three months 294 out of place 333 Physiology of 82 Preservhig 408 Weight of 131 Floor for House 533 Gapes, Brimstone for . . . 613 Hens, freaks of sitting . . . 258 Pulling Wool 233 Dry Earth for ." 45 House, plan of 212 in Cellar 517 Vermin in old 304 in Massachusetts .... 628 Lame 23, 55 Laying 173 Lice 148, 176, 217, 51? Onions for 195 Packing Dressed 107 Pheasants, English .... 372 Product of and Feeding . . 91 Pumpkin Seeds, Effects of. 75 Scratching, to Prevent . . . 467 Scurvy legs 441 Turkey, Copple-crowned . 122 Crested 262 Disease in 462 Dying young 420 Fattening 322, 363 Raising 217,328,462 Saltpetre for sick .... 73 to dress for Market ... 73 Tough 485 Winter care of 68 Premiums, Statements for . 36 Windsor Co., Vt. 170 Presser, Land 194 Prices of Produce 172 Prospects and Condition . . . 209 Production vs. Distribution . . 510 Pumpkin, an old 173 Poetry. Country and City Sorrows . 224 Crops, "Rotation of .... 306 Disappointment 533 Grandpapa's Spectacles . . 152 Gran'ma al'as Does .... 540 Measuring the Baby .... 443 My Row 256 Onion and Carrot 465 The Initials 56 The Snow Flake 169 To-morrow 298 Two Pictures 557 We Brothers Brown .... 415 When you were Seventeen . 156 QUINCE Trees 310 Quinlan, John 162 T>ACCOONS and Hedgehogs . 55 it Radishes 159, 209, 25« Rain Fall 288 10 INDEX, Rape or Cole Seed 297 Plant 278 Railroad Transportation .... 241 Raspberry, . 14a, 2G9, 330, 353, 4U0 Rhubarb 256 Ringing to Make Trees Bear . . 487 Ripton, Vt 384 Roofs, Covering for ... . 146, 232 I'roparing bhiugles for . . 183 RoUiugJ.and 194 Root Crops 287 for Slock 206 vs Corn 265 Roses and Juno 298 Rotation of Crops 242 Rutland, Vt 560 Rye, as a Crop 480 Field, an Old 472 for Green Fodder 420 for Pasture Feed 136 Value of Compared with Corn 135 Vitality of Seed 519 SACCILVROMETER .... 557 Salt in Cooking Vegetables . 199 Use of 97 Salve, Golden 131 Sap t^pouts a)i» <■■ INDEX TO CONTRIBUTORS. 120, 274 . A. B. . 150, 234, 296 A. C 246, 249, 407 A. G 345, 364 Agawam 129 A. G. C 408 Alburgh Subscriber . 212 A Maine Boy .... 383 Amateur 215 Ames, J. A 248 A New Correspondent 530 Ajionymous ..... 345 A Reader .... 214, 342 Ashley, A. B 122 A. T . 484 A. W 487 B 91, 114, 374, 392, 5-56, 559 I Backwoodsman . 464 Balis, John 122 Baker, Thomas ... 227 Baker, V. 173, 175, 176, 330 344 Barber, Joseph . . • 361 Barrus, Loren .... 243 Bartlett, Levi . . 489, 566 Barton, G. D. . . 92, 134 Bassctt, Wm. F. . . . 231 Baxter, J. L 271 B. D. W 484 Beal, Lewis . 248, 272 406 Beattie, John .... 394 B.F. C 463 Bicknell, L.E 364 Bidwell, Geo. C. . . . 392 Bigelow, C. B 314 B. L 631 Black, H 184 Blaisdell, Charles . . 342 Blakely,J.E 439 BUss, O. S. . 424, 471, 482 Blodgett, 8. B 174 Bourne, J. H 37 Bowditch. Henry . . 215 Boynton, Henry . 70, 171 Breed, Z 258 Brigham, Elmer . . . 407 Brigham, W. P. . . . 150 Browning, W. .... 147 Brown, L. N. 423, 482, 4.03 Brown, Simon .... 323 Brown, W. D. . 132, 135 Buffington, John 193, 217 Burleigh, H. C. ... 108 Butter Maker Buttolph, E. J. , . 36 249, 292 467 . C. A. C 230 Cain, O. F 119 Caleb Russett 418, 420, 440 Call, Norman , , , . 554 Canficld,H. B 559 Canning, JosiahD. . . 574 Capron, Hiram ■ . . 549 Carlton, Edward, . . 248 Carr, E.J 191 Casey, P. H 276 Carter, A. J 408 C.E.G. 385 Centre Bit 576 C. E. W 216, 294 C. F. D. 92 C. F. L. . 44, 55, 137, 530 C.F.N 37 Chase, Nathan S. . . 214 Cheever, A. W. • 66, 113 Chenery, W. W. . . . 17 Child, WilUam . ... 176 Chocorua, 344 Clark, C 394 Clough, D. F 216 C. L. S. 234 C. M. T 420 Cole, L 467 Colman, H 438 Comings, A. G, ... 463 Connelly, B 175 Converse, Nelson . . 519 Cooper, Eli 329 Cook, 8. S 107 Cotton, A 214 Cross, William W. . . 216 C. R. P 92, 107 Crusoe 71 C. 8. B 148 Cummings, H. T. 247, 316 Cushnoc 146 Cutter, Benjamin F. . 488 579 I Davis, A. H. . . 330 Davis, John 290, 415, 489, 512 Davis, R 505 Davis, R. S 294 Davis, K. T 215 Day, Henry 75 D. C 121 Derby, George .... 215 D. G. S 89 Dimon. John .... 28 D. K. W 363 D. M. H 82, 102 D.N 315 Down East Subscriber 212 Dr. Boynton, .... 574 Dracos, 479 Durant, John .... 417 Dustin, M. . 23, 360, 488 EA 75 • Eastern Massa- chusetts 183 East Maine 392 E. B. D 518 Edson, Seth 246 E. F. G 559 E. G 517 E. L 293 Embryo Farmer . . . 485 Emery, John 8. ... 462 E. M., Mrs 55 E. M. 8 122 Endicott, W. P. . . . 55 Enquirer 198 E.R 277 E. R. S 122, 249 E. T 24G Ex 466 F. . 273, 282, 332, . Fales, H. M. 405, Farmer, an Embryo . Fanner's Boy .... Farmer's Daughter . Farmer's Wife 328, 363, Farnsworth, 8. H. . . Farwell, D Field, 1). L. . . . 176, Field, Phinehas . 425, Field, Thomas .... Fisher, P. & O. L. . . Fisher, 8 Fisk,C.B.386, 394, 395, F. J. C Fleming, J. ..... Flint, D. B. . . FUnt, Geo, . . 558 423 485 131 385 462 426 294 576 522 536 64 54 507 558 559 269 215 298 Foster, A. M 215 Foster, W. S 344 Franklin, A. . . 270, 272 Franklin County . . . 431 French, Hiram . 394, 406 French, Judge .... 319 Fuller, C. C 148 Fuller, John M. . . . 126 F. J 135 176 . G. A. H 192 Gates, H. T 122 Gaylord, L.H 274 G. B. E 54 G. B.H. Jr.,-. .... 330 G. B. W 506 G. C. H 295 G. C. P 234 G. E 362 G. H. A 71 G. n. 8 331 Gillis, A. L 466 G.N 214, 275 G. O. P 4S6 Granite 150, 176, 184, 384 394 Gray, WiUiam H. . . 149 Green, A 363 Greene, John W. . . . 127 Cireene, Jonas .... 314 G. R. II 174 Grillin, II 173 Griffin, W. P 74 G. R. M. 119 Grow, W. S. 91, 150, 297 Gunn, Elijah, .... 573 Gurney, J. R 276 G. W. A 38 G. W. R 148 H. . . 192. 298, 466, Hale, Anne G. 56, Hall, N. Hardy, N.W Harncy,Geo.E.20. 100, 236, 285, 388, Hart, T. L. . 277, 361, Ilartwell, I. B Harvey, M.J. 22,34,90, Haskell, Thomas . . . Hawkcs, A. A- ... 558 152 200 885 312 196 428 484 106 376 122 675 12 INDEX. Hayeat John L. H. C. W. . . . H. D. C H. D. U Hcbard. Second 48 332 404 439 217 Hebb, E . . . 41, 65, 104 Henderson, W. J. • . 4."S H. H. C '^0 mils, c. R i"6 Hitchcock, Henry E. . 217 Hitchcock, G. R. . 313, 344 H.M.E Holbrook, T. Q. • Holton, J. B. . . Holmea, Gaius . . H. S Huntley, Moses ". Hursey, Joel . . Husc, S. R. ... Uussey, Moses H 122, 133 364 385, ±. I.D. I. L. F. Inquirer I. 8.H. 175 217 232 362 316 Livermore, B. 199, 233, 274 386, 476, 600 L.J.N 212,297 L. M 531 Looker on 315 J. . . 149, 296, 418, 575 . Jameson, Z. E. . 28, 35 88, 182, 193, 227, 228 272, 283, 521 J. B. B 235 J.B.8 217 J. E. D., Mrs 60 Jenckcs, Henry A. . 330 Jenkins, J. M 316 J. G. 420 J.H 315 J. n. M la*^ J H R. . . 22, 91, 361, 505 J. M 442 John . . . 277, 343, 405, 417 420, 438 Jones, John L. . . 419, 531 Jones, L 108 Jones, W.F 172 J. R. 314, 485 J. R. W 507 J.T 440 J. W. R 275 J. J. W. . . • . . 160, 267 J. M. W. .' 333 K O 222, 226 I Kingsbury, El- bridge Loomis, William F. L. R L. 8 L. T Luther, E. P. Luther, JST. C. Lyman, O. • . 92 38 88 216 517 393 231 121, 310, . Manning, J. W. 579 519 Mansfield, R. .... 268 Marion Fruit Gardens 330 Marston, J 135 Mattie . . 364, 385, 533, 568 McAllister, J. . .232,233 McNerney, Michael362, 558 Medical Man 182, 258, 338 410, 453 Medicus 99, 120 M.F. r Miller, J. C. . . . Muason Monroe, James S. Montague, John S Moore, John B. . Morse, Herman . Morse, J. L. . * • M. P. 506 504 465 17 419 142 89 118 . 23, 333 574 L. . . 38, 133, 232, 519 . Lady, a 40 Lane, Henry . J.O. _ . 323, 387 Lassell, J.O 417 Law, James 296 L. B. 1T6 L.H.C 439 Learner 576 L.H.C 297 Lincoln, C. F. 252, 332, 392 463 Lincoln, Theo. 6. . . 232 Mrs. E.M 55 Mrs.L.F 333 Mrs. J. E.D 60 1\T 330 iN . Naomi 297 Nichols, H. C. . . . 38, 297 Nichols, James R. 124, 360 Nichols, T. A. C. . . 575 Norton, Hiram . . . 385 No Signature .... 332 Noyes, A. G. . . . 121, 247 N S. T. 105, 181, 210, 223 492, 500, 535 ,240 Nutting, Geo. F. Powers, Jason . . Pratt, Frederick G. Pratt, I'hiueas . ■ Progress Pufter, L. W. . . 235 288 345 459 312 ORMSBEE, E. "W. , One Interested . . One of the Company , Onion and Carrot , . Otis, Theodore . i Owens, John ... 383 465 274 465 332 108 331,407,464 . R. A 169 R. A. F 134 Railroad, 107, 131 Rand,J 313 Read,L. L 54 Reader, a 148, 172, 214, 247 393, 559, 574 Reed, D. A 176 Reynolds, J 119 Reynolds, J. B. ... 272 R. I. Subscriber ... 272 Roby, Thomas . .134,441 Rollins, E 216 Roy, 449 R.B 119 R. T. L 275 Russ, Geo. A 408 Ryder, S.C 150 s 74,249 . Parker, E. G. W. 518 Pattee, 8. C. P. C.T. ... Pease, H. A. . Pease, Peter E. Pearson, E. S. . Peck, M.C. . Pierce, L. L. . Pierce, Nathan G. P.J Poor, Henry . . Porter, Elias E. , 281, 523 90 619 611 461 176 . 340, 358 315 73 132 132 TAYLOR, Wm. h- • 89 T. B 408 T. E. P 441 T.H.M 420 T. L. T 249 Tobacco Grower . . . 408 Town, Orson, .... 55 True, O. W 440 True, P. C 485 Tucker, Leonard C. . 185 T. W 34 T.W. S 75 Tyler, Putnam .... 360 U. 545 Upham, Cyrus G. 296 Upham, O.J. . . .194,274 VISITOR, a . Vogl, Susie 463 453 W. . 163, 176, 313, 383 . Wait, O. C. . . 216 Wait, O Ware, Asa . . . Washburn, J. J 172 A. 215 Sanborn, A. L. . . 53, 535 Sanborn, I. W.139, 248,507 Savage, H. N. . '• . . 172 S. B. S. ... 173, 203, 441 Scribbler of Bush and Brier 386 Senex ... 42, 89, 249, 271 8. G 275 Shepardson, Loren . 72 Shepherd 457 Sheldon, Asa G. .120,224 Sherman, E. F. ... 231 Shurtleff, L. A. ... 575 Shnonds, R. H. . . 148, 171 Simond*, W. I. . . 122, 456 Smith, A. 0 462 Smith, B. B 275 Smith, Jedediah ... 341 Smith, J.N. . . .440,467 Smith, John 505 Smith, Osmyn .... 440 Smith, R 1'50 Snedigar, T 316 S.O.J. 46,54,74,126,186 191, 204, 221, 239, 265, 300, 311, 348, 355, 444 538, 560, 568 Bowles, H.L. . .107,364 Spaulding,D.G. ... 380 S. 8. T 467 Standish, Mary T. . . 486 Stevens, A. M 518 Stowell, D.P 266 Subscriber 21, 23, 71, 92 106, 150, 174, 233, 235 249, 270, 272, 273, 294 343, 463, 504, 529, 530 657, 559, 560, 673, 574 575 Susie Vogl 458 Bweet, Wm 193 38 385 Wayland, Jmim ... 386 W. B. . . r. . ... 173 Weare, John M. . . . 72 Welch, P 73 Weldon, J 133, 233 West, James . . . 213, 271 Weston, B. P. J. . . . 316 Whatmore, John . 315, 371 White, W.H. .18,67,112 160, 209, 256, 307, 353 401, 449, 495 Whittaker, Thomas 81, 87 96, 472 W. H. W 150, 517 W. H. Y 321, 432 Widow Ignorance . . 293 Wild, Geo. W. ... 74 Wiliams, G. T. ... 273 Willoughby, L. N. . . 273 Wilson, P 235 Wilron, Thomas . 90, 194 W. J. P 249 W. M 175 Wood, Arvin .... 134 Woodman, Charles . 174 Woodward, W. F. . . 310 W. P. E 530 Wright, N 351 Wright, Newton ... 277 W. R.S 73 W. V. M 531 Wyman, E. ..... 486 Y0T7NG Farmer . . 333 Young Reader of Farmer 294 Y. Z 441 ZEN 75, 79, 90, 175, 518 Z.E.J. 121, 504, 519,530 Z. T 384 1HE MMER DEVOTED TO AGRtCULTUEB, HORTICULTUKE, A:>J"D KIWDRED ARTS. NEAV SERIES. Boston, January, 1870. YOL. IV.— NO. 1. R. P. EATON & CO., Publishers, Office, 3-1 Merchants' liow. MONTHLY. SIMON BROWN, ) editors S. FLETCHER, I editors. JANUARY, 1870. "January I Darkness and light reign alike. Snow is on the ground. Cold is in the air. The -winter Is bloBBoming in frost flowers. Why is the ground hid- den? Why i'S the earth white? Bo hath Ood wiped out the past ; go bath He spread the earth like an un- written p;ige, for a new year I Old sounds are silent in the forest and in the air. Insects are dead, birds are gone, leaves have perished, and ail the foundation of soil remains. Upon this lies, white and tranquil, the emblem of newnes^^ and purity, the virgin robes of the yeti.un=taincd year !'' ANUAUY, with stately march, commences the grand rounds of the Seasons for another Year. Let us enter the coiu'se with a determination to explore their recesses with more earnest- ness and fidel- ity than ever before, and store the mind with varied and useful knowledge. Knowledge that will not only confer happiness upon "^^ ' ourselves and those about us, but will tend to lessen human toil, to spread our fields with abundant crops, and to fill the pocket of the farmer with those "rocks'''' upon which a great many men split, but which, in the hands of the cultivator of the soil, usually bring comfort and convenience. Winter is upon us ; mid-winter. Perhaps the snow lies deep in field and forest ; too deep for comfortable chopping or safe team- ing. Perhaps the January thaw has flooded icy roads ; the south wind is drifting worlds of vapor to the north, or is gradually veering round to give us a nor' wester to-morrow that will make all loose things clatter again. We cannot tell. Obliged to anticipate, we lose something of the inspiration which might be caught, if writing these notices of the Months amidst their peculiar characteristics. While Nature has her sway out-of-doors, let us look back and see how our ancestors regarded the opening of the New Year, and what they did to give it significance and re- membrance. Scarcely any themes have been more charm- ingly sung by our English ancestors than those of the opening New Year, Christmas, winter scenes and firesides. Many of their peculiar customs were common far back in history, and are enumerated in records of antiquity. Among the foremost of the noisy observances, was the practice of ringing the bells. All over merry England, through every valley, and reverberating from every hill top, was the sound of merry, merry bells. To these joyous sounds, sung and danced thousands who were merry on that day, if on no other. Clad in their best garments, their tables soread with 14 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Jan. lavish hospitality, they dismissed all care, and found utterance for sweet afFections in the "merry New Year," and "happy New Year to you" on New Year's day. These were greetings that moved sceptred pride and humble labor to smiles and kind feelings in former times ; why should they not be encour- aged in our own ? Why not ring every bell five minutes at a time, morning, noon and evening, in New York, Boston, and every other city in the land, and in every village on hill or in valley, where there is a tongue to utter forth the joyful sounds ? Would not the effect be a good one upon our people, as it was upon our English brethren, or the people in Italy, hundreds of years ago ? No doubt of it. English or Ital- ian, Russian or Turk, the same nature impels us all ; the same outpourings of spirit in sor- row or in joy. Dr. Drake tells us, in his "Shakspeare and his Times," that the ushering in of the new year, or new year's tide, with rejoicings, pres- ents and good wishes, was a custom observed during the 16th century, with great regularity and parade, and was as cordially celebrated in the court of the prince as in the cottage of the peasant. In Rome, the usual presents were figs and dates covered with gold leaf. Among the Saxons of the North, the festival of the new year was observed with more than ordinary jollity and feasting, and by sending new year's gifts to one another. These practices were prohibited by the Emperor Claudius, who died in the year 54, poisoned by his wife Agrippina. A writer in "The Popish Kingdom," 1553, after remarking on days of the old year, says : — The next to this is Newe Ycarea day Whereon to every friende, They costJy presents in do liring. And Nen-e Yeares giftes do sende, These giftes Ihe hasband gives his wife, And father eke the childe, And maister on his men bestowes The like, with favour mllde. It is the opinion of Dr. Drake that the wardrobe and jewelry of Queen Elizabeth were principally supported by annual contribu- tions on New Year's day. Not only the peers and peeresses gave her money, but the apoth- ecary, master cook and sergeant of the pastry, had something to send. One lady gave her majesty a little gold comfit-box and spoon Ambrose Lupo gave her a box of lute strings and a glass of sweet water; each of three other Italians presented her with a pair of sweet gloves. These may have suggested the lines in the "Winter's Tale," where the coun- try girls are invited to buy — ' Lawn, as white as driven enow ; Cypress, black as e'er was crow ; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; Masks for faces, and for iioeos ; Bugle bracelfct, necklace amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber; Oolden quoifs, and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears; Pins, and poking sticks of steel, What maids lack from head to heel 1" The word "pins," in the line above, will have force when it is remembered that they had just taken the place of wooden skewers, which ladies were obliged to use for want of something better. Gloves were more expen- sive than in our day, and were esteemed as more valuable than money. Sometimes the present would be the medi- um of a lively joke or a grim rebuke. Hon- est old Latimer, instead of presenting Henry VIII. with a purse of gold, as was customary, for a new year's gift, put into the King's hand a New Testament, with a leaf conspicuously turned down at Hebrews xiii. 4, which, on reference, will be found to have been worthy of all acceptation, though not perhaps well accepted. Henry was an old scamp. One good wife is enough for any man ; one ftt a time, we mean. He had eight, each one of whom was probably infinitely better than him- self. So it is no wonder that the stern old Latimer called his attention to the passage re- ferred to in Hebrews. We began this homily with a piece of prose, sparkling with short truths. Let us close it with a few lines from the good Cowper. If they are committed to memory, and repeated occasionally through the year, they will be found comforting and profitable. "He who holds fast the Golden Mean, And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor. Nor plngues that haunt the rich man's door, Embitt'ring all his state. If hindrances obstruct thy way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy streiglh be seen; But oh I if fortune lill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in." WORK IN JANUARY. There are duties to be performed on the farm which are appropriate to each month. They cannot be wisely neglected now, and 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 15 must not be postponed to February or June, because they belong to the present. It is the reason with which we are endowed that enables us to look to the future, and to provide the means of securing comfort and sustaining life. The mariner would make a fatal mistake, if he were to put to sea without first supplying the "ship's stores" upon which the crew were to be fed. So the farmer may find many discomforts — some of them ending perhaps in loss of life — by neglecting the du- ties which properly belong to the month upon which he has entered. The old adage is as true as it is trite, that for the want of a nail the shoe was lost, and for the want of a shoe the horse was lost. This directly applies to many of the domestic concerns of the family. Let it remind us to prepare, this winter, A Year's Stock of Wood. — Wet wood is the cause of much poor cooking. It prevents food from coming to the table in a palatable and wholesome condition. It increases the labor of the already overburdened wife ; dis- turbs her equanimity, tries her patience and prevents her from performing her domestic duties in a prompt and efficient manner. In the use of green wood, they become a cruel task imposed upon her, and she not only loses health and patience, but loses credit, as a good manager and skilful wife. The use of green wood is an extravagance which farmers cannot well afford. It wastes time to kindle and tend it. It wastes wood, because more is applied than would be neces- sary, if a single stick were used dry enough to kindle into a blaze at once. It smokes, and puts the eyes out; sputters and snaps like some enraged thing, and makes delicate per- sons nervous and unhappy. Green wood contains one-tJiird its weight of water, and a large portion of the heat made by it is employed in converting that quantity of water into steam. This carries off a por. tion of the heat with it and is lost. One pound of dry wood, burned in a stove fitted for the experiment, will heat 35 pounds of water from ice, 32", to the boiling point 212°. A pound of green wood will only heat 2') pounds from 32° to 212°. From this we ought to learn how much better dry wood is in thrt stove than that which is green. Again, a merciful man is merciful to his beast; will he be less so to his wife''} He will not, if he lays this woody lesson to heart and acts upon it at once He will not neglect the creatures at the barn who are entirely dependent upon him for their daily food. He will not neglect the best interests of his children, by not engaging with them in their evening readings and question-asking, or by indifference to the lessons they are learning for the next day's recitation at school. He will not fail to attend the stated meet- ings of the farmers^ club, nor to read one or two good works on agriculture during the long evenings. He will be familiar and cheerful in the midst of the family, encouraging, sustaining, and training all for useful and happy lives. These are only a few of the duties devolv- ing upon the farmer in January. He will not need suggestions for many of them that will devolve upon him. THE OYSTEH-SHELT. BABK LOUSE. While engaged, since the leaves have fallen, in removing new shoots and pruning off oc- casional limbs that were crossing each other, in an orchard that has always been kept in good shape, we have been surprised in no- ticing the countless number of the habitations of this insect. We suppose it is called the oyster-shell bark louse, because the shell which covers the eggs is similar in shape to an oyster shell, and also, because it gives a rough- ness, somewhat like that of its namesake, to the bark upon which the scales are placed. As a general rule, insects first attack vege- tables and animals that are not in a thrifty condition. This is the case vith the apple trees. Trees standing near walls, where the surface under them was swarded over, were literally covered with these scales. The bark had a hard, dry, and shrivelled appearance, and the whole tree looked diseased, although the roots had plenty of room to run out into a rich soil. But these pest? were not confined to such trees alone ; tbey weie on trees that have always stood in rich, cultivated ground, and that made a growth of more than eighteen inches the present year, in some of the lead- ing branches, and an average growth all over the tree of perhaps five or six inches. That is enough for an apple tree to do in one year, so far as growth is concerned. 16 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. On a part of a branch now lying before us, half an inch in diameter, and one inch long, we count Jifty-six scales. Examining them to-day, under a microscope of high power, we could not see the eggs with sufficient distinct- ness to count them. They are probably not yet enough developed. Last May it was easy to count the eggs. Some accounts state that under each scale there are many eggs. Allow- ing only six to each scale, would give 336 eggs to the inch, or 10,080 to the whole twig lying before us, which is 30 inches long. Or, if containing 35 eggs each — as indicated by Har- ris— the single twig has 58,800 eggs upon it. If an orchard of one hundred trees should be infected as this branch is, the number of eggs would be absolutely inconceivable by any power which the human mind possesses. As well might it attempt to conceive of the distance of the planet Uranus from us, whose light, though travelling at the rate of 192,000 miles per second, is, nevertheless, more than eighty years in reaching our earth ! In considering these things, the questions come to the mind, What influences have this vast family upon the apple trees ? Do they poison the bark upon which the eggs are placed, and retard, or destroy, its proper action ? Do they exhaust the moisture in the bark, and cause the dry and shrivelled appearance which it presents ? Do the insects, when hatched, march forth is countless legions, and feed upon the newly- formed wood, or by their presence act in any way to prevent the trees from fruiting ? ^Vho can tell? Who is wise enough for these things ? Have we any power over these pre- datory hordes, or must we sit idly by and let them run, unmolested, over plants which bave cost much care and labor ? Dr. Harris suggests the application of a wash made of t>?o parts of soft soap and eight of water, with wbic\i is to be mixed lime enough to bring it to tL" consistence of thick whitewash. This is to be put upon the trunks and limbs of the trees with a brush, and as high as practicable, so as to cover the whole surface, and fill all the cracks in the bark. This must be done in the early part of June, when the insects are young and tender ! But — bless the memory of Dr. Harris — who is able to do these things ! Consider the little twig before us, — only thirty inches long, and containing 58,800 eggs, and from 50 to 200 such twigs on a good sized tree ! And the enemy is on the twigs, where the wash must come, or be ineffectual. When any of our brother farmers possess as many dollars as there are pebbles in a gravel pit, we hope they will commence the work, and allow us to witness the operation. But we are not altogether powerless yet. Read the following article, furnished to the Western Rural, by Mr. J. W. Robson, who suggests a remedy so cheap and so easily ap- plied, that all may avail themselves of its ad- vantages. The "M'7ti7e-fish barrel" of which he speaks, was probably a barrel in which the celebrated "White-fish" of the lakes had been salted. He says : — This insect has engaged much of our thought, and received much attention from us during the last fifteen years. Remedies composed of alkalies and oils have been tried with varied success. Our first attempts in fighting the enemy was with the brush, using liquid applications of various descrip- tions, solutions of sal-soda, potash, soft soap, whale oil, lard, tobacco, lime, &c., all of which will destroy the insect, but the mode of applying the mixtures always proved wearisome, and, like- wise, consumed too much valuable time. Late in the fall of 1867, the idea impressed us that if some cheaper remedy in a liquid form could be discovered, and that at the same time, some means of applying it quickly to infected trees could be obtained, farmers and fruit-growers gen- erally would bo induced to make an efi'ort to eradi- cate the foe which was sucking the life giving sap out of their apple-trees, and restore their orchards to their pristine vigor and fruitfulness. Being very anxious to deliver ourselves from a troublesome pest, and in our humble way to bene- fit our generation, we set to work accordingly to carry out our ideas. We procured a large tin syringe, which our tinsmith made to order. It was a very primitive affair, but it answered the purpose admirably, costing only fifty cents. We commenced operations about the beginning of De- cember, when the leaves had fallen from the trees, mixing up all kinds of decoctions and applying them faithfully. Home were successful in the work of destruction, l)ut too costly for general ap- plication. The cheaper mixtures failed of success. One day while cleanins a white-fish barrel we thought we would try fish brine. Having a young apple tree close at hand, completely covered with lice, we began experimenting, taking a common wooden pail, and filling it with boiling water, dis- solving therein one pint of brine. When suffi- ciently cool to handle, we syringed the infected tree, thoroughly drenching every branch and twig. Early next spring, on close examination, we found every insect dead and the scales dry and shriveled up; placed under the lens of a powerful microscope, they presented the appearance of half burned chips of wood. Other applications since then have proved quite successful. Those who have made this insect a study know that the young lice are hatched about tlie latter end of May, or first week in June, being earlier or later according to the season. Immediately on is- suing from under the scale they commence their 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 17 upward march towards the ends of the shoots, never making a retrogriide movement unless in case of storms, when they face right about and seek the cover of the old scales. Their ability to move continues only for a few days, when they lose their legs and tails, assume the scale like form, and become a fixture on the shoot. During the last week of May, 1868, the young brood began to move, and in greater numbers than in previous years, so numerous that the shoots ap- peared to the naked eye as if sprinkled with fine particles of corn meal. Anxious to try the fish brine cure, we syringed a large tree with two pails full ; it took two minutes by the watch. Result — — every louse was killed, and so was every leaf and every green shoot and apple on the tree. The second mixture tried was half a pint of common salt to a pail of water. Result — the in- sect lived, Ijut leaves and shoots were destroyed. The third and last mixture was a quarter of a pound of whale oil soap, dissolved in the same quantity of water. Time expended in syringing, two minutes. Result — death to the insect, health and vigor to the tree, and a handsome and abun- dant crop of apples. Before closing, we will mention a fact which we noticed last year, which perhaps will be interest- ing to entomologists, and certainly of value to fruit-grov,'ers. While looking at the movements of the young lice through a powerful magnifying glass, we discovered a round shaped, black lady bug, with four distinct white spots on the back, feeding upon the young lice, completely cleaning the shoot as it went along. Farmers, spare every one of them, for they are our best friends. DEATH Off B. D. WALSH, ESQ,. The Western papers announce the death of this gentleman at his residence in Rock Island, 111., November 18, aged 62 years. At the time of his death he was senior editor of the American Efito- mologist, and held the position of State Entomolo- gist of Illinois. He was born in England, and was a graduate of Oxford. He emigrated to this country in early life and settled on a farm in Illi- nois, and was subsequently engaged in the lumber business. From his boyhood his favorite study has been natural history, especially that branch of it known as entomology, and by his writings upon this subject his name has become familiar to the readers of the agricultural papers of the country, and especially to those of the American Entomolo- gist. He possessed the rare faculty of writing on the subject of insects in a manner to interest both the scientific and the unlearned reader. His story of a bug had all the interest of a romance, and all the precision of a jaw-breaking technologist. For several years past he has devoted himself almost exclusively to his favorite science, and at the time of his death had the most extensive private collec- tion of specimens in entomology in the country. His death was occasioned by injuries received from an engine while walking on a railroad track. The Prairie Farmer says, "of his family in Eng- land, wo only know of one member, a brother, the present editor of the London Field, and the well- known author of the best work on the horse, in the language, written under ih^ nom de plume oi 'Stonehenge.' CHOKED ANIMA-LS. Every autumn animals are choked by turnips, potatoes and apples. They are often relieved by thrusting a fork handle, a broomstick or whip stock down the gullet. This operation is not without danger, and it sometimes fails. A case occurred in our neighborhood, a few days ago, in which the stick was pushed through the side of the gullet of a fine heifer, and the operator supposed the ob- struction was removed ; but the animal died in two hours. On opening her, the fact was revealed that there were two holes made in the gullet, while the turnip remained im- pacted in the passage. The following simple apparatus should be kept on hand by every farmer, and will generally be found eflFectual. Take a piece of smooth wood, about ten or twelve inches long, and nearly as large round as a man's wrist, to hold open the animal's jaws. Bore a hole near each end, large enough to receive a strong cord. Then bore a hole in the middle large enough to receive a common broom handle. Put into one of the end holes a cord a yard or more in length, tying it with a firm knot, and the gag is complete. Get a smooth broom han- dle or other wooden rod, and after fasten- ing very firmly upon the end a small ball or covering of cloth, as represented by the cut at a, but not so large as not to slip readily through the middle hole in the gag, and lay them up to- gether, where they can be readily found. To pre- vent their being separated, it may be well to tie them together, when put away. When an animal is choked, take the gag and put it into the mouth above the tongue, and bring the cord over the head behind the horns, and tie it firmly into the hole at the other end, and you have a perfect gag which the animal cannot shake out of her mouth. Then pass the broom stick through the middle hole, and push it gently into the gullet until the obstruction is reached, then tap it gently and repeatedly until the obstruction gives way. Never use violence in any case. This apparatus in careful hands will seldom fail. It may be pre- pared by almost any one, is easily used, and should always be kept ready. Sales of Improved Stock.— James S. Mon- roe, Lexington, Mass., has sold a half Dutch cow that gave on Thanksgiving Day,— nine weeks af- ter dropping her calf, — twenty quarts of milk on a common feed of hay and one pint of oil meal. Winthrop W. Chenery, Highland Stock Farm, Belmont, Mass., has recently sold to S. B. Emer- son, Mountain View, Santa Clara County, Califor- nia, one Lincoln ram, four rams and sixteen ewes of the Texcl or Mouton Flandrin breed of sheep ; two bulls and one heifer of the Dutch or Ilolstein cattle. These animals went overland by rail, and 18 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Jan, are probably the first consignment of improved stock that crossed the Rocky Mountains by the Pacific Railroad. Rockingham, N. H.— The report of the Treas- urer of the Agricultural Society of this county made at the annual meeting at Exeter, Nov. 13, as we learn from the Mirror and Farmer, shows the receipts to have been $'2,114, expenditures $1,846, cash on hand $268. The net profit of the late fair was $111 ; the first fair for^years that did not in- volve a loss. The next fair is to be held Sept. IS- IS, 1870, but the place not decided upon. The officers elected for the year are as follows : — President —D&rinB Towle, Kingatcn. Vice Presidents. — Benjamin F. Haley, Newmarket; W. Norris Dow, Epping ; George W. Sanborn, East Kinecton ; Jamea 11. Leavitt, North Hampton. Secretary — Andrew J, Hoyt, Exeter. Treasurer — Jaiob Carlisle, Exeter, 7)irec^ors— Charles E. Smith, South Newmarket; John 8. Ber.nett, Newmarket ; J, Frank Lawrence, Ep- pi'g; Henry P. Wlngate, Stratham; Ezra Currier, Fremont; Gideon Webster, Kingston ; Harrison Rowe, fieneiDgton. For the New England Farmer, THE GAKDEJNT FOB JANUAKY, Again we are permitted to stand on the threshold of another j-^ar, and to present the "compliments of the season" to all the read- ers of the Farmer's Garden Calendar. That the year now commencing may be to each and all a "Happy New Year," and a prosperous one in all that pertains to the culture of the garden and the farm, is the earnest wish of the writer. May it be happy and prosperous to him who cultivates only the least spot of a garden for a few vegetables, as well as to him whose garden and farm embraces many broad acres. To the end that the greatest profit and sat- isfaction may result from our labors, we must plan in advance, and work from system. Or- der, neatness and economy are virtues that are not to be overlooked in the smallest of things ; and will greatly enhance the profit and satisfaction resulting from our labor. Let each one, then, with pencil and paper in hand, 8et down, this new year's eve, and note down the work for January, and in the order it should be done, taking into calculation the probable interruptions, delays, &c. In our northern climate, the season is such as to preclude much active out-door operations in the garden, and the present is the farmer's and gardener's resting season ; yet with a judicious plan of operations, there is always something to do. The garden will need visit- ing occasionally to see that everything is right. If mice are girdling trees, shrubs or vines, snow shoold be piled around injured places and be heavily tramped, to remain till other remedies can be applied ; if water stands in any places occupied by crops, &c., it should be drained away by opening surface drains. See that fences and gates are all in order and kept close. A hungry stray animal will spoil a tree or shrub that has cost you time and money, and which perhaps you would not lose for the value of the animal. Bean-poles, Stakes, Pea Brush, &c. — Now, while there is leisure and you are haul- ing timber, «&c., from the woods, is the lime to lay in a supply. If you wait till later, other work will begin to press and a much poorer stock may be selected, if indeed you have time to get any at all. Cut bean poles eight feet long, trim them smoothly and sharpen them neatly. A straight limb, or young tree, of close growth, 1^ to 2 inches in diameter, if of strong wood, is as good as any. If one has the wherewith and desires to make them more durable, they can set the lower ends of the stakes, &c., in a kettle of tar and boil them, taking them out and rolling them in fine dust, and repeating the boiling. Set them away carefully to await their season of use. White birch makes the best pea brush. Cut and pile them up. A heavy weight placed on the pile gives the brush a better shape for use. Cold Frames. — These will need coverings of straw, mats, boards, shutters or other pro- tection during severe weather. When the weather is mild and pleasant the plants should be ventilated, admitting light and air, in the middle of the day. Care must be used not to keep open too late in the day, or ta give too strong light after having been kept dark some days. Cuttings of Currants, Gooseberrles, Grapes, &g. — If these have not been previ- ously made and are desirable, a supply may be taken at any time, when not frozen. Bury them in fresh damp soil, brought in for the purpose, in the bottom of the cellar. The reason why I say "fresh soil," is, that many scions buried in the dirt of old cellar bottoms are lost, from the saltpetre or other poison often found in such dirt. The soil to bury them in should be only moist enough to keep them fresh, without soaking the bark or buds. Hot-bed Frames and Sashes. — New ones should now be made or purchased, and old ones repaired. No garden can be complete without one or more hot beds ; they are cheaply constructed and easily managed by any one of ordinary good judgment. With a hot-bed a variety of garden vegetables may be easily obtained some weeks earlier than in any other available way. Seeds. — Did you save a supply of your own growing P If so, look them over and see that they are all safe and sound and in every respect perfect of their kind. Is there any variety you desire that you have not heretofore grown? Send for the seedman's catalogue as soon as out, examine and order early, while there is a full stock to select from. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 19 AGRICUIiTURAL ITEMS. — In 1860 the live stock of Connecticut was val- ued at #11,311,079; in 1868, at #13,012,699, and in 1869, at #24,687,141. — One of the Sandwich Islands claims to have tte largest orchard in the world, some of the trees bearing fifty barrels of apples. — The Champaigne County, 111., correspondent of the Ccuntry Gentleman says that nine-tenths of the "drive wells" put down in that section for the purpose of watering stock, have proved failures. — Tennessee is wool-growing. One thousand sheep passed through Nashville for Warren county the other day, and were quickly followed by three thousand more. —The New York Farmers' Club says that a cel- lar that cannot be drained may be made as tight as a jug by covering the sides and bottom with cement, and then adding a coat of the plastic slate. — Dr. Randall, Cortland Village, N. Y., is pre- paring and will soon have ready, blank petitions to Congress for the signatures of wool growers, which may be had by addressing him as above. — Col. Alexander writes to a Glasgow paper that the Paris police are furnished with lactometers, by which milk is tested as it is brought into town. If found watered, it is thrown upon the road and imprisonment follows. — There is a colony of Japanese in California, who, it is said, will give their attention to the cul- ture of the tea plant and of silk. They think that the soil and climate are well adapted to the tea plant. —The Deerfield, N. H., Farmers' Club met Nov. 12, and reorganized, The officers for the year en- suing are : — President, E . P. Chase ; Secretary and Treasurer, H. 0. Walker ; Directors, J. Chapman, J. Dearborn, and J. K. Gerrish. — A correspondent of the New York Farmers' Club having asked how to clean cucumber and to- mato seed, was told to spread on a piece of paper in the sun to dry. They will be clean enough for home use ; for commercial purposes, it is neces- sary to wash out the pulp and dry them. — Fred Boetner and his wife, of Otisco, Mich., raised and harvested seventy-five acres of grain the past season. From these acres they obtained 1252 bushels of wheat, 1,035 bushels of oats, and 64 bushels of barley. He and his wife did all the labor except a portion of the threshing. — Prof. Johnson says, in the Western Rural, that marls, like the purer limes, act more energetically if aided by the occasional addition of other ma nures ; and like them they finally exhaust a soil from which successive crops are reaped without the requisite return of decaying animal or vegeta- ble matters. —Mr. Rodolphus Thompson, of Jay, Me., has manufactured 7000 pounds of cheese and 600 pounds of butter from the milk of thirty-two cows the past summer. He sold over 6000 pounds of cheese at 18 cents a pound, and considered it more profitable than butter at 50 cents. — Rev. Mr. Dunham, Bryant's Pond, Me., raised this season from a single pea the following re- markable crops : Twenty-five were grown at the first crop, and two thousand nine hundred and forty at the second ; making in the whole, by ac- tual count and measurement, 2965 peas, or three pints ! — A correspondent of the Country Gentleman, who has recently travelled through northwestern Ohio, northeastern Indiana and southern Michigan, says, be the cause what it may, — wet summer, luxuriant vegetation, insufl3cient drainage, or all combined, — certain it is that the ague and kindred diseases, have prevailed to an extent unheard of in these late years, and have demoralized farming this fall more than did the short crop or the heavy freshets of the spring time. The many shivering forms, despondent hearts, pinched-up faces, and do-less hands, account for the general backward state of farm-work in the sections visited. — The quantity of milk drawn from a cow per annum, depends more than some imagine upon the milker. The best cow in the world may soon be spoiled by careless and irregular milking, whereas an ordinary animal may be made to yield much more of the delicious beverage than usual, by the right performance of this simple operation. To find a good cow is not an easy thing — but more easy than to find an accomplished milker. — A correspondent of an Eastern paper suggests the following plan, to prevent the sagging of gate posts : "Set the hanging post three and a half feet in the ground, tramp well at the bottom, on the side opposite the gate ; then dig a trench six inches deep from one post to the other; in this put a three-by-four scantling, or a pole of white oak, black mulberry, or some other lasting timber, seeing that it just fills the space between the two gate posts and cover with earth, and the gate will stand as you hang it until the posts rot oflf." To Manage a Rearing Horse. — When- ever you perceive a horse's inclination to rear, separate your reins and prepare for him. The instant he is about to rise slacken one hand and bend or twist his head with the other, keeping your hands low. This bending com- pels him to move a hind leg, and of necessity brings his fore feet down. Instantly twist him completely round two or three times, which will confuse him very much, and com- pletely throw him off his guard. The moment you have finished twisting him round, place his head in the direction you wish to proceed, apply the spurs and he will not fail to go for- ward. 20 XEW ENGLAND FARJilER. Jan. DESIGN FOR A COUNTRY, OR VILLAGE HOUSE. This design and plan, by Mr. Geo. E, Har- ney, was drawn and engraved for the New England Farmer, and is intended more ex- pressly for a small milk farm near a city or large town, where the cultivation of flowers and plants might also be made a profitable business. But aside from these peculiarities, the arrangement of the rooms are suggestive of comfort and convenience. The conserva- tory might be omitted entirely, and the milk room used as a store-room, or for other pur- poses. As indicated by the plan, A shows the por- tico ; II the front hall, 7 by IG feet ; B the parlor 14 by IG feet, and opening out of this is the conservatory, G, for plants and flowers, 14 by 18 feet, fitted up with shelves at the sides, with a stand in the centre and a passage way of three feet in width all around it. From personal observation, Mr. Harney re- commends the following plan as the most efFeciive way of heating a small green house : A furnace made of a common air-tight stove is placed in a brick air-chamber underneath the floor, the heat passing up through a single pipe running from the top of the chamber to the floor — while from the floor at the farther end of the conservatory, near the door, an- other pipe extends downwards, and terminates in the bottom of the air-chamber, thus pro- ducing a thorough circulation of air all the time, with a regulated supply of fresh air from out of doors conducted by means of a box like a common furnace box, to the chamber. The six upper sashes of the roof have pulleys and cords by which they may be lowered or raised at pleasure. At the further extremity of the front hall a glazed door opens into the back entry. This hall opens out upon a back porch, I, 6 feet wide, and into the parlor and kitchen, D, which is 12 by 18 feet. The dining room C, 14 feet square, also connects with the kitchen by means of a small passage fitted up with shelves. On the right of the chimney is a good-sized china closet. Opening out of the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARiMER. 21 kitchen is a pantry, E, 6 by 8 feet, with sink, pump, cupboard, &c. This pantry opens out upon a platform at the rear of the house. The plan of the milk room, F, was invented necessary to enter into the particulars of Gnish, height of rooms, cost, &~i., as all of these can be varied to suit individual taste, convenience and circumstances. by H Wing, of Morris, N. Y., and applied to his own bouse. A window on the north ad- mits cold air. The room is over a cold cel- lar, from which air is admitted by slatted openings running nearly the entire length of the room under the shelves, and of about the same width, closed by a board with hinges like a trap door. Near the ceiling, and open- ing outward and upwards on the north side of the house, is a similar trap door, three or four feet long, and about a foot wide, with an ele- vating stick with notches, by which it may be raised as desired. When the upper ventila- tor is opened, the heated air passes out, and cold air from the cellar rushes in to fill its place. A ventilated space of about seven inches surrounds the room, and prevents the heating so often resulting from confined air in the adjacent walls. The shelves are not flat boardi, but are formed of strips, to get a free circulation of air on every side. The second floor of the house contains two fnont chambers, each fourteen feet square ; a kitchen chamber, twelve by fourteen ; another chamber over the pantry and entry, nine feet square ; and a small room over the dairy. As these pl?ns are designed to be sugges- tive,— to afford hints rather than to furnish models or working plans, — we do not deem it EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. VALUE OF OYSTER SHELL BEDS LEFT BY INDIANS. I saw it stated in the last Monthly Farmer that oyster shells were of no account to the far- mer. To me it does not seem as if that was so. In the past twelve years I have carted more than one thousand loads of oyster shells, from an old deposit left by the Indians. I have always raided good crops ; better thL.n could have been expected from my land without them. The shells have been put into a barn cellar and mixed with other manure. I have never tri xl them alone. But this is a fact, that wherever we had shells, the grass grows much better and keeps green through the season, and this year I have raised go >d corn, without any dressing, in almost a solid heap of shells. Now on the Uape there are numerous de- posits of shells, and 1 think it will pay lo cart them. I think the Indians roa-tcd the oysters, as the shells have that appearance, and crumble at the touch. A few bones, ashes and coals are found with them, and if the shells arc a foot under ground the soil will be as black as any Western land. I would hke to see what some others think about it. SuissCKiBER. Osterville, Mass., Oct. 18, 1869. Remarks. — As the article alluded to by our correspondent was written l)y Dr. Jas. II. Nichols, of this city, the above communication w^as sub- mitted to him, and ho has furnished the following reply :— "As regards the remarks of your correspondent at Osterville, it may be said, that there are but one or two points worthy of comment or reply. He says he has carted thousands of loads of oyster shells upon his land, and has raised 'good crops.' lie has 'never used oyster shells alone,* but al- 22 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. ways mixes them with the manure in his barn cellar. This proves, not that oyster shells are fer- tilizing agents, but that mixed with manure, the manure is not injured essentially by their presence. It should be said, once for all, that oyster shells are composed of carbonate of lime ; and carbonate of lime is not a manurial agent. It is hard, in- soluble marble, and of no value in agriculture. The Indians left upon the coast in certain locali- ties, great heaps of these shells, and mixed with them is found charcoal or carbonized wood, and some leaves and other organic matter, partially decomposed, which gives to some of the heaps a dark hue. The:;e heaps, and all other heaps of clam and oyster shells, are valueless to farmers and should be let alone." May not the Ix)nes, ashes, coals, leaves and other or-,'anic matter which would natui-ally find its way from the wigwams of the Indians, who fed on the oysters frcm these large deposits of shells, and which give them the dark color spoken of, add sufficient value to the mess to justify its use, al- though the carbonate of lime of which the shells were originally composed may be valueless in agriculture ? IRRIGATION OR FLOWAOE. I do not propose to speak in this article of that branch of irri_,ation by which water is conducted along the lirows of hills by means of ditches, but I desire to call attention to the winter flowage of natural mtadows or swamp lands, through which a stream of water flows. Often only a short dam is needed near the outlet, to effect the purpose, with a bulk-head by which the water can be let on or o.i and its depth regulated. Land thus flowed xvould not only be enriched by an annual deposit of fertilizing matter, but the roots of grass would be protected from injury by frost. Millions of tous of hay might be added every year to the crops of the New England States by this method. Almost every farm of any extent, con- tains many acres of unsightly swamp, now con- sidered worthless by many, but in reality by far the most valuable of all its acres, which if cleared and flowed would not require artificial or barn- yard manures to produce annual crops, as is the case with high land fields, from many of which much of the manure is yearly washed into the streams and lost. N.iture in all cases provides the means of res- toration to her own exhausted energies, if short- sislU'jd mortals would not pervert her course. When the upland pastures and fields become al- most worthless by a suicidal mode of skinning, kind Nature would spread a growth of forest trees over the exhausted landscape, restoring potash to the soil, and bringing it back to its primeval state of Icrtility in a lew years. The low lands she would restore by the element of water as well as by fallen leaves. Snow water, according to the best authorities, contains ammo- nia, and perhaps other enriching qualities. These principles were well understood by the nations of antiquity. The flat fields of old classic Egypt were fertilized by the annual overflow of Father Nile, while her once productive lands, lying above the reach of the enriching waters, became barren sands which are not only unproductive, but are gradually drifting around and covering up the stu- pendous ruius which still attest the former pros- perity a-nd greatness of that country. Ancient Rome, too, has remains of vast works which show that the value of water was well understood by the farmers of old. Virg-il, in Georgic 1st, says : "Lo 1 on yon brow, whence bubbling springs arise, The peasant, bending o'er the expanse below, Directs the chance'ed waters where to flow. Down the smooth rock.) melodious murmurs glide. And a new verdure gleams beneath the tide." The following circumstance, quoted by Warton, from Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, is to the point : "When the Persians were masters of Asia, they permiited those who conveyed a spring to any place which had not been watered before, to enjoy the benefit thereof for five generations ; and as a number of rivulets flowed from Mt. Taurus, they spared no expense in directing the course of their streams. At this day without knowing how they came there, they are found in the fields and gar- dens." Isaiah testifies to the same sentiment — "as the rain and the snow that cometh down from heaven returneth not thither again, but watereth the earth and causeth it to bud and blossom, and bring forth seed to the sower and bread to the reaper." M. J. Harvey. Bpping, N. U., 1869. A NEW OUTLET TO THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. The following paragraph is going the rounds of the papers in this section : — "A project is to be brought to the attention of Congress at the next session, to make for com- merce a new mouth of the Mississippi river, by a canal of great capacity, on the line of the unfin- ished James River and Kanawha canal, across the mountains of Virginia. The proposed work vi^ould be 400 miles long, and would make a continuous water communication from the sea westward to the 17,000 miles of navigation in the Mississippi valley. It is claimed that such a work would in- crease the value of Western produce a hundred millions a year, while cheapening bread in the East ; because, as estimated. Western grain would save fully two-thirds of the freight now paid by the consumer and producer to the carrier." In my opinion there is no projected improve- ment in the whole country that will compare with this in importance both to producer and consumer, and I wonder that it should have been so long overlooked. Once in operation, its v.'hole cost would be saved, many times over, every year to the people. It would not only cheapen bread at the East, and give the producer at the West a bet- ter price, but it would open a market for an al- most inexhaustable supply of coal and timber, which exists along its route, which could be fur- nished at much cheaper rates than from any other source. New England capital and skill would here find a most inviting field. Already several factories are at work, or in process of construction, for manufacturing furniture, &c., &c., from the fine material furnished by the forests of Western Virginia, or rather for preparing all the parts ready for transportation, to be put togeiher at other points. The superiority of our soil, the excellence of our climate, and the cheapness of our materi- als for manufacturing, are already admitted, and the fact that we are comparatively near market, will soon become manifest. j. h. u. West Virginia, Oct. 25, 1869. COARSE AND FINE WOOLED SHEEP. I have read with interest all the communications on this subject in your valuable paper for the last year. In breeding sheep, I have sought as much weight of sheep as amount of wool. My sheep are Merinos. They average about 100 pounds, and sheared a little over six pounds washed wool this spring. When wool brought $\ a pound, my lambs 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 23 weighed seventy-seven pounds each, and brought $7.70 per head. Last year my lambs were a little more fashionable and smaller. I sold them for $2 oO, for mutton, after selecting ten of the best. Then I went to Connecticut and bonght of Burdett Loomis a yearling Cotswold buck and raised from sixty ewes, sixty-seven lambs, and I never had less trouble or better success. I saved nineteen bucks, only two of them weighing less than one hundred pounds, and some of them weighing one hundred and tircnty-three, at seven months old. There is a pair of twin ewe lambs in town from my buck that weighed, at six months old, 105 and 110 each. I have sold seven of the bucks for #98, the other twelve, if not sold for stock, are good for 140 or 150 pounds before spring, and will bring fancy prices for mut- ton. This added to the six pounds of wool will give more profit than a large amount of grease from a forty pound sheep or a small fleeced South Down. M. DusTiN. West Claremont, N. H., Nov., 1869. LAME CHICKENS. My chickens as soon as grown lose the use of their limbs. They try to walk, and fall over, try to fly and cannot. They have no use of their legs, — sometimes one, at others both, — grow poor, and have to be killed. I have examined them and can find no cause. Some of my neighbors are troubled the same. If you know a remedy, please answer ; if not, please ask if any one does. Subscriber, Haverhill, Mass., Nov. 3, 1869. DECOMPOSING BONES. I have a quantity of old bones. Are they of any value ? If so, what is the best way to decompose them ? A Subscriber. Lovell, Me., Oct., 1869. Remarks. — In the article on the Garden in No- vember, in another column of this paper, you will find an answer to your inquiry. Some care will be necessary to success, but bones can be softened in this way. BUCKHORN. In answer to the inquiry of your correspondent "Essecker," who writes from Danvers, I would suggest that the plant he calls buckhorn may be the osmwida regalis, a fern, quite common in swampy lands. I remember that this was called buckhorn in my native town (Weymouth) when I was a little boy. I do not know whether it is poisonous for horses or not ; but I do know that cattle eat it with a good relish, in large quantity, without any apparent ill effect. My father used to say that itwas as good as English hay for cows. Concord, Mass., Oct. 24, 1869. m. p. tlemen. It is designed to make use of the premi- um essay in the next annual report of the Associ- ation. Cheese.— Gardner B. Weeks, Syracuse, N. Y., Secretary of the American Dairymen's Associa- tion, has issued a circular announcing that the Association offers a premium of one hundred dol- lars for the best original essay on "The Claims of Cheese as a Wholesome, Nutritious and Economi- cal article of Food." The premium will be awarded and the money paid at the Annual Convention of the Association at Utica, N. Y., January 12 and 13, 1870. The essays must be forwarded to the Secretary, Syracuse, N. Y., as early as December 20, 1869. The premium will be awarded by a com- petent and disinterested committee of three gen- VEHMONT DAIHYMBM'S ASSOCIATION. We learn by the State Journal that an as- sociation of the dairymen of Vermont was formed at a meeting of fai mers at Montpelier, Vt., October 27. Hon. R. J. Saxe of Sheldon, was Chairman, and O. S. Bliss, of Georgia, Secretary. The following constitution, re- ported by a committee, consisting of O. S. Bliss, of Georgia, E. D. Mason, of Richmond, and G. C. Chandler, of Montpelier, was adopted : — Constitution. Section 1. This organization shall be called the "Vermont Dairymen's Association." Sec. 2. Its object shall be to improve the Dairy interests of Vermont, and all subsidiary interests. Sec. 3. This Association shall consist of such persons as shall signify their desire to become members and pay the sum of two dollars, and a like sum annually thereafter, and of honorary and corresponding members. Sec. 4. The payment of five dollars shall con- stitute a Life Member. Sec. 5. The officers of the Association shall be a President, three Vice Presidents, (one from each Congressional District), and a Secreiary, who shail constitute the Executive Committee, and have the general oversight of all the affairs of the Association ; also a Treasurer and fourteen Trus- tees, who shall be charged with the interests of the Association in their respective counties, and con- stitute a medium of communication between the Executive Committee and the resident members of the Association. They shall also act as a Board of Appeals on all questions of difference that may arise between the Executive Committee and any member. Sec. 6. The Annual Meeting for the election of ofiicers and the transaction of business shall be held on the second Wednesday after the second Thursday in October in each year, at such place as the Executive Committee shall appoint. There shall also be held during each winter, at such time and place as the Executive Committee may desig- nate, a meeting for addresses and discussions, to continue at least three days, which meeting shall be open to all members of the Association. Sec. 7. It shall be the duty of the Secretary to prepare an Annual report of the transactions of the Association for the current year, embracing such papers, original or selected, as may be approved by the Executive Committee, and cause the same to be published and distributed to the members of the Association. Sec. 8. The Treasurer shall keep the funds of the Association and disburse them on the order of the President or a Vice President, countersigned by the Secretary, and make a report of the re- ceipts and expenditures to the Annual Meeting in October. Sec. 9. This Constitution may be amended at any Annual Meeting by a two-thirds vote of all the members present. ]\Ir. Mason, of Richmond, was called upon for a statement relative to the Dairymen's Association in New York, who gave a favora- ble report of its operations, showing that the 24 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Jan. superior quantity and quality of the cheese produced, resulted in a great degree, from the operations of this organization. Mr. ^la- son believed that Vermonters, with equally good pasturage and a better climate, could place their cheese at the head of the list, with the same skill in manufacturing. He believed an organization or association among farmers would help to accomplish such a result in Vermont. A committee consisting of Mr. Mason, of Richmond, Mr. Hall of Burke, and Mr. Bliss, of Georgia, was appointed to report at an ad- journed meeting, officers for this organization, also to solicit members for the same . At an adjourned meeting, Oct. 28th, this committee submitted the following report, which was accepted and adopted. : — Presidevt — E. D. Miifion, Richmond. Vice Presirfeji^s — Middleton Goldsmith, Rutland; N. B. Safford, Uariford; R. J. Saxe, Bheldon. Secretary —O . S. Bliss, Georgia. Treasurer.— Qc. C. Chandler;, Montpelier. County Trustees. Addison — D. W. Nash, New Haven. Bennington— K. B. Armstrong, Dorset. Caledonia.— U. M. IT. UUl, East Burke. Chi'tendtn —^. Barnum, Milton. Essex.— ^. S. Freeman, Guildhall. Franklin.— A. A. Moore. Grand Isle.— Allen R. Manning, Alburgh. Lamoille — E. P. Mudgett, Cambridge. Orleans.— Kzra. F. Darliug, Derby. Orange.— Ar^ron N. King, Tunbridge. Butlund —A. D. Smith, Danby. Washington— Or. C. Chandler, Montpelier. Windsor.— O. Horace Hubbard, gpringfleld, Windham. — Peleg Winslow, Putney. POISON CHEESE. Mr. X. A. Willard gives in the Rural Neiv Yorker the particulars of a case where several persons were poisoned by a lot of cheese made in St. Lawrence County, N. Y. No lives were lost from eating this cheese, but several persons were made sick, with pains and cramps and excessive vomiting. Dr. Jackson, who analyzed portions of this cheese, could find no metal or mineral poisons, nor any alkaloids or deleterious vegetable principles. But he did find "a small proportion of offensive pu- trifying animal matter," which does not be- long to good cheese. He said be could not give this matter any correct name, but sug- gested that it might come from the rennet. Mr. Willard says : — The facts elicited from this analysis of Dr. Jack- son correspond in some respects with those dis- covered, a lew years siucc, by Dr. Voelcker, and from which it would appear that cheese, as well as other kinds of animal food, under certain condi- tions of decay, generates a peculiar organic poison ; but what the composition of this virulent poison is, the chemists are as yet unable to determine. Dr. Voelcker stated to us in a conversation on the subject in 1866, that instances had come under his observation where this poison in cheese had be- come dissipated as the cheese passed into a further state of fermentation and decomposition, and that the cheese could then be safely eaten, producing no injurious or unpleasant effects. Mr. Willard then gives a detailed statement of an analysis made by Dr. Voelcker of some cheese in England that was known to be pois- onous. In the first place his object was to de- tect mineral poisons, but not a trace of them was to be found in the cheese he was ana- lyzing, although on former occasions he had found sulphate of zinc, sulphate of copper, in cheese that had proved poisonous. The Professor then says : — "The proportion of water in this cheese was rather large, considering that it must have been cut for some time, and have lost water by evapo- ration. On further examining it I found it re- markably sour, and had no difficulty in detecting an unusually large quantity of fatty acids, which, if not poisonous themselves, are the vehicle con- veying the peculiar organic poison which appears to be generated sometimes in cheese undergoing a peculiar kind of fermentation. Probably the poi- son generated in this modified decay of cheese is identical with the so-called sausage poison, which is sometimes found in German sausages, especially those made of coagulated blood. A similar poison appears to be generated sometimes in pickled sal- mon, smoked sprats, pork, tainted veal, bacon, and hams. Bacon and hams, when not perfectly cured, and fat meat kept in a damp, badly venti- lated cellar, are very apt to become more or less injurious to health ; and even butter, after it has turned rancid, and similar organic acids are lib- erated in it which exist in this cheese in a free state, acts as a poison in most cases. Singularly enough, some people are not affected by these subtle organic poisons. Dr. Voelcker regrets that we have no ready means of detecting this insiduous poison which, in a great many cases, has produced fatal re- sults. He also says, that it appears that cheese kept in damp, hadly ventilated places, or where too much whey is left, or, indeed, all the circumstances which tend to produce a too acid curd and to generate free fatty acids, are apt to produce this peculiar poison. The cheese maker will see, therefore, how impor- that it is to have a properly ventilated curing room for his cheeses, and also that the whey be thoroughly expelled from the cheese. —President Abbott, of the Michigan Agricultu- ral College, said in his remarks at the nicetmg of farmers at Bangor, Me., that at the State Agricul- tural College of Wisconsin— connected with a lit- erary university— with about 400 students, the most diligent inquiry could not find one that had determined to return to industrial pursuits. 1870. JTEW ENGLAND FARMER. 25 UNRELIABLE SEED COHK. In this climate, with our small-sized yellow corn, we seldom have any trouble with seed corn where onlinary care is used. But with sweet corn, especially of the large varieties, there is much complaint. One of our neighbors planted a peck last spring, and he thinks that not more than forty kernels germinated. Another esti- mates that not more than half that he planted came up. We never fail to have our sweet corn germinate as surely as the yellow com ; but a little care and pains are necessary to se- cure this result. We select the earliest and largest ears as soon as the husks begin to dry, and trace them up in small traces and hang them in the sun and leave them exposed to the weather at least two months, and then hang them in a dry chamber. Seed corn should not be exposed to moisture, which will cause the chit to swelL A little care in saving seed com •will often prevent much disappointment and vexation. The editor of the Prairie Farmer has some sensible remarks upon this subject. He says that varieties that have a large cob are more liable to be injured than those that have small cobs ; that the pith in such cobs retains its moisture so long that it is liable to mould or to freeze, by either of which the chit or germ is killed, even when the body of the kernel is sound. He recommends boring out the pith with a bit, when the cob is very large. This lets the air into the cob and allows it to become dry. CLEAN CULTUBE. Notwithstanding all that is said in agricul- tural papers and in Farmers' Clubs of the importance of clean culture, and of the un- profitableness of crops of weeds, we never saw many farms or even fields that were kept clean throughout the season. Like "per- fection," in morals and religion, clean culture with most farmers is, at best, only compara- tive. We confess that in our own experience we seldom succeed in having a place for every plant and in keeping every plant in its place. The theory of clean culture is easy enough, but the practice is so very difficult, that we fear the weeds are increasing on most of our farms. In one of his recent Walks and Talks on the Farm, in the American Agriculturist, Mr. J. Harris says, he thinks bis com field is toler- ably clean (the result of two corn crops in succession five years ago, and the thorough, almost the excessive, use of the cultivator at that time, together with its free use this sea- son.) But with this exception, he does not know of a single field of clean corn, or clean potatoes, or clean beans. Even the Deacon's wheat stubble, though there is a fine growth of young clover, is far from clean. This is in Monroe County, "The center of the garden of the Empire State," where good farm land is supposed to be worth, and actually sells for, $125 to $200 per acre. Mr. Jason Smith, of Seneca County, N. Y., the home of such farmers as John Johnston, says in a letter to Mr. Harris : — In witnessing the operation of a new steam thrashing machine recently, it was disgusting to see how much bulls the feeder had to pul through for the quantity of grain. As a general rule, about one-third of the bulk was weeds — and this on farms the owners of which make some pretensions to be- ing model farmers. Unless we adopt a better sys- tem of farming, the weeds and i?isects will drive us from our farms. I highly approve of your advo- cacy of the practice of summer-ftxllowing, which, if done thoroughly, is a sure, if not the only eco- nomical, means of destroying troublesome weeds, such as the Canada thistle, cockle. May-weed, white and yellow daisies, pigeon weed, plaintain, burdock, ragweed, mustard, quack grass, with a host of summer weeds too numerous to mention. Nearly all of these, except quack grass, can be killed by thorough summer-fallowing in a dry season. In contrast with the foregoing, Mr. Harris gives the following pleasant picture : — One of my neighbors, a thriving German far- mer, has made the sides of the road smooth and level, and this year mowed quite a nice crop of hay from them. He is doing to well too have any thought of selling, but if he had I am sure his farm would sell for $10 an acre more for having such a lawn-like road-side, and for the general air of neatness and thrift which it imparts to the es- tablishment. Too many of us make the road the receptacle for all the stones, sticks, and rubbish of the farm. The thistles come up between the stones. Mow- ing the grass is out of the question. The best we can do is to top off the thistles occasionally. I know of few things that would add so much to the beauty of the country as to have all the road-sides made smooth and level, and have the grass cut with a mowing machine twice a year. Sulphur in Louisiana. — Prof. Hilgard, of the University of Miss., who has been on a visit to the sulphur deposit in Louisiana, states that the bed was found to be about 100 feet thick without perceptible change. It is pure, crystaline, semi-transparent sulphur. A shaft of 443 feet once sunk to this sulphur bed, the working of the mine would be easy and in the highest degree remunerative — capable, in view of the difficulty under which the produc- tion of Sicilian sulphur labors, of control- 26 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. ling the sulphur market of the world, and add- ing to the pro.-peiity of the whole country by cheapening the production and improving the quantity of that great fundamental agent, "sulphuric acid," the preparation of which from impure pyrites is so often a source of annoyance and loss In all kinds of manufactures. For the New England Farmer, MEN WANTED. A few weeks since I cut the following arti- cle, with the above he&ding, from a newspaper that fell into my hands : — Men Wanted. — The great want of this age is men. Men who are not for sale. Men who are honest, sound from centre to circumference, true to the heart's core. Men who will condemn wrong in friend or foe, in themselves as well as others. Men whose consciences are as steady as a needle to the pole. Men who will stand for the right if the heavens totter and the earth reels. Men who can tell the truth and look the world and the devil right in the eye. Men that neither bragnorrun. Men that neither flag nor flinch. Men who can have cour- age without shouting to it. Men in whom the courage of everlasting life runs still, deep and strong. Men who do not cry nor cause their voices to be heard on the streets, but who will not fail nor be discouraged till judgment be set in the earth. Men who know their message and tell it. Men who know their places and till them. Men who know their business. Men who will not lie. Men who are not too lazy to work, nor too proud to be poor. Men who are willing to eat what they have earned, and wear what they have paid for. Is it not lamentably true that there is a great lack of such men as are here alluded to ? 1 think the feeling is quite general among business men that those placed in positions of great pecuniary responsibility are less reliable than at any former period of our nation's his- tory. They are more liable to betray the trusts committed to their guardianship. The prevailing spirit of speculation proves too strong for their integrity. The temptation of great, and (as it looks to them) sure gains impels to the use of funds that belongto others. The salve that quiets their conscience and blinds their ejes to duty is the expectation of replacing what they had no right to take. Los resulting from their first venture, lead to a repetition of the crime in hopes of mak- ing it all light in the end. Repeated losses, however, involve them irrecoverably. Many a man who was looked upon by those who knew him bi-st as being grounded upon unswerving in- tt grity has been ruined in this manner. The trouble was that he allowed the first thought in that direction to have a lodgment in his mind. The cases of defaulting bank officials and others of recent date are apt illustrations of this truth. Auothi r class of dishonest men are those who *lo business on credit, when they know it is impossible for them to pay for the goods • they purchase. A house in this city that re- ported a surplus of $60,000 last January, failed in less than six months for $120,000. They acknowledged to a creditor that the statements made to him and others in January was false. The excuse given for the false- hood was they hoped to work out in some way. This seeking a desired end by such means is never safe, and never guiltless. It is not worth while to specify the various phases of dishonesty and trickery that abound, as most are too familiar with them, it has come to such a pass among business men that they are driven to regard every man as a rogue, until he has proved the reverse. Heretofore, the farmmg community have been regarded as a class less subject to this sweeping condemna- tion. It is not well for us, however, to be too Pharisaical because of this fact. Too many cases of deception and trickery are resorted to by farmers, for us to exclaim that we are more honest than others. How many give short weight, short measure, put the best and fairest on the surface and hide all defects from sight? Far too many, I fear, from what I have seen and beard. In too many instances in buying and selling stock, the rule of honest, fair dealing is too often departed from. I recollect of a gentle- man remarking to me that the worst swindle he ever was subject to was perpetrated by a far- mer of whom he bought a horse. Being a farmer the gentleman confided in his story, without seeking for a confirmation of its truth. From that transaction he was taught the folly of relying upon a class or calling, supposing it to be composed entirely of honest men. His experience is too common for farmers to call it exceptional. Money gained at the sacrifice of principle is an illusion. It is not gained permanently. That is, it will take to itself wings and fly away. Reputation also suffers. The whole result is a loss every way. A man may be rich without money. Millions, without a quiet conscience and a contented mind are but a burden to their possessor. A rich man on the brink of the grave would gladly part with all he had for a longer lease of life. Honest men are hard to find, and we should welcome them from what- ever source they come. There is an antidote for all this crying evil to be found in the application of the golden rule to our daily life. I apprehend it is to be found nowhere else. All other panaceas are illusory and disappointing. This cannot fail. Boston, July 30, 1869. k. o. For the New England Farmer, HELP AND STOCK FOB A PAKM. "I have bought the high-priced, fertile farm," said Mr. Bullion, as he met his friend, Mr. Jones, "and now as spring is drawing near, I must hire help to begin its cultivation. What kind of help shall I hire." "This is, indeed, a question of some im- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 27 portance. Are your help to become members of your family ?" "Yes, at present; though I have consid- ered the plan of building a cottage for per- manent farm help. But this year we must be one family, with perhaps two tables." "Then the most satisfactory help would be smart young Americans, that have always lived on a farm with their parents, and who intend to follow farming for life." t "Are there such persons ?" "Yes, plenty. Among the thousands of farmers' families there are many young men and women that leave their homes, to sell the service of their brain and muscle a few years, for money." "Yes. But they rush to manufacturing towns or cities, and get larger wages than far- mers can afford to pay." "No. Farmers constantly refuse to recog- nize the fidl value of skilled labor on the farm. They let their sons go, and hire a greater weight of muscle for a few months each year, in some Irish, French or German, and accept with it habits of smoking, drink- ing or profanity. And the farmers' boys soon become skilled in the employment they choose, and however firmly they may resolve to work only a few vears away, and return to farm life again, — their labor becomes of such value that thfjy are retained in the cities, where their employment is permanent. But there prevails an idea that the farmer only needs help in summer. So the intelligent, pains- taking, energetic young man, not only is ob- liged to work in competition with the transiens foreigner in summer, and perhaps at lest wages, if he weighs less pounds, but in win- ter h6 is a drug in the market ; no farmer en- larges his plans and enterprises to give him employment and keep him in the country. So he must go to the city, or take some job at a disadvantage, or keep school in order to earn money. A farmer that has a good horse or ox team will plan to find profitable work for them. But to his son he says 'I can spare you through the winter,' and he is crowded out of the reg- ular routine of farm life." "Then you would recommend American help, hired by the year ?" "Yes. Such would understand the nature and wants of your cattle ; the comparative value of the hay, straw and roots to be fed to them, the treatment of the soil for each crop you raise, and the best way to dispose of the surplus in market. You should hire by the year because it is duty. Winter is a dull time in other trades, yet proprietors retain their work- men as much as possible, so as to be sure of them in the busy season. The farmers' loss may be trilling, yet not as much as would be the workmen's loss if he bore it alone." "Then $30 per month for eight months, is just as much as $20 for twelve months, and often men can be hired at about these rates. Your idea is a good one of building a cottage and hiring a married man. and if you can make your service desirable, faithful men will be found. And then to enjoy iiwra life, you must have a happy family, and their happiness cannot be perfect, when all their time is taken to minister to the appetites of such ravenous boarders as farm help often are, when hired because of size and strength." "Well, if I adopt your suggestions as to help, what stock shall I get," said Mr. Bul- lion, to his friend and adviser. "Why! get that you love the most," said Jones. "That is singular advice. I expect to keep stock for profit and not for love. Every body keeps stock to consume what is raised and make manure." "Very true ; and with that object it matters but little what you get. But you wish to en- joy your country home. Now If there Is any thing you love more than another, keep that, whether it be horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, goats or fowls ; then whether the market price runs high or low you are contented. But if you have no specialty, then keep what your far- mer likes." "You seem to lay great stress upon affec- tion. I desire to raise what will be a credit to me among my neighbors, and will sell well in market. While I do not care for profit for its own sake, yet I desire It on account of its being the evidence of good management, and I can hardly decide what to buy." "If one buys what others are dealing in," said Jones, "In hopes of a rise in price, or a continuance of popularity, there is great dan- ger of being led astray. When Merino sheep brought a thousand dollars each, many bought them to get the stock to sell. But when prices came down, their carcasses were sold at a shil- ling each in market, and there was great haste in getting rid of them. A choice Durham is sold at $5000, or an Alderney for $2000 ; and Angora goats $500. Now a fortune spent in purchasing does not insure success ; If there continues a demand for these animals, it is only the good ones that bring a high price, and good care is necessary, which is the result of affection." "It is the excellent animals that sell for the best profit on cost of raising. Devotion brings success. Whatever you love so deeply as to plainly show It in the care you give it, and m words of praise spoken in Its favor, will at- tract attention. Those strong words, 'The good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep,' are true ones. Dark nights, stormy days and weary limbs, must not turn away the man who hopes for success, from caring at the proper time for his stock. Some make fortunes in horses, but they have good ones, and love horses." "If you have no affection for my particular stock, and have faithful, intelligent help, I wIH recommend large mutton sheep and cows. You can buy good feeding ewes for three or 28 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. Jax. four dollars each ; with good care, they will raise more tUan one lamb each on an average. These lambs should be four months old in July and bring five dollars each ; the fleece two dollars each sheep. Then with a little crowding, these ewes can be fattened to sell in October at five dollars each, making a gain of nine dollars. If you raise full-blooded sheep of any English breed, the profit would be more, as the lambs would sell to other stock raisers." "A cow will eat, it is estimated, as much as eight sheep. A good one has yielded an in- come, in butter, of over one hundred dollars in a year, and by selling milk a much higher income. Reference can be given to several persons whose flocks and herds have come up to about these figures. Raising colts, young cattle, or fattening oxen, some times gives a good result. But cows and sheep I recom- mend as likely to be profitable every year." Z. E. Jameson. Irashurg, Vt., 1869. For the Kew England Farmer. HOKSES OF NEW ENGLAND. Ladies and Gentlemen of New England — I say ladies, because I believe they may justly be classed among the admirers of the horse — to enter into an argument at this period of the nineteenth century, to show that horse stock is an important item in the schedule of na- tional wealth, strength and greatness, would be to admit myself a novice or to assume that I were addressing novices. In no country in the world, perhaps, is such an argument less needed thin in our own ; and in no part of our country, less than in New England. In few sections are horses either for service or pleasure better appreciated, or a desire and an ability to breed and to keep superior ani- mals more general than in the Eastern States. The interest of farmers and breeders in the production of valuable animals will depend largely on the profit to be derived from their sale. This profit is increasing and will con- tinue to increase as horse keepers appreciate the fact that it is as cheap to keep a good horse as a poor one. The prime cost being the only difference to be considered ; stable- room, feed, grooming, &c., being equal, while the chances lor selling at a profit are very de- cidedly in favor of the good one. Windham county, Conn., where I live, is not, properly speaking, a horse-raising county. Still there are colts enough raised each year to show the difference breeding between good and poor ones. Mr. Reynolds, of Brooklyn, has recently sold a pair of colts of his raising, right out of the pasture and "green," for $1000, — four and five years old. Dr. John McClellan, of Woodstock, has recently sold two green colts, two and three years old for $G00. These are all from the Ethan Allen etock; old "Ethan" being their grandsire. Wm. A. Atwood, of Killingly, has a colt one year old, sired by "Geo. M. Patchen, Jr.," for which he has been offered $400. Mr. At- wood has a two-year-old colt from the same mare, sired by "Gen. U. S. Grant," — now owned in New Jersey, — of the Pathfinder stock, which is a very valuable animal. I also have a two-year-old stallion, sired by the same horse, out of a Consternation mare, which, in the hands of some men, wouM be worth $1000. At the same time there are plenty colts in the county, from one to five years old, which can be bought to-day for from $50 to $125. I think these few illustrations should prove clearly to all horse-breeders the importance and profit of starting right in breeding this noble and most useful of all domestic animals. In writing this article, I am not blowing for any particular horse or any special breed of horses. I have no axe to grind ; but must say that I do admire "Figaro," by imported Con- sternation, raised and owned by Orrin Trow, of Hardwick, Mass., "Geo. M. Patchen, Jr.," "Gen. U. S. Grant," by Pathfinder and their stock, the best of any three stallions with which I am acquainted to-day. I also think very favorably of old Ethan Allen and his stock. I do not set myself up as authority in these matters. I have simply given my views or hints in regard to breeding. I don't pre- tend to be acquainted with all the good stock horses in the country by any means, but have a strong desire to become better acquainted with it. And one object in writing the present article is to call out those who are capable of imparting information which would undoubt- edly be as valuable to others as to myself. If there are other stock horses in this vicinity of equal or superior merit with those I have named, I will esteem it a favor if the owner, or others, will give me information concerning the same. John Dimon. Pomfret, Conn., Oct. 18, 1869. Nothing on earth can smile but human beings. Gems may flash reflected light, but what is a diamond-flash compared with an eye- flash and mirth-flash? A face that cannot smile is like a bud that cannot blossom, and dries up on the stalk. Laughter is (iay and sobriety is night, and a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both and is more bewitching than either. Striped Bugs. — H. Capron, Paris, Pro- vince of Ontario, assures the Sural New Yorker that he succeeds in keeping his grounds clear of the striped bug, by pulling up and burning the vines as soon as done bearing, with the weeds which grow among them, burn- ing^ them up all clean, believing that he thus destroys the eggs or germs of the incoming crop of bugs. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR:MER- 29 RUSTIC GATEWAY AND LOUNGE. The good workman, it is said, never com- plains of his tools. A trained artist will draw a tolerable likeness of any object with pen and ink, a common lead pencil, a bit of charcoal, or a heated poker. Why, then, may not far- mers and gardeners employ the materials within their reach to express their sense of the beautiful ? Why should they resort to painted boards whenever they wish to build an orna- mental gate, bridge, or seat ? Even our house- builders and furniture makers have discovered that the natural veins or fibres of wood, even of our own bird's-eye maple, are fully equal to the more expensive imitations of the "grain- ers." Why may not, then, the gnarled trees, the crooked sticks and roots, so abundant on our premises, be made to express an idea of These plans are not working models, but sim- ply outlines, to be varied and filled up accord- ing to circumstances, the materials on hand and the taste of the builder. In many places such structures would look better, and more harmonious than elaborate carpenter work and gaudy paint, however expensive. RL"3TIC BRIDGE. the mind as well as subserve a more practical purpose ? To illustrate this principle we copy this month from the Rural New Yorker a plan of a gateway designed to separate the garden from the lawn or front yard, in connection with a rustic side seat, and also of a bridge over a brook or ditch. The bridge is made by spring- ing poles and fastening the ends on each bank. CHEESE FACTORY APPARATUS. In reply to an inquiry for the cost of the implements, &c., to manufacture 300 or 400 gallons of milk per day into cheese, Mr. X. A. Willard says in the Western Rural : — I. A vat holding 500 gallons with heater underneath will cOst at the manufactory about $200. The above price will include smoke pipe, elbow, whey strainer, syphon, etc. For curd knife, presses, and hoops, say $50 to $00 more. II. It is not customary in New York State for manufacturers to purchase the milk used in cheese manufacture. The manufacturer usually has no pe- .' " cuniary interest in the milk. lie is employed at a salary, or at a fixed rate per pound of cured cheese. When the manufacturer works by the pound, he gets from sixty-three to seventy-five cents per hundred pounds (cured chfese), and furnishes all the labor for manufacturing, care of cheese, &c., furnishing also his own board and that of his assistants. Wiien a cheese maker is employed at a salary, board, &c., are usually-furnished by the proprietor, who also employs whatever other hel]) is re- quired. The salaries of cheese makers vary accoid- ing to their skill, and the amount of bu^ines8 to be done. In large factories the head so NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. cheese-mtilier often gets as high a figure as $l,0liO to $1,200, and more, for the season (nine months). When a small amount of milk is to be made up, good dairymaids can be employed often at from $8 to 12 per week and board. In cheese dairying it generally pays better to employ a skilful cheesemaker at a good round price, than an inferior one at a low price. III. Persons commencing the business of dairying, often make great mistakes in em- ploying inferior or second rate manufacturers, because they' can be had cheap. A poor cheese-maker will entail heavy losses on the sales of cheeses besides damaging the reputa- tion of the dairy, which last is of more impor- tance than many are apt to imagine. IV. Milk is sometimes purchased by a man- ufacturer, or by the proprietor of a factory. In this case the purchaser must fix upon some data to regulate his rates. Ten pounds of milk is usually considered sufficient for one pound of cured cheese. About two cents per pound is taken as a fair rate for manufacturing, care of cheese, box- ing, bandage, &c., and putting it into maiket, Now if cheese can be sold at 15 cents per pound, about 12 cents can be paid for every ten pounds of milk delivered. The margin, however, is commonly made larger than this, to cover losses on account of poor cheeses, risk of markets, shrinkage of cheese, and other matters connected with the business. We do not pretend to give any exact figures that could be taken as the proper price to pay for milk, but merely allude to the methods, or general data, by which a purchaser makes up his opinion as to the price he can affo- d to pay. Sometimes when milk has been engaged for the season at a low figure, and the price of cheese runs high, the purchaser clears a handsome profit, and we have known cases, where on the other hand he has made serious losses. The business, it will be seen, is of a speculative character, and has never been pop- ular among the New York factories. COTTON SEED MEAL. As furnishing information concerning the use of cotton seed meal, in addition to the few remarks we made recently, iu reply to the inquiries of a correspondent, we copy from a contemporary the following notes, by our cor- respondent, A. W. Cheever, Esq., Sheldon- ville, Mass., of a visit to some dairy farms in Cumberland, K. I. Mr. Leander Mory had seven large cows, that I think are the largest and best seven that can be found in one ya.«rd for several miles around. They are like the cows of most milk- men, partly fresh and partly drying off. lie sells milk the year round, and has his cows come in at different times through the year. He showed me cows that would give as high as twenty-four quarts at their best, that are now giving from twelve to sixteen quarts and are coming in this summer and fall. He says it takes him one year or more after he buys a cow to bring her up to her full capacity. He raises no calves but prefers to buy cows, as he sells all his milk. In summer he feeds, in addition to pasture feed, two quarts of cotton seed meal. In winter four quarts cotton seed and from two to four of Indian meal per day with English and swale hay. i\Ir. Andrew Belcher keeps about the same number of cows and feeds much in the same manner. They both think very highly of cot- ton seed meal for feed. Mr. Belcher was formerly cautious in the use of it. Now be L'uys a cow and immediately puts her on a full feed of cotton seed and meal. He bought a cow this spring for $70, that was claimed by the owner to give twelve quarts. He now milks eighteen quarts from her daily. Mr. Mory says if he is out of cotton seed one day his cows will shrink a quart each, and neither Indian meal or wheat shorts will keep them up to their quantity, but after feeding cotton seed again one day, they will come up again to their full rate. Neither of the gentlemen have ever bad a case of garget or swelled udder on their pre- mises, which fact does not coincide with the experience of Dr. Loring and some others who think so little of the value of cotton seed meal for cows. I know of two herds of milch cows in the town of Franklin, Mass., that are fed on cot- ton seed very fi-eely, that are healthy and free from anything like garget. In my own experience I have been quite cautious in the use of cotton seed. I lave rarely fed more than two quarts per day to a cow. But with such examples as those of Mr. Mory and Mr. Belcher, I feel like us- ing it a little more boldly as it is one of the cheapest grains I can buy, and according to the chemists one of the richest. In an article on this subject, in the Sural New Yorker, Mr. X. A. Willard says: — Cotton cake does not contain any large amount of mucilage nor anything that pro- duces, on mixing with water, a volatile pun- gent and injurious essential oil. Cattle ofren take at once to it, and even when fed upon linseed cake they soon get ac- customed to the taste of cotton cake, and ap- parently eat it as readily as linseed cake. It contains a very high and much larger p^r- centage of flesh-forming matters than linseed cake. This circumstance suggests that cotton cake may probably be given with great ad- vantage to young stock and to da try cows. As by far the largest proportion of nitrogen of food is not assimilated in the system, but 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 31 passes away with the excrement of animals, the dunor produced by stock fed upon cotton cake will be found particularly valuable. In comparison with linseed cake, there is much less mucilage and other respir tory mat- ter in cotton cake. This deficiency is com- pensated, to a certain degree, by the larger amount of oil in cotton cake. The propor- tion of indigestible woody fibre in decorticated cotton cake is small, and not larger than in the hest linseed cake. Lastly, it may be ob- served that the ash of cotton cake is rich in bone material, and amounts to about the same quantity as that contained in other oil cakes. THE WOOL INTEREST. A stock dealer, who is engaged in buying and shipping sheep to the Cleveland slaughter market, informs us that there is but little, if any, better satisfaction among wool growers in the pursuit of sheep husbandry now than there was a year ago ; and that thousands of sheep are weekly slaughtered in Ohio for their pelts. Flocks of common stock sheep are bought readily at prices ranging from fifty cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents per head ; superior lots of fat wethers bring only about $2.50 per head. Very many flocks have suffered much during the past season with loot rot, and such are now thrown upon the market with slow sale at fifty cents to one dollar each. Ohio does not appear to be alone in the panic, for the wool growers in other States are losing heart, and also in other countries. The Kansas Bulletin asks : What is the mat- ter with our wool interest? Is our climate so far modifying that we require fewer woolen fabrics to protect our bodies through the day and keep us warm o' nights ? Or is mechani- cal invention going to supersede the necessity of raising fleeces ? The ladies seem to have a rage for underclothing made of paper, and some inventive genius has applied this material to the manufacture of carpets. Sheep farmers of Vermont and ]\Iichigan and other States are losing heart in their prop- erty, and contemplate a wholesale slaughter this fall, as only the best grades of wool pay the expense of raising. Indeed the case has grown so bad that a writer in the North Amer- ican Review declares that the millions of sheep which figure in our agricultural returns as con- stituting so much wealth, ought to be erased from the tables, as they form an element of actual impoverishment. A correspondent of the New York Times also, writing from Brazil, mentions that an inevitable crash awaits the heavy wool interest of that country. "Sheep are going down in price rapidly, and wool is also declining, and it is believed by some that the sheep in that country will go unshorn, as their wool will not pay the expense .of shearing and marketing. All the sheep raisers are trying to get out of the business, while thousands of carcasses are every month boiled down, the p^lt scarcdv paying the cost of the animal. Many sh' ep farmers who paid two dollars per head for their stock, now cannot sell for one-fou.'fh of that sum, and, as a consequence, sheep arc re- garded as most undesirable property at all." Foreign wool interests have been aff.-cted by the protective duties passed by Congress, and although the tariff was what this country needed, farmers got their expectations loo high, and so multiplied the number of sheep as to over-do the business and bring on a panic. The number of sheep in the Union more ttian doubled between the years 18G0 and 186G, and increased about two millions be- tween 1866 and the time the wholesale slaujih- ter began. The Western States were filled up while the excitement was high, and every available sheep used to increase numbers without par- ticular regard to quality. Farmers in New England and the Middle States also lost sight, in a measure, of their future interests, and dropped the proper rules in the principles of breeding and looked only to the multiplying of their Hocks ; for anything bearing the rame of sheep was quick sale, and at prices before unknown. The result of all this is now fully realized, but this reverse will have its end. A level will be found in the wool market sooner ot later ; and we still admonish the far- mers to be cautious how they sacrifice their flocks. Sell off the old scrubs at whatever they will bring, for there is no profit in winter feeding any inferior animal. But selling good sheep now for a song may prove as unprofita- ble as did the buying of inferior flocks a few years ago at big figures. — Ohio Farmer. Sheep- Skin Mats. — I\Iake strong soap- suds, using hot water, and let it stand till cold ; then wash them in cold water till all the soap is out. Next dissolve half a pound each of salt and alum in a little hot water, and put into a tub of cold water sufficient to cover the skins, and let them soak twel\ e hours ; then hang over a pole to drain. When well drained, stretch carefully on a board to dry. Stretch several times while drying. Bif>re they get entirely dry, sprinkle on the flesh side one ounce each of pulverized alum and saltpetre, rubbing it in well; then lay the flesh sides together and hang in the shade f >r two or three days, turning them over every day till perfectly dry. Finish by scraping the flesh with a blunt knife to remove an\ n niain- ing scraps of flesh, and then rub the \\y'A\ side with pumice or rotten stone and the hands. Very beautiful mittens can be made of lamb skins tanned as above. — Wedtra liural. — Mining has ceased to be the loadinj? interest of California, and wheat is now King. The present years' crop is estimated at twenty million bushels. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Jax. AN ILLINOIS PARMER. R O A D- LAKDS is the very appropri- ate name given to a farm in the Southern part of Illinois, occu- pied by Mr. J. T. Alexander. To a large pur- chase made in 1866, he has since made ad- ditions, and the farm now con- sists of 26,500 acres. Cattle- feeding is the leading object in the manage- ment of the farm, and about 800 are weekly sent to the New York market, making more than 40,000 per year. By means of dams and embankments on two streams of water which pass through Broadlands, some twelve ponds have been made for watering stock, which cover some 200 acres in all, — one pond containing 50 acres, and is from four to eight feet deep. About 100 miles of Osage Orange hedge have been set out. A row of this hedge runs en- tirely around the farm. The farm is divided north and south by three road-ways, two miles apart. They are sixty feet wide, and a hedge is planted on each side of them. An avenue 150 feet wide divides it east and west, also set with hedge. Meantime eighty-five miles of post and board fence are set. The posts are driven by a post- driver. The posts are sharp- ened on two sides, like a wedge, and are found to drive easier and stand better than when sharpened in the usual way. Breaking prairie has been done in the old way, with five yoke of oxen, in May, June and July. During the last June twenty of these teams were kept running, employing 100 yoke of oxen. Mr. C. L. Eaton, the superintendent of Broadlands, has been experimenting with trench ploughing, having ploughed last year 2000 acres, which were put in corn, and gave a good crop. A large portion of the corn grown this year was ploughed in the same way. This is done by ploughing a furrow as thin as can be well turned, then a furrow of the lower soil about four inches deep is brought up and thrown on to the sod. This furnishes a seed bed, and enables the crop to be thor- oughly worked, producing crops the first year equal to old ground. This process is com- menced in April and continued through May. In sowing for pasture, one bushel of red clover and ten of Timothy are mixed, and one peck of the mixture sown per acre. White clover and blue grass come in of themselves. Mr. Eaton is trying an experiment this year of seeding with corn. This is done by a fine preparation of the soil by ploughing and har- rowing, then planting to corn, after which the whole surface is sowed with the pasture mix- ture. Of course the corn is not worked at all. By the time the grass is well up, the corn af- fords sufficient shade to protect the young grass, and it gets a good stand and fine growth. He has seeded 300 acres this spring in this way. It now looks finely. The corn will make a good crop — though less than if worked. The present force on the farm is 160 able- bodied men, mostly Scandinavians, who re- ceive $20 per month and board. There are six stations on the fkrm, each with from eigh- teen to twenty-two men and a foreman and a man cook. The bread is baked daily at the centre station or headquarters, and distributed to the other stations, together with beans, rice, bacon, beef, mutton, fish, sugar, coffee, tea, flour, hominy, potatoes, molasses, vinegar, salt, pepper, dried apples, sour krout and can- dles. The living is good and costs about thirty- five cents per day. There are, at present, 4000 head of grazing cattle on the farm ; 120 yoke of working oxen ; 100 horses and mules, and about 500 hogs. The grazing cattle are brought from Texas. When the arrangements are completed, Mr. Eaton expects to manage from eight to ten thousand head, by the labor of one man to a thousand. There is no disease among the stock. On the north side of the farm there is a strip of land under cultivation six miles long and half a mile wide, and another patch, east of this, five miles long and one mile wide. There are 400 acres of wheat, 140 of oats, 150 of Hungarian grass, 120 of rye, and va- rious patches of potatoes for the use of the farm, and fully five thousand acres of corn ; 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 33 all of which, says the editor of the Prairie Farmer, who rode fourteen miles from end to end of this field, while it was growing, prom- ised a yield of fifty bushels per acre. The wheat and rye were in the stack at the time of his visit and the oats nearly ripe. They were putting up 1500 tons of hay, and expected to save 1500 bushels of Timothy seed. The writer says it is hardly to be supposed that all the operations on this farm are carried on with the same neatness and order that can be at- tained where things are on a small scale. A little Yankee ingenuity might save time and labor, and less would be done by mere brute force. As a whole, he doubts if any experi- ment in farming on so large a scale has ever proved so successful as this promises to be. For the New EnglarM Farmer. THEORETICAL AJSD PBACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea that all book knowledge is theory, and that knowledge obtained outside of books is experience. The fact is, that books are largely the mere compilations of the experi- ence of the best men connected with the de- partment,— be what it may, — about which they were written. Consequently the man who reads the most has the most experience. But when we act on the experience of others, we must ascertain whether the circumstances under which we would apply it, are the same as those under which it was gained. It is just here where so many have failed in attempting to make the exp2rience of others thei;- guide, or, in other words, in applying what is called book knowledge. One man for instance, puts his experience with regard to certain fertilizers, or with re- gard to the methovl in which they were applied, in a book. The soil on which he experimented was a stiff clay, on which certain fertilizers and certain methods of culture have been produc- tive of the very best results. Another man having read the result in that case tries the same articles of manure and the same meth- ods of culture, with the very worst success, because they were applied to a light sandy soil, which require a different culture and a different management, and at once book knowl- edge is condemned. The trouble was in dis- rej:>.arJing the difference in the soil, and in other circumstances under which the experi- ments were made. The book or paper was at fault only so far as it fell short of stating the character of the soil and other conditions, which were essential to a proper understand- ing of the result. Rut the logic of the ex- perimenter was at fault in attempting to apply the experience of another to a different class of circumstances. Then, again, there have been those who claimed for books and science that which they were unable to perform. It was claimed, not long ago, that by an analysis of the soil it could be ascertained precisely what particular element was lacking ; and this fact once as- certained, the farmer could obtain the article in such a concentrated form that if he could not carry a sufEeient quantity of it in his vest pocket to manure an acre, he certainly might in a common-sized pail ! Now the exercise of a little common sense should have satisfied every one that the analysis of soils, suffuiently minute for this purpose, was simply impossi- ble. If we notice the amount of ashes that is left after burning a cord of wood, we shall find that both bulk and weight are very small indeed, compared with the bulk and weight of the wood. What has become of the balance ? It has been converted into gas and watery vapor, and returned to the atmosphere from whence they came. The small bulk of ashes is all that came from the earth. Then, again, examine the sap as it liows from an incision, and notice how clear and transparent it is, — clear and limpid as the bubbling spring, — yet it contains every element necessary for pro- ducing a crop of luscious fruit or a stately growing forest. How infinitely small must be the particles of those minerals which are des- tined to form a part of vegetation thus to float in, and form an undistingui,ihable part of, this clear fluid ! How wonderful the chemistry of nature that prepares the food of the plants, and the paints of the flower ! How far be- yond the tests of our chemists are these mi- nute atoms ! And yet if he would detect the atoms necessary to plant life, he must reduce the elements of the soil that he tests in his crucible, to the condition in which they exist in the sap. In the soil of your field or in the rocks from which that soil originated, he may find vvhat he deems the elements necessary to fertility. But we all know that plants will not grow in stones, although they may contain every requisite element. And why ? Be- cause those elements are not in a condition to be made available to the wants of the plant. And the cause for the barrenness of many of our unproductive soils, is not because they do not contain the requisite elements, but because these elements are not in a condition to be made available. Those rocks must be disentegrated, and those finer particles must be made still finer by heat and frost, by rains and air, aided by the plough, the harrow, the cultivator, the hoy, the spade and the rake. When you give your soils or your rocks to' the chemist he pounds them in his mortar ; he apphes heat and acids to reduce them as nearly as possible to their primitive elements, before he can ascertain what they consist of; and farmers have to do much the same thing, but 84 NEW ENGLAND FAR^VIER. Jan. on a larger scale, to make them available to the plant. They must be finely divided in the field as well as in the chemist's crucible. When a piece of land is what we call run out or exhausted, only those elements which were available to plant life are used up ; and we must either wait the slow action of heat and cold, rain and air, to produce those available elements from the soil, or we must apply them in a condition already available, and generally known as manures or fertilizers. The chem- ist, therefore, may be able to decide whether the elements necessary to fertility are in the soil ; but with all his science he cannot deter- mine whether those elements are in a condi- tion to be immediately available as plant food. This vegetation alone can decide. t. w. Boston, Mass., Nov., 1869. For the New England Farmer, SPARE THE BIRDS. Tbus will every man who has any interest in the soil, and who is worthy of the human form, ex- claim with me, when he has had the same instruc- tion that I have had on the subject. Idle boys ! rambling about, shooting birds from mere wanton- ness, have you never bee;i taupht by your parents or guardians that it is morally wrong for you to commit such piracy upon the feathered "tenants of the air," without any other motive than that of in- dulging in the debasing sin of cruelty ? If you have never been taught this, much less, perhaps, have you been taught that it is physically wrong, and against your own interest aiid that of your neighijors. But it may be asked, why am I so interested in the birds, and of what consequence are they ? I am interested in a pecuniary point of view ; they save and protect my property, and yet they do no more for me in this way than for every other man who tills the soil, or who is fed by the proceeds ; and yet, people, regardless of their own interests, will suffer them to be destroyed ! A week or two ago, I was walking in a corn-field, witnessmg with no very good humor the devasta- tion by the grub-worms; whole square rods be- ing cut down by these underground destroyers, with not a blade left ? There, said I, go my labor and expectation through the long and weary days of spring! Thus I moved on, and observed many hills with the blades left untroubled by the worms, but a small hole was bored down an inch or two deep, close to a corn blade in each hill. This, said I, is the work of the felon crows ; what the grubs leave, they can destroy,— thinking that they made the hole to rob the blade of the kernel. But ob- serving the great numlier of perforations and no corn pulled up, as is the usual manner of crows, I dug down, and to my surprise, found the kernel there. Then the truth flashed upon my under- standing,— this is the work of the birds. In the moining when the grubs arc near the surface, and close to the corn blades to begin their gluttonous work, the birds instinctively dig down with their beaks, seize and devour the grul)s, or bear them away to their young ones ; thus saving thousands of hills from the common destruction. , Again, have you never observed in sultry weather before rain, the swallows fly skimmingly through the air near the earth ? They are catching insects that arc forced by some change in the atmosphere above, to take possession of its lower strata. And 60 their invariable occupation is brought before our observation ; namely, that of destroying the myriads of insects that poison our atmosphere, and render it malarious and pestilential. I wish that State Legislatures would enact severe laws that would place such idle bird killers in the houses of correction of their respective States, where they can be effectually reformed in this respect. Parents and guardians, I entreat you, use your best influence over your children and wards and stop such outrages ; take the green-hide if neces- sary, but by all means prevent it. Again I say, "spare the birds." The foregoing, written by myself, was pub- lished in the Boston Cultivator twelve years ago. Time has only confirmed the truth of the assertions then made. The present year I have cultivated a piece of corn on the south side of a contiguous wood, where many birds had their nests. The ground was apparently filled with grub worms, as the hoe frequently brought them up in sight. I noticed the dili- gence with which a pair of robins examined the corn rows ; pausing with head erect a mo- ment, then running swiftly along till with a sudden dive and motion of the wings they would seize a grub and bear it to their nest in the wood, then immediately return and reciom- mence the search, coming up fearlessly within fifteen feet of me, knowing, perhaps, that I was their friend. My corn was eaten but very little, while as I learned from a neighbor that his, which was not situated near the woods where the birds were so plenty, was badly dealt with, and he was obliged to go over the rows and dig the grubs himielf . I have heard some so-called farmers com- plain that the robin redbreast and the gold rol;in eat their cherries and green peas, as though those were all the crops they had to lose. What little they might lose in that re- spect was doubly repaid by protection of their field crops. Naturalists seem to be divided in opinion as to the usefulness of the crow. One of your correspondents, not long since, declared from personal observation that the crow lives largely on the oi^^pring and eggs of birds. I am at present inclined to credit the charge, for many a time is the vagrant crow seen flying over our fields with half a dozen small birds on his back, pulling at his feathers, and as many more in the chase being eager to assault him as a com- mon enemy. They know, doubtless, who are the invaders of their domestic castles, better than we do. I, for one, have suffered much from the depredations of the crow in the corn- field patiently, believing that his virtues more than compensated for his faults, but if the charges of your correspondent are to be added to his other crimes, let him be exterminated ! Epinng, N. II., 1869. M. J. Harvey. — A Champaign County, 111., correspondent of the Country Gentleman says he doubts whether Central Illinois has raised more than half wheat enough to supply the bread eaten therein for the next year. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 35 For the Xew England Farmer. SUCCESSFUL FARMING. Tt is reasonable to suppose that the millions of farmers now laboring to produce food for themselves, and to feed the cities, desire suc- cess. Consider then, What is successful farm- ing ? It cannot be measured by the amount of money accumulated. 1. The feitility of the soil is stock in trade. 2. The health, strength, vigor and honesty of manhood, is stock in trade. 3. The happiness of a wife and family is stock in trade 4. The reputation of the business is stock in trade. All these may be exchanged for money. And the barren exhausted soil, the premature old age, the scattered family that hate the farm, make farming in the greatest degree unsuccessful, notwithstanding the amount of money for which this stock is bartered may be large. This is shown by the deserted farms and hearthstones in all the older parts of the United States. Feitility, s!rength and repu- tation have gone with the crops of gras?, corn, tobacco and cotton. We therefore conclude that the four items mentioned must all be in a good degree re- tained, and a fifth added. 5. Money accumulating. These items should be regarded in the or- der mentioned. If the last is put first in the estimation, the money accumulated becomes money deposited, and the affections and anxi- eties are entwined around it so powei fully that it draws the first four away from the farm disastrously. Consider, now, how successful farming is manifested or shown. 1. By the productiveness of the soil in judi- ciously chosen crops and the thrifty cattle, safe, tidy and convenient buildings and fences. 2. The enjoyment, satisfaction and pride ex- perienced by the farmer and family in his pursuit. A discontented man shows it in his manage- ment, and it brings a reproach upon his trade. It is desirable and right for one to feel a pride that he can so co-operate with Nature in bring- ing about glorious results. 3. By the esteem felt for, and respect shown to the successful farmer by others of the craft and by the public ! Successful generals have their triumphs or grand receptions. Lawyers sit on the judges' bench, and in the senatorial chair, and their words of wisdom are treasures to others of the profession. The eminent doctors and di- vines, each in their sphere, receive reverence and respect. A few farmers in centuries past became noted. But in this age of enlightment and mental activity, all successful farmers should become well known and honored by those around them, and by the tillers of the soil throughout all lands. Abundance, eiijoijvient and fume are results. Con^ider now, the combinations that tend to make farming suc- cessful. 1. Theoretical knowledge; because there should be an idea how a thing is to be done before It is attem]>ted. 2. Practical knowledge ; this should in part be gained as an apprentice, so that the re- sult of failures may be, where it belongs, a loss to instructoi^. 3. Executive ability ; without which knowl- edge cannot be well applied. 4. Favorable circumstances ; or, in other words, the blessing of God, shown in health, favorable seasons and providential care. Agricultural colleges are one of the means to increase knowledge. Z. E. Jameson. PEUNING IN AUGUST. The Oermuntown Telegraph, in an article on pruning apple- trees, makes the following statement, which Is published for the benefit of those who have orchards to take care of. Most of our orchards have been badly managed, as their appearance and condition show. Gen- erally they have been pruned in spring, a time now considered injurious to the trees. "Here, at the North, we have no class of people more successful with orchards than the United Soci- ety, or Shakers. They consider their trees as organized productions, capable of being im- proved by proper care, and injured by neglect and mismanagement. Of course, they are careful to see them fed with proper diet, and In all respects dealt with as things of vegetable life, having constitutions to be protected and pteserved as they should be. We were pass- ing their village at Mount Lebanon, New York, last August, and found them engaged in pruning some beautiful apple-trees by the way-side. The novelty, to us, of seeing prun- ing performed at this busy season induced us to inquire why it was done. The reason given ua was, that at that season the sap was thick, and of course would not run to waste, and that, if pruned then, a healing process would com- mence which would eventually cover the wounds, and protect the tree from all damage through cutting off branches. In a subsequent visit to the society, we were invited into some of the orchards, which had for years bt en sub- ject to this system of pruning, and it was a luxury to set; their healthy trees, free from the wounds of injurious pruning, and, in some instances, with scarcely a scar to show the op- eration had been performed." Corn Fodder. — Lyman Call, East Dur- ham, P. O., writes the Canada Farmer that he keeps a dairy of twenty-six cows, the milk of which is disposed of at a cheese factory ; 33 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. that last June he sowed an acre of corn in drills, and commenced cutting and feeding to the cows the first of July. When the Sep- tember rains came on, he omitted the corn feeding four days, and the result was a dimi- nution of fifty -two pounds of milk per day. The corn feeding was again resumed, and in (our days the cows gave their customary quan- tity of milk. The increased How of milk doubly paid the cost of the food given. SHEEP-SHE ABING JBY MACHHSTERY. Machines for shearing sheep and milking cows have been invented, and they have been used suffi- ciently to demonstrate the possibility of perform- ing both operations. City cows have been milked, and city sheep have been shorn by machinery. But in the country, farmers are still obliged to milk their cows and shear their sheep by hand— not the only difference between city and country farming ! Some of the "farmers" of New York city have re- cently witnessed the operation of two different sheep-shearing machines. A committee was ap- pointed by the New York Institute Farmers' Club of that city, to see two sheep sheared by these machines, and here is the report that they made of the working of each of them : — The machine of Mr. Anderson cuts the v.ool on the same principle as a movving machine, beirg driven by compressed air, conducted to the shears through a rubber tube from the bellows, worked by a crank, and turned by a second person. The machine is very ingenious in its construction, and when nharp will cui the wool closely and rapidly ; but it gets dull quickly, owing to the delicate con- struction of the knives. The power is not suffi- cient to clear the knives of the wool, the machine presenting the same difficulties in operating that a mowing machine does in thick, wet grass. With- out increased power and an ability to keep sharp longer, and not to clog so easily, the committee could not commend this mackine, but yet it has some decided merits, which are the closeness and evenness with which it shears. The machine of Mr. Earl shears with a rotary knife with two cutting points, rotating on a bed plate with notches or guards which rest on the body of the sheep, and is attached to a universal joint, connected by a revolving rod to a wheel, turned by a belt driven by a crank and wheel tamed by a second person. The machine is easily adjusted, and the universal joints will turn in any direclioD, allowing the shearer to work the knives without the lease difficulty on any part of the oheep- The committee are of the opinion that in the hands of an experienced operator the machine will do good work. ExiiiniTioN OF Wool. — The American Insti- tute, as will be remembered, made a very liberal offer of space at their late Fair in New York, for an exhibition of wool. It was hoped that the wool groweis of the country would make such a show as would indicate their ability and their purpose to supply our own manufactories with the various grades of wool required for the woolen faljrics they produce. They have failed to do so. Col. Harris, of the Ohio Farmer, visited the Fair which was held in the Skating Rink in the north part of the city, and says, "I hunted the Rink all over for the much-talked-about show of wool, and found about enough of fragments to make two fleeces 1" EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. PREMIUMS AND STATEMENTS AT FAIRS. At the last fair of the Middlebury society, held at Concord, I had a number of articles for exhibi- tion, and among them twelve pounds of butter. Upon examination, the committee said it was the best on exhibition. But as I did not state the temper- ature of the cream when churned, they declined to award it the first or any premium. I gave what I thought to be a full and correct statement of how it was made, supposing the object in requiring a statement was to get information. The committee, however, awarded the premiums to those who made their statements according to the require- ments of the trustees and not to the best article. The committee put the card for the first premium upon a lot of butter which they themselves admit- ted was not the best, and it stood there exposed to the gaze of thousands, indicating not the best but- ter but the best statement. Consequently the statements took the premium, not the butter. Now I contend that this is wrong. If the commit- tee could not give the best article the premium, because of a little defect in the statement, then I say withhold it from any one untU another year. To give premiums to anything that may be brought in, because the statement is up to the requirements, is to encourage skilful writing, not good butter-making. I enclose a copy of the .sfatemcnt I made, and am confident that any one who follows that method cannot fail to have the first quality of butter ; but at present I do not wish the statement published. A Bctter Maker. Middlesex County, Mass., Oct. 23, 1869. Remarks. — One object of awarding premiums at agricultural fairs is undoubtedly to reward and honoi- skill ; but another, and perhaps a higher object, is to collect and disseminate information. Ii is desirable and pleasant to look upon a nice article of production or manufacture, but with our Yankee inquisitivcness, we are very apt to ask,' How was it done ? or, How was it made ? We have known societies who made no provi- sion for an answer to any such questions, but awarded their premiums on the apparent merits of the articles oj animals submitted to their inspec- tion, and left the public to find out the secret of superiority as best they could. This course has been so unsatisfactory that the managv;rs of our fairs now generally require a more or less full statement from those to whom premiums are awarded. If they are justified in demanding any statement at all, must we not concede to them the right of specifying the character of that statemsnt, and to indicate the points on which information is desired ? There has been considerable discussion by but- ter-makers of late, as to the proper temperature of cream for churning. The managers pf the Middle- sex society may have wished to settle this point, or at least to learn the practice of the butter mak- ers of the county on this one subject. If they offered their premiums on condition that this fact 1870. KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 37 should be stated, would it be right for them as law-n:akers to become law-breakers ? The best rules and the best laws may seem to operate unjustly in individual cases. It certainly seems unjust that, as in the case of our correspon- dent's butter, the poorer article should have worn the "blue ribbon," but under the "rules" imposed on the awarding committee, we do not sec how they could have done otherwise. As farmers make little pretentions to skill ia drawing up legal documents, might there not be a provision by which, as lawyers sometimes do, they could amend their statement so as to meet any require- ment that might have been overlooked in writing it out. With the exception of the omission which our correspondents admits, his statement is full and clear. Even the temperature of the milk room is given, and, as he says, we think the details which are stati'd would enable any one who followed them out to make premium butter. And v;e sym- pathize with him in his disappointment in finding that the omission of a statement of the tempera- ture of the cream when put into the churn should have given to another the honor which otherwise was so justly due to him. And we venture to ex- press the hope that next year he will exhibit not only the best butter but the most complete state- ment of any dairyman in the county. TO HIM WHO BUILDETH A BAKN. I wish to make inquiry, 1st. Have you decided on a plan for its construction ? If so, let me ask you to reflect much upon that plan and be sure that it is the best one possible for your location. You will build for the use of yourself and coming generations, and how important that it be so ar- ranged that you and they may accomplish the greatest amount of work in the least possible time. At times you will have to "pitch ofiF and mow away" a load of hay or grain when a quarter of an hour may save the wetting of a ton of hay or a load of grain, and a consequent loss. Is that plan of yours so arranged as to save the most time and labor in unloading? If so, you will have an atd'c floor or drive way in the roof. It is the cheapest help a man can have to "mow away" crops, and will save you a large interest on its cost. No man ever regretted making this labor-saving •machine, who had used it two seasons. Such a floor way in the roof is also the cheapest and the best store-house for carts and wagons in winter. You also will have to spend many hours during the told winter days in "doing chores." Does ycjur plan arrange your stables and feeding pens for all kinds of stock so as to be got at with the least waste of time, strength, fodder and comfort ? If so, you will be able to review your whole regi- ment of animals almost at a single glance. Of course you have a cellar for manure, &c. But is It an atlic cellar, — a cold frozen space above ground, — or a warm cellar, mostly below surface, where manure will not freeze nor pigs nor poultry suflFer ? Think well, my dear sir, on the plan of the barn you are to build, being careful not to copy the commonest size, or the exact arrargement, of all the old barns in your neighborhood, if it is possi- ble to do better. Do not be afraid to strike off on on anew style of your own, if satisUed that it is an improvement. Never forget that it costs no more to shingle a tall barn than a low one ; that it is much less expensive to keep in repair one large barn than two or three small ones, and that it is much easier to pitch hay and grain "tcith gravitation than against gravitation." It in debt, you cannot alford to build without an upper drive way, even on level land. c. f. n. Randolph, Vi., Xov., 1869. THE THOUSAND-LEGGED WORMS. Some two years ago Mr. George B. Hale, of Dover, Mass., sent us specimens of these worms, known as the American Myriapoda, Centipedes, Millepedes, &c., and stated that they were greatly injuring his crops, having in one case destroyed a field of turnips, in which they were so numerous that he had counted no less than five hundred on a single turnip. The annexed cut of these worms is copied from Prof. Ten- ncy's late work on Natural History. Though we had occasionally found them on potatoes and turnips, we had sup- posed, as taught by such scientific men as Professors Harris, Tenney, &c., that they were comparatively harmless, as they were said to feed on dead, decaying, or diseased vegetable matter, and not on that which was live and healthy. A similar reply was made by Prof. Asa Fitch to a communication in the Country Gentleman, by a man in Pen.'tylvania who complained that these worms had almost totally destroyed every thing of a vegetable kind in his garden for the last three years, includ- ing strawberries, cucumbers, radishes, beans, onions, &c. Prof. Fitch has, however, since that time paid particular attention to the habits of the Millepedes, and he now says : — "Within a few years past, I harve had these worms under particular examination, and can now present most conclusive evidence, showing that they are not hanuless and inolfensive, as writers have taught us to believe, but that they attack and devour with avidity tender succulent vegetation which is in a perfectly healthy and growing state, and that they are liable to become so multiplied ia our gardens as to be one of the very worst pests with which we have to contend." BVRSAL SWEELINQ. Sometime since I wrote you in relation to a. swelling upon a cow's knee, which you termed a bursal swelling, and directed me to open it and bandage with a compress bandage. I did so, 'wice, but it tilled again in twenty-four hours. Ii you know of any other remedy please inform through the Fakmek. J. H. Bovkne. Grolon, Mass., Oct. 23, 18G9. ♦ Remarks. — Such swellings will often fill up, as this has. Surgeons sometimes make a small open- ing, squeeze out the contents, and inject with a syringe, a solution of sulphate of zinc, half aa ouuce to a pint of water, retain it a lew uiiuutes aud then empty it out and apply the bandage. Repeat this several times if it fills up. But we think it would be better to consult your fauiiiy physician, if there is no iutiUigcnt veterinarian in 38 NEW ENGLAND FAPvjVIER. Jan. your neighborhood. It is a somtwliat nice opera- tion, and we presume that your doctor would be willinc; to assist you, and as it is somewhat out of his l:nc of practice, would do so rather as a neigh- bor than as an expert. SPECIAL FEUTILIZERS. I would like to ask you a few questions, which you will please to answer in the Fakmeu, it may hcnctit others as well as myself. It is said by Ag- ricultural Chemistry that plant food may be divid- ed into four necessary elements ; these must exist in the soil. Tiie absence of either deteriorates the strength of the plant and weakens its productive powers. The necessary elements are: potash, and lime. These four elements, it is said, make a complete manure. Now, what I want to know is thi< : What proportion of each of these elements does it require, and how mixed, and should muck should bo added ? Will it pay to buy air-slacked lime at $'1.25 per barrel for a fertilizer ? Are hard coal ashes worth drawing two or three miles to ap- ply to land ? Asa Ware. Palmer, Mass., 1869. Remakks. — The proportion of the several fertil- izers is of little importance, provided there is enough of each ; neither is it necessary that they should bo mixed. In many cases it is more con- venient to apply them separately. We think the lims will pay if you have good material to compost it with. We have found coal ashes worth more applied to currants, peach trees, and other trees, to keep oflF the borers, than to apply to grass land. The manner of drawing it must depend upon circumstances. It certainly would not pay to hire a team to do so ; but opportunities may occur when you could do it with your own team, possibly at a remunerative cost. Its value, however, as a fer- tilizer is generally considered as very small. PRESERVING NEW OIDEB. Will you inform me through the Farmer how to prepare new cider for bottling, so that glass botMes will hold it ? H. C. Nichols. PittHjitld, Mass., 18G9. Remarks. — Some persons add a pint of mustard seed in a cotton bag, to a barrel of cider ; others throw in three quarts of barley, and state that it will keep it sweet. A sure way is to filter it through clean sand. Let it run slowly from the barrel into a tub nearly full of sand, and from the tub pass it into another barrel. These are easy and cheap modes. There are undoubtedly others, with which we are not acquainted. SICK CALVES. I have some calves that are sick and seem to have a trouble like consumption. They cough and grow poor; act dozy; their eyes run, and look red. Some of my neighbors' calves have died of the same disease, and I expect to lose mine unless some remedy can be found. Can you or some one of your subscribers recommend some- thing beneficial, and greatly oblige o. w. a. MiUon, Vt., Nov., 1869. Remarks. — Wc have shown this statement and inquiry to several of our neighbors, but are uncer- tain as to the disease, and consequently as to the remedy. We have thought it possible that it might be caused by minute worms in their wind- pipes, which Mr. V. M. Hubbard of Rochester, Vt., lately said in a communication to the IVood- stock Standard, often occasion great mortality. He recommended the following remedy : — Asafoe- tida, three ounces ; aloes, three ounces ; vinegar, one quart. Boil together till dissolved. Give each calf a tablespoonful in each nostril every third morning, taking care to hold the head well up to prevent waste. A CRIPPLE as SHOE-MAKER, GARDENER AND HOrSEKEEPER. I wish to say a good word for a crippled oceu- dant of one of the little brown cottages in this town, who in his youth lost one of his legs, and since the death of his parents has lived alone, and though in fe%ble health has nearly supported him- self by work on shoes, and in his garden and house. He keeps a cow, takes care of the milk, and makes butter that no dairywoman would be ashamed of. He also keeps a pig, and his sausages, souse, &c., are equal to that made by any house- keeper in the neighborhood. His house is always clean, and everything in it is kept in order. His garden is cultivated very neatly, and produces all the vegetables grown in our climate, and his front yard is so tidy and well kept as to attract the no- tice of the passer-by. He is now over sixty years of age, and of late his solitude has been enlivened by a small chi.!d, which lives with him. He is ever ready to entertain those who call upon him, and whether their mood be gay or grave, all find in him a genial companion, and they leave with, their sympathy excited for one who. though a cripple, has done what he could in a world of ac- tivity and uselulncss. L. k. West Salisbury, Vt., Nov., 1869. GARGET IN COWS. Many diseases or irregularities of the bag, the teats and the milk, are popularly called among farmers garqet. For the most common of these, such as swelling, caking of the milk, small lumps in the teats, causing great pain in milking, inflam- mation of the bag and similar troubles, there is a simple and specific remedy, which has l)een suc- cessful in many cases. One ounce of Hyd- iodate of Potassium dissolved in one pint of s^oft water. Dose for a full grown cow — one large spoonful mixed with a little bran mash, twice or three times a day, according to the virulence of the disease. It should be used with caution, as it has a ten- dency to dry up the milk. L. Boston, Mass., Nov., 1869. — Gilbert Whipple, of Shefiield, Lorain County, 0., while examining a head of wheat, a short time ago, shelled out the grain and tossed it into his mouth. One of the kernels was not divested of its shell and beard, and the beard soon reached the throat, where it lodged, and no effort could remove it. It soon became very troubletoiLC and painful. Swelling followed, succeeded l)y sup- puration, but still the beard was not carried off. A second swelling and breaking failed to bring relief. It is difficult for the sufferer to take neces- sary food, and his case is said to be both painful and alarming. 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARMER. 89 r SEEDS : THEIB ORIGIN AND VITALITY. EW employments in life afford ho those engaged in them so many interesting phenomena that of the farmer. Changes take place in his trees that he cannot ac- Cp^ count for ; such as blossoming in '^^ September instead of May. Curi- ous and unthought of qualities appear in the progeny of his stock, and unknown plants spring into life in the soil and on the rocks, ■which make his thinking powers ache in the attempt to find where they came from, and •what they are. A well was dug in the early part of winter, and the earth thrown out from a depth of thirty- five feet below the surface. Some portions of this, from the lowest point, were immediately hauled away and deposited in a heap. Quite early in the following spring, signs of vegeta- tion were observed, and in July, a luxuriant growth of plants covered the ground ! What were they ? Where did they come from .'' How did the seed get thirty-five feet below the surface ? No other plants in the neighbor- hood were like these ! In ditching, the farmer throws out banks of soil, some of it four feet below the sur- face, which are often covered the same season with plants that have not been seen before in that locality. Where did the seed come from ? If the same kind of plants grew in that vicin- ity before, the winds, or the birds, or the squirrels, might have taken the seed to this spot. How came the seed at the bottom of the ditch dug in the swamp ? On this point there are dilTerent opinions. In the first chapter of Genesis, and the eleventh verse, it reads : — "And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so." The seed, then, must have been created be- fore the tiee grew. The seed was upon or in the earth ; but when the plant had matured, it had seed perfected in it, and was thereafter capable of propagating itself. A common opinion is, that all seeds were originally deposited in the earth at the crea- tion, and that they have been mingled with the solid earth in every conceivable situation, — in some instances near the surface and in others at immense distances below it, where the tem- perature is always so low as to prevent ger- mination. This has been brought about by the convulsions of nature, — by travelling gla- ciers, earthquakes, land-slides and volcanic action, upheaving the earth in one place, and depressing it in another ; so that if all seeds were once upon the surface of the earth, they have become mi.xed with it, and are now found in most places where excavations are going on. But others entertain a different opinion; believing that the work of creation is still go- ing on, and that when such cases occur as those alluded to, the seeds have just been created, and especially placed where the plants sprung from them. One of the most learned persons of our acquaintance, a "doctor of laws," and a studious. Christian gentleman, has stated to us that such is his belief. What evidence he can adduce to justify such a con- clusion we do not know ; nor do we know of any, besides that alluded to in Genesis, to war- rant the. belief that they were all created as narrated in the Mosaic account. If they were created "i/t the beginning,'''' their powers of vitality are as wonderful as the creation itself. Through how many incon- ceivable ages must a grain of mustard seed, for instance, have laid in the dark chambers of the earth, and apparently as lifeless as the stones around it ! And yet, when brought into the genial sunlight, moisture and air, how quick it has burst into life and activity, and invited the birds into its branches to build their nests there. Does not this afford us hints, or give us positive assurance, that any seeds may be pre- served with all their vital powers unimpaired, if we but place them in favorable positions, as nature seems to have done ! It would seem so ; but we find seed laid away below the ac- tion of frost, throwing out a germ, perhaps, and then decaying. They are too deep to spring up to the light and air, and yet fail to preserve their vitality. Who can explain this ? Most of the seeds commonly used by far- mers may bo preserved with their full powers for several years in succession, by placing them wluire there is a dry, even temperature at about forty-five or fifty degrees. In such a position, and put up in brown paper bags, seeds will keep good for an indefinite time. But with ordinary care, beans of all kinds will keep good three or four years ; beet seed, the 40 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. same ; carrot, two to three ; corn on the cob, three or four ; cucumber, eight to ten ; cauli- flower, five to fcix ; onion, two to three ; pars- nip, the same ; pea, five to six ; pumpkin, eight to ten ; squash, the same ; lettuce, two to four ; melon, seven to ten ; turnip, four to six ; and radish, three to five years. We have no data as to the keeping of grass seeds, but have no doubt that if kept in a proper place, most of them would retain their vital powers for sev- eral years. This is an interesting topic, and the more we know about it, the greater will be the prob- ability that we shall make farming profitable as well as interesting. VERMONT HORSE STOCK COMPANY. The Legislature of Vermont meets in Octo- ber and adjourns "before Thanksgiving." Though the celebration occurred earlier than usual this year, the business of the session was completed in time for the members to reach their respective homes, where alone this old New Englar.d festival can be fully enjoyed. Among the Acts passed at the last session of parti''ular interest to fai'mers, Kot only of Ver- mont but to those of adjoining States, is the charter of a horse stock company, for the out- lines of which we are indebted to a corres- pondent, and a gentleman who has long been one of the most active of the intelligent far- mers of that State in efforts not only to sus- tain the reputation of Vermont horses, but to secure improvement in their breeding and man- agement. The Company is chartered with a capital of $100,000, and has liberty to increase it to $250,000. It is proposed to buy, import, breed, grow and improve horses in Ver- mont. The charter does not allow operations to be commenced until $25,000 are paid into the treasury, and the debts are never to exceed two-thirds of the cash capital paid in. In case they do, the directors or persons so contracting them are to be personally liable therefor. If the full plans of the movers can be real- ized, Vermont will have the finest stock of horses in a few years to be found in America. The plan is to have a farm of some 300 acres, comprising some of the best pasturing in the State, with best of stables, sheds and paddocks ; the farm to be thoroughly fenced for horses, and worth, say from $20,000 to $25,000. For stock, it is proposed to have half a dozen of number one thoroughbred mares, if they have to import them ; at least one first class thoroughbred stallion ; half a dozen mares from the "American Star" family, and one of the best Hambletonian stallions to be found in that celebrated family of trotters ; also, some ten to twelve of the best Vermont breeding mares, and one or two of the very best Ver- mont stallions. Such a stock on the best Green Mountain soil, under the care of a skilful breeder, with capital sufficient to perfect it, cannot fail to return a profit, and add millions to the wealth of the State. To succeed in any enterprise, capital is very necessary. In all business movements that are to work great and good results, men have almost always found it absolutely needful to form associations and combine capital. Such companies, working with such powerful capi- tal, begin, forward, and complete nearly all the great material improvements of our age. The horse breeders of Vermont are gener- ally men of means quite too limited to perfect even a small favnily of horses. They do well to manage so as to raise the stock to perfec- tion from oAe brood mare. Generally they have to sell one or two years too young for profit, and must let those go that will bring the most This "takes the gold and leaves the dross." It is this necessity to sell the best, which calls so loudly for a combined capital, so as to se- cure and retain at least a small family of the very best horseS; and to improve them. V/hen Vermont starts with the best horses and those of the best blood, and has capital enough to breed them in the most perfect way, and grow them to maturity, she will soon show to American horsemen that the best are to be found among her green hills. We hope soon to see this company organized, the stock taken, and the thing set a going. BuTTEii IM.VKiNG. — A lady distinguished for her exctllence in housewifery, and interest in all that pertains to agricultural pursuits, in- forms us that last winter she lost three con- secutive churnings because the "butter would not come." She put the cream into the churn 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARMER. 41 at a temperature of G2 degrees. After churn- ing a few minutes, the cream became frothy ; and although urged and coaxed to become butter for three hours, utterly refused to do so. At the fourth churning, she raised the temperature of the cream to C7 degrees, and the butter came in the usual time, and in ex- cellent condition. This course has been uni- formly pursued since, and always with the same result. It is so simple and easy that all may avail themselves of it in winter churning. For the Kew England Farmer. WHEAT CUIiTQEE. Your editorial in the Farmer of October IG, took my attention, and I would like to ask you a few questions respecting the mode you recommend of raising wheat. You stated that wheat should be planted not sown ; but do not explain how it should be done, or what tools should be used. Would you recommend the dibbling system ? Would you do the work with the hoe? If you recommend dibbling, will you be kind enough to state what it costs per acre ; if you recommend planting with the hoe, what will that process cost per acre? Is there any other mode that is convenient to farmers gen- erally, especially those with small means ? Next spring I shall, — if all is well, — sow four acres with wheat. To plant the same, how many hands shall I need to employ to have the work done in season ; leaving alone the time that will be required to get in my corn, oats, barley, potatoes, &e. ? By planting wheat, shall we get as much straw as we do when we sow two bushels to the acre ? If we get more wheat and less straw by planting, can we make as much manure from the straw from planted wheat, as we can from wheat sown as plentifully as is usually done ? I am aware that we sow wheat for a crop ; but should it be our object to get the largest yield of wheat and little straw ; or an average yield of wheat with plenty of straw, to make manure for future crops ? You refer to Mr. Mechi, of London, and his large yield of wheat, forty-six bushels to the acre, weighing sixty-six pounds to the bushel. Would you advise farmers generally to adopt his mode of cultivating land, as the most profitable ? If it is, why do not the far- mers of England adopt it ? Speaking about the weight of wheat to the bushel, and about wheat deteriorating by sowing two bushels to the acre, I will say that is the quantity I sow, and that I have sown the same sort of wheat for the last six years. I have to-day wheat grown this year that weighs sixty-four and one-half pounds to the bushel. I had two acres and three quarters, of which one acre was badly eaten by worms, but yielded sixty-five bushels, good marketable wheat. I had seven loads, averaging twenty- i-ix stocks to a load, twelve bundles to the stook. Should I have had the same amount fcf straw if I had planted the wheat ? I seeded the same with herdsgras.^ and clover, and when I cut my wheat the grass and clover would average sis inches high, and some of the clover was headed out. Now, Mr. Editor, I ask these questisns in good faith, hoping you will answer them and give the readers of the Farmer something to talk about besides Norway oats and Early Hose pota'oes, of which I think we have had a good share. 1 do not v/ish it to be understood that when I speak about any of the modes of farm- ing in England, I claim that they are the best and most suitable for this country ; but as you refer to England many times in your editorials and other items, I wish to lay before your readers some truths with which I am per- fectly familiar. I am acquainted with dib- bling, drilling and pressing land for wheat upon clover leys, and can speak from experi- ence. This I propose to do at some future time. Pressing wheat after the drill, and other modes of culture, may answer in this country, especially as the white wheat is apt to hoave out with frost. You say when the time comes that we plant, hoe and cultivate wheat, a part of the extra expense will be paid by the saving of seed. I am av/are that there v/ould be a great saving of seed ; but could we make it profitable with wheat at the present price ? When the Eng- lish farmers dibbled their wheat its market price was one guinea, or over five dollars, per bushel, and one bushel would pay a laborer's wages for a week ! If the time ever comes in this country, that wheat shall be five dollars per bushel, and the laboring man be seen go- ing home with one bushel of wheat upon his back as payment in full for one week's wages, I Mould like to know where rent, clothing and other necessaries are to come from, provided that laborer has a family. At some future time, I will give you the whole mode of wheat culture practiced in Yorkshire, England, where I came from. It is a part of the country where all sorts of grain are grown ; where, in fact, grain and stock are their staple products, to pay taxes, rents and wages with. E. Hebb. Jeffcrsonville, Vt., Nov., 18G9. Remarks. — It is easier to ask questions than to answer them, especially where they are of the direct and searching character of those of our intelligent correspondent. Perhaps his four first questions will be sat- factorily answered by the remark that we did not intend to recommend that wheat should be planted either with an English dibble or a 42 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Jan. Yankee hoe. We admit that either process would be to slow and too laborious. We re- member of once meeting a bright English boy who had left his father's farm in Ohio, be- cause, as he said, the old gentleman insisted on his performing the back-breaking opera- tion of dibbling in each kernel of corn, while their Yankee neighbors over the fence prac- ticed a much easier and more rapid process, and raised equally good crops. But the next question, Is there any other mode of planting wheat that can be adopted by farmers of small means ? cannot be dis- posed of in the same way. Except where the land is too rough, or too full of roots and stones, we believe there is another mode by which it may be accomplished, and that mode is by drilling. Machines are made and sold in this country, we understand, at prices rang- ing from sixty to three hundred dollars. Our idea of "planting wheat" is realized by the successful operation of these machines. With them the seed is placed in rows at such dis- tances apart, and covered at such depth, as the operator desires. He can also regulate the distances between the plants in the rows. To some of these drills rollers may be at- tached, so that not only may the seed be planted and covered, but the land rolled at the same time. The plants when thus standing in straight rows may be cultivated by horse- power, with a suitable implement, — complet- ing several rows at a time. Toe usual dis- tance between the rows in drill-planting is from nine to twelve inches. But in all cases, we believe, an important saving of seed is gained by drilling over that of sowing by broadcast. Our idea of the cultivation of crops has been that we should aim to get the largest amount of grain, not straw ; but there may be something worth considering in our correspon- di ni's ^uggebtions on this point. He seems so thoroughly acquainted with the whole matter, that he may show us reasons why a certain amount of each, may be more profitable than a larger amount of one than of the other. We shall be glad to hear from him again, not only on this point, but on the advantages and di.^advantages of drill husbandry, which we understand is extensively practiced in his part of the old country. — The Michigan Agricultural College graduated ten young men on the 10th of November, For the Xeiv England Farmer, MILK OR PUERPERAL FEVER. Can you, or any of your readers, give me a name for a disease in cattle, which 1 will de- scribe as well and briefly as possible. A friend of mine had a valuable cow that dropped her calf on the 14th of the present month, and, to use an expression common with farmers, "she did well," in every parti- cular. She calved in the morning. At even- ing her calf was taken from the stable and tied on the barn floor, the cow being tied up in her usual place. The morning following, she could not get up, even with help, and never got up again. Several so-called cattle doctors saw her, and thev varied considerably in their opinions re- garding the disease. One said milk fever, another internal hemorrhage, another stop- page, &c. The cow lingered till this morn- ing, when, seeing no hope of recovery, she was killed and opened. Found the liver of unusual size, and the gall four times as large as it should be ; the liver was darker colored than usual, and was brittle or rotten, that is, you could easily break or crack it between your thumb and finger. The manifold (I think they call it) was full and hard to the touch. On cutting it open, found it full, and the contents perfectly dry, hard and on the outer edges a slight scale or crusting that was black. The lun::s I did not see, but they said they did not look badly. The cow's food for six months past has been one quart of corn meal per day, and grass from the pasture. She did not seem to be in any pain at the first, but in thirty-six hours, perhaps, was in a good deal of pain, groaning with every breath. She did not want 'to lie with her head straight or natural, but inclined it backward and would turn her head over so as to rest in on both horns, with her nose in the air. She swelled some, though not very much, and was entirely blind a great portion of the time. Her body did not feel as warm to the touch as when in health, and would perspire freely when covered with a blanket, or when any warm drinks were given. Should be glad to hear from some one posted in such matters. I will add that her flow of milk did not cease any more than it would have done in ordinary sickness. Senex. Cumberland, R. I., Nov. 1, 1869. Remarks. — We think the disease was what is called among farmers, milk fever, — more properly, puerperal fever, or inflammation of the worn!), attended with fever. The secre- tions of the intestines ceased, and (he contents of the manifold became dry in consequence ; the liver became gorged with blood, and its texture softened. Such cases are usually 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEJ^IER. 43 fatal. We should have been pleased if jou had described the condition of the womb. AN EXPEKIENCE WITH WHITE-'WEED, In 1863 I ploughed four acres of land, which produced only a light crop of grass, and was too low to plant, intending to dress and seed down immediately. The fall was wet, and it was found impossible to get on the manure ; succeeded in harrowing tolerably well ; sowed a part of the seed that season, the remainder the spring following. The first year it was not worth mowing. The first day ot June, 18G5, noticing that the land looked very green, I went to it ; you may judge my sur- prise and indignation to find the land occupied with white-weed. We had never had it upon the farm before ; when it blossomed, it was no wonder that the attention of the passers-by was attracted to it. I have seen many fields of white- weed, but none equal to this ; it stood three feet in height. When in bloom, the whole surface was covered with flowers. It would have been difficult to have found a sq-iare yard upon the whole piece that had not a bunch cf roots a foot across ; of tener two or three such would be/ound. I resolved to be rid of it, although many told me it could not be done. We cut the crop in June, while in blossom, before the seeds were ripened sufficiently to germinate ; we got a fair crop, the majority of which was white-weed. We ploughed the field as soon as we could after haying. The season favored us ; the summer and fall were hot and dry, the succeeding winter cold — little snow, with sudden changes. In the spring we harrowed the surface thoroughly, wbich was continu'd at intervals of a few days until Au- gust, digging up all that showed itself. When we seeded down, we gave the land a good dressing of leached ashes. This was followed by a good catch and a heavy crop of grass. The next season our enemy appeared in force. I purchased refuse salt, applying a handful to the roots wherever it made its ap- pearance ; broke off the flowers that there might be no mistake when we had been over the entire field. This was continued as long as any blossoms appeared. Three days after the application, nothing could be found ex- cepting the place where it "recently was;" the stalks, roots and everything were burned over a space as large as a man's hand. The second year but little could be seen, but which I treated in the same manner. Thih year a few heads appeared, which yielded to the salt. To all appearance we are rid of the pest, which has yielded only to determined and continued labor. Without the aid of salt, it would have been a more diflicult task. (I would add that the Turk's Island salt was the best.) Mesi:r3. Editors, what is a suitable punisli- ruent for a scoundrel who will raise and pat upon the market such seed as this, for it waa obtained in a sack of red-top ? For the sake of putting about a couple of dollars in this man's pocket, I am put to more than a hun- dred dollars expense. The State prison is the only place for such fellows, where their labor would be applied to the benefit cf the State. Since then I have closely examined the seed before purchasing ; fifty cents or one dollar a bushel has not been any object when clean seed could be had. In this way the experi- ence has not been wholly valueless. An old gentleman in this vicinity used to keep white- weed and other foul seeds, liable to come in grass seed, in a box ; before purchasing he would look at it, and was able to detect any of the more common kinds. The clean ap- pearance of his fields at the time of his death, was conclusive evidence that the plan was a good one. — W. Broivn, Hampton Falls, N. H., in Country Gentleman. How^ TO Clean Old and Musty Barrels. — At this season of the year the farmer and beef and pork packers are often greatly troubled with musty, filthy smelling barrels, bottles, &c. How to cleanse them for use is an important question, which chemistry will answer satisfactorily. Permanganate of potassa will entirely de- stroy all fungoid growths and fermenting mat- ter, and render the barrel or bottle perfectly sweet and clean. A pint of the permanganate is a sufficient quantity for a cider or beer barrel. It must be thoroughly rinsed so as to touch all parts of the barrel. Its deodorizing and disinfect- ing qualities are wonderful, as it contains five equivalents of oxygen, and will even deodo- rize carbolic acid and remove its pungent smell from the hands immediately. — Hearth and Home. Soda Asn for Wire Worms. — A letter quoted in "Milburn's "Pests of the Farm" states : "I had sown a headland with soda ash, as a fertilizer ; the following spring it was un- der turnips, and a man hoeing asked if 'any- thing had been done to the headland ?' I asked 'why?' he said, "there was not a plant de- stroyed by the wire worm, and the rest of the field had fifteen to a nest.' I then determined to try it upon another field which was full of wire worms. I have never seen one on it. In the following year I had twenty- five acres of oats attacked more generally. I happened to have a cask of soda ash with me, and ordered it to be sown. From that day the ravages ceased, and within a week the whole field changed its color to a vivid green. I have always a cask by me, ready, in case of any ap- pearance of the wire worm. The remedy is equally efficacious in repelling the attacks of the green-fly." 44 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Jan. DUTCH CATTLE— BULL VAN TBOMP. I wish to inquire of you or some one that has raised the Dutch cattle, how they will compare with other imported breeds for the dairy, or beef, and for workmg oxen. Are they a tough, hardy race of cattle for our hard winters, and rough farms ? How large are they ? Some time ago you gave a description of a herd of them, but the paper lias got mislaid so I cannot refer to it. Do they command such high prices as some of the other imported breeds ? c. f. l. Woodstock, Vt., Xov. 10, 18G9. Remaeks. — The monthly edition in book form of the Faejmer is well calculated to ob- viate the difficulty of reference experienced in the use of a weekly newspaper. In the vol- ume for 1868, several articles on this breed of cattle were published, which may readily be referred to by the index which accompanies the volume, and to some of these you proba- bly refer. The cattle of Holland have long been cele- brated for their size and excellence. A French historian who wrote in 1350, said that Holland had been famous for Its dairy pro- ducts for live hundred years. In his history of the United Netherlands, Mr. Motley says, in speaking of Holland, "on that scrap of solid ground, rescued by human energy from the ocean, were the most fertile pastures in the world. An ox often weighed more than two thousand pounds." Mr. Chas. L. Flint, who visited the great international exhibition at Hamburg in 1863, speaks of the Dutch cattle as a prominent and marked feature of the show, and says they are renowned for their dairy qualities. Some writers believe that the Dutch cattle were the foundation of the im- proved breeds of England. The Dutch cattle, 'however, are compara- tively new in this country, and time must de- cide the question of their adaptation to our climate and to our soil, which is certainly very different from that of the section spoken of by Mr. Motley. The breeders and friends of this stock are quite enthusiastic and hopeful. They might probably answer your questions somewhat dif- ferently from what those would who have in- vested their money in other improved breeds. Mr. Allen says, in his book on American Cattle, that Mr. Chenery's herd, mostly im- ported in 1861, is "the only herd of pure bred Holstein or Dutch cattle known in the country, except their descendants, which may be in some other hands." As to the dairy qualities of the Dutch cat- tle, Mr. Allen tays they have been long bred and cultivated with a view to develop their lacteal production to the utmost, and that they are quick feeders and physiologically consti- tuted to turn their food readily to milk, must be evident. Messrs. W. E. & B. Simpson, of Cambridgeport, Mass., state that a grade Dutch cow owned by them, gave 6o9() wine quarts in a year, her largest yield being thirty quarts in one day, and averaging thirt)- (juarts for about three months. As a beef animal, Mr. Allen says, they have been, as yet, but partially tried in the half 1870. ^nTEW ENGLAND FAR^MER. 45 breeds, or grades from the Holstein bull, on the natives or other cows of different breeds. So far, however, they are claimed to be satis- factory. As working oxen he believes they will rank with other heavy cattle, — better in their grades with the lighter and more active breeds than in the thoroughbreds, as with the short-horn crosses. Mr. T. S. Lang, of Maine, says that when in Belgium he questioned the herds- men in two or three estates that he visited, and they assured him that they excelled in this particular ; one of them pointing to the intel- ligent head and eye, and strong, straight, ac- tive limbs, saying, do you doubt it? The animal represented by the above en- graving was imported by Mr. Chenery in the womb of his famous cow Texelaar, which has produced 76 pounds 5 ounces of milk in one day — over 35 quarts — and an average of 63| pounds per day for 63 successive days. At three years old Van Tromp weighed 2080 pounds ; at four years old, 2310 ; at five years old, 2600; and at six years old 2720 pounds. He was calved March 20, 1862. HUSK BEDS. There is nothing equal to corn husks for un- der beds ; yet few families have them even in the country, where the trouble and cost of them aie so small. They are always light and easy, and last for a long time. Our family use no others. For twenty years they have done constant service, and are now as good as new ; so that though costing at first about two or three times as much as straw, they are vastly cheaper in the end, besides being a thousand times better. Now is the time, and this is the way to get them : — As soon as the husks are taken from the corn, before any mould or other harm comes to them, take the fairest and best of the leaves, free from all stalks, silk, &c., and spread them out to dry in some large, airy room, stir- ring them well every fair day for a month, or till they are perfectly dry. As they shrink 50 per cent, in drying it will take twice the bulk of straw to make a good bed. For people who raise them, they are easily got and pre- pared ; for it is a nice little work for children. For people who haven't them, this is the way : Give some farmer lads — who want, and ought to have, some way to earn a little for them- selves— give them a dollar and two bed sacks, to be crowded full in the green state of the pure husks, as just described ; dry them as before named. This will make one bed. As there is some wear out to them, as to every- thing, once in half a dozen years a little new will want to be added. Don't split the leaves ; they do not become flat and solid, as many suppose, but curl up and make the mass light. Husk beds have a great medical value. In many cases of injuries and of diseases a hard bed is vastly superior to feathers ; and as com- paratively few families have mattresses, a bed every way as good as these qjay be quickly made for the occasion by putting the feather bed at the bottom, the husk bed above, and a comforter and other thick quilt over this. As a great remedial agent, then, every family should have one husk bed, and one is sure to bring all the others. — Belfast, Me., Journal. VIGOROUS PliANTS EXEMPT FKOM INSECTS. We have often thought if all the conditions were present to give vigorous growth and health to a plant, that such plant would either not be preyed upon at all by insects injurious to vegetation, or, if they were preyed upon, the plant would be able to resist the attacks made upon it ; and that the depredations of insects are only nature's gentle reminders that something is lacking which the plant needs. In the animal kingdom do we not find lice, ticks, &c., preying upon the unthrifty, while those in a thriving and growing condition are exempt ? A Southern planter, writing to the agricul- tural department of the Mobile Register, and giving details of the almost total destruction of his cotton crop by the boll-worm and cater- pillar, closes his article with the following sug- gestive postscript : — A corner of the farm, about one-eighth of an acre, was so poor, though guano had been applied, that I replanted it as late as the 2J:thj of June, before I could get a stand, and iti continued so stunted and sorry looking that, about the middle of August, I applied half a spadeful of fresh cow dung to each stalk, cov^ ering with a little earth. Having a good season from thence, the cotton grew off magically, commenced fruiting at once, is now weighed down with bolls, and, strange to tell, not a leaf has been touched by the caterpillar, though they devoured the other to the very rows so treated. Nor has the boll-worm dis- turbed it. I applied fresh stable manure to another poor spot, with like result as to worms, but not as to growth, for the plants fired from the caustic properties of the manure. They fruited extremely well, nevertheless.^- Ciacinnati Gazette. Dry Earth kor Poultry Houses. — The employment of dry, pulverized earth as the means of deodorizing poultry houses, appears to be worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received. The fact that from four hundred to five hundred fowls can, by this aid, be kept in one building for months to- 46 NEW ENGLAND FAR:MER. Jan. gether, with less smell than is to be found in any ordinary fowl house capable of aceommo- dating a dozen chicki ns, ia very conrlusive as to it;; efficacy. In the building of the National Company, -where this fact has been ascertained, seven or eight fowls are kept in each compart- ment, twelve feet by three, and yet there is no smell or trace of moisture. Mr. Greyelin in- forms us that if a much larger number are put into each run, the ground becomes moist, ceases to deodorize, and the birds at once be- come unhealthy. It should be stated that the droppings that fall from the perches during the night are removed from the runs each morning, and the dry earth only receives the manure that falls during the day ; this has its moisture absorbed so speedily by the earth that it at once became pulverized, mixed with the soil, and ceases to smell. So powerful is the deodorizing effect of the e.iith that it does not require to be renewed in the runs for many weeks together. — London Field. For the New England Farmer. PBEPAEB FOK ■WINTER! Winter is close upon us ! The air is filled with snowflakes, the last flock of will geese have left us for the great savannahs of the Missi-sippi; the small rivers and creeks have frozen over and thawed out the requisite num- ber of times. Now the ice grows thicker ev- ery day, and soon the deep snow will blot out all the landmarks, and we can only trace the windings of the brook by its hedge of alders and hazels. Are we ready for it ? That is the question each farmer should ask himself. If you are not, begin to-day to prepare for the winter winds. Nail on every loose board in barn, stable, and cow-stalls, remembering the old proverb that "a stitch in time saves nine." Protect the young apple, pear, peach, and cherry trees against the ravages of mice. Scatter sulphur and copperas mixed in equal parts, all round the roots of the trees. This mixture is abhorrent to all vermin and they ■will keep their distance. Earth heaped up a foot around the trunks of young trees, and pressed firmly down will also prevent the at- tacks of the mice. Lay down all the raspberry bushes, and grape vines, and cover with hemlock boughs ; if these cannot be procured, straw can be scattered over them, or leaves, and secured ■with boards. The care you now take will be returnt.d to you in full measure by the great increa-^e of fruit in the ensuing summer. Pre- pare warm stables and sheds for horses, cattle and swine ; it will take much less fodder if they are protected from the intense severity of our winters. A farmer who built a barn as tightly ehingled and clap-boarded as his house, as- sure <1 us that the outlay was soon restored to him in the well-being of his stock, and the decrease of the food con-umed. It would eeem as if all our farmers knew this fact, yet the wretched huts called barns, which are scattered throughout New England, show that they have not \et learned the needed lesron. Sheep are better able to withstand the cold, but they need a dry fold well sheltered from the wintry storms ; and then are forced to hud- dle close together to keep each other warm. The hens must have their house attend* d to, or they will not permit your income to exceed your outlay. There is great economy in all these matters, yet how many of us are '■penny wise and pound foolish.'''' There is yet time to draw in loads of dry muck to be used for litter, and to fill up the wet places in the barnyard. All this work will give you ample returns at the next harvest. Is your wood all undpr cover, and nicely chopped and sawed, ready for the housewife? If not, lose not a day, in storing, it if you desire your breakfast, dinner and supper on time. It is said that "wet wood makes the house too hot for men folks," and we endorse the sa3ing. As you gaze upon your well stocked barns, your fine cattle, hogs, &c., and your cellars, filled with the fruits of the harvest, remember the parable of the '-rich man," who said to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid sip for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." But God said unto him, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be re- quired of thee ; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?" — and share of thy abundance with those who have not been so blest. Among your invef^tments he sure to take a little stock in the "Kingdom of Heaven," whose notes are always above par. Bath, N n., Nov , 18G9. s. o. j. Hovi^ TO Build a Cistern. — I see that a subscriber wishes to know the best waj to build a cistern. I have had the care of build- ing quite a number, and would say to him, build two instead of one so large ; dig the holes and put on two good coats of cement on the bank, and arch with good hard brick. One of my neighbors has one that I built for him sixteen years ago, in this way, and it has been in use ever since. I had one built for myself, six years ago ; the mason put biick all round ; the brick settled and it, leaked. I had another built two years ago, which was eight feet across in the clear afer finished, nine feet deep. This was plastered on the bank and arched with brick and has been full of water ever since, and has not leaked a drop that I know of. I could mention more made in this way but this is enough. I would not have brick or stone in the sides of a cistern if they were put in for nothing ; they are .-imply thrown a A'ay. — Mentor, in Country Gentleman. —It is predicted that Florida will become one of the largest sugar-producing localities on this con- tinent. Thfi character and soil .ire admirably adapted to its culture, and the crop is a sure one. 1870. NEW ENGLAJSD FAKMER. 47 IMPORTATION OF 'WOOIi. Editor of New England Farmer: — In the address delivered at the American Insti tute, New York, by Mr. Bigelow, President of the National Association of Wool Manu- facturers, I notice that, as published in the newspapers, he assumed that "the great cause of the present depression is excessive home production," and futhermore that he said, "our wool industry being depressed by over pro- duction, its restoration to the normal relations of demand and supply can alone bring relief." With this view of the subject I am unable to account for the marked increase in the impor- tation of foreign wool, in addition to our "ex- cessive home production," which is shown by the statistics of the foreign trade published by our government at Washington. By these it appears that, for the years ending with June, the No of Pounds. Value. Importations in 1858 were 24,121 8C.3 $3 792 (556. Importations in 1869 were 39,607,975 6, 597, Oil. An iDcrease this year of 15,483,172 $1,8C4,68.>. This has a bad look to some of us wool-grow ers who have been waiting as patiently as we know how for the good time that jou have encouraged us to hope was coming. j. b. Benson, Vt., Nov. 9, 1869. Having but little knowledge of the statis- tics of trade and commerce, we submitted the substance of our correspondent's inquiry to John L. Hayes, Esq., the able Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association, who has kindly furnished the following reply, which we hope will be satisfactory to him and to others who may be alarmed by the published statements of the increase in the amoiint of ■wool imported by our manufacturers. Editor of New England Farmer : — Dear Sir, — I reply with pleasure to the inter- rogatories proposed in your favor of the 15ih instant. The facts stated are, that the importations of wool into the United States, for the year 18G8, amounted in value to $3,792,005, and in pounds to 24,124,803, and in 1809, to to 85,597,041 in value, and 39,007,975 in pounds. These facts are understood to be stated by the opponents of the present wool and woollen tariEF as proofs of the inefficiency of this tariff for the protection of the Amer- ican wool grower, I do not propose to enter into an inquiry as to the correctness of the prei i.-e figures stated, for I admit the fact that the nominal importations of wool for the year 18G9 considerably exceeded those for 1868, I will take some figures for ilhistration, whose accuracy I can rely upon. Mr. George Wm. Bond, in his published price current of wool at Bo,-ton, for Novem- ber, 1869, gives the imports into Boston for the first three-quarters cf the j ears 1868 and 1869, They are as follows : — 18GS. Eueland, 3S9,i 79 lbs, Butnos Ayrcs, 2,23 i 907 " Capeof Good Hope, 8.8,751 " Ff.nce, 49,3'^5 " Turkey, 970,941 " Chili and Peru, 2,057,443 " 8undrie3 514 3 9 " 7,050,855 lbs, 14,627,743 tt.8. The explanation of this great apparent in- crease is very simple and familiar to all per- sons in the trade. The importations were principally made directly by manufacturers. The character of the navigation was such in the latter part of 1868, and the first part of 1869, that the imports, which in the ordinary course of trade, should have reached Boston in 1868 arrived in 1869, Almost the whole imports of the Pacific Mills and the Atlantic Delaine Company, among the largest consum- ers of wool of all our mills, which should have come in 1868, are included in 1869, To this, the principal cause of the increase of im- portations in 1869, should be added an in- creased importation of combing wools from England, notwithstanding the high duty, and the needed encouragement thus given to the production of similar wools here ; this increased demand for combing wools, resulting from the progress of the worsted manufacture in this country. Nearly a million pounds of the card wool included in the imports of 1869 were re-exported to Canada. It is apparent, then, that the alleged facts fail to prove anjthinp' as to the im fficiency of the present wool tariff as a protection to the wool grower. On the other hand, there are striking facts which prove the efficiency of this tariff as pro- tection to the great ma^s tf American wool growers. The piincipal object of the wool tariff was to check the importation of clothing wools, such as were largely imported from Buenos Ayres and the Cape of Good Hope, and which came into competition with the fine clothing woi Is which are the principal product of the American sheep husbandry. In 1866, before this tariff act was passed, the importations of wool into Boston, from 48 NEW ENGLAND FARIVEER. Jan. Buenos Ayres were 12,368,988 pounds, and' from the Cape of Good Hope 2,868,753 pounds. The -whole imports of wool into the United States from the two great competing countries in fine wool production in 1866 were 22,693 bales from Buenos Ayres and 14,067 bales from the Cape cf Good Hope, as against the imports in 1868, after the wool tariff went into operation, of 4604 bales from Buenos Ayres, and 1986 bales from the Cape of Good Hope.* Such facts are conclusive that the wool tar- iff has effected precisely what it was intended to do. It has saved the fine wool husbandry of the United States not from depression, the result of over production in the Southern hemisphere, but from annihilation. To quote the capital illustration of Dr. Randall, "There is but a plank on the ocean between the United States and the South American wool grower, and that plank will bear but one, the other must perish. Without the tariff, the South American grower would have all the plank, because he could entirely undersell us in our own markets, and he raises more than enough fine wool to glut our market. The tariff gives us the plank. * * * * It is our market we are contending for, — our plank which they (the foreign wool growers) are trying to throw us off from." Respectfully your obedient servant, John L. Hayes, Secretary. Boston, Mass., Nov. 22, 1869. YOUNG MEN" AT FAKMEHS' MEETINGS. A new feature in the attendance on the late meetings of the Board of Agriculture at Orono and Bangor is noticed with much satis- faction by the editor of the Maine Farmer. Alluding to the presence of the young men from the college, and the part they took in the exercises, he says : — Such a sight has never before been witnessed at any session of the Board we have attended during the past ten or a dozen yciirs. Surely, the world does move; light is breaking; the young men of our State begin to realize that knowledge is u power, and a power, which, applied to agricultural operations by a skilful liand will bring results as satisfactory as if applied in any other direction vviiatever. If any one who has attended the meetings of the Board of Agriculture for the past ten years, will call to mind the sessidns that have Ijcen held dur- ing that time, and the general "make-up"— so to *Mr. James Lynch'a Statistics, Bulletin of the Na- tional Association of "Wool Manufacturers, Vol. I, page 81. speak — of those who have attended them, the fact will force itself upon him that there were no young men present. Thi^, at any rate, is the light in which the matter strikes us at present. Those composing the assemblage on these occasions have been men somewhat advanced in years : to young men it would seem the meetings possessed no at- tractions. But the recent session of the Board of Agriculture at Bangor, stands out in striking con- trast to all that have heretofore been held, in this particular, at least ; and if in no other respect the Bangor meeting deserves to be reckoned one of the most successful the Board has ever held. We doubt whether the Agricultural Boards of the other New England States have hither- to been more successful than that of Maine in securing the attendance and co-operation of young men and boys at their respective ses- sions ; nor have we any doubt that all of them would be equally well pleased by a similar attendance. How then can it bS secured? How was it secured at the late meeting of the State Board of Maine ? The young men who were thus interested in the sessions of that Board were present not as mere spectators, but as actors. A part was assigned them in the programme of the pro- ceedings. They had something to do, some- thing to say, and a set time to do it and to say it. They were expected by others to per- form a part — to participate in the proceedings — they expected to do so themselves, and when their turn came, they did it. Can any one who understands human nature be surprised that these young men "manifested," — as the Main? Farmer says they did, — "a close, ear- nest and intelligent interest in the proceed- ings?" We do not say that this is the only cause of the change on which our Maine friends are congratulating themselves. But it is undoubt- edly one reason, and it is the first that occurs to our mind. Our school- masters tell us that the very word education, implies a leading out, not a mere cramming, of the mind ; and in view of the success of the Maine Board in leading out the minds of their young friends we are disposed to adopt the exclamation of brother Boardman, with a slight variation, and say, — Surely, the world does move ; light is break- ing ; our Agricultural Boards begin to realize that if they would interest young men and boys in their work they must devise some means by which these young men and boys shall take some part in that work. The practical farmer, mechanic or artist who should seat Us apprentice in an arm-chair and expect proficiency from ever so much 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 49 talk or lecturing would be an exception 'o the general practice. In each of these, and all other similar professions, it is customary to put the proper tools of the craft into the learner''s hands, and to set him at work. He may be bungling and awkward at first, — he may even spoil the tools and the stock put into his hands, — but experience in these in- dustries has demonstrated that such a course is the only practicable way to secure profi- ciency or to excite an interest in the business on the part of the learner. Perhaps almost every one will say, "all this is well enough and proper enough in the field or in the shop, where two classes, men and boys or journeymen and apprentices, are re- cognized and provided for, but what has it to do with our State Boards of Agriculture, or with the formal meetings ot farmers ? The idea of inducing ordinary farmers' boys to take part in exercises conducted by men dis- tinguished for learning and eloquence, — by Governors, Congres.-men, Professors in col- leges, &c., — is simply impracticable." Perhaps so. But is that the plan we are recommending ? Is it the plan that was adopt- ed by the Maine Board of Agriculture ? Did these boys make a speech or read an essay ? We believe they did nothing of the kind. They merely recited their ordinary school les- sons. And jet this simple exercise elevated them to the dignity and the interest of actors, or participators, in the proceedings of the day, and gave the old heads more pleaisure than any of their own performances. It is evident, then, that the managers of these assemblages desire the attendance of the young men and boys. With their "old men for counsel," they need "the young men for war," and deeply regret their absence. On the other hand we believe the young men really desire to attend, and that they would be greatly benefited by an attendance under such circumstances as would make them feel that they were at home, and in their place. Why then may not the desire of both be grati- fied? Why may not these two classes be brought together? "Where there's a will," sajs the old adage, "there's a way." Who will point out this way ? — An unmarried woman at Virden, 111., owns sevea hundred acres of excellent laud which she paid for by teaching school. CABDINQ THE WINTER STOCK. Every person who has long been confined by sickness, or by a broken limb, can well ap- preciate how grateful any gentle motion is, that makes the surface all aglow and sends the blood dancing through the veins. They feel younger at once ; a new elasticity of muscle and limb is imparted to them, and with that a buoyancy of mind which brings body and soul into pleasant harmony. John Hunter, the most celebrated physician, probably, for many ages, when he told moth- ers of the three cardinal things to be done for infants, viz. : "plenty of milk, plenty of sleep, and plenty of flannel," did not fail to add, alsOj plenty of gentle friction. When his three things have been supplied, nothing is obvi- ously more grateful to the child than to have the body gently exercised by friction. Our neat stock, in their winter quarters, are helpless in this respect. They are tied by the neck to a spot three by four feet, where they are doomed to remain most of the time for months in succession. They are provided with a rasp on the tongue, which is intended to sub- serve two or three purposes, one of which is scratching themselves, when inclined to do so. But in their confined position, they are deprived of this luxury, during a large portion of the time. How grateful the privi- lege of licking is, is evident from the constant application of this rasp to their sides and limbs, during the time they are at liberty, daily, in the yard. Use the card, then, at least once each day, on every animal in your care, while confined in its winter quarters. Use it gently, be- cause a rough usage excoriates the skin and tortures the beast. Use it generously, not in a hasty and grudging manner, because it not only affords comfort to the cattle, but tends to Ml your oivn purse ! Carding tends to make beef, because it keeps the skin sofc, loose and lively, and no animal can fatten readily unless these conditions exist. Carding increases the flow of milk, because when the bkin is healthy and active, the pro- cesses of digestion are quicker and more per- fect. Carding saves feed, because the better the digestion is, the more nutrition is extracted frora the food eaten, so that the time spent in carding is spent economically. 50 NEW ENGLAND FARTHER. Jan. Carding improves the appearance of ani- mals, so that in buying, a good judge will pay from five to ten per cent, more for animals whose skin is soft and loose, that gives more milk, and that look as though they got all the goodness out of the food they eat, than for those not possessing these qualities. Carding, then, makes cattle fatten faster, increases the flow of milk, saves fodder, makes them handsome, and thus puts money into the pocket of the owner. VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION The Vermont Watchman and State Journal publishes a communication from O. S. Bliss, Secretary of the Association, in explanation of the objects and principles of the organiza- tion. He says: — It is demonstrable that Vermont dairj' products, though hearing a (jo.od genera.] reputation, are not as a whole t-tricily first-class, and do not return to the citizens of the State so much money, by many thou- sand dollars per annum, as they ought ; that thepro- duct per cow is not so large as it might and ounht to be ; that the number of cows kept, as compared with the number of acres of tillage lands, is much too small; that the prevailing system of market- ing the product is riidically faulty, in that there is not a proper discrimination between the several grades, and the better are made to compensate for the loss to the middle men on the poorer, whieh inevitably results from the system; that the sup- ply of labor, specially of female labor, is inade- quate to the wants of the State, imperiling the dairy interest of many towns, and that these and many other defects and evils of our system may be remedied by a proper diffusion of information among the people. To investigate all these defects and evils, and propose practicable remedies, is the office of the Dairyman's As.-oeiation. The manner in which it proposes to accomplish these purposes is to invite addresses from practical men who have investi- gated and experimented upon the several subjects until they have established certain facts and prin- ciples; to cause inquires and investigations to be made and reported by committees appointed from among the members of the Association, and to compare experiences and elicit facts by discussions. For these discussions and addresses the con- stitution provides for a three days' meeting each year, and for a printed report of the proceed- ings, which will be furnished to each member, so that th'! members who are unable to attend will be informed of all that is said and done at these annual meetings, which it is be- lieved will be a full consideration for the two dollars invested in membership. Sale of Cotswold Sheep. — Burdett Loomis of Windsor Locks, Conn., has sold to J. & S. S. Walker of Hartland, Vt., two Cotswold bucks and one ewe. AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. —In exporting living plants, the Japanese wrap the roots in a mixture of earth and carrots ground together. —The Byfield, Mass., Cheese Factory has closed operations for the season. The company has made nine tons of cheese the past season, and de- clared a dividend of 8 per cent. — During the first nine months of the present year there were exported from the port of New York 13,511,916 bushels of wheat; 1 572,706 bush- els of corn, and 1,081,226 barrels of wheat fiour. — High prices for hops are quoted in Europe, and it is the opinion of many that there is a fair prospect of a further advance in the price in this country. — The receipts of the three principal agricultural fairs in eastern Pennsylvania last fall were as fol- lows : Doylestown, $8,500; AUentown, $0,930; Reading, #6,295 55. — A Vergennes, Vt., cheese dealer has purchased the entire lot of cheese manufactured on the farm of Ezra Meech, of Shelburne, since June 1st, for which he paid $800 — being 16 cents per pound. — Owing to the extensive destruction of trees in Victoria, the climate is changing. Near Ballarat the rain-fall is sensibly diminished, and the Gov- ernment is taking measures to prevent the waste of timber and to establish nui-series of forest trees. — The Maine Farmer makes the following esti- mate of the crops of that State for the past season : hay, 800,000 tons, (equal in quality to 1,000,000 tons produced in 1868;) coin, 900,000 bushels; potatoes, 4,000,000 bufhels; wheat, 200,000 bush- els ; barley, 800,000 bushels ; oats, 2,00,000 bushels. — In a forest tree lately cut down in Wisconsin was found an Indian arrow-head, completely em- bedded and grown over. It appears, from count- ing the layers of wood over it, that ninety years have elapsed since the arrow which it tipped was shot at the tree. — In Joint Assembly of Vermont la'^t November the following gentlemen were elected Trustees of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College for six years : Hon, Justin S. Morrill of Strafford, Rev. Horace Herrick of Wolcott, Hon. Samuel H. Stevens of Enosburgh. — There are indications that Hereford cattle are rising in favor in England. After the show of the Herefordshire Agricultural Society, a large num- ber of these cattle were sold. Three prize bulls sold for 363 guineas, one of them going at 190 guin- eas. From a single herd 30 cows and heifers brought an average of over 26 guineas. — A California correspondent of the Boston Journal, who has eaten wheat bread at supper, the material for which was standing in the field at sunrise, says that when the graiu is ripe it io often cut, threshed and put in the sacks the same day. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAE^NIER. 51 Instead of the reaper, the "header" is now gener- ally used. It cuts the straw midway, and its swath has a width nearly double that of the reaper. With two headers and five wagons a large thresh- ing machine is kept running, and in this way forty acres and 1,500 bushels of wheat are harvested in a single day. —The N. H. Statesman says that a firmer from a neighboring town brought a quantity of cider into Concord, a few days since, and sold it for ^7 a barrel. Twenty or thirty years ago the same man brought fifty barrels into town and sold it at 75 cents a barrel (total, $37.50,) receiving most of his pay in goods. — The forests are dying out in certain parts of Virginia. The chchtnut trees have already sub- mitted to some dehterious agency, and their growth is nearly exhausted, and this year the oak, and in fact all the trees of the forest in certain sec- tions, are dying. No explanation of this disas- trous visitation has yet been given. — A hand potato digger was exhibited at the New York State Fair. It is simply a wide fork with six or seven teeth, with a movable falcrum behind. The fork is thrust into the soil on one side of the hill, and by bearing down on the han- dles the potatoes are lifted up, and the fork is shaken up and down on this fulcrum to separate them. — Western papers and farmers' Clubs* are dis- cussing with much spirit the expediency of a law to prevent cattle from running at large. The ex- pense of fencing against his neighbor's unruly cat- tle, and the loss of crops occasioned by them, are serious matters with the new settler ; but, on the other hand, the advantages of free pasturage are also of considerable importance to him. — A Kansas correspondent of the Rural World writes: — I will give you an infallible remedy for galls and sores of all kinds on horses, including what is generally called scratches : Two ounces extract of lead, two ounces spirits of wine, one ounce sal ammoniac, half ounce white vitriol, four ounces soft water ; mix, dissolve, and wash three or four times a day. — The trade in bones is becoming an item in the business of Jackson, Tennessee, givmg employ- ment to many poor people that would otherwise be without anything to do. All the bones that have accumulated for years in the neighborhood of the city are collected and shipped to Atlanta, Georgia, at which place there is a company en- gaged in making chemical manures. — A correspondent of the Maine Farmer, at Welchvilk, says, la-t Spiing I purchased a busuel each of the Early Sebec, Early Goodrich, Harri- son, Glcason, Orono and Crown Eagle. They were all treated alike in planting; were planted on sandy loam, and the first four varieties named amounted to just nothing. The Oiono produced fifteen bushels of merchantable potatoes; the Crown Eagle twenty. I also planted onetliird of an acre with the Garnet Chilli, and received ninety bushels of good sound potatoes. Unlike the above named varieties, these were planted on wet, clayey loam, but otherwise received the same treatment, — Steam engines are used in New York, and in many of the Western States, for threshing grain. Five to six hundred bushels of wheat, and 800 to 1000 of oats are a common d ly 's work. An engine costs about $1000, and can be moved from place to place by a single pair of oxen. — An important improvement in the manufac- ture of horse collars has just been devised by a Philadelphia mechanic. The collar being stuflFed with elastic cork, is light in weight, and adapts itself to the shape of the animal as readily as if it was moulded. It is highly elastic, dots not chafe or gall the neck, and, the cork being a non-con- ductor, injury from the heat is prevented. — The London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is turning its attention to cases that arc occurring in the country. Recently, a farmer holding five hundred acres of land was, on the complaint of the society, convicted of working "wounded horses," and sentenced to three month's imprisonment. The foreman was im- prisoned for six weeks, and the ploughman was fined $3 and costs. — President Welch writes to the loioa Homestead that the Iowa Agricultural College buildings will accommodate the faculty and 150 students; that during the year there have been over 200 applica- tions for admission, and every available room, with one excei:>tion was filled. A defect in the warming apparatus prevents holding a winter ses- sion now, (!) but after this year there will be a regular course of lectures every winter on the various subjects of farm industry. —An attempt has been made this year, with a fair show of success, to enlarge the production of barley in this countiy, and to terminate the scan- dal of its imi ortation. The increase is estimated by the Praine Farmer at 14 per cent, in Indiana, 11 in Ohio, 9 in Michigan, 10 in Wisconsin, 26 in Minnesota, 7 in Iowa, 20 in Nebraska, 28 in Kan- sas, 22 in Missouri, 37 in Kentucky, 7 in Pennsyl- vania, 20 in New York, and 14 in New England. The quality is generally good. — A correspondent of the Boston Journal says there is one singular thing about the grasses of the Pacific coast. When apparently dry and useless for food the cattle eat them greedily, and get fat on straw and str.bbl\ The reason is they are rich ill nutritious seeds, which last till late in the season. Sheep will be turned into a field with no sign of a blade of green grass, and pushing their noses down among the stubble, will cat the seeds which lay thick upon the ground. The wild oats grow on most of the hills of Central and Southern I California, and arc one of the best feeds for all ' kinds of live stock. 52 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Jan. L'or lustrous combing wool, the sneep of England are undoubtedly superior to those of any other country, and at the present time, under the depressed condition of the fine wool business, many farmers are turning their at- tention to the larger breeds of sheep. We give an illustration above of one of the old English breeds which is less known in this country than the Leicesters and Cotswolds. Mr. Randall mentions only two importations in his book on Sheep Husbandry, — that of L. D. Cliff, of Carmel, Putnam County, N. Y., in 1835, and of Messrs. George H. Gossip & Brother, in 1836. He remarks that Mr. Cliff established a flock which was generally re- garded as highly valuable. They were hardy, gross feeders, and very prolific. They yielded from six to ten pounds of wool per head. Mr. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 63 Cliflf sold a lot of half blood two-year old •wethers in February 1839, which weighed 139 pounds to the carcass. In the winter of 1867, Mr. Winthrop W. Chenery, Highland Stock Farm, Belmont, Mass., imported some of these sheep from Canwick, Lincolnshire County, England. In an article published in the Monthly Farmer for 1868, page 516, written by our correspon- dent "Mentor," — a gentleman of great expe- rience in the wool business, — the leading characteristics of the English lustre-wooled sheep are given. Speaking of the Lincoln or Lincolnshire sheep, he says they are larger framed animals, their fleeces are heavier and the staple longer than either the Leicester or the Cots wold. The wool measures from ten to eighteen inches in length, and the lleece weighs from eight to fourteen pounds. The sheep is hardy and prolific, but matures slowly, and as fourteen pounds of the best lustre wool cannot be grown on one sheep without good food and plenty of it, the Lincolns require a very rich pasture. In the Agricultural Report of the Ohio Board of Agriculture for 1866, a long article on the various kinds of wool was published. It was a translation of a work by a Mr. Eis- ner, of Silesia. It is there stated that the best representation of nice combing wool is the Lincolnshire sheep, and it is one of the largest sheep in England The next in rank for combing wool is the Leicester, and the third is the Cots wold. In an address before the Royal Agricultural Society, at Cirencester, Mr. J. A. Clark said, "Lincoln wool is in great request from its pe- culiar properties of length, strength and lus- tre." The above cuts represent the Lincoln ram "Lord Canwick," and the Lincoln ewe, "Lady Bassingbourne," imported by Mr. Winthrop W. Chenery, The ram's lleece, which was sheared in 1868, of about sixteen months' growth, weighed twenty-three pounds. This animal has been lately sold to a gentleman in California, and we understand that Mr. Chen- ery has none of this breed for sale at present — Many of the most valuable islands off the Carolina coast will next season bo devoted to the growth of the finer kinds of cotton. The planters expect to make more money to the acre than by continuing the growth of the Sea Island cotton. EXTBACTS AND REPLIES. COTSWOLD SHEEP. A notice of some Cotswold sheep that I pur- chased of T. L. Hart of West Cornwall, Conn., was published in the Farmer. Perhaps some of yonr readers who arc engaged in sheep raising will like to know how I like them. I have no hesi- tation in saying that they have far exceeded my expectations in all rcspectir, and please me better than any other breed I ever raised. I have just weighed a twin ewe lamb from a grade ewe, sired by the buck lamb I had of Mr. Hart, that weighed 113 pounds, and the mate, which I sold two months ago, I am told will ^\eigh more. My yearling ewe sheared 14 pounds of wool, and will weigh 175 pounds now, and has had no extra keeping. Having been engaged in butchering and selling meat, I have found the Cotswold to dress heavier in proportion to the live weight of carcass than any kind of sheep that I have dressed, and are much fatter on the same keeping. If more of them could be had, it would be money in the butcher's pocket and gain to the consumer, while the farmer would receive a third more for his sheep. Thousands of the sheep now kept by far- mers and sent to market are worth little more than the skins on their backs. While farmers are grumbling bitterly at the low price of mutton, consumers are complaining of its unprofitableness, even at prices so low that dealers are losing money on them, the best they can do. How can this be otherwise ? What amount of meat is there on a quarter of mutton weighing from five to ten pounds ? And the common sheep of New Hamp- shire will average little more. Common sense will teach a man the difference in profit to all con- cerned between a carcass of mutton that will weigh eighty to a hundred, and one that will weigh thirty to forty-five pounds. The consumer says to the butchers, give us better mutton and we will pay your price, but we don't want mere bones any way ; and the butcher says to the farmers, give us mutton ; we can't sell mere frames ; and un- less you furnish a better article the people will buy beef and pork, and the use of mutton will de- crease. I would advise farmers whose flocks are run down and need improving, to try the Cots- wolds this year, and next fall give me the result of the experiment. A. L. Sanborn. New Hampton, N. H., Nov. 19, 1869. TO PICKLE AND SMOKE BACON. At this season of the year farmers are slaugh- tering their hogs, and are ready to make hams and bacon. All have not a smoke house, and are forced to depend upon their neighbors. It requires some skill and experience to smoke them just right. Our hams have been spoiled for our taste more than once — the smoky flavor being too intense. Now we have found a way which makes them just right; so of course we must impart it toothers. First, we smoke the barrel or tirkin, by placing ic over a small fire of corn or the cobs which are put in an old tin pan. We have tried cobs, saw dust and maple chips, and think that burning corn and cob together gives the sweetest smoke. Four good sized ears of yellow corn will smoke a fifty pound firkin which will hold two lar^c hams, two pieces of beef and two or three tongues. The meat is rubbed with two quarts of fine salt, one pint of molasses and three ounces of saltpetre, for three days before putting into the firkin ; turning and rubbing it twice each day ; but if this is fjo much trouble, a pickle can be made of six pounds of coarse salt, one qiuut of molasses, and three ounces of saltpetre, dissolved in two gallons of water, and after the meat is closely packctl in the firkin this mixture is turned over it. In three or four 54 NEW ENGLAJSTD FARMER. Jan. weeks the meat is ready for u';c ; the beef can be hung to dry, and ham and tongues lel'r. under brine. AVIicn a ham is cut it can be returned to the pickle ; tlius it is kept from drying up and from insects. In March or April pour out the iirme.rc-soioke the tub, scald the bnne; add one pint of salt to every two qu.irts of water which is needful to keep the moat covered; or elst', pour away the old brine, (it i-. good tor the asparagus bed or the plum trees) and make new Kei p the tirkm in a cool, dry cel- lar, or in the ice house, and \our meat will be as sweet as a nut lili it is all consumed. This way of smoking and pickling will recommend itself to every woman of comiuon sense. If she is willing to take the trouble of rubbing the hams, the meat will be sweerer. After they have been well rubbed they should be placed in the smoked tirkin and pounded down viry tightly with a heavy stick. A large ttone must be laid on top of the meat, and the salr, molasses, &c., poured over it. In the early spring a fre>h biii.e can be made for the meat, washingotfihe old brineand re-smoking the firkm. Beet and pork can be cured together wiih- out injury to either. s. o. J. Bath, N. II., Nov., 1869. CATERPILLARS AND WILD CHERRY TREES. Mr. Brown, — Dear Sir: — I am very much sur- prised to see in your paper advice to "cut down and cast into ihe tire" every wild cherry tree, as they are a complete nursery for caterpillars. The reason you give for destroying them is the vtry reason I slioukl give for planting them. Nobody can suppose that they create caterpillars. They only attract them from every other tree, and are thus the best guard of the orchard that can be found. Let a few stand in or near the orchard, and there will be no necessity for cleaning every apple tree of nests of caterpillars. They will be all found on the cherry trees, which need not to be planted in the pasture; and, if the cherry trees are low, the labor in getting rid of all the caterpillars will be very small. I read jour paper pretty constantly, and my only objeciion t J it is th.it there is so much good in it, that It takes up too much time. G. e. e. Wmthrop, Mass., 1869. Remarks — We have great deference for the opinions of our correspondent, but a twenty years' experience proves that his plan has not operated well in our case. A stone wall separates a large orchard from a neighbor's field, where he allowed wild cherry trees to grow abundantly. They were covered with caterpillars every year, and the adja- cent apple trees wore about as lively with them as were the cherry trees. Tired of destroying them, we obtained consent to cut down the cherry trees, and the result has been, that it has not required half the labor to take care of the apple trees since. The liest way, we think, is to destroy the sources of the evil. OUR BOOTS AND SHOES. The New England Farmer comes to us weekly, laden with good things. It discourses of the past and the present, and with hope looks ahead toward the good time coming, when every farmer ia the land shall get a living easy, and have plenty of time to wipe the sweat and dust from his face, and to sit down beneath his own vine and apple tree and enjoy the Iruit of nis labor, the society of his friends, and the beautiful things in creation around him. Moreover his happiness would be increased if the post-office department would be a little more prompt in the discharge of its duties. For a man to wiiit until Saturday night or tile next week, for a newspaper due on Friday, is like having to wait for an opportunity to cat a cold dinner, which would have been much better warm. But this trifling annoyance is not to be com- pared with the tiials and suflFeriogs endured by farmers, in common with o'her clas-es, on ac- count of the present style of boots and sh'ics. I have heard of bjys being "big enough to go hure- foot;" but what is the exact size or ape which entitles a boy to that peculiar honor I never yet have learned, but I have wished many a tiaie that I could go barefoot alioays. I have lived tm this earth upwards of forty years, and have had a new pair of shoes or boots every year, I ihink, but never since I can rememtitr have I had a single pair that were comtortable and easy. I have not a club foot, nor a long heel, and there is nothing peculiar about my feet. The truth is, the present style is not adapted to the foot. Why not, is more than I can tell. Some infernal spirit must have had control of him who designed a pair of boots or shoes that compels the wearer to be constantly going down hill whenever he attempts to walk. Why should the heel be raised one or two inches high' r than the tront part of the foot ? Why should the toes be squeezed at every step into an acute angie, with a ute pain ? I have questioned shoe manufacturers in regard to the matter, and they answer, "If we should make a shoe to tit the foot, no one would buy it." Then nobody pre- prefers a blessing to a curse, when cur.-es are most in fashion. In heathen lands little children are thrown to the crocodiles because it is the fashion, and in New England they are obliged to wear high heeled, narrow toed shoes because it is — the fashion. Htbronville, Mass , 1869. L. L. Kead. barren apple trees. What shall 1 do with my apple trees ? I pur- chased a farm in this town fifteen years ago. Oa a field descending south were many small apple trees. When mowiog, we were careful to leave these trees, and there are now 300 of thcra on the field. Tliev are from one to six inches through; mostly thrifty, and are considerably shading the land. I do not get ten liushels of apples a year from them. Shall I cut them down anel put the land to a better use; or had I better gratt them with scions from trees that bear ? S. Fisher. Ripton, Vt., 1869. Remarks. — The trees are now fifteen to eighteen years old, and if producing as they usually did thirty years ago, would yield, as an average, one barrel to each tree. It appears that the trees are in their natwal .state — are not grafted. They ought, therefore, to be hardy and productive. But they are not. If they will not bear in this condition, is it likely they would if grafted ? We think not. The difficulty does not lie in the vari- ety of the fruit, but in some wide spread influence that we know nothing about, except from what we see of its effects. It does not seem that the trees arc deprived of any of their accustomed powers. Fruit buds set abundantly last year, and the trees blossomed, but bore no fruit. They have again set their buds for another year, and they appear fresh and strong. Their non-bearing is not on ac- count of poverty of soil, for trees are all about us that have made a large growth the past season, but produces very little fruit. We know nothing 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 55 of the causes which have so cut off the apple crop in the New Erghind States for several years past. The various families of the vegetable, like those of the animal kingdom, seem to be subject to oc- casional epidemic or general diseases, and we hope that, like the cholera, the present disease which afflicts fruit trees will be succeeded by a period of health and fruitfulness. We will not advise to graft your trees, and we should reluctantly advise to remove them; if they are cumberers of the ground, and there is no hope of redeeming them, let them give place to things that will make a return. NORWAY OATS, AND HOAV IirMBUGS GROW. I have read piece after piece about Norway oats, and am still an unbeliever in their boasted superi- ority. Passing by a field of the Norway s this fall, I stopped and picked three or four of "the largest heads I could find, and brought them home. On comparing them with the common oats, I found that they would not produce any more pounds to the acre, under like cultivation. The world is, always has been, and, for ought I know, alwavs will be full of humbugs. In 1859 and 186U the big English or Barley Oat was all the go. It soon dis- appeared. About 1861, the full blood Spanish Merino sheep fever appeared, and soon the country was so greasy that if the farmer on a hill wasn't calked up sharp he would find himself sliding to the bottom immediately. This raging fever pre- vailed until the nianuiacturers ascertained that with all their skill and chemicals they could not make cloth out of yolk or grease, and then the fever was 1 roken or turned. The fact is, shaving machines are so plcntj' that farmers must "keep their eyes peeled," or they will be taken in. "While digging my potatoes this fall, which were manured in the hill, I found one st ilk of India Wheat, of unusual size, growing from a potato hill. It was almost such a tree as the fowls of the air might ludge in the branches thereof. Not only the stalk tiut the grain was of an uncommon growth. The kernels were one-third larger than usual. Now, were I to sow this grain in a rich place next year, give each kernel plenty of room, employ some skilful writer to invent a high- sounulng name for my new variety and to extol its "wonderful qualities, and set the printers to keep it before the people, should I not follow generally the footsteps of my predecessors on the high-road to wealth and renown ? And would my new Coehin- pootra wheat be a more transparent liumbug than many others with which farmers are befooled ? Braintree, Vi., Nov. 18C9. h. ii. c. EACCOOXS AND HEDGEHOGS. — CROPS IN VERMONT. Living on aliill farn: which is nearly surrounded bj' woods, these animals have a good chance to prey upon my crops, and I have suffered much from thtir depredations. Sometimes they have mangkd and destroyed one-fourth of my corn. With me the Hedgehog is as bad as the Raccoon, and together they occasionally make about as bad work in a tiild as a drove of h( gs could. This year 1 planted a piece of corn by the sdc cjf the woods. Expecting trouble, I went into the field before the corn was fairly in the milk, and found they had already commenced their harvest in earnest. Though they had evidently spoken for the lion's sl.are of this piece, I thought I would make one effort to save the crop. I tore six-or eight n-wspapers into pieces, some eight or ten iiichi s square, and cutiuig off a tas-le, aJju.-tcd one pitee of paper in each hill, about as fjr down as the first leaf, in the row next to the woods, and so far as I could see the corn was not meddled with by these animals afterwards. If it should prove equally efficacious in other cases, some of my brother farmers may thank me for writing out this little experiment. As I have taken my pen in hand, I will just add that in this section, through the month of June and July, farmers did not expect to get a sound ear of corn. But now, as we have a fair crop, how thankful ought we to be to the Giver of all good for his blessing. Well may we say :— "God moves in a mysterioua way, His wonders to perform : He plants his footsteps m the sea, And rides upon the storm " Braintree, Vt, Nov. 10, 1869. h. h. c. ABOUT WHITEWASHING. I have been whitewashing quite extensively this fall, and have thought that my experience may be of some use to others. I think it a little strange that farmers do not use whitewash more than they do, as it costs but little, and most anybody can ap- ply it. It makes buildings look better and last longer. I use nothing but lime and water. I have whitewashed most of my roofs. I have put it on in all kinds of weather. If applied when the roof was very dry, it did not stay on long after it rained ; if just before a rain, and when the roof was a little wet, it did better ; but if right after a rain, when the roof was quite wet it has withstood all of our late rains, and in good order. Of the roof of a long building which I whitewashed, a part was of very old, and a part was of nearly new shingles, and the whitewash has staid equally well on both. If I were ever to whitewash another roof I would put it on after a rain. c f l Woodstock, Vt., Nov. 10, 1869. LAME CHICKENS. In reply to your Haverhill subscriber's inquiry about his lame chickens, I will say that we have about fifty chickens of various sizes, five of which were taken lame. Losing the use of their legs, they were readily caught. I took them to my husband to be killed. He asked me to keep them by them- selves and feed them well. I replied that all my hens were well fed, and I could not feed five any better than I fed the fifty. But I thought I would try them. The result is they are now fit for a Thanksgiving dinner. If they had been left with the other hens they would not have got well. Chickens, like everything else on the farm, must be taken care of. Mrs. E. M. Rockport, Mass., Nov. 17, 1869. SPENT LIME, Will you infirm me, at your convenience, through your columns, whether the spent lime from the tanner's pits, largely mixed with hair, would make a good top-dressing for grass lands ? Milfurd, N. H , 1869. W m. P. E.mmcott. Remarks.— -It is often used with excellent re- sults. A BIT OF POULTRY EXPERIENCE The first of October, 1868, I commenced with four old hens and four pullets, a mixture of Brah- ma and Cochin China. The first ot last June I sold two of ih^m. They have laid 10S7 eggs, and raised thirty-six chickens up to October 1, 1869. But within a short lime five roosters, that wtuild have dressed about twenty pounds have "come up missing." Orson Townb. North Dana, Mass., Nov., 1869. 56 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Jan. lahus' Ocpitrtmcnt. From Once a Week. THE INITIALS. Tct stands the tree I There eeema no change Come o'er its mosey trunk or leaflets fair, Sturdy its branches spread. To me, how strange To see it there I The years have passed, the happy hours have fled. The burning love has now forever gone, The bright hopes, like the fallien leaves, are dead— T am alone I And ye;, upon that tiee her much-loved name. Unscathed by time, with mine is intertwiced. Can it be years since to this f^pot we came, One heart, one mind ? Her arm was round me, her breath fanned my cheek. As I the letters carved with no small art. Together, ever! though we did not speak. Was in each heart 1 Then, once again, I will her name repeat. And try forever to forget the words ; And pray that time, wiih gentle hand, may beat O'er memory's chords. I will just place my lips upon that tree. And seal the feeling.i of the past forever. And will depart. Where'er my path may he, My heart is there. And no w I cull, and fast my pulaes belt ; A dainty sound the fallen leaves comes o'er — Is it the brushing of her fairy fec-t ? Ah, nevermore I Some other now with her elsew here may trace. In letters fading, their names to intertwine, Which time mav blot, but he dares not efface Such love as mine! DOMESTIC ECONOMY; OR, HOW TO MAIC3 HOME PLEASANT. BT ANNE G. HALE . [Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Couit for the District of Massachusetts.! CHAPTER XIX. CARE AND COOKINa OF VEGETABLES. Vegetables do not indeed rank so high in the dietetic scale as fruits and meats; even though some philosophers have succeeded (according to their own statements) in extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, and have attained aldermanic corpu- lency upon turnips fried in water. Yet in their subordinate position they are desirable, not only because they furnish us with a large variety of cheap and healthy dithes, but for the stimulus they often give the appetite towards the proper en- joyment of animal food, while they sometimes render good service in palliating or correcting the injurious effects of a too carnivorous diet. They are generally considered the least important arti- cles of our food, and consequently receive slight attention. The reverse should be the case. As much thought and care must be bestowed upon the management of vegetables as upon that of the choicest fruits, or there will be great waste of their nutritive qualities, and their highest uses fail of development. At the harvesting of vegetables pains should be taken to keep all half-ripened and sound produc- tions free from contact with the unsound or. dis- eased,— a decaying turnip or onion, a blighted po- tato, a "lousy" cabbage — may infect and ruin a whole winter's stock. Most roots give signs of their maturity in the changed color or dryness of their foliage. They should then be dug or pulled from the soil, left in the sun till dry, and then kept from heat and moisture till they are cooked. All roots should be taken within doors before the chilly nights of autumn ; for if frost-bitten they are sure to decay quickly. But they must be kept as cold as possible short of freezing. Potatoes and onions are less liable to rot when kept perfectly dry and cool. All other roots need the slight moisture of sand or gravel about and upon them to prevent them from shrivelling; tur- nips and beets, especially, require this. Carrots should be covered with sand or ashes ; parsnips the same. These last if not needed dur- ing the winter, may remain till spring in the soil where they grow, as the frost has less effect upon them than upon other roots. Cabbages also tan remain where they will freeze if they are kept in that condition till they are used. Freezing mel- lows and sweetens them ; hut they decay soon after thawing. They retain their freshness longest if transplanted from the field b.fore the frost comes, to a trench, about afoot deep, in the cellar. Their roots should be watered occasionally. Cau- liflowers need the same management. Set celery in deeper trenches in the darkest part of the cellar. Sweet potatoes keep best packed in saw-dust in a cool, dark and dry closet. Pumpkins and squashes should be kept dry and moderatelj' warm. If squashes get touched by the frost, to prevent their entire waste, pare them immediately and remove their seeds ; then cut them into pieces of a convenient size. Slice these to half an inch thickness, and spread them on dishes or cloths in the sunshine, or string them and hang them in a sunny window or about the kitchen chimnej' to dry. Soak them in warm water till scft before stewing. Green corn may be dried for winter use, retain- ing its excellence unimpaired if well cared for during the process of drying. None but the real sweet corn should be dried. Remove the husk and scald the corn just enough to set or coagulate its milk ; then with a knife clear the kernels from the cob and spread them thinly on a cloth in the sunshine where there is plenty of air. Stir the kernels about, or shake them to another cloth every morning till they are dry ; a week of good weather will dry them. Keep this dried corn ia 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAEIMER. 57 tight paper bags till needed ; and soak in warm water over night before using. Green beans and peas taken from their pods and spread and dried, and kept in the same manner are very nice. Many persons can them ; but it is less trouble to preserve them in this way, and they are equally as good. The most common of our vegetables, and that which is the most useful, is the potato— the Irish potato as it is called to distinguish it from the sweet or Carolina potato ; but it is of American origin. It was carried from Virginia to England in 1556, by Sir Walter Raleigh, and from its re- semblance to the Batatas, (afterward called sweet potato) which had been long known there as a dainty, it was given its name — slightly modified. For many years it was only used in the prepara- tion of sweet meats and comfits ; not until the lat- ter part of the seventeenth century did it get into use as an article of ordinary food. The first pota- toes that were raised in New England grew in Framingham, Mass. They were planted by Mar- tha Buckminster Curtis, a famous "female mer- chant" of Boston. The potato though not very nutritious, is easily digested when properly cooked, and hence has be- come almost as indispensable a portion of daily food as wheaten bread. But the disease which has infested certain species of the potato during the past few years, has done much to check its consumption, perhaps to our advantage, for it has been plainly demonstrated that a diet of this veg- etable is unfavorable to mental and moral devel- opment; those who subsist mainly upon it, or who partake of it freelj", — as the Irish in their native country — are much below the average in in- tellect and correct conduct. Still, used in connec- tion with other vegetables, and as an accompani- ment to lish and meats, in moderate quantities it dees no harm. The best way to cook potatoes is unquestionably the old-fashioned method of roasting them, rolled in paper, under the ashes of a wood fire. Next to this comes baking in a quick oven. They are good boiled or fried, or— dis(/uisecl in some of the one hundred and four ways in which a Yankee has recently outwitted a Frenchman, who boasted that he could cook an egg in greater variety than he his favorite tuber. But Jonathan gained the case and won a bet by a plurality of just one recipe. To boil potatoes : Fill a kettle with water just sufficient to cover the potatoes,— and no moie Heat the vrater till it boils. Throw in an even teaspoonful of salt for a dozen common sized po- tatoes. Have your potatoes washed clean, then put them into the boiling water. Keep a brisk fire, that they shall boil without cessation. At the end of twenty minutes try them with a fork. If nearly cooked, (while there is yet a bane in them) turn off the water, leave off the kettle cover and set them over the fire for five or ten minutes ; or else take them from the kettle and lay them in the stove oven for the same length of time. Cook- ed thus they will be dry and mealy. The salt not only seasons them, but hardens their skin, so that they are less liable to break in removing from the kettle. If put into water that does not boil, or if allowed to cease boiling they will be watery. Old potatoes (those that have been kept through the winter) should be freed from tlieir sprouts, as these secrete a poisonous juice in boiling. They should also be pared and kept immersed in cold water for an hour previous to boiling. Then if boiled in salted water and dried as mentioned, on the kettle or the stove oven, they will lose that waxy appearance which generally characterizes them. A nice way to prepare boiled potatoes for the table is to dip them into beaten egg, sift over them pounded cracker or dried bread crumbs, and then brown them in the stove or range oven. Mashed potatoes are an excellent accompani- ment to roast fowls or pork. For this dish boil the potatoes till soft — from half an hour to forty mintues, according to the time of the year— new potatoes cook much sooner than old. Mash them with a rolling-pin upon a moulding-board, or pound them in a mortar. For a dozen potatoes heat, while mashing them, a pint of milk or cream, in which melt a square inch of butter and a little salt. When the milk boils stir in the mashed po- tatoes. Mix the whole thoroughly, then put it into a crockery dish that it will fill to heaping; smooth the top with a knife — and, if you please, beat the yolks of two eggs and pour over it — but it is very good without.- Set it into the stove or range oven till browned— five minutes will sufl3ce with a good oven — and then take it to the table in the same dish. Baked potatoes, to be good, should be cooked as quickly as possible without burning. They re- quire an oven heated as for baking bread. Twenty minutes should bake them, and they should be eaten immediately— they become heavy as they cool. Cold boiled potatoes sliced and fried in fresh pork or beef fat are very desirable at breakfast. Cut the slices evenly, a quarter of an inch thick, and brown them well on both sides. Use as little fat as will suflttce — supply it as it lessens. The fat should be hot to begin with, and that to be sup- plied also. Sprinkle the slices on both sides with salt — a salt box with a perforated cover, like those commonly used for pepper, is very convenient for salting these as well as for flavoring meats while cooking. Raw potatoes peeled and sliced verj' thin and fried in salt pork fat are a very appetizing and hearty dish. Heat the fat to boiling in a deep kettle, and then drop m a quantity of slices, as many as can be conveniently stirred about in the kettle. Stir and turn them till they are browned. Skim them into a colander to drain, and then take them in a deep dish immediately to the table. Sweet potatoes are generally liked ; they have 58 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Jan. always been celebrated for promoting health and vigor of constitution, and are especially suitable for the diet of children, who naturally crave sweets. The soil and climate of New England seem unfavorable to the perfection of this vege- table, even the best varieties being deficient in saccharine matter when raised north of Virginia. But anything bearing their name is eaten with avidity. The best w.y to cook them is by baking ; or, rather, by boiling till soft, peeling and then browning them in the oven — boiling removes the peculiar rank flavor that some have. If very large these potatoes should be cut lengthwise before cooking. They will cook in two-thirds the time of ordinary potatoes. Both sweet and common potatoes that are left from dinner are nice sliced thinly and toasted on a gridiron over hot coals for breakfast. Eat them with salt or butter. The turnip, beside its use for flavoring broths and soups, is excelknt boiled, mashed finely, and seasoned slightly with salt, pepper and batter, with any sort of meat. New turnips need only washing, all signs of worms cut away, and scrap- ing with a sharp knife, before boiling— old ones require peeling. Boil them in fresh water, half an hour. If they are watery when done press them between two plates before mashing. The Germans and Dutch mash equal portions of potato and turnip, and season in the same manner. Either the white English turnip or the sweet yel low French turnip served in this way is desirable. Beets are only admisdble with salted meat and fish. New beets are boiled in half un hour, but winter beets require at least two hours boiling to make them tender. They should be washed care- fully with a cloth, in order to remove all sand or soil without breaking the skin or removing their fine fibrous rootlets— which would cause great waste of juice and flavor. When soft, enough to admit a fork eas-ily they are done. Take them immediately into cold water— let them lie half a minute, and then with a slight pressure of the fin- gers slip off their f-kins. It is accomplished almost instantly, and much nicer than by scraping or peeling with a knife. Cut them in slices, length wise, butter them; or send them plain to thetubli?. Baked beets aie a favorite dish with the Spanish, but they have never suited the Yaiikee palate. Carrots are seldom used except as flavoring for broths and soups, but they are very nutritious and palata'ile when well cocked, boil them in their fkins thiec quarters of an hour; then peel them and serve in the same manner as beets with l)uiled corned lie^f or salt fi^h. Or, after boiling them till very tender, mash them and season with a little cut par.-iey, pepper, liutter and salt. Or, bake them an iiour (having removed their skins by scraping — ) in a pan,— with a little wuterand sugar strewn over them ; and serve with butter while hot. B<'i-| : wt d 3 llilh ; wt .; 35 Sheep, 11x25 1 East. Explanation of Plan of Basement,— TSo. 1 is a room ■for poultry, 11x15 feet, fitted up with roosts, nests, &c. ; No. 2, stair Wivy 3 feet wide ; No. 3, feeding place, llxl7>i feet, including stairs; No. 4, pen for calves and for mjir'ure thrown from the cow stable ; No. 5 is the cow Kt.ihle, 12x15 feet; No. 6 passsgo way, 3>^ feet wide ; No, 7, pen for hogs in front and for the manure from hor.ro stable, 7>ixll!-i; No. 8, horse stalls— the boree crib Is 2 feet wide at bottom, 2>^ at top, 2 deep and 1 foot from floor, made of maple plank; No. 9, har- Eessroom; No. 10, stairs, 3 feet wide; No. 11, hospi- tal, or spare pen for colt, sheep or other animal, 12x12 feet. The place for door« is shown by d ; wt indicates location of water troughs; w, windows. Here all our stock are kept. It is all above srround and is eight feet high. The first two feet are stone wall, on which rests the frame, except under the big doors, where the wall extends to the floor. The posts of the barn ^ are 20 feet in length, extending 6 feet into the basement, and 14 feet above the first floor. Excepting the open space for wagons, &c., it is all enclosed, and so warm that water in the troughs does not freeze over in the coldest weather. Ample means are provided for ven- tilation. The partitions in the basement are made by nailing cleats on the inside of the posts, which are 10 inches square, and slip- ping boards between them. The south side, at dotted line, is boarded down to foot of the braces outside, and inside of braces doors with large glass windows are hung to the tim- bers above, so as to turn up and fasten over head. There are one of these at each bent where the stock is kept, and one for the pur- pose of ventilation. Below these are smaller doors for the passage of sheep, which turn up at bottom. In summer time, the sheep doors are set one side, and the upper part or large doors are fastened up and the whole basement becomes an open shed. The manure is thrown from the horse stable through a win- dow into the pig pen, and from the cow stable in the same way into the calf pen, and the treading of these animals keeps it lirom heating. PLAN OF THE UPPER FLOOR. West. 6 i 7 d 1 II II 1 1 1* 1 5 1 m a o y c 3. a- •^ 1 W 1 W •^ p •< •0 1 M ios M ^ c> M a> II Mill ' d 2 ;,H d 1 East. Ifloplanation of Plan of First Floor.— No. 1, the bi/is, 2 feet wide at bottom and 2K at top, which are a pert of the corn-room, No, 2, 11x15 feet. Including the bins; No. 3, stairs, 3x8 feet; No. 4, stair-way ; No. 5, oat-room, 9xl2>^ feit, including Nos. 6 and 7, which are bins. The parallels, =i, show the feeding places to the sheep, cow, and horse departments below. 64 XEW ENGLAND FAR:MER. Feb. The first floor, as will be seen by the plan, consists of a drive way or floor 12ix75, two bays, one 12^x00, and the other 15x64: feet, with corn and oat rooms, «S:c. The barn is situated on level land, but with an inclined bankment of 30 feet in length at each end we find no difficulty in surmounting the rise of six feet necessary to enter the floor. The large door at the east is hung on rollers on the outside of the barn, while that at the other end is hung inside, and slips in behind the stairs at the riglit. The dotted lines across the bays indicate the position of the beams 12 feet from the floor, and not parti- tions. There are only two bays. The barn is covered by a "two-thirds" roof, ribbed and shingled with sawed hemlock 26 inches long, the whole supported by purline plates. The hay for the sheep is thrown down the stairs into the "feeding place," and is distributed from that place to the feeding boxes in the different pens. P. & O. L. Fisher. Westminster, Vt., Jan. 1, 1870. Remarks. — We regret that we cannot give a perspective view of this barn, as we are as- sured by the wife of one of the owners, to whom we are indebted for a portion of the foregoing description, that it is not only a comfortable and convenient building, but that it "looks well." I'or the New England Farmer, FAKM HELP. In reading what others write and in listen- ing to what they say, I am often reminded of the fact that we are all liable to "jump at con- clusions." I think that Mr. Jameson did so in his remarks about foreign help, and I thank "D. M. n." for what I regard as his just crit- icism of Mr. Jameson's article. But as Mr. J. gave us Lis name, I should have been bet- ter pleased if D. M. H. had done the same. City gentlemen who retire to the country after having made a fortune in business con- ducted on principles of punctuality, order and system, experience much difficulty in securing such farm help as will conduct their farming in the same neat and orderly manner in which their city business was man^ged, and few men either foreign or native born, can be found to suit their ideas of good help, oi efficient man- agers. And I agree with D. M. U.'s remarks upon this subject. I cannot agree with Mr. Jameson though D. M. H. appears to do so, that none of those men who are competent to manage farms in England, profitably, that rent for ten to twenty dollars per acre, are seeking employment in this country. I have personal knowledge of men who paid similar rents for hired land in England, and made money there, who sold out and came to this country, believing they could do better and live easier here. But I think most of them have been disappointed in these anticipations. They find a great differ- ence in the climate, soil, customs and produc- tions of the two countries. In England labor is cheaper than here ; and many farmers there do little more than superintend their business, while hired servants do nearly all the work. In this country labor is so scarce that the pro- prietor or manager must take hold of the harde&t work, and even then is not able to carry out his ideas of farming. Hence, some of the farmers' sons in Eng- land, from being brought up without much work, and not imfrequently spending much of their time in riding about the country, like gentlemen, are not as well skilled as many of the servants, who know more of the practical operations of the farm. But those foreign boys who have worked upon and shared in all the labors of the farm, with, as Mr. Jameson well expresses it, "a determination to be a farmer," make valuable help and progressive, neat farmers. I cannot agree with Mr. Jameson that bleak rocks and desert sands, even with intelligent labor, make rich farms or wealthy States, and I allude to the remark for the purpose of ex- pressing the opinion that too much strength and too many lives have been expended on such soil. Mr. Jameson advises D. M. H. to hire his own son, or, if he has none, to encourage and hire the son of some neighboring farmer. While this advice may have been prompted by a right spirit, I have known it to be acted on in such a way as to cause trouble. If he has a son that he wishes to keep at home would he thank a neighbor who should entice him into his employment? The minds of boys are sometimes unsettled by such means. Wages are offered and inducements held opt that tempt them to leave home, or at least create uneasiness. These remarks are based on facts of my own observation. In regard to boarding farm help I am dis- posed to dissent from the views of both Mr. Jameson and D. M. H., or at least to ask them if they have thoroughly considered the subject, and to advise all who propose to adopt the plan suggested to "look before they leap." In leaving the old country I did hope that I had left that system in England, where it orig- inated. In my mind it is associated with some of the worst features of the old world aristoc- racy. I am afraid that the introduction of this plan, as well as the introduction of English sparrows will prove misfortunes to American farmers. In England there are two tables in every farm-house, and in some large esta'•li!^h- ments the men are boarded in a house upon the farm ; a laborer and his wife being chosen to take charge of the same. In some instances the gentleman pays so much a week per man, and said bailiff finds all. In other instances 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 65 the gentleman will pay the family so much a | week for cooking, the master finding every- thing. This is done that the master and mis- tress may have more leisure, but while enjoy- ing this leisure their property is going to waste and they themselves to ruin. Of this, gentle- men, I have been a personal witness. Would it not be much better for every farmer's wife to superintend her own domestic affairs, provid- ing she does not work herself? Is it best to bring up our daughters so daintily that they they will become so nervous that they swoon at the sight of the working-men in the kitchen ? Where a farmer employs but one man this plan may answer, but with from five to twenty I think he would find it more costly and in- convenient than to board them in his house. Those who have money in abundance may care little for economy, but with farmers like my- self there is little to waste. Farmers, like others, desire to see their wives happy, and I venture to say that thou- sands are more happy in the kitchen than in the parlor. Indoors as well as out, all needed help should be provided, so that the wife should have time to be sufficiently familiar with the affairs of the farm to manage them in the husband's absence. lam aware that study and inquiry are now necessary to keep up with the improvements of the day, but it would be good policy for us to keep in remembrance the old rhyme — Man to the plough, Wife to the sew, Boy to the flail, Girl to the pail. And your rents wiU be netted ," But man tally-ho, Miss at piano, Boy Greek and Latin, Wife silk and satin. And you'll soon be gazetted. I hope Mr. Jameson will read this with the same good feeling in which it is written, as I wish to be friendly with those whose opin- ions I may not fully endorse. E. Hebb. Jeffersonville, Vt., Jan., 1870. For the New England Farmer, "STICK TO THE FARM." These four words have made a text for a great amount of agricultural writing and speak- ing. It comes most often from men who are not themselves on farms. Men who buy all their farm products, men who make agricul- tural addresses at county fairs, and from men who make agricultural papers for farmers' reading. Now, to a hard working farmer, or far- mer's wife, who is, by the strictest economy, just making a living, this text is not very musical, coming as it often does from an edi- tor who is getting a liberal salary, or from a lecturer who is making more money in one day than the farmers net income for a year. I hardly ever see those words at the head of an article without feeling a little cross. The writers seem to wish to encourage the farmer ; to convince him that he is really better off on the farm than he could be any where else. Now it seems to me, to be the most natural thing in the world for men who have their food to buy, to desire to see plenty of f irmers to raise it. I, as a farmer, certainly like to see people stick to other business, — the more the better. I find my best place to sell is where there are 7io farmers. Do the mechanic, the trades- man and the man of letters, find it the cheap- est place to buy where the people are all far- mers? Why should not they say, "stick to the farm," and try to convince the farmers' sons that it is the best place for them also. And why should not I say to you who are not farmers, stick to your trade, or profession, or store. Do not raise anything to eat. You are doing better as you are. You can buy your produce a great deal cheaper than you can raise it. And your sons had better stick to the business you have taught them to do. They will succeed much better than if they try farm- ing. Advice which is pi'obably just as good for them as is yours for my son. You advise us to stick to the farm, because you say we are so independent, or because it is so healthy, or that rural life is so pleasant or because we are so free from care, and anxiety, and because all but three in a hun- dred of business men fail. You like to cite cases where farmers have begun in a small way, and have succeeded in gaining what you call, ybr them, a competence. I know a man who is worth perhaps twenty or thirty thousand dollars, who boasts that he has made more money at farming than any man of his acquaintance. Now the fact is he is entitled to be called a farmer about as much as are thousands of business men who keep a horse to ride to their store, and raise hay enough on their house lot to keep him, with the addition of grain bought. This farmer had a farm, a grist mill, and a saw mill almost fall to him, from his uncle. He paid something for them, but nothing near what they were worth, or what any one else would have had to pay. Then, in the same way he came in possession of more standing lumber than his mill could saw out as fast as it grew. He is now an old man. His wife has worked very hard a great many years. They have hired enough help every winter to cut and haul all the logs the mill would saw, and have boarded all the help ; have kept teams enough to do the carting, and raised hay enough to keep the teams, and farm produce enough to board the help. He has bought oxen by the score in the fall, kept them on hay that grew on the meadow which the mill pond cov- ered in the winter, and sold them in the spring to the neighboring fanners, at an advance, 66 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. after hauling logs all winter ; then put his manure on his upland where he would raise potatoes enough for the family and corn enough with what he took as toll at the grist mill to fat his hogs, which were all consumed in the family. Most of his good hay he sold. And now his farm is not nearly as good as it was when he took it. He digs no stones, makes no wall and drains no land. But he passes for a successful farmer. There can be no harm in advising him to stick to the farm. I know another farmer, who three years ago left his place as foreman in a large fac- tory, where he said he was getting all the wages he was willing to ask. He had saved enough in twenty years to buy a five thousand dollar farm. He put it all into a farm, and run in debt for the stock and tools. There was lumber enough on the place to build a new barn, which the place very much needed, but rather than be in debt he sold the lumber standing to pay for the stock and tools and then hired a man to run the farm while he went back to the shop to stay long enough to earn a new barn. lie has tried several differ- ent men, but all of them had to draw on his wages to keep the farm running. And now he has let it out for a term of years, hoping some time to have earned enough in the shop so that he can afford to live on his farm ! Would you advise him to stick to the farm ? I know another farmer of fifty years of age, who, till last spring, had been in a mechanic shop thirty years, was receiving good wages as engineer, house rent gratis, with a large family of girls all engaged in the shop at good pay. Last spring he and his son-in-law bought a large farm for seven thousand dol- lars, paid two thousand down and mortgaged for the balance. He runs a milk cart, gets up earlier in the morning than he ever did when confined to the shop. He is disappointed in the capacity of the farm. Has to buy a great deal of feed for the cows. His fruit all blew off in the gale. His potatoes were spoiled by the drought, and the family have consumed all the garden produced. The taxes are high and the inter- est money is on the opposite page from what it was before this year. He is feeling decid- edly hhie. He and his family never worked so hard before or received so little for it. Shall he stick to the farm ? If I were buying my farm produce I might say "stick." But while I am raising food to sell, I do not expect to spend a great deal of breath in trying to convince people who do not like the business, or those who do not suc- ceed in it, to stick to the farm. A. W. ClIEEVER. Sheldonville, Mass., Bee. 27, 18C9. Remarks. — We are so well pleased with the manner in which pur esteemed correspon- dent has presented his views, and our columns are so crowded just now, that we defer for the present any remarks of our own upon the subject of this communication. For the New England Farmer. THE QAKDE3N IN FEBRUARY. "Who slaokoth hie tillage a carter to be, For groat act abroad, at hsme Iobo shall three, AnJ so by his doing, he brings out of heart Both land for the corn and horse for the cart." Thus wrote the Poet-farmer Tusser. Can the reader see any point in it, as applied to the farmer's garden ? I merely throw out the suggestion, and leave the inferences to be drawn and applied to suit each individual case. In our climate little else can be done in the garden in February than to get ready for spring work ; although I have known excep- tional seasons when ploughing and planting of early crops was done in this part of Connecti- cut as early as the latter part of the month, and all prospered and perfected good crops. In all our management and plans of the garden, our aim should be af the highest de- cree of excellence. To excel is one of the chief sources of pleasure with all enterprising, go-a-head individuals in any undertaking. There are many things in the care of a garden from which an Inquiring mind may extract pleasure as well as profit. In watching the beautiful processes of nature, there are many interesting lessons. As a general thing we are too much of a matter-of-fact people ; we min- gle too little pleasure with our business. In all our gardening operations we should have cur eyes open to the charms and attractions, of vegetable growth and perfection. Thus labor would become more profitable and suc- cessful,— for where there Is a love and interest in any business success is sure to follow. Cold Fuames. — Look at directions given last month and follow them up — plenty of air mild days, and protection from changes, com- prise the principal care. Fences. — A good garden fence, kept in re- pair at all times, will save a deal of trouble from the invasion of stray animals. Gates should have fastenings, and be capable of swinging without dragging on the ground. A nail in tliat loose board or picket will prevent trouble. Gkape Vines. — If these were not pruned in the fall, embrace the first mild spell when they are not frozen, and prune them. Ram- pant growers will do better not to cut them very close ; they will produce more fruit and ripen it better than If pruned to one or two eyes. Vines sho.5>.ld be pruned, according to their growth and habit. Hot Beds. — For general family purposes at the North, hot beds will not need to be started till next month or later. Frames and sash should be got in readiness, by doing all 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 67 painting, glazing and repairing that is needed. Let the manure and heating material be accu- mulating against time of need. House Plants. — These will need attention in keeping the foliage free of dust, the bane, often, of plants kept in the living room. Wipe the leaves and stems of all smooth, firm leaved plants with a wet sponge or cloth. Give all plants a showering, from a watering pot with a line rose sprinkler, as often as once a week, by placing them in a sink or large tub, and turn them on their side so as to wet the imderside of the leaves as well as the upper. If the green fly, or aphis, trouble, give them tobacco smoke, confined under a tub, a funnel of paper, or box. Treat red spiders to fre- quent showering at evening, keep the atmos- phere damp and they will soon leave. Pruning of Currants and Gooseberries, if neglected in the fall, may be done any time •when they are not frozen and the weather is mild. Cut with an eye to a well balanced bush, recollecting that fruit is borne, on the currant, on old wood. Of currants there are none preferable, for general culture, to the Red Dutch, White Dutch and La Versailles. Houghton's Seedling Gooseberry, and other American seedlings, are the most healthy. The larger imported varieties seldom escape mildew in our culture. Seed Drill. — No garden of any consider- able size ought to be without some machine for sowing seeds. The machine drops the seed more evenly than it is done by hand, and saves the back from many an ache. These machines are now so commonly manufactured and the price so reasonable that there is not as good an excuse now as formerly for being without them. Some of them are made for sowing any seed, from that of the size of the turnip to peas, beans, &c. Tools. — Have you all that are needed for the garden, and are they in good repair ? If new ones are to be procured make a memoran- dum and look among the implement dealers as you visit the city, see what is new, and pro- cure early. Make all needed repairs on old ones ; give the wood work a coat of paitot, or even boiled linseed oil clear is better than nothing. Do not let another spring pass without set- ting out some flowering or ornamental shrub in that vacant place in the yard, to shut out that obnoxious view of premises over which you have no control. An ornamental tree sei in the street in front will make your place look more attractive ; as it now is, it looks barren and lonely without a tree or shrub to look out upon, or to meet the eye as we approach the place. W. li. WniTE. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. — The Melbourne (Australia) Meat Preserving Company are now slaughtering 8000 sheep a week for exportation to England. AGKICULTURAL ITEMS. — Samuel E. Bacon, Straffjid, Vt., slaughtered a hog December 18, fourteen months and a few days old, which measured from nose to end of tail eight feet, and dressed 734 pounds, giving a daily increase of nearly 1| pounds. The New York Farmers' Club is informed that Frederick Selsor, of Ohio, has a thoroughbred bull calf one year old the 23d day of last April, which on the 23d day of November last weighed 1,710 pounds. — At the Department of Agriculture of the University of Wisconsin, the course of instruction pertaining to agriculture is so arranged that the instruction in the class room can be completed in a single year by students already well acquainted with the physical sciences. — A farmer in Putnam County, Ind., has kept a pair of black scakes in his barn for several years, and all kinds of vermin have since entirely dis- appeared. His cribs and bins are no more dis- turbed by rats and mice. The snakes are not the racers or the spotted variety, but a short, thick species, of a jet black color, and they are, he says, better protection than a dozen cats, and are entirely harmless toward chickens and domestic animals. — At the East Orwell, Vt., Cheese Factory the milk from an average of 300 cows was daily re- ceived. Number of pounds of milk received, 857,- 674. Number of pounds of cheese produced, 90,- G07, showing an average of 94G-100 pounds of milk for one pound of cheese. Cash receii^ts for sale of cheese §14,905. 33, an average of gross receipts per cow, $49 68-100. There will be funds to pay a fair per cent, on the capital stock of the compony. — The Hampden Co., Mass., East Agiicultural Society have chosen the following ofBcers for the year to come : President, Dr. William Holbrook, of Palmer. Directors, Samuel Haines and David Knox, of Palmer ; J. S. Blair, of Brimfield ; A. J. Northrup, of Monson ; Silas Billings, of Ludlow; and J. B. Foster, E. N. Fay, and 0. M. Graves, of Monson. Secretary and Treasurer, 0. P. Allen, of Palmer. Delegate to the State Board of Agricul- ture, Hiram Converse, of Palmer. — A farmers' club has been formed in Newport, Me. The Secretary, Sewall Pratt, makes the fol- lowing report in the Maine Farmer of wheat raised the past season by members of the club. John Parkman raised one hundred and ten bushels from four and one-half acres ; Samuel Marsh forty-four bushels from one acre and two bushels of sowing; S. S. Wedgewood from two bushels of sowing and one acre of ground, thirty-four bushels. I raised twenty-four bushels from one and three-fourths bushels sowing, from one acre of ground. Mr. Henry Marsh, who is a flourishing farmer, har- vested from two bushels and twenty quarts of sow- ing, eighty-three bushels of wheat from two acres of ground. 68 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. Feb, "WINTER CAKE OF POULTRY. ANY persons complain that they get no eggs from their fowls in the winter, seem disap- pointed, and "wonder what the matter is." This is true in a large number of cases, even among farmers who look to profits of the poultry as an item of considerable account. Every year, soon after two or three weeks of cold weather have transpired, eggs are scarce, and sell readily at twice the price they brought in September and October. Precisely the same fowls that laid once liberally, have ceased entirely, or their product of eggs is ex- ceedingly moderate. Why is this ? the good housewife frequently asks, when the egg-basket in the store-room is empty, and none can be purchased or borrowed in the neighborhood. As a consolation to the anxious housekeeper, whose plans are thrown completely out of joint, the good man of the house informs her that "hens cannot always lay, — they must have time to rest, and by-and-by they will com- mence again." All this may be true, but he has not given the reason why the hens do not lay, even if it is cold weather. When fowls have their liberty, they are not contented with remaining quietly in a limited space. They love to roam considerably ; quite as far as they deem it safe so long as dogs, foxes and hawks are about. They are not idlers in their rambles, but assiduously search for the materials which not only nourish the body, but which go to build up the egg. In worms, grasshoppers, &c., they find the animal matter they need, which goes first to sustain the body, and in part, perhaps, to make the ogg. Then they need gravel, old bones, lime in oyster shells, old mortar, or something else, and a little sulphur, all of which they find in their rambles. They are an inquisitive, pry- ing people, often getting where they are not wanted, but rarely where they do not find something agreeable to themselves. When at liberty, also, they suit themselves as to heat and cold. If the weather is clear and cool, they cluster together under the lee side of the building, fence, or bushes, and bathe themselves in the sun's rays. Or, if the weather is hot, they seek the shade, where they droop their wings, so that their heated bodies are cooled as fresh breezes go by them. All this is what we should do for them — or give them the opportunity to do for themselves in cold weather, while in a state of confine- ment. In the first place, ivarmtli is indispensable to success. Without this, all the care that can be used in feeding, and in supplying a variety of food will be in vain. They must have warmth. When this is supplied, they must have something of the variety of food which they find when at large. A third requisite is, plenty of room in their house, and the roona, or rooms, roosts aad laying boxes, kept clean. It is found best to keep constantly before them, corn, barley, oats, a box of saiwJ, pounded oyster or clam shells, old mortar, or something that they get of that nature when at large, which they require. A dozen hens will eat all the bones that come from the kitchen of a family of eight or ten persons during the year. Diy them in the stove oven; place a firm stone in the hen- house, and pound the bones into fine pieces upon it. They will be sought with more ea- gerness liian corn. Each morning, in cold weather, give them a mash of boiled potatoes and meal, mixed up with some fatty matter. Part of a cake of pressed pork or beef scraps from the butcher, lying before them, will furnish what animal food they need, in- stead of the worms and grasshoppers which make a portion of their summer diet. Then thej need vegetable matter, such aa turnips, beets or mangolds, to take the place of grass which they eat in summer. Fifteen to twenty hens would gladly eat two or three dozen cabbages during a winter if they could get them. Another care must be observed, that they are free from vermin. No fowls will lay well, and continue healthy, if they are continually preyed upon by these parasites. Preventive and remedy are both easy. Scrupulous cleanliness is the first. But, if these are not entirely effective, and vermin exist, take the fowl from the roost in the evening, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 69 and rub a little melted lard, or sweet oil of any kind, about the top of the head, under the wings, and touch It upon the body in several places. Do this once a month. The 'oil will spread over the surface, get upon the vermin, their breathing holes will be stopped, and they will die. An observance of these simple rules will keep fowls healthy, and enable them to pro- duce about 160 eggs, for each hen, in the course of the year. When we say that fowls must be kept warm, we do not expect that all persons will find it convenient to have a room where water would not freeze, — but that it should be so tight that wind will not enter, and so supplied with glass as to admit the sun's rays during a large por- tion of the day. A room lathed and plastered would soon pay the cost in an increased pro- duct of eggs. Artificial Manures. — A gentleman resid- ing some sixty miles from Paris, has offered to place 250 acres of his farm at the disposal of manufacturers of portable manures. The soil is above the average quality, and in good condition. He will only ask them to supply the stuff, he will sow and cultivate, pay for a faithful registration of the experiments, and will divide one-half the profits with the manu- facturer. Up to the present time he pauses for a reply. This is a fair proposition. We ehould be glad to see it tried. For the New England Farmer, FOOT-ROT IN SHE3EP. Editors New England Farmer: — Oen- tlemen, — In compliance with your request I herewith send you a few lines upon the sub- ject named. As every man who has seen this disease has his own opinion about its contagious character, and also understands well its mode of work- ing, perhaps It will not be best here to say anything in regard to either of these two points — excepting to state that I think there is no evidence to lead us to infer that the dis- ease Is s-elf-produclng, or that It is communi- cated in any other way than by contact. When once started, it works Its mischief by the process of ulceration. The particles of living tissue within the hard shell of the foot are gradually broken down, until the attach- ment between the outer and inner portions Is destroyed, and then the shell, in part, or as a whole, drops off. "How shall I cure it.f" is the question which every man asks, whose flock this calamity over- takes. The anatomy of the sheep's foot, and the pathology of the disease, are matters which may be talked over when we have no more urgent business on hand. But, just now, help me rid myself of this troublesome pest. Well, then, let every one be convinced of the fact, that this disease Is only an ulcerating sore, and needs for its removal — or cure — just the same rational local treatment, that an in- telligent physician would prescribe for a simi- lar sore upon your finger, caused by the con- tact of poisonous matter in some post-mortem examination. A clean poultice, or lint mois- tened with warm water, would be about all that would be demanded for the finger. But as we cannot carry the same delicacy into the treatment of sheep's feet, let our treatment be regulated on the same principle — that is, cleanliness, as perfect and entire as can pos- sibly be obtained, and as lasting as the case demands. Here lies the whole secret in "cur- ing" this annoying disease, which so gener- ally affects the flocks of New England. My conclusion is not drawn from theory alone ; but from actual practice, no less. From a number of the worst cases I have ever seen in my own flock, I selected seven for experiment — none could be found worse than these seven. After every particle of the shell of the ail- ing feet, that could be flayed up easily from the ulcerating tissue beneath, had been cut away with a sharp knife, the feet were care- fully and thoroughly washed In cold water, and the sheep put into a dry pen, well littered with clean straw. Now for the result. I ex- amined those feet every day. Where manure adhered, so as to prevent needed observation, it was washed off. No knife was used. Not a drop of matter was ever seen upon one of them. The loose, ragged tissues contracted and became dry externally, new shell com- menced to form, and as soon as time enough had passed, every foot was clad in as clean and sound a hoof as ever a sheep stood upon. This experiment taught me how to "cure" foot-rot ; and if a man has but a small flock, or a small number affected, and can give the requisite time to it, nothing more Is needed. I have tried this plan In other Instances, and always with the same result. Still some aid may be obtained In treating large numbers, from vitriol. I think this all that ever need be applied, and the action of this agent Is purely mechanical. It contracts or puckers up the tissues that have been eaten into shreds by ulceration, and so doubtless squeezes out the minute particles of poison- ous virus fi'om the deep cavities In the dis- eased part, and bringing the live fibres into closer contact, the healing process is assisted. As a wet sponge if thoroughly squeezed, will dry more quickly than if laid in the sun while filled with water, and as if kept com- pressed It will not as readily absorb more moisture, so vitriol, by Its astringent property, 70 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. compresses the spongy tissues of the diseased foot, and liolds it in that condition till the parts can become glued together by the mate- rial supplied from the blood of the animal. This compression aids the healing process, and at the same time renders any fresh matter that may come in contact with the foot much less liable to be absorbed. These are all the remedies that need ever be used. "But," says many a man, "I have used vitriol many times, and it never cured my sheep." Very true. Many men have mended fences every year, all their lives, and never had one suitable to stop a calf six months old ; still good fences are very useful appliances on a fa.rm. The truth is, the work is not properly done. Most men pare a diseased foot as they would their finger nails, cutting off only a rim of the outer border ; whereas every particle that can be detached from the soft parts beneath should be cut away, — as if you would cut off all the nail from the finger, deep down into the live flesh, till it shoutd bleed all round the border. Or, again, such work is done as if you were to cut off only the tips of the shuck of an ear of corn, when you need to strip off every husk down to the but, and lay every kernel bare. This preparatory work is indispensable. If it is not done all subsequent labor is wholly lost. Don't be afraid of a little blood. It would be well to wash all severe cases before applying the vitriol as directed in the note below.* As soon as this disease makes its appearance in a flock every sheep should be handled, and each foot carefully examined. Every case that shows no more than a suspicion — indi- cated by a little heat or redness, or a slight abrasion of the skin between the claws, — should be separated from the general flock and kept in a different enclosure till made well. Vitriol should be applied to every foot in, the flock. The diseased sheep should be treated every third day, till no trace of the disease is seen. If the work is done faithfully, two weeks will be sufficient to make all lame sheep whole again. To make sure of the work of the whole flock, the sound portion should be treated by having their feet carefully cleaned and the vitriol applied once in two weeks, for three or iour times. If the time is summer, put the affected part into a dry pasture, if possible ; if it is winter, put such in a dry pen and guard against mois- ture. With such measures carried out, no roan need be afllicted for many weeks with this annoying grievance. This treatment must be followed up with *Heat a pint or more of strong vinegar to near the boiling point, .ind then, while hot, put in as much vitriol as wi 1 .liiisolve while the miisa in stirred. Turn oft' into Rlaea bottlts to keep. It is best applied with a email bruiih, fiuch as paiiiters use to 'dra-w" window sashes. the most persistent energy. It is compara- tively easy to cure ninety- nine sheep in a hun- dred ; but we are quite apt to let the last one go till she has reseeded the whole flock. It is old Jackson's "Eternal Vigilance" which can alone secure for us freedom from foot-rot. The sooner flock masters throw out of their minds all ideas about a remedy that will "cure" this m'Jlady without the exercise of such vigi- lance as is pointed out above, the sooner will their flock be free from the mischievous ail- ment. Vitriol does not "cure" the injured part; it only aids us in our work of removing and keeping away the causes of the disease, till the waste of the tissues, caused by ulceration, may be repaired by nature's own process — the new material furnished to the part from the blood of the animal. Henry Boykton. Woodstock, Vt., Dec, 1869. For the New England Farmer, HOQ KILLING .S-T THE WEST. The return of this season — which might as appropriate!}', if not as poetically, be called the "time of the squealing of hogs," as is the spring the "lime of the singing of birds" — reminds me of the "times" we used to have in Illinois when that was out west. There is something about prairie life, with its wealth of elbow-room, which enlarges the hearts and liberalizes the minds of the settlers and tends to break up the narrowness of idea which the Eastern emigrant brings with him from a land where farmers, as a class, are too much addicted to a little one-horse style of thought and feeling, and whose sympathies too seldom extend beyond the family, or the lim- its of the farm. This generous, social characteristic of West- erners, is carried into every department of their business ; the whole neighborhood fol- lows the reaper and thresher. A man's whole crop of wheat goes to market in one day, with perhaps a procession of wagons as long as an "official" funeral; and then come the corn shucking and other "bees" in the fall, closing up with the "hog killing," which brings me back to my subject. We'll suppose Farmer Brown has fifty hogs ready for market. At the proper time he goes to town and engages his "crop of pork." This done he proceeds to load his wagon with the various luxuries of the season and returns home. Word is circulated that Farmer B. is to have a "killing." Matrons and misses gather in to help Mrs. B. make the necessary culinary preparation. On the fatal morning all the able-bodied men in the vicinity,^ fully armed and equipped, tender their service to Mr. B. Down by the creek, where wood and water is handy, a huge fire soon sets the water a bubbling in the row of great black kettles. Pop goes a rifle ! The battle has commenced, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKINIER. 71 and a porker bites the dust up in the pen. The knife is applied, and a horse draws the bleeding victim to the scalding tubs. Many hands make quick work, and the boy in the fence corner with his rifle, the man with his knife and the boy with the horse, are kept prttty busy. How the bristles fly ! What a ghastly array fifty porkers present suspended on the poles ! Must I tell it ? Just beyond the butchers, muffled in hoods and shawls, •with their feet on the reeking paunches to keep them from freezing, with bared arms stand a bevy of fair damsels collecting the fat from the intestines. The last hog being hung up for the wintry blast to cool, all hands clean up and "go in" to the Thanksgiving-like dinner, which Mrs. Brown and her aids have prepared. While the viands are being discussed, it is also set- tled whose teams shall have the honor of help- ing convey the pork to market next day. Isn't it jolly ? Western farmer's boys seem to love their fathers' business, and only leave the old home- stead to set up for themselves, on that quarter section which the old gentleman has been "holding on to" for them ; or they move a lit- tle further on towards the setting sun, where their Uncle Samuel olFdrs them a free home. Wouldn't a little of this neighborly way of doing things render Eastern farming more pleasant? G. n. a. Braintree, Wis., Nov., 1869. Remarks. — In the days of the early settle- ment of New England these "bees" were much more common among farmers than they have been of late years. We suppose that one cause of their going out of fashion was the unsatisfactory manner in which the work was sometimes done. When the farmer and his family dig through all their work alone, their pork may be dressed, their corn husked, and their apples dried a little nicer and some- what more economically than when done at a bee. But they depi-Ive themselves of the so- cial element which made these neighborhood gatherings so enjoyable, particularly to the young, and which turned work into play. Which plan involves the greater loss ? Soli- tude and want of company and diversion is an objection often made to the work of the farm. How far this objection may be obvi- ated by bees, by exchanging work, and other plans of co-operative farming, is a question that may well be considered by farmers who wish to make their children love their homes and their business. We shall be pleased to have our correspondent continue his sketches of Western life. EXTRACTS AND KEPLIES. THE HORSES OF NEW ENGLAND. I am sorry that your correspondent in Pomfret, Conn., in his communication upon the "Horses of New England," should have entirely overlooked the efforts that are now hein? made to improve the horse stock of his own Stale. Our farmers have bred from the little degenerated descendants of the Black Hawk and Morgan stock, so thickly scattered over our State, until it is alleged, and I fear justly, that Connecticut breeds the poorest horses of any State in the Union. Latterly, however, several well bred horses have been introduced among us. Your correspondent mentions Geo. M. Patchen, Jr, as a fine stallion. Mr. Wm. B. Smith of Hartford, and Mr. Geo. C. Hitchcock of New Preston, each own fine stallions by Geo. M. Patchen, which are consequently half- brothers to Geo. M. Patchen, Jr., both of which might be profitably used by our farmers. Both are of fine color — bright bay— of good size, and are good steppers. Mr. Smith's Thomas Jefferson, by Toronto Chief, is also a fine colt, well bred and fast. Then there is Mr. Hitchcock's Ashland that has twice taken a first premium at the Fairs of the New England Agricultural Society. As a stock horse this animal is by no means to be overlooked, especially as it was only last year that he received the first premium of $200 for the best stalUon with progeny. For raising road horses, there are no better bred stallions in the country than Ashland. There are few that have a better reputation as sto«k getters, — none in New England. Mr. Battell of Norfolk, had, and has now, if he has not disposed of him, a very fine young stallion by Hambletonian, that ought to produce a marked Changs in the stock in his vicinity. The horses of our State fte<;d a great deal of im- proving, and I believe that the true way to do this is to encourage, in every way, those who are at the trouble and expense of bringing such horses as I have mentioned into the State. A gentleman living in New Haven owns a fine stallion by Marabrino Chief, half brother to Lady Thorn and to Ashland, &c., that he keeps in Ver- mont, because the farmers of that State are more willing to pay for the services of a good horse than those of Connecticut ! This simple fact tells the whole story as regards the reason for the inferi- ority of horses raised generally by the farmers of Connecticut. It is undoubtedly bad policy to raise poor stock, and the sooner our farmers make a thorough change in this matter the better it will be for them. Crusoe. Neio Haven Co., Conn., Nov. 24, 1869. CURING BEEF. For some years past our beef has been too salt by spring. If you or any of your correspondents will inform me what quantity of salt will answer for a barrel of beef, you will very much oblige Auburn, Mass., Dec, 1869. A Subscriber. Remarks.— For a brine or pickle for beef we have generally used that made by adding a pound and a half of salt to a gallon of water. This is the proportion that was given, many years ago, in what was called the Knickerbocker Pickle. The editor of the Germantowii Ttlegraph publishes every year the following, as the best receipt known :— To each gallon of water needed to cover the meat, add l.J lbs. salt ; h lb. sugar ; ^ oz. salt- petre ; ^ oz. potash. Boil, skim and cool before 72 NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. Feb. asing. The meat must be kept covered with the brine, by a flat stone or wooden follower. To- wards spring the brine must be turned ofiF, boiled and skimmed, and a little more salt added. "We should advise to leave out the saltpetre entirely, as we consider it a rather dangerous article to use with food, and we have never used the potash. Meat should not be salted the day it is killed. How long it should lay before being salted down, will depend somewhat upon the state of the weather and other circumstances. The animal heat must be entirely dissipated, and a change in the fibre of the meat be allowed to take place which, in case of steak is often expressed by the word "ripe." This makes the meat tender and rich. EXPERIMENT IN SHIFTING SEED POTATOES. A friend gave me seventeen potatoes that were raised 200 miles from my farm. They weighed four pounds and twelve ounces. I planted them in thirty-four hills. I took the same number, of the same variety, that had been planted on my farm for twelve years, being careful to select those of the same weight ; planted them in same num- ber of hills, side by side, with the others. Both were treated in every way alike, as nearly as pos- sible. On harvesting the product of each the potatoes produced by the old seed, and those pro- duced by the new seed, were counted and weighed, with the following result : New Seed. Old Seed. No. Lbs, No. Lbs. Large or marketable potatoes, . 428 102 3£0 82 Small potatoes 630 32 780 61 1058 134 1130 133 From the result of this experiment it appears, that while there was only one pound difference in the whole weight, between the produce of the old and new seed, there were twenty pounds more large potatoes from the new seed than fi'om the old ; and that there were seventy-two more pota- toes in number from the old than from the new seed. It would seem, therefore, that it will not pay to change seed for mere weight ; but that it will pay to do so in the increased value of the po- tato for market. John M. Weake. Seabrook, N. H., Dec, 1869. Remaeks.— "We thank Mr. Weare for this state- ment of the result of his experiment. "We believe that farmers in the vicinity of Boston generally buy new seed every year. What are the advan- tages of doing so ? Have these advantages been demonstrated by careful experiments ? "We re- member of hearing an intelligent man once say that he thought the necessity for changing seed -riginated in the want of care in selecting potatoes for seed. Perhaps the best would be sold or used, and at planting time those unsuitable for seed, cither on account of their small size or immatu- rity, would be used, and consequently the crop de- generated, as corn or other grain would degenerate by the use of inferior seed. Facts, however, are more satisfactory than theorj'. And that stated by our correspondent is a valuable one. There are other points or questions that we should like to see illustrated by similar experiments. "What is the effect on the time of maturity from seed potatoes grown in different latitudes ? For instance, will po- tatoes grown in Maine ripen earlier in Massachu- setts or Connecticut, or any other section south of Maine, than those raised at home or in places still further south ? Mr. "Weare did not conduct his experiment to test this question. May we not hope to hear from others on the subject of shift- ing seed potatoes ? BEST hens for EGGS AND CHICKENS. As I am going into the poultry business some- what extensively I write you in regard to the best kind of hens for laying; also for raising chickens. Please inform me. Loren Shepaedson. Guilford Centre, N. H., Nov. 14, 1869. Remarks. — "We do not know as we can do any better than to advise you to get the kind that you love best. This was the advice given in a recent com- munication in the Farmer to a man who asked what kind of farm stock he had better buy. It may not be entirely satisfactory, but there is prob- ably more good sense in the advice than may at first sight appear. What suits one person will of- ten displease another, in poultiy, or in stock, farms, houses, carriages, associates, business, lo- cality, politics, and even religion. One person can choose for another in few of these particulars. If we should recommend one of the modem fancy breeds of hens, you might object to the cost ; if we named any other variety, some objection might be urged to that with equal force. There is undoubt- edly a great difference between varieties of poul- try, in some breeds one quality, in other breeds other qualities, are specially developed; but we believe there is a far greater difference after all in the care and keeping which are given them ; and consequently that results depend more on the keeper than on the breed of hens kept. HOW TO MAKE APPLE TREES BEAR. In answer to the question of S. Fisher "What shall I do with my apple trees," I will give my experience under similar circumstances. I have twenty Baldwin trees of about twenty years' growth. Three years ago they were thrifty, blos- somed well as they had done for several years, but bore little fruit, and that of very poor quality. Manure would not bring fruit. In June, 1866, I spread about fifty bushels of leached ashes broadcast over the land, (which was in grass,) then sowed on about one hundred pounds of gypsum. The next season I cut two fine crops of hay, getting, as I estimated, full pay for my outlay and labor in the increase of that crop. That year there were no apples in this re- gion. 1868, I had two good crops of hay, and on one- half the trees a very good crop of apples. Last May, the ground was ploughed, turning in a good coat of stable manure. The trees looked finely and blossomed fairlj. The land was planted to potatoes, with a handful of ashes and plaster in a hill, and yielded, except just under the trees, at the rate of two hundred bushels per acre ; but, best of all, those twenty trees bore one hun- dred and twenty bushels of the finest Baldwins I ever saw grown in New England, together with some thirty or forty bushels which fell off and were made into cider. The potato patch extended beyond the ground 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 73 dressed with the ashes. The whole piece was manured and tended alike. Where the ashes were spread iu 1866 the tops grew more rank, the drought had no effect, and the potatoes grew until they were dug to save them from freezing. Be- yond the limit of the ashes the drought injured them, the tops died early and the yield was no more than one hundred and thirty-three bushels per acre, and very many of these were badly eaten by grubs, while those where the ashes were spread were as clean and handsome tubers as one could wish to see. From my o^\ti success I am convinced that ashes will certainly do no injury to the apple trees or to the soil in which they gi'ow. w. r. s. South Wilbraham, Mass., Nov. 27, 1869. TO HIM WHO FEAHS DISEASE AND DEATH FROM THE t:SE OF AVATER RUNNING THROUGH LEAD FIVES. Know yon not, dear sir, that you must die if you do not have water ? From an extensive observa- tion of twenty years as "waterman" in all this re- gion, I am fully persuaded that not one in a thousand suffers while living, or dies earlier, in con- sequence of using water conveyed in lead pipe. There are occasional instances of lead poison, but this is no more a sufBcient reason whj' all should be deprived of this best of all means for serving man and beast with the crystal stream, than is the fact that one in a thousand or in ten thousand who ride in the cars are injured thereby, a reason why railroads should not be used ? I say lead pipe is the best of all known conduc- tors of water for family use — 1st, because it is with- in the reach of all, and is the cheapest, in the long run; 2d, it is the most feasible conductor and the most readily adapted to all localities ; 3d, it is the most easily and cheaply repaired when by any means it is out of order; and 4th, if the water used is of "hard" or lime water, the pipe will very soon be completely coated with a deposit of lime, similar to an egg shell, which renders it perfectly harm- less. In a few cases there may be a chemical peculi- arity in the water which renders the use of lead pipe unsafe. In such cases cement or stone con- ductors should be u»ed. Wrought iron or com- mon gas pipe is, perhaps, next to cement, the safest in such springs. There are, however, seri- ous objections to iron as well as lead. A few years since lead pipe coated with tin in- side was recommended very highly as a substitute for lead. Bat trial has proved this tin coating to be so thin as to be of little or no real value. More recently still a new pipe has been introduced and is advertised largely as "lead encased tin pipes," which is but another name for the former article, save that the proportion of tin is greater than in the tin lined lead pipe. If we will believe the ad- vertisement, this is cheaper than pure lead. But when we compare the price of this kind of pipe, which is about double that of lead, with the price of pure tin pipe which is at least four and a half that of lead, we must conclude that the propor- tion of tin is very small, or that the tin is adulterated by other and cheaper metals. But more than this, it is clearly proved that in a great many instances water contains a chemical property that corrodes this tin or alloy much more rapidly than pure lead. In such cases one only has his choice between lead and tin as the base of his metalic poison. In some sections, especially near cities, there seems to be an idea that galvanized iron is the only safe substitute for lead. Let us see. Iron is galvanized by immersion, at a given heat, after being plunged in an acid bath, in melted zinc. Pure zinc is the coating called galvanizing, which penetrates the body more or less, as it is thorough- ly or superficially galvanized. Now, then, take your choice, my splecny friend. Will you prefer zinc, tin or an alloy of tin, or lead, as the metallic base of your poison, if poison at all ? Experience has fully convinced me that zinc cor- rodes most rapidly, tin and its alloys next, and simple lead, which is not alloyed, because it is the cheapest of all its class of metals, will remain un- changed by water much the longest, and is there- fore the most harmless of all known metallic con- ductors of water. At all hazards, I will close by making the asser- tion that many more lives are lost by want of water than by lead or any metallic poison from conductors. p. j. Randolph, Vt., Nov., 1869. SALTPETRE FOR SICK CATTLE AND TURKEYS. Having recently used saltpetre with apparently beneficial effects, I will make the following state- ment for the benefit of others. Sometime last winter a two-year old heifer began to cough, grow poor and weak. She would put her nose near the ground and cough, or rather gag badly, for some time. Fnally she got so weak as to stagger if she at- tempted to move quick. We dissolved about a com- mon table spoon even full of saltpetre in warm water, which was put into a bottle and given to her. It appeared to help her at once. About a week after- wards another dose was given her. She continued to improve in health and strength, and was soon wel 1 , strong and fleshy. About a month afterwards another heifer was taken in the same way, was ti-eated in the same manner, and with the same favorable result. This last season we lost about thirty young tur- keys; in fact, all we had except three or four. When about half grown they would droop and die. A neighbor suggested that the disease was proba- bly worms. I took one that could hardly stand and gave it a piece of saltpetre, the size of a pea. Before night it began to walk about. The next day it was eating with the rest. I tried the same remedy with another one with a similar result. Marlboro', Mass., Dec. 3, 1869. P. Welch. TO DRESS POULTRY FOR MARKET. There is a right and a wrong way to prepare poultry for the market, and a nice appearance adds many pennies to the house-wife's store. A bright, cold day should be selected for the operation, and the fowls should not be fed in the morning, so that their crops may be emptied. The old process of wringing their necks is entirely done away with. The heads of turkeys, geese, chickens or ducks can be chopped off with a sharp hatchet, so that one quick blow will do the deed. Have an assist- ant to take each one from the block ; tic its legs together, and hang it across a stout line stretched from post to post. Here, let them hang until thor- oughly blooded. If the feathers are desired, they must not be scalded, yet there is danger of tearing the skin if it is not wet. Pick them clean, but on no account remove the intestines. The meat keeps much longer if no air is admitted into the body. Our best poultry men plunge each fowl into a ket- tle of boiling water as soon as it is picked. This practice makes the flesh white and plump, and if they arc in decently good condition when killed, gives them a fine appearance. A well-dressed fowl makes a good show if not verj' fat, while an ill-dressed one, no matter how fat, can never look well. When the fowls are all picked and scalded, (a few moments is sufBcient for that) tie the legs together, and hang up in a cool room ; if this is not possible, lay them upon clean boards until the animal heat has passed away, but do not let them freeze di- rectly. 74 XEW ENGLAND FARjVIER. Feb. BaiTels do not make good packing boxes, the rolling of them injures the poultry. Clean, dry goods boxes, which every country store will fur- nish, are much better. Kye or oat straw placed between them so they cannot touch each other, an- swers the best purpose for packing. If the fowls are well dressed and well packed they will keep sweet for a long time in cold weather, and can be sent by express or freight with the surety of their arriving in good order, and com- manding the highest market price. A walk through our city markets about Christmas time, reveals to an observer that full half our poultry raisers do not understand the right way of preparing their poultry so as to look attractive. The scalding pro- cess is the secret. s. o. J. Bath, N. U., Dec, 1869. FARMEKS' CLUBS IN STETSON AND GAELAND, ME. Being in Stetson Tuesday evening, Nov. 16, I attended an agricultural lecture, delivered by Hon. Samuel Wasson, chairman of the State Board of Agriculture, I think. It was interesting and in- structive. After the lecture, a farmers' club was organized, and much enthusiasm was manifested. Also at Garland, Friday evening, Nov. 19, 1 lis- tened to the same gentleman upon the same sub- ject. After the lecture, a farmers' club was also formed here — farmers, mechanics, traders, minis- ters and doctors subscribing their names to the con- stitution. In no way can the farmers spend a part of their evenings more proQtaby or more pleasantly than at a live farmers' club. Success to the far- mers' clubs of Stetson and Garland. p. Garland, Me., Nov. 22, 1869. Remarks.— From the frequent notices of fa,r- mer's clubs that appear in the Maine papers, we think that they are just now more popular in that State than in any other part of New England. This may be owing to a provision in the laFrof the State by which a portion of the money drawn from its treasury for agricultural purposes must be devoted to the formation and encouragement of such clubs. We presume that Mr. "Wasson is em- ployed under this provision of the law, and we have no doubt that he will be eminently success- ful. Wc believe that all that is wanting in many agricultural neighborhoods to secure the organi- zation of a good club is some one to "break the ice." SWELLED SHEATH IN HORSES. I have a valuable horse that is badly troubled with a swelling of the sheath. After standing a short time it seems to inflame and become hard and swollen. I keep him thoroughly clean and have tried cold bathing and various simple remedies, but it still continues. Exercise makes it better while it continues, but after standing it swells again. Can you or any of the readers of your val- uable paper give me any remedy for the trouble ? W. P. Griffin. Annisquam, Mass., Dec A, 1869. Remarks — Beyond the simple remedies which you say you have tried, wc do not feel competent, from want of knowledge as to the cause of the dif- ficulty, to offer any advice. It is often said that the knowledge of a disease is half its cure. Dr. Dadd was once consulted in a somewhat similar case, where the poor horse had been bled and physicked almost to death without any benefit. On examin- tion, he found the trouble to be a tumor or fungus of about one-half of the bulk of a man's fist. This removed, the difficulty ended. If there is no in- telligent veterinary surgeon in your neighborhood, we must advise you to get your family physician to make a careful examination of the case. Per- haps some reader of the Farmer may be able to advise our correspondent what to do for his horse. A GOOD cow ON GOOD FEED. In March, 1868, 1 bought a cow for $125. Wish- ing to try an experiment with liberal feeding, I fed her four quarts of Indian meal a day. She was milked eighteen months and twenty-one days, when being in good order for beef, she was slaugh- tered, dressing 80-5 lbs., and sold for $116,— the rough tallow weighing 77 pounds. At the time she was killed she was giving seven quarts a day, and during the whole time averaged 10 quarts a day. Calling the time 558 days, the whole amount of milk was 5680 quarts. The account then stands as follows; — Cow Dr. To original co?t $125 00 To keeping 563 days at 40 cents a day . 227.09 $352.00 Cow Cr. By 5680 quarts milk at 8c per quart . . $454.40 By bpefsold 110.00 Net profit $570.40 $218.40 Brighton, Mass., Dec , 1869. Geo. W. Wild. MR. aUINN'S PEAR CULTURE FOR PROFIT. It was refreshing to me to-day to read the — as far as it went — free and just criticism of that sev- enty-two page book, "Pear Culture for Profit," by Mr. Quinn. There is one other point I would have spoken of, and that is the opinion it gives of dwarf- ing trees. Lamentable is the ill success Mr. Quinn has had; and if he has had no better success in other departments, his book is anything but a safe or reliable guide. He says in chapter fifth, "With a single exception the culture of the dwarf in the orchard is a failure-e-' * * « * "For a long time I had reason to suppose that the Anglers Quince was well suited as a stock for many of our best varieties of pears, but as far as my personal observation has gone, the number has dwindled down to one variety, — that is the Duehesse D'An- gouleme. How long this kind will do well on the quince root, I am not prepared to say." Admit, if we must, the facts in the case, and of how much value is the book as a guide for others ? That the culture of pears on the quince has been a success, thousands attest. Hardly an author who has M-ritten has not approved it. I quote but one; that admirable (vork by Baker, "Practical and Scientific Fruit Culture." At page 296 he says, "The period of barrenness before maturity in the peai", on free stock, is cut short by the quince and the life extended nearly as long as the stand- ard, if cropped judiciously. The life of pears on the quince independently has, I believe, been un- derstated. * * * * An observation of those from thirty to forty years of age, in the gardens of my esteemed partner, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, which are still bearing crops ; and a large number of fifteen to twenty years of age, apparently in full health and productiveness, must lead one to extend the period." I only add that Mr. Baker is well supported by most of our best writers, who, while they recognize the fact that dwarfs are not as long-lived as standards, yet (or projit they give the preference to the former. I have a thought to offer on another point, and 1870. imw ENGLAND FAE^^IER. 75 that is in regard to the Old St. Michael, to which you refer in a late article. I am convinced, after a careful observation of some years, that it is not true that this old variety has "run out." There has been grown, and without any particular care, in the extensive pear grounds of the late John Gordon, Esq., at Brighton, one tree \^ith as fine specimens as can be desired. The tree is very healthy, and bears annually good crops. I have come to the conclusion that some kinds of stock are peculiarly fitted for it. I believe that by double grafting — on the quince first — we can pro- duce perfect fruit. Our work is not to denounce, or set down in despair, but, instead, experiment in grafting or budding on other sorts, until the most favorable one is discovered. I am in no mood now to argue the question of influence of stock on the graft, but assume the point, fully believing, from other experiments, that our success lies in this direction, and I fully believe our end is to be at- tained. It is probable it would crack on the Dix, but simply possible that it would in the Vickar. Boston, Mass., Dec, 1869. t. w. s. BONE-MEAL FOR COWS. "Within the last year or two, farmers in this sec- tion have experienced considerable trouble and inconvenience from the sterility of their cows. It is believed that less cows are with calf at the pres- ent time, in proportion to the number kept, than ever before at this season of the year. Many are inquiring for a reason and for a remedy of the trouble. One farmer of experience and observa- tion has given bone meal to cows of this habit, as he believes with beneficial results. A gill is given with other feed three times a day every other week. He think it has also proved beneficial with sick animals. A heifer lost her appetite and grew weak until she lost the use of her legs. Bone meal was administered, and in a few days the heifer was on her feet, and was soon apparently as well as ever. These facts are stated to draw out the opinions and knowledge of those better informed than ourselves, rather than as a statement of value of itself. Springvale, Me., Nov. 25, 1869. Zen. CHICKENS MADE LAME BY EATING PUMPKIN SEEDS. Perhaps some may think there has been enough said upon the subject. But I think I will give a little of my experience that maj' be interesting to some who keep poultry. In the fall of the year when feeding pumpkins to my stock near the buildings, the fowls have eaten enough of the seeds to affect their legs; sometimes, if long continued, proving fatal. e. a. St. Johnsbury Centre, Vf., Xov. 30, 1869. LARGE POTATOES. While digging my potatoes this fall, I thought I would try some of the largest in a Shaker bushel measure. Thirty -two of the Orono variety filled the measure heaping full. After drying a month, the thirty-two potatoes weighed fifty -two pounds. The largest one weighed two pounds and eight ounces. Henry Day. Monmotith, Me., Dec. 1869. SPJSCIAIi CROPS. If it were safe for farmers to place their chief re- liance on any one crop under any circumstances, cotton at the South would seem to be that crop. But with all the facts and circumstances which have been urged in favor of cotton as a specialty, the experiment is generally admitted to have been disastrous to planters. On this point we find a statement by a corres- pondent of the Southern Cultivator that we think worth the attention of those who advise northern farmers to devote their attention to some one crop, and of those who propose to follow such advice. The name of this correspondent is G. W. Stokes, Wooten, Lee Co., Geo. Southern agricultural writers generally back their statements with their own sign-manual. Wc admire this fashion. There is a frankness, manliness, honesty of purpose ap- parent in this style, which is lacking when one adopts any sort of fiction for a signature. This Mr. G. W. Stokes is a planter, employing about sixty hands on his own land, and is also a merchant and furnishes supplies to from forty to sixty of his neighboring planters, taking the pro- duce of their plantations or farms in payment in the fall. He says : — I find that those who buy both corn and meat (all they use) never have any surplus money left; that those who buy all their meat, and only a por- tion of their corn, have money over, in proportion to quantity of corn purchased ; and that those who raise all their corn, even when they buy all their meat, are doing very well. The few who raise both corn and meat, make money very fast. These I know to be facts, in the face of the argu- ment, that the same acre that yields 15 to 20 bush- els corn, worth #20 to $30, will yield 700 pounds to 1000 pounds seed cotton, worth from ^2>oXo B75. It is difficult to explain why com purchased costs so much, and that raised on the farm is so cheap ; yet I know, and no doubt thousands of observant planters know, that he who buys all his provisions, never has any surplus cotton money. I am inclined to think that the bought corn does not really cost so much, but that the principal ex- planation of these facts, is that a good planter can raise nearly a full crop of cotton, and at the same time raise an ample supply of corn, because with good management the heaviest of the work in the corn crop is past, before the heaviest of the cotton crop begins, so that he who plants cotton aloae, loses enough time to raise his corn, for the simple reason that without any corn crop at all, he can raise very little more cotton than he could hnd he a suflicient corn crop planted. Now if it is a fact, that a planter who raises no corn or meat, has never had any surplus money since the close of the war, with cotton ranging high all the time except 1867, how can we expect anything but ruin, the veiy first year our cotton crop is cut off, or the price is low ? If our people had raised their corn and meat in 1866, '67, they would not have cared a straw for the low prices of cotton in the latter year named, even if the specu- lators could have controlled the price, and kept it down. I live in as good a cotton and corn region as I have seen anywhere, and we are highly fa- vored this year, although our crops are not full, yet they are so much better than they are in most sections, that we certainly ought to feel thankful. I travelled over most of the West and North the past summer, and having seen the eflFects of the drought upon the corn crop, and I pity the cotton maker, who has not raised (at least) his corn this year. — Mr. Wm. Whitfield, of Oakland County, Mich., has imported foar Hampshire Down sheep from England. They cost at his place nearly $200 each. One of the rams weighs 305 and another 294 lbs. ; the ewes weigh over 200 pounds each. 76 NEW ENGLAND FAE^MER. Feb. THE LODGE PEAR. This pear is very popular in Philadelphia, where it was supposed to have originated, but it has been disseminated from Hartford, Conn. , as Smith's Bordenave, and said to have been imported with an invoice of trees from France. The fruit from which our illustration was drawn was raised in the garden of Col. Wilder of Dorchester. The tree is hardy, but not very vigorous, except when grafted on the leading shoots of old trees, but further noi'th it does not suc- ceed as well as in the vicinity of Boston and Hartford. It produces abundant crops, which adhere strongly to the branches during the autumnal gales, and the fruit keeps well for one of its season. The following description of this pear is copied from Cole's Fruit Book : — Size, rather above medium, three and a half inches long, including stem, by two and a half in diameter ; form, acute, pyrif orm, broad across the middle, some specimens in- clining to obovate, outline and surface a little irregular; calyx, small, sunk in moderately deep basin ; stem, one inch long, rather stout and curved, sometimes swollen at the base and set without depression ; colo7-, dull green, overcast with a thin coat of russet ; JlesJi, greenish white, very melting and juicy ; flavor, rich, vinous, with & distinct high Brown Beurre aroma; maturity, first of October; quality, very good. Mr. Walsh's Collection of Insects. — The Prairie Farmer understands that efforts have been made to obtain this valuable entomological collec- tion for some Eastern museum, but is anxions that it should be retained at the West, and ex- presses the hope that it will fall into the hands of Mr. Charles V. Riley, of St. Louis, who was asso- ciate editor with Mr. Walsh of the American Ento- mologist, and is also State entomologist of Mis- souri, and will probably now become chief editor of that publication. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 77 PAKMIKTG IN VERMONT. The Climate— Soil— Water-power— Grazing lands— Stones— Stock— Horses— Cows— Steira and Oxen— Sheep— Peultry— Sugar— Quarries— Means of Trans- portation—Schools— Opportunities for Pecuniary Gain, and for Moral and Reiigious Attainments. _J OR several years past, we have annually spent two or three weeks in vari- ous portions of Ver- mont, mingling with the people of eve- ry class, rambling among its vallies and hills, admiring the scenery and carefully observing their practices in cultivat- ing crops, and the habits of the people. Some travel in most of the older States, with the same careful ob- servation, has convinced us that no State in the Union ofFjrs advantages superior to those of the State of Vermont, in all that affects ones pres- ent or future prosperity. The climate is well calculated to give shape to the character of its people. The face of the country is generally uneven, and a great part of it mountainous. All through the win- ter months, the ground is usually covered with snow, which remains dry, and affords easy and rapid communication from one point to another. The transition from winter to spring is less trying than nearer the seacoast, where freez- ing and thawing succeed each other for weeks in succession, and where the east winds blow all the moisture out of invalids exposed to it. Frost does not penetrate as it does where less snow falls, so that as the snow melts it passes into the ground, and the sur- face soon becomes dry and agreeable. Some exceptions to this are found on the roads where clay predominates. On account of the even and dry condition of the atmosphere, persons affected with pulmonary complaints find the climate more congenial than in warmer latitudes. A large portion of the soil is fertile, and fitted for the various purposes of agriculture. -It is generally deep, of a dark color, rich, moist, warm, loamy, and capable of resisting I the effects of moderate drought. The low lands yield corn and hay abundantly, and of the best quality ; while the broad swells are excellent for small grains, and are among the best pastures in the country. A large portion of the land is free from stones ; most of the hills, even, may be easily cultivated to their summits. Quarries of fine marble are found in various portions of the State, and porcelain earth, lead and copper ones. Water power is abundant to a far greater extent than it has yet been employed. It may be that the prime necessities of life can be produced at a less cost of labor in some other States than in Vermont ; but taking into account all the elements that make life a suc- cess, we look upon this State as pre-eminently inviting to those who wish to engage in agri- cultural pursuits. By a reference to the census of 18G0, we find the population stated at 350,000 soule, and that it has $122,000,000 worth of real and personal property. They have about 3,000,000 acres of improved land; 75,000 horses; 175,000 milch cows; 50,000 work- ing oxen; 160,000 other cattle; between 700,000 and 800,000 sheep; 52,000 swine; 3,000,000 pounds of wool ; raised in 1860 more than 5,000,000 bushels of potatoes; made 16,000,000 pounds of butter, and between 8 and 9,000,000 pounds of cheese ; cut 100,000,- 000 tons of hay ; made 10,000,000 pounds of maple sugar, and harvested $200,000 worth of beeswax and honsy. The value of slaughtered animals in that year is set down at $2,610,800 ! The horses of Vermont have for many years stood deservedly high, and have reached their excellence by observing the true principles of breeding and tending, aided by the natural ad- vantages of soil and climate. Less attention has been paid to improvements in the bovine race, but it is now being turned in that direc- tion, and promises gratifying results. No cli- mate seems better adapted for the rearing of horses or neat stock, especially to endow it with the qualities of docility, hardihood, and the largest powers of endurance. They grow up in a rigid region of pure air and water, and become so much accustomed to atmospheric changes as to be little affected by them in af- ter life, when properly treated. Now that there is a depression in the de- mand for fine-wooled sheep, the farmers of the ' 78 NEW ENGLAND FAKIVIER. Feb- State are directing attention, more than ever, to horses, neat stock and the dairy. It seems to us that more flattering opportunities were never offered to those wishing to engage in agricultural pursuits. Opportunities, not only for making money, but for that distinction in the public mind which all desire, when it can be gained by being useful to the world. Sheep culture is by no means abandoned in the State. Large numbers of INIerinos are etill kept, while the long-wools are introduced, and found profitable. The amount of poultry may be trebled, and a compensating demand found for it all. Where the cereal grains are eo extensively cultivated, poultry can be cheaply raised. It is compact in form, easily dressed and marketed, and readily sells at paying prices. The forests nearly or quite Bupply the people with sugar, which is one of two or three of the leading articles of cost consumed in the family. With this view of the matter we are inclined to think one of the writers of the State may be correct in saying, — "that when we take into consideration the number of acres of improved land, its appraised value, number of inhabi- tants employed in agriculture, and amount of production, we far surpass any other other State in the American Union." Another consideration of vital importance is, (hat. all this vast production lies almost at the threshold of the doors of the purchaser. The means of transportation are so constant, rapid and cheap, that the articles produced are worth almost as much where they grow, as they are in the markets where they are consumed. The opportunities, hov/cver, for pecuniary gain, in this favored spot, are not its principal allurements. Its crowning glories are in good laws, wisely administered; in the means of education afforded by schools, but chiefly in intelligent mothers ; in the industry and liberal economy of the people, and in the ample op- portunities for the moral and religious training of all classes, which is to preserve (he institu- 4ions of our fathers, perpetuate our power as a n.ition, and mak'i us an example worthy of imitation by all the peoples of the earth. For the New England Farmer, FARMING IN 1849 AND IN 1889. A great many people are prone to look on only one side of a picture or of any object that may be presented to them, though ablest every thing is said to have two sides, and we know that almost every body has two eyes. Let us try to use both eyes for a f^iw moments, and to examine both sides of our present "bard times." During the late war, prices of farm produce ran up excessively high, and farmers gathered a richer harvest than ever before since our national existence. This state of things has raised the ideas of farmers. But now the war is over, and the high prices it produced, are no longer realized in full. Oar taxes have been greatly increased and so has the cost of the labor we hire. Where, then, it may be asked, is the bright side of our condi- tion ? Let us see if we can find it. We will compare 18i9 with 18C9. Twenty years ago I paid about $20 tax ; I paid for a hired man, six months, $60; I estimated his board at $39 ; my New England Faraier then cost me $2.50 a year — total for these three items in 1849. $126.50. In 1869 I paid $50 taxes, for hired man $150; cost of his board say $78, and the Fakmer $2.50,— total in 1869, $280.50. Now I take the ruling prices at this market, — and, by the way, we have a good one, — and estimate the amount of each of the several ar- ticles of produce named, required in 1819 and in 1869 to pay my taxes, hired man and my newspaper : — Amount required Bar- Article Pric3 Price to pay, — p!u8. in ia $126 50 $2S0 50 in lUi. 1869. ia 1849. in 1869. 1669. Potatoes, bush. .17 .50 759 5Sl 193 Corn, " .62 1 G9 21.3 187 17 Beans, " 1.50 3 60 8i| 80 3* Hay, ton 8 00 20.0J 16 14 2 Bul'er lb .12 .40 1037 681 35S Kiigs, doz .10 .31 1205 875 390 A good cow, 12.00 40.00 io.i 7 3i — One man in Walpole, N, H., has raised eight acres of the best tobacco that was grown on the Connecnicut river last year. A good deal of land In that town will be devoted to the cultivation of the weed next season. Thus I have paid my taxes and my hired man in 1869, notwithstanding their much high- er nominal cost, with a coujiderably smaller amount tif produce, than I did in 1849. If I had sold potatoes to raise the money, it would have taken 198 bushels less now than in 1849, a gain sufiiicient to supply a large family ; if I had sold corn, 17 bushels less ; if hay, two tons ; if butter, 356 pounds ; if cows, I should have saved the price of three and a half, — a pretty good beginning for a dairy ; and so of the other articles named. Our farms, also are worth at least 25 p"r cent, more than in 1849. 1 might compare the present prices of horses now with those of twenty years ago, but the foregoing is sulli- cient. What farmer who compares the above fig- ures will wish for the return of the old times, with its low rate of taxation and of labor ? If our taxes have increased our means for pay- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 79 ing them have increased in larger proportion. What other class in the community are able to meet their increased expenses, and have as many dollars "to boot" as the fanner, or who can iook into the dubious future with less fear than he ? H the prices of what he raises are reduced, 80 are the prices of those articles he is obliged to buy. One dollar will buy as much sugar and many other groceries as two dollars would during the war. Still many of us grumble and complain until we actually come to think that in no time in the past was our condition £0 deplorable as in the unfortunate present. Others may look on the dark side of things till dispair is daguerreotj ped on their very countenances ; but for one, I am determined to look upon the bright side as long as I can. Springcale, Me., Dec, 1869. Zen. For the New England Farmer, EXPERIMENTS WITH SUPERPHOS- PHATES AND OTHER MANURES. Does it pay to use superphosphate ? is a question we frequently hear asked, but the an- swer is generally unsatisfactory. Some think it does, others think it does not. Some, high in authority, tell us it is all a cheat and a hum- bug, and that the farmers of the country would be better off if the whole lot were dumped into the dock, and advise us to spend our money in digging muck and making com- po.st. Oihers, whose testimony is equally as good, tell us it does net pay to dig and cart bog wa- ter and sand, for the small amount of vegeta- ble matter it may contain, but tell us to buy pure Hour of bone, and make our own super- phosphate. The manufacturers tell us we can't do it, that it implies so nice a combination of the several parts as to require the skill of a prac- tical chemist to do it. Each one tells us that bis is the best in the maiket, and produces thou-ands of certilicates to prove it. Now, under these circum.^tances, what are we poor farmers to do ? Do as that good old farmer Levi Bartlett, of this town, advised me and thousands of others to do. He said, '■be } our own judges, by making a fair, im- partial and comparative trial of the dilFercmt fertilizers, both home-made and commercial. Use the steelyards, note the result and keep a true account. Then if any fertilizer fails to give sal i.- faction, you may come to the conclu- bion that that manure is a humbug and a cheat, or tli;tt your land is already rich enough in that particular kind oi fertilizer." 1 have been making these experiments for the L: t three years tor my own satisfaction, anil ihey have always proved satisfactory. La-r spring 1 procured several brands of su- pcrpliusph.ite, also a barrel i f Pure Flour of lione, from tbe liosion Milling Company, which I taw advertised in the Niivv Ejsglajsd Farmer. I made two barrels of Phosphate by using equal parts of bone and ashes, after the recommendation of Dr. J. R. Nichols. I also made a small quantity with acid, using sixteen pounds bone, six pounds sulphuric acid. I dried off the paste fit for handling with ten pounds plaster; this I call m^ phosphate. I also used equal parts of hen manure and rich loam, tha' had received ih ■ wash of the barn-yard. The following table will show the result: — Noihini? . . . . Glasgow . . . . Bone and Ashts Lob^t^^•Chum , Uradli'.^'s . . . WilBon'a . . . . My Phosphate . Hen Manure Com Croasdale . . . E. F. Coe'8 . . . N'O. 01 V,.. lb. No.tbB No ba bills. Pbos. jf ton, 10 ihe &c. acie. 100 20 10 aoo 2) 116 29 200 30 &S 23i 200 40 73 Ih^ 200 20 121 30 20O 2J 100 25 200 20 125 3'J 200 3bu. 131 22^ 200 20 135 3:)i 2C0 20 136 34 190 145 92 200 150 212 'in V40 In making up this table, I allow eighty p»ourda to the biithel. I plant my corn one pace each way ; this gives 4000 hills to the acre, which require 400 pounds thos- phate. The ground on which this trial was made is a ridge of dry land, broken up last year. It had been mown four year and produced about one ton of hay to the acre last year. The soil was uniform in character throughout, and I conducted the experiment in a fair and impartial manner, doing the work myself. Bradley's and E. F. Coe's Superpho^^phate I bought at the stores in this town ; WiLon's I had of G. Walker, Concord, N. H. ; Croasdale's I obtained of S. H. Hobbins, Portland, Me. ; Glasgow of Duncan & McKellar, N. Y., and I have no doubt that they were fair samples of what is put into the market. I have used considerable muck, but never received any beneficial results from it, except as an absorbent in the hovel and hog pen. It seems to me, that a series of experiments conducted in the manner I have these, must show conclusively, whether it pays to use com- mercial fertilizers or not. fily experiments certainly show that they are not all "humbugs and cheats." In all of these experiments, some of the superpho.-pbate3 have given bet- ter results than tithcr of the home-made kinds. Take, for in-tance, hen manure, which is gen- erally considered to be the best concentrated fertilizer we have on the farm, and E. F. Coe's Superphosphate, and compare the results. I was offered §1.12^ for the one and one-half bushels of hen manure used. 'J'his made ninety-one pounds of corn, worth $1 4:i, which gives me twenty-six per cent, on the in- vestment. The sixty cents worth of phos- phate made ninety-six pounds corn, worth $Lf;0; this pays 11)0 per cent. In none of the three experiments has it paid me less than this. A little more figuring will shov/ that the hen manure, compared with the phosphate is relatively worth olh cents per bushel, allow- ing noihiiig for labor of composting. It is a 80 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. very easy matter to advise us farmers to keep a large pile of this excellent fertilizer on hand ; but they do not tell us where to get the hen manure. I have raised over one hundred bushels of good sound corn with these special fertilizers applied in the hill the past season, and from accounts kept, charging the whole cost ■ of the manure, labor, interest, &c., I find it has cost a fraction less than seventy cents a bushel. We make fine wool a specialty. Our great- est desideratum is hay ; the next is wheat, with which to bread the family, and I know of no better way io obtain these than to raise corn as I have named. After it is harvested, plough the ground, and spread on from eight to ten cords per acre of good manure from the sheep hovels or barn cellar. In the spring, as soon as the ground will admit, give it a good harrowing or cultivating, and sow to wheat and grass seed. Mr. John Johnson, — not the famous one near Geneva, N. Y., but of this town — ^has brought an old worn-out farm to a high state of cultivation by a similar practice. He raises on an average twenty-two bushels of wheat to the acre, and keeps a large and thrifty stock of cattle. Mr. W. H. Palmer, another neigh- bor of mine, five years ago, bought an old, worn-out farm that did not average half a ton of hay to the acre. It will now average two tons. His practice is similar to mine and Mr. Johnson's. Other farmers are adopting the same practice with good success. I should have said that my own phosphate cost two cents and eight mills a pound, besides the labor of making, and a narrow escape from getting badly burned with the acid. I don't think I shall use "Uncle John's" "superphos- phate of brains" in making my superphosphate hereafter, but buy it ready made, and I think I have brains enough to know which to buy. S. C. Pattee. Warner, N. H., Bee, 1869. For the New England Farmer. COUNTRY HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE Much has been said and written about coun- try homes for the clerks, mechanics and labor- ers whose business is in the city. The question has engaged the attention of noble minds and able pens. In occupying your attention and that of the public, I do it, let it be understood, not because I claim to rank with the best and wisest men of the day, but simply to detail a little of my own experience in this matter of a country home. INIy intention always is to regulate my desires by reason and the circum- stances in which I am placed, and to attempt only that which I feel a degree of certainty I can attain. By so doing 1 may attempt less than others, and may attain less ; but I shall have one or two advantages — my failures will be fewer, my mortifications less. A couple of years ago my business brought me into Boston. Having a family of five boya the question was, — What shall I do with my family ? If I hire a tenement in the city — such an one as I shall like to have, and in such a neighborhood as I shall want to bring up a family in — the rent will be equal to, if not above my whole salary. To hire a tenement in such a place in the city as my circumstances would allow, I was satisfied would be no place for me to bring up a family in. I wanted to be with my family as much as possible ; and the only alternative was such a place as last described, or a place in the country. It did not take me long to make up my mind that my home must be in the country ; but at such a distance that I could reach it every night at a small cost. After looking at a number of places within the eleven miles cir- cle of Boston, I finally fixed upon a place in Needham. I must admit I was a little fright- ened about locating in this town by the repu- tation it had won. Every body with whom I conversed said. Why ! you are not going to live there in Poor Needham ! You may raise white beans and pennyroyal, but not much else. Being somewhat wilful in my nature, and a little independent in my'judgment, I made up my mind, notwithstanding all that was said, to locate in poor Needham. I found a place there of about twelve acres of land on which stands — not a palatial palace, not even a French-roofed modern residence, — but a good substantial farm-house, containing eleven rooms besides attics. The sitting-room and parlor are fifteen by sixteen feet, and two of the bed-rooms are of the same size. There was alsp a small barn and carriage house, with sheds attached which belong generally to farm houses. On the land there are about seventy apple trees and about the same number of young pear trees, many not in bearing yet. For this place I paid forty-five hundred dol- lars. I bought a cow and a heifer fifteen months old, for which I paid one hundred dollars. I also purchased another parcel of land of about eleven acres, for five hundred dollars. This lot was part pasture and part wood. On the first mentioned purchase there is about five acres in sprouts. For fencing the pasture I paid two hundred dollars. My outlay for tools and other things would amount to another hundred dollars. Making my whole investment fifty-fofar hundred dollars ; the interest on which at seven per cent.,, would be three hundred and seventy-eight dollars ; to which add eighty dollars, the price of my season ticket for a year, would make the whole four hundred fifty-eight dollars a year. I suppose some will ask the question, why buy so much land ? I had five boys, four with me at home, who, besides going to school, could do a great deal about the place. They could milk the cows, plant and weed, as well as a man, and would thereby acquire the habit of doing something and taking care of 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 81 something, which would be a training for what- ever station they may fill in after life. All this is worth something, — how much, those who have the training of boys can estimate as well as myself. Well, then, altogether my rent was four hundred and fifty-eight dollars a year. What kind of a place could I get for this money in Boston ? Then my family had the benefit of country air and good schools ; if not quite as good as Boston at present, we believe they are fast improving. On the first of June, 1868, I entered upon this place, with which I opened an account, which was balanced on the first of June, 18G9. By which balance I found the place debtor to the ameunt of three dollars and sixty-one cents. That is, I had sold fruit, butter, milk and eggs for as much as I had paid out for labor, and for meal, corn, and other things I had to purchase for the farm, less three dollars and sixty-one cents. Now, then, what did I have for my four hundred and sixty-one dollars and sixty-one cents? In the first place, I had a good large house, pleasantly located, to live in. Those acquainted with city rents can judge of the situation and style of house this money would have paid for in Boston. Besides the use of the buildings, I have had all the apples, pears, strawberries and other small fruits for my family's use ; I had all the vegetables 1 wanted for the whole year, with potatoes enough for my next planting, which are worth more than the debit balance ; I had all the eggs and poultry I wanted for the year ; I had between two and three hundred pounds of pork ; I had all the butter and milk 1 wanted for my family for the year; I had all the fire wood needed for my kitchen stove ; and on the first of June, 1869, the expiration of the first year, I had one cow, and instead of a heifer fifteen months old, I bad a two-year-old heifer, giving me eight quiirts of milk per day; also one calf ten months old, and another, one month old. Sj much for a country home in poor Need- bam. How I did it, and further details of my experience in farming, I will leave for another time. Trios. Wiiitakeu. Needliam, Mass., Dec. 1, 1869. For the New England Farmer, FOREIQW AND NATIVE FARM HELP. In the New England Farmer of Novem- ber lo, I observed an article by Mr. Jameson, of Irasburg, Vt., entitled "Help and Stock for the Farm." If I uddet stand Mr. Jameson right, he be- lieves that Ameiican farmers' sons make supe- rior farm hflp; — that tbey understand the na- ture and wants of cattle, the comparative value of hiiy, straw, aud roots to bo fed to them, the treatment of the soil, &c ; that they are not givfu to smoking, drinking, and profanity, and that they are small eaters. The foreign- ers are represented as being unskilled laborers, given to smoking, drinking and profanity, and the idea is expressed that the happiness of the family cannot be perfect while all their time is taken up to minister to the wants of sucii rav- enous boarders. Now, sir, it seems to me that Mr. J. makes a gross misrepresentation of the two classes of help of which he writes. Let us look at them for a moment. I admit that the American farmer's son, raised upon his father's farm, will make a skilful workman ; at least, he has a chance to be so. Still I do deny that foreigners, generally speaking, are unskilled workmen. Why, sir, what makes the American farmer's son a skilled workman, but the fact that he has been accustomed to work on his father's farm ? And why should not the foreigner be consid- ered a skilled workman who has been laised under a superior system of farming ? It is a fact beyond dispute, that the system of farm- ing in Europe is considerable ahead of the system of farming in New England. Farmers in Europe can pay from ten to twenty dollars a year in rent for every acre of land they oc- cupy, and make money at that. Could they do so unless they managed their business sys- tematically, and had a good knowledge of every detail of farming ? And why should not men trained up under such a system be considered skilful workmen, as well as those who have grown up on farms in New England? Let Mr. Jameson cross the line into Canada, and he will find a system of farming at least equal, if not superior, to that of New England. In Canada they raise good stock and good crops. Who are they that own tiiese farms and raise these crops, these cattle and sheep in Canada? Why, sir, they are mostly foreigners ; and not a few of them are the Irish and French of which Mr. J. complains. Four years ago last spring, I commenced farming. I had never owned a farm before ; having spent the greater part of my life in the city. Well, the farm was badly run down when I got it, and that, too, by the sons of American farmers. The first year I did not cut hay enough on the place to winter two cows. Last winti;r I had hay enough on the place to winter nine head. I think that is not very bad, do you, Mr. Jameson, for a for- eigner, and a Scotchman, at that! Why sir, what has made this nation — in which we live and of which we are proud — a first-class power amongst the nations of the earth ? 1 claim that foreign skill and for- eign labor have had very much to do with it. Another objection of Mr. J. to foreigners is smoking. I admit that a great many foreign- ers use tobacco, but do not many American farmers' sons do the same, and some of their wives and daughters? If smoking, chewing and snufling tobacco is condemned in the for- eigner, why not in the native ? Another objection of Mr. J. to foreigners is 82 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. their profanity. This is a valid objection to any man. Profane language is a wicked and contemptible habit, unworthy of everyone who claims the name of man ; and I am sorry to admit that a great many foreigners use profane lanii;uage. But are sons of American farmers guiltless of this debasing sin ? From my ob- servation in P^urope and America I am com- pelled to affirm that young Americans are more addicted to gro^s profanity than any peo- ple with whom I have ever conversed. Not four hours since, I was in a blacksmith's shop where a few farmers' sons v/ere talking to- gether. I do not think that cither of them spoke a sentence without using some grossly profane word. Another objection of Mr. J. to foreigners is drinking or intemperance. Well, here again I admit that the German has a liking for his lager beer, and the Irishman for his whiskey, but are Americans the people to cast the first stone at those caught in the very act of "drinking?" The last objection to foreigners, urged by Mr. Jameson, is the destruction of the happi- ness of the family in consequence of their gluttony — "ravenous boarders" as he calls them. If this objection was made consider- ately, I must pass it with silent contempt. If it was a thoughtless remark, it deserves no notice. Let me say, in conclusion, to Mr. Bullion, that his best course will be to hire the best men he c^n 6nd without much regard to the fact whether the Almighty fixed their birth- place on th^ east or the west side of the Atlan- tic Oceaa. d. m. h. East Canaan, N. H., 1869. ENGLISH FARM HORSES. As Americans are aware, the English farm horse is called the "cart-horse," being totally different from the trotting affinities used on this continent. These cart horses are treated in about the same comparative way in respect to the nags as the laborer lives in comparison to the more independent class. The cart horse is made to eat up all the chaff blown from the grain when winnowed, and as every farm in England grows more than t ree times the quantity of grain ever produced on American farms, this chaO' is the main support, for it is sifted through selves for the purpose, the coarse portion given instead of hay, and the' short, fine portion fed with very small quanti- ties of grain (oats and split beans) in baits given by the "carter," whose duties consist of making his teams look fat and sleek on the greatest quantity of rough (bod mixed with the least grain possible. The horses, from eating so much ciiaff, drop in their carcass and are always very deep and round, the geldings hav- ing the appearance of mares in foal when viewed from a litile distance, and the great objection by the carter to going out of a walk with English farm teams is that it destroys this round barrel look, while the farmer dislikes to see them trot, especially on the road, because their great weight, shakes their feet and legs and brings on side bones, puffs, &c. Four horses go to a wagon in a general way, about three tons besides the wagon being a load on fair roads, a small boy accompanying the carter. No reins are used excepting when ploughing "G. O," for the carter walks by the side of the horses, and in meeting on the roads the teams turn out for each other en the opposite side to the one customary here, that the carters should not be between the horses or vehicles. The cost of keeping cart horses in England is not much more than ha'f what it is to keep the nags ; "but will they do as much work?'*' says the American farmer. They (the Eng- lish) plough somewhat deeper than the Amer- icans, and though the teams are not out so many hours, they keep pulling away all the time they are out, very seldom sweating, as their iaimense bodies draw along whatever is behind them with little effort ; in fact it is not much for one of these animals to walk away with what would make two of the undersized ones here scratch a good deal to start with. — Country Oentleman. PHYSIOLOGY OF EGGS. Every fowl has two small organs near the extremity of the body, called the ovaria. It is filled with elastic tissue, and feels under the finger like sponge. The eggs are started here, and those which will mature a year or two or three years hence are in embryo. One is forced up, is seized by the stroma, which is seventeen inches long, and passed rapidly through. AVhen the egg leaves the ovary it consists of yolk only, but in its passage through that short canal, the yolk is surrounded by enough albumen to perfect the chick. The white of the egg has in it all that nature re- quires for making bones, muscles, blood-ves- sels, connecting tissue, skin, and feathers. Just before the egg leaves the body, this canal has the power of secreting lime for the shell. This shows how valuable the egg is as nutri- ment, and it also shows what demands are made for rich food by a hen that lays an egg daily. Besides what she requires for her sus- tenance, she is called upon to secrete the ma- terial for the body of an entire chick, and also retains for the little creature sufficient to last many hours after it leaves the shell. It shows also that a hen cannot make albumen so rap- idly, except out of albuminous food, such as wheat, meat, and small animals. It is not true that there is a certain number of eggs, and that, this number exhausted, no more can be expected ; but it is true that the secretions les- sen as old age comes on, and latterly the hen fails to have sufficient force to carry forward the process. The practical bearing of this is 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. sa tbat we must see that the fowl is always well kept. The way to have gr od laying pullets is to quicken rhe circulation and s^tren^^then the system by liberal nutriment. In conclusion, the speaker referred to the f ict that the yolk is food for the young for the fir^t three or four da\ s — that careful hou'-ewifes make a mistake by attempting to feed them before the e.xpiration of thLs time. Let the mother bird have charge, and success will be certain, for she knows better than any man can what the chick rtqulres. — Dr. J. V. C. Smith. TBEATMEJMT OF A COW DISEASE. We have had a "cow disease" in this neigh- borhood. The legs and teats wtre all covered with sores and blotches. As soon as we dis- covered it, I got up the cows, started a fire in the steamer to give us plenty of hot water, and four of us went to woik wabhing and fomenting the affected parts with as warm water as the cows would bear. We also used some Castile soap and a lirtle borax. The latter is a capital thing for cleaning and soft- ening the skin, but I do not know that 1 should have used it only that I knew the men would doubt the efficacy of such a simple remedy as warm soft water and soap. I e.xtoUed the virtues of this white powder, gave strict in- junctions to be careful of it and not waste it, and especially not to put any on the tores until they had been softened by the hot water. Then apply a little of the borax and rub it in gently with warm water and soap to form a lather. Then wash again with warm water and soap, and finally give another thorough washing with warm water alone. In this way I succeeded in getting the legs and teats washed thoroughly clean. This was the real point. We then rubbed the legs, bag, and teats, wi'h crude petroleum, and repeated it two or three times, and the cows got well. The disease has been very general and in some cases quite serious. We do not know vvlmt it is. Some thought it was the cow pox, but that I suppose is usually confined to the teats and udder, while on my cows the inside of the forelegs were worse affected than any other parts. I attributed it to mosquitoes or some other insect. — J. Harris, in Am. Agriculturist. Cows Sucking Themselves — I have a fine cow, wi)ivh at three years old acquired the habit of taking her own milk. Unwilling to sacrifice so proaji^inga heifer, I resorted to various devices to breaK up the habit or to prevent its successful practice — the most suc- cestful of which was a light woodeil frame of light pins or rods, similar to the lower part of an old fath^oncd splint bottom chair, fastened on her neck so that bhe could not get her head around to her side. This accomplished the object, but it worried and chafed her, and did not allow of her whipping flies or licking her- self. It looked uncomfortable, and I didn't like it. Lat^t spring I sei'ured a phin snaflle hit in her mouth, by 'means of a narrow strap passed over her head between the horns pnd ears. On two or three occa>ions the hair on the udder was foimd s^lightly smeared with saliva, but no milk was ever taken. The biidle bife does not interfere in the least with ea'ing or chewing the cud. It was removed in Novem- ber. The cow was milked during the winter, and is now giving ten or twelve quarts of milk per day, and no indications of returning to her old habit. — //. M. Hart, West CornwaXl, Ct., in Courdry Oentleman. Why do we Oil our Wiietstoxes ? — We oil our whetstones for several reasons. The first is that almost all stones, unless oiled, bo- come glazed or burnished on the surface, so that they no longer abrade the metal. The second reason is that most stones, after being oiled, give a finer edge than they do in a dry or merely wet state. The pores of the stone become in a measure filled up, and, while the action is rendered continuous, its character is altered. A dry stone is very apt to give a wire edge to a tool, and although this some- times happens when oil is used, yet it does not occur nearly so oftc n. It has been said that a little carbolic acid dissolved in the water which is used to moisten a whetstone or a grindstone will greatly increase the friction, and thus promote the action of the stone upon the steel instrument. If this be true, and there be no unforeseen drawback, carbolic acid will prove invaluable to all who have to shar- pen tools or grind metallic surfaces.— Mining and Scientijic Press. A CiiEAP Boiler or Steamer. — J. S. Seely of Kendall County, 111., gives the fol- lowing description, in the Prairie Farmer, of a boiler or steamer used in his neighborhood and which he says is the best he has ever seen. Procure a sheet of common sheet iron, the heaviest that can be got ; make the sides and the two ends of a box the bize of the sheet, and nail the iron on for the bottom. Make two walls of brick or stone so near together that the edges of the box will be far enough from the fire so that the sides will not burn. The back will want protecting by iron or stone. The farmer will v/ant a chimney at one end. and, if to burn coal, will want a grate. If used to steam, the box will not need to be more than six or eight inches high, with a box the same size to fit tight, with slat bottom, to set on top as high as desired. I have one neighbor who cooks fifty bushels at a time, and another one hundred bushels of. potatoes with a very small amount of fuel. The latter has two sheets riveted together,, with pan and box 4x8 feet ; the box made of good flooring, matched. 84 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. USES OP THE SNOW. HE revol- utions of the sea- sons are not only n ecessary in produ- ^ cing and perfect- ing the crops up- on which subsist, but they are peculiarly grateful to restless man, who would die of monotony if beautiful June should continue for six months. But pleasant as are the changes of the seasons, one can hardly see the earth wrapt in its white mantle, with all its late delightful colors, va- ried scenery, fragrant flowers and singing birds, swept away by the fierce breath of win- ter, without some feelings of sadness. He cannot regret the change, because He who holds the earth in His hands, has ordered all this in Infinite wisdom, and we know it is all for the best. Nevertheless, a sadness will steal over us, and this should lead us to look for the compensations which the change brings with it. There is a bright side to the picture. "While our gardens and fields are buried in snow, and our roads are blocked up with drifts, are there no benefits in this winter covering which partially make up for its admitted evils and discomforts ?" Undoubt- edly there are, and especially so to the far- mer. He would look to it more with an eye to profit than with a poetic fancy or scientific research ; will recall the old proverb, that "snow is the poor man's manure," and look for luxuriant crops of rye and grass to spring up where it has been so amply protected. He has been told that snow abounds in ammo- nia, more, even, than is contained in rain water, as in falling, the Hakes sift the air through which they pass, and return all the impurities which they gather, as fertilizers to the soil. Snow has a very considerable ab- sorbent power. A writer illustrates it as fol- lows : — Take a lump of snow of three or four inches in length, and hold it in the flame of a lamp ; not a drop of water will fall from the snow, but the water as fast as formed will penetrate or be drawn up into the snow by capillary attraction. It is by virtue of this power that it purifies the atmosphere by ab- sorbing and retaining its noxisus and noisome gases and odors." Deep snows prevent the ground from freez- ing, operating like a blanket to keep off cold winds and preventing radiation. Under these circumstances snow melts next to the ground, and the water supplies the springs and streams. Were it not for this — ^in the ab- sence of rains — great inconvenience would be felt in the want of water for stock and other domestic uses, as well as to drive the wheels of factories. Snow absorbs exhalations from the earth, and when it melts returns them to the soil as fertilizing properties. Another important use of snow is the pro- tection it affords to vegetable, and even ani- mal life. In very cold weather, the partridge will plunge deep into the dry snow, entirely out of the wind, and there sleep as comforta- bly as in a nest of down. "Even in northern latitudes, there are plants which require more or less protection in winter. Nature provides for them most wisely. She hangs over them the branches of neighboring trees and bushes, gathers about their roots a many-folded blan- ket of dry leaves, and last of all, spreads over them a fleecy mantle of tnow. Sweep off the snow from our wheat fields and mead- ows, and at least a portion of the crop would be winter-killed. The buds of peach trees are often killed in severe winters; but if a few branches get under the snow, they pro- duce a splendid show of fruit." Dr. Kane, in his "Arctic Expedition," mentions finding various plants in perfect con- dition under the snow, which could not have lived uncovered. He says: — "Few of us at home can realize the protecting value of this warm coverlet of snow. No eider-down in the cradle of an infant is tucked in more kindly than the sleeping dress of winter about this feeble flower life." To the farmer, there is another compensa- tion. The snow enables him to enter upon woodlands and haul off fuel and timber, where he could accomplish but little with wheels; aud to work in swamps, to drain them, or to 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 85 take awa}' their rich deposits of muck to fer- tilize higher lands. These and many other considerations are so many compensations for the loss of beauti- ful landscapes and freshly-growing crops in the summer months. Nature is never at fault. INlan often is. If he do'-s not like some of her changes, it is wise in him to turn the sadness which they cause, into sunshine, by more careful research into the wonderful life about him. THE EYE OF A HORSE. Having occasion to drive a few nights since when it was so dark that one "could not see his hand before him," we were led to observe the conduct of an old and faithful horse, with a great deal of interest, and to inquire, Can a horse see in the dark better than a man ? In this case, on one or two instances, he seemed to have left the road, and if continuing so for fifty rods, would be likely to plunge down an embankment into a pool not pleasant to bathe in, in a cold and dark night. He was pulled to the right, but insisted on going directly for- ward, or, as it seemed, to the left. Upon placing the head near the dasher of the car- riage, and turning the ear forward, it was ev- ident that the animal was not walking upon the grass ; but, the road being a little sandy, it could not be decided whether he was in it, or not. So he was allowed to take his own course, and brought us safely through the per- ils of that night. The question, '■'■Can a horse see better than a man in the dark ?" was then clearly in fa- vor of the horse. The circumstance related led us to read some accounts of the structure of the eye of the horse, and to examine drawings illustrat- ing it. If all who drive a horse — whether it be light or dark — would do the same, they would not only feel more safe, but could not fail to be impressed with the wonderful wis- dom which framed an optical instrument of such exquisite workmanship and mechani.n to hay, and the extra feed is coinpo.-ied of m^tteiials of wliich !^t irch a:.d sugar and water are the chief ingredients, the cream re- quires ti be churned lit a higher temperature than that prciduced from food containing a good pro- portion of liitiogen. There is ar.oiher trouble in fall and winter that ofcen retards the churning — the milk and cream are not ki pt at an even temperature. If the milk \6 allowed to freeze and thaw or to fall to a low tem- peiatuie while being set for cream, there is more difSeuity i i getting the butter speedily. The milk or cream should not he allowed to fall bel )w lifty degrees. Where no conveniences are had for keep ing the mi'k at the proper temperature while tlie ciearii i^ ri;iiig in fail and winter, good results m-y he obtained in scaMing the milk by placing it in a pan (jver hot water on the stove. As soon as a littifi "(rinkle" is oti-erved on the outer cdgis of the thin coat lif cream which rises, remove the pin to a room uf niodera,te temperature or where the teiiipcraiure does does not lall ))elow fifty degrees, and ttie cream will not (m)y ri>e rapidly, but can he chinned, generally, with facility. Tlie proper scaldmg of the milk will be ea?ily learm d l)y e.\ perimtiit. If scalded too much, the amount of cream will he diminished. For the Neio England Farmer, COUNTRY HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE. Desiralile as a country home may be to Hnany of the people whose business is in the city. I would not advise all to make the ex- pel intent. There are many in the city who are to all intents and purposes city people. If they go into the country at all for a home, it will be tilber because sheer neee^sity compels it, or because it is fashionable. A few wealthy imen can afforii both a city and a country res- idence,— one for suinnitr and the other for the winter. Such men can afford to do as they please. But as a genera) rule, those whose feeling.s and preferences are entirely with the city do not eijoy theoiselves in the country, particu- larly ]n the more remote suburban towns, "i heir are towns so near the city as to be al- most city itself ; in these towns many might enjoy theraoelves who would be lonely indeed a few miles further out. Even city people may enjoy themselves in such a location. But without a real love of the country, the com- parative cheapness of homes in these retired localities should not be allowed to induce one to make the experiment. However much they may enjoj; the summer, when winter comes and they find themselves away from the thea- tre, lectures and other entertainments and city society, they will forget (he enjoyment of the summer and become disgusted with what they term the solitude and loneliness of the country, and desire to get baekagain to the city as soon as possible. But to the lover of the country there is no loneliness in such a situation. He finds ample means of enjoyment and amuse- ment. If one loves his books and his family, he need never be lonesome ; but then there are neighborhood gatherings and sociables which make the country enjoyable to one who likes the country and country people. But every one from the city will not buy from twenty to thirty acres of land. Many could not if they would, and would not if they could. They may not all have four or five boys ; they might not all have a taste for the farm, though they loved the garden. Many would love to pick the peas, to dig the new potatoes half an hour before they were boiled — so very different from the shrivelled, wilted ones they are compelled to take in (he city,— or to enjoy the lu.\ury of nice choice ripe fruit of their own raising. For these pur- poses a quarter or half an acre of land would be sufficient. Other.; might choose to keep a cow in order to have fresh milk and fresh but- ter. In this case they would want from two to three acres, — the (juantity depending on cul- ture and quality. Plenty of these homes can be obtained at reasonable rates, and I would advise all who buy in the country to buy at least one ejuarter of an acre of land. In some suburban towns the houses are so near together that there is little choice between them and the city. My own tendencies are to the country, al- though born and brought up in a manufactur- ing town in England, and t e greatest part of my life having been spent in manufacturing. Yet my love of country life and the farm have a rather curious and not perhaps an un- interesting origin. My father was brought up on a farm, and even in England was con- sidered a good farmer. But like thousands in this country he was attracted by the apparently readier and easier way to competence and wealth, to business in the town. His fate was like that of thousands of others that leave the farm and whom we never hear from — financial ruin. We always hear c f those who succeed, but (hose who fail are forgotten. He always considered it as a mi>take that he left his farm ; to his family it certainly was a misfortune. When a boy I attended two courses of lec- tures ; one on Galvanism, Electricity and Pneumatics, and toe other on Chtmi.-try. These leiitures created in me a taste for nat- ural philosophy, and gave diredion to my subsequent studies. After having studied in- organic chemistry for a time, 1 turned my at- tention to organic chemistry. 1 was aston- 1870. KEW ENGLAITO FARMER. 87 ished and delighted when the idea burst upon me ttiat. finning was the science of chemistry reduced to practice. To my mind the farmer became a new man. and farming a new busi- ness. The doctor I had always regarded as a man of t-cience, as were prof'essorti, &c. ; but ■ that the awkward, clumsy, ignorant farmer w^a-i al-o a man of scitnce — a chemist — was new and wonderfid indeed to me. This was before I had read Liebig. I give these particulars to show how I ac- quired a taste for farming, and how natural it was for me to look to the country for a home, and to 1)U)- land as I stated in a previous arti- cle, I had done. My desire from the time of my discovery of the connection of chemistry wiih farming has been to be a farmer ; but destiny -and! be- lieve there is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will, — has thus far pre- vented me from gratifying my desires. With this knowledge of chemistry and this love of the country, when but a boy, I often visited farmers with my father, and was able to give scientific reasons for many of the things which were done by them, and for oth- ers which they said should not be done, but for which they were able to give no other rea- son than'that they had been taught so to do, or so not to do, by those who had preceded them on the same land. As I became older I made these excursions alone, as opportunity offered, and I generally spent my holidays • with the farmers, stud)ing chemistry, while others were spending their time in foolery or drunkenness. I also studied anatomy and physiology, with reference to farm stock, — making the study cf .sheep a specialty. I have continued to read whatever 1 could find on agriculture ; and I remember a few years ago of being laughed at by my friends, and scolded by my wife, because I accepted a present from a friend of a wheelbarrow full of the New England Farmer and Country Gentltman. These I read and studied, be- lieving that the many empty shelves in my brain had better be filled by this knowledge than by none. Having taid thus much of myself and of caution to others, against rushing thoughtlessly into the country, I mast reserve further details of my farming operations, promised last week, for another occasion. Tiios. Wiutaker. JSi'eedhum, Mass., ISGi). For the New England Farmer, ABB GEESKT COtN STALKS MEAN PODDEK? Gextlemex : — In the Sprinofield Eepuhli- caii's report of the meeting of tlu; State Board of Agriculture, Dec. 8, at PiMsfield, Dr. Lor- ing IS rejjorted as .saying that '■'■green corn stalks ore the poorest and meanest fodder ever given to a cow.'''' This statement is certainly from very high authority ; and, so far as the report shows, was acce^jted by the Board. It may be cor- rect, but is at variance with most of the state- ments which I have seen in the agricultural papers. On the contrary, both green and dry corn stalks have been considered among the best fodder for cows in milk. It is the practice of others, and I have been in the habit of sowing a part of an acre with corn by the side of the pasture, so that in August and September, when the pasture grass was getting dry, I could have some- thing green for the cows. I have invarinbiy found an increase of milk, while the quality was in no degree impaired. So in late au- tumn and early winter my cows are fed in part with dry corn fodder, and as I have be- lieved to advantage. Let us have the experience and opinion of practical fa; mers in this matter. If we have been wasting our time in raising and feed- ing out the ''poorest and meanest fodder ever given to a cow,'''' let hs know it. Then again. Dr. Loring says, "oleaginous matters are bad for milkers.'''' "Corn, cotton seed and oil meal are of this ■nature, and are the ruin of thousands of cows. lie had spoiled 25 to 30 in a herd of 50 on his own farm, in three years by this means.'''' Here- commends "earlfj cut hay, roiven and roots ;'''' so do I ; but I do not agree with him in what he condemns. When cotton seed meal first carne into use, and the price was low, I used it freely, and for several winters with no apparent injury. Linseed meal, too, when I had occasion to buy feed, I have found good for cows in milk, both increasing the quantity. But I have fed more corn meal than of both. In the early part of the season I grind corn on the cob, and when hard, the corn alone, and have never doubted the benefit of corn meal to the cows. Now as to the injury to the udder: "first one teat then another, twenty to thirty cows .■spoiled in three years, and then to the- butcher.''^ Was it all owing to the oleaginous matter ? In an experience of some fifteen years with Ayrihire and other cows and heifers, I have never had trouble with but one cow in this way, and she, coming in two or three times in mid summer, with only grass feed, and giving fifty pounds of milk per day, and being of a nervous temperament, I have found some diffi- culty in allaying inflammation ; — yet at twelve years old, she is a good cow, with four sound teats. Another, at fifteen (also Ayrshire) is sound and hale, fed as above. A few winters ago a pr.actical farmer, a neighbor of mine, being out of butter, went to the store with a bag of corn to l)uy some at the then high price of twenty-live cents. Upon thinking the matter over, he decided to give his cows some corn meal instead of swap- ping the corn for pale wmter butter, when ha NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. found his cows to yield the golden article, and if they were ruined he kept it to himself. I approve of a mixed feed, say wheat or rye shorts, with other meals ; and I had sup- posed this to accord with the practice and the best authorities of England and Scotland. Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1869. L. s. For the Kew England Farmer, FARM HELP. The success of "D. M. H," as mentioned in Farmer of Dec. 11, in increasing the fer- tility of his farm is truly commendable, and I trust he will give us some idea of the method by which he increased his products from barelv enough to winter two cows in 1865, to a sufficiency for nine head in 1868. It is doubtless true that in most European countries, and in China, there are instances of remarkable productiveness resulting from good management. I experience great satis- faction in reading of the processes of agricul- ture in foreign lands and am inclined to adopt them as far as practicable. But I know that most of the foreign population employed among us are not qualified to take charge of a farm and to advise and direct in the outlay of large amounts of money that are expended by merchants, manufacturers and professional men who have accumulated fortunes and wish to retire to farms ; a class represented by' "Mr. Bullion," in the article criticised by "D. M. H." He is probably aware that the men who in England manage farms so well as to pay a rent cf $10 or $20 per acre and still make money, are not seeking work in this country at from $20 to $30 per month. He also knows that a farmer's son who has shared in all the labors of the farm, is likely to under- stand the business, and that if he has that other qualification, "a determination to be a farmer," because he likes it, he would be de- sirable help. There is no loss so great to a country as that of its young men. The most fertile soil, immense forest of choice limber, rich mines of gold do not make a wealthy country ; but bleak rocks and desert sands, with the intelli- gent productive labor of young men, may be- come a powerful and wealthy State. In New Enoland the farmers send cattle, horses, and other productions to the cities and demanl and receive a price in return ; but the young men they raise up to maturity, the richest treasures thev possess, the most costly and valuable of all their productions, are sent as a free gift to the cities, while they are de- pendent on transient help to carry on the farms. The owners of these farms soon become old, feeble and discouraged; their buildings decay and finally old cellars scattered through the land become sad momentos of once flour- ishing neighborhoods. Now, Mr. "D. M. H.," if yoii want to hire, notwithstanding your defence of foreigners, I venture to advise you to hire your own son. Do not refuse him the wages you so freely give to others, but pay him honestly and gen- erously. If you have not a son, it is your duty to encourage some other farmer's son in your vicinity, who is free from bad habits, and desires to give his honest productive labor to some one near home. You have not the* in- terest of your town at heart if you fry to crowd out any such young man for the sake of hiring for a few months some Scotch, Irish, or Chinese laborer, who, when he departs takes his wages with him, instead of spending it in your own town, as your son would do, for a farm or stock. Then in regard to boarding farm help, I have seen something of the practice of having a farm house for the laborer and his family, while the proprietor lives in the enjoyment of all the privacy desirable in the family circle. I have in my mind a case of this kind, where the wealthy proprietor of the farm brings no burden upon his family, and his home in geniality, sociability and harmony is a model. His farmer enjoys like blessings in a comforta- ble cottage near by ; his work is well done, the farm is productive, the stock thriving. If both these families were together, it would detract from the happiness of each. I do not know how it is among the Scotch, but Ameri- cans have some consideration for their wives, and if a man has gained wealth and desires a happy home on a farm he would naturally de- sire to see his wife happy and enjoy her com- pany ; but if he filled his house with strong, able-bodied men, hired from the streets at random, and boarded them at his table, over which his wife presided and for which she pro- vided, it would not add to the happiness of the family. In villages and cities, the married man works by the day or month or year and boards at home. What extensive merchant or manu- facturer boards all his help in his family, yet does he not get faithful service ? This idea is advanced considerately and is in accordance with practice in England and Scotland. Do the owners of vast estates there board all their help in their own houses, or do the tenants have wives and the laborers have wives, who cook, wash and mend for them. I expect the "silent contempt" of "D. M. H." will explode at this idea of allowing a laborer a home and a wife, as it did at the idea of hir- ing a farmer's son to work on a farm. Z. E. Jameson. Irashurg, Vt., Dec, 18G9. — American dairying now represents a capital of $700,000,000. Tlie cheese product of 1867 sold for $•25,000,000, and the butter produce of New York alone, was nearly 85,000,000 pounds, and the quan- tity of cheese made 72,.000,000 pounds. The value of these products, at a very moderate estimate, was #50,000,000. 1870. NEW ENGLA2TO FARSIER. 89 EXTRACTS AND KEPLIES. PLAN FOR A BARN. I wish to build a barn next sprinjr, and being a young beginner at building, I wish 'to get a good plan Having read something about building in the New England Farmer, I thought perhaps you could furnish me with some plan or a book that has barn plans. I wish to build one with a cellar under it for cattle, &c., to cost about $1200. Westport, Conn., 18G9. Wm. H. Taylor. Remarks. — We have published several plans for barns in the Farmer, and we have one now in the hands of the engravers, which will be ready in a few weeks. The design, however, does not em- brace a cellar. This might be supplied by the builder. If some of the readers of the Farmer who have barns that they think will suit our cor- respondent will send us plans we will have some of them engraved. With care in giving the size and proportions of the different parts of the barn an artistic drawing is not necessary. The general plan and arrangement are the essential parts. | Let us have plans and specifications of a few real farmer's barns, such as are yearly filled with hay and grain, which are found to be convenient and comfortable, and which can be built by farmers of ordinary means, and not the mere castles on paper of the architects, which will cost more than the farm would sell for after it was built. FATAL CATTLE DISEASE. I have recently lost six head of cattle. The first three dropped dead. I did not know that any- thing ailed them. The first one was a calf, six or seven months old, the next was a cow four years old, the next a two-year-old heifer. Soon after- wards a valuable bull died. Chunks of matter run out of his mouth that looked like his litter. The next that died was a yearling heifer. Her manure was black and blood came through her. She was in great distress. I noticed that she was sick at night, and she died the next morning. The last one was a cow. She grew poor for two or three weeks, but I could not discover that any- thing ailed her till a day or two before she died. Clots of blood came through her as large as one's fist. She eat well up to a few minutes before she died. I gave her sulphur, saltpetre, soap and milk, lard, rum, lime, &c., for about two weeks. Some of my neighbors have lost cattle in the same way. Heman Morse. Waterhury, Vt., Nov. 23, 1869. Remarks. — ^Wc should fear that these animals had access to seme poisonous matter which pro- duced inflammation of the membrane of the gullet and intestines. MILK OR PUERPERAL FEVER. I wrote you a short time ago, asking a name for a disease in cattle, which I iniperfectly described. In reply you say you think it is puerperal or milk fever, since making the inquiry referred to, there have been two more fatal cases where the symptoms were almost exactly like the case I mentioned. One of the last cases was a very large and valuable cow, owned by Mr. Leander S. Mowry, that calved about noon the 5th inst., and did well so far as anything connected with calving was concerned. By noon the next day she could not get up, nor could Mr. Mowry with any means he had at hand get her up. She died that night by 10 o'<",lock. With the exception of swelling very much more, slie appeared to be sick just the same as the other. I saw her opened, and with others examined closely every part. There was no in- flammation of the womb, nor was there in the first case, and with the exception of one lung being almost black, I could see nothing amists. The stomach was perfectly natural, and no one of quite a number present could tell what caused her death. The other cow I did not see, but was told her symptoms and appearance on examination after death were nearly or quite the same as the one I spoke of first. Some persons said over-feed- ing was thfc cause; but as one had been fed one quart corn meal per day the past season ; one with two quarts, and the other probably never had any meal, 1 think feed did not do it. As the flow of milk did not cease in either case, I thought it could not be milk fever, as I had always been told the opposite was the case in that disease, still if men of your experience say such is the case I must of course yitld that point. As there is con- siderable anxiety felt in this vicinity in regard to this sickness, hope you will reply once more and oblige Senex. Cumberland, R. 1., Nov. 27, 1869. Remarks. — These cases of disease demand the careful study of some skilful veterinary surgeon on the spot. If you have no such competent man, call on some intelligent physician. Puerperal fever is believed to be eminently contagious. The fact that there have been several cases, would rather confirm the Idea that that is the disease. The black appearance of the lung complicates the affair, and indicates pneumonia. WHITE LEGHORN AND BRAHMA. Seeing Friend Shepardson's inquiry about the best variety of hens for laying and chickens, I will give my experience. I prefer the White Leg- horn as they are great layers and non-sitters, if you can give them a good warm place, as the best for eggs alone, and the Pea-combed Ligb* Brah- mas as the best for raising chickens ; but would prefer a cross between these two as the best fowl for all purposes that I have ever kept. The chicks from this cross will mature earlier, and the hens will not want to sit as often as the pure Brahmas, and will lay much better during the winter months than any other breed that I have had any experi- ence with, and 1 have had and tried most all of the manv kinds that now abound. In crossing the above mentioned fowls I have been the most suc- cessful by using a Brahma cock and Leghorn hens. D. G. 8. Broicnsville, West Windsor, Vt., Dec, 1869. SINGULAR EXCRESCENCE ON A COW. Not long since I chanced to see a very peculiar mark or malformation on the back of a very nice thoroiight>red Durham cow. The excrescence con- sisted of a horny substance growing on Ijoth sides of the back bone, just in the rear of the shoulders, and covering a .space of a foot square. It is at- tached to the skin and lays down v,-itii its ends somewhat turned up. The scales or flakes of which it is composed arc from half an inch to an inch and a half, or more, in width, and from onc- sixtecnth to one-eighth of an inch thick, and are very stiff, yielding only to great pressure, when the point breaks off. These flakes are sometimes torn off, rupturing the flesh badly, causing it to bleed. One flake as large as my hand laj's close . to the skin or flesh and has the appearance of a scab fastened by the oozing out of matter which 90 XEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. has dried on and become hard. The cause of this strauiie phtnunicnon is uiilinown to any person who has ever !-een ic. Can yciu, Messrs. Editors, or any ot your readers, account for it or prescribe a remedy ? Zen. Livermore Falls, Me., Nov., 1869. E.r.MAi^ days 8 i5 Piougbiug, 4 cattle, 1 man and boy, 3}^ days 6 25 Harrowing, 4 cattle and man, 2 days, 9 00 Planting, t men 2'^ days 7 50 Cultivaiing,man, horse ard boy, twice lengthwise and ouce cr> sswiee, '2^i days 9 37 Hoeing once, 1 man. 5 days 7.50 tlouuhing, both ways witb ehovcl p'ongh, horse, m ID and hoy, 3J^ days 14 12 Manure, 30 cords $5.00 per cord, eptimating »ne- fourth taken up L^y the com crop 37 60 Interest on land 1"* 00 Taxes 3 tO Total expense $135 99 The crcp atr ounted to ISO brshels sh^lTed corn measured in the bin by taking the cutic feet, allowance beiLg made for tbriukage, at $1.45 per bushel $158 60 Leaving a balance of profit on 3 acres $ 52 51 I charge nothing for harvesting, husking, &c., nor give any creuit for three tons corn fuuder and about 3l) Ijushels ears refuse corn. Epping, N. H„ Dec , 1869. M. J. Harvey. EARMING BY A CRIPPLED SOLDIER. Tn answer to your correspondent, "A Scrubber of Bush and Brier," in Weekly Fakmbr, Nov. 6, Monthly, page 574, 1 will give the experience, not of myselt, buiotoueof my neighitor-?, with whise circumstance, I am nearly as well acquainted as if it was my own experience. At the first battle of Bull Run, a man wh^m I will call Sanford was wounded and honorably dis- charged. He had nine hundred dollar.-, and with SIX hundred he bouglit twelve acres of land, simi- lar to that of your correspondent. He had o:.o cow, and wi'h the remainder of his nionev he bought another cow, a horse, and a second hand wai'on and ijarness, and nsoved on his place in the spring. The land was fjrmerly a good strong soil, very srony, and had bten run preity hard. There was the matiure Irom three head of cattle and one Iwrse on the pl-ice, whi-h he spread on a sni dl piece after ploughing, and planted to com, rai-ing a pretty fair crop. aIjouc one-half acre arounil ihe builduigs he jjlarited to carrots and other mots, and al.-^o one-half acre to eairots on n y land on shares. These roots were a great help towards wintering his stotk. He also raised one acre of potatoes on his o*\n land, which he also uted in wintering his stock. Being partial y crippled he could not command full wag<.s, but whenever he liud a ch.ue.tr he worked out, taking whatever he could earn, and at 1870. NEW ENGLA2sT) FAKVIER. 91 some kinds of work he could do as much as any one. I myself paid him two dollars per day to work thniutih'jut haying time, it being dry at the time and he could do as much at that as any one. Whf^n not at work for others or on his own crops, he was clearing his land of stone, brush, &c., and otherwise improving it. Early in the fall I per- suaded him to draw a quantity of muck from ray swamp and put into his barnyard, which more than doubled the quantity of manure, a part of which hi! applied to his meadow and the rest to his planting ground, of which he cultivated no more than he had manure for. He also set out a large s-trawbf rry bed in his garden, from which he sold, the .vccond year, nineteen dollars worth of berries. He has used considerable plaster on his meadow and pasture, which has had a good cfi'ect. To m ii\i^ a limg story short, he has gone on im- proving his hind until he now keeps four cows and one horse on his little farm of twelve acres, and he t'Ctually sells more from his place than one of my neighbors does irom tifty-thrce acres, and his pKi -e w 11 now bring him him sixteen hundred dollars. He has perhaps laid out two or three hundred dollars in repairs to the buildings, includ- ing his own labor, — be having done all ihe work him'>elf. It is true that farm produce was higher then than now; t)ut you will obierve that the most he liad to sell was his butter and his own labor when not employed at home, and these are two pro mcts that have not as yet been ntFected by the (le. line of prices, and they will probably be about thj last tilings affected thereby. I think that ".Scriibber' may take courage from this man's experience, and remember ihut energy and perseverance will aecompliuh very many seem- ingly impossible things. If a cri( pLd soldier can accomplish such things on tvyelve acies of poor land, what ought we, who have oar health, to do on our hundred-dcre farms ? Truly more than any of us do. I confess that I have learn tl many things of this man, and his methods of farming; and the reason I write this is that others may profit by his experience, if they will. B. Oak Hill, N. T., Dec, 1869. BTOOKIXG CORN SO A8 TO CURE THE FODDER. In the Farmer of Dec. 18, Messrs. "E. O. and H. M. D." a^k how to cure corn fodder. I find it a very easy mat:cr to cure it perfectly. Take a stout f'mjuth pule, about twelve feet long and three inciics in diameter at the largest end, put two Icg-i in the large end with an inch anger, ihree feet eight inches long, and three feet apart on the ground ; bore an inch hole three feet from the legs horizontally through theimle; fit a pin two feeflo.g, so that ic will go through half its length, and you have a stooking horse. Go into the field between the seconel and third rows, cut and set up btf ire and behind the pin, on both sides of the horse, about twenty bids, which make a stook large enough. When enough is set up, take in one hami a good strong double band of rye or oat sti'aw, jiut both arms around the stook and fetch it together tight as possible, turn ov, r the tops and bmel dov n clo^e to the ears tight as you can. in tying down the tops, be careful not to move the buts from the ground. If corn is cut up before too ripe, before it falls down and becomes crooked every way, and is set up up firmlv, pointing a little to the centre and placed equally on all sIlIcs, and each stalk standing on the ground, it will save and cure perfectly, so that any quantity can be packed in a mow without heating. The whole operation depends on the workman; it a man undertakes it that don't care for the difference between a hill of corn l*ing down and one standing up, he won't make it stand. If some lies half way down and sora9 stands up, or if as much again is set up on one side of the frame as on the other, and all twisted round, it certainly wil' not stand; and if it don't stand, it won't cure. If the operation is well done success will be sure. But there are many that pretend to stook in this way, that can't make a stook stand any how. As I before said, it all de- pends on the workmanship of the one who puts up the stonks. W. S. Grow. Weiiboro', Mass., Dec. 20, 1869. SWELLED SHEATH IN HORSES. My father once had a valuable hor>--e that was troubled in the same way as Mr. Griffin's, of Annis- quam, Mass., mentioned in Farmer of December 18, and cured him by washing and digging out the sheath with the fingers, u--ing casttle soap and water blood warm. After that give the hor.-e gen- tle ex' rcise. If the first opor.ition fails to cfiect a cure, wash it out ae'ain in a w( ek or ten days. Kensington, iV. H., Dec. 20, 1S69. J. H. I raised seven kinds of potatoes this year, viz.: Jackson Whites, Orinos, Stevens', Davis' Seedling, Goodrich Seedling. Prince Albert or Iri-h Pippins, and a few Early Rose. The Jackson White and Orino were hardly worth digging, being very small and rouch. The Iri^h Pippins were poor and watery. The other kinds were extraordinarily good. The Stevens' are better for fall and early winter eating. Goodrich and Davis' seedlings are good keeping varieties; good table potatoes for spring and summer. A neighbor, whose farm ad- joins "mine, says his Jackson Whites were very good — the best variety he raised. Another neigh- bor claiiHS the Irish Pippins are the best he raised.- I planted half an Early Rose, but did not get an extraordinary yield. C. Martin planted fitteen i Early Rose which produced eight bushel, but they rotted so badly that he removed them from his cellar. Two-thirds decayed soon alter digging. J. House planted less than one bushel of the Uhiii or Cailian Pink, which produced seventeen bushels of grand eating potatoes. potato washer. While speaking of potatoes, I would recommend the potato washer. Have used one six months. Ic washes potatoes well in less thin five minutes, which would take twenty minutes at least to wash by hand. It is a greithelp to a farmer's wife, and is also convenient lor washing potatoes for hogs. THE BEAN BRAGS. I have made no count of beans raised this year, but last year I raised a stalk from one bean which bore 230 puds, wh».h from actual count; and esti- mate contained 14U0 beans. This shows what the Thousand and One bean can do. A GOOD PORK BARREL. For a small family that uses but little pork, a large stone jar — thcv can be had that will hold the salting pieces of a 200 pound pig— makes a capital pork barrel. Park tightlv with'plenty of salt, aad always keep a little salt above the brine. chicken?. Last sprinfj we had six hens of the Brahma breed ; sold $6 50 worth of eggs, and raised thirty- six chickens, of which twenty-six were sold for .'Si25 00, at twenty cents per pound. Have a good hen house, and think it cost no more to keep ihem shut up than it does to let them run alter they get big enough to damage the gaiden and grain crops near the house. Give them plenty of water. Forty hens will drink a pailful in a day when eat- 92 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. ing dry feed. Have fed with ground corn, and sometimes corn and oats ground together wet up with boiling water, fed when cold. Have also fed mixed corn and oats, boiled potatoes, &c. Hope no one will think I am trying to tell a big chicken story. I cau't do it this year, but with a little more experience and a few hints from the Farmer perhaps I'll try another year. c. f. d. Berlin, Vi, Dec. 20, 1869. CRANBERRIES ON UPLAND. Can you give me any information in regard to raising cranberries on hill plough land ? What marure should be used, and how much, and how far apart should they be set, and when ? A Subscriber. North Prescott, Mass., Dec. 13, 1869. Remarks. — We think that cranberries on hill or dry land should be treated very much as you would treat apple trees or corn on a wet meadow ; and that is not to put them there at all. We should expect about as good success in raising fish in a sheep-pasture, as cranberries on dry land. The cranberry is a water plant, and we believe that all attempts to grow it contrary to its natural instincts have proved failures. relieving choked cattle. In the Farmer of December 11, there is a de- scription of an apparatus for relieving choked animals. The gag is all correct, but there are strong objections to putting a stiflf broom handle down the throat. Instead thereof use a slim rod, the size of a whip handle, put a wooden ball is the shape of a Minnie bullet, on the small end, as large as will go through the hole in the gag — con- cave end down — and fasten it on so that it will not be pulled off; oil or grease the ball before us- ing. This can be used with perfect safety from injury to the gullet. Another remedy is to apply a small quantity of saltpetre to the roots of the animal's tongue. It makes them cough so violently that it is pretty sure to remove the obstruction and give immediate relief. c. k. p. Watetbury, VL, Dec. 19, 1869. BLOODY MILK. We have a valuable three year heifer, which has given bloody milk from one teat, for more- than two months. Bean meal, tincture aconite and garget have all failed to effect a cure. She is a very nice heifer, or I should not feci so particular. What can be done for her ? G. D. Barton. Chester, Vt., Nov. 14, 1869. Remarks. — Try salt-petre, half an ounce twice a day, dissolved in her drink or feed, and bathing half an hour at a time with warm soap-suds, daily. grade DURHAM YEARLING STEERS. A notice of my steer calves was published last January — Monthly Farmer, page 145 — which at ten months old weighed 1400 pounds. They now measure six feet in girth. They have not been weighed recently, but are estimated at '21-50 pounds. They had nothing but grass during the summer. William F. Loomis. Langdon, N. H., Nov., 1869. — It is reported that nearly one-half of the pota- toes raised in the northern part of Maine will be lost by the dry rot. AQEICTJIiTUIlAL ITEMS. — The Iowa Homestead estimates the average cost of producing a bushel of wheat in Iowa at not less than eighty cents. —The students of the Iowa Agricultural College have, during the past term, earned one-half their board. —In Wisconsin f 80,000 have been added to the funds of the Agricultural College of the State University by the sale of agricultural college lands during the past year. These sales will add an in- come of about $6000 annually to its fund. — Those keeping horses should twice a week throw into the manger a handful of salt and ashes. Mix them by putting in three parts of salt to one of ashes. Horses relish this, and it will tend to keep them in good flesh and their hair short and fine. — A farmer in Bakersfield, Vt., during the past dairy season has made from fifteen cows 3000 lbs. of butter. He sold it for 45 cents a pound, real- izing $1350. He also raised ten calves, now worth $100, and 1000 pounds of pork, which he sold for .$130— making, as the proper income of the dairy, $1580, besides supplying his family. — Secretary Bout well has sent a circular to the Collectors of Customs directing them not to allow the landing of any animals from Europe without a certificate from a Consul that they are free from any contagious disease. This has been done in consequence of the prevalence of a hoof and mouth disease in Europe. — A correspondent of the Southern Cultivator had a young horse whose nose was covered with warts, many of which were tender, bleeding, and very troublesome. He dissolved half a pound of alum in a quart of water, and with a brush or cloth wet the warts twice each day for ten days and they all disappeared. — The Prairie Farmer says that the law passed three years ago by the legislature of Illinois, pro- hibiting the importation of Texan and Cherokee cattle, has been pronounced unconstitutional by Judge Gillespie ; but does not give the ground on which the decision is based. Hundreds of suits through the States have been brought, and some of them tried, with varying results, under that law. — Iowa is larger than New York or Pennsylva- nia— larger than New England, without Maine — and more productive than all of them put together. She has thirty-five million acres of rich, black mould, and to-day a clean furrow can be turned over thirty million of these acres. Although less than five millions are under cultivation, they pro- duced last year eighty-five million bushels of grain. — Where an old cow or an old horse is kept singly it is generally found in good condition, but whci! either are put with others it declines in flesh and animation. On account of poor teeth they cannot masticate their food as rapidly as others, and as mangers are usually constructed, the more 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 93 vigorous animals rob the weaker ones. So saj's the Ohio Farmer to enforce the admonition to take good care of the old animals. — A worthy farmer in Egremont, Mass., sitting at his fireside the other evening, was disturbed by a heavy, suspicious movement outside, and came to the conclusion it was a bear. Peering through the darkness he saw a large black object, and he sets his dogs on it, but the supposed bear beat them off. Getting his gun he levelled the animal, and found on handling the carcass that he had slaugh- tered his old and valuable black hog. — A correspondent of the Western Rural, who cured a cow of garget by giving her at first, as di- rected, four pieces of poke-weed root, about the size of a butternut, but finding she ate it greedily gave her in half an hour nearly two quarts, or all she would eat, says, "I find when a cow's milk organs are all right they will not eat the poke-weed root ; but when the milk gets disordei-ed they eat of it greedily till they have enough, when they stop, and you needn't try to make them believe it's good any longer." BEET SUGAR. After having been engaged in experiments for the manufacture of sugar from beets for several years, a Prussian chemist succeeded in 1799 in producing several loaves which were presented to the king. During the blockade of 1812 its manufacture was commenced in France. In 1866 reports from 1426 factories in France and seven other adjoining European nations showed a production of 630,000 tons. This success in Europe has encouraged us to hope that the manufacture of beet sugar might be successful in this country, especially at the West. The attempts which have been made at different times and in different sections have not been as encouraging as was hoped. A few •weeks since we published a rather unfavorable account of the enterprise at Chatsworth, 111., where a large capital was invested and as was supposed the most skilful workmen were era- ployed. But it is said that the season has been very unfavorable in that section to most crops the past year, and particularly so to the growth of beets. It is with much pleasure, therefore, that we copy from the Prairie Farmer the following particulars of a more successful attempt at beet sugar making in Wisconsin : — Mr. A. Otto, a practical German sugar-maker, left his native country with a small "kii" of tools and machinery, some beet seed, &c., intending to visit California and experiment with the beet for sugar there. On his way to this country, falling in with an intelligent countryman, his attention was called to the vicinity of Fond du Lac as very sim- ilar, in quality of land, to the best sugar districts of Germany. Arriving here, he visited that place, and was so well pleased that he at onee decided to try the experiment there, and last year located about four miles from that town, on leased land, planted four acres of beets, and fitted up cheap aud simple apparatus for manufacturing. The crop turned out well, and proved rich in saccha- rine matter, yielding a good quality of sugar. His operations attracted the attention of Mr. A. D. Bonsteel, a citizen, and ex-mayor of the city, who cartfullv watched the progress of the work- ings of Mr. Otto, and became so well convinced of the profitableness of the cnterpris-e that he entered into a business arrangement with him for the pres- ent year. Eighty acres of land were purchased and planted to beets, and, notwirhstanding the un- favorable season, the peculiar fitness of the soil gave them a good crop of beets. More machinery was obtained, and the manufacture is now being prosecuted most successfully ; about 1000 lbs. of a good quality of coffee sugar being turned out ev- ery twenty-four hours, with improving results as the work progresses. The crop is sufficient to oc- cupy the works for at least four and one-half months, which will give an aggregate of 125,000 to 135,000 pounds of sugar. The metuod of manufacture is not unlike that pursued at Chatsworth, the beets being grated fine, the juice extracted by centrifugal machinery, when it is defacated by milk of lime, purified by gas and charcoal filters and then reduced to the sugar point in vacuum pans. It is then poured into coolers, where it granulates. It is then prepared for mar- ket by separating the syrup by centrifugal ma- chines. The locality of Fond du Lac seems to embrace all the requisites to make the manufacture of sugar a prominent feature there ; a soil of black sandy loam, underlaid with friable red clay, resting on gravel ; abundance of pure soft water, obtained from Artesian wells, bored to the depth of 100 feet, giving a strong flov/ of water for three or four feec above the surface; cheap fuel obtained at a low pmcc from the numerous saw mills in the neigh- borhood ; cheap and abundant labor, whic h is al- ways obtainable in the town at a few hours' notice, and both railroad and water communication with the outer world. The beets are planted fifteen inches apart, each way, and have been cultivated the past year, al- most entirely by hand labor; another season, with increased acres, suitable machinery will be intro- duced into the field culture. With the light we now have on the subject, it seems as though there was no industrial enterprise in the West, deserving of more attention or more sure of giving good returns for the capital invested, and the day seems not distant when the great West will be supplied with sugar from home factories, and then turn the tide towards the sea-board, eventually driving foreign sugar from^our markets. Hereford Steers. — In a business letter to this office, a correspondent speaks of a pair of matched Hereford steers, which he had recently seen, one year and five months old, weighing 2000 pounds,, owned by Benj. Clark of Russell, Mass. They took the first premium in their class at ihe Hampden Union Fair at Blandford. Sales of Stock. — Mr. J. A. Harwood, Littleton.. Mass., has lately sold to George Hoover of Canal- Fulton, Ohio, the Short-horn bull calf A/a«, got by. Roan Princo 6370, out of Mattic Newell. 94 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Feb. For the New England Farmer. COUNTKY HOMES FOR CITY PEOPLE. In my last I omitted one consideration that my -wife reminds me should never be over- looked by any city family that contemplates a country home, and that is the preferences of the wife. Indeed, she thinks the question should be decided by the wife rather than by the husband. After being in the stir, excite- ment and perplexity of business all day, the man might find in the quiet of his home an agreeable relief and contrast ; but the woman who has spent the whole day there, and, if in the winter, without scarcely seeing a neighbor, might find the seclusion monotonous and irk- some in the extreme. Such a residence should be attempted by few city ladies, and never without careful consideration. If one is sat- isfied that she can make the sacrifice — and a sacrifice at first it would be to most city la- dies— from her love for her children and for home cares and duties, the trial may be made. I found on an examination of the soil of Needham that though somewhat gravelly and sandy, it was not what might be termed poor. It is warm and quick. There is in the town a large amount of peat meadow. These are two desirable combinations of soil. The soil of my first purchase is a combination of clay and sand ; sand enough to make it light and loose, and clay enough to keep it from blow- ing away. The gentleman of whom I pur- chased it had owned it four years. He had ap- plied lime, phosphate of lime, and considerable manure bought in Boston. The old farmers made a good deal of fun of him ; called him the Boston farmer, &c. When he bought the place it sustained a cow and a horse. The first winter I was on it I kept two cows, a two-> ear-old heifer, and one calf. This win- ter I keep three cows, one heifer, and two calves. I entered upon the place the first day of June, — not a good time to make improve- ments. One thing 1 had learned from obser- vation in England — that whenever I found stock well kept, I found land well cultivated, and a wealthy farmer, though he only hired his land ; but where I found poor stock, I found poor land and a poor farmer, though he might own the land. Finding that manure was eleven- dollars a cord, 1 said I cannot alFord to pay that price, nor can I afford to buy special fertilizers, yet I must manure highly. Mr. Brown, the editor of the Farmer, paid me a visit in the fall of 1868. He said "you will soon keep five head of full grown cattle on this place." I feel sure I can do more than that, and make the place pay t»m year to year. I have no peat meadow, but i can buy as much meadow muck deliv- ered at the barn as two horses can comforta- bly draw, for a dollar and a half. The first thing I did on commencing operations, was to buy three pigs. The boys picked up the ap- ples as they dropped from the trees, which, with the small potatoes were fed to the pigs, which were kept in a part of the cellar under the small barn, which had a cemented floor. Feat muck and sods from the way side, po- tato tops, weeds, and leaves from the woods are thrown into the pig pen, but the cow ma- nure is not. The manure from the pig pen is put where it will receive the urine from the cows. In this manner I manufacture a large amount of first class manure, and being under cover none is lost. Here my pigs have a cool place in the summer and a warm one in the winter. The entrance being on the north side, I can give them plenty of sun, or close the doors on very cold days. In addition to ap- ples and potatoes, I feed skim milk and meal. 1 also buy scraps for them. This food makes excellent pork, and rich manure. I make the production of manure as much an object as any other produce of the farm. Manure is the farmer's raw material ; and he has this ad- vantage over other manufacturers, he makes it at his own factory, and the better he makes it the better will be his crops ; and the better his crops the better will be his manure. Beef and pork scraps are sometimes used as ma- nure direct, but I prefer putting them through the machine, because it finely divides the par- ticles, and after appropriating enough for its own repairs gives us an article ready for plant food. A judicious use of meadow muck will prevent all odor not only from the hog pen, but from the privy. Mine is made of brick, cemented. In summer, muck is freely used ; in winter, coal ashes, and all disagree- able smell is entirely prevented. My cows are stabled nights during the sum- mer, by which I have in the fall a large amount of manure to haul out on the grass. Last No- vember I drew out twenty-six two-horse loads and spread upon the grass. While doing so, an old farmer came along and said you will lose all the best of your manure ; it will run off into the road. Well, I said, let it run. Now he keeps his cows in his barn yard sum- mer nights, where the manure and urine are nearly all dried up before fall, and he throws his manure under bis barn eaves, where the rains wash through it fall, winter and spring. In all this he could see no loss, but in spread- ing manure upon the grass, he thought he could see great loss. But I anticipate very little. As my pasture is not good, I feed my cows more or less both spring and fall. The sudden change from hay to grass is liable to cause the cows to scour badly and to shrink in llesh and milk. I therefore give them in the spring a feed of hay, nights and mornings, which they eat greedily. The consequence is there is scarcely any change in their droppings, while there is a marked increase in the quantity of milk. In the fall I give them corn stalks, with an evident increase of milk. Hence my experience is in direct op- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 95 position to that of Dr. Loring, who pronoun- ces "green corn stalks the poorest and mean- est fodder ever given to a cow." Corn is a rich food ; and do not the stalks contain, in a green state, all the materials which constitute the corn ? Sweet corn stalks make excellent fodder, after the ear is picked. I pulled mine up by the roots and the cows eat them close to the root. A year ago I had my corn stalks cut close to the ground. I had always disliked the appearance of corn buts on the farm, and knew it took a long time to convert them into plant food. I had them cut up very fine, put into a tub at night and boiling water poured on to them, and let them stand till morning. The taste of the liquid told that there was sugar there, which is good for milk and butter. A little meal was added, and the cows ate it up clean. But I had other fall feed. About the first of June I planted about one-eighth of an acre with mangold wurtzels, carrots and ruta bagas, and raised one hundred bushels in all. I had a furrow opened with the plough, into this the manure was put, and where the mangolds were planted, salt was sprinkled on the manure, which was covered up with the hoe. Then a small drill was made with a stick, for the seed; and I had a splendid crop. Af- ter the leaves of the m-angolds are pretty well grown, the lower ones will fall off and rot, but I had the boys anticipate this and pick them off; also the lower leaves of the ruta bagas. These were fed to the cows, with good re- sults. We estimated that we got almost as large a bulk of fodder as from an equal quan- tity of land planted to corn ; but we did not think they were equal as fodder, but they are a steady supply, for as soon as you have been once over you can begin again, and so con- tinue till frost comes. About the middle of October I began to dig my roots, feeding the tops to the cows, and only dug each day as many as it would be safe to give them. Thus when the roots were all dug, the tops were eaten up clean. There is danger of "running things into the ground." A persons hears that a certain article is good for a given purpose ; at once he uses it exclusively or inconsiderately. Cot- ton seed meal is great on exciting milk, and some farmers know no limits to its use, and feed cotton seed meal and poor hay to their cows till they have poor animals or none, as the result ; others feed roots in the same man- ner, but perhaps with less injurious results. But feeders ought to use judgment; they should have a purpose in feeding, and adapt means to the desired end. Dr. Loring sells milk, and is great on roots ; but he eschews oleaginous substances. These, however, are essential to butter and manure ; but for mere quantity of milk they may be less so. Having talked over the matter we — my wife and myself — concluded to make butter instead of selling the milk. Butter would require good feed ; but good feed would make good manure ; and good manure would make good grass, which would complete the circuit for good butter again. Then we should have skim milk for pigs and heifer calves, and but- ter would take little from the land, — its ele- ments coming mainly from the atmosphere. Cows left to themselves will have a mixed diet. We must take nature for our guide. In winter I go to the barn at half-past five o'clock in the morning, rather sooner perhaps, than a good many would like to go. I give each cow a small handful of hay, and then go to grooming them just the same as I should a horse — first the curry comb, then the corn broom brush, and then the hair brush — keep- ing them supplied with hay, a small quantity at a time, for about an hour. Then the boy milks. At night we fill a pork barrel with cut hay with which we mix about a half a peck of cotton seed meal, half a peck of corn meal, and half a peck of shorts. Upon this mixture we pour hot water, and cover with an air tight lid. In the morning we pour on more hot water, and after milking this is given to the cows ; at eight o'clock they are turned out to water; at noon, when the boys come from school, they are fed with hay', and at four o'clock a little more hay ; they are then turned out to water. After which they are fed each a pailful of mangolds, ruta bagas and carrots cut fine ; then cleaned and milked, then they have each about two quarts of cotton seed meal, corn meal and shorts — equal quantities of each ; upon this boiling water is poured, to which cold water is added enough to fill a pail, with a little salt ; after this a little more hay, and they are left for the night. And now for the result. We sell one hun- dred and thirty-six quarts of new milk a month ; in November we sold fifty-seven pounds of butter ; in December we shall sell about the same quantity, besides what we have for family use. This is from two cows and a heifer that was two years old last April, and calved the first of May. One of the cows dropped her calf in May, the other last Sep- tember. We made batter all last winter, and shall make it all this winter. It pays better to make butt r in winter than summer. Churn- ing has never exceeded half an hour, and gen- erally inside of that time. The milk is not scalded, but the cream bgfore churning is brought to a temperature of about sixty de- grees. I would say here that my wife was brought up on a New England farm, and that she loves to make butter ; but she is satisfied that unless the cows are properly fed she can- not make good butter, and the fact that her butter comes so quick she ascribes to the feed- ing of the cows, and she thinks it would take more than half an hour to bring butter from Dr. Loring's milk, where the cows are not allowed oleaginous food. A neighbor of mine some little time ago, told me my cows were too fat, and would dry up. A short time after he asked me how my wife got her batter, he 96 NEW ENGLAND FARI^IER. Feb. said his wife had cburned all day, and after he got boma he took bold and churned till ten o'cloc^k, and the butter did not come then. I told him to keep hia cows as fat as mine and butter would come in half an hour. We had green peas by the middle of last June, and new potatoes the last of June. The latter part of July we dug at the rate of a bushel from twelve hills of the early Goodrich. These were manured in the hill with hog ma- nure and a little phosphate of lime. After the peas and potatoes were off we ?owed Eng- lish purple top turnips, from which we raided twenty bushels. We had on the same piece about thirty bushels of potatoes besides peas ; and let me say here, that light as this soil is, I have never .seen corn roil in the driest of times, when I have seen it suffer on moist, clayey soils. The fact is, the roots can get down deeper into the ground, and the soil absorbs moisture rapidly from the dews, when from the clayey soils it is repelled. I shall have to put an addition on to my barn this spring. I was just about crowded out last fall. The present barn has supplied the wants of the owners a number of years. I wish to make another statement, that un- less the skin of a cow is kept in a healthy con- dition she cannot give healthy milk, nor good butter. A healthy skin is indispensable. Through the pores of the skin a large amount of eiiete matter is thrown off. If these pores are not kept open, this matter is thrown back into the system, and goes off by other secre- tory vessels, which are as likely to be the milk glands as any others. The skin becomes dry, scaly and itchy, and the cows are con- tinually rubbing and licking themselves. The grooming of tbc cow remedies this to a great extent ; dry feed increases it ; oleaginous food tends to increase it ; and this might have been the cause of disea^^e in the bags of Dr. Loring's cows. Roots have an excellent effect on the skin of all animals, to which man is no exception. Tiios. Whitaker. Needham, Mass., Dec, 1869. FABM STOCK IN WINTER—WASTE OF ANIMAJj HEAT. There is no farmer's wife in New England so ignorant of the simple laws of nature as to attempt to bake rf loaf of bread with the oven doors open. No thoughtful woman would waste fuel in that way. And yet, are not some of tho practices of farmers quite as wasteful ? Take for example, the loss of ani- mal heat resulting from insufficient protection of stock in winter. It is well known that in all warm blooded animals, heat is generated by some mysterious process of combustion which is sustained by the food consume^J, and in its absence, by the adipose or fatty tissue of the body. When the temperature of the atmosphere is lower than that of the body, heat radiates or passes off constantly. If the air is very cold, the radiation of heat is very rapid, and unless the supply of heat is kept up, the temperature of the body would soon correspond with that of the air. It is very clear, thon— the quantity of heat-producing food necessary to maintain an uniform tem- perature of the body being in exact proportion to the loss of heat by its passing off in the air, — that a much larger quantity of such food is necessary when the animal is exposed to ex- treme cold than if it is well protected. It is the fuel which, burning night and day, keeps the creature warm. We do not say this as anything new. On the contrary it is well known to every farmer. The only thing pecu- liar or strange in the matter is that the prac- tice of so many farmers should exhibit a strik- ing indifference on ihe subject. Many neglect to furnish warm quarters for their stock, and others who have comfortable barns and sta- bles, keep stock all or a part of the time "out in the cold." We once knew a farmer in comfortable cir- cumstances, of such general good intelligence that he was chosen to represent the town in the "General Assembly" for several years in succession, who gave his sheep no protection whatever, not even an open shed, in winter, because they were "supplied by nature with a fleece to keep them warm." On another farm, one of t!he best in Windsor county, we have seen milch cows lying on ice and snow in a barnyard much exposed to wind, without even a little straw to lie upon on winter nights, when the mercury ranged from ten to twenty degrees below zero, when a warm stable stood vacant. We desire especially to have it understood that we do not advocate the system of con- stant housing in close quarters, deprive(J of exercise in the open air, which, with high feed, is destroying the constitution of so many herds and flocks of breeding animals. Nothing can be more odious to the friend of improvement in stock than this pernicious system. There is a proper medium course between the two extremes. The loss resulting from undue ex- posure to cold is three fold. Extra keeping is necessary to maintain the condition — here is a loss of forage. With warm quarters there would be a gain of flesh instead of loss, without extra feed — here is a loss of condition. Constant suffering from cold ex- hausts and enfeebles the nervous system, upon which depend the healthful performance of all the functions of the body — here is a loss of health. If there is some special drain upon the sys- tem, such as the labor of horses or the pro- duction of milk by cows, which requires extra food, the necessity for protection from cold is much greater, for the animal heat must be sus- tained first. If that requires nearly all the food, the remainder will be insufficient for work on milk, which must be made up out of the stores in the body. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 97 Without alluding in specific terms to every detail to be attended to, we desire to urge farmers not to try to bake their bread with the oven door open. — VL Record and Farmer. HOOVE IN" CATTLE. I lost two cows in one day by eating green clover, and one at another time. I then knew no remedy or cure. My cows having been turned into the pasture one morning ear- lier than usual, while the dew was yet on the clover, I was notified that one of them was sick. I went immediately to her — found her much swollen — her breathing was quite diffi- cult, and it was with much exertion I could keep her on her feet ; she was disposed to lay down. At a short distance, on the adjoining farm, was a German, tying up grapes, having under his arm a bundle of long rye-straw, which he used for that purpose. Seeing me trying to drive the cow, and suspecting what was the matter, he came running over, say- ing: "your cow eat too much clover — me cure her for you." He then took a wisp of straw, saturated the middle of the straw in fresh cow manure, put it in the cow's mouth, tying the ends together over her head, back of her horns ; he then bid me take a position 60 that we might punch her in the flanks on both sides at the same time. The cow made an effort to get the straw out of her mouth, by opening ic very wide, and running out her tongue, as though it was not very palatable. Her mouth being open and tongue in motion, whilst we punched, the gas escaped at every punch, and in less than thirty minutes she was entirely relieved. I afterwaids had occasion to resort to this remedy, and always found it infallible. — Southern Cultivator. MILK UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. M. V. Essling, in a foreign medi«al journal, reports some very curious facts which he has ascertained as the result of microscopic expe- riments with milk. He states that if the sur- face of fresh cream be examined under the lens, there will be found, amid myriads of milky and fatty globules, a large number of either round or oblong corpuscles, sometimes accompanied with finely clotted matter, being just what is seen in most substances in a state of decay. He finds that these disagreeable looking corpuscles make their appearance in summer within fifteen or twenty hours after milking, and in winter after the lapse of two or three days. Continuing the observation until coagulation took place, the corpuscles were found to increase in number, bud, form ramified chains, and at length to transform themselves into regular mushrooms or fila- ments composed of cells placed end to end in simple series, and supported at their ends with a, spherical knot filled with granulous matter. M, Essling is of the opinion that these for- mations may be classified among the ascophora, and to this state of the milk may often be at- tributed the gastric difficulties which affect children. The Journal adds : "All this must be very unpleasant for people in the country whose misfortune it is to get pure milk and cream, but to city folks, whose milk is a more artificial compobition, it does not so much mat- ter."— Utica Herald. A Cheap Ice House. — "A year or two ago I had my attention called to an ice house built by a farmer near me, which was simply a bin, made with rough boards, sixteen feet square and roofed over, leaving a large open- ing at the front and sides. He said his ice kept perfectly until the next winter. He put on a layer of sawdust, about a foot thick, on the ground, and then stacked the ice snugly in the center, eighteen or twenty inches from the walls, and then filled in with sawdust, and up over the top a foot or more thick. "Last winter, before filling my ice house, I determined to try his* method. I accordingly tore out all the inside wall, and shoveled out the sawdust ; then filled by stacking It snugly in the center, fifteen to twenty Inches from the wall. This space I filled in with pine saw- dust, and covered the whole over the top a foot thick or more. I left out the window and took down my door and left it all open, so that the sun can shine In there every day. Now for results. At the present time I have an abundance of ice, and the cakes seem to come out as square and perfect as when they went In, seemingly nothing lacking except what is used out. I am satisfied 'how to build an ice house.' " — Cor. N. Y. Farmers'' Club. The Use of Salt. — The use cf salt as a fertilizer is not nearly as much considered as we think its value demands. It might be ap- plied every third or fourth year. It is the usual practice to scatter the salt broadcast, at the rate of four or five bushels to the acre, after the grain has been put in. Many farm- ers who have used it in this manner, have given their testimony that their crop of wheat has been greatly increased, and the crop of weeds, bugs and worms correspondingly di- minished. If this is so, it is evident that salt performs two important offices, while ordin- ary manure performs but one. Many of our readers, doubtless, have a small pasture in which they keep a cow and occasionally turn a horse. INIany of these pastures have coarse grasses growing In them, while in other places the grass dries up quickly on approach of warm and dry weather. All such pastures will be greatly Improved, and often the coarse grasses will entirely disappear if a harrow is passed freely over back and forth during this month, and salt at the rate of eight or ten bushels to the acre be spread over the ground. — Germantown Telegraph. 98 NEW ENGLAND F.AHIMER. Feb. CONVENIENT DAIRY BAKNS. The following is the article we alluded to in connection with the illustrations of a dairy- barn on page 100 : — The modern barn in Herkimer and Oneida counties, N. Y., are roomy and arranged, if possible, so that one structure will meet all the ■wants of the farm. This is easily done when a side hill and running water are convenient to the farm-house. In such cases the stables for milking in summer are those in which the cows are kept in winter. This arrangement saves the cost of a special building, or "milk-barn," as it is termed. There is great difference of opinion in re- gard to whether manure cellars under the sta- ble, are injurious or otherwise. Many barns in Herkimer, Oneida and the central counties of New York are constructed with these cel- lars under the stables, and in no instance where they have been properly ventilated and absorbents used for taking up the liquid ma- nure, have we heard of any bad effect on ac- count of the manures, «S:c. The stock are quite as healthy, and appear as thrifty, at all seasons, as in barns without manure cellars. We have examined manure cellars, under stables, at different seasons of the year. Some of them were badly ventilated and were fowl with gases emanating from the decompos- ing excrement which had been dumped with- out absorbents. Such a condition of things must be a source of disease and cannot be re- commended. In others, where ventilation had been secured, and absorbents, such as muck, dry earth, or sawdust, freely used, the atmosphere was comparatively pure and free from any disagreeable odor. Generally, those who have manure cellars under the sta- ble are pleased with them. They save a great deal of labor in the course of a year, and with the precautions we have named, as re- gards ventilation,. &c., they have not been found to be objectionable by the majority of dairymen who have them in use. Leaving this question, for the present, to be decided by those contemplating building, it will suffice, perhaps, to give the general outlines of a class of barns now being erected in the dairy dis- tricts of Central New York, which are found to be convenient and give satisfaction. Our description is that of a barn in Trenton, Oneida county, belonging to W. W. Wheeler. It has capactity for fifty cows, and has a ma- nure cellar under the stables. The basement for manures may be converted into stables for the cows if desired. The barn stands on a side-hill, and is one hundred feet long by forty feet wide, and has a stone basement nine feet high. The bottom of this basement, which is used for manures, is paved with cob- ble stones, pounded down in the earth, and then cemented with water, lime and sand, in proportion of one tenth lime to nine-tenths sand. This forms a oerfectly tight bottom, and is the receptacle for all liquid and solid excrement from stock in the stables above. The basement is well lighted and ventilated, and teams can be driven through the central alley for removing manures. IMuck and dry earth are hauled into the central alley and used from time to time as an absorbent, and when mingled with the liquid and solid excre- ment a large quantity of fertilizing material is made. The stables are eleven feet wide, and the cows are fed from the central alley, which is fourteen feet wide. The cows stand four feet apart, and are fastened with double chains two feet long, attached to a ring sliding on a post. Between each cow there is a plank par- tition extending into the central alley the width of the feed box and back into the stable some two feet. This plan gives the cows more liberty and ease of position than stan- chions, and many prefer these fastenings to stanchions on this account. Back of the cows and along the outside of the slables, the fioor is raised some five inches higher than the drop, back of where the cows stand, and there is an open space between the two floors, where the manures are pushed into the cellar below. The stables are well lighted and ventilated. Above the cows are the drive-floor and bays, where the teams deposit the hay and fodder. The loads come in at one end and go out at the side at the other end, so that several teams can be in the barn, and the work of unloading go on at the same time, and not interfere with each other. The posts above the cows are sixteen feet in height. On one side of the barn are the horse stables and carriage-house, commu- nicating with the upper floor, and all arranged in the most perfect manner as to granary and the means of dropping hay for feeding horses and the cattle below. In the upper loft over the drive-way a flooring is arranged with open spaces, where a considerable quantity of corr in the stalk may be taken up and preserved until such time as there shall be leisure for husking. The leading feature of barns now being built in the dairy region, is to have the drive- floor and bays above the stables. Where the site is suitable, some prefer to have the drive- way near the peak, or top of the barn. The hay may then be rolled from the load on either side into the bays. In feeding — the stables being below — the fodder is thrown downward, either through openings arranged in the bays or in the central alley , according to the man- ner in which the cows are placed in the stable. — X. A. Willard, in Bural New Yorker. Wen Remedy. — O. W. More writes to the Itural New Yorker that the following pre- scription will cure a wen in most cases, if ap- plied early and faithfully. Take a bottle with a large neck, fill with balm of Gilead buds, (say one pint,) put in enough of the best of alcohol to cover the buds ; let it stand 1870. NEW EXGLAND FARRIER. 99 in a warm place two or three days, shaking it often. When the gum is thoroughly mixed with the alcohol, apply two or three times per day with a swab. Continue until the bunch softens ; then it may be opened : then apply for a few days, and the wen will be thor- oughly and permanently cured. I know it, for 1 have proved it. The buds gathered in the early spring are best. For the Xew England Farmer, VETSEINAKY MEDICINE AND SUK- QERY. — No. 1. I have been a practitioner of medicine and surgery during a period of nearly forty years ; and altbouah it has been my daily business to prescribe for diseases and injuries as they have afflicted human bipeds, I have not been indifferent to the manner in which those things are usually managed when they occur in con- nection with brute quadrupeds. The result of my observations in this direction are a strong interest in the subject of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, and an earnest wish that the So- ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may, at an early day, give due attention to the numberless and senseless barbarities prac- ticed upon the inferior animals, by the multi- tude of ignoramuses, called "horse doctors," "cattle doctors," &c. There are within the boundaries of the United States, thirty or more medical schools in which Human Anatomy, and Physiology, Surgery, Pathology, Materia Medica, Theory and Practice of Medicine, Obstretrics, Chem- istry, Botany, &c., are taught by competent instructors. To enter these schools, a good moral character, and a proper preparatory education are required ; and to graduate from them a tolerably thorough knowledge of the subjects taught is demanded. Most of these schools are filled from year to year with young men eager to push their way into a profession already crowded with numbers, and in which bsit few succeed in doing more than to "get a living." Yet, here is a department of the healing art — a branch of medical and surgical science — an honorable and lucrative profes- sion— which has been, and is now, almost en- tirely neglected ! To remedy this evil, and induce young men of education and character to enter this hith- erto neglected profession, a few well con- ducted schools should be established at con- venient and well selected points, in which should be taught all the branches of science that are taught in our best medical schools — substituting Comparative Anatomy and Phy- siology for Human. In connection with these school or colleges, commodious and properly arranged hospitals should be erected for the treatment of diseased and wounded animals ; and in them clinical lecture should be given, daily, before the students, as is the case in the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia hos- pitals. I am glad to know that a beginning has already been made in this direction — that one or two veterinary schools, worthy of the name, have been established, within a few years, and that in some of our larger cities, a few men may be found who know something about the structure of that noble animal, the horse ; and of the nature, causes, and proper treatment of the diseases to which he is liable. But alas, how few are thus qualified ! I positively aver that duiing the thirty- eight years of my pro- fessional life I have not seen one ! Plenty of "horse doctors," "cattle doctors," &c., may be found, it is true, — one, two or more in nearly every town ; but, so far as my knowl- edge of them extends, they are about as igno- rant of those things which a doctor should know, as a horse or an ox is supposed to be of algebra ! Medicus. Brattleboro\ Vt., 1869. ExGLiSH Sheep. — The advantages of Eng- lish sheep are their prolificacy in breeding, their good quality as nurses, their early ma- turity, their profitableness for mutton, and, at present, their profitableness for wool. Their disadvantages are their incapacity to resist hardships, their poor herding qualities, their want of longevity, and their tendency to dis- ease under mismanagement. By longevity we do not mean merely length of life. Their wool degenerates in quality and quantity, and they begin to "go down hill," by the time the Merino has reached its meridian ; and the lat- ter keeps up to that meridian for several years. In respect to disease, they but exhibit the ten- dency of all highly artificial and highly forced domestic animals. All such must be pecu- liarly subject to maladies, especially inflamma- tory maladies, when every proper physical condition is not maintained. — Br. Randall in Eural New Yorker. Baenstable Co., Mass., Agricultural Socie- ty.— At the annual meeting of this Society, hol- den in Barnstable, December 14, the following officers were elected : — President— Charles C. Ecarse; Vice Presidents— Levi L. Goodapeed, Matthias Hinckley; Secretti y— G. F, Swift; Treasurer — Walter Chipman; Executive Committee — Luther Hinckley, Amou Otie, Isaac Wbei- den, Thomas Arty, M. W. Nickcraon, E. T ■.Co'jb, S. B. Phinrey, H. 0oodepeed, Jos. R. Hnll. J. C. Mayo, J. S. Parker, Wilaou liyder, Zenas I)jty. Delegate to the Board of Agticulture in place of Hon. Glo. A. King, when his term expiree — S. B. Phiriney ; Com- mitt'jc on Hall and Grounds — Ansel D. Lulhyop, J;ime9 Otis, Ocrham Hallett; Auditing Committee — F. G. Kelley, Elijah Lewis 2d, Chiui.cy Coaant; Committee of Arrangements— Walter Chipman, F. B Goas, Jos. M. Day, jE. N. Winalow, Nathaniel Hinckley, — Twenty-five pairs of large oxen have been sold in the vicinity of Charleston, Vt., recently to go to the lumbering swamps in other States. 100 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. BAKJSr ¥OB A DAIRY FARM. DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR TUE NEW ENGLAND FAEMEK. The manufacture of cheese to a very large, j ;and of butter to a smaller extent, in factories has greatly revolutionized the dairy business within a few years past. This general change j ill the business necessitates changes in most of j its details, — in the breed of cows, in the j manner of feeding and managing them, and j in the construction of barns for their accom- modation. In response to the frequent in- quiries which have been made of late for sug- gestions in respect to the most convenient ar- rangement of a barn for a dairy farm, we en- gaged Mr. George E. Har^^ey, formerly of Lynn, Mass., now of Cold Spring, N. Y., to furnish a design' which should embrace all the modern improvements which have been sug- gested by the dairy farmers in New York and elsewhere. Having had his drawings en- graved by one of the best artists in the citj', we take much pleasure in presenting his plan this month to the readers of the Farmer, with the following brief explanations. The size of the barn is 40xG0 feet, and the shed or lean-to 14x60 feet. The barn floor, or open space, 13 feet wide, with a large door at each end, is indicated on the plan by the letter A. The letter B represents a pas- sage way, 5 feet wide, for the cows to their stanchions or stalls ; CCC are the stanchions or stalls, allowing a space of 8 feet 3 inches by 7 feet for each animal ; DD, are pens for calves, 4 by 6 and 4 by 7 feet ; E, room for storing bedding, 13 feet 6 inches by 18 feet ; F, room for small tools, 5 feet 6 inches by 13 feet 6 inches; G, room for farm ma- chinery, 13 feet 0 inches by 18 feet ; H, grain room, 8 by 12 feet, with large rat-proof chests and two large closets ; K, boiling room, over pig-pens in basement or cellar, 10 by 13 feet; V, chimney and boiler ; L, trough for mixing warm fodder, with a dumb waiter leading to the pig-trough below ; M, pump and water trough, with an opening between M and L for access to the water from the boiling room; N, bull- pen, with a place fur fodder at O; P, horse stalls ; R, room for roots, or for hay in con- nection with S, bay for hay. The position in the plan of the open shed shown in the per- spective is indicated by W. The dotted lines are intended to show the extent of the end scaffolds. The arrangements of the other parts of the barn, including the cellar, are left to the taste of each builder. Here, then, you have a plan and a view of 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 101 a dairy barn. How do you like it ? We do not claim that is perfect, nor that it will suit every dairy farmer. If it were possible, we should al- most be sorry to give a plan that nobody could criticise ; one in which no one could suggest an improve- ment, or point out a fault. With the present price of lumber and of labor, the building of a barn is a more serious matter than it was when most of our present structures were "raised." Consequently it is desirable to plan with reference to the greatest economy of space, of comfort to the animals, and of con- venience in storing and feeding the hay and provender on which they subsist. Let the matter be talked over these winter evenings at home and in the club, and if the above plan is not the best, let us have a better one. In this connection we publish on page 98 some remarks on the construction of barns in the great dairy districts .of New York, by Hon. X. A. Willard, a gentleman who has probably visited more dairy establishments, and more factories, both in this country and Europe, than any other man now living. UICH BUTTER. If the productions of the sculptor and of the worker in wax belong to the fine arts, where shall we class the butter now on our table from the dairy of our correspondent Thos. Whitaker of "poor" Needham ? Who made it ? Who gave it this pleasant odor, this rich color ? It will be remem- bered that in one of his late articles he said that he and his wife had discussed the question whether the character of butter was decided by the man in the barn or by the woman in the dairy. Though not employed as umpire, we hope that the expres- sion of a well settled conviction that no such gilt- edged butter as this can be made unless both barn and dairy are well managed, will tend to keep peace in the family, and suggest to farmers that if they wish their butter to come quick, with a good flavor and fine appearance, such as will find a ready sale, they have something to do besides scold their wives. Many a dairy woman is re- quired to perform a harder task than were the Egyptian slaves who were ordered to "make brick without straw." Whitaker and wife will therefore accept our thanks for their kind remembrance. In this connection we are requested by Mr. W last week of the morning mess for his three cows. It should read half a peck of cotton-seed meal, two quarts of corn meal — instead of half a peck, as printed — and half a peck of shorts. In his descrip- tion of the mess for the evening the word "each"' was intended to apply not to the cows but to the quantities of meal and shorts ; that is, he prepares near night a mixture consisting of two quarts of corn meal and two quarts of shorts, for the three cows, and not for "each" cow, as some might un- derstand him to say. VERMONT STATE AQ'L SOCIETY. In addition to the account given last week of the annual meeting of this Society, we pub- lish the resolutions adopted by the meeting, and the names of the Board of Directors. The committee on resolutions consisted of Hon. John Gregory, Hon. Joseph W. Col- burn and Hon. Edwin Hammond. Mr. Ham- mond was also chosen to represent the Ver- mont State Agricultural Society and Wool Growers' Association in the E.xecutive Com- mittee of the National Wool Growers' Asso- ciation. Resolutions. Whereas, The renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty, so called, with the British Provinces, admitting free of duty their products, is expected to come be- fore the present Congress ; therefurc, Resolved, That the Vermont State Agricultural Society and Wool Growers' Association trust Con- gress will refuse to re-enact said treaty, as it would cripple our industry, and bring us in close compe- te say that there was a mistake in his statement 1 tition with those exempt from the burden of taxa- 102 NEW ENGLAND FAR:MER. Feb. tion which we cheerfully sustain as an incident to the great rebellion. Resolved, That the admission of said products, while those of other countries are excluded by tariff regulations, would bo an unjust discrimina- tion in favor of Provincial productions. Resolved, That any change by which free trade in wools and woolens should be permitted, or ap- proached, would be injurious to both these import- ant interests. Resolved, The tariff on wool and woolens was agreed upon in joint convention of wool growers and woolen manufacturers, and its repeal would be likely to result in injury to the agricultural in- terests of the country. Resolved. That we acknowledge our profound obligations to President Grant for the wise recom- mendations in his annual message on the subject of reciprocity with the British provinces. Resolved, That the Secretary be directed to fur- nish our Senators and Representatives in Congress with copies of these resolutions, with a request to present them to the President and both Houses of Congress. On motion of Henry Clark, Resolved, That this Society have learned with pleasure of the organization of the Vermont Dai- ryman's Association, believing that it will be an important element in the progress of agricultural improvement in our State, and the Vermont State Agricultural Society and Wool Grower's Associa- tions most cordially welcome the Association, and commend it to the support of the friends of agri- culture in Vermont. On motion of C. Horace Hubbaxd, Resolved, That the granting of a charter to the Vermont Horse Stock Company for the improve- ment of the horses of Vermont, is a move in the right direction, and we would commend the same to the farmers of the State. Board of Directors. — Edwin Hammond, Middle- bury; John Gregory, Northfield; Elijah Cleave- land, Coventry; Geo. Campbell, Westminster; Henry Hay ward, Rutland ; Noah B. SafFord, White River Junction; Henry B. Kent, Dorset; Lawrence Brainard, Jr., St. Albans; David Goodell, Brattle- boro'; Edwin S. Stowell, Cornwall; James A. Shedd, Burlington ; Henry Chase, Lyndon ; Geo. A. Merrill, Rutland; C. Horace Hubbard, Spring- field; S. G. Holyoke, St. Albans; Lemuel S.Drew, Burlington. For the New England Farmer. FARM HELP. Whether Mr. Jameson, in his reply in the Farmer of Dec. 25, has fairly answered my objections to what I regarded as his gross mis- representations of foreign and native help, your readers can judge better, perhaps, than myself. He reiterates not simply his belief, but his positive knowledge, that "most of the foreign population employed among us are not qualified to take charge of a farm," &c. Admitting this to be true, does it prove his former assumption that all such are "unskilled laborers." In every branch of business we find men of great skill and proficiency as work- men— menoi good steady habits, valuable citi- zens and neighbors, who do not possess that tact and taste which qualify them for taking full charge of any business. To urge this as an objection to foreigners, when probably Mr. J. would admit that many home bred far- mers' sons are equally deficient, is to treat the matter unfairly. Mr. J. says that I am probably aware that the men in England who manage farms so well as to pay from $10 to $20 an acre rent are not seeking work in this country. I admit they do not, and alluded to the fact that there were such farmers in the old country, to show that foreign laborers who are brought up under a superior system of farming have a good chance of becoming skilled workmen. Mr. J. objects to hiring Scotch and Irish help, because they do not spend their money in the town in which it is earned. This strikes me as illiberal in the extreme. Does Mr. J. suppose that we are living under some despotic power? Does he not know that it is the right of every son of t:)il to spend his hard gained earnings where he pleases ? How is it with Mr. Jameson himself? Does he spend all his earnings in the town of Irasburg? Does he not, like other men, soend his money where he can make the nio.-t of it ? The charge made by Mr. J. in his first letter, and alluded to in his second, that far- mers send their sons into the city and hire help a part of the time, I regard as a misrepre- sentation of the ca^e. I know that there are thousands of fathers and mothers who would gladly have their sons around the domestic hearth, and would dj by them what is right and just. But they leave, not because that good mother and worthy father have turned them away. No, sir ; their hearts yearn for the presence and company of their children. The fact is that the children of our day have lost that respect for their parents which they ongbt to have aad which children did have forty years ago. Our young men when about sixteen years of age become restless under parental control, imagine they know more than old people, and insist on having their own way. So, after making more or less trouble in the family they leave the old people and go to the city and the factory. From personal ob- servation for many years of the career of such young men, I know that hundreds of them fall into temptation and are ruined. I think it unjust to charge farmers with driving their sons to the city. As to Mr. Jameson's insinuation that Scotch- men have no regard for the comfort of their wives, I have patience only to ask him to com- pare the frequency of divorce in Scotland and in Vermont. I wish he could give expression to his views without such ungentlemanl}- flings and misrepresentations of any class of his fel- low citizens. It gives me mnch pleasure to close this arti- cle with an expression of perfect agreement with Mr. Jameson on one subject, — that of having a farm house for the laborer and his family. Such is the practice in Europe, but I almost wonder that he should approve of it. D. M. H. East Canaan, N. H., Dec. 26, 1869. 1870. NEW ENGLA^N^D F.lRilER. 103 For the Xeiv England Farmer. WHEAT CULTUKE IN" ENGLAND. Dibbling— Drilling — Pressing — Roiling — Treading — Depth of P.ougbing— Amount of Seed per Acre— Ro- tation of CropE — Seeding down Clay Land — Value of Straw, Rocts, &c. — Winter Management of Stock and Manure. In a previous article on the cultivation of •wheat, I spoke of "pressing after the drill." I did not mean simply pressing with an ordi- nary roller, but by the use of an implement known in England as the Presser-roUer. As this may be something new to most of the readers of the New England Farmer, I send you a drawing of a part of the machine which will perhaps sufficiently illustrate the operation. ,^"-^ The cut presents a view of two pressing wheels detached from the carriage and shafts, in which A A is the axle, BB are the two press- ing wheels as they appear edgeways, their di- ameter being about two feet six inches, weigh- ing some 200 pounds each. The sole of the wheel is about two inches wide. The press- ing wheels are held at the required distance by the square collars CCG ; dd represents a tranverse section of the ground undergoing the pressing process ; the shaded part of the section exhibits the furrows of a soft loose soil, and the dotted lines EF, EF, that of the newly ploughed land undergoing the opera- tion of consolidation. T'jc ruts left by the presser for the seed, is shcvn at the right, and are three inches deep by iwo wide at bottom. The presser follows two ploughs and the wheels run in the seams of the furrows. The land at the left, at d, is unploughed, and on this runs a light wheel which supports the frame or car- riage of the machine. The shafts by which it is drawn are also placed on the left side of the frame, so that the horse walks on the un- ploughed land. Sometimes, however, four or six press wheels are used, or as many as there are drills in the machine which deposits the grain. In which case the side wheel that runs on the unploughed land is dispensed with. This Diode of cultivation is applicable only to the di-ill system, and is adopted only in cases where the soil is too loose and friable for the healthy and continued growth of the ' wheat plant, as in case of a heavy clover lea, &G. I once worked for a farmer on the York- shire wolds where the soil is very shallow ; the solid chalk rock lying only sixteen to twenty inches below the surface. On this land, with ordinary cultivation, the wheat suffered greatly by being forced out of the ground by the frosts of winter. To remedy this my em- ployer set to work and got eight cast iron wheels made, and gauged them to correspond exactly with the distance of the coulters of his drills. Including the frame, this presser- roUer weighed nearly a ton, but to make it still heavier, he put two four-bushel bags of wheat on to it. The presser was drawn by two horses and followed in the track of the' seed drill, and pressed in the wheat very firmly. The result was, at the following harvest, some of the best wheat crops that were grown in that neighborhood, for a circle of many miles. Before the introduction of machines for drilling in the wheat, dibbling was extensively practiced. By the use of this implement a firm seed-bed for the wheat was secured, sim- ilar to that obtained by the Presser-roller. The dibble is an instrument three feet long, all iron, excepting the handle, and weighs six pounds. The dibbler walks backwards with a dibble in each hand, giving a slight twist with the wrist at the moment of plunging the iron into the ground, which makes a hole that does not again fill up by the crumbling in of the earth. The holes were made four inches apart, and the rows about four and a half inches. The seed is dropped into the holes by children who place one, two, or three seeds into each hole. The holes are filled by a rake or a harrow with a few bushes woven into it. A good dibbler with three active at- tendants will plant about half an acre a day. This tedious process has been mostly super- seded by the modern drill, with which the de- sired solidity of the soil is secured by the use of the ordinary land roller. As another illustration of the benefits of consolidating the soil of wheat fields, I will mention an incident that I remember. A field had been seeded to wheat and finished off in the nicest English style. A party of sports- men with a pack of fifty-two hounds rode over this field back and forth, to head off the foxes which the dogs were chasing in an adjacent thicket of broom and winns, pressing the ground quite solid in places. Without guess- ing what effect such treatment of his wheat field would have on a Yankee farmer, I may say that it provoked the English owner to rougher words than I care to repeat. At har- vest, however, the yield on the most closely trodden part of the field proved to be the best and the heaviest. I greatly prefer drilling to broadcast sow- ing. But where the land is in such a condition that we cannot use the drill-machine, we must resort to broadcast sowing. Among the dis- advantages of broadcast sowing are the differ- 104 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. ent depths at which the seed is buried in the ground. This varies all the way from nothing at all to four inches. Consequently the plants come up at dilFerent times, and the straw grows to dillerent heights. This can- not probably be obviated entirely under any system of cultivation, but I think the seed is put into the ground at more equal depths by drilling than by any other mode. But for the purpose of giving an idea of the present mode of cultivation, I will copy a part of a letter 1 received last spring from a friend in England. He says : — "I plough my land five or six inches deep for wheat, then roll it with an iron roller to make it solid, harrow well, and drill with a seven-coulter drill, which I prefer to a presser- roller. We cultivate about here under the fourth and fifth course system. First, I sum- mer fallow, and in June sow with turnips, Swedes generally ; feed some off with sheep, and pull others to feed at home. This crop gets well manured. Second, the following spring, drill with barley, and seed down with clover. Third, summer-feed this with sheep and cattle. Fourth, plough and drill with wheat in October. After wheat sow with oats, which are generally sown broadcast. I drill 1^ bushels of wheat, 2h. of barley, and 4 or Ah of oats to the acre." You will see by the above that farmers in England seed heavy. The soil is good, in- clined to gravel. They get on an average from thirty-six to forty bushels of wheat per acre. You will see by the mode of manage- ment they keep the land in good condition, and get wheat as well as straw. I think that this mode of farming might be adopted in this country to advantage where drills can be used. On clay or moist land a somewhat similar course of rotation is adopted. On their sum- mer fallows and clover leas, from two and a half to three cauldrons of lime per acre are applied. On such land they seed down with wheat, which is hand-hoed in the spring ; the grass seed being sown and the land rolled when the wheat is two or three inches high. From your editorial remarks on the amount of straw raised, I infer that you place a lower estimate on it than I do. The straw from an acre seeded with a peck or less of seed must be small, — very much smaller th m where six or eight pecks were used. I must believe that if the farmers of this country would adopt a judicious course of rotation, raise more roots, viore grain and more straw and feed them to their stock, it would be better for them and for their land. I think, too, that barley might be substituted in a measure for corn to advan- tage and profit. Barley is grown with less labor, and the land put in grass a year sooner. Although I have made a long article I do not like to close without an allusion to the English Mode of Making Manure. Their tarns and sheds are generally ar- ranged so as to form a hollow square, which they call a fold-yard. In these yards their joung stock and other cattle are fed on straw during the winter, from racks built for that purpose. What straw is not eaten by the cat- tle goes under foot and receives the dung and urine until it becomes (wo or three feet thick ; the manure that is made in the stables by horses, cows and fat stock, is likewise thrown into this yard. During the winter and spring this manure is drawn upon the turnip fields. The dry and fresh straw on the top of the manure in the yard is raked or forked off, as the manure is loaded, and then is thrown back upon the bottom of the yard, to start another bed of manure. After it is deposited in the field it is turned over, taking care to work the outside into the middle. Such manure is more valuable in my estimation than that from sta- bles here. In such yards cattle pass the Eng- lish winters very comfortably ; but the weather there is more uniform and less severe than here. I have thus given you some of my recollec- tions of farming in the old country. Some- times I think farmers in this country would do well to adopt some of the practices which have been found to work well there, but our cir- cumstances are dilTerent in many respects, and I am perfectly willing that others should do as they like. E. Heeb. Jeffersonvllle, Vt., Dec, 1869. l''or the j\ew England Farmer, VALUE or GHEEN COIIK--STALKS. Green Ccrn-stalks, the Poorest and Meanest Fodder ever given to a Cow.— Report of Dr. Lorinff's Piitfficld Speech. Such a sweeping condemnation of an article so generally used, coming from one so deserv- edly popular as a teacher upon agricultural topics, will naturally arrest attention and in- cite investigation. If corn stalks are worth- less for fodder, the thousands who annually raise them ought to know it, but if they really have an intrinsic value it may be well for those who advocate their use to show their reasons. For one, I believe, the main objections urged against this fodder ai^oe entirely from the man- ner of cultivating and using it. In order to derive the greatest benefit from this crop, it is necessary to understand the office and nature of the stalk and its value at different stages of its growth. In its early growth the stalk is composed mostly of soft, cellular tissue, and the juice is watery and insipid. As the stalk approaches maturity, the juice thickens and is richer in saccharine matter, and when stalk and leaves are fully developed and the ear is forming, the juice is the richest, and the stalk has its greatest value. The development of the ear withdraws the juices from the stalk and leaves, and when it is fully ripened they pos- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 105 ses3 little nutritive value, become tough and hard and are more suitable for beds and bed- ding and making paper than for even the four- fold stomach of the ox or sheep. Thus the office of both stalk and leaf is to support and perfect the ear or grain, and their value varies with the growth of the plant. Where the practice of planting corn for fodder is to sow thickly in drills which have been well filled with the strongest kind of ma- nure, a rapid, rank growth of partially devel- oped stalks is produced, as the pale green, sickly yellow, or blanched appearance of a large part of the fodder is ample evidence. There is no room for full development. Cut this when half or two-thirds grown and you have an imperfect stalk at its most valueless period. A large bulk may be produced, but the juices are watery and insipid — not nutritious. It is better calculated to allay thirst than to satisfy hunger. It is no wonder the butter-maker is disappointed, and the milkman fears his cus- tomers will grumble. The large, coarse and late varieties of corn make the poorest fodder ; for they must be planted more closely and cut earlier than smaller kinds to have it eaten at all — conse- quently the stalks are furthest from maturity. It is probably from u^ing fodder grown in this way that disappointment arises and the cry of condemnation is heard. Would there were more milk-producers who take pride in having a good article and giving their customers an equivalent for their money. Now, it must be conceded that bulk In grow- ing fodder is no consideration unless there is a corresponding amount of nutrition ; quality, rather than quantity, is the main thing to be attained. An innutritlous, bulky fodder un- duly distends the stomach, and the labor of the digestive organs is greatly increased ; their power Is weakened thereby, and the food will be Imperfectly digested. If the smaller vari- ties are planted thinly la the drill, giving each stock room and time to attain its natural size, or nearly so, and to produce an ear, and is cut while the ear is forming, the stalk will be In its greatest perfection and the fodder worth raising — its deep, rich, luxuiiant green will betoken a healthy growth, and both stalk and leaf be full of the sweet juices which go to form the grain ; one stalk is worth three of the large Western or Southern varieties but half matured. This fodder will produce cream as well as milk. It is good for oxen and sheep, and horses eat It readily and thrive upon it. For several years 1 have used sweet corn and find it far superior to the common yellow; it is excellent for fat- tening animals, and I have fed it to working bor.ses with satisfactory results. Corn fodder is just what we make it. If we plant so thickly that the stalk cannot be well matured and cut before it has attained its maximum goodness, — getting only a poor, watery article, — it is surely no fault of the corn. If well planted and allowed to remain until the ear or grain and the weather have extracted all the goodness, we have only a hard, tough and Indigestible stover. While if managed rightly, all the virtue of the grain may be retained in the stalk and leaves, and the whole form a palatable and nutritious food. Precisely the rules that are followed in raising other grains for fodder are applicable to corn. Any farmer of experience in sowing rye, oats or barley for that purpose would sow thinly and cut while In the milk, for he knows full well if seeded so thickly the stalks could not head out, and the result, though bulky, would be a poor, trashy stuff. Complete success, however, cannot be at- tained without attention to something more than the proper quantity of seed and right time of cutting. It requires a good soil, in fine tilth, with a liberal supply of manure, part of which has been ploughed or harrowed In. In short, the cultivation should be so thorough that a good crop can be secured In an unfa- vorable season, for It is needed most when hay and pasture are failing. Taking all things into consideration, green corn Is the best thing yet offered for soiling or supplying a deficiency In pasturage. Its easy cultivation, almost certainty of a large yield, small expense, and the fact that It imparl no objectionable flavor to the milk or flesh of an- imals, all commend it. Moreover, what is not wanted in a green state can be cured and fed dry with profit in the winter. We must, therefore, advocate Its use, although, occa- sionally, we hear denunciations against it. Lawrence, Mass., Dec. 27, 1869. n. s. t. MA-WAGSMENT OF FARMERS' CLUBS. I will tell you how I think a Farmers' Club should be managed, or rather how its exer- cises should be conducted. My method may not be the best — perhaps I am wide of the mark ; still I speak from conclusions drawn from a connection with one for several years. The rules and regulations by which the members are governed should be few and simple. In general It will be found that an assemblage of farmers, unused as they are to public speaking, will talk more freely and more willingly, if left unhampered by par- liamentary rules. The more at ease the members feel, the less they have to try to do the thing right, the more active they will be- come in their membership, the more Interested they will be in the meeting, for they will feel that they can do It right as well as anybody. When they feel thus at ease they can talk and act unembarrassed, and the Club will get at their best thoughts and ideas. If toe number of members Is not too large the best place for the meetings is at the houses of the members. Under this arrange- m.ent, in addition to the Information derived from each other, and the interest In farm life awakened, there will be fraternal feelings 106 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. cultivated — neighborly good will encouraged. It will be a sort of farmers' lodge, where all meet on the same level — no one feeling him- self better than his neighbor. Familiar farm topics should be selected for discussion and not for debate. One or two members should be appointed to open the dis- cussion. If the person appointed is accus- tomed to putting his thoughts in writing, an elaborate essay can be prepared and read. If this would not be agreeable he can arrange in his mind what he wishes to say and present it by word of mouth. A train of ideas will thus be started which will be taken up by others, who will give their opinions, relate their ex- periences and the conclusions derived there- from, always confining themselves as closely as possible to the subject under discussion. The aim should be, in addition to the interest created, to draw out facts, opinions, conclu- sions, practices, and results. Clubs make a great mistake when they conduct their exercis- es after the manner of a debating society. If there are those among your number who wish to diaplay their forensic powers, an opportu- nity may occasionally be given and a subject relating to the farm be selected and arguments presented pro and con, ever bearing in mind, however, that it is not the proper way to con- duct the exercises of a Farmers' Club. The Secretary should be directed to keep a journal of the doings of each meeting to be read at the opening of the next meeting. — Cor. Maine Farmer. EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. A COLD CELLAR. I have a dry, cold, sandy cellar that freezes. Will it do any good to run a half inch stream of water into a tub in the cellar ? The water is 38° Fahrenheit, in a shed. A Subscriber. Ascuttieytille, Vt., Dec. 13, 18G9. Remarks. — We have known water to be carried into a cellar by the pailful to keep out the frost on a severely cold night, and your stream of water, 6° above freezing, we should suppose would help a good deal. But if the under-pinning or the cel- lar wall is very thin or open, or if the rooms over the cellar are not warmed, such a stream of water may prove insufficient. Is your house banked up ? Have you ever tried evergreen boughs for a bank- ing ? They are neat, and are said to be effectual. Collars, cuffs, bosoms, and other articles of male and female wear, are now made of paper ; and here is what the Scientific American says about protecting cellars from frost : A man who had a cellar that persisted in freezing his vegetables, though thoroughly "banked up," went to work and pasted four or five thicknesses of old news- papers— hope he didn't use the New England Farmer in that way — over the walls and ceiling of his cellar; a curtain of the same material being also pasted over the small low windows at the top of the cellar. The papers were pasted to the bare joists over head, leaving an air space between them and the floor. He reports that the papers carried his roots through last winter, though the cellar was left unbanked, and he is confident they have made the cellar frost-proof. Before putting on the paper, it will be necessary to sweep down the walls thoroughly, and to use a very strong size to hold the paper to the stones. It is not necessary to pi-ess the paper down into all the depressions of the wall ; every air space beneath it is an addi- tional defence against the cold. PLAN OF A BARN. In reply to your Westport, Conn., correspon- dent's inquiry I send you the plan of a barn I in- tend to build next spring. If any one has a better plan for a barn 50x40, 1 should like to see it before I build. West. Door 3 ft. Doors 12 fc. 1 Doori 1 4 ft. 1 M Door. Door, 1 o >< K " fl DQ y *. 1 o o *t - 1 1 1 1 1 Q Hiairs. ". W 0 o 3 *^ I'p 2 O - o a; B^ M s: M ^ S5 o w «< t^ M Doors, stairs. \ 1 1 1 1 1 Size 40x.50 feet; posts 18 feet long; rise of roof 15 feet, covered with shingles ; body of barn cov- ered with inch boards, cTapboarded and painted. The stable for cattle 14 feet wide; floor 12 feet; bay 14 feet ; height of cattle stable 7 feet 6 inches ; horse stable 8 feet 6 inches ; barn floor covered with pine, 1^ inch thick, lined with hemlock one inch thick. Size of timber on lower floor 8x8 inches; all above 7x7 inches. Cellar under the whole 8 ft deep with nine posts in cellar. The barn ends to the west ; cellar open to the south. Stairs in one corner of cellar leads to the stable for cattle. I. B. Hartwell. Rochdale, Mass., Dec. 25, 18G9. TURNIP TASTE IN MILK AND BUTTER. What will pi'event milk and butter from tast- ing of turnips when cows are fed with them ? Waterbury, Vt., Dec, 1869. c. R. p. Remarks. — We generally feed turnips in the morning soon'after the cows are milked, and, of course, after they have had a foddering of hay. They should not be taken on an empty stomach, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 107 but as long before milking as convenient. "While eating turnips the cows should be well supplied with salt. Cooking is said to prevent all taste. By adding to, say, half a bushel of boiled turnips, while hot, four or five quarts of shorts, which will be well swelled by the time they are cooled, you will have a very acceptable mess. In a prize essay, written by Mr. "William Anderson, of Rock- ford, 111., on the cultivation and use of turnips, and published in the Country Gentleman, it is said that the turnip taste may be completely neutral- ized by adding to the milk before it is strained "a very small quantity of nitre (saltpetre) dissolved in hot water." He gives no explanation of the amount of nitre to be used, further than the words "very small," and the remark that "the quantity of nitre must necessarily be regulated according to the number of cows kept." Mr. Anderson says he has fed cows all wiater on turnips and had no complaint of turnip taste in the butter, from those who used it. We are perhaps prejudiced against saltpetre, but as we don't want much of it in our food, we should use the least possible quantity that would answer the purpose in deodorizing milk. Better taste a little of turnip than too much of nitre, we should say. POULTRY ACCOUNT. I commenced the year 1869 with twenty-five hens. I prefer the Brabmas for chickens, and the Leghorns for eggs. I think a cross better than pure breeds of either blood. In reply to the ques- tion often put to me, "Is there any profit in poul- try ?" I offer the following account current which I "have kept with my little flock during the year past : — 1869. Hens, Dr. Jan. 1. To value of 25 hens $25 00 To food for hens and chickens 80.90 $105.90 1869. Hens, Cr Dec. 26. By 25 large hens $ 25 00 " 15 small hens or pullets . . 15 00 " 155 dozen eggs, at 36o . . . 55 80 " Dressed poultry sold . , .111.50 $207.30 Profit $101.40 Franklin, Mass., Dec. 20, 1869. S. S. Cook. EGGS OUT OF PL.\CE — PACKING POULTRY. Keeping about thirty hens this winter, I always read with interest every article in your valuable journal relating to their treatment, &c. I now wish to ask if you can inform me why I find eggs on the ground when I have nests — both on the pround and raised up three or four feet, with a walk to enable the hens to reach them easily. One side of my hen house, which is quite large, has a floor of loam, and in this part the hens generally roost. The other side, which was once used for keeping pigs, is covered about a foot deep with straw and hay, which was swept from the lofts above. In this latter part the hens stay nearly all the time in cold weather, and eggs are often picked up on the straw, with no appearance of a nest hav- ing been made. I also wish to dissent from the opinion of "S. O. J-" concerning the packing of poultry for the mar- ket. Havifls been in the transportation business for many years, I have always observed that poultry meat or eggs, packed in barrels or caiks, arrive at market in much better order than that packed in boxes, as advised by^er. Any careful observer will always notice that the employees of railroads or express companies generally roll barrels on the "chime," and in so doing, keep the weight evenly distributed through the whole package, and with but very little shock to the contents, while boxes are "cut" from corner to corner, or wheeled on trucks and tipped off in a manner that throws the whole weight into diSerent places, much to the detriment of the looks of the contents when opened. Again, barrels very seldom get broken open if they are strong when started ; while boxes, unless very securely strapped, often split or lose off pieces, thus exposing the contents to the dirt and dust of railroad travel, to say nothing of the temptation to pilfer on the part of those who have to handle them. Railroad. Boston, Dec. 25, 1869. Remarks. — It is not uncommon for hens to drop eggs when not on their nests, perhaps sometimes nearly unconsciously. It is one of those irregu- larities, or exceptions to general rules, for which it is not easy to assign a satisfactory cause. AMOUNT OF CLOVER SEED FOR PLOUGHING IN. I have not seen the answer to the questions, how much clover seed should be sowed to the acre for ploughing in the crop green, and what is the best time or season to sov/ it ? c. k. p. Wardsboro', Vt., Dec, 1869. Remarks. — We hope some practical farmer wil! answer these questions fully. We believe that the frosts of spring destroy a large number of plants sown, as often directed, upon the late snows. Mr. Allen says, in the yeio American Fann Book, that clover may be sown in August or September, but much better and surer early in the spring, with most of the grains or the cultivated grasses. The quantity of seed required per acre depends on the kind of soil. On well prepared loams, ten or twelve pounds of good seed will give a full cov- ering to the land, while on clay from twelve to sixteen pounds are necessary to an acre. When sown with the grasses, four to six pounds on the first and eight to twelve pounds on the last will sufiice. When intended for turning under, the clover is often mowed and hayed the first year and ploughed in the second year when in full blossom. CATARRH IN SHEEP. I have some sheep that are troubled with a dis- ease of the head. They run at the nose, which sometimes is so stopped up as nearly to prevent their breathing. I lost two last spring before I turned them out to grass. It seems to be conta- gious. Do yon know the disease and a remedy for it ? H. L. SovvLES. Alburgh, Vt., Dec. 24, 1869. Remarks. — We have placed the word catarrhal the head of your inquiries, thinking from your de- scription that that is the disease with which your , sheep are troubled. Generally the sheep recover, j as people do with colds, without much doctoring ; i but sometimes this disease assumes a malignant type and proves very fatal. Nutritious and varied , food, warm, well-ventilated shelter, and good care, are the only remedies wo can prescribe. Will ex- 108 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Feb. perienced flock-masters who see Mr. Sowles' state- ment give their opinion Of the disease and of its proper treatment ? POULTKY WANTED. One correspondent in Hanover and another in Monroe, N. H., v/ish to purchase Embden or Bre- men geese, of which we gave an illustration some weeks since. Another correspondent in Shelburne Falls, Mass., inquires for the East India or Shake- bag fowls. Breeders who have fowls for sale will do well to advertise their stock. "ashes applied to kill vermin, when a calf and allowed to get wet." For this reason I don't con- sider it safe to put ashes on any cattle, as they may get wet when we are not expecting it. I know of no remedy that will cause the skin to be- come smooth and the hair to grow over these bare places, but if any one does, I should like to hear from him. H. C. Buhleigh. Fairfield, Me., Dec. 28, 1869. BLOODY MILK. Perhaps Mr. Barton will be encouraged to try saltpetre, as you recommend, bj'' my success. Last summer I had a cow troubled in this way, which was cured by giving her one tablespoonful of saltpetre with one quart of meal twice a day for one week. John Owens. Wilmingtoti, Mass., Dec. 22, 1369. ' cost of keeping hens. Can you tell me how much corn a hen of the Game or Dorking breeds will eat per day, and the cost of keep tor a year, if they are allowed to run at large, en a large farm ? L. Jones, Jr. Lawrence, Mass., Dec. 12, 1869. Remarics. — We have generally considered a bushel of corn, or its equivalent, as the approxi- mate rule for the food of a hen a year, and con- sequently its market value the measure of the cost of keeping one. If they have the run of a Jarge farm they may save you the trouble of weigh- ing or measuring or even harvesting much of their food. EFFECT OF ASHES ON CATTLE. If your correspondent "Zen" (inNo. 52, "Vol. 48) were to trace back the history of the cow he speaks of, I think he would ascertain that at some time wood ashes had been put on her back to kill vermin, and allowed lo get wet. I have seen quite a number of cattle wiih places on ditferent parts of their backs similar to the one he speaks of, and usually could trace them to this cause. On inquiring the cause in the case of a very tine young heifer, I saw in Waldo county, about two years ago, the owner gave the same answer that others have, AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. — The farmers of Caledonia, County, Vt., have formed a club and will hold weekly meeting dur- ing the winter for discussion. — OfBeers of the Hampshire Co., Mass., Agri- cultural Society have been elected as follows : — President, Levi P. Warner, of Sunderland ; Secre- tary and Treasurer, R. W. Stratton, of Amherst. — S. P. Miller, of Fayetteville, Vt., has a grade Durham cow, from which he has made in seven months, after selling 142 quarts of milk (large measure,) and after using what milk and cream was wanted in his own family of five persons, 311 pounds of butter. — The Germantown Telegraph says that the com- mon blue pill of the apothecaries cures the chicken cholera in Pennsylvania. Give each chicken when seized with the disease a two-grain blue pill, and if not out of danger by the following morning, an- other—two pills almost universally effecting a cure ! — To remove foreign substances from the eye, such as specks of dirt, eye-winkers, in fact any thing, from a mote to a beam, you have only to life the lid, and introduce a flax-seed beneath it. The seed will make the circuit of the eye, and fetch out the offending substance. — A New York sea captain having discovered, a short time ago, several small islands in the Car- ribbean sea upon which deposits of guano were found, the Secretary of State has caused certifi- cates of title and government protection to be is- sured to his attorney. The islands are hcjived to be very valuable by reason of the extensive guano deposits. **< tHR DEVOTED TO AGmECULTUKE, HOKTICUIiTUBE, AliTD KLNDEED ARTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, March, 1870. VOL. IV.— NO. 3. R. P. EATON & CO., PunLiSHEKS, Office, 34 MERcnAJJTs' Row. MONTHLY. enJON BRO\VT>^, S. FLETCHER, 5 Editors. MABCH. ^^^J^f^'f^ ""^^ "^^^^ ARcn was reck- 3v " '' .^-. \ oned by the an- cient Romans as ' the first of the year. It was <^^^^^ so called in hon- ^«3^^i^^ or of Martius, ^»- _.;^f^^"theGodofWar. r7-^^^~^^^^~-v , i heir year com- ^g menced on the 26th cf our March. Says Brady : "The symbol of March is a man of a tawny color, and fierce aspect, with a helmet on his head ; so far typical of Mars, while appropriate to the season, he is represented as leaning on a spade, holding almond blossoms and scions in his left hand, with a basket of seeds on his arm, sitting on a ram, the sign Aries, which the sun enters on the 20th of March, thereby denoting the augmented power of the sun's rays, which in ancient hieroglyphics were expressed by the horns of animals." "Sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent, And armed strongly, rode upon a ram, The same which over Ilellespontus swam, Yet in his hand a spade he also bent, And in a bag all sorts of needs, ye same Which on the earth he strewed as he went, And tilled her womb with fruitful hope of nourlflhment." — Spenser. March was the first month of the year among the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans, and even throughout Europe until long after the commencement of the Christian era. In Eng- land, the legal year commenced on the 26th of March, down to 1752, when the first of Janu- ary became the beginning of the legal, as it had long been of the popular year. About the 20th of March the sun will have reached the equator and the days and nights will become of equal length throughout the earth. About the 20th of December the sun reached the Tropic of Capricorn, and his broad orb was visible for many days through the entire twenty-four hours, in the region of the Southern pole, giving light and life to the vegetable and animal creation. Having com- pleted his Southern tour, he then turned towards the north, and has now half completed his journey. His resplendent orb will con- tinue to roll on with increasing brightness un- til it reaches the Tropic of Cancer, when it will be visible for entire days in the polar re- gions of the North. The rapid growth of vegetation in the short summers of the polar circles, is owing to the flood of light and warmth poured around it during the entire twenty-four hours. The soil imbibes the life- giving rays of the sun during the entire period, and plants grow more in a few days than in as many weeks in the temperate zone, where the sun's rays are withdrawn and the plants sleep during the night. Thus, as the days are longer, fewer of them are needed to perfect 110 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. March the growth of plants suited to the zones in which they grow. Where the days are shorter and the nights longer, a more extended sea- son is needed. The alternations in the movements of the heavenly bodies bring the needed compensation and adjust them to the wants of nature. The sun is the engine that awakens the activities of all organized beings. The plants that spring into life under the stimulus of lengthened days require a long winter for rest ; while those that have a diurnal season of sleep re- quire a shorter period of winter for their rest. Thus they are all adapted to the position in which nature has placed them. The old English proverbs with relation to the weather are seldom applicable in our cli- mate, else looking back to the mild and spring- like days of January we might quote the fol- lowing:— "March in Janiveer, January in March, I fear." "If January calends be summerly gay, 'Twill be winterly weather till the calends of May." UEW ENGLAND AQ'L SOCIETY. Annual Meeting. — The annual meeting of this Society was held at Meionian Hall, in this city, on Tuesday, Feb. 1. There was a very fair attendance, considering the state of the weather. Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire sent the largest delegations, with a very fair number from Vermont, a few from Rhode Island and Connecticut, and one or two from Maine. The meeting was opened with a few re- marks from Hon. Geo. B. Loring, the Presi- dent. The election of officers was first in or- der, and Dr. Loring was re-elected Presi- dent by a unanimous vote. Daniel Needham, of Groton, was re- elected Secretary. There was some debate on the question of Treasurer, the re-election of Mr. Gage being advocated by Mr. Currier, of Exeter, and opposed by John B. Clarke, of Manchester. The vote resulted in the choice of Geo. W. Riddle, of Manchester, N. H., by a vote of 70 to 32 for Isaac K. Gage. A vote of thanks was passed to Mr. I. K. Gage, for his efficient services as Treasurer for the past five years. A recess of short duration was then had, to enable the delegations from the several States to nominate their candidates for Vice Presi- dents and Trustees. On re-assembling the following board of officers was reported and' unanimously adopted : — Massachusetts — Vice President. Wi'liam S.Clark of Amherst College. Trustees, 8. H. Howe, Boston ; J, A. Harwood, Littleton ; 1 homas Saunders, Balem; Richard Goodman, Lenox; Peter Butler, Quincy; Levi Stockbridge, Amherst; James F. Thompson, Nan- tucket; John Johnson, Jr., Framingham; William Birnie, Bprincfield, BJew IIampshire— Fice President, Fred'b Smyth, Manchester. Tnistces, D. H. iioodeil, Antrim; War- ren F. Dariell, B'ranklin ; Warren Brown, Hampton Falls; Charles Williams , Manchester; JohnH. Bailey, Portsmouth; George A. Pillsbury, Concord; Robert Ellwell, Langdon; Charles M. Murphy, Dover; Green- leaf Clnrke. Atkinson. Rhode Island— F«'ce President, Amnsa Sprague, Cranston. Trustees, Obadiah Brown, North Provi- dence; Lyman B. Frieze and W. E, Barrett, Provi- dence; Thomas B. BufFum, Middleton; E. D, Pearce, East Providence; Cyrus Harris. River Point; Henry G.Russell, Warwick; Henry J, Brown, Cumberland; James D. W. Perry, Bristol. Maine — Vice President, Thos. 8. Lang, North Vas- salboro". Trustees, 8. L. Goodale, Saco; Columbus •Stewart, North Anson; Beth Scammon, Scarboro'; Waldo T. Pierce, Bangor; Geo. W. Kicker, Bath ; J. F.Anderson, North Windham; Calvin Chamberlain, Foxcroft; George F. Shepley, Portland; P. B. Gilman, Orono. Vermont— FJce President, E. 8. Stowell, Cornwall, Trustees, G. Campbell, Westminster; Henry Clark, Rutland; O. 8. Bliss, Georgia; P. Winslow, Putney ; G. C. Chandler, Montpelier; L. T. Tucker, Koyalton; H. M. Hull, East Burke; L. 8. Drew, Burlington; H. B. Kent, Dorset. CoytiSCTicw— Vice President, 'E. H.Hyde, Stafford, Trustees, 8. M. Wills, Wethersfleld ; B. Sumner, Woodstock; Burdett Loomis, Windsor Locks; H, 8. Collins, CoUinsville ; G. C Hitchcock, New Preston; Samuel C. Colt, Hartford; H. L. Stewart, Middle Had- dam; T. 8, Gold, West Cornwall; Jonathan Camp, Norwalk. It was voted to substitute the word "Trus- tees" instead of "Managers," wherever the latter word occurs in the Constitution. The Treasurer's report was then read. It was very brief — only a few lines. He re- ported cash on hand, Jan. 1, 1869, $192.48; received from all sources, $1250.21 — total, $1412.09. Expenditures, $224; balance on hand $1118.69. There are some unsettled premiums, among them one of $200 on horse trotting, to be paid, and a few smaller sums. The report was accepted. It was voted that applications for locating the next Fair of the New England Agricul- tural Society should be made to officers of the Society previous to March 1. Butter from Milk of Different Cows.— The question whether the cream from the milk of one cow changes to butter more easily than that from the milk of others, was recently asked by a correspondent of the New York Farmers' Club. In reply it was said that it was undobutedly so, and that the milk of some cows was unsuited to produce butter, or even to fatten a calf, and re- quired much churning to obtain what little butter 1870. NEW EXGLAXD F.IE,:MER. 11, it contained. Mr. S. J. Sharpless, of Philadelphia, who makes the splendid butter for which the Con- tinental Hotel is famed, has made many experi- ments, and finds that no two cows arc alike in the time in which their cream turns to butter. He has churned the cream of two good cows in the same mess. One would turn to butter first. He took that out and continued to churn, and a second batch of butter was the result. He is satisfied that butter is often thrown away in buttermilk when the milk of different cows is churned together, and says the best way is to churn each cow's milk by itself till the characteristics of her milk are well understood. When he would make a prize article and get the best returns from his dairy he uses the old-fashioned up-and-down churn, and takes the cream from one cow only at a time. FAKMEKS' CLUBS IN MAINE. The farmers of Maine appear to be organ- izing clubs the present winter more generally than those of any other State, in consequence probably of the proviso attached by the legis- lature to the law granting aid to county agri- cultural societies, which requires them to ex- pend a certain proportion of the money in establishing these town clubs. We notice in the last Maine Farmer a statement by Mr. W. R. Wright, of Lewiston, that the Agri- cultural Society of Androscoggin county had employed Hon. J. B. Ham to visit every town in the county, and that a club had been estab- lished or an organization had been commenced in each town. We have had the pleasure of witnessing the spirit with which the farmers in several towns have taken hold of the work. In the last two numbers of the Maine Farmer we find notices of the following clubs : — Toums, Bowdoin, Buekfport, China, East Winthrop, Exeter and Garland, Farmlngton, Fryeburg, Gardiner, KenduBkeag, Levant, Madison Bridge, Ml. Vernon & Vienna Norridgi'wocki North Anson, North Auburn, North Fairfield, North Vassalboro', North Ellswoflli, Parkinan, Prospect !fe Stockton, South China, 8 )uth Montville, Stetson, Butnner St Hartford, Webster, West Wlnterport, Wihon, W^inthrop, Presidents. J. L. Patten, A.H. Abbott, W. H. Parlln, A. Buzzell, E.B. St.wkpole, A. ■Washburn, ,E. Kemptou, Secretaries. J, L Parrington. J. A. L ■-wreuco. H. B. WiDiams. F. A. Fuller. D, L. Lamaon. F D. Harmon. W. E. Wood, 8. W. Walker. P. J. CogeweU, D. Moore, A. Moors. H. Dillingham, A, Briggs, B D. Howard, C. H. M;iyo. H. G. Abbott, T. Kowell. W. Maddocks, D. F. Maddocks. S. Works, J. W. Warren. J. M. Grant, I. T. Smith, H. B. Williams. J. C. Knowlton, W. B. PoUle. J. Thompson, W. T. Kirby, L. P. Walker, H. O. Field. J. W. MaxweU, John York. Enoch Wood, For the New England Farmer. THE GARDEN FOR MARCH. If we wottld have a good gardr-n, we must give it seasonable attention. And what is seasonable attention? you may ask. I an- swer, it is doing now, — to-day, — ^just the work that needs to be done. If the ground is cov- ered with snow or frozen it would not be seasonable to plough or plant ; but there are other things to do that are seasonable and which will make ploughing, planting, &c., much more easily done at the proper season. It is not the province of these articles to point out just the particular work applicable to each month in all localities and circumstances, but rather to make such remarks as will suggest to each one such duties as may call to mind things not definitely particularized, but aim- ing to be as practical as possible. Occasionally a spring occurs when the ground settles and spring work may be com- menced in March, but generally April is as soon as we, in New England, can plough and plant any kind of seed. But while waiting for the planting season, we can do ths ^^ clean- ing up.'''' Clear up the yard about the house and buildings. How much pleasanter a home looks where the approaches and all the sur- roundings are clean and neat. It is not neces- sary that things should look stiff, formal or expensive ; a plain ordinary house, with everything arranged with neatness, will give to the eye a more pleasing effect than a more costly dwelling, without this neatness, and order. Straighten up and repair the fences ; remove everything from the yard that does not belong there. In putting the walks in order, do not leave them sunken below the level of the ground, to be flooded with every rain, but raise them a little, and make them oval so that they may be passable at all times. A few flowers planted in the borders of the walk in front will add greatly to the attrac- tiveness of the place. Flowering shrubs set here and there, with a tree or two, v/ill add much more to the salable value of a place than the cost of planting and tending. Ashes. — Good wood ashes will be fotmd very useful throughout the season for every garden product. A supply should be saved, or procured, and kept under cover in suitable vessels. If unleached are not to be had, get leached, they will be found almost as good for many purposes. Cold Frames. — These will need suitable protection on cold nights, and airing freely, or removing the sash entirely, on mild, warm days. Water the plants as they may seem to need it, giving tepid water from a watering pot with a fine rose sprinkler. Use every pains to harden off the plants as rapidly as is consistent with health. Cauliflower and Cabbage. — "Where de- sired early, sow seeds of each in hot-bed. Attention will be needed on the appearance 112 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. March of the plants above ground, that insects do not attack them. Any appearance of insects should be followed at once with a sprinkling of ashes and plaster. Gregory recommends Dwarf Erfurt Caulillower as the best for forc- ing, and for general purposes as an early variety. He sa)s the Early Blue Savoy Cab- bage is very sweet and tender, and earlier than the Early York, and a much better cabbage. Compost and Manure. — Compost heaps should be turned over as soon as possible after thawing out. Have all the lumps broken, rub- bish thrown out and made as uniform as pos- sible. If not sufBciently decomposed add a slight sprinkling of fi.-h guano, stable manure, or even liquid manure, Icom soaking human excrement in water, to start and encourage fermentation. Manure may be carted to where it is to be used, packed neatly and be covered with soil. Hen and pigeon manure makes excellent guano, and should be saved under cover. Horse Radish. — This is an excellent con- diment in spring. Dig for use and for mar- ket. The old practice for starting new beds was to plant the crowns after using the root ; but later practice is to use short pieces of the smaller roots, planting ten to twelve inches deep and a foot aj)art, in two foot rows, in a rich, moist soil. Hot Beds for early plants, &c., may be started during the month, but for the general farm garden April is soon enough. Manure and heating material should be accumulating, and be gotten in readiness against the time of need. Seeds. — If you are lacking in any, lose no time in supplying yourself with all needed. Remember thai last spring your onion, carrot, parsnips or salsify seed did not grow, and you were obliged to get new seed and plant late, and thereby you failed to get a good crop. Your seed was more than one year old and failed. Some seeds retain their vitality only a single year, while others will germinate when ten or more years of age. Much also de- pends upon the manner of saving and caring for seed, in preserving their vitality. Test all seeds before risking a crop from any seed of doubtful vitality, and then it would be cheaper to purchase those of undoubted sound- ness, even at two or three prices. Tools. — Are they all in good repair? and have you all that you need for economical use in the garden? (jood, bright, clean steel tools, for digging, hoeing, raking, &c., are the cheapest and best ; and will prove the rankest of poison to weeds, as well as great inducers to rapid growth of plants, often equalling the best of fertilizt^rs. Try them one season — but be careful that they do not get rusty. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. For the New England Farmer, BUTTER MAKING. Theimometers and their Uee— Temperature of Cream for Churniug — Composition of Butter — Preparation of Cream for Churning— Winter and Summer Butter. In the Farmer of January 22d, Mr. "A." of Bradford, N. H., makes inquiry in regard to the best thermometer for dairy use. and the proper temperature of cream at churning. In buying a thermometer for use in the dairy, see that the scale is graded as high as 212°, and also that it will slide from the case easily. Mine cost seventy-five cents. I slip the scale containing the tube up from the tin case, plunge the bulb into the cream while it is warming over a stove, — stirring constantly to prevent scorching at the bottom, — and when the desired temperature is obtained I plunge the thermometer into boiling water, which instantly cleans off all the cream ; then wipe the scale dry and replace in the case. I have never broken one by changing it from cold to hot water if it would allow the mer- cury to rise to 212° without filling the tube. I should as soon think of keeping house with- out a clock, as without a thermometer. I have used one every churning day for eight years, and never trust anything else when pre- paring water for scalding hogs. J have found by experience that it is usually safe to churn cream in winter at a considera- ble higher temperature than would be well in summer. As an experiment, I churned to-day twenty- five pounds with the cream at 68°, which is one or two degrees higher than I ever tried before. It came a little quicker and the butter was a little softer than usual, but not any too soft to work well. Butter is composed of fat or oil, caseine or curd, and water. Good butter should contain at least 82 per cent, of fat or oil. The oil or fat of butter, like lard and other fat, is com- posed of solid or margarine fat, and liquid or oleine fat. Winter butter contains, according to Prof. Thompson, of solid fat, 65 parts in 100, while summer butter contains only 40 parts. [See Flint's Milch Cows and Dairy Farming, page 240] . This fact explains the reason why cream should be churned at different temperatures in different seasons of the year. It should always be churned at such a tem- perature, that when it does come it will gatlur well. Not so cold that the butter will be in crumbs that will not stick together, nor so warm as to be greas)\ Fresh, sweet cream will not churn as quick as that which is sour, • In winter I prepare my cream for churning the day previous. The cream is kept in large tin pails. The day before churning it is all mixed together as evenly as possible, so that no fresh cream will be in a pail by itself, and warmed over a stove (stirring constantly) to a temperature 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 113 of from 65° to 70°, and then placed in a room where it will be warm enough to have the whole get slightly sour. The next day it is warmed up again in the same way to the de- sired temperature for churning. Cream should never '■'■stand around'''' in a wooden churn all day, nor three weeks, as I have known cases ; nor should tin vessels be used after they get old and worn rusty. They [ will impart a bad taste, and bad color to the butter. If the cream when at the right temperature, is too thick and stiff, it will come too soon, and all the cream will not be churned, but will be washed into the buttermilk. Such cream should be thinned with milk, to diminish the friction and retard the process, so that all the cream may have time to be churned alike. I have never yet found that a little freezing would injure cream if it was managed as I have directed previous to being churned. I find it very much less trouble to make butter in winter than in July or August. I can make more from the same quantity of milk. And I obtain the same price lor both summer and winter make. Since last May I have sold every pound at a uniform price of 55 cents in a country market. A. W. Cheever. Sheldonville, Mass., Jan. 27, 1870. For the New England Farmer. VALUE AMD USE OF MUCK. A very insignificant subject, many will say no doubt, especially those who have never used it as a fertilizer ; and not one farmer in ten that has it on his own land has ever used it as a manure. .When Hook around me and seethe untold wealth that lies in the thousands of swamps and ponds of New York and New England, and then look at the cultivated lands that produce less than half a crop of grain, when by the aid of the muck in these swamps judiciously applied they could be made to pro- duce three or four times as much, I feel just like going out among the farmers on a lectur- ing tour — subject, Muck. But I have neither the gift of gab nor the time for this. However, I have talked muck to my neighbors until I have got quite a number to using it with re- sults satisfactory to themselves, while others have the idea that I have got muck on the brain, some having told me so. Well, I ad- mit it, and I also admit that it has been ex- pen.«ive business ; for, like Uncle John's brains in farming, it has caused my barns to expand to an alarming extent in these days of high priced lumber. I commenced using muck sixteen years ago, and have been increasing its use ever since. My first experiment was a failure. I have one meadow lying next to the swamp where I get the muck, which is rather a cold soil and orig- inally wet, but underdraining has made it dry enough to plough most seasons. The first muck I ever used I threw out m the fall, and in the spring drew and spread on this meadow at the rate of thirty loads to the acre, and it took that land five years to get over it, and then I had to plough it up and seed it over. Not very encouraging, was it ? But I took Luther Tucker's Albany Cultivator -vihich. kept harping on muck, until I concluded to try again. When I came to haying, the next summer after applying the muck, I saw that I had made a mistake, and that such cold land needed warming manures. And here let me say that I have since applied muck, composted in vari- ous forms, to this same piece, but never could see that it was benefited by it in the least, and I now use my horse manure on this piece, giv- ing it a dressing of lime occasionally. The rest of my farm is either slaty or gravelly ; and the second year I tried some clear muck on five acres of corn, or rather drew the muck oi the same fall after spreading the other in the spring. I drew on about the same quantity to the acre, and let it lie until spring, when it was spread and ploughed under. One acre was manured with barnyard manure at about the same rate per acre, and about one-half acre was not manured at all. There was very little difference in the jield of the muck por- tion and that not manured at all, while the barn manure gave double any other acre of the the piece. One-half of the farmers would have stopped here, and said that muck was good for noth- ing ; and I confess that I felt the least bit dis- couraged, as the meadow was worse this year than the first. But the Cultivator said there was value in muck, and I was getting ditches opened in my swamp by taking it out, so there was something gained. I sowed the corn hills to oats the next spring, and to rye in the fall, and seeded. That year the muck began to tell, as the oats were nearly as good as on the manure, and far better than the half acre not manured, and the rye was fully as good on the muck. Whan harvesting the oats I be- came convinced that there was virtue in it; but how to get it out a little more expedi- tiously was the question now. I resolved to try one more experiment ; so in the fall I drew fifty loads into the barnyard, covering it all over to the depth of four or five inches ; and as it was very dry when put there, it absorbed a vast. amount of the liquid manure ; and in the spring it was thoroughly mixed with the manure, except that from the stables which was thrown under a shed. This was spread on corn land, side by side with the clear manure ; and the crop from the compost was fully equal to the other. I think the ma- nure produced a little larger growth of stalk, and the compost a little the most grain. 1 have never tried composting muck with lime or ashes, having always applied it clear or composted it with yard manure. I now have a basement under the whole of lU KEW ENGLAND FARINIER. March my barn, affordinjj sufficient room to stable twenty-five head of cattle. Through the cen- tre is an alley four feet in width and four inches below the rest, of the floor, — the floor of the whole being water tight. On each side of this alley are the stalls just deep enough for the cattle to stand upon and let the drop- pings fall in the alley. In front of the^e stalls are alleys for passage and feeding. In one end of this basement is a room ten feet wide and as long as the width of tbe barn, viz, 36 feet, so arranged as to be tilled from the above. This is the store room for the muck. In the opposite end is a cellar for the manure about three feet lower than the stable floor. I'he cows are put in at night and fed there then, and the next morning, after which they are let into the yard, when pleasant. Before putting up the cows I take a handcart and cover the alley between the two rows of cows about two inches deep with the dry muck from the cellar, and in the morning this and the droppings are all taken up together and drawn to the manure cellar and dumped in. 1 also cover the yard from three to five inches deep every fail ; also put it in the hog pen, hen house, and keep a large pile of at the back of the house to receive the slops, wash water, &c. Before I commenced using muck I made from seventy-five to one hundred loads of ma- nure. Now with the same stock I make from four to five hundred loads yearly, and raise about five times as much grain and hay from the same land. Do you v/onder that I have muck on the biain? In the course of my experience I have come to the conclusion that on any land that is dry enough not to need underdraining muck applied in any shape is equally as good as barnj ard manure, although when applied clear its eflPect is not as quick as that of ma- nure, but is more lasting. When composted after my plan, I think it is better than clear manure, as it is not quite so stimulating, but more lasting in its effect, producing rather less straw but more and heavier grain. I have made some experiments the past season with muck prepared in difierent ways, the results of which were quite interesting to me, but as vour readers may not have the malady ascribed to m\ self, it might not interest them, so I will omit it tbis time. u. Oak Hitl, N. Y., Jan., 1870. For the New England Farmer. ARE FAKKLBSS' CLUBS PBOPITABLB? The subject for discussion at a late meeting of the Springfield, Vt., Farmers' Club was a resolution "that it is not profitable to continue the Farmers' Club." C. Horace Hubbard, Esq., was appointed to open the discussion in the affiimative. Though one of the most ac- tive members of the Club, he urged several in- genious objections to its meetings which were well calculated to open the case. He spoke oi the distance members had to travel, of late hours, danger of eating too many apples, &c. Mr. J. R. Walker regarded it as desirable for farmers to understand their business as it is for men in other pursuits. And where can we better learn the best methods of cultivat- ing and marketing our crops than at the "Far- mers' Club?" Here we spend a little time statedly in social, informal conversation, where any question may be asked and answered with- out restraint. In addition to the information thus gained, our social natures are improved, which, alone, is worth all that the Club costs us. At the time this Club was formed, Oct. 20, 1862, there was no organization of the kind in the State. It was an experiment, an inno- vation ; and but little interest was shown in it, except by the few who organized it. They pledged themselves to sustain its meetings and respond to the appointments of the President. Meetings have been held once in two weeks during the winter months, where the most im- portant questions of agriculture and horticul- ture have been thoroughly discussed. Essays of much merit have been read. Some of these have been fine specimens of literature, and have received much public commendation. We have had lectures by Rev. J. W. Chickering, Rev. Asa Mann, H. H. Merriam, Esq., Hon. John Gregory, L. T. Tucker and Dr. Boynton. And yet the question is raised, "Does the Club pay ?" 1 have attended its meetings pretty con- stantly since its formation, and never, without returning to my home feeling that I was a wiser and a better man. Mr. H. M. Arms spoke at length, in favor of continuing the Club, citing several instances where great improvements in stock,* and farm management had been made, which were clearly traceable to the influence of the Club. He thought farmers, as a class, were more re- spected now than formerly. Improving their minds and posting themselves in their profes- sion gave them self-respect, and they were re- spected by others. The mental culture de- rived from a continued application of the mind to any question was elevating and profitable. He said he was but a boy when the Club was formed, had attended most of its meetings, and felt amply repaid for so doing. Mr. J. B. Whipple believed the Club had been the means of doing a vast amount of good ; that through its discussions the far- mers had been stimulated to improve their stock, whereby thousands of dollars had been put in the pockets of stock raisers. It was no longer a question whether herdsgrass or timo- thy should be cut in its early blossom, or when the seed is ripe. Mr. John Hall spoke briefly of the improved appearance of our stock as compared with it ten years ago, and believed it profitable to continue the meetings of the Club. News. Springfield, Vt., Jan. 11, 1870. 1870, NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 115 AGRICULTUEAIi ITEMS. — There passed the Mattawamkeag, Me., hotel 22,733 sheep, on their way to market, between July 16th, and January 10th, 1869. — A little girl who was sent out to hunt eggs thought it strange she did not find any, as there were several hens "standing around doing nothing." — Mr. S. O. Hill of Manchester, has this winter raised full-sized green peas on vines grown in his sitting-room, fed with wat-er and air entirely, hav- ing no soil in which to root. — Professor George Perkins, Ph. D., recently elected to the chair of zoology, botany and geology in the University of Vermont and State Agricul- tural College, has entered upon his duties. — A farmer in Concord, N. H., who is ninety- two years of age, says that the present is the only time in his remembrance when a load of wood would pay for a good barrel of flour. — Paris has a new invention. It is a portable fresh butter churn, to be used at table each meal. It is made of crystal, and mounted on silver feet. A silver rod revolves quickly in the cream and presents a pat of butter every three minutes. — Twenty years ago only two acres of tobacco were raised in the town of Hatfield. Now the av- erage number of acres planted is between seven and eight hundred, yielding an aggregate product of 1,100,000 pounds. This at twenty-five cents per pound would yield an annual income of $275,000. — John E . Gile of Enfield, N. H., recently slaugh- tered a Chester-white hog, weighing 631 pounds, which he sold for fourteen cents a pound. He paid #12 for her when three months old, and in eighteen months has sold thirty-two pigs from her, at an average rate of over $4 each. — An analysis by Prof. Johnson, of Yale College, of sixteen diiferent kinds of fertilizers, some of which are sold as high as $Go a ton, shows that a very large proportion of them are worthless. One specimen, selling at $23 a ton, was shown to be really worth, as a fertilizer, $2.33. — The Ellsworth, Me., American says Mr. Peltiah "White has a pair of five-year-old steers, grade Devon and Durham, seven feet four inches, 3700 j pounds, and Mr. E.R. Ames of Sebec Village, has a pair of yearling steers, six feet three inches, 2450 pounds. — The Ellsworth, Me., American says that Mrs. J. C. Tibbetts, of Brooklin, made two hundred and forty pounds of butter from the milk of one cow the past year, besides selling milk to the amount of #15. A nice calf was also raised by the cow. In a former year Mrs. Tibbetts made nine pounds of butter per week for twenty-six weeks in succession from the milk of the same cow. — A correspondent of the Westeryi Rural thinks that the ground is the best bed for hogs, as it is warm enough, and a valuable disinfectant. To prevent the hogs making distinct beds, he advises laying down flat stones, or making a pavement of small stones, and then covering them with four or five inches of earth. He presupposes a good house, built with brick or stone sides. —At a late meeting of the "\Valtham,Mass., Far- mers' Club, Mr. Dickinson said that he had suc- cessfully protected his plants from the depreda- tions of the striped bug by taking a barrel hoop, cut it in halves, cross the halves at right angles, and set in the ground over a hill of vines, and cov- ered this with newspaper. It worked well. NE"W PUBLICATIONS. Remarks upon the Portion of the Report of the Spe- cial Commissioner of the Revenue for the year 1869, relating to Wool and Woolens: addieeted to the Committee of Ways and Means of the IIouBe of Rep- reeentatives of the United Staten, Ipy the Executive Committ:e of the National Association of Wool Man- ufacturers, January, 1870, The Executive Committee of the Wool Growers' Association, of which Hon. E. P. Bigelow is Chair- man, and John L. Hayes, Secretary, characterize that portion of the report of the Special Revenue Commissioner, which relates to "wool and manu- factures of wool as abounding in grave errors and inconsistencies ; as hostile in its whole tone and spirit to one of the most important industries of the country, or, at least, to the great mass of its representatives; as presenting arguments based upon facts which are either isolated or irrelevant ; as abounding in that insidious form of the promul- gation of error, — the suppression of facts which would have neutralized its statements ; and as con- taining conclusions opposed to the judgment and experience of the great communities of the wool- growers and wool manufacturers of the country, who might be supposed to be most conversant with their own aflFairs." These are certainly grave charges to make against the statements of an oflicer of the govern- ment who assumes to speak with authority ; and we hope that all interested in the wool industry of the country will read this little pamphlet of only sixteen pages and decide for themselves whether these charges are sustained by the facts and ar- guments adduced in their support. Rules, Regulations and Schedule of Premiums for the Fourth Grand State Fair of the Mechanics' and Agricultural Fair Association of Louisiana, to com- mence on fiaturdry, April 23, 1870, at New Orleans. Luther Holmes, Secretary and Treasurer. In addition to the liberal premiums offered in this list, which includes $1700 for cotton, $5000 are set apart for objects of special interest not enu- merated in the programme, A grand exhibition is anticipated, and the managers remark that "it is evident that the true key-note of Southern devel- opment has been sounded. The practical men of the country, who are uniting in organizations similar to ours, &re doing more to promote the prosperity of this section of our country than has ever before been accomplished." 116 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. LIarch SHORT-HOKN BULL OF DAIRY STOCK. According to the statistics of our Brighton cattle market reporter, of the 129,353 cattle ■which were sold in 1869, 86,365 were West- ern; in 1865 of 117,866 sold, 38,233 were Western. Showing an increase in receipts of Western cattle from less than one-third, four years ago, to over two-thirds of all the stock offered the past year. To supply this rapidly increasing demand, the farmers of the West make a specialty of raising "steers," as those of New York and New England do of the dairy. For these two purposes, different races of cattle are required, or at least different fami- lies of the same breed, — those that have been reared with special reference to the develop- ment of particular qualities. Thus, some families of the Short-horns have been bred to a comparatively high degree of excellence for the dairy, while others have been bred with special reference to the perfection of those points which please the butcher. At the West, where farmers care less for milk, much attention is paid to the beef pro- ducing qualities. For this purpose there is no breed equal to the Short-korns. Mr. Al- len, in his American cattle, from which our cut is copied, says, that the early importations of Short-horns into the United States, say fifty years ago, were those chiefly of which the cows excelled as milkers ; but when the Ohio Company sent to England, in the year 1834, for a herd of Short-horns with which to im- prove the Western herds, flesli was their chief object, and they sought such cattle as showed that tendency more than the other, although some of the cows which they brought out, and many of their descendants, as we have known from personal observation and experience, proved remarkable milkers, both in quantity and quality. From the Ohio importation of 1834, the successive importations have been mostly of that description — full fleshed, of rapid growth, great development, and early maturity — so much so that the modern style of Short-horns appear widely different from the old style. The above cut, which shows wonderful ful- ness in every part of the carcass, with flesh in places where the common cattle fail to give it, thus making the animal valuable all over, with no more offal than in an animal of a third less size of an inferior breed, is a good illustration of the modern style of beef producing Short-horns. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAIRER. 117 KOZEN dew is of- ten called hoar frost. As the ' air grows cool- er at eveniDg, the vapor con- tained in it is condensed into minute drops; and deposited upon the sur- face of the earth, leaves, «S;c. The air continuing to grow cooler, until it reaches the freezing the minute drops are changed into ice. In the act of freezing, water expands, so that ice occupies more space than it did in the form of water. This is a fact of great importance. To it are due most of the effects of frost, as they present them- selves to us, and as they relate to agriculture. It is this expansion that causes ice to float on the surface of water. This floating ice pro- tects the water covered by it, from the action of the air, and thus retains the water in a liquid state. Were it not for this benevolent provision, the whole body of the water in the ponds and lakes would become solid, and all Animal and vegetable life in the water would be destroyed. As it is, a great amount of la- tent heat is retained in the water, and the life of tishes, insects and water-plants is preserved. That the ice preserves the heat in the water is proved by the fact that the atmosphere may be 10° or 20° below zero above the ice, while below it, the water is 32° or more above zero. When water penetrates the soil it does not form a chemical union with it, but merely a mechanical mixture. Such particles contained in the soil as are soluble are dissolved by the water. This merely causes a finer division of such particles. The insoluble particles retain a large amount of water, entangled as it were, among them, and held by a sort of capillary attraction. When the surface of the ground freezes, or rather when the water in the super- ficial stratum of the ground freezes, the parti- cles of water expand and separate the particles of earth from each other. Then when the ice melts and the water evaporates or settles into the ground, the earth is left porous and mel- low, so that it can admit the air and be pene- trated by the roots of plants, and the radicles of germinating seeds. Most soils above the line to which the frost penetrates, never become comparatively hard and compact, owing to the expansion of the water contained in them, in the act of freez- ing. "When soils in grass or grain contain a great deal of water near the surface, the freez- ing of the water raises or throws up the sur- face, and as this surface is bound together by a net-work of roots, it is raised irregularly, and broken into lumps and fragments, as we often see in the spring, indicating the use of the roller to reduce it again to a level condi- tion. In peat meadows the stratum through which the frost penetrates is always loose and spongy and must be entirely removed before the peat is cut for fuel. In this case there is so much water frozen that the particles of soil are removed so far apart that they do not at- tract each other, and unite again into a solid mass. When soils are ploughed late in the fall, the water more readily penetrates them, and hav- ing been broken and loosened by the plough, their particles are more readily separated, and the spi'ing finds them in a more mellowed con- dition, and ready for earlier handling. The fluids contained in the vessels of plants consist chiefly of water. In the vessels of grasses, weeds and green crops generally, a comparatively slight degree of cold freezes these iluids and ruptures the containing vessels and stops the circulation. Hence such plants die and soon become dried up, as we see in the autumn. The sap in trees is mostly contained in the vessels of the liber, or inner bark, and the al- burnum or sap-wood. These vessels are some- what better protected and will endure a lower degree of temperature. In the unripened wood of vines and late growing trees, as peach trees, for example, which contain a large amount of sap, the ves- sels are ruptured by a moderate degree of cold, their bark shrivels and the wood dies. This is Nature^s method of shortening in such 118 NEW ENGLA2TO FAEIHER. March plants and trees. The sap vessels, lying deeper ! and better protected, will endure still more cold. In the larger limbs and trunks covered by thicker bark, the circulating vessels are seldom ruptured, though, occasionally, in rapid-growing, soft woods, we see the trunks split for many inches, or even feet, by long continued, severe cold. In such cases the sap in all the vessels is frozen solid, and the whole mass of wood is so expanded that the pres- sure from within becomes so great that the bark and alburnum burst, like the hoops on a cask when the water contained within it is fro- zen. In slow growing, hard wood trees this is seldom or never seen in our latitude. In forests, the trees mutually protect each other. The difference in temperature between the recesses of a forest and the open field where the currents of air are unobstructed is very great. The power of life to resist frost is truly surprising, and it is wonderful how slight a protection will enable it to endure almost any amount of cold. The bark of a tree, the outer coating of a seed, a thin layer of leaves or straw, a little earth, a covering of snow, the feathers of a bird, the hair of an animal, the cocoon of a chrysalis, will protect the liv- ing organism that would otherwise perish. Frost, like snow, has its uses. It fines and mellows the soils, and manures and prepares them to yield their nutriment to vegetable life. Frost, like fire, is a bad master. But so far as we can guard against it and compel it to work for us, it will, like the other forces of nature, contribute to our comfort and hap- piness. EXTEACTS AJSTD BEPLIES. POISONED OR DISEASED PIGS. I lost two fine pigs about the first of October, and as no one here can ttU what ailed them, I will make a brief statement of the symptoms of the disease, and ask you or some brother farmer the nature of it. The first pig had the scours about a week ; but not severely. I gave it simple remedies and changed its diet, which had been boiled pump- kins principally, and it began to improve, as I thought ; but all at once it refused to eat, breathed quick and hard, and was inclined to stand with its head pressed into the corner of the pen. 1 then applied warm soap suds, washing it thoroughly and scrubbing with an ox-card, which it appeared to enjoy very much. Its suppressed breathing wore off gradually in about thirty-six hours, and then it began to turnpurple— first its ears and tail, then along the spine, then about the head and along the belly,— living about four days after it turned purple. On the very morning that I found the first one dead the second refused to come to his breakfast. I drove him out of his nest and noticed he breathed like the other. He came out and ate a little. I washed him as the other and gave him two spoon- fuls of sulphur, but as it had no effect, gave three more at night, and saw no signs of an operation. The next morning he breathed naturally, but had begun to turn purple all over. Before noon he died, apparently in keen distress. Tliey were in adjoining but separate pens. 1 turned the first one out doors as soon as he began to turn purple. Both had been well all summer. I had given tUem all the pig weed they would eat nearly every day. Their pens were kept well supplied with rotted chips to absorb the liquids, cleaning out occasionally, and were well ventil- ated, being in an old barn. While the first was sick I searched the "Farmer's Book" for a remedy. Found a plenty of diseases and plenty of reme- dies, but as it gave none of the symptoms it was worthless to me. I enclose a short piece that 1 clipped from some newspaper, which states that swill at a certain state of fermentation is poison- ous. Is that a fact ? J. L. Mouse. Jaij, Me., Dec. 2S, 1869. Poisonous Swill. — A correspondent of the Prairie Partner, having complained of a disease among his hogs, is told by another correspon- dent that the symptoms are similar to those of hogs of his own, which he is satisfied died from eating swill that had become poisoned by stand- ing too long. He says :— "Chemists say that after swill stands a certain length of time after it has soured, it becomes poisonous. I don't know that this is so, but I do know that I shall not feed any more old swill." Remarks. — Yes, Brother Morse, swill and every thing else which is suffered to undergo the putre- factive or destructive fermentation, generates poi- sonous gases and poisonous plants; and these gases and plants if taken into the system in large quantities, will kill a pig or a boy— a hog or a man. The mould so often seen on old swill and other decaying substances is a poisonous vegetable, be- longing to that grand division of the vegetable kingdom called Cryptogamia, or flowerless plants ; and not a few of the vegetable poisons will pro- duce the symptoms described in your interesting letter. Whether the pigs in question were killed by eating bad swill, or by eating or inhaling some other poison, we cannot tell ; but we do not doubt they were poisoned. It is not necessary that pigs and hogs should have the same kinds of food that the children and the old folks eat, but it should be nearly as clean ; at least, if they are expected to eat some dirt, it should be clean dirt, and not the poisonous dirt which comes from decaying matter, whether vegetable or animal. OPERATION ON THE THROAT OF A CHOKED COW. On the 19th of November, a cow seven years old, belonging to Mr. Baldwin of this town, attempt- ing to swallow a large fragment of a round turnip, about 3 inches by 2.;^, became choked. The piece of turnip stuck a Utile more than a third of the way down the gullet. Three different men passed their arms into the gullet and tried to grasp the turnip, but were unable to get their fingers around it. A fork handle was then passed down upon it it, but failed to remove it. After the turnip had been in the gullet about five hours, William Rey- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 119 nolds, a butcher, under the direction of Dr. Bar- rett, cut down upon the turnip, and slipped it out, and the doctor sewed up the gullet and then the skin over it. The wound has healed kindly, and now, December 23, is apparently well. The cow eats and drinks as well as the others in the herd, and is giving about the same quantity of milk as before the accident. She was kept for a time upon hay tea and bran. The operation is very simple and easily done by any man with a steady hand. The wound in the gullet should be carefully sewed up, to prevent the discharge of any food that may be passing it, as this niiglu give rise to ulceration or an abscess. I heard of another case in which the same opera- tion was followed by a troublesome abscess, I pre- sume from not properly closing the wound in the gullet, and perhaps from feeding too soon with hay or grass. J. Reynolds. Concord, Mass., Dec. 23, 1869. gives them time for a good start. The result was that I had 157 bushels of very good Orono pota- toes. I change seed every year. Now, Mr. Edi- tor, the great essentials in raising potatoes are summed up in a few words, viz. ; plough well, and harrow well, and plant well, and hoe well twice in a season and when the ground is in order. Those farmers who advocate hoeing only once cannot beat me,' but I can beat them every time. One great trouble with some farmers is that they had rather be in the store, or in the mill, smoking or telling stories, than to be hoeing their potatoes the second time. O- F. Cain. mil Village, Goshen, N. H., Jan. 3, 1870. A MOUTH AND THKOAT DISEASE. Mr. George A. Carpenter, of Cheshire, Mass., has two cows that were taken with swelling of the tongue, throat and neck. The mouth is red and the tongue so badly swollen that the jaws cannot be closed within two inches. Nothing can be got down the throat, and they drool constantly. Some cows affected in the same way have died in this town. Many think the cows have been poi- soned by something like poke root in their fodder. Your opinion of the disease, and suggestions for treatment, are desired. k. s. Cheshire, Mass., Dec. 20, 1869. Remarks. — We are not quite sure that the cows referred to by friend Smith have been poisoned. Malignant diseases involving the mouth, tongue and throat, sometimes occur from causes which are not well understood. This is true of man and beast. A very fatal disease known as the foot and mouth disease is exciting a good deal of alarm in England, France, and other countries on the con- tinent of Europe, at the present time. Sheep and pigs and even poultry are attacked as well as cat- tle. Yet, in the present instance the disease may be due to poison ; but be this as it may, the treat- ment should consist in washing the tongue, and swabbing the mouth and throat, with a saturated solution oi chlorate of potash. This is prepared by putting into hot water as much of the chlorate as the water will dissolve. The remedy should be applied at intervals of two, three or four hours ; and if the animal can be made to swallow half a gill or a gill of the same medicine several times a day, all the better. If the above fails to effect a cure, try a solution oi carbolic acid in the manner described for the application of the chlorate. Procure Nichols' or Squibb's saturated solution of carbolic acid, and dilute from one-half to one-third with pure soft ■water. Both remedies may be warm, cool or cold •when used, as may seem best to suit the case. RAISING POTATOES. I broke up one-third of an acre of land the 22d of last May, gave it a good harrowing and applied half a shovelful of manure in a hill; hills two feet and rows three feet apart. I put two small potatoes in a hill, six inches apart, and hoed as soon as up, and again in eight or ten days. That A CITT-BRED FARMER. — MILLET AND CORN STALKS. Ten years ago next spring I left the shop for the farm. It was new business to me, as I was city- bred. Now if these ten years have not brought me riches, they have brought me much practical knowledge and experience, which I could not have gained in any other business. There is noth- ing that will bring out a man's wits like trying to bring up one of the old worn out farms with which New England abounds, without plenty of capital. Still I am not discouraged, and shall not return to the city this year. But what we new beginners have to contend with is such statements as Dr. Loring made at Pittsfield and at the milk producers' meeting at Nashua, in regard to millet, and similar statements, not based on experience, made by oth- ers, which induce experiments that use up the money that we need for books and papers and for other purposes. Last spring I tried millet, but it was a failure. My experience with corn fodder agrees with the ideas advanced by "L. S." in his commu- nication in the Farmer, of Dec. 25. I hope that others who do their own feeding, or at least super- intend it, will give us their experience, and thus oblige one reader of the Farmer who never before had a word of his own printed, and probably many others. G. R. M. Wilton, N. H., Jan. 3, 1870. VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERT. — NO. IT. In a preceding article, I have urged the impor- tance of establishing, at convenient points, well conducted veterinary colleges and hospitals; — in- stitutions in which shall be taught every branch of science that is deemed essential to a thorough medical education. The question may now be asked, Are such in- stitutions an absolute necessity ? Cannot a per- son become competent to treat the diseases and injuries to which our domestic animals are subject, by using diligently such means as are more readily at his command ? Important as I hold such schools and hospitals to be, they may, doubt- less, be dispensed with, provided a thorough medi- cal education be obtained in some other way,— by pursuing a course of study under the instruction of a competent physician and surgeon, for exam- ple ; by repeated dissection of the horse, cow, sheep, &c., at the same time; and by care- fully studying and comparing the writings of the best veterinary surgeons of this country and of Europe. In this way any young man of respecta- ble talents and education may qualify himself for the practice of this useful and honorable profes- sion. Young men, will not some of you enter this in- viting field of labor ? Will not some who have, until now, directed their thoughts and aspirations towards other channels of labor and emolument, turn their attention in the direction of this almost uncultivated field— this much neglected occupa- tion ? Why crowd your way into professions and avocations which are already tilled to repletion, 120 NEW ENGLAND FARlVrER. March when by becoming a scientific and skilful veterin- ary physician and surgeon, you will find your- selves in a field of ample dimensions, almost with- out competition, and where your labor will be ap- preciated and rewarded ? Medicus. West Bratlleboro' , Vt., Jan., 1870. GREEN AND DRY CORN FODDER. Though old age has so far dimmed my eye-sight that I am unable to read, I was very glad to learn that Dr. Loring had publicly expressed his opin- ion about green corn fodder for milch cows. I was also glad to hear the opinions of others on the same subject. I consider Mr. Whitaker's state- ments valuable to the public, but I must doubt whether he has had the experience with green corn fodder for milch cows that Dr. Loring or myself have had. I have known cows reduced in flesh, strength and milk, by feeding them green corn stalks, and from my own experience I am firm in the belief that, if any farmer were to tie up thirty cows in the barn on the 10th of August, and feed them all the green fodder corn they would eat, and no other kind of food, for thirty days, not one-half of them would be able to rise in their stalls at the end of that time. I would beg, however, that no farmer will try this experi- ment on good cows ; but if any one doubts it, let him try it on one or two that are of little value. Still I believe that sweet corn is the best thing that can be raised for fodder for milch cows, when our pastures fail in August or September. The next best crop that I know of is oats. But neither of them should be fed to cows green. The corn should have two days of good sunshine, after it is cut up, before it is fed to the cows, and the oats at least one day's drying in good weather, and two if convenient. If the weather is unfavorable, take them into the barn and chop them up with an equal quantity of meadow hay. The water in both corn and oats will be sufficient to moisten the hay, and it is well to mix with the mess a little Indian meal or shorts. Asa G. Sheldon. Wilminqton, Mass., Jan. 8, 1870. Remarks.— As dried-up as our pastures gen- erally are in the latter part of summer, it is abso- lutely necessary to furnish milch cows with some kind of additional feed. And the question, What shall be raised ? is one of much importance. Hence it is desirable that the views and experi- ences of different farmers on this point should be known, and that the conclusions of each individ- ual should be treated with the deference which is due from one man to the honest opinions of an- other. Since the present discussion commenced in our columns, we have seen the following suggestions upon the subject of cow fodder in some extracts from the address by Dr. James R. Nichols, at the Fair of the Franklin county, Mass., Agricultural Society, last fall, which we copy, remembering that in the multitude of counsellors there is wis- dom. The Doctor says : — It is a common practice in Eastern Massachu- setts, and perhaps in this section, to grow the corn plant in drills, or in a mass from broadcast sow- ing, to feed to milch Cows late in summer when the pasture grasses fail. This is a kind of food for animals not profitable to raise. It is not so be- cause the maize plant is not rich and succulent, but because the conditions under which it is grown are unfavorable to its perfect and healthy devel- opment. The natural juices of the plant are richly saccharine at maturity, when grown in hills in open space, with plenty of air and light; but grown in mass, in close contiguity, this principle is almost wholly wanting. To test its comparative value with the green stalks taken from the cornfield, I fed to my herd of cows in August a weighed quantity of the "corn fodder," so-called, night and morning for one week ; they were then changed to the field cornstalks, and the gain in the milk product at the end of the week was a little more than eight per cent., and there was also a manifest improve- ment in quality. As a rule, all vegetable productions, grown under conditions where the chlorophyl, — the green coloring principle of plants, — cannot be produced in all its richness of tint, are abnormal, immature, worthless. The absence of this principle in the whole of the lower portion of the corn plant grown in drills, or from broadcast sowing, indicates its watery, half developed character. As fodder for milch cows in summ'er, the sweet millet, green oats, and clover are much to be pre- ferred to corn, and one or more of them should take its place upon all daii-y farms. BUTTER making IN WINTER. Having had considerable difficulty in making the butter come, I wish to ask what is the proper temperature of cream for churning, and also what kind of thermometer is best for the dairy ? A. Bradford, N. H., Dec, 1869. Remarks. — Sixty degrees is generally consid ered about the right temperature. Our correspon- dent, A. W. Checver, of Sheldonville, Mass., one of the most careful dairymen in the State, said in a statement made of the mode of manufacturing a lot of butter that took first premiums at the Norfolk County Fair, in 1868, that "churning is always done with the cream at a known tempera- ture, varying from 60° to 64°, according to the out- side temperature." But temperature of the cream is only one of the conditions of good butter. The trouble may be in the hay rather than in the cream. The ordinary cheap thermometers, cost- ing from 25 to 75 cents, answer a very good pur- pose. We believe there is a patented article de- signed for the dairy, which it is claimed is more easily cleaned, but we have never found any great difficulty with ordinary ones in this or any other respect. CLAY AS A FERTILIZER. At the meeting of the Farmers' and Gardeners' Association of Irasburg, Dec. 20, Mr. M. C. said he had noticed that where clear blue clay from a well fifteen feet deep got washed away from the pile about the mouth of the well, it caused a very rank growth of grass. In a piece of grass land that had been mown eight years the meadow star-moles worked last year to such an extent that he thought it was ruined by the piles of dirt all over it, but this year it cut the stoutest grass he ever hud,— three tons per acre. Mr. L. had seen a case where seventy-five loads of blue clay from a bank had been put on an acre of sand, which was then sowed to grain and grass, and it did well during the three years he lived where he could notice it. When he lived near La- moile river he had half an acre from which high water had washed the soil all otf, leaving a loose white sand. On this he put a light coat of manure and sowed it to grass, but it would not turf over, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 121 and it yielded no crop. Then he put on twenty loads of clay and harrowed it down, trying to pul- verize the chunks. He then sowed grass seed and got at the rate of two tons of hay per acre ; the turf was good and firm so the water did not wash it off. It continued good as long as he lived upon the farm. He spoke of a piece of eight acres of blowing sand, that when first cleared was good grain land, but by being long cropped was ex- hausted. The treatment he would advise would be a dresing of clay. I. N. C. considered the hard pan thrown up from ditches, excellent dressing. E. P. C. had believed for years that clay was a very valuable fertilizer for grass. It possessed just the qualities necessary to make grass grow. He had seen an instance where the claj' from a well was thrown upon the grass ground near by and caused a rank growth. z. e. j. Irasburg, VL, Dec. 22, 1869. FOOT KOT IN SHEEP. In a recent communication of Doctor Boynton to the Farmer on foot rot in sheep, I notice he recommends treating each toot in a flock of sheep as carefully and with as much precision as you would a sore finger. Now with a flock of a dozen sheep that is all well enough, especially if they are fancy ones. But how is it in docks of one to five hundred ? The "eternal vigilance" would have to be accompanied with a great amount of very disagreeable labor. Now I propose to give my experience briefly in this matter of foot rot. In the tir»t place, I went through "the mill" wben I was a boy, and "lived out ;" and learned jOi.ething of the process of doctoring with vitriol in the old fashioned way. In 1846, after commencing for myself in Vermont, I had a flock of about 130 sheep, and they got the foot rot, and got it badly. Well, I went to work and worked two whole days, — I was alone in those days, — on that flock, paring and plastering, and I remember well what a miserable, dirty, back-ach- iog job it was. Well, the sheep got better — a good deal better, — but after awhile they began to grow lame again ; either a relapse of old cases or the coming on of new ; probably both. I thought to myself, this will never do. I can't go that job over again, I must devise some wholesale mode of doctoring. So I went to work and built a small yard in a pan of the pasture nearest the house, in which I put my salt troughs, and when the sheep had got a little salt hungry, called them into the yard, gave them their salt, shut them in and kept them iong enough to be sure they all found the salt. As soon as the sheep had got used to coming into the yard after their salt, I placed a trough six or eight feet long on the ground in the narrow gate way, and fenced it so that the sheep in going into the yard would be obliged to walk the whole length of the trough. The bottom of the trough should be nearly level and wide enough for a sheep to walk in. I put into the trough one or two pails of salt brine, or enough to cover the hoofs, and also a solution of vitriol, and a pound or two of tobacco, steeped. I think I depended as much upon the brine as the vitriol, and I had some faith in the curative qualities of tobacco. At any rate it served to prevent the sheep from licking up the brine. Now the sheep must have their salt, and there was no way to get it but to walk straight through that mixture in the trough. It was fun to see them walk mincingly through it without knowing what it was for. In a short time my sheep were cured, and remained cured while I owned the flock, nearly two years. Any flock of sheep I believe may be cured of foot rot in that same way. I never knew a flock of over a hundred that was ever perfectly cured in any other way. My neighbors at the time advised me to take out a patent for my discovery ; but I never did. So every sheep raiser has the right to adopt my plan, or the old one of paring and plas- tering by hand. A. G. Notes. Lancaster, N. H., Dec, 1869. EXPERIMENT WITH FERTILIZERS. In October, 1866, 1 ploughed a pasture ten inches deep. In 1867, planted potatoes on the land with no other fertilizer than 200 pounds of plaster. The soil of this field is a brown loam and uniform as to quality. In the sprinj^of 1868 I staked it olT into three equal parts, containing 146 square rods each. On lot No. 1, I used 1769 pounds of Bradley's Superphosphate of Lime. Two bushels of Club Wheat were sown on this lot, prepared by wetting it with brine and drying it with a portion of the superphosphate. The remainder was sown on the land after the wheat had been sown and harrowed once. The plat was again well harrowed and rolled for an even surface for the grass. Lot No. 2 was sown and treated the same as No. 1, except that it was fertilized with 1441 pounds of Paddock and Dean's Raw Bone. Lot No. 3 was treated the same as to drying and sowing as No. 1. But as a fertilizer 1770 pounds of Bradley's Raw Bone was used. On harvesting, the result was as follows : — Lot 1 produced 29 bnehela, weighing 61 Vbs ^ bushel. Lot 2 " 24 " " 60 " Lots " 29J " " 60 " By which it appears that the excess of wheat on Nos. 1 and 3 over that on No. 2 was enough to pay for the fertilizers ftsed. d. c. Peacham, Vt., Dec. 20, 1869. SURPRISE OATS. I forward you a sample of surprise oats raised this season from seed that I received from Mr. Van Olinda, of Illinois, in the spring of 1868, but too late to sow that season. The seed sown weighed 4-5 pounds to the bushel, and that raised this season weighs the same, and was ten days earlier and nine pounds heavier than the Norway. I obtained my Norway seed from Mr. Pease of Hartford, Vt., the same year and sowed it that season, raising enough for seed the la?t year. What is meant by the term "best oats," as used at the Farmers' Meeting at Manchester. N. H. ? My father entered the Surprise Oats, but the New Brunswick Oats, weighing 41 pounds to the bushel, received the premium. m. Jan. 10, 1870. Remarks. — The specimen received is certainly j?ery handsome. The kernels are uniformly plump, bright and heavy. We do not know any thing of the principles on which the awards were made by the committee on oats at the Manchester Meeting. GROWING BARLEY. The high price which this grain has borne for the last two or three years, and its excellent quali- ties as a milk producing food for dairy stock, seems to demand for it more general attention than it has yet received at the hands of the farmers of New England. It requires good soil, and a clean cultivation, not because it is a gross feeder, for it is a much less exhaustive crop than oats, but it seems less able to appropriate the required nour- ishment from the soil than some other grains. Cut before fully ripe, the straw is worth twice as much as oat straw for feeding purposes, as it seems 122 NEW ENGLAND FAR^jffiR. March to be as readily eaten as hay, and stock will work it up without waste. The grain when ground and fed to animals producing milk is considered by farmers here more valuable than corn. It is as good a grain as wheat to seed with for the suc- ceeding crop of grass. The number of bushels per acre in the valley of the Connecticut varies from thirty to sixty, according to circumstances, though from forty to forty-five may be considered a good crop. The best preparation for a good crop of barley appears to be a well manured and well cultivated crop of corn, though any other hoed crop with the land in good condition answers very well, but all attempts to raise it upon green sward, or land in poor condition, and foul with weeds, will result in failure. There seems, how- ever, in this locality to be but little demand for it as a market crop, and it therefore rests its merits with us upon the excellent feeding properties of both straw and grain, and the universally superior "catch" of grass seed when sown in connection with it. E. E. s. Cornish, N. H., Dec. 2i, 1869. EFFECTS OF CHEERY lEAVES ON CATTLE. I find that my attachment to the New England Fahmer increases with my years. I think it and kindred prints, are of more present benefit to far- mers than all the agricultural colleges in the coun- try. But I believe the time is at hand when agri- culture will be considered one of the most impor- tant of all the learned professions. There has been considerable discussion in the Farmer of late about the poison of wild cherry ; but I do not recollect of any one having opened an animal to see its effects. I do not think it is poison. Many years ago one of^y neighbors cut some cherry trees in the month of June, and threw them into his pasture. The next day his cows ate heartily of them. Before night one of them was dead. I helped him skin her. On opening her to ascertain what the difficulty was, we found that the wilted leaves had stopped, undigested, in a solid mass in her stomach. Had she eaten them in a green condition, they could not have stopped undigested. I do not think there is any danger from them only in a wilted condition, Thomas Haskell. West Gloitcester, Mass., Dec, 1869. EXPERIMENT WITH SUPERPHOSPHATE ON CORN. I put about a tablespoonful of superphosphate into each hill of two rows of corn, and left two adjoining rows without the superphosphate. For three or four weeks there was little difference in the appearance of the corn. But after that time the phosphated rows went ahead, and when twelve inches high the other was seven or eight, an ad- vantage which it maintained through the season, and which could be seen at some distance. The land was low intervale, part moist, part dryer. At harvesting, the corn on the two phosphated rows weighed 71, and that on unphosphated 52 pounds. The heaviest corn was the best, most forward, and most sound. h. m. e. Fisherville, N. H., Dec, 1869. DECREASE OP SHEEP IN BENSON, VT. "A happy new Year to you," Mr. Farmer, and here are the stamps. We cannot do without your weekly visits, though you made a miscalculation on the rise of wool. But you are not alone in that matter. For one I never was so disappointed in my expectations of the market value of any prop- erty before in my life. Other kinds of property and produce are high enough for the good of the country, I hope we have seen the worst of the depression in the wool trade, and that the low end of the see-saw will soon begin to move the other way. If not the sheep in this section will soon disappear. The grand list of this town has shown over 20,000 sheep for taxation in former years, but next spring the "listers" will not be able to count 8000. And in adjoining towns the decrease has been in aljout the same ratio. John Balis. Benson, Vt., Jan. 1, 1870. COPPLE-CROWNED TURKEY. I have a male turkey with a tuft of feathers on his head. It is the only case of the kind I ever saw. Have you or have any of your readers seen the heads of turkeys thus ornamented ? H. T. Gates. New Worcester, Mass., Dec 25, 1869. Remarks. — In the "American Poulterer's Com- panion" by the late C. N. Bement, Mr. Main is quoted as saying that, although the subjugation of wild turkey is not of an ancient date — it is said that turkeys were unknown in Europe till after the discovery of America — their domestication has produced marked changes in their plumage, &c. Among these changes or varieties he mentions that of the "tufted turkey" as the most remarka- ble, and says it is yet very rare. The tuft is some- times black and sometimes white. SURPRISE OATS. Enclosed find sample of surprise oats, raised by me last season. Every one who sees them prefers them to the Norways. They ripen a few days earlier than the common oat, and weigh one- quarter heavier by the bushel than any other. Roxbury, Vt., Dec, 1869. W. I. Simonds. Remarks. — Plump, bright oats. "One-quarter heavier by the bushel than any other oat," we should suppose would entitle them to the name of Surprise. CURE FOR CHILBLAINS. I can recommend with much confidence as a cure for chilblains, rubbing the parts affected with butter and heating it in by the fire. e. m. s. Rochester, Vt., Jan. 2, 1870. MILTON FALLS, VT., CHEESE FACTORY. Received the milk the season of 1869 from an average of 373 cows for four months and eighteen days. Pounds of milk received, 932,231 ; from which they made 98,130 pounds of cheese, equal to one pound of cheese for nine and one-hald pounds milk. The patrons have received an average price of #14.37 per hundred pounds net, for their cheese the past season. A. B. Ashley, Director. Milton Depot, Vt., Jan. 11, 1870. —At a late meeting of the Herkimer County, N. Y., Farmers' Club, Mr. Whitman said that as the cold weather came on last fall he found it im- portant to hurry up his turnip harvest. To save time, the roots were dumped in the cellar without topping, intending to do thatjob immediately after the roots were safe from danger of frost. But be- fore the tops were removed the mass heated and rotted so that the turnips were all spoiled and were removed to the manure heap. 1870. 2^W ENGLAND FARMER. 123 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS. F all the arts by ■which man Las Ali] advan, l*"" 1 izatif ^.'i acquired do- minion over na- ture, the do- mestication of animals is the most interest- ing and impor- tant. Man has advanced in civ- ilization and in the arts that accom- pany civilization, but it isa singular fact that the domestication of wild Es^;;?^-' animals, which must have been one of his first steps in that direction, seems to have been at some period anterior to all record- ed history carried to a certain point, at which it has ever since remained al- most entirely stationary. Scarcely a single species of wild animal has been reduced to a domestic state within the period of human records. Most of the domestic animals now known seem to have been reduced to tameness in the primitive seats of the human race in Asia, and to have accompanied man in his migrations over the rest of the inhabitaed world. It is probable that the diflferent beasts of burden, — the horse, the ass, the various species of the ox, the camel and the elephant, — have been tamed at different periods of times, yet they were all tamed at periods anterior to the records of history. The same remark may be made respecting animals that are valued only for their flesh, their skins, and their fleece — and the universal favorite of man, the dot^. St. Hilaire, the celebrated French naturalist, remarks "that there are one hundred and forty thousand animal species at present known, but man has reduced only forty-three to a domes- ticated condition, and ten of the forty-three are wanting in France, and eight in all Eu- rope." The animals that have accompanied man have adapted themselves to the various cli- mates and condition to which they have been exposed as readily as man, their master ; and there can be no doubt that many which are now in a wild state might be reduced to a do- mestic state, and rendered useful to man. There are six species of the horse, only two of which have been domesticated, and so far as we know, the other four are as susceptible of being tamed as the two which have been. The eight or ten domestic animals which are found in South America and Asia, and which are not found in Europe, are probably as capable of being acclimated there, as those which have already been so acclimated. The Llama, the Alpaca, the Vicuna and the Tapir might add to the meat-producing and fleece- bearing animals of Europe. The Eland of Africa, a fine large animal weighing from eight to fifteen hundred pounds, is a gentle, quiet animal, apparently predisposed to domestica- tion. All travellers, and among the rest Dr. Livingstone, speak of it as preferable to beef for food, and disposed to fatten very readily. The Yak, or horse-tailed ox of Tartary, is valuable for travelling, for carrying burdens, for its milk and its fleece. It is by no means to be supposed that all the animals capable of being useful to njan have been subjected to his dominion. In 1849 a Report was made by St. Hilaire to the Minister of Agriculture in France upon the domestication and acclimation of useful animals, which was published, and led in 1854 to the Society of Zoological Acclimation. They have introduced quite a number of new animals Into France and placed them in such parts of the country as were supposed best adapted by climate to their habits and consti- tutions. They have also introduced several kinds of birds which are not only beautiful for their plumage, but valuable as food, especially the Hoc*o, more resembing the turkey than any other bird. This Society is extending its attention to fish at the present time, and also to useful plants. This Society has a wide field open before it, and it is to be hoped that its labors will lead to results of great value as well as interest to the world. The facts which they will discover and make known in zoology will be of great Interest, and will aid man in completing his conquest over the animal world, which, as yet, is very far from being accomplished. Our own country, from its great variety of climate and soil, possesses some special advan- tages for the introduction and acclimation of 124 NEW ENGLAND FARjVEER. Mabch new varieties, and even species, of animals that may be useful to man. All our domestic animals were brought from Europe, and so far from deteriorating, they have in almost every instance improved, showing the favorable char- acter of our climate and the products of our soil to all animal life. A FINE TKES3 OF COKN". While some of the correspondents of the FARjrER are just now discussing the value of corn in the stalk, our attention has been called to the beauty of "the full corn in the ear." Farmers may differ in their opinion of the value of green corn stalks, or straw, — for we believe naturalists class Indian com with the grasses, and have christened it with a Greek word, Zea, meaning "to live," thus recogniz- ing"^ its great life sustaining power, — but they all agree that the grain itself is a nutritious food for both man and beast. But all who have used corn either in the house or in the barn know that its value depends in a great measure on its degree of ripeness when har- vested. Up to about the first of September last, the prospect of a good corn crop was not at all fa- vorable, and in many sections a failure was predicted; but the fine weather which suc- ceeded produced a fair crop on fields that were favorably situated, and which had been well manured and well cultivated. Commissioner Capron estimates that the yield of corn in New England this year is less than that of last year by about eighteen per cent., or nearly one- fifch. We were, therefore, much pleased to look upon so beautiful a specimen of eight-rowed corn, of this year's growth, as that which we recently received from the farm of Dr. James R. Nichols of Haverhill, Mass. The ears, or rather the rows of corn on the ears, measure from nine and a half to twelve inches in length, the kernels are large, very compact, of an unusually rich color, and the cob well filled. Accompanying this beautiful trace of corn we received the following note. The statement alluded to will be found in another column. Messrs. Editors :— I send you by express to- day from my farm, a few ears of corn, a part of the product of one and one-half acres, which gave me last autumn 312 bushels of ears of shelled corn. This gives fully 106 bushels to the acre. It was indeed a noble crop, and the corn in the bin is worth looking at, I can assure you. The specimen sent is a fair one. Two-thirds of the ears were as large and full as those you will examine. I gave in the Journal of Chemistry a brief account of the crop, some weeks since, which I enclose to you. I did not include in Journal statement of amount raised, the three or four bushels which were "traced up" for seed. Very truly yours, Jas. R. Nichols. Lakeside, Haverhill, Mass., Jan. 10, 1870. MILK HAISINQ FOR CITIES. It has been generally supposed by farmers and railroad managers that milk could be trans- ported profitably only about one hundred miles. Hon. J. Z. Goodrich, of Stockbridge, Conn., has writteo a long letter addressed to the farmers of Berkshire county, Mass., for the purpose of showing that they are "practically as near the New York market for the sale of milk as those who live within twenty or thirty miles of the city." He says that during the past season milk has been carried eveiy day, even during the summer months, from Dalton and Pittsfield, Conn., to New York city by the Housatonic railroad, a distance of 160 to 170 miles. It has been brought to the stations in the afternoon, and delivered in New York in good condition the next morning in time to be served to city customers before breakfast. The milk train was started on this road the 1st of October, 1867. It carried 44 cans of 40 quarts each the first day, and increased to an average of about 230 cans per day in 1868, and to about 390 cans per day in 1869. It is stated by Mr. Eli Smith of Sheffield, that at first only four cans of 40 quarts each was sent from that station, and that during last summer it run up to 87 cans, from 2-5 farmers, and that he expects from 140 to 150 cans, or a full carload, will be furnished next sea- son. Mr. Goodrich believes that this new business on the Housatonic road will greatly increase the value of farms on its route, and he says that one farmer admitted that the value of his farm had already been enhanced .f 3000 thereby. He believes that this business has added twenty millions of dollars to the value of farms on the Harlem road. He also discusses its advantages to the railroad. He believes that the county of Berkshire alone may produce, and should produce within two or three years, 1000 cans, or 40,000 quarts a day, and that in no oiher way probably can its farming lands be improved so much. He says that the de- mand for good, sweet, pure milk is almost unlim- ited, and is yearly increasing in a ratio far greater than the development of new sources of supply. If milk can be sent 150 to 175 miles on the roads centering at New York, we should suppose that the milk circle might be greatly extended around Boston. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 125 A HEAVY CROf OF COBN. Notwithstanding the unpromising appear- ance of our corn-fields at Lakeside in June, we have just harvested a crop, which must ba regarded as extraordinary, even by those who most successfully cultivate the cereal. The | field and crop have been carefully measured, and the result shows that two hundred and nine bushels of ears have been produced to the acre. This gives at least one hundred and Jive bushels of shelled corn to the acre. We have never heard of a larger yield in this sec- tion. If any of our farmer friends have done better, we shall be happy to record their suc- cess. The corn in the bin is a splendid sight. The magnificent ears are of a brilliant yellow, and many of them 14 and 15 inches in length. In size and fullness of kernel, they could not be more satisfactory. Two and three ears grew upon a stalk, and so taick and luxuriant were- the plants, it was diOicult to pene- trate into the field. Owing to this luxuriance, it was not touched with the hoe or cultivator but once from the time of planting. The field was a green sward turned over in the autumn of 1868, occupying a position midway between bills and lowland. In the spring, upon the farrows, were spread four cords of barnyard manure to the acre, and this was harrowed in and the soil finely pulverized wi'h a Geddes harrow. The hills were* three feet apart, and into them at planting was placed a handful of "bone and ashes" mixture ; this was covered with a film of earth, and upon it five kernels of corn were dropped. We attribute tiie success of the crop to fall ploughing, manure ichich held the liquid ex- crement of the animals, thorough spring pul- verization of the soil, applying the manure to the surface, and to the use of the bone and ash mixture in the hills. We believe the in- fluence of this fertilizer was very essential in the production of the crop. The cost of the corn per bushel, including in the estimate one- half the cost of the fertilizers, is forty-five cents. This does not take into account the fodder, which, in our view, has a high value. The market price of corn of this quality is now one dollar and twenty-five cents per bushel. — Dr. J. Nichols, in Journal of Chem- istry. For the Kew England Farmer. PLAN OP A BABNT. Seeing an inquiry in your paper for a plan of a barn, by Mr. W. H. Taylor, and having built one the past season, I will send you a discription of it, although it may not suit Mr. Taylor. The barn is 50 feet in width by 110 feet in length, and 22 feet posts. with lloor to drive through lengthwise 11 feet wide, leaving bays on either side 18 feet wide, which should be divided equally into divisions, 80 that hay or grain can be kept separate. The floors over head, or high beams, are lowered 7 feet from top of posts or plates, and Si feet of door on either side, between the divisions, should be made to turn back upon hinges so as to use a horse fork without obstruction, over-head. Such a barn as this will contain room enough to store 100 tons of hay and what grain and loose fodder would be raised on such a farm. By opening the feeding doors in floor, having a cupola, the cellar is well ventilated. I will send you a little sketch of the base- ment and first floor, that you may perhaps understand it better. PLAN OF BASEatENT. Xorth. 10 21 I I 7 _ Cattle Yard. South, Explanation of Plan of Basement.— No. 1 is the root cellar, 12x15 feet; No, 2 cellar stairs; No. 3, walk for feeding hogs, 6x18 feet; No. 4, feeding place for hogs, raised three feet ; Nos. 5 and 6 apartments for hogs with stoue fluor and cementel, 16x13 feet; No. 7, cattle stable, 18x32 feet; No. 8 division for cattle or sheep, 18x3'2; Nos. 9, 10, 11 and 12 divisions for cattle or sheep, 18x32 feet,— these division are famished with racks for feeding, — also with doors 10 feet wide by 6 ftet high, opening into the yards, y, and with windows above -which turn up for ventilation ; the water troughs are indicated by wt, doors by d, and windows by w. The basement is 9 feet In the clear, FIRST FLOCK. Iforth. Shed. 7 7 7 7 5 1 1 1 3^1^ 4 1 1 1 1 Barn Floor, 14x110 jj 7 7 7 7 7 7 II 4 II II Soiitli. Explanation of Plan o/ First Floor.— No 1 is the harness room, £xl2 feet; No. 2, the granary 10x12 feet;. No. 3, walk, 6x18 foet; No. 4 space for etairs to cellar 126 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. March and to lofts above; No. 5 horse stable, 18x18, directly over hogs ; No. 6, walk for feeding cattle below, 4 by 18 feet; the parallels indicate trap doors for feeding stock in cellar and also for ventilation; the divisions of the bays for hay and grain are indicated by figures 7, all of ■which are 18x18 feet, except the one next to the walk for feeding below, which is 14x18 feet. Should Mr. Taylor like the arrangement of this barn and it is too large for him, he can build one of any size he chooses ; but by all means have the posts in same proportion to the size of the barn, as it costs no more to cover the roof of a tall barn than a low one. John M. Fuller. Hanover, N. H., Dec. 28. 18G9. For the Xew England Farmer, ■WINDOW GAKDEWING. In these chilly wintry days, when Nature has droffed her green mantle and shrouded herself in her eider down covering of snow, all lovers of house plants pay close attention to their window gardens, and sigh to see the green leaves fade, the plants wither and finally die. As we keep seventy-five pots of house plants, we think that we know a little concern- ing their cultivation. There are some plants which will thrive with scarcely any care ; will send forth new leaves, and then the sweet, pure blossoms, regardless of the treatment they receive. Among these the Chinese Prim- rose takes front rank. Eight to ten months out of the twelve will find it covered with its showy white or brilliant pink flowers. Its cost is small ; a twenty-five cent scrip will pur- chase a well-grown plant — and its flowers are a certainty. Czar Violets blossom all winter, and perfume the air with their wondrous fra- grance. The flower is single, like a wild vio- let ; but its sweetness is unsurpassed by its more dazzling sisters. Belgium Daisies will blossom for months. Ber/onias will also M'ell repay the cultivator, and push forth their waxen petal blossoms during all the gloomy winter season. Bouvaredias, with their coral flowers, adorn a window garden for many months with a (juick succession of buds and blossoms. The variegated foliaged plants are a charm- ing addition to our parterres. Their brightly tinted leaves are almost as beautiful as flowers. The craze for these plants has developed largely of late years, and the Florist's Cata- logues offer us a large assortment. There are various species of Acliyranthus, and of Coleus, each and all of them very desirable to the amateur gardener. All the above men- tioned plants grow without much coaxing, and ■with a Rose geranium, and several varieties of Horse Shoe geraniums, will form a very respectable "window garden ;" and give great pleasure to not only their owner, but to the passer-by. Flowers blooming in windows are very at- tractive, far more so than gorgeous upholstery and filmy lace. They possess a charm above price. The amateur cultivator finds his great- est difficulty in flowering plants to proceed from the dryness of the air of the room. The plants cannot be sprinkled daily on account of (heir nearness to the windows; but the leaves can be sponged over with a soft cloth or a bit of sponge. This clears them of dust and keeps open the breathing pores, for a plant breathes through its leaves. They are its lungs ; if they are clogged it must wither away and die. Without a suflicient amount of air, light and water they will also become weak and sickly, and will eventually perish. Fresh air should be given every day, unless the thermometer marks beloA^ zero all day. The window at which they stand can be opened from the top if the sun shines bright and warm upon the plants ; if not, open one in an- other part of the room, for ten minutes at least. This supply of pure air is quite as needful for the human life which occupies the room as for the plant life. Every day, while we eat our dinner the parlor is aired by door and window, and when we return the room is so refreshing we enjoy it with the plants. Bad air kills more of our children than any dis- ease, in fact it breeds it — is the cause of dip- theria, fevers, &c., &c., to the end of the catalogue of diseases. There is an art in watering plants which a novice rarely knows. They should never be watered unless they are really thirsty ; unless the surface of the soil is dry, then water until it runs out into the saucer. After all are thus thoroughly watered, turn out the surplus which is in the saucers, as it is injurious to most plants to have the pot stand in water. Hydrangeas, Calla Lilies and Lobelias are the exceptions which prove this rule. Plants which are budding and blossoming vigorously require more water than those which are not so healthy. In fact judgment is needful in this matter of watering, and it is only at- tained by practice. One thing is very neces- sary, and that is always to use water warm to the hand. Never apply even one drop of cold water. It chills the roots so that they cannot grow. We had a friend who used to water her plants with the tea left in the tea- pot after breakfast, and her success as a cul- tivator was marvelous ! Rather expensive after "this cruel war;" but it certainly was efficacious. All plants kept in rooms should be well washed at least once a fortnight, and once a week will ensure a more healthy growth. A bathing or a wash tub does the work well. Set the pots in it, sprinkle the tops with warm water ; then scrub off the pots and the sau- cers ; set them in the kitchen to drain for awhile. If you are mistress of the kitchen this process can be accomplished without much trouble. If Bridget or Dinah is mistress — why — the case is altered ! Still cleanliness is all important to plant culture. No plant will flourish unless it is attended to in this respect, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 127 and it is one reason why so few succeed in raising house plants to perfection. If a news- paper is thrown over a stand of plants every time the carpet is swept a great deal of dust is warded off; but still the dust will eventually clog the pores and stifle the life of our cher- ished pets. If a lady would wash her plants as often as she washes her poodle dog there would be a much greater show of flowers en her stand. Newspapers are also invaluable for protecting plants on frosty nights, either pinned around them in cornucopia shape, or several thicknesses of them inserted between the plants and the windows. When the mer- cury early in December fell to twentj'-five be- low zero, our plants were thus protected in a room warmed by a fireplace. Newspapers are invaluable assistants in more ways than one. How mortals lived before the art of printing was invented we cannot conceive ! Surely the dwellers in remote country villages were to be pitied. But now by the medium of the newspaper we can learn all things desira- ble and undesirable ; can be taught to keep house, carry on a farm, and last but not least, adorn our dwellings with the fairest of God's gifts — the pure, sweet flowers, which fully re- pay all the expense and attention they receive at our hands. The culture we bestow upon them is returned to us a hundred fold. The mind has a certain vegetative power which cannot remain inactive. If it is not employed and cultivated into a lovely garden it will soon become overrun with weeds of a wild, rank growth, and bear vicious fruit. Let us cher- ish a love for flowers in our children's heart — encourage them to tend and cultivate flowers — to love the Beautiful wherever it can be seen, and we shall learn, "There ia religion in every flower. Its etill small voice is as the voice of conscience Mountains and oceans, planets, suns and systems Bear not the impress of Almighty power In characters more legible than those Which He has written on the tiniest flower. Whose light bell bends beneath the dew drops weight." For the New England Farmer, TOW^ IMPORTATION OF DUTCH CAT- TLE. In the monthly Farmer for January I no- tice an inquiry by "C. F. L.," of Woodstock, Vt., about Dutch stock, and observe that, in his book on American Cattle, Llr. Allen says that, "Mr. Chenery's herd, mostly imported in 18G1, is the only herd of pure bred Dutch or Holstein cattle known in the coimtry, except their descendants which may be in some other hands." This was probably the fact until last summer, when I imported nine head, arriving in New York on the 11th of August last. They were selected last July out of the best herds in Holland, and in the selection I was assisted by a man who was recommended to me as being the best judge in Holland of Hol- stein cattle. Of this lot of nine animals, one bull, two years old, and three heifers, are owned by Amos D. Smith, Esq., Providence, and are kept at his farm in Portsmouth, on the island of Rhode It-land. The remainder, one bull, two years old, and four young cows, are owned by my brother Henry L. Greene and myself, and are at our farms in this place. They are all black and white except one, which is a dark dun and white ; the dun color possessing the pecuhar distinctiveness from the white portions that marks the black color, in this breed of cattle. I learned while in Hol- land that a very small proportion of Holstein cattle were of this color, called by the Dutch "falb" or "fallow" and that a few were red and white, but nearly all are black and white. My dun and white cow is considered by competent judges, the best ia our herd. She dropped a bull calf, 25th of September, which is an unusually promising animal, being large, symmetrical and hardy. His color is a very dark brown, almost black, and white. One of my brother's cows also dropped a very fine black and white bull calf on the 5th inst. These two are all the increase of our herd at present. All the animals have done finely, none ap- pearing to feel any bad effects from the change in climate. My opinion is that they will be the most valuable stock for dairy and beef purposes, that we have in this country. Although my cows are giving large quantities of milk, — the dun cow yieldmg 27i quarts per day at the time of the birth of her calf — it is not to be expected that the best results will be attained until they are acclimated and have entirely re- covered from the effects of their long sea voyage. As they were intended for breeding pur- poses great care was exercised in selecting them from entirely distinct families, superior milking qualities and good size being most de- sirable points. Both the bulls and two of the cows took first premiums at the cattle fairs in Holland. None of these animals are for sale, for our intention is to stock up before selling, unless we should have an excess of bull calves next season, in which case we may sell some of the young bulls. John W. A. Greene. Riverpoint, B. I., Jan. 10, 1869. For the New England Farmer, TOBACCO KAISING ON THE CONNEO- TICUT. We grow tobacco for a living, or what seems more nearly true, we live to grow to- bacco. For let me just say to you, Messrs. Editors, that those farmers that get their liv- ing by growing tobacco have to work harder and longer than any other class of farmers with which I am acquainted. It is true that some years we get together a greater amount 128 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. March of money, at one time, than do farmers who engapce in a mixed husbandry. But then, just look for one moment at the life we have to lead. Many of us plough our lands in the fall, preparatory for the crop, and in the spring, as soon as we can, our seed-beds have to be got in readiness and sowed. In doing this great care must be taken to properly enrich the soil, and to thoroughly pulverize and mix with it the fertilizers. Our course is to manure with stable manure soon after we get through trans- planting in the summer, and plough under what plants and weeds are remaining upon the bed. Then plough once a month or so through the season to keep down the weeds, applying manure once more, and then in spring simp'y sow about one and a half pecks of Russell Coe's superphosphate of lime, or one peck of guano to the rod, and rake it in thoroughly, after loosening the bed with a manure fork. Then in a short time your work begins in earnest. For, let me tell you, if it isn't earnest work to sit or lay down on the soft side of a plank, and pull weeds all day, then I wouldn't say so. Oh, my back aches now, only thinking of it. Now, active labor has been begun in the field, — ploughing, harrowing, carting manure, spreading it, and ploughing and digging it in ; using for this purpose either the common plough, the gang plough, or Shares' harrow, working the soil thoroughly, and at the same time working in the guano, that we have been pounding rainy days. Then comes the fitting the hills, preparatory to setting or transplant- ing the young tobacco plants ; and this job — transplanting the young plants — is apt to make a man recollect that he has a back, or if he goes on his knees they will get sore, too. We love to have this work done in a damp day, or before a rain. But as we can't do everything just as we would like to, we often work all day in the rain. If we don't have a damp time, then we have to set and water from one to three times, for we must keep it alive some way after it is set. Then we have to hunt the cut worms and kill them, and I have known a pint of them dug out and given to the hens by a single hand, all gathered in going over a single acre. Well, the rascals may have eaten up and de- stroyed nearly one-half of the plants on the piece, and the first rainy day it has got to be stocked over, and perhaps two or three times before we get a good stand. Hoeing in the meantime has been going on in all suitable weather, and it has to be hoed from three to five times, — about four is the usual number of times to hoe it. By this time the depreda- tions of the green worm commences, and we have to look sharp for these fellows, as it is very desirable to put them in chancery before they have eaten very large holes into the leaves. Then it has to be topped, and then comes suckering, — a job that is about as undesirable as anything that can be done about it. Think of stooping over a plant to pull the suckers from top to bottom, not less than fifteen to a plant — gummy, nasty and disagreeable work, at best, only occasionally varied by catching and killing a big green tobacco worm, as big as your finger, that has been overlooked in your daily hunts after them. This is done by taking them by the head with the thumb and fore linger, giving a sort of rolling twist, and at the same time throwing them on to the ground. Don't hesitate to take hold of them even if they grate their teeth as loudly as a full grown woodchuck would do. It's a short job, if it isn't so pleasant. You have the sat- isfaction of knowing that he won't be able to eat any more of your tobacco. Then comes cutting and hanging, and if the nights are a little cool, the anxious watching, and careful noting of every change of wind and weather, so as to be able to get it housed before Jack Frost has had a chance to destro)', in one night, the labors of the season. How earnestly we look at the thermometer, and how apt we are to step over to neighbor B.'s to see if he thinks it will be safe to risk it out. If not, with axe in hand, go to work, cut and pile up until it is frozen, or the wind shifts, or clouds arise, or the mercury indicates warmer weather. When It is all housed begins our anxious care in curing it so as to have it all right. When cured we must take it down, and very often this has to be done in the night time, for it has to be done when it is damp and in a soft and pliable condition, after a rain or a fcggy time. Then the leaves have to be stripped off the stalks, only tying up the fillers ; then sort it all over again, putting the wrappers by them- selves, and the seconds by themselves, tying up into hands from i to | of a pound in a hand. We then pack it in piles, butts out, and allow it to remain from two to four weeks to cure off the butts and then put it into box- es containing about 400 pounds each, the wrappers, the seconds and the fillers each in separate cases, and by this time we have nearly or quite used up the year and are ready to go the same rounds over again. The fact is, there is no end of the work in caring for tobacco, and it has got to be done in the right time, to the exclusion of all other work. The haying has to be done when you can get the time. Tobacco first ; haying, har- vesting, corn, and potatoes, must be attended to when we can get to them. Every moment of spare time must be de- voted to getting together fertilizing material to enlarge the manure pile for this one crop. Care must be taken to keep it under sheds, or build cellars under our barns to enable us to increase the quantity and improve the quality. So completely does this crop occupy our minds that you would think that there was no other topic of conversation in some regions. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEiffiR. 129 from the time the seed is sown in the beds until it is sold. I have sometimes thought we did not need a telegraph to enable us to know ■what was being done among the tobacco grow- ers, for a sale can't be made without its being known, inbtan'.er, f>r miles around. Talk about women circulating village gossip ! Why, they are not to be named the same day with our tobacco growers. They scent the ap- proach of a buyer from afar ; and I have some- times thought that they could smell Old Sam as far or further than they could hear him swear. Agawam. North Hatfield, Mass., 1870. For the New England Farmer, SHAIiIi "WE RAISE ALL OUR CORN? Something over one hundred years ago, men were moving up the Merrimac, Contoocook and Connecticut rivers into New Hampshire, attracted by the fertile soil along their banks, the food their waters supplied, and the high- ways they furnished ere the country was crossed by roads. Then, almost the only occupation of the new settlers was farming. If corn was consumed it had to be raised for two reasons : first, the difficulty of procuring it from older settled States, from want of transportation ; and secondly, from want of means to pay for it, had it bee i easy of access. Such arguments as were advanced at the farmers' convention at Manchester last month would have been appropriate then, when every man was a producer, when there were no man- ufactories save the saw mill that cut only tim- ber to meet the limited demand of a scat- tered people ; grist mills, to grind the little grain consumed ; blacksmith shops, where were made the only tools used upon the farm, or by the weaver, the tailor, and the shoemaker, who wrought in almost every kitchen. Then it might have been well to urge the raising of all the grain consumed, because it was possi- ble to do so. But now o«r rivers are used as highways only to carry the remnant of the forests to the mills below us. They have ceased to supply us with fish, and we are becoming a manufacturing people, — consumers, instead of producers. We are but one door from Massachusetts, the workshop of the nation. Could the wise men of New Hampshire see no difference between the condition of the people of our State now and one hundred years ago ? Could they see no difference be- tween this time and that prior to the period when the canals and railroads brought the grain fields to our doors ? Could they see no difference between those pioneers and the peo- ple of our manufacturing towns and cities, the products of whose labor is scattered over the world, bringing from the furthest corners are the most powerful ? Were they not aware that there is no better index of the prosperity of a people, of their wealth, their refinement, and the relation they sustain to the outside world, than their markets ? What do we want of corn ? One of the en- thusiasts for corn-growing in New Hampshire said he could realize two dollars per bushel for his corn by feeding it to hogs. If that was true he would have shown wisdom in purchas- ing a large amount of corn and transmuting it into pork ; for there has been a good margin between the market price of corn and two dol- lars a bushel. By so doing, an untold amount of manure might have been obtained with which to increase his own crops. The West wants to sell us corn ; Massachu- setts wants poultry, and wants it well corned before it is killed. May we not take the corn the West is crowding upon us and make it into choice turkeys and chickens, that our city friends will have ? There is not enough poul- try raised in New England to supply its mar- kets. There is room enough, and boys and girls and women enough in New Hampshire to raise it, and the prices paid for choice poultry will prove remunerative, though turkey ban- tams may not pay for raiting. Shall we buy the corn to raise it? thus furnishing employ- ment to a class of our people needing it, and producing something to restore the wasting fertility of our soil. If it will pay to feed com to hogs, is it not for the interest of Eastern farmers to feed as much Western corn to them as possible, mak- ing employment for its people and manure for its soil ? There is a constantly increasing de- mand for milk and cream and butter. It will pay to feed cows for milk and beef; milking them until they are fat. Shall we buy corn for that purpose, thus making a rich manure and a profitable business ? Or, because there is not corn enough raised here, shall we milk poor cows that produce poor milk, and then fatten them for beef at a cost that ivill not pay ? Good beef and good milk are made without corn, but not without hay or a substitute. There is no more profitable crop than good grass. We cannot go to the far West for our hay ; while the West will supply us with corn at prices which will allow us a margin for profit when fed for poultry or pork, or milk, or beef. Why, then, should we. not buy Western corn and raise forage crops, such as hay, &c., and put our manure upon such fields as will pay for top dressing ; plough and ma- nure such lands as will produce good corn ; sowing the corn broadcast, with grass seed, for it will grow as well with corn as with grain ? No one doubts the capacity of New Hamp- shire to grow corn or wheat. Cloth can be made in an old-fashioned hand- loom; but be- their treasures — the means to purchase foot cause cloth can be made in such a loom, shall and clothing and the luxuries of re6nement? we insist upon having all our clothing made in Did they not know that the best fed people that way ? When New Hampshire men urge 130 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Mabch the raising of all our cereals, they forget the demands of our markets, and the relation we sustain to the rest of the States. The United States have been called the na- tion of homes. And I would claim for New Hampshire the credit of being the home-State of the nation. In every house there are nur- sery and home rooms. Thither men retire for rest and enjoyment. In the homes of no other people is there so much to attract the weary from their labors, whether in the field, the stud}', the counting-room, or the unsatisfac- tory wealth of the metropolis. With moun- tain and lake scenery unsurpassed for grandeur and beauty, with the purest water and an at mot^phere as pure, we should learn as far as possible the demand, of those who may be at- tracted hither. To the attractions of nature we should add those of art, not only in mak- ing our homes beautiful, our public convey- ances models of convenience and comfort, but we should make every product of the farm and garden as near perfection as possible. Our fruit, our dairy products, our poultry, beef and mutton should be of the choicest kinds ; and our streams and lakes should be restocked with the finest fish. But what has all this to do with raising corn ? Ask why fruit is not cultivated; the answer is, "I have no time." Ask why grass is not cut in the proper season; the answer is, "I was hoeing my corn the second time." Ask why the sheep were poor, thii lambs weak and unfit for an early market ; and the true answer would be, "the hay was cut late, because of the corn- hoeing, and consequently was fit to make nothing but frames of cattle and sheep." The stock are allowed to grow poor because it will not do to buy corn. Hon. Joseph B. Walker, the orator at the Coutoococ k Valley fair, last autumn, asked why so many farms had been abandoned in New Hampshire, and given up to pasturage and wood. The answer is, Because the occu- pants of those farms suffered them to remain as they were one hundred years ago. Cities had sprung up around them, but they cared neither for the city nor its fashions. The great grain fields of the West were offering their products at our doors by railroad, yet they did not use them, but spent their breath in denouncing city people and those who would place the luxuries of the earth within their reach, as "speculators." As a farmer upon the banks of the Merri- mac, 1 find it more ( ifBcult for me to buy hay than corn, and labor is too costly to raise it. For these reasons I use my manure for the grass crop. I plough after haying, manure and reseed in the full, and am constantly im- proving the hay crop with comparatively little labor. Admitting that corn can be raised for fitty or bixty cents per bushel, while it is worth twice that in market, thus giving a profit of 100 per cent. ; what would have been the cost of a crop of hay upoa the same land at the same time, and what the profit on that crop ? Why urge the cultivation of corn and wheat, though paying crops, if grass will pay better? That it will, I think most of the farmers of New Hampshire will acknowledge. F. Mast Yard, N. H., Jan., 1870. AMBRICAlSr DAIRYMAN'S ASSOCIA- TION. The fifth annual meeting of this Association was held at Utica, N. Y., Jan. 12 and 13. The sessions appear to have been mostly oc- cupied by addresses. Prof. Law of Cornell University, delivered an address on the feed- ing of cattle in relation to their health and produce. In discussing the dairy interest, Hon. X. A. Willard said, The operations of the past year have established three facts of importance in regard to dairy products. 1st. The beneficial influence of a low temperature and humid at- mosphere upon the preservation of the flavor of cheese, 2d, That a healthy consumptive demand for cheese, does not depend upon ex- tra low prices, and 3d, That there are mar- kets and an outlet for our whole produce at a price above the cost. He recommended smaller sized cheese, as better adapted to the home market, which he thought cheese makers must chiefly rely upon, and named twenty cents per pound as the price cheese ought to command. The premium of $100 offered for the best essay on the claims of cheese as a wholesome, nutritious and economical article of food, was awarded to L. B. Arnold of Ithaca, N. Y. Fourteen essays were received, several of which were recommended for publication. The election of officers resulted as follows : President — Horatio Seymour of Now York. Vice Presidents— Ron. T. G. Alvord, New York; Anson Bartlett, Uhio; X. A. Willard, New York; Ban- ford Howard, Miciiigati ; Henry Wade, Canada West; O. S. Bliss, Vermont; Moses Hawks, Illinois; Asahel Buroham, New York; Bartholomew, Massachu- setts; G. A. Kliphart, Ohio; T. 8. Harrison, New Vork; N. W. Woodflne, Nortti Carolina; C. H. Wilder; Wis- consin; John M. Webb, New York; B. M. Wells, Con- necticut; H. Calmes, Kentucky ; Levi Wells, Pentsyl- vania. Secretary— Qc. B. Weeks, Syracuse, New York. Treasurer— Dt. L. L. Wight, Whitesboro', N. Y. Rennet, its nature and use, was the subject of a paper read by Mr. Arnold, in ■which he showed that the efficiency of rennet depended on the presence of an almost infinitely small speck of light colored liquid, inclosed with a very delicate sack, and having a darker col- ored nucleus in the center. They were found 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 131 to be what are called animal cells, and so very minute that a single drop of water in which rennet was soaked contained over 500,000 cells. Fermentation and putrefaction in their rela- tions to the manufacture of cheese, was the subject of an address by Prof. G. C. Caldwell of Cornell University. He said that. Recent microscopic examination has revealed the fact that ivery case of fermentation or putre- faction is attended with the development or growth of living organisms, most of which, at least, be- long to the vegetable kingdom, and the most gen- erally accepted view, is that these oi-ganisms are the cause of all fermentation and putrefaction; that the dust of the atmosphere as well as all fer- menting or putrifying matter, contains either the germs uf these microscopic fungi, or the fungi themselves, in one stage of development or another ; that these germs fall on all substances exposed to the air, and that, if the substance so exposed is one that can nourish their further development, they will vegetate and increase, and in so doing cause the substance to decompose. From the moment that the milk leaves the cow, the work of the fungi commences — they begin to increase, and simultaneously the milk begins to change — both operations going on with a rapidity that varies according to the circumstances of tem- perature and exposure. The following petition to Congress for change of revenue laws was adopted. We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States, and manufacturers and producers of butter and cheese, respectfully petition your honorable body to so modify section 4 of the Internal Reve- nue law, passed March 31st, 1868, as to clearly ex- empt manufacturers of butter and cheese, and pat- rons of butter and cheese factories, from a tax upon their sales, as we believe it to have been the intention of Congress when said law was enacted ; and your petitioners will ever pray, &c. Prof. A. N. Prentiss of Cornell University, read a paper on ergot in connection with abor- tion ; Mr. Lyman of New York made some suggestions about butter-making ; and dairy products as seen from a mercantile view were considered at length by Mr. Webb of New York. He estimates the receipts of cheese in New York this year to be about the same as last year, viz., 1,330,000 boxes. He thought there was no danger of making too much really good cheese, and that, considering the decline in gold, prices had been well sustained. Dr. A. Bartlett of Ohio read a paper on "soil, climate, vegetation and water of the principal dairy regions of America." O. S. Bliss, Secretary of the Vermont Dai- rymen's Association was present, as were del- egates from Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wiscon- sin, Canada, North Carolina, &c. Hon. Horatio Seymour, President of the association was detained by an accident till near the close of the last day's proceedings. BXTKACTS ANB KEPLEES. TANNING SHEEP SKINS. "GOLDEN SALVE." Can you inform me how to tan sheep skins, &c., so they will make good mittens and gloves; and can you give me a receipt for making a good salve ? A Farmer Boy. East Shelburne, Mass., Jan. 18, 1870. Remarks. — The following process for tanning sheep skins with the wool on for mats or mittens — if for mittens the wool should be trimmed off evenly to half or three-fourths inch in length — we have seen recommended. Wash the wool thor- oughly in cold soap suds, and rinse. For two skins dissolve half a pound each of alum and salt in a little hot water, which put into a tub of enough cold water to cover the skins ; soak twelve hours, then hang them over a pole. Before entirely dry spread and stretch them on a board to dry, and while a little damp sprinkle on the flesh side of each skin an ounce of saltpetre and an ounce of alum pulverized and mixed ; after rubbing this in well, put the flesh-sides together and laj' in the shade for two or three days, turning the under skin uppermost every day. When perfectly dry scrape the flesh side with a blunt knife, and rub with pumice or rotcen stone, till soft and pliable. Some years ago Mr. J. Weston, of Rutland, Vt., who claimed to be the inventor of the "Golden Salve," and to have used it on man and beast for twenty years, gave the following receipt in the Farmer : — Linseed oil 2 quarts, beeswax 3 pounds, rosin 3 pounds, — heat and stir until well mixed. EGGS BY WEIGHT. It seems to me that there can be but very little doubt that eggs will soon be sold by weight in the Eastern markets, the same as in San Francisco ; and that the change would be of equal benefit to both the producer and consumer, there can be no doubt, for the following reasons : — Almost every one has heard the story of the man who bought a dozen eggs, and when, on ex- amination after he arrived home, he found a very small one, he took it back to the market to be exchanged. Probably very few of your readers would be quite as particular; but they all must notice that some eggs will weigh nearly or quite one-third more than others for which the same price per dozen is asked — and I protest that this is not fair for either the buyer or seller. Again, the farmer who keeps hens which receive little or no attention, and who sells or exchanges his eggs at the nearest market, would very soon notice that his neighbor who had better fowls and paid more attention to their feed and comfort, received a larger price per dozen than he was paid, and this fact would do more to spur him up to im- prove his breeds, and to increase their comfort, especially during the winter months, than all the excitement about fancy breeds, and fabulous prices for eggs to set, which for the past ten years have interested those who raise poultry and eggs for the market. In conclusion, I have, as usual, a favor to ask. Please state in .your answers to correspondents, the average weight per dozen for common eggs. Boston, Jan. 17, 1870. Rail Road. Remarks. — We think we have seen it stated that in England, where large quantities of eggs 182 NEW ENGLAND FAKTklER. Maech are imported, nine are commonly rated at one pound. But to test the matter at our own market, we have just put our correspondent's inquiry to a Fancuil Hall dealer in Maine eggs. He at once said that he believed that nine to the pound was the rule for common hen's eggs; but, he added, we will try it. Putting nine eggs into the scales from a tubful in his store, which he said he con- sidered of more than average size, but tailing what he considered a fair average, they weighed one pound and two ounces ; adding large ones enough to make a dozen, the weight was one pound and a half,— equal to eight to a pound. Then taking nine of the smaller ones that lay on top of the tub their weight v/as one pound. From which he concluded that the old rule of nine to the pound for "common eggs" was about correct. We sec- ond the motion of our correspondent that eggs be sold by the pound, as an approximation to justice and fair dealing. We say "an approximation," because we believe there is as great diflference in the quality of eggs as m their size and weight; that a pound of eggs from a well fed hen is about as much better than a pound from one half starved, as a pound of beef from a stalled ox is better than a pound from a scaliawag. How shall we fix this, Mr. Rail Road ? ■WHEAT GROWING IN MAINE. Nine farmers in the towns of Newport, Skowhe- gan and Madison report through their Farmers' Clubs an average yield of 32 bushels wheat to the acre— the smallest crop being 23^, the largest 44 bushels per acre. These few farmers are among the successful wheat growers of Maine, who are scattered all over the State, and these crops are incontrovert- ible proof that the yield of Maine is about double that of many States in the West, whose average range from 12 to 13 bushels p> r acre, as appears by ibe Department report. Farms and labor are as cheap in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire as in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. With the ex- penses for freight, insurance, &c., which must in many cases, be equal to the home value of a barrel of flour in the remote sections of the West, why may not the New England farmer compete suc- cessfully with the Western wheat grower ? The extra manure required to get a large crop of wheat makes the land permanently better for the next crop. I am informed that some of the tobacco lands in the region of Northampton, Mass., have yielded fifty bubhels of wheat per acre, the result of previous high manuring. Tobacco re- quires incessant labor and picks the farmer's pocket almost daily. Wheat is the cheapest crop raided on the farm. The example of these farmers will not be lost, we hope, upon their neighbors, who have equal ad- vantages with them. Henky 1'oor. New York, Jan., 1870. ENGLISH TUllNIPS. About the only good crop I have raised the past season has been that of English turnips. Th^ yield was so satisfactory, that the plan I pursued may be interesting to your readers. A liberal dressing of manure was first spread and ploughed in. The principal crops planted were Indian corn, sweet corn and potatoes. The tielas were faithfully hoed in dry weather, and kept entirely free from weeds. In sowing the tur- nip seed I crossed the field both ways. As the ground was rich and shaded by the growing crops, the seed came up in abundance. We now passed through the rows, on hot days, and struck down with hoes, enough of the turnips to have them of the right thickness. This was no small job. I had never seen it done betore ; but it paid. I had few little turnips, and an immense crop— nine hun- dred bushels— of large ones. We began to gather them early in the fall, feeding the tops to the cat- tle. The tops were large, and rank, and palatable ; and were invariably eaten up clean. I never al- lowed them to heat in piles, but gathered a few loads of turnips each day, so as to have the tops fresh and crisp. Many of the turnips weighed fifteen pounds, and were a foot in diameter. I sold one, for a quarter of a dollar for a show win- dow, and should have been willing to sell more at the same price. I am feeding the turnips this winter to oxen, cows and young stock, twice a day. I turn them upon the floor, five bushels at a time, and cut them up and feed them into the cribs with a large char- coal shovel, which will take up about a half a bushel at once. The cattle are so greedy for their share that they almost tear the barn down, while it is being prepared. I sell some milk, which is not effected unfavorably by the turnips fed to the cows. Concoid, Mass., Jan., 1870. W. D. Brown. GOOD PIGS. I have fatted three pigs the past season that have done so well that I will give you a brief statement of them, though I have never before written anything about my large vegetables or ani- mals. The pigs were dropped Mareh 20, and I got them when six weeks old. They were fed on the waste of the kitchen, and the residue of the milk of four small cows. In the early part of the sea- son I gave them meal and shorts, — half and half, — and during the latter part, the portion of meal was doubled. The largest at the start, a barrow, I called No. 1; the next in size, abanow, No. 2; and the other, a sow. No. 3. About the first of November, No. 2, then the heaviest, was slaugh- tered, weighing 295 pounds dressed. The other two were killed December 3d ; No. 1 weighing 333, and No. 2, the sow, 364 pounds. Elias E. Poeter. Danvers, Mass., Dec. 31, 1869. CORN GROWING IN NEW ENGLAND. Having been raised on a farm in Massachusetts, and having resided in several other New England States, and travelled leisurely thousands of miles in the free States before I became a Western pio- neer, some thirty-five years ago, my means of in- formation have been more than ordinarily good to learn how farmers cultivate their crops. Being fully satisfied that no cereal grown in Noith America south of 45° north latitude, yields so much aliment per acre, for man or beast, as Indian corn, and that none is more profitable to the land owners, — provided they adopt the very best methods of production, and skiliuUy appro- priate the products of their corn fields. My experience and observation have taught me that several mistakes in growing corn at the East have been transmitted from one generation to an- other, through successive ages, and have become so firmly rooted in the minds of Eastern corn growers, that, for a writer to treat them as gross errors, will doubtless be regarded by many of those growers, as good evidence that the writer must be a very unsafe guide, or that his mind or memory must be shattered. I will mention at this time but two things, which 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 133 I urged as palpable mistakes in profitably growing the stalwart plants— jj/an^jH^r too early and hilling it up at all. And now, gentlemen, if you see fit to have this appear in the columns of the Farmer, I will at a future day endeavor to offer you my reasons for such notions, and point out other mistakes, and set forth some most effc;ctual remedies. Rockford, III, Dec, 1869. J. Weldox. Remarks.— We shall be pleased to present the views of our correspondent more fully, and if he can suggest any mode or means that will increase the corn crop of New England, we can promise him open ears for every word he has to utter. EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. I have raised this season about 2400 bushels of potatoes, consisting of Early Rose, Early Prince, Vandervere's Seedling, Bresee's Prolific, Climax, Harrison, Gleason, Calico, Excelsior, King of the Earlies, &c. I paid $60 for one bushel of Bresee's Prolific last spring, and have raised 145J bushels of good sound potatoes from them. They are the handsomest lot of potatoes I ever saw. From one peck of the Climax I raised twenty six bushels. The yield of the Bresee's Prolific, I ihiok is the largest I ever read or heard of, — I mean from a bushel's plant- ing. I have heard of some people planting a few pounds and doing the best they could with them, and getting a larger yield in proportion. All the manure that was used on the Bresee's Prolific was about half a shovel full of stable manure in the hill with one tablespoonful of E. F. Cce's Super- phosphate, except about two hundred hills which had a light coat of manure ploughed in. I planted them about the 8th of June, and hoed them only once. 1 paid $0 for one eye of the King of the Earlier and raised one bushel from it this season. I plant- ed the eye the 3d day of April, and after it came np I propagated from cuttings in a hot house, as all amateur gardeners will understand. This ex- periment beats W. C. Strong's experiment at Brighton last year with the Eany Rose. He states that he raised eighty bushels of potatoes from six pounds of seed. He believes the result is unpre- cedented, being nearly ten times larger than the hundred fold of Scripture. According to his state- ment he did not get half as large a yield in pro- portion to the seed as I got, if his potatoes were of medium size. I have experimented this season with six kinds of superphosphate, using about forty barrels, on fourteen acres of potatoes, and will give you the result soon. Moses H. Husset. North Berwick, Me., 1869. FARM HELP. — SUCCESS IN FARMING. I have read much of late in the F'armer in re- gard to hiring help, and the most profitable kind to employ. 1 have been reminded of the old story of the chatneleon. A employs a wide-awake Irishman, who does everythmg well and in proper time, and in short, is faithful to every trust that is committed to his care. B sees the success of his neighbor and thinks he will try one of the same race, but unfortunately ootains an individual of dilTorent character and habits. He does all his work wrong and leaves everything at loose ends, ihc larnier comes home to find his cattle in the corn field, or his cows and calves in one pen, or his horse in the oat field, and all because the gale was left open or the bars down. >Jow it so happens that A and B both are men that attend agricultural couveatious, una la tuu course of the session of one of them the question comes up what kind of help is the most profitable to employ. Now who will doubt the position that each of these men will take ? or that both are honest in their convictions, though directly op- posed to each other ? I am satis-fied that little depends on the accident o{ birth, as regards the faithiulness of a man. I have had the charge many times of mixed gangs, and I say give me anything but the eye-servant if I have a hard job to do. Again, success in fiirming depends a great deal on plan and management as well as on help. This is true in all kinds of business and professions. While taking the testimony of an important wit- ness, you do not find the attention of a successful lawyer diverted by every little noise that may be made in the court room, or resting his head list- lessly on his hand. On the contrary, he throws his whole so7il into the case, and gains it. So with the successful physician at the bedside, with the mechanic on "a job." Only live men succeed, — only those who give their minds to their business. Winchendon, Mass., Jan. 15, 1870. L. DRAINAGE OF LAND. When Daniel Webster was on the stage of polit- ical life, I remember a conversation between a couple of men in relation to him. One remarked that Mr. Webster knew a great deal about govern- mental affjirs. The other replied he must be a dull scholar if, after twenty-five years' experience in political matters, he did not. So we may say of farmers, mechanics or professional men, who have hacl a lifo experience in their respective callings. But is there not some danger with all men of fall- ing into old ruts or practices, and foliowiug the beaten paths, till they come to regard all improve- ments as innovations ? Thus some farmers think they know all that can be known of ploughing, manuring, planting, haying, seeding, &c. Fur one I confess my ignorance, and feel that I have yet much to learn. I have in my mind a large number of acres of interval land which are yearly covered four or live feet deep by the rise of the river. When the stream settles away, water remains in holes and ponds to he evaporated by the sun or filtered into the soil. This might be drained off in most cases, wiih a small amount of labor. But it is believed by some farmers that this water does lictle or no harm, or that water within one or two or more feet of the surface is not injurious to crops. What is your opinion, Mr. Farmer, of the effect of cold water lying so near to the surface, on corn, potatoes, grass, &c. ? H. M. E. Fisherville, N. H., 1869. Remarks. — The suggestions contained in the above letter indicate thought and good sense. The being tied up to usages, the "falling into old ruts," is one of the greatest obstacles to improvement in any pursuit. The farmer should stueiy the condi- tions of his soil, and be governed by those condi- tions in its treatment. Soil such as you describe can bear nothing better than swale grasses. If it is ploughed and manured, and sowed to sweet grasses, you may get one or two crops of good hay, and then the sour meadow grasses will begin to show themselves, indicating its natural ten- dency. Draining so deeply as to take off the wa- ter below the roots of the grasses is the only rem- edy for this state of things, and this is a sovereiga remedy. It is useless to attempt to cultivate corn, potaioea and other tield crops, where the cold 134 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. Maech water stands within reach of the roots of such crops. When the water can be taken off from the low places and pond holes, in such an intervale as you describe, at a reasonable expense, it is cer- tainly poor farming to allow it to remain. When land is subject to such annual flooding, it is important to get the water off as soon as possi- ble. We have sometimes thought that such land might be treated as they treat salt marshes, — cut deep, narrow, open ditches in the direction of the out-fall, which shall take off the water as fast as the river falls, and not allow it to filter through the soil, and be weeks in getting off. Evaporation carries offbeat as well as water, and the land is kept cold a long time, and nothing but water grasses and bushes will grow on such soil until it becomes warm. We know a large tract of meadow on which the water is kept near the surface by means of a dam, and the good grasses which for- merly grew there have been killed out, and only flat meadow grasses grow now ; and the value of the land has been reduced from one hundred dol- lars to fifteen per acre. BAKLEY — WINTER VS. SPRING. The statements of "E. R. S.," Cornish, N. H., in the Farmer for January 22, were doubly inter- esting to me, from the fact that I intended for the first time, to sow a piece of barley. As I sell milk (not butter) such food as will produce a good flow of milk is necessary. For this purpose I have heard barley highly recommended. But the bar- ley crop is not a common one in my vicinity ; and I wish to inquire of "E. R. S.," or of any one else who may be posted, which is the most profitable to raise for fodder to be cut green, the winter or the spring varietj' f Several farmers of whom I have inquired never heard of a winter variety be- fore. Winter rye does much better here than spring. Winter wheat when not winter killed, does better than spring wheat. Winter grains sowed early, usually spread out and make several stalks. There is also more time to attend to such business in fall than in spring. b. a. f. Franklin, Mass., Jan. 24, 1870. Remarks. — While handing over the above in- quiry to "E. R. S.," or to any one posted on the subject, we will remark, that an Orleans County, N. Y., correspondent of the Country Getitleman, says that winter barley was raised in that section to some extent a few years ago, but there is very little sown now. It gives a very good yield when it does well, but is very apt to winter kill, and sel- dom does well unless sown on good, dry, rich land thfit is well protected from cutting winds. In his essays on soiling cattle, Mr. Quincy speaks of sowing barley for green feed in April for an early, and in June, from the 15th to early in July, for a late crop, but we see no mention by him of experiments with the winter variety. PURGING OR SCOURING IN A COW. — BUNCHES ON A COLT. I have a cow that has been troubled by scouring for some time, and am unable thus far to check the complaint, or to assign a satisfactory cause therefor. I have also a two-year-old colt that has bunches on its feet, which have somewhat the appearance of spavins. Aryin Wood. Cheshire, Mass., Jan. 2, 1870. Remarks.— Give the cow the following, and re- peat the dose every twenty-four or thirty-six hours : Pulverized rhubarb, saleratus, extract of logwood, and cinnamon, of each one large tablespoonful. Mix well in a pint of milk, and administer; or the medicine may be formed into a ball with dough. If a more powerful astringent is needed, omit the saleratus, and in its stead add the same quantity of tannic acid, or gum kino. For the colt, we would recommend that the hair be shaved off, and the bunches painted twice or thrice a day, with tincture of iodine. If that does not prove effective, apply the following : — Binio- dide of mercury, two drachms ; lard, one ounce. Mix, and form an ointment, and apply two or three times a day. A heifer with a COUGH. Can you or any of your readers tell me of a cure for a heifer that coughs bard ? She was pur- chased last March, and coughed till she was turned tu grass, but coughed butvery little if any through the summer, but began again as soon as she began to eat hay this winter. Geo. D. Barton. Chester, Vt., Jan. 16, 1870. Remarks. — This heifer has a chronic affection of the lungs, consisting in an irritated, and per- haps slightly inflamed condition of the mucous or lining membrane of the bronchial tubes and cells. The dust arising from hay and other dry feed, is inhaled, and by coming in contact with the diseased surface, causes the cough above de- scribed. Medicines will be of little use so long as the ex- citing cause is continued. Discontinue the hay entirely, or else wet it thoroughly, and feed chopped corn stalks, moistened, and a little meal sprinkled on them, — also, roots, meal and bran mashes, &c. It will be better to steam the hay, stalks, or straw that may be fed. ORCHARD GRASS. I would like to inquire if the "orchard grass" is what some call "witch grass ?" and how much it takes to seed an acre ? how it yields ? if it is profit- able on dry land ? and if it will stand a drought better than Timothy ? SCRATCHES ON HORSES OR CATTLE. I have found the following remedy for scratches on horses or cattle to be excellent: Take a piece of alum the size of a robin's egg, dissolve in half a teacup of hot water, add half a teacup of strong vinegar and a tablespoonful of saleratus just before using, — and apply warm. Thomas Roby. North Sutton, N. H., Jan. 5, 1870. Remarks. — The orchard grass is the Dactylis glomerata, or cock's-foot. It grows in tufts or bunches, and is tall and coarse on good soil. It is not profitable for hay. On poor pasture land it is of some value, as it starts early. It does best in moist land, and in shady places. It docs better on clay lands at the south and west than in New England. It is said to do well to sow with red 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 135 clover for hay as it blossoms at the same time. It is entirely distinct from witch grass. From what we know of it, we cannot recommend its cultiva- tion to our correspondent. COMPARATIVE VALUE OF RYE AND CORN. Having raised a quantity of rye last season, and the price being low, I have thought of feeding it out instead of selling it and buying corn, as I could not get as much net for the rye as I must give for corn. As I have taken the Farmer for some time as a source of information on farming interests in gen- eral, I would like to inquire what is the relative value and what the effects of rye as compared with Western corn, to feed to cattle, horses and swine. J. Marston. East Medway, Mass., Jan. 3, 1870. Remarks.— Rye makes good food for cattle and swine. Some years since, we recollect the same state of facts existed as at present. Corn was worth more per bushel than rye. Several farmers then fed rye meal mixed with com meal in equal parts, especially to milch cows, and thought well of the effect. If fed clear to swine, it is apt to physic them. It will do better mixed with corn meal. Its nutritive value is about the same as that of corn, and at the present prices, it will be better economy to use the rye for food, than to sell it and buy corn. We do not know its effect on horses. LAME IN THE STIFLE-JOINT. Please give me a cure for a horse that is lame in the stifle joint. f. j. Ripton, Vf., Jan. 3, 1870. Remarks. — Dissolve as much coarse salt as you can in one quart of wai-m water ; when cold, put in a bottle, and add two fluid ounces of strong spirit of ammonia, and one fluid ounce of strong spirit of camphor. Mix, and bathe the joint thor- oughly three or four times a day. PRACTICAL SUQQESTIONS. [Forniehed for the New England Farmer by Wm, D. Brown, Concord, Maes.] — ^The rain that falls on the roof of a bam will water the cattle kept inside. — A smart woman with dry wood and soft wa- ter close at hand has her work half done. — Green wood cannot be burned. It is better to dry it by the heat of the summer sun, than in the stove. — Neighborhoods should combine and buy to- gether a good portable horse power, and then have their wood piles cut up with comfort and dispatch. — Good house carpenters are very particular to have nice sharp tools. This is half the secret of their close work and popularity. Many farmers would accomplish more and easier by better tools. — Farms soon run down that sell all their hay. Mr. Mechi, the great English farmer, prefers that the products of his farm should go to market on the foot. —A liog weighing less than two hundred and fifty pounds may be more conveniently scalded in a forty gallon cask filled half full of water, than in a tub. — Those who house their carts and wagons in Robin Hood's barn — all out doors — are often seen travelling to the blacksmith and wheelwright shop for repairs. The hubs of wheels are made of elm, which is a poor timber to bear exposure. — Every farmer who has paths to make about his premises, or to the schoolhouse and store, should own a good snow plough. It is but little work to make one that, with a good horse before it, will do the work of twenty men. — Wooden shod sleds are no longer economical. It will cost less to keep one shod with iron or steel, in the long run. They start easier with a load on, and move with less friction. Old elliptic spring leaves are used for light sled shoes. — A harness kept well oiled is easier for the an- imal, is stronger, and don't wear out half as fast as one allowed to go year in and year out without care. Clean the harness with a sponge and castile soap. Apply the oil with an old paint brush. A long tin pan saves the drip. — Every farmer should own for convenient pig killing a set of pulleys, and three pieces of spruce or pine scantling, about two by five, sixteen feet long, for shears. The scantling should be con- nected at the top by a bolt, put through a hole bored slanting in the outside pieces, and straight through the central one. — You had better not keep stock than allow their manure to be wasted. It must not burn up and fire-fang in great heaps, nor be washed away by water drenching it from the eaves. The liquid portions must be absorbed by something, and the solid kept from heating and exposure. AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. — ^N. H. Austin, of Tunbridge, Vt., raised the past season 900 bushels of potatoes from three and one-half acres of ground. He also raised 500 bushels of ears corn on three acres. — S. N. & C. Russell of Pittsficld, have recently purchased 16,000 South American sheep pelts from which they obtained an average of four pounds each of a very superior article of wool, it being very long, fine staple and shrinkage slight. — Mr. P. C. Shaw, of Durham, Me., has a cow that the IGth day of February, 1869, became the mother of two fine calves, and on January 10th, 1870, three more, all alive and doing well — five calves in ten months and twenty-four days. — The Western Farmer says that W. G. Roberts, near Racine, Wis., has established a cheese fac- tory on his farm, expecting to milk 100 cows of his own and to have fiicilities for manufacturing the milk from 200 to 300 cows. — A correspondent of the Western Farmer llg- ures a loss of $4.59 per acre on wheat raised in that 136 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. ISIarch State, at the rate of fifteen bushels per acre, and sold at 75 cents per bushel, the market price Dec. 20. As a remedy he proposes the encouragement of manufactories in the State. — The California Farmer advises farmers and others never to employ unlucky men, as unlucky is only another name for laziness and incompetency. All such should be provided for in charity asylums, and not by industrious business men, as they gen- erally prove clogs and hindrances. — Mr. Stevens, of Herkimer Co., N. Y., being short of pasture has adopted this plan several times, and always with the best results. After taking ofl' a crop, he sows winter rye and seeding with grass at the same time. The next season he turns stock upon the rye about the iOih of May, and it lurnishes good feed through the entire sea- son or until full, when the grass begun to yield feed also. — An Ohio correspondent of the New York Rural gives the following remedy for Poll Evil : "Build a platform, so that you can go up on it ten feet with a ladder. Place the horse underneath, with a groom to hold him in such a position that you can pour pure soft water from a teakettle into the sore. Pour into it t.vo pails of water three times a day for two or three weeks, when the pipe and everything will come out clean, and the head heal over as good as ever." — In reply to an inquiry of a farmer who com- plains that on land in Pennsylvania on which he formerly raised from 30 to 35 bushels of wheat, but now from only 12 to 20, and that the grain lodges badly, Mr. Geo. Gcddes, of Fairmount, N. Y., advises, if the land is rich, to use the Treadwell, Deihl and other stiff-strawed varieties. "Weak- Etrawed varieties, like the Mediterranean, vfill do best on poor lands ; also to use less seed, and two or three bushels of salt, broadcast, to the acre. — In a lecture before the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture, on parasites. Prof. Verrill said that the bed bug is nocturnal and gregarious in its hab- its and hence easy to get rid of. It loves home and returns when possible every night to the same haunts. They lay eggs with a lid on the top, about 100 each, and so a few dozens in a season will stock a house. They arc allied to the louse. Six parts of crude petroleum to a hundred parts of water is a simple remedy. — A former resident of Eden, Vt., now residing in Olmstead Co., Minn., writes to a friend: "I have raised this year 9000 bushels of wheat and 2000 bushels of oats, and have had to go back on my stock to pay expenses and taxes. While we arc in prosperity and abundance of grain, we are in the midst of poverty, as wheat has but little more than paid for the harvesting. No. 1 wheat is only 55 cents per bushel, and during the fall the average price has only been 65 cents." — In France there are 470 beet-root sugar fac- tories, 116 in Belgium, and 255 in Prussia. Thirty years ago only 50,000 tons of beet sugar were made in all Europe ; last year, 2,500,000 tons were produced in Switzerland atone. In Austria, Rus- sia, and many other countries in Europe, propor- tionate amounts are made. The aid to agriculture also, which at first was not thought of, has proved great. Beets are the best kind of food for horned cattle, and thousands are raised now where hun- dreds only were before. In the C'istrict of coun- try surrounding the city of Valenciennes, where, before the production of beet sugar, 700 oxen was the total amount, 11,500 were raised last year. WE'W PUBLICATIONS. Report of the Commissionek of Agriculture for the year 1869. The first report of Commissioner Capron shows, we think, a better appreciation of the proper char- acter of a department report than any of the issues of his predecessors. The public expect from each department of the government a statement of its own operations. But whether the Treasury De- partment should employ a man by the year to en- lighten Congress as to its duties, or to prepare electioneering documents for any of the parties into the people of the country are divided, or whether the Agricultural Department should print essays of individual farmers or scholars, or ad- vertisements of different sections or books, are questions which will probably be answered differ- ently by difl'erent people. There has been much dissatisfaction expressed with the character of the agricultural reports of the past, and many sugges- tions made for their improvement, and we believe that the present issue will be more generally ac- ceptable than any previous volume from the depart- ment of agriculture, though it embraces some mat- ters which it appears to us do not belong to a 'report." Some of the Hindrances and Helps to the ad- vancement of Agriculture. An Address before the New York Agricultural Soolety, 1869, by George Bxiokland, Professor of Agriculture, Univjreity Col- lege, Toronto, Can., and Secretary of the Board of Agriculture of Toronto. Albany : 1869. In speaking of the connection between science and agriculture, and of the valuable aid the for- mer has of late years rendered the latter, with a prospect of still greater benefit in time to come, Prof. Buckland says, I wish to guard myself against being understood as countenancing the er- roneous and impracticable idea that an intelligent and improving farmer must, in the professional sense of the term, be "a man of science." Such an opinion this audience need not to be told is quite Utopian. The progress of- the natural and experimental sciences of the present day is so marvelously great that it requires the energies of a life to keep pace with almost any one of them. If youths, intended for farming, as a means of ob- taining a livelihood, were placed in the laboratory to acquire and master the very delicate art of manipulation in the higher branches of organic 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR]VIER. 1S7 analysis, with a view of becoming accomplished chemists, the time occupied in such studies and pursuits must preclude them from acquiring that practical knowledge and those business habits, apart from which farming must, commercially, at least, prove a disastrous failure. What is really needed, and what is, I think, practicable, is so to instruct our youth in the principles of science, as to enable them to appreciate the results obtained by scientific men, and advantageously co-operate with them in effecting practical improvements. The amount of scientific knowledge which such a view assumes is no contemptible modicum, and would demand years of patient study and careful observation of an active business life to acquire. ^GHICULTUKAI. Qualitative and Quantitative Chemical Analysis. After E. Wolff, Frtseniiis, Kroclier, and others. Edited by Q. G. Caldwell, Prof.ss^r of Agri- cultural Chemistry in trie Cornell, {S. Y.) UiiiverHity. New York : Orange Judd & Co. 1869. Price $2, 307 pages. The purpose of this work, the editor informs us, is to supply a complete manual of chemical analy- sis for the use, especially, of agricultural students. Though prepared for the use of the students in the New York agricultural college, it will undoubtedly aid the student of chemistry who may not enjoy the advantages of that or any other institution. Hampshire Cattle Show Journal. Amherst, Mass., Sept. 1— Dec. 15, 1869. This is a new form of publishing the transac- tions of a county agricultural society. It consists of six numbers, 16 pages each, published at differ- ent times from Sept. 1, to Dec. 15, and gives a his- tory of the annual exhibition, &c., with names of officers, by-laws, &c. On the Proximate Composition of Several Varie- ties of American Maize. By W. O. Af.water, M. A. Ph D. Grarluating Theses presented to the Faculty of Philosophy and the Arts, Yale College, July, 1869 9 pages. We are glad to see papers or dissertations of this kind printed in the cheap and convenient form of pamphlets or tracts. We wish we had some ef- ficient system for their more general circulation. Commercial Manures. A Lecture delivered before the Farmers' Conveution held at Augusta, January 1869, by S. L. Goodale, Secretary Maine Board of Ag- riculture. 30 pages. ONE OF OUR CORRESPONDENTS. For several reasons we have not adopted the practice of several of our contemporaries in print- ing a list of the names of the "distinguished writ- ers" who have engaged to contribute to their col- umns. We should be very willing, however, to make a comparison of such names with any agri- cultural paper in the country. Though personally unacquainted with many of those whose names or initials are familiar to every reader of the Farmer, we have a family pride in the successes and hon- ors of each one. We were therefore pleased to see by a report in the Woodstock, (Vt.) Stcmdard ot the proceedings of the late meeting of the Wind- sor County Agricultural Socrety at that place that C. F. Lincoln of Woodstock, received the first premium offered for the best managed farm of twenty-five and less than one hundred acres. The awarding committee, by Dr. H. Boynton, Chairman, say that the farm was examined in June and September, and found in good condition in all its departments. It comprises about eighty acres. Mr. Lincoln has doubled the productive capacity of his farm in about ten years, and that without the aid of imported fertilizers, except to a very limited degree. This has been accomplished by a judicious rotation of crops, and by utilizing every available source of manure, and keeping it well housed till applied to the land. At the same time the first premium on orchards was awarded to the "highly meritorious" one be- longing to J. C. McKenzie of Woodstock. For the Xew England Farmer, "WINDOW GARDENING --No. 2. Now that the days begin to lengthen, we should stimulate our plants with liquid manures, to force them to bud and bloom. For this purpose, we prepare one small tablespoonful of Peruvian guano well mixed, into one gallon of water quite warm to the hand, and give our plants a very thorough watering once a week. The leaves should not be sprinkled with this decoction ; but the roots may be fully wet with it, and allowed to suck ap from the saucers all that they can for two or three hours, then turn away the remainder. Helio- tropes, pelargoniums, zohale geraniums, prim- roses, verbenas, &c., treated in this maimer will push forth 'most vigorous growth, and fully repay the extra attention and care. Guano can be purchased for six cents per pound, and one pound will suffice for months. Those of our readers who dwell remote from towns and cities can improvise their guano from their hen- roosts. Two tablespoonfuls of the manure, col- lected in this way, should be dissolved in one gallon of hot water, letting it stand until cool enough to use, and then water as above. Care must be taken not to have too strong a solution. Last winter, in our absence, many of our plants were denuded of every leaf— from this cause. Horse manure furnishes a fertilizer not quite as efficacious as the hen's, but in default of that, it operates well. An old pail or bucket can be half filled with horse or cow manure (if the former is not come-at-aWe, the latter will do). Turn on to it two gallons of boiling water — when cool enough use it. This will make young plants grow raj idly. Seedlings, like tomatoes, and celery flourish finely under its stimulating properties. These home- made fertilizers have not the odors of "Arab}' the Blest," neither has guano, but it is less obnoxious to use in a parlor or dining room. All of our readers have by this time laid in their winter supplies, — cellars and store-rooms bear evi- dence to this assertion, for every provident house- 138 2raW ENGLAND FARiVIER. March holder desires to buy by the (quantity, and thus save many a penny. Often such supplies as a "Window Garden" requires are omitted. They cannot be eaten nor worn ; arc only beautiful to the sight, and not worth the troul)Ie of tending them. But if there be an innate love for flowers in any heart it will find expression in winter and summer. The hardest heart is softened at the sight of a real fragrant flower in mid-winter. We have had the roughest man stop and gaze upon our flowers, and have often heard from such per- sons the words, "Wa'al them be putty posies.' How do you grow 'em." There is no reason that we should not make flowers bloom all the year — and if their hal)its are rightly studied, and plant- food well supplied, it is easily accomplished. Every house is beautified by even one pot of flowers. Contrast a sitting room where the win- dows are filled with lovely flowers, hanging bas- kets suspended from the cornices, trailing vines enwreath the pictures, with a room where not a green thing is seen, and mark the difference. The one is attractive, inviting, delightful; the other, no matter how gorgeous its surroundings — how rich the satin, lace, and velvet,— has not the soul-entrancing charm of the other! Evelyn, that rare old Diari-5t of ancient English literature, styles it, '^fenestral gardening," and dilates upon its glories. One of the chief drawbacks to successful "win- dow gardening" is the need of a moist atmosphere, and the high temperature at which our "sitting- rooms" are usually kept. We gave in our first number, minute directions about keeping the plants clean. This is an all-important thing, and must be attended to. As yet, we have had a mod- erate winter, but we must bear in mind that "when the days begin to lengthen the cold begins to strengthen." If you are so unfortunate as to have your plants frost bitten, sprinkle them with cold water di- rectly, then place them in a perfectly dark closet or cellar, and oftentimes they will suffer no in- jury. We had plants frost-bitten in December, which are green and flourishing now. Cimerarias and fuchsias were both frozen, but being shut up in the dark, they soon revived. The same thing operates perfectly with frozen apples ; place them in complete darkness and they will come out un- harmed. Geraniums, fuchsias, verbenas, &c., should be repotted now, before you stimulate them highly. True lovers of flowers will have the needed soil carefully put away in the cellar. This should be baked in the oven an hour or two, to kill all worms' eggs, and insects. When cool to the hand, fill the pots to be used half or a third full, then run a knife around the inside of the pot containing the plant to be rc-potted — cover the top with the left hand, and turn the pot bottom side up, if it does not come out directly, tap on the bottom of the pot— remove the drainage, (bits of broken pots, etc.,)— and plant the root carefully, taking great care to press the dirt thoroughly upon the roots. Many a plant dies from this cause — the soil should be firmly pressed down all round the tender rootlets. Water them well, set in the shade for a few hours, and your plant will testify its gratitude for its new home, in lovely leaves, buds and flowers. There are several variegated leaved plants which produce flowers — the ageratura is one, its leaves are prettily edged with white, also the sedums — whose blossoms are beautiful, but the greater part of this variety of plants, depend upon their leaves for beauty. A recent writer speaks of them thus : — "Do not these curious plants, that among their leaves of light have no need of flowers, resemble those rare human plants that develope all the beauties of mind and character at an exceptionally early age, and rapidly ripen for the tomb ? They do not live to bring forth the flowers and fruit of life's vigorous prime, and therefore God converts their foliage into flowers, crowns the initial stage with the glories of the final, and makes their very leaves beautiful. By the transfiguration of His grace, by the light that never was on sea or land, He adorns even their tender years with all the loveliness which in other cases comes only with full maturity." Surely there is nothing else which can give us the unalloyed satisfaction which we receive in our "Window Gardens !" They perfume the air, de- light the eye, make us acquainted with nature, and are something to care for and love. If they cannot love us in return they do not annoy us — they cannot speak crossly, even if we do neglect them, and they afford us the purest of pleasures. Gray, the poet, has well observed that one of the chief enjoyments of life consists in "having always something going forward." We fully ex- perience the truth of this. Living in a small vil- lage,— a "Sleepy Hollow," — where life seems to stagnate, it is our chief delight to tend and care for our house plants. We take great pride in them, and are pleased when we can send a tiny boquet to a sick friend, and can also contribute a few flowers to rob Death of some of its terrors ; — can tenderly arrange the purely white blossoms of the primrose and the variegated leaved plants, — with the sweet scented verbena, to be placed in the waxen hands of the infant, or the furrowed clasp of the aged. s. o. J. — A correspondent of the English Agricultural Gazette says : I consider 720 gallons (2880 quarts) a fair return in a year for a cow, and this quantity of milk, if the food does not contain more than 80 per cent, of moisture, will produce from 280 to 290 pounds of butter. That 25j pounds of milk, or about 10 quarts, will make one pound of butter. He also states that five gallons, or 20 quarts, was the highest daily yield of one cow. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAK^IER. 139 PHOSPHATES IN WHEAT. XPERiMENTS to as- certain the amount of soluble and insoluble phosphates in wheat, upon which the nu- tritive value of this grain is supposed chiefly to depend, have been recently made by an English chemist, G. Calvert, F. R. S. The re- sults of his experi- ments led him to in- quire if the various parts which constitute the grain of wheat, con- tain the same amount and nature of phosphates when separated by the successive and differ- ent processes carried out by the miller. He procured some sacks of wheat, and had the wheat ground and bolted, and separated into two qualities of coarse bran, and two of fine bran and tlour. These he analyzed separately and arrives at the conclusion tiiat the phos- phates, especially the soluble phosphates, de- crease gradually from the outer sections to- wards the central ones ; thus while the flour contains only a trace of soluble phosphates, the bran contains a large quantity. The practical importance of this result he expresses in the following words. "These analyses clearly illustrate that although habit and pride have gradually led us to prefer white bread to brown, still this practice is an error when we consider the nutritious proper- ties of wheat, especially as food for children, when phosphates are so essential to the forma- tion of bone and blood; and medical men would confer a great boon on society, if they •were to impress the importance of feeding children with a wheaten preparation in which all the constituents of the grain were pre- served." The phosphoric acid in wheat does not ex- ist as a free acid, but is combined with potash, magnesia, lime and iron ; the two first being soluble and the two last insoluble. The sol- uble phosphates contribute especially to the formation of muscular fibre ; and the insolu- ble furnish lime and iron to the bones and the blood. The teaching of science in this respect is abundantly confirmed by experience. But "habit and pride" pay little regard to either, and suffer the penalty in puny and scrofulous children, while our bread costs us double as much as it would, if it were made of un- bolted wheat. Feeding Bees. — At a recent meeting of the Ohio Bee-keeper's Association, the opinion was expressed, as reported in the Ohio Farmer, that honey is the most profitable, as it is their only nat- ural, and safe food. Crushed sugar had been used with fair success, but the result was not good enough to recommend it. Dr. Conklin was in the habit of removing from a full hive one or two cards of comb containing j'oung bees, and place them in a new hive with a small supply of honey. He introduces queen bees by an artificial process, not waiting for them to be reared in the natural course, thus saving much time in propagating. He said that the greatest profit in raising bees is obtained by keeping the swarms large and vigor- ous. One stock in May is worth four in July. If fed on rye or oat meal until natural "pollen" can be obtained, the prolific queens will lay from two to three thousand eggs per day during the propa- gating season. Caledonia County (Vt.), Agricultural So- ciety.— At the annual meeting of the Caledonia Agricultural Society, held at St. Johr-sbury, Vt., Jan. 18, the following board of officers was elected for the year ensuing : — Harley M. Hall, East Burke, President ; Chas. A. Sylvester, Barnet, Calvin Morrill, St. Johns- bury, Vice Presidents; I. W. Sanborn, Lj'ndon, Elisha May, St. Johnsbury, Chas. E. Parks, Waterford, A. P. Walter, Burke, C. J. B, Har- ris, Danville, H. C. Hastings, St. Johnsbury, Secretaries ; C. M. Stone, St. Johnsbury, Treas- urer. The attendance at the annual meeting was "unusually large, and the interest manifested for the prosperity and success of the Society and its annual exhibitions evinced the true spirit of pro- gress on the part of the farmers of the county. Lyndo7iville, Vt., 1870. I. W. Sanrorn. Farmer's Club.— The farmers of Caledonia County, Vt., recently met in St. Johnsbury, and organized a County Fanners' Club, with the fol- lowing board of officers : — J. R. Kinerson, of Pcacham, President; J. G. Hovey, St. Johnsbury, A, Warden, Barnet, Jonathan Lawrence, Water- ford, I. W. Sanborn, Lyndon, Vice Presidents; and D. K. Simonds, St. Johnsbmy, Secretary. Executive Committee, E. A. Parks, E. L. Hovey, Horace Paddock. The meetings are held every Friday afternoon, and thus far they have been well attended, and the discussions animated and interesting. i- w. 8. MO NEW ENGLAND FAEJklER. March I'' \.. FARM BARN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICUIjTURAIi COLLEGE. The barn erected during the past season, at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst, is especially designed for neat iitock, sheep and swine. It will contain from 100 to 150 tons of hay, according to the meth- od adopted for mowing it, and has accommo- dations for fifty head of cattle and fifty sheep. It is located on the west side of the cen- tral ridge of the farm, which runs north and south, and the principal entrance is at the east end. The yard is on the south side of the barn and protected from the west winds by an ell 20x75 feet, containing a sheep pen and a shed for cattle, above which is room for fodder. The cU is represented on the dia- gram at H, and at K is a trough for water. This is in the centre of the yard, which is 75x 100 feet, and enclosed on the east and south by a tight board fence, five feet in height. The water flows through a two-inch iron pipe, with fifty feet of fall, the supply being regu- lated by a valve, and the surplus is carried to the fcheep-pen, and thence to the slope in the rear of the barn. The trough is only six inches deep, so that the water is always fresh and clean. The barn is built of wood upon a foundation of granite, and is 50x100 feet. The cellar for manure is 11 feet in the clear, and extends under the entire building. It is lighted and ventilated by windows on the north and south sides. The en- trances for teams AA are at the west, and nearly on the level of the cellar bottom, and are twelve feet in width. The stairs from the story above are at M. The first floor is about two feet above the ground in the yard, into which it opens by three doors. This story is well lighted by twelve windows 3xG feet, and ventilated by four ventilating flues, vvvv, extending from the four corners to the roof, and by the lowering of the upper sashes of the windows, which are hung with weights. It is eight feet in the clear, and contains, at BB, six box stalls 8x10 ftet; at G a calf pen 10x20 feet; and at F a root-room 10x30 feet into which roots are 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 141 Plan of First Floor and Yard, dumped from the drive-way above. This room can be enlarged by inclosing the calf- pen, or by using the cellar directly under it, if necessary. The roots being on the same lioor with the cattle, can be readily brought out in baskets or on a barrow or truck. The stalls at CC are furnished with stanchions, and the platforms on which cows are to stand are 4^ feet wide. The stalls at DD are sep- arated by partitions extending across the mangers, and two feet back between the cat- tle which are fastened by chains about the neck. At EE are passage ways, six feet wide, between mangers, which open into them by hanging doors at the bottom for conven- ience in cleaning. The mangers are boarded up three feet from the floor, and the doors are one foot wide. The fodder is thrown down from the floor above into the passage ways through openings, 3x3 feet, seen at GG, in the plan of the upper story, which is reached from below by the stairs at L. The upper floor is entered at A on the east end of the barn, by an easy ascent upon a drive-way of earth about 60 feet long and 20 feet v;ide at the top. To support the weight of this at the barn, the cellar wall is carried up 18 feet, and strengthened by buttresses ou the inside. The threshing floor is 15 feet wide, and the exit for teams entering at A is by a driveway of timber at B. The bays for hay are 17x43 feet, and represented at CCCC. The posts of this story are 16 feet in height. At K is a room 14x27 feet, with a window. 142 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. March which may be occupied by a horse power or other machinery. At H is a similar compart- ment with bins for grain, furnished with spouts for conducting it to the floor below. At E is a Fairbanks' scale, and at F a trap- door opening into the root-room. Plan of Second Floor. A Jv 3F vL E I C \ c L i H l< \ nc C c r ^[ B No provision has been made for teams or farm implements, because these are kept else- where. Apparatus for steaming food will doubtless be procured before another winter, suflicient at least for experimental purposes. If sand or fine loam be used for bedding, it may be stored in the cellar. The upper story of the barn is well lighted, and ventil- ated both by windows and in the roof through the cupola. Pastures for Cows. — At a meeting of the Little Falls Farmers' Club, Mr. Willard said his observation led him to believe that it was better to have one large pasture than to alter- nate from one to another. For the New England Farmer, THE CUIiTUKE OF SMALL FRUITS. An Essay read before the Concord, Mass., Farmera' Club, January 6, 1870. By Capt. John B. Moore. It is generally understood by the intelli- gent portion of our community that the use of well-ripened fruit at all seasons of the year, is necessary, and really essential for our health and comfort. That in the long-continued terms of heat which we are subjected to almost every summer, when we become debili- tated to some extent, small fruits, the straw- berry, raspberry, currant and blackberrj', are particularly agreeable, not only as an article of food, but as a che^jp luxury ; cheap, be- cause they promote health, and because they can be so readily served upon our tables. They are also a cooling and invigorating arti- cle of diet for the invalid, and a preventive of sickness in many instances. Another reason why we should grow them is this : that by so doing, we should have them fresh, and in their full perfection from the vines or bushes, and it would be our own fault if they were not perfectly ripe. Now a fresh and perfectly ripened fruit is quite a difierent thing from the kind generally for sale in our markets, and is a much superior article. Another reason why farmers should grow them is this : they can be made, and are, a profitable crop. They are light freight, as compared with many of our farm products. One acre of strawberries, producing four thousand quarts of fruit, with the crates and baskets to hold them, will weigh about seven thousand five hundred pounds. One acre of potatoes, producing one hundred and fifty bushels, with the barrels to hold them, will weigh about 10,500 pounds. The acre of strawberries, at twenty-three cents a quart, would amount to $920.00 ; the acre of pota- toes, at $2.00 a barrel, to $120.00. It would, therefore, take the product of seven and eleven-twelfths acres of potatoes, at the above prices, to amount to as much as one acre of strawberries. Hence the weight to be trans- ported to market, for the same amount of money received, would be 83,120 pounds of potatoes and 7.500 pounds of strawberries, a difference of 75,620 pounds. The co;t of teaming this difference at $5.00 a ton, would be $187.02 against the potatoes ; not a small item for a farmer to save in transportation alone. I' cannot impress too strongly upon the minds of the members of this Club, the im- portance of selecting crops to grow for market of comparatively light weight, and for this pur- pose I have compared the weight to be trans- ported of the strawberry with the potato crop, not to discourage the growing of potatoes, for I consider them a valuable and advantageous crop in many instances, even as far as we are from market, but to show the difference in weight of the two crops. These same remarks 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 143 and comparisons will apply to all the other small fruits, as compared with the more weighty crops. These are some of the rea- sons that have presented themselves to my mind for growing small fruits for market and home consumption. In the cultivation of the strawberry, I would select a good, strong soil, rather moist than dry ; but if quite wet I should want it under- drained. With us it would be sandy loam, as that is the nature of most of our soils. Many growers prefer a mixture of clay, but a good sandy loam i^ a good soil for strawberries. It should be old ground that has been culti- vated with some hoed crop one or two years, and should be free from weeds and foul grasses. As a rule, strawberries should never be planted on sod ground, as on such they are very liable to be destroyed by the large white grub. The soil should be well enriched with manure, somewhat decomposed, and a portion of it should be near the surface, for the purpose of giving the plants a quick start. The soil should be thoroughly worked both with the plough and harrow. If there is dan- ger of water standing on the surface, either in summer or winter, it should be ploughed into beds, leaving the dead furrows open for sur- face drains. Having prepared the soil and made it per- fectly fine, the next thing is to prepare the plants. Let this also be done well ; be sure and have good plants; cut off all the runners and dead leaves, and about one-third in length cf the roots. If the runners are left on, many of the plants will be pulled out of the ground with the hoe. When the plants are ready for setting, see to it that they are not exposed to the drying winds before planting. Set the plants in straight rows, and of a uniform width, as early in t>he season as possible afcer the soil is dry and ingood-condition, say last of April or early in May, so that the plants may become established before dry, hot ■weather. The next thing is to cut away all the blossoms as soon as they make their ap- pearance, or the plants will bear fruit and be- come exhausted the first season. The after cultivation is simply to keep the ground loose, and entirely free from weeds, not only in summer but through the fall, even to snow time. To secure a good crop, it is necessary that a large portion of the labor for its growth should be performed the first year. About the first of December, the bed should be cov- ered with coaise hay or straw, rather thin, but evenly, to protect the plants in winter; this completes the first year's work, and it is now too late to remedy any defects, from bad cul- tivation, bad plants, or want of manure. If the grower has unfortunately allowed anything of the kind to happen, he must take the con- sequences, which will be a less crop of poorer fruit. In the spring, as soon as the ground be- comes settled, the hay should be raked from the bed, the spaces or paths between the rows worked over, and the whole bed thoroughly cleaned from grass and weeds, and some time in May the paths and all vacant spaces cov- ered with hay to keep the fruit clean. This constitutes the labor until the time of picking, which should be carefully and cleanly done, and without bruising the fruit. Afcer gathering the crop, the question of a second crop from the same bed, is to be con- sidered. If the plants have been cultivated in rows, or hills, and the runners kept cut off, then I would keep it over the second year ; but if in the matted bed system, I would plough them up immediately afcer the fruit is all picked, and sow with turnips or oats. If a bed is to be kept over the second year, it will be very much improved by mowing the foliage off clean to the ground, as soon as you have finished picking the fruit. Kaspberries. Raspberries require a strong, rich and rather moist soil, to succeed best, and should be planted in rows from six to seven feet apart, and three feet in the rows. When planted, the canes should be cut away nearly to the ground, so as to prevent their bearing !he first year. Late in the fall, the tops should be bent over to the ground and cov- ered with soil taken from between the rows. Almost every variety would winter-kill unless protected in the winter. In the spring, as soon as the frost is out of the ground, the canes should be uncovered and tied to stakes or a wire. I find a wire as large as a tele- graph wire, fastened to posts and stretched directly over the middle of the row, about three feet above the ground, the best. Have the canes tied to the wire with a matting string, and spread evenly on the same. Do not save too many canes, or at least more than the roots can support vigorously, if so, the result may be poorer fruit and weaker plants. The ground between the rows should be worked over in the spring, and kept level, and, if possible, mulched with cheap hay. I use the same hay that has been used on the strawberries for that purpose. Raspberries are very sensitive to the drought, and mulch- ing often saves the crop. With good care and manuring, the bushes will continue to bear a number of years. Currants. The currant is another small fruit and is a general favorite, as it can be used in so many ways, and continues in bearing so long a time. It is also easily grown, but to grow it in its greatest perfection, the soil must be rich, and well cultivated, and a portion of the old wood cut out every year. There are two insects that trouble the cur- rant very much in some localities. I mean the borer that works into the centre ol a 144 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. March branch, and eats its way through the pith some distance, and finally destroying the en- tire branch. He can be kept down by fre- quent attention, cutting out all weak and sickly looking branches, and burning them. The other is the leaf worm, and is more to be feared than the tirst. They come at two or more times in the season, and if not pre- vented, will eat up the entire foliage, which often causes a loss of the crop. They can be destroyed by dusting the leaves when wet with white hellebore, powdered, or by syring- ing with carbohc acid soapsuds. Blackberries. The high bush blackberry, when grown in perfection and well ripened, is one of our finest small fiuits. This fruit was not culti- vated until about the year 1840. The Dor- chester was the first variety cultivated to any extent, and was brought into notice by the late Capt. Lovett, of Beverly. This variety was soon followed by the Lawton or New Rochelle, Newman's Thornless, and some others, and still later, by the Kittatinny, Wil- son's Early, and other kinds. Both of the last named varieties are thought to be more hardy, and to produce larger fruit than the Dorchester, but probably of no better quality. The high blackberry is liable to have its canes killed in our severe winters, unless covered. The canes are stiff and brittle ; some varieties more brittle than others, and are difficult to lay down and cover with earth without breaking them more or less. The riper the wood of any plant in the autumn, the more successfully it can withstand the cold of winter; therefore, it would be better to select a soil that is high, dry and warm, where the canes will ripen thoroughly, and not allow them to be stimulated by high manuring to make a large and late growth. Many persons fail to produce satisfactory crops of fruit from planting varieties not nat- urally productive, or not adapted to their particular soil ; for that reason it becomes very important to select the right kinds. We want a variety that will grow well, be productive, of large size and regular form : of a bright, handsome color ; of good quality and firm enough to bear transportation with- out injury. It will be impossible to get all these qualities in one fruit, therefore, get as near to it as jou can ; but at any rate, if you are growing for market, see that you have a variety that is productive and marketable. A person growing strawberries for market ought to plant two or three varieties coming in at different times in the season, if he can find them adapted to his soil. For profit there is nothing better than the Wilson's Al- bany,— for eating without cooking there is nothing poorer in quality ; still, it is good to yield, to ship and to can. The President Wilder is a very handsome variety, of good quality and promising. Of raspberries Kne- vett's Giant and Franconia, are the principal varieties grown for this market. The Clarke and Philadelphia are attracting considerable attention, and are said to be sulBeiently hardy to bear our winters without protection. The two varieties of currants now thought to be the best for general use are the La Versail- laise and Dana's New White Transparent. Both of these have large bunches and berries; the White is tender fleshed, and not quite so acid as the red varieties, and is undoubtedly the best white variety in cultivation. Now as to the future, or continued demand for fruit, what will it be ? A friend of mine, one of the best and most skilful growers of strawberries in the State, says that the market of Fall River consumed 2400 boxes of straw- berries in 1861, at an average i;rice of seven- teen cents per box; in 18G8, 11,000 boxes, at an average price of twenty-five cents! The population increased in that period forty per cent ; the consumption of strawberries over three hundred and fifcy per cent ! Some fifty years ago, Mr Barnard, a farmer living on Wellington Hill, then in West Cambridge, now in Belmont, was almost the only grower of strawberries for Boston market, and he scarcely raised two hundred boxes in a year, of the old Wood variety, which was then about the only variety in cultivation. His son is now one of the best growers of this fruit in Belmont, and from the same old place con- tinues to send fine fruit to Boston. Compare this with the consumption now in the same market, when one of the many dealers has sold 10,000 quarts in one day ! Perhaps it would interest some of us to know how far we have advanced in raising and selling fruit, as a town. I have the means of knowing very nearly the value of small fruits cultivated and sent to market from Con- cord the present year. The fruit growers have received, afcer all commissions were paid, about $8000,00 for their strawberries, raspberries and blackberries ; the larger por- tion of it for strawberries. This branch of production is increasing very fast. If I were a prophet instead of a Yankee, I would un- dertake to prophecy, but as I am not, I will simply exercise the Yankees right of guessing. Now I guess that within three years our good old town of Concord will send more small fruit to Boston than any other town in the State. It will be creditable and profitable to us to do so. There is a certain fascination attending the cultivation of fruits and flowers, and to be successful, it requires a more thorough knowl- edge of cultivation, preparation and adapta- tion of soil to the particular plant, including manuring, than it would require for some other crops. This, with the originating of new varieties, either by hybridization, or the natural variation from seed, is really the poe- tr)j of farming. A high cultivation of the land is absolutely necessary to the successful 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 145 cultivation of small fruits. This Ligh culti- vation is what each one of you declares by his acts that he wishes to attain. This is what keeps up so lively an interest in this club. We do not naeet to while away an evening pleasantly. I trust not. It is an earnest de- sire for more information in regard to our business ; a desire to know and practice the best methods, and this is the first step towards securing wLit we want, — a better and higher cultivation of the soil. And not only a higher cultivation of the soil, but of ourselves also, and this would imply a more intelligent, and a more highly cultivated farmer. For the New England Farmer. MASSACHUSETTS AG'L COLLEGE. Called to Amherst, to-day, on business of a Bomcwhat personal character, I improved the opportunity for a brief examination of the Massachuietts Agricultural College estab- liihment, and an inspection of its buildings ; the result b'dng that I came away much pleased with what I saw and heard. From the neces- sary briefness of my time I was unable either to question or examine so thoroughly as I could wish, and in what follows I speak en- tirely from memory, — a heavy great coat and winter fixings not being peculiarly convenient for note-taking. Since I was here in the spring of 1868, there have been some marked alterations. The old laboratory, which then stood on aline with the other buildings, has been moved back some 100 feet, and entirely remodelled, making it a handsome building, and very convenient for the purposes to which it is devoted. The class in chemistry, after a course of study in the rudimentary principles of the science, is set to practical application of what they learn, and their class room is very conveniently ar- j"anged and provided with suitable apparatus. One large room in this building is used as a cbapel. The attic forms a large hall, the roof being supported by a strong truss, and is u.sed for a drill room, where the students are thor- oughly trained in military tactics by an army officer, detailed for the purpose by the Gov- ernment. By the way, I am informed that this is the only Agricultural College that has, as yet, established military instruction as apart of the regular course, although that is made one of the conditions of the grant by Govern- ment. The College now has a complete equipment of arms, which are kept in an ar- mory on the same floor with the drill room. Two cannon are also promised by the State, which will be used in artillery instruction. Immediately south of the laboratory stands a fine building erected in 1868, as a dormitory. Of this I had only an exterior view, as the students were all absent, and my time limited. With the increase of students, and the neces- sity of providing for a new class next fall, the faculty will urge the erection of a similar building at once, to meet the want. North of the laboratory, and next to the house formerly used as a boarding house, is a story and a half building erected the past season and used as a boarding place by the students. Last, but not least, of the improvements, I come to the barn erected the past season ; a building of which there was much need at my previous visit. This stands some little dis- tance south of the other buildings, and is about 50x100 feet, with a shed on the southwest end, 26x75 ft. Standing on a gentle slope, a barn cellar under the whole building gives ample room for the manure, and can be entered on a level by the teams to cart out the manure. This cellar is about eleven feet in height. The next floor, also entered on a level from the upper side of the yard, is suitably divided into stalls for the stock. Here were handsome specimens of the Jersey, Durham and Devon cattle, and Ayrshire are to be added. On the same floor is a large and commodious room for root crops, where they are securely pro- tected from frosts. The arrangement of the tie-ups and the ease with which the manure and the refuse fodder can be cleaned out and disposed of were noteworthy. The main floor of the barn has a drive- way running the entire length, and is entered by a gentle rise of about six feet in a distance of sixty feet, on the east. At the opposite end the grade wiU be longer, as the land falls off to the rear. Near the centre of the barn, are two recesses, about the width of the drive-way, dividing it into four equal parts, which are used as bays, and which are capacious enough to meet any immediate want of the farm. One of the re- cesses is to be used as a room for a horse power, by which to cut fodder, and do other farm work. Opposite to it will be placed the meal chests. The same general convenience of arrangement is to be noticed on this floor as in other parts of the building. Ventilation is provided for by four ventilators, one in each corner from the first floor, and a large one in the centre of the roof, and I was informed that they work satisfactorily. As the State barn, this will doubtless be regarded as a model, and I hope you may at some other time, give a fuller description of it than I have space for.* The neatness and complete order in which ev- erything was kept impressed me farcibly, and I thought that every farmer might obtain some useful hints in this direction, if no other. In the yard, running water is furnished the cattle, brought from a spring on the hill, some fifoy or sixty rods distant. The only other buildings which I found time to visit were the Botanical Museum and the Plant House. In the former is the valuable herbarium, comprising some 16,000 varieties *NOTE, — Our correspondent will perceive, on another page, that we have lollowed hi-i euggestion, and at ilie game time will understand why his communication has been poetponed for a few weete. — Ed. 146 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. March of plants, arranged scientifically, and pre- pared in the most careful and neatest manner. There are some very valuable specimens in this collection, which is said to be unequalled in this country. A very neat room is fitted up for the class in botany, and a small room for the President. The plant house, although rather early in the season to see it in its glory, was looking well, and I noticed some unique and beautiful plants, that might well gladden the heart of any botanical amateur. J will not attempt to set down the scientific names of these floral wonders, for my Latin has grown rusty from disuse, and I have already intimated that I did not fake notes. From inquiries of some of the faculty and friends of the College, I obtained, on the whole, a very encouraging statement as to its progress and prospects. The present num- ber of students is about 100, the Freshman class numbering about thirty. The students are represented as progressing well, and en- thusiastic in their studies. A large part of the work on the firm the past year has been done by them, and they have thus obtained just the practical knowledge and manual dex- terity indispensable to the farmer, without in- terference with their studies, — the record show- ing a highly gratifying standard as compared with their rank when admitted. With one feature I was especially pleased. It is, that the teachers, while pointing with commendable pride to the present standing of the College and the improvements of the past, and while detailing some of the plans for the immediate future, do not claim that they have made no mistakes, nor that their system might not possibly be bettered. But, having a plan well defined, they deem it better and more profitable to all concerned to follow it steadily and amend it when the need is demonstrated, than to be continually trying experiments, or laying plans of such magnitude that their very unfolding deters us from undertaking them. Such, at least, is the impression I received, and the result rather of natural inference from general conversation than from any direct statement or claim. I transmit to you, with this, a view and plans of the new barn, which you may find available for use. The length to which I have extended these notes will preclude any theorizing on the College and its system of instruction, even were I familiar enough with them to warrant such discussion. Cushnoc. Amherst, Mass., Dec. 14, 1869. Buckwheat Straw used for bedding live stock of any kind, causes an eruption of the skin. It has been frequently noticed that hogs when feeding among buckwheat stubbles are subject to an eruption of the skin of the neck and ears, owing to an acrid juice which exudes from the cuts of the atubblea. COVERING FOR EOOFS. {^ ^ HERE are few items of expense which so severely tax the pa- tience and the pocket of the farmer, as that of providing suita- ble covering for roofs. The gen- eral opinion is, that shingles do not last, now, much more than half as long as they once did. It is not uncommon that the poorer quality of shingles decay so much in ten years as to make it necessary to lay new ones over the entire roof. In some localities, the first quality are so far gone as to cause bad leakages in twenty years, and sometimes in even a less period. What can be the cause of this.P Is the timber of which they are made less durable than it was fifty years ago, or are there some climatic changes which cause a more rapid de- cay? When shingles become so far decayed as to allow water to pass under them, tl.ey are not only rotting rapidly themselves, but are destroying the roof-boards upon which they are nailed, so that this portion of the roof needs renewing as often again as it would if the shingles were tight. Here is another item of cost, which is burdensome where so many buildings are required in farm operations. Many kinds of materials are used for cover- ing roofs, and various devices employed for the purpose, but so far, none are so unobjec- tionable as to bring them into popular use. Some are too expensive ; some keep out wind and weather for a brief time, and then fail; some crack and let in the rain, while others warp and the winds blow, them away. Flat roofs are still covered with gravel and tar, or some other cohesive substance, and withstand the "tooth of time" admirably. Among the old buildings in Boston, roofs may still be seen that were so covered from fifty to one hundred years ago, and with occasional re- pairing, are still tight. The ^'■Plastic Slate Roofing'''' material was extolled more than roof-high for a time. There were plenty of certificates of its supe- rior excellence, and all persons with leaky roofs looked to it as the thing that would cover their buildings once for all ; pine and cedar trees might go for pails and tubs, — they were wanted no longer for shingles ! But we do not see any particular evidences of the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 147 superiority of this article on the roofs, or in the lumber yards. Shingles still abound in both places, and prices of them are higher than ever. We sincerely hope the plastic roofing has, or will prove a decided success ; that it will be cheap, permanent, and in every way effective. The various ways of preserving shingles are not enough. We want some combination of materials that are as "cheap as dirt," and as common as the air we breathe, or the ground upon which we tread, and which will require little skill to mingle or apply them. There is great encouragement that this may yet be accomplished, so that the farmer may cover his building with an imperishable mate- rial, do it principally with his own hands, and at one-half the present cost of shingling ! This encouragement comes to us in part, from the wonderful achievement in constructing the Suez Canal, one of the most stupendous ^orks of art ever undertaken by man. The "walls of the canal are of stones, twenty feet long, two feet wide, and about one foot thick, made there, upon, and of, the sands of the desert, and united by a peculiar cement. And in part, from the success attending the efforts of a company of gentlemen in Boston, in ce- menting all sorts of earths and stones into a solid mass of great strength. While the pro- cess of mixing is going on, the materials are so plastic that they are formed into any desir- able shape, such as beautiful soapstone stoves, whetstones, medallions as smooth as polished ivory, emery wheels, side walks, stable floors, and numerous other valuable articles. It does not seem improbable that this device may be carried so far as to furnish coverings for buildings, and even underpining, where stones cannot be had short of heavy cost of transportation. The heavy, awkward "tile" has long been used in England as a covering for roofs, and has the rare merit of being both permanent and effective. Why may not these gentlemen furnish a thinner and lighter material, and at the same time secure all the advantages of the English tile .'' We believe they will do it. These remarks have been suggested at this time by reading an article in the Country Oentleman, entitled : — Neal's No-Patent Roofing. — Eighteen years ago I made a flat root over the central portion of my dwelling, in the following manner : I tirst laid jointed fiooring boards upon the joists, and cov- ered this surface with roofing paper. Then I poured upon a section of the roof a small quantity of raw coal tar, spreading it evenly with a hhingle, to the depth, perhaps, of a sixteenth of an inch. Upon this I then sitted common road dust, putting it on evenly to the depth of half or three-fourths of an inch, that is, as long as the dust continued to be wet through to the top by the tar. It took me but an hour or two to go over the whole roof — 18 feet by 18 — in this manner. My first applica- tion was made in May, and about six weeks later I went over the whole surface ag;un in like man- ner, finishing up with the fourth applicarion in September. 8ince the application of the first coat- ing of tar and dust, lo the present time, the roof has not leaked a drop and looks good for a cen- tury at least to come. Since the firt.t year it has been like a firm sheet of stone, about half an inch thick, on which the family can sit, walk, run or dance, without injury to it. Let me also tell you how I made it water tight around my brick chimneys, extending through the shingled portion of the roof. I thoroughly mixed a quantity of the tar and dust into a thick paste, and with a trowel applied it as a collar around the chimneys, extending it about four inches out on the roof and as high up the side cf the brickwork, and compactly filling the space with the mortar. The -collar clung, as first placud, a perfect defence against leakage till the roof required renewal, and then the ends of the shingles beneath it were per- fectly sound ; the tar and dust mortar itself resem- bling a species of soft stone that could be easily and smoothly whittled with a knife. Mt. Gilead, O. D. B. Neal. EXTKACTS AJSTD BEPUIES. FEEDING BEES. Will you please inform me through your paper if bees can be fed in winter, and if they can, how ? What book on bee culture is the best ? Which hive is the best ? W. Browning. Keene N. H., Jan., 1870. Remarks. — Bees can be fed in winter, but ex- perience is needed to do it successfully. It is gen- erally considered poor policy to attempt to winter a swarm that has not laid up a sufficient store of honey for the winter season. Various plans are adopted for feeding bees. Honey or a syrup made by dissolving refined sugar in just water enough to make a syrup about as thick as molasses are much used. Sometimes a piece of empty comb is filled by letting the syrup drip from a tin dish in the bottom of which holes are punched for this purpose. Place this in the chamber if you have a chamber hive, or if an old fashioned hive, bore through the centre of the top with an inch and a quarter bit or auger, remove the chips and trim off the splinters with a knife. If the bees come up drop in a little of the feed ; then place the comb-filled with the feed on the top of the hive and cover it with an inverted box or peck measure. Others put the syrup in tin pans of convenient size, on which is a cover of thin wood, pierced with holes, or sawed into, so that the bees feed without getting stuck in the syrup. This cover must be fitted to the tin dish with a small space around the edges, and float on the syrup. We cannot say which is the best book on bees. 148 NEW ENGLAND FAEiVfER. IMabch as several have been published. Mr. Quinby's is the latest work we have in our office, and we think it a good work. Its price is $il.50. Some bee- keepers prefer one hive, some another. CLARKSBURG, MASS. — CONCENTRATED FERTILI- ZERS. In acknowledging the receipt of my first num ber of your paper, I would say that I am glad your agent got strayed into this county, as I un- derstand he got a goodly number of subscribers. Clarksburg is a small town, three by six miles, in the northwest corner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is identified with North Adams, as the south line of the town runs very near the village. On the east, towerg the lofty range of the Green Mountains, called the Hoosac. This town has a nice view of Greylock mountain, and the unevenness of the surfiice of the town makes it rather unpopular for agricultural purposes, except when stimulated by some other business that will produce more than one crop in a year. In these fast daysof stoam and electricity, man- kind, and particularly Young America, have be- come electrified, and they must "get up and get," or there is no enjoyment. Live fast and die young is the principle. For farming it on a large scale, and with machinery, and to make it profitable and popular, the West offers great inducements. But we who are attached to New England, and to Berk- shire County, who love the mountains, the hills and valleys, the springs of pure v.'ater and an un- surpassed climate, are reluctant to leave. And now, Mr. Farmer, and ye learned agricul- tural chemists, we look to you and ask, is there not a concentrated fertilizer, of which one load on an acre of these Berkshire hills will produce the like efiect of one hundred loads of barn yard ma- nure ? We have tried the superphosphates of Coe and Bradley, and we think there is not much profit in them. As an assistant fertilizer on chesnut and oak lands. Nova Scotia plaster pays the best ; but on our hemlock, spruce, beech and maple lands, it is not worth near as much. Please let me know the best concentrated fertilizer there is, and I will promise to try it and report the result, o. w. b. Clarksburg, Mass., Jan., 1870. Remarks. — By and by we hope to be able to an- swer such questions. Farmers' clubs, agricultural colleges, and agricultural newspapers are all at work on the problem, and who can doubt that the time is coming when he who runs may read just what he wants to know ? GREEN AND DRY CORN FODDER. Though my cxpeiience may not b3 as extensive as many others, in the use of corn fodder, I would say that I have been led to somewhat similar con- clusions with t'hose stated by Asa G. Sheldon and Dr. Nichols, in a late number of the Farmer. I have planted sweet corn for green fodder for ray cows, and have sown it broadcast, and drilled it in, but have got better results from planting about three feet one way, and putting the liills one foot apart, with three or four kernels in a hill than any other way. I liave commenced to cut it up and feed green as soon as the pastures began to fail, but it would make the cows scour, and I thought injured them. So I would cut and stook round a hurse, and let it cure two or three and sometimes four days, and then give it to them, and it had a very different effect. Hence, I prefer to have it thor- oughly wilted before I give it to them. I have fed green clover and green oats, but I prefer the sweet corn to cither, cured in the way I have named. I have sometimes had more sweet corn than I wanted to feed before putting my cows into the roweu. In such cases I cut and cure as other corn. I then pack it away for winter use. I had quite a lut this year, and my cows have given a large flow of milk, and we have made butter up to the present time from cows that come in the first of March next, but for two weeks I have given them half a bushel of sugar beets and carrots, equal parts, each per day. Were I to feed clover or oats I should wilt them before giving them to the cows. I have one cow now that I took of one of my neighbors last fall, that was spoiled last summer, as I think, by giving her green corn. Earlford, Vt., Jan. 25, 1870. R. H. Simonds. CATTLE CHEWING BOARDS, &C. One lot of my cattle, consisting of three cows, two yearlings, and one calf, have a habit of gnaw- ing boards, stanchions, sticks, &c. They are in good condition, and have been fed on early cut hay, and have been salted regularly. My other stock, kept in the same barn, are free from this habit. What shall I do for them. A Reader. Simonsville, Vt., Jan., 1870. Remarks. — It is generally supposed that this taste results from the lack of phosphate of lime in their food, and many farmers buy ground bone as a medicine for this complaint. Prof. S. W. John- son says that superphosphate sowed on old pas- tures will prevent this trouble while increasing the amount of grass. If you cannot get the bone meal, try a change of hay, with browse of evergreens or other trees. If the ground is not covered with snow let them out on to ploughed ground and see if they will not lick the earth ; or give them some clean soil to eat, if they will. Some farmers have pounded up bones fine with a sledge hammer for their cattle. MAKING butter IN WINTER. Being a farmer's wife, and having had over thirty years' experience in butter making, a few hints as to my method may be of use to some of your readers. As soon as the weather becomes frosty, I begin to scald the milk. There are various ways of do- ing this, but as my milk pans are stone, I set them on the stove after the milk is strained and let it get quite hot. The cream rises quickly. I skim it in three or four days ,at most. After 1 get enough cream for a churning, I set the churn by the stove a short time, turning it occasionally so it may be- come slightly warm all through. I never have to churn more than an hour, and often not over thirty minutes before the butter will come as nice and sweet as one can wish, and if the buttermilk is all loorked out and plenty of the best salt used, it will keep well until warm weather. c. s. B. Somerset, Mass., Jan. 25, 1870. COMMISSIONER S REPORT. — LICE ON HENS. In a late editorial you spoke of the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture. How and where can I obtain this work ; What will be the expense ? Will some of your corrrespondcnts state the best way to kill lice on hens ? C. C. Fuller. houth Gardner, Mass., Jan. 19. 1870. Remarks. — For the Report, write to the mem- ber in Congress from your district. The expense will be the cost of postage, only. These reports 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 149 belorg to the farmers of the country. Write early, before they are all distributed. In relation to your other inquiry, we are happy to refer you to an article in this paper by "L. B." BAUN "WITH DRITE"WAY TO SECOND FLOOR. Agi-eeably to your request for plans of conven- ient barns, I send you those of mine, which is 40x60 feet. The length of posts, between sills and plates, is 21 feet. The height of stables is eight feet; of cellar the same, with wall running down two feet for drainage. Length of platform for cows, tied with chains, five feet and three inches, with an inclination of 1^ inches. The annexed plans and descriptions will, I think, give a good idea of my barn. William H. Geay. Ashfield, Mass., Jan. 11, 1870. Perspective View. — From the mere outlines of the building as a whole, which were furnished by Mr. Gray, our artists have produced a very pretty picture. We mistrust, however, that they have made their stable doors of the first floor rather large; and, not being farmers, they have allowed the grass and weeds so large a growth in their yard as to hide too much the thresholds of the doors and the wall on which the sills rest. — Eds. Farmer. PLAN OF BASEMENT. c • a 2| 1 1 1 b s d 1 1 1 11 d e d Explanation of Plan of Basement.— a a are cellars for maiure from stables above, 13x40 feet ; b, place for muck, loil, &c., 10x40 fett, with stairs, fig, 2, leading to stable above ; c, pen for calves or sheep, 24x28 feet, with ataira, fig. 1, leading to alley above in front of horses; e, piggeiy, 12x24 feet. FIRST STORT. - d _ " - J f 5| 1 1 g : f 1 1 1 |4 - _ d _ d d 6 - h d i floor above and to stable below; ft, horse stable, 12x16 feet; i, closet for harness ; j, bay for hay, with etairs at fig. 6, and alley in front of horses at fig. 6. SECOND STORY. J J d d k Plan of Second Floor.— jj, bays for hay, one 28x36, the other 24x28 feet; k, floor for drawing in hay, 12x60 feet, which is reached by an incUned bankment. Plan of First Floor.— ff, cattle stables, each 13x40 feet; g, feeding alley and driveway for dumping muck into cellar, 10x40 feet, with stairs at flg. 6, leading to SUGAR MAKING. Some of your correspondents last spring spoke unfavorably of the use "of metallic spouts in sugar making, and expressed a preference for wocden ones. Having tried many kinds of sprouts, I will give a few hints from my experience. I prefer the tin spout to any other that I have used. I use the quarter-inch bit, and think I get nearly as much sap as from a three-quarter inch bore, and do not injure the tree one-half as much. Bored with the small bit, the hole in the tree closes up the first season, and consequently leaves less chance for borers and other insects. I use a five-eighths inch tin spout made like a dipper handle by any tin- man. They are driven just into the bark of the tree. I find sap will run through tubes thus adjusted in a colder day than in open wood spouts, — and that the sap will start earlier in the morning and continue flowing later at night. They' are more easily kept clean, and not as liable to be clogged wi;h chips, leaves, &c. As sap flows the most freely close to the bark, wooden sprouts are often driven in so far as to stop the best run of the sap. I have seen them driven into the tree so firjply as to support the bucket by a wire passing ovCT the spout. Where spouts are driven under the hole made by the bit, the sun will often dry up the wood of the tree so as to stop the running of the sap. I have made sugar out-doors with only a few stones laid up to set the boilers on, and to make a place for the fire, where the wind would blow dust and ashes into the syrup, and have had my hair and eye brows scorched by aflame suddenly blown into my face by a gust of wind, and from my own experience would advise all sugar makers to have some kind of sugar house. J. Hardwick, Mass., Jan. 10, 1870. ADULTERATION OF MILK. I have read the reports of the discussions at the Milk Producers' Association, with some pleasure, and with much pain. It was there stated that twenty-five per cent, of the so-called milk sold in Boston was some foreign article ; thus charging the milkmen with swindling, and no small amounc of it either. Now I know but little about the milkmen who get their milk at other roads than the Boston and Albany. But most of these men I have known personally for from twelve to twenty- five years. Perhaps your readers will think I make a strong statement when I say, I know most of these men do not adulterate their milk. They are honorable, square dealing men, who would despise such busi- ness as much as any one. The large quantity of milk that goes to Boston, 150 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. March over the Boston and Albany road, mast give a good many people pure milk. I think there is not a more hard working, industrious set of men in Boston than the milkmen. They deserve to make money, and some who are smart and tough enough to stand the exposure and hard labor, get along well. No doubt there is much impure milk sold in all cities, but because these producers happened to stumble on to milk which was one-quarter water, they ought not to charge honest men with crime. W. P. Brigham. Attleboro', Mass., Jan. 24, 1870. THE ■WINTER IN PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, C. W. Thus far we have had a rather singular winter. Some snow fell early, and cold weather set in, freezing apples and fastening many vegetables in the ground. Stock came to the barn earlier than usual ; but the crop of hay and of straw was so great that there will probably be no scarcity of fodder. The snow remained but a short time, and we had but little sleighing before the close of 1869. A great deal of rain fell last month, and the 2Sth and 29th were thawing, so that the roads were muddy. The depth of rain and melted snow in the year 1869, at this place, was thirty-seven and sixty-one hundredths inches. The tirst week in this year was colder, and some snow fell making sleighing a few days. We have had several heavy gales, but the damage was chiefly in blowing down wood and timber. The 9th inst. the temperature was 10° below zero ; the 10th it was 30° above. On the morning of the 14th it fell 12° below, and did not rise above zero until near 9 o'clock,?. M. The 1.5th was very rainy, with mercury as high as 38° above. Sleighing failed here, and since that time wheeling has been good, and the weather mild for winter. It is now, the 25lh, cold, and several inches of snow fell last night, but it is drifted too much to make good sleighing. Gkanite. Bloomjield, C. W., \st mo., 1870. GRUB IN THE HEAD OF SHEEP, In reply to Mr. Sowles' inquiry in Farmer of January 8, about sheep diseased in the headal would say that I have had considerable expCTi- ence in such disease of sheep, and have never known the following to fail of a cure. Turn the sheep on the back, and put a teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine in each nostril. It will not hurt them. I call the disease worm in the head. I wish to inquire if any one in this part of the State has the White Leghorn hens. S. C. Ryder. North Bradford, Me., Jan. 14, 1870. FEED FOR YEANING EWES. What is the best kind of grain to feed sheep that are to have lambs, — how much, and what is the difference in prices between cotton seed meal and other feeds ? Subscriber. SotUh Hadley, Mass., Jan. 19, 1870. Remarks. — In soliciting an answer to these in- quiries from experienced sheep men, we will say that while corn is perhaps the best grain for fat- tening sheep, we do not think it as good as oats, bran slops, roots and similar feed for the produc- tion of milk. wheat in CONNECTICUT. Herewith I send you a small sample of Winter wheat grown on our place the past season. It is not as nice as what we have heretofore grown, yet the yield was very fair, being thirteen busaels, mill measure, from half an acre. Less than one bushel of seed was sowu the last of September. The ground had been used for tobacco the season of sowing. The soil a light sandy loam, with yel- low subsoil. Tlie wheat is a red, bearded variety, for which we paid $4.00 per bushel for seed two years ago last fall. w. h. w. South Windsor, Conn., Jan. 26, 1870. Remarks. — The sample compares well with specimens from other sections now in onr office. GREEN CORN FODDER. I have no doubt that Mr. Sheldon and Dr. Loring are both right in their estimates of the value of green corn fodder, if they feed South- ern or Western corn, thickly planted, and not fed until nearly grown. It took me but a short time to learn that such fodder is very poor. I had learned, too, before Dr. Nichols told us, that corn planted too thick is not as good as that planted so thin that it will ear some. I have fed green corn, more or less, for fifteen years, to my cows when making butter, and when selling milk ; be- ginning the first of August, or not far from it, and feeding until the first of October, giving in the morning all they will eat of corn cut the night be- fore, or in the morning, as most convenient. With such feed my cows have always gained both in flesh and milk. But I have fed very little South- ern corn, and think I shall never feed any more. Still, if I can raise Sweet or Narraganset com, I shall continue feeding my cows all they will eat three times a day, and when thev get so reduced that they want helping up, then I shall stop. Westboro', Mass., Jan. 24, 1870. W. S. Grow. SICK PIGS, AND THE CAUSE. Having lost a valuable hog last summer, I have noticed by accounts in the Farmer that others in various places, as well as in my own town, have been similarly unfortunate. I have carefully com- pared the statements of others with my own expe- rience and observation, and am fully of the opin- ion that foul pens and improper food in hoc weather are the principal procuring causes of the the disease called hog cholera, and that producing red or purple spots on the skin, which spread rap- idly and terminate in death. Hence I believe ttat wholesome food and pens free from foul stench and bad air will be a pretty sure preventive of such putrid diseases. R. Smith. Wilmington, Vt., Jan., 1870. sweet flag. Will some of the correspondents tell me how to kill sweet flag in a wet meadow ? I have a place of land that would be valuable if I could get rid of this pest. A. B. Cambridgeport, Vt., Jan. 25, 1870. Remarks. — You have a tough customer. If any one knows of any cheaper method than very thorough drainage, and seeding with grass, let him say so, for the benefit of our correspondent and others. RICH MILK. The last of December a two-gallon jar full of the milk of one of my cows produced four pounds and seven ounces of good yellow butter. If any one has a cow that gives better milk I should be glad to hear of it. J. ii. m. Farmington, Me., Jan. 24, 1870. Remarks. — If you did not intend to say cream instead of "milk," isn't that two-gallon jar of yours an uncommonly big one of its size ? 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 151 [Oopled by permlsBlon from Appleton^s Juvenile Annual,] THE GOBILLA. THE QOHIIjIiA. One of the most remarkable animals in Ihe world, and one, until recently, the least known, is the Gorilla. Uniting a wonderful physical likeness to man in man's barbarous state, with an equally wonderful likeness to the most savage of beasts in temper and dis- position, he comes nearest to a connecting link between the brute and the human crea- tion, but still is not and cannot become that link. Du Chaillu, the great hunter of the African forests, has given us the best account of this animal yet published. He had many 152 NEW ENGLAND FARTHER. March personal encounters with them, of one of ■which we give his relation as follows : "There must be gorillas not far off," whispered Malaoutn into my cars, and at the same time he leaked carefully at his gun. Querlaouen and Gambo gave a chuckle, and looked at Malaouen and at me. Wo all listened in silence ; we were then in one of the thickest and densest parts of the forest; all was apparently still, but the quick car of Malaouen had detected something, had heard a noise, and he wanted to know the cause of it. We were so excited that our breathing was loud and distinctly audible. We were all close together and did not move. We at once cocked our guns, fur we heard the moving of branches just ahead of us, when lo! the forest resounded with the terrific roar of the gorilla which made the very earth fairly shake under our feet. As soon as the gorilla saw us he stood up, and beat bis chest with his powerful hands until it resound- ed like an immense bass drum. His intensely black face was something horrid to behold; his sunken deep gray eyes looked like the eyes of a demon, and he opened his mouth and gave vent to roar after roar, showing his powerful canine teeth. It was a male gorilla, a real fighting fellow, and was not afraid of us. How horrid he looked, as the hair on top of his head twitched up and down, and as he made the woods ring with his awful roar until the forest was full of the din ! We stood in silence, gun in hand, and I was ready to lire, when Malaouen, who is a cool fel - low, said, "Not yet." The monster, according to them, was not near enough. He stopped for a minute or so, and then seated himself, for his legs did not seem well adapted to ' support his huge body. The gorilla looked at us with his evil gray eyes, then beat his breast with his long, powerful, and gigantic arms, giving another howl of defi- ance. I was terribly excited, for I felt that, if the animal was not killed, some one of us would be killed. I now j adged he was not more than ten or twelve yards from iis, and I could see plainly the fero- cious and fiendish face of the monstrous ape. It was working with rage; his huge teeth were ground against each other, so that we could hear the sound ; the skin of the forehead was moved rapidly back and forth, brioging a truly devilish expression up^n the hideous face; then once more he opened his mouth and gave a roar which seemed to shake the woods like thunder, and, looking us in the eyes, and beating his breast, ad- vanced again. This time he was within eight yards from us before he stopped again. Malaouen said "Steady," as he came up. When he stopped Malaouen said "Now ;" and before he could utter the roar for which he was opening his mouth, three musket balls were in his body, and he fell dead almost without a struggle. It was a huge beast, and a very old one indeed. Gorillas vary- in height like men. This one was over 5 feet 6 inches. Its arms spread out 7 feet and 2 inches. Its bare, huge, brawny chest measured 50 inches round; and the big toe or thumb of its foot meas- nred nearly six inches in circumference. Its arm seemed only like an immense bunch of muscle, and its legs and claw-like feet were so well fitted for grabbing and holding on that I did not wonder that the mgroes believed that this animal con- cealed itself in trees, and pulled up with his foot any living thing, leopard, ox, or man, that passed beneath. There is no doubt that the gorilla could do this, but that he does, I do not believe. They areferocious and mischievous, but not carnivor- ous. GRANDPAPA'S SPECTACLES. BY MBS. M. L. RAYNE. Oh, Mamma, what -will Grandpa do? He's t;ono sway to Heaven, Without the eilver pp'Ctncles That uncle John had given ; How can he read the papers there. Or fi[id b-B hickory staff; He'll put his coat on wrong side out, And make the people laugh. And when he takes the Bible down And wipes the dusty lid, He'll never find his spectacles Within its cover hiJ ; There won't be any little girl He likes as well as me. To run and hunt them up for him And put them on hla knee. Oh dear I he'll never find the place About "the wicked flee," And how the bears ate children up, (That used to frighten me) ; So, Mamma, if you'll dress me up Just like an angel bright, I'll flx our ladder 'gaintt the sky And take them up to-night.— 7%° Bright Side. febies' gepartment. DOMESTIC ECONOMY; OB, HOW TO IVIAKE HOME PLEASANT. BY ANNE G. HALE. [Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.! CHAPTER XX. ANIMAL FOOD AND ITS PRESERVATION. As a general thing, we eat double the animal food that we ought. A certain portion is un- doubtedly needed to secure a proper physical devel- opment and to sustain bodily and mental strength ; but the excessive use of a flesh diet stimu- lates the passions, stupifies the brain, and fills the whole system with disease. For persons of sedentary habits, and for chil- dren, a moderate supply of animal food once a day — and that as near the middle of the day as possible — is sufficient. Besides this reasonable amount at the noonday meal, for those who lead active lives — laboring much in the open air, or within doors at occupations which make great de- mands upon the bodily energies, — a small quantity of meat at breakfast is necessary. More than this is intemperance, as deleterious, if not quite so dis- gusting, as intemperance in the use of ardent spir- its. It is true, the season has something to do with this matter, the appetite craving larger quantities of meat,— on account of its heat-imparting properties, —in cold than in warm weather. But less hearty nourishment, when well-cooked and furnished in 1870. NEW ENGLA]!TO FARRIER. 153 abundance, is to be preferred for three-quarters of our diet where plenty of heat is obtained by means of comfortable rooms and warm clothing. The expense of animal food is also no small consideration in the management of a family. No housekeeper need be told, in these days of high prices, that the very most should be made of everything that comes under that name. Still the best of cooks, and the most prudent, waste (we will call it lose) much, that, with a little ingenuity, may furnish many a palatable and nutritious dish. A great deal depends, too, upon a thoughtful, observant care for the preservation as well as best nse, of meat and fish, — even more than for fruits and vegetables ; because by neglect what is really healthful and wholesome becomes frequently a noxious poison — is, indeed, often unwittingly served at table when in that condition. In order to preserve animal food from decay it should lose its natural heat as soon as possible after killing, and then be kept cold till it is cooked. Fresh meat and fish may be kept in good condi- tion a great while when frozen, but at the first signs of thawing they must be cooked, as decay then follows rapidly. During the winter closets, boxes, or tubs, where these articles of food can be placed and snow or ice retained without melting, are a great convenience for housekeepers. Ice-houses and refrigerators are desirable where they can be had for summer use. Even the sim- ple arrangements just mentioned can be made available, however, in warm weather, — the ice be- ing kept from melting rapidly by wrapping it in woolen cloth ; but there must be great pains taken to cleanse and ventilate often both these recepta- cles and the ice-cloths. The shelves and walls of ice-houses and refrigerators also need to be fre- quently attended to for the same purpose, lest the flavor of some articles of food become injured by the concentrated exhalations of different dishes, or from contact with the crumbs sometimes care- lessly suffered to lie around. Most persons who rejoice in the luxury of a toell know how conven- ient a closely closing bucket — better still a tier of tightly fitting boxes — is for affording this desired coldness, — that is if a windlass or some similar contrivance is employed to raise it easily. If none of these conveniences are available, the housekeeper will wipe all moisture from the meat that is to be kept fresh, shake a little fine salt over the bare flesh and into all Its crevices, and then, screening it from the flies, set it in the cellar, or in the coolest and airiest place she can command, till it can be cooked. Use the same care and pre- caution with all sorts of fresh meat. If it should get slightly tainted cover it with fine charcoal for a few hours before cooking. Salt is considered the best preservative for meats and fish, as, while preventing decay it re- tains their fibres in a natural state. Dessication — drying — causing an evaporation, or concentra- tion of the juices, and consequent hardening of the fibres, is at times a desirable process of pre- servation ; but unless such food is properly cooked it is exceedingly indigestible. The antiseptic properties of smoke are also called in for keeping flesh and fish from decay,— the flavor which it im- parts being agreeable to some palates ; and though smoked meats are not so healthful as the fresh, they can be used sparingly with no ill effects. Spices, too, sometimes serve in the same capacity; but not much of such preserved food is to be com- mended. Of all these methods salting, or corn- ing is the least objectionable. Whsn properly performed and the salted food well cooked, its oc- casional use makes a variety in diet, and it is scarcely less nutritious and salutary than when in its fresh state ; while, for obvious reasons, it must be the chief dependence for an economical manage- ment of much of our animal food. In cities and large towns, where meat shops and stalls can be visited at will, or where the butcher calls every day at the house, one can purchase a small quantity of fresh or of salted meat, and there is little danger of its spoiling. Still, even then, advantage can be taken of overstocked mar- kets, and consequent lower prices, and considera- ble be purchased with prudence ; some of which can be eaten fresh, and the rest salted, smoked, or dried. And in the country, where the butcher's visits are infrequent, or the neighbors only obtain animal food by accommodating each other in the killing of stock by turns, there is often a quantity to dispose of in the same way. A quarter of beef, or a half of a sheep or a hog, is as much, however, as a thrifty housewife desires to see at once; and until this is all well cared for she is as busy and anxious as she ever wishes to be. But in view of the leisure from care and toil for some months to come, which it foreshadows, and of the nice din- ners it promises, she goes through it cheerfully ; rather desires it — in early winter, — being content with smaller portions for warm weather. We will suppose that the good man of the house, understanding what is true economy, gets the I^est meat always ; if he purchases beef, not the pale flabby flesh of a heifer, but good ox beef, a bright clear red in color, and fine and firm in grain ; well streaked with fat that is solid and fair — {7iearly white — yellow fat is a sign of disease). It is convenient to have it cut into handy piece* by the butcher. Roasting and steak nieces may be packed in ice or snow, or laid in the ice-closet or box, or refrigerator, till needed. The best roasting pieces are the thick end of the surloin, the rump, and the second cut in the foro quarter; the best for steaks arc slices through the sirloin, and from the rump, — but very good slices for the same may be cut from the top of the leg— the round — which, if kept a little longer than the others and properly cooked, arc tender and nearly as juicy as those. The best corning pieces are the rattle-ran, (as the butchers call it,) and the next cut to it, the thin end of the sirloin, the end of the rump, and 154 NEW ENGLA^TD FAEMER. March the edge-bone (or H-bone). The rattle-ran gives alternate streaks of fat and lean— the H-bone a great deal of lean meat. A piece of beef may be lightly corned in sum- mer, by rubbing it thoroughly with salt, and then sprinkling it plentifully with the same as it lies in a deep dish, which is then filled with water sufS- cient to cover the meat. Three or four days is long enough for it to remain thus before cooking. To prepare a winter's or a year's supply of salt beef get first a clean oaken or maple barrel or keg to hold it, with a circular piece of the same sort of wood just small enough to pass in and out of the top easily ; — this is for a sinker — to keep the meat under the brine,— and it should have a knob, or swnething of that sort, to raise it by. There must be also a heavy clean stone to rest upon this for pressure. The barrel should also have a closely- fitting cover. Beef that is to be corned should be allowed to hang up in an airy place two days, at least, after it is killed, before it is salted, so that the fibres may become tender. Then make a brine to pour over it after it is packed in the barrel. For one hundred weight of beef take four gallons of rain water, heat it to boiling, dissolve in it four quarts of fine rock salt, one ounce of salt petre, three pints of brown sugar or two quarts of molasses, and one ounce of saleratus. Let it boil till all im- purities have risen to the surface and been skim- med ofi". Set it aside till cold, then pour it over the beef. If there is not enough to cover the meat make a ilttle more brine, using a correct propor- tion of the same ingredients. The meat will be ready for cooking in three or four weeks, and will keep nice in a cool cellar over a year. But if there is the least hint of a rancid odor, the brine should be turned oif, scalded, and half the quantity of salt and molasses added. Do not use old brine, even with the most thorough scalding, to corn a new supply of meat ;— it is quite valuable as a fer- tilizer for the soil, but is worse than useless as a preservative for meat, because of its rank and bit- ter flavor. Beeves' tongues, and pieces for smoking and drying, require a brme somewhat stronger, which must be made thus : Dissolve in one gallon of wa- ter three pints of salt, half an ounce of salt petre, and one quart of molasses. Three weeks will cure them. The tongues will then be fit for boiling as they are, or to go with the pieces to be smoked ; they need two weeks in the smoke-house. Those to be dried only should be spread on hurdles, or hung up loosely, for a month, in a cool, dry room, where no insects nor vermin can gain access, and the out-door air frequently admitted. February is the best time for drying beef. Another way to preserve beef is to make it into cakes and dry them, which may afterward be broiled or baked. Take for these lean beef and 8uet,— oae third as much suet as meat. Chop them very fine aad season with pepper and salt. Mix well, and form into cakes rather more than half an inch thick and three inches square, and spread them to partially dry on a table in a cool room. A beef's heart is nearly as nice as a tongue when slightly corned. Spltt it in two, and pickle it in two quarts of water in which a pint of salt and a cup of molasses have been dissolved. It should remain in this four or five days. For soups the shin, the hough, and the tail are best. The brisket and ribs are used for stews or soups by some persons instead of roasting them, or corning them, — also the flanks. The upper cut of the breast and the neck are excellent for soups, — they also are the best portions for mince-pies. The head, though the cheapest part of the ani- mal, may furnish several nice dishes ; — the cheeks being corned, or boiled fresh for mince-pies, or for making head-cheese, or serving for a stew. All of those inferior parts need especial care in order to keep them sweet and good, and much washing and soaking befare they are cooked ; but they well repay the pains taken with them. Suet is an important ingredient in pies, and makes good puddings. It is also needed to furnish fat for mixing with lard for frying pies and pan- cakes. It may be kept uncorked in cold weather a long time by removing its skinny parts and then tying it in a close paper bag and placing it in a cold closet. Good mutton is fine and close grained, and of clean white and clear red hues. Any part of the animal is nice for roasting (or baking rather; there is very little wasting of any sort of meat now-a-days) — the loin and the hind quarter are considered the best. The leg is suitable for a broth or stem ; or to bs boiled either fresh or corned ; or steaks may be cut from it. Take chops from the loin or the lower part of the neck. The shoulder and neck use for broth or stew. Corn the breast, — the loin is also nice corned a few days, — by rub- bing it well with salt, and sprinkling a handful of salt over it after immersing it in water. Lamb is best in July or August. It should be fat, and fine in fibre. The fore quarter is the sweetest and most juicy for roasting; the breast is nice boiled; the leg should be stuffed and baked ; of the loins, and the shoulder also, make broth. Veal is only good in the spring. It should be firm and close-grained, white, and fat. Roast the breast and the loin plainly. Stuff and roast the leg. Make a pot-pie of the shoulder and neck. Take steaks or cutlets from a leg or loin. Stew the head and heart. Pork is best young ; it should be brought to the knife when a year old, at the farthest. Some per- sons consider pork as unhealthy food, but if the creature has been kept in good health, and allowed nothing but vegetables, or grain, for sustenance (with the exception of milk,) and has had plenty of fresh air to breathe and pure water to drink, it is probably as wholesome as beef or mutton- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 165 though its invigorating power is much lower than theirs. Within a few years the trichina having infested a number of hogs, which have transmitted their baleful effects to those who have eaten of the pork, has led to much false alarm in the matter. Their presence, however can always be detected in the raw flesh, and thus the evil be avoided. "As "measly" pork they have always more or less troubled the pig-raisers. Small lumps, like oblong white pimples, resembling grains of wheat, scat- tered through the fatty portions of pork, being these pests. No part of any animal where these are seen is fit to be eaten. It is good economy for the head of a large fam- ily, who has a garden, or enough yard-room for a pig pen, to buy a little porker in the spring and raise his own pork ; one is sure then that it is properly fed and cared for. Of course this advice does not apply to farmers or farmers' wives, who always have plenty of corn fed pork that is healthy and nice. But those who cannot manage thus will find it for their advantage to purchase half a slaughtered pig in the early part of the winter, so that they can salt enough for cooking purposes through the next year, cure their own hams, make what sausages they desire, and try out the lard they need ; beside supplying the table with roast, or baked, or broiled, or fried, for some weeks. The spare ribs of pork are the most juicy parts for roasting ; the chine, having more solid meat, is the most substantial for the same mode of cook- ing ; the upper part of the shoulder and the cheeks, are also suitable for roasting. Steaks for frying or broiling cut from the neck, leg or loin. The legs and shoulders, and the cheeks, may be corned or pickled and smoked. Cut the clear pork into strips four or five inches wide for salting. Be sure that it has lost its nat- ural heat before you salt it. Procure a clean oaken, ash or maple barrel or firkin, with a cover and sinker, and stone similar to those used in your beef barrel. Then get half a bushel of rock salt for a hundred weight of pork — a peck for fifty pounds. Scatter enough salt on the bottom of the barrel to make a layer an inch thick ; then arrange a layer of pork ; fit the pieces so that they lie closely. Then sprinkle as much salt upon this as on the bottom of the barrel. Follow this with pork, and then that with salt, till all is packed and the upper layer is of salt. Pour in then cold wa- ter enough to cover it, and place your sinker and weight and cover. After two days see if the salt is all dissolved ; if so, throw in two or three quarts more, for the pork will not keep sweet unless there is a good deal of undissolved salt among and around it. As the pork is loosened from its pack- ing, and thus set floating, take pains to keep it wholly in the brine by means of the sinker, — it Boon gets rancid and rusty if the least portion rises from the brine. It will be salt enough to use in five or six weeks, and will keep years if the brine is kept strong by adding salt enough from time to time to keep a good body of it undissolved. To pickle hams take for fifty pounds two quarts of molasses, and half a pound of saltpetre, with three quarts of salt, and dissolve them in two gal- lons of warm water. Let it cool, then pour it over the hams in a keg or firkin. If there is not enough liquor to cover them, pour in water. At the end of a week take out the hams and place the top ones at the bottom of the vessel, and the lower ones at the top; and change them thus every week till they are thoroughly pickled — six weeks is the usual time. The chteks and shoulders may be cured in the same way. To make bacon of pork or beef, a smoke-house is very convenient ; but they can be smoked just as well in the common fire-place of some unoc- cupied room. Arrange the pieces along the crane, suspending them by stout strings, or hooks, about a foot above the materials to be burnt for smoke. Sawdust and corn cobs used together make the best smoke, and impart an agreeable flavor. The fire should be continued smouldering night and day, for a fortnight or three weeks. At the end of that time take them to a dark, cool closet, or put them in tight cloth bags till they are needed. It is now the most general plan to send these pieces to some establishment where creosote is used instead of smoke for making bacon, and the business is conducted on a large scale. But this simple domestic method is much to be preferred, as you are sure of having your own pork, and know that it is thoroughly cured and preserved. In preparing clear pork for salting there is al- ways much to trim off, and also in cutting the hams and roasting pieces a good deal to be spared, which it is well to make into sausage meat. It is a great deal of trouble to prepare the skins for holding it. A much better way — and greatly to be preferred to the method of stufiing it into bags of cotton cloth — is to make the meat into round cakes about three inches in diameter and three quarters of an inch in thickness ; which should be spread on dishes or clean tables, in an airy room, till they are a little dry, and then set away with other fresh meat till needed for the table. Sausages are improved by the addition of a third part of beef to the pork of which they are made. Chop it all together till it is quite fine. If frozen a little it will chop easier and more quickly. There is no danger of chopping it too fine ; none of it should be larger than half a small pea. To season the meat, after mixing it well, (adding cold water enough to give it the consistency of dough) stir into ten pounds of the material two tablespoonfuls of fine salt, one of ground pepper, and four of pul- verized and sifted sage. Before making the cakes —they must be moulded and patted into shape in the hands with cold water— it is best to fry a little of the meat to ascertain if the seasoning is right, and if needed to add more. To try, or render the lard, cut the flakes into 156 NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. March inch pieces and fry them in a deep kettle over a slow fire. Dip the fat as fast as it accumulates into a perforated strainer, through which it falls into the vessel that is to hold it; an oaken firkin or stone pot this should be. The scraps — scrapnels, some c.iU them — from which the lard is thus sep- arated, if salted and seasoned with pulverized sage, make a good relish with bread and butter for any meal. Beside the leaves, all loose or coarse pieces of fat should be cut and tried in the same way for lard. Little need be said about the care or preserva- tion of fish, except that when fresh even greater vigilance than for meat is needed, that it do not become tainted, and that when salt it shall not rust from scarcity of briue. Dry tish, if kept in a dry place, will remain good for years. The next chapter will be devoted to the cooking of meats and tish. two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one grated nutmeg and sugar to taste. Other spices may be added if desired. Bake in one crust. Recipe for a Liniment. — No better liniment for bruises, on man or beast, was ever used, than equal parts of laudanum, alcohol and oil of worm- wood. It reduces the swelling rapidly, if inflamed, and removes soreness like a charm. The sooner applied, of course, the better. To Remove Stains. — A solution of gum arable will remove dirt and stains from marble. Let it remain till it dries, when it will peel off or can be washed off. DOMESTIC RECEIPTS. Pheasant, Partridge, or Grouse Pie. — Pick and singe two pheasants, or four partridges or grouse; cut off the legs at the knee; season with pepper, salt, chopped parsley, thyme and mush- rooms. Lay a veal steak and a slice of ham at the bottom of the dish; put the partridge in, and a pint of good broth. Put pull' paste on the edge of the dish, and cover with the same; brush over with egg, and bake an hour ; or place them in a raised crust. To Stew a Fowl with Onions.— Wash it clean, dry and truss it as for boiling, put a little pepper and salt into it, rub it with a bit of butter, as also the saucepan; put in with the fowl a pint of veal stock or water, a little pepper and salt, turn it now and then, and when it becomes quite tender, add twelve or sixteen small onions, and let them stew for half an hour ; a young fowl will take one hour, and an old one three hours to stew. Rich Mince Pies. — Eight pounds of beef, one pound suet, two pounds currants, two pounds raisins, one half peck apples, two ounces ground cloves, two ounces alspice, one-half ounce mace, one ounce nutmegs, three-quarter pounds citron, one-quarter pound cinnamon, eight pounds sugar, half a gallon sweet cider, six lemons. Carrot Pies. — Select orange carrots, scrape and boil them and press through a sieve; to a pint of the pulp add one quart of milk, six eggs. WHEN YOU WEBE SEVENTEEN. When the hay was mown, Mary, In the years long ago. And while the western ?ky was rich With ("unset's rosy glow. Then hand in hand close linked we passed The dewy ricks t)etween, And I was one-and-twenty, May, And you were seventeen. Your voice was low and sweet, Mary; Your wavy hair was brown ; Your cbeek was like the wild red rose That showered its petals down ; Your eyes were like the blue speedwell. With dewy moisture sheen, When I was one-and-twenty, May, And yon were seventeen. The spring was in our hearts, Mary, And all its hopes were ours; And we were children in the tields, Among the opening flowers. Ay 1 Life was like a summer day Amid the woodlands green, For I was one-and-twenty. May, And you were seventeen. The years have come and gone, Mary, With sunshine and with shade, And silvered is the silken hair. That o'er your shoulders strayed In many a soft, and wayward tress — The fairest ever seen — When I was one-and twenty. May, And you were seventeen. Though gently changing Time, Mary, Has touched you in his flight. Your voice has still tbe old sweet tone, Your eye the old love light; And years can never, never change The heart you gave, I ween. When I was one-and twenty. May, And you were seventeen. '^ % JUj,\WJJ ^f^ DKVOTBJD TO AGRECULTUKE, HOBTICULTTJKE, AUD KXNDKED ARTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, April, 1870. VOL. IV.— NO. 4. R. V. EATON^ & CO., Plrlisherr, Office, 3* Merchants' How. MONTHLY. SIMON BROWN, ) editors S. FLETCHER, ( J^»"0R3. FARM OPERATIONS IN APRIL. "Than in the couTitry, tell me TOlure Men fr- er are from pi iug care ? Where can ih'V H^muder Bleep erjoy, Or time more harmlessly employ ? Do marble pavemes l« more delight Than the green turf i hat cbeer8 the sight? Or does the v/aU r of the town Taste sweeter than the crystal rills That trickle down the verdant hills ?" N this month the business of creation seems re- sumed. The vital spark rekindles in ihe dormant existences — and anon all things "live, and move, and have their being." The earth puts on her livery and awaits ihe call of her lord ; the air breathes gently on his cheek, and conducts to his senses the warbling of birds and the odors of new-born herbs and (lowers ; the great eye of the world "sees and shines" with bright and gladdening glances ; the waters teem with life ; man himself feels the revivi- fying and all-pervading influence ; and his "spirit holds cnmmuairin sweet With the brighter tpivits of the sky." But this, though true of April, because it brings the first balmy airs and bursting flow- ers, is not all of April. Like the shifting scenes in the pathway of a good man's life, April has its clouds and tears, which succeed i*s genial sunshine, in chilling winds or storms of snow. But they are as evanescent as the month is fickle. The all-searchirgsun, strong and fervid in its new course, pours its mehing beams upon them, and they disappear. Then the grass springs up, the flowers unfold, the earth opens her bosom and invites man forth to scatter seed into it, in the hope of a boun- tiful harvest. The April work of the farmer is a sort of foundation-work for all the rest of the year. That which is not begun cannot be finished. Seed-time must be improved, or harvests will not succeed. Late in the morning, late all day. The laggard has no pluck. He who leads in the race is full of courage. And so it is on the farm. April comes but once in a year, and April's work cannot be so well done at any other time as in April. Man cannot change the seasons at his will, but must perform the work adapted to them while they remain, or suffer the loss that is quite certain to follow. The constant desire of the farmer is for more fertilizing materials in order to bring more profitable crops. There are two ways 158 NEW ENGLAND FAR]\IER. April of accomplishing this, which have been greatly overlooked. 1. The working of the soil. Growing plants have many roots, and as they increase in vigor are constantly throwing out new fibres in every direction. These fibres are in search of food. If the food lies in masses, only a few of the roots find it and the plant does not grow. But if the food is scattered about and thoroughly mingled with the soil in a finely pulverized condition the roots will find it wherever they may go. A peck of ashes may lie in the centre of a square rod of ground, and a few plants near it may be much improved, while those on the outer portions of the square would receive no benefit at all. Sctatter the peck of ashes over the whole square and mix thoroughly with the soil, and the probability is that every plant on the square will be essentially benefited by it. Working and mingling the soil, is absolutely manuring it, because, first, it enables roots to find the food, and secondly, because it places the soil in a condition to be fed by the atmos- phere. If three-fourths of all the substance of plants comes from the air, as is asserted by many scientific men, it can readily be seen how important it is that the soil be free from stand- ing water, is fine, and all mingled together. 2. The next point greatly overlooked is the imperfect condition in which manure is applied to the soil. It is altogether too coarse and too unevenly distributed. A mass of one pound weight, finely divided and mingled with the soil, would probably exert more influence than two or three pounds Ijing in lumps. Plants do not feed upon substances In solid form as cattle do upon hay or roots, but upon nutriment In the form of a liquid, and this liquid must come from matter dissolved from innumerable small particles which are lying about the roots of plants. The way then to increase the manure, is by a more thorough breaking a.ud mingling of the soil and of the fertilizing agents from the stalls. The next important Item in profitable farm- ing is to have good seed. To accomplish this we must have a home-grown product ; raise the seed ourselves or procure that grown In our own neighborhoods by persons who under- stand the business. Mr. Gregory, of Marble- head, in his excellent report upon Vegetables to the Essex County Society says: — "There can be no good vegetables without good seed, and earnestly urges raising among ourselves ; says it will "annihilate the vast intervals that usually exist between the producer and the planter, and keep a wholesome responsibility within easy access of the purchaser." We would caution all, however, not to en- gage In raising seeds, even for the use of a single farm, without first consulting those who know what good seeds are, and are skilful in producing them. The next step to success in the April work is to sow early. Spring wheat and oats ought to be put upon soil that can be handled so as to get the crop in by the middle of the month, certainly ; by the 10th or 12th would be better still. They need April influences in order to secure the fullest influences of May and June. And so of grass or any other seeds. Whatever the period of sowing la that is best adapted to them, sow them early in that ptrlod, whether It be April, May or July. Many a crop is puny and unsatisfactory, even on tolerably good land, because It was not seeded in season to receive the peculiar influences it needed during Its early growth. For the New England Farmer, THE QAKDEN IN APKIIi. April brings us, here in New England, to the commencement of active out-door opera- tions on the farm, and it is well if we have in the past months remembered the garden, and have done what we could by way of prepara- tion for the planting season ; and it will be well if in the press of other spring woik, the garden is not neglected. Labor judiciously laid out in the vegetable garden returns a greater profit than a corresponding amount expended on other portions of the farm. Not only does labor In a vegetable garden pay, but labor righ'ly directed In ornamenting the home of the farmer and rural resident, also pays, — • if not directly In dollars and cents, the same as a frae crop of corn, oats or potatoes, — in- directly by adding to the money value of a firm or place, by increasing its attractiveness. Not only this, it also imparts to rural liti some- thing of that attractiveness which draws so many to the more thickly settled communities, villages and cities. But how few farmers look upon gardening and home attractions In this light. Their good wives and families would appreciate the products of an early, good gar- den, and the handsome and neatly kept sur- roundings of the house. It is for the benefit 1870. l^W ENGLAND FARIMER. 159 of the wife and family that we have so often urged the importance of the garden, and again say if you cultivate nothing else have a good garden. As a class, farmers are too much meat and meal-eaters, and to whatever else may be laid our lack of taste for vegetables, it certainly is not because they are not health- ful, economical and enjoyable that better and fresher vegetables are not found on our ta- bles at all seasons of the year. A garden, to give its greatest profit, should have a little variety in soil, and the wljole of it well drained, either naturally or artificially. It should also be protected from prevailing coid winds. The soil should be made rich and deep, not by bringing too much cold under- soil to the top, but by working and mixing with it suitable fertilizers, keeping the best Eoil a", the surface and bringing but a little of the deeper soil up to become ameliorated. Asparagus — Clear off straw and litter, forking in the fine, usinj* care not to injure the crowns of the plants. A sprinkling of salt worked in with the manure will be beneficial. Beans. — Little is gained in hurrying the seed into ihe ground, as the bean is a tender plant, and will not endure frosts. The soil needs to get well settled and warmed before they will grow. Prepare poles, if not already done. Do not cut them too long, eight feet is plenty long enough,— si.x feet and a half out of ground ; cut them to an even length, and let them be straight and smoothly trimmed. Beets. — These are hardy, and the seed may be sown as soon as the ground can be worked well. The seed is hard, horny, and is some- time in softening so as to germinate. It would be well to separate the seed. That which is generally called a single seed is in reality sev- eral seed joined in a bunch, and unless sepa- rated will grow several plants. Cabbage Tribe. — Borecole, or Curly Kale, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Borage, Cabbage and Cauliflower, all are hardy and will endure, with little protection, considerable cold, and miy be sown after the ground is well settled and dry, or may be sown in the hot bed, when desired for transplanting. All these make ex- cellent greens while young. Cold Frames — Except wh^n the weather is cold or rainy these may be Itft open. Cress {Pepper grass.) — Sow as early as the soil and weather will permit, thickly in six inch rows. It soon comes up and the leaves are tic for a salad in a short time. Give wa^m soil. Garlic — A vegetable but little used, yet to those who are fond of onions in a milder shape, this mav be desirable, its flavor being somewhat different. Sow seeds in rich, mel- low t'oil, or fcel; out divisions of bulbs six inches apirt, in diids. Treat like onions. Hut Beds — For general purposes farmers will liiid hot- beds quite as serviceable, made early this month as if made earlier. Direc- tions have so often been given for making them that there is little need to repeat them here. The main requisites are a frame and glazed sash set over a bed, two to three feet of manure, for heating material, covered with a few inches of rich fine soil to furnish a foot- hold for the plants, or to deposit the seed in. The seed should not be planted till the heat recedes a little from its highest point, as it will go to 100 degrees or over, and prove fatal to the vitality of seeds. Leeks — Sow when the soil is open and warm ; the seed may be mixed with onion seed, and the plants treated alike till the onions are pulled, when the leeks are left to grow. Lettuce. — Sow in hot-bed and in the open air as soon as the ground will admit. Varie- ties are numerous ; some preferring one to another, so different tastes may be accommo- dated. Manure. — For the garden the manure should be free of weed seeds. Compost, sta- ble manure and muck, half and half, well de- composed and fined, is the best general fertil- izer. Liquid manure is one of the very best inducers to rapid growth. Sink a cask in the ground in some out-of-the-way corner, but of convenient access, and into it deposit all the house slops and any other liquid manure. Keep it well covered, and reduce it as applied. Onions. — Sow seed in rich well prepared soil. Yellow and white varieties are usually better flavored than the large red, but the po- tato onions are the best of all for table use. These are offsets from bulbs, which should be planted one foot apart each way, in rich, mel- low soil, and the soil be kept loose and clean. Top onions and "rareripes" are set in similar soil, three to six apart, and rows ten to twelve inches. Parsnips. — Sow in deep worked, rich soil, in drills, eighteen inches apart, thinly cover- ing the seed half to three-lburths an inch and firm well. The seed is a long lime coming. Radishes. — Sow in warm, rich sandy soil, protected fiom cold ; water with liquid ma- nure, to induce rapid giowth; a slow-grown radish is usually tough and woody. Sow seed in any vacant place. Sow at intervals for a succession. Seeds — So far as possible test all before Using. Sown in wet cotton in a glass or in moist soil, kept warm, they sprout in a few days, at most. Strawberries, and other small fruits may now be planted out, pruned, tied up, dug about and manured, if not already done. ToM.vTOES. — Sjw seed in hot-bed, or in boxes of soil, to be kept in the sunny window of a warm room. Gen. Grant, Dwaif Pro- lific, Crimson Cluster, Kegee Improved, King of Tomatoes are ihe best. Tools. — A few durable, light and good tools ought to be an appendage of every garden, 160 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April and these should be kept in perfect working order. Clean them every time after being used, as soon as done with, and put away in the tool room, under cover, where they will keep dry. VV. II. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. For the New England Farmer. AHBANQEMENT OP BABNB. DlfCUSSION BY THE RANDOLPH, VT., FABMERS' CLUB W. W. Walbridge. Twenty years ago there were but two barns with basements within two miles of this village. They are convenient for saving manure, and are eco- nomical because they afford additional room without increased expense in covering. For- merly little was done to save liquid manure, row every good farmer uses some absorbent to utilize the whole. Where one roof covers all the fodder and shelters all the cattle much time is saved in "doing the chores." Rufas Nutting. In building barns refer- ence should be had to the comfort of cattle and the convenience of those who tend them. The size of stables should be in proportion to the number of cattle kept in them. An ani- mal's body will warm a space containing five times the number of cubic feet that its body occupies. I would not heat my stables to 60° or 65°, as is recommended by some, but would never have frost in them. I would never allow animals to stand on an inclined floor, as it is unnatural ; prefer grooves between the planks to allow the liquids to run oflf. Elijah Blodgett. Were I to build again, would clapboard my barn as much as my house ; would never hang a door on rollers at the top, as they are continually getting out of order ; would have a good number of win- dows, as light is conducive to the thrift of all kinds of stock ; would finish off a root cellar in the basement. In some localities, would arrange a driveway over the beams, but on level land the profit of this would not pay the expense of construction. Roofs covered with slate will last for generations, but in these matters farmers must be governed by the length of their purses. G. F. Nutting. I know of scarcely a barn in tbis vicinity that fairly answers the pur- pose for which it was built. On the Winooski liver there are some of the nicest barns to be found in this State. My ideal barn contains the greatest amount of storage for the surface shingled, and has an upper driveway, that the crops may be pitched down into, rather than up on to the mow. The proper arrangement of the stables would be not so much for the convenience of the stock as for the man who owns it. Cattle are just as comfortable if their food is carried three rods through the mud 1o tbem, but the one that carries It is not. J. W. Carter. Our barns are too far from ourhou:es; it is irksome business to wade rods through the snow to do our chores. All animals love the sunlight, and the more win- dows the better. When the sun shines, my lambs crowd together in it, and seem really to enjoy it. Samuel Howard. To obtain good crops from our exhausted soils, we must save all our manures, hence we must have basements. I would as soon think of building a house without a kitchen as a barn without a base- ment. It should be about eight feet deep, and then if one is lucky enough to own a muck bed, he can tip up his cart and unload without danger of breaking either the cart or his head. I would not undertake to fiaish a root cellar in the basement. It is difficult to make them sufficiently warm to be of use ; the frost heaves and cracks the mortar ; the doors swell and will not shut, leaving crevices to let cold air in, and your roots freeze. A sta- ble for cows should contain a platform four feet five inches long, for the cows to stand on, then a drop of five inches ; it should be roomy and well ventilated, not kept too warm by steaming manure or the breath of the cows. J. Mclntyre. Stable floors should slant a little backward. I believe it natural for cat- tle to stand with the head up hill. I fre- quently notice my cows standing with hind feet off the platform, four inches lower than their forward feet ; and it seems to rest them. A correspondent asks the following ques- tions : — 1st. How to freeze water running at the door to fill an ice closet ? 2d. Can anything be saved by feeding corn in the ear to store cattle, instead of grinding it P 3d. Which are cheapest, tin sap tubs at 33 J cents or good painted wooden ones at 25 cents ? Answers solicited, addressed to the Secre- tary of Farmers' Club, Randolph, Vt. J. J. w. Labor in Agricultural Colleges. — Prof. Johnson, of the Maine College, says : — "That the labor system is a benefit to the students, is very apparent. Aside from the amount earned, the labor performed keeps up industrious habits, promotes health, is to a certain extent a source of instruction to the student, and prevents that wide disseverance from manual labor and distaste for it which is so observable in the graduates of our old col- leges. Besides, we think it plainly observable, that a few hours of labor each day makes the student more quiet and studious during the hours devoted to study. The time spent in labor would in most cases be spent in idle talk and In various kinds of recreation, per- haps of dissipation. Labor is the 'safety valve' for the overflowing animal spirits. There has been observed a remarkable willingness on the part of the students to engage in all the kinds of work required to be done." 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 161 MSADOWS AND SWAMPS. UR fathers, in (he early part of the seventeenth century, settled near tide water, at Boston, Dor- chester, Charlestown, Newton and Salem. As their number increased, they sent out parties into the surrounding country to select suitable places for settlement. They pursued their way through pathless for- ests, wading the swamps, crossing the bridgeless streams, and climbing hills, and when they found a level tract cleared of trees, which had been cultivated in corn by the Indians, they selected it as the centre of a settlement, especially if it was near a stream of water. They inferred that if it had been cultivated by the Indians, it must be good land. Did not the Indians know what was the best land ? So they settled on the borders of these old, worn-out plains, and planted their corn. They had but few implements and those of the simplest form — clumsy hoes, and wooden spades, or shovels shod with iron, were almost the only tools they had. Of course their cultivation was of the rudest kind, and it is no wonder that their crops were poor. But they were observing men, and they soon learned that although the lands they first planted were easy of cultivation, yet they would }ield but little reward for their labor. As their means increased and they obtained cattle and horses, and built themselves ploughs and carts, they began to cut down the forests and plant where the soil was enriched by the decay of vegetables for centuries. This vir- gin soil returned large crops, with even the slightest cultivation. They used but little ma- nure, and when the soil began to show signs of bting exhausted, they cleared another field and traubferred their cultivation to that. But as in every new country, so in this, the process of exhausting the soil came to an end ; and farmers learned by hard experience that if they would have the soil feed them they must feed it ; yet many of them have not yet learned this lesson, except in theory, and so they con- tinue to try to force a hard, dry and exhausted soil to yield a crop without furnishing it the means of doing so. Now Nature has done better for them than they know. There is virgin soil all around them, — that is, soil made up of the debris of vegetable matter, — that has not been exhausted by constant cropping, accumulated in the meadows, swamps, and ponds. Almost every farm in New England has rich mines of this material, which have not yet been worked, and many of them inexhaustible mines, capable of making their owners rich and thriving farmers. It has been truly said that he who has a peat bog cannot be called a poor man. Now this mine of wealth may be worked in two ways. One way is to transfer it to the dry and hun- gry soil in sufficient quantity to restore the waste which has been caused by long continued cropping, either directly, or by composting it with manure or other materials, and mix it with it by means of the plough and the harrow, until a deep and mellow tilth has been obtained to eustain the growing crops, and then by means of mineral materials, restoring what the soil has lost. The other way, and that to which we would specially call attention at this time, is the draining and cultivation of the meadows and swamps themselves. Turn out the worn-out soils to pasture, or allow them to grow up to wood, and give your strength and attention to your low grounds, which have never yet been broken by the plough. When we see a far- mer employing his leisure in digging ditches, or putting in tiles, or spreading sand or gravel on his meadows, we set him down as a thriving man, as one who will succeed. He knoivs where his labor will pay. Most of these low lands may be drained. Let them be well sur- veyed; ascertain where is the best out-fall, and how deep it must be made, and then set about it with a will, even if the main ditch has to be made four or five feet in depth. Having made the main drain, then make as many side drains as may be necessary to take off all the water standing within two or three feet of the surface. Tiles will be best in most cases, for the bide drains. These will take up no land, and will be out of the way of the plough and the mowing machine. This is probably the most effectual and permanent method of re- claiming these lands. The draining accom- plished, the subsequent treatment must depend 162 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April upon circumstances. In some cases, top-dress- ing, seeding and harrowing will be best. In other cases, ploughing and cultivating hoed crops until a good tilth has been obtained. Where the soil is sufficiently dry and free from stones and stumps to allow of the free use of the plough, this will generally be found the best method, and will most speedily destroy the sour and worthless grasses. The ultimate object of reclaiming such lands is to get them into a condition to yield large crops of good grasses, as this is in general the most profita- ble use to which they can be devoted. During the process of reclaiming, potatoes will generally be found the best and most profitable crop for cultivation. Such lands when once brought into good grass will be found the most profitable land on the farm. After the water grasses have been effectu- ally rooted out, they will not require frequent ploughing, but should be kept in good condi- tion by top-dressing with stimulating manures as ofcen as may be required. Good loam composted with air slacked lime, or plaster, will be found a good top-dressing once in two or three years. The products of such lands will be found the best means of enabling us to keep more stock, and renovating our drier and worn-out lands, and upon them we must depend for ac- complishing this most necessary purpose. In- deed we see no other means by which it can be done permanently. Commercial manures may aid us in the work ; but our old lands are exhausted not only of mineral elements of fertility, but of carbonaceous elements as well, and they need a supply of stable manures and decayed vegetable matter to yield the humus, the staple food of plants. This must be ob- tained by feeding to stock the grasses from our low lands, as the basis of our firm improve- ment. To this we may add superphosphate, bone, lime, plaster and ashes, and by a perse- vering use of them we may again take large crops from lands that now yield but a scanty reward for our Ubor. But we must begin at the bottom and first reclaim our low lands. These lands, well reclaimed and enriched, are the very best soil for the cultivation of strawberries, cabbage, celery, and many vege- tables for the market, and the market gardener will find in them a source of profit for which he is looking in vain in dry and exhausted soils. Such lands demand immediate, persistent and skilful attention, and it is through them that the labor of the farmer is to secure a satisfac- tory reward. For the New England Farmer, A VERMONT FARMER. Young people who have been brought up on farms in New England are much in the habit of contrasting unfavorably the profits of the farm with those of the trades and professions ; and many New England farmers contrast as unfavorably their advantages with those of the tillers of the prairies of the West. They dwell on the rough surface and hard soil of their farms, and the meagre returns which some- times so poorly rewards their toil and risks and investments, without duly considering the advantages they enjoy of proximity to mar- ket, variety of products, good society, healthy climate, &c. Though here in Vermont we are more remote from cities and manufacturing towns, than the farmers in some of our sister States, it is believed that the industry and self-denial submitted to by the pioneer settler at the West, would be rewarded as richly here as there. I think there is danger of indulg- ing these discontented feelings till we come to lose faith in the fact that here, as elsewhere, industry, economy and a good name are the best capital, — the surest means of success ; and that labor, when judiciously applied to farming, is sure of an ample reward, — as sure and as ample as when applied to the specula- tive and distributative departments of trade, in which men hope to avoid the edict that ''by the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." As an example of the reward which the soil of Vermont offers to the exercise of persistent industry, applied and guided by intelligence and an honest and faithful purpose, I will give J ou a brief history of one of your subscribers, Mr. John Quinlan of this town. He was born in Tipperary county, Ireland. Ilis father, several of his uncles and other near relatives were either [stewards or herdsmen for large landed proprietors, and hence he was early in life familiarized with stock breeding and stock dealings while his moral habits were ii fluenced by the teachings of Father Mat- thew, and the direction of his mind by the eloquence of Daniel O'Connell, to whom he often listened. Coming to America at the age of twenty, with scarce a shilling in his pocket, his good sense and mother wit soon won for him the confidence of men who were able and willing to give a good word, which is all anybody ever gave him ; though I see I am about to perpe- trate an Irish Bull, since even that was never given, as he most emphatically earned it by his faithfulness and punctuality in all the en- gagements of his early life. Among bis first homes about the time of his 1870. NEW ENGLAITD FAEMER. 163 marriage, which was soon after his majority, was the family of il. S. Morse, of Shelburn, a farmer of rare taste and energy, well known as Presidtnt of the Vermont S.ate Agricultu- ral Society, — with whom he spent several years. He was next employed by Hon. Ezra Meeoh, one of the largest land owners and wealthiest farmers in the Cbamplain Valley. Here he remained, either for wages or as a tenant, until afcer he had accumulated not only a snug little sum of money, but a house- ful of promising bojs, when he made a pur- chase ot a small piece of land, — less than fifty acres, — and commenced to make himself a home. Mr. Meech continued to employ him to make large purchases of live stock for his broad pabtures, and with him he remained as a tenant, retaining his first purchase of real estate, until he had an opportunity to secure one of the best grazing tracts in the neighbor- hood, when his first purchase was sold. With an invalid wife he moved on to his new farm, giving shelter to an older brother and family who had followed him to America. But his prospects were soon darkened by the destruction of his buildings by fire, which ori- ginated from a pail of ashes set in an outbuild- ing. This brother lost Lis life in this fire, in his daring attempt to stay its progress, and his sister, at the peril of her own life, rescued three little children, so badly burned that only one of them survived, which was adopted into the family of the bereaved uncle. Notwithstanding the outlay necessary to provide a shelter for a large family, Mr. Quinlan was not disheartened, but repaired the wastes of the fire as well as he could, and went forward with the cultivation of his land. Soon afterwards, as he raised stock of his own, he took it to Cambridge market, and gradually added to his other business that of a drover, in which he of course met with the sharp competition of those who were already established in the business, so far at least as he purchased of others. But here, as in the management of his farm, his good judgment, indefatigable industry, fair dealing and hon- esty of purpose secured the respect of his as- sociates at home, on the road, and at market. Without detailing more minutely his busi- ness history, we will merely add that he now owns in "fee simple" one thousand acres of Champlain Valley soil, embracing meadow, pasture, and woodland, and that his home is in the midst of one of the most prosperous and enterpiising communities in Vermont, and one which appreciates and honors him as a citizen and neighbor, — an appreciation and honor that has been manifested by entrusting him with public business and ofKcial duties. Though not sympathizing politically with the party in power, he sent two of his sons into the army, to sustain the free institutions under which he had so signally pro.«pered. Adhering to the religious faith of his fathers, he has bsen liberal m support of the services of the church in his neighborhood, which may be said to have grown up under his fostering care. And now, young men of Vermont, you who have been brought up farmers, allow me to ask what advantages Mr. Quinlan enjoyed or now enjoys, of which you are deprived ? And also, \\ hat do you think you will be likely to gain by changing location or business? W. Charlotte, Vt., March, 1870. MAPLE SUGAR MAKING. The great secret of sugar making is in be- ing prepared when the season opens ; so con- triving the operations of manufacture as to make them the least laborious ; to care for the preservation of the forest, and save all the sap that is taken from the trees. There is probably no greater source of loss in sugar making than the waste of sap, and the waste usually comes from leaky store troughs, neg- lect, carelessness in gathering, and small buck- ets. How often does the farmer find, when going to the woods, "everything running over?" How long they have been doing so is not known, and therefore no correct esti- mate of loss can be made. But we can deter- mine with some accuracy the loss attending the use of small vessels. We will suppose that in one-half of the camp tin pans, jars, or troughs are used which will hold but six quarts each, and in the remaining half buckets which will hold sixteen quarts each. Now, when the gathering has been neglected until the larger buckets are full, which will ordina- rily occur several times in a season, there has been a waste of tf^n quarts at each of the trees having the small vessels, and supposing that number to be two hundred, there has been a loss of two thousand quarts, or five hundred gallons of sap, which, at a safe calculation, would have made one hundred and twentn-Jice pounds of sugar. A number of years ago we knew a man who was particularly noted for the amount of ma- ple sugar he made every season per tree, so much so that it was asserted he could get more sugar out of creek water than others could out of sap. When this man was asked for the secret of his success, ho replied, *" I save all the sap."' — Ohio Farmer. Metallic Doou-Mat. — A new door-mat or scraper, has been recently invented in Eng- land. It is made of cast-iron, steel, or other similar metal. Its form is that of a trellis, the upper edges of which are sharper than the lower. It can be laid op a box, to receive the dirt which falls oflf from the shoes. The op- enings of the trellis may be of various sizes. The invention seems likely to be of use ; it is very simple, and, no doubt, will remove all dirt from shoes or boots more effectually than the ordinary scraper. — Manufacturer and Builder. 164 "NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April MOUNTAIN SEEDLINQ GOOSEBERKY The statement made by J. B. Moore, Esq., in his essay on the culture of small fruits, re- cently published in the Farmkr, that the fruit growers of the town of Concord, situated twenty miles from Boston, received the past year, after deducting commissions, about eight thousand dollars, will be likely to ar- rest the attention of farmers and others in the vicinity of good markets. Mr. Manning of Reading, Mass., states that seven dollars and fifcy cents per bushels were eagerly paid, for bottling, by a Boston Fruit Preserving Company, for a lot of fifty bushels of the larger varieties of currants, and thirty-five cents per quart were readily obtained for the Cherry and La Versaillaise varieties, at retail. For the purpose of suggesting the more exten- sive cultivation of small fruits by those within the reach of good markets, we present this week a cut cf a gooseberry, which was ori- ginated several years ago in New Lebanon, N. Y. The Gooseberry likes a good, deep, moist soil, says Mr. Fuller in his Small Fruit Cul- turist, but one that is not really wet. A rich soil is also essential, because it is only by keeping up a vigorous growth that large fruit and abundant crops can be secured. An open, airy situation is better than one that is con- fined, and in many sections of the country the north side of a hill would be far preferable to a southern exposure. The extreme heat of summer has been the greatest impediment to the successful cultivation of the English Gooseberries, and to counteract (his, the cool- est available situation should be selected. Also, in enriching the ground, use no fer- menting manure ; apply none but that which is old and well rotted. Cow manure is far bet- ter than horse manure, particularly on light, warm soils. Mulching the plants in summer is very beneficial, and if tan bark or spent hops from a brewery can be obtained, they should be used in preference to hay or straw. Good culture is required to produce good crops, the same as with other fruits. Mildew is the great trouble in growing the gooseberry. Old plants are more subject to this disease than new ones. The following remedies are recommended. Scatter flour of sulphur over the bushes soon after the berriea have set, and repeat the application occasion- ally until the fruit is ripe. Water the plants with strong soap-suds, or dissolve one pound of potash in a barrel of water, and then sprin- kle the plants once a week with it. Soak fresh mown or dry hay in brine for twelve hours ; then cover the entire surface of the soil about the plants with this, as a mulch. If hops, tan bark, or other mulch has previously been applied, (hen sprinkle it with salt; a sin- gle handful to each plant will be sufficient. 1870. KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 165 FARMEH'3 CONVENTIONS. In MaBsr.chueelU — New Hampehirc — Maine— Effects of — A rew gpiiit arouftd — Mm find new powers in themselves — How lusting inapressions are made on the mind — Value of a New Hamp.<\hiie meeting — New practice in hay making approved — Capt. Tay- lor'e btatement. The winter meetings among farmers which have been held in most of the New England States, for several years past, have met with general favor, and are producing excellent re- sults. Nothing that has yet transpired, hav- ing for its object the promotion of our agri- cultural interests, has accomplished so much in so short a space of time. The meeting of the Massachusetts Board at Amherst last win- ter, and at Pittsfield the present season, brought out an amount of talent and interest in the cause that proved the existence of an under current of thought, comparison and ex- periment, which surprised the most sanguine. The meetings of this season and of last winter, at Manchester, N. H., under the man- agement of the officers of the Slate Agricul- tural Society, were distinguished by the at- tendance of large numbers of people, who manifested a deep interest in the objects which were brought under consideration. All the sessions had attentive audiences, and many farmers who had rarely, or never, perhaps, spoken in public, took part in the discussions, and gave them great force by their practical illustrations and statement of experiences. This single point accomplished, and no other benefits derived from the gathering, would have been one of signal success. Our interest is usually in matters in which we are personally engaged. We may listen atten- tively to the eloquent teachings of others, and be gratified and instructed, and bear away in the memory many pleasing and useful facts, but they have little weight compared with what they would have, were we in turn, to enter the lists ourselves, express our own views and press their truthfulness and import- ance upon others. This is what will excite new thought, enliven the imagination and fit the mind to be impressed by facts presented to it. Many a man has returned to his home from these winter meetings with the consciousness that he possesses powers unknown to himself before, and this consciousness elevates him in his own estimation, as well as in that of his friends. They are, to him, new powers. Of what use would the most important thought be to the world, if there were no power of ex- pressing it, or the most ingenious device for saving labor, building houses, or ships, or railroads, or anything else? We have no doubt that the late meeting at Manchester will be worth more than the gift of $50,000 in gold deposited with the Treasurer of the State. The meeting of the Maine State Board of Agriculture, at Augusta, last winter, that at Bangor in the autumn, and the recent meeting at Lewiston, are all of the same character, and will have an immense influence upon ag- ricultural interests. At Lewiston it was pleasant to observe how every department of the f^rm found some able advocate, and how thoroughly many theories had been tested, and were approved or con- demned. For two or three years past occa- sional paragraphs have appeared in the papers, stating that grass which is merely wilted may be housed and preserved in good condition, and that, so cured, it retains its grass qualities, and is some ten to twenty-five per cent, bet- ter than when cured in the old way. It was not generally supposed that this new process bad been thoroughly tested by any New England farmer, or that the practice would ever become general. But in the meet- ing at Lewiston, a dozen persons expressed their belief that this process was the true one, and stated their experiences in curing grass in this way. Some of them had been in the practice of curing their grass so for years. One of them Capt. Taylor, of Winthrop, as may be seen by our report of the meeting, gave minute details of his hay-making for ten years in succession, and after all this experi- ence, stated that grass cured by wilting only, and then stowed in large quantities in tight barns, is worth twenty five per cent, more than grass made into hay in the old way. In a similar manner the modes of managing several other crops passed under review, and old and new practices were compared, and ap- proved or condemned according to the con- victions of the speaker. We trust these meetings will be continued. They have not yet reached the class that needs their influences most. Progressive men, those who make the same number of acres support one more animal each succeeding year, who 1G6 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April read books and newspapers which treat of their profession and are proud of their calling, have made up most of the audiences so far. The good inrtnence of these winter meetings must be extended, until the most indifferent now, shall become among the most zealous. NE."W PUBLICATIONS. Seventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the MaBsachusetts Agriculiural Colk-ge, Janu.ry, 1870. To an encouraging and hoptful review of the past years' operations of this institution, are added a Catalogue of Trustees, Overseers, Faculty and Students, the Course of Study and In- struction, Financial Statement, &c. Tne Junior class numbers 35, the Sophomore 41, the Fresh- man 24, Select Class 19; total 119. While it is regarded as desirable that the students should go through the regular four years' course of study, provision is made for the instruction of those who are unable to do so, in any of the studies for which they are qualified, during a single term or longer, as they please. We think this is a very important feature in the college. To a great number of far- mers' lioys the college thus becomes practically an academy or high school. Here one can spend the winter months, or any other time at his com- mand, and cnjijy the advantages of the apparatus, the professors, the lecurers, &c., which the insti- tution affords, and thus with little expense of money or time, may have put into his hands the "key to the door of knowledge," which President Clark says in his report is the great object of all instruction in the college ; or at least may get the key to the door of some particular branch of knowledge. Ifa young man wishes for the key to the door of chemistry, Dr. Goessmann will re- view bis lessons and illustrate the principles of the science in the college laboratory ; if he would open the door that leads to a knowledge of the diseases of domestic animals. Prof. Law will di- rect and aid his studies by all the appliances en- joyed by those who pursue the regular course; if he wants instruction in Botany, President Clark himself offers his services as instructor, with the use of an extensive herbarium and of the Durfee plant-houte, with about one thousand live and growing specimens ; and the same may be said to those who desire to make a specialty of any other science embraced in the regular course. The students of the regular classes are required to work six hours a week without compensation, and are allowed to work, at ten to twenty cents an hour, as much as they please, provided their stud- ies are not neglected. Among the results of ordinary operations on the college farm of 384 acres, during the past year. President Clark mentions the laying down to grass of about flfteen acres, the hay crop of one hundred and fifty tons, seven hundred and fifty bushels of corn, six hundred of oats, and six hundred of po- tatoes. The College now owns good specimens of the four principal breeds of cattle. The Short- horns are represented by a bull. Mountain Lad, bred by Augustus Whitman, of Fitchburg; a cow, Young Acacia, bred by G. Munson, of Hunting- ton ; a heifer, Yarico 57th, from the herd of Paoli Lathrop, of South Hadley ; and another, Autumn Rose, Irom that of Phineas Stcdman, of Chicopee. The Dev'ons are from the stock of E. H. Hyde, of Stafford, Conn., and consist of a bull, General Lyon, and two cows. Gem 3d and Winona 2d. The Ayrbhircs are a bull, Colfax, bred by H. S. Collins, of Collinsville, Conn.; and a heifer, Lulie, bred by H. F. Hills, of Amherst. The Jerseys con- sist of a bull, Essex, from the herd of Charles G. Loring, of Boston ; a bull calf, Enterprise, bred by James Thompson, of Nantucket ; and a cow, Lucy, from the stock of Henry Cobb, of Amherst. Be- tides the above-named, thoroughbred animals, the College has about forty natives, mos:ly cows, and steers designed for slaughter. There are also upon the farm twenty-five fine Southdown sheep, from the stock of Thomas Buffum, of Newport, R. I., and twenty-four swine of the Suffolk, Berk- shire and Chester County breeds. The teams consist of two pairs of oxen and five horses. Much other work has been done in underdrain- ing, road-making, planting trees, vines, &c. Students pay term-bills to the amount of $54 per annum, and the absolute necessary cost of a residence at the institution for a year, aside from clothing, it is stated, will not exceed $250. The American Herd Book, containing Pedigrees of Btiort-horne-i C-ittle, with Introdu :'.ory N'tes, by Lewis F. Allen. Vol iX. Part I.— Bulls; Partll— Cows. Buffalo: Warren, Johneon &Uo. 1»70. The disposition that has been manifested by agricultural societies to confine their premiums for thoroughbred stock to animals with a herd- book pedigree, and the superior price which such animals command, will undoubtedly excite a greater interest in herd-books than has heretofore been manifested by cattle breeders. The present volume contains about 5386 pedigrees, a much larger number than any previous volume, and about the same as that of the last volume of the English Herd-book. American Short horn breed- ers are congratulated on the increasing popularity and profitableness of their herds, and Mr. Allen says, "It has been conclusively ascertained that our American breeders have fully maintained, if not improved the quality of their stock over those of the same tribes and strains of blood retained in England. Some of the most eminent among Eng- lish breeders have, in several instances, sent to America for Animals descended from some of their own choice tribes, years ago imported here, with which to re invigorate the blood of their na- tive herds. Such facts settle the question, not only of the adaptability of our country to the in- crease and thrift of the cattle themselves, but that our American breeders possess the skill and ability to develope them in all the nobility and excel- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 167 lence of which their race is susceptible. So well established have become their merits in all parts of our country where good grasses abound, that no hesitation is now indulged by those who want the best breed of cattle for gen- eral purposes, to select the Short-horn as fitted for their uses. The future demand for them, as our broad Western country increases in set- tlement and cultivation, must be almost illimit- able. Never were the prospects for their sale so promising as now." The American Botanist and Florist: including LefB' DK !.■ tilt S rurture> Life, and Growth of Plants; toift ther with a Simple Analytical Flora, deecriptive of tl^e Native ai-d Cultiv.-.ted J'lantB growintr in the Atlantic division of the American Uuion. By Al photifo Wood, A.M., Auth' r of the Closs book of Botany, &c. A. 8. Barnes & Co. New York and Chicago. 1870. 564 pagis, price $2,60, post paid. Our acquaintance with the author's Class Book of Botany, and a personal knowledge of his indus- try and devotion to his favoiite science, have pre- pared us for a favorable opinion of the more elab- orate volume, of which the above is the title-page. By avoiding repetitions and otherwise economiz- ing space, it was his purpose in preparing this work to furnish the student in botany with a com- plete manual within the compass of an ordinary duodecimo volume. Nearly 4000 species of plants are defined, and the text is illustrated by a large number of cuts. The volume is supplied with Latin and English indexes, glossary, &c. For the New England Farmer, "territohiaIj expansion." The time has come when such books as "Ten Acres Enough" seem to be considered all "bosh," and we see the notice of a books taking off the absurdities of such writers, entitled 'Five Acres Too Much." While the impracticability of the teachings of these writers is evident, the impracticability of making it profitable to cultivate so much land as we do, in the manner we do, is stril more apparent. Another fact is also apparent, — that an entire change in our farm operations is required to make farming a respectable business, when farms are offered at less than their buildings are worth, and that upon a glutted farm market ; while about every boy who "knows enough to go in when it rains," leaves the worn-out ancestral acres for some mercantile, mechanical, or professional calling. 1 have just been reading a suggestive arti- cle from an 18G0 Farmer. I can't tell the exact date, as the article was cut out. It is entitled "Farming on a Small Scale," bv which the author, "P. U. S.." East Bethel, Vt., evi- dently meant cultivating a small surface ; as I judge tlie profits were larger than most of our "large farmers" cm obtam. "P. C. S." did not give his neighbor's name, as that modest individual preferred hiding his light under a bushel. But here is what he tays : "His farm con.sists of only seven acres, jet the produce of that seven acres" (he says nothing about pasturing) "last winter, carried through, in the best manner, forty sheep, two cows, one horse, and he thinks he had hay enough left to have wintered two cows more. This winter he haa fifty-two sheep, one horse, one cow, and one yearling, while one acre of his land was laid down to grass so late this spring, that it pro- duced nothing, no grain being sown." And he goes on with some of the details of his management. (Wouldn't it be well to repub- lish that article, Messrs. Editors?) And wouldn't it be well to hear from you, now, Mr. "P. C. S?" "Such farmers," says "Re- marks," "are the pride of New England." In the September No. of the Atlantic Monthly, in an article entitled "Confucius and the Chinese," the author, probably Mr. C. C. Coffin, says : "Farms are small, of one or two acres ; and each family raises on its farm all it consumes." In regard to the strict correct- ness of all these statements, doubts may be en- tertained by some ; and no one wishes the people of this country to come down to the Chinese standard of living. Still, in the main, these statements are doubtless correct, and it requires something to live, even in China ; and instances can be pointed out in every town, where immense crops are raised from a small farm, with more profit than is obtained from much larger ones. However, the question is not altogether "what size shall a farm be," but rather "to how high a state of fertilization and cultivation should a farm be carried ?" One man may be able to carry on advantageously a hundred times more business than another ; and one piece of land may have a soil which will make a higher state of cultivation more profitable than another. A very le cby soil may, in some cases, be manured less heavily than a more re*^t ntive one, for the good reason that the fer- tilizing properties contained in the former are more likely to be carried below the reach of plant roots. Such soils may be manured lightly and often, and medium crops obtained with greater profit, than by the process of very heavy manuring, and laiger crops. At the same time most of our cultivated soils may be made to produce very heavily, with more profit from an acre with a double crop, than from two with a single one. Now, suppose I have a three acre lot, the soil being alike throughout, naturalhf ; and with a fall average capacity for the production of grass. Supposing the lot to be equally di- vided into three parts, we will say that one of the acres yields two tons of hay, while each of the other two, yields only one ton ; that is, two tons to both. Meanwhile the proportion of the different elements contained in the fertilizing materials used is the same, and such as to fit the t^oil for the growth of grass, and al.so to produce a permanent fertility of the soil — not like some of our concentrated ma- nures, which cause the production of a few immense crops, to the injury of the land. 168 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April Then, suppose I cultivate the soil of the diflferent parts of the whole field for a long term of years, maintaining each part in its present state of productiveness, annually tak- ing my two tons of hay from the best one acre, and the same from the other two ; which, I ask, would yield the most net profit ; the one acre yielding the heavy crop, or the other two, bearing only an equal amount. 'Jhe two acres, as they stand, may, indeed, be of more value than the one acre ; as each of them may, perhaps, be brought up to the standard of the other at a cost which will leave a profit sufl5cient to make them so ; but this does not interfere with the application of the principle. The one acre requires less cost for fencing. The toughness of the sward, may, indeed, make it harder to plough, according to its size ; but the whole expense is less. The se- curing of the two tons from the one acre, is at less cost than from the two acres. The amount of seed required is less, for the same surface, even, of the most fertile soil, and the cost of sowing proportionately small. Then there is the saving in removing stones, and, in fact, a saving in about every one of the de- tails connected with the business. If we were, however, to come to the false conclusion that the profits of the two parts of this field were alike, we should then want to know what were the costs of the two, including that of pur- chase, and of cultivation, up to the time of getting them into their present state. The cost of land, and of seed, and the la- bor of going through all the details except the application of manure, would be less on the single acre. The amount of manure and its cost would be greater. We think the diflfer- ence, on the whole, would be small, in an av- erage of cases. But it is not always practicable to buy just such a farm as we want, and we sometimes in- herit, or somehow get a few barren acres, which may be so mixed up with the good as not to be easily separated, while a mortgage and other incumbrances may hinder our pros- perity. If, with all these, a not very hardy physical constitution is ours, we may be led to study economy as it relates to the saving of labor, and the getting of a fair remuneration for the capital — time is money — expended on the soil. And we may conclude that millions of acres in New England are pastured, and otherwise cul- tivated, at a loss. Also that it is better to let much of our poorest land grow up to wood, and thus get a sure, though a slow profit, while time, labor and manure, are concen- trated in the higher cultivation of the better part. The same general principles may be ap- plied to the keeping of stock. Much of our poor stock should be rejected and the rest kept better. A roan may feed a cow just enough to keep the breath of life in her, without getting anything from her, or in any way increas- ing her value. Up to this point, we all feed our cows at a dead loss. Beyond it, if fed prop- erly, we feed to a profit, if there is any profit anywhere ! What stock you keep, keep well, and keep no more than you can so keep. You may cultivate a piece of ground just enough to get crops which will barely pay you for all the capital you invest on it. All below this point is a dead loss. If anywhere, the net profit is in cultivating your soil to a higher degree. As your means increase, in- crease your stock as you can, and keep it well. The same rule applies to cultivated land. There are thousands of farmers, who, had they bought small instead of large farms, and kept their encumbrances reduced, and also kept a small number of cattle, and made the best of what they had, would have made larger net profits, and been richer men, while they and their families would have had more time for recreation and for mental improvement, ;tnd been blessed with more of the comforts of life ; and their sons would not have aban- doned the farm for easier and more profitable employment. Another thing to be considered is, the bet- ter quality of crops where grown luxuriantly. John Johnston, the great western New York farmer, is reported as having said that the same weight of hay from luxuriant grass is more valuable than that of a light growth. And I think reason teaches the truth of this doctrine. Of course, luxuriant, heavy crops must be cut when young, fine and tender, so that the hay will be succulent and digestible, and before the sugar and starch made up from the carbon of the plant have become changed to woody fibre. The crops from a grass field may be often taken off at two cuttings instead of one, to a much greater advantage. Our grain crops are also of better quality from soil well enriched with organic plant food, and not too much strongly ammoniated manure, which sometimes, as in the case of wheat, tends more to the production of straw than of seed. The same may be said of potatoes. Min- eral manures like ashes, plaster, salt, bone, &c., do not cause them to rot. Probably Prof. Ville's statement, that a lack of phos- phate of lime, and of potash, and too much nitrogen, caused the rotting of potatoes, is about corn ct. An extensive use of absor- bents under our cattle, which no good tanner neglects, is a great economizer of fertilizing material, and a partial correcter of these evils. So we see judicious, as well as high manur- ing is required. Another disadvantage of poor manuring is, we have small potatoes, and other refuse crops, which are worth far less by the quantity than the larger and better productions of highly fertilized soils. Meanwhile, in the cultivation of our soils to the greatest advantage, and in the equaliza- tion of our crops for the various purposes of 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 109 summer and of winter feed, the practice of the soiling of cattle comes in, to a greater or less degree. Many of us can winter more stock than we can pasture. It is not neces- sary to soil wholly to correct this evil, or to hire pasturing in order to use up our winter feed at home ; but our cows can be fed in the stall, and their manure saved during a part of each day, in summer. The summer manure is of more value than that made during other season of the year. There are many farmers in this region who have good soils near their buildings, neglected and profitless, who drive their cattle to and from distant pastures daily, where the feed is poor both in quantity and quality. No wonder the boys leave the farm, and that it is finally sold at less than the buildings are worth. No wonder that such a system of far- ming has made many an honest, hard working, temperate, frugal family, to live in poverty all their days. O, that we could honor our father and mother that our days might be long in the land which the Lord our God giveth us, and at trhe same time not feel that we were dese- crating their memory by improving our sys- tem of agriculture, as mechanics have im- proved the various arts. Why is it that the farmer is so conservative ? Let us take the stone out of the bag. From one who has had sad experience, and is trying to improve, without leaving the farm. Franklin, Mass., 1870. r. a. SOME OTHER BUSINESS OR PLACE. Of all the men who till the soil, the man who don't expect to farm it long, is by far the poorest specimen. His fences are down, his freaky cattle run at large ; while the seeds of his foul weeds are blowing over all his neigh- bors' fields. He is always ready to borrow farming tools, but never ready to return them. His place is an eyesore in the neighborhood, and his example is to be dreaded by every thrifty farmer who has sons. A sailor who engages in a mutiny at sea is not more to be feared by his associates, than is such a man Half a dozen such men in a neighborhood will do much to demoralize a whole community of farmers. Next to the man who don't expect to farm it long, the man who expects soon to change his location is the poorest farmer that we know. He is likely to let everything go to rack and ruin. He has got his mind lixed on a location where crops grow with little or no labor being bestowed on them, and thinks to till fields on which an enemy has sowed no tares. He can't be expected to trim fruit trees, or to fuss with grape vines, when some one else is to eat the fruit that is to grow thereon. He expects to be a farmer all his days, perhaps, but he is tired of his present location, and counts all the labor spent in making labting improvements on his farm as so much laboi spent in vain. He is not ashamed of farming, but his faith in it points to fairer skies, richer soils, and broader fields than those he has been accustomed to. — Prairie Farmer. For the New England Farmer, THE SNOW FLAKE. BY ISAAC W. SANBOHN. O'er the meadow and the hill-side. On the mountiln aid ihe plain, Lightly falls ihe fleecy tnow-fluke, Falls to riee from Earth again, Happy In its stainless virtue, Crystal wanderer, clad with grace; Having for its steed the North-wind, Searching evury idle place, — Every place in the dominion Of the Froet-king and his reign, Where the mighty lakes and rivera Grope beneath his icy chnin. There in numbers vast and countless, Thousands, millions, by the way; Clothing Earth in spotless beauty, Garhered hosts of snow-fljkes lay,— Lay a blessing to the Earth-world, Shielding it from Winter's sting. Till the march of 1 ime advancing, Ufihers in the reign of Spring. FATTENING CATTLE. Mr. Bela S. Hastings, whose name is fa- miliar to the readers of our Cattle Market Reports, as one of the leading drovers from Vermont, gave his experience and observation in relation to fattening stock at a late meeting of the Caledonia County Farmers' Club : — He said the main object of the farmer was to get the most out of his fodder. It does not pay to feed grain to a poor creature, one that does not take on flesh rapidly. Farmers will do better to dispose of sui h stock for what it will bring, and procure animals of good style. He believed that onc-htif of the grain fed was wasted by not being fed to good cattle. Another important point is, farmers do not feed heavy enough. He would commence with as much feetl as they could bear at first, and then increase. In feeding twelve quarts of meal, the last four quarts are worth twice as much as the first four for fattening pur- poses. Some farmers complain that they do not get pay for tht; grain they feed out, but he had noticed that it was only those who fed light that thus complained. Whether the ani- mil was to be fed a short or a long time, he would recommend heavy feeding. Mr. Hastings said he knew of nothing bet- ter than corn meal. The cob is worth but lit- tle, if anything. Those persons of whom he 170 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Aprii. purchased fat stock, who were the most suc- cessful and made it most proHtable, were those who ftd meal largely. If a farmer has pota- toes or otber roots it is well enough to feed the^e in part, but a farmer will do better to exchange some of his roots for corn, than to feed roots altogether. It is important to feed regular I3' and not too often, as the stock will eat and lie down and ruminate. It is better to feed cattle but three times a day, and sheep but once. MILLET. The Pairal New Yorker gives the following statement by Mr. Whitman at a meeting of the Herkimer County, New York Farmers' Club :— Millet may be sown in June, after the time for planting corn, or, indeed, that for any other crop except buckwheat. It produces an excellent 3 ield, both of stalk and grain, and cattle like it better than hay. The seed is particularly relished by fowls, and it was a profitable crop to grow for this purpose alone. He said we have occa>ion many times to break up lands late in the season. Corn and other grain crops are not unfrequently de- stro>ed at a time when it would be too late to re-plant. In such cases millet could be used as a late crop with the be~t results. He found the average yield to be at the rate of twenty to twent\-tive bushels of seed to the acre, and one and a half tons of straw, after the seed was taken out. He always made a point of cutting millet while the stalk is green, and when harvested in this way cattle prefer it to hay. It grows to a good height, reaching to the shoulder, and may be cradled and bound like grain. Mr. \V. said he had not been very particular in taking all the seed f lOm the straw ; he did not care to do that. His usual course was to throw the bundles on the floor, beating out the seed that would shell readily with the flail. The straw, with the remaining seed, was then fed to his cows, and it produced the very best results. In feeding millet to domestic ani- mals he had not found it objectionable in any case except when used for horses. The seed was too riuh and o;ly for this purpose, and, as he thought, was the occasion of horses pass- ing too much urine. CoMFOUTABLE Stalls FOR Cattle. — One of the niObt disagreeable chores a farmer boy has to do is to tit down to milk a stable cow. lie feels cross and so does the animal, and the conseq'ience is he, does not get a lull flow of mi;k, and she is gradunlly dried up. To make your cow stabile comfortable, pin down a two inch plank where their hind feet stand, {)utr,ing an incti ttrip under the edge of it towards the cow's head so as to give it an inclination towards the aisle or walk. Now fill the space from this plank to the forward part of the stall with sawdust or some similar material to a depth of about four inches — a level with the upper edge of the plank. By this arrangement the excrements and urine are mostly dropped behind the plank in the walk, leaving a high, dry and warm bed for the animal. It is as easy for her feet as though she stood upon the sod of mother earth — as warm a bed as down to a human being. I have haa the fixtures in use about a month, and to-day the hams and flanks of my cows and calves are as clean and dry as in the sum- mer. About once a week there needs an ad- dition of sawdust to the bed. Just the com- fortable looks of the cattle in an evening when they are reposing upon their comfortable bed is worth many times the cost of the fixture. — W. H. Cavjldd, in Western Farmer. Preserving Beef. — Mr. Foster of Madi- son county, writes to the New York Farmers' Club, that in the first place he puts the beef in weak brine and soaks all the blood out of it, letting it remain therein a week or ten days, then for one hundred pounds of meat he pre- pares a brine of nine pounds of salt, two pounds of sugar, two ounces saltpeter, two ounces black pepper and six gallons of water. Boils and skims this and pours it hot upon the meat afcer it is packed in the barrel. In the spring he draws the brine from the barrel by tapping it at the base, scalds and skims it, adds a little salt and pours it on the meat agiin while hot; and he has no difficulty in keeping the beef nicely the balance of the season. If at any time the brine should begin to smell bad, it should be drawn off, scalded and skim'ued as before, and returned. Dr Hexa- mer had used the same receipt for many >ear3 with the exception of the black pepper, which he did not regard as essential to preserve the meat. If more salt was used than the amount specified it made the beef hard ; but the receipt would save beef perfectly. Good Teams — As a general thing, the teams of the farmers in Northern Ohio are too light. Mechanics, in selecting their power, act wi^er than farmers, for when they buy an engine, care is taken to get one heavy enough to do their business thoroughly ; but too often the farmer buys a cheap, light team that is not cap.^ble of performing one-half of the ne- cessary labor, and the result is, that he gets into the habit — which is indeed a matter of necessity — of gauging the depth of his f jrrow by the strength of his team, and as a result he impoverishes his farm, and realizes small crops, and finally becomes discouraged and tries some other business. 'J here is hardly any labor performed upon the f.irm with a team but that the firmer would realize the superior advantages of a large muscular team. I admit it will require more to keep such a 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 171 team than to feed a light fancy span, but the advantage gained in the increase of grain grown from thorough ploughing, and the time saved in dispatching other work, will make up the difference in feed many times over in a single season. — Ohio Farmer, EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. FOOT ROT IN IHEEP. I notice in the Farmer of the 22d Inst., that a brother wool grower, Mr. A.G. Noycs, of Lam-as- ter, N. H., setms disposed to criticise the manner of froatins? foot rot, as recommended bv myself in a la'e c )mmunication to your paper. He thinks I insi t upon "precision" and "eternal vigilance" to a degree not practicable in flocks of 100 sheep or mnrc — admlttinsr that it might do in a tmall lot of a dozen "fancy" theep. Thit admi-.'-im isall Icouldask. If themethod is practicable for a doz^n s-heep, why is it not for anv larger number? I was driven to thit "prc- cisioti" in treatment by a dozen failures, such as all men have experienced who have attempted to rid their flji.ks of tliis disease. I found I was con- suming a great amount of time, and experiencing no small amount of labor, in going over the flock in a supertifial manner, many times, and still the job was n >t done. I left vn-us enough for seed each time, and a gooi crop of sore feet was sure to follow in due season. We all know men, I dou.>t n )t, who keep foot rot in their flocks from year to year, and never get rid of it. The gen- eral practice wiih such men is to "docor" ihe sheep every rainy day, when it is convenient, "in the o d-fashioned," 'di ibolical" way, and so the trouble remains. Now I wish to assure mv friend Noyes, that the method I have proposed is as efF-.ctual for a large number as for a small one. He a-k-^, — "Bat how is ic in flocks of one to five hundred ? ' I cannot say how it would op.'ratc with five hundred ; but I do know that with four hundred ic will work I'ke a cbarm. I have per- sonally applied that "eternal vigilance" to taat number, but I never went any higner. And more ttian this, I can assure any man that I found le-s "back achms" in this method of treat- men', than in the olJ half-and-half way of going about it. Let any man say whi 'h involves the most labor, to go over one hundred theep as I have recom- mended ttoice and cure them, or to go over them eight or ten times carelet-sly and at uncertain in- terval-, and leave them in the end no batter than when tirst taken in hand. One word in regard to thij method recommended by Mr. Noyes. I think it a flood one. Tue greatest objection I see to it is, that it, is not aJa jted to winter use, — when the disease is apt to be the most persistent. I would like to inquire of Mr. Noyes, why, if lie depended as mu h upon the "brine" as upon the "t^olii ion of vitriol" — he did not depend alto- gether upon iho brine? And once more, If he has "filth in the curative qualities of tobacco," will he tell us in what those curative qualities consi-t? Henry BoY.NTON. Wooddock, Vt., Jan. 29, 1870. ■WHEAT CVLTURE — COMPOST FOR "WHEAT. In my article of August 21, 18G9, on "Wheat Cul- tuie, I promised to give your readers rny mode of cuitivaii')n. It may be proper for me to remark, In the tirst place, that I am but a small, or as some say, a one-horse farmer, having only about 8o acics of Ian i, all told. I have raised from live to ten acres of wheat yearly. 1 sometimes sow winter wheat, after corn, if the corn pets ripe, so that I can get in the wheat before the I5th of September; and if the ground is in a good state of cultivation, sufficient to raise 50 bushels cf shelled corn to the acre, I will get 2-5 bushels of wheat on an average. Still I have had the best success with turf ground, or inverted sod. Say, take a piece of mowing ground that will not cut more than 1500 pounds of hay to the acre, turn it over as smooth aspossiblcj during lowry weather, in haying and harvesting, not ploughing over six or seven inches deep at most; then roll it before putting on ihe harrow, so as not to disturb the sods; then harrow until it is mellow; letitlayuntilabout the 20th of August, and spread five or six cords of fine manure to the acre, if I have it. But if I have not the manure, I take fifteen bushels of wood ashes, five bushels of slaked lime, 300 pounds plaster, and three bushels salt, put it all in a cart, and niix by shoveling over. This makes the best compost or fertilizer that I have ever used for wheat. The above quan- tities are suffleient for an acre, and I think it is as good for the wheat as the five or six cords of ma- nure, on my land, and the grass is as good where the compost is used as it is where I put the ma- nure. Alter spreading on the manure, or compost, and harrowing twice in a pi ice, I sow two bushels of wheat, that has been soaked two hours in a strong brine, and dried off, with half a bushel of lime to the acre. I then harrow and cross harrow twice in a place, each way ; alter which I sow my grass seed and harrow once in a place lengthways of the furrow, then bush with a light bu-h, and finish by rolling smooth, and in nine years have not had but one crop fjil. Abju'. one-half of my land is a clay loam, and the other part a slate gravel. I have ten acres of winter wheat in the ground now, the most of it on tut f ground, sowed in Au- gust. Ttie growh last fall was very heavy, but it has been a bad, open winter, thus far, for winter grain, in old Vermont. NORWAY OATS. I sowed in the spring of 1868 three bushels of Norway oats on two acres of very rich ground, and gor43^ bushels that weighed twenty seven pou-ids to the bushel. I sold to Mr. Rainsdell at $1.25 per bushel. If I had sowed that same ground to wheat 1 should have got more bushels, and could have sold the wheat at ^2.50 per bushel. EARLY ROSE POTATOES. I planted May 14th twelve ounces of seed, mak- ing: seventf en hills of three eyes ea h, and dug .Sep- tember 14:h, ninety-tour pounds nic3 mealy hand- some potatoes; but 1 think that I hey will improve by planting, like all other seedlin:rs, until they have been planted ten or twelve years, for it takes from eight to twelve years for potatoes started from seid hails to arrive to full matuii y. Hartford, Vt., Jan. 25, 1870. It. II. S1MOJID8. CASE OF ABOUTIOX WITH COW. Nearly five weeks since, I butchered three hogs in my barn yard ; also, a beef in the barn. I had one cow to calve next April. The following morn- ing she lost a calf. On the third morning another caTf, making two calves. Was the scent of blood the cause? I have slaughtered hogs and cattle many times in the presence of cows in calf, but have never known any such results before. EARLY RISING HENS. I have ten hens, all in laying order. Six out of the ten invaria oly go to their nests before day- liuht in the mornine,— usually between half past live and six o'clock,— leaving their nests as soon 172 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. April as daylight comes, with an extra egg therein. They are Brahma fowls. OUR WINTER. The winter with us has been remarkably warm. Not one day of good sledding up to this date, though we have had several falls of snow of two or three inches at a time, followed by big rains. Hard for wood drawers. We use wagons, carts, sleds and sleighs all the same day. Unbanked cellars do not freeze. At this writing it is snowing smartly. PRICES OF PRODVCE Hay $12 and $\5 per ton ; corn $1.25 and $1.30 ; wheat $i'l.50 and $1.75 ; potatoes 50 cents per bush. ; butter 35 and 45 c nts per pound ; cheese, retail, 20 cts. per pound ; eggs 30 cents per dozen ; pork 12 and 14, beef 8 and 10 cents by the side ; wood, hard, $6 per cord. Business easy ; trade very cautious. H. N. Savage. White River Junction, Vt., Jan. 30, 1870. Remarks.— The legislature of the State of New York has expended large sums of money in the investigation, by the most competent men, of the causes of abortion in cows, but thus far without any very satisfactory results. For some myste- rious reason, cows seem to have been of late, in certain localities, at least, predisposed to this dis- ease. Your cows may have been thus predisposed, and hence the consequences of slaughtering ani- mals in the barnyard were different this year from those of previous years when your cows were healthy. It is considered very dangerous to subject cows with calf to the sight and smell of slaughtered animals. Their senseof smell is very acute, and the presence of fresh blood often greatly excites them, and is frequently the immediate cause of abortion. THE JOHN MORRILL HORSE. Will some reader of the Farmer give me the Earticulars in relation to this horse which is or as been owned in the northern part or Vermont. I would like to know his pedigree, color, weight, and general character as a horse. Such informa- tion will greatly oblige a great lover of a good horse. I have often wondered while reading the Farmer that more is not written of this noble animal. Excepting the memoers of one's own family, what is there on earth in which man has so much interest as the horse, — ever ready to do his bidding in sickness or health, in business or pleasure. And yet how often is he poorly fed and poorly cared for by his owner. A Reader. Dummerston, Vt., Feb. 4, 1870. Remarks, — \Vc cannot furnish the desired in- formation, but hope some correspondent will do so. We may, however, say that the Morrills be- long to a branch of the Vermont Morgans ; being the descendants of Bulrush Morgan, one of the three most celebrated colts of the original Justin Morgan. Among the Morrills, two horses known as Old and Young Morrill were the most cele- brated. According to the pedigree given in Stone- henge, McClure and Harvey on the Horse, Old Morrill had two crosses of Diomed and four of Messenger, and Young Morrill had two lines of descent from Justin Morrill on his dam's side. Young Morrill is sire of Draco, Fearnaught, Dan- ville Boy, Mountain Maid, Hiram Woodruff, &c. A SUCCESSFUL FARMER. When a man has achieved success in any busi- ness, profession or occupation, we naturally turn to him and inquiie. How was success obtained? What course was pursued, what s stem foll',wed ? A recent visit to the milk farm of Mr. M. N. Bruce of Acton, Mass., furnished ample proof that he had been successful. His farm, of about 200 acres, is situated three-fourths of a mile from the sta- tion, on the Fitchburg railroad, with a pasture of sixty acres about one mile frcim the homestead, where his dry cows and young stock are kept. His stock at present consists of twen'y-four milch cows, twenty-two head of young cattle, one yoke "of oxen and two horses. He devocs the whole produce of the farm to milk raisincr, and has made it a specialty since 1845. He now makes about twenty-four cans per day. He feeds at)out twelve tons of grain, besides what he raises upon the farm, and thinks wheat middlings the best feed for the health of his milch cows. He raises five or six calves yearly. He believes grade Ayr- shires the best cows for milk, and has recently purchased of G°o. M. Barrett, of Concord, Mass., a full blood Ayrshire bull. In 1852 Mr. Bruce built a new barn 40x100 feet and connected it by a shed and granary, 40 feet in length, to the house, which he has recently com- pletely renovated. He has commodious and con- venient buiidmgs, which, together with the barn cellar, are furnished with water by an aqueduct. Mr. Bruce has reclaimed ten acres of swamp meadow on which he cuts a large crop of English hay ; has completely renovated lifty acres of shrub oaks and whortleberries into rich and succulent pasture, and has laid new andrelaid old stone wall to the amount of 500 rods. All these and other improvements he has accomplished since 1840, at which time he purchased the farm which was then very much run out ; the buildings being old and poor, the fences much dilapidated, and the farm then would barely keep six cows. The capital which Mr. Bruce had at 21 years of age, was industry, honesty, economy and a strong will. With this capital he grappled with the farm as it then was, and now he is owner of the farm and stock as it now is, with something laid by for contingencies. Mr. Bruce attributes his success to making one branch of farming a specialty and to a jadicious application of the capital he started with. Littleton, Mass., Jan. 25, 1870. 8. A WEEPING CALF. — AL8IKE CLOVER. I have a last spring's calf that weeps constantly and has done so for two months. What can be done for it ? I wish to procure some alsike clover seed. Who has it for sale ? W. F. Jones. Worthington, Mass., Jan. 20, 1870. Remarks. — Weeping may proceed from disease, injury, or some foreign substance in the eye; bat from the description given we have no clew to the cause in this case. The alsike clover seed is for sale at the agricul- tural seed stores at about fifty cents per pound. OUR POTATOES. We raised this year the Early Rose, and a nicer, sweeter potato never grew ; Early Goodrich which sold well; Harrison, which also sold well, but which we dislike very much, on account of its strong taste; Davis' Seedling, which yielded well and sold well, but which we also dislike tor the same reason: the Gleason, which is in every respect a splendid potato, great yielder, large size, —no small ones to speak of,— rough skin, shallow 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 173 eyes, mealv, sweet, delicious, and ranks next to the Early Rose in every respect; and the New York Pfiich Blow, which is very nice,— some call it better thnn the Gleasim. How ciifTorent the pul)Iic taste is now in repard to potatoes, from what ic was twenty years aijo A potato, then, was a potato, and nothing more. Now they are prized according to their goodness; poor or even common ones, are discarded, and those nearest perfection chosen. s. b. 8. West Amesburi/, Mass., Feb. 7, 1870. "WASIIINGTOX OATS. I have an oat that came from Washington, where the liiar men go to get wisdom ; and whence seeds of different kinds are scattered through our land, some of which prove to be good. The kind that I have will weigh forty pounds to the bushel, and ripens a week earlier than the common variety. I think it will be a good kind to grow where they are apt to rust. Mine grew some live and a haif feet tall, stood up well to cradle, with long heads. stoat straw, a plump berry, not crotched like the common oats. I send you a sample of a number of bushels that I raised. A VENERABLE PUMPKIN. I Iiave a pumpkin that was raised in the year 1868, that is about as ficsli looking as it was the fall that it was taken from the vine. I think it was the largest one 1 raised. I kept it where it would not freeze in the winter, out of the cellar, and in the tnilk room in the summer. It bids fair to winter agam. LAYING HENS. 1 have twenty-five old bens and pullets from which I sold eggs in Uecember and January to the amount of twelve dollars and sixty-six cents, be- sides using a few new ones, though wc saved esrgs that were laid in the fall. I sold at from twenty- five to forty cents a dozen. I feed the hens sand, gravel, ashes, burnt bones, scraps and dry mortar, with messes of potato and crumbs from the table, some oats, plenty of India and buckwheat, with Eome corn that did not get ripe. I keep feed by them all the time, and give them water and sour milk. I have a room in one corner the horse shed, with a window for the liens to look out and the sun to look in. Here they lay and set, with a roost one side. Their droppings are saved and I have a large load of it now which will be good to put on the grass next spring, and perhaps some on corn and potatoes. We have less than a foot of snow on the ground now, with cold weather and good sledding, though we have had but little before this winter. H. Griffin. Essex Junction, Vt., Feb. 3, 1870. SEASONABLE CARE OF COWS. The time is now at hand when farmers should be thinking about their cows that are coming in. To have them do well, I say feed them with good hay, but not too much ; give them potatoes, turnips, carrots or beets, twice a week, with a little meal once a day, and keep them loose, warm and dry. When they drop their calves, if they do not clean well, send for some one to take it away. In bad cases it will create iiiliammation in twelve hours. Take a cloth or anything you please and pull lightly and cut it off, and it will disappear and pass off without any injury to the cow. Such has been my experience lor (illy years. In the course of that time I have been called on to as- sist in more than a hundred cases, and in only one did the cow fail of doing well, and that was when I took it away, resulting in inllamination, loss of flesh and failure in her milk. I resolved then that I would assist, but never attempt to force nature. If the Lord will, I may at a future time give directions how to manace in c se a cow or mare is unable to drop its young, with a de- scription of an in.-tvumcnt with which one man can do more thnn ten can without it. Brookfield, Vt., Feb., IbTO. V. Baker. BUTTERMILK AND PIOS. Will buttermilk cause a sow to cast her pigs? I have been told so bv a farmer. w. b. Cokasset, Mass., 1870. Remarks. — We do not think that buttermilk, or any other food usually given to swine, and in moderate quantities, will cause a sow to cast her pigs. The danger is, that breeding sows do not get a suflicient variety of food. During the whole time of gestation three things ought to be cart^fully observed ; and when they have been we have never known a sow to cast her young. First, access to the ground, and sufficient space to root about in it. Second, some kind of animal food, at least once each week, such as butcher's scraps, bits of fresh meat of any kind, with a little salt in the swill ; and Thirdly, a dry and roomy bed. When these conditions are observed, the sow will do well. CORN FODDER. If the statement of Dr. Loring be correct, what shall I plant for fodder ? w. b. Remarks. — We do not know. In the town where we reside, some fifteen hundred gallons of milk are sent to Boston every morning. Take away the corn fodder, and that flow milk of would nearly cease for two or more months. Nothing has yet been found to take its place. Fed on It. the cows continue their flow of milk, and keep in good con- dition during the trying time in August, Septem- ber and part of October, when the pastures have nearly failed. NORWAY oats. Please let me know where the Norway oats came from ? Are they what the Downeasters call the Maine oats, or the Poland or Norway oats of Europe ?" w. B. PkEMARKs. — The Norway oat is said to have been found in a package of Norway peas, distrib- uted by the United States Patent offu'e; but we believe that the name is claimed simply as a "trade mark," and not to indicate its origin. Last summer, we took especial pains to visit several fields which had croi)S upon them of Nor- way oats. The growth was remarkable in several respects. The average height of the plants wo thought would be nearly or quite four feet; the stalks were much larger than those of the common oat, and what is really wonderful, we found 40, GO, 100 or more stalks, which had evidently sprung (rom a single seed! Generally, the grain stood up firm and straight, ana presented a most luxuriant appearance. Another remarkable feature was apparent in every field which we visited ; the young grass, the teed of which had been sown wuh the oats, had a growth and apparent energy altogether un- 174 NEW ENGLAND FARjVIER. Apeil nsual. This was the case in every field we ex- amined. The impression left upon the mind was that a new cereal had been introduced which would prove valuable to the farmers of New England. Under these impressions our interest has con- tinued, and has led us to examine every parcel of them which has come to our observation in the agricultural exhibitions and other places, where we have been. What we want, is a heavy, well- formed, prolific grain or berry — not a stout over- luxuriant straw. This we have not yet found in a single parcel of the Norway oats. They bear no fair comparison with the "Surprise" oats, so called, in color, form or weight, as they stand side by side in the half bushel. The berry of the Nor- way is long, thin and light, and the centre small and covered by a large husk. What the compar- ative value of an acre of each would be we are not able to say. These tests will be made an- other season, perhaps, and then we shall know more about them. In the present spring sowing, then, we advise a careful comparison of the grain of several varieties, before sweeping away all others for one which as yet is but imperfectly un- derstood. When several experiments have been made on soil of the same quality, location, and manured and worked alike, and sowed with different varie- ties of oats, harvested equally well, cleaned up alike, measured and weighed, and their compo- nent parts carefully observed, then we shall have data upon which to decide of the merits of each. We shall be thankful for samples of a gill each of any varieties of oats that were grown last sum- mer, together with the names they bear. TEEDING STRAW TO STOCK. That there is a right and a wrong way to do everything is certain ; and that there is a good and a poor way to feed straw to stock I have be- come fully convinced. When my stock came to the barn in the fall, I concluded that I was short of fodder for the winter, unless I fed a large lot of straw that I had, which by the way was rather poor, having laid out in the rain a number of days while harvesting, and become badly washed and colored. When my stock came to the barn, I commenced to feed good early cut hay, which kept them gaining in flesh. After they were well into the winter I commenced to feed corn and poorer fodder, with some straw. But to make them eat the straw, or even half of it, was more than I could do without starving them to it, which I did not like to do. What I should do was a question to be considered. To get a straw cutter and cut all the feed by hand for twelve head of cattle was something like work. And to get a cutter to go by horse power was more than I felt able to do, so I commenced to mix hay and straw together. To do this 1 commenced by cleaning my barn floor and removing everything out of the way, so as to give me the full swing of the floor which was 12x40 feet. Then I shook over the whole floor a layer of good hay, then some wheat straw, which I sprinkled with water to which a little salt had been added ; then strewed one peck of meal, then some poorer hay, then oat straw, then good hay, then wheat straw again, to which I added the wa- ter and meal as before. This being done I took a fork and commenced at one end of the floor and shook the whole mass together, being sure to put the fork down to the floor so as to get it thoroughly mixed. After I had it well shook together I packed it back on the bay side of the floor, leaving a place in front next to the stable, to feed. This done I walked the length of the whole pile two or three times so as to prevent it from drying up. This pile fed ten head of cattle one week, with but very little waste. The time to do this work did not ex- ceed thirty minutes. Does it pay to cut fodder for stock ? S. B. Blodoett. Cabot, Vf., Feb. 14, 1870. hide-bound cow. I have a nice cow with very poor appetite — her hide seems to be hard and cracked — hide-bound. Please inform me what to do for her. A Subscriber. Holmes Hole, Mass., Feb. 7, 1870. Remarks. — 1st. Card your cow thoroughly twice a day. 2d. Every morning, after carding her, wash her all over with warm water, and rub her with a coarse cloth until the hair is dry. Perhaps a little sale- ratus in the water will improve it. 3d. Feed cut hay, roots, meal, &c. 4th. Every alternate day give her a table-spoon- ful of the following powder in her meal :— Nitrate of potash (salt-petre) one part Sulphur , two parts Bi-tartrate of potash (cream of tartar) . . . three parts Pulverize and mix. bursal swelling on a horse. What will cure a slight soft swelling just at the up- per side of the knee of a horse, caused by a bruise by breaking through ice. The horse was lame for a week, but i^e ntitely well now, except the swelling, which has remained now over a month, g. r. h. Champlain, N. F., Feb. 7, 1870. Remarks. — The soft swelling to which our cor- respondent refers, is a ganglion, or enlargement of one of the bursaee mucosa (mucous bags) which are found in the neighborhood of joints, being parts of the sheaths of tendons or sinews. It was, doubtless, caused by mechanical injury, as suggested. The best remedy is to paint the swelling twice a day with tincture of iodine or a strong solution of iodide of potassium, and keep a firm and constant pressure upon the swelling, by means of a plate of lead or pewter quilted into a properly constructed bandage. BLOODY MILK. Can you or some of your correspondents inform me what I can do to help a three-year-old heifer which has given bloody milk from one teat all the season since she calved last June. She is farrow, and gives milk now. Garget and saltpetre seem to do no good. Charles Woodman. NoHh Leeds, Me., Feb., 1870. Remarks. — The trouble in the case of this heifer consists in either inflammation or conges- tion of a portion of the udder. If there is inflam- mation there will be more or less unnatural heat in the part affected ; and in that case we advise 1870. JTEW ENGLAND FAII:MER. 175 bathing with cold water two or three times a day until the preternatural heat disappears, and then apply common iodine ointment twice a day, rub- bing it in with the fingers. If there is no unnat- ural heat the gland is congested, and the ointment of iodine may be used without the previous bath- ing. The ointment can be obtained of any drug- gist. A CALF ■WITH THE 8COUH8. I have a calf that is nearly a year old that has the scours, and is poor, and has been so for some time. Plea&e tell me what will be good to relieve and build him up. I have been giving him oats, but he will not- eat enough to do him much good. Benton, Me., Feb. 9, 1870. w. M. Remarks. — Card your calf twice every day, and feed him well cooked potatoes, with a little sweet milk added, if he will eat it as well, and a little cayenne pepper. If he continues to scour with this feed, give him some astringent, like a decoction of hemlock or white oak bark. If he has vermin, destroy them with carbolic acid or some other efficient remedy. HELIEVINO CHOKED ANIMALS. Sometime since I read the description of an apparatus for relieving choked animals, which in the main was correct. Having, seen a similar contrivance kept and used in the old country, I think I ean suggest an improvement on the broom- handle or wooden rod, recommended for forcing down the obstruction. Wet, roll, and sew to- gether a strip of sole leather of the desired length, and wide enough to be about an inch in diameter when finished, then get the tinman to rivet on to each end of the leather tube, pieces of lead so as to form an oblong hollow ball, soldered together, about an inch and a half in diameter, with one hole at the end of the ball and two or more holes in its side, through whitth the creature may breathe or gas escape, and you will have a flexible rod of sufficient strength to effect the purpose. In the one that I saw there, one of the end bails was left a little flaring, something like a tunnel, to fit more firmly to the obstruction in the throat, so that either end could be used as seemed most efficient. B. Connelly. Careyville, Mass., Feb. 9, 1870. C0T8W0LD SHEEP. Some time in November, 1868, 1 made mention of the eflbrts of T. W. Gordon, Farmington Falls, Maine, to improve his flock of sheep by the pur- chase of a thoroughbred Cotswold ram, of Burdett Loomis, of Connecticut. He then set himself to work to procure a flock of large sheep. After an extensive ride, and paying from five to seven dol- lars per head, he succeeded in obtaining some forty-six that suited him. Last summer he raised forty four lambs, of which he sold nineteen this last fall for $190; having twenty-five left, for some of which he has relubtd $20 each, scarcely oneof which will weigh less than 100 pounds. The wool on many of these lambs tuoasures tight to nine inches in length and is of excellent quality. The buck sheared 10^ pounds when a year old. La^t spring, when two years old, he sheared 13^ pounds ot clean wool, — not grease or tar, — and he weighed 300 pounds. Mr. G. has had extensive expi rience with sheep, and is, perhaps, as good a judge of them as any other breeder in Maine, and here perhaps lies the secret of his success. Good judgment in making selections for breeding is of as much importance as good care after selcctmg. Mr. G. informed me that he visited Canada last fall for the puipose of purchasing thoroughbreds ; examined many of the best flocks in the Domin- ion, but found none equal to the flock of Mr. Loo- mis. He found many flocks in Canada being thinned out by a disease called the "scours," which is slow in its progress, but very fatal. Mr. G. says his sheep are as docile and peaceable as any flock in the State, and manifest none of that roving disposition sometimes attributed to long wools by another class of breeders. They gave him no trouble last season, and he anticipates none the coming season. He is now well satislied that Cotswolds and their grades are the most profitable sheep for wool and iwutton. They are tough, hardy, easily raised and yield much larger re- turns than others. Zen. Springvale, Me., Jan. 22, 1870. MANURING FOB GKA8S. During the recent discussion in the Fakmer of the value of corn stalk fodder, it seems to have been generally admitted that when sown broad- cast or too thickly in rows, the fodder is of mfe- rior quality. May not the same principle apply to grass growing ? Do not farmers miss it by put- ting their whole stock of manure on to their land at once and stocking down to grass, and thus get- ting some three or four tons of what they call hay to the acre ? Would it not be for their interest to put on say one-third to begin with, and repeat it once in two years, and obtain from one and a half to two tons to the acre of good hay, such ai their cattle would eat all up ? In the first case they have no manure to replenish their land in case of winter kill ; in the last case ihey would have their manure to spread with a sprinkling of seed, then brush it over and all is right. Don't all speak at once, but consider the matter. V. Bakee. Brookfield, Vt., Feb., 1870. THE MOTHERS. Perhaps in no country and in no age have the hab- its of a people changed as greatly as have those of the people of New England during the past sixty years. Enjoying a happy, preen old age, I know a lady in Berkshire county, Mass., who when nine years of age, spun tow yarn of sufficient fineness and evenness lor the fiihng of a web of pocket- handkerchiefs ; at fifteen she spun a week for a neighbor for sixty-seven cents, with which she bought the stockings in which slie was married, and which she has lent to six other brides for the same purpose. She is expert in weaving diaper, coverlets, blankets, carpets, &c., also, with her needle as tailoress, dressmaker, and embroiderer, &c. She is a good dairy woman, and understands every process of butter and cheese makmg, from milking cows to serving as commute on the award of premiums at the agricultural fair. She is the mother of eight children, four boys and four girls. "The fathers, where are they i" and the mothers, where are ^Aey/ i. Cheshire, Mass., Jan., 1870. HOLDING ON TO THE FARM ANOTHER TEAR. Six months ago I had about decided to sell our farm ; but purchasers for farms ot 300 acres or more with good buildings, pleasantly located on the Connecticut river, are not near as numerous as for farms valued from $30U0 to $.3000. As I do not find the right man to buy, I must be niaking preparation for the campaign of the coming sea- son. And the first requisite to a successful prose- cution of agricultural UiUor is a good selection of agricultural papers; with these and a suppiy of 176 NEW ENGL.'VND FAK:MER. April good tools, implements and improved farm ma- chinery, with ii fair sh^irc of tact, sl^ill and enter- prise, aided by good health, one may become a suc- cesstiil furnur, "and independent so far as freedom from debt can nial?e a man so. Yet as every ex- perienced man knows 'tis a slow road to v/ealth, thougli sure to furnish a competency to the frugal and "mdustrious, which perhaps is a condition affording as mnch and perhaps more happiness than many others in life. William Child. Fairlee, Vt., Jan., 1870. LUNG DISEASE IX COWS. Mr. \V. D. Hall, of New Ashford, Mass., has lost two cows of some disease of tbe langs and one that had the scours until she became so weak as to fall forward on to her head, and he wishes to know if such is the effect or symptoms of horn- ail ? w. Remarks. — Cows, and other animals are liable to have various diseases of the lungs. What par- ticular one affected the two cows first mentioned, we cannot tell, as the symptoms are not men- tioned. But the one that had the sccoirs was affected with acute inflammation of the mucous or lining membrane of the intestines, and not with Iiomail. EFFECT OF CHERRY LEAVES. The statement of Mr. Haskell, from which he infers that cherry leaves are not poisonous, and thao the only danger from cattle eating them arises from their indigestibihty when wilted, seems to me to show conckisively that they are poisonous. Food is occasionally thrown from the stomach, after remaining there forty-eight hours, in a per- fect state, without having produced any such fcymptoms as are witnessed in cases of "cherry poisoning." The effects he mentioned, I ascribe to poison — to some principle that destroyed the vital action of the animal functions, — a result never caused by healthy food remaining undigested some eight or twelve hours in the stomach. Wilted clover, red top, or herdsgrass produces no such fatal effects ; why then should wilted cherry leaves, unless they contain some injurious principle which mav properly be called poison ? V. Baker. Brookfield, Vt., Jan. 21, 1870. CATTLE GNAWING BOARDS. I am not entirely satisfied with your reply to a late inquiry for a remedy for this disease. I have had cows do tne same, and my method is to give one heaping tablespoonfiil of saltpetre. This has cured them £t once. It is also good for garget in cows ; lar better in my opinion than garget. Moses Huijtley. St. Johnsbury Centre, Vt., Feb, 14, 1870. Please request "A Reader" whose cattle have a habit of gnawing boards, &c., to try feeding a few quarts of rye or wheat bran, each, daily, and re- port result through Farmer. G. Ashjleld, Mass., Feb. 15, 1870. CREEPING CLOVER. In the Farmer, some time last fall, I saw some remarks upon this variety of clover. It appears to be a new piaiit here as well as in Vermont and Massachusetts. A field near my house had a great deal of it this summer, and it attracted a pood deal of attention. It grew very thick, and made fine hay, and a heavy crop in spots where led clover was killed out. Some farmers were of lUe opinion that it was best to save seed and sow it, but I think none was threshed. I noticed it in many fields in this neighborhood. Some feared it would prove trouljlesome. hut; I do not think so. Perhaps it mav not be as plentiful again in several years. Time will tell. Granite. Bloomfield, C. IF., 1870. SWEET FLAG. I would say to "A. B." in Farmer of Feb. 12, that the only way to totally eradicate sweet flag is to take off the entire surface of the land in whicn it grows, haul it to a dry knoll and pile, and after a while it will rot. I once knew a neigh- bor to eradicate several large beds of it in a low meadow in this way, and it has never shown itself since. Care should be taken to get all the roots off. M. C. Peck. Benson, Vt., Feb. 15, 1870. TO EXTERMINATE HEN LICE. A very easy and sure remedy for exterminating vermm from hen houses is to take from five to ten ceuLS worth otchloriJe of lime, which can be pro- cured at any apothecary's store, and sprinkle it over the roosts and about the house where the lice are most likely to be found ; or make a wash of it and wash the roosts. I have found ono or two applications an effectual remedy. l. b. Winchendon, Mass., Jan. 11, 1870. WEST MILTON, VT., CHEESE FACTORY. The West Milton cheese factory was in opera- tion five months, and received the milk of 300 to 500 cows; some of the patrons having brought milk only during the warmest weather. Whole amount of milk 1,335,717 pounds; amount of cheese, 187,398^ pounds. It required 9| pounds milk for a pound of cheese. Whole amount of sales, .#22 386.95. The net average price per pound was 14 3-10 cents. D. L. Field. GREAT YIELD OF BUTTER. Mr. Moses S. Saunders, of this town, owns a three-year old heifer, — half Devon, half Jersey, — from which in the present month of January, were made four pounds of butter from twenty- three quarts of milk. She has had but common feed, viz: — fresh and salt hay, with one quart of meal per dav. D. A. Reed. Rowley, Mass., Jan. 23, 1870. GREAT YIELD OF COMMON OATS. A single oat that germinated in my garden near a bed of white beets, one of which weighed eight pounds, produced 53 heads, three of the largest of which contained 300 or more kernels each, — ^the to- tal product, by patient count, amounting to 10,117 kernels, after rejecting those that were blighted. Marshfield, Vt., 1870. C. R. Hills. — At the winter meeting of the Windsor County, Vt., Agricultural Society the first premium on best acre of corn was awarded to N. Harlow, Hartland, 94^ bushels ; 2d, to J. Paddleford, Hartland, 88;^ bushels; to Mr. P. also for best wheat, 27 l-12th bushels ; 2a, S. Taylor, 2iJ bushels ; O. Paul, Poin- fret. best oats, 93J bushels ; 2d, J. Paddlefurd 78^ bushels; best rye, S. Taylor, Hartland, 28 3-5 bushels; N.Humphrey, Hartland, best potatoes, 324 bushels ; C. Whitman, Pomfret, best carrots, 36^ bushels on ten rods. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 177 CHOPS IN MAINE. During our late visits into the State of Maine, we not only listened to many public remarks in relation to agricultural practices and their results, but made many inquiries as to the general condition of the art in that State; what the leading crops are, and whether farmers, as a class, are gradually im- proving their farms so as to give them a per- manent value of one or two per cent., or more, annually. In all the public exercises, and in private conversations, an interest and earnestness in farming, was clearly manifested. It was evi- dentl}' ihe earnestness of those who believe their calling to be honorable, tending to ele- vate the race, and Indispensable in sustaining it. The discussions in the State Board have greatly tended to encourage the farmers of the State, and have recognized the dignity and high character of the calling. Its leading crops are grass and potatoes, but investigations showed that the wheat crop, which is adapted to a large portion of the soil, has been greatly neglected. There Is official authority for saying that the State of Maine needs 650,000 barrels of flour yearly — nearly all of which is Imported at an expense hitherto of nearly ten millions of dollars ! Stimulated by this startling development, the legislature has made appropriations of money for premi- ums on wheat crops, under certain conditions, which have already had an influence to in- crease the breadth of land devoted to v/heat. In the sessions of the Board last year, much attention was given to the potato crop, where every means seem to have been used to elicit from the members Information in regard to varieties, quality, productiveness, soils best adapted, kinds and quality of manure to be used, and every thing else bearing upon the crop. In a lecture upon the Culture oftlie Potato, by Mr. Z. A. Giliskrt, from the Androscog- gin Society, he laid down several points for discussion : — 1. What we want. 2. What varieties shall we plan! ? 3. Preparation of the soil and manure. 4. Planting. 5. After culture. 6. Harvesting. 7. JMarketing. These points were thoroughly dncus-sed, with ti>e object to bring out facts and settle principles, so that the cultivator when he goes Into the field to plant shall have more definite conclusions as to what is best for him to do, than he ever had before. It is hardly probable that the princi- ples or practices stated, fell alike upon all who heard them, so that a variety of opinion and practice will still prevail In procuring future crops. The Hon. Samuel Wasson, President of the Board, read an interesting paper on the "His- tory of the Potato," which affords a remark.-i- ble instance of what human skill can accom- plish in ameliorating some of nature's pungent and poisonous plants, into mild and whole- some food. Our word potato. Is supposed to be a cor- ruption of the Indian word batatas. The potato was first found in 33° south latitude. In the mountains near Valparaiso about 1550. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have carried it to Ireland in 1610. In 1728, the potato was carried to Scotland, but the peopla opposed the introduction of this new vegetable, be- cause its name was not mentioned In the Bible. The priests in the Ionian isles, said the po- tato was one of the forbidden fruits — the cause of man's fall, and Its use was irreligious. In France, this vegetable was viewed with extreme disfavor. In vain did Louis XVI. and his court wear its flowers in the button- holes of their coats to enlist popular favor. At last, Parmentier, the chemist, hit upon fhn following Ingenious plan. He plant ^.d a field near Paris, put up notices around the field that all persons who stole any of the fruit would be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law. WitJdn a fortnight thereafter every potato had been stolen and eaten ! It is somewhat remarkable that In nearly every State In Europe Its Introduction met with great opposition; even as late as 1723, its use was interdicted in some of the German States, being accused of producing dysentery and leprosy. In its wild state, it is a watery, bitter, un- wholesome plant, with tubers rarely an inch In diameter, or exceeding half an ounce in weight. In Maine, the value per acre of those sev- eral crops was as follows, in 1860 : — Potatoes, S79.56; corn, $44.55;. wheat, S.')6.32. This intrinsic value, and the facilities for 178 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April transporting the crop to distant markets by water and by rail, gives it the first value as an agricultural product, or, if not, only sec- ond to that of the hay crop. The importance of the crop, therefore, had led to the intro- duction of numerous varieties, by planting po- tato balls, until catalogues enumerate more than 500 varieties. The best of these are second only, as an article of diet, to bread and meat alone. This value, and the universal use of the potato throughout the New England States, has called into action an amount of ability, experiment and investigation, which promises to more than make good several varieties of great excellence which were long popular, but which have greatly declined in quantity and quality. At Lisbon Hall, in Lewiston, where the State Board held its annual session, Mr. Moses IL Hussey, of North Berwick, had on exhibition a choice selection of potatoes, for which he has become somewhat famous for raising. At the late Farmers' Convention in Manchester, N. H., he received a silver medal for the best exhibition of potatoes. Among the varieties at Lisbon Hall, were the Early Rose, Climax, Harrison, Early Prince, Calico, Vanderveer and Bresee's Favorite ; f jr the latter he paid $60 per bushel, and raised from it 145^ bushels the last sea- season. For the Climax, $25 per peck. For the Excelsior $1.00 per pound, and for a sin- gle eye of another variety he paid $5. By carefjl propagation by means of slips, he raised from this a bushel of good potatoes. Before leaving North Berwick, we had an opportunity of looking at the potatoes in Mr. Ilussey's cellars. In one bin were 700 bush- els of the Early Rose variety, in which not a mis-shapen or injured tuber could be seen. As many more, of different varieties, were ranged about the cellar, all appearing sound, and of fair size and shape. In a neighbor's cel- lar, near by, were nearly a thousand bushels of more, different varieties, but each variety se- lected for good qualities in flavor and produc- tiveness. The activi;y already excited in re- gard to this invaluable vegetable, has already introduced some excellent varieties, and prom- ises to enlarge the list, to supply the places of old and excellent ones which have had their day. Mr. Hussey also raises cabbages for the Boston market, and lifted a few samples of 14 tons, covered with forest leaves and ever- green branches, which were as sound and bright as the day when they were placed there. These will be sent to market in the latter part of March and early April, and command a remunerative price. It is fortunate that some persons make a specialty of this and other vegetables, by testing varieties, and thus enabling them to reject worthless or indiflferent ones, and pre- serve, propagate, and sell the good. VERMONT HORSE STOCK COMPANY. We have received a circular addressed to the farmers of Vermont presenting the purposes of this association, and inviting subscriptions to its capital stock of not less than $100,000. Circulars for subscriptions are now in the hands of the Directors and will soon be generally circulated. Some half a dozen towns have been canvassed and though not richer than the average of the 200 towns in the State, nearly $1000 to the town were subscribed. Judge Colburn, of Springfield, the efficient Treasurer of the Vermont State Agricul- tural Society, says : "It is a good thing, and with such a board of Directors, it must pay, and I am in favor of our Society taking liberally of the stock." Hon. Carlos Baxter, of Burlington, Vt., offers to be one of ten to take $1000 each in the county of Chittenden. These subscriptions are not gifts, but investments in stock, which it is believed will yield good dividends as well as greatly benefit the farmers of the State by assisting them to improve their breeds of horses. We have much confidence in the success of this association. It proposes to do what individual farmers of comparatively small means are unable to do singly, however well satisfied they may be of the necessity of introducing better breeds of horses. The use of machinery has created a de- mand for heavier horses, while the "agricultural horse trot" of the few past years has had a ten- dency to encourage animals poorly fitted for the drudgery of farm work. Some years since the old Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture imported several Percheron horses from France, and have kept them at their stables, near Boston. A few years since one of these imported horses, "Conqueror," was sold at auction by the society for $500. On putting him into a stable in the city, the owner immediately resold him for $1000. He is now in Maine, and we understand his owner there has a standing offer of $2500 for him. One of his colts from a large Canada mare, owned by B. F. Ricker of Brighton, was sold last summer to an Illinois gentleman, when the colt was two years and nine months old, for $1 per pound, live weight, deliv- 1870. KEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 179 ered in Chicago. With a halter and headstall, the ! colt then v/eighed 1510 pounds, and the bargain was finally compromised by the delivery of the colt at Brighton for 81400. The buyer had visited Canada and various places in the States, but was better pleased with this animal than with any that j he saw elsewhere, and we understand that he is well satisfied with his purchase, since getting him home. With such a demand for good horses we do not see why the Vermont Company, managed by such men as now compose its directors, and possessing the soil and cWmate which developed the Morgans and Black Ilawks, may not realize the expecta- tions of its most sanguine friends. CHEEBE MAKUFACTUREBS' ASSOCIA- TION". Having failed to receive a detailed account of the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Mas- sachusetts Cheese Manufacturers' Association at Hardwick last week, we copy the following brief notice from the Daily Journal. There was a large attendance of farmers, the President, Thomas P. Root, of Barre, in the chair. The meeting was opened on Tuesday evening by an address from Alexander Hyde of Lee, on "The requisites for the production of milk." A discussion followed, and then the question, "How shall we improve our pastures?" was discussed. Stable manage- ment and winter feeding of cattle were also dis- cussed. On Wednesday morning the following oflScers for 1870 were elected : — Presidevt. —Thom&e, P. Root of Barre. Vice Presidents — J. W. Powers of Hardwick, Alon- zo Lincoln of Odkhim. Secretary — N. B. Hubbard of Brimfield. Treasurer. — B. F Hamilton of New Braintree. Edccniive Comw/.Yce.— Thomas P. Root of Barre, J, W. Powtr* of Hard wick, AlonzoLinco nof Oakh m, N. 8. Hubbard of Brimfield, B. F. Hamilton of New Braintree, Reports from the various factories were made. In the afternoon, Mr. Charles L. Flint, Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, delivered a very able address on "The production of milk and treat- ment of dairy stock." In the evening Richard Goodman of Lenox read a paper on the dairy stock of New England, its breeding and manage- ment. The "Rich" Steer.— On passing the stall of H. Bird & Co , 38 & 40 Faneuil Hall Market, re- cently, we noticed a crowd collected around some very extra beef then on the hooks. On inquiry, we learned that it was from the steer noticed by our cattle market reporter in his report of Febru- ary 2, and which was fed by J. T. & V. Rich, Shorcham, Vt., and sold to George A. Sawyer, of Brighton. At the time of the sale at Cambridge, the steer weighed 2790 pounds. His dressed weight was 2125 pounds, a shrinkage of less than 24 per cent, from that weight. The meat weighed 1685, tallow 280, hide 160 pounds. One hind quar- ter 414, the other 394 ; back halves of the two fore quarters 398, and the two rattle rans 479 pounds. The steer was very neatly dressed by Mr. Sawyer, and the beef, though from a "native" steer, was admitted by good judges to be equal to any that has been seen inside of Faneuil market for a long time. Military Instruction in Ag'l Colleges. — A correspondent of the New England Farmer, in writing irom the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, says : — "I am infwmed that this is the only Agricultural College that has, as yet, established miliiary instruction as a part of the regular course, although that is made one of the conditions of the grant by Government ;" but he is certainly in error. Our own institution at Orono has from the first given attention to military instruction, in conformity with the act of Congress, Capt. Henry E. Sellersof B.mgor, having most ac- ceptably filled the position of military instructor. The Trustees are hoping to secure the services of a government officer for this position at an early day. — Maine Farmer. Remarks. — We presume that our correspondent will be glad to learn that the "information" on which he based his remark is not correct. We hope that the provisions of the law establishing these institutions will be carefully observed by the managers of each one of them. AQBICULTURAL ITEMS. — A son of General P. P. Pitkin, of Montpelier, has a large sheep which he harnesses to a scraper and does good public service by clearing the side- walks of snow. — Mr. J. G. Huntington, of Atkinson, Maine, has invented a new horse rake, which is noted for its simplicity of construction, ease and efficiency of working and cheapness in price, and, so far as used, is pronounced the best made. — The New York State Agricultural Society have agreed upon Utica as the place for holding the next State Fair. Solon D. Hungerford, of Jeffer- son County, has been elected President, and Thos. H. Faile, Jr., of New York, and others, Vice- Presidents. — The Waterville, Maine, Mail says, a remark- ably fine pair of grade Hereford oxen were weigh- ed at the hay scales recently. Their weight was 4470 pounds, their measurement eight feet two inches— their age five years. They belong to Mr. H. C. Burleigh, of Fairfield, and reflect honor upon the best herd of Herefords in New England. — S. P. Miller, Fayetteville, Vt., has a grade Durham cow which produced from April 20th to November 19th, 1869, 311 pounds of butter and 142 quarts of milk, beside the milk and cream used in a family of five persons. Her feed con- sisted of two quarts of meal and shorts per day, with ordinary pasture privileges. — Four of the heaviest cattle ever raised in this country were shipped from Poughkeepsie to New York City recently. The heaviest of the four 180 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. April weighed over 4,100 pounds and the lightest 3,300. They are each six years old, were raised in La Grange, Dutchess County, and were sold for ^3,200. Their hides are to be stuffed and placed in Central Park. — A correspondent of the New England Far- mer has made skim-milk cheese in the fall when milk can be kept sweet several days, by putting the juice of grated carrots into the milk after skimming, as is done to color butter, and then treat the milk in the ordinary way of making cheese. After forty years' experience he pro- nonnces such cheese nice. —Mr. Hollis Daggett, of Monroe Co., N. Y., says many of the bees in his section are starving — that not over one-tenth of them will survive the winter without feeding, and adds that they can be easily and cheaply saved— especially if in mova- ble comb-hives— by feeding them the syrup of coffee sugar. He is feeding his bees in this way, taking out the combs and filling them. When the syrup is put in the comb i*; should be as warm as milk when first drawn from the udder. — The Massachusetts Agricultural College has property amounting to .^196,500, of which Ihe live stock is valued at $6880, tools and vehicles $2240, produce $4345. The balance of accounts between the farm and its expense is $2567. There were 119 students in 1869. The trustees estimate that the buildings needed to accommodate the faculty and the next class will cost between $100 000 and $200,000, according to the number provided for. — Mr. J. E. Porter of central Illinois has for several years mixed one third oats with his seed wheat, and according to the Western Rural gets much better crops than when wheat is sown alone. Last year wheat alone was nearly a failure, while that with oats produced fair crops. Mr. P. raised fifteen bushels of wheat and thirty of oats per acre. The two grains are harvested together, and are readily separated by any of the new fanning mills. —Many cultivators ascribe much of the popu- larity of the Rose and other new varieties of pota- toes, to the care with which they have been culti- vated and the light seeding, generally single eyes, which their high price has induced. A correspon- dent of the Country Gentleman says that he has succeeded during the past three years in bringing some of the old varieties to the size and produc- tiveness of the new ones, by the same cultivation which has been given to them. — The Lexington, Ky., Home Journal says that several Southern planters went to Illinois and Indiana last season for laborers to harvest their crops, and succeeded beyond their expectation. As the cotton and sugar crops are not usually gathered and saved betbre December, and very frequently not until February, and consequently after the grain and grass crops of the north are secured, they obtained reliable men for these com- paratively leisure months, who went to work cheerfully and saved the southern crops in excel- lent style. After a profitable late fall and winter engagement, these men return home in season for spring's work. It is thought larger numbers will be engaged next year. — A correspondent of the Country Gentleman says, to be completely prosperous, stock-raising must be in a locality where good pastures and mowings can be kept permanently in grass ; and on genuine natural grass land it will not answer under any circumstances to use the plough, as it takes many years of good management to bring the grass back to the established state. The very best grass land in the Southwest, the same as in England, never was seeded at all ; and when the plough is put into such a turf it is synonymous with killing the goose which laid the golden eggs. For the Kew England Farmer, SHALL "WE KAISB OUK COHIJ"? The discussion upon corn at the recent Far- mers' Convention at Manchester, N. H. was earnest and practical. The successful grow- ers regarded it as a profitable crop ; regratted that the State should be obliged to buy so much, and warmly urged their brother farmers to raise their own corn. There are some, it appears, who consider this counsel as old fogyish, and not in keeping with the times, and that it is better to buy corn, even if there is a net profit of 50 to 100 per cent, in raising it. Whether the growing of corn in New Hampshire is an antiquated notion or not, there are certainly sound argu- ments in favor tf its cultivation, and the crop ought not to be condemned because of its an- tiquity. Jt will be generally admitted that farmers require a large amount of some kind of grain to make their beef, pork, mutton, poultry, butter, «&c., and for their working animals, and that corn is the best for all these pur- poses. The only question which admits of discussion is. Where shall we get it? From the West and South say the advocates of buy- ing. At one time it was brought from these sections at marvellous low rates. If it could always be had from either section cheaper than we can raise it, all must admit buying is the best policy. But extensive home mar- kets are arising at the South and West, and experience is teaching them that it is for their interest to raise less grain and expend more of what they do raise upon their farms and have beef, pork, mutton, wool and cheese and but- ter to sell. The railroads and middle men are becoming very exacting in their demands — far more so than when they had lands to sell and sought patronage. The price has steadily a Ivanced until thi;re is now a wide margin for profit in raising it here, — our best cultivators claiming that it can be produced on our rough farms 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAE^IER. 181 for about 72 cents per bu;hel. This leaves a balance in favor of the home producer, for a net profit equal to what the Western farmer receives, on an average, for his delivered at the nearest market. If the present schemes of railroad consolidation are carried out, or if a few men can buy up and control loncj lines of road, the prospects of having lower freights or smaller commissions are not encouraging, and it is pretty certain that for some time to come New England farmers can fill their corn bins cheaper from their own acres than from the valley of the Mississippi. As long as we can realize as great and even greater net profit, per acre, is it not sufficient reason for raising more ? Again, the advocates of buying say that the cultivation of corn requires a good deal of at- tention and labor ; the hoeing interferes with haying, &c. ; therefore we had better raise more hay and sell a part cf that or some other product and get money to buy corn. This may be a gov d policy for market gardeners and grass farmers to pursue. But every well appointed farm is supposed to have the requi- site machinery, tools and help to raise some hoed crops, and it requires no very great abil- ity to carry the hoeing through in time, with- out inlerf'ering with haying. Recent, inven- tions enable us at the least to lessen the cost of planting and cultivating, and improved methods of cutting, curing and feeding the fodder it makes, has given an increased value to the stalks. Well cured corn fodder is worth more than meadow hay. Where both the ears and stalks are consumed upon the farm, the stalks can be cut earlier and at the bottom, which greatly improves the fodder. Where neat stock is kept, the advantage of having the fodder ought to decide in favor of raising our own corn. Well filled bins of a home growth in- dicate that the stock will fare better than if their owners depended upon buying. As to the plan of selling hay and then buying corn with the proceeds, it may be advisable under some circumstances ; still, by raising a few acres of corn and making a judicious use of the fodder, there would be more hay to be sold and no corn to be bought. The potato is the only hoed crop that can compete with corn for supremacy in value in the New England States. In Maine and Ver- mont the potato leads by a large balance in its favor; in New Hampshire it is just ahead, while in Massachusetts, Connecticut atrd Rhode Island, corn ranks highest. Since 18G2 the price of potatoes has been high and their culture has rapidly increased. But ju^t now prices have a downward ti'ndency, and will undoubtedly rule lower during the next decade. The Northwest has found that pota- toes can be grown there at a profit, and is competing with us in the New Oilcans and other Southern markets, and shoidd the duties be taken oil" from the products of the British Provinces, the profits of this crop would be still further reduced. Allowing, however, that an acre of potatoes gives more money than an acre of corn, is it advisable to grow them largely on the same farm? Even under skilful management, it is an exhausting crop. It draws largely upon the organic elements of the soil, beside the potash and soda, and re- turns nothing to it, and where the extrava- gantly wasteful system of burning is pursued to get new land for it, the uUimale effects of severe cropping areivery irjurious. In those localities in New Hampshire where it has been extensively raised for starch factories and the Boston market, this exhausting effect is al- ready apparent. From first to last, both in raising and marketing, it is a heavy, laborious crop, and is attended with many risks. If the tubers fail to grow well, or if they rot, all is lost. AVith corn, if the ears fail to ripen or fill out, the fodder is some remuneration. A large amount is returned to the soil through the fodder, stubble and roots, and since the phosphates can now be so readily restored to ttre soil, selling corn from a farm is not likely to prove as detrimental as raising potatoes. The freedom of corn from diseases, the almost certainty of a fair crop and the fact that both the grain and fodder can be kept, if not wanted irameiiiately, give it preference to the potato. Corn, in these resptcts, is superior to all other hoed and root crops. It is surer and more remunerative than the other cereals, and deserves always to rank next to hay, even in New England. Perhaps, thougo, we should except the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, which are better adapted to the potato. Were there a tew more public spirited men, like secretary Lyman of New Hampshire, in each State, a new zeal would be awakened in this truly valuable cereal, and our farmers would see that it is for their interest to raise more and buy less co^-n. N. s. T. Lawrence, 3Iass., Feb. 3. 1870. For the jXew England Farmer, CHEESE-M AKIJM Q. The cheese that took the first premium at the Orleans County, Vt., fair in 18G9. was over a year old and was made by Mrs. G. B. Brewster of Iiasburg, who describes her method as follows : — We have twenty-three cows, and make but- ter until the hot weather of July, then we make one cheese each day. The night's milk is strained into a large tin tub and ice put into it to cool it and it is stirred until the ice is all melted, then it stands till morning, when it is skimmed and about a fifth part of the milk is taken out and so much warmed that when it is pound back it will make the whole as warm as new milk. Then the cream that was taken off is put into a cloth 182 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April strainer and the morning'' s milk strained upon and through it, so that the cream is all dis- solved and mixed with the milk, which is then ready for the solution of rennet which is ap- plied in sufficient quantity to bring the crjrd (or cause coagulation) in one hour; the quan- tity will be about a pint for thirty pails of milk. The curd is then cut into inch squares and stands until the curd settles. Then break it up carefully with the hands and let it stand till the curd settles again. After which dip off two pailfuls of whey to set aside to cool, also dip as much more to heat. When it is hot dip it upon the curd ; then heat more whey and put on hot whey three times, which scalds or cooks the curd so that when a piece is bit- ten there is a slight squeaking sound. During this time it should be constantly stirred to pre- vent it settling together and breaking it finer. The warm whey is now drawn oiT and the cold whey poured on to cool it. When cool, drain dry and add a teacupful of salt to sev- enteen pounds of curd, working it in with the hands and continually breaking the curd. Then spread a cloth in the hoop and fill in the curd. Let it remain in the press twenty-four hours, turning it once in the time. When pressed enough put on the cloth sack which has been saturated with whey butter, and put the cheese on broad shelves, in a light, well- ventilated room to cure. During the ripening process it is turned and rubbed every day and oiled with whey butter to keep it from drying and cracking on the surface. Beunet. The stomach of calves a week or more old is filled with salt and hung to dry. When ren- net is wanted put two or three into a stone jar full of water ; after soaking a few days the liquid is ready for use. Add water to the jar in place of the liquid used, which keeps up the supply. z. E. J. Irasburg, VL, Feb. 10, 1870. For the New England Farmer, MEDICAL TOPICS. BT A MEDICAL MAN. How to Kestore Frozen Persona. The present winter having been unusually mild, thus far, we have heard of no cases of fatal, or even severe freezing. February and and Marck, however, will probably give us weather of another sort ; and it will be well for every person to know how to treat, prop- erly, one who is near perishing from exposure to intense cold, or who has severely frozen some portion of his body or extremities. The first effect of an exposure of the whole body to severe cold, is an almost irresistible impulse to sleep, which, if yielded to, is soon succeeded by coma or stupor, and death. During the state of coma, the body of the suf- ferer is found to be very pale and cold ; the respiration and pulse are almost imperceptible, and the pupils are dilated ; but the limbs are flexible as long as life remains, unless the de- gree of cold be very great indeed. Persons who have been exhausted by hun- ger, watching, or fatigue, and those who in- dulge in spiritous liquors, exhausted as they are by perpetual stimulation, are much more liable to suffer from cold, than are others. The indications of treatment whenever a person has been exposed to severe cold, are, 1st. To produce moderate reaction, and restore the circulation and sensibility ; and 2d. To avoid excessive reaction, which would surely lead to violent and dangerous inflammation. The body should first be rubbed with snow ; and afterwards, when its warmth and sensibil- ity are a little restored, it should be wiped quite dry, and well rubbed with fur or flannel. The patient should now be put into a cold bed, in a room without a fire, a stimulating enema should be administered, and a little wine and water, or very weak spirit and water, given as soon as he can swallow ; — the enema may be composed of water and salt, with a little oil of turpentine. The after treatment must be reg- ulated by the state of the patient. Mild cor- dials or stimulants, and nourishing food will be sufficient in most cases. Do not bring the pa- tient into a warm room, nor apply artificial heat, in any way, until complete reaction has taken place, and all danger of excessive in- flammation has passed by. Frost*bite. In cases where some portions of the body, only, are frozen, as the feet or the hands, the part or parts affected should be first rubbed with snow; for, whilst the friction restores the circulation and sensibility, the snow pre- vents any excessive reaction. After a time, cold water may be substituted for the snow and the friction may be brisker. These ap- plications should be made in a room without a fire, and a high, or even a moderate temperature must be avoided for some time, if the patient would escape the subsequent inconvenience of chilblains and running sores. If the freezing has been so severe that mortification and sloughing ensue, stimulating poultices, washes, or ointments will be important. A poultice made of yeast, or of carrots, with a little pul- verized charcoal ; a wash of diluted creosote or carbolic acid ; or an ointment in which cre- osote or carbolic acid is an ingredient, — either one of these will be useful. Chilblains consist in an atonic infiammation of the skin, induced by sudden alternations of temperature, such as warming the feet and hands by the fire when cold and damp. A great variety of things have been proposed as remedies for these troublesome visitors ; but all of them sometimes fail, though most of them possess some virtue. The following are among the best : — Soap liniment six parts, tincture of cantharides one part ; spirit of camphor, and spirit of ammonia, either sepa- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 183 rate or combined ; common opodeldoc ; com- mon volatile liniment ; diluted creosote, or carbolic acid ; cold, shallow foot-baths, &c. For the New England Farmer, \ SENDING MILK TO THE CITY. At the request of several farmers in Berk- shire County, Mass., I send ycu the following suggestions from my experience in Eastern Massachusetts in relation to the transportation of milk from the country to the city. The city peddlers or distributors should furnish ample security for the monthly pay- ments (or the amount of milk they receive of farmers or the car agents during the month, and provide three sets of cans, so that they shall leave as many empty, as they take of full ones each day. The railroads must furnish box milk cars of suitable size, on springs, say thirty-four feet long, lined inside and top, and filled in with about six inches of charcoal, fitted up with shelves and racks for the milk, double doors, with windows in them, on each side. The car agent must see that ice houses are erected and filled near the track, at the start- ing point; receive, examine and account for all milk left at the stations, set out the cans for each farmer, and see that they are not in- jured by handling ; collect bills promptly of the city peddlers and pay over the same to each farmer monthly. He must make all con- tracts as to price and quantity by the six months ; provide either in the city or else- where a butter or cheese factory to use up any surplus not required by the consumers, so that farmers may always dispose of all the milk they make. With such arrangements, and with trust- worthy and responsible agents on the route and in the city, farmers may have confidence in the business and keep as many cows and feed them as well as their means will justify. Notwithstanding Dr. Loring's caution, they will provide a supply of sweet or southern corn fodder to supplement their pasture feed, always wilting it two days before using it; also a supply of roots, which should be fed imme- diately after milking in the morning, or cut up with fodder, all of which, including hay and straw, should be cut and steamed, or hot water put upon it. The cans should be rinsed in cold water first, then scalded with hot wa- ter, and again rinsed in cold water, then placed bottom up on pins or a rack. The milk should be cooled and protected from heat, by water from a spring or well, and cov- ered. In milking, be very careful to brush and clean the cow so that no dirt will get into the milk, — strain it carefully through linen strainers, and while cooling stir it two or three times with a dipper or paddle, and when cool close up the cans. While on the way to, or while at the station, allow no sun or heat to come in contact with the cans. No water, barn-yard manure or other substance is wanted in milk, but it must be kept cool by a plenty of ice around the cans when in the car, which should be shut up as soon as loaded. With such precautions the milk will be transported in good order, and if the city peddlers com- plain of its being bad, hold the car agent re- sponsible for not examining it when it left the cars. If farmers find that these agents take any advantage in regard to price, «fec., they must combine and manage their own business as those of Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire have done. If the farmers of Berkshire County will enter into such arrange- ments I am confident they will succeed. But if this cannot be done a butter and cheese factory should be established, the cost and plan of which may be the subject of another article. Eastern Massachusetts. February, 16, 1870. For the New England Farmer, PBBPAKINQ SHINGLES FOB KOOFS. An editorial in the Farmer of the 12th inst., upon this subject, deserves the careful atten- tion of every owner of buildings. Whatever may be the cause, it is certain that shingles do not last as long as they did fifty years ago. The "gravel and tar" covering for flat roofs is used to some extent here, and, so far, I tbink it proves satisfactory. The "■Plastic Slate Roofing'''' has not been much used in this vicinity. Cedar and pine are plenty, yet shin- gles are dear, and farmers and others find it expensive keeping their roofs in repair. Two or three years ago I was traveling on a steamboat, and a gentleman in the course of conversation informed me that his business for several years had been roofing buildings. He was then engaged in putting on gravel and tar roofs. He thought it a good material, but said he thought shingles might be prepared so as to do better. He had experimented con- siderably, and said he thought the following preparation would preserve shingles so that they would last sixty years. Thinking the receipt worth remembering, I copied it, and now send it for publication. Take a potash kettle, or a large tub, and put into it : — One barrel of lye of wood aahes; five pounds of white vitriol ; five pounds alum, and as much salt as will dissolve in the mixture. Make the liquor quite warm, and put as many shingles in it as can be conveniently wet at once. Stir them up with a fork, and when well soaked, take them out, and put in more, renewing the liquor as necessary. Then lay the shingles as usual. After they are laid, take the li(iuor that was left, put lime enough into it to make white- wash, and if any coloring is desirable, add ochre, Spanish brown, lampblack, &c., and apply to the roof with a brush or an old broom. This wash may be renewed from time to time. 184 NEW ENGLAND FAR]\IER. April Salt and lye are excellent preservatives of wood. It is well known that leach-tubs, troughs, and other articles used in the manu- facture of potash, never rot. They become saturated with the alkali, turn yellowish inside, and remain impervious to the action of the weather. I hope the experiment will be tried. The expense is trifling, which is one thing in its favor. Granite. Bloomfidd, G. W., 2d mo., mh, 1870. Remarks. — The use of salt in liquid for soaking shingles has been objected to on ac- count of its causing the nails to rust. Some- times the nails fail first, when the shingles are not soaked at all. For the New England Farmer, A CONVENIENT CATTLE BAKN. As I have seen several plans of barns, both for cattle and sheep, in your valuable paper, I send you a plan of one built in the summer oflSGl. The barn is fifty-one feet long and forty-five feet wide, with a shed on the south end, forty- five feet long and sixteen feet wide, with one roof attached to the barn. The following is the PLAN OF THE BASEMENT. ••(?;■ •-Q" , North. ! 9 : w d. d 3 6 M I Bhed, ihza&yi. d — 4 w w o s d d S; 2 i « w Shed, 25x25>^ «<) : S i (a. d 4 w d B \ d 8 7 d •m' Wag on Shed, 31x16. Bhed, 14x16. B } ■G 10, Driveway. 'd to one of cheese made; cheese kept 30 to 40 days before marketed ; each eighteen inches diameter, weighiDg 74 pounds; htlp, two males and one femile, cost of help, including board, $159290; 1017 rennets cost $271; i9,0 boxes cost 30 cents each. Use Ralph vat, with W)Od; burned 11 ^ cords of wood, costing $o9; coal in dry room, cost $101; used 21 barrels aud 4 sacks salt, costing $105 ; expense of freight and mar- k-t Dg, .61-^ ceiits per 100 pounds; am lunt of salt per 1000 pcunds milk, 2-^ ; amount of eheese cured, 23i),79^ pourd-t: net income per 100, $16 50; average price of cheese in market, "17.819; average price to milk cnntiibulois, $15,447. Wljole expenoe of everything, $2,301 per 100 pounds. Barre South Cheese Factory. Capital $6200. Commenced April 1, closing Novem- ber 17. Puuiids of milk u«eU, l,'21l 578, being 93^ pounds milk to each pound of cheese cured. Kept on averagt! live weeks before marketed. Average weight|75 pounds each. Help one man, seven months, two men six months, three men, three months. Cost of help $971.73. 521 renneis cost $136. 1573 boxes cost 30 cents per box. Ralph vats used in h-ating. Pu' 1 cost $109.69; salt $57.06; expense per pound In getting cheese ready for market $ 021B expe' se of freight and marketing, $.66 per 100 pounds; 42 ounces salt per ICOO pounds milk; 124,122 pounds cheese cured; net income per 100 pounds, $15.18; some of whey sold for 20 cects per barrel. 44 hogs kept on whey, J3 pomds of milk used, being 9^ pounds to e!>eh pound cured cheese; 2060 cheeses made, costing $998.70; 477 rennets cost $95.40; help, two males, one female; 2C 60 boxes cost $818; 1075 yards of cloth used, cott $113 25; 27 cords of wood used cost $95; 2 tons of coal $22; salt $85 60; all other expenses $1,138 30 ; t xpenses per pound getting cheese ready for market 2'^ cents; 216 pounds of salt per lOoO pounds cheese; 140,718 pounds of cheese cured; net income per 100 pounds $15,044; average 385 cows per month ; 366 >i pounds of cheese per cow. Coy's Hill Factory. JFarren— Capital $6C00; commenced working April Ist, 'closed October let; 1,122 25t) pounds of milk used, being 9 355 pounds of milk to one pound of cheese cured ; average weight, 80 pounds each ; help, man and wife; cost of help $970; 481 rennets cost $S9 89; 1462 boxes cost $433 22 ; 1113 yards of cloth cos: $112.26; Miller's circulating coil cheese vat u^ed for heating; 13 'i cords of wood cost $67.60; 3496 pounds of salt $43.50; 119 960 pounds cured cheese; uet income per loo pounds, $16 33. Belchertown Cheese Factory. Capital $1200; commenced making May 24, closed Stpttm'ier 11; 226,'Z47 pounds milk uxed, biiug 9>i pouids to one of cheese cured; kept twenty-five days before marketed ; 411 weighed 56 pounds each ; and 175 about 13 pounds each; help one mule all the time, one female one-half the time; cost of help $100 per month; 60 rennets cost $10; cost of cloth $25.00; b^i cords wood cost $21; 23 818 pound-* cured cheese; cheese sold on average at 16 cents per pouud. Qreylock Cheese Factory. At South ^lrf«wis— Commenced April 16, closed De- cember 1 ; l,HiJ.O/o pounds milk used, being 9.6 pounds n ilk to one pound of cheese cured ; Kept 60 diivs before marketed; average weight 78 p-.un. Is each; help, oue male and one female; cois. We wish that we could inspire every wo- man and child with a love for flowers and their cultivation. It is the healthiest and purest of pleasures, and soon the amateur be- comes intensely interested and entertained. In the country, this pursuit will while away many an hour, and confer great benefits upon the florist. Our daughters are suffering in mind and body for open air and exercise The garden offers them all this and infinitely more. The English ladies have devoted their morning hours to gardening for many years. They are not afraid of the trowel or the rake, nor of soiling their dainty fingers, and their fine rosy complexions and robust figures attest the vigor and health these occu- pations have imparted. But these are not all the blessings conferred by gardening : — "Not a tree, A plant, a leaf, a bloBSom, but contains A folio volume. We may read, and read. And read again ; and Btill find something new. Something to please, and something to instruct, E'en in the humble weed," S. O. J. SCAIiDINQ MILK VESSELS. It used to be the practice to scald milk pans and milk pails, and it is the practice yet. Why is it done? There is no "science" about it ; philosophy has not led to it. What is it then that induced people to engage in what they didn't understand, yet, which was and is a great good ? It is experience. It has been found that scalding a vessel with hot water will have an effect that cannot otherwise be obtained. What is that effect ? Simply the destruc- tion of little spores of fermentation, which propagate rapidly in dirt, and ki the least dirt, so little that it cannot be seen (with the naked eye.) Experience led here, and philosophy followed to corroborate it. You cannot cleanse a vessel, then, without hot water. And this water must not only be smacking hot, biting your hand, but it must be absolutely boiling hot, up to the point. Then you will kill all the live animalculaj ; otherwise, you will not. And when the vessel is thus treated — cleaned first, and scalded afterward — set it away to dry, and do not touch it again till it is wanted for milk. Milk, remember, is a powerful absorbent, like charcoal, or plaster, or earth; and it will hold what it gets, im- proving on the rankness. In winter this is less the case, yet it is the case ; in summer it ia all important to attend to it. How necessary then to see that the hands having the handling of milk in charge, are to 192 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April be trusted. This is as necessary as anything, | and is the first necessity — the necessity on which hang the rest. The dirt being away, the air must be pure. This you cannot scald ; you must therefore resort to other means — and these means are, not a confined bad air of the cellar or milk-rooms, especially foul with vegetable odors ; nor the aroma of the dunghill; the rank, urinal steam of the stables ; nor in the case of a cheese factory, the proximity to a pig pen ; but an avoidance of all of them — for these things will as certainly t JBfect the milk as the dirt left in the pan. An absolute freedom from everything that is offensive in ordor or flavor, is the requisite to prime cheese, or a first quality of butter. Who has not detected the common taint of the stables in milk and cream ? Can this be endured ? Butter kept in the room over night with the family (in winter,) is not fit to use. It has absorbed so much of the odors that it has be- come foul. The taste of the bad^ir is plainly perceptible. But cover your butter plate (not an old one) with a tight dish — say a tin basin, and your butter will be found much the same as when placed there. It is, however, only perfect when kept — not occasionally put — in pure air. House-keepers take note. When once tainted it can never be cured, but tena- ciously holds all it has, and gets all it can. Like charcoal, or gypsum, or earth, it is a powerful absorber. From the time it is gath- ered in the cow until it is eaten in the family, the greatest care must be given to the lacteal product. Not only that, it reaches still far- ther; the food, the water, must not possess the odor. But generally the worst is in the ves- sels and the atmosphere that comes in contact with it. These, at least if impure, impart their impurity, however pure the milk may have been before.— Western Farmer. aXTKACTS AND KEPLIES. TEXEL SHEEP. Do you know anything further than what was published sometime since in regard to the Texal sheep ? Perhaps some of your correspondents have tried tliem ; if so, will they please report in your paper. Some coarse wooled bucks of some breed are needed in this section, and if owners of such stock would advertise, stating price, it might prove a benefit all round. h. Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Feb., 1870. Remarks. — Something over a year ago, R. H. Hughes, of Abington, Va., in a communication to the Farmer's Gazette, Richmond, says, "When I saw the Patent OflSce account of the Texel sheep, I 1 thought I recognized the breed which we needed j in South West Virginia, and ordered a pair of I them. It was in 1866. In form they resemble the ] Southdown ; in fleece, the Cotswold ; in hardiness, the Merino. They are a large sheep, and should not run in flocks of more than a hundred. The staple is not less than seven inches long; often much longer ; and in the full-bloods is glossy and flowing. The ewes are capital nurses. The oldest mutton I have from them are yearling half-breed wethers. These have never had grain, but I am sure that their flesh will, in flavor and tenderness, compare with any mutton that is to be procured. My full-blood ram is now five years old ; and the full-blood ewes four years. They continue to grow and improve at these ages. At two years old the average weight of the grass-fed mutton would exceed a hundred pounds net ; the half-blood year- lings now weigh from sixty to seventy-five pounds net." Mr. Chauncey B. Thorn, of Skaneateles, N. Y., in a letter to Mr. Chenery, says, "their wool is rather ahead of what I was led to expect. One of my ewes sheared eight and one-half pounds, weight of carcass eighty-six pounds, showing sam- ples eleven inches in length, and its fineness and lustre comparing favorably with the best Cots- wold samples which I have been able to procure at our State Sheep Exhibitions." Who, nearer home, has tried the Texels ? MALFORMATION IN A HEIFER S TEAT. I have a heifer with an extra orifice half way up one of her teats. What can be done for it ? Braintree, Mass., Jan. 26, 1870. o. h. a. Remarks. — The indication to be fulfilled in this case is to obliterate the extra orifice and the pipe which leads from it to the natural duct or pipe. This can be done only by exciting what surgeons call adhesive inflammation by the use of caustic or cautery. A strong solution of nitrate of silver, or of corrosive sublimate may be introduced into the unnatural opening, by means of a tent or a piece of cotton or linen cloth, made so small that when twisted hard it can be introduced the whole length of the abnormal pipe. This tent should be kept in until matter discharges from the opening, with- drawing and wetting it with the solution once or twice a day. The quickest way, however, and perhaps the best one, will be to measure the length of the pipe, and then thrust into it a hot needle or wire. In either case, care must be taken that the nataral duct or pipe be not injured. OVERFLOWING OF GALL AND LIVER COMPLAINT. On reading the statement in relation to a sick cow by your Rhode Island correspondent in the Farmer of Nov. 27, I mistrusted that the disease was misunderstood, and thought that she died of overflowing of the gall and liver complaint. With this impression I wrote to Stephen Leavitt of Liv- ermore. Me., a very skilful veterinarian, asking his opinion of the case and requesting him to give me the symptoms of overflowing of the gall and liver complaint, and also the proper treatment of that disease. His opinion corresponds with mine, and he wrote me as follows : — "In the first stages the hair is rough on the sides and appears to have changed color. If you take up a handful of the hide near the back bone the creature will flinch as quick as if you bad stuck a sharp pointed knife into its hide ; its skin is also hard and stiff and sometimes it will crack. In 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR:VIER. 193 the morning yoa will notice a yellowisb matter in the corner of the eye or just below on the face, and sometimes about the mouth. The movements of the cow are like those of an old person troubled with the rheumatism, and the appetite is poor, with dull eyes. If at pasture, the animal will be found alone In the woods, or near some wet place or water in the shade, and now for the first time many will begin to suspect that the animal is un- well, and in two or three days they will have a hide to sell. If examined after death, the gall will be found very much enlarged, and filled with a thick, dark colored matter and the liver increased In size, and so rotten that it will be difficult to take it out without breaking it. As a remedy, in the first stages, I should give half a common saucerful of 60ot taken from a chimney wirh an open fire-place, powdered fine, and mixed with shorts or meal, if they will eat it; if not, mix it with water and pour it down ; also one tablespoonful of sulphur. If a creature gets as far along as the one described in the Farmer, I should in the first place give one pint of hog's lard, then half a saucerful pulverized soot dissolved in warm water, then one half pint of New Rum or whiskey, and then a tablespoonful of cayenne pepper. Give the aV)ove medicines as fast as they can be prepared. Then take a few quarts of beef brine, and with a woolen cloth rub the animal smartly about the back, and loins, and legs. Some spirits and cayenne added to this will make it better. Put her feet under her and change sides frequently, for the convenience of rubbing her. Give from a gill to a half pint of spirits every half hour for two hours and rub smartly ; do the work faithfully and get up a perspiration. Be ready, if the animal makes an effort to rise, to as- sist her. You might as well pour medicine into a hollow log, as to give it to a dumb beast that is down, iimbs stiff and cold, circulation slow and morbid. If you are lucky enough to get the ani- mal on her feet, follow up the soot at the rate of two or three tablespoonfuls, wirh one tablespoon- ful of sulphur a day, until the animal becomes well enough to eat; then powder up the soot and H'ix it with the sulphur in meal or shorts for a number of days." This liver complaint comes on slowly; in some cases it exists for months, and the cure is propor- tionately slow. Wm. Swett. South Paris, Me., Feb., 1870. PREMirM BUTTER. The first and second premiums offered by the Orleans County, Vt., Agricultural Society were awarded to Thomas I3aker, of Barton, of whose Dutch cattle and farm buildings some account was published in the Farmer in 18G8. (Monthly, page 332.) The following is his statement of his method of making butter. I milk twentv-four cows. This season they were turned into the mowing fields the lOh of September, and their food was mostly clover. This butter was made the week ending September 18. The cream is skimmed when the milk has set thirty-six hours ; we churn three times a week, but ihe cream is not churned the day it is taken off. When the butter comes it is washed until the water is not colored by milk ; then the butter is taken out of the churn and put in a butter worker and the salt worked in — one ounce to a pound, using A^hton salt — then pack immediately in spruce tubs holding fifty pounds each, prepared for use by soakingtheni wiih warm waterin which a spoonful of saleratus is dissolved for two hours ; then the water is turned ofi' and the inside surface sVrmkled with salt, when the tub is ready to re- ceive the butter, which is packed as solid as pos- sible. The tub that took the second premium was not packed immediately, but was set aside twenty-four hours, then worked again. This is our practice, if butter comes soft. In summer the cows are milked as regularly as possible at 5 o'clock A. M., and 5 P. M. They are driven carefully to and from the pasture. They are fed salt every Monday and Friday. Irasburg, Vt., Feb., 1870. Z. E. Jameson. PURE BRAHMA8 AND MUSCOVY DUCKS. Below, please find my yearly account of poultry. You will see that I can mnke it profitable without charging $2 or ®6 per doz., as I see some of my townsmen advertise in your worthy paper. Stock Jan. 1,IS69. Dr. 38 Fowls at 75c, $2S.60; 13 Ducbe at 75c, 9 75 $3S 25 4 Guinea Fowls, $2.00; 20ChickenB, 6 OU, 8.00 $46.25 Cost of Food. 42 bushels corn, $46.60; 29 bushels oats, $24.26 $70 85 2t bush, meal, $25 95; 24 bush. C. corn, $25 95 51 90 36 bush, aborts, 14 45; 2 bneb. barley, $3.00 17.43 221 fb? scraps, $3 66 ; sqaashes, $2.60 . 6 10 C. pepper, 50c; sulphur, 74c, rat, exter- miiiato'-,25c 1 49 34 doz. and 8 hens' egets set,' at 395 . . 13 51 18 doz, and 8 ducks' eggs set, at 49c . . 9.16 $170.61 Other Expenses. W. brush, 37c ; nails 35c ; labor on coop, 14.12 14 84 Painting and glazing windows, .... 3 23 Dressing poultry, 5 60 $23.57 $24.'.33 Stock Jan. 1, 1870. Cr. 32 fowls, at 75c, $24 00; 12 ducks, at 75e $9.00 $33 00 118 chicks sold, $71.24; 144 ducks $98.43 167 67 171 doz and 2 hens eggs, $67.45 ; 16 doz. and 3 ducks egga, $7.50 74.90 28 bb's manure, $29 75; fea'hers $1. 30.75 62 doz. and 3 htns' eggs ueed in the family at 39c ....•••... 2t 28 5 doz. ana 7 duck eggs at 49c .... 2 70 $3.3^.30 Expenses, 240.33 Profit $92 67 Eggs and poultry used in the house I charge the same as those sold to be marketed. I have now two broods of chickens, — 19 — hatched February 12th and 1.5'h inst. John Buffington. Salem, Mass., Feb., 1870. patent manures and meadow muck. While sitting by the stove reading the Farmer, I see that a man wrote very favorably of meadow muck. Sir, I have farmed for twenty years, and I have tried muck in every form without seeing any benefit from its use. I worked for a man one season that had "muck on the brain. " He wanted me to try an experiment on corn with manure, and with muck. I did so. I planted half an acre with n anurc and half an acre with two-third.s muck and one-third manure. The.result was that fiom the half acre that I manured I gut my corn ; while from the half acre with the muck I got nothing. I think that all the patent manures are good for nothing. If a man who has no other income than his farm, buys these patent manure.^, he will soon run his farm and himself into the ground. A neighbor of mine goes in for muck and glue- 194 NEW ENGLAm) FAEAIER. April stock manure mixed. He used it last season and you should have seen his crops. Three or four years a,2o he ploughed up about four acres of land in the fall, and had a man drawing muck all winter, and covered his four acres all over. He planted it in the spring with corn, and took good care of it. In the fall he found his labor was in %ain. His corn was from six to ten inches high, but wi'hout one ear of corn. Then he plouglied it up again and seeded it down to grass. The next season, to his surprise, there was a crop of Roman wormwood, and that land remains in the same state now ; but he is going to try another medicine, called fish guano, in which I have as liitle fai(h as in the many other nostrums we hear of. In rny opinion Professor Hey wood's salt and plaster is worse than nothing. The only way to larm it that I know of, is to put under your crops the best bta!)le manure, and take good care of them. By so doing you will get a good harvest. But I will not write any more at this time. 0. J. XJPHAM. Needham, Mass., Feb. 12, 1870. Remarks. — We like such square expressions of opinion and experience, whether they tally with the "authorities" or not. We think our correspondent must have experimented with poor muck, or rather bad muck, as it seems to have destroyed the virtue of the manure with which it was mixed. PROFITABLE PIGS. As the Norway oat and early potato fever has prot)aoiy passed its height, may not farmers, while lookmg for the explosion of these and sun- dry other humbugs, consider the old subject of pork raising. Pork and pigs now command good prices, andl will give a statement from which you can see whether it will pay or not. A year ago last December, we bought a white Cnester County pig for $\2. She weighed about one hundred pounds. She will now weigh more than three hundred pounds. Last spring she had a litter of pigs, of which I sold six at four weeks old for (^30, aod had one left that I dressed when seven moQths old that weighed two hundred and tifty pounds. The last of October the old sow had anoitier litter of seven. When they were tive weeks old I sold two of them for $10; the two weighing fo;ty-eight and a half pounds. I sold one more at eight weeks old, for $8 and one at nine wee.is old lor $8.50, and we have now three left that are good for $10 each. Wo shall keep the mother of these pigs another year. The amount of sales and value of pigs on hand stand as follows : — 6 pig3 at four weeks old, $30.00 2 " five " " lO.u^ 1 " eight " " 8.00 2 " r.ina " " 8.50 1 dressed, seven months o.d, 250 pounds .... 35.00 3 pigs Oil b^ud, 30.00 $121.50 In the above statement I have not added any- thing fur the gain of two hundred pounds on the old hog, nor the expense of keeping. HIRED HELP. In r?lation to hired help, much depends upon the taimer that hires, whether he will be about with his help or not. Mo^t farmers want a man that knows how to do all kinds of work, and how to do it well ; one that can take his axe and go into the woods and cut wood or mend a piece of fence, or take his scythe, pitch fork, or hoe and go into the ticKt and do a good day's work ; one wdo IS always up in the morning before the sun is peeping into his windows, and is ever ready for work. It doesn't make much difference whether he was born in this country or not. Hartford, Vt., Jan. 17, 1870. Amos French. WHEAT CULTURE IN NEW ENGLAND. — DRILLING, PRESSING AND ROLLING, IN ENGLAND. In 1861 I made a machine for my own use for drilling, having one fertilizing plough, and one seed plough, both on one beam, which did the work complete. The first plough deposited the fer- tilizer and covered the same ; then the seed plough followed right in the same drill, dropping and covering the seed, all at the same operation, leav- ing a sufficient layer of earth between the seed and the fertilizer. I used for the fertilizer air- slacked lime. I drilled the wheat on land that I sowed onions on the year before. It was spring wheat. I drilled nearly an acre. The land was not very rich. I threshed and winnowed thirty- seven bushels of handsome wheat ; some of it was as good as I ever saw in my life, but a part was on low springy land, and did not yield so well. When the wheat was four to six inches high, I sowed grass seed and hoed the land at the same time, cutting up all the weeds, leaving the wheat free from weeds. The grass looked beautiful when I reaped the wheat, and was free from weeds. I drilled the rows of wheat about one foot apart. One man drilled it in one day. In the previous articles on the cultivation of wheat, by our triend Hebb, mention was made of treading and pressing. Are there not lands that would be ruined by pressing and treading ? I have seen lands in wet seasons in which wheat would never germinate if pressed and trodden, and I have seen other lands that would do well by pressing and treading. Farming is an art that no man can compass fully. In the first place the farmer should make himself acquainted with the soil he has to culti- vate, and this necessitates such analyses as will enable him to know how to treat the soil, and how to use different fertilizers. Some lands need one kind and some another, and some all kinds. Such knowledge will enable him to be more suc- cessful in the management of different soils and in the application of different manures. I have cultivated land for forty years, from four hundred acres to four thousand ; so, Mr. Editor, you must think I have had some practice in farming. Still, I can learn something new every day and every year. I should like to write more, but this article, the first I ever attempted to write on agriculture, is already, perhaps, too long. If I had had as much practice in writing as in farming, I might have done a little better. Hereafter 1 may offer some remarks on restoring lands to fertility by different fertilizers, and by different modes of cultivation. Lowell, Mass., Feb., 1870. Thomas Wilson. Remarks. — In Mr. Hebb's article on the use of the presser-roller, and on treading wheat fields, it was expressly said, "this mode of cultivation is applicable only in cases where the soil is too loose and pliable for the healthy and continued growth of the wheat plant, as in case of a heavy clover lea, &c." — The wool clip last year amounted to about 150,000,000, or 52,000,000 more than in 1852, and was worth about $62,000,000. The stocks on hand in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, at the be- ginning of the current year, were 15,900,000 pounds, against 24,500,000 a year previous— showing a de- ficiency of nearly 8,500,000 pounds. 1870. XEW ENGLAOT) FAKIilER. 195 AQRICULTUKAIi ITEMS. — ^The directors of the Sacramento Valley Beet Sugar Association, have determined to enter largely this year into the cultivation of sugar beets, and the manufacture of sugar therefrom. — The trustees of the Maine State Agricultural Society are to meet at Bangor the last of this month to consider proposals for the location of the next Show, and to decide upon the same. — The Country Gentleman makes a good point when it says, in answer to a request for the address of a stock-breeder, that, as he never advertises, it is fair to suppose he has nothing to sell. — A distmguished poulterer says, that the occa- sional use of onions, mixed and fed to poul- try with their other food, is one of the best ways of keeping a yard of poultry in health. — In the Willamette Valley, Oregon, wheat is sown in the latter half of March or first half of April ; oats and barley in April and May. Tur- nips should be sown in April. A correspondent of the Willamette Farmer says it is useless to sow field turnips there in June or July. The drought and bugs destroy the young plants. — The Northwestern Flax Association held its first annual meeting at Cleveland, Ohio, Jan. 26. A memorial to Congress was prepared, stating that over 500,000 acres of flax are grown for the seed, in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota; and praying for the continu- ance of the present duty on gunny cloth. — L.F.Allen writes the American Institute Far- mers' Club that while there is no uniformity of shape or growth in the horns of Shorthorn cattle, they have one peculiar characteristic ; an oval shape near the root, gradually assuming a roundness near the extremities, and a hazy or neutral appear- ance in color. They are also finer in grain and more delicate in appearance than the horns of common cattle. — A correspondent of the New York Farmers' Club, from Maryland, reccommends lime as a pre- ventive of club-foot in cabbage. He says that fifty bushels of shell lime, per acre, every five or six years, or whenever cabbages begin to "club" will enable a man to grow cabbages on the same ground twenty years in succession. He raised cabbages last year on land which has been growing this veg- etable thirty years in succession. — To obviate the hurry and consequent imper- fection of the entries of stock and other articles at County Shows, for making a record of which the secretaries often have but a few hours, the old Ken- nebec, Me., Society has decided to have in each town a special committee of one who shall receive all entries of stock and other articles to be exhibited from his town, and forward them to the Secretary of the Society by 8 o'clock, P. M., of the day pre- ceding the fair. — A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says, "Take hog's lard, melt it and mix with it a little sulphur and apply the mixture thoroughly to a space six inches wide on either side of the back bone from the head to the tail of the animal. Do this on a warm, sunshiny day, and if there is alir- ing louse on the animal, twenty-four hours after- ward, I won't say that I will eat it, but I will say that louse has a stronger constitution than any other specimen with whi ch I have come in contact," —J. C. Barnes of Fort Fairfield, Me., raised the past year about 5400 lbs. of pork, to produce which he used up 900 bushels of grain, mostly buckwheat. Some oats and peas were used, and are considered valuable as tending to harden pork. One of his hogs, seventeen months old, slaughtered a few days ago, weighed 553 lbs. The value of the feed is estimated to be $370. Value of pork, at 12^ cts. per lb., $675. SAMPLE OF "WILTED HAY. In the discussions at the late Farmer's Conven- tion, at Lewiston, Maine, much was said in rela- tion to the new manner of curing grass by wilting it, only, and then mowing it away as compactly as possible in large quantities. Several gentlemen of the highest respectability stated this to be their prac- tice, and that the grass so cured was worth more than when made by two or three days' drying; one of whom, Capt. Taylor, of Winthrop, said it was worth twenty-five per cent, more than grass ex- posed to the sun a part of two days. One of the agents of this paper, Mr. Edward P. Frost, has recently visited Houlton, in Aroostook county, Maine, and there called upon Capt. V. PcTNAM, formerly a Massachusetts man, who kindly showed Mr. Frost his stock and the hay upon which it fed. A sample of this hay is now before us, sent by Mr. Frost. This sample was taken from a bay of twenty tons, and was cured by wilting it merely, allowing it to remain in cock a day or two, and then packing it away in the bay. This hay was examined by the members of the Concord Farmers' Club, and pronounced excellent. Mr. Frost states that Capt. Putnam has a fine stock of cattle, which give ample evidence of feeding plentifully upon the best of hay. Biting Hard !— The next time Patrick cleans the horse, he will be more gentle in currying his legs. If he is not, there will probably be more photographs of the horse's teeth, on the place upon which he sits down ! Never use the curry comb upon the legs of a horse below the knee. There is no flesh on that part of the leg, so that, in careless hands, the curry comb goes raking over the bones and causing severe pain. Even a good-natured horse will not always be quiet under such treat- ment. Use a wisp of straw, or, if the mud is plen- tiful, a smooth stick will take off most of it. Un- til Patrick can sit down comfortably again, he certainly will remember to be gentle when clean- ing "old Jerry's" legs. 196 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Aprii- [Entcred according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S70, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Oerk's Office of the District Cooit for the District of Massachusetts.] RURAL. ARCHITECTURE. BT GEO. E. HARNEY, Cold Spring, N. Y. DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. No. l.~A FRENCH HOOP SUBURBAN HOUSE. In the year 1859, — eleven years ago, — we commenced a series of papers in the pages of the New England Framer upon Rural Archi- tecture and the improvement of country places, which papers were continued through three or four years, during which time we presented to the readers thereof some twenty or more pictures and plans of rural cottages and farm houses, and whatever else came within the range of the subject. The acquaintance was so very pleasant to us that, afcer seven years of intermission, — vacation we will call it, if you please, — we propose to renew it, and during this year shall present some new designs, and give some fur- ther hints about building suburban and village bouses, and kindred matters. The design which we shall offer at this time has very much of the modern French charac- ter in its exterior, though in a modified form. It is nearly square in plan, measuring 40 feet in width and 38 in depth. A slight projec- tion, surmounted by a pediment, gives strength to the front of the design and allows of a re- cess at the front entrance doors. An orna- mental terrace, 10 feet wide, runs along the entire front, and from it we enter the vesti- bule, B. The house is placed so that the floor is about five feet above the ground, and the foundations are surrounded by a banking up to the bottom of a split stone underpinning. The building is of wood, boarded and clap- boarded on the outside ; the roof is French, the lower pitch very steep and the upper not 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 197 BO steep, yet having slant enough to slate. There is a small deck or flat on top, orna- mented by a cresting of cast iron. The vesti- Ground Plan. bule, B, is 4 feet deep, and opens directly into the hall, C. This hall is 8 feet wide. D is a parlor, 15x21, and directly back of it is the kitchen, E, 15x18. The chimney is be- tween the two room?, and on each side is a closet for shelves. H is a back entry, having a door opening out upon the veranda, M. K is a large store-closet, fitted with shelves and drawers, and O is a pot-closet, opening out of it. P is a sink- room, and R is another kitchen Chamber Plan. closet. A part of the kitchen and all these closets are in a one-story addition, witli a lean-to roof. G is the dining room, 15x18, and F the library, 15x16. Id the second story, A is the hall ; B a small chamber, 8x11 ; C a chamber, 15 feet square ; D a chamber. 15x13; E a bathroom; Fa chamber, 15x16 feet, and H a chamber 15x16. The attics and cellar are left wholly unfin- ished at present ; but there is room in the former for five good chambers, and in the lat- ter for a laundry, store-rooms, furnace, coal- bins, &c., &c. The interior finish is all to be plain, of pine ; the walls lathed and plastered, and neatly fin- ished with a skim coat. The first story is 10 feet high, and the second 9i. The cost would be about $10,000. Remarks. — We present a ratber high cost build- ing, as the first of the series. This fault will be remedied in future plans, as the design of the ar- chitect is to give plans suited to every one's ability, and the majority of them will be quite moderate in cost. As combining originality and beauty of design the series will prove valuable for builders and carpenters, as well as pleasing in artistic exe- cution.— [Eds. A Small Barn. — Mr. E. J. Carr, of West Hamp- stead, N. H., sends us plans of a barn 26 by 36 feet, which he thinks will better meet the wants of small farmers than those of the laiger ones that we have published. But his arrangements are so nearly similar to that of the first floor of the plan on page 184 that it is hardly necessary to give his drawings. His bay ocupies the whole of one side of the barn floor. On the other side the stable is divided by a passage-way across it, with outside door, into two unequal divisions, the large one for cows and the smaller one for horses. A Dairy to Boast of — The St, Albans Messenger says : — Mr. Nahum Brigham of Bakerstield, from fifteen cows, made during the dairy season just closed, sixty tubs, or 3000 lbs. of butter. He sold it for forty-five cents a pound, realizing $1350. He also raised ten calves, now worth $IU0, and 1000 pounds of pork, which he sold f)r$l30 — mak- ing as the proper income of the dairy $1580, besides supplying his family. He is now mak- ing butter at the rate of one tub a week. Mr. Brigbara is a correct farmer. He se- lects the best btock lie can find and then keeps it in the best condition. He does not believe in pasturing all the cows the fence will hold, and in the winter, besides first quality of hay he is a liberal feeder of grain. It pays, as the above account shows. Besides, he is a neat farmer. Everything is kept in its place and his work is done in time. This is the great secret of happiness in farming, if not of success, and every farmer who drives his work and is not driven by it, will find it true. 198 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. April BUTTER-MAKINQ. OMEWHERE I read a statement that the editor of the Farmer said in a recent meeting of far- '^l~j\ mers, that "not more than one sf tuh of butter in ten sent to Boston market is really a choice article ;" or in other w( rds, nine tubs, on the aver- age, out of every ten are of inferior quality. I have not the report at hand and do not quote the precise language. Now if this is true, I wish the editor, or some one who knows, would tell us the reason of this inferiority. Is the fault in the making, the packing, or the storing ? Is it in the flavor, the color, or the salting f Is it in the milk, the place of setting, length of time it remains before skim- ming, in keeping the cream, time and manner of churning, mode of working after churning, or what ? Tell us precisely, and in detail, the reasons. The butter interest is of too great magnitude to be neglected. The remedy should be sought out, made known and applied. lam satisfied that the readers of the Farmer, at least, are desirous of making not only good butter, but the best that can be made. Vermont farmers, with their sweet, fertile pastures, and favorable climate, ought to beat the world in their dairy products. Tell us how ! Enquirer. Essex, Vt., Feb. 14, 1870. Remarks. — The "Editor of the Farmer," alluded to above, did make the statement, (at the late Farmers' Convention, in Manchester, N. H., when the subject of "the dairy" was under consideration) that he bad called upon several of the leading butter merchants of Boston, and asked them the following question : "What proportion of all the butter which comes to this market, should you call good table butter ?" Not more than one pound in ten, was the usual reply ! And, from looking over the butter which came to the stalls in the market, we judged that they were very near the truth. We are inclined to think that fully one-half of all the butter coming into New England markets, is "made over,'''' before it is retailed in small parcels. That is, it is taken from the tub, worked over by the aid of machinery, or otherwise, washed, and in some measure j9«ri- Jied, by the use of alkalies or some other agents. It is then newly packed in a neat and tasteful form, and sold. Large quantities go to confectioners, eating houses and pastry cooks, but even there can- not be used until it passes through a cleansing process. All this is sold at greatly reduced prices, and the farmer is the principal loser. There is no need of this. The fault lies in all the points which you have enumerated. Want of cleanliness in milking ; impure places for setting the milk ; want of proper ventila- tion ; allowing the milk to stand too long, and the cream, also : too little care in observing the temperature of the cream and churn, in churning ; exposure to the air ; and added to these, and worse than all the rest, leaving but- termilk in the butter ! Over and over again, have we given rules in the Farmer for butter-making, from some of the best dairy people in New England ; other agricultural papers have done the same, and yet there seems to be little improvement in the article itself. Farmers are losing immensely in this particular. Below are some general, and, if good butter is to be obtained, indispen- sable rules for making butter. 1. Perfect cleanliness in everything, from the milking of the cow, to packing the butter down. 2. A dry and well ventilated room in which to set the milk ; at a temperature of from 60° to 63°. 3. Cream not to stand over thirty- six hours — twenty-four is frequently better — in winter, and in summer, twelve to eighteen hours, in most dairy rooms. 4. Stir the cream and add a little salt at each time of skimming the milk. 5. Churn often; twice or three times a week is better than only once. 6. One ounce of salt to a pound of butter will more nearly meet the average taste than a larger or smaller quantity. By careful observation, it will be found that the quality of the butter, when properly made, will depend more upon the original butter making quality of the cow, than upon the char- acter of the feed. The milk of every cow should be tested, and only that used for butter making which throws up a rich cream plenti- fully. We have had cows whose milk would not only give but very little cream, but would actually prevent, in some degree, the cream from rising on the milk of other cows. An excellent dairy woman furnishes the fol- lowing as her mode of proceeding: "The milk is set in a dark, cool cellar, the tempera- ture by thermometer averaging 60° to 63°. I gather the cream into a stone pot, salt the week's cream, for one cow one teacupful of fine salt, and stir the cream every day to keep it sweet while accumulating ; then it is strained into the churn ; it is about thirty minutes com- ing to butter. I then drain off the buttermilk 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 199 and turn into the churn four quarts of cold well water, turn the crank three times to rinse off the buttermilk, then take it from the churn and salt it, allowing to every pound of butter two ounces of sifted salt. I put half the salt in when taken from the churn, set it into the cel- lar four hours, then work over by hand in a tray, working out the buttermilk, then put in the remainder of the salt and let it set three hours. I then work it over and beat with wooden butter-beaters until the butter is dry. Butter made in this way will always have a grain to it, and will keep perfectly sweet through the winter." Butter made as above received a premium at an agricultural exhibition. The quantity of salt used, is unusually large, but some of it would, of course, be thrown out in working over the butter, the first time. In the best dairies, the butter is never salted at once, but a portion of the salt required is applied at the last working, just before it is to be packed. For the Xew England Farmer. NEW POTATOES.— A "WINDOW FABM. Sometime ago I sent you a few of my new varieties of potatoes which I raised from po- tato ball seeds. They were not fair speci- mens as to size. I am away from home much of the time, laying cement water pipe to bring water to the houses and barns of the farmers, during the spring, summer and fall ; and in my absence, my folks got a taste of these varieties of potatoes and eat all of the best of them. We raise the best kinds of the old va- rieties of potatoes that we can get, but they preferred these to any we raise. The potatoes I sent you which resemble the Jackson Whites in shape, but have a yellow- ish purple cast to the outside, are quite early. I call them the «'Early Golden." Those with the pink streaks and eyes, that are shaped like the Oronos are late. I call them the Pink-eyed Queen of the Sod. They have the most hardy vine I ever saw, and are the most free from blight and rust. The balls which grow on them are the hardest and greenest I ever saw. I have a lot of balls from many varieties which I put into the cellar last fall ; but while the bulls of every other variety are dried and de- cayed, these remain green and hard. I think this potato will not be likely to rot. My Window Farm. I have begun to raise seedling potatoes. I have about fifty plants which have been up for over a month. From these I hope to get po- totoes in season to plant this spring. I have another lot planted. I have a way of arranging the boxes in which I raise potatoes, tomatoes and other plants, which I think the most convenient of any I have ever seen. It is not patented, so any of your readers, who choose, may use it. To make the boxes I get a round stick of wood as large as I want the boxes. I saw off sections from this stick about one-half an inch thick. These I use for the bottom of the boxes. I then wind a piece of birch bark around and tack it to this bottom with small tacks, and take a thin stick and put on the in- side where the bark comes together and drive a tack or two through the bark and stick, and the box is made. I now tack these boxes on to sticks, say strips of lath, or the like, one above another, and attach a loop at the top of this stick to hang it up by. This figure represents a stick and box- es with plants in them. I think you will understand It, and see how readily it can be hung before the window on pleasant days, and taken down and re- moved and hung in a warm place on cold nights. To take care of a hundred boxes of plants arranged in this way is not one-tenth as much as it is to take care of as many separate boxes, and the liability of the boxes falling, and spilling the contents is much lessened. I tack about a dozen boxes on a stick, and seventy-five or one hundred boxes can be placed at a com- mon window. If any one has a better way of arranging plant boxes I would like to adopt it. I have begun another letter in which I give directions how to make a cistern. I think a common farmer by following these directions can make a good cistern. There are hundreds of the readers of your paper who are in need of cis- terns, and are losing more, every few years, by doing without them, than their cost. B. LiVERMORE. Eartland, Vt., Feb. 8, 1870. Salt in Cooking Vegetablks. — If one portion of a dish of vegetables be boiled in pure water, and the other in water to which a little salt has been added, a decided difference may be observed in the tenderness, llavor, and, if potatoes, mealiness of the two. On- ions are probably more improved by being cooked in salt water, than any other vegeta- ble. Much of their unpleasant smell is taken away, and a peculiar sweet-ness and improved aroma are decidedly apparent. Salt hinders the evaporation of the soluble and flavoring principles of vegetables. 200 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. April iabi^s' S^parttnent. DOMESTIC ECONOMY; OB, HOW TO MAKE HOME PLEASANT. BT ANNE Q. HALB. [Entered according to Act of CongreBS, in the year 1866, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of MassachuBetts.l CHAPTER XXI. HOW TO COOK MEATS. When good meat has been provided it should be the housekeeper's pride to present it at table in the most inviting manner. To this end it must be thoroughly and carefully cooked and neatly served. But she should not be ambitious of dis- playing her skill in the concoction of too great a variety of dishes— rather be content with a few that stand the test of healthy appetites. In many families noted for the nicety of their table arrangements and for the excellent prepara- tion of other viands, the cooking of meats is a miserable failure. I think that the cause of this is to be found in the many attempts that are made at elaborate and fanciful cookery, numberless re- ceipts for which come fluttering daily on the wings of the press to every door, and those who have a propensity for experimenting are too often tempted to turn with disdain from simple and wholesome methods, or to use them carelessly, while willing to spend much time, and no small means, in try- ing to make these indigestible messes appear de- sirable and economical. Be honest enough to do all plain cooking well before you adopt a more pretentious style, and you will be spared the pain —which many have felt— of knowing that the un- palatable food that you have set before your fam- ily has driven any that are dear to you to seek bet- ter fare or a substitute for it at the restaurant or bar-room. All meat— whether flesh, or fowl— mttst be thor- oughly cleansed in cool water as the first step towards cooking. Many persons say that for broil- ing, frying, or roasting, this injures the appearance of the meat and wastes its juice. Better so, then, than to have the filth which it has contracted in passing from hand to hand and from place to place before it lay upon the kitchen table. But if the meat be briskly rubbed in the cool, clear water and immediateiy wiped dry with a clean towel Buch is not the case. Pork that is cooked in its rind must have the rind cleared of all impurities by scraping and then thorough washing. Salted and pickled hams, and bacon should be soaked in cold water,— if very large, two days — before they are cooked; they are then tender and j uicy . Hearts, livers, kidneys, all harslets, must be trimmed free of all waste, and then soaked three or four hours before they are fit to cook. Brains should be washed and then soaked an hour in lukewarm water. Heads need five or six hours soaking after a careful washing. Calves' heads and feet, if not cleared of the hair, must be dipped in scalding water, sprinkled with a little fine resin, and scraped ; then let the hoofs lie in the hot water till they can be pried off easily with the point of a knife. Then soak them five or six hours in cool water. All utensils for cooking meat should also be per- fectly clean — scalded with weak suds after using, and kept clean till needed again ; especially is this necessary for the block or board on which the meat is laid to be cut and arranged previous to cooking. If the meat contains large bones get the butcher to saw or chop them before you attempt to cut or prepare it. Always use a sharp knife, and cut with a sawing motion ; a dull knife, by tearing the fibres, wastes the juice — as well as gives an un- sightly appearance. Have a clear fire, and keep it burning steadily till the meat is completely cooked; and always place the meat in a hot dish as soon as it is done, and keep it hot till served ; — with mutton in hot weather, the plates should be heated also. From these few general directions let us pass on to par- ticulars. A steak is the easiest of all pieces to cook, and because it is so easy — merely to broil it — what might be a most delicious and nutritious dish is too often presented at table no more inviting in odor and appearance — and nearly as indigestible — as so much sole leather. Beef, pork, veal, venison, or mutton, — whichever the steak may be — should not be more than half an inch in thickness — particularly pork and veal, which are better even much thinner. Don't neg- lect to wash and wipe it as soon as it comes into your possession, and then hang it in a cool place till time to cook it. A glowing fire of wood coals, or of charcoal, is considered the best for broiling ; but a red fire of anthracite is about as good. Griddles, — two, which enclose the meat, thus obviating the necessity of turning it, the griddles being turned instead, are the best style of gridiron. Grease the bars and place near the fire to heat two or three minutes before the meat is ready. Then lay the steak on the meat-board and with a dull chopping-knife, or with the back of the meat-knife, chop it lightly across the grain and then along the grain of the flesh on both sides. For tender steaks two minutes chopping is enough, but tough meats requires more. Place the steak over the tire and give it your whole attention till it is done, standing steadfast as a martyr at your post, for it needs con- stant watching and almost incessant turning. At the first hint of the starting of the juices arrange the gridiron to pour it into the dish as it flows while you raise and turn it — the turning being as 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 201 frequent as the rise of the juice. "When the fat that drips from it blazes shake salt upon it to put it out. Five minutes, sometimes three, will suflBce to cook the steak. When you think it is done let it fall from the gridiron to the dish, and make two or three incisions in it, the juice should follow the knife, but the grain of the meat must have lost its raw appearance. (Tastes differ so much it is best to cut the meat into convenient pieces and broil some more than others, but never enough to dry up the juice). If you find it is cooked sufficiently, shake salt over it — and pepper if you choose — and then lay small thin pieces of good butter here and there on both sides, and if not immediately needed cover closely and keep the dish on the top of the vegetable boiler over hot water ; the butter with the juice makes sufficient gravy. Birds and small game need only to be split in two for broiling ; cut chickens for the same, or for frying, as they are carved. Beef should never be fried — a steak nicely broiled and only salted is better than it can ever be fried. Mutton and lamb chops and cutlets, as well as pork and veal, are very nice if fried slowly in as little fat as will^ allow them to be easily turned — which they should be frequently. Salt sets the juices free, so do not salt them till after they are taken from the frying-pan. Ten minutes over a steady but gentle fire will cook lamb and mutton, but pork and veal need fifteen at least ; and veal to make it tender should be parboiled twenty minutes before it is fried. Salt pork fat is best for frying veal ; the other meats may be fried in their own, or in beef fat, or in lard. Thicken the gravy by stirring into it when boiling a little flour and water. (If you wish for dark gravy, brown the dry flour in the oven — some persons always keep scorched flour on hand (or this purpose.) A teaspoonful of flour mixed smoothly with half a cup of cold water is sufficient for a pint of gravy. Continue the stirring while it boils three minutes, then salt it slightly and pour it over the meat. If you wish to cook the cutlets in a very superior manner beat an egg, dip them In it, and then cover them with bread crumbs or cracker before fiying; or, dip the veal, after it is parboiled, into a batter made of beaten egg slightly thickened with flour and salted. Livers, hearts, and kidneys, after they have been soaked, may be sliced one-third of an inch thick and broiled or fried in the same way as steak and chops; they are nicer if parboiled first, fifteen or twenty minutes ; five minutes will then finish them. Salt pork, previous to either broiling or frying, should be parboiled ten minutes. Cut the slices a quarter of an inch thick ; pare off the rind and fry by itself, but place the slices in cold water and heat gradually to boiling. The pork iathus nicely freshened and the remainder of its cooking done more delicately. Set the water aside in which the pork is parboiled, and when it is cool remove the | fat that rises and add it to the dish after the broil- ing or frying, and, if you like, thicktn it with a little flour and milk ; if you do not wish for gravy save it to shorten pastry, for which it is very nice. Sausages should also be parboiled in the same way before broiling or frying; if in skins prick them first very closely with a fork, or the skins will be likely to crack and the meat be scattered. Some persons parboil and partially fry them soon after they are made, then pack them in a stone jar and pour melted lard over them, keeping them thus free from taint some months. Bacon keeps very nice if it is sliced, the rind trimmed off, the lean separated from the fat, the fat slightly fried, and then both lean and fat packed in ajar and the liquid fat that has tried outpoured ove» it. If not prepared in this way it should be sewed up in cloth or thick paper bags immediately after it is smoked, and laid down in clean shavings, sawdust or straw (dry oats are very good for this purpose) and kept in a cool, dark place. The lean of bacon requires much less broiling or frying than its fat, so it is always best to separate and cook each by itself, and when done arrange them together on the dish. A slow, moderate fire is best for frying all sorts of meat ; but fried meat is so hard to digest it should seldom be seen at table — that is, fried lean meat ; it is more generally necessary to fry fat meat ; but always broil, if possible, in preference. To roast or rather to bake meat — as range or stove ovens are more generally used than roasters — first see that your oven is hot enough to hiss loudly at a sprinkle of cold water, then place the meat, the bony side downward, upon a griddle, in a sheet-iron pan. Use no skewers, or as few as possible. Pour into the pan boiling water to the depth of half an inch, and dissolve in this water a teaspoonful of salt for every five pounds of meat. Replenish the evaporation of this water every half hour with more of the same temperature. In most ovens, with a brisk fire, twenty minutes is sufficient time to allow for roasting each pound of beef, mutton, lamb or venison ; pork and veal require half an hour, a shoulder or leg of pork rather more. Look at the meat often during the first fifteen minutes. If it browns very soon lay over it a buttered paper or set a pan of cold water in the oven with it. When the upper side is nicely browned turn it, placing the bones upward ; notice how long this has taken, and when the same time has elapsed shake salt over all, baste with the liquid in the pan, sprinkle with flour from the dredging-box, turn the bony side down again, and reverse the ends. And thus every twenty minutes turn, baste and flour the meat till you can pene- trate it easily with a fork. If it is very fat, before it is halt done, that which has dripped from it should be dipped or poured otf; and, afterward, at every basting. This should be saved, clarified by boiling in water a short time, (if the meat was highly seasoned a few slices of raw potato fried in 202 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Aprii. it will remove the flavor) and used for making pastry or for frying cakes or meat while it is new. Thicken the gravy as for fried meats and serve in a separate dish. Cooked thus without skewers, frequently basted and floured, the meat retains its juices and is tender and well flavored. Unless veal is quite fat slices of salt pork should be skewered or tied to it when it is about half done, and roasted with it ; or else butter be melted in the gravy with which it is basted. A leg of veal or of mutton is much improved by stuffing. For this make deep incisions in the meat and fill them with equal portions of fresh bread crumbed and of salt pork cut nearly as small as sausage-meat, seasoned with pepper, pul- verized sage and sweet marjoram or thyme, — and sew up these with a strong thread — to be cut and taken out before carving. Thicken the gravy and serve as with other roast meats. A fresh shoulder, or leg, or cheeks of pork to be roasted should have the rind cut through with a sharp knife in stripes half an inch in width. Pulverized sage and pepper should be rubbed into these cuts, and then the rind greased with butter or lard to prevent its blistering. The lean por- tions may be stuffed by making incisions and fill- ing them with bread crumbs moistened with milk, or a beaten egg, and seasoned with sage or marjo- ram, pepper and salt to the taste. Be careful not to scorch the rind — turn it and baste it very fre- quently to prevent this. A pig to be roasted should be killed when a month old. Wash it well, cut oflT the feet at the first joint, and sprinkle salt over it an hour before it is stuffed. The stuffing should be similar to that for a leg of pork ; fill it full with this, rub the skin with butter to prevent blisters, and tie the legs to keep them in the proper place. Shake flour over it, and set it on a griddle in the baking pan, the pan being half full of hot water. Turn it and baste and flour it very often. If you like, add but- ter to the gravy when it is half baked. Boil the liver and the feet an hour, and then add the liquor in which they arc boiled to that in the baking pan ; cut open the feet and chop the liver, and after the gravy is thickened add them to it. Three hours will cook it. Rabbits and woodchucks are highly esteemed by some persons ; they need similar preparation and cooking to a young pig, but will be baked in two hours. Soups and broths, as well as stews, are generally made of fresh meat. Beef and pork make the best soups ; and for these the remnants of a roast, or cold steaks or cutlets, with their gravies, are al- ways desirable. Three hours will cook a soup or stew, if of raw meat, — except when of a beef shin ; for this five hours is none too long. Cooked meat may be made into a soup in two hours. Put the meat, the bones having been broken or chopped, into cold water— a quart for every half pound— and salt and pepper to taste. Heat it gradually and boil it slowly and gently. When the water geta hot pour in half a pint of cold water to set the froth that rises, and then skim it off; it will continue to rise for fifteen or twenty minutes, and must be all skimmed off before the water boils. When the meat is ready to fall from the bones, skim ofi" what fat floats on the liquor, (this, if clarified, makes excellent shortening,) and if you have gravy stir it in at this time. Then, if you like cloves, or savory, or thyme, for seasoning, mix a little with cold water and stir this in also ; at the same time put in pared and sliced potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions or garlics; — six large potatoes, two carrots, two onions, and one turnip, are sufficient for a gallon of soup. When these boil add barley, rice, and vermecelli, if you like; and when the vegetables are boiled tender make dumplings, — taking for a dozen a pint and a half of flour, a pinch of salt, a teaspoonful of cream tartar, half a teaspoonful of soda or saleratus, and water enough to make dough that can be easily moulded. Steam these in the steamer that fits the brim of the dinner-boiler, and when they are done — ten minutes will cook them — mix a little flour with cold water and stir into the soup ; let it boil three times, then add the dump- lings and take up the soup and serve immediately. For variety the vegetables may be cut as small as dice, and when done strained from the soup by means of a hair sieve or a colander. Tomatoes — two or three to a gallon — are a great addition; skin and slice them, and boil as long as the other vegetables. — Stews require a third less water and more vegetables than soups. — Broths need the same vegetables as soups, but they are boiled with- out slicing, and the rice, or barley, is the same. Green parsley, or savory, and pepper-grass, and thyme, with the petals of the common marigold, are used as flavoring, — and no seasoning but salt. For a meat-pie the meat should be parboiled half an hour ; the pan, if the pie is to baked, lined with a crust made of a quart of flour, a tables poonfu I of lard, a pint of sour cream and saleratus to sweeten it, and a little salt or sweet milk or cold water with a teaspoonful of cream tartar and half a teaspoon- ful of soda may mix the flour. Lay the meat and place the bones, in such a way as to fill the pan ; or arrange skewers, or set a bowl within for the same purpose. Thicken the gravy, and season with salt and pepper and pour in ; it is a good plan to make gravy enough to reserve a pint or more to replenish what is evaporated in baking. The crust should be a quarter of an inch in thickness for the lining, and a little thicker for the covering. If there is any crust remaining after the cover is laid, cut it into strips and make knots and twists of it to ornament the cover. A pot-pie may be steamed or boiled— (using the same for crust as if it were baked)— on the back of a stove, if great care is used, and the fire covered with ashes to moderate the heat. An excellent soup or broth may be made from the liquor in which a leg of mutton— fresh— is boiled ; or when a calf's head is 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 203 cooked ; also from the gravy of turkey or other fowl, whether roasted or boiled. Tough pieces of beef may be stuffed and stewed and thus form a very savory dish. Cut incisions in the meat, and then take slices of salt pork and cut them into pieces the size of dice ; season the pork by mixing with it pulverized sage and pepper, and fill the incisions with this, and sew or skewer them together. Set it to boll in cold water— a pint for every pound,— or till the meat is ready to fall apart. Thicken the gravy as for roast meat, and pour over the beef in a deep dish, and serve hot, wiih baked potatoes. A heart, or meat from the upper part of a shin, is very nice cooked thus. Corned beef should be put to boil in very warm — but not scalding water,— then the juices are re- tained in the meat. It should be boiled slowly — it will be tou.h if boiled fast,— allow half an hour for boiling each pound. If it is to be eaten cold, after it is boiled tie it with tape, or strips of cloth, wound around it as tightly as possible, and place it be- tween two dishes beneath a heavy weight — a flat- iron will answer— till it is needed. It will then be as nice as tongue. A beef's tongue that has been salted long needs eoaking six hours. If but slightly salted it may be boiled directly from the brine ; — there is no danger of boiling it too much — give it six hours, at least. A ham, if very large, should be boiled five or six hours. It is very nice boiled two or three hours and then baked the same length of time. Remove the rind before baking it, and sift over it pounded crackers or dried bread, or dredge it well with flour. It should be baked in a moderate oven. A calf's head should be set to boil in cold water with a spoonful of salt, the liver and the heart to accompany it. Skim the liquor till no froth rises. Boil it till the flesh is loosened from the bones. The brains should be taken out when the head is soaked, washed and soaked by themselves and boiled — tied in a cloth — ten or fifteen minutes. Skin ar.d trim the tongue, and remove the bones of the head. Take part of the heart and liver, also of the head meat, and the brains, and chop fine ; boil two eggs till they are hard and chop those and mix. Add to this half as much of stale bread crumbed. Season with butter, pepper, salt, and gage ; and stew with a little of the liquor in which it was boiled ; and serve this hash in sauce fur the meat. Make soup of the liquor. The next day chop all ihat is left and make into hash the same. It is so much trouble to clean and cook tripe that it is usually boikd before it is sold by the butch- ers. The best way to prepare it then for the table is to steam it, adding a little salt, butter and pep- per. Cut int 1 pieces three inches square and dipped into batter made of a beaten egg and a little flour and then fried in butter or salt pork fat, it makes a rather more handsome dish— but is less digestible ; — or it may be fried without batter. The best way to cook a hog's head is to boil it, with the feet, and make all into brawn, or cheese, as it is called. The head should be cut open, the nostrils cut off, and the eyes taken out. Then scrape and wash it well, — particularly the ears, — and cut these off before boiling. Boil it till the meat will fall from the bones ; then chip it — not very fine — season it with salt, pepper, and sage, put it in a deep dish to cool, and cut in slices to fry, or eat it cold. Some persons thicken the liquor in which the head and feet are boiled with Indian meal — three tablespoonfuls fo a gallon — scald it well, and then mix the chopped meat with it. — Pigs' feet scraped and soaked till perfectly clean, then corned slightly, and boiled, and then pickled a week in spiced vinegar, are much relished by some. All housekeepers know that there are frequent- ly remnants and bits of cooked meat — left from corned beef or mutton, or taken from soups and stews and broths, — which are not presentable at meals in their fragmentary state, and so they con- vert them into hash. This hash is too often so carelessly prepared as to be reluctantly eaten, if not absolutely detested ; but it may be made a very enjoyable dish. The best way to make it is to boil the meat anew, and to chop it when cold as fine as if it were sausage meat. Then add to it half its measure of potatoes — chopped equally as tine — sea- son it with salt, pepper and pulverized sage ; and fry it either in small cakes moulded with cold wa- ter, or in one large cake that covers the bottom of the frying pan ; — a little water must be added to mix the ingredients well, and it should be fried in just fat enough to allow it to be easily moved. Brown the cakes nicely on both sides, and if some- thing extra is desired, stale bread crumbed tine may be substituted either partially or entirely for the potato. Made and cooked thus it is a very ap- petizing dish. For the New England Farmer, DOMESTIC RECEIPTS. Potato Biscuit. Boil two common sized potatoes with those you cook for dinner. Peel and mash very smooth and fine, add one quart of flour and a Utile salt to the hot potatoes, half a cup of goodytast, mix with milk-warm water and set in a pretty warm place. About an hour before tea time, mould up into bis- cuit, put into a taking pan and set on the stove hearth. When they begin to rise well, put into a quick oven and bake to a delicate brown. They will be found light, sweet and moist. Kaw Potato Yeast. Grate three large raw potatoes on a coarse grater, pour into the mass of pulp enough boiling water to make a clear thick starch ; add one-half cup of sugar, one-quarter cup of salt. When lukewarm add one cup of yt-ast. Keep warm until it ris.es. One-half cup of this yeast will rise three large loaves of bread. By boiling a handful of hops ia the water you pour over the potatoes, this yeast will keep two months in hot weather. 8. b. s. 204 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Aprii, For the New England Farmer, USEFUL RECEIPTS. Tooth Powder. Half an ounce powdered orris root ; two ounces, powdered charcoal ; one ounce powdered Peruvi- an bark ; half an ounce prepared chalk ; twenty- drops of oil of lavender or neroli. These ingre- dients should be thoroughly mixed in a mortar. This tooth powder possesses three essential virtues ; it sweetens the breath, cleanses and purifies the teeth, and preseves the enamel. To Extinguish a Fire in a Chimney. So many serious tires have been caused by chim- neys taking fire, and not being quickly extinguished allowing the wood-work to become charred and then blaze, that we think the following method should be more generally known. Throw some powdered brimstone quickly on the flames in the grate or fire-place, and then hold up a screen of a board or an iron sheet, to prevent the fumes from descending into the room. The vapor of the brim- stone ascends into the chimney and effectually ex- tinguishes the burning soot. If brimstone is not at hand throw half a pint of fine salt on the flames. 8. o. J. DOMESTIC BECBIPTS. Bubble axd Squeak, — Cut into pieces con- venient for fij'ing; cold roast or boiled beef ; pepper, salt and fry them ; when done, lay them on a hot drainer, and while the meat is draining from the fat used in frying them, have in readiness a cabbage already boiled in two waters ; chop it small, and put it in the frying pan with some butter, add a little pep- per and salt, keep stirring it, that it may all be equally done. When taken from the fire, sprinkle over the cabbage a very little vinegar, only enough to give it a slight acid taste. Place the cabbage in the centre of the dish ; and arrange the slices of meat neatly around it. Baked Apple Dumplings. — Choose large russett or sour apples that cook tender ; peel and quarter them, take out the cores, and use one apple to a dumpling. Pinch your pie- crust well, grease your pie pan, set your dumplings right side up ; do not let them touch each other ; set them in your oven, and bake a delicate brown. Eat hot with any sauce you prefer. A Pippin Pudding. — Boil six apples well ; take out the cores, put in half a pint of milk thickened with three eggs, a little lemon-peel, and sugar to the taste ; put puflF paste round your dish, bake it in a slow oven, grate sugar over it, and serve it hot. Remedy for Ear Ache. — There is scarcely any ache to which children are subject, so bad to bear, and so difficult to cure, as earache. But there is a remedy never known to fail. Take a bit of cotton batting, put upon it a pinch of black pepper, gather it up and tie it, dip it in sweet oil, and insert it in the ear. Put a flannel bandage over the head to keep it warm. It will give immediate relief. AMEHICAN QIRIiS IN EUROPE. I donot wish to undervalue English beauty, which is most satisfactory and enduring, and most of which will wash. But I confess that American beauty from New York to New Or- leans has spoiled my eyes for any other ; and when I am just getting accustomed to the solid English matrons and maidens, like Mr. Haw- thorne, and beginning to like them — along comes a group of my fair country women on their travels, and they spoil it all again. Those dear Yankee girls — I fear you do not appreciate them at home. Here they adm re and envy them — that is, the men admire and the women envy. On the continent they rave about them. Half a dozen American belles send a whole German town distracted. It is not onlv beauty and grace, but their wit, spirit and audacity. The continental customs favor their triumphs. No girl over there dares to say her soul is her own — let alone her body. She never goes anywhere without a chaperone ; she never converses with a gentleman except to answer a question ; she is of necessity in- sipid to the last degree. An American girl, on the contrary, asserts her freedom, goes where she likes, talks with every one she cares to talk with, says du to a German — just as she would do at home. He is overwhelmed, as- tonished, but all the more delighted. He tells his friends that the beautiful girl he waltzed with said du to him, and told him to bring her a glass of water, which sets them all crazy to be introduced, hear her say du to them, and be made water carriers likewise. Next day the whole town is talking about and staring at her — the women are in a rage — but the result is the conviction that America must be a great country, increased emigration, and the con- sequent progress of civilization. — European Letter. NEWP^ DEVOTUD TO AU-E-ICUIiTUHE, nOKTICULTUllE, AlfD KXNDEED AETS. NEW SERIES. Boston, May, 1870. VOL. IV.— XO. 5. B. P. EATON & CO., Pur.LisntKS, Office, 34 JJLerchants' liow. MONTHLY. SIMON BRO\ra-, > editohs 8. FLETCHER, 1 -Ld^ohs. pecujjIar to may. "Plant Flowers! Thickly dow the flower s eds sprinkle, Let the aarliijg euith-Btare twirik.e Everywhere I By fountain's brim, uhere the rainbow glancrg, In garden walk, where your child's fooi daactb. Train them with carol" n E merry, beautiful, month of May is here ! Now fairly awakened «5»«iwui^ l/r/^^;^^ \)) from its long ^^■"'^ repose, all the vegeta- ble kingdom shows that, in its winter nap, it has laid up new stores of energy, which are bud- ding or blossoming into a freshness and fra- grance as delightfal as though they met our senses for the first time. The charming May-Flower has become a love-token. They are sought for far and near, and are not only sent as tokens of affection or kind remembrance, but have become articles of commerce, and may be found for sale in various places. Fathers cany them home to their children, and lovers to their affianced, or those whom they wish to have become so. Laughing girls deck their hair with them or wear them on the bosom. But the great charm is to eearch for them in pairs, young men and maidens, in the pure air and glowing sun!4ght of a real May morn- ning ! — the maidens, perhaps, like Proserpine, themselves the fairest llowers ! Sometimes they find them "beneath the elge of a snow- bank, where they may be seen rising, the fra- grant, pearly, white or rose-colored, crowded flowers of this earliest harbinger of spring. It abounds in the edges of woods about Ply- mouth, in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, and must have been the first flower to salute the storm-beaten crew of the Mayllower on the conclusion of their first terrible winter. Their descendants have thence piously derived its name." Each returning month of INIay seems to us a new creation ; new sensations take posses- sion of us ; new hopes crowd the mind, at least as new as are the objects about us which excite the sensations and hopes. It is not vegetable matter alone that is quickened into life, but the animal kingdom, from insect to man, seems equally affected by the new phase of existence. All these interesting changes of the seasons are only a part of the stupendous changes which are constantly going on. "Man him- self is changing. Intellectual, refined, and living more by his ingenuity than by his strength, he is a different being from the sav- age, in whom passion and physical force are the chief traits. This change in man is also 206 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. May now going on more rapidly than ever. Rea- son, humanity, and intellectual exertion are becoming more and more prominent. In the use of the physical forces, we are just learning what it is 'to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it.' Steam, electricity, the printing press, the paper-mill, and a thousand other new arts are changing human conditions, human employments, human habits, and hu- man characteristics. Mind is becoming more and more the standard of man. The human mind is becoming one of the great forces of creation." It is not only pleasant to observe these ever- recurring changes in the aspects and economy of nature, but delightful to contemplate them with reference to Him who rules and guides them all. Properly observed and studied, they greatly enlarge the mind and fill it with grateful and peaceful emotions. Let each "magnify his office" in this charming month, by a prompt and cheerful attention to duty, whatever that may be. The earth, having cast off her wintry vest- ments, is now, by power of frost and snow and heat and chemical changes, ready for the hand of the husbandman. If he sows gener- ously, he will be likely to reap abundantly. But ]\Iay demands that her work shall be done at its appropriate time, when wind and sun and rain shall exert their proper influence upon the crops and bring them to perfection in due season. The Early Grains, not sowed in April, should receive attention in the first part of May. Early Potatoes are more profitable for market than late ones. There are various ways of starting them ; in a box or barrel by the kitchen stove, where it is moderately warm ; in a sunny corner out of doors, cov- ered with fresh horse manure ; or in a box of fine, rich loam kept in the kitchen window, where the sun's rays will reach them. Im)ian Corn, is an important crop. See that the soil for it is fine and mellow, and well manured. Select the seed with care, using only that which was perfectly ripened and re- ject the tops of the ears. White Beans, pea beans, always command a remunerating price. Leave a space for this crop, and have eight or ten bushels more than the family need, for sale. They are easily cultivated, harvested and marketed. Roots for Stock. — We should feel as though neglecting a duty if we omitted to urge the cultivation of roots. Try them in a small way, at least. Let the rows be nearly three feet apart, and the plants, if mangolds, beets, or ruta bagas, at least twelve inches apart in the rows. Mr. Gregory, in his excellent re- port, says even more than that. Weeds. — Do not allow these to get ahead of the crops. It will be an up-hill work if you do. Pruning. — Let this work go until the mid- dle of June, or any time in October. The Garden. — Make it rich and stock with a variety of vegetables, such as peas, string beans, shelled beans, early potatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, onions, &c., &c., all of which, with your excellent salted pork, will make healthful and econom- ical dinners and breakfasts, the succeeding mornings, fit lor any one to feast upon. It will be found convenient and economical, and save cash which would otherwise be expended for fresh meat. Plough deep — pulverize thoroughly — ma- nure generously — be death on weeds — tend the crops faithfully — keep up a calm and happy temperament, and with the blessing of Heaven upon your efforts, you will reap abun- dant and paying crops. MANURE HEAPS IN" THE FIELD, IN THE SPHINQ. It is a common practice to haul manure from the barn to the fields, and leave it there in large heaps. Some persons do this in the winter by the use of the sled. Manure left in this condition should have more care than it usually receives. It should be kept from exposure to rain and the sun, else more of its salts than ought to be spared will be washed out, and its gases evaporated. It is common to overhaul these heaps and break up the lumps and mingle the whole. A large proportion of farmers do this but once ; others twice, and some three times. This is an important and greatly economical operation. When it has been thrown over and laid up lightly, it soon begins to heat, especially if the weather is moist and warm. Great care should now be observed not to let 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR:^IER. 207 it ferment too much, because an excess dissi- pates its most useful qualities. Indeed, all the warmth it ought to acquire, is just enough to make it drop apart when overhauled, so as to make it fine. Mr. Coke, a distinguished English agricul- turist, discontinued fermenting manure, and stated that the crops were as good as ever, while the manure went twice as far. The reference, we suppose, was to manure that had been highly fermented ; this process we have always considered as decidedly injurious. When placed under the soil and contiguous to the roots of plants, unfermented, the roots secure the benefit of the fertilizing lluids or gases which come from it in the course of fer- mentation, while the heat evolved renders the soil about the roots a sort of hot bed. A slight fermentation previous to use is un- doubtedly useful, as that commences the pro- cess necessary to make the manure impart its fertilizing properties, without at all impairing them. The process of overhauling is an important one. It should be done as rapidly as is possi- ble and do it well; that is, to make it fine. This may be done more thoroughly at the sec- ond overhauling. A third overhauling will be economical in manure fresh from the stalls. When the heaps are finished up, thrust a stick or two, of an incb in diameter, into each heap, and after three or four days draw them out and feel of them to ascertain the degree of temperature attained. If quite sensibly warm to the hand, overhaul again, and make the heap a little more compact. In this way the heap will become so fine that it may be easily applied, spread evenly and thoroughly mingled with thd soil, where the roots will be sure to find it. When a heap is finished, cover it slightly with loam and little or no loss will occur by evaporation. SQNHISE FARMING. So much is said of farming at the West, that we have been interested in looliing over some statis- tics of down East farming, collected by the Editor of the Presque Isle, Aroostook county, Sunrise, a newspaper printed but a little south of the 47th parallel of northern latitude. The Sunrise says, "the soil of Aroostook couuty lies upon a strata of argillaceous slate which is continually decompos- ing by the action of the elements, and forming the richest and moit productive soil ia the world. Hence our farms do not 'run out,' but produce year after year the largest crops wirhout any per- ceptible diminution in amount. The farms re- ferred to below are not all of the largest, or their owners the most skilful cultivators. Others quite as skilful and successful might be added to the list. We have collected such statistics as we con- veniently could." The statistics embrace the de- tails of fourteen farms in the town of Presque Isle, twelve in Easton, sixteen in Maysville, seven in Dalton, five in Castle Hill, eight in Mapleton, six in Patten, four in Sherman, and four in Wash- burn,— 76 farms ia all, comprising 5337 acres of mowing, tillage and pasturing, the products of which were as follows ; — $■29 0 1 1?. 12 1 5 ai 1 9-0 4<"0 089 ,S6i 075 6 9 (6. 4H 078 390 3i9 $94 81{ 7,76^ 2,990 tons of hay, estimated at $10 00 p'^r ton, , 2,790 bu*. wheat at 2 0^ per bus. 693 " cora 1.60 '• " 26 6:U " oaH ,5J " " 24 731 " buckwheat 50 " " 673 " beans 3 00 " " 20 260 " pota'oes .25 " ' 28 631 lbs butter .40 per lb 7,190 " chefiee ,15 '• " 13,500" clover seed .2i ' " 6 -,636 " porK .15 " •' Less paid out for labor, Leaving $37,05i to be divided among 76 owners of the farms for their own time and labor, which is equal to $'1.14-5 each, on an average. When it is remembered that there are other products from these farms tliau those enumerated, such as roots of all kinds, minor articles of the garden, dairy, &c., we think it doubt- ful whether a better showing can be made of the income of an equal number of farmers, and ol" an equal number of acres in the Sunset land of roll- ing prairies and oak openings. NEW PUBLICATIONS. How Crops Feed. A Treatise on the Atmosphere nnd thfi tjoil as related to the Nutrition of Plants. Wit.n Illustraticns. By Bamuel W. Johnson, M. A.. Pro- fesf-or of Analytical and Agricnlturnl tUifmietvy ia the fc'ht flieid Scion ifin Hchoi-l of Vale Col « ge ; Cheru- ii^t to ide O >rriecti( ut Slate Agricultural Society; MeDib-r c.f tb-; Nitioiial Vcadtuij^ of eciences. Uew York: O Judd & Co. IS'O. This volume is the second of a series of f .nr volumes, — of which Hoio Crops Feed was the first, — that the author proposed to write ; the third, to treat of Culiivation, or the Improvement of the Soil and the Crop, by Tillage and Manures; and the fourth of Stock Feeding and Dairy Prod uee. We are pleased to learn that our favorable 0i)in- ion of the first volume is confirmed by a large sale in this country, by its republication in Englaud, under the editorship of two of the professors of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, and by its translation into German, on recoiumeiiaa- tion of Prof. Von Liebig. The present volume is divided into two parts ; the first discusses the relations of the atmosphere to vegetation, the second is a treatise on the sod. To most readers the principles andofficeof atmos- phere and soil are abstruse subjects, and the au- 208 KEW ENGLA25^D FARMEP.. MXY thor, while confessing ttiat the collectioa and ar- rangement of the facts stated in the volume, and the development of their mutual bearings, have cost him much labor, honestly tells the reader that he must pay a similar price if he would ap- prehend them in their true significance. Still we know of no writer on the science of agriculture who has the ability to arrange and express these facts in so familiar and clear a manner as the au- thor of this book. Cabbages: How to Grow them. A practical trea- tise on Cabhfge Culturo, giving full details ou every point, iorhiding beepire and tnarketlnsr the crop By James J. H. Gregory, latroducer of the Marblehead Ciibbagea, S.ilera, JJla-s, 1870, The great practical experience of Mr. Gregory in the subject to which this pamphlet of seventy- two pages is devoted, enables him to give details which will be of great value to the less experi- enced cultivator. He informs us that the object of this treatise is to answer the numerous inquiries which have been made by his customers about cabbage raising, and that he has aimed to tell them all aoout it in a plain, talkative manner. Salt and its Usfs in Aghicclture. A Lecture be- f.)ie the etite Board of Agnculture at Pit sfleld, Maes., by Charles A GoeBBmann, Ph. D., ProfeaBor of Chemistiy in ihti MaBsachnselts Agricultural Col- lege, ]Jec. 7, 1-69. Also Contributions to the Chem i.=try of Common Bait, with particular reference to our Home Utsources, by the same author. These two little pamphlets furnish a great amount of information in relation to salt and its uses. The conclusions of the author are not fa- vorable to the use of salt as a promoter of vegeta- ble growth. He says the safest and cheapest way of srupplying salt to farm lands is to feed it to ttock. The benefit reported from the use of refuse salt he thinks is often due to that refuse matter, rather than to the salt itself. For the 2\^ew England Farmer, THE GABDEKT IM" MAY. Farmers may enjoy the luxury of a pretty, as wtll as a profitable garden, if they will only take a little pains. To secure this, the women of each household may do much by seeing to and planning for the ornamenting of the gar- den ; and as but a small portion have separate plots for llowers, &c., good taste will soon sugges-t the way of uniting beauty with utility, — llowers with vegetables. How much it im- proves the appearance of the garden to have all crops arranged so that one may set off the other, and each may show to the best advan- tage. L(-t the bean poles be straight and of even hngth, and set in line ; the pea brush be neatly pressed and set with the Hat sides li^tigthways of the rows, their tops neatly woven together; and everything arranged in 1 eat, regular order, economizing space, with- out crowding. A^any tender plants may be forwarded so as to gain several days or weeks, in time of ma- turing, by a little trouble in protecting with Ijuhi frames covered with gauze or glass, boxes, &c. If, after planting, a rain falls and the ground becomes crusted, it facilitates the appearance of the tender shoots to loosen and pulverize the crust gently above them, using care not to injure the plants. A mellow surface soil is most favorable to growth at all times, and the ground should be often stirred to admit air, warmth and moisture to the soil below. To obtain the greatest profit and good from a garden, we must plan to have a succession of crops on the same soil — lettuce between carrot and parsnip rows, radishes among melcm and cucumber hills, cabbage between early potatoes, and late crops to fol- low early ones, in a similar way. Asparagus. — Cut every shoot as soon as it rises to sufficient height for the table, by v/hich means the season of cutting may be pro- longed. In cutting, use care not to injure the young shoots beneath the surface. Beans — Plant bu>h varieties ea; ly. Dwarf Indian Chief, Valentine and the Princess are good varieties. Pole beans are more tender and less easily protected, and should be planted la*:er. Set the poles first, four feet apart, each wiy, and plant the beans around the poles, three or four inches away, five or six seed to a hill. Leave the Limas till the last. as they are the tenderest and most difficult to start. In planting Limas, stick them eyes down, and cover only half an inch with fine, mellow soil. The soil around the poles and in the liills should be a little higher than the common level, to shed the water. Beets. — The early sown should now be up. Seed may still be sown for summer and fall. Early Ba?sano, earliest of all, early Blood Turnip, Crapandine and Long Blood, are good varieties. Cabbage Tribe. — Borecole, Broccoli, Cau- litlower. Kohl Rabi, Kale and Cabbage seed may be sown in rich, well prepared beds ia the open ground for medium and late crops. Transplant from cold frames and hot-beds into rich, mellow soil, well prepared. Exam- ine the roots for cutworms and see that the plants are free of insects and healthy. Cold Frames. — Remove remaining plants as soon as safe from frosts, &c., and take the frames in and store for another season ; good care and an occasional coat of paint will pre- serve them for many years. CoRX. — Plant the sweet varieties once in two weeks up to July, for a succession. Mex- ican Sweet, Crosby's Extra Early, Trimble's Improved Sweet, Farmer's Club, Evergreen, and Mammoth Sweet corn are the best varie- ties for general selection. Plant small varie- ties in rows, north and south, 3i feet apart, three kernels to the foot. Cucumbers. — Those started on sods in the hot-bed may be transplanted into the open ground. Plant seeds for a succeeding crop ; make large hills, and put in two shovels- ful of fine, rich manure, and plant plenty of seed, and at intervals of a few days, for bugs, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 209 &c. Superfluous plants can be removed as soon as strong enough to resist bugs. A good preventive of bugs is to bend two sticks over the hills, letting them cross each other, fastening them by inserting their ends in the ground and putting a part of a newspaper over them, confining by placing dirt on the edges ; this will not only give protection irom bugs, but will also tend to forward the plants. Egg Plants. — Transplant into ground well enriched with warm, fermenting manure from the hot-bed, as soon as the weather is warm and settled. Hot Beds. — Remove all plants, paint, re- pair and put away sashes and frames for an- other season. Insects. — Many are already on the alert, seeking what they may devour. Whale oil soap, guano water, and hen manure solutions are not only offensive to the insects, but give vigor to the plants to resist attacks ; dusting with plaster or fine dust will often be suflicient. Covering as recommended for cucumbers, is almost certain protection. Lettuce — Transplant from hot-beds, and sow seed among hills of vines, along borders of beds, «S;c. Melons. — Nutmeg, Musk, Cantelope, &c. Sow seeds in large hills, as for cucumbers, riant at distances corresponding to growth, from four to six feet. Nastuktioxs. — Sow where they will be shaded from the mid-day sun. A rather moist fcoil is best. Omoxs may still be sown, if they have very rich, mellow surface soil. They usually do best when grown on the same soil several J ears in succession. Peas. — To have a succession of this fine vegetable, sow once in two or three weeks. There are a goodly number of varieties from which to select early, medium and late. Peppers — Plant out from the hot-bed or boxes in the house, in rows two feet, and eighteen inches apart in the row ; manure with ben manure. Potatoes. — Plant early, the earlier the better; only early planted potatoes should be grown in the garden. Begin to hoe as soon as they break ground, top dress with ashes, salt and lime mixed, guano or superphosphate of lime. Radishes. — Sow in rich, warm soil in any vacant places, and among other vegetables, thin planted. Encourage rapid growth with liquid manure. tetiUA.sii. — Plant and treat like cucumbers and melons. Early Bush and Summer Crook- neck for summer; Hubbard are best for fall and winter. SwEKT Potatoes. — Plant out after the mid- dle of the month in well enriched, sandy, warm soil, in high hills or ridges. Set the plants a lit»le deeper than they stood in the bed. Tomatoes. — Transplant into well enriched hills, four feet apart each way. A rather sandy Soil is preferable to a heavy loam or clay. Small Fruits, like blackberries, currants, raspberries, strawberries, grape vines and gooseberries may be moved or planted new, if done before the buds swell for leafing out. Neglected grape vines may be pruned after leafing out ; other bushes and shrubs may be pruned, tied up to stakes or trellises, hoed, manured and mulched. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. For the New England Farmer. OUB CONDITION AND PR08PECT. Shall we Extend or Contract o-ar Operatioaa?— A Fall- irg Market— Supply and Wages of F.irm Labor- Productions for Home and Foreign Market" — Effects of Decline in Gold— Present and Prospective Prices of various Articles, The time for deciding upon what crops to raise and the amount of labor to be performed this vear has arrived. Farmers, lik^ the fol- lowers cf every trade, are inclined to consult the past and look to the future in order to de- termine their work for the year. After care- fully watching current events, farmers must determine whether to enlarge or to curtail their operations. Should the rapid decline in gold, or the present state of the market sug- gest the exnediency of any essential change from their usual course ? The fall of gold to merely a nominal premium, and the resump- tion of specie pajmeuts, have been anticipated wiih considerable anxiety ; for it is believed a general breakdown in prices and a serious interruption of business would follow. However this may be, in working with fall- ing markets farmers have some advantages over manufacturers. They are not obliged to constantly expend large sums in cash for raw material wherewith to make their goods, and thus suffer losses two ways — on stock and and the manufactured article. By far the heaviest item in the cost of farm produce is labor ; only a part of which is cash out. Far- mers, themselves, with their teams, perform the largest portion ; and it is for the interest of the farmer to keep the home force employed whatever may be the condition of the markets. The wages of help may not be less by the time spring contracts aie made, but undoubt- edly laborers will be more numerous, and better selections can be made and more tlH- cient services will be rendered ; for tbe sup- j)ly is exceeding the demand in the cities. Notwithstanding the repeated strikes, secret leagues, co-operative movements, and all that is said and done about labor n form, wages have a decidedly downward tendency. lu the majority of manuiacturing establishments the help was cut down ten to twenty per cent, the first of the winter, and If their goods con- tinue to depreciate as rapidly as they have for some time past, a further reduction may bo 210 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. May expected. The prospects for house mechanics are not as encouraging as last year. The de- mand for houses and stores has caused a re- markable activity in building for five years past, and employed a large number of able- bodied men in the erection of the buildings and in preparing the material throughout the country. A check to these branches of indus- try will be felt at once in the rural districts, as any depression in our manufactures will send labor back to the farm for employment. The scarcity of farm help during the la-t decade can easily be accounted for when we consider the vast amount of labor that has been accoiuplished ; the number of men re- quired to fight the battles of our country ; to prepare the implements and munitions of war ; to extend and carry on the different branches of our varied industry in a full tide of un- paralled prosperity ; to execute the public improvements, and erect mills, factories and houses at the rapid rate that has been done. Our country will be unlike others, if with the thousands of foreigners weekly landing upon our shores the cities and manufacturing villages can continue many years longer to draw so heavily upon the ifarming population. Manu- factures are comparatively a new enterprise, and they are seeing their palmy days. Soon the resident population around these busy hives of industry will supply all the labor they require. The rush from the farms to the vil- lage and city will be checked, and there will be a superabundance of help in the rural dis- tricts, as there v/as before manufacturing in- terests assumed such gigantic proportions, and as now exist in the old world. The fall of gold will affect those who raise only such crops as are exported more than New England farmers who grow other kinds and who do not supply their home markets. All that is raised here is wanted for home consumption, and the price of most articles depends on the supply rather than fluctua- tions at the gold board. The ruling price of vegetables v/as very low last year ; cabbages and some other kinds brought to the producer no more than the average of prices before the war. If market gardeners made wages last season, they need not fear smaller profits this year fi-om any direct infiuences of a decline of j:old. Potatoes are sell'ing at low figures. The retail price now wou'grett, write the words I've spoken, for my hand is p Jsied now, And the lines of time and grief are written deeply on my brow — Lines that had not found a resting if I had but sooner learned Life was not an idle pastime — not a birthright to be spurned. I have wandered from the homestead, Margrett, thee may learn by this, — Leiirn from one v, ho fain would lead thee in the sorest way to bliss, — That 'lis not within a palace — not in lofty classic hall — But where peace acid love united follow after dutj's call. Truly, ihee will find much sorrow In a shiftless far- mer's cot ; Scant, indeed, will be the harvest of the good mate's hapless lot; But reverse the order, Margrett; in the city thee can see Man with all his gifted nature prone to sin and mis- ery; Not alone the rough, wild country shows deformity within, But the gilded halls of plenty breed both suffering and sin; Not alone the farmer's helpmeet sighs for rest and classic lore; City wives have craved such blessings, but their spirit's freedom more. Thee would weai y of my story if I should the truth relate Of the -wives of truant husbands, who their tardy com- ing wiiit From the dens of vicloHs pleasures, where they wreck each hope at birth — Hopes they mitht have loved to cherish of a true and moral worth. Think thee, Margrett, thee could gladden at the slow unsteady p ce, Could thee lay thy hand in blessing on the senseless bloated face? Or, with kieees fond and tender, press corrupted lips that curse? Answer me this queetiou, Margrett, can a farmer's wife find -worse? Canitbe thy mindis puzzled? is the problem, then, too deep ? Wouldst thou leave earth's rugged pathway, and a flowery border keep ? It were well, but act thou wisely; choose the man and not the trade. Or believe me, Margrett Merville, thee had better die a maid. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 225 i^+ HOT-BEDS FOB FAEMEES' GAEDIJNS. ARKET gardeners, com- mercial florists and amateurs understand well the absolute ne- cessity of hot-beds in the economy of their operations. But few farmers are willing to incur the expense which they imagine is neces- sary for their construc- tion, or to afford the time required for their management. Various plans have been suggested for the construction of a cheap and simple hot-bed, almost any of which will answer sufficiently well for a garden large enough to supply a common family with all the vegetables needed. Every farmer may have at trifling cost a few square feet covered with glass, to bring forward at least some lettuce, tomatoes, cab- bages, early cucumbers, and a few flowers for his wife and daughters. October is the best time, perhaps, to pre- pare a hot-bed, but if not done then, it may be done successfully in March, or as early as the frost will permit removing the soil. Sashes three feet wide, by five or six feet in length are the most convenient. Three such sashes will cover a bed sufiicient for most fam- ilies. A frame nine feet long, and of a width cor- responding to the length of the sash, may be made of plank or inch boards. It should be eighteen inches deep at the front and two feet in the rear, and should be located on the southern side of a wall, board fence, or some building. Dig out a space as large as the frame, eighteen inches deep. Fill this with the ttrongest and best horse manure. Place it in even layers and tread it down as you proceed. This should be extended a distance of one foot on the outside of the frame in order to keep up a larger amount of heat. After a day or two, cover the whole, inside and out, with three or four inches of the best garden mould, mixed with a little ashes and plaster. The frame should be set about on a level with the ground, and the filling come up within eight or ten inches of the glass. Put on the glass and let it remain until the bed has become warm by fermentation. The glass should be covered at night to prevent the radiation of the heat. When the soil is in a proper state, .sow the seed in rows, at suitable distances. A portion of the bed may be reserved for pots, which should be imbedded in the soil to their rims. When the seeds begin to sprout, sprinkle tbe surface occasionally from the watering pot. and in the middle of pleasant days, slide off the glass so as to gi/e the plants air. It is important to attend to this, as growing plants need a plentiful supply of fresh air. After the plants have got well above the sur- face, the sash should be lifted whenever the sun is shining clear and warm, lest they be scorched. Sometimes a few hours' neglect of this precaution will greatly injure or entirely ruin the tender plants. The fermenting ma- nure will keep the soil warm at the bottom, and the sun will warm the surface, and thus the germinating seeds will find a warm soil, and a warm air, which will bring them forward two or three weeks earlier than they would come in the open air. In this way, strong and vigorous plants may be plentifally supplied, which will be fit to tran.'^ plant about the time seeds are usually sown in garden beds. When they have been transplanted, use some slight cover to protect them from the cold night air, and the wind, and if needful, from the black flies and other insects, and you will have nice tomatoes, cucumbers and cab- bages that you will enjoy very much. This may seem a small matter to many far- mers, and not worth the trouble, but if tried, will be found one of those little things that contribute to the pleasure of life, and that keep us in a happy frame of mind. We shall watch the growth of the plants, green and vigor- ous, before anything around them shows itself above the ground, with great interest. They tell us of what is coming. They strengthen our faith in the certainty of Nature's arrange- ments, and encourage our hopes in the future. There is a satisfaction in getting our early mess of peas, radishes or lettuce, that well re- pays all the trouble it costs. Ten or fourteen days may be gained even without use of glass, by making a bed of fine, rich soil well filled with warm compost, under the shade of a wall, and covering it at night and on cold days with boards or matting, and when the plants have been transferred to the garden, by covermg 226 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. May them nights with inverted boxes, screens, or even by by shingles inserted on the north side of the hills and inclined over the plants in the form of a roof. Every farmer must be governed in this mat- ter by circumstances, and guided by his own ingenuity. Only market gardeners, flower- dealers and amateurs, need incur much ex- pense. But every one will 6nd pleasure and advantage by some simple arrangement for bringing forward early vegetables and flowers. There is no class but may do something in this direction if they possess but a few square rods of garden soil. Some of the simplest, and most successful modes, are, by sowing seeds early in any rough boxes, and placing them in the kitchen window, where they usu- ally get the best care. Another is to start them in cheap earthen pots, broken tumblers, pitch- ers, &c., and another excellent way is, to roll up pieces of birch bark, fill with rich garden soil, water occasionally with weak soap suds, and set bark and plant into the ground at the proper time. A single plant, only, in a pot, will grow stocky and strong. It is a good plan, however, to transplant two or three times before setting out finally ; but in doing this, the roots should not be injured in the slightest degree. Always have soil enough about them to keep them out of sight. PLOUGHING— APPLYING MANUKE. Our correspondent whose inquiry appears in another column will thank us for copying from the Maine Farmer the following report of the dis- cussion by the Corinth, Me., Farmers' Club of the subject of "shoal or deep ploughing — and best mode of applying dressing." Hon. John Thiselle, who had been ploughing fifty years, advocated good ploughing at medium depth. For grain crops he had found it best to spread dressing on the furrow and harrow in with the grain ; the dressing to be prepared the year previous. In this way he got much better grass after seeding down than from any other mode of application. — M. Chandler's universal method is to break up his gras-s land in July, or as soon as the grass is taken otf, plough shoal and harrow down, cross plough in October, deeper, and again harrow dowu. Plough again in the spring, use compost dressing, in the hill for hoed crops, and top dressing for grain. By this method land may be kept entirely clear of weeds, making what is called clean cultivation. — Chauncey Cochran, one of our best farmers, spreads green dressing on grass land and ploughs shoal. He is very particu- lar to have the ploughing well done. — John Mor- rison, a large farmer, adopts the same course with dressing, as Mr. Cochran, but ploughs deep (from eight to ten inches) and gets three hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre. East Corinth. Moses Chandlek, Sec'y. The fear of being called on to "make a speech" undoubtedly keeps many farmers who would be really glad to have a good talk with their neigh- bors about their business, from attending the meetings of the neighborhood club, if one already exists, or from taking an active part in getting up a club where there is none. The "spouting" of a debating school is just as much out of place in a farmers' club, as dancing pumps would be in treading down a load of manure. The Secretary of the Corinth Farmers' Club furnishes a model report of true farmer-club "eloquence." Nearly two columns of the last Maine Farmer are filled with similar reports of the talks at the meetings of some of the various farmers' clubs that have re- cently been formed in that State. The Eastern Shoee Disease. — Since publish- ing the statement of our correspondent, "K. O.," in relation to the disease prevailing among the cattle at Wood's Hole and other localities, we have received a letter from him informing us that Mr. Fay has lost a valuable Alderney cow, and a neighbor of his a cow, also that a number of calves have died. He well asks, is it not time that more attention should be given to this disease, and that our authorities should institute an investigation of the facts relating to it. Our correspondent further says that if Mr. Fay has a post-mortem examina- tion of the animals he will forward us the re- sults of the investigation. Why should not the legislature at once appoint a commission to inquire into the character of this most singular disease ? Medal of the N. H. Agricultural Society. The medal designed by Mr. Herrick for this soci- ety, and which is to be struck in silver for last fall's awards, is thus described by the Mirror and Farmer: — "On one side, in a circle on the margin, is the name of the Society; within is Ceres, with her crown ready to fall on the result of labor, while at her feet are implements of husbandry, and the fruits of rural toil. The obverse is mar- gined by a wreath, with the hand of the mechanic grasping the hammer, while fruits and flowers are gathered in abundance beneath." For the New England Farmer. KAISING CALVES. At this season of the year the farmer looks for an increase in the number of his cattle ; and what is of more importance his cows be- gin again to yield him a profit. The profit from the cows in butter and cheese is often considered the chief thing, and the calves are killed when four or five days old, or as soon as their stomachs have become accustomed to food and its digestion, and are in condition to be used as rennet. The skin of a calf is 1870. 2^W ENGLAND FAEIVIER. 227 worth about $1.25, and the stomach or rennet twentj'-five cents. Some farmers allow the calves new milk for from one to four weeks, and then sell them for veal at from six to ten cents per pound live weight, and the money thus obtained is sometimes enough to buy a calf in the fall six months old. Others have not pigs enough to eat all the irilk, or thev want a few heifers, or have a choice breed of cattle, so they raise the calves. I need not say that new milk as drawn from the cow by the calf is its natural food, and will cause a thrifry growth ; but when calves are fed on new milk it is well to learn the calf to drink, and not allow it to suck. A calf so managed will be more easily taught to eat other food, and may do better at weaning. But new milk is not necessary after the first few days. I have now three calves that after they were three days old were fed with milk skimmed after it had set thirty-six hours. The quality of this milk is improved by add- ing a pint of scalded India wheat flour. I prefer this flour to corn or oat meal. What- ever kind is used it should be scalded. First, wet the meal with warm water, then pour upon it boiling water. In this way the meal is in a liquid state instead of in chunks, as it would be if scalding water was poured upon dry meal. Upon about eight quarts of such feed, morn- ing and night, a calf will thrive if it is not troubled with a looseness of the bowels, called "scours." This is brought on by having the milk too cold, or too hot, or too rich with meal, or too great quantity at one feed, so as to overload the stomach of the calf. These four things must be regarded. The feed should be near the temperature of new milk, or "blood heat." 1 test the temperature by feeling it with the hand. It is not safe to trust a disinterested person to feed the calves. Much has been written in regard to the man- ipulations of milk to make butter and cheese ; but as much care is necessary in raising calves as in making cheese or butter. After calves are well started I prefer that the milk should be sour, and if it is coagulated no matter. I know many instances of fine calves being so fed. If a calf begins to scour it should be stopped as soon as possible by diminishing the quality or quantity of feed, or by adding a solution of rennet, or a decoction of hemlock or oak bark, or of the plant called "snake's-head," "hog's-tooth," or "belladonna," a very bitter plant that grows in lowlands, and has a white blossom, from the shape of which it has re- ceived its first name. Chalk put within their reach is a preventative, if eaten. Dry earth is also used. It is a common saying among dairymen that if a calf will not do well upon skimmed milk, it is not worth raising. My experience and observation leads me to believe there is much difference in calves. Some will not do well ; their digestive organs seem weak, and this weakness is, I judge, sometimes inherited. Calves from cows that are very hardy, and have been well fed, are likely to do better than from a cow with poor constitution and a straw or starvation diet. Grade calves from a thoroughbred bull often excel the native stock in thrift. In 1868 I raised two half blood Dutch calves. They were very superior animals, and one had a calf when 2'2h months old. I milk from her from fifteen to twenty pounds of milk a day. In 1869, I had two half blood Short-horns, and one half-blood Dutch. This year I have some grades of the same kind that are doing well. Calves should be kept separate, each in a pen or tied by itself, as they injure each other by bunting and sucking. If any one doubts it, let him stand among half a dozen calves about two months old after they have been fed. They should also be kept where there is plenty of light, and have bedding enough so as to be dry and comfortable. Those who keep cows to sell milk, may be benefited by a word in regard to the practice of a gentleman in Springfield, Vt., a practical as well as book farmer, who sells milk and still raises calves from his thoroughbred Dur- ham cows. He gives them milk four weeks, when their diet is changed to oil meal gruel, made by putting at the rate of one pound of oil meal to fifteen of water, and boiling half an hour, giving about this quantity to each calf twice a day. His calves do well, and as milk is six cents per quart, sixteen quarts would be ninety-six cents ; oil meal at 3^ cents per pound, costs 6i cents per day. If, how- ever, milk was fed it probably would be skimmed milk, which would reduce the ex- pense. I could fill this sheet with names of men who have raised good large calves upon a mixed diet of skimmed milk, hay tea, or gruel of different kinds of meal. z e. j. Irasburg, Vt., March, 1870. For the New England Farmer, DAIRY, DUTCH CATTLE, SHEEP, &c , Of Thomas Baker, Barton, Vt. Some time since I sent you a statement of the method by which the butter was made that drew the first and second premium at the fair in 1869 in Orleans County, Vt. I recently called at Mr. Baker's to see his Dutch cattle and learned from him that 150 pounds of butter and 100 pounds of cheese were made to each cow in 1869, besides rais- ing eight half blood Dutch calves, and fatten- ing several for the butcher, and fattening hogs with sour milk. For twelve years Mr. Baker has sent his butter to C. Jarvis, 21 Leverett St., Boston, where it has been retailed to customers at a better price generally than has been paid by dealers for country butter. 228 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. May I would like to hear from other dairymen who keep twenty-five cows or more, in regard to their average products in pounds, — the price may vary according to the style of market- ing. Since the purchase of Mr. Carlos Pierce's herd of Dutch cattle, Mr. Baker has had fif- teen head of full bloods, four of which are bulls. He has also twenty half bloods, all black or black and white. These will be one and two years old this spring — they are fine thrifty animals, superior in size to the average cattle of the county. They eat coarse fodder and bear common keeping well. Dutch cows are usually considered best for a cheese dairy, but on this farm they will be tried quite thoroughly for butter. It will be several years before all the cattle on this 700- acre farm are of this kind, and of sufficient maturity to show fully their merits. One of his cows. Lady Billows, has a half blood Jersey calf, and gave thirty-five pounds of milk a day in January. Lady Bellows, 2d, was tested while at Mr. Pierce's, and made fifteen pounds of butter in a week. Lady Bellows, 3d, calved November 17, 1869 and gives a fine mess of milk. These cows are all larger than the best dairy cows average. All are black and white ; the white color in some forming a belt around the middle of the body. Mr. Baker's Sheep. After Mr. B. sends off a lot of fat wethers, he will still have about 200 Merino sheep well, bred and good shearers, but alas, their glory is departed ! no one boasts of Merino sheep now. At the Vermont Dairyman's Associa- tion, an old wool grower mourned that since there was less tariff on coarse wool it has be- come fashionable for gentlemen to have suits of coarse cloth. Even Gen. Burnside, when he last saw him, was dressed thus fashionably. He expressed the hope that the fashion to wear fine cloth would soon return again. Mr. Ba- ker has this year used with part of his fiock a well bred Southdown buck. Very good mut- ton lambs are sometimes the result of such a cross. The Buildings. The fine new residence recently erected on this farm is worthy of description, especially the dairy department, including rooms for set- ting milk, making butter and cheese and cur- ing cheese ; all of which are large and well adapted to the purposes for which they were designed. The cellar extends, on the same level, under the house, sheds, carriage and horae barns. The part under the barns is finished off into eix pens for hogs, each pen being 9x30 feet with a walk in front, five feet wide. From the walk in front of the pens a door opens to the cooking room, where a boiler in a brick arch is in use A bushel of potatoes, a bushel of cut turnips and half a bushel of ears of corn are cooked together. A pipe from the cover of the boiler to the chimney conveys thither all the steam and odor that arises in cooking. Here are seven store hogs, five White Cbes- ters and two Berk&hires. This stock of White Chesters are regarded with much favor by the farmers, and several have attained a dressed weight of 600 pounds. I believe the preju- dice against the black Berkshires is breaking away, as they prove a thrifty breed and crossed upon common hogs give grades that fatten easily and early. Z. E. Jameson. Irashurg, Vt., March, 1870. Remarks. — Our cattle market reporter re- quests us to say that he saw at the Medford market a few weeks since a fine Dutch calf from Mr. Baker's herd on its way to some gentleman in Rhode Island, whose name has escaped his memory. A carload of Mr. Ba- ker's sheep were marketed the same week, but he did not learn the particulars of the sale. PBEPAEINQ EENWET. In preparing rennet for use, the veils or skins may be either soaked in water or whey. Sour whey is best, and it should be properly purified before using. This is done by tak- ing a quantity of sweet whey and heating it to near boiling heat, when the butter and albuminous matters in the whey will rise on the surface and should be removed with a skimmer. The whey may then be set aside to sour, and when it has acquired a sharp acid taste it is fit for use. Rennet should be steeped in stone jars. Wooden vessels are liable to become tainted, and therefore should never be used. To do the work in the best manner, two jars, say of fifteen to twenty gallons each, should be required. The old rule is to use one rennet to the gallon of liquid, but for fifteen gallons we should add two or three rennets more. Select, then, say eighteen good sweet ren- nets and put them to soak in fifteen gallons of the prepared whey. A small quantity of salt may be added. In order to keep the veils from rising on the top, a large stone crock- cover may be immersed in the liquid covering the veils, which will hold them under the sur- face. After the veils have been in soak for a day or so, they should be thoroughly rubbed up in the whey, in order to extract their strength. They may then be allowed to soak for a day or two longer, when they should be rubbed out again, and the soaking and rub- bing continued from time to time for several days. At the end of a week's time the strength of the veils will be pretty well exhausted, when the liquid should be strained through a cloth and placed in the second jar, and is ready for us^e. More whey may now be added to the veils in the first jar, where they may be soaked 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAK:\IER. 229 for a week or more with an occasional rubbing, •which will probably extract all their strength, and they may then be taken out and thrown away. The liquor should be kept in a cool, sweet place and occasionally stirred, and if good, sweet rennets have been used, it will have no unpleasant tainted smell. When water is used to soak the rennets, enough salt must be used to make it a strong brine. As the sour whey assists (he rennet in the process of coagulating the milk, rennets soaked in whey will yo lurcher than when soaked in water, and at th«i same time the liquid prepared in the jar is not so liable to tamt. — X. A. Willard, in Bural New Yorker. crops as it has been shown to be in the case of the onion crop ju-t cited. The raising of seed may be made profitable, provided the grower conscientiously olFcrs none for sale that is not true to description, and of the best thoroughbied qualify, grown from selected stock, years in succession. A few years of such business would secure a reputation worth a fortune, for such seed will always sell at very high prices. — Mr. Ware''s Address at Es- sex Co. Fair. IMPORTANCE OP GOOD SEED, To illustrate the importance of high culture and thoroughbred seed, I will mention an in- stance that has come under my notice the present season. Mr. David Wentzell, of Sa- lem, has two acres of onions, to which he ap- plied fifteen cords of muscle mud of the first j quality, and twenty- five cords cf well rotted stable manure, measured as thrown lightly into the cart without treading, and piobably equal to eighteen cords trodden. He sowed the very best quality of knovvn thoroughiTcd seed on an acre and three-quarters, then sowed beed grown by a neighbor, of as good quality as the average used ; not having quite enough, he bought more at a seed store to finish the field. All came up equally well. On the part sown with thoroughbre t seed there is scarcely an imperfect onion, and the crop is the largest in the vicinity. On the part sown with good seed, the onions are ten days later, of inferior quality, and less quantity, and valued at twen- ty-five per cent, less than the first. On the part sown with seed from the store, (which probably was of about the quality usually in the market,) the onions were still later, of much worse quality, and less quantity, and valued at fifty per cent, less than the first. Any one walking across the fi"ld could tell at a glance, and to a row, where the different qualities of seed were sown. Here, then, is an instance where a field of onions, under very high cultivation, was treated every part exactly alike, except in the quality of seed sown. The thoroughbred seed yielded the value of one hundred and fifty bushels per acre, more than the average quality of seed generally used by farmers who grow their own, and three hundred bushels per acre more than the average rjuality of seed sold in the market. This estimate is made while the crop is yet in the field, and six hun- dred bushels of onions, of the first quality, is not an over estimate of the product per acre from the thoroughbred seed. I have no doubt that the careful selection for seed, year after year, is just as important and profitable in all other vegetable and grain BREAKING STEEHS. If I have a pair of wild steers, (which 13 not the case when I raise them) I put them into the stable and commence introducing my^ self to them as their particular friend, feeding them good bits, such as sweet apples, small ears of corn, or sliced potatoes. AYhen in the yard, I secure their friendship by doing the same from my frock. They will soon fol- low me about. I then attempt to yoke them, and it does not take three or four boys and a dog to help do it. I never leave them to ramble about the fields (as is the custom of some) to turn their yoke and haul each o'her about. I next give each a name, and when speaking, I apply it. This is more important than many persons imagine. Suppose a man has two sons, and he calls them both John. It will be difficult when the boys are together, and a command is given them, to ascertain to which of them it belongs. It is so with steers. I take them into the road and learn them to travel, that is, walk evenly and quick — stopping often, and suiting my action to the word by stopping myself. I then give some- thing from the old frock. I practice in this way a while, and instead of their running from me, they rather relish my visits. Some- times I attach a rope to the bow (never to the horn or nose) as a kind of safeguard in case of fright, and to illustrate the command to stop. When they will stop uniformly at the word, I put them on a light sled — give them a good path, sometimes let them tike the lead of me ; stop quite often, and give something to en- courage the stopping. When I have nothing else to give, I talk to them of the prospect before them of sometime becoming o.xen ; of drawing premiums at fairs, and lastly of see- ing Brighton market ; all of which they seem to understand when explained by a pat or two of the hand. I soon begin to draw something, loading light. One trouble with teamsters of young cattle is, they too soon think they have be- come oxen, and load too heavy. Never feed in the yoke ; the practice cre- ates a dislike to wear it. Never whip for running away. If you do, you will probably have to run twice as far next time. Never let your cattle draw unless in good position. 230 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. May Feed well, and be careful of your whips. I will mention an incident in my driving expe- rience, to let the reader know how much whipping and beating my team get from me. When I commenced driving my two-year-old steers, I cut a beech sprout about half an inch in diameter at the butt end, tapering to one- iourth inch, and tied on a amall lash. Two years and a half after, when I sold them, I bad that same stick in my hand, safe and sound. It was all the stick I used while I owned them. It lasted about six months after that time, when it was accidenrly trod- den on and broken in two, making in all about three year's service. It pays to have oxen "handy," so that one can drive at any kind of work. I think Dr. Franklin has written : — "He that by the plough would thrive, Himself should either hold or drive." But my steers when they are large enough to draw the plough need no other driver than the one who holds. Therefore I think I can alter that couplet a bit — thus : — "He that by the plough would thrive. To save expense, thould hold and drive." — J. M. D., in Vermont State Journal. PR?]SBRVATIOSr OP LEATHER. The following valuable hints in regard to the preservation of leather we copy from the Shoe and Leather Reporter : — The extreme heat in which most men and women expose boots and shoes during winter deprives leather of its vitality, rendering it liable to break and crack. When leather be- comes so warm as to give off the smell of leather, it is singt-d. Close rubber shoes &\&o destroy the life of leather. All varnishes and all blacking containing the properties of var- nI.^hing should be avoided. Shoe leather is greatly abused. Persons know nothing or care less about the kind of material used than they do about the polish produced. Vitriol blacking is used until every particle of oil in the leather is destroyed. To remedy this abuse, the leather should be washed once a month with warm water ; and when about half dry, a coat of oil and tallow should be applied, and the boots set aside for a day or two. This will renew the elasticity and life in the leather, and when thus used, upper leather will seldom crack or break. Don't wash harness in water and with soap. No harness is ever so soiled that a damp sponge will not remove the dirt. When har- ness loses its lustre and turns brown, which almost any leather will do after long exposure to the air, the harness should be given a new coat of grain-black. Before using this grain- black, the grain surface should be thoroughly washed with potash water until all the grease is killed, and after the application of the grain-black, oil and tallow should be applied to the surface. This will not only "fasten the color," but make the leather flexible. Har- ness which is grained can be cleaned with kero- sene or spirits of turpentine, and no harm will result if the parts affected are varnished and oiled immediately afterward. EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. FOOT EOT IN COWS. I saw in the Faemee, a short time ago, an aiti- cle in regard to foot rot in cows, and as I have a remedy that I never knew to fail, I will give it to you for publication, hoping that every one that sees it, who has this serious trouble with cattle will try it. I take one strand of an inch rope, make it as plia- ble as possil)le, saturate it with spirits of turpen- tine and draw it back and forth between the claws of the foot, pulling the rope at the same time, at each end towards the leg. Then apply more spirits of turpentine to the foot. One or two applications has always etfected a cure for me. HOEN-AIL. Take two quarts of leaves and stems of worm wood, pour in enough boilicg water to cover it, and let it steep until the strength is extracted. Strain and boil down to half a pint ; then add one-ihird of a pound of fresh butter or sweet cream enough to make that amount of butter, and let it simmer until no steam vs-ill arise ; then strain, and when so cool that it will not burn, tip the cows head so that one ear will be up, and turn one tablespoonful into the ear; then let her have her head to shake, after which do the same with the other ear, and then cut off the tail until it bleeds well. One or two such applications will effect a cure if taken in season. If this medicine is pui in a bottle and *orked up tight it will keep any length of time, and I would advise every one that keeps cows to have it on hand. Another sure remedy is to bore the horns with a gimlet and put a half tablespoonful of pulverized saltpetre in each horn. Sometimes I have effected a cure when I saw the cow as soon as taken, by cutting off the tail and putting spirits of turpentine j ast back of of the horns. Now a few words in regard to the symptoms of horn-ail. Animals most always have cold horns, with ears inclined to lop down. Sometimes they will shiver contiimally. with respiration increased sometimes to such an extent that their breathing can be heard several rods. Sometimes they will be so costive that all the purgatives you can give will not cure ; but give them medicine for horn- ail, and they are soon all right. At other times they will be taken scouring, and nothing will stop it permanently until you treat them for horn-aii. If the horn-ail is the cause of the scouring or stop- page, you cure it, and the bnweis will regulate thetuselves. I do not v/ish to be understood that all cases of stoppage or scouring arise from horn- ail, but very many ot them do. I have had a good deal of experience with this disease, and am confident that there are more cases of it than cattle owners think, and that many cattle are treated for somethmg else, when horu- ail is the main disease. Try the remedies above, if any have occasion, and let us liear of the result. c. a. c. West Acton, Mass., Feb. 14, 1870. Remaeks. — Dr. Dadd was very severe on what he called the barbarities to which animals were subjected in treatment for "hornail" and "tail-ail." He says that so far as he knows there is no allu- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 231 sion to horn-ail in any of the standard works of English or French veterinarians ; and he believes that in ninety-nine of a hundred cases of alleged horn-ail in this countr}', the trouble is located in some other part of the system. He says that a derangement of the digestive organs is often indi- cated by cold horns. Our own hands and feet are often cold when attacked by internal disease. Shall they be bored with a gimlet ? He accounts for the hollowness of the horn sometimes found by boring, by saying, that in aged animals the bony structure within the horn often collapses or shrinks, forming a cavity. And he accounts for the matter which is sometimes let out by the gim- let, by saying that abscesses sometimes form in the frontal sinews, resulting from common catarrh or "hoose," which would have passed off at the nostrils, if left alone. la relation to the tail-ail, and to the practice of mutilating this appendage he is still more severe, and unhesitatingly pronounces it an imaginary disease. The soft space at the termination of the bone is a natural growth, evidently intended by nature to perfect the whip with which the animal drives off its insect tormentors. In our younger days we had a cow that was doctored by a professed cattle doctor, who first bored her horns, and then cut them off. Our experience in the care of those gimlet holes and stubs was such that we are not disposed to recom- mend the treatment to others. From our knowledge of the structure of an ani- mals head, we are doubtful of the beneficial effect on a diseased horn of medicine poured into the ear. The symptoms mentioned as indicative of the horn-ail — costiveness, looseness, coldness of ex- tremities, labored breathing, &c , — we do not con- sider as at all conclusive evidence of the existence of any disease in the horns or tail of an animal. ■WEIGHT OF GOOD AND POOR MILK. Which is the heaviest, rich milk, — that which will produce the most butter according to quan- tit' ,— or poor milk ? Sonie of my neighbors have expiesbcdan opinion on the sutject, but I do not pretend to know, an(i should like to be informed. Morristown, Vt., March, 1870. O. Lyman. Remarks. — The books tell us that milk is a lit- tle heavier than water. If a certain quantity of water weighs 1000, (grains or ounces,) the same quantity of milk will vary from 1025 to 1031. But as there are "sugar of milk," "caseine," and "va- rious salts," as well as cream, in milk, the supe- rior density of milk over water may be owing to some of these other ingredients ; as we must con- clude from the fact that cream rises to the top in- stead of settling to the bottom, that it is lighter than milk ; and consequently that the more cream or butter there is in the milk the lighter that milk must be. When milk is examined with a micro- scope little globules of fatty matter are seen which are quite distinct from the watery Iluid in which they are suspended. These globules, enclosed in a thin membrane which must be broken to make butter, constitute the chief portion of cream. Mr. Flint in his book on Milch Cows and Dairy Farm- ing gives the result of some experiments made to test the weight of milk and cream by an instru- ment divided into degrees. Pure milk was marked ■ 100" Thiu cream 66° The first pint milked from a native cow 101° The last pint, f trippings, from same cow 86° The milk of a Jersey cow 95° " " an Ayrbhire cow 100° " " a Hereford cow 106° " " Devon cow 111° It is said that a feeding of salt given to a cow will, in a few hour.'*, cause the specific gravity of her milk to vary from one to three per cent. In this connection perhaps the following table of analyses of milk, from the American Cyclop/vdia, will be of interest. Constituents, Cow, Ass. Goat. Ewe, Woman, Water 86 28 91.65 86 80 85.62 89 20 Butter 4.38 0 11 3.32 4.20 2.60 ■.uuar of milk . . . 5.27 6 08 5.28 5.(0 6^0 Cdseine : nd albumen 3 80 182 4.02 4.50 2 00 Various salts .... 0.27 0,34 0.58 0 68 0.20 Total 100 00 ICO.OO 100.00 100.00 lOO.CO cow MILKING HERSELF. I have purchased a cow that is "too well edu- cated," having acquired sufficient knowledge of that sort of labor fi^railiarly known as "doing chores," to milk herself. She has a good share of Aldemey blood, and i.s a valuable animal, and I wish to know the best method of curing the habit. Slitting the end of the tongue is recommended, and although a little severe at first, looks to me to be less so "in the long run," than wearing a double collar as a muz- zle with sharp nails, especially in fly time. I wish to know whether slitting the tongue will be attended with any danger from bleeding, or seri- ous inconvenience in eating, &c., &c., also how long a slit to make. Wm. F. Bassett. Hammonton, N. J., Feb. 1, 1870. Remarks. — We abhor all mutilations of this nature. A simple strap round the nose, with points in it, with another strap buckled on top of the head, has always answered the purpose with us. It is light, does not prevent brushing off flies, and pricks the udder, or surrounding parts sufiOi- ciently to prevent sucking. At any rate, do not "slit the tongue." PLOUGHING UNDER MANURE. I wit^h to inquire through your paper the best method of applying green manure to land in- tended for corn. My custom has been to spread the manure and plough in about seven inches deep under the sod. Last year I ploughed the land in autumn ; be- fore planting in the spring, spread the manure on top of the lurrow, then passed over the furrows with a cultivator, and harvested forty bushels of corn to the acre. Does the strength of the manure pass off in the air, or is it absorbed by the soil ? And will it benefit future crops as much as when turned under the sod ? E. F. Sherman. East Dover, Vt., March, 1870. Remarks. — The plan of spreading green ma- nure upon the sod, and ploughing it under four 232 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. May to six inches deep, is a common one. But we pre- fer the mode which you adopted in applying the manure to the furrow and working it under a lit- tle, say two to four inches. In this way, there is little or no loss by evaporation from the manure ; for as soon as fermentation takes place, and gases are given off, they are taken up at once by the fine soil, and held there to act upon other matter in the soil, and eventually feed the plants. It is quite doubtful whether manure ploughed under seven inches imparts to the first crop any thing like its full power. If the land were ploughed eight inches deep the succeeding year, and thor- oughly mingled with the soil nearer the surface, it would undoubtedly be of considerable service to the crops growing upon it. The best way of applying manure to the soil is to plough it under in its fresh state, even before it cools, if that were practicable. NON-BEARING GOOSEBERRIES. Can you or any of your correspondents tell me why my gooseberries don't bear ? They were taken from a pasture five or six years ago, and set in a moist, rich soil, just as 1 see recommended by Mr. Fuller in the last Farmer ; but miue have not borne a single berry since they were trans- planted, although they have grown very thriftily and blossomed profusely every year. The blos- soms all blight and fall off before the fruit sets. Alexandria, N. H., March, 1870. i. l. f. Remarks. — No, we cannot tell. Did the bushes bear in the pasture, where you found them ? We can recommend one that will bear, — the Mountain Seedling. It grows uprightly five or six feet, is a great bearer, docs not mildew, and the fruit is ex- cellent. "We have raised it for a dozen years, and get a good crop every year. Smith's Seedling, Houghton's Seedling, and Downing's Seedling are said to be good varieties. They are cheap, and may be had of any leading nurseryman. It is important to observe some particular points in the cultivation of the gooseberry. 1. It must have a moist, rich soil. 2. Cultivate it in open ground, or at least, not nnder trees. 3. Prune it regularly and liberally in November. Allow no suckers to grow. 4. Thin out the berries when they get to the size of small peas, if you mean to get excellent fruit. 5. Cultivate carefully, keeping all weeds and grass away from the bushes. APPLE-TREE LICE. Can any reader of the Farmer tell me how to to drive lice from apple-trees ? Last season fiuit and fortst trees were infested by worms' nests. These I destroyed as well as I could, but tills spring those trees are literally covered with lice. J. McAllister. Lee, Mass., March 7, 1870. Remarks. — We are not sure what insects are alluded to by our correspondent. By worms nests, we presume he means the tent caterpillar, and by lice, the apple-bark louse. These two in- sects have no connection, and must be met with different weapons. If it is the bark-louse that covers the twigs of your trees, you have a hard customer. If the trees are not too large the lice may be thinned off by washing the limbs with a composition made by boiling tobacco in lye and then stirring in soft soap that was made cold till it will work like paint. Other substances have also been used. These little scales, which are the dried remains of the mother insect, cover eggs which will hatch out, in May or June, little white atom?, almost invisible to the eye, which will dif- fuse themselves over the tree, suck its sap, multi- ply and perpetuate their species until the tree is ruined. roofing. — POTASH TO 100 BUSHELS OF ASHES ? SAL-SODA, TO KILL LICE ON CATTLE. In your extract from the Country Gentleman, I find Mr. Neal's rooting consisted of coal tar and road dust. What kind of soil produced that dust ? Would common sand answer that purpose ? How many pounds of potash will a hundred bushels of ashes make ? I find sal-soda will kill lice on cattle, applied in the proportion of two quarts of water to one pound of the sal-soda, and it is harmless. l. Winchendon, Mass., Feb., 1870. Remarks. — The article from the Country Gen- tleman, in relation to roofing, was copied as a sug- gestion, none of the facts in the case being linown by us. A fine sand might answer all purposes. All experiments of this nature should be made in a limited and inexpensive, but faithful manner, as far as we go. The number of pounds of potash in one hundred bushels of ashes would vary with the kind of wood, the nature of the soil upon which the plants grev/, with the size of the trees and season when they were cut, and especially in regard to the manner in which the wood was burnt. If burnt in a com- mon fireplace, there would be a larger amount of potash in the ashes than if the wood were burned in the fierce heat under the boiler of a locomotive. As a general rule and one sufficiently near, per- haps, for agricultural purposes — we can allow from fme to seven pounds of potash for every 100 pounds of clean wood ashes. WHEAT. — KIND — AMOUNT OF SEED — WHEN TO 80AV — PREPARATION OF SOIL AND SEED. I am about to sow a piece of ground to wheat, but being a novice in the business, I write to you for information. My ground is a clay loam, well drained, naturally, and would produce fifty bush- els of corn to the acre. What kind of wheat shall I sow to make nice flour ? How much per acre, and when ? And how prepare the ground and seed ? The land was planted last year to potatoes. Theo. G. Lincoln. Taunton, Mass., March, 1870. Remarks.— There are several kinds of spring wheat, the Turkey, Italian, Black Sea and others. Which is best we are not able to say. The amount used by good farmers is from four pecks to eight or nine pecks per acre. About a bushel and a half is pretty near the average. 1S70. NEW ENGLAND FAEIMER. 233 Make the ground mellow by ploughing and mixing as much as possible, and sow as early in April as the soil will permit. Much depends on early sowing. Soak the seed over night in brine of modtrate strength. OLD HOrSE PLASTEK — PITCH PINE PINS. Please inform me if old house plaster is of any use as a inauure for fruit trees or grass lands ; also if ))itch pine pins are of any use for a manure ? Littleton, N. H., Feb. 20, 1870. Subsckiber. Remarks. — Old house plaster is quite valuable. Make it fine by pounding, and try some experi- ments with it on grass land, and about fruit trees. The leaves of pine trees are valuable as manure, wh'-n they are completely decomposed. Used in moderate quantities as a bedding for stock, they would subserve two or three useful purposes. The cattle would lie easier ; the leaves would act as an absorbent, and when rotted would be useful as manure. feeding bees. — WINDOW FARM. — POTATO BALL SEED. There are many bees kept in this section, and nearly all that have not been fed are dead. I think ours do as well fed on sugar as honey. To feed them on t»^p of a hive, put a box on wi;hout top or bottom in it, about as large square as the hive and six inches deep; over this put a wire screen the bees cannot get through. Put sugar in an earthen bowl (never use a tin dish) and pour hot water to it, making a thick syrup; let it stand till cool and the undissolved sugar has set- tled. Fill a piece of comb with the syrup and place it in the box, — putting a little rye meal in the box. This wire screen allows you to see when the bees need feed, and also allows the vapor from the bees to escape. A tight box on the top of the hive coiifincs the vapor and it condenses on the feed and renders it poisonous. I dislike glass in a hive on account of the vapors condensing upon it. The late warm, suuny days have given my win- dow potato field a start. The earth begins to crack open, and I can peak into the hills, and see pota- toes about the size of large peas. I have lately heard of new varieties of potatoes being sold for forty and titty dollars for one potato. Wonder if any of these will prove of a stamp to bring these prices ? All who see my new arrangement for plant boxes want them, and since writing my for- mer letter I have concluded to apply for a patent on thera, and am making arrangemonts to manu facture them to sell. I saved quite a lot of potato ball seeds, and will sell them for twenty cents a paper. I have lately been in Grafion County, N. H., and find potatoes badly .sflfected by the dry rot. People who have raised the Early Rose here speak very highly of them. He who originates a superior variety bene- fits the countrv. B. Livermoke. Harlland, Vt., March 14, 1870. CORN growing in ILLINOIS. Your promise of "open ears," induces me to go much more fully into details than I had intended. After securing proof seed corn, the next impor- tant consideration to obtain a large yield of Indian corn is to thoroughly prepare the ground — pulver- izing it three or four inches deep. It has been found when both soil and sul)soilare quite clayey, that deep fall ploughing is decidedly better for the corn crop than spring ploughing. The desirable quantity of compost manure hav- ing been ploughed under in the autumn, or dis- tributed on the ploughed ground, during the win- ter, move the cultivator about the first of May, — set to run four or more inches deep— and with a rightly constructed implement, a yoke of good oxen, led by a span of good horses or mules, can well cultivate twenty acres a day. If many clods or lumps remain, a heavy roller is the next desir- able implement, to be followed by the many-too;hed harrows. Such a team can well drag over the ground harrows twelve or fifteen feet wide. In about a week further pulverize the ground with similar implements. But if clods are no longer visible, it may be expedient to dispense with other implements than the harrow. Let the ground be well stirred weekly, till past the middle of May, in latitude 42°. Experiments have been made that show that seed corn will rot in the ground, rather than ger- minate and grow, when the temperature, where it is deposited, is below 58° of Fahrenheit thermom- eter. But many weed seeds will sprout and grow luxuriantly below 50° No advantage can be de- rived by having corn planted more than six days before the plants appear — even when covered three or four inches deep. Yet, one of the well-to-do farmers of our county told me that in the spring of 1867, his seed corn lay in the ground five weeks before it came up. It is not a very uncommon sight in I linois to see weeds in tne corn hills higher than the ears of corn. In proof of bdd man- agement, many growers of corn here do not har- vest some seasons one-fourth as much sound corn per acre, as do some of their neighbors, from lauds originally of like quality. Most Western farmers think it does not pay to hoe corn. For myself, I would not give the oest hand I ever had in mj' employ, his board to hoe corn for me, — provided I have had the manoge- ii.ent of the tieid two years. Yet, the weeds ia some good decree must be subdued. Uockford, 111., Feb., 1870. J. Weldon. DESTROTING HARDBACK — RECLAIMING A SWAMP. I wish to inquire if there is any other way to destroy this bush than by grubbing them up ? Here in western Berkshire county there are hun- dreds of acres of land overrun with it. The bushes get so thick that they run out the grass. Much of our land would make good meadow if it was drained. The muck would pay for digging to put in the yard and mix with yard manure. I think there is too little attention paid to reclaim- ing land. I had about sixty acres swamp pasture. I drained it, dug the stumps out, and have got the most of it seeded so as to mow well with the mow- ing machine. One crop of the hay now will pay for all I expended upon it. J. McAllister. Lee, Mass., March 7, 1870. HENS PULL wool TO GET THE TICKS. Having had some experience in raising sheep and hens, I would say to Mr. N. Granger, of Ran- dolph, Vt., that his hens were after tne ticks on his sheep instead of the wool. One day I noticed that my hens were apparently busy in pulling the wool from my sheep. On closer examination, I was satisfied that it was not wool, but the ticks that crawled out near the surface of riie fiecue, that they wanted. Finding that there were many ticks on my sheep, I steeped one pound of tobaci?o leaves to one pail of water, and dipped my lambs in this solution, and let thetu run with the Hock to rub the lye on the other sheep, and in a few days not a tick could be seen. As wool is in such active demand, we ought to save it all, and I think 234 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. May if friend Granger will try the above remedy, he will save his wool without destroying his hens. Massachusetts, March 7, 1870. a. b. ANTHRACITE COAL ASHES. Do you ronsider anthracite coal ashes of any value on any kind of land ? From my experience la«t year and year before, I am of the opinion that there is much more value in it than most people give it credit for. G. c. p. Peabodi/, Mass., Feb., 1870. Remarks. — This question makes its appear- ance in agricultural papers about as regularly as the seasons revolve. "We have known coal ashes to be put aronnd fruit trees to prevent the growth of grass, and we have known of its being put upon the ground to make grass grow. We know of a grape grower on light soil who regards it as a most valuable article, and we have seen a practi- cal farmer who was loading manure from a yard refuse to accept a pile of coal ashes that laid close by, on condition of carrying it off. Our answer to your question, which we are glad is not more specific and particular, is in the affirmative. We "do consider coal ashes of some value on some kinds of land." And now, may we in tura, ask you for a statement of that experience which has convinced you that "there is much more value in it than most people give it credit for ?" And in the meantime we publish on another page an article upon the subject by Prof. S. W. Johnson, author of Hoto Plants Grow, How Plants Feed, &c., which you will thank us for copying. PRICE OF BEEF. In the comments of your cattle market reporter last week on the failure of certain Brighton butchers, the fact that they paid too much for rattle was suggested as one cause for their losses. Now will you allow me to ask why should they pay prestnt prices ? The weekly reports show that there is no scarcity of cattle, for the number increase^ fr,pm month to month and from year to year. When gold was 280 that was assigned as a .reason for high prices. Gold is down, fljur, wi ol, butter, &c., &c., are lower, and why should beef be kept at war prices ? It is nothing less than ex- tortion, and ought not to be sustained. If butch- ers would make up their minds to settle back on prices, drovers would buy ibr less or not at all, and though farmers might groan for awhile, why should not they, as well as others, i?hare in the loss const queut on peace prices ? Tne people jus'ly demand beef at lower prices, and if any body knows of any good reasons why they should not have it, I should be much pleased to see a statement of them. c. l. s. Montpelier, Vt., March 17, 1870. Remarks. — Our correspondent assumes that butchers are now paying "war prices" for cattle. Do facts justify this assumption? For a time during the war the best cattle were sold at Brigh- ton market for 20 cents per pound on dressed weight; last week the highest figures reached for the choicest animals from the River feeders were 13^c per pound, — and but very few over 13 cents. Really, therefore, present prices are equal to only about two-thirds of the highest war prices! As to the abundance of supply. A few years ago— say thirty-five or forty — the farmers of New England, besides supplying their own home mar- ket, raised large numbers of cattle which were sold to the "packers," and when barreled up con- stituted one of the staple articles of New England "export." The prices obtained by the farmers were low — gloriously low, perhaps "C. L. S." and his friends "the people" would say. But what was the result ? The boys who helped raise these cattle — probably "C. L. S." was one of them— left their fathers' flacks on the "Grampian" and all other hills, for more lucrative employments. And drovers have been obliged to follow the star of empire westward to meet the cattle raisers, until the "long horns" from Texas and from the hunt- ing grounds of the Cherokees fill the sale pens of Ik-ighton market, and their beef is eaten in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont ! According to the statistics of the Agricultural Department, while the population of the Northern and Southern States increased 33 per cent., in ten years, cattle decreased 20 per cent. Last year over two-thirds of all the cattle at Cambridge and Brighton were Western, and we may safely say that more cattle were shipped East from Albany for butchers in the Western part of Masschusetts and in Connec- ticut and Rhode Island, which did not come to Brighton, than there were New England cattle at market. , In these facts our correspondent may be unable to see any good reason why the demand for cheap beef should not be granted ; but in view of all the circumstances of the beef trade — to only a few of which we have alluded, — we would recommend butchers to adopt some other course than that of "settling back on prices," if they would avoid the "extortion" to which they are now subjected. Oar first suggestion to the abused butchers and consumers would be to "settle back on" some farm and, though they "might groan for a while," raise their own rumps and sirloins. This failing, why not adopt some substititute for beef ? The Utica Herald, long the organ of the dairymen, recommends cheese as a substitute for beef, and hints at the use of horse- flesh. It says : If beef continues to remain as high as it ever was in the days when the cow jumped over the moon, and it the supply continues to fall far short of the demand, we must of necessity be on the look-out for a substitute. We are not of those hideously under-delicate people who advocate hippophagy. We would starve first! But there is no necessity for any such extreme measure. Doubtless one cause of the extraordinary decrease in beef cattle is owing to the rapid extension (f dairy farming. The manufacture and consump- tion of cheese is increasing far more rapidly than the decrease in the raising and consumption of beef. As an article of food it is gaining popu- larity with equal rapidity. Will it ever becume a substitute for beef? It is healthy, it is more nu- tritious, and there is every reason to believe that in the future it will be vastly cheaper. Nolens voletis we may yet ct cheese instead of beef; but whether that be so or not, cheese is undoubtedly to considerable extent a satisfactory substitute. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 235 "With a suggestion from an English paper of good repute among farmers — the Mark Lane Ex- press,— we leave "C. L. S.", and all who suffer from the extorrionate prices of beef, to "settle back" on whichever dilemma they may choose : — We do not eat the flesh of rats, but we do of pigs, and yet pigs are among the dirtiest feeding animals of the whole creation. Most people are tond of ham, roast pork, sausages, &c., the flesh Ota well-fed pig. And why should not the flesh of a good far, corn fed rat be palatable and good meat ? Who has ever seen a fresh skinned rat without remarking on the delicate looking nature of the flesh ? We certainly have never tasted it — indeed should require some very strong testimony as to its flivor before doing so; and yet one can- not help thinking that a nice, plump young rat, fried or roasted, and served up with good gravy and other condiments, would make a very deli- cious dish. LAMPAS— HORSE DISTEMPER. As one of the readers of the Farmer, I wish to inquire, 1. The besi way to treat colts that are troubled with lampas ? Should burning ever be resorted to ? 2. The best way to treat horse dis- temper or horse ail ? Jason Powers. West Burke, Vt., March, 1870. Remarks. — Lampas is a term used to signify a tumefaction or swelling of some of the lowest ridges or bars of the palate, in the vicinity of the upper nippers. It may arise from a variety of causes. In colts it is caused by congestion, qp an excess of blood in the part, in consequence of local irritation from teething. Sponge the parts affected three or four times a day with a weak solution of alum, or an infusion of witch hazel, bayberry bark, or some other as- tringent; and if the swelling does not subside speedily, make a few slight incisions across the bars with a sharp knife. Burning should never be resorted to. If by horse distemper, friend Powers means the febrile disease of horses associated with the for- mation of matter between the jaws and about the throat, and which by some writers is called epi- demic catarrh or influenza, and by others strangles, the best treatment consi=ts in applying large, soft and warm poultices to the swellings beneath the jaws, and steaming the nostrils two or three times a day with vapor from boiling water. As soon as the swellings become soft i)y the accumulation of matter, they should be freely opened with a knife or lancet. Laxative or loosening medicines may be given if need be, but nothing should be done to reduce the animal's strength. The food should be boiled oats or barley, or soft mashes of wheaten bread, brown bread, &c. If there is reason to fear that the disease has been communicated by con- tagion, separate the healthy from the diseased an- imals, secure cleanliness and good ventilation, and wash the mangers and parts contiguous with a solution of carbolic acid, or carbolic soap, FILM ON THE EYE. I would like to inquire through the columns of the Farmer for a remedy that will remove a lilm from a creature's eye. Have used tobacco juice and fine salt with no good effect. The injury is recent and supposed to have been done by a blow of some kind. A Subscriber. Waitsficld, Vt., Feb. 8, 1870. Remarks. — Pound and rub alum into a powder, making it as fine as flour. Fill a common goose quill partly full with it, and from that blow it into the eye. But if the eye is bruised by a blow, that is another matter, and the alum would probably do no good. Bl'NCHES ON THE NECK AND BACK OF AN OX. Last spring one of my oxen that had been tied next to a farrow cow, in the stable, and kept near her much of the time wnen they were in the yard, was troubled with hard bunches and scales all over his neck and back, which itched l)adly. I gave him saltpetre, &c., but nothing helped him till he was bled, when he apparently got well and did well through the whole season. This v'pring his skin is in the same condition again. As it is too early to bleed him, can you suggest some other remedy that can be applied now ? Do you consider it hurtful to a hor.-e to eat meadow hay, — not living upon it entirely, but picking over the orts left Ov the cattle ? J. b. b. Tuftonboro', X. H., March, 1870. Remarks.— If it will be a good thing to bleed your ox at all, we cannot see any good reason why he may not have his blood shed at one season of the year as well as at another. But we believe there is a better way ; and would advise you to feed him plenty of carrots, turnips, or potatoes, — carrots are the best ; wash him all over with warm soapsuds once a day ; card him well twice a day ; and give him, once a day, a tablespoonful of a powder composed of sulphur two parts, cream of tartar two parts, and saltpetre one part; or, if you prefer, give him a tablespoonful of epsom salts every day, instead of the powder. We should not suppose it would hurt a horse to eat what he would of meadow hay or orts, if he was not starved to it. BLIND STAGGERS IN HOGS. I would like to know what will cure the blind stcgaers in hogs, and what is the cause ? Becket, Mass., March, 1S70. P. Wilson. Remarks.— To know what will cure blind stag- gers in hogs, we should first know something of the cause that has produced the affection ; for that disease, like many others, is not always the effect of one and tbe same cause. If the animal is constipated, physic him with sulphur, or with sulphur and cream of tartar. If the pores of the skin are closed by an accumula- tion of dirt, wash him with warm soap suds and keep him clean. If the natural issues on the fore legs are closed, open them by washing and rubbing. If he is too fat and plethoric, like some men and women, physic him and give him less food. Very fat men and women, are diseased men and women, and are very liable to have vertigo, which is but another name for "blind staggers ;" and vertigo is a premonitory symptom of apoplexy. As with men and women, so with hogs. 236 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. May [Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S70, by R. P. Eaton & Co., intlie QerVa OflBce of tlie District Court for tlie District of Massacliusetts.] RURAL ARCHITECTURE. BY GEO. E. BABXET, Cold Spring, JT. T. DESIGNED A2t prutitable to send the milk on the train tf) New York, or make a good article of huttcr? Th',! distunce I would have to carry my milk is two and a half miles. a. c. I'Utsfield, Mass., March 7, 1870. Hemakks. — "A pint's a pound, the world around." But what's a quart of milk ? We must settle this question before we can decide how much butter 100 quarts of milk will make. There are two measures — the wine and the beer. Four quarts of the one weigh nearly as much as five quarts of the other. The legal gallon of the United States, which is the wine measure, contains 231 cubic inches, and weighs, of distilled water, 8.3389 pounds; the beer measure contains 282 inches, and weighs 10 pounds. Hence a beer quart weighs 2^ pounds and a wine quart 2 pounds \\ ounces. We suppose that in this country the beer measure is generally used for milk, and in England the wine measure. Uniformity in this as in all other weights and measures is very desirable, and as the ■wine measure has been legalized by our General Government, and by the legislature of Massachu- setts, we hope it will be generally adopted through- out the country, by dairymen as well as others. From our own experience in butter making, we are inclined to the opinion that "book farmers," or those who base their opinion on published state- ments, generally over-estimate the amount of but- ter obtained from one hundred quarts, or any other given quantity of milk. People are much more willing to report successes than failures ; large crops and large yields, than small ones. Mr. Buckminster, of Framingham, Mass., who raised the Devon stock for sale, asserted some years ago that four quarts of milk from one of his sows had made a pound of butter. Great products from Alderney or Jersey cows have also been reported by owners who wished to sell them at fancy prices. But such butter making is seldom realized by "out- back" farmers. Mr. Horsfall, an English gentleman, who exper- imented in the use of cooked food and high feed- ing, and who kept his cows beef-fat, selling a part of his milk and making butter from a part, tested the matter of butter making pretty thoroughly. He repeatedly tried the experiment with sixteen "quarts" — wine measure we suppose — and the amount of butter from the 16 quarts varied from 24 to 27.J ounces on the various trials with the milk from his high-fed cows. Allowing 26 ounces as the average, 10 quarts or 20 pounds 13 ounces of milk were required for a pound of butter. On inquiry among his neighbors who kept their cows poorer, he found that a quart at a milking was al- lowed for a pound of butter a week — or fourteen (small) quarts for a pound of butter. A very care- ful statement was made some years since by a Pennsylvania dairyman, who said that milk varied so much that it was very difiicult to say how much milk would make a pound of butter, on an aver- age, but from "common cows," he calculated on from nine to eleven quarts, or from eighteen to twenty-two pounds of milk for one of butter. This corresponds very nearly with the statement of Mr. G. C. Bidwell, one of our subscribers in Rockingham, Vt., to whom we put your inquiry, who said that his rule was eight large quarts, or twenty pounds, but that it would vary considera- bly with the season, &c. Now if we allow 20 pounds of milk to one of butter, 100 quarts large measure would make 12^ pounds of butter, and 100 quarts of small measure nearly 10^ pounds. Of the profit on milk sent to New York you must judge from th« price paid and other circum- stances, with which you must be better informed than ourselves. ■WITCH GRASS. I have read the Farmer for a few years, but have not yet seen anything on destroying barn or witch grass. I am not a farmer, but till a small garden, in which I have been much troubled to keep down said grass. Any hints on the subject will be gratefully received. Seth Edson. North Bridgewater, Mass., March 20, 1870. Remarks. — Barn and witch grass are very dif- ferent things. Witch grass in cultivated land is a troublesome weed. If a garden patch was well stocked with it, we should prefer to plant with corn or potatoes one year, manuring in the hill, and covering if possible with earth in which there were few or no witch grass roots, and then as often as the grass shows its head — we mark this in italics, because every word means all it says — cut it off or pull it up, no matter how often a sharp hoe and the thumb and fingers have to be used,— remem- bering that the roots will extend several times as far as the leaf is allowed to project above the sur- face. If the land and the season is tolerably dry, witch grass may be hoed to death in a single sum- mer. We do not say you will do it, because we do not know anything about the size of your bump of perseverance. But if you must have garden stuflF this year, fork — not spade — the ground finely and throw out the roots as carefully as though they were parti- cles of gold, collect them in a heap, and when partly dry burn them, coalpit fashion, covering with sods and rubbish, and if no unburned roots remain, you may use the ashes with advantage. Either mode, merely tried, will fail ; either, thor- oughly do7ie will succeed. Don't you ever say again that the Farmer never told you how to de- stroy witch grass in a garden. CEMENT FLOORS FOR HORSE STALLS. Will some one inform me the best way of mak- ing a horse stable floor of stone and cement, so that all the liquid manure mav be saved ? e. t. Orleans 4- Corners, N. T., 1870. Remarks. — The importance of saving all the manure, the desirableness of a good bed for the horse, the readiness with which ammonia is 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARAIER. 247 developed by his urine, and other considerations ] that will occur to those who keep horses, make the question of the proper construction of the | floors of stables a very important one, and we hope the inquiry of E. T. will call out the experi- ence of horsemen. To save the urine, the floor should be so contrived that it will pass off readily, but at the same time it should not slant so as to incDnvenience the horse that stands upon it. The fact that horses so frequently stand across a floor that pitches, shows that they do not like to have their toes much higher than their heels. IMPROVEMENT OF SANDT SOIL. I have a piece of land that in all probability was once the bed of a lake, as the suh.st flesh. Is there any danger of my taking the disease in handling it? Is it the manger ? Any directions for curing the colt will greatlv oblige p. Bethel, Me., March, 1870. Remarks. — Give your colt, once or twice a day, a tablespoonfal of the following powder:— Sul- phur and cream of tartar, each, two parts; salt- petre and crude antimony, each, one part. Mix. At the same time bathe the parts affected twice a day, with Nichols', or Squibb's solution of carbolic acid, in the proportions of one part of the solution to three or four parts of soft water. If this does not cure, dissolve three to six grains of corrosive frubllmate in one ounce of soft water, and wash the parts affected. GARGET IN A HEIFER. I have a heifer that has the garget badly. She is not in milk yet, but is to be in a few days. There is not one particle of milk in her bag, but it is one .solid cake and very sore. AVhatcan be done for i ? A. c. Pitts Md, Mass., March, 1870. Rem\kks — Paint the hiefer's bag twice a day with tmcture of iodine, or, if you prefer, bathe the affected part three times a day with a solution made of iodine, half an ounce ; iodide of potassium, two ounces ; soft water, one pint. At the same time, give the animal a tabespoonful of the above mentioned solution twice a day, in a bran mash. If you can manage to steam, ferment, or poultice the diseased organ, it will be serviceable to do so. SOAP MAKING. I notice directions in your paper occasionally about soap making; how to prepare the ashes, lye, grease and all the other numerous et ceteras. Now 1 wi?h to give your readers a better receipt, and show them how to avoid at least two-thirds of the lat)or required by the process above men- tioned ; and this we all know is the great desider- atum in these times of scarce and poor help. Firstly, use your ashes to the very best advan- tage on your farm, as it is taken for granted you own one; if not, apply them judiciously on your garden plat. Secondly, purchase the prepared lye, or concentrated potash, which conies sealed up in sheet iron cans in pound packages, and which re- tails with us for tweniy-tive cents per pound. Prepare your grease by cleansing, and follow strictly the direci ions which come with the cans for the purpose of making both hard and soft soap. Two cans or pounds of ttie potash, will make — I will not say how many pounds of hard soap — but certainly enough to last a small family for months, at an outlay (provided you have your own grease) of titty cenrs, and also a saving of much labor. And a decided improvement it is we think, over the old-fashioned leach and the risk of having good luck. Try it Mrs. Farmers and report re- sult. N. B. — Not in the potash business. Salisbury Conn., March 24, 1870. w. J. P. PREVENTION OF DISEASE IN COWS. I saw in your valuable paper, not long since, an inquiry as to the best way to ireai a cow that had cast her withers, I adopt the piinciple that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. I keep my cows well through the winter, and then some three weeks prior to yeaning time, I begin to feed extra, so as to have them in good thriving condition, and in a dry warm place, so that they shall not take cold. This has been my practice for twenty-Jive years, with more or less cows, without seeibg even a symplom of the disease. Atkinson, Me., April, 1870. A Subscriber. CURE FOR SCOURING. I will give "Subscriber," who is troubled with his animals scouring, a very simple remedy that has never failed me nor my neighbors, as far as I can learn. Take two quarts of the best wheat flour that can l)e found, and wet it to the thick- ness of common cream with luke warm water, and give to the animals ; but if it will not be taken, put it in a long-necked bottle and turn it down. Repeat the dose once in four hours, until a change is produced. I never have had to give it the fourth time. E. J. Buttolph. Buffalo, X. Y., March 17, 1870. A CURE FOR CATTLE SCOURING. Take for a cow a piece of rennet one inch and a half square ; cut it in tine bits and put it in some meal or other mess that the cow will eat. The rennet should be well dried. If the first dose does not stop it, give once a day until cured. I have tried this at different times, but never had to give more than three doses. t. l. t. Antwerp, X. Y., March, 1870. MILK FEVEE — OVERFLOWING OF THE GALL, &C. Some time during the last fall, (November I think,) I gave you an account of the sickness and death of two or three cows, which you thought was milk fever, from the description I sent, la the Farmer of March oih, I find a communication from Mr. Wm. Swett, of South Paris, Me., headed, '■Oveiflowing of the Gall and Liver Complaint," in which he says he thinks we did not understand the disease. We admit that we did not — wish we did. lie then goes on to give the symptor.va of, and the remedies for overflowing of the gall, &c. The cows that I spoke of in N -vemb.-r did not have the symptoms he describes as indicating that disease; but on the very day that the Farmer came, that contained his communication, we had a case that answered exactly to what he describes, and I found his prescription Just the medicine for the case. Sen ex. Cumberland, R. I., March 28, 1870. — A correspondent of the American Agricultu- rist, in Montana, states that stock fatten and thrive on the wild bunch grass of that section all the year round, preferring it even in January to well- cured hay, and that cattle and horses keep sleek and fat on it all the year round. '250 NEW ENGLAJST) FARMER. May THE VERBENA. This beautiful flower, well represented in the above engraving from Washhuni's Ama- teur Cultiva^or''s Guide, is deservedly a favor- ite both for house and garden culture, Mr. B^eok gives the following description in his ''Book of Flowers y After mentioning its firf>t introduction of the white, crimson and pink varieties into this country from Buenos Ayres, by Mr. Robert Buist, of Philadelphia, about the year 1835, Mr. Breck says : — From these have sprung all the numerous varitities, many hundred in number, now in our collections. In these varieties may be found every color except yellow, and even this color in its lightest shades, is sometimes seen in the eyes of some of the sorts. We now have crimson, scarlet, rose, white, lilac, bluish pur- ple in all their shades, with eyes of purple, ciimson, rose, white, or straw color, and also a number of striped or spotted sorts. No plants are more more generally cultivated, or more eagerly sought after, than this beautiful family. I sometimes wonder how a flower- garden could be considered passable without the Verbena. The habits of all are similar, naturally prostrate creeping plants, taking root freely wherever the stems come in con- tact with the ground, and sending forth innu- merable clusters of their many hued, brilliant flowers . from June to November. The Verbena is kept with difliculty through the winter, except in the green-house or in warm rooms; unless kept growing, it will per- ish. It cannot, therefore, be kept even in a dry cellar, and it is not hardy enough to stand the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 251 winter. Most of the varieties are easily raised from cuttings, and can be purchased at so Fmall a price from florists, that it is by far the more economical to buy a lew dozen in the spring than to attempt to keep tl em through the winter. Small plants turned out from the pots in June soon make large plants, and by October will be two or three feet across. They continue to flower after severe frosts, and are among the last lingering flowers of autumn. The seed, sown in May, in the open ground, will begin to show flowers in August ; but, when the seed is sown in January, in the green-house, and afterwards potted and placed in a hot-bed in March or April, will begin to flower in June. Seedling plants produce seed in abundance, but those plants which have been a long time propagated IVom cuttings, lose that power in a great measure, and produce none or very sparingly. It'is easy enough to raise seed- lings, but the chance of getting an improved variety, may not be one to twenty or one in fifty. No plant equals the Verbena for masses, particularly when grown in fanciful beds and on lawns, as the brilliancy of the flowers con- trasts finely with the green grass. For the Xeic England Farmer. MAKING, HOUSING Al'JD APPLYING MANUKeJ. As the farmers of the New England States must have manure in order to raise crops profitably, I thought I would write a little of my experience in relation to its management. 1 have tried many experiments with manures and crops, but 1 am afraid I shall make poor work in getting an intelligible account of them on paper. In the tirst place I make all I can and keep it housed as much as I can until wanted for use. In fdct it is all undercover, except what the cattle diop in the yard in warm pleasant days. My horse manure goes under the sta- ble where the hogs root it over and keep it from heating. Then I endeavor to save the liquids. In the summer I keep muck in the pig pen, and make large quantities of good manure there. My cow stable has a trench, with a walk behind it, in which 1 keep saw- dust, dry muck or anything that will save the liquid. This is thrown under a shed, as I have no cellar, — the land on which my barn stands being very level. I keep muck in the yard and sheds to mix with the manure, and to put at the back door and under the piivy, where all the slops and suds are thrown, to keep it from smelling bad. I clean these places out twice a year. It is surprising to see how much manure one can make with but little cost when we go to work in earnest. But my experience has taught me that the great secret lies in keeping manure well housed until wanted for use. I think one load from my shed is as good as three fiom my yard, and equal to two loads from a heap that has been exposed to the snows and rains through the winter and spring. And here, Mr. Editor, I beg leave to differ a trifle from your remarks on Work for Feb- ruary, in regard to drawing out manure from a cellar to be exposed to the storms till used. It may be necessary in some cases, if there is not room, or if it is to be drawn up hill where the ground is soft in the spring. I think the less ma-nure is handled over and exposed to the atmosphere and storms the more valuable it is. If manure could be mingled with the soil as soon as dropped, would it not be more lasting in the soil ? I think heavy rains on manure heaps in the fielil washes a great deal of the strength of it below the reach of plant roots, on sandy or gravelly soil ; on clay or hard-pan bottom, it might not do so. I have heard it said the soil will so retain the fertiliz- ing matter in water while passing through it that none will go below the reach of roots, but my experience hardly agrees with this. I have one of the patent pipe wells in my barnyard near the barn, where there is no chance for water or manure to get near it, as it is in a small yard by itself. It was sunk twelve feet. During a heavy rain storm in March, 1867, the eave spout between two buildings over my manure heap got stopped up and the water run on to the heap. This manure heap was twenty-six feet from the well, on land that was nearly level, but a little higher than that around the well. In a day or two the water from the well began to look red. and to taste bad, and the stock refused to drink it until compelled by thirst. Tue water remained bad for about a week. I have no doubt it was caused b}' the water from the heap of manure, which passed through the soil, which is gravelly. I have drawn out manure from my sheep in the winter when the shed got too full, and have found that those spots on which it was piled absorb so much of the strength of the manure that no crop would grow on them the first year. I once lived on a dry, sandy farm where I could use my stable manure to a very gov.'d advantage in the hill for corn; but concluding I was losing too much by exposing my manure to the weather, I built a shed over my manure heaps, and the result was that the first year my housed manure was so much stronger than that exposed to the weather, which 1 had pre- viously used, that I got no corn, as it was too powerful to be put in the hill There is no way I can get so much benefit from manure as to plough it in four or five inches deep, mostly on green sward, say about thirty loads to the acre ; putting a little old manure or superphosphate in the hill. In this way I get good corn and potatoes. The past year my potatoes yielded at the rate of -150 252 NEW ENGLAin) FARMER. May bushels to the acre ; corn, 65 ; oats, 70. Af- ter my crops are off in the fall I plough again, running two or three inches deeper. In the spring sow to oats, from one and a half to two bushels to the acre, and get a good catch of grass. I have top-dresse'i mowing lands with thirty loads to the acre, on both wet and dry land, but do not receive as much benefit as when ploughed in. Ashes, I think, are best har- rowed in for hoed crops. I usually cut two crops of grass a year for two or three years, then one crop a year or two longer. I think manure that has not been leached lasts much longer in the soil. I have doubled the productiveness of my farm in the twelve years I have been on it, with but very little manure except what I have made. It may be interesting to some of your read- ers to know how much stock I keep on what grows on the twenty-eight acres that have been cultivated, on an average, during the past fourteen years, besides selling some corn, oats and potatoes. I have 135 sheep, eight head of cattle, mostly grown, three horses, and, ex- cepting flour, as I do not raise wheat, I may say a family of eight persons. Now, brother farmers, house your manure, cut your hay ealier, cultivate your land better, for a few years, and note the result. C. F. Lincolk. Woodstock, Vt., March, 1870. Remarks. — In connection with this valua- ble statement of the writer's mode of making, housing and applying manure, and of his gen- eral farm management, it may not be improper for us to say that the first premium on farms was awarded to him last fall by the agricultu- tural society of Windsor County, and that in making their award the Committee said, "Mr. Lincoln has doubled the productive capacity of his farm in about ten years, and that with- out the aid of imported fertilizers, except to a very limited degree. This has been accom- plished by a judicious rotation of crops, and by utilizing every available source of manure, and keeping it well housed till applied to the land." CELLAR "WALLS. A correspondent of the New England Homestead adopted the following method of constructing the cellar walls of two houses with perfect success : — A trench fifteen inches wide and two feet deep was dug, to receive a trench wall on which the underpinning was to be laid. The trench was filled to a level with the ground with rough or cobble stones, packed in as close as might be. After this, the cellar was dug, leaving a space inside the trench of four inches wide on the top. This space or shelf was filled up in a slanting direction, until it reached the underpinning. It should be done with moist earth, just before pointing, and made compact with the back of a shovel. If the cellar is seven feet deep, the wall should slant inwards about two and a half feet from the underpinning, and should b& made smooth and true with a shovel or trowel ; at least this is my method. As I wished to use an ox shovel, I left one end open and stoned it up, as there was no chance for making a trench then. After the houses were built, the cellar was lined throughout, sides and bottom, with hydraulic cement. I used but one coat, though, for the bottom, perhaps two would be better. The advantage of this method, are : 1st In building an ordinary sized house, in the Con- necticut River Valley, where stones are costly, it saves at least a hundred dollars ; 2d, it is proof against rats ; 3d, it is clean, warm and dry; 4th, there is no heaving of the walls. The builder of my first house was somewhat sceptical on this point, and afcer it had stood one winter, he examined carefully every foot of the foundation, and not finding a single crack in the whole, be frankly acknowledge its excellence. I presume that very coarsei gravel would answer the same purpose as small stones, in filling the trench. I ought perhaps, to add that in order to take advantage of this method, the site for the house should be tolerably level, and the ground sandy or sandy loam. I think ii would not answer when the soil is clay or when there are springs. t. g. n. MMER =^— :r— r^^-- DEVOTED TO AQRtCTJLTUBE, HORTICULTUHE, AKD KXNDRED AHTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, June, 1870. VOL. IV.— x\0. 6. R. P. EATON & CO., Publishers, Office, Zi Merchants' Row. MONTHLY. smoN BROWN, ; t;.„,^„„, S. FLETCHER, \ Editors. THE PAHMER'S HOME IN JUNE And then behold the farmer at hia hearth, Planning the duties of the coming morn ; How one shall wield the axe or spade the earth. Another's taek to till the t^nder corn : Around him i-it the peaceful houst hold train ; And he, by Nature's right, their guide a d head. Than this, -what jister power, wb;it hiuber rtign 1 The lads markid well whate'er the father said, by his expi rienoe taught, and by his wisdom led. Thomas C. Upiiam, in American Cottage Life, ^fe%^^!X OYOUS, fresh, inspiring Month of June ! No j^;^ days in the year display more man ifestations of Divine wis- dom and pow- er. None pre- sent more evi- dence that the country and the farm are the places where health, usefulness, and happiness may be found. With the poet quoted above, we agree, that there is no place where one can ex- ercise a juster power, or en- joy a higher reign. Some of the most instructive and in- spiring scenes of life, we have witnessed in the family and surroundings of the farmer's home ; where industry and frugality, coupled with an undoubting trust and faith, blunted the sharp ^^W^' ^&^. edge of life's trials, and brought all into har- mony with the peaceful and lovely aspects of external nature. In his charming book, the "Mirror of the Months," the author says : "Summer is come — come, but not to stay ; at least not at the com- mencement of the month. "Spring may now be considered as em- ployed ia completing her toilet, and for the first weeks of this month, putting on those last finishing touches which an accompli^shed beauty never trusts to any hand but her own. In the woods and groves also, she is still clothing some of her noblest and proudest attendants with their new annual attire. The oak until now has been nearly bare ; and, of whatever age, has been looking old all the winter and spring, on account of its crumpled branches and wrinkled rind. Now, of whatever age, it looks young, in virtue of its new green, lighter than all the rest of the grove." Natuie's book, in June, should be our con- stant companion. It is one that can make ' 'every man his own poet" fur the time being ; and there is, after all, no poetry like that which we create for ourselves. But we must not pause now to give more than a passing moment to sentiment. Wh:it has already been done in the spring work will be in vain, unless the springing crops are faithfully attended to. The soil must be kept light, weeds destroyed, and all superfluous plants carefully taken away. Very much de- 254 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. June pends upon this in nearly all the crops. The Indian corn will produce more grain with three stalks to a hill, than with six, at the comoion distances at which hills are placed. The small grains — especially on rich ground — will yield a larger crop of the seed when thinly sowed, than where a thick seeding has been given. Car- rots, beets, and indeed all the root crops, yield more abundantly when they have ample room, than if crowded. In a crop of Swedes or mangolds, twelve inches apart will give a bet- ter return than six or eight inches will ; there will be more pounds of roots to the acre. This holds true in fruits as well as grains and roots. Especially is this the case with grapes, pears and peaches. In raising grapes under glass, no success would attend the effort, unless the most severe thinning out were re- sorted to. To take away three from every five grapes in the Black Hamburg variety is scarcely enough. Crops frequently fail to be profitable from a want of proper attention to thinning them. The most important business of the farm through much of the month of June, is that of cultivating the crops which have been com- mitted to the soil, so that they shall attain the greatest possible vigor and perfection. Prompt and thorough hoeing is the key to these results. Stop the hoe and the profits cease. Nature, kind as she is, will no more carry on the plant to perfection after it has been started, without care, than she will drive the printing press or the factory wheel, after they have been constructed by the mechanic. If there were no weeds, and the earth alone were to sustain the plants, the hoe might rust in idleness ; but so long as weeds invade, and the leaves of plants spread themselves to the sun and air for a considerable portion of their food, the hoe and cultivator cannot be dis- pensed with. Give the vegetable garden more attention than heretofore. No part of the farm, we think, is more profitable than that which yields all the fresh fruits and vegetables which the family require. Few farmers are aware how much of a bill it would cost to supply the table bountifully with a variety of the fruits and ve- getables which ought to be in use through the year. Not only is health promoted by such use, but there is direct and unmistakable hap- piness enjoyed in planting and rearing, as well as in eating them. By sowing seeds of let- tuce, radishes, cabbage, &c., these vegetables may be had until late in autumn. Haying. — We must urge upon the reader once more the importance of commencing hay- ing early. Proofs enough of the importance of this have been given in these columns here- tofore, so that we need not dwell upon them now. Our observation has convinced us that, so far as weather is concerned, the most fa- vorable time for making hay is the last ten days in June, and the first ten in July. As a general thing, also, the grass cut during this period is worth much more than most of that cut later. The evidence, too, is clear that grass cut while in the blossom and cured with- out much exposure to the sun, is very much more valuable than that cut later, and exposed a part of two or three days to sun and air. Grass cut early and made mostly in the cock, retains more fully the grass qualities, and this all stock like better than any other feed. Pruning. — From the middle to the last of this month is the best time to prune apple or most other trees. In June — "The farmer in his field, Drriws the rich mould arouod th« tender maize, While hope, bright pinioned, points to coming days, ♦ When all his toiU shall yield An ample harvest, and around his hearth There shall be laughing eyes and tones of mirth." HOUSING MANURES. In a late article in the Boston Journal of Chemistry, Dr. Nichols says, the fertilizing elements in excrement are mostly soluble in water, and when the barnyards are drenched with it, they usually overflow, and the valua- ble portions are carried away. This is what every farmer sees and knows, but there is much difference in opinion as to the amount of such loss ; many believing it is not great, and perhaps it is not under some circum- stances. To test the question, however, one parcel of manure taken from a water-soaked heap and another from a parcel preserved in barn cellar were analyzed, with the folio wmg result : — Exposed. Sheltered. Nitrogen t •••••• • 1.36 per cent. 1.88 per cent. Soluble organic matters .1.78 " 6.22 " Soluble inorgcinic matters 2 67 " 3.98 " Phosphoric Acid .... 0.20 " 0.29 •' Potash and soda 0.79 " 2.00 " On this the Dr. remarks: — "It will be no- ticed that in the nitrogen (ammonia forming constituent,) the soluble organic and inorganic 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 255 bodies, and poj;ash and soda salts, there is a loss in the exposed manure, which renders it of less than half the money value of the other. The quality and the preservation of manures supply topics which should be presented to farmers very often, that they may be led clearly to understand the whole subject, and provide against losses, which are of a most serious nature. We shall refer to this impor- tant matter asain." yor the New England Farmer, THE GARDEN IN JUNE. The success and profit of the garden de- pends more on the attention given to it in June, than in any succeeding month of the sea- son ; for upon the rapidity of healthy growth, depends, in a great measure, the excellence of most garden vegetables for the table. How to promote and maintain this growth is an im- portant question. Thorough tillage is more essential than is generally supposed, and this must be the great work of the month. Jethro TulFs theory of tillage was founded on true scientific principles. If one doubts the effects of tillage, it is very easy to determine the question, on his soil, by a little experiment tried side by side. Take two similar parcels of ground ; cultivate one in the most thorough manner, comminuting and stirring the soil • deep and frequently, while the other receives only ordinary attention, and observe the dif- ference. Still, some varieties of plants should not be forced too rapidly, as their growth may be in a wrong direction, developing the less, instead of the more valuable parts ; but gen- erally there is little danger in this direction, providing the seed be thoroughbred. Little good, however, from stirring the soil in wet weather, though hand weeding may be advan- tageously done at this time, as the plants are less injured than if the weeds are pulled in a dry time. The drier the weather the more beneficial is it to stir the soil, provided the rootlets of the plants be not touched. Liquid manure is most advantageously applied in showery times, just previous to rain or during a moderate Shower. Watering once com- menced, must be kept up ; watering the pla7it effects but little — it is the soi7 that needs mois- tening, not the surface alone, but that which lies below ; if applied to the surface, it com- pacts and makes a crust ; if below, it softens and loosens. Asp.vRAGUS. — Too long cutting close may injure the strength of the roots. It is better to cease cutting near the close of the month. As green peas and string beans come, there is less need of asparagus. Give it a dressing of good superphosphate and let it grow. Beans. — There is yet time for planting both pole and dwarf ; if done at once, small Limas will mature by diligent careful culture. Give those already planted frequent hoeing when dry. Beets. — Long blood and blood turnip may be sown in good deep, rich, mellow soil, any time before the middle of the month, for fall and winter use. Hoe, thin and carefully cul- tivate early sown. A handy tool, in the ab- sence of a seed sower, for planting beet and like seed is to make a wheel of one or two inch stuff, insert bhort pins on the outer edge, six inches apart, mount it on a shaft with han- dle; •with this mark out the rows with inch- deep holes for the seed ; into each hole drop a seed and cover with hoe. Cabbage, and all this family of plants, may be transplanted any time during the month for autumn use. Remember the cabbage loves a rich, not over dry and frequently stirred soil. Set the roots deep, half or more the length of the stem down. Carrots sown the first of the month will make a crop, if the seed be soaked and dried in plaster. Celery. — Seed may be sowed for the win- ter crop. Prick out young plants to have a good supply of stocky, well grown ones for transplanting in July. Transplant about the middle of the month, for the fall crop, into well manured drills, four feet apart, trenches a foot deep, putting in three to six inches of manure and mellow the bed well. Corn. — Continue to plant Crosby's early and Trimbles, for a succession, until the mid- dle of July. Frequent hoeing and encourage- ment with top dressing or liquid manure is good to induce rapid growth and early matu- rity. Cucumbers, Melons and Squashes. — Cu- cumbers for succession and for pickling may be put in any time during the month. Frames, &c., for protection from insects, should be removed before the plants crowd them. A little encouragement with li(juid manure, ashes, plaster, «S:c., will f)rwara the plants rapidly and often serve to keep off the striped bugs ; but a few moments in band-picking in the morning, while the dew is on, will generally prove successful in keeping them off. Look to the under side of squash leaves for eggs of the squash bug. Egg Plants. — These require a rich, well pulverized soil that is neither wet or dry. Horte manure seems to agree best with the egg plant. Hoe and water frequently. Insects. — June is the month when insects are abundant and do the garden the most dam- age. They are as fond of young tender ve- getation as their superiors are of good vegeta- bles, and are bound to have their share unless closely watched and destroyed. Whale oil soap, in weak solution, as well as successive flocks of young chickens and turkeys are the best preventives. Lettuce. — Few varieties do well after hot, dry weather comes on ; but late sown may be transplanted into well prepared soil, and with 256 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. June suitable watering, &c., will form large, nice' heads. Seed may be sown in shady, rather moist soil, and yet do well, under good care. Onions complete their growth early ; there- fore it is important to force growth by thin- ning and Irequent culture. Potato onions, (best of all for the table.) may be planted as late as the first week in June, six to ten inches apart, in rich, fine surface soil. Paksnips. — Seed should have been sown earlier, but may be yet done at once, in deep, rich, mellow soil ; hoe and keep the surface mellow, and water with liquid manure. Peas. — Sow for late summer use and for seed. Those who would avoid buggy peas, should grow their seed from late planted peas, as the bugs do not trouble if sowed after mid- summer. Radishes. —Sow the Long Scarlet, in gen- erously rich soil, among other crops, where they will be partially shaded. They will re- pay watering with liquid manure. Save some of the earliest and best, to grow seed from for future use. Rhubarb. — Present facilities for canning anil preserving, enable us to have a supply of this excellent pie material, the year through. Cut up and dry, bottle or can a good supply for winter, when such a change will be accept- able, and leave no seed stalks to grow. Tomatoes. — Transplant for main crop. Hoe frequently and pinch in side shoots. Trained to a single .'tern, tied to a pole or stake, they seem to do best. Transplanting. — During June the larger part of transplanting of garden and field plants IS done. It is necessary, in order to devel- op certain plants, that this operation should be performed, and to do it successfully with the least trouble and greatest certainty, the ground should be well prepared as to tilth, fertility, &c., and the transplanting be done during a moist, cloudy spell. It is said that plants removed after sundown and during the night time will not show that they have been disturbed, by wilting, &c., but will retain their freshness. Weeds are easiest destroyed by taking them as soon as they appear above ground in a clear, warm day. Those which grow from subter- ranean roots are more difficult of extermina- tion ; but if the stems and roots are persis- tently cut, dug and pulled olF, time will com- plete their destruction. Vacant Spots. — A good gardener has none ; he always finds some plant to occupy all his space profitably. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. with a disagreeable flavor ; sopie four tubs shaded down from yellow to white, and the color the index of quality. Careful investiga- tion developed the fact, that the good butter was made from good grass feed ; and the poor, later in the season, when the grass had failed from drought, and the cows lived upon briars and leaves. A man changed the feed of his cows from corn meal and hay to potatoes and hay ; it lessened the quantity of butter, and the color was lighter. Hence the importance of good feed. It is profitable to feed corn meal at all times excepting when grass is new and plenty, and it is not lost then. A pi#ce of land five rods by two, to each cow, sowed with southern corn will supply the deficiency of the pastures in the labt of the season for two or three months, and save the mowings more than the cost. — David Goodale, in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Times. Good Feed for Good Butter. — I once bought a dairy of twenty tubs of butter, all made from the same cows the same season and by the same person. Some eight tubs were good, sound, yellow butter ; some eight more of it was very light colored and soft MY ROW. How well I mind when I was young, With h:iir as brown as tow ; My father took me out with him, And taught me how to hoe. That I mlaht not be overtaxed, And ■well fulfil his plan — 1 hoed one hill and tkipped the next, And BO made half a man, I then was small, just in my teens, Aiid full of hope and joy ; Kr.ew little of i- hat labor means, A happy, farmer's boy. Ambition seized my youthful breast, I V, ould n t lag bfhind; I hoed each low just like the rest, ULtil the sun declined. How glad was I when sunset come, The hour when labors close; The joy I felt, it has no name, As well each workman knows. Ye sons of toil who wield the hoe, Or daily speed ihc plough, Or elsewhere hoe life's painful row, Wiih sweat upon the brow, Toil on I say, there's one grand thought. Which should encourage you ; Good health and btrtngth cannot be bought, So let u« hoe it ibrough. —H. K. Fisher, in Jmerican Farmer. Ayrshires eor the Southwest. — A lady of great intelligence, and of much experience with improved cattle, writes to a frienu of the South Land, as follows : After an experience of twenty years, the J?/rs/a>es have proved to be the only cows able to stand the severity of a Southern summer. The Durham and Devon stock are both liable to fevers, and conse- quently to a great decrease of milk ; but the Ayrshire thrive perfectly even upon the com- mon pasturage of the country. The Devon when mixed with the Ayrshire, make very fine oxen. But for milking purposes, the Ayr- shire exceed all others, becoming as hardy as the Creole cows. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 257 BONE MANURE. ONG as bones have been used as a fer- tilizer, their effect and operation are not well understood by farmers. It has been supposed that the nutritive prop- erties of bones, •when applied to the soil, are rapidly exhausted. This, however, appears not to be the fact. In England, where the actual value of manu- res is estimated on the basis of experiments, and where exactness is observed in analyses, it has been ascertained that the mineral con- stituents of the bone — particularly the phos- phates— are discoverable in the soil for years after bone manure has been applied, even when tae ground has been cropped with vegetables supposed, or rather known, to appropriate this manure in what may be termed excessive quantities. As there are still many who are not willing to grant much efficacy to bone manure, and as it has been sharply criticised on several recent occasions, it is well to present something on the other side of the question, and we, there- fore, give below the chief points of a paj>er on the analysis of the soils of a farm in Eng- land, the property of, and occupied by, C. H. T. Hawkins, Esq. Its object was to test the durability of bone dust as a manure, for a period of ten years. It appears that a piece of waste ground was broken from a common and tilled in turnips, the larger part of which was manured with bone-dust, at the rate of twenty- four bushels to the acre. In the two following years it was successively cropped with oats, and with the last crop laid down to permanent pasture, in which state it has remained ever since. Ten years after the application the effect of the bone-dust could be plainly distinguished — the grass, as far as the eye could reach, hav- ing a rich sward ; while the adjoining part, where no bone-dust had been applied, had a coarse, sterile appearance ; the difference be- ing as great as if a line had been drawn be- tween rich pasture, and scanty, coarse herb- age. Samples of these two divisions of soil were sent to Mr. Hunt, then curator of the Muse- um of Economic Geology, to be analyzed, in order to ascertain if the bone could be de- tected after the lapse of ten years. Mr. Hunt, it should be here observed, was altogether ig- norant of the object of the analysis. The re- sult, however, was perfectly satisfactory, inas- much as he readily detected the bone in that portion of the field on which it had been ap- plied ten years before. The following are the analyses : — Substances No. 1. No. 2. Water evL.porated by etove, 14.06 14.18 VpgPtable and anlmiil matters bnrnt oflf, . 12 01 12.06 Bilica and Bilicious grit, 49.54 49 50 Oxide of iron 7.03 7.00 Carbonate of lime, 1.06 l.fft Oarbonate of magaeBia, 0 25 0,36 Sulphr.tecf lime, 105 1.04 Muriates, 0.64 0.54 Alumina, 7,10 6 04 P.:ogpbateof lime, O.iQ 0.76 Phosphate of magneaia, 0 09 0 05 Potash, 1.00 1 27 Humus and soluble alkalies, ...... 6.00 6.17 It was deduced from these experiments, that the principal manuring properties of the bone existed in the earthy matters, which constitute about two-thirds of the bone, and not in the oily and gelatinous parts, constituting the re- maining third. The bones of animals are derived originally from the hay, straw, and other products of the soil which the animals consume as food. More than one-half the weight of bones con- sists of the phosphate of lime and magnesia, "Upon every acre of land appropriated to the growth of wheat, clover, potatoes or turnips, forty pounds of bone-dust will be found suffi- cient to furnish an adequate supply of phos- phates for three successive crops." It is hardly a fair experiment to use bones once or twice, and form an opinion upon their merits, whether the experiment succeeds or is a failure. There are certain atmoapheric, or other conditions always affecting the manures applied. We have known persons use guano from the same bag, one of whom found de- cided advantages from it, while the other de- clared he "would not team it twenty miles for it." The same results have occurred in the use of bones, superphosphate of lime and other fertilizers. In order to form intelligent opinions with regard to special manures, we must apply them on different soils, cultivate the crops where they are applied precisely as those are where manure is used, and then carefully compare results. 258 NEW ENGLAND FAE^IER. June The compounds put off upon the farmer as fertilizers have proved of so little value that hundreds are <'iscouraged from using anything in the form of compact manure. Many of these special articles are a compound of "villainous smells," too disgusting to become common on the farm ; they ought to be two feet under it. The article called superphosphate of lime is usually nauseous to a high degree. It ought not to be so, and probably would not, if it did not contain rotting animal matter in some form. This odor affords olfactory evidence that the article is not a pure one ; that it con- tains matter that is not worth one-quarter part the price demanded for it. We hold in our left hand, now, while writing, a ball of nearly pure superphosphate of lime. It is as harmless as a ball of wax, and instead of be- ing disgusting, its odor is pleasant. For the New England Farmer, THE FLOOD IN NE'W HA-MPSHIRE. House and Barn Cellars full— Liquid Manuring— Farm Implements and Sitting Hens take a Bath — Freaks of Brahmas — Hints on Irrigation. This rainy morning, I catch up my pen to say, that after an absence of nearly three years from the farm, my hand is again at the plough, or will be as soon as the weather and season permit. But the rain, how it has come ! And the melted snow, how that has come down from the hills and woodlands, and filled the streams with mighty rushing waters, which have poured down rivulet and ravine, and flooded every- thing, higher up than any old high-water msrk. Wells are full to overllowing, house cellars have become cisterns, and the barn cellars — what a plight they are in. A system of bail- ing and draining has been going on never be- fore experienced. We shall see what eff -ct liquid manure has upon the crop with which it may come in contact, as it has been poured out from the drenched manure heap, by ladle and drain. Perhaps we may get an experi- ence that will lead us on after Alderman Me- chi, and cause us to adopt his plan of liquid manuring. We shall see. We are driven, sometimes, by the force of circumstances, into a "corner," and thereby make important dis- coveries. It would have been amusing, no doubt, could you have seen the plight many of us farmers were in at the height of the late flood. Pigs were wallowing in the poached manure pile ; carts and wagons stored in the cellar as a safe and dry place, were axle deep in water ; ploughs, harrows and cultivators were in wa- ter deep enough to swim them, had they not been too heavy ; and the poor hens that were so unfortunate as to be silting in what was supposed to be a safe and dry place, were gradually reminded that they must leave or be suomerged, together with their hopes of a fu- ture brood of little chicks, in the rising flood. There was a hurrying to and fro in hot haste, in attempts lo save next autumn dinners from being cheated of the boiled or roast chicken. But with the fancy or whim that hens have of late, most of their labor must be in vain, for they set, or wont set, just as they please. Two of my nice, clever, social, agreeable, companionable Brahma young ladies were each indulged with a nest full of eggs, brought from a distant farm-yard, because it is thought best to change eggs for hatching, with our neighbors, even if we get the same breed. They behaved very lady-like, and appeared very motherly for nearly two weeks, and then without applying for leave of absence, they walked off and forgot to return till the two nestfuls of eggs were cold as snow balls. But they soon showed a di^position to reset, and they are in full blast again, but so encom- passed with barriers that they canH get out of remembering distance of their nests. We shall see what will come of them. But I find they are so careless they have broken some of their eggs. Hens don't do now as they used to, when they would lay, set and hatch without tending. As things now appear, there must be professional chicken doctors and nurses, so far have we wandered from the old track. This is all right, perhaps, for the more our circumstances force us to study and labor, the more perfect is the character, on the principle that idleness begets moral disease. But letting alone morals and philosophy, and going to facts, the results of this spring flood bhould induce many farmers to pay more at- tention to irrigation. Let the results of flood- ing be noticed the coming season. If not mistaken in my own experience, many will be the extra tons of hay grown from the over- flowing of meadows. To secure the advan- tage in tature, let dams be so arranged in the brooks that at high water the grounds shall be flooded, and then the water gradually run off. Excuse this hasty line, for I must here put in the (.) and haste to the station. Yours f )r the farm, Z. Breed. Weare, N. H., April 25, 1870. For the New England Farmer, MEDICAL TOPICS. BY A MEDICAL MAN, Health and Disease. The human body is composed of solids and fluids, and when the former perform their functions properly, and the latter retain their normal purity, the body is in a state of abso- lute health. But this perfection of health is ideal ; it never actually exists. An examina- tion of the bodies of the healthiest persons would, doubtless, reveal derangements of some 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 259 kind. In short, health and disease are so im- [)erceptibly merged into each other that the ine of demarcation cannot be drawn with pre- cision. The same is true of other depart- ments of knowledge. It is not easy, for ex- ample, to settle the boundaries of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and yet there is rarely any practical embarrassment in distin- guishing an animal from a vegetable. So with regard to health, if an important disease of any kind exists, the fact of its existence is, in most cases, sufficiently obvious. A disease is called organic when some change of structure or of composition has taken place in one or more of the organs, and functional when only the function or action of an organ or of organs is deranged or sus- pended. The same disease may be either acute, subacute or chronic. A disease is acute •when it has a certain degree of intensity, and and runs a rapid career. As a general rule, persons suffering from acute disease are con- fined to their beds. A subacute disease has less intensity, does not compel the patient to keep his bed, and does not always prevent him from being about, or even pursuing his usual occupation. A chronic disease is one which is subacute in its character, slow in its progress, and protracted in its continuance. Again, diseases are either constitutional or local. A constitutional disease is one in which several or all of the organs are affected, and in ■which the fluids of the body are more or less depraved. A local disease is one which is seated in a particular organ, and does not ne- cessarily affect the general system. Another division of diseases is one which has reference to the manner of their occur- rence. Thus, diseases which affect many per- sons at the same time are called epidemic diseases ; those which are peculiar to the inhab- itants of particular countries or sections of country are called endemic diseases ; and those ■which arise from occasional causes, as cold, heat, fatigue, &c., are called sporadic dis- eases. Diseases which are propagated by the miasm or effluvia emitted from the bodies of persons affected with the same disease are called infectious, and those which are com- municated from one person to another, by contact, are called contagious. Some diseases are both infectious and contagious. Hooping cough, measles, &c., are infectious; itch, sy- phylis, &c., are contagious, and small pox is both infectious and contagious. There was formerly much discussion among medical men relative to the seat or starting point of disease. Some held that in all gen- eral or constitutional diseases, the primary affection is in the solids of the body, — these were termed solidists. Others contended that in such diseases the fluids are pi imarily af- fected, and such were called humoralists, or advocates of the humoral pathology. The modern and, doubtless, the true doctrine ia that in all constitutional diseases, both solids and fluids are affected, and that either may be the seat of the first morbid action. The causes of disease will be the subject of our next article. An Experuient ix Curing Hay. — Last summer I took four men and went into a piece of good herdsgrass and clover, wLien it was about fit to cut, and just after the dew was off. I mowed about four tons. In three and a half hours it was stowed away in a space of twelve by twenty-four feet, on scaffold. On two sides it was double boarded, on one end was a mow of hay, on the front or floor side, it was exposed to the air ; on the bottom and top was put about one foot of swale hay that was worth about two-ihirds of the value of good hay. The result was I lost all the good hay, and it would have been wonh sixty dol- lars. The swale hay was to take up the moisture, as I supposed. It steamed from internal heat for about four months, and when I took it out it was a mass of white useless stuff, completely burnt up. The a&hes filled the barn every time that I pitched it over. Neither cattle nor sheep would eat it, except a little that was around the sides next to the barn, and on the floor side. The mow end was just as bad as that in the middle. This satisfies me that it is an impossibility to have good hay without first making it in the sun and air. — P. Dinsmore, in Maine Farmer. Club Root in Cabbage. — In a letter to the New York Farmers' Club, G. Pitts, Honeoye, N. Y., attributes the disease to "a small white maggot that eats off the rootlets of the plant, thus preventing nourishment." He destroyed the maggo' by removing the sur- face earth and sprinkling on a little dry cop- peras and replacing the loose soil. The plant soon revived, the heads developed as usual, and he has been troubled no more with the club-rooted cabbage. Philemon Farrell, Greenfield, N. Y., also writes that he destroys the maggot by the use of strong pork or fish brine. When he discovers the cabbage affect- ed he makes a saucer-shaped hill about the plant and turns from a gill to a half pint of brine upon the roots, and rarely has to make a second application. About Manures — Manure is never so valuable as when it is fresh. It then holds in association not only all the fixed soluble sub- stances natural to the solid excrement, but much that is of great value, found only in the liquid. It is in a condition to quickly under- go chemical change, and the ga»eous, ammo- niacal products secured are double those re- sulting from that which has been weathered in a heap, out of doors for several months. — Dos- ton Journal of Chemistry. 260 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. June MEMORY AND SAGACITY OF A HORSE. The fact that the horse has memory and sa- gacity in a wondeilul degiee, is proven in the incident which the above engraving illustrates. A gentleman returning from a journey on horse- back, to Oxfo-rd, Pa., last fall, met a stranger travelling in like mode, with whom he engaged in a desultory convtrsation. 1'hiuking the stran- ger's horse looked familiar, he remarked that the animal was prob:ibly one which had been fitolen from him six years ago. To settle the matter, he made the following proposition: — "When we arrive at my house, your horse f.hall be tied to the east post in front of my door — the horse I am on, to the west post. After standing a short time, the bridle of your horse shall be taken off, and if he does not go to a pair ol bars on the west side of the house, piss over and go round to the east side of the barn and pull out a pin, open the middle sta- ble door and enter, I will not claim him. If he does, I will furnish you conclusive evidence that he was bred by me, but never sold — that he was stolen from me about the very time you say you puichased him." The traveler assented to the trial. The horse was hitched to the post proposed — stood a few minutes — the saddle and bridle were taken olF— he raised his head, pricked up his ears, looked up the street, then down the street, several times, then deliberately and slowly walked past the house and over the bars and to the stable door, as described, and with teeth and lip drew out the pin and opened the door, and entered into his own stall. We hardly need to add, he was recognized by the neighbors of his rightful owner, who fully attested to the facts stated by the claimant, and that the traveller lost his title to the horse. — Rural New Yorker. Remedy for Rust in Wheat. — The fol- lowing, from a distinguished German Agricul- turist, is taken from a Bremen paper : — For thirty years I have found this method successful in preventing rust in wheat : — Some hours, at the longest six or eight, before sow- ing, prepare a steep of three measures of pow- dered quick-lime and ten measures of cattle urine. Four trwo quarts of this upon a peck of wheat, stir with a spade until every kernel is covered white with it. By using wheat so prepared, rust of every kind will be avoided. 1 have often noticed while in the neighboring fields, a great part of the crop is aifected by rust, in mine, lying close by it, not a single ear so affected could be found. The same writer says he takes the sheaves and beats oflF the ripest kernels with a stick, and uses the grain thus obtained for seed. 1870. NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 2G1 DAIKY FAKMINQ— ROOT CULTCTEB. ERMONT, Massachusetts and New York dairymen held conventions about the middle of last January. No- v\^ tices of these meetings, held re- r^ spectively at St. Albans, Vt., Hard wick, Mass., and Utica, N. Y., so cogipletely occupied our columns at that time, as to prevent us from calling attention to several points of special interest in them. In the Vermont meeting, the address of Hon. E. D. Mason was appropriate and highly attractive. His remarks upon the benefits which spring from associated effort were very encouraging, being full of practical suggestions in regard to the subject before them. He said, in closing, "Let us strive to place our dairy products as high in the mar- ket^ as Merino sheep and Morgan horses. Then will plenty and comfort reign throughout our borders ; then will be that time we have so often read about, 'The good time coming.' " Selection of Cows. The Hon. Henuy Lane, of Cornwall, read an essay on the Dairy, in which he said the first and most important question for dai- rymen to consider is the selection of his cows. The great secret of success, after ob- taining proper animals, is to keep them well fed. Cows will give more milk on fresh grass than on any other kind of feed. But grass in our pastures begins to fail early, and some- thing must be substituted in its stead. Corn will supply this want for one or two months in autumn. Hoot Crops. Dairymen should turn their attention to the cultivation of root crops. Cows require a change of food in order to assist the digestive process ; and thereby will keep in better health and eat coarse fodder cleaner. But what is the best root crop? The mar- ket value of the potato is too great to make its use for feeding stock profitable. The tur- nip and carrot are perhaps best for young stock, but they cannot be raised at the present time with profit. The sugar beet has taken the place of the carrot in Addison county. No root, Mr. Lane thought, will produce so much and so rich milk as the sugar beet. The best crop he had ever seen was grown on clay soil, containing twenty per cent, of sand. The land for the sugar beet should be rich, and it may be grown on such land for thirty years in succession. The ^* American Improved Sugar Beet,'''' is far superior to any other sort. Early sowing is the best, as a diflFerence of ten days in sowing may make a difference of ten tons in the product. He said twentv-eight to thirty-two tons per acre is a common crop in Vermont, but by high culture may be made to yield fifty to seventy tons per acre. Its feeding value is in the ratio of 100 pounds to one hundred and fifty pounds of hay. Its great value as food for swine as well as cattle, makes the subject one which may well engage the attention of all dairymen. Mr. Lane stated that the cost of raising the sugar beet is about eight cents per bushel; that the product of an acre will feed twenty- five cows eight weeks. Four pounds of seed to the acre is required. Sow in rows two and a half feet apart, and the plants eighteen inches apart in the rows. The labor has been the great bugbear in root culture. If rightly sown, the principal labor is in the thinning. The horse cultivator will do the rest and should be used often. The seed should be sown just as early as the soil can be well prepared in May. Store hogs winter well upon sugar beets. Having visited Mr. Lane's farm, and no- ticed the evidences of skilful and intelligent cultivation in all that we saw, we find pleasure in commending his opinions and practices to the readers of these columns. The President, Mr. Mason, thought beets were excellent for hogs and better still for cows. A bushel a day and one ton of hay for the winter are better for a cow than two tons of hay without the roots. They are as easily cultivated as corn, if proper care be taken at the outset. They are more profitable for a milch cow than any other crop, unless it be green corn in August. Messrs. O. S. Bliss, Col. J. B. Mead, of Randolph, Edward Clark, of St. Albans, A. R. Bailey of Elmore, and H. E. Seymour of St. Albans all approved of root culture. — The Gardener's Magazine (London,) mentions that in the department of Vaudois (France,) out of 60,000 acres of vines, 20,000 acres have been utterly ruined by what is called the "vine dis- ease," and that the loss in some districts has been even greater than this, so that many entire planta- tions have been grubbed up and planted with other crops. 262 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Junk •WASHING SHEEP. The subject of washing sheep and putting up wool for market was recently discussed by the Westminster, Vt., Farmers' Club, and a report pub- lished in the Bellows Falls Times. A. Atcherson, G. W. Newcomb, Henry Page, fa- vored washing sheep, and thought by doing so they obtained more money for their wool. F. Arnold, J. B. Morse, N. Fisher D. C. "Wright, J. V. Farr, J. Phelps, recommended the abandon- ment of the practice. Henry Page washes his sheep, and shears in four to six days afterwards. He knew nothing of shearing in the dirt. He thought the question of ■washing or not washing depends mainly upon the breed of the sheep one keeps. He would wash as early as possible, and as the sheep come from the water, would squeeze as much of the water from the wool as possible, to lighten their burden, and to enable them to dry sooner. Mr. N. G. Pierce, who did not express a positive opinion either way, thought there was no doubt that more money would be realized for the wool if washed, as it is now sold, but he was inclined to agree with those who estimated the damage to sheep at half a dollar a head. He had made up his mind either to shear early in dirt, or late and wash well. Sheep with oily wool should not be washed. Others were less injured by washing. J. B. Morse said he did not believe it is natural for sheep to be put into the water. They hate the sight of it. It injures them, and if sheared late, they come up not looking as well in the fall, and don't winter as well. He spoke of the trouble of getting up and washing sheep in a busy time in the season, and thought it would be better for all to not wash ; less expense — more healthy — better sheep— better wool. Nathan Fisher, for many years, washed his wool well, bat the buyers would pay him no more than they did others who washed poorly. But for sev- eral years past he had sheared his wool in the dirt. Shears some three weeks before turning away from barn in spring. Their wool in that time starts, and their bodies become felted over, shedding the rain, and standing the storms almost as well as those with wool upon them. One of his neighbors sheared part of his flock in April and part in June. The former stood spring rains best, and came to the barn in the fall in much the best condition. Sometimes he loses a few in spring, but seldom. He understood that the manufacturers like the un- washed wool quite as well. It is true that sheep after they are sheared in spring will consume con- siderable more hay. But he thought it much the best way to shear in April, and in the dirt. The buyers do not make the discount which they used to, which was one-third, now in this section thirty- three cents to forty. He believed he gets more wool from unwashed sheep, for some will be lost in the pasture. Wool will appear better when protected from storms, and I think if all were in the habit of shearing in the dirt we should realize more money. D. C.Wright thought it best to shear in April, un- washed. He knew of an instance where two flocks of sheep were out in a spring storm. One flock was sheared about three weeks before, and the other was with the wool on. The former stood the storm best. The unsheared remained wet so long they could not recover readily, and the early sheared came to the barn in the fall in far the best condi- tion. Manufacturers had told him that they pre- ferred unwashed wool at one-fourth discount in weight. In this discussion several members spoke of the injurious effects of washing, on the health of sheep; but no one alluded to its efiects on the health of those who perform the operation. To our own mina this is by far the most important consideration. We believe that more colds, fevers, consumptions, rheumatisms, &c., result from this than from any other exposure to which farmers are subjected, notwithstanding the free use of the bottle of grog which, in our day, was always pro- vided for the occasion. We do hope that the an- nual ducking of men and sheep in the cold water of our mountain streams in the spring of the year will not be continued much longer. We believe the wool can be cleansed at the mills much more advantageously. AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. — America consumes nearly one-third of the cofi"ee production of the world, and nearly seven times as much as the inhabitants of Great Britain. — In one of the packing houses in Illinois, re- cently, 480 hogs were slaghtered in one hour and 2680 in nine hours and ten minutes. — A correspondent of the Mirror and Farmer mentions late cut hay as a cause ofcattle gnawing boards and bones. — H. T. Gates, at New Worcester, has a turkey that carries a feathered crest on its head, and when it "gobble, gobble, gobbles," opens and sports it like a peacock. It is a rare bird. — A correspondent of the New England Fab- MEB., at Fishville, R. I., writes that wens on cattle may be cured by washing them twice a day for a few weeks with strong soft soap. —The Executive Committee of the Massachu- setts Agricultural College have employed Mr. John C. Dillon, of Weston, as Superintendent of the Farm. — Brick-dust, obtained by rubbing two soft bricks together, is the best remedy for lice on stock, says a correspondent of the Western Rural, that he ever tried. Sift the dust evenly over the animal and work it well into and among the hair. — The Alta Calif ornian says that many grape vines in that State grow to a great size. One at Montecito, Santa Barbara county, now 74 years 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 263 old, and 19 inches thick in the trunk, yields from 6000 to 8000 pounds of grapes annually. — The Hearth and Home in reply to a correspon- dent who asks, shall I buy a Jersey cow ? replies by saying there is little risk in buying a healthy young Jersey cow, if her cost does not range much above $250. — There are 12,000 windmills in constant use in Holland at the present day, for the simple purpose of drainage. They are almost of colossal size, each lifting from 10,000,000 to 50,000,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours. — Brazil is the greatest producer of coflFee, fur- nishing the article known in the market as the Rio coffee to the amount of 400,000,000 pounds yearly, or more than one-half of what is supplied by the whole world, viz : 713,000,000. — The people in the northern part of Dupage county, 111., are putting their farms in their pock- ets. The Wheaton Illinoisan reports sales of nearly $30,000 worth of real estate in a week. In Jaspar county, Illinois, during the year 1869, over 80,000 acres have changed hands. —Mr. John T. Alexander, of Illinois, who grazed last season, 7000 head of Texas cattle, informs the Springfield Journal, that he has found it a losing business, and that hereafter he will give the Texas long-horns the go-by, and graze and feed none but native cattle. — At a recent term of the Criminal Court of Chester Co., Pennsylvania, a man "charged with having obnoxious weeds on his farm, and allowing them to grow, to the great damage of his neigh- bors," was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $10 and costs of prosecution. — Last summer was so unfavorable for the pro- duction of honey that the bees in Berkshire county could not gather enough to carry them through the winter. Peregrine Drew of Pittsfield, has lost all but one out of 19 swarms. John Barnard all but three out of twenty-five swarms. — At the West where timothy raised for seed is stacked up as soon as cut there is a dust or some emanation from the hay while threshing which causes severe headache, loss of appetite, nausea, and feverishness, while that which is weather- beaten before it is stacked does not produce these results. — The rise of sap in trees and plants has been explained on the principle of capillary attraction, but M. Becquerel considers that electricity is an acting cause. A capillary tube that will not al- low water to pass through it, does so at once on being electrified, and he considers that electro- capillarity is the efficient cause of sap travelling in vegetable life. — Those who think our cultivated lands must grow poor as they grow old, will find food for re- flection in the fact that not many years back, the average yield of wheat per acre in England was about ten bushels — it is now over thiity bushels. The result of better economy of home-made ma- nure and the extensive use of imported fertilizers. — What stupid fellows farmers must be in the eyes of the American Stock Journal, which says, "we can go into a dairying neighborhood, and point to farmers who are losing from two to three thousand dollars by keeping cows yielding two hundred pounds of butter per year, instead of those that would yield from five to six hundred pounds in the same time." — The Lee, Mass., Gleaner says that the dairy- men of New Lenox have decided to establish a cheese factory in that town and the stock for this purpose is pretty much raised. It is proposed to put up a building with fixtures costing $2500, and the shares are put at $100 each. In Lenox village also the money for a cheese factory is subscribed ; the shares in the latter factory are $250 each. — A correspondent of the Mirror and Farmer, says that the ice of frozen sap is not worth saving ; that as some trees give much more sap than others, it is a good plan to have tubs of difierent sizes ; that sugar stirred dry is the most profitable ; that the sooner sap is boiled the better ; that a damper in the chimney of the arch saves much heat ; that trees should be tapped on the south or westerly side; that tubs and holders should be perfectly sweet, &c. — An agricultural paper printed in a New England city can see but one cure for the high prices of beef, butter, flour, pork, fruit, &c., and that is "The people must form strong combinations of their own in opposition," as "the consumers have something to do with the laws of trade." Such a movement will require a leader and an organ ; but notwithstanding the apparent earnestness of our contemporary, we must hope that a "leading agri- cultural paper" will not volunteer its services in either capacity. — The cheese factory at Rochdale, Chenango county, N. Y., has been rented by a company who propose to make both butter and cheese and to adopt the plan of buying the milk of far- mers, instead of manufacturing it on the usual co-operative system. The Utica Herald says, if the manufacturers discriminate in the purchase of milk between the rich and the poor grades, the system would be an improvement in point of jus- tice upon the present one ; but the question would still remain as to the satisfaction such a method would give, and consequently as to its success. — C. Hills, of Delaware, Ohio, writing to the Western Farmer, says : — "The long wools, Leices- ters, are being rapidly introduced into our State, and are largely used now for crossing upon meri- nos. They cross well upon good sized fine wools ; the produce being of good mutton carcass, matur- ing early, and producing a sort of wool usually called DeLaine ; fleece of about six pounds, and commanding as much in market as the best XX 264 NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. JUXE merino. Many of the second and third cross •would be taken for pure breed by casual ob- servers." — Whether hogs require sulphur as an essential to their health, or whether it is sought by them as a condiment, may not be known for certainty. But one thing is sure, they devour it with greed whenever it is to be found. It is for this purpose, probably, that they eat large quantities of soft coal, which contains a large amount of sulphur. Perhaps this is the economical method of supply- ing hogs with sulphur during the winter, when they require a good deal of carbon. But in the summer it is better to feed it to them in substances which contain less carbon, on account of their producing less heat. For the New England Farmer. FliOWEB QAHDENIW^Q FOR APRIL. Perennials and bedding out plants, sunny skies, and warm showers are inviting forth the lovely flowers. There is much work at this season for the amateur florists. All perennials which were not transplanted last year, should be attended to now, before they have made much growth. There are few more desira- ble flowers than what are found in this class ; yet one hears frequent complaints of their dying out. "They do not grow as they did when we and they were young." "Why is it ? The reason is obvious, they are starved; they require new quarters ; trans- plant them ; dig a copious supply of manure into their new bed; or sprinkle three or four table spoonfuls of superphosphate about their roots and you may be sure that they will fully repay your care. Many a perennial stands at this time where it was placed twenty or more years ago. Is it to be wondered at that it dies out ; dwindles away ? We are the happy possessors of a large bed of perennials— ^these are Dicentra Spectahilis, Lychris, Phlox, Pinks, Achillea, Campanula and many others. Every spring as soon as the ground is en- tirely freed from frost, every root is dug up and placed under a shade, with a good large body of earth around it. (A white Pceony and the Dicentra are not molested ; their roots will not flourish as well if disturbed in the spring.) A liberal supply of barn yard stimulants is then thoroughly mix- ed into the soil. The bed is raked over smoothly, the roots all put back, and soon they experience the good tfiects of the newly prepared soil, and are "a thing of joy and beauty." No plant life can be sustained without food suitable for its wants. We find that superphosphate makes an excellent fertilizer for all our out-door pets; it invigorates them as finely as a decoction of guano does our "window gardens." But alas, it is ter- rific to the sense of smell; sickening, horrid. Yet last year we dug it into the ground at a great rate, until a neighbor hard by thought we ought to be indicted as a nuisance. We carried it in old Six quart tia pans, and dug it in with a three pronged iron fork, taking great care not to touch stem or leaf of shrub or plant. It docs seem as if it might be manufactured of a less obnoxious odor. Guano is not half as disagreeable to handle ; but we must use it and endure it. Moss roses grow superbly under its beneficent influence. Gerani- ums, Heliotropes, Verbenas — all, will thank you by exceeding growth and beauty for the desired fer- tilizer. At this season of the year many plants can be raised from cuttings with but little trouble. All the varieties of Pelargoniums, Zonale Geratiiums, Double Geraniums, Heliotropes, Verbenas, and many other kinds too numerous to mention, will strike root quickly and grow rapidly. All of us possess friends who are willing to give us cuttings and roots ; so that money is not essential to the attainment of a glorious garden. A cutting will be more apt to grow if cut from a portion of the plant which has both old and new growth of stem and leaves. Heliotropes and Verbenas, &c., which have fresh, new leaves just starting forth, will rarely fail to grow. Geraniums strike root so quickly that no one can fail to make them grow if they are properly planted. It is said that these plants are of such a quick growth that if a branch is half cut through in summer time, it will send forth tiny fresh rootlets, the cutting being sup- ported by the sap which runs through the undi- vided half of the branch. We intend to try the experiment this coming summer. It has been ascertained that a cutting will de- velop roots much sooner in moist sand than in rich soil, but the sand cannot maintain its growth for any length of time. To prepare pots for rais- ing cuttings they should be filled nearly to the brim with rich, garden loam— dark and porous, not clayey and soggy ; then pour in one inch in depth of scouring sand — sea sand will do as well as the yellow sand. Wet this thoroughly, and place the cuttings, from which all but the three or four upper leaves have been removed, close to the side of the pot ; the contact of the ware against the stem of the cutting promotes its growth. Press the wet sand firmly around the tiny stem. A great deal of your chance for success in raising slips or cuttings depends upon this. Plant as many cuttings as the pot will hold, from six to a dozen according to the size of your pot; when they are firmly set in the sand two or three can be inserted in the middle of the pot. Set them away in a dark warm place for twenty -four or thirty-six hours. If you can put a glass shade over them to concentrate the moisture, you will greatly expe- dite their growth. Thus cuttings will grow very quickly in a hot bed, because the temperature is not dry. Their growth depends a great deal upon light, heat and moisture. If a bud is close at the base of a cutting it will strike root more easily— is not so apt to decay. The roots all shoot from a bud, and the lower down it is the surer your suc- cess. When the leaves drop the plant is com- mencing to grow ; if they wither on the stem it 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 265 has began to decay. By following these direc- tions no one can fail to grow all kinds of house plants. Roses, and all the rarest flowers of the green houses are propagated in this manner. No tree, shrub or plant but can be increased by this simple process. The variegated leaved plants are most tasily pro- pagated ; they are all soft- wooded and will grow as quickly as a potato. They are gaining in pop- ularity every year ; their lovely leaves are such excellent imitations of gorgeous flowers, and are really indispensable for bouquets and vases. A variegated Rose-scented Geranium — Lady Ply- mouth is one of the rarities of the season. Its leaves are distinctly marked with white ; and there is a new Sweet-scented Geranium, Dr. Livingstone, which possess exquisite foliage for bouquets. The Ivy-leaved Geraniums are rapidly coming into fa- vor. They are well adapted for rustic baskets and vases, also for rock-work. The Eolly Wreath lyis deep green leaves with a creamy margin and snowy white flowers. UElegante is beautifully and purely margined with white, gradually as- suming a pinkish tinge. Twenty-five cents cur- rency is all that some of our florists ask for these lovely "novelties" and if one dollar's worth is or- dered, they will send them free by mail, thus bring ing them as it were to one's garden for but little cost. The new gold and crimson colors are rarely beautiful. They are of the richest tints of bronzy crimson ; brilliant as a shot silk, and every leaf is margined with yellow. Queen Victoria has a golden beaded edging, bright crimson centre. Princess Royal a rosy crimson centre, with narrow margin of yellow. Albert Victor, a bronzy red centre, shot with a purplish red and a broad golden edge. Description fails to do justice to these rare gems ; they must be seen to be appreciated. They are all of English culture, and are ofiiered this season at the Innisfallen Greenhouses for 30 cents cur- rency, or $\ for five difi'erent varieties. Of them- selves they would form a glorious garden, and certainly a cheap one. There is a good deal of confusion in the minds of some amateur garden- ers with respect to what are Geraniums anu what are Pelargoniums. The Geranium was so named by Linnajus from geranos, a crane, on account of the termination of the carpels, bearing some fan- cied resemblance to the bill of that bird. Several species of Geranium grow wild in England, and there is a purplish pink wild Geranium familiar to all lovers of wild flowers in New England; but the rarer kinds have been brought from other countries and naturalized in our green houses and windows. The florists have hybridzed them, and produced all the exquisitely beautiful varieties we now cultivate. To their untiring assiduity we are greatly indebted. The Pelargoniums are all strictly exotic ; they are named from a supposed semblance of their capsules to the bill and head of a stork, the Latin of which is pelargos. They are placed in the same class of the Linnaean system as the Geranium ; but it belongs to the fourth order, while the Gera- nium is of the sixth. These species have been frequently hybridized, but the flowers are dis- tinctly different, the Pelargoniums being much larger and handsomer than the Geraniums. These plants are much benefited by close pruning, they are by this process made to grow in a bushy com- pact shape. After they have bloomed freely in the winter and spring cut off the outer branches, and thin out artistically to improve the shape. A florist thinks as much of a finely formed plant as of i;s gorgeous flowers. Amateur gardeners do not pay attention enough to this point, and many scraggy ugly plants are seen growing in parterre and window. There is a good deal to be considered in pur- chasing plants at this season, for however gratify- ing it may be to have them in full bloom when first bought, it is much more satisfactory to possess those which will last the longest in perfection, especially those which have a succession of bloom. It is never desirable to buy a plant which is offered for sale in its height of bloom. Such plants have been prematurely forced, and after a few weeks their vigor is all gone. It will take more skill than most amateurs pos- sess to bring them up to their original status. Far better to purchase a plant which is fairly budded, and promises much more beauty than it possesses when purchased. Then you will feel compensated for both the price of the plant and the care you have bestowed upon it. "We hope that our far- mers' wives and daughters will sweeten their sur- roundings with a few flowers. The love of them seems a naturally implanted passion without one grain of alloy mingling with its pure metal. The early flowers of spring always bring wich them a great amount of pleasure; they are cherished as private friendships. The tiniest child loves the buttercup and the dandelion. "We wish that every farm house had its Pinks, Roses, Geraniums and Verbenas. They are within the reach of every woman, and will afford her the purest delights. Many of our good housewives raise sage, camo- mile and colt's foot. Enlarge you beds, dear friends, and plant therein thtir lovelier and more fragile sisters, which we have described, and you will not regret the extra labor which they will im- pose upon you. s. o. j. For the New England Farmer, BOOTS va. COBN. My attention was recently called to this sub- ject by reading an extract from a letter in the Country Oentleman written by the venerable John Johnston of New York, in which he says roots can never be raised to a large ex- tent in this country unless wages were as low as in Germany or Denmark. I was somewhat surprised to learn that such was the opinion of one who for years has been 266 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. June regarded as authority, in this country, as to the best method of raising, feeding and fatten- ing cattle and sheep for market. His long life, good judgment, and success in that pro fession to which he has devoted bis best tal- ents for more than half a century, has resulted in acquiring a very large amount of practical information, much of which has been given to the public through the agricultural press. But if we demur occasionally to his opinion, it is only assuming a prerogative to which we have a right, especially if we have sufficient evidence to sustain our objection. If we adopt the opinions of others as conclusive w'th- out examining the evidence that we can bring to bear upon the subject matter, we are not discharging our duty to our fellowmen nor to the age in which we live. Progress and change are the order of the day, and farming at the present time, especially in New Eng- land, requires perhaps more thought, energy, industry and perseverance than any other pro- fession. The great West is pouring io upon us her cereals, her pork and her beef at much lower prices than we can produce them ; South America, Australia and other foreign coun- tries, and some of our Southern sister States have flooded our market with wool, and so depressed prices that for the last four years we have received about twenty-seven cents in gold, for what brought us forty during the last twenty years preceding the war. With these facts staring us in the face, with high taxes and high prices of labor, it stan-ds us in band to look about and make tte inquiry what shall we do to save ourselves ? Availability is the lever by which the politician secures his purposes. Let us try it, and avail ourselves of the circumstances of our situation. Let us improve every opportunity to en- large our compost heap, which is the great ful- crum for the lever of availability to pry over successfully. Let us avail ourselves of every profitable means to enrich our lands and to fit them for the production of early roots and vegetables, and such other crops as will not come in competition with those from the West, the South and elsewhere. Our cities and vil lages furnifh us the only channels through which remunerative profits for our products can be realized — early beef, early mutton, early veal, early lambs, early pork, early poul- try, early potatoes ; early roots, such as beets, carrots, turnips, onions, squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, &c. To produce these, let us improve every rod of land, clean up every corner. After the first cutting of grass on the dry knolls, turn over the sod and sow with turnips, sifting the scrapings from your barn- yard into the drills. The subsequent labor is sowing and trimming, as hoeing is seldom necessary on sward ground. Thus planted the first of July, turnips may be raised at an expense of five cents per bushel and they are less spongy and keep late into the next season. Such roots are now worth from one and a half to two and a half dollars per barrel in our city markets. But some will say I live too far off from market to sell turnips. Then feed them to your cattle and sheep. They operate wonder- fully to give appetite and extend the stomach when feeding corn fodder. Observe the won- derful change that has taken place in the form and size of our cattle and sheep during the last half century. How has it been brought about? By commencing with our calves and lambs, and giving them better feed, with roots, &c., by which their stomachs are properly distended, and a noble form secured. The raising of roots need not interfere with our common farm operations. Sow English turnips after the last hoeing of corn, and scratch in the seed with a light hand harrow with spikes for teeth. It is fun for children to draw them. On good corn ground you will get from two to five hundred bushels per acre, costing less than four cents a bushel. Hogs can be kept in good condition during the winter on Ruta Baga turnips boiled. Leached ashes, lime, superphosphate, as well as many other fertilizers, are excellent for turnips. There is no crop, in my opinion, so easily and cheaply raised as the root crop. After having made it a study for quite a num- ber of years to ascertain the best and cheap- est method of feeding stock,! have come to the conclusion that the table of R. S. Fay, of Massachusetts, is about as near correct as any I have met with, though many of the Eng- lish and German authors have more tully illustrated in what manner the nutritive parts of certain ordinary vegetable products enter into the composition of different animal pro- ducts. Thus 100 pounds of hay equal to — 374 lbs Wheat Straw. 442 195 lf3 339 t04 3u8 276 lbs Carrot. Rye Straw. 50 " Indian com. Oat Straw. 54 " Barley. Bean t-traw, 45 " Wheat. Mangold Wurzel. 45 " Peas. Con mon Turnip. 46" Beans, Swedes Turnip. Potatoes are not mentioned in this table, but they are more valuable, in my opinion, than any root raised for feeding purposes. Now, for instance, if 308 pounds of Swedes turnips are equal to 50 pounds of corn, the point is which can we raise the easiest, four hundred bushels of Swedes or one hundred bushels of corn. -* D. P. Stowell. Canton, Me., 1870. For the New Evgland Farmer, commebciaij fbrtilizebs and home-made manures DISCDSSION BY THE RANDOLPH, VT., FARMERS' CLUB. W. W. Walbridge. — Fertilizers are simply plant food. When, where and how shall we obtain this plant food, are questions of great importance. A supply of material is at hand in our muck swamps and in our wood lots, where an accumulation of leaves and mulch 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 267 has been increasing for centuries. If we make diligent use of the means at our dis- posal, we shall have no occasion to buy com- mercial manures. Col. J. B. Mead. — We don't get around to haul in our muck piles, because we do not like to hire help for that purpose when other work drives, but it would be better to pay money for help to draw muck and work it over, than to expend it for commercial ma- nures. I have, however, expended consider- able for ashes, and find it pays handsomely. My stocking was never better than after ashes mixed with lime. Mr. Howe inquired if new stocking should be fed off or left to rot on the ground. Geo. Tilson. — I cut a heavy crop of rowen after taking off wheat, and then fed it all the fall ; next season cut a heavy crop on the same ground early, and after feeding with horses six weeks, cut from one and a quarter acres 136 cocks of rowen. I think superphos- phate does not pay ; and I know of but one man in this town, where over $10,000 worth has been sold, who thinks it does. J. J. Washburn, — The reason why we don't make and save the manures, is because there is work in it. Mr. Howard often tells us to save all the liquids, &c. ; but he don't do it himself. I have offered him a liberal chance to get muuk, but he don't touch the first load. I should rim but little risk in offering this village the free use of my muck swamp, only one mile away. R. Nutting. — Any animal will sufficiently fertilize soil enough to produce food for itself, without deteriorating the soil, if its excre- ments are aM saved, and if no grain, hay or roots are sold. I prefer ashes to any com- mercial manure, and next to ashes, salt. Make an outlay of money for a single crop to give the manure heap an impetus, and from that crop go ahead increasing. Geo. Tilson referred to the trial of clover as a fertilizer by Col. Cushman, of Roches- ter, Vt. Mr. C. bought a worn out farm at a very low price, and in three years raised its value five or six times, simply by the use of clover. G. F. Nutting. — Muck should be thrown up in summer and covered with boards or slabs, that it may get dry, and then be hauled in winter. No labor can pay us better. By the use of common soil as an absorbent, we sim- ply save what otherwise would be lost; by using muck, we add a positive element of value. A question, shall I haul out a pile of horse manure by sledding and save time in spring, or put the hogs upon it until I wish to use it ? was answered by a majority of the club in favor of letting the hogs work it. C. H. Rowell would say, however, that if used for corn in the hill on moist land, it is better used as it is, and in that way is superior to any other manure. j. j. w. Randolph, Vt., March 30, 1870. For the New England Farmer, MY VIEWS ON COBBT RAISING. &e. The corn crop is, or should be, the crop of Massachusetts ; if it should be, it may be. The reason why it is so, is its worth in dollars and cents. With one or two exceptions it is the most profitable of all crops. It can be produced for one dollar per bushel. At the same time it is worth thirty-three per cent, above this figure. Strip book-farming of its gaudy trimmings, and let the cultivator exer- cise his better judgment, and corn raising in our own good State may take high rank among its many profitable callings. From the first landing of the Pilgrims to the present time, it has stood as a beacon light, inviting the sons and daughters of the soil to a hpppy, pleasant and profitable occupation. The far- mer should avoid following the deceitful Jack- o'lanterns which meet us at every turn, and beckon into the quagmire of speculation, and which if followed lead us on and on till our feet settle in the mire of utter discouragement. The process by which this crop is grown is naturally simple, and should be so practically. A farmer's outfit to commence business half a century ago, did not necessarily cost more than twenty-five per cent, of what it does at present. The laborers on the farm were fa- miliar with all its duties from childhood. Crops were apportioned and varied as the different soils required ; and the inmates of liouse and stable were sustained principally by the farm. Plenteous variety was enjoyed. Body and mind maintained a steady increas- ing growth. Fruitful seasons followed in reg- ular succession. Happy families were reared among the hills and vales, vieing with each other in honest emulation; catching from one and another an id«a of progress which was practically improved upon, until men and means were sent abroad who have built our large cities, and made those improvements of which we may well be proud. From our cities a flood of literature has been sent out bearing the name of agriculture, which in reality is about the same as if the farmer should take the seeds of all his differ- ent grains and sow them broadcast, without any reference to varieties of seed or differ- ence in soil. This has had the effect to en- courage attempts to grow corn and other grains on soil fit only for roots and grass, and vice versa. Then the farmers of to-day mu^t have a kit of patented tools of the latest make fresh from the city, whilst his stock of cattle must have the latest pedigree mark upon them ; and if purchased from the stock of some speculative breeder and at a fancy price, so much the better, the buyer thinks. His horses must be counted on for speed, so that of necessity the cost is well up in the hun- dreds or thousands ; and as though the evil one was determined to show them ail the king- doms of this deceptive world, ten or even 268 KEW ENGLAND FARilER. June eight hours is to suffice for a day's work ; the leisure time of the son or grandson is spent with some "Columbus" or other ungainly look- ing specimen of the horse tribe hitched to a skeleton vehicle in going the rounds of the village race course. In view of this variegated picture, what shall we do ? Like the busy bee let us seek honey from every flower. Let the farmer from practice build up a theory. Let him ex- peiiment for himself. Economize his time and means. Say unto the evil one, "get be- hind me." Use his "time which is money," in honest labor and useful recreation, asso- ciating with h>-i neighbors for mutual improve- ment, and so fulfil the whole law of "loving your neighbor as yourself." As the city is made up of various characters and equally various occupations, so let our farms present in harvest time a variegated hue, from the ma- turing of numerous crops, instead of the more modern notion of a single crop, or at most two or three. Let rotation, so much talked of and so poorly practiced, become a principle in our farm management. And now turn back to the commencement of this aiti- cle, and decide what portion of the farm shall be devoted to that noble crop, Indian corn. If by the above I shall induce some to write out their views of farming, and thereby keep up a lively discussion, the effort will not be in vain. R. Mansfield. Wellesley, Mass., March 29, 1870. For the New England Farmer. THE FKDIT QAEDEIf. "Now Winter's reign is over, Blithe Bpring once more Will jjy restore." Yes, the long looked for season, the time for enjoyment and for disappointment to the amateur gardener, has come. Very few things afford more innocent and useful enjoyment than the study of the laws by which nature su. tains and controls her pro- ductions, and gives to man whatever is both pleasant and profitable to look upon and to enjoy ; and particularly is this the case when pleasure and profit is sought in the garden by conforming to the requirements of each plant cultivated in order to their perfection in beauty, productiveness and utility. As a rest from the intensity of application to business by village mechanics, merchants and professional men who can afford suburban residences, what can be more interesting and profitable than a fruit garden ? To consider the appearances and uses of fruits — the plants that bear them, the culture necessary to pro- duce them in perfection, — and to partake of them as food for the body, cannot fail to im- prove the mind, calm painful or passionate feelings, or nervous irritability, and recruit bodily strength. The pleasures of conviviality which are re- sorted to by so many of the above-named per- sons may have some good influence when mod- erately indulged in, but they are generally had at the expense of health and happiness, be- cause they easily lead to extravagant expen- diture and involve body and estate in ruin ; and at best, they fail to improve the mind and increase good taste and love of natural beauty. They seldom, if ever, soothe the feverish and excited system, nor do they give that prepa- ration for healthy repose and sleep which the over-taxed body and mind require, and which is sure to follow the innocent and pleasurable employment of the faculties in observation and gentle labor in planting, cultivating and harvesting the productions of nature in the garden. Men differ in their taste and in their capa- city to enjoy any one of the many things by which innocent pleasure may be secured, and all have a moral right to choose for them- selves. What we want to impress on the mind of the reader is the idea that individual or family employment in the fruit garden is soon found to invigorate the nervous system, charm and soothe the mind, increase good t?.ste and love of beauty, and to prepare the body for that repose which is necessary for those who are active and persistent in their business. It may not be generally known, yet is none the less true, that to professional men, worn out by close application of their minds, we are indebted for discoveries and improvements in horticulture. They sought health in caring for the growth, perfection and fruiting of some plants or trees ; they became interested, and being men of improved minds, they were observing ; they sought a knowledge of the conditions or requirements necessary to the perfection of some plant or its fruit, and when found, they adapted their labor and care to the end desired. Improvements followed, and we have the benefit of enjoying what their la- bors have contributed to our advantage, and may profit by their example. Information necessary to begin gardening and to continue it successfully is so plenty that "he who runs may read," What should we read? you a^k. If you have time, read a book on fruit culture ; before you buy one consult some reading, yet practical gardener. By so doing, you will be spared the disap- pointment that is sure to follow labor per- formed in ignorance of varieties of fruit, suit- able soil, proper planting and cultivation, the influence of climate on the plants and fruit, and the times and manner of harvesting and securing in the best condition for future use the results of your healthful and gratifying employment. If you plant for pecuniary profit, be very careful what you plant. Many fruits truth- fully called the best in one State of the Union, may not be so in another, and a fruit of medium 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIMER. 269 quality, fully ripe, is much more pleasant to the taste and more profitable for sale than one of the highest quality, when not perfected Thus, the lona grape is very much superior to the Concord ; but if the Concord can be ripened in our climate and the lona cannot, the Concord is the best for our section. In an experience of years it will be found that Con- cord and Hartford Prolific are the only varie- ties that are uniformly reliable, or that will pay the poor man to grow. If pears are planted on sandy or gravelly soil, they will cost more for manure than they are worth, and many kinds will fail to grow — that is, if the land is dry. On such land I have had some success with Flemish Beauty, Bartlett, Louise Bonne de Jersey and Beurre Giffard, but I cannot say my success would satisfy a market gardener. We have currants of many varieties. I have many hundreds in my garden and nursery, but when hardiness and beauty of the bush, and quantity and quality of the fruit are con- sidered, no red variety will be equal to the Victoria, and no white one to the Dutch White. These are sjmmetrical in form, will bear manuring, and the fruit is of good size and very sweet. Those varieties called Red Cherry and White Grape sell well, but their fruit is not so sweet, nor are the bushes com- parable with the first mentioned, — the Cherry being not so vigorous and the Grape not uni- form in growth. Of gooseberries, I have never had any or seen any that an Englishman considers worth growing, in our State. The sun is too warm in summer, and some days too dry to allow a good gooseberry to escape blight and grow its fruit to perfection. The best I have is called Williams' Red. Of strawberries I have succeeded with but two varieties, Jenny Lind and Triomphe de Gand. The first is early and sweet and of good color aad size, and prolific ; on good loamy soil, with good culture, pays well. The last is later, larger and of good flavor, and is prolific ; it will require a good, rather damp soil and high culture. I consider all straw- berries as uncertain as to crop in our climate, be the variety or culture ever so good, and whoever grows them largely must reckon on several years for profit, as if a crop is secured two years in five, to grow tbein pays better than common crops. Raspberries are refreshing and healthful, and by some are considered profitable. I have taken in one season from 48 plants, 52 quarts of fruit. The variety was Red Ant- werp. This variety needs protection in win- ter, but of all varieties it is> for home use, the most profitable, if crop, quality and beauty are considered. Of all the black varieties, I have found no one any better than our own thimbleberry. They are nothing else than the thimbleberry of other States. It is on such plants, highly cultivated and recommended by those who stand high in esteem as horticultu- rists, that nurserymen make, and purchasers loose money. What I have said is intended for those who have had no experience in the fruit garden, and my object is to induce such to seek pleas- ure and profit in growing fruit, if only for their own use and health. If the editors think the above worth publishing, I hope it may do some good. J. Flemikg. Sherborn, Mass., 1870. BUTTER MAKING. The following extracts are from an article in the St. Johnsbury, Vt., Times, written by David Goodall. After speaking of the im- portance of good cows, good feed, and care- ful workmanlike milking, he says : — The next requisite is a cool, sweet, clean cellar for summer, and a clean, sweet milk- room for the rest of the season. Here the milk should be kept at about sixty degrees, and when colder than fifty, the milk should be scalded, as it will keep the butter yellow and save labor in churning. Both cellar and milk room must be light and well ventilated, and all the utensils kept sweet and clean. Strain and set the milk immediately after drawn from the cows. At sixty, it will be usually ready to skim in twenty-four hours. Milk not scalded and set in a cold, dark place may be a week in rising the cream, but it had better be given to the pigs without skimming, as butter made from it is hardly fit for human beings. No invariable rule can be given as to the time of skimming, yet it is very important that the cream be taken off in all cases before the milk becomes thick, because the microscope shows us that at the very time the milk begins to coagulate, decomposition and decay com- mences in the cream, and that an apparejitly great and thick growth of mould and fungus rapidly springs up and covers the cream and spoils it. Q'he butter made from it may be barely eatable when new, but it soon acquires a dirty, smoky, bitter taste, and is unfit for table use. After the cream is put into the pot or can, it should be thoroughly stirred every twelve hours and be sprinkled over the top with fine salt. Bring the cream to about sixty degrees when ready to churn. When the butter has come and is gathered, draw off the buttermilk, then put into the churn ice-water or cold water and wash and work the butter thoroughly, changing the wa- ter until entirely free from the buttermilk ; then draw off the water and work it out of the butter, and take it out of the churn. If too much water remains in the butter, so that it is crumbly and spongy, work it over by hand and spat it out. The butter being weighed, add three-fourths to one ounce, as you please, 270 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. JCTNE to each pound of butter of good fine salt Some add to the salt the same quantity of granulated white sugar, and thoroushly mix ■with the butter. In spatting and working and salting the butter, great care and judgment must be used, as there is danger of heating the butter and injuring the grain and render- ing it greasy ; on the other hand if not suffi- ciently worked the butter will be crumbly. The sugar is no aid in preserving the butter, but: is used to improve the flavor, some pre- ferring and some disapproving. While the butter is warm, and as soon as salted, put it into the tub and pound it down solid, and if it does not fill the tub, cover it with a cloth and put on it a pint of brine. Fill the tub within one inch of the top, cut a cloth one inch larger than the butter and spread it on the top of it ; then cut another cloth one inch larger than the last and fit it on the top, spreading evenly and turning up each edge on the inside of the staves, but it must not hang over as it would draw brine out. Cut a bar of sweet wood, two inches by half an inch, and fit it on the butter ; bore through the stave into each end of the bar and put in a wooden pin tight to keep the bar in place, fill the tub with fine salt, and fill again with brine and keep it full. Some put in one-fourth inch of fine salt at the bottom of the tub and cover with a cloth. I think the cloth without the salt sufficient. Butter made and packed in this way will keep sweet and perfect wherever salt pork can be kept, and as long. When the butter is sold a small saving could be made in remov- ing the salt and part of the brine ; but I would advise, instead, to put the makers' name and residence on each tub and let it go, salt and all, and make the buyer promise to keep it all on, and the tub full of brine ; because if ex- posed to warm air this butter will depreciate rapidly, yet it would not change if kept frozen. Such butter as this would be cheap at forty cents per pound, while our good dairies would be comparatively dear at thirty-five cents ; and such butter is always wanted and sells quickly, while ordinary butter cannot be sold. The difference in market between really good and common butter is two hundred dollars per ton, and the difference in the cost of making and keeping would not exceed five dollars per ton. Ice is not, perhaps, an indispensable requi- site in making butter, but it is a great con- venience and aid, and but little expense re- quired to get up an ice house. If ponds and rivers are distant, take an old barrel or box when the weather is cold, and dash on water and snow and it is soon water tight ; then fill with water and freeze up. Or a box of boards and stakes like a mortar bed may be cheaply made in the ice house or out of it, and water or new ice thrown in, which could be carried up to any thickness desired. EXTRACTS ANT) KEPLIEB. SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME AS A TOP-DRESSING. I wish to inquire through the Farmer, whether you or any of your readers have made use of superphosphate of lime as a top-dressing on mowing lands ? If so, what month in the year should it be applied ? How large a quantity to the acre ? "Will it pay when hay sells for twenty dollars a ton ? Does it work equally well on wet and dry soil ? Should it be applied clear, or is it best to mix it with loam or plaster ? A Subscriber. Hudson, N. H., April, 1870. Remarks. — We have no doubt that pure super- phosphate of lime would be a good top-dressing for grass land, but we have decided doubts as to its being the most economical material you can use. If there is a muck bed on your farm, or in your neighborhood, and you can get it conveniently, haul it out, dry it, pulverize and mingle with it pure bone dust, manure, ashes, plaster, if the land is clayey a little lime, and you will have a top- dressing which will be exceedingly valuable. It may be a duty which we owe the farmer, to give some decided opinions with regard to the use of what are called superphosphates of lime. Per- sonally, we have gained very little from their use ; not a fourth part enough to pay their cost. On the contrary, some excellent farmers state that they derive great benefit from them. "We do not feel free to recommend them, mainly on account of their impurity, — but urge upon the farmer a more constant resort to the materials which the Author of Nature has placed more immediately within his reach. "When used as a top dressing, superphosphate of lime is usually sown broadcast, from 300 to 600 pounds per acre, without mixing with loam, or if with loam, so much the better. The land should be moist of course. COMMERCIAL MANURES — TOP-DRESSING. I am a subscriber to a paper that I consider very valuable to a man that is trying to be a farmer. When I receive it I first search for the Extracts and Replies, and always wish there were more of them, and have been on the point of ask- ing that a larger space be devoted to them, but have feared you would ask me to contribute as well as read, and so have held my peace. But as I shall be short for grass the coming summer, and I have some good warm land that cuts but a light crop, I wish to ask if it will pay to buy foreign manures of any kind to spread on to it. If so, which is the best ? A. Franklin. Shelburne Falls, Mass., March 21, 1870. Remarks. — We are sorry to say that we do not know of any "foreign manures" that we can con- scientiously recommend you to buy for this pur- pose ; but we can with full confidence commend to you the practice of such farmers as C. F. Lin- coln, of Woodstock, detailed in last week's Fak- HER, of "B.," Oak Hill, N. Y., in the number for February 12, and by other practical farmers who favor the public with their experience in farming that pays. We have been well paid by top-dressing 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 271 such land as you describe with yellow loam, from a newly dug cellar, &c. Have you a bank of loam or muck near by with which you can make an ex- periment in a small way ? Try some clear, and some composted in the cattle yard or with a few ashes, or any other material in which you have faith, and watch its effects. Mr. Davis, of Fram- inghara, Mass., a successful farmer, — see Monthly Farmer for 1867, page 226,— expressed great faith in the shovel in improving poor meadows. He says that he averages about 20 ox-cart loads of compost to each cow and hog that he keeps ! But he had a bank of good loam. REMEDY FOR CERTAIN DISEASES. I notice in your last issue, communications in regard to a disease in cattle in some portions of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, particularly in Mr. Fay's herd. I send you a remedy which I think an excellent and almost sure one, for all diseases of cattle and horses where the symptoms are such as are there described. Get the body of the common tag alder, as large a growth as can be conveniently obtained. Bore a hole lengthwise with an inch or inch and a quarter auger, according to size of stick, sawing it off so as to leave one end solid. Put in common salt and tamp it down hard, leaving room at the top to plug tight with same timber. Place this in a moderate fire until the wood is all consumed. The salt will be left in a hard roll, which may be fed to the stock from one to three times a day, a large spoonful at a time. This will be found bene- ficial to all stock at times, especially to horses when the hair becomes dry and hard to the touch. J. L. Baxter. East Bethel, Vt., March 24, 1870. Remarks. — This is entirely a new remedy to ns. It would seem to be innocent, and, therefore, worthy of trial. We are not certain what the "Tag Alder" is. value of saw dust. Frievd Brown : — I don't like to trouble thee again, hut what I want to know is, whether there is a sufficient value in pine sawdust to pay for the labor necessary to prevent its heating the manure to hurt ? The wisdom of using or not using, de- pends very much on its manurial value ; its heat- ing so quickly appears to me to indicate consider- able value. Please, somebody, give poor farmers the light, and make us thankful once more. Abington, Mass., 3d mo, 1870. James West. Remarks. — Pure sawdust, from any wood, does not heat readily, but will remain fpr many years, in heaps, in the open air, without much change taking place in it. When it has been used as bed- ding for stock, and received their droppings, it will ferment; but unless highly charged with such droppings, we have supposed it would not rapidly pass into a state of fermentation. The sawdust is not the chief agent in producing fermentation, but the manure itself. Mere woody fibre, in all cases, seems to require fermentation or charring to render it nutritious to plants. Sawdust requires as much dung as dust to bring it into a state of fermentation. Where sawdust can be cheaply procured in large quantities, we think it would be profitable to col- lect it, dry it by spreading in thin layers on the ground. When dry, form it into conical heaps of any convenient size, cover with sods, loam or clay, and leave holes at the bottom on the windward side for lighting the fire, and some still smaller ones at the top, to allow the smoke to escape. Kindle the fire at the bottom holes, and allow combustion slowly to proceed until the volatile matter is driven off, when the air-holes should be stopped with earth in order to arrest the further burning of the piles. The operation will be much like that of charring wood for charcoal. This charred dust will be very valuable as a bedding for stock and for mingling with any ma- nures, as it becomes a powerful absorbent. In some localities, sawdust is accumulated to the amount of hundreds, if not thousands of cords, and may be had for the cost of carting away. raising calves. In your last issue, March 26, I saw an article on raising calves that interested me. As I raise a few each year, I will state how I feed them. For the first week I give them about six quarts of milk per day right from the cow. Then I take about one teacupful each of corn meal and cotton seed meal in a pail, after mixing it with the hand I add two quarts of boiling water and about the same quantity of milk, (skimmed, if I have it;) let it cool to a blood warm and feed them twice a day for six or eight weeks, then turn them out, if grass is forward enough ; if not, give them good hay with the same quantity of meal mixed up thin with water. feeding cotton seed meal to cows. In this connection I wish to say a few words in favor of cotton seed meal as a feed for milch cows. I have used it for three years, and must say that for producing milk, butter or flesh, it is the best and cheapest feed I can get. I have never known a case of swelled udder or garget from its use. My method of feeding is to put two quarts of the meal into tubs I use for feeding, and add a pail of water to each tub, stir it up well and let it soak for half an hour; then add the same amount of corn meal, mix it thoroughly and feed, i'his quantity I give to my cows twice each day, after milking, and have given it (during the win- ter or rather when the pastures get short,) for three years, with the most gratifying results. I have known milkmen to give six quarts of cot- ton seed per day with four quarts of corn meal to some of their cows, for three months at a time. And one man has fed one particular cow with from four to six quarts of cotton seed per day for five years, and the cow is all right, and giving this winter twenty-four quarts of good milk per day. I have tried corn fodder cut and fed green, and have wilted it and fed it, but could never see any increase in the flow of milk. Still I believe when the pastures get short in August it is a very good thing to feed, — that is, it helps fill them up. Cumberland, R. I., March 28, 1870. Senex. A MARE that SUFFERS. Your columns of "Extracts and Replies" con- tain so much good advice in answer to so many puzzling questions, that I am induced to make another in the list of inquirers. I have a fine English mare that appears fre- quently to suffer pain in discharging from the bowels. She lifts a fore foot, trembles and 272 NEW ENGLAND FARJlIER. JjjyrB crouches slightly, with sometimes a sort of groan. The excrement is not hard, as in constipation, but rather the reverse. She appears otherwise well. Is in good order, not too fat; has six quarts ground oats daily (the same wet, as she refuses dry meal), and sliced potatoes once a week ; is fed and watered regularly. Used for light dic-iving only. The above symptoms are more noticeable after a harder drive than usual, but have appeared more or less for some months. What is the mat- ter, and what is the remedy ? s. e. j. . Vermont, March 29, 1870. Remarks. — Perhaps some person has had a horse suffering in a similar manner, and will be able to state the cause and remedy. EARLY ROSE POTATOES. I bought one peck of Early Rose Potatoes in the fall of 1868. From them I raised last year a little over 38 bushels of nice potatoes when dug. But, alas, the tables turned on me instanter, for in less than three weeks 30 bushels of them were rotten, and I had to dump them into the barnyard. RELIEVING CHOKED CATTLE. We have a very simple instrument here in my neighborhood for relieving choked cattle. It is simply a tarred rope one and a half inches in diameter, and five or six feet long. The end that is intended to go down the throat is trimmed ofl and wound with a piece of cotton cloth and smeared with soft grease before using. With this I have relieved five within two years. Tie the creature up, let one man hold the left horn with his right hand, and take the creature's tongue out with his left, while another man runs the rope down. It is limber enough to follow the passage, yet stiff enough to remove all obstructions. There should be one or more in every neighborhood. CABBAGES. I raised and sold cabbages to the amount of $7-5 58 from eleven square rods of ground, besides i-aving enough for my family, and giving away some five hundred pounds. They were the Stone Mason variety. I never have written anything for a paper before, and probably shall not undertake 10 again. So please excuse me this time. Lewis Beal. North Fairjield, Me., March, 1870. A LAME HORSE. Will you inform me what I can do for a lame horse, that has a sore on the bottom of his foot, raused by pricking when shoeing, or it may be a corn. R. I. Subscriber. Woonsocket, R. I., April, 1870. Remarks. — Corns are often the result of bad shoeing, and unless the animal can be turned out to run barefoot they must be cured by judicious shoeing, by which pressure on the corn shall be avoided, in connection with proper medical treat- ment. The corn in the horse's foot is different from the hard corn of the human subject ; it pre- sents a reddish appearance, is very sensitive, and more spongy and softer than other parts, but orig- inates in a similar cause. We must advise you to consult a horse doctor or an experienced horse- bhoer. CROPS IN jersey county, ILL. In remitting the enclosed payment for the Far- mer, I will say that in this section there was not over one-half the usual amount of wheat sown last fall, and this spring what was sown does not promise over half a crop. Farmers are now busy putting in oats, of which more will be sown than usual. A large amount of corn will also be planted which I think is our best paying and surest crop. There is some little excitement here about the Norway oats, but I am inclined to the opinion that its superiority, if any, is owing to change of seed and care in cultivation. A change of seed is beneficial to all our small grains, particularly wheat. J. B. Reynolds. Delhi, Jersey Co., III., March 26, 1870. Remarks. — As the exchange of ideas between the farmers of the East and the West, as well as the change of seeds, is desirable, we hope you will occasionally communicate with your Eastern friends through our columns. Farmers, East and West, ought to be more sociable. horse distemper. I have an eight-year-old mare that runs at the nose, and has all winter. It Ijoks like the horse distemper. What shall I do for her ? A. Franklin. Shelburne Falls, Mass., March 21, 1870. Remarks. — Probably it is nothing more than catarrh or cold, caused by a chill in the stable or out. Has your horse had a warm, dry, clean and light stable, and good bedding all wmter ? The trouble, whatever it is, ought to be attended to. In ordinary cases. Dr. McClure recommends a bran-mash with from six drachms to one ounce of powdered nitre in it, at night, for two or three days, withholding grain, and if the bowels are confined a mild dose of physic. HOW SHALL I BUILD MY BARN ? As I am intending to build a barn the coming season, I would like the advice of some of your subscribers. The barn that I tore down was a common long barn, with doors at both ends, bay on one side, and stanchions on the other. The land where I am about to build falls at the north enough to have a cellar. I want the yard on the south side, and the barn large enough to accom- modate twelve head of cattle, three horses, twenty- five sheep and fifty tons of hay. I don't want a steam enelne in the barn. A Subscriber. Concord, N. H., April 4, 1870. apprenticeship with FARMERS. Young men who would be farmers, but who have not been brought up to the business, have been advised often to let themselves for a few seasons to some farmers who wants help, and to look upon such service as an apprenticeship, be- fore going into business for themselves. I would offer an amendment to that advice, to the effect that no one who would become a success- ful farmer should work with or apprentice himself to one who cannot make farming pay, but when they hire are obliged to do some job in the winter off the fa»m, to pay their^ired help. Any young man of intelligence can judge for himself as to the income and expenses of a tarmer after he has been employed by him twelve months. It would be poor encouragement for him to give his best energies to a business that would not pay the interest of the capital invested. Were he to do so, his time would be worse than lost,— un- profitable to his employer, and entirely unsatis- factory to himself. Should he stick to the farm under such a tbtor, he would learn nothing he 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAiaiER. 273 should, but much that he should not. Many far- mers think their hired help have no business to inquire why or how they do their work. If they desire intelligent, reliable laborers, they must pay more money, or make the farm a school where the knowledge acquired shall be an equivalent for part of the services performed. I would send a boy to any respectable work, rather than to a farmer who savs "farmine does not pay." f. 'Mast Tard^N. H., 1870. HORN AIL. I have read your valuable paper for some time, and as I have been much benefited by the sugges- tions of others, I will give a little of my own "ex- perience in a few things, hoping that, though the first time I ever wrote any thing with the idea of having it read by the public, I may thereby in some measure do to others as they have done to me. And first, for horn ail. Take a good handful of of tanzy stalks, dry thoroughly, strip the leaves and blows otf, pulverize fine, one tablespoonful of cayenne pepper, one pint of rye meal. M:x the three ingredients together, and wet with vinegar. Then make the same into nine pills. Give one a day for tiiree days, then omit three days; and thus alternate until all are used, if necessary. I have known this to save a cow that was so weak that she could not get up. FILM ON A CREATrRE'S EYE. Melt a tablespoonful of lard and turn it in the op- posite ear. I have repeatedly effected a cure in this way. CHOKED CATTLE. A potato or turnip in a creature's throat can, in most cases, be removed by turning the animal on to a rough piece of land or where there is a ditch, and make it run or jump. If this fails, take a stick about three-eighths of an inch in diameter and four feet long, with a bunch a'lout the size of of a hen's egg on one end, over which put a piece of pork rind, and fasten firmly, with which the potato may be carefully pushed down. YELLOW WATER IN HORSES. Take one ounce of Antimony ; one tablespoonful of Aloes, and same of Sulphur and Peruvian Bark ; put tbem mto a bottle wi'h a gill of rura, and after shaking well add one and a half pint of water, shake well again and turn down. My mode of giving such a dose is to put on a bridle, throw the lines over a joist, so as to bring the horse's head pretty well up, then insert tlie neck of the bottle into one side of the mouth, (never pull out the tongue) and turn it in as fast as the horse can swallow. HOW VERMONT BOYS MAKE SUGAR. First, they want good clean sweet buckets. Then tap with a five-eighths pod-bit, from three- fourths to two inches deep, according to size of the tree. There are various kinds of spouts, but the one I prtfer is in shape like the nose of a tunnel with one side shorter than the other, drive it into the bark ofthe tree so as to cover the hole, then drive a nail under it to hang the bucket on. The sap is gathered mostly by a team. Pans from six to eight inches deep are used to boil the sap and to sugar off in. After boiling all day, it is syruped down, then strained through a flannel strainer. Tne syrup after standing in tubs over night to settle, is ready to be made into sugar. The pan which is used for sugaring off in, is thoroughly cleansed. The syrup is carefully turned into the pan as long as it will run clear. Some use about one quart of milk for two hundred pounds of sugar to raise a scum to cleanse the sugar, others use the white of eggs, and some use cold sap. A man that understands the business can sugar off two hundred pounds in from two to three hmirs. Groton, Mass., April, 1870. G. T. Williams. SrOAR FOR FILM ON EYE. I notice in your issue of the 26th, an inquiry for a remedy for a film on the eye. I have u^ed suc- cessfully common granulated sugar, and have known it to remove the film in many cases where alum and other remedies have failed. A Subscriber. East Dover, Me., March 28, 1870. TO REMOVE FILM FROM THE EYE. Please publish the following for the benefit of "A Subscriber" and the rest of mankind : To re- move a film from a creature's eye, put a lump of fresh butter, about the size of a wa'nut, into the ear on the opposite side from the eve with the film. L. N. WiLLOBT. Winchendon, Mass., April, 1870. Remarks. — Mr. Willoby must be responsible for this prescription ; we know nothing of it. In relation to putting medicine into the ear of animals, an organ furnished with such sensitive nerves that a slight vibration of the air is trans- mitted by them to the brain ; or into the nose which is so delicately lined that the least odor affects the sensibilities of that organ, a correspon- dent in Vermont informs us that a "cattle doctor" ordered some spirits of turpentine to be poured into the ears and rubbed in back of the horns of a heifer supposed to have the horn ail, which threw her into such terrible convulsions that her owner, a neighbor of his, ordered her to be Killed to put her out of misery. Another man was ad- vised to put a little of the same medicine into the nose of a sheep to cure grubs in the head. He tried it on one, but as the patient dropped stone dead from his hands, he gave up the "practice." A little butter in the ear m.ight not be as fatal ; but if we had a film on our eye we should require good authority for a dose of butter in the ear. THE use of muck. I see that Mr. Loring Barrus says that the far- mers had better have muck on the brain than so much fog. I think he had better have muck on the brain than on the ground. I see that this man lives in Goshen. If he has lived there five years, and used muck as a fertilizer, I imagine that his farm must be in rather a poor condition, and if he supports a large family on its productions, I think his farm must be a remarkable one. He draws his muck to the barn and throws his manure on to it, and in that way has all the juices ofthe ma- nure in the muck, and that is what gives it its value. But let him try the murk alone, just as it comes from the swamp, and see how he will come out. If he will go to his swamp and get a load of muck and not mix it with anything, and spread it on or plough it in to his land, I think he will sing a different song. I tell you, sir, in my opin- ion there is no goodness in it. It is of a cold, sour nature. If you tiave to mix manure with muck to make it good for anything, what is gained? Why not use the stable manure by itselt? And then when you seed down your land you will be able to cut two or three tons of hay to the acre, while if you use composted muck you will not 27-4 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Juke get more than five hundred pounds of hay to the acre. Now let me tell you, if a man is poor he will continue so as long as he uses muck on his farm. A man would be better off to work for fifty cents a day and board himself, than to farm it on meadow muck. O. J. Upham. Needham, Mass., April, 1870. DEATH OF COAESE-WOOL LAMB. Fine wool sheep have been kept on our farm for many years, but about a year ago a part of the flock was changed to coarse wools. After an ab- sence from home, I have just returned to find the lambs from our coarse wooled sheep dying about as fast as they come. Out of twenty-two only seven are left. At first they appear smart and well, but after a few days, or in some cases a few weeks, they are taken wiih a diarrhoea that oak bark will not check, and die in great distress. I at once went to work to find the cause. I opened one, and found his lungs somewhat affected, but not enough to cause death. On examining his stomach, I found in the passage out of the honey -comb stomach a wad of wool about as large as a bullet, entirely stopping the passage. I opened another and found all of the organs healthy ; but just beyond the last stomach a wad of wool stop- ping the passage there. In another I found the passage stopped just beyond the stomachs with something resembling cheese, but as it was begin- ning to be dark I did not examine closely. Next morning found in one several weeks old, a large wad of wool about an inch beyond the last stom- ach, and the intestine inflamed and distended by the wool. So I am satisfied that eating wool was the cause of the death of the lambs. Is this a trick of long wooled sheep ? Old fine wooled sheep raisers here never heard of the like. Our fine wool sheep have not as yet produced any lambs. We set the man who has the care of the sheep to tag all the ewes nicely, so that all scattering locks of wool would be out of the way of the lambs. A little knowledge might have saved all these lambs. I should like to hear the opinion of those better acquainted with coarse wool sheep. Hartland, Vt., April 10, 1870. B. Livermore. POTATO DINNER. About a dozen farmers from Sudbury and Fram- ingham were invited to a dinner at Col. Hemtn- way 's, in Framingham, on the 5th of April, to talk over the potato crop, and test the qualities of sev- eral varieties. After eating as much potato as they could with the bountiful supply of other pro- visions, the question naturally arose, What kinds is it best to plant this season ? Two or three varieties were spoken of favorably by all ; among which the Early Rose was consid- ered the best as an eating potato, up to that date and considerably later. The Burns and Worces- ter Seedling were thought very fine as later varie- ties. Bresee's Prolific was also spoken of as very good. About one-fuurth of those present thought the Harrison ought not to be given up, as the yield is large and it is liktd as an eating potato by many. Two plates of potatoes, one called Late Rose, the other Royal Pitt, were thought to be the same kind. Both are very productive, and are liked as a table potato by some. King of the Earlies, Early Prince, Willard and Climax were also among the kinds represented, but they are scarce, and the company decided not to recommend them fur planting the present year. One gentleman recommended sprouting pota- toes to get them very early, by spreading horse manure two or three inches deep upon any conve- nient spot of ground, covering it with a little loam, then dropping the potatoes just far enough apart so that they can be easily separated after they have sprouted ; covering the potatoes with sand, keeping them moist by sprinkling with water from a watering pot, and covering them with a sail cloth cool nights. When ready for transplant- ing take them up into boxes with a fork and sep- arating them, plant in rows, pressing the dirt around them. One of the Company. STRETCHES IN SHEEP. I wish to inquire what to do for my sheep that has the stretches. She lays down and stretches, and gets up and does the same. She has a lamo three weeks old. She was troubled the same be- fore she dropped the lamb, as now. She appears well one day and is sick the next. L. H. Gaylord. North Prescoit, Mass., April 4, 1870. Remarks. — This disease is generally ascribed to constipation of the bowels, resulting from long confinement to dry feed. Sheep do not have it when at pasture. It can generally be prevented by some kind of green feed given once or twice a week — browse is better than nothing. Salt kept in a trough constantly in reach of the sheep, in which sulphur is mixed at the rate of a pound to half a bushel of salt has been recommended by Mr. B. F. Chamberlin of Washington, Vt., as a preventive. As a cure, some kind of physic, if given in season, affords relief. If neglected until inflammation sets in, all remedies may fail. A piece of lard of the size of a butternut, mixed with mustard seed; a dose of Epsom salts ; a decoction of thorough- wort, or boneset; castor oil, &c., are each re- commended; and in the Farmer for 1868, (Monthly, page 240) Mr. G. H. Brown of Mason, Maine, stated he had been successful in a great many cases in giving the sick sheep a bit of plug tobacco as large as the thumb to the first joint, by putting it into the mouth and holding up the nose of the animal until it "chewed" and swallowed the weed. Whatever is used, the object is to move the bowels. Relief is sometimes effected by merely chasing the stretching sheep about the yard, on the first appearance of the trouble. HOGS OR SHEEP TO IMPROVE A FARM. I wish to inquire through your valuable paper which are best, sheep or hogs to improve a small farm which is badly run down, and which will be most profitable in addition to their assistance in improving the farm ? a. Avon, Conn., April, 1870. Remarks. — There are many circumstances hav- ing a beaiing upon either of these propositions, such as locality, price of labor and grain, skill in tending, &c., which must be considered in decid- ing which to choose. These circumstances are not known to us. Briefly, our opinion is, that keep- ing hogs will enable you to enrich your cultivated lands much quicker than by the use of sheep. To secure this, the hogs must be kept growing rapidly, and plenty of materials supplied to them to travel over, lie upon, and enrich by their droppings. 1870. KEW ENGLAND FARilER. 275 DRY MrCK FOR BEDDING. In the Farmer for February 12, 1 saw an article headed, "Value and Use of Muck," and I should like very much to inquire of the writer of that article how he dries his muck so that it will not freeze in the winter ? B. B. Smith. East Dover, Me., 1870. Remarks. — Muck thrown out of the bed in the winter, or even in July or August, when the water is usually low in swamps, will become suffi- ciently dry to be carted into some place for winter use before the fall rains. Throw it into heaps on dry land, and on the morning of some hot day spread it a little, and get it in before rain falls on it. In this condition it will not freeze so as to prevent using it, if put in a cellar, or any- where in the barn. Many farmers in this section pile it up in a large heap near the barn, out doors, and cover with boards, and though the surface becomes frozen, it may be broken readily, and the unfrozen part used as litter or otherwise, as de- sired. Our practice is to place it in the cellar, and mix it with the droppings, once or twice a week. The foregoing remarks are not intended as a substitute for a reply by "B." of Oak Hill, N. Y., the writer of the article alluded to, who confesses to "muck on the brain" and to great faith in muck on the land, and who is able from his long practi- cal use of the material to answer the question of Mr. Smith. PRICES AND COST OF BEEF. Your Montpelier correspondent is doleful over the high price of beef, and sighs for the good time to come, when "extortion" shall cease, and steaks and sirloins shall be sold at starvation prices to the farmer. Your remarks were to the point, and a substantial answer to his inquiry. But there are many like C. L. S., who think that not only beef, but all farm crops are too high. That farmers, whom they regard as "mud sills," are getting very rich by "extortion," and should almost give away their produce to their grateful customers and deliver it, to boot. And if they "groan for awhile'" they will soon be used to it as "eels are to being flayed." It is now pretty well understood by farmers that twenty pounds of milk can be made from the feed that will produce one pound of beef. This at five cents per quart would bring fifty cents. Or that two pounds of cheese can be made from that quan- tity of milk, which will retail at twenty or twen- ty-five cents per pound. The dairyman can keep two hogs to every three cows, and by using a little grain with the sour milk and whey, turn them fat in the fall, at a clear profit, giving quick sales and ready money. It is a long way from the calf to the ox that will dress 1000 pounds net, and it is a costly oper- ation to grow him. But few farmers, even, are aware of the cost, who have not kept an exact ac- count of what he consumes. It will cost no more to raise a colt to four years old, than a steer to the same age. The colt, if well bred, will sell for $200, with a chance for higher figures. The steer must be a good one to bring $100. There is more profit in raising mutton than beef, at the present price of wool. Mutton is whole- some, nutritious and toothsome flesh, with noth- ing of the taint of "extortion" in it at the present time. If beef eaters who complain of present prices, do not, as you suggest, see fit to raise their own beef, they might with becoming dignity "set- tle back on mutton" until the over-reaching far- mers cease to "groan," and offer their bullocks at lower fisrnres. j. r. -w. Springfield, Vt., April 9, 1870. BEST PEARS. — FRUIT BOOKS. Can you inform me where I can procure a copy of a hook entitled The Fruit Garden ? Also, the best eight varieties of pear trees, suitably divided between summer, autumn and winter, best suited for Southeastern Massachusetts, and where I can procure them ? k. t. l. Taunton, April, 1870. Remarks. — There is a great variety of opinion as to what pears are the best. The same pear does not grow the same on different soils. Some will crack on one soil and grow fair on another. We can recommend the following with some confi- dence : — 1 The Rostiezer ripens from middle of August to September. 2. The Bartlett, Bloodgood, Buffam, and Seck- el, for summer and early autumn. 3. The Duchesse de Angouleme, Beurre 'd Anjou for autumn. 4. The Lawrence, Winter Nelis and Easter Beurre for winter. "The Fruit Garden," by P. Barry, can be ob- tained through any bookseller. Downing's Fruit and Fruit Trees of America, The American Fruit Culturist, by Mr. Thomas, and other works may be found at most of the bookstores. PERUVIAN GUANO. Will yon give us through the Farmer the effects of the use of Peruvian Guano in the culture of early cabbage and beets for market; and what you think of using 1000 pounds per acre, whether it would be too much for land that would produce 40 bushels corn per acre ; also what would be its effect on the future grass crop ? Sterling, Conn., 1870. s. G. Remarks. — We have always supposed that the eff'ect of guano was more of a temporary than of a permanent nature. A thousand pounds of Peru- vian guano applied to one acre of fair soil would probably give a size to the cabbage and beets which would render them unfit for market— espe- cially the beets. Apply one half as much guano to the present crop, and the money's worth of the other half in good stable manure for the acre, and your husbandry will probably prove more perma- nent and profitable. IS there DANGER OF MOWING TOO CLOSELY. I wish to inquire through the Farmer if a mowing machine is a damage to a mowing field ? Is there any danger of mowing it close enough to damage the roots of the grass ? g. n. Craftsbury, Vt., Feb., 1870. Remarks. — At the late Farmer's Convention, in Lewiston, Me., the subject of injuring the grass crop by cutting it too near the ground, was discussed, and the opinion of most of the speakers was, that if the spears of grass were cut off below the first joint, it would greatly injure it. 276 2^W ENGLAND FARMER. June 1. Flowers. 2. Leaves. 3. Peanuts. PEANUTS — THEIR CULTIVATIOK AND USE. Being a readpr of yonr valuable paper, I take the liberty to ask you where I can get the seed of the peanut, and how much is required for the acre, and for such other information as you may be able to give in relatioa to the cultivation of this plj'nt. P. H. Casey. Lenox, Mass., March 31, 1870. Information in regard to raising peanuts, would be gratefully received through the Farmer. J. R. GURNEY. South Hanover, Mass., April 6, 1870. K.EMARKS. — As we have never raised the peanut, we must rely on the books and papers for our an- swers to the above inquiries. The fjrst fact to be stated is that the plant grows naturally only in considerably warmer climates than that of New England. So do tobacco, to- matoes, and sweet potatoes, — all of which are more or less cultivated here. We presume it is possible to raise peanuts here ; but whether it can be done profitably we are unable to say. Our city dealers buy the nuts uncooked, and employ bakers to roast them. Of them we suppose there would be no trouble in procuring the seed, which in our climate must be started in hot beds or other- wise, as tobacco, sweet potatoes and tomatoes are. We understand that specimens of the plant have been found growing near Waldcu Pond in Con- cord, Mass., a location much frequented by picnic and other parties, by whom the seed was dropped on the ground. We copy, by permission, from the Country Gen- tleman, a cut of the plant which illustrates its pecu- liarities of growth. From an article m the same paper, and from one in the last Pi-eport of the Ag- ricultural Department, we condense the following description of the plant and of its cultivation. The peanut — Arachis hypogaa — is a leguminous annual plant. It has a hairy stem ; the leaves are alternate and paired, of a deep green ; the flowers of a deep yellow, axillary and solitary. As soon as these flowers have shed their corollas, or have faded, the pedicles, or stalks, on which they are borne, lengthen and turn downwards to (he earth, as seen in the cut, and bury themselves in it until a firm bed is reached, giving the plant the singu- lar appearance of being fastened to the ground by as many strings as there are seed pods ripening under ground. Any soil that can be put and kept in a friable condition, with a sufQcient quantify of lime and moderate fertility, will produce the peanut, if the season is long enough to mature them. It will not fruit except on a calcareous soil ; but without lime vines grow, but little fruit is produced. As the color of the pods partake of the color of the soil, and as the brightest pods always bring the most money, gray land is preferred, and red or choco- late colored avoided. The following directions are applicable to the south, where it is not neces- sary to start the plants in a hot bed, as it is here. The land should be well ploughed and pulverized in winter. It should be harrowed early in spring, checked oflF both ways (just previous to planting,) the row's two and a-half feet apart. It is very im- portant that the rows should be at regular dis- tances, otherwise the after culture will be very im- perfect. Plant at least two kernels to the hill, at the intersection of the rows. Make a hole with a pointed stick, drop the kernels and cover about two to three inches. The planting should be done as soon as the frosts for the season are over. Clean culture is absolutely necessary. The "sweep" or cultivator should be run about every eight days, and kept up until about the middle of July. After the tendons — or stems on which the nuts forms — begin to shoot down, if the grass has not been removed before, it must be removed with the hand and hoe. In October and November, or just before a frost, they are harvested. Furrows are run on each side of the plants, which are then lilted with a fork or pronged hoe, and after willing two or three days are carefully stacked around stakes, with the nuts innermost, much as beans are with us, capped with straw or other material, as it is very impor- tant to keep the hulls from becoming discolored. When dry the nuts are picked off from the vines by hand; about five bushels being a day's work, from 16.J to 18 cents per bushel bi.ing a common price for this work. There are two kinds of vines the "running" and the "hill." It is estimated that each successive peanut crop in Virginia since the war has been three-fold greater than that of the year preceding, owing to the demand consequent on the knowledge of the fruit acquired by Northern soldiers in their South- ern campaigns. And very likely the above in- quiries owe their origin to the same cause. It is a very profitable crop at the South. The average crop is estimated at 50 bushels per acre, and the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR]MER. 277 price at $2.50. The vines, if harvested before frost, are valuable as cattle fodder. The peanut is successfully raised in the tide wa- ter district of Maryland, also in Delaware and the southern part of New Jersey and Illinois, but how far north its culture may be extended to ad- vantage is a question that must be determined by trial. XENTILS. Are there any lentils in America ? I have sent for two seed catalogues, and to Washington twice, without learning anything. Who, this side of the Atlantic Ocean, nas any ? Newton Wright. Lyndonville, Vt., March 17, 1870. Remaeks. — Do not know. Those who do will be kind enough to enlighten our interested in- quirer. Darlington, in his "Weeds and Useful Plants," thinks the lentil is cultivated in the old world chiefly as food for stock — both herbage and seeds serving that purpose. The plant is some- times seen in gardens here. When lentils are properly cooked, they are a tolerable substitute for beans, are much prized as food by the Mexi- cans, and form the basis of the "Linsen soup" of the Germans. GROUND FLOOR FOR A HORSE. I have a horse that is sometimes troubled with tender feet. I lately removed him from his plank floor stall to one where he stands on the ground. Is not the ground the best floor for the health of the feet and ipgs of horses ? Johx. Franklin, Mass., April, 1870. Remarks. — Undoubtedly it is. It is more labor to keep horses clean that stand on the ground, but their feet will keep in better condition if the ground is kept in order, which you will probably find it some trouble to do. BLIND STAGGERS OR BLACK TOOTH. In answer to P. Wilson of Bpcket, Mass., I would say that in the fitU of 1868 I had four shotes which became entirely blind, and could not walk without frequently falling down. They con- tinued to grow worse for several days, and got so bad that they could not stand. Up to this time nothing had been done for them. I then took a common pair of pinchers and pulled two black teeth from each mouth. They all got well and made fine hogs. e. r. Fitchburg, April 11, 1870. cows SUCKING THEMSELVES. A correspondent inquires for a remedy to pre- vent a cow from sucking herself. If he will take a pair of bridle bits, put them in the cow's mouth just the same as though she were a horse, and let her wear them there, it will not prevent her from eating, but will entirely stop her from drawing her milk. Splitting the tongue is barbarous, and will do no good. T. L. Hart. West Cornwall, Conn,, April, 1870. — The Directors of the Sacramento Valley Beet Sugar Association have determined to enter large- ly this year into the manufacture of sugar there- from. PKESIDBNT "W. S. CIiAIlK. The Massachusetts Agricultural College, of which this gentleman is President, proposes to educate farmers' boys. It is, then, no idle curiosity that prompts inquiries as to the qualifications and fit- ness of him to whom the instruction of the stu- dents and the management of the institution «have been entrusted. The influence of the head man in all associations is a well acknowledged fact. Un- der the leadership of one man, a campaign fails ; when commanded by another ofiicer a campaign, by the same soldiers, is crowned with success. The same is true of commercial, manufacturing, financial and educational movements. We believe, therefore, that the following abstract of a bio- graphical sketch of Mr. Clark, published in the Amherst Record, will prove interesting to many of our readers in Massachusetts and elsewhere : — Mr. Clark was born in Ashfieid, Mass., in 1826; graduated at Amherst College in 1843, $700 in debt, which he paid, with interest, by teaching in East Hampton Seminary. He adopted the science of geology as a specialty ; worked two years on the cabinets connected with Amherst College; and was appointed mineralogist to the geologi- cal survey of Vermont. To "fini-h his education" he went to Europe and after pursuing a two years' course at the University of Gottengen, and gradu- ating at that institution, he swung his knapsack and made a tour through Switzerland, France, &c., mostly ou foot, visiting the Universities on his way, and having interviews with Humboldt, Liebig, and other men of scientific note ; paying his re- spects, also, to Vesuvius, in 1857, when that vol- cano was in an unusually excited state, and as- cending the mountain when it was considered so dangerous that it was with difliculty that he could induce a professional guide to accompany him. After returning home, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Amherst College. When the war broke out he drilled the students at Amherst, and in August, 1861, went to Annapo- lis as Major of the 21st Massachusetts Regiment. Thence he went to North Carolina withBurnside's expedition. In 1862 his regiment participated in eight battles — Roanoke Island, Newbern, Camden, Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. After the battle of Roanoke Island he was appointed Lieut. Col. At the battle of Newbern he made a gallant charge upon a bat- tery of six guns, one of which, an eight-pound brass piece, they captured, he being the first one to mount the gun. As a compliment to this bravery, Gen. Burnside made him a present of the piece. It was sent to Amherst College, and is now to be seen in the library building, with the names of the men who fell, engraved upon it. He was now appointed the Colonel of the regiment. During this eventful period, his men disappeared on the battle field like magic, and on the second day of the battle of Antietam, only seventy-five efiective men remained of the regiment. Soon after they 278 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. June were assigned to another regiment. Col. Clark now took com mand of some eastern troops, crossed the Alleghany, and for a time was stationed at Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Col. Clark was a member of the legislature of Massachusetts in 1864, 'G.5 and '67, the latter year receiving all but seven votes out of 772. In 1866 he was appointed Professor of Botany in the Ag- ricultural College, retaining at the same time his professorship in the old college. In 1866 he was appointed President of the insti- tution, and on the second of October of that year the first class met to receive his instruction in the first term of that institution. In 1853 he was married to the adopted daughter of Samuel Williston, East Hampton, Mass., and has seven children now living. ••THE SOUTH LAND." Since the close of the war a large number of ag- ricultural papers have been started at the South, and we have watched their progress with much in- terest, believing they were the natural result of a resolute purpose to begin at the foundation of real improvement of the interests and prosperity of the people of that section. Having a practical knowl- edge of the "creeping before we can go," which nearly all agricultural papers experience in their infancy, and which is well illustrated by the fact that for several of its first years the weekly circu- lation of the New England Farmer was short of five hundred copies, we have sympathized with the publishers of these new papers at the South. Some of them, it is true, appear to have started off at once in the full vigor and strength of manhood, while others have had a longer "day of small things." The latter we judge has been the expe- rience of the Southern Ruralist, which has shown a wonderful tenacity for life, and after many changes and migrations, now appears, together with the Gulf States, as The South Land, pub- lished at New Orleans, weekly at $i, and monthly at $2 per year; D. Redmond, Editor; "The South-Land Company" publishers. The following extract from the salutatory of the Sotith Land will indicate better than any words of ours the ability and spirit of our new contempo- rary. After a brief review of the past history of the South, the editor says : — In the Southern culture to which we advert, the distinguishing and deci-sive factors were the planter, the political leader, the forensic orator, the punctilious cavalier. These would have done well enough in co-operation with other elements ; but by themselves they proved wofully inadequate to fill the circle of a consummate development. In those days, the artist or the artizan, of Southern origin and education, was rare to such a degree as to be phenomenal. In those days, the applied sci- ences, outside of what are called the learned pro- fessions, could boast of few Southerners among their votaries. In those days, literature was scarcely known in the South, except as an el- egant pastime. In those days, the press of the South was for the most part rather an incident in the plans of politicians, than a political power in itself; and the rising politician was supposed to have his editor, as the knight of old was supposed have his esquire. Few Southern papers could then afl^ord to be independent, because few were then self-sustaining. Had literature taken a firmer root there, had the press been a more powerful and fruitful institution there, had industry been more diversified there, had culture been more comprehensive and manifold there, it is not con- ceivable that, for the South of ten years ago, such a catastrophe, as actually befel her in the inter- vening period, could have impended. But we feel persuaded that in respect to all the requisites of a complete and symmetrical develop- ment the South is to grow hereafter as she never grew before. Nothing less than the assurance that the future of the South is to be widely different from her past, and infinitely more satisfying than her present, could have prompted, or would have justified, the enterprise to which the founders of this publication have deliberately and unreservedly committed themselves. THE KAFE PLANT. In Fond du Lac and Calumet counties, Wiscon- sin, some of the German farmers have introduced the rultiv.:tion of this oil-producing plant, so gen- erally cultivated in Europe. The quantity mar- keted at Fond du Lac in 1869 was 4000 bushels, and in 1866 over 20,000 bushels. About two gal- lons of oil are made from a bushel of seed. The Prairie Farmer says, the average yield of rape seed by good farmers has been from ten to eighteen bushels per acre; though some have raised as high as thirty-five bushels. The price for a series of years has ranged from $2 to $2.50 per bushel. So far from impoverishing the soil, it is found that the ground, the year after a crop of rape is taken off, will yield from five to eight bushels more of wheat than it will if any other grain has been sown. The soil is also in excellent condition for almost any other crop. The chaff is relished by cattle, and when it is mixed with roots it makes an excellent food. The straw may be used for bedding pur- poses. The rape seed cake — the portion that re- mains after the oil is expressed — is a most valua- ble food for cattle. As a food for dairy cows it has long been celebrated in Europe. The ground cake has sold this year at from $16 to $20 per ton. How TO Kill Lice on Cattle. — A coi^ respondent, "R. N," of the Country Gentle- man, "dissolved about a pint of strong soft soap in a pail of warm, soft water, and satu- rated the whole surface of a lousy cow's body with it ; after about thirty minutes, repeated the operation, and in thirty minutes longer took a pail of clean warm water and quickly and thoroughly washed out all the soap water and dead lice in large quantities, put her in a warm stable and covered her with a dry blan- ket. The next day, after being thoroughly dried, she looked, and seemed to feel, like a new animal ; more than doubled her quantity of milk within twenty-four hours and immedi- ately commenced gaining flesh and general thriftiness. 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARAfRT?. 279 MUiK, BUTTEB, CHE£SS. 8 the season for dairy operations is at hand, we gather up and give below some of the most im- portant facts stated during the late winter meetings. Some of them will tend to encour- '^^"^ age these oper- ations, while others may afford valuable suggestions. According to Mr. Willard, of Herkimer County, N. Y., Amer- ican dairying now in- volves a capital of more than $700,000,000. The cheese product sold last year for more than $30,000,000, and the butter product for at least $150,000,000 ! In 1865, the butter product of New York alone was estimated at $60,000,000. That year there were thirty millions of gallons of milk sold in the State, which, at four cents per quart, amounts to nearly $5,000,000. The cheese product of 1869, 240,000,000 pounds, and the butter, 700,000,000 pounds, both to- gether, representing a value of $215,000,000. These totals will be greatly increased, when one-half of the butter made is fit to eat, and our people have learned that cheese is a cheap and healthful article of diet ; cheaper than meat, and decidedly better as food in warm weather. The American system of butter-making, the same writer states, is based upon five main principles : — 1. Obtaining rich, pure milk. 2. Setting the milk aside for the cream to rise. 3. Proper management in churning. 4. Expelling the buttermilk. 5. Thoroughly salting and packing the but- ter in oaken tubs, tight and clean. What really distinguishes the American sys- tem is in the manner of setting the milk so as to secure an even temperature. A successful Pennsylvania dairyman gave as | the rules by which he manufactured his well- known butter, these three : — 1. Attention to the food of his cows. 2. The temperature. 3. Neatness and refinement at every step of the process. The remarks of Dr. Middleton Gold- smith, at the Dairymen's Association at St. Albans, in January last, evinced much re- search, and abounded with valuable statements and suggestions. He regarded the cow as a factor, a mere machine, whose proper func- tion is to convert food into butter and cheese, and in her perfect development she is adapted to one and not to both. Cows differ. Some are butter cows, some cheese. Which ever product the farmer desires to make, he should inquire carefully and scientifically which breed [or, which cow of any breed — Ed.] is best adapted to the purpose. Other things being equal, cattle consume food in exact proportion to their live weight. He detailed a method of testing the product of cows by a glass tube which, we believe, is a common practice in New England. These tubes may be procured in Boston for a few cents each. Having decided what breeds are the best for certain purposes, the next vital question is that of food. The real question is not the nutritive value of the different kinds, but the money value of the product. This, however, is com- plicated with varying values in different local- ities and with climate. He believed the ques- tion of Feeding Boots, the most vital at the present time in the State of Vermont, and in settling it the cost of pro- duction and their market value should be con- sidered. He would have it tested practically, by feeding hay alone for a time and then hay and roots conjointly, carefully testing the product of each experiment. The next question of importance is, How to Preserve Butter. It can be preserved. There is no doubt of this. In 1839, the Doctor said he ate good butter in Canton, China, that was made in Ire- land two year's before. Hassal says that the best butter has three per cent, of curd, and bad butter much more, and that rancidity is owing to changes in the curd. The leading point in the Doctor's remarks 280 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. JUXE were, that the Association they were then in- augurating should investigate these questions and disseminate their knowledge, and it must secure the means of indemnifjing able com- mittees who make the investigations. "We have," he said, "no great institutions as they have in France and Germany, where they can be tested at public expense. * * * What- ever its intent, the Agricultural College grant has done little or no good to agriculture, and he questioned if it ever will till it passes from the control of literature into the hands of far- mers." An address was made by the Hon. Thomas G. Alfred, of Syracuse, N. Y., upon "Salt and its uses in the Dairy,'''' and an interesting discussion was held upon "Breeding of Dairy Stock:' The whole proceedings of the Convention should be published in pamphlet form, and made available to all. Dissolving Bones without Vitriol. — The value of bones for manurial purposes is well un- derstood by farmers ; but mills for grinding them are expensive, and vitriol for dissolving them is dangerous stuff to handle, as well as expensive also. C. T. Alvord, Esq., of "Wilmington, Vt., announces, in the Rural American a. discovery that may be valuable to many farmers. He has found that a hen's gizzard is a good bone-mill, and their gastric juice a practical substitute for the burning acid. Then with a little of that patented material known as "Dry Earth," placed under the roosts, a domestic guano is produced which proves to be one of the most valuable manures that are made on the farm or that can be bought in the market. As the bones are collected they are carried to a flat stone under his shed and pounded with an old axe or hammer just fine enough for the hopper of his hen-power mill ; and this is all the time or la- bor required to secure most a valuable super- phosphate. As hens in winter are unable to ob- tain insects, worms, bugs, &c., on which they feed in summer, they eat the pounded bone greedily, and pay for it not only by the manure produced, but by an increased quantity of fresh eggs, always acceptable and always valuable during the winter months. — A correspondent of the Rural New Yorker says, a mare should not be used for breeding until five years old. Old age does not make any diflFer- ence, if the animal is sound, and of a good con- stitution. By all means use your best mares. I have a colt foaled June 2d, 1868, that was awarded three first premiums last fall. The dam is twenty- two years old, and now, at the age of twenty-four, is with foal." For the New England Farmer, POTATOES. Manure and Cost of Cultivation— Different Varieties- Facts and Theories in relation to the Kot^Pieven- tives, &o. As seed time is upon us again, I propose to give you a few notes upon the potato, taken from my farm journal. I take issue with those gentlemen who be- lieve that the Orono, as a variety, is running out. I have raised them the past ten years, and I never had better or handsomer potatoes than I harvested last fall. Their quality is not excelled by the Excelsior or Early Rose, grown on the same piece. The ground is a ridge of dry land ; no manure was used except a compost prepared as follows : — four bushels leached ashes ; one peck lime, slacked with brine as salt as salt would make it, and one peck gypsum. A handful of this mixture was put in each hill. The account stands as fol- lows, which 1 take from my farm accounts : — 1869. Potato Crop Account, 1}^ Acres, Dr, To breaking up last fall, $7 £0 May 12, to harrowing, 2 f 5 " 20, " planting, 7 75 " " " compost, estimated, .... 2 25 " " " 8 >i bushels seed, 4 25 June 14, " cultivating, 1 60 " 24, " hoeing, 3 hands 9 hours, . . 4 05 " 25, " ii 4 X 6 " . . 3 60 Oct. 6 to 18, " digging potatoes, ... 14 CO " interest on land, 8 00 Total $55 45 Profit on crop, to balance, .... 34 55 $90 00 Cp. By 200 bushels potatoes, at 45c, $90 00 It will be seen that the whole cost of culti- vation was $55.45, making the cost of the potatoes twenty-six and one-half cents per bushel. The 200 bushels include 15 bushels Early Rose, 12 of Early Goodrich, and 4 of Excelsior, which, if sold at market prices for fehese varieties, will increase the item "Profit on Crop." In keeping this account I have charged fif- teen cents per hour for labor, the same as we pay for good hands who board themselves. I doubt the practicability of the theory of bringing potatoes from the mountains of Peru, in order to obtain varieties that will be free from disease after they have been cultivated and improved so that they will be fit for human food. In my opinion it is forcing, feed, and manipulating which renders the plant so much more susceptible to disease than in the wild state. I believe the disease is caused by a species of fungus, similar to the rust plant that attacks wheat and other grains. Microscopists tell us that this fungus, when put under a powerful microscope is found to be a perfect plant, to grow and ripen seeds. These minute seeds or spores are lioating through the air, and at certain seasons and under certain circumstances attach themselves to the leaves and stalks of the plant, and use the sap that was to go to the development of 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 281 the plant itself, thereby causing it to wither and die before it had arrived at maturity. Before the circulation between the plant and tuber ceases, the disease may be transmitted from the former to the latter through the pores, or the minute seeds may be washed from the plant through the soil directly upon the tubtr, where it soon germinates, causing the tuber to turn black and decay. I am con- firmed in these views by the following obser- vations, which were noticed at the time : — The 10th of September was cloudy and misty. There was moisture enough to render the potato plant soft and flabby. Four or five hot days followed. Up to this time the tops of the Orono, Excelsior and Harrison were flourishing. The Early Rose were ripe and in the cellar. The 16th I noticed many of the leaves had turned black, and gave off a rank and disa- greeable smell. The 17th was also cloudy and misty, and cleared off warm and muggy. I soon noticed that the black leaves increased, and in some localities the plants began to die. The at- tack, however, was not very severe on my field, for the reason that I used no rank, un- fermented, nitrogenous manures to cause a vigorous growth of tops ; and this, I believe, is the whole secret. The ranker the tops, the more capable they are of receiving the rust plant, the cause of the disease. Sept. 2oth, dug twelve bushels of Oronos ; tops green, with the exception of these black leaves, and an occasional dead stalk. Not the first sign of disease was observable on the tu- bers. We selected one bushel from this lot and exhibited them at our State Fair, and they were awarded a premium. Sept. 28 had a hard frost, the first of the season of any account, which killed the vines. My time being taken up at the fair, and by the great freshet of Oct. 4, I had no oppor- tunity to dig again until the 7th. Then I found that the disease had commenced on the tubers, some of them showing black spots around the eyes. It seemed to increase up to the 18th, when I finished digging. We were very careful to throw out all that were in- fected ; yet the disease prevails to some ex- tent at the present time. In picking out some for market, a few days since, we found about one bushel in ten infected. Now, in my opinion, the potatoes that com- menced to decay after they were put into the cellar, were contaminated before the circula- tion ceased between the top and the tuber. These very minute rust seeds might have been conducted through the pores by the circula- tion of the sap, the same as the smut is con- veyed to the newly-formed grains of wheat when they grow and perfect themselves on the tender, milky substance of the new kernel ; or they might have been washed down by the heavy rains between the 4th and 13th, and after the potatoes were carried into the cellar the spores commenced growing. The only way to guard against this scourge is for farmers to be more observing, — try more experiments, by planting at different times and with different varieties, and using different fertilizers ; making a note of the re- sult, and not trust to memory, and then com- pare results with others. When a variety is found that is hardy and of good quality, pro- cure it. When a method of manuring, seed- ing and cultivating is found that gives better results than others, practice it. If you ap- plied 10 or 12 cords of manure to your acre last year and lost three-fourths of your crop by rot, is it not sufficient reason for yeu to adopt a different course this year ? My Early Rose were put into the cellar the last of August and the first of September. I have not seen a diseased tuber in the lot, and the quality is unexcelled. The Excelsiors rot the worst of any. The Harrisons are free, but the quality is very poor. This year I shall discard all kinds but the Early Rose and Orono. The last named is the only one we can sell here for the Boston market. S. C. Pattee. Warner, N. E., April 4, 1870. Remarks. — In connection with the publi- cation of the foregoing interesting and valua- ble article, we wish to ask our correspondent and other potato raisers if they have ever ex- perimented with lime as a destroyer of the germs of the disease which may attach to ap- parently sound tubers when put in the cellar. A statement that a sprinkling of lime on the potatoes as they are packed away will prevent subsequent rotting has been copied into many agricultural papers. For the New England Farmer, \yHAT SHALI. W^B DO WITH OUB COBN? The advocates of a larger production of corn in New Hampshire who met in mass meeting in Manchester and Concord did not tell us how to use corn. One correspondent of the Farmer says "we need a large amount of corn or some kind of grain to make beef." The foundation of our beef is milk. There is nothing better in summer than good grass to produce milk ; next to grass is corn fodder, grown purposely for food. No corn meal is needed. It cannot be fed profitably, even at seventy-two cents per bushel, with grass or green corn, plenty, when milk alone is the ob- For milk in winter, there is nothing better or cheaper than early cut and well cured grass. We have a cow seven years old, which dropped her calf Jan. 17. Her milk of Fri- 282 NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. June day, Jan. 28, with that of Saturday and Sun- day morning weighed seventy pounds, and yielded seventy-seven ounces of pure butter, free from buttermilk or salt. She ate noth- ing but early cut hay ; no grain of any kind or roots. Another week the same cow averaged thirty-three pounds of milk per day ; the in- crease was caused by the addition of a quan- tity of grain. We may be sure of a rich and abundant flow of milk both in summer and winter without grain. With plenty of milk we can keep our calves through the first winter in a thrifty con- dition. After that, good pastures in summer and good hay in winter will produce beef with- out grain. Col. Clough, the king of corn growers in Merrimac County, remarked at the meeting in Concord that his principal income was from beef sold from his pastures. Grain is not needed for the production of such beef. It was said that 1,500,000 bushels of corn were produced in New Hampshire, and that we purchased 1,000,000 bushels more. What is done with the corn purchased ? More than 700,000 tons of hay are annually produced in New Hampshire. It will require more than 1,000,000 bushels of corn to make up the loss on the hay crop, occasioned by cutting late, and improperly curing it. But at that meet- ing not one word was said of the loss the State sustained in its hay crop, through ignorance and carelessness ; while much eloquence was wasted in urging the production of more corn, to the exhausting of our fields — for it is an exhaustive crop, — to supply the want of hay. To me this seemed like an effort to save at the spigot while wasting at the bung. We can buy corn at the West at prices which wi-11 pay to make it into beef and pork here, to be sold in competition with beef and pork from that section. What argument, then, can be brought against buying corn ? Well fattened Eastern pork will sell for more money than the same pounds of Western pork. While the Western farmers are pushing their corn and wheat through our ports to find a European market, why should we not stop as much of it as possible upon our State hills to enrich them, so that when the time comes, seen by your correspondent, at no distant day, we may be better able to produce the corn the West will refuse to sell us, or railroads refuse to trans- port at living rates ? "Where neat stock is kept, the advantage of having the fodder ought to decide in favor of raising our own corn." We would urge all Eastern farmers to raise corn for fodder. We believe an acre of corn grown for fodder alone, to be worth as much to feed to stock, if cut and cured at the proper time, as the product of the same acre in ripened corn, though produced, as the former may be, with much less labor, and at a season that will not interfere with haying, and with the advantage in the former crop of immediately preceding grass, the most profitable of all our crops. We would never sell hay to purchase with the proceeds corn as a substitute. The farmer ■'ihould make and sell flesh, rather than sell the flesh-forming products of his farm. At the meeting in Concord corn was valued at $1.50 per bushel, and that by farmers who consumed the corn they raised. It was at these figures that they found their profits to be 100 per cent. At the same time corn could be purchased for $1.25 per bushel. If there was a profit of twenty-five cents per bushel in f^^eding, the State might have gained $250,000 by purchasing 1,000,000 bushels, as it did last year. The purchasing of (hat corn need not in any way interfere with raising all we otherwise could. F. Mast Yard, N. 11. , April, 1870. J'Vr the New England Farmer, LETTER FROM VERMONT. Dairying— Cheese, how to Cut and Keep; Price and Scarcity — Oats — Arnautka Wheat — Barl' y — Preserv- ed Fruits— Crab Apples — Apple Orchards — Black Na- ples Currant— Apple Tree Nurseries. While attending a meeting of the Glover, Vt., Farmers' Club, and assisting in the dis- cussion of Dairying, I had the pleasure of tasting a piece of the che«se that drew the first premium at our fair in 1869. The pro- cess of making, as furnished by Mrs. Brew- ster, was published a few weeks ago. I send you a piece. Although it is about twenty-one months' old, it is free from mould. It was cut in October by its owner, Benjamin Han- cock, of Glover. When a slice is taken out, the cut surface of the remainder of the cheese is spread over with butter, and a piece of paper stuck on to keep out the air. The cheese is covered to protect it from air and cold weather. Where a whole cheese, of fifty pounds weight, is bought by a small family, some such device is necessary to prevent mould and drying. Cheese retails here at 23 cents per pound. There is little in our mar- ket now, and sometimes there is none. Cereal Grains. I send you some packages of grain raised from seed received from the Department of Agriculture, and also of the Norway oats — Ramsdell's. The Somerset oats are a very early variety of English oats. I sowed them May 5, head- ed out July 15, ripened August 5-; straw, large and stiff; yield fair, but sowed only one quart. White Schonen Oats, from Germany ; sowed two quarts; yielded over two bushels; ri- pened August 15 ; grain plump ; several stalks from one seed ; a promising grain. Black Swedish Oats, ripened late, — Sep- tember 12 ; good thrifty grain, but too late ; with a beard on most every kernel. They are quite different from Norway oats in style of growth, and other respects. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 283 Norway Oats. The package I send you is of a second crop from seed obtained of D. W. Ramsdell. In the spring of 1868, five bushels of seed were bought and divided in this neigh- borhood. The best yield was from one bushel sown by S. B. Brewster, whose crop was fifty bushels. These were mostly sold at from $2.50 to $3 00 per bushel. Jn 1869 the yield was good, but not as high as 100 bushels per acre in more than one instance. Several men had each from 200 to 300 bushels. These were sold to Ramsdell & Co. for one dollar per bushel. One or two carloads have been shipped from this county during the past winter, but most of the lots in this town have not yet been called for, and are held with some uneasiness by the farmers who are anx- ious for their money. Some lots can be bought at a trifling discount. In most cases these oats have fulfilled the reasonable expec- tations of the growers, in heavy growth, free- dom from lodging, and good yield of grain, weighing from thirty to thirty-seven pounds to the measured bushel. Arnautka Spring Wheat, is a heavily bearded variety, with short, plump heads ; the grain is light colored and very flinty. I raised nearly three bushels, and have sold three pecks at $1.00 a peck. I have had no experience with the flour from this wheat, but some fears are expressed that the bran will break so fine as to mingle with and darken the flour. The Saxonian Barley, a two-rowed variety from Hamburg, is very productive. I have about two and a half bushels. Sowed three packages of seed. Preserved Crab Apples. I send specimens of preserved fruits put up last fall. The crab apples are of the "Queen's Choice" variety. They are not as large as some others. My fruit is about one and a half inches in diameter ; large enough to pare for pies or to eat — for which purposes they are very good. We like them best preserved. Make a syrup of sugar and water, one-half pound sugar to a pound of fruit, and boil the fruit in this syrup about ten minutes. Some American Fruit Preserving Powder was also used. The apples retain their shape and are considered very palatable. The crab apple has been sold all through the northern part of Vermont, of many varieties, — some larger and some smaller than those I raise. They are also recommended for cider. The trees bear every year, and are very ornamental as well as useful. The Black Naples Currant. While growing, these currants have an un- pleasant muskiness that excites at first a pre- judice against them. We make a preserve with one pound of sugar to one pound of fruit, cooked together. This preserve has a peculiar richness of flavor that commends it- self to the taste as one becomes accustomed to it. As most of the apple orchards of native trees died out a few years ago, and common apples that used to sell at twenty-five cents per bushel, are now sold at one dollar or more, the farmers very generally look to other sections of the country for their fruit. But more recently a nursery has been grow- ing up in our midst, where, by careful expe- riments, the hardy sorts of fruit are tested and selected for propagation and sale, and the prospect is that Northern Vermont will raise enough apples for home consumption, and a pains-taking man may have a pear tree or grape vine, yielding its regular crop. Irashurg, Vt., April, 1870. z. e. j. Remarks. — Our attentive correspondent will accept thanks for his many favors. MAKING SOAP. Every farmer's wife is proud of a good bar- rel of soap, but some are so unfortunate as to seldom get one. They try hard enough, but the ashes are sometimes poor, or the right proportions of lye and grease are not used ; at other times the soap appears to be good when put up, but changes entirely after stand- ing a few days. The last trouble usually arises from getting the soap too strong and diluting with water. If very strong, it will be thin and dark, and by adding cold water and thoroughly stirring, the color is changed many shades lighter, and the mass thickened, giving it the appearance of a number one article, when in reality it is very poor. Hickory ashes are the best for soap making, but those from sound beech, maple, or almost any kind of hard wood, save oak, will answer well. A common barrel set upon an inclined platform, makes a very good leach, but I much prefer one made of boards set in^ trough in V shape, for the strength of the ashes is better obtained, and it may be taken to pieces when not in use, and laid up. First, in the bottom of the leach put a few sticks ; over these spread a piece of carpet or woolen cloth, which is much better than straw ; put on a few inches of ashes, and from four to eight quarts of lime; fill with ashes, moist- ened, and tamp down well— tamp the firmest in the centre. It is diflicult to obtain the full strength of ashes in a barrel without removing them after a day's leaching, and mixing them up and replacing. The top should be firist thrown off, and new ashes added to make up the proper quantity. Use boiling water for second leaching. Take about four gallons of lye, and boil up thoroughly with this twelve pounds of clear grease, then add the lye as it is obtained, keeping a slow fire and stirring often, until you have a barrel of soap. Afcer boiling the grease and four gallons of lye together, it may be put in a barrel and the lye added there, which will form good soap if frequently 284 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. JXJNE stirred, but the heating process is the best •when weather and time will permit the work to be done. — Ohio Farmer. $100 IN" PBEMIUMS FOB INDIAN CORN. Fully convinced that this vastly valuable crop can be greatly increased by the judicious selection of seed, the subscriber offers pre- miums for corn grown in New Hampshire in A. D., 1870, as follows:— For the best ICO ears of eight-rowed Corn . , . ^35 CO «< 2d " " " "... 15 00 For the best ICO ears of more than eight rowed Corn , 35 00 For the second best 100 ears of more than eight- rowed Corn 15 00 Same number of twin or triple ears upon the stalks, received same as above. The traces must be secured by cords upon boards or otherwise, so as not to break, and reach the subscriber at City Hall, Manchester, by noon of the last Tuesday of December next, at -which time and place the awards will be made. Size, beauty and quality, both of the ears and grain, to be considered in awarding the prizes. Each 100 ears must be grown upon one farm, and upon plots of not less than one acre. The four premium traces to be retained by subscriber for distribution. Method of cultivation must be furnished in writing, or made verbally at time so it may be written. New Hampshire's best farmers believe that more tbau two hundred thousand dollars a year of the money now sent out of the State for corn, could be saved by a judicious selec- tion of seed corn. Farmers, freely giving you my time and money, I earnestly pray you to make an ex- hibition that shall honor yourself and the State. The committee are to have no means of knowing the owners of the corn until after the awards are made. The Committee are as follows : Levi Bartlett, Charh's H. Hayes, James O. Adam^, VVm. H. Gihnore, Gen. A. Hoyt, Gen. Ezra Glidden, C. N. Healey, D. M. Ciough, T. E. Hatch, M. D., Hon. Charles Jones, Parker W. Home, Rei Hills, W. D. Locke, rhomas Lane. Vacancies filled by the subscriber. Corn now on hand given away for seed. J. D. Lyman. Exeter, N. H., March, 1870. BEE NOTES FOR APRIL. This is a very important month with the bees, indeed it may be said that the month of April decides the prosperity of most stocks. Bees need and should have considerable care during this month. Strong colonies have been breeding more or less for the past three months, but now they commence in earnest and the last of this month should find them very pop- ulous, and drones ought to appear in good stocks by the first of May. Fmely ground unbolted rye flour fed to them now is very important, so much so that no good bee-keeper can afford to have his bees without it. Spread it about an inch deep in shallow troughs, and put it about a rod from the hives. On all warm days they will not be slow in convincing us that they fully appreciate the favor we have conferred upon them. This answers the pur- pose of fresh pollen (bee bread,) and is eagerly appropriated until the real article can be obtained from flowers. This feed stimu- lates early and extensive breeding, and also helps to lengthen out the supply of honey until flowers appear, so that no swarm dies for want of a few pounds more honey. It would be a shame for them to come to grief now, when they are so near through. I have no doubt that a judicious feeding of about three-fourths of a pound of honey per day during this month and next, to even heavy stocks would be amply paid for in large early swarms and surplus honey during the season. But this would require some care not to excite robbing, and must not be omitted a single day. The larvae of the bee moth should be looked after as the season advances. In the morn- ing there are usually more or less found on the bottom board stiff with cold, but if not destroyed will find their way up among the combs again during the day. If hives have not been properly ventilated, or from any cause, some combs are mouldy, cut them out now, for they are worse than nothing in the hive. All upward ventilation should be shut off now, if it has not been done before. — G. W. P. Jerrard, in Maine Farmer. Surface or Mulch Manuring. — For the reason that Nature applies her fertilizers upon the surface and does not plough them under, it is about time that agriculturists should con- sider whether they or Nature are right when they differ so radically in their practice. Does Dame Nature make a mistake when she sets out to enrich a continent, by spread- ing dead leaves, and twigs, and trunks, and grasses, and weeds over the whole surface for years and years and thousands of years. Does Nature mistake when she interposes a leaf before the beating rain drops, and saves the earth from being pounded into the semblance of a brick — keeps the soil light and porous that the air carrying its ammonia and its carbonic acid may penetrate to the waiting roots below .f* Is she going wrong when she lays a mat of decaying humus over the soil, and only allows the searching June sun to get to the earth as a gentle heat, inca- pable of drying up the moisture held there by the mulch ? Or are we wrong when we hide away our fertilizers at the bottom of a furrow, and leave the surface bleak and bare, to be beaten down with the rain, and baked with the sun, and in that condition to refuse the good gifts which the air is willing to jield up to a moist and porous soil ? — S. H. McAfee, in Western Farmer. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEJIER. 285 [Entered according to Act of Congress, in t]ie year 1870, by R. P. Eaton & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District ot Massacliusetts.] RURAL ARCHITECTURE. BT GEO. E. HABXEY, Cold Spring, y. T. DESIGNED AKD E:N"GRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR TKE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. No. 3.— AN BCONOMICAIi VILLAGE HOUSE. This design was prepared for execution near Boston, and comprises an amount of accom- modation very often required in New England villages, besides being well adapted by its shape for a narrow village or suburban lot. We will suppose the lot to be sixty feet in width, (which is an ordinary frontage,) by a hundred or more in depth, and so located that the front veranda and entrance door will face towards the south. This will allow the house to be placed quite near the north line, or within, say, eight feet of it, and along the south side will be a foot path and grass, or a drive-way, as the owner may fancy, — there being about twenty-four feet left between the house and the south line of the lot. The house is placed upon a banking, so that the main floor is about five feet above the grade, and, approached by a number of steps, is the veranda, which shields the front entrance. The veranda is nine feet wide. The arrangement of the plan is as follows : B is an entry, five by seven and a half feet, and C a passage four and a half feet wide, connecting it with the staircase, which, as there is but one, is placed somewhat away from the front door, both for greater privacy and greater convenience. The stairs are three feet wide and continue up to the attic. E, the parlor, is a pleasant room, fifteen by seven- teen feet, to which it is proposed at some future time to add a bay window, projecting it from the front, where the mullioned win- dow now is. F is the library, nine by thirteen feet. It has a bay window, opening from the north side and is intended to be fitted up with 286 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. June dwarf book-cases about four and a half feet high on two of the other sides. G is the din- ing room, on the south side, measuring thir- Ground Plan. teen by fifteen feet, and having an outlook along the veranda to the street in front. H is a passage connecting the kitchen with the dining room. It has fitted up in it cupboards for china, as shown on the plan, and from it are reached the stairs to the cellar. K is a good-sized store room fitted up in the usual manner, and M is the kitchen, twelve by thir- teen and a half feet. There is a door open- ing from it on the south side, communicating with the yard. In the second story are four chambers, cor- responding in size with the rooms below, ex- cept that spaces are taken off for closets. There is also a bath room in the kitchen wing. The attic has one room and a large space for storing. The cellar extends under the whole house, and has outside doors under the back stoop. The principal stories are nine feet high in the clear. The house is designed to be built of frame, covered with hemlock boards and clapboarded, — the roof to be shingled. The eaves project two feet and the external finish is simple, but bold. All the windows have outside blinds, except those in the cellar. The inside finish is simple, in keeping with the general charac- ter of the house. Chamber Flan. Cost. — This house was estimated upon in March, by a competent builder, for actual construction, and his figures were $2800 for completing the building ready for occupancy, including cistern and cesspool, but not includ- ing furnace, plmnbing, or the grading of the banking. The Daisy. — Good words have been spoken for the Canada thistle, twitch-grass, and most other farm pests, by benevolent-minded agricultural writers, and now in Mr. Warren Ferris, of Otsego County, N. Y., the poor despised Daisy — known also as white weed, white daisy, ox-eye, &c., — finds an enthusiastic advocate. In an article in a late number of the Country Gentleman, he offers to gamble on the superiority of the daisy over clover for enriching and improving land. He proposes that two acres of dry, worn-out land be taken for a test. On one acre a peck of daisy seed, and on the other a peck of clover seed, shall be sown, both without fertilizers; turn them both under when in full blossom, and sow both acres to any crop that may be chosen. Fifty dollars that the yield on the daisy land beats that on the clover land. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 287 MK. ^WARE'S ADDRESS, In our recent acknowledgment of the receipt of a copy of the transactions of the Essex County, Mass., Agricultural Society, we gave an extract from the address by Benj. P. Ware, Esq., a practi- cal farmer, and we give below a few other extracts, regretting that we have not space for the whole address. ProKress in Farming. "Within my remembrance, it was indeed a labo- rious task for a man to conduct the business of a farm successfully. He was expected to turn the double swath in the mowing field, to lead the hired men as they were desired to follow, to pitch on the hay, to hoe the hardest row — in short to bear the brunt of the work. Great physical strength, and endurance, as well as good judgment, were indis- pensable. But now what a change ! To lead the labor of the farm does not require great strength and power of muscle, but brains are called into requisition, and skill in the management of ma- chinery. He can overlook and direct those less skilled than himself, while riding around the fields on some of his machines." By the use of machinery, some of which is sim- ple aad can be made by the farmer himself, he thinks all the root cropii can be grown with about one-halt the labor formerly required. He says, that the changing of an inferior variety of apples or pears for a superior one, is now so simplified by the use of a liquid grafting-wax applied with a brush, that no one need be without the best fruit who has healthy trees. But here is the difficulty. Who has healthy trees ? Potatoes and other Root Crops. "The neighboring State of Vermont, has made such vast strides in the improvement of the potato as to cause those who have lived through the mo- rus mulucaulus, Rohan potato and heu fevers, to stand aghast, waiting for the excitement to abate, to see )f Breeze's No. 4 is really two hours ealier than the Early Rose ! But all may be assured that great improvement has really been made in the potato. And yet there -are persons among that numerous class who, because they lived upon a farm until seventeen years of age — and so, for- sooth, 'know all about farming' — are asking what improvement has been made in agriculture ? Whoever heard, until within a few years of seventy-four tons of mangel-wurzel being grown upon one acre of land ; of thirty-six tO'is of car- rots, or 900 bushels of onions per acre ? Such crops as these are facts that can be proved." If it be true, then, as some French and German chemists estimate, that 250 lbs. of beet roots equal 100 lbs. of hay, "according to this estimate the above crop of mangolds would equal in value nearly thirty tons of hay ; or, supposing the chem- ist's estimate to be only half right, the root crop would then equal fifteen tons of hay per acre !" Mr. Ware states that it has been ascertained by actual experiment, that breeding swine can be kept upon raw mangolds alone from October to May, in good, thrifty condition. Can any one do-.ibt, he adds, with such facts, the great advantage of grow- ing this and other root crops ? Ayrshire Cows. He thinks Ayrshire stock has proved the best adapted to our pastures, and, for milking qualities, heads the list. Curculio— Fruit. In speaking of the failure of the apple crop, he says : — "By the use of printer's ink and tarred paper, from Nov. 1, to April 1, at a cost of from five to eight cents per tree, our orchards can be protected from the canker worm ; and may again be blessed with abundant crops of that beautiful, delicious, and health-giving fruit. My own experience is that no part of my farm yields greater income for the labor expended than the orchard. If the crop is small, the price is usually large." We wish this were so over broader regions. The wood upon thousands of apple trees in New England increases each year, the trees blossom abundantly, and plenty of apples are formed, and yet little or no crop succeeds. If the cause of barrenness was the drought of four or five years ago, would the trees grow, and bud, and blossom, and set their fruit ? We think not. There is some cause acting upon the trees, as in the case of the button-woods, which we have not yet ascertained, and, perhaps, never shall. "Yet," we say with Mr. Ware, "let us [if we can] take heart, continue to cultivate the apple as a source of profit, of health to our families, and of growth to our social natures." We believe in a good ex- ercise of faith in all things. We should be glad to transfer the whole of this admirable address to our columns. Its opinions have been formed on the farm, amidst its multifa- rious duties, in rearing stock, preparing soils, and cultivating them with various crops of roots and fruits as well as grass and grain ; in the use of nearly all the improved machinery and implements best adapted to avert human labor, and, more than all, in what will help the race to become upright, intelligent and industrious people. One or two extracts more will be all we can find room for at present. Does Farming Pay? "Yet, after all, does farming in Essex county pay ?****! need only to refer to the re- turns of the income tax to find instances where men by farming alone, have in this county re- turned annual incomes amounting to from $3,000 to Jfifo.OOO, — enough to buy a good farm, with fair buildings. I could name an Essex County farm, of fifty aci-es, valued at $'10,000, the gross products of which were enough in one year to pay for it. It was an unusual occurrence, but such was the fact for that year. * * * * 1 know of no kind of good farming that does not pay well, while no kind of poor farming will yield more than a poi.r living, — nor should it. Of course, any man wliois a man, and cares for the comfort and happiness of his family, will see that abundance of vegetables, fruits, small and large, milk, eggs, and poultry are grown upon the farm for family use." Pleasant and encouraging remarks were made at the dinner by Hon. M. P. Wilder, delegate from the State Board, by John Keeley, Esq., in relation to the decease of Hon. James H. Duncan of Ha- verhill, and by George Foster, on the death of Jo- nas Holt. 288 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. June hokticuIiTUKa.Ij schooi, for WOMEN. A few weeks since we published the names of the officers of an association of ladies and gentle- man of this city and vicinity, of ample means and liberal minds, designed to test the experiment of a horticultural school for women. The originators believe that certain branches of horticulture, such as flowers and small fruits, offer a healthful, appropriate and paying business for women, many of whom now complain of a want of honorable, remunerative employment in the various industries open to the other sex. But horticulture is a trade or an art that can be acquired only as other trades and arts are acquired. This association is now ready to afford the instruction and the opportunity for practice necessary to enable women to become practical horticulturists. Thus far, however, it is only a proposed experiment. As it requires two to make a bargain, the questions now arise, Do women wish to learn the art of raising flowers, strawber- ries, currants, &c., as a business ? If any, how many will become pupils in the proposed school ? Hence the advertisement which we recently published, soliciting correspondence with those women, either young or old, who are interested in the proposed school. The advertisement was pub- lished in our paper that the attention of farmers' daughters, especially those living near a good mar- ket, may be called to the subject. With the in- struction that might be obtained in a short time at the proposed school, it is thought that many such "daughters" might return home, and, with the aid of the other members of the family, introduce upon the old homestead a new employment, a new source of income, and a new adornment of the country home. For the New England Farmer, ATMOSPHERIC MOISTURE. Its Causes and Effects as Regards the Farm. Read before the Concord Farmers' Club, February 3d, 1870, by Frederick G. Pratt. The changes in moisture on the surface of the earth are probably caused by movements of the air in various ways, over which we have or can have but little control ; and any facts I can find that bear on this subject, only prove how little we know, or can do, towards controlling these agents. Thus we know that clouds are the result of vapor in the air, coming together in larger particles, so as to be sensible to the sight. These, growing larger, drop in the form of rain, hail or snow, according to the tempera- ture of the air ; or, conditions being differ- ent, these clouds become dispersed, the par- ticles of moisture being separated, — the same amount of moisture in the air, perhaps, but more finely comminuted. Now is there any way in which we can control this moisture in any degree ? I think there is. Look at this. In the monthly report of the Department of Agriculture, for December, 1869, in sum- ming up the reports from the various parts of the country, in regard to the extensive drought prevailing the past season, are to be found these words : "A fair summary of repoits from the entire dis- trict affected by drought would be : Fields badly tilled, overrun with weeds, or with a thin sandy soil, or a heavy clay not ameliorated by culture, — were scorched and partially or wholly laid waste ; while deep soils of river bottoms, rich slopes of virgin soij, and fields kept clean of weeds, and frequently cultivated, gave satisfactory and even large returns." There is one way to keep up the moisture in the soil. Keep the soil constantly loose and light with frequent cultivating. I think most of the farmers in this club have seen its value in our corn crop in times of drought. It comes from allowing the air to permeate the soil. Again, in the October report of the Depart- ment of Agriculture, I find these true words : "The great agricultural lesson of the season in- culcates the necessity of draining and thorough culture. It is not an exaggeration to estimate the reduction this season over the whole country, from the alternate drowning and scorching of the farm crops, at two hundred million of dollars. Reports from drought-parched regions declare that crops are in fair condition on land well worked, and that the effect of the heat was aggra- vated by want of cultivation as dry weather set in. That on drained soils, properly cultivated, fine crops were obtained; while on wet or un- drained lands, and fields neglected or half culti- vated a failure was imminent. The crop returns of Great Britain (where the early season was sim- ilar to ours) enforce the same lesson, though a far smaller proportion of British lands are not under- drained or poorly cultivated." At the West, in Colorado territory, I find several authorities which prove that the rain- fall is steadily increasing there. One says : — "That the rain fall has doubled there since 1860, and the dry, and formerly arid, sterile plain be- tween South Platte and the mountains west, which enclosed an extent of country averaging twenty miles wide by 100 long, cut crosswise by valleys, has been irrigated Dy ditches, and the high prairies have been farmed with the best re- sults. This cultivation, by increasing the growth of grasses, weeds and bushes, has also created greater evaporation and moisture in our atmos- phere, which returns to us when our east winds blow in summer, in most valuable fertilizing showers. This year, 1869, no irrigation has been needed until late in the month, when most of the wheat, oats, rye and barley were so far advanced that irrigation would not benefit them. It is a matter ot universal remark here among old set- tlers, that high prairies, miles away from streams, can this year be mowed with profit fur hay, where a year ago, grazing in July and Augast was only indifferent, the soil bare in many places, and parched, or covered with worthless cactus or prickly pear." This shows what a change comes over the land where the soil is worked, and a chance is given by grass and other plants to absorb moisture, and retain it, to give it out again more regularly the season through. So in Egypt, the Great Desert is being brought 1S70. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 289 under cultivation by the same means. Once start the plants by irrigation, and moistur ■ seems to increase, we hardly know how, till land that never saw a shower, begins to feel the grateful rain ; and the once sand, blossoms like a rose. The initial proceedings there were done by the Viceroy of Egypt, by means of Artesian wells, and once the water runs, grass and trees start up, rains fall, and plants grow with all tropical vigor. All through Colorado and New Mexico are evidences of this increase of moisture visible. Strange theories are advanced in regard to it. The natives, Mexican and Indian, say the Yankee brings rain with him ; and there seems some truth in it. Thus at Denver, the town was first built on what was then supposed to be the dry bed of Cherry creek, as natives did not remember of water running there. A tremendous flood washed the town, and now bridges span the bed, and water occasionally runs, though not always, as ditches above, for the gold fields use it all before it reaches Denver, except in times of rain. Many creeks in this vicinity, formerly dry the most of the year, now run constantly, and even new creeks have been formed in some instances. Ditches for irrigation, in some cases, have been al- lowed to go to decay, the increased moisture rendering them unnecessary, and oats and corn grow luxuriantly now, where three or four years ago nothing would grow. Mr. Thomas says, in one of these reports, from which I have quoted freely : — "With these facts before them is it strange the citizens of the territories should claim that there is a gradual increase of moisture ? * * * Has the introduction of an active population into the country anything to do with this increase ? I re- lieve it-has. But I am met by the objection that the amount of population is so small, compared with the extent of country. I admit the force of the objection; yet, until the climatic condidons of the country, and the relations of population to these conditions have been more thoroughly studied, the ohjection should not be allowed to prevail. We knuw not how nearly counter-bal- anced the contending agencies of aridity and mois- ture have been. The effect of opening mines in the mountains, stripping and burning tne pine forests, making roads along the canons and over the plains, ploughing and planting the valleys, building towns, &c., &c., has not been hufficiently studied in the Rocky mountain regions to decide what number of individuals are necessary to dis- turb the climatic condition. Be this theory right or wrong, the facts showing an increase cannot be denied." The same was true of Kansas, when the land was new. There is moisture enough there now. There is another theory which has some claims to plausibility, that may upset the last one mentioned. Some writers think there is a cycle of years, say fourteen, during which time the rain fall has gradually increased the first seven years, and as gradually decreased the next seven. As it is a new theory, time only can determine its truth. For the New England Farmer, NOTES ON ILLINOIS AND ILLINOIS FARMING. Editors New^ England Farmer : — Ac- cording to promise, and by your kind permis- sion, I propose to say something under the above heading. Theoretically considered, Illinois is a vast plain, not quite horizontal, being more ele- vated at the north than at the south ; as is shown by the direction of the principal rivers within and about her borders. On a practical examination of the surface, we find it everywhere more or less undulating, in many places hilly, but never mountainous. The rivers, creeks and brooks within the State, have their origin, most generally, in the level prairies, and depend for their water upon the rains ; which, falling upon the porous, loamy soil, slowly finds its way down the im- perceptible declivities into the more regular channels. Toward the middle mouths and junctions of the streams, the more regular woodlands and forests are found, and the land is more uneven and hilly. The largest and finest forests are found in the southern part of the State, yet timber is everywhere plentiful, except that the great width of the prairies, sometimes makes distant hauling necessary. Strange as it may appear, the woodlands rise in price much slower than the prairies. This fact is contrary to the predictions of all the early settlers, and may be accounted for on the ground that na- tive timber is much less lavishly used than for- merly. Everywhere live hedges, cheap and excellent, are taking the place of all other fences. Coal is cheap and abundant, and pine lumber from the north is extensively used for building purposes. Our native forests continually reproduce themselves, and in the absence of prairie fires annually enlarge their borders. The principal forest trees are the oaks, hickories, maples, elms, ashes, poplars, black walnut, mulberry, sycamore, &c., &c. We have four distinct soils ; 1st. The pale, or mulatto loam on the prairie ridges ; usually free from gravel, but sometimes quite gravelly on the sharpest knolls. 2d. The black loam of the more level prai- ries, which is by far the most plentiful, and on the whole the most valuable suil we have It is our great corn and grass soil ; entirely free from stone and gravel, it is easily worked and naturally very fertile. 3d. The yellow clay loam of the woodland hills. This soil is fine for clover, wheat and potatoes. It is very retentive of manure, and, when once well enriched, becomes the strong- est and most productive soil thus far men- tioned. 4th. The alluvial black soil of the creek and river bottoms. This is Nature's best soil, made and manured to order. Always the first 290 NEW ENGLAND FARi\IER. June to be used by the pioneer cultivator ; and, al- ways to the latest generation producing the largest and finest crops of everything valuable. In Illinois, this soil most often occurs in small quantities together, and in very incon- venient shapes for cultivation ; and, also, be ing subject to occasional overflow, its value is quite inconsiderable. Besides the soils mentioned as being general, we have in a few localities a sandy upland soil, both prairie and woodland ; good for crops ripening early in the summer, and for pota- toes ; quick, warm and easily worked, but not good to stand drought. The subsoil is quite similar throughout the State. It is mostly a compact yellow clay, not quite impervious to water. I send you by mail a specimen of the four principal soik< mentioned, and of the subsoil taken four feet below the surface on the level prairie. Our principal Illinois crops are corn and grass. These are thrown into the market di- rectly, to a considerable amount. But a much larger portion of them is converted into pork and ftefi/" before being sold. All of our soils when new are good wheat soils, and the woodland clay soil is such at all times. Oats, barley, rye and potatoes do well generally; yet, nearly every farm is valued tor its corn and grass-producing qualities, and for its stock-raising and stock-fattening advan- tages. The farmers of Illinois get most of their regular income from corn, grass, and their natural consequents, pork and beef. All other crops and all other products are second- ary to these great staples. Horses and mules are good ; sheep do well ; wheat and the other small grains, fruits, potatoes, &c., are raised at special times and in special localities with profit. Yet, after all, it is easily seen that corn is king, grass is queen, and heef and pork are prime ministers in Illinois agriculture. In future papers I purpose brief descrip- tions of how some of our farm crops and farm products are managed. Truly yours, John Davis. Box 50, Decatur, 111., April, 1870. Remarks.— "With the foregoing Interesting , commucation we received parcels of about one ounce of each of the four varieties of Illinois soil mentioned by the writer, and also a spec- imen of the subsoil, taken four feet below the surface of the prairie. These specimens we shall be pleased to show to any who may wish to see them. we could never get the butter without from six to twelve hours persistent hard churning. I had another yielding two hundred pounds a year of the very best butter, requiring only ten to twenty minutes' churning. — David Goodall, in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Times. Importance of Good Cows. — I had a cow from wbich we could not make over fifty pounds of butter a year, and that soft and white as lard. I had another that we could ludke two hundred pounds from in the same time, and solid, high colored, nice butter ; but THB QROWIKra OF CABBAGES. George N. Prescott, an experienced gar- dener of Manchester, N. H., who has raised cabbages extensively for the last ten years, fur- nishes the following statement to the Mirror arid Farmer: My land Is a light loam, with a sandy sub- soil. When I break up a piece for cabbages, I plough from ten to twelve inches deep. I prefer to plough in the fall. In the spring, I spread six cords of barnjard manure to the acre, and thoroughly mix it with the loam with the plough and harrow. I then furrow about three inches deep, the rows three and a half feet apart, and put into the hill a half shovel- ful of night-soil, well mixed with loam. I then cover the manure with loam, half an inch deep, with the foot, and make a smooth surface to drop the seed upon, and cover half an inch deep. The next thing to be attended to is the black bug ; it will sometimes attack the plants before they are hardly out of the ground. I have used plaster, and if it is kept on it will save the plants. There has been for the last few years, a great complaint about stump-footed cabbages, and a great many causes suggested, the most common of which is the manure. In my ex- perience, it Is not the manure that causes the Btump-foof, for I have used all kinds, night- soil the most, and it is rarely that I find a stump foot cabbage on my lot; if I do meet with one, it is on some hard spot where It has been made hard by turning at the end of fur- rows. I think that stump-foot Is caused by hard, moist land, rather than by manure. Any land that can be made mellow ten Inches deep, will grow cabbages, if not too wet. In cultivating, care should be taken not to disturb the roots and leaves, as they are the sources from which the plants receive their food. I plant none but the best seeds that I can buy. For winter cabbages, I prefer the Stone Ma- son ; for early use, the Winnings ladt and im- proved Brunswick. — To make a mare own her colt, a correspondent of the Rural New Yorker directs to tie the mare up beside the barn where she cannot harm herself; put a cord around the neck of a good-sized dog ; let the cord be fifteen or twenty feet long. Let the dog be set on the colt, holding the former by the cord so that he cannot bite the colt. The colt w ill run to the mare for protection, and she will own and protect it immediately. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 291 AQRICULTUBAIi ITEMS. — A large vessel recently sailed from Boston for Cork, her entire cargo being Canada peas. — The cranberry crop at Harwich, Mass., amounted, during the past year, to 3,761 barrels, which were sold for $39,590. — The Agricultural Editor of the St. Paul Press says flax-culture proved unprofitable last year in Ramsay Co., Minn., from a variety of causes. The crop was good, but it was difficult to sell it satisfactorily. — H. Stillson of Monkton, Vt., lost thirty swarms of bees during the past winter. Others in that section also lost their bees, and it is thought this great dest ruction of the honey bee is owing to the lack of bee bread, which they did not produce last season. — The Fitch brothers of Hatfield, Mass., fattened last season, 100 head of oxen and steers, and 165 sheep ; they also raised the past season 60 acres of tobacco, and have that and about 40 tons that they have bought on hand, making in all some 90 tons. — Almost every country paper published in the northern portion of Ohio, contains accounts of numerous cheese factories being built in their re- spective localities. At the present rate of increase there will soon be a factory in every school dis- trict on cheese-making territory, not only in Ohio but in other States. — At a meeting of the New England Agricultural Society at Manchester, N. H., April 14, it was de- cided to hold the fair in that city on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th of September. Colonel M. V. B. Ed- gerly, of Manchester was chosen chief marshal, and Colonel George W. Riddle, the treasurer of the society, was appointed general superintendent. — The four famous oxen recently marketed in New York, and fed by George Ayrault, averaged 3,300 pounds live weight when killed, having lost eighty pounds each while at market. At one time the largest weighed 3500 pounds. It is said that no records can be found of heavier bullocks in England or elsewhere. — To be able to successfully check the insect scourge and eventually to destroy the more nox- ious kinds, it is necessary to understand their habits — the moth that lays the eggs, where and when to look for them, when the transformation takes place, &c., and the remedies to be applied to destroy egg, larva, pupa, or adult insect. — A remarkably severe snow-storm occurred in the south of France, on the shores of the Mediter- ranean, during the past winter. So deep was the snow, that hundreds of palm trees were crushed and flattened down by it, like plants when pressed in a herbarium. The olive, orange and lemon trees, in the same district were nearly all de- stroyed ; but the palms, though for ten or twelve days encased in ice and snow, suffered but slightly. This fact leads geologists to doubt whether fossil palms necessarily indicate, as has hitherto been believed, the former existence of warm climates in the regions in which they are found. — A committee of the Lexington, Ky., Farmers' Club have been appointed to examine a new hemp brake, the invention of a negro man, which was spoken of in high terms by some members of the association who had seen it in operation. Having read the discussion of the negro question by this club with much interest, we shall look for the re- port of the committee with some curiosity. — If any dealer in evil prognostications should happen to run short of "stock in trade" any of these pleasant spring days, perhaps his drooping spirits will be revived by the fact that it is reported by some careful observer that exactly two hun- dred and twenty-four new spots made their ap- pearance on the sun during the year 1869, and that it is predicted by some wise prophet that no corn will ripen in New England this year. — The Lowell, Mass., Journal, gives the particu- lars of the sickness of a family in that city from eating a little raw ham, which subsequent exami- nation proved to be filled with the trichina spiralis. Four of the children and the father and mother were prostrated, and for a, time were in a critical condition, but with the exception of a lad about ten years old, they are doing well. Strange to say, two children have not been sick at all. — One of the highest authorities on the subject of animal parasites is Dr. T. Sptncer Cobbold, an Englishman. In a work just published, treating of trichina, he says that not a single case of tri- chiniasis in the living human subject has been dis- covered in Great Britain or Ireland. The animals have, however, been found in the bodies of some twenty or thirty individuals who died from other causes ; and in every instance, it is thought, their presence was due to eating German pork-sausages, or other preparations of foreign meat. English swine are almost entirely, if not absolutely, free from the so-called disease. EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. DAIRY BARN. Having seen a number of plans of barns in your paper, I thought I would send you a plan of one that I think more convenient than those heretofore given in respect to putting in the crops and in the arrangement of the stables, the root cellar, &c. I notice that in all that have been published the driveway is lengthwise of the building, by which a large space is occupied, making the stable too long, and necessitating room the whole length of the floor to feed the cattle. My plan, supposes that the bam can be built on a hillside (although that is not absolutely necessary) driving in at one side. Hence one end and one side may be supported by a stone \fall the heignt of the cellar; leaving the other and outer side and end to be built of wood or brick. The barn is supposed to be built of wood, 65 feet long and 43 feet wide, with 16 feet post and a 292 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Junk steep roof. The outside to be covered with 17^ feet boards, planed and either battened or lined, and painted or not, as the builder prefers. The base- ment should be eight feet high. Root Cellar, Manure Cellar, 33 by 43 feet. 12x21 d Bay, 20x43 Calf Pen, 12x21 d d Plan of Basement. The size and arrangement of the apartments are sufficiently indicated by the Plan. The root cellar being directly under the driveway can be filled by a trap- door in the floor above. To make it safe against frost it should be built of brick or plank and tilled on the sides and overhead with one foot of sawdust or chaff. Some advise not to go to the expense of building a root cellar, as they almost always prove failures. Such has not been my ex- perience, after using one fourteen years at Essex Vt., previously to coming here, last April. I re- gard a root cellar as indispensable. Feeding Passage, 5s33 d CO d 1 o o ^ a '^ 1 d CO n C. Stable, 11x33 d B. Stable, 11x33 d Feeding Passage, 5x33 d A. Stable llx':3 First Floor. I would not have any partition between stables B and C. In stables A and B, the cattle face each each other. By building a leanto against the oarn opposite the passage by stable C, another good stable would be secured either for horses or cattle with all the convenien -es for feeding, &c. The cows stand on plank four feet and ten inches long, with a drop of live inches and an inclination of one inch. The feed manger floor is made of matched boards. The cows are separated from each other by a plank one foot wide set up in the feed manger between their heads, and are fastened by stanchions. The stable floor should be placed on very strong limbers, and be made if possible so tight that the stench of the decomposing manure shall not affect the air of tue stable. I would as soon omit to build a ventilator for the manure cel- lar as for the cow stable. Every cellar should be supplied with one,. By all means give the cows all the light you can, and govern the air of the stable by well arranged air passag:es, avoiding as much as possible drafts of cold air. Bad air and sameness of food will cause barn itch. Feed sul- phur when you do your salt, — and with other proper care, your cattle will not be troubled. Cattle never have barn itch that are kept out of doors. As the bay extends below the floor, there is dan- ger that if the hay rests against tue brick or stone walks it will become musty. This can be easily avoided by setting up some poles six inches thick, and nailing on boards or slabs, leaving a passage for the damp air to escape through the cracks above the walls. The capacity of the bay is very much increased by its extreme height from top to bot- tom, and the amount that can be stored in it is truly surprising. No difficulty will be found in storing eighty or ninety tons of h'ay. Allowing three feet for each cow you can put in thirty-three ; by building the leanto, already alluded to, eleven more can be added ; and by using the space under the barn floor, and cutting through the wall to throw the manure into the cellar, room may be found for fourteen more, making it a cheap barn in which to put fifty-eight cows Tois barn can be filled on either side to the ridge by that useful invention the horse pitchfork, and the fork can be used in taking the hay from the bay when it is too low to pitch up with case by hand. Also, the puUies may be used to haul up the roots from the cellar. My plan was copied with satis- faction by two or three of my neighbors. E. J. BUTTOLPH. Bufalo, N. r., April 17, 1870. LIME FROM GAS WOEKS. Can you inform me if gas-house lime is worth anything to put upon land ? Some are trying it upon their land about here. No one seems to know what good it will do. It can be had at the gas-house for two cents a bushel. Woonsocket, R. I., 1870. Remarks. — The refuse lime of gas-works con- sists,— according to Prof. J. F. W. Johnston, of England, — principally of a mixture of carbonate of lime with a variable quantity of gypsum and other salts of lime containing sulphur and a little coal tar. He says it may be used directly upon mossy lands, and upon stubble land in spring, when preparing for crops. In composts it has a tendency to be converted into gypsum. In moderate quantity it may be safely mixed, he says, with barnyard manure. If applied too generously, it is liable to be injurious to crops of young grain. But grass lands, though at first browned by its application, soon recover and repay the cost by yielding a greener and an earlier bite in the spring. We should advise to use it cautiously, in moderate quantity, as some- times at least, it contains properties that are fatal to vegetation. At a discussion on Manures, by the Herkimer County, N. Y. Farmers' Club, Mr. Whitman, of Little Falls, said the lime from paper mills, and the gas-lime from the gas-works can be turned to good account when properly applied. At first he did not know how to use it, and by putting on too much the plants were destroyed. He now draws the lime to the farm in the fall and winter and puts it in heaps. In the spring he spreads it from the cart as the team moves along, by giving each shovelful a sweep or flirt by which the lime is evenly spread over the field. In one season he applied about one thousand bushels of gas-lime to his meadows, and thinks it paid largely in the in- crease of the crops. A writer in the Scottish Farmer says he obtained a quantity of gas-lime one year, but applied it so 3870. NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 293 liberally as to destroy his crops wherever used. But the next season vegetation was much more vigorous where the gas-lime had been applied than elsewhere. He therefore resolved to make another trial but with more caution. Instead of applying it, as before, in the spring, he spread it thinly over the surface in the winter, and after it had re- mained there for some time ploughed it in. He speaks of it as a preventive of "finger-and-toe" or club-foot in turnips, &c. The fact, however, that there is so little demand for this article, is perhaps prima facie evidence that farmers and gardentrs do not find it a very valuable fertilizer. THE AVILT.IXMSOV WHIFFLETREE. By the contrivance shown in the above cut, the Evener and the two Whiffletrees of a double team are combined. As one tug of each horse is attached to the centre, nearly one half of the usual weight of lumber may be saved. Boys whose patience is so often tried and found want- ing by stray legs in turning their team about, will be glad to know that all this bother may be saved by the new whiffletree; and the poor horses that have suffered from galled shoulders will find relief by the wider spread given to the traces by this in- vention. STRAWBERRIES FOR MARKET. Please publish in the Farmer two or three of the best varieties of strawberries to cultivate for the market. A WET MEADOW. I have on my farm about four acres of low land that is almost worthless on account of its being so wet. There will nothing grow on it but briers and the poorest kind of grass. A sluggish stream runs through it which is full to overflowing in the win- ter and earlv part of spring, and the land for half a mile below is on about the same level with mine; but ia the summer the stream is twelve or fifteen inches below the bank, and the land is quite dry, and hard enough to drive a team over it. I want to lay this meadow down to English grass, and any information from you how to do it will be thankfully received. SEEDING LAND TO GRASS. It IS almost a universal practice with farmers in this section to sow grass seed in the spring with some kind of grain ; there are but few who sow grass seed in the fall, and none that sow it alone in the spring. When asked why they sow grain with grass seed they say that the grain protects the young, tender grass from the scorching suns, and we get a crop of grain, whereas we should get nothing if we sowed to grass seed alone. I thought so once myself; but on examining my fields when the grain was two or three feet high, I found that wtiere tlie grain was thin, or on spots where there was no grain, the grass was the most luxuriant. This led me to try the following experiment : — The 14th of last May I sowed a half acre of low land to herds grass, clover and redtop ; in a few days the seed came up and grew equal to any of my meadows that had been in grass for years. The 4th of August I mowed it, it then being in bloom. I did not weigh it, but judged there was a ton and a quarter on the half acre, and the best hay that I put in my barn last year, I should judge by the way the cattle ate it. This experiment has con- vinced me that the spring is the best time to sow grass seed and sow it without anv kind of grain. Long Plain, Mass., April 6, 1870. E. L. Remarks. — For information about strawberries, read the article on "The Culture of Small Fruits," by Capt. J. B. Moore, in the Weekly Farmer, of February 5, 1870. He says, "for profit there is nothing better than Wilson's Albany — for eating without cooking there is nothingpoorer in quality." The Agriculturist is recommended for a light soil. Wilson and Cutter's seedling are raised by many. Hovey's Seedling is still cultivated extensively in the vicinity of Boston. With regard to the meadow, the first thing needed is to remove the surplus water by drainage. When this is done the land can be ploughed and laid to grass in the early part of September, with much certainty of success. This will be the economical way of treating it. Perhaps an open drain or two may answer. It is difficult without seeing the land and its surroundings, to decide upon the practicability of draining off the water. Your observation of crops and experiments are interesting, but a single experiment does not afford sufficient evidence upon which to establish a rule. The half acre sowed to grass was on "low land," and probably quite moist. If the same amount of seed had been put upon drier upland, it might not have come at all, especially if the latter part of May had been clear and hot. We have no doubt that where grain is not sown very thick, it does shelter and protect the young grass \ that is, it affords it just that kind of protection which gar- deners give to young and tender plants ; just that protection which forests give to the young maple, oak and hickory. Sow the seeds of either of these in the open ground, and the plant will not be half as likely to live as it would springing up in the forest. Young grass is quite tender, and if sown in the spring, alone, is quite likely to be injured by drought, or scorching suns, unless the soil is very moist. TROUBLE IN A HORSE'S SHOULDER. As there is no Veterinarian in my neighbor- hood, I wish to inquire if there can be any thing done for a horse which has displaced some or one of the bones in its shoulder, producing what I am told is called in common parlance "shoulder shot." It was done within a week, I think, but how I do not know. There is a depression just back of where the collar comes. It does not seem to trouble the horse. Widow Ignorance. April 14. 1870. Remarks. — The advice, after making an exam- ination, of your family physician, who under- stands anatomy, would be more reliable than any opinion of ours, based on your description. The diseases and injuries of our domestic animals are not now, if they ever were, considered as subjects below or unworthy the notice or the best skill of 294 NEW ENGLAOT) FARIVIER. June those most worthy of the honorable M. D. Every doctor in a farming community ought to under- stand something of veterinary practice, and every well read physician necessarily does. There are few bones in a horse's shoulder, and we suspect that the injury to your horse is a sprain of the sinews and not a displacement of the bones. For a sprain Prof. Law recommends iodine and mer- curial ointment, equal parts, thoroughly mixed, and applied over the point of the shoulder until considerable heat and tenderness appear. May be repeated when these effects have passed off. Rest is also generally regarded as essential in such cases — provided we understand the case, of which we are by no means sure. HORSES EATING TOO MUCH HAY. Will horses eat enough hay to injure them, if left standing in the stable after eating ? R. S. Davis. Williamsfown, Vt., April, 1870. Remaeks. — Yes, sir, if you give it to them, they will. Don't you remember the old adage, that "a horse will die at the hay-stack ?" None of our domestic animals require more systematic care in feeding than the horse. He may be kept well at a moderate cost, and will be more healthy, perform more labor and live longer than if fed so highly as to double the cost of keeping A horse will spend most of his time in throwing his feed about, topsy-turvy, in his rack or box, and taking a little occasionally, if feed is kept constantly be- fore him. He will not eat with a keen relish, be- come dissatisfied with all food, and eventually have little appetite, grow thin, become unfit for labor, and in the end diseased and worthless. A horse that is fed regularly and in moderate amount, and is worked judiciously, will be in bet- ter condition for labor than one that is fat, or whose ribs can be counted at a distance of twenty rods. It is not the thick layers of fat which give the horse strength and power of endurance, but the firm, compact muscles, made up gradually by proper feeding and careful working. Some persons feed their horses but twice in twenty four hours, and we have seen them in ex- cellent flesh and condition for work under such circumstances. But we think three meals better. A good teamster will never put his horse to a rapid speed or to heavy work on road or farm im- mediately after his meal. Let the first six miles on the road be moderate, and if carting or plough- ing, let the horse be indulged in occasional stops of a minute or two. A horse without hereditary disease, treated in this manner of feeding and working, will continue a faithful and serviceable servant until from 25 to 30 years old. SEEDING A MEADOW. I have a meadow which has raised a crop of oats the past two years, and which I wish to stock with grass the present season. What kind of grass is the best for a meadow? and will it be best to stock in the spring with oats, or in the fall after the grain is harvested ? Young Reader of the Farmer. Corinth, Vt., April, 1870. Remarks. — The term "meadow," in the United States, is especially applied to low grounds on the banks of brooks or rivers, or the low tracts of land lying between higher ground, and which are too wet to be ploughed and cultivated. We sup- pose our correspondent refers to common uplands of the farm, such as are suitable for corn and smaller grains. If the land is ready to be seeded, the spring is a good time in which to do it. The grass seed usually employed is timothy or herdsgrass seed, one peck to the acre, and one bushel of redtop seed. If laid down with oats, two and a half bushels to the acre will be sufficient. If with barley — and barley is best for the grass — from one and a half to two bushels per acre will be suffi- cient. sweet corn for fodder. — A wheel jack. Can you inform me through your paper where I can obtain a bushel or two of sweet corn, such as is recommended for fodder, with the price per bushel ? Also, the best and cheapest and most convenient (if all these qualities can be combined in one kind) machine, with which to raise ox wheels so that they can be taken off to oil the axle ? A Subscriber. Lake Village, N. H., March 3, 1870. Remarks. — Sweet corn for sowing for fodder may be obtained at the seed stores in Boston. Price from $3.50 to #5.00 per bushel. It is said that if sown in drills, 3^ feet apart each way, two bushels are sufficient for an acre. That is, that thickness of sowing will bring the most profitable crop. The surest way of getting good seed is to preserve it yourself, being careful that no frost touches it in- doors or out, until it is thoroughly dry. A slight touch of frost, even if the ears are tressed up to dry, will destroy its vitality. A good wheel Jack may be purchased at any of the agricultural warehouses at a trifling cost. You can probably make a good one yourself if you set about it, that will not cost fifty cents. eggs in three months. I have thirteen hens in all ; one pure bred Brah- ma, one Bantam, and the remainder our common kind of fowls. They have laid forty-four dozen of eggs during the months of January, February and March. A Subscriber. Carlisle, 31ass., April 8, 1870. I have wintered thirty Brnhma hens at a good profit. During the months of January, February and March tbey laid eighty-nine dozen eggs. Bellows Falls, Vt., April 6, 1870. C. E. w. Tell your hens to crow again, Brother Owens, of Wilmington, Mass. From eighteen Brahma hens I have sold from January 1, to March 29, 1870, sixty-five dozen eggs, besides an untold number used in the family. Many of these eggs would average twenty-six ounces to the dozen. D. Farwell. Harrisville, N. H., April 9, 1870. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 295 WHAT AILS THE COLTS ? A few weeks ago I lost a very valuahle colt, four years old, under the following circumstances. He had in the first place, what is known here as the ''horte ail ;" (strangles, by some writers,) and had a pretty sick time of it ; but finally got better — well, as I thought. His head all cleaned out ; sore un- der his jaw all healed up, and he was feeling nicely — could kick up his heels or roll with the best of them. I used him a little, carefully. One morning I went to the barn and found him stiff and sore all over; a lump puffed up on his left breast rather larger than a man's fist, and another bunch behind hi.s left fore leg, on his belly, about as wide and as long as a man's hand; then his legs began to swell, and finally swelled clear to his body ; the swelling on his belly extended clear back and all over the belly ; then his sheath and testicle bag swelled; then one side of his upper lip ana muzzle; then his right eye puffed out, looking as though it had burst, (but an alum curd and charcoal poultice reduced that in about two days and he soon began to see again with it ;) then his face swelled some. The swelling was invari- ably hard ; would go down partly in one place, and come out in a new locality, but finally began to abate all over, and when he died was not swelled a particle anywhere. His appetite was good, — never better — until about a week before he died, when he began to fail gradually. A little white matter run from his nose for a few days just be- fore he died. There was no smell or disagreeable odor from him, more than from any other horse, at any stage of his sickness or after death. Did not lie down all the time he was sick until he laid down to die; had no ulcers or sores on him, ex- cept one on his hind leg, just above his ankle, which broke the day before he died. Was sick the last time just four weeks. Now if there is a name and cure for such a disease, I should be glad to know thereof. Although too late to save that colt, it may benefit some one, as there are other horses in this vicinity taken the same way. Would bleeding be of any use m such a case ? My three-year-old and two-year-old had the distemper together, and got better some four or five weeks ago. The three-year-old, although she seems well and appears to feel well, does not gain in flesh as fast as she should ; in fact seems as though she had fell away for the last week. What shall I do for her ? The two-year-old seems to feel well, but his cough still bangs on, and about four days ago 1 found a bunch on his breast about the size of a hen's egg, though not very hard. I immediately inserted an onion and seton, and he has swelled "big" on his breast, but nowhere else as yet. The same colt is lousy. What can I do to kill the lice without endangering the colt ? I dare not do much for fear he might take cold. Lastly I have a little colt, dropped August 17, 1869, that got>along finely until ^about four weeks ago, (I had got over my fears of her having the horse-ail,) when her appetite began to fail, and sbe began to shrink up, until now she looks as though she was all dried up. Her eyes are bright, but she will not eat and is weak. What is the matter with her ? And what can 1 do for her ? What is the best physic for a horse ? And what the best to cleanse the blood ? Will it do to rowel a mare that Is with foal ? g. c. h. Lyndon, Aroostook Co., Me., April 12, 1870. Remakks. — The foregoing inquiries were sub- mitted to Prof. James Law, Veterinary Lecturer of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and we take much pleasure in publishing his replies, as the information in relation to a disease that ap- pears to be unusually prevalent and fatal this sea- son throughout the country will be of value to many of our readers in other sections, as well as to our correspondent. CAUSE OF DEATH IN THE COLTS. The disease was a low or typhus fever, associ- ated with destructive changes in the blood, and with a tendency to the effusion of serum or pure blood in different parts of the body. It is known in Great Britain as Purpura Hemorrhagica, and on the continent of Europe as TypMis ; but is now generally acknowledged to belong to the same family of diseases as the Charhon of our Southern States, and the Blackleg or Black tongue of the Northern ones. Ic often arises as a sequel of strangles or other debilitating diseases, and probably because these leave the blood in an impoverished condition, and loaded with waste products which make it a suit- able field for the propagation of destructive poisons. Every debilitating condition of life, however, con- duces equally to its development; and like the other members of the same class of maladies, it is especially to be found in undrained or malarious localities. The past winter seems to have been unusually prolific of this fatal affection, probably for the same reason that it has been attended with bilious and other fevers so disastrous to the human family. TREATMENT. To prove satisfactory this must be mainly of a preservative character, since if the disease is once fully developed, not more than one in two patients recover. It will consist chiefly in giving support to the system, and obviating any undue prostra- tion of the vital powers. Clean, dry, airy, well- drained stables, nourishing, good food, grooming, and exhilarating work or exercise are important points. Colts suffering from strangles, should be fed freely on boiled grain, and should be made to inhale warm water vapor several hours dally, and have soft poultices kept continuously to the swellings to hasten the formation of matter. After the abscess bursts the feeding should be even more nutritious ; and two drachms each of gentian and sulphate of iron may be given daily to maintain them traps," which will certainly be of immense value to all who have fruit trees, if the process proves as effi- cient in other hands as it is represented to in be those of oar Michigan friends. ■WALIiA WAIiLA FARMEK. The first number of a four-page or quarto paper, half the size of the New England Farmer, has been received. It is published at Walla Walla, Washington Territory, by A. H. Simmons, weekly, at ^.50 a year. Washington Territory comprises an area of 68,000 miles, — some 3000 more than all New England. This is equal to 43,- 520,000 acres ; of which, the Walla Walla Farmer says, about 20,000,000 acres are prairie, and about the same quantity timber, the remainder moun- tains. It is estimated that about 5,000,000 acres of the timbered lands are susceptible of cultivation, the remainder comparatively worthless after the timber is removed. The Cascade range of Moun- tains divides the Territory into two unequal parts — eastern and western — differing widely in topo- graphy, soil, climate, and productions. The western portion is densely timbered with fir, cedar, oak, &c., with an occasional small prairie, soil varied, river bottoms sandy mould with clay sub-soil ; high prairies are gravelly or light sand. Its climate is humid, but remarkably healthy. Eastern Washington may be desciribed as a vast rolling plain, traversed in all directions by rivers and creeks, the principal of which is the Colum- bia, having for its tributaries In this Territory, the Snake, Spokane, Walla Walla, Winachee, Okina- kane, Yakima and Clickitat. The soil is uniform, a rich sandy loam, producing a thick, heaw mat of bunch grass. On all the streams is found more 304 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July or less timber, but the mountains have to supply the lumber, rails, &c. For climate, safely can eastern Washington challenge the world. A dry, clear sky with an atmosphere balmy and so pure that objects miles distant seem to be but a few hundred yards. Prolific in wheat, corn, oats, bar- ley, rye and buckwheat ; in apples, pears, peaches, plums, grapes and small fruits of all kinds. Cat- tle, on the bunch grass, without other feed, remain fat the year round. Health is such the doctors complain of their pockets. Walla Walla, in the southeastern part of the Territory, latitude 46, is thirty miles from the nav- igable waters of the Columbia, two hundred and thirty-six from Portland, and two hundred and eighty-six from Salem. AQKICULTUKAL ITEMS. — G. C. Cox, Secretary, gives notice that an as- sociation has been formed in Manchester, N. H., for the settlement of government lands in Kansas under the Homestead Law. — The Boston and Albany railroad has a new article of freight in manure, which is brought from the stock yards at Albany to enrieh the tobacco fields on the Connecticut river. —Horses have been sold from Middlebury, Vt., for the foreign market this Spring to the value of more than $20,000, and horse dealers call it a dull season at that. One was sold last week for #3000 and taken to New York for a carriage horse. —A man died lately in Montgomery, Penn., of the glanders. During last fall and winter he took care of a horse that had this disease, and the poi- son got into his blood and was the cause of his death. —Mr. Pickney stated at a Club meeting in Lans- ing, Mich., that he had learned that the Northern Spy was a better keeper when grown on clay soil than on sand ; so with the Greening. Mr. Potter said his winter fruit was grown on sandy soil and did not keep well. —The monthly report, of the Agricultural De- partment for March and April, from 417 counties gives the number of sheep killed by dogs during the past year at 99,389 ; while it is estimated that full returns would swell this census of slaughter to 500,000, with an actual money loss of #2,000,000. — To make an excellent ointment for burns, bruises and cuts, also for sore teats on cows, a cor- respondent of the Western Rural says, take one teacupful of lard, three-fourths of an ounce of laudanum, one ounce oraganum ; warm the lard, put in the others when a little warm, and as it cools, stir to mix well, then it is ready. — A farmer who was brought up on the Western Reserve in Ohio, says that throughout the dairy region the white clover that was once so plentiful in all the pastures had almost entirely disappeared. A few years ago the pastures were white with blossoms, but now a white clover blossom is rarely seen. Outside the dairy region, where a different system of farming prevails, the white clover is as plentiful as ever. — The forests are dying out in certain parts of Virginia. The chestnut trees have already sub- mitted to some deleterious agency, and their growth is nearly exhausted, and this year the oak, and in fact all the trees of the forest in certain sections, are dying. No explanation of this disastrous vis- itation has yet been given. — According to the report of the Trustees of the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, liming on the eastern and central farms was without benefit, while on the western ones a liberal application in- creased the corn crop nearly one-half. The pre- sumption is that in the first instance the soil needed something else, while in the second, lime was pre- cisely what was wanted to impart vigor to it. — A poultry raiser who lost nearly all his chick- ens in 1867, after trying all the remedies he could hear of, informs the Prairie Farmer that the next year h6 tore down the old poultry house and made a new one in a new place, hauled off the manure and surface soil from the old place and sprinkled lime over the ground. He now makes a new poul- try house every year, a cheap building or pen of rails, and has healthy hens. — A correspondent of the Rural New Yorker says that in one case the onion worm was driven off by applying a decoction of red pepper pods while hot to the onions ; in another case, by throw- ing the washing suds over the onions ; and the ed- itor has lieard market gardeners say they had found a suds made by mixing soft soap and cham- ber lye, and allowing it to stand two or three weeks before using, ^fllcient. Beside, it is an ex- cellent fertilizer. — To remove white hairs that appear on horses from the use or wear of the saddle or harness, a correspondent of the Rural Next Yorker takes a piece of fresh butter or lard, large enough to give the spot a thorough greasing ; rubs the same with the hand until it becomes quite hot, repeating the operation at least three or four times, ana the white hairs soon come out, and hairs of natural color take their place. Thinks the best time to do it is in the vdnter before the new coat starts. — The following rule for determining the amount in bushels of a box or bin was sent to the New York Farmers' Club by Merchant Kelly, of Ben- tonville, Ind. If you multiply solid feet by 45 and divide the product by 56, the quotient will be bushels, because one solid foot is just 45 5Q of a bushel of 2,150 2-5 inches. Example: How many bushels in a crib, box, bin or wagon-bed 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet deep ? 8, 4 and 2, multiplied together, make 64 sclid feet, and 64, multiplied by 45, makes 2,880, which, divided by 56, gives 51 3 7 bushels in said vessel. If it be ears of corn, deduct for cobs. Some persons de- duct a half for cobs. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARItlER. 305 SAIiTPETBE. ROM some experiments which we have made with this salt, we are inclined to think that its importance as a manurial agent is not justly appreciated. In these experiments, at a cost oi Jive cents per pound, we found it among the cheapest fertilizers we have ever used. Its use is not a modern discovery. Virgil recommended it to Italian farmers. The first English author who wrote upon hus- bandry in 1532, Anthony Fitzherbert, de- scribes it as having the power to insure to the farmer the most abundant crops. A hundred years afterwards, Evelyn, in a Discourse on Earth, told the farmers of his age, that if they could but obtain a plentiful supply of saltpetre, they would "need but little other compost to meliorate their ground." Even Jethro TuU, who zealously denied the necessity of manure of any kind, placed nitre at the head of his list of those substances which he deemed to be the essential food of plants. But it is only in modern days that saltpetre has been exten- sively employed as a fertilizer, for it is not long that it has been produced in quantities sufficiently large and at reasonable prices to enable the farmer to profitably use it as a ma- nure. It is so extensively used in the arts, and es- pecially in the manufacture of powder, that the price has been thought too high to make it a profitable investment in the soil. In large quanties, however, and in ordinary times, we think it may be secured at as low prices as Peruvian guano or the superphosphate of lime. It is much more difficult to adulterate it than either of those articles, so that the pure salt, only, would be purchased. SaUpetre is a natural product in some soils in hot climates, as in India and South America. It is also manufactured by a curious chemical process, in the following manner : Animal sub- stances, flesh, hides, &c. are mixed with lime and earth, and this mixture is moistened and left to putrefy. The result is saltpetre. It is found in Peru in a thick stratum 3500 feet above the level of the Pacific ocean. It abounds in Ceylon, Persia, Egypt and Spain, and is frequently found on the surface of the ground, where it is naturally generated under favorable circumstances, and in situations much more frequent than the farmer is woivf to suspect. "Wherever ammonia is copiously generated, as in stables, farm-yards, &c., and wherever the nitrogen, which forms a component part of ammonia, at the moment of its extrication has access to potash or calcareous matter, there saltpetre is usually formed." This is natu- rally done so copiously, in some of those situ- ations in which the farmer is placed, as to form fine crystalline exudations on the walls. This will account, in some measure, certainly, for the remarkable growth which nettles, horse radish, sun-flower, nightshade, and some other plants, make about the Louses of not over-tidy farmers. It slowly collects on the plastered walls of houses, so that during the Crimean war saltpetre was in such demand for the man- ufacture of powder, that hundreds of the old dwellings of France and England were stripped of their plaster walls to get at the modicum of saltpetre which had formed upon them. Those persons who gather saltpetre from the earth's surface in Southern Africa and Hindostan, and those who have prepared artificial beds in Spain from the sweepings of the streets in Madrid, state that nothing more is needed than a certain proportion of decomposing ani- mal and vegetable matters, with some potash, and calcareous matter. If our farmers will but investigate tlieir own resources, perhaps many of them will find that they possess all the essentials within themselves, and in their own soils for the formation of saltpetre. Top Dressing and Close Cutting. — On lands not too wet all will agree with me that It Is best to top dress. We should give more attention to the composting of manures to be applied as a top-dressing to our mowing fields. Let any farmer each year make but five or ten cords more of manure by hauling in muck and leaves into his hog-pens or barn-yards to ab- sorb the urine, and apply it as a top-dressing soon after haying, and the results will be won- derful. The grass will begin to grow imme- diately after the first fall of rain. The roots are nourished and are better protected against frost in winter, and if fed off in the fall it is not done so closely as if no manure had been applied. One reason why grass crops run out is be- cause they are fed too late in the fall, or over fed. In the spring they should not be fed at all. Cutting some kinds of grass too low is often very injurious. When the top of the root of herdsgrass is taken up by mowing cr 306 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July feeding too close by sheep, it begins to fail and the owner is at a loss to know why it has run out so soon, little thinking that this close shaving of the roots is the cause of his loss and disappointment. — Maine Farmer. From the New York Tribune. THE BOTATIOK" OF CHOPS. BT SERTJJO EDWAEDS TODD. The rotation system, which good tillers fix, Embraces five seasons, and somet'mes full six. When one crop succeedeth through many lotg years, Bach harvebtdecreasethjand dwi^rfeth the ears. If herds of neat cattle or sheep be thy care, Then grass in rotation must form a good share. When corn, barley, clover, r.nd turnips, and wheat, Comprise the rotaiion, field peas will be mtet. Ere ploughing and sowirg, the tiller should know What crops the ground liketh the better to grow. First, break up tfcy grass land and plant it with corn; The field, the next season, let barley adorn. Succeeding the barley, sow buckwheat or oats; Then haivest a pea ctop to nou'i.-h your shotea. Oft ploughing and teaeiug and weeding the ground, With liberal compost ecattertd around. And sprirkled with ashes to make the land sweet. With lime and some bone-dust to fatten the wheat. The next, in rotation, a crop of red clover : When blossoms are fiagrani, then let the plough cover. A six-years' rotation now beareth the sway, And showeth the tiller a progressive way ;j A six years' rotation will cattle increase; Will multiply bushels and debtors release. A six years' rotation, when fairly begun. Will harvest two bushtls where now groweth one. A six-years' rotation, as all will agree, Two years' yield of clovtr is better than three. When poor soil needs sucoor, to keep the land clean. Grow clover arid sowed corn to turn under green : But where fertile muck aud light eoils abound, Arrange the rotation as ouitelh the ground. Bladder Pujms. — The singular puff-ball growth of some plums, particularly the common red plum, is believed by the American Naturalist to be the effect of a peculiar parasitic fungus, and not of the curculio or other insect. Our correspondent, W. H. White of South Windsor, Conn., states in the Country Gentleman that some trees in his garden of the red plums which produced only these abor- tions were grafted to the Washington and Blue Gage, and produced perfect fruit for several years, until the trees were broken down by high winds. Windham County, Vt. — The Fair of the Wind- ham County, Vermont, Agricultural Society will be holden September 28Lh and 29th, 1870. The following is a list of officers. President —Hon. O. 8. Howard, Townehend. Vice Presklents —Col. U. Plimpton, Newfane; Euel Smith, Esq , Wilminiiton, Secretary and Treasurer.— W. A. Stedman, New- fane. Hoard of Managers.— 36hn Ayers, Grafton ; Alonzo Duiton, Dummersion ; D. E. Robbins, Windham; Geo. E. Hammond, WariJsboro'; Uetiry Winslow, Putney; Sidoey Perry, Rockingham; Pldllip Rutter, Towns- bend; John Muzzey, Jamaica; A, J. Morse, New/ane. W. A. S. Ji'or the New England Farmer, THE GARDEN IN JULY. How pleasing to the farmer's wife, if to no one else, it is to have a good garden where she can go and select from a variety of products, vegetables, fruits, &c., sufficient to add vari^- ety for the table, which will tempt the palate and give a relish to the more common daily fare ; and answer the question that so often arises in her mind, What shall I get for din- ner ? It is pleasing to all to go into the gar- den and see "how things do grow." "To- morrow I shall have a mess of new potatoes dug for dinner ; these marrowfat peas will fur- nish us a mess by the last of the week, and I shall have string beans when I want a mess now ; these cucumbers will taste quite cool and refreshing ; beets have already been on the table in different dishes ; lettuce, radishes, cress and other salads have been enjoyed freely ; now come the small fruits, strawber- ries, currants and raspberries." Who would be without them, when they cost so little to grow them ? While driving up the haying and harvesting do not do it to the entire neglect of the garden. Better take a hand a day from the hay field and put him in the garden. But there is seldom need for this. A few moments' attention in the morning, even- ing, or when the other work cannot well be attended to, will suffice to accomplish very much more than any one unused to it will think possible, if the labor be rightly directed and the time well improved. The best success is met with if we follow up every department of the garden with the hoe and watering pot. Liquid manure, judiciously applied, tells now with redoubled effect ; make the most of the sink spout and other sources of liquid manure, too often allowed to go to waste, creating of- fensive odors, disease, &c. Water newly set trees, dwaif pears and grapes, keeping the mulch Tnoist, not wet. Liquid manure is the greatest inducer to swell fruit of any kind. Do every thing seasonably. Take the weeds, &c., when they first appear. Leave no vacant spot. It is better to have two, three, or more crops, than one, when they may be had as well as not. Beans — Gather for use as they become fit, saving a few of the earliest and most perfect to ripen for seed. Do not forget to plant some early ones for a late crop of string, or for canning for winter use and for seed. Very good pickles are made from string beans. Beets. — It is not too late to plant early va- rieties for winter use, in rich, mellow soil. Hoe frequently, and thin to six or eight inches in the row. Beets may be transplanted almost as well as cabbages. There is little danger of having too many, as, if not needed otherwise they are good for the cows and pigs. Blackberries. — As the new shoots grow they should be tied up to the trellises or stakes. Shorten in the main stem and branches to in- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEoVIER. 307 duce the formation of fruit buds ; pull or cut up small canes, unless there is a desire to mul- tiply them. Branches laden with fruit should be carefully and securely tied up. Celery. — Continue to transplant into well prepared ground till the last of the month, for the late crop. Hoe and water often to induce rapid, tender growth ; with good drainage there is little danger of giving too much water. Celery depends for its goodness for the table upon rapid growth. Cabbages and Cauxiflo'wt:rs, for late crops and use, may have the seed sown and transplanted. There is always a good home market for cabbage, as, if not otherwise used, they are good to increase the flow of milk, if fed to cows. They need frequent hoeing and culture. ■ Corn. — Do not fail to plant a few hills of that early variety for late use, drying or can- ning ; any surplus will be readily taken by the cows or pigs, and they will reward you there- for ; the green succulent stalks are excellent fodder. Cucumbers may be planted for pickling. Guard against insects, as hertofore recom- mended ; hoe and water till the vines are well spread over the ground. The small cucum- bers, pickled in cider vinegar, make our best pickles. They may be packed down in casks and salted as pork is put up ; if sufficient salt is used they will make their own brine. They will need be weighted down to keep them cov- ered in brine. Currants. — The green or half ripe ones make excellent sauce, pies, &c., and when ripe, eaten with sugar, they relish well in moderate quantities. Their juice expressed, a teacup of fruit to a pint of water and sweet- ened, makes one of the most agreeable and refreshing of summer drinks. Well ripened, they make excellent jelly, of which there should be a full supply, in case of sickness, for drinks, &c. Very good currant wine is made from the juice — one quart of juice and three pounds of sugar to the gallon. So good a fruit as the currant ought to receive good care and be found in every farmer's garden in abundance. Endives. — Green salads, at all seasons of the year, are very reft-eshing and much relished by most persons. Lettuce stands at the head in all garden culture, but there are few kinds that will stand the heat of summer to head, — will become bitter or of disagreeable taste. To supply its place, we have the endive, which will rema-in in perfection after lettuce has failed, during autumn and winter. Sow the broad-leaved variety any time during this month, in drills, and transplant to fourteen inches apart, in good, generously rich soil. Afcer the leaves attain the size of a dining plate, gather together and tie, to blanch. Gooseberries. — This is a good fruit, too seldom found in the farmer's garden. They require mulching with old pots, kettles or other rubbish ; treat them according to their nature, give them plenty of air and you will get good crops. Thin out for sauce ; the well ripened are good eating from the bush and at dessert, with sugar or sauce. Grapes. — To obtain the best and nicest fruit, the shoots need thinning and pinching back, the bunches to be thinned to one or two on a branch, and the bunch thinned, where the fruit crowds. Liquid manure, well diluted soap suds, dish water or like slops, should be given freely till the berries begin to color. Herbs. — The best are dried in the shade, cut in the flower, and preserved in boxes that will preserve their aroma. Insects. — The gardener should be con- stantly on the look-out for them and crush them in the bud or egg ; study their habits and experiment to destroy them. They are alike destructive to fruits and vegetables ; toads, birds and chickens are excellent de- structives of these pests. Melons. — Give them good culture, same as for cucumbers. A thin board or flat stone placed under them as they grow, will induce them to ripen more evenly. Onions. — Weed and cultivate, without haul- ing dirt to the bulbs. Thin to three or four inches, if good size is desired. Seeds. — Look closely after seeds ripening now, not to allow them to waste. Better gather before the plant stem and seed vessels dry, and let them mature under cover. Strawberries. — After the crop is removed, weed the bed and hoe the plants, keeping the runners cut, unless you desire to increase plants ; thus kept a bed will last in bearing from four to six years, if well fertilized annu- ally. Tomatoes. — Reserve a few of the earliest and best for seed. Keep the vines pruned and tied to a stake, if you would get the greatest amount of good fruit. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. Grafting Grabe Vines. — Keep the scions in the cellar or other cool place uniil the first flow of sap is past, or until the vine has well started. Then dig down beside the vine, cut ofl a root four inches below ground large enough to graft into, cut the graft with two or three eyes and cleft graft the same as you would in grafting apples or pears, wind it firmly with cotton twine, brace it up with a stick and fill up the hole, leaving the upper eye just above the ground. Don't put wax around the graft, as it forms a cup that will hold the sap, which sowrs and kills the vine ; the bottom string is suflicient and will decay and loosen as the vine expands with its nat- ural growth during the season. — /. Terrill, Cleveland, in Ohio Farmer. 308 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July CliOVEH. LOVER is a great institution, r^^y^w the value of -which is not as fully understood as it should be. The field for its develop- ment is the prairies of the West, where the fertility of the soil is annually depreciating, for want of manurial matter, to supply the drain that is made upon it. When there is but little stock in proportion to the number of acres cultivated, and that lit- tle is not stabled in the winter, a large amount of manure cannot be saved to enrich the broad fields of corn and wheat. What shall be done ? Two-thirds of the fertility, so far as wheat is concerned, is lost already. Soils that a few years since yielded thirty-three bushels now yield eleven. The remedy is forthcoming just when it is wanted, and experience is teaching how to use it. It is wonderful how nature keeps her treasures stored up until the neces- sities of man compel him to seek for them. Coal has been buried in the bosom of the earth until man wants it to convert water into steam, and iron ore into rails and ships, and now he finds it cropping out all over the earth. The fertility accumulated in the virgin soil has sufficed for one generation, and now the little brown clover seed has been given to fur- nish machinery by which the elements of fer- tility may be absorbed from the atmosphere, and pumped out of the earth to supply the wants of another generation. On most lands four or five pounds of clover seeds and two or three hundred pounds of plaster to an acre, will in a little more than a year, if the soil is tolerably good, be converted into two tons of the very best hay. This material has been chiefly derived from the atmosphere, by the plants which have the power of changing car- bon and oxygen into solid matter in their stems and leaves. This they deposit in the soil when they have completed their growth and fall and decay, and thus fertilizing matter is drawn from the atmosphere by the ton, an- nually, and placed just where it is wanted for the next crop. And the clover roots, yes, the clover roots, what have they been doing all this time ? If not interrupted they work on two years, and then withdraw from the field and make room for other workers who succeed them. We call them biennials, indicating that they take two year's jobs. But what an amount of work they do in this short time. They will push themselves into the soil, one, two, three, four, five feet, burrowing into and loosening it, pumping up water from it, and the various minerals held in solution, and depositing them in the stems of the plants, along with the ma- terials drawn from the atmosphere, and thus we have a compost of silex, lime, potash, soda, magnesia, alum, iron and the rest, mixed with carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c., as food for the next crop. These clover roots are grand workers. They are no idlers. They do not stop when they have worked eight hours. When one of these little fellows finds a parti- cle of lime or sulphur, away down three or four feet underground he seizes it as his law- ful prey — indeed it is the very thing he went down after, and has been hunting after all summer, — and now he sucks it into his open mouth, and pulls and tugs like a boa constrictor swallowing a goat, until he gets it within his oesophagus, then he pushes it on and on through the four or five feet of his longitude, and de- posits it in the stem of the plant, to be used where it is wanted in the process of construc- tion. We should like to see all the roots from an acre of thrifty clover washed and shook out, dried and thrown into a heap. Would there be two tons of them, — as much as there is of the plants above ground? If so, these four or five pounds of seed would have drawn from the air and the ground four tons of solid mat- ter, ready to be rotted down into plant food for the crops that are to follow. Not only has this amount of manurial mat- ter been prepared, but the soil has been bored and loosened in all directions, so that the air could penetrate it, and warm it, and act upon the mineral matter it contains. This soil is then in a very different condition from what it was when the clover seed was sown. Its me- chanical condition is greatly changed. The rain can penetrate it. The roots of wheat can run down into it. The decaying vegetable matter upon the surface, as it dissolves by the rain, can accompany the roots into the earth, and yield up to them the nourishment it con- tains. If the soil is too poor, or too much exhausted to yield a full crop of clover at the first sow- ing, plough it into the ground, and repeat the process. The crop will be increased, and the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 309 soil improved hy every repetition — until at length, you will get the thirty bushels of wheat. But we are impatient. We want to get the thirty bushels in one year. We cannot wait. But Providence is patient. "The mills of the gods grind slow." We must wait. Gu- ano at $60 a ton, and then transported a thou- sand miles won't pay, and if it would pay one year, it will leave the land in a worse condi- tion than it found it. We must make the ma- nure on the soil where it is to be used. We can get labor, when we cannot get manure. We must put as much labor on ten acres as we now put on twenty, and we shall get more wheat, and more corn, and improve the soil instead of exhausting it. We must raise clo- ver. For the New England Farmer, KICKING COWS-MODES OF MILKING. I have a young cow, one that was very hard to manage when the had her first calf. She was the most spiteful kicker that I ever at- tempted to milk. The kick was not one of the uncertain sort ; there was no room to doubt of her intention to hit, and to hit hard. Now I am not afraid of a kicking cow, but confess to a dislike of that habit ; and I felt in this case a strong desire to convince her of the impropriety of her conduct, and to per- suade her to a more quiet course. When all gentle means failed, I tried tj ing up her fore leg on the milking side, but she would lean over and balance on two legs, and kick with the third ; then drop on her knees and give another vigorous kick, the instant a teat was touched. Then her hind legs were tied to- gether, and her nigh hind leg tied to a strong staple driven into the floor behind her ; but under both these modes of treatment she would struggle an 1 kick furiously, so as to make it quiie impoi-sible to milk her. At this stage I remembtred that a neighbor had re- commended, in extreme cases, the putting a chain around the cow's body, just back of her shoulders, and with a stick twist it so as to bring the chain tight, but not tight enough to hurt the cow so long as she remained quiet, having a careful person to hold it in just that condition. I tritd it and the plan worked to a charm. She found she was hurting herself, and the hurt was certain, and rather severe, whenever she kicked ; and so, after a while, she submitted, with only an occasional motion, the beginning of a kick. It was only neces- sary to use the chain once more, and the cure was complete. Here is, I think, the reason, of the efficacy of this method of treatment : the cow has sense enough to perceive that she Jiurts herself by kicking. If you beat her with a stick, she sees that yoii hurt her, and she kicks again in self defence or revenge. The same cow lately scratched one of her teats, and in the same unpleasant way declared her intention not to be milked. But two ap- plications of the chain convinced her of the error of her way, and she again became per- fectly gentle. Apropos to the general subject of milking. A few months ago, I read in some of the ag- ricultural papers, a quotation from Professor somebody, (the name is forgotten) which con- tained remarks that seemed to me to indicate that the author was a hobby-Tider, and one of the fastest sort, too. I was half disposed to bring his case before the "Society for the pre- vention of cruelty," &c., and have him fined for cruelly driving his hobby at a rate beyond what it could bear. But as he apparently be- longs to that Society, and was laboring in its behalf, it was thought best to let him off this time. The Professor had probably been vis- iting in the country, and had seen some great, coarse, cruel-minded, or at the least a thought- less farmer milking a cow, — caught him in the very act of milking in what is called the strip- ing method ; that is, taking the teat between the thumb and forefinger, and pressing it, and at the same time bringing the thumb finger down to the end, thus forcing out the milk. This style of milking was severely condemned, as cruel in the extreme. It was pronounced dangerous, also, to thus roughly pull that delicately formed organ, the cow's udder. Now I have great respect for that humane feeling which is pained by cruelty to any living thing, be it of mankind or wormkind. 1 honor gentleness to the animals we make use of, more than I do the strength and skill that enable us to bring them under our control. But I doubt whether the worthy Professor ever milked a cow in his life. If he ever milked many, he would have learned that a cow whose milk flows moderately easy will generally prefer the method of milking which he condemns. This kind of milking partakes of the nature of rubbing. Did he ever know a cow that did not like to be rubbed.^ In most cases rubbing the teats and udder will soothe the animal, and make her quiet. For the purpose of testing the Professor's opinion of the exceeding delicacy and sensitiveness of the cow's lacteal organs, I have recently many times taken hold of the teats of different cows, and pulled downward smartly, with a force not less than that of a four-pound weight, without the cow's showing the slightest sign of being hurt. Yet this was a much harder pull than would ever be given in milking. And if tlie udder is so easily injured, why the instinct of the calf to butt when sucking? That butting is surely rougher treatment of the udder than it receives when a man simply forces the milk out by stripping. There are some young cows, too, whose teats are so short and small that the milk can- not be taken in the usual way of milking large- teated cows. I aro now daily milking a cow, 310 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July whose teats are hardly so large as my finger, aud only half" as long. How shall I take these in my big, clumsy hand, and press out the milk ? I cannot do it. I should like to see the Professor try the job with his. I am quite confident, that before he had half drained the udder be would resort to the stripping method, and b« ready to fake back at least a part of his remarks as published in the quotation above referred to. M. Concord, Mass., 1870. For the Xcw England Farmer, "SHALL WE KAISE OUR CORN?" Why not ? The climate and soil are favor- able. If so, then what good reason have we for not furnishing a portion, at least, of the corn we need for eating and feeding ? As an article of food for man it is really more valu- able than is supposed. Indian corn furnishes more oil than other grains with a fair amount of starch. For cold weather it will supfily the place of animal oils or meat, or both, perhaps. In deciding whether we "shall raise our own corn," there are many things to be con- sidered. As a rule, we cannot raise any one crop on the same piece of ground for a long series of years, profitably or successfully. There are crops which, even if we can buy at a less cost than we can raise them, ought not to be thrown aside, for many reasons. Pota- toes very rapidly impoverish the land upon which they are raised. So with tobacco, hemp, flax, &c. Not so with oats, clover, wheat, peas, beans and barley. And still, either of the last named will do much better not to sow two crops in succession. On soils such as are found West on the river bottoms or low prai- ries, crops may be and are raised for very many years without a single application of ma- nure. There is land to-day, lying contiguous to the Genesee river, in the State of New York, — thousands of acres, too — that have been cropped almost continually for the past seventy-five or one hundred years, without one single application of manure, and yield from seventy-five to one hundred bushels shelled corn per acre ; one hundred bushels of oats, and other crops in proportion. I have seen upland, far away from river bottoms, in the State of New York, cropped for twenty suc- cessive years with oats, without manures of any kind, growing fair crops. But even then a rotation of crops is far better. No season is alike favorable for all crops. Corn wants warm days and nights, with occa- sional showers ; potatoes and turnips want moderately warm weather, with cool nights and considerable rain ; flax wants about the same ; wheat will not do well in good corn seasons ; oats are hardy, but will do well when wheat is a good crop. So that we cannot tell certainly what to raise until we try it. We ought to raise our corn, or a portion of it. Corn is more profitable than any other crop we can raise, except perhaps, potatoes, and they may be excepted quite often. If we live near markets for garden vegetables and the like, the raising of corn as a money mak- ing concern would not be thought of. But farmers away from such advantages would do well to reflect before they wholly throw aside the raising of this valuable grain. One acre of corn fodder carefully and properly saved, is worth more than an acre of grass even if it yields three tons. On Massachusetts soil prepare well your land and make such applicatione of manure as is needed. Plant in rows both ways three and one-half feet apart ; be sure to have no more nor less than four plants in each hill. Cultivate well. Don't be afraid of hoeing too much. Cut up your corn at the ground early, as soon as your corn is all well glazed. Stand it up around hills not cut, at equal distances about sixteen hills in a bunch, or more if you prefer, put up carefully, bind firmly at top so that it cannot be blown over. Let it stand until thoroughly cured ; don't husk it too soon. Your corn is then a sound crop, even heavier than if you had tak^n off the top stalks, and your fodder is worth more than it has cost you to raise the crop. I speak not at random, but from an experience of thirty years on the farming lands of the Genesee country in the State of New York. Yes, "raise our own corn" for the profit of it. It does not much impoverish the soil. The land is in a better condition for potatoes, oats or barley after the corn crop is off, which is an item worth remembering. With care for the health of your farm you are adding to its value because it is more productive. And while you might have more dollars, cash, at the end of ten years to raise potatoes, your farm would need propping up like an old horse with all the vital energy gone. Every acre of land which you so nurse that you can soon double the amount from, is so much capital, and better than in a savings bank. Certainly, "we will raise our own corn." W. F. Woodward. Maplewood, Mass., April, 1870. For the New England Farmer, THE QUINCE TREE. Twenty years ago, bushels of quinces were raised where now but a few pecks are seen ; and in many localities the trees are dead and gone. Their failure is owing to mismanage- ment and neglect ; and these two things will kill any fruit tree. The quince tree demands food as well as our horses or cows ; but if we give it only once or twice a year if; will grow and flourish. But this is not all that is needful to its growth, it also demands cultivation; it requires pruning and training, but does not often re- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 311 ceive it. How rare it is to see a well-formed quince tree ! Quinces are usually grown in the shape of huge bushes, with no more attention paid to their shape, than is given to the form of a syrlnga bush. It is often seen with two, three, and even four stems springing from the ground, and its head is composed of crossed branches and twisted shoots. A quince tree with a straight, smooth stem full three feet in height, and then branching forth into a stocky, compact growth is a rara arbor. It is usually considered as a fruit which re- quires no care, but will grow and flourish like a wilding of the forest. Its extermination in many places — is now telling a different story, and the question is asked, "What is the mat- ter with the quinces? mine are all dying." Quinces will thrive well in common garden soil if well manured and pruned, and there is no more beautiful sight than a quince tree filled with flowers or fruit. Its flowers are very beautiful — its fruit almost equals the or- ange in form and coloring. The orange quinces are our northern substitute for that peerless southern fruit. They equal them in beauty and fragrance, but do not possess their juicy qualities ; yet for a pie, tart or sweet- meat, they are fully equal. Indeed there is no fruit in the New England or middle States more to be desired for culinary purposes than quinces. In cultivating them, pruning is most essen- tial, in order to strengthen their growth. If the tree is growing in rich, well moistened earth, it will throw out a long straight shoot. Prune off all lateral branches, and cut back the shoot to a foot and a half or two feet, and tie it to a firm support. It will grow well that summer. In the winter pruning, spur in the laterals. In every successive year, manure well, and prune closely, clearmg the main stem of all side shoots. By cultivating in this way, and yearly short- ening the main branch a stout tree which will not need support can be produced. Three shoots can be allowed to grow the first year that the head is made ; cut these back next season and each will send forth two more, and there will be six principal branches. The fruit of this tree is produced on small, short, stout shoots extending down the sides of the branches, therefore in pruning all superabun- dant, irregular or decayed shoots should be cut off. The quince grows finer near the sea-shore than on the inland, showing that it delights in a salty moisture. If a peck of salt is dug around an old, nearly barren tree, its fruitful - ness will be greatly increased. Scatter the salt over the surface of the soil, but not close to the main stem. A half bushel of ashes unleached, will increase its growth. From childhood we have loved the quince tree, and desire to speak a good word in its behalf. The borer has tried its powers upon this fruit, as well as most others, but he can be routed effectually, if one sets about it. Dip some cloths in kerosene and wrap around the stem as far down in the ground as possible, and pile the soil about it. Should the borer have stolen in before this is done, poke him out with a piece of wire. If your trees are badly infested with these pests of horticul- ture, set out new ones, or strike cuttings from good stout scions. They will grow as readily as a grape cutting ; — set them in boxes filled half full with rich soil, and half with wet sand, plant the cuttings in the sand and they will quickly strike root. Cuttings can be planted along the margin of a hot- bed, or even in the open ground. Don't let this rare fruit die out for want of the care and culture you can so easily bestow, if you wUl only open your eyes to its needs ! s. o. J. For the New England Farmer, STICK TO THE FARM. Every position m life has its discomforts. It matters not whether cultivating the soil, at- tending the sick, selling goods, or preaching a sermon. Some other position, and not our own, seems to be the favored one, and to pos- sess less onerous duties. Confinement in heated, unventilated rooms, as must from present custom necessarily be the case with nearly all professional men and mechanics, is not conducive to either a long life, or a tran- quil one. Unquestionably, man's normal condition is to cultivate the soil. At the beginning he was put into a garden, but getting into difficulty, probably because he was displeased with his employment, and, as is the case at the present day, having ambitious desires in another direc- tion, he was forced to change his location, if not his occupation, and has been grumbling ever since. I believe that farming will pay, but it must be intelligent farming ; a con- servative exercise of muscles, not an improvi- dent waste of vital forces. Take care of your health, and don't waste your strength in lifting. Carelessness in this respect, and exposure, bring rheumatism and pleurisy, and they never leave you as well as before. Whenever the aid of machinery can be called in use, it economizes your vitality. Have a system. I know the constant temp- tation to overdo. Better spend five dollars for hired labor, than fifty in doctor's bills. Do not labor to exhaustion. You can then think as well as work. It is too true that during the carnival of farmers in the fall, they are always advised, (nine times out of ten by some one not a far- mer,) to stick to the farm. The beauties of picking stones and laying walls are skilfully painted, so that for the time all want to be farmers ; but the tired, aching back, a week after, does not feel relieved by a sight of the aforesaid orator and adviser driving a pair of blooded horses, without a thought of the far- 312 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. July mer, except perhaps, to know where he can get a ton of hay the cheapest. Other things being equal, a resolve to be a successful farmer, involves no more difficulties than cluster around all occupations. Too much land, and too many irons in the fire make the labors on a farm distasteful and un- remunerative. Cultivate less land. Concentrate your forces, for skilful, intelligent labor will win every time. Pursue some specialty. You will get an experience in a few years that is immensely valuable. The succesEfiil business man, or the man of leisure always buys a farm as a finality. It matters not whether reared in city or country, the yearning for land comes with mature years. Wisely planted for a be- neficent purpose, let us accept the condition. Bringing the same skill to bear as in other pro- fessions, we may, like them, reap, some sixty, some ninety and some a hundred fold. L. W. Puffer. NoriJi Bridgewater, Mass., April, 1870. CtJIiTIVATINQ THE POTATO. Enclosed I send you an article that I wrote for the New Hampshire Sentinel, which you are at liberty to publish in the Farmer. The raising of potatoes is the most lucrative branch of farming to which those of us who live in the hill towns of New England can turn our attention, and every farmer who produces this crop for the market wishes to plant that variety which will yield the greatest net profit. In order to do this, he must understand which variety is best adapted to his soil. It is well for farmers to try different varieties, and un- derstand which have the most desirable qual- ities combined. It is usually the early potato that commands the highest price. But the earlier a potato is, the quicker it loses its good eating qualities ; or in other words, the longer any potato is in maturing, the longer it will retain its good eating qualities. The late varieties are not as liable to be cut off by the drought as early ones, for we seldom have a drought last through the whole season. Early varieties will be much better planted as late as the mid- dle of June, in this section of the country. We usually have considerable dry and hot weather from the 15th of June to the 25th of July, that frequently injures the early potato. If planted late there is more cloudy and rainy weather in August for th^m to grow in. There is no branch of farming where so great a diversity of opinion exists as in the seeding and cultivating of potatoes. Some say, if you plant small ones, you will get small ones ; others, if you want large ones, plant them. I have owned a farm and worked upon it for the last twenty- four years, and have al- most invariably planted small potatoes — have planted the Davis Seedling fifteen years, with- out changing the seed, and seeded with small ones, and never raised larger ones than last year. Care should be taken to seed light with the small ones. I planted a potato in my garden last spring, not larger than a marble that produced but one eye, and from it I raised 2| pounds of large size potatoes. My rule is to cut two eyes on a piece, and put three pieces in a hill, three feet apart, or in drills the same proportion. Those that I wish to plant early, ht fore the eye would naturally start in the cellar, I bring up to the light, that I may know that my seed is all in good shape, and am particular to cut the seed myself the day it is planted, (as it injures the seed to heat, after it is cut.) Three or four vines in a hill are a plenty ; you will get about the same number of pounds, with less small ones. If your ground is mellow, one eye on a piece, with four pieces in a hill is enough ; if tough and soddy, more seed will be needed, for some will not come up. The eyes of a potato are all connected to- gether by roots running through the potato, and if disconnected, every eye will start, while on the whole potato only a part will start. Potatoes should be planted on about a level with the top of the ground ; (vary a little from this rule if the piece be wet or dry.) Hill them up just enough for the potato to grow in and no more. Hoe them when very small, have plenty of dirt between the hills and rows. Potatoes have two sets of roots ; one that the tubers grow on, and numerous other roots that run from one hill to the other, near the top of the ground, drawing in food and moisture — hence the injury of hoeing them late. If the ground is left nearly level these little roots will much more readily drink in the dews and showers that fall, and of course will not dry up as much as if hilled up. The po- tato plant needs considerable light and air, and by seeding light the vines grow more erect, and give a better circulation of air, which has a tendency to preserve them from the rot. N. W. Hardy. Nelsoti, N. E., April 29, 1870. Watering Horses. — Horses should be watered from a brook, pond or river, and not from wells or springs, as the well water is hard and colder, while the running stream is soft and rather warm. The preference of horses is for the soft, even though it be muddy water, to that which is hard. Horses should be allowed in summer time at least four wa terings a day, and a half a bucketful at a time and in winter a pailful may be allowed morn ing and evening, which is sufficient to assuage their thirst without causing them to bloat or puff up. Care, however, should be taken that the horse is not put to work immediately after drinking a full bucket of water, especially if recjuired to go fast, because digestion and severe exertion can never go on together, and 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARiMER. 313 moreover purging is apt to ensue. In some cases, broken wind or heaves is thus produced. Avoid giving warm or tepid water to horses that are often driven from home, because cold or veil water will then perhaps be given them, which will be liable to produce a con- gestive chill, foUowed by lung fever, and in some cases colic. When horses are thus carefully watered, if one or more of them should refuse their accustomed food, some- thing is wrong, and they should not be taken out of the stable to work or driven further that day ; but an examination should be made as to the cause with a view to its removal. — McClure's New Stable Guide. EXTRACTS Aim KEPLIES. THE ONIOX "WOEM. ■ Can you or any of your subscribers tell me how I can keep the maggot from eating my onions. Last year they worked upon them till they were pulled. I used sulphur, ashes, hen manure, &c., all to no cffijct. J. Rand. South Windsor, Me., April, 1870. Remarks. — We wish we could tell you how to prevent the ravages of this insect in some easy way. Last year a Montpelier, Vt., correspondent said that he had saved his onions by removing the earth from the bulb with his fingers, being careful not to disturb the roots, while weeding them. A j)ound of copperas dissolved in a pailful of soft soap and when thinned with water applied to the onions, is said to be good to keep off the maggot and to promote the growth of the onions. Others have poured hot water from a coffee-pot spout upon the bulb. Who knows of a better remedy ? These worms have been very destructive of late in many sections. To avoid their devastations, we have adopted the plan of sowing the seed in August, and when the onions are as large as walnuts, or even when smaller, pull them up, dry them, and the next season as soon as the ground will permit set them out. These are not troubled by the worm. "ATTENDED STRICTLY TO FARMING." If John P. Gager, Jr., of Scotland, Conn., — see Farmer, April 23, last column, first page, — got rich by '•attending strictly to farming," and wishes to "encourage young men to turn their at- tention more p irticularly to farming," by his ex- ample, why, m the name of reason, does he con- fess to having dabbled in the "outside specula- tions" of saw-mill, grist-mill, shingle-mill and bank-stock ? Such an example, it appears to me, is a very poor one to encourage young men to turn their attention more particularly to farming. Actions speak louder than words and in this case their utterances are not exactly in harmony, to my ear. G. R. Hitchcock. Champlain, N. Y., April 23, 1870. Remarks. — In the neighborhood in which we served our apprenticeship at farming, grist and saw-mills were as generally owned by farmers as were cider mills and maple-sugar "factories." The only shingle mills then known were the kitch- ens and wood-sheds of farmers, many of whom manufa,ctured shingles by the "thousand." The streams in that vicinity were small, and the mills on them were usually run only during the high water of Spring and Fall, when other farm work was not pressing. Farmers' boys engaged in these "outside speculations," but without a thought that by so doing they were becoming "anything but farmers." As to our correspon- dent's strictures on Mr. Gager's bank stock, we can only say that we have had no experience in that "branch of farming" ourselves ; but after a man has paid for two large farms, and has "a thousand dollars worth of produce on hand," we do not see why he should lose caste as a farmer, by taking a share or two in some Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank. Would a blacksmith cease to be a blacksmith the moment he became the holder of bank stock ? Isn't your bedstead a little too short for some farmers, friend Hitchcock, and are you sure it will be best to trim them all down to it? ASHES OF PINE BRANCHES. Some years ago I found that pine boughs that fall from trees, gathered up and used as bedding for cattle and hogs, or put in yards, were of no value for manure. In 1869, I piled the brush, where pines were cut, raked up chips and boughs that had been falling for years, and burnt large piles. About one-third part was clean ashes, the rest coals and dirt. I mixed this with twice the amount of clayey loam from the cow yard, in which a little manure was mixed, moistened with water and shoveled over twice. Of this compost I put one cord on one- fourth of an acre of moist, sandy loam, after breaking up. Sowed to flat turnips and grass seed, and harrowed all in together, the last of July. The seeds came up well, but I did not get two bushels of turnips fit for market, and not ten bushels in all. Can you or any of your correspondents tell me the cause of the failure ? Was it the dry season, or too much compost, or is the ashes of boughs, chips and limbs worthless for manure ? I am in the dark about it. w. RoUiiisford, N. H., April 23, 1879. Remarks. — So are we. Did weeds or herbage of any kind grow that season on the same soil ? If we were on the spot with you, and should get a reply to half a dozeu questions which might be asked, perhaps a reason would become apparent. Pine wood yields but a small amount of ash any way — hardly two and a half per cent., according to Prof. S. W. Johnson, while walnut gives over twenty-five per cent., and then the ash itself is worth but little for soap-making or other purposes, compared with hard wood ashes. raising oats. I have a Scotchman on my farm, (a splendid ploughman) who says the universal practice in Scotland is to plough lea or grass land in the fall, setting the furrow slice up on its edge. In the spring, as soon as the land is dry enough, oats are sown broadcast on the furrows without any ma- nure. The field is then thoroughly harrowed crosswise, and finished off by harrowing length- 314 NEW ENGLAND FARiCER. July wise of the furrows. When the oats come up they have the aiipcarance of having been sowed in drills. In this way he says good crops are ob- tained. If the soil is heavy or moist, the Black oats do the best. Have you or any of the readers of the Farmer ever tried this method of raising oats. MILLET, If a good crop of oats can be obtained as above, why not a good crop of Millet ? I have a field of five or six acres, good strong land, part of whiih is rather moist and late, that was ploughed last fall. Now if I sow millet on this land when it is dry enough to work, without manure, can I rea- sonably expect a fair crop ? Perhaps for millet, it might be well to pass the harrow once over the field, crosswise, before sowing the seed. If any have had experience in this kind of husbandry, let us have the facts, • J. R. New York City, March 22, 1870. Remarks. — The foregoing was received with other papers, and having been laid aside with them, appears later than it should have done. alsike clover, "Within the past two or three years, the attention of bee-keepers has been directed to the cultivation of honey-producing plants, to afford pasturage for bees in poor seasons, or when natural forage fails, and to add largely to their usual stores in favorable ones. Albike clover is the best, everything considered, and is rapidly working its way into public favor. The statement has been made by some, that if every farmer would put one-half of the land now seeded to grass into Alsike clover, bees might be very profitably multiplied in our country one hun- dred fold, and each hive furnish many times its present profit, and quite as many cattle be sustained as at the present time. Our experience confirms the favorable opinion thai has been expressed by others, of this variety of clover. It not only yields a large quantity of honey and of good quality, but is a profitable crop for farmers to grow for stock, or seed, or for both. It grows ntarly or quite as large as the common clover. The fetulks are finer and not as woody. It has many brancnes, consequently alTords a multi- tude of blossoms which are very fragrant, and is much enjoyed by the bees. It does not blossom as early by a week as the red clover, and remains in bloom about four weeks. It is particularly adapted to moist ground. The roots being fiorous, are not liable to be injured by the frost heaving the ground. It is prolific in seed, yieldmg from six to eight bushels per acre. As this clover has a two fold value, we antici pate that the time is not far distant when it will be more generally grown, and thereby the thrift of stock ana the resources of honey will be greatly in- creaseii throughout the country. C. B, Biglow, Perkinsville, Vt., April, 1870, FARMING IN VIRGINIA. In May, 1S69, I left Maine, and after looking about in itie South, purchased a farm of 500 acres one mile northeast of Manassas Junction and vil- lage, which is on the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas railroad, thirty-five miles south of Washington. I moved here with my family in November last. My farm is on the Centreville road, two miles from Bull Run, and about four miles Irom the battle-field. Soon after the war commenced, the confederates took possession of this place and fortified the town. Fort Beauregard is within a half a mile of me; Fort Johnston a little further off. The house on this farm was taken possession of and used as the head-quarters of Gen. Jos. E. Johnston ; and the house opposite was the quarters of Gen. Beauregard. At a later period, the Union armies got possession of this place, and their generals occupied these houses as their head-quarters also. When the Union army- evacuated, they burnt all the buildings on this farm to keep the supplies from falling into the hands of their opponents. This whole country was overrun alternately by the armies, and nearly all the buildings, wood, orchards, fences, &c., were destroyed. Since the close of the war, the village has been rebuilt and is fast growing in im- portance. The town has two hotels, two small churches, six stores, a grist mill, a foundry, a brick manufactory, with blacksmith, tin and other shops, a weekly paper, &c. Land can be purchased in this, "Prince William" County, at from #5 to $50 per acre, by the farms, except close up to the villages, &c. The climate is splendid, the water good, and markets near. There is room for fifty thousand small New Eng- land farmers to locate in the one hundred coun- ties of this State. I cannot see why this State, with her railroads and water communications, her central location and fine climate, is not destined to be one of the best and most desirable States in the Union to live in. I shall be happy to give all the information in my power to such as may visit this section. Jonas Greene, Manassas, Va., April 9, 1870, raising corn, I regard corn an important farm crop and have given it considerable attention and propose to re- late a little of my experience. I do so not because I raise very large crops, but because I obtained a better yield than I have seen by so economical a mode of cultivation as I adopt. First, plough the ground once about six inches deep in autumn or spring, according to conven- ience, as well as it can be ploughed. I use none but a swivel plough, and I would not have my ground ploughed into dead furrows and ridges if done for nothing. I intend to have every foot of the ground turned over. About the middle of May, or soon as the fields will do to work, spread on fifteen loads of thirty- three bushels each cf strong stable manure to the acre, and harrow in the manure w'cU wiih a Geddes* Harrow, lengthways of the furrows. When the ground comes into condition furrow out the field three and one-half feet apart each way, and lay a moderate shovelful of stable manure in the hill, which will require ten to twelve loads to the acre. This manure should be well worked over and in somewhat advanced state of fermentation. Plant on the manure five to six kernels of corn to the hill. When the corn is about five inches high hoe it well with a moderately elevated hill, and thin out to four plants to the hill. When about twenty inches high, hoe the second time, still with a moderately elevated hill, and no more huting except to destroy the weeds. I have seen no ad- vantage whatever in hoeing corn too small. I once saw a field of corn hoed when but just out of the ground and nearly covered up in the operation ; then it was hoed the second time when scarcely large enough for the first hoeing and nearly covered up again ; then, the third time, still nearly coveiing it with the earth. Tnc result, was the corn never grew to any size, and the crop was almost a total failure, though the field had a fair dressing of manure. I use twenty-five or twenty-six loads of manure to the acre to raise sixty to seventy-five bushels of corn. I have seen lorty loads of manure spread on an acre, and none in the hill, and a smaller 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 315 yield of corn than mine the same season. I have seen forty loads of manure spread on sward land and ploughed under with no manure in the hill, and an inferior crop of corn, not more than twenty- five or thirty bushels to the acre. Finally, I have never seen a large crop of corn without manure in the hill. Seed in my opinion is a matter of much import- ance in raising corn, but I will defer that subject for the present. j. h. Shrewsbury, Mass., May 1, 1S70. CHEESE FACTORY. One of the largest and nicest cheese factories in the country is being built in Shoreham, Vt. It is to be thirty by eighty, and three stories high. It will be suflScient for manufacturing the milk of the 600 or 800 cows which the neighborhood is capable of keeping. It was started by a young man by the name of Adin Perkins, who came into the neighborhood last fall, and purchased a small place of about seventy acres, and has taken $500 of the stock in the factory. Operations are to be commenced by the middle of May, and Mr. Per- kins is to take charge of it. His farm and his sit- uation in the factory is equal to a city salary of $5000, and is probably no better than can be ob- tained in many other places by competent and ex- perienced cheese makers. What a great blessing it would be if the thousands of young men scat- cered through our country, who are healthy, intel- ligent and reliable, would follow this young man's steps and take hold with energy to help build up theese, butter and other factories, in the midst of farmers, instead of crowding into the city, with a vague hope of avoiding poverty and hard work, where so few realize their expectations and where so many utterly fail, and die in hopeless poverty. ■So young men consider well the situations and opportunties that are offered at home. Shoreham, Vt., April, 1870. Looker On. ONE HUNDRED AND TEN BUSHELS OF CORN FROM AN ACRE. On 120 rods of land I raised eighty-three bush- els shelled corn, being about 110 bushels to the acre. The land had been to grass about eight years. Was ploughed in the fall, manured in the spring, with common barnyard manure, spread broadcast at the rate of six cords to the acre. Put into each hill of com a small handful of Bradley's Superphosphate, or about 300 pounds to the acre; hoed three times thoroughly. The above corn is a very superior variety of the twelve rowed, pronounced by all to be the best ever raised in this town. • Nathan G. Pierce. Westminster, Vt., April 30, 1870. Remarks. — Doubts have been so often expressed by farmers as to the possibility of raising one hundred bushels of "shelled corn" on a single acre of land, that we regret that Mr. Pierce was tlA more explicit in his statement as to the man- ner of measuring both the land and the crops in this case. premiums for INDIAN CORN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. Time is short for offering advice on corn plant- ing, but, the letter in Farmer of 23d of April from J. I). Lyman, Esq., prompts me to trouble you with a line on the preparation of the land to re- ceive the seed. Manure well; plough '■'deep" keep clean by frequent ploughing and hoeing, and if there is not a great competition for Mr. Lyman's premiums I shall be sadly mistaken. Last year I ploughed my land for corn with heavy oxen, as deep as the point of plough beam would allow, — turning in the manure and black soil, — bringing up the clay to the top, and the result was such a crop that none of my Irish, Dutch or French neigh- bors could begin to think of comparing samples. A deal of my corn grew fifteen feet high, had three ears on one stalk, with sixteen to twenty rows on an ear, — which measured from ten to twelve inches long. A result which I think was owing to my reversing the system practiced by a great many farmers out West, — / hauled the manure on to the latid instead of removing my stables. I wish Mr. Lyman or any other Mr. Somebody Else would make such significant oS^is up in northwestern Illinois for the growing of corn. My com is the big yellow Horse Tooth, and was tipe and cut sixteen or twenty days before the first frosts in Septeml>er. I have many applications for seed from Iowa and Wisconsin. John Whatmore. Bridgnorth Farm, Dunleiih, 111., AprilZQ, 1870. when to sow grass seed. It has been the practice of most farmers to sow grass seed in the spring, with wheat, barley or oats. This will do if the land is in good condition tion to seed down in April or early in May. But when the land is too wet to work until late in in May or early in June, it is better to sow grain without grass seed, and when the grain is taken off, plough in the stubble, put on the manure, sow on the grass seed, and lay the land down smooth. It is better for the following reasons : — 1st. The young grass will make a more vigorous growth than when sown late in May, with gram, because the grain will grow up quick and over- power the young grass, which will be but feeble at best. And when the grain is taken off, it will sometimes die out by drought and the heat of the stin, and if it does not die it will make but a sickly growth. 2d. The land is generally dryer in August, and in better condition to seed down, and it puts the stubble out of the way, and farmers have more time to do the work well. 3d. Farmers can grow their own seed for less than half the present high price. Therefore, farmers that have land in grass, and no grass seed on hand, would do well to wait until grass seed grows before seeding down, and let speculators keep their seed for their own use until they are glad to sell at a fair price. d. jj. Amherst, N. H., April 18, 1870. FARMING, PRICES, &C., IN IOWA. Having been raised to farming and then engag- ing in various pursuits for many years, I am again on the farm, and to get and impart informa- tion that will facilitate that busmess in a practi- cal manner is my desire. After traveling through parts of many of the Western States, with a view to location, I pitched my tent in northern Iowa, as the best, all things considered. Having resided here near twenty years, and given some atteation to matters generally, I am of the opinion that northern Iowa presents more and better induce- ments to the industrious farmer than any other place under the sun. Our climate is healthy ; our crops scarcely ever fail ; our soil is unsurpassed for fertility ; our stock is healthy and thrifty ; our fruit is abundant, especially of the smaller kinds; our railroad facilities are being pushed forward, so that in a few years our butter will not be sold for twenty cents here and fifty cents in Boston, and other products at the same ratio. Our wheat bins are now groaning under the heavy burthen of last years' crop, forty to seventy cents a bushel, not being sufficient inducement to them to drop their burthen. Unlike the State of Maine our legislature should offer premiums to our farmers to raise less wheat and more potatoes and other 316 NEW ENGLAND FARjVIER. July cereals. There will be much less wheat sown this year than formerly in Iowa. And right here I wish to ask if the Norway oats, which are being so highly spoken of, are one grand humbug, and are the Western farmers being imposed upon by sending them common oats, calling them "Norway oats f" F. Snedioar. Fayette, loxca, 1870. NEW OATS. — DRY ROT IN POTATOES. — POTATO BUG. Please inform me what kind of oats the en- closed are. They yield about sixty bushels per acre. I lind my potatoes are affected with dry rot. Will it do to plant the sound portion ? Last season 1 noticed the tops to be covered with a very small black bug, oval in form, and very sprv. Did they injure the tubers ? Shelburn, N. H., 1870. H. T, Cummings. Remarks. — The oats you enclosed are probably what are called "The Surprise Oats." We have had several samples sent us from various parts of New England, all of which are very plump, white and heavy. They are represented to weigh from 40 to 60 pounds per bushel. The oats which have been cultivated for twenty years past seem, like some other plants, to have greatly deteriorated, so that we need some new and better variety. The "Surprise" seem to promise this. It would not be advisable to plant any portion of a partially rotten potato. The minute, black bug of which you speak has been very destructive to the potato, and although not directly causing the rot, greatly enfeebles and injures the crop. Scatter dry ashes, plaster or air-slaked lime over the vines, as soon as the bugs appear. If done two or three times it will check their ravages, and help the crop. ■WHAT WILL DESTROY WOOD LICE ? Will some writer for the Farmer please inform me what will destroy wood lice ? Dover, N. H., April, 1870. J. M. Jenkins. Remarks. — If the writer means the common aphis, he may check their ravages, or destroy them by the use of soap suds, tobacco water or whale oil soap. If he refers to bark lice, coccida, the question as to what will destroy them and not injure the tree, becomes one somewhat difficult to answer. And even if we could find a remedy that is safe and efficacious, the labor of going over an orchard would be one of considerable cost. We have recently seen an account of many ex- periments made by a gentleman, some of which were perfectly harmless to tree and louse, while others did not kill the branches, but utterly killed the foliage as well as the lice. The experiments, however, were continued with all sorts of appli- ances which he thought might destroy the in- vaders, until he hit upon one which he states has proved a perfect remedy. It was the application of fish brine ; the brine, we suppose, from the bar- rel of salted mackerel or other fish. This he di- luted, and with a syringe, cr pop-squirt, as the boys call them, which cost fifty cents at the tin- ners, he syringed the trees when in foliage and blossom, without any ipjury to the tree, but it proved to be death to the lice! After this the branches assumed a green, plump and healthy ap- pearance and grew vigorously. The meaning of the term coccus is to exhaust, and it seems to us that if some means are not found to check the ravages of these lice, or de- stroy them, they will eventually exhaust every apple tree in New England. Their presence on the trees is sufficient, it seems to us, to prevent their producing fruit, if they are not themselves the cause of barrenness. Please make the experi- ment with care and report to us. APPARATUS FOR A SMALL CHEESE DAIRY. Please give us an accurate account of the best method, now in practice, for manufacturing cheese where the milk of from four to eight or ten cows is used. As there are not any cheese factories in this section, cheese is made in the good old-fashioned way, which does make good cheese. But, alas ! like the frogs in the fable, though it may be fun for the eaters, it is death to the makers. Madison, Me., April, 1870. B. P. J. Weston. Remarks. — A few rnonths since, see Monthly Farmer for 1869, page 423, we published direc- tions for furnishing a family cheese establishment of the simplest and cheapest of the "good old- fashioned way;" but our correspondent wants something in advance of this, but not so extensive as the modern cheese factory. Though quite fa- miliar with cheese making in our youth, we pre- sume that our personal experience was with im- plements, conveniences and processes similar to those which our correspondent complains are much more funny to the eaters than to the makers. How far the factory appliances have been or may be simplified and adapted to private dairies we are not informed, but on behalf of Mr. Weston and others similarly situated, we solicit information from those who have tested improvements on the good old way of family cheese making. swelling on STIFLE JOINT. I have a valuable cow that is troubled with bunches on her stifles and is quite lame. I have applied kerosene and chamber-lye and salt with- out apparent effect. What shaM I do for her ? Littleton, Mass., May 6, 1870. i. s. h. Remarks. — We mistrust that the leg has been sprained or injured, and that the trouble is in the joint. Sometime when your family doctor is riding by, get him to look at it. It is very important to know the cause and seat of disease. If the bunch is caused by "weeping" from an injured joint, it requires very different treatment from what would be proper in case it is a tumor or sore originating in the skin or flesh. You do not say whether the bunch is hard or soft. If it proceeds from an in- jured joint, it is probably soft, and contains fluid matter, and it may be of the kind called a bursal swelling. These are often opened at the lower part, and after pressing out the fluid, bandages are applied and drawn over the swelling quite snugly. It may be necessary to repeat the opera- tion. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 317 -x^^i^s-sC FKENCH'S PATENT CULTIVATOR. The increased attention lately paid to dairy- ing, which at the present time is assuming somewhat the type of an agricultural fever, has naturally suggested inquiries for better milk producing feed. Dry hay, especially that which stood till the seed was thoroughly ripened, or pasture feed which has turned white from old age or August drought, is not quite juicy enough for factory cows, or for gilt edged butter, and many farmers are think- ing about raising a patch of roots, if not for the daily food, at least for an occasional change of diet for their animals. The remarks made by Mr. Henry Lane, of Cornwall, Vt., in his address at the meeting of the dairymen of that State, about raising beets for cattle and pigs, eeem to have been read with much inter- est by many farmers. But the labor and the bother of raising roots, is the great objection which we fast-horse Yankees urge against their cultivation. To obviate this objection the inventors have been racking their brains to devise ploughs, cultivators, seed sowers, and-so-forth, which they assure us will make a rough field as mellow as a garden, and help us' to raise a ton of beets with as little back- ache as a ton of hay. One of these newly invented implements is daguerreotyped above. The patentee, Hon. Henry F. French, lives in Concord, Mass., and notwithstanding the proverb that a prophet has no honor in his own country, he has put his cultivator into the hands of his neighbors, who after using it one season speak well of it. A statement signed by John B. Moore, Minot Pratt, Abiel H. Wheeler, Simon Brown and Frederick G. Pratt — names familiar to the readers of the Farmer — closes with the re- mark that "It saves much of the hand labor, and therefore much of the expense of cultiva- tion of the root crops, small fruits and vege- tables." The above cuts show so well the peculiarities of the implement that we need only say that it is a light horse cultivator or harrow, the teeth are steel-pointed, one inch square, about ten long and set cornerwise. Further information is given in an advertise- ment in another column. ABORTION AMONG CO"WS. Cheese factories originated in central New York, and there the system has been perfected. Little Falls, one of its villages, has become the great cheese market of the country. Cows have been selected, managed and fed for the greatest possible production of milk. Massachusetts is full of cities and large man- ufacturing towns, which afford a capital mar- ket for milk. Hence many of her farmers have made the raising of milk the great object of farm management. Everything else has been made secondary or subservient to this. Few cattle arc raised, and cows are selected with reference to the abundance of milk which high feeding and special management could stimulate them to produce. Chester county, Pennsylvania, famous for its choice butter and pure milk, is near the 318 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. July city of Philadelphia; and Cumberland county, in the same state, is near the city of Harris- burg. Both counties had in 1860 more cows than of all other stock put together. In the report of Dr. J. C. Dalton, Com- missioner appointed by the legislature of New York for the investigation of abortion in cows, it is stated that "only in New York and Mas- sachusetts have cases been sufficiently numer- ous to excite general attention. In Pennsyl- vania they were found in Chester and in Cum- berland counties, reaching ten per cent, of all cases of pregnancy reported." To our own minds the close connection be- tween abortion among cows, as a disease, and the production of milk, as a specialty, is forci- bly suggested by a consideration of the fore- going facts. Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum ; is it not equally true that she sooner or later protests against all specialties in her productions? The farmers of Illinois make a business of hog-raising, and the protest of nature is in the form of a cholera ; in Vermont, fine-wooled sheep are raised till the foot-rot intimates that a change is necessary ; New Jersey makes a specialty of peach-growing, and that fever is cooled off by the "yellows ;" Cincinnati hopes to get rich by growing grapes, but the mildew blights her vines and disappoints her expecta- tions ; sanguine amateurs, believing that if a few hens prove profitable, a larger number may be kept with a proportional profit, try the experiment only to increase the number of those with whom "boughten wit is the best;" cotton is raised at the South, and wheat at the West, till the land becomes so tired of these crops, that the men who cultivate them find it necessary to exchange their old fields for new ones. But we have another fact bearing on the relation of the milk specialty to this terrible dairy calamity. In the last Prairie Farmer we find the fol- lowing announcement: — "We regret to state that this scourge that has so long afflicted the cows in the dairy regions of New York and Massachusetts has at length made its appearance in the west." The editor,, regarding it as one of the direst calamities that could happen to the farmers of that growing section of our country, recently visited the locality of the outbreak for the purpose of gathering what information he could in relation to the prevalence of the trouble. We have read the report of his ex- amination with care, and the only fact stated on which any theory can be grounded to ac- count for the frequent cases of abortion of the cows in this section is the unqualified one that,— "The complaint is entirely limited to a small number of herds of cows that are kept with a view of sending their milk to Chicago market." The locality of the disease in Illinois is in the township of Lockport, Will countv, con- veniently situated on a railroad for the trans- portation of milk to the city. About 250 cows are kept for this purpose by ten farmers. The section is admirably adapted to dairy purposes. "All the pastures are supplied with water of rare purity, being the product of living springs. The pastures are excellent, and are well provided with shade. The barns are roomy and well ventilated. The cows are fed tame hay during winter, together with bran, shorts and screenings. They are kept in good condition for breeding or giving milk, but are not fat." In a natural state, cows yield milk for their offspring a few months, which is then weaned, and the mother goes dry the remainder of the year. The milking qualities of our herds are, therefore, largely artificial, and how far this improvement on nature can be carried, is a question that we think is soon to be decided. The limit, we apprehend, has already been reached by some of those who have made the production of the largest amount of milk a study and a specialty ; and we regard the disease under consideration as a notice, post- ed up by nature so distinctly that he who runs may read, — "thus far shalt thou go, but no further." We do not claim originality for this theory. In the second report of the New York Com- missioner, Dr. Carmault, successor of Dr. Dalton, before alluded to, the idea that the excessive production of milk may be the cause of abortion is alluded to, and the significant statement is made that in diseased sections of New York there is "an average excess of 1815 pounds more milk per cow than the statistics of the whole State deter- mine should be the yield." Can we reasonably expect that the organism of the cow will bear that management and that stimulating food necessary to so great an increase of her milk producing powers ? And 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 319 if not, in what form could her failure be mani- fested more directly in the line of our efforts than has been done in those sections where milk has been made a specialty ? Is not na- ture herself offering, by this very disease, to aid us in our purpose to make the cow a mere milk machine ? For the New England Farmer, MASSACHUSETTS STATE BOAED OF HEALTH. Look out for Poison— Poison in the Air— - Poison in the Water. BT JDDGE FRENCH. The health of the community is of public importance. The State needs the labor, phy- sical and mental, of every citizen. The imbe- cile, whether in body or mind, is a public bur- den, a tax on other men's ability. It is, there- fore, a primary duty of the State, in every proper way to limit the number of the feeble, the insane, the idiotic, the sick, just as it les- sens the number of the ignorant and vicious, by means of schools and colleges. With this view, by an act of June, 1869, the legislature established a State Board of Health, to consist of seven persons, to be appointed by the Gov- ernor and Council. Their duty is "to make sanitary investigations and inquiries In respect to the health of the people, the causes of disease and especially of epidemics and the sources of mortality and the effects of localities, em- ployments, conditions and circumstances on the public health," to advise the government in regard to the location of any public insti- tutions, and make annual leports of their doings, with such suggestions as to legislative action as they may deem necessary. They are also charged with investigating the effects of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. The board has been organized by the choice of Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, as President, and Dr. George Derby, as Secretary, and has made Its first report. Probably no persons in the Commonwealth are better qualified for their Important posi- tions than the two gentlemen named. The paper contains a report upon slaughtering for Boston mark-Gt, and a report on the sale of poisons, and closes with general observations on The Prevention of Disease. To two of the topics most prominent, as affecting public health, I wish to call the attention of your readers. There are some things beyond the power of the State to control, such as our food and drink and clothing, and warmth and ventilation In our private houses, and our per- sonal habits of cleanliness or healthfal exer- cise. These circumstances may indeed be greatly influenced by correct public sentiment and by Instruction through various channels. Another class of subjects bearing on public health may be controlled by police regulations, such as the management of slaughter houses, the drainage of towns and villages, the supply of pure water and the prevention of disease by contagion, as by vaccination. The great point dwelt upon In this report is Pure Air. One would think that in the month of March In New England, fresh air mlj^ht be abundant and cheap, but the want of It kills, perhaps, more than all other causes combined. We can see our food, and we can smell it and taste, so that we have several chances of testing Its qualities. What would you think of a man who should go to a neighbor's to dinner and sit down at the table and open his mouth and shut his eyes and tell one of the children or servants to pour in whatever solid or fluid was con- venient. Now we do even worse than this as to the air we breathe. To be sure we cannot usu- ally see the atmosphere or taste It, and I wish we could not so often smell It. But whether we can thus test it or not. It Is of far more consequence to health than food. We may live for days without food, we die in five minutes without air, and we die nearly or quite as quickly in a well, filled with certain gases, or in a close room with a pan of char- coal. Yet we think It a hardship to go to bed without a supper, and make provisions over night for our breakfast, while the little circumstance of whether we shall breathe poi- son all night for want of ventilation, does not disturb us. Twenty grown-up men will shut themselves up with an air-tight stove in a close room fif- teen feet square to hold a farmer's club, and a majority of them will feel rather injured at the suggestion that air is necessary to respira- tion ; and there is a town, not far from some of us, where a high school house has been lately built at a cost of $12,000, without any provi- sion whatever for ventilation, and where there are some smaller schoolhouses practlcall}' In the same predicament. Think a moment, reader, if the thought doe.s not make you sick, what sort of mixture you are breathing in a close room full of people. A single whiff of a cigar in that room will be perceived by every person in It in ten seconds, which seems to show that the single breath of smoke from one man's lips polutes all the air In the room, and a portion of It goes Into every other person's lungs. Not to put too fine a point upon It, is not it a pleasing reflection that a substantial portion of what comes out of every pair of lungs passes through your delicate mouth many times a minute. We who are so squeamish about drinking from another's glass, or even using another's napkin, upon what horrors do we daily and nightly sup, for want of a constant change of air. The two great causes of consumption, says our report, are first, "collective indoor occu- pations, which may be regarded as almost sy- 320 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July nonymous with the habitual inhalation of air ' rendered foul bj' respiration, and, second, 50)7 moisture.'''' As showing the necessity of pure o,vc for children, it is stated that in the great lying in hospital in Dublin during twenty-five years before ventilation was introduced, the mor- tality of new-born infants in the first two or three weeks of me, was one in six. In the twenty-five years following the introduction of good air, the mortality was one in one hun- dred and four. The teaching of the report on this point is briefly this, that pure air irom out of doors, every moment of time, day and night, introduced, if possible, comfortably warmed, is essential to health. "Ventilate the schoolrooms, and the workshops, and the stores and the houses." A Sound Soil. Dr. Bowditch is perhaps the best authority in this country as to the diseases classed under the name of consumption, and he is under- stood to be the first person who deduced from statistics the conclusion that soil moisture is among the prominent causes of these diseases. "When a man proposes to build a dwelling in a swamp, warn him of his danger," say the board of health. In England, in 18G5 and 1866, inquiries were made, under government authority, into the effect of drainage-works and other regula- tions designed to promote health. It ap- peared that while the general death-rate had greatly diminished, consumption had dimin- ished even in greater proportion, wherever the soil had been rendered dry by means of ssw- ers. The writer has exhorted so much on the importance of drainage about our buildings, that he is happy to borrow the language of this report. It is well known that in many towns, — and Concord, which ought to know better, is one of them, — a large proportion of the cellars are afloat with water for a longer or shorter time, every spring. The Board of Health say, "Another danger is a damp cellar. Its atmosphere goes all over the house in spite of every effort to prevent it." Again, "most houses in the country are exposed to special dangers from the absence of drains, the refuse irom houses being poured upon the ground, thereby infecting not only the air, but water also. In some instances, the kitchen slops, delivered from a spout upon a limited space have in the course of time worn a direct channel to the family well. At any rate it may be useful to remember that the soil sur- rounding a well is drained by it. In this view it will be seen how important it is for the purity of ))Oth air and water, that pigstyes, privies and manure heaps should be kept at a certain distance from the dwelling. Many a case of typhoid, and much imj)itired vitality ready to succumb to trifling ailments, might be traced to such pollutions. The epidemic of fever at the Maplewood Institute at Pitts- field, a few years ago, was caused by an ac- cumulation of filth, and ceased on removal of the cause. Instances of this sort, where the cause has been sought for and found, and the epidemic thereby stayed, are so numerous that we need not cite them." Consumption, typhoid fevers and rheuma- tism are as much the natural, legitimate pro- ducts of bad air and bad water, as our crops are of our seed. For the New England Farmer. LIME A3 A FERTILIZER. On page 22 of the Monthly Farmer for 1870, I find the following remark : — "It should be said, once for all, that oyster shells are composed of carbonate of lime ; and carbo- nate of lime is not a manurial agent. It is hard, insoluble marble, and of no value in ag- riculture." This was written by Dr. James R. Nichols of Boston, and is so directly at vari- ance with the generally received opinion, that perhaps a reference to some authorities upon the subject, will not be out of plac-e. Dr. Stockhardt says that "the same constit- uents enter into the composition of chalk, com- mon limestone, marble and oyster shells ; that they consist of carbonate of lime, and have for a formula (CaO, CO5)," He also says that "carbonate of lime is one of the principal constituents of our earth." Now it is undoubtedly conceded that car- bonic acid, one of the elements of the formu- la, enters largely into the food of plants. Baron Liebig says that if by manuring a field with potash or lime, no increase of crop can be observed, it therefore does not follow, that these substances of themselves, are not effica- cious ; a certain amount of ammonia is neces- sary to render them efficacious." Also in his "Familiar Letters" he says ; "in limestone are certain elements indispensable to the growth of plants and the presence of which renders them fertile;" and that "we possess substan- ces, which by their chemical action render the constituents of the soil more suitable for en- tering into the vegetable organism, and one of these is lime." Again, he says: "The cere- alia require the alkalies and alkaline silicates, and these are liberated by lime from clayey soils, and hence the fertility of the soil is in- ereased by lime." The latter statement is also found in his "Agricultural Chemistry." Frof. J. F. W. Johnston in his "Agricultu- ral Chemistry" says, "The use of lime is of the greatest importance;: in practical agricul- ture. Marls consist of carbonate of lime, mixed with sand, and are considered more or less valuable for agricultural purposes as the proportion of lime increases or diminishes." "Where vegetable matter abounds, much lime may be usefully added ; and on stiff clay lands, after draining, its good effects are very re- markable. Upon pastures a greater fineness. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIMER. 321 sweetness, closeness, and nutritive character of the grasses is remarkably visible ; on ara- ble lands a mellowness of stiff soils is pro- duced." Emerson and Flint in their "Manual of Ag- riculture" confirm Prof. Liebig in saying that, "lime amends the soil by setting at liberty the potash and other alkalies which exist in com- bination with clay and in granite sand ; that oyster shell lime is of greater value for agri- cultural purposes than common lime, because it contains a small quantity of phosphoric acid ; , and no soil, however good, and however favor- able the climate will produce first rate crops of wheat unless it contain a proper proportion of lime." Prof. Nash in his "Progressive Farmer" gives a table of soils, and the one classed fer- tile without manure, contains a considerable percentage of lime and carbonic acid, while the soil classed barren is nearly destitute of either of these constituents. Allen, in his "Farm Book," also speaks in the praise of lime as a manurial agent. Berg- man found that one of the most fertile soils of Sweden contained thirty per cent, of caibo- nate of lime. Chaptal analyzed a very pro- ductive soil in France which gave near twenty five per cent, of the same and seven of the or- ganic matter. Tillet even found jne, and that the most fertile, which yielded <57. 5 of carbo- nate of lime. Some of the Nist in the Missis- sippi valley have yielded upon analysis twenty per cent, of lime, avd many other soils throughout the Unite'^ States contain an equal proportion of carbo-»ate of lime, and such are always the last to wear out. C. D. Wilbe-> secretary of the Illinois Natu- ral History Society, speaking of lime, says, "The farrier must have it diffused through every &f^& of his farm or his crops will fail." An anicle upon lime, in the United States Ag- rici'itural Report, 1856, says, "The purposes served by lime as a chemical constituent of the soil are of at least four distinct kinds, namely : First, it supplies a kind of organic food, which appi^ars to be necessary to the healthy growth of all cultivated plants. Secondly, it neutral- izes acid substances which are naturally formed in the soil, and decomposes or renders harm- less other noxious compounds that are not un- frequently within reach of the roots of plants. Thirdly, itchanges the inert vegetable matter in the soil so as gradually to render it useful to vegetation. Fourthly, it causes, facilitates, or enables other useful compounds, both organic and inorganic, to be produced in the soil, or so promotes the decomposition of existing compounds, as to prepare them more speedily for enteiing into the circulation of plants." Hon. Thomas G. Clemsen, LL.D. in the Re- port for 1859 writes substantially as above, with regard to the benefit of carbonate of lime. Here, then, is the testimony of many emi- nent men direct to the point that lime as it exists in limestone, marble and chalk, is bene- ficial as a manurial agent. There might also be collected a large amount of testimony from the many that have used lime upon soils, touching the benefits derived from its applica- tion. Even an application of plastering taken from old buildings, to the soil, leaves traces of very marked effects produced, years after the application is made. With all this accumulation of testimony in favor of the beneficial effects of lime, in oppo- sition to the statement of Dr. Nichols, the question very naturally arises. Who shall de- cide when doctors disagree? w. h. y. FARMERS' CliUBS IN SUMMER, During the winter the reports from these associations have occupied considerable space in our column?, and, judging from the many expressions^ of satisfaction which have come to us through our correspondence, no part of our paper has been more attentively read. Not only this, many of the articles have been cop- idd by the leading agricultural papers of the country, and thus the doings of a Farmer's Club in some corner of our noble State, re- ported through our columns, is made to inter- est farmers in remote States, and possibly give hints, the improvement of which may be of great benefit to them. Since November last, the organization of sixty-two Farmers' Clubs has been reported to us. Now that the long evenings are parsed, and the active individual work of members upon their own farms has commenced, we suppose the regular meetings for discussion will be dis- continued until another fail. But in the mean- time the work of the members for the general good of the Club, and the mutual advantage of its members should not cease. It should, in fact, just commence. Each member should this season undertake some experiment or put in operation some train of investigation or thought for determining some disputed opin- ion, or more firmly establishing some partially accepted theory — the result of which should be reported to the club at the commencement of its next winter campaign. Bear this in mind ; and when you begin your season's la- bors, plan some experiment for the benefit of the Farmers' Club. Thus, although the meet- ings for discussion may be suspended during the summer, the period may be one of real work for the Club, inasmuch as the experi- ments and investigations made are such as can- not be performed in the winter, and will fur- nish material about which to talk next winter. — Maine Farmer. — A Michigan correspondent of the Rural yew Yorker has been feeding wheat to his "shotes" with satisfactory results. He is convinced that it is a cheaper food for hogs than corn, at the present prices. He boils the wheat until it is thoroughly cooked, which nearly doubles its bulk. 322 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July LETTER FBOM THE FAEM. Concord, May 6, 1870. The Beason— Wet Weather— Farm Work Retarded- Hot Days and Warm Soil — Appearance of Qraes and Grain— Promise of the Fruit Trees— Laying Land to GraBS— Witt's Breaker and Leveller— Caterpillars- Bark Lice— Carbolic Acid— Potatoes— New Varieties. EXTLEMEN : — The long con- tinued wet weather in April has considerably retarded the field work of the farm, this spring. The ground is thoroughly satu- rated with water, even on the high lands, at this time, while the low lands that were ploughed Hst fall, or intended to be this spring, cannot be entered upon with the team. The few hot days, however, which have occurred, have so warmed the inoist soil, that vegetation has been quick. Grj^ss ap- pears well, but few places in our observation having been winter-killed. Winter rye and wheat seem also to be vigorous and healthy. All fruit trees promise an abundant blos- som ; plum and cherry trees were in blossom here in the last days of April. There will be quite a full bloom of the apple and pear trees in this region. Fields to be sowed to grain and grass never presented a more lively time than at present. All that are drained, or on moderately high land, present scenes of the most lively indus- try. Every available force is called in. The soil is moist and warm, so that grain will ger- minate rapidly that is got in during the early part of May. Having ten acres to be sowed to grain and grass, it was ploughed last fall, with the inten- tion to plough again this spring ; this was pre- vented by the rains, so that instead of the plough, Witt's ''Breaker and Leveller'''' was put upon it. The fields are granite soils, some portions of them being quite heavy, and hav- ing many fast and loose stones. Notwith- standing this, the Breaker has so reduced the coarse clod, interwoven with the roots of piper or twitch grass, and so finely levelled and pulverized the soil, that there is a capital seed bed over the whole surface, of from four to six inches in depth. I think there is no other implement which would have performed the same service in the same time. The teeth are lifters, about nine inches long, and are followed by a sort of platform resembling the clap- boarding on a house. Caterpillars, and other insects seem to have flourished through the winter. The nests of the former are growing daily with the growth of foliage on the trees. The scales of the bark louse on the apple trees can only be numbered by millions. Dr. Fitch says they are the bod- ies of the gravid females, protecting their eggs, which may be found during the winter and spring upon elevating the scales. He says he has counted the eggs, and in some instances found as many as 102 under a single scale, though more frequently from ten to fifcy. In my own examinations I have not found so many, rarely more than twelve. The injury which they do to apple and other fruit trees is sometimes very great. When apple trees are infested by them year after year, to a large extent, the trees dwindle away and die. In speaking of the injury done by these lice, Har- ris says they insert their beaks into the bark or leaves, and draw from the cellular substance t^e sap that nourishes them. 1 have seen only one remedy stated as an absolui«ly efficient one, and that is fish brine, as stated s-ame weeks since in reply to a cor- respondent. A gentleman states that this was applied, and dutroyed the lice wherever it touched, and withotif, harming foliage or bloom. Enclosed, I send soma samples of the limbs they have infested, — the larger piece was cut from the tree in the early p^rt of the winter, the smaller taken off to-day. Nearly every branch of some quite large trees ^„i-r./ A KEAT COTTAGE HOUSE, ■WITH PLAN AND GROUNDS. In consequence of some unforeseen delays in preparing the fourth plan in our series of "Rural Architecture," we present the above, drawn and engraved expressly for us, from a design by Geo. E. Harney, Architect. For the execution of this plan, from one- eighth to one-fourth of an acre should be de- voted to ornamental purposes ; the garden, &c., being in the rear, are not included in this plan. The dwelling should be set back some thirty feet from the highway, and for a good effect it should be on a slightly elevated spot. A foot-path, five feet wide, starts from the front gate, passes the front entrance, and ter- minates in the open yard in the rear. This, with the carriage road, which leads from the gate to the stable, is the only path we have in- troduced on the plan. The foundation of the ornamental portion is a smooth, green lawn, extending to the bounda- ries on either side, which are hidden by plan- tations of evergreens and shrubbery, with occa- sionally a deciduous tree introduced to pro- duce a variety, and give character to the whole. They arc mostly arranged in Irregular clumps, connected together by other shrubs and ever- greens, and planted with a view to obtain as great a diversity of outline as possible, and heavy masses of foliage and flowers, from spring to late in the fall. The clump on the right of the front gate is composed principally of tall growing shrubs and evergreens. In the corner is an American mountain ash, the color of whose red berries contrasts well with the heavy green of the two Norway Spruces, one on each side of it. Close to the path is a large, flowering Syringa, and in front some low, bright flowering shrub, such as Rose Weigela, Double Tree Peony or Double Dwarf Almond, while farther back, near the fence, are a tall Purple Lilac and a Tartarean Hon- eysuckle. But without specifying further the exact position or kinds of shrubs, trees, flowers, &c., we will leave that to the taste and means of the proprietor of the house and grounds. The house itself is an example of the sim- plest rural gothic style. It is one and a half 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 325 stories In height, and contains three finished rooms below and three chambers on the sec- ond floo; . The vestibule, A, is approached from the terrace through the pointed arch and measures eight feet by nine. The hall, B, is seven feet wide and fifteen feet long, and contains stairs to chambers and cellar. C is the parlor, measuring fourteen by fifteen, the principal feature of which is the bay window on the side opposite the door, overlooking the small flow- er-beds and the side street. The dining or living-room, D, measures also fourteen by fif- teen ; it connects with the veranda by a mul- lioned window reaching to the floor and open- ing like the French window. A closet is pro- vided at the side of the vestibule in the front gable and for china, &c., at the other end of the room, furnished with shelves and drawers. The passage, E, which is also fitted with shelves, communicates directly with the kitch- en, K. This room is thirteen feet square, and is well lighted by two windows. At the left of the chimney a door opens into a large store room, G, and at the right another leads to the pantry, F. We here have a sink and pump, with a closet and shelves for tin ware. A door opens directly into the yard. On the second floor, the two principal cham- bers measure each twelve by fourteen, and the other, in the gable, ten by thirteen. Prices and quality of materials vary so greatly that no exact statement of cost of building can be given. It might vary from : $1800 to $2500 according to locality, and cost of lumber and labor. To Destroy the Cucumber Bug. — A correspondent writes to the Maryland Far- mer:— "I send you an item, if you think it worth publishing, which effectually protected my melon, squash, cucumber and other vines from that destructive pest, the 'striped or cu- cumber bug,' the past season, with only one application, viz. : a strong solution of hen- house manure — say one peck of the manure to one and a half gallons water — let it stand twenty-four hours, and sprinkle the plants freely with it after sunset. The above was suggested to me by a negro woman living on my place, who has some practical experience in gardening, and says she has used it for years, and has never known the first applica- tion to fail to drive them off, and they never return." 826 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. — D. F. Appleton, of Ipswich, a breeder of the Kerry cattle has recently received some choice cows from the Island of Jersey. — Cabbage seed should never be grown from stumps, but from a sprout issuing from the center of a perfectly developed head. — It is said that Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., has received nearly ^100,000 for its Agri- cultural School. It has bought a farm of 200 acres. There are seven in the agricultural class. — In a paper read before the Central New York Farmers' Club, Mr. Robert Gibson said he would name the Globe mangel wurtzel as the best root for all purposes. The Utica Herald gives a list of 145 new cheese factories to go into operation this spring in the State of New York, and understands this is far from being a complete list. — The South Bend, Ind., Register sajs : "Thomas Rockhill, of this place — himself over seventy years of age — is doing his corn ploughing this spring with a span of horses, one of which is twenty-six and the other twenty-seven years old." — The Lee Gleaner says that W. S. Clark, Presi- dent of the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, has been engaged to deliver the address at the next annual fair of the Housatonic Agri- cultural Society in September. — The increase in the manufacture of beet sugar in Europe for the present year over that of last year, is about 100,000 tons. The product already exceeds that of Cuban sugar cane. France ex- ported 70,000 tons of beet sugar during 1869. — The Sheboygan, Wis., Times, says that the farmers of Calumet county, are preparing to grow hops quite extensively, although hop-raising has not been very profitable of late ; some owners are enlarging their yards and seem resolved to make or break in the business. — Somebody says the reason why there is a' greater yield of butter when the whole milk is churned, rather than the cream, is that there is a great deal more caseine incorporated with it. When such butter is fresh, the taste is very agree- able, but it will not keep. Is this so ? — A pig about five months old was discovered sucking a cow on the farm of Alex. B. Ramsey, in Clark Co., Kentucky. He watched it afterward for several days and found it in the same per- formance. The pig would rear up, placing its fore feet against the hind legs of the cow, and would remain in that position until it had satisfied itself. — There seems to be a great difference in soils with respect to the influence of lime upon them. Accordmg to the report of the Trustees of the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, liming on the eastern and central farms was without benefit, while on the western ones a liberal application in- creased the corn crop nearly one-half. The pre- sumption is that in the first instance the soil needed something else, while in the second, lime was pre- cisely what was wanted to impart vigor to it. — Thunder sours milk and kills oysters. You may load a vessel to its utmost capacity, start for market, and one good round clap of thunder will kill every oyster in the vessel immediately. Pounding with an ax upon the deck of a vessel when oysters are thereon, or pounding upon the sides of a vessel with a heavy weight, will kill every oyster that feels the jar. — The Agricultural College at Hanover, N. H., has been presented with a plough made by Daniel Webster, and used on his Marshfield estate. It is about thirteen feet long and weighs a little less than a ton. From what Horace Greeley "knows about farming," we think he should have had that plough. We fear the New Hampshire farmers will hardly keep its irons from rusting. — Mr. Richard Peters, of Georgia, informs the editor of the Ohio Farmer that neither Devon or Short-horn cattle are healthy in that section. Mr. P. finds a cross of the Brahmin stock from India, with the Aldemeys and Devons are healthy and profitable. The long wool English sheep he also finds do not succeed as well there as the Merino, and he will keep none but the Merino. — After working eight years and expending some $40,000 in time and money, Mr. S. D. Carpenter, of Madison, Wis., has perfected his "Automatic Binder," which is designed to rake and bind the grain and carry the bundles until enough are bound to form a shock. The editor of the IVesi- ern Farmer has not seen the machine in its pres- ent state, but is informed that it operates in the most perfect manner. — According to the Secretary's statistics, the twenty-nine agricultural societies of Massachu- setts, received in 1869, $16,934 from the State treasury, and paid $30,734 in premiums to 5,666 persons. These societies owe $110,761, and value their real and personal property at $466,352, be- sides permanent funds amounting to $272,226. Premiums to the amount of 19,319 were offered for live stock, of which $9,261 were for horses. Total amount paid for "farm products," $5,989. — Cyrus Smitih, one of the old farmers of Vic- tory, Vt., till recently, never owned a hen. Dogs, cats and poultry, he always regarded as nuisances about a farm. He married a young wife a few months ago who had the hen fever, and persuaded the old gentleman to invest. He has a handsome flock of hens now, and his neighbors do say that when he starts for the barn to hunt eggs, he car- ries with him the zeal and pride of a boy who has just arrived at the egg-hunting age. — A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer has prac- ticed shallow planting of corn to avoid the cut- worm for more than twenty years. He says, cut- worms always burrow in the hill around the stalk, previous to cutting it off. Shallow covering gives 1870. NEW ENGLAXD F.\K]VIER. 327 them no chance to burrow, and if they should, the sun will soon drive them from their place. They universally select their position in the day- time and commit their depredations at night. In shallow covering the seed gets warm and starts much quicker than when covered deep. — The Homestead says that very little, if any money, has been made this season by the cattle feeders of the Connecticut Valley, and some have lost money in the business. If tobacco was as low as other farm crops, feeding cattle would be a poor business, but most feeders expect to more than make up on their tobacco what they lose fattening cattle. Those that have fed sheep are a great deal better suited with what they have done than the cattle men. The price has nearly doubled since last fall, and a fair profit has been realized. — In speaking of the arrival of six thorough- bred pedigree animals recently bought of H. G. White, Framingham, Mass., by Mr. Levi A. Dow, of Waterville, and Charles Shaw, of Dexter, the Maine Farmer says, "we have never known a time in the agricultural history of our State, when her farmers and breeders were showing so much ac- tivity and intelligence in carrying forward their operations as at present. We have in Maine gen- tlemen of character, intelligence and wealth who are engaged in breeding thoroughbred animals of all the types now held in esteem for the various purposes, — Devons, Herefords, Short-horns, Jer- seys, Ayrshires." — An exchange says a Pennsylvania merchant agreed to take a farmer's oats at forty cents a bushel if the latter would let him tramp the meas- ures when filled. The farmer agreed to it. The buyer paid for sixty bushels and next day went after them. The farmer filled the bushel, and the merchant got in and tramped them down ; where- upon the farmer poured the oats so compressed into the bag. The merchant protested, and de- manded that the measure should be filled up after tramping. The farmer informed him that there was no agreement of that sort, but that he might tramp down the oats to his heart's content after they were measured. —A farmer named Chilson, living near Girard, Ohio, thinking to rid his cornfield of a trouble- some ground hog, managed to administer to the quadruped a do&e of strychnine which killed him nearly instantly. The carcass was suspended to a tree, where the crows soon espied the savory bit, and proceeded to appease their appetites. After partaking of the meal, the crows would fly a short distance, as if in agony, and fall dead to the ground. The bones, being thoroughly stripped of the flesh, remained exposed to the bleaching in- fluence of sunshine, rain and frost for nearly two years, when, falling to the ground, a highly-prized dog masticated parts of them, and died ten min- utes afterward. We copy the above to show the danger of using this poison. lSrE"W PUBLICATIONS. HARRia ON THE PiG. Breeding, Rearing, Manage- ment and Improvement. By Joseph Harris, Moreton Farm, Rochester, N. Y. Illustrated, hew York: O. Judd & Co. Boston : Crosby & D^imrell, 100 WaEhington St. 18V0. 12mo, 250 pages. Price $1.50. "A farmer's son, and myself a farmer, all my sympathies are with the farming class, rather than with the consumers," is one of the prefatory sen- tences of this volume. When all our agricultuial books are written, and all our agricultural papers are edited by men who can truthfully make that remark of themselves, book and paper farm- ing will be more popular than at present. By his contributions to agricultural papers during the past twenty years, Mr. Harris has given the far- mers of this country opportunity not only to form an opinion of his ability as a writer, but of his success as a farmer. He is an earnest advocate of high farming and choice stock. Still he says "the introduction of better breeds of pigs will in itself do little towards improving our farms ; but the farmer who once uses a thoroughbred boar and adopts a liberal system of feeding, will find that he can produce better pork at a far less cost than when he uses a common boar ; and he will be likely to study the principles of breeding with an interest he has never felt before. The introduction of a thoroughbred boar will lead to the introduction of a thoroughbred ram and a thoroughbred bull of a good breed, and this in conjunction with cleaner culture and a more liberal feeding is all that is needed to give us better and cheaper meat ; and at the same time we shall make more and richer ma- nure, and be enabled to grow larger and far more profitable crops of grain." Of the different breeds of pigs in the United States, he says he knows of none of them that pos- sesses the smallness of ofikl, perfection of form, early maturity and fatteningqualitiesof the York- shire, Essex, or Berkshire. The Chester County Whites he calls a capital sort of common swine. But we must content ourselves with marking portions of the volume for future use, and calling the attention of those interested in pig-raising to "Harris on the Pig." The Gentleman's Staple Guide : containing a fa- miliar description of the Amirican Stable; the most approved Method of Feecint;, Grooming, and Gfn' eral Management of Horses; lo^tther with Directions for the Care of Carriagts, Ilariiess, &c. By Kobert McClure, M. D., V. 8., Author of "Diseases in the An'erican Stable, Field, ani Farmyard." 1 hiladel- phia : Porter & Coates, Boston : Lee & Shepard. 1870. 12mo., 184 pages. The name of the author and the title-page in full are a sufficient indication of the contents of this book. Dr. McClure needs no endorsement from us, and his books need none of our recommenda- tion. This volume will aid us in answering some of the many questions which are asked in relation to the construction and management of stables. On another page we give an extract from Dr. McClure's remarks on the floors of stables, which is a good answer to the inquiry of "E. T." in the last Farmer about concrete floors for horse sta- 328 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July bles, with which we have never had any experi- ence ourselves. Examination of Soils.— Prof. C. B. Chapman i suggests in the Western Farmer the following ex- periment with soils for the purpose of determining more exactly than can be done by examination, the proportion of sand, clay, &c., which they con- tain. Put some of the soil into a dish containing a sufficient quantity of water to allow the particles to move freely when stirred. After being well stirred, allow it to settle quietly. The heavier sand will form a strata at the bottom, while the lighter clay will form a strata upon the top of it. The water may be turned off after it has become clear. These layers of sand and clay may then be exam- ined to ascertain the comparative thickness of the two strata. This will furnish much information with regard to the relative proportion of the sand to the clay which had existed in the original ho- mogeneous mass of loam. The experiment may be rendered still more accurate by the careful sep- aration of the clay from the sand ; then drying them and ascertaining the comparative weight of each. For the New England Farmer. KAISINO TURKEYS. I paw in your paper a request that some one •would inform the writer how to raise young tur- keys. As 1 have had years of experience and have been very successful, I will give your readers two methods of raising turkeys, by way of contrast. 1 have known many young people, and some that were not so young, to embark in the en- terprise in a very cheap way. They would buy one or two small late turkeys, such as they could obtain cheap, and with an expenditure of one or two dollars at most, commence op- erations. In the spring their turkeys would lay a good number of eggs, and the owner would think they were doing nicely. But such hens always hatch out small, weak young tur- keys, and with the best of care it is very diffi- cult to make them live. They are often fed as soon as they are out of the shell, and the mother is either tied with a string to her leg, or placed in a !. H > F Q H F H = F PLAN OF SECOND FLOOR, The driveway is 19 feet above bottom of basement and 10 above the first or foddering floor. At the south end is a long window, also one over the door opposite. The four divisions, marked F, are for hay. They ex- tend three feet lower than the floor, and may be called either bays or scaflfolds. They are over the stable. H, H, H are bays for hay, 14x16 feet. J, J are scaifolds, one 14x16 and the other 16x16, with stairway. Thirteen feet above the drive way there is a floor 16 feet wide, extending the whole length of the barn, intended for standing bound grain while green, and as there are windows at each gable end, the circulation of air is so free that grain cures nicely here. The roof is boarded lengthwise and shin- gled with pine and spruce shingles, laid six inches to the weather. The body of the barn is covered with two thicknesses of boards put up and down. The owner of this barn had other out- build- ings for horses, carriages, &c , and this was designed especially for cattle and ^heep, hay and grain. Those diflFeiently circumstanced might desire some slight modifications, but 342 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July I think the plan combines as many conven- iences as any barn I ever saw. Grantham, N. H., 1870. A Reader. Travelling Contuasts. — It is looked upon as a matter of wonder, to find any adult person now, who has not travelled in the cars, pleasantly read- ing, talking or sleeping, and at the rate of three or four hundred miles in the course of twenty-four hours ? And this tends to health, general pros perity and a higher civilization. What a vast change has taken place in this re- spect in a comparatively short space of time. About 1650, Mr. Pennant, in his "Journey from Chester to London," says : — "The first day, with much labor, we got from Chester to Whitchurch, twenty miles ; and on the sixth day to London, about 100 miles, before the commencement of night. The strain and labor of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs in many places. We were constantly out two hours before day, and as late at night ; and in the depth of winter proportionably later. Families who traveled in their own carriages, contracted with Benson & Co., and were dragged up, in the same number of days, by three sets of able horses. The single gentlemen, equipped in jack- boots and troivsers up to their middle, rode post through thick and thin, and, guarded against the mire, defied the frequent stumble and fall ; arose and pursued their journey with alacrity." About 1670, the journey from Oxford to London, which is under sixty miles, occupied two days. An invention called the "Flying Coach," achieved it in thirteen hours ; from the middle of Septem- ber to the middle of March, it was uniformly a two days' performance. Now some people grum- ble if they do not make that distance in two hours. THE CUHBANT "WOBM AGAIST. This pest has appeared again, and has com- menced the work of destruction in earnest upon the leaves of the currant bush. We find no account of them in Harris, Fitch, or KoUar. The eggs which produce them are probably from a fly of some kind. They are deposited on the under side of the leaf, in rows, and placed, usually, on the centre rib of the leaf, sometimes on two or three of the ribs. When hatched, they eat *a small hole through the tender leaf, and then march off to its edges, and frequently surround it entirely. How long the eggs will continue to be hatched out we do not know; indeed, very little seems to be known of the fly that deposits the eggs, or the habits of the worm that destroys the foliage. We hope some one will give us information on the whole matter. Various modes of destroying the worm have been suggested. We have tried several ways, but find only one th:;t promises success, and even that remedy may prove destructive. The remedy is to begin to pluck off the leaves containing the eggs, as far as they can be found, and follow this up, picking off the leaves containing the worms, as fast as they are hatched. They are easily found by the broken leaves or bare stems. But if this pro- cess is carried too far, the growth of the fruit will be suspended, by arresting the action be- tween leaf and fruit. The flour of hellebore sifted upon them is said to destroy them. This is a poison, and must be used with care. The carbolic soap did not kill them in the ex- periments first made. They evidently disliked it, but would shake their sides and crawl off. A stronger dose might be more effectual with them. Now is the time to look after the pests and exterminate them. A correspondent of the Oneida Dispatch says: "To destroy the currant worms, go out at 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening and jar the bushes so as to throw the worms on the ground. Do this three successive evenings, when the worms make their appearance. This will finish them for the present year, and if everybody will do it for three successive years it will destroy the race." The Currant Worm.— Mr. Charles Blaisdell, of Wellesley, Mass., informs us that he has been successful in destroying the currant worm aud other plant insects by the use of Buchan's Car- bolic Acid Soap. The soap sold for laundry or common washing purposes contains much less carboline, the principle destructive to insects, than the preparation sold as Carbolic Plant Protector. The former was the kind we used in tho experi- ment alluded to above. The latter, which we have since tried, we find to be fatal to the worms when dissolved in water and sprinkled upon them. We notice also a statement by Rev. Dr. Marvin of the Boston Daily News, that he found a show- ering applied to his bushes, cleared them of worms in a few minutes. A dusting of White Hellebore is also said to prove effectual, but this is a costly and somewhat dangerous poison to use. The car- bolic suds, it is claimed, is harmless to foliage and person. As this worm threatens the destruction of our currant bushes, we hope this remedy will be care- fully tried by those who are unwilling to be de- prived of this delicious fruit. —The Rockingham County, N. H., Agricultural Society will hold its fair on the I4th, loth and 16th of September next. Place not given. 1870. 2^W ENGLAND FARMER. 343 EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. A METHOD OF GETTING HAY. In these days of high prices for farm labor, and low prices for the products of the farm, any way of producing a desired result by a less expensive process than the usual one, is to be adopted by the progressive farmer without hesitation. A process of curing hay has been adopted and followed by several farmers of my acquaintance, which, as far as I can learn, has proved very satis- factory, for several years. It may be that this process has been followed very much more extensively than I know of. If so I would like to hear the opinions of persons who have triad it. It is as follows : The hay is all cut In the after- noon, when entirely free from external moisture. Next day, after the dew is all off, it is turned. After dinner it is raked, and got in without delay. There is no cocking at night, and opening next day. All such labor is saved. One man who has practiced this several years, is justly considered one of the best farmers in town. His stock look well, and produce as much as any. His farm improves yearly ; his buildings are in the best of repair, and he makes an annual investment every year, outside. He considers his hay to be better than when cured the old fashioned way, and it certainly looks and smells as well as anv I ever saw. The hay crop of New England is one of vast im- portance. More than any other, it lies at the basis of all farming. According to its increase or de- crease, the increase or decrease of the manure heap, and of the consequent productiveness or sterility of the soil, may be reckoned. And it is plain that any improvement in the manner of se- curing the crop will increase the amount pro- duced. The method of curing with salt and lime, which attr.xcted so much attention two years ago, al- though not very satisfactory for the curing of fod- der, has saved me a good deal of labor in curing bog hay for litter. I use four quarts each, salt and lime, to every ton. But how about the other process ? John. Franklin, Mass., 1870. ■WINTERING BEES. — BUNCHES ON CATTLE. Will you or some of your friends tell me what is the best way to winter bees ? We have lost quite a n_umber the last winter. And what is the cause ot small bunches on the skin of cattle ? What it is and how to cure it ? A Subscriber. South Sangerville, Me., 1870. Remarks. — Bees wintered badly the past sea- son in many parts of the country. Jasper Hazen, of Albany, N. Y., gives the particulars, in the Country Gentleman, of the result of the experi- ence of quite a number of bee-keepers of his ac- quaintance. Three different methods were prac- ticed by these men. Some kept them upon the stand, some put the^ in cellars, and others buried them in the ground. The burial process is de- scribed as follows : A trench is dug two feet and ten inches deep, and of length proportionate to number of hives. The hives were kept from con- tact with the dirt by boards and straw, and ven- tilation secured by a pump stock one and a quar- ter inches in diameter. The dirt was then thrown on as a farmer would bury his potatoes. Names of owners and other particulars are given, bat the result, in brief, may be thus stated : of the 98 colonies left on the stand, 86 died, .ind 12 lived ; of the 29 in cellars, 12 lived, and 17 died ; of the 35 buried, 28 lived, and 7 died. Mr. Hazen further states that he is informed that Mr. Marsh, of Sharon, Vt., who has buried his bees for a number of years past, has satisfied himself, by careful weighing, that their average consumption while buried does not exceed five pounds per colony. This is making out a strong case in favor of burying bees, and we solicit the experience of other bee-keepers as to the best way of wintering swarms. By "small bunches on the skin of cattle," do you allude to those lumps generally found near the back of the animal, which are caused by the larvaB of the gad-fly, sometimes called "grubs," "wormals," &c ? In Webster's large dictionary you will find, by turning to "gad-fly," pictures of the fly that deposits the egg in the skin, and of the larvae, or grub, which finally changes to the fly as it leaves the animal. These grubs may be pushed out of the bunches by a sharp pressure of the two thumb nails, or destroyed by a sharp awl or needle. It is possible that a good suds of carbolic acid soap, well rubbed and carded in, will destroy them. It is said that the fly generally selects the healthiest animals for the breeding place of its young. TOO MUCH LAND — FERTILIZERS — SWEET CORN. Having taken your valuable paper upwards of two years, and having never seen anything in its columns from this town, I tho-ight perhaps a letter from this region might not be uninteresting to at least some of your readers. I am not much of a letter writer, as you will readily see; nor am I much of a farmer. Yet I take the greatest pleas- ure in reading the Neav England Farmer, and often wonder why it is not read by more village people who have a rod of land to cultivate. My principal business is merchandising, but I have a house and about three fourths of an acre of land about a half mile from my place of business, and if I had ten acres as good as this small lot, I think I would sell out my store and pay my whole at- tention to farming. I think one great trouble with farmers in this region is, they undertake to cultivate too much land. They think they must work over about so much every year, whether they have dressing for it or not. So they spread on their manure and make it go over four or five acres, when the quan- tity is hardly sufficient to secure a good crop from t.vo or three acres. I sometimes ask such farmers why they do not purchase phosphate, and their answer generally is that it does not pay, or that they cannot afford it; and sometimes their an- swer is that they bought one cask and it was good for nothing, and consequently they had no faith in patent manures. I think, Mr. Editor, there is more or less stuff sold through the country for patent manure that is worthless ; but on the other hand there is much that is good. And if the farmers would all sub- scribe for the New England Farmer, or some other reliable agricultural paper, I think it would be money in their pockets. I have for the past three years used Bradley's Patent Superphosphate of Lime, and have always been satisfied with my crops, and have often astonished the farmers in this vicinity, by telling them what 1 have raised from my farm of three-fourths of an acre. 344 NEW ENGLAM) FAKMER. July I keep a cow which has given on an average eight quarts of milk per clay, all winter, which is not a great yield to be sure ; but I think she has done well, considering that she has eaten no hay of any account but meadow. I give her some potatoes, shorts, and a little meal. The first of the winter I gave her sweet corn stalks, which, by the way, I think is the best fodder a cow can have, and I have made up my mind to plant this spring less potatoes, and more sweet corn, not only for the stalks, but also for the corn, which I have an idea is much better for hens and for fattening pigs than common corn. I fed out a lot to my pig last fall and I thought it made pork faster than the common corn meal had before or did afterwards. If any of the readers of the Farmer have ever fed it to hens or pigs I would like to hear from them. Chocorua. Guilford, Lake Village, N. H., 1870. ATTENDING STRICTLY TO FARMING. I have been much pleased with the large liberty you give in the Farmer to all men for the ex- pression of their minds, whether they favor muck or no muck ; but the difficulty with some of us, backwoodsmen, seems to be in making ourselves understood. I had not a thought in my communication of April 23, of objecting to farmers owning all the bank stock they could pay for, and all the mills they could manage. By no means ! Some of the very best farmers of my own town are those who own all these things and more also, and let any one see their well tilled farms and splendid herds of thoroughbred cattle and sheep and he will not say that they have "lost caste as farmers." No, no, Mr. Editor, the bedstead is xiot of my con- struction. I only designed to paint out the incon- sistency of men preaching "stick to the farm," "attend strictly to farming," &c., &c., while they themselves indulge in the luxury of other and more profitable employment. And were I allowed a guess, it would be that John P. Gager, Jr., did not pay for two large farms and accumulate $1000 worth of produce before engaging in outside specu- lations, or more properly other business ; but that his farming and millmg went hand in hand and that his "bank stock" was the result of both. G. R. Hitchcock. Champlain, N. Y., May 20, 1870. Remarks. — Farmers are getting so tired of this "inconsistency" that they do not listen very pa- tiently to orators, poets, or "talking farmers" who discourse learnedly about the profit and the no- bility of the farmer's vocation, when it appears that these men have all their lives "attended strictly" to some other business, and design that their sons after them shall do the same. This ex- tolling farming by words, though smooth and eloquent, and condemning it by actions, sharp and powerful; this rowing one way and looking an- other, disgusts many and is putting the theoretical and the practical farmer at arms-length. RED WATER, AND HOW CURED. I had a valuable cow taken with this disease, some eight or ten days after dropping her calf. Her water was the color of a strong decoction of hemlOLk bark. I went to the New England Farmer tor a remedy, but found t-o many cures and all comi'osed of sucii small amounts of various ingredients that they appeared ti^o small doses to cure a cow. 1 then applied to a neighbor who had had some experience with this disease. He told me to take a pint of spirits of nitre, and an equal quantity of water, and give it in three doses, once in six hours. I gave her two doses, and finding that she was much better, thought it best to wait a few hours and note the result. In twenty-four hours she was perfectly well, and remains so. Wm. S. Foster. NoHh Tunbridge, Vt., May 3, 1870. school district no. 6, brookfield, vt. Within the limits of this district there are 15-3 persons in all, — old and young, male and female. There are 53 males over 18 years of age — of whom 15 will average 71 years of age. There is not an intemperate person in the neighborhood, nor a loafer, unless some of us, old chaps, who can't do much else may be charged with snufiSng and chewing a little, — the result of bad habits and patriotism, as we thereby help pay the national debt, you see. But what about the district ? Though not duly appointed to take the census, I have pretty thor- oughly canvassed this neighborhood, and beg leave to make the following report, which includes the year from March 1869, to March 1870. Our territory comprises 2577 acres, or about four square miles. On this little farm there were raised, during the year : — Wheat .... 450 bushels Roots 1230 bush Corn I960 " Butter .... 9tOO fts Oats 2787 " Cheese .... 6325 " Indian Wheat 1424 " Pork 17 260 " Rve 68 " Beef,(kille(3). 18,068 " Barley. ... 30 " Sugar (poor run) 7228 " Potatoes . . . 3735 " The cash value of which is estimated . . . .$18,012 Horses, oxen, cows, calves, sheep, lamba, pigs, poultry, eggs and wool sold, say 5,000 $21,012 In addition to which we cut 660 tons of hay. Our stock consisting of 51 horses, 10 yoke of oxen, 135 cows, with young stock, swine, &c., was esti- mated on the first of March, 1870, to be worth $17,912. Now, one word to those who are scolding about the high prices of beef, pork, butter, &c. Last fall when our stock came to the barn it could probably have been sold for $15,960. Estimating our 660 tons of hay at $15 per ton, it was worth $9900 at the same time. These cattle have eaten up all this hay, and now let us figure out the profits of our winter's work in feeding stock : — Value of stock last fall .$16960 Value of hay consumed 9,900 $25 860 This stock is now valued at 17,912 Showing a loss of $ 7,943 for which we have nothing to show but our manure. Now, dear city friends, don't sufier your bowels of compassion to burst for our sakes. Like ells, we are accustomed to being flayed. It is one of the taxes we annually pay to keep our farms in running order. And though the figures look a little discouraging, we take hold of another year's labor with our usual courage. V. Baker. Brookfield, Vt., 1870. lime and otster shells. I have taken the New England Farmer for about twelve years, and have read no paper for sixty years that I think is of more advantage to the public, and wish for its future prosperity. But 1 saw in it a statement by Dr. Nichols, which I consider the greatest blunder that I ever read, and one calculated to mislead those who know no bet- ter. He says lime or carbonate of lime is use- 1870. NEW ENGLAKI) FARMER. 345 less in agriculture, or words to that effect. I say, from long experience and observation, that there is no good soil without it; and where it is ab- stracted by long tillage it must be added. No fer- tilizer is of itself useful till it is decomposed and mixed with other materials. The beautiful gardens near New York, in New Jersey, owe half their fertility to being on oyster shell beds. There is an oyster shell bed ten miles from me where corn has been planted for twenty years in succession, holding good without any other manure. The upper part of New Jersey owes half its ftrtility to burning their rocks and liming their lands once in seven years. Those shells spoken of had been doubtless partly burned, but if they were wholly burned they would be four times as valuable. Doctor N. makes me think of another doctor, who thought there was no harm ia kindling a fire on a carpet, because it is the nature of fire to ascend upwards. Lime cleanses the soil, prevents weeds, kills in- sects, makes fair fruit and vegetables and is indis pensable. Wtiere oyster shell beds are or where bone dust is used, cabbages will grow twenty years in succession, while in other places they cannot often be ri^i^ed more than one year. Feter Hender- son, who has been made rich by gardening, the author of Gardening for Profit, will tell you the same. I have known the use of lime on land from boyhood, and am now about 86. Lime is the great thing wanting to bring back the fertility of worn out soil. It enters in some shape into all grain, seeds, veaetables or animal life. Deep River, Conn., 1870. Phineas Pratt. SAW DUST BEDDING. During the past year, I have been doing a fair business in supplying stables with saw-dust for bedding, and I would like to give the saw-dust ball Of some of your correspondents one more turn. Without particular reference to its value for mauute, as that is a secondary consideration with stalile keepers, which is the cheapest and best bedding, rye straw at $25, oat straw at $1,2, meadow hay at Ift'lo, or saw dust at $i a cord ? Massachusetts, 1870. ANONYMors. Remarks. — If you throw its effects on the ma- nure out of the question, the cheapness and efiB- ciency of sawdust as a bedding is a point which must be determined by the experience of stable keepers, and we refer your inquiry to them. DUSTY HAY. I suspect that your correspondent G. B. H., Jr., who complains of dusty hay, has a tight barn, and that after the cold weather began he kept his doors and windows closed, thereby causing tlie moisture from the brtatti of his leanto, full ot cattle, to settle upon and around his hay, which would make it musty. One spring, several years ago, the writer was exatniuing the hay in a large new barn, and found it. all mure or less musty. Upon inquiry, he was told that as soon as the cold began tUe fall before, the ventilator was closed, and that in the coldest weather, (there being a large stock of cattle in the baru) the sides and tops of the mows, and also the sides and top of the barn were covered with a thick coat of frost every morning. To my mind, that solved the question. As to me dust gathered by iron-tooth rakes, we think, as a farmer once said, he intended to have men smurt enougli to shake the du-^t all out of the hay, when sprcaaing it the second day. Hay well dry will keep well in a tight barn without ventilation ; but with a large stock of cattle in tue iiarn it is necessary to have some kind of ventilation. In old times, before it was thought necessary to have barns made tight, the cracks between the boards gave sufHeient ventila- tion and there was less complaint of musty hay. Reading, Mass., May 21, IStO. A. g. TWIN CALVES. Will anybody be so kind as to inform me whether twin calves make as good cows as those that are not twins ? Albert S. Hathaway, Jr. East Wareham, Mass., 1870. Remarks. — We have heard it said that twin heifers were not as likely to do well as others, but we have no facts bearing on the question, and are disposed to think there is no ground for the opin- ion. Shall like to hear from those who have been more close observers than ourselves. tables' Otparlment. CARNATION "QEN. GRANT." The beautiful picture on our next page, re- produced from Hovey's new Catalogue of Plants, represents one of the latest acquisi- tions for the flower garden. It is white, and produced in clusters, and blossoms through the season. Breck gives the following inter- esting description of the Carnation : — There is no flower more desirable in the flower-garden than the Carnation. A well- grown, superior variety, cannot be surpassed in elegance, beauty, or odor, by any other flower ; yet we scarcely ever see it in perfec- tion. Its cultivation in our climate is attended with many difficulties, which may account for its rarity. Our winters are too severe, and springs too changeable, to keep it in perfec- tion in the open ground ; and then our sum- mers are too dry and hot for the full develop- ment of its beauties. Seedlings stand the winter and spring without difficulty, with a light covering of leaves and evergreen boughs, and flower very well ; but then not one plant in a hundred will be considered worth saving by the florist, although they will all be inter- esting as single, semi-double, or irregular flowers, and riehly repay all the labor. Val- uable varieties are generally propagated from layers, which often keep very well in the open ground by letting them remain with the pannt plant, and covering them with leaves and pine boughs ; but the most certain way is, when the layers have taken root, to pot them, and at the approach of winter put them in a frame where they may be kept with perfect safety, provided air is given them in mild weather, and they are not exposed to the sun when in a frozen state. The mice are very destructive to all Pinks ; therefore the frame must be tight. the propagation of the Carnation by layers is a very simple operation. When the plant is in perfection of bloom, Uy around it one and one-half or two inches of compost, first 346 NEW ENGLAND FAKjVIER. July Carnation "Qen. Grant." gently stirring the surface so that it may mix well ; remove the lower leaves of the shoots selected ; pass the pen knife, slanting upwards, half through the joint ; fasten the shoot, where so cut, about two inches under tie surface, with a small hooked peg, bending carefully so as not to break it at the incision ; then fix it firmly by gently pressing the earth around with the fingers, and finish by cutting off about half an inch of the upper extremities of the leaves with scissors. The sap soon begins to granulate at the wound, and throw out roots. In about a month or six weeks, if the soil has been kept moderately moist, the layers may be severed from the parent plant and estab- lished for themselves ; or they may remai-n where they are, if the stem to which they are attached be carefully cut off". The Carnation requires a rich, generous, deep soil. A compost of three parts of good, strong garden loam, three parts hot-bed ma- nure, two years old, three parts of coarse river sand, two parts dry manure from the hen-house, sifted, and two parts of soot from a wood fire, has been recommended. For the New England Farmer, FLOWER GARDENING FOR JUIiY. "A gracious mother arf, thou, kind July I Thy Icip all laden with most precious things; Earih seems to mingle wiih the distant ssy, Th it sheds a hallo w'd light upon thy wings." It is now high summer in the deep wood, and through the broad meadows the tender grasses and flowers are profusely scattered. Our gardens are also bright with the gorgeous 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARJklER. 347 blossoms of the "bedding out plants." We number thirty-five Geraniums and Pelargoni- ums of all sorts and colors. A large border is given up to them, and they are one mass of scarlet, cherry, pink, salmon, white, striped and spotted. A glorious combination ! The variegated leaved varieties, ilfrs. PoZZoc^*, Gol- den Fheaisant, Oolden Vase, Cloth of Gold, and Mountain of Snow, gleam like jewels un- der the bright rays of the sun. Their flowers are scarlet, but very inferior in size to the Zonules, so we gather all the buds, thereby throwing the strength of the plant into its leaves, which form a perfect edging to dishes of flowers. A lovely vase or dish can be made of several sizes of plates. Take the largest size the pantry holds ; edge it with the leaves of Mrs. Pollock, mingled with white flowers, feverfew, white candytuft, or any pure white blos-oms ; turn water into the plate, and cover a smaller plate, bottom side down, upon it ; around the edge of this arrange leaves of Mountain of Snow, or any of the silver-edged varieties ; place among them scarlet Verbenas or Geraniums, or any scarlet flower you may have ; turn in the water, cover with a smaller plate ; upon this mingle leaves of Acliyran- tlieus or Coitus, — if the former, intersperse them with yellow flowers — Golden Alyssum, Chlora — or any you can select. Proceed as before, and place a shallow glass dish over the stems ; till this with bright leaves, sweet- scented Geranium leaves and blue Delphinium or Forget-me-not or blue Sage, with a large proportion of white and pink, light delicate flowers. Over the whole of it put the feathery Cleaver or Mist, or Gypsophila muralis. The eflfect is truly artistic ! Purple flowers can be substituted for the blue, if more easily ob- tained. A lady can make her own selection of colors — the brilliant Tropasolums mingle prettily with the dark leaves ; the fairy bells of the Fuchsias are very lovely among the sil- ver-edged leaves. A dish of flowers thus arranged, will be a "thing of joy" for two or three days, and makes a beautiful ornament for a dinner or supper table. Flowers are always a delight when arranged in the dining- room. Even a tiny vase, with the moss rose, a fuchsia, and a few leaves, is a great appe- tizer. The great man of Queen Elizabeth's court — the immortal Bacon — never sat at his table without flowers. In them he recognized the hand Divine. There is a fascination at- tending the cultivation of both flowers and fruit — one gratifies the eye, the other the pal- ate— but we must attend closely to their culti- vation to bring them to perfection. Every morning they claim some attention. With a band rake and hoe the soil should be stirred frequently. Much finer vegetation is attained by this simple thing. High cultivation is most needful in a flower garden, also daily water- ings. The English gardeners in their "misty moisty climate" are not forced to use the wa- tering pot so often ; but our dry, hot summers require frequent applications of warmish water, soap suds, and liquid manure. Last season we used quantities of Bradley's Superphos- phate around all our plants, and they flour- ished finely. This season we are using a new fertilizer, purely mineral, being the pulverized ore of the Dolomitic part of the gold mines of New Hampshire. It contains thirty-two per cent, of carbonic acid, which is said to be the cause of the high state of vegetation in California. Japan lilies, Gladiolus, Roses, Geraniums, with all the beauteous sisterhood of flowers, are making most vigorous growth. It is a gray ish white powder, perfectly inodo- rous, and for all greenhouse plants, as well as for those of hardier habits, is unequalled. It is now ready for market, and it will find many consumers when its desirabilities are known. Carnations and Picotee Pinks are now in their glory. Of all the beauteous flowers which adorn the garden, whether by their beauty or their fragrance, the Carnation may- take front rank. Second only to the Rose is this perfect flower ! It is easily propagated by layers, which should be made when the plant is in its fullest bloom. Select a strong, vigorous stem, and remove all the lower leaves, so that they need not decay in the soil when the shoot is fastened down. Cut a slant- ing slit a quarter of an inch above a joint, forming a tongue, and smooth off its tip ; then bend down the shoot, taking great care not to break it, fasten it down with a strong hair pin, (these same pins are invaluable for peg- ging down verbenas, and all runners) ; and cover the tongue with not more than three- quarters of an inch of rich soil, with a good mixture of sand. Shade it from the sun for three or four days, water every night thor- oughly, and in three or four weeks it will have become well rooted. Cut the shoot from the main stem, leaving half an inch of the stem, which connects it on to the layer, and pot it in rich soil composed of three parts turfy loam, two parts of well rotted manure and one part river sand; a teaspoonful of lime is a useful ingredient, it being so destructive to worms ; but it should be well mixed up with the compost. Picotee Pinks are a hardier species than the Carnation, as they will often endure a New England winter, yet to bloom in full perfection they should be potted. They are propagated by seed and cuttings — the former, if sowed as late as this month will make fine plants for spring blooming, in the house or garden. The latter are taken off from young shoots while the plant is in its most vigorous condition. Cut them just be- low the third or fourth joint, smooth off the end, pull off the lower leaves, plant them half an inch deep in sand, but place good soil un- derneath, so that the tender rootlets can find rich food. Shade from the sun for a week, watur thoroughly — if possible cover with glass. I When they appear to have struck root, give 348 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. July all the sun you can. They require the same compost as the Carnation. All potted plants desire a good supply of water at this season. It should be given to Fuchsias twice a day, and they should not stand where the noonday sun falls directly upon them. They love shade and moisture — these supplied they fully repay the care be- stowed upon them. Our stand of plants ex- hibits fifteen Fuchsias of different colors and forms, all in the iuUest bloom. In May, dark peaty soil was obtained from the woods. A plentiful supply of sand was stirred in, and all the plants were repotted. A teaspoonful of "fertilizer" was stirred around them, and their growth is wonderful, glorious ! It is not too late to apply the same compost, even now, if your plants do not flourish. Plants must never be watered when the sun shines hot upon them — it scorches them as badly as the frost of autumn. Always water after sunset, and be sure to give the soil a thorough drenching. If only the surface is wet the roots will not strike down deeply and give the plant a vigorous habit. Sprinkle the foliage with the fine nose of the watering pot, but pull it off to water the roots. Asters and Zinnias, Stocks, &c., grow much finer if the ground is mulched with manure at this season. Train up each plant to sticks ; pull up all the single ones, excepting a few of the Stocks, as the double varieties of that flower do not seed. Keep down the weeds — do not let them steal the strength from your garden — pull up a few every morning. In doing so they are kept under. Don't cultivate so large a garden that you cannot keep it neatly. It was a sajing of the Carthagenians that "the land should be weaker than the husbandman, since of necessity he must wrestle with it, and if the ground prevailed, the owner must be crushed by it." All of us know of gardens which get the upper hand of their owners ; but don't let them become our masters. Weed, stake, train, and prune daily, remembering that neatness is as requisite in flower beds as in our houses. None of our readers are too poor to have a garden — it need not be a large one — the smallest circle cut in the turf will be greatly prized by its owner ; indeed, it may be treasured all the more for its diminutive- ness, and surely it will receive much more at- tention ! If insects infect your roses and other plants, prepare a mixture of ten gallons of warmish water, one pint of soft soap, and half a pint of salt. Syringe the roses once a week ; if badly infested, twice a week will not hurt them, and after a few applications you will find your plants free from vermin. This is a good remedy for the cabbage worm, but make the mixture twice as strong, and water freely. s. o. J. DOMESTIC KECEIPTS, Family Yeast. — A subscriber asks for an approved receipt for making potato yeast. We have applied to one of our lady corres- pondents in whom we can rely for good re- ceipts, but, not having yet received an answer, we give the following which we find in the Country Gentleman : — The following is the most superior receipt for yeast that I ever saw, and I have tried dozens, for we always use "hop rising." It is especially available to country people, as it requires no yeast to commence with. Try it, and you will never use any other. Boil two ounces of best hops in four quarts of water, half an hour ; then strain it and let it cool to milk warm ; then add a small handful of salt and half a pound of brown sugar ; beat one pound of flour with some of the liquor, and mix all together. The third day add three pounds of potatoes boiled and mashed, and let it stand until the next day ; then strain it and it is ready for use ; stir it frequently and keep by the fire while making, and stir well just before using. This is very strong, and only half of the usual quantity is required. For Moths. — The following simple pre- caution against moths is represented to be quite as sure as any of the popular antidotes : — Safety from moths for furs consists in having them undisturbed through summer in a snug place. MuflF boxes are not secure. Taking them out occasionally to air exposes them to the moth. No pepper, camphor or tobacco is needed ; after you have worn them for the last time in spring put them into a linen pillow case, tie up the end in a tight knot, and shut them up in a drawer which will not be often opened. A true and tried prescription. ■;^w>s:==- DKVOTUD TO AQJRECUIiTTJRE, HORTICUIiTUKE, AlfD KTNDBED AKTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, Aimist, 1870. VOL. lY.— NO. 8. K. P. EATON & CO., PLBLisiiERS, Office, Si Merchants' Row. MOjS'THLY. i^^-i^^ST'l^— DESTSOY THE WEEDS. ^E MILLION of dollars, large as tbe sum is, J j^ would not prob- ^ ably pa}' for the i labor annually expended in the New England Spates, in exter- minating weeds, ^ whose seeds were sown with the grass seeds. Hence, in pre- landi for laying thtm down to grass, no operation in the work is so essential as that of securing such seeds as it is desired to sow, and those only. There is only one way of securing this, by cultivators, and that is by owning and using, in each neighborhood of farmers, a good separator, which will separate ten bush- els of seed in an hour, and divide them into a dozen different boxes, if there are as many kinds of seeds. Such a separator may be found at the agricultural warehouses, and would be cheap in any of our farming towns at almost any price. Our fields are now white with the blossoms of the ox-eye daisies ; they cover thousands of acres, and in many instances almost to the en- tire exclusion of the grasses. It has becosje a great nui>ance and source of loss to tbe farmer. Cattle may taste it occasionally, but only taste it, and refuse it as winter feed, when it is a hard, bitter plant. It propagates itself with great rapidity, appearing first in stools, and throwing up a cluster of stems some two feet high, but soon extends itsslf all over the ground, and throwing up single stera-i in every direction. It takes the place of the grasses, and is an expensive nuisance. Another, and one scarcely less annoying and expensive, is field sorrel. Well was it designated as "Nature's grave clothes." It piobably covers thousands of a'"res of sandy loam lands in Massachusetts at this moment. But it is not confined to such lands ; it finds its way into heavy clays, clay loams, and into every soil that is cultivated. It has creeping roots, which pervade (he soil in every direc- tion, and any portion of them left behind will soon throw up a new plant. Then we have the sour dock, curled dock, narrow and broad-leaved dock, all unsightly and troublesome weeds. They hive long and stout roots, which require the strength of a strong man to pull them up. Cutting them off two or three times in the course of a sum- mer seems only to encourage them. Still another is the chicory or succory plant, one of the most persistent and obstinate grow- 350 1sT:W ENGLAND FARIVIER. Aug. ers in the vegetable world. We have cut off the same plant with a spade an inch or two below the surface, ten different times in a summer, and still it flourished beyond all other plants of the field. Its stem rises from two to four feet. The flowers are a bright blue, and quite showy. It was a foreigner, but is becoming exten- sively naturalized. It has a large and long tap root, which goes to make up a consider- able portion of what is sold for coffee in the shops. Left to its own powers of propagation, we think it would cover a fifty acre farm in a few years. Then we have the buttercup, or croicfoot, with its fair name and face. These are all there is to commend it. It is a highly acrid plant ; cattle do not eat it in the pastures ; it is hard}', and soon drives out the grasses. There are many other weeds that are costly nuisances to the farmer. What are we to do about it ? Who intro- duced them ? Did any of their seeds come to us by a cool, money-maker's design, or were they accidentally brought to us ? Let us see. Some years ago the members of the Royal Ao^ricultural Society of England offered a prize for the best essay on ''Agricultural Weeds.'''' It was awarded to Professor Buck- man. He says the following extract from the letter of a French dealer in London, addressed to the well-known seed establishment of the Messrs. Sutton, of Reading, Eng., will show how systematically this fraudulent trade is carried on : "I have sold this day some India rape-seed for mixing with turnip seed, and enclose a sample. If you will have some at 56s. per quarter, in the docks, you can have it, if unsold, to your answer. I have some East India radish seed at Qs. per bushel. If you want some for mixing, I shall be very happy to serve you." A man guilty of such frauds as these de- serves to be shot with some of his own vile mixtures. There are two ways to prevent sowing the seeds ourselves. One of these we have al- ready suggested. The other is, that no dealer in seeds should sell any until he has had them thoroughly examined by a competent person, and separated, if there is a mixture. No sensible person would decline paying the ad- ditional cost of such cleansing. The duty before us now is to allow no weeds to go to seed in our fields. When they are in mowing fields, cut all before the seeds are ripened in the weeds ; and where they are in the cultivated crops, see that none ripen. Weeds multiply themselves surpris- ingly. A stem of wheat may have twenty-five or even fifty kernels upon it ; but some of the weeds we have mentioned would be more likely to have some thousands of seeds than only fifty ! On this point we will remark further hereafter. For the Neiv England Farmer. CUTTING AND DKYINQ QEASS. The time to cut grass and the amount of drying it needs in order to keep well, are im- portant questions. There is no crop that the farmer of New England raises, that exceeds in value that of grass. Hence the best way of saving it is of the greatest importance. If the farmer wishes to cut but one crop of grass from the land in a year, it should be done when he can secure, every thing consid- ered, the greatest value. In my opinion, that time is when it is in full blossom. Cut at this time and well cured, it certainly makes the best hay. I judge this to be so, from the fact that cattle of all kinds are very fond of it, and, when otherwise cared for, always thrive upon it. Cut at a later stage, while ripening its seed, there may be a larger bulk of hay but of much less value. It may keep the same number of cattle longer for the reason that they do not like it as well, and consequently will not thrive upon it. This is one reason why some cut their grass late, because the stock win not eat it up so quick. Another reason is, it takes less time to make it. Farmers who have much grass to cut, and comparatively a small amount of help to do It, should commence some time before the grass is in the blossom, that they may not be too late on the last cutting. When there is a good prospect of fair weather, cut the heaviest grass, and when it is otherwise, cut the light- est, and that where much time and labor are required in getting it. How much grass needs to be cured to keep well, can be answered by saying that the water or sap, which is the same thing, should be nearly all dried out of it; just as you would evaporate the water contained in maple sap in order to keep it, or as you would dry fruit in order to keep that. Farmers need not talk about cutting clover in bloom, averaging two tons to the acre, and in ordinary weather cur- ing it sufficiently in one day to keep well in the mow. It cannot be done. No man of common sense believes it can. It is true that grass will make more in one hour sometimes than it will during a whole day at other times. Do grasses drying in the heat of the sun lose any of their value as food for stock.!* Particles of matter pass from grass while dry- 1870. NEW E2nGLA2^D farmer. 351 ing, else we could not smell it. Such parti- cles may be very minute and of little value. It is not necessary to dry grass so much that it cannot be moved without crumbling and wast- ing. It should be prepared for the fork and then dried more if necessary. However, it were better to lose a few crumbles in handling it than to lose the whole by being got in so damp as to heat and mould in the barn. It is not necessary to dry grain for the bin as thoroughly as we should were it to be ground for coffee, in order to have it keep afrer putting it in a dry place ; yet who would think of putting grain in a bin so damp as to have it heat there ? Or who would lay away dried apple when so damp as to mould and rot ? Joel Hersey. Williamstoiiin, Vt., Jmie, 27, 1870. For the Xeto England Farmer. THE LSNTIIi. The Journal of Agriculture and Transac- tions of the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland, gives the following account of this plant : — "The lentil is a New British crop. We spoke in the Journal of Agriculture for July, 1851, of that ancient vegetable, so often men- tioned in the Bible, so prolific and above all so nutritious, which M. Guillerez, a French professor in our city, has acclimatized by his unwearied efforts at great cost and without any other reward than the gold medal of this society. In 1851 M. Guillerez •^aw his disin- terested efforts repaid for the fourth time ■with a success beyond his most sanguine hopes. From a spot sloping to the north and exposed to all winds, at the back of South Queens Ferry, he gathered two and a half bushels, weighing 167 pounds, from five and three- fourths pounds sowed, although the rain in Au- gust spoiled a great part of the crop, which was then budding. The lentils, sown between rows of beans, have produced on an average 80, 25 and as much even as sixty-one for one. Besides he had a splendid crop of beans, and also cabbages, cauliflowers, salsify, beets and leeks all flourished most beautifully. The lentil rows were propped up by stakes. If the lentil crop had not been injured by the heavy rain of August the product would have been an hundred fold. M. Guillerez tried them as forage. He cut them off twice and they grew to the height of four feet." The American Institute of the city of New York, says : — "It is now some years since we recommended the cultivation of the lentil in our Farmers' Club meeting. We were in- duced to do it in consequence of the represen- tations made by a distinguished officer of our government, who had suffered from dyspep- sia for many years. Having seen an account of the wonderful cures performed in Paris by a new vegetable medicine called Erva-lentil, be bought some at a dollar a package cf about a quarter of a pound, eat It, as directed, in the form of a porridge and got perfectly well. On some investigation we learned (bat this famous medicine was flour of lentils. We sought f jr the lentils, found some at a grocer's, whose stout, healthy app- arance caused us to ask if he lived on lentils. He replied that he sent to Germany for them for his own use, and had been restored by them to sturdy health, from a wretchedly low con- dition. He sold some of them to us at ten cents a quart. We distributed them fre- quently among the members of our club at their meetings. Further accounts are con- tained m our Transactions published by the State. We still urge young America to add to his list this valuable grain. It is partially introduced Into Europe — more in Germany than anywhere else." N. Wright. Brokenstraw, Chautauqua Co., N. Y., 1870. FEEDING AND "W^OEKIKG HOESES. Where one has smooth land that can be mown wiih a machine, it is a great mistake to twrn working horses out to pasture In summer. There can be no question that land will pro- duce more food when the grass or clover Is allowed to grow until it is in flower, than If constantly cropped down as it grows. With a good mower, tedder, rake, and unloading fork, the expense of getting the hay into the barn, if it Is a good crop, need not exceed two dollars a ton. In the summer let the hav be cut into chaff and soaked in water for twelve or twenty-four hours, and the horses will eat it almost as readily as they will fresh grass. With the proper boxej for .-oaklng it, the la- bor is very slight. I used to chaff my hay with a horse-machine, cutting up enough at a time to last for several weeks ; but I question If it Is not better, after all, to cut It every day by hand, as it Is wanted. One of Gale's Cop- per-strip machines will cut in two or three minutes all the hay a team will eat at a meal ; and If (he knives are sharp, it is mere child's play to turn it. The object of soaking the hay chaff instead of merely moistening it in the ordinary way, is to soften it and allow it to ■ bsorb water -just as we soak dried apples before cooking them. Of course, we must not use more water than (he hay will absorb, as in such a case It would wash out the sugar and other soluble nutritive matter from the hay. It is true that If the water Is used for soaking the next feed of hay, the sugar would not be lost, provided it did not ferment. A little experience will enable any one to regu- late the matter. Horses so fed, with a little grain, will fill their stomachs sooner and have more time to rest, and ,vill be able to do more work than if turned out into a pasture — and in (he morning you know where to find them and can eat your breakfast with dry feet. But the horses must be well groomed, especially at night, and the stables properly ventilated 852 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Arc. and kept clean and sweet. No food should be left in the manger. If it is not eaten up clean, it should be removed before the horses are taken from the stable. I would give them what hay they would eat in the rack, but none to wa^te. I have a span of horses that will pull out from the rack, and waste more bay than they eat, if allowed an unlimited supply. They j>hould have a litfle hay in the rack to eat when they first come in fiom work, and after the harness is removed and they are rubbed down a little and are cooled off, give each torse a peck ^r so of cut leed. When he has eaten this let him be watered, and then give more cut feed. The practice of watering the horses at the pump or pond, as they aie brought from the field, h not to be com- mended. A careful farmer may do it with impunity, because he would not allow them to drink too much when they are hot or tired, but many a good horse has died from careless watering. If horses are worked stcadilv from 7 A. M. until 11.80, and then from 1.30 to 6 P. M.— say nine hours, they will accomplish more than if they were kept longer in the field and rested every few hours. When I hear the horn blow about five o'clock in the afternoon and see great, stout young fellows leisurely walking; to the house to eat their cookies, leaving their teams lied to the fence, or with their heads hanging down in the furrow, I think this may be a good country for men, but a hard one for horses. Because a horse cannot grumble and a man can, is no reason why the horse that does the hard work should rot eat as often as the man ■who drives. By keeping on until seven o'clock instead of five oV-lock, and spending half an hour at lunch, the horaG.'' are kept out an hour longer in order to do half an hour's work. Would it not be better to keep right along until six o'clock, and thus let the horses have an hour's more time in the stable to eat before lying down to rest for the night? There would then be plenty of time to clean the horses, and attend to many little things that are now neglected. And, from the horses being in better condition, more work would be accomplished In haying and harvesting, of course, we must often work as long as we can see, and the men, and horses too, should have lunch. But in plowing, harrowing, cul- tivating, and other ordinary farm work, there is no advantage in keeping horses out 60 late, except occat^ionally in getting in the seed, &c. and when such is the case the horses need lunch just as much as the man who drives them. Let the boys, when at work in the field, have lunch, morning and afccrnoon. They need it. When I was a boy, I went to plow at six o'clock, which was my father's rule, and I can recollect how terribly hungry I got by nine o'clock, and how good a little bread and cheese and beer tasted about half-j)ast nine or ten. — J. Harris, in Am. Agriculturist. For the yeio L'nglavd Farmer. THE GARDEN IN AUGUST. Who will say that a garden is not a good thing to have on the farm in connection with household economy at this season of the year? The products seem to find and fit an appropri- ate vacancy in variety for the table. Fresh, crisp, vegetables, right from the earth ! How they refresh ihe weary laborer ! None so rtl- ished, none taste so sweet and fresh as those gathered from our own garden, — planted, watched and cared for by ourselves ! What wonderful changes we observed from the time the frail seed was deposited in the soil, till the full grown vegetable was ready to be plucked for the table, and what a field and opportunity for study and comparison. What caused the seed to unfold and grow into the plant pro- ducing its kind .'' Who can tell us all the in- termediate changes of the circuit? The chemist will resolve the composition of the product into its varied elements, showing the proportions of each ; but here his capability stops. Having the exact elements, he cannot again recompose them to form the vegetable. Only one human way is there known of re- production. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Our labors, if they have been judiciously directed, are now being rewarded by gener- ous supplies of all the various delicacies of a good and well kept garden. These may be kept up so long as our variable climate will aJmit, — till J;ick Frost locks up the teeming eaith for a season of repose and recuperation. The spaces from which early crops have been removed, may be made to yield yet an- othtr quick gi-owing crop, — turnips, cabbage, spinage, radishes, &c. Only a partial ad- vantage of the garden is reaped if onlj' one crop is gathered from the same soil during the whole season. AsPAEAGUS. — It is well to keep the bed clear of weeds, to encourage the developmeiit of the plant and seed. If it is desirable to increase from seed sow it at once, in well pre- pared soil, as soon as fully ripe. Beans. — We shall now be enjoying the snaps and shell from the poles ; be sure and save a few of the earliest and best to ripen for seed. This consuming all the fir.st maturing and best, and saving for seed the leavings, is the cause of degeneration. A few early bush may be planted to furnish late strings, and for pickling, and canning tor winter u^e. Beets. — As you pull out for use, take them from where they stand the thickest, leav- ing room for those left to grow. The culture should be continued to keep the ground well loosened and free from weeds. Blackberries. — Pick as fast as they be- come fully ripe. But all are not ripe that color. Some varieties need to hang some- time to mature suflaciently for eating. The 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEJIER. 353 means of preserving are so simplified that we may now have thij fruit the year round, by canning, making into cordial, &c. Cabbage, Cauliflowers and Broccoli need have the soil kept moist for them to best pel feet themselves. iVequent hoeing and deep stirring the soil is the most practical way of accomplishing this result. Seed may be sown for fall greens, and plants for wintering in cold frames — although next month is soon enough for the last. Celery. — Late planting is the best way to obtain a winter supply of this much prized salad. Plant any time this month. The suc- cessful grower will tell you there is nothing easier than to produce this vegetable in per- fection,— tender, crisp, and juicy, but you must first learn how. To produce it nice, ten- der, and juicy, the growth must be rapid ; to secure this, the soil must be rich, and the plant not be allowed to want for suitable moi-sture. CoRX. — We shall now be enjojing good sweet corn, roasted and boiled, and with beans as succotash. Mark some of the earli- est and best ears to ripen for seed. The corn- worm eats downward from the silk to the ker- nel. These pests are vejy little known with us, but in some sections they are quite trouble- some and need looking afcer. Cucl^ibers. — This cooling, cholera-breed- ing, vegetable is now in its best stage for the table, and the vines will be yielding full pick- ings for pickles. To keep them in bearing to the bett, they should be close picked. Save a few hills for growing seed and allow only a fisw of the earliest and best formed to grow. Eipe cucumbers, when properly prepared make good sweet pickles. Currants and Gooseberries. — The best time for pruning is soon after the fruit is all removed. A considerable proportion of the old wood should bn cut out, and the shrub shaped to desired form, whether as tree or bush. Egg Plants. — Encourage to early ripen- ing by hoeing, slightly hilhng, and by placing a board painted white so as to reliect the heat and sun upon the plants. Grapes. — Tie up the leaders to the trellis. Keep a sharp look out for insects, caterpillars and worms. As we increase the culture of the grape, enemies of various kinds increase, and unless we zealously guard against them they will very likely reap where we have sown. To prevent moula and mildew, the side shoots of bearing branches that have been pinched oil", must be shortened-in to induce early ripening of wood and the formation oi fruit buds. Melons. — If only three or four specimens are allowed to grow en each vine they will usua ly be larger and of liner ilavor. A broad flat stone or a board placed uncler specimens will keep worms from them and cause them to ripen more evenly. Onions. — Gather for use and for market as soon as they ripen. Where they are to be kept any time, it is better to leave them ex- posed to the sun afcer being pulled, till prop- erly cured, before storing. Seed may be sown for "pips" to be left in the ground over win- ter for early use next season. Peas — Most of the earlier planted will have yielded their fruit ; the ground may be cleared, the vines fed to the pigs, cows, or be cured and stored for winter fodder. Plant the ground to some crop so that no space be lost. Potatoes. — Harvest and market early crops. Compost or burn all tops ; the last is the bet- ter way of treating those diseased or much in- fested with insect enemies. Raspberries. — Cut out the weakest new growth, leaving only what is desired for the next crop or for increasing the planting. Keep them properly tied to their stakes or trellises. It is a good plan to hoe in a good dressing of compost and ashes, around the plants. Seeds. — Save the earliest and best speci- mens of every desirable kind for perfecting seed, and when well ripened save, iliy suita- bly and lay away in seme dry cool place for future use. It is always better to grow the majority of seeds one desires, the professional seed grower to the contrary, than to depend upon the market. Carefully label each vari- ety and keep secure from vermin. Squashes. — Destroy insects, remove the egp,s of the squash bug from the leaves, and look out for borers. Strawberries. — For fall planting, August is the best time; but spring planting at the North is much the best and safest time, gen- erally. Tomatoes. — Continue to train and trim the vines, and destroys the worms by hand- picking. The worms cannot hurt you, how- ever much you may read read of them, at least we never saw one that could do any in- jury to man. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. To Cure PIard Miuving Cows. — This is my answer to that question, i. e.: "How shall 1 cure my hard milking cow?" Take a clean, smooth knitting needle wire. No. 10, heat it red hot, (use a candle at your side, and heat about one-half inch from the end,) and burn out the orifice. Perform the opera- tion quickly, (say one second,) and the cow will not move, nor will she notice it after- wards. No blood runs, no soreness occurs. I have known it to be tried, and never knew it to fail. Don't wring or twist the needle ; .-straight in and straigut out, quickly, are the directions. If you wish to use a larger or smaller needle, do so, but not so large as to make the cow leak her milk. — D. ll.,h'redonia, N. Y. (Jmsor. 354 XEW ENGLA2sT) FARRIER. Aug. For the New England Farmer. FLOWER GAEDENING FOB AUGUST. '■By the brea'h offlcwcrs Thon calleftTipfrom city thror g-i and carpp, Back to tbp woodB, the birds, itie mountala Btreams, Thut si g of Thee. And Thou bildtst The Iil'trt of ihc field with placid Btrile Keprove nian's feverish etrivingp, and infuse Through ti» own Btul a more unworldly Life "With their tcft to!y breath." "We trust that many of our readers will this month reap the reward of all their labors, in the sweet fragrance and brilliant colors of liowers which their own hands Lave planted and cultivated. Gray, the poet, was also a fckilful gardener and naturalist, and he ob- serves that the chief enjojment cf life exists in "having always something going forward." "Happy are they," he sa;>s, "who can create a rose tree or erect a honeysuckle." It is the daily growth cf each plant and flower which constitutes the chief part rf the delight cf the amateur gardener ; the fragrance and beauty cf the "bright consummate flower" form the crowning gratification. There is a pleasing pride in walking out in the morning with a tlower cf one's own raising, spa'ikling in the bultcn-hole. It mentally elongates a man's vertical longitude, and is a most honest and desirable kind of pride — a piide that keeps a man from saloons and the destruction which walke'h in the darkness. The creation cf a beautiful object is certainly a great fact to be justly and honestly proud of, and the lowest intellect can produce liowers which even Solo- mon in all his glory could not eclipse ! The love of liowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing motive. We cherish them in jouth, and the love of them is not lost when age has whitened the hair and palsied the hand. Summer flowers are harbingers of good will, and we love to distribute them with lavish hands, to both young and old,— delighted to delight others wiih the harvest of beauty our grounds con- tain. There is constant occupation in ama- teur gardening. Nothing looks more unseemly and slovenly than weeds and untrained plants. Tall, growing plants must be carefully trained to stakes, which should be straight and strong enough to support the plants. Much taste and judgment can be exercised in staking plants tlleclively. The stake should always be put at the back of the plant, so as to be conceah d by its foliage, but in some instances where the plant has several stems, the stake should be placed in the middle, and the stems \ tied round it, not in a bunch, as we often see them, but each stem titd separately to the stake, taking care to arrange them gracefully, and allowing the leaves and flowers to hang in their natuial position. Verbenas, if planted in mixed borders or small gardens, should bfe tied up, giving a stake for each shoot, and training them in the shape of a fan. "Wh^n the plant is in full growth and (lower, the out- epread shoots will produce a fine tllect. Mignonette can be sown in pots, at this sea- son, for winter blooming, and can be kept in bloom throughout the year. The soil should be light, sandy, not rich, otherwise it grows too rank, and loses, in a degree, its delicious odor, which constitutes its charm. If old stalks are cut off before the seed pods form, new blos- soms will put forth, and the blossoming con- tinued for a long time. A correspondent inquires "how to raise a Micjnonette tree.'''' It takes two years to pro- duce a fine specimen. The seed mu.'t be planted in a five or six inch pot, wiih a goodly mixture of sand in the soil. Plant three or four seeds, lest one should not germinate ; but do not allow but one to grow. As soon as a latfral or side thoot appears, nip it off, and throw the whole strength of the plant into the main shoot. Continue this process for a year, not allowing any buds to form, and tying the main branch to a stake. When the plant is six to tight inches high, the side shoots may be allowed to grow, and the tree formed in a graceful shape. It is well to allow the branches to grow in a fan shape. The soil may be enriched once a month with guano water, or weak manure water, and the blos- soms will form thickly and continue in bloom all the season, making a most beautiful plant for a "Window Garden." Mignonette does not require much sun-light, but loves the shade. A stiff piece of copper wire makes the best stake for a "tree," and it must be tied to it when the plant is two inches high, tying it loosely, with a worsted thread. In pinching off the side shoots, the leaves nearest the stem must be left, as a plant breathes through them — they are its lungs. When the pot is full of roots, shift it to one a size larger. The side shoots must occasionally have their ends pinched off, to force them to form a bushy bead often or twelve inches in diame- ter. When this is accomplished, you will have a "tree" of delicious fragrance, which will perfume a large room. By pruning the "trees" and shfting into larger pots, as they require it, these plants will last several years. Tulips and Hyacinth roots should be taken up in this month. Many growers of these flowers allow them to remain in the same place three years, but it is much better to take them up every summer, when their leaves are quite decayed, but not before, and keep them until the last of October in a dormant state. They are u.-ually propagated by offsets, which should be removed from the parent bulb at the time they are taken from the ground. They can be raised from seed, but as ihey will not flower for seven or eight years, this mode cf culture is employed only by rich amateurs and florists for the purpose of obtaining new varieties. Bulbs are storehouses of prepared pulp, laid up by the plant for its use the fol- lowing summer, so the larger and fuller the bulb is, the more beautiful will be its flower. 1870. NEW ENGLAOT) FARRIER. 355 For this reason the seed-pod should be picked off when the plants have flowered, as maturing the seed exhausts in a degree the strength of the bulb, and as the leaves have their work to do in prepaiing the bulb for the next season, the plants should not be lifted from the ground until they are sere and yellow. Take up the bulbs when the ground is dry, spread in the shade to dry, and when somewhat hardened, separate the large ones from the ofF^ets and put into separate bags or boxes. In the au- tumn plant the latter by themselves in any sunny part of the garden, and if they attempt to flower the next season, pick off the bud, so as to give its strength to the bulb. The next year they will flower finely. Hyacinths begin to decay almost before the bulb has become fully matured. Therefore it is well to assist nature a little, so when the plants are taken up they should be laid in ridges, with the bulbs covered with earth, and the leaves and 6tem left exposed to the air. Thus treated, the leaves speedily decay, and the bulbs attain their full growth ; then they should be left to harden a day or two in the shade, and after- wards packed away in sand until late in the season. Frittillarias, Crown Imperials, Narcissuses, Jonquils, and other bulbous plants, after flow- ering, may be taken up for the purpose cf separating the offsets. Frittillarias will not bear to be kept out of the ground any length of time, and therefore .should be planted again immediately. Indeed, with the exception of tulips and hyacinths, the dormant periods cf bulbs are so little known, and differ so widely, that it is best to err on the safe side, takjng as a general rule that weak bulbs should not be kept out of the ground more than a few days — stronger ones about a month. The Begonia Discolor is a very ornamental variegated- leaved plant, and as it requires to be kept in a dormant state throughout the win- ter, it takes up no- room among our house plants. It is commonly called "Blood-leaf," from the rich crimson veinings of its leaves. As soon as its stem and leaves decay, it should have no more water that season, and be put away in a dry cupboard, cellar, or any place where it will be kept from damp and frost. Early in the ensuing spring it must be taken from its winter quarters, and repotted in 1 ich, loamy soil ; after which it should be liberally watered through the summer, and have all the sunshine that it can drink in until the decay of its leaves announces that it is ready to bybernate. It is a beautiful addition to the popular variegated plants for which we have quite a "mania." Yearly they increase in gorgeous beauty, and their insignificant flowers are of no consequence excepting in the propagation of the plant. Yet some of the golden-margined geraniums possess very bril- liant, handsomely shaped flowers. "Golden Pheasant," now in bloom A our garden, has as handsome a blossom as "Gen. Grant," — its color is as vivid a scarlet, its shape as elegant, but the truss of flowers is not as large. Next month is the season to start cuttings from our favorite Geraniums for flowering the ensuing season. s. o. j. NE"W PDBLICATIOKS. Chanbekrt Culture, By Jopeph White, a Practical Grower. lilustrated. New York : Or».Dge Judd & Co. 1870. Piiee $125. 126 pai^ea. Since the publication of Mr. Eastwood's book on the Cranberry, in 1856, the cultivation of this fruit has wonderfully increased, and many new facts have been added to the previous stock of knowledge in relation thereto, A new work to embrace more modern experience was therefore needed, and we have had inquiries from corre- spondents fcr such a book. "We think the author has succeeded in his purpose "to embody, in a plain and concise manner, all the useful and prac- tical facts which study and experience have yielded to the inquiring cranberry grower of the present time." The last chapter in the book is devoted to letters from practical growers, in reply to inquiries by the author. As an appendix, the report of William C. Fish, to the Cape Cod Cranberry Grower's Association on insects injurious to the cranberry, — an excellent paper, — is re-published. The publishers have presented the editor's labors in an attractive form, and the many excellent il- lustrations add much to the value as well as cost of the book. The Tenth Annual Report cf the Board cf Agri- culture c f the Province of New Brunswick. Fred- eilckton, 1869. This board has the general supervision of the agricultural interests of the colony, including the auditing of the accounts of the local societies, some thirty-five in all, which received last year from the treasury of the Province between eight and nine thousand dollars. Irregularities, to use a mild term, were discovered in the management of a few of these associations, not very creditable to the fair dealing of some of their managers. Money was drawn on bogus names, and other practices were exposed which seem to show that the Yankees are not the only "sharp" people in the world. But the firmness exhibited by the Board will probably check like operations in the future. The Report shows that the Board has an industrious and efficient worker in the person of Chas. S. Lugrin, Secretary, Frederickton. The Report embodies a large amount of information in respect to the agriculture of New Brunswick. —Of the multitude of fairs to take place next fall, special attention will be claimed for the exhi- bition at Augusta, Georgia, of the "Cotton States Mechanics' and Agricultural Fair Association."' This is to occupy nearly the whole of the last week in October, and will be one of the most extensive festivals of the kind ever held in the South. 356 KEW ENGLAND FARJIER. Aug. CARBOLIC ACID. UE efforts of sci- entific men and women are con- stantly discovering some new thing which tends to avert human toil, to increase the pro- ducts of the earth or the factory, and to facilitate trans- portation. They pry into the mys- teries of the skies, explore the vast beds of the ocean, and the profound depths of the solid earth. Many of the old customs of men are fast disappearing. We smile at the simple habits of our English ancestors of only a few hun- dred years ago, and wonder at their want of intelligence and foresight in the construction of their dwellings, carriages, tools, machinery, and the barrenness of their homes in most ar- ticles now so highly prized by us in our do- mestic life. Now, light and air are admitted into our rooms, where, with them, a "port-hole" sub- served the same purposes. A stone chimney and a yawning fire-place have been superseded by elegant stoves of various patterns for the purposes of cooking. Pope, the great poet, Addison, Sir William Blackstone, and scores of others, are repre- sented as wearing enormous wigs of hair, per- haps that of some of their former friends, or, perhaps, that of some favorite horse which they bad ridden iu the chase ! Queen Eliza- beth, in addition to her coronet of jewels, wore a profusion of hair, but for a purpose very far from that which Impels the ladles of our day to vie with each oth'^r in loading the head with the cast-off hair of others, or with the grasses which imitate it. Then, the art of building and warming houses was scarcely worthy of the name. Elizabeth's parlors, drawing-rooms and halls, had no vulgar mortar of sand and lime, "To stop a hole and keep the wind away," but were covered with tapestry, in some cases highly embroidered with silk and gold, and in others with less rich materials. But all this did not "keep the wind away," and so Pope wore his huge cap, and Sir William and Addi- son their enormous wigs. Now, however, with plastered walls, a small furnace or steamer, or an air-tight stove properly arranged, the whole house is warmed, and woolen caps and horse-hair wigs are entirely unnecessary. But still, the women wear the borrowed hair, "When they will, they will, and that's the end on't." So in medicine, in surgery, and all the range of the arts, we have gone far away from the habits and modes of life of our ancestors ; and by this departure have added innumera- ble comforts and length of days to our exist- ence. They tend, also, to educate, civilize and exalt us, and properly received and used, will gradually raise us into a higher scale of being. Now, in addition to the numerous blessings flowing from the oil which has been so pro- fusely poured from the bosom of the earth, we have another which assuages pain more than ether or chloroform, and still another, carbolic acid, of various merits, and which has suggested the foregoing remarks. Let us see what is said of this wonderful substance, especially In matters which relate to the farmer. Mr. GooDALE, Secretary of the Maine State Board of Agriculture, in his report for 1869, has a chapter upon "Phenol, or Carbolic Acid," which we have read with unusual inter- est, lie says no feature of the remarkable age in which we live is more noticeable than the wonderful discoveries of science, and their application to useful ends. He quotes from a lecture delivered by Dr. F. G. Calvert, before the "Society for the Encouragement of Na- tional Industry," in France, in which the Doc- tor says "carbolic acid exercises a most pow- erful destructive action upon the microscopic and primitive sources of life, and is, therefore, an antiseptic and disinfectant much more ac- tive and much more rational than those gener- ally in use." Carbolic add was used with marked success In England, Belgium and Holland, during the prevalence of cholera and cattle plague. Mr. W. Croakes states that he has not met with a single instance in which the plague has spread on a farm where the acid had been freely used : Dr. Ellis says, "I^have, in m'any instances, allowed whole families to return to cottages in 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAEZMER. 357 ■which persons had died from cholera, after having the cottages well washed and cleaned with carbolic acid, and in no case were any persons attacked with the disease. Prof. Chandelon stated, that cut of 135 nurses employed upon cholera patients — where two thousand patients died — only one nurse died, but they were washed over, and their clothes sprinkled with carbolic acid. It has, also, a wonderful efficacy in most of the painful diseases to which llesh is heir. But it is to its uses on the farm that we intended to call the attention of the reader. Mr. Goodale says it is safe to assert that for lice, ticks, and other vermin infesting domes- tic animals, and for their cutaneous diseases, sores, ulcers, and the like, its equal for safety and efficiency has not before been found. Its applications and uses in a sanitary point of view are more important and numerous than those of any other known substance whatever. The purest carbolic acid requires about twenty times Its weight of water to dissolve it. When thus made a mudi furilier dilution will be needed for most purposes. Mr. Goodale found a weak solution efiFyctive in immediately arresting mildew on grape vines ?.nd on other plants : it also destroyed plant lice. It Is also adapted to many ocher purposes, one of which is as soap, prepared as follows : slice a quantity of bar soap, set it over the fire In a suitable vessel, after having aided first water enough to liquify It by siirring and warming to less than boiling heat, then take It oil and mix thoroughly for each pound cf soap employed, from a quarter of an ounce to a whole ounce of carbolic acid, according as it Is desired to have it mild or strong. When cool, the soap may be cut into cakes and laid by for use. This recipe we find in Mr. Goodale's report, and along with it he handed us several cakes cf soap, made up of diffdrent degrees of str> ngth. This soap has been in constant use for washing the hands for three months, and has a cleansing power that we have not found in any other soap. — To make a white wash that will not rub off, the Boston Journal of Chemistry says mix up half a pailful of lime and water ; take half a pint of flour and make a starch of it, and pour it into the white wash while hot. Stir it well and apply as usual. For the Kew England Farmer, SCIEirCB AS APPLIED TO AQKICUL- TUSB, Our lands are "running out," and must be renovated. Animal manures are not the only fertilizers within our reach, although they con- tain all the elements that enter into the com- position of plants in a highly organized condi- tion. Certainly the earth and the atmosphere contain all these elements of vegetable life, requiring only composition and organization to make them available. After animal manure, wood ashes is un- doubtedly the greatest organization of vege- table food In combination; but neither folid nor liquid particles contain the life-giving power of vegetation, any more than of human organization. No plant is a living being, however organized, until God "breathes into' it the breath cf life," when it becomes a liv- ing plant. Composed of the same materials as man and beast, it becomes food for his growth and maturity. The composition and assimilation of these elements ; the relations of the vegetable to the mineral kingdom; [heir organization and disorganization ; the wonderful power and influence th » atmosphere has upon all these relat ions, is the science of agriculture, and are principles in vegetable phy- siology which every tiller of the soil should carefully study and studiously observe." IMan or plant when excluded from the at- mosphere becomes entirely destitute of all vital action — life. Out of this fact, as con- nected with agriculture, grows the grand prin- ciple of pulverizing the soil. Experience here introduces another branch of science — drainage. Draw out from the subsoil the cold water, and pulverize the sur- face tintly, and you have laid a permanent and lasting foundation for succesbful agricul- ture. This cold, acid water in the subsoil is Injurious to veg^'table life until it has been brought under the influence of the atmosphere. This pulverizing, draining, trenching the son is no new thing. It was taught and practiced in Rome two thousand years ago. When Professor Mapes was turning agriculture up side down with his theory of soil analyses, he was practicing "deep trenching" in his pear orchards, which led to a success that dazzled his own eyes and led a confiding community astray in the ways of a false theory. In finely pulverized soils the air penetrates every particle, imparting carbonic acid which dissolves and organizes crude minerals into life giving food, v/hich is drawn by capillary attraction into every tissue of the growing plant, and is crystalized into vegetable leaf and woody fibre by light and heat. Water also contains carbonic acid, and this being a solvent of mineral substances, detaches and sets at liberty carbonates and phosphates that rise to the surface and produce vapors or dews, when coming in contact with the atmosphere, 358 XEW ENGLAND FAR:MER. Aug. imparting l.f« and vigor to vegetation, hold- ing tie or^raniziid elements in a state of solu- tion as food for the immediate and constant wants tf the growing plant. This process may go on for ages ; for the earth, i'rom centre to circumference, is one grand store-house of all the mineral and vege- table substances that enter into the formation of man, beast or plant. The physiological condition of the earth is ever changing. The decomposition of one kind of tree or plant, prepares the soil for the growth and production of another, and in many instances one altogether dissimdar. Drain- ing and pulverizing aerates the soil, deposits with and imparts to the growing plant such food as is required for its growth and matu- rity, all turplus atcms passing down to be held .in store for other kinds cf plants. Mineral substances are valuable as food for plants in proportion to the source from which they are derived, and the nature of their composition. The ammoniacal gases, passing through the soil, imparting life and vigor, are the legitimate source cf fertility. There is but little doubt that all lands that ever were productive may be made so again, unless positive physical causes prevent. Long experience and observation teaches us that there are other than animal manures to be used as fertilizers in the restoration of ex- hausted soils. Shade is a great fertilizer. Nature shades or mulches all her plants and trees to prevent too free or too sudden evap- oration. Vegetation suffers from extreme heat, and brisk, drjing winds, unless protected by some kind of mulch. In mountainous or highly elevated districts, at a distance from large bodies of water, all vegetation suffers from heat and frost. In such districts every intelligent man will see that science is com- pelled to apply different rules of practice in the cultivation of crops, than is required in districts under the influence of large bodies of water, with a humid atmosphere, which renders essential protection from extreme heat in summer and cold in winter Science, ob- servation and experience, man's great teachers, direct us up to natural laws ; and when we reset a proper proportion of our "worn out" tields to forests ; mulch our fruit and orna- mental trees, as nature directs ; cultivate less acres and cultivate better ; return the im- mense quantities of vegetable and mineral de- posit to the hill sides whence it has been washed for ages, and mix with the more solid portions ; drain, trench, pidverize and reunite and mingle these old friends and relatives of the soil ; then we shall have fields that will groan with grain and smile with bea*ty. The forests will entice back the birds to sing us ten thousand sweet songs, and to devour my- riads of insects that now destroy our fruits and vegetables ; rural life will be invested with new charms and new pleasures, and we shall have no need to sigh for a "land where the sun has smiles and flowers perennial bloom." Let the agricultural colleges do this by ex- ample. Appropriate the national fund to the purchase of land, and make a model farm instead of model buildings ; instead of estab- lishing professorships, laboratories with chem- i(;als, teach young men to cultivate and beau- tify the earth and make home pleasant, happy, peimanent, and then we may exclaim "science is come to our aid, and we are advancing in practical agriculture." L. L. Piekce. East Jaffrey, N. H., 1870. Remarks. — But, without the professors and the laboratories, how are the boys to learn all about the "carbonates," "phosphates," "acids," "composition," "assimilation," "min- erals," "decomposition," &c., cf which our correspondent has discoursed so ably and so well? True, "science, observation and expe- rience— man's great teachers — direct us up to natural laws," but may not our upward pro- gress be greatly facilitated by the guidance and direction of those who have been over the road before us, and by the aid of the fa- cilities which they enjoyed in their journey ? CABBOLIC ACID. This peculiar substance which is extracted from coal tar, has been unfortunate in its name, in the first place from its similarity to a very different thing. Carbonic Acid ; and, in the second place from the fact that it is not sour, and has none of the qualities of an acid any way. As, however, it is coming into gen- eral use, we think the following facts in rela- tion to its nature and effects, from an article by Prof. J. Darby, in the American Qrocer, will help to a better understanding of this valuable material : — Carbolic acid is prepared by treating what was called the light oils (benzines) from the distillation of coal with dilute alkalis and care- fully distilling the products which are heavier than water, the alkali being previously neu- tralized by muriatic acid. It is seldom found pure, it having more or less of cresylic acid in it, and often other closely related bodies. Carbolic acid is a solid at ordinary tempera- ture, melting at 100° Fahrenheit and soluble in twenty parts of wa'cr; is a powerful anti- septic and disinfectant, preventing putrefac- tion and fermentation. Its whole effect is due to its arresting change. It is simply a pre- servative. As an antiseptic, it prevents change in the materials. As a disinfectant, it accom- plishes the result by the same means — that is, kills the spores, if malaria consists of such, or 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 359 arrests chemical change if malaria is a putres- cing material. Carbolic acid is a powerful poison. Every one has known that creosote is poisonous, and carbolic acid is only a new name for an old, well-known material, only less crude. Creosote will do all that is claimed for carbolic acid. It is an active poison, acting directly on the nervous system, and may cause death ; indeed, death has eubued from its application to an aching tooth. In the Glasgow Royal Infirm- ary the records show that when dressings in amputations and compound fractures con- tained no carbolic acid, cne case in four and a (juaiter died, with carbolic acid in the dress- ings, one in three died ; showing that the use of carbolic acid was positively injurious. It coagulates the vital fluids of the body and of course stops vital action. In the hands of skilful physicians, carbolic acid is susceptible of important uses ; but for family use it is no more appropriate than arsenic or corrosive sublimate. Its application, when not very much diluted, produces effects very similar to that of burns, blistering the skin and producing a sore that can be cured by the treatment that would cure a burn. It is offered the public in all forms, as soaps, washes, salves and also as a medicine for various diseases, empirics taking advantage of its popularity to render it availa- ble for their profit. That it is for many purposes very useful, is not to be denied ; but it is very evident that it shoald be used with caution and care. We have used these car- bolic soaps upon our own hands and face, and carbolic acid for disinfecting purposes, and recommend it. Our article is not designed to deter any one from its use as a disinfecting agent, but to give people who use it the knowledge of its properties they ought to possess. CAK"ADA THISTLES. I have been amused at the great amount of anxiety shown by some of your correspon- dents in regard to the extinction of the Canada thistle. I have worked at farming all my life, and am still on the young side, and I hold that any farmer that cannot extirpate Canada this- tles is not worthy of the name. I have killed them in so many different ways that it would be tedious to specify them all. Good summer-fiil- lowing in a dry season will kill them. On pea ground, immediately after the peas have been harvested, if the ground is dry and loose, plough the land two furiows deep, one plough follow- ing the other ; then, as soon as ploughed, cul- tivate and harrow effectually, and continue doing so, at intervals of a few days, as long as the land remains in a fit state to work. Ma- nure on the surface, plough again in spring, sow with spring wheat or barley, and seed with clover (ten or twelve pounds to the acre, if more all the better,) cut the first crop of clover about the end of June, and as soon as the second crop is a foot high, plough it under ; cultivate and harrow as after the peas, and if properly tilled afterwards, you have done with Canada thistles on that piece of land. I have bought and partially cleaned two of the worst farms v/ith thistles I ever saw ; and I do not want any better recommendation of a farm than that it is able to produce a Canada thistle four or five feet high and an inch in diameter at the root. Such land, when prop- erly tilled, will produce the best of crops. — Cor. Canada Farmer. ESTKACTS AlfD KEPLIES. CLAM AND OTSTER SHELLS. Editors New England Farmer : — I do not ques- tion the good intentions of yoar correspondents, W. H. Y., Mr. Phineas Pratt and others, who are writing about the great fertilizing value of clam and oyster shells. However honest they may be, it is certain that they are confusing the minds of farmers, and thereby doing much injury to the interests of agriculture. Some months ago I stated in your journal thf.t clam and oyster shells were not manurial agents ; that they were com- posed of carbonate of lime, which is valueless. This simple truth, which it would seem every intelligent New England farmer ought to under- stand, has caused this excessive literary activity among some of your patrons. The trouble with your correspondents is that they do not clearly understand the matters they are discussing. No one of your intelligent readers will expect me to make any formal reply to what has been written, as the views presented are too preposterous to be taken into serious consideration. Mr. Pratt evidently regards oyster shells, and bones, of equal fertilizing value. " He does not un- derstand the difference between a carboiude and a phosphate of lime. He says, "where oyster shell beds are, or where bone dust is used, cabbages grow twenty years in succession," &c. He does not know the chemical difference between hydrate and carbonate of lime, or between oxide of cal- cium, (caustic lime) and carbonate. Again, he says, "New Jersey owes half its fertility to burn- itig their rocks and liming their lands once in seven years." As a statement, this is very ab- surd. Lime rock and oyster shells are no longer carbonate of lime after being burned. The carbonic acid is driven off by heat, and oxide of calcium is formed. This is a different agent entirely. The remarkthat "lime is the great thing wanting to bring back the fertility of the soil," is not true, but It may be noted as showing that Mr. Pratt re- gards lime (oxide of calcium) and oyster shells (carbonate of lime) as identical. It is certain that Mr. P. is not an authority in matters of agriculture involving chemical principles. W. H. Y. falls into the same errors, and fails to understand the views of the writers he quotes. Neither Liebig, Stockhardt, Johnston, Way, JBous- singaulf , or otuer chemist of any repute, ever stated that clam and oyster shells are manurial agents. The quotations made from two or three of the above named writers, regarding the fertilizing value of lirne, has no bearing whatever upon the question at issue. Let it be understood by soil cultivators everj'- wbere, once for all, that clam and oyster shells are nut manurial agents, in any proper sense; that they should receive no consideratiuu at their hand, as substances to be bought at any unce. Writers 360 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Aug. who endeavor to make agriculturist believe to the contrary are doing that which is detrimental to their interests. James R Nichols. 150 Congress St., Boston, June 4, 1870. ■WOOL FROM HALF BLOOD COTSWOLD.— MARKET- ING WASHED AND VNWASHED WOOL. Enclosed, you will find a sample of my half blood Cotswoldd. The one from which the sample was taken is an ewe, one year old this spring. She sheared eleven pounds and six ounces. There is some of this description of wool in this vicinity. Where shall we find a market for it, and at^what price ? Will some manufacturer of wool inform us, through the Farmer, why unwashed wool is not worth as much as washed, in proportion to what it will cleanse ? In 18G7 my sheep averaged six pounds washed wool; in 1868 they averaged six .and three-fourths pounds unwashed, that shrunk from forty-seven to fifty per cent, in cleansing. In 1869 the same sheep averaged six pounds washed wool again. I received thirty-two cents per pound for unwashed and forty-two for washed; making $2.16 per head for unwashed, and !^2.52 for washed. M. Dustin. West Ciaremont, X. E., May 25, 1870. Remarks. — The specimen received measares seven and a half inches, and with such beautiful material it is not strange that manufacturers can make woolen cloth that rivals silk and linen fab- rics in fineness and beauty. Your statement of marketing wool illustrates the injustice of the one- third rule that buyers attempted to establish, and shows very clearly that wool, like butter, flour, beef, or mutton, ought to be sold by its merits or quality, and that dealers in wool, as well as in other commodities, ought to understand their busi ness. Most of the large wool houses in the city buy all kinds of wool, or sell it on commission. We know nothing of the value of such wool as yours, in addition to what you can gather f.om our market reports. The price we suppose is regulated by the cost of the foreign wool, which has been somewhat reduced by the decline in price of gold. We see by the last monthy report of the Reve- nue Department, that for the seven months ending Jan. 31, 1870, there were 29,397,098 pounds of wool imported into this country, to compare with 17,788,01.5 for the same time last year; the value being stated at $l,2o4,217 for the seven months for 1870, and #2,539,036 for 1869. During the same seven months, ending Jan. 31, 1870, the value of woolen cloth imported is stated at .$;21, 174,242. These figures have an ugly look. Over twenty- five million dollars worth of foreign wool and woolens in seven months ! Do these importations put money in owr purse ? Yet these importers de- mand a larger litjerty and are working like good fellows to secure it. MVCK— fiPnCI.\L MANURES. I am not an indiir^rent reader of your paper. It contains much tliat is valuable upon all sub- j.'cts interesting to farmers, as well as other sub- jects that are now moving the great human mind. Permit me a word upon special manures. We small farmers must have something better adapted to our wants and the soil, something that will cost us no more than stable manure does. Much is said the papers about muck. Some praise it; others condemn it as worse than nothing. I believe there is a great deal of ditference in muck. We have muck enough here inMaiiow,— if it had vegetable life in it equal to some of the patent manures, — to manure the whole of New England. Ii is very difi'erent from the muck of the lower towns. What the difference is we want some one that knows to tell us. Is there not some way that this muck can be nvade into a quick manure without so much handling and overhauling ? The man that will answer this for the farmers will be worthy of a monument as high as Mount Washington. Such manure ought not to cost more than $'5 per cord, and it should have all the energy of half a ton of patent manure. Wc have bought twelve hundred pounds of Bradley's Phosphate, for which we have to pay 3.^ cents per pound. Dear stuff at that price. We are using it with green manure, a spoonful to a hill with a shovelful of manure. We are going to try it by putting half a shovelful of muck mixed with lime, ashes and salt in the hill, then drop the corn, and at v/eeding time put on the phosphate. What think you ? iPuTNAM Tyler. Marlow, -V. H., May 23, 1870. Remarks. — You are just the man to determine the value of the Marlow muck, and to discover the best and easiest way of using it. Try small parcels in all ways you know or can think of, and hold fast to the best. Try it with "dear stuff" and cheap stuff; with much handling and little handling ; dry it and use it to save all liquid ma- nure at house and barn, cattle yard, sink spout and privy, and that monument may be raised to your memory. If your muck is a good absorbent it has at least one very valuable quality. The wise ones have glory enough in books and papers. You can teach them more than they can teach you about the use and value of muck. They "blow bubbles," why may not you ? The portion of your letter which you will see we have omitted shows your ability to do so, though the editors, like men walking among eggs, have to be a little careful where they put their feet. OUR GEORGIA LETTER. I must acknowledge that I am slow and un- faithful ; promising more than I can perform, ever thinking I will do better in the future ; but always behind. I have just been looking in your bound volume of the Monthly Farmer for 1867, at some of the articles on manure, of which I find more than 60 in that volume. While reauing some of them I could not help thinking how much the farmers of this county would gain by reading good agricul- tural works, and thinking more on the subject, and making their own manures instead of buying the so called fertilizers. , I do not know the precise amount that is paid out for agricultural publications in this county, but I suppo.se from $100 to #150 yearly; while there are paid from $100,000 to $150,000 for fertil- izers. I have no doubt farmers will learn batter before many years, but they are certaiuly payirg dearly for their eciuiation. We have everything that is leally necessary for the impravemcnt of our lands, right around us, if only saved and properly prepared and applied, gypsum excepted; and that we shuuld have if we had everything that is now purcnased. This is the only thing that we do not have, and this it appears, we can 1S70. NEW ENGLAND FAKVIER. 361 scarcely get ; of course I mean that which is good. There is some here from south-western Virginia, bur, they have got tn furnishing an article there that is worthless. "We must have Nova Scotia plaster next year. This is an excellent country, bat still food and raiment arenot found without some h'bor and care. We grow 200,000 bushels of wheat, and let nine- tenths of the straw rot wherever it is threshed, and buy bay, often not as good as wheat straw, at $t40 per ton ; and that too where we can make two or three tons of good clover hay per acre. But our people are soon going to learn better. There are a number of tolerably good farmers here now, and they will still increase. Farmers will raise less cotton and more wheat and clover; some now hiive 50 to 100 or 200 acres of clover, and from 200 to 400 of wheat. We have earlier spring and summer here than you. We have had strawberries ever since April, but they are nearly gone now. These will be fol- lowed by berries" and fruit till December. We have also peas, potatoes and other garden stuff. Our wheat harvest will be on in two weeks or less. This section, although devastated, in 1S64, be- yond anything I can describe, by the armies, has more than regained its former prosperity. Car- tersville was more than half burned ; but to-day it has more than three times the population it had before it was burned. The whole country bears the appearance of thrift, prosperity and content- ment. Crops of ail kinds, though later than usual, look tiue. The Van Wert railroad is progressing toward Alabama, and aao*h*r is in contemplation — an air line road — trom hci'e to Lynchburg, Va. More anon. " j. h. r. Cartersville, Bartow, formerly Cass'TTo., ) Georgia, Jlarj 2o, 1870. S Remaeks. — The great increase in number and improvement in appearance of southern agricul- tural papers since the close of the war is evidence of the prosperity of the people. The Southern Cultivator, published at Athens, is an able far- mer's paper and ought to have a larger circula- tion in Bartow county than cur correspondent's figures indicate. We hope that "J. H. II." will not forget his promise of "more anon." A SICK HEIFER. I had a three-year-old heifer which gave milk last summer and last winter up to the first of Feb- ruary. She had been fed with meal to keep up her milk until that time, when, as I wished to dry her, the meal was discontinued. After which she fell away in tltsh until about the time she began to make bag, when I again put on her feed, in order to get her into condition for another flow of milk. She gained rapidly in tle.>h, and her bag got to be large, aisd she had the appearance of being ready to come in, an event which I expected at any hour. All at once she refused her meal, and began to fall away in condition, and has continued to do so until now. This was about four weeks ago, and she is now quite poor and feeble. Her bag has all gone down, and she has no appearance of ever coming in. About a week since, However, her bag increased a good deal, but it has now all gone down again. She has been carefully watched, and I feel confident that she has made no attempt at calving. 1 have no doubt the calf is alive, but how long either cow or calf will live under such cir- cumstances, remains to be seen. 1 was brought up on a farm, and have been a farmer on my own hook for thirty-five years, but I never saw, or heard, or read of such a case as this. Can you or any authority which you can consult with in Boston inform me of any such cases or the proper remedy for a case of this kind. I should state here that the mother cf this cow died two months since with ulceration of the womb ; this organ had eight ulcers four inches iu diameter and four inches thick, making the organ si«teen inches long, eight inches wide and four inches thick. T. L. Hakt. West Cormoall, Conn, 1870. Remarks. — We have never witnessed such a case as is described above, nor heard of one like it before, and arc inclined to think that if no meal had been fed to the heifer, she would have done well enough. It is not improbable, however, that the cancerous affection of the mother may have descended to the otf^pring. If any of our stock-raisers have knowledge in the matter they will confer a favor by communi- cating it to the Farmer. CHICKENS CAK'T HATCH. I have the full bred Leghorn fowls, have set four hens, but when their time is up they can't hatch them out, for the skin of the egg is so very thick the chick cannot break it. Can you give me any information what the difSculty is ? West Medway, Mass , 1870. Joseph Barber. Remarks. — We do not think we can. Evidently there was something wrong somewhere in the pro- cess of incubation. Fowls that "st,eal their nest's" usually have "good luck" in hatcliing, if not in- terfeied wiih, and such rests are often on the ground. Possibly there was not sufficient mois- ture in your nests to effect the proper decomposi- tion of the "skin" of the esg, and we would sug- gest the experiment of a nest on good clean soil with a slight covering of fine Lay, straw, feathers, &c. Many fowls, you know^, "feather their own nests." Some of our poultry conveniences and arrangements are too artificial. We consult our own tastes instead cf those cf the biddios. Their instincts and habits are not enough studied or consulted. Our improvements on nature are some- times carried too fi\r. Possibly, too, the hen might have been un-well, either from disease or the effects of lice, and lacked the ordinary degree of animal heat, or re- mained off her nest too lor;g. "method of getting hay." All farmers are concerned in this subject, and are certainly under obligatior-s to those who are willing to give their expeiicnce and advice. Statements, however, should be explicit, lest they should mislead others. The article in your paper from Franklin, Mass., of June 4, is quite too vague in some respects. It tends to results so imlikc the common experiencj of farmers in Essex county, that we need to know a good deal that "John" does not tell us. Thus, must not the grass be dead rijje, to be tit to go in in twenty-four hours, and consequently hard and woody f Other writers go strongly for cutting earlier than formerly. Now, if cut before fully ripe, can it be sately put in the day after cutting ? Again, if the farmer has a hay-makiog crew of workmen, who mow only in the afternoon, how are they to be employed in the forenoon ? Or how can the same men "mow only in the afternoon, 362 NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. ACG. when the hay cut on the previous clay is to be put in during the afternoon ? And again, if the grass is so ripe as to go in the second day, must it not also he a case where there is hut very little of it, as nothing is said about spreadintj swards, simply directions for ^?r parents in their old age, and get into some other business. I will not call them lazy, perhaps tlKy go where they have to work harder than at home. But go they do, and the old people findingrhemselves deserted by their chil- dren, and not able to carry on the farm themselves, are obliged to offer their places for sale, and if none but the Irish are willing or able to buy, what in the name of common sense can they do but sell to Irishmen ? Farming must not stop. All the wise presidents, governors, legislators, &c., of this countrj', as well as the born emperors, and lords and all such like of the old country, must be fed, and if somebody did not raise the food they would have to do it themselves, and thus come on a par with other poor folks. This would be a sad affair, and therefore the Irish buy the farms and carry them on. My wife has looked over what I have written, and thinks there is some truth in it, but says it ought to be written in a more polite manner. From Michael McNerney. Becket, Mass., June, 1870. Remarks. — We agree with Mrs. McNerney that there is "some truth" in this letter, — we think there is a great deal that ought to be pondered by all, — but we do not see that it needs to be ex- pressed in a more polite manner. Two things should be remembered. The country cannot pros- per without farming; but farming may flourish without Yankee boys or girls. For agriculture, there is no substitute; but for the Y'ankee himself there are substitutes. The old farms may change owners, but they will still have occupants. FOOT disease in CATTLE. I have a cow that was taken lame in one fjre foot about the 25th of April. I examined it very thoroughly and could find nothing, only it was swollen about the hoof and b'jtvveen the claws. I washed out the claws and foot with soapsuds and put on resin and grease, and let her run in the pas- ture where it was dry. In about a week after, it began to look mangy and crack just above the hoof, between the claws. Not knowing what bet- ter to do, I made a flax seed poultice and kept it on two days and then bathed it in wormwood, but as it grew worse I put on tar. The foot is still very much inflamed, with a deep spongy sore, that discharges but little. The cow had good care the last winter, and was fleshy when taken ill. I have also one two-year old heifer similarly affected, but only in the hind foot; and also three yearlings and a four-year old ox that has not been woiiked. They are all in good condition and are very nice animals, being grade Durhams. The cow was wintered separate from the yearlings and has not been with them. It appears that the disease origi- nated in my herd, as there are no other cattle about here affected the same manner. Some of my cattle had a little meal and a few roots, but most of ihem nothing but good hay duriug the past winter. This spring afcer the Irost came out of the ground in my barn yards, my cattle were kept in the barn, except when turned out for water twice a day. I have seen cattle that had what was termed the Fouls, but think it different from the di^nrder aoove descrilied. My pastures are not swampy, but dry, with a stream of living water running through them. 1870. NEW ENGLAOT) FARIVIER. 863 And now, Messrs. Editors, can you or some of the readers of the Farmer give me information as to what ails my stools, and what can he done to cure the disease ? d. k. w. Rockingham, VL, June 7, 1870. Remarks — A disease known as the Foot and Mouth Disorder has been quite prevalent and fatal in various parts of England for a year past. It is described by some as attacking the hoof first which gets sore, is licked by the animal, and thus the disease is communicated to the mouth. Others think the disease commences at the mouth, teats and foot at the same time. This dangerous disease is highly contagious. But from the account given of it, we think it is quite different from that de- scribed by our correspondent. Mr. Allen recogaizes two different forms of the Fouls in cattle, which he calls the Soft and the Horny. Dr. Dadd says the disease is analogous to foot rot in sheep, and is caused by a stoppage of the natural evacuations usually thrown off from the system through the vessels or outlets that ex- ist between the cleft. The object of treatment is to restore the lost function. The part should be cleansed, relaxed, and warmed first by water and soap, then by a poultice, of half a pound of marsh mellows, bruised ; a handful of powdered charcoal ; a few ounces of powdered lobelia, and a teacupful of meal, with boiling water sufficient to soften the mass ; or equal parts of powdered lobelia, slippery elm, and pond lily, bruised. Mix with boiling water and put in a bag and secure it above the fet- lock. Give the animal a dose of half an ounce of sulphur, one ounce powdered sassafras bark, and two ounces of any part of the burdock plant, steeped in a quart of boiling water, strain and cool. "Whenever any fungus excrescence makes its ap- pearance, apply powdered bloodroot or burnt alum. If there is a fetid smell wash with a table- spoonful of salt, and a wine-glass of vinegar, in a quart of water. In reply to an inquiry about a similar disease by a farmer who says that out of a dairy of thirty cows, one-half are affected. Prof. Law says, in the New York Tribune, that the disease is Dry Gan- grene, and is caused by an excess of Ergot in the grasses and grains of last year. He says the feed must be changed, and sound hay, steamed straw, bran, shorts, roots, &c., used. He recommends poultices of bran or oil meal, and if there is any unpleasant smell add a few drops of carbolic acid. To each sick animal one ounce of powdered gen- tian should be given internally, each day. Will the readers of the Farmer give our corres- pondent the benefit of their knowledge and expe- rience with the disease which affects his stock. FATTENING TURKEYS. It is very easy to fatten turkeys where there is plenty of corn, but it often costs nearly as much as they are worth, where corn is scarce and high ; and people are apt to think so much of their corn and feed so sparingly, their turkeys are just about as fat after they suppose they have got them ready for market as they were when they begun. I will give the best and cheapest mode, in my opinion, from my own experience; and if any of your readers have any better and any cheaper way, I would like to have them publish it in this paper, for the benefit of myself and many others who would like to know. When 1 commence to feed my turkeys in the fall, about three or four weeks previous to killing them, I begin to feed them potatoes boiled and warm, two or three times a day. After I have fed them a few days, I begin to put in a little corn meal, and mix well together, — a little at first, and increasing in quantity as the turkeys grow fatter, always giving it to them warm, until they have all that they want to eat. I feed them in this way until they are fat. The time that it will take to fatten them will vary according to the condition they are in when I begin, their age, &c. Early turkeys will fatten much easier and quicker than late ones, and will look better when dressed. I think the value of potatoes and their fattening properties are not generally understood as they should be, either for poultry or pigs. I feed them to hens, turkeys and pigs with good success. I do not like the way of feeding potatoes raw or of boiling enough to last a week, and feed them cold as many people do, and tht n- say that potatoes are good for nothing to feed. By taking a little pains I can get turkeys as fat by feeding in this way, as with corn, and much cheaper. If I have a large flock, and not a very good chance for them to gleaa harvested grain fielas, I feed a few potatoes to them during the fall. A small flock will usually get their living in the fields till the first of Novem- ber, after which they should be well fed. A Farmer's Wife. Hyde Park, Vt., June 3, 1870. "WINTERING BEES. As you wish the experience of bee-keepers on wintering bees, I would say that for wintering on summer stands, the following is a cheap and safe way. Make a box without top or bottom, set id on over the hive, having a space of three or four inches around the hive, and about six inches higher than the hive after the cap is removed. Then fill in around with shavings or cheap hay, leaving a passage to correspond with the'entrance into the hives, and lay a board over the top to keep out snow, rain and mice. Keep them shaded after the first of December, except about twice a month, when the temperature is 47° or higher, so that it will be safe for the bees to fly. My bees, wintered in this way, consumed but very little honey, and cameout l-n fine condition, and swarmed as early as the 26ch of May to the 4th of June. For wintering a large number of Wves a build- ing like the following would be better: build a house eleven by twelve feet, and six feet six inches between floors, make the walls with ten inch space filled in with sawdust, clap boarded outside, and sealed inside. Have a double door in one end, with shutter and window in the other. The upper and lower floor to be covered with sawdust. Both upper and lower floor to be ventilated by a six inch stove pipe. The cap should be slightly raised, and the room kept dark and still. A. Green. Amesbury, Mass., June 6, 1870. FRUIT AND OTHER CROPS IN MICHIGAN. This is one of the great fruit growing sections of the United States. For miles and miles it is a wilderness of fruit trees and vines and beds. Tbe prospects are of a medium crop, but no surplus to be wasted, as was the case last year. The peach growers are making a vigorous fight with the cur- 364 NEW ENGLAisD FARMER. Aug. cnlio. Millions of the little pests are taken each | dav. I am surprised at the amount of care and ' labor successful fruitgrowers consider it necessary to give to their orchards. Five acres of fruit is as 1 much as one man can attend to properly, and he will find work to do thirty weeks in a year and , six days in a week, certainly. But if properly at- tended to, the returns arc large ; and if neglected, no returns ; as inferior fruit here will scarcely pay for picking, when there is an abundance of first class offered at fair rates. . The wheat that was not winter killed is looking well ; but it is too early yet to say with certainty what it will be. The farmers are begimiing to look anxiously for rain. Wheat is #1.20 per bushel. Flour .fJ.OO per barrel, and potatoes have jumped the last week from tliircy up to fcrty cents a bushel; the potato bug having attacked the new crop in great numbers and with evident dis- position to r^ake a clean sweep. They make no distinction and show no preference,— Early Rose or old varieties, it is all the same to them. L. E. BiCKNELL. Betiton Harbor, Mich., May 30, 1870. ■WHO SHOI-LB TAKE AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER. Not the farmer alone, though to him it is, of course, one of the essentials of life; a wise coun- sellor, a friend in need, a safe and healthful fire- side companion. But it should have a wider range of usefulness. Every one who owns a garden, even if it be hut a "window garden," has an in- terest in its teachings, and would derive pleasure and profit from them. A good and higli-toned agricultural journal exerts a pure and ennobling influence wherever it goes; and it should carry that influence into cities and villages, as well as among the farming community. To those who have scarcely an opportunity of seeing the rich fields, the gay meadows, and the dark forests, from one year to another, it would bring a breatti of pure country air, as refreshing as the cool breeze of heaven in a crowded overheated hall. To many it would be a pleasant reminder of the past ; of the happy childhood spent in some far ott country home, and now remembered as the brigtit- est portion of a busy life. It would lighten me weary hours of the invalid, while the convalescent would find its Domestic Receipts and Market Re- ports es'pecially interesting. If half the money that, is wasted upon story papers were turned into this purer channel, what a Innovation in morals there would be throughout the land ; how much less of extravagance and dis- sipation, of vice and sorrow ; how much more ot peace and temperance, of health and happiness. Marlboro', Mass., June, 1870. Mattie. CABBAGE WORMS. About a year ago I wrote you in reference to a cabbage worm which had destroyed the cabbages in this section. , ^ „_ , , „„„ The inquiry in Mr. Scudder's note on "Cabbage • Worms," cJSlonthlv Farmer, 18G9, page 362,) as to "whether 1 know or only thought the butterlly to be the parent of the worm," led me to pay con- siderable attention to them during the past year. I was well satisfied then that ttie worm was the otfspring of the buttei lly ; but to be more certain, I confined a butterfly in a box with some cabbage leaves. She laid her eggs, and in a short time ttie worms made their appearance. The cabbages in this section were entirely destroyed by the worms last year,— nothing remaining but the bare stumps. The turnips were also badly damaged, apparently 1)v the same species of worms. I could not dis- tinguish any di^erence between the butterflies on the turnips and those on the cabbages. The but- terflies commenced to lay their eggs about the first of June, and continued until the last of Au- gust. Last August I confined several cabbage worms under a glass, with plenty of air and cabbage leaves. In about a week they fastened themselves to the top of the glass and gradually turned into a chrysalis state, where they remained until about the first of Mav, when thry burst the shell and re- vealed a yellowish white butterfly with black spots on the wings. The under edge of the clapboards of a building, standing near my cabbage patch, was completely covered last fall with the worms in a chrysalis state. We have not as yet discov- ered anvthing that will destroy the worms and not injure the cabbace, except picking them off by hand, which is not very desirable. Mr. Scudder, in the note above referred to, says, "the butterflies are of feeble flight, and easily tak- en in a scoop net," and recommerds that as the "easiest way to destroy them." In this, Mr. Scud- der is very much mistaken, as our butterflcs are quite active, and it would be a difficult job to catch them in a scoop net. On account of the ravages of these worms, very few cabbages will be set out here this season. If any of the readers of the Farmer know of a reme- dy to destroy the worms, they will confer a great favor on the lovers of torn- crout in this vicinity, by sending it to us through the columns of the New ENGLAND Farmer. H. L. Sowles. Alburgh, Vt., May 30, 1870. sight restored by salts and cider. Some eight or nine years ago, Mrs. David Batehelder of North Reading, Mass., now 80 years old, gradually lost her sight, and finally became blind. About a year ago, being somewhat out of health, she was advised to take Epsom salts dissolved in cider to cleanse her blood. She had about a tablespoonful of salts dissolved in a pint of old hard cider, and took a wine glass full each morning. She took it in this manner about three weeks, then left off two weeks, and then be- gan asain, continuing about the same length of time, and leaving off again for two or three weeks, until she had taken half a pound of salts. About this time she began to discern bright colors, which encouraged her to continue the salts and cider at intervals to the present time. She continues to improve in sight and general health, but cannot as yet see quite as well as formerly. Knowing that others have been afflicted much in the same way as Mrs. B., and the remedy being so simple, I send you this for the benefit of the community. Reading, May 23, 1870. A. G. musty and imperfectly cured hay. We read the injunction to provoke one another to good works, and I was almost thus affected by reading an article in a late Farmer from one who wished to know what caused his hay to be smoky. I never have any trouble with smoky hay when rightly cured and housed. But 1 am one of those old fogy farmers who have but little faith in housing hay half made. This putting in the barn heavy l)urdens of clover hay the day it is cut is some- thing I can never do without having smoky hay. That wo may dry hay too much I am fully satis- fied but believe that where one farmer dries too much, ten dry too little. I see it stated by some writers that it is best to house heavy clover hay after just a little wilted and pack it down solid iti the mow. For one I believe that if I should hll my barn thus, I should have the next spring a good supply of manure without putting the stock to the trouble of chewing the hay. Bedford, N. E.,June, 1870. T. G. Holbrook. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 365 J. J AYBSHIRB COW. On copying the above illustration of a mod- ern Ayrshire cow, from Mr. Allen's book on American Cattle, we do not propose to give a detailed history of this well known breed of cattle. Mr. Rankin, an English breeder, claims that the Ayrshires unite, perhaps, to a greater degree than any other breed, the sup- posed incompatible properties of yielding a great deal of both milk and beef. ]\Ir. Aiton, another English authority gives the following description of the Ayrshire cattle. ^'Ilead small, but rather long and narrow at the muzzle ; the eye small, but smart and lively ; the horns small, clear, crooked, and their roots at considerable distance from each other ; nech long and slender, tapering towards the head, with no loose skin below ; sJiouklers thin ; fore- quarters light ; hind-quarters large ; hack straight, broad behind, the joints rather loose and open ; carcass deep, andi pelvis capacious, and wide over the hips, with round fleshy hut- tocks. Tail long and small ; legs small and short, with ^rmjoijits ; udder capacious, broad and square, stretching forward, and neither fleshy, low hung, nor loose ; the milk veins large and prominent ; teats short, all pointing outwards, and at considerable distance from each other ; skin thin and loose ; hair soft and woolly. The head, hones, horns, and all parts of least value, small ; and the general figure compact and well proportioned." PHOSPECTS OF THE CHOPS. In a ride of about sixty miles by horse power through a portion of Middlesex and Essex counties, we have had opportunity io notice the condition of the crops, and of con- ver.-ing with many farmers in ndation to them. We have no recollection of ever seeing the grass crop more promising in the s cond week in June than it is now, June 9. The clovtr is exceedingly luxuriant, and some portion if it so stout as to be beaten down by the gentle rain of the sixth instant. This will require cutting at once, though not more than a fourth of it is in bloom. The cereal grains and Indian corn look finely. They came quick and well and are very promising. All the early garden stuff seems to have come well. Some peas were in bloom ;. pota- toes, beans and the garden vegetables gener- ally were looking finely. There is promise of an abundant apple crop. Though millions of the young fruit have fallen, other millions remain ; enough to afford a crop beyond anything we have had for several years, if no attack by blight or in- sects is made upon them hereafter. In some localities the canker worm has en- tirely destroyed the foliage, and in others only partially so ; but the injury is not general in any locality. 366 NEW ENGLAND FAR^VIER. Aug. Pears, cherries and peaches looked well wherever we noticed their trees. It is early, we are aware, for dry and scanty pasturage ; but it is rarely the case, even in "leafy June," to find them so densely clothed with luxuriant grasses, and gemmed with white clover blossoms. The stock on every farm visited was in fine condition. It came through the winter well, and passing into such excellent pasturage is presenting a remarkably good appearance. The finest we saw, in any considerable num- ber, was at the State Alms House, at Tewks- bury, under the care of the Superintendent, Capt. Thomas J. Marsh. When he entered upon his duties there, twelve years ago, he found but three cows on the farm, although the milk bills were annually some two to three thousand dollars ! It was several years before he could induce the inspectors to allow him to enlarge the number of cows. They urged that all the hay and grain they consumed must be purchased, and that therefore, the milk would cost more than to buy it as they had done. It was true that the farm — of a hun- dred or more acres — did not produce enough to furnish the hay and grain required to keep these cows and the two or three horses whose services were needed in the business of the institution. Now, Capt. Marsh has upon the farm sixty- nine head of neat cattle, or had at the close of winter i some of the young stock being away at pasture. Most of these he has raised on the farm, and now cuts a large portion of the hay from it, upon which the stock has been fed. Among the stock are six working oxen, each animal of about eight feet girth. These were purchased, but he has two pairs of ex- ceedingly promising steers coming on. At milking time we saw twenty-four cows in the Jeanto, as fine-looking as we ever saw, and whose products were all that ought to be ex- pected of any cows. They were scrupulously clean and docile, and of mixed breeds gen- erally. There were four bulls, one a pure Short-horn, judged to weigh 2100 pounds, a pair of two-year olds and a yearling. The Short-horn had a strong and easy-fitting har- ness and was worked daily, alone or before a pair of oxen. The younger ones were also mod- erately worked, headed by the pure Jersey yearling. By this usage they were all gentle and good-tempered, and were found profitable workers in the field. The remaining portion of the stock is young cattle, but not including calves, — several of which were in the stalls. In addition to the oxen, two or three horses are required for the farm, and as many more for the different vehicles needed in the busi- ness of the institution. The hay for all this stock, if we understood statements made correctly, is now cut on this farm, on which, twelve years ago, there was not hay enough raised to supply three cows. Within a year or two the farm has been en- larged by some fifty or sixty acres, but these acres have not yet added much to the hay crop. They are still in a transition state, but are rapidly being changed into beautiful and fertile fields. Passing through the kitchen we saw three large wash tubs filled with soaking peas, and as many tubs of corned beef to make a part of the pea soup for the next day's dinner. When the inmates are to enjoy cabbage for dinner, it requires a large ox-cart full of heads, after the outside leaves are taken off, to supply the plates of those who are not in the hospital ! Between fo^lr and five thousand bushels of potatoes are annually required for the family. Five barrels of flour are kneaded up at once for baking, two or three hundred pounds of codfish for a single dinner, and other things in proportion throughout the whole cuisine department. The most perfect cleanliness and order were apparent everywhere, inside and out. The drainage and sewerage excellent, and gener- ally the ventilation of the buildings ; but in this particular some changes are needed and of such a character as to be wholly indepen- dent of the inmates. Persons who do not un- derstand the importance of breathing pure air, are quite apt to close all doors and win- dows and run the risk of suffocation. Venti- lation, therefore, should not depend upon opening and shutting doors or windows. It is somewhat doubtful which would kill the quickest, impure air or fresh currents rushing in on certain portions of the body when not in exercise. We think we should rather take our chance in the carbonic acid. When the fact is considered that the farm improvements to which we have alluded, have been made at the same time that a family of 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAE]!iIER. 367 from three to ttoelve hundred persons have been cared for, and well cared for, it ■will be conceded, we think, that no better evidences of agricultural skill have ever been presented to the farmers of the State, that in the man- agement of this originally wretchedly poor farm. Twelve years ago, three cows could not be fed from it ; now seventy five head of stock are fed from the hay cut, several thousand bushels of roots harvested, cabbages by thou- sands of heads, and potatoes by thousands of bushels, and, every day, forty pounds of the most delicious butter are made. It is true, that Capt. Marsh has unusual facilities in the use of fertilizers and labor, but in the hands of many persons, these would only increase the bills of cost to get rid of them. A large amount of the labor comes from persons who are incompetent to direct themselves, and must be constantly guarded and directed by others. And yet, this labor, trifling as it is individually, is sufficient in the aggregate to produce such excellent results. BEET SUGAR MANUFACTUBB. The expectations which were excited several years since by the purchase at Chatsworth, 111., of some 2400 acres of rich land, and the establish- ment there of a costly factory, to be operated by experienced men from Germany, have not been realized thus far. On the contrary we have had reports of disappointment and partial failure, which have been disheartening to those who had hoped that this establishment would demonstrate not only the possibility, but the profitableness of producing at least a portion of the large amount of sugar consumed in this country. A writer in the New York Tribune, who has vis- ited Chatsworth, and examined the premises of the Company, thinks that that section does not possess all the vital conditions of success. The soil is a strong black clay loam, exceedingly rich in humus and the nitrates, especially adapted to corn, oats and grass, but having too great an ex- cess of salts, for sugar beet culture, until, by grain growing, these have been somewhat reduced. The soil is inclined to wash and run together, under the action of water and frost; while "one re- quirement for success in sugar-beet culture is a thoroughly drained soil, that can be worked at all seasons within twenty-four hours after the heavi- est rains, and which shall be sufficiently sandy, so that it will not crust nor bake, but easily disinte- grate in cultivation. Another necessity is plenty of sweet soit water, accessible to the sugar fac- tory for use in both cleaning and steam power. Now these particulars, absolutely essential to suc- cessful and profitable beet culture and sugar man- ufacture, do not exist at Chatsworth, in a state of nature, but at great expense are being gained by artificial means. The experiment at this point is an exact parallel of one in Germany, where nearly all the natural conditions were the same, and where the capital of three successive companies were sunk before it was made a success; but which we may say, for the comfort of the stock- holders at Chatsworth, is now one of the best pay- ing companies in Germany." A "black-sand" soil, like that of the Rock and Fox River bottoms, of Alton and Villa Ridge, 111., also along "Winnebago Lake, at Fond Du Lac and other points in Wisconsin, is considered more favorable than the prairies for beet growing. Speaking of the last year's operations, in culti- vating beets at Chatsworth, this writer says, their lack of complete success can in no way be attri- buted to mismanagement. The seven weeks of uninterrupted raiu in May and June washed off or rotted away all but 100 acres of the beet plants. The succeeding drought and early frost left them from this but 300 tuns of beets for their toil. Yet with all these disadvantages beets were placed in the mill at a cost of $4.50 the tun — 10 per cent, lower than the lowest estimate for this result by the German manufacturers. This was effected in part at least by newly invented machinery. The indications for the present season are regarded as favorable. Three hundred and thirty acres of beets, 150 of grass, 140 of wheat, 150 of rye, 400 of oats, 1100 of corn, &c , are novv under cultiva- tion, and all looking well. The writer anticipates for Chatsworth a good measure of success this sea- son, and believes it is now in hands in all de- partments competent to realize the wishes of its friends, and those of this industry generally, as to its success both financially and otherwise. CUHCULIO TSAP3 OF MICHIQAW. The Horticultural Editor of the Prairie Farmer has visited St. Joseph, Mich., and examined the new plan of destroying the curculio, of which we gave some account last week. While he advises cultivators to try the traps, he is less sanguine of their pfliciency than are the people of St. Joseph. During cold nights the curculios descend for a more comfortable lodging, but when the weather becomes warm enough to swell the fruit sutBciently large for their operations, he says they do not de- scend, but remain ail night in the tree. From this time there are not less than thirty days, during which they fly freely, and migrate from one or- chard to another. Indeed, fruit was found to be stung on trees that had been most carefully trapped, and on resorting to the old jarring process many more insects were caught on the sheets than had been under the traps. While, therelore, the new process may lighten the labor of jarring, it appears that it cannot be relied upon as an exterminator. Prof. Riley, of the American Entomologist, agrees 868 IS^EW E^GLAXD FARMER. Aug. ■with the views expressed by the Prairie Farmer, and also shows by an extract of a letter from a Mrs. Weir, published Jan. 28, 18G.5, in the Rural New Yorker, detailing her success in capturing the insects under boards laid on the ground for that purpose, that the invention is not a nevr one. TSTE-W PUEIiICATIONa. Memorial of Benjamin P, Jebneon, read before tho Kew Vor'K Ptute Agricultural Society at the Annu il Meeting, Feb. 10, 1870, by Maref.na K. Patrick, Ex- Pre8:di-nt of the Society, Throughout the country there is a general com- plaint of the want of hearty co-operation by the tillers of the soil with the leaders of agricultural progress. Books printed at great public expense for the benefit of farmers gravitate to the rag-bag and junk store. State Boards of Agriculture hold sessions in rural districts, but even there they do not reach the rural people. State Societies hold shows and fairs, but the attendance of the "intel- ligent yeomanry" is secured by almost any device that will "draw." "Great names" are placed on the agricultural stump, but they fail to attract the masses. "Why should these eloquent speakers, these attractive exhibitions, these learned discus sions, these elaborate Transactions be so poorly appreciated ? One reason for all this is suggested to our mind by the perusal of this Memorial, and that is the want of sympathy between these men and those whom they wish to reach and influence. Though written in the ordinary eulogistic style of such compositions, this Memorial sketch of Mr. John- son's liie, presents the following facts. "Until fif- ty-three years of ago, he was a lawyer, politician and ofQce holder. In the langu?gc of his eulogist, he was "so generous in his feelings" that "it is not to be wondered at that he was never a successful financier, or manager of his own money matters, or that he became gradually, and almost insensi- bly embarrassed in his pecuniary affairs, until he suddenly found himself wholly unable to meet his engagements." In May, 1846, he departed ab- ruptly for Europe, and left his "financial unpleas- antness" to the care of his friends, by whom, we are informed, it was "satisfactorily arranged," and Mr. Johnson returned to his native land, in No- vember of the same year, when the same good friends secured for him the snug little position of Secretary of the New York State Agricultural So- ciety. Once in this office, he was retained twenty- two years, — though later in life a "lethargy was stealing over him" that incapacitated him for the discharge of its duties, — because, and we again quote both the sentiment and the language of the Memorial, "To have dropped him from the rolls of the Society, as its Secretary, would have been to pronounce his sentence of death." "VX'e can honor these charitable feelings for a needy incumbent, though we may not approve of the form in which they were expressed in this case by the m mngers of the Society. We believe that the State has sufiered greatly from the ineffi- cient manner in which the Transactions of its Ag- ricultural Society have been edited for many years past, and that in this way something has been done to foster that indifference on the part of farmers so generally deplored. Thansactions of the "Vermont Dairyman's Aseocia- tion, 1869-70, wilh Addresses and Essays Oricioal and S^iec'ed. Publl'^hed by the fieoretaiy, O. Bliss, Keq . Georgia, "Vc. 1870. This pamphlet of 120 pages give us the addresses of Hon. E. D. Mason, President of the Associa- tion ; of Hon. Henry Lane, on the cultivation of Beets; of Hon. X. A. Willard, on Dairying; of Dr. M. Goldsmith, on Experiments in Dairying ; of Hon. T. G. Alvcrd, on Salt ; of Hon. R. Goodman, on Grasses; of Prof. G. C. Caldwell, on Fermen- tation and Putrefaction ; of Prof. A. N. Prentiss on Ergot; of O. S. Bliss, Esq., on Butter Making; together with List of Officers, &c. These are val- uable papers, and will be read with interest and pr®9t by farmers. In his introductory remarks, the Secretary says, that the afternoon of the sec- ond day's session "was devoted wholly to discus- sions." And from our experience with similar meetings we can readily credit his subsequent re- mark that "the time was fully occupied, affjrding new evidence that one of the most valuable fea- tures of such meetings is the extemporaneous dis- cussions among the members themselves." Yet we find no trace of this "most valuable feature" in the printed transactions of the society. On the same page, the Secretary says : — "It is a source of r grct that no more of the practical dai- rymen of the State were in attendance upon the meeting." But why was there not a more general attend- ance of the practical dairymen of the State at the St. Albans meeting ? There can be no question of the fact that a large number of the farmers of "Ver- mont are deeply interested in dairying. They buy liberally and read carefully books and papers that relate to this and other branches of farming. They are always ready and glad of an opportunity to talk upon these subjects. But when a meeting is called at which men of note and distinction are invited to discourse upon these same topics, they somehow seem indifferent about attending, or if they are preseiit they take a back seat, and act for all the world as though the meeting belonged to somebody else, and as though they were not at home there. This is as true of the farmers of other States as of those of Vermont. The Convention in St Al- bans is not the only one that has had cause to complain of empty seats. But what shall be done to fill them in the future ? is a question that we do not propose to answer aflirmatively here; though we cannot refrain from suggesting, negatively, that, whenever the extemporaneous discussions of the practical men present at any of these meetings prove the most valuable feature of the ixerciscs, their entire omission from the printed journal of 1870. KEW ENGLAXD FARMER. 369 proceedings, will not be likely to fill these seats, or to encourage their occupants to take a more ac- tive part in the proceedings at another meeting. But this does not impair the value of the pa- pers which constitute the bulk of the Transactions of the Vermont Dairymen's Association, which we commend to the attention of dairymen in Ver- mont and elsewhere. Peach Cct-tbhe. By James Alexander FuUon, Do- ver, Del, lllMstrated. New York: O. Judd & Co. Bopton: A. Williams & Co. IvVO. 190 pages. Price $l.fO. This book gives directions for raising trees, plant- ing and cultivating orchards, gathering and mar- keting fruit, with suggestions on varieties, &c. The author lives in the centre of the peach grow- ing districts, where orchards of twenty to fifty acres are common, and in which individual plant- ers have as many as six hundred acres. He ought, therefore, to be able to give the results of a large experience in this branch of fruit culture ; and his effort has been, he informs us, to make a hand- book and guide to every planter, that may be used as the student uses his dictionary in the acquisi- tion of a language. Whatever may be the respec- tability of men engaged in other branches of farm- ing, he says "most of our large peach growers are gentlemen of wealth, refinement, and leisure; many of great social, and some of high official position." Cincinnati Industrial Exposition. — We have received a circular from the committee of arrangements for a Grand Industrial Exposition of Manufactures, Products and Arts, at Cincinnati, Ohio, by the Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade and Ohio Mechanics' Institute, to commence Sept. 21, and continue until Oct. 15, 1870. Arti- cles for exhibition will be received from the 1st to the 20th of September. Circulars containing full and specific information relating to the Exposition may be obtained by addressing "Cincinnati Indus- trial Exposition," Cincinnati, Ohio. Charles F. Wilstach, President ; Abner L. Frazer, Secretary. Profit in Feeding Stock. — There is a general impression at the East that fattening cattle and hogs at the West is very profitable business. An Ohio feeder states as the result of experiment, that beef at 6^c and pork at 9c per pound live weight, gave him 5o^c per bushel for corn. An Illinois farmer says that in his section they cannot af- ford to feed corn after the price has reached 50 cents. A farmer in Central Illinois who is a pru- dent, careful, and economical man, shows by his books that he does not get fair pay for his labor when he sells good cattle at 8c per pound live weight. Cheese Factories in England. — The first es- tablishment in England, was started in Derby- shire, but a few months since, under the superin- tendence of an American, with the milk of 300 cows. At f3rst, farmers were veiy doubtful as to the success of the Yankee notion, but in three months there has been so great a change in pub- lic opinion that the company has been obliged to refuse ofi'ers of milk supply from 500 addi- tional cows. A second factory is to be opened immediately at Longford, nine miles from Derby, and it is believed that it would not be difficult to start six factories within ten miles of Derby. AGHICULTTJIlAIi ITEMS. — One thousand cows every day contribute their milk to supply the cheese factory in Hinesburgh, Vermont. — In speaking of raising corn on "clay lands" in Georgia, a correspondent of the Southern Cul- tivator estimates the average crop, including good and bad years, at ten bushels an acre. — Figs grow very abundantly in South Califor- nia. They ripen twice a year, and compete, when dried and packed, with the foreign imported ones in the home fruit market. — Canker worms are stripping orchards very badly in many parts of Massachusetts, while in some places where they have heretofore been most destructive, there are not as many this year as usual. — Wm. F. Barber of Castleton, Vt., lately sheared 70 Merino sheep, all ewes, with an aggregate of 1,025| pounds, giving an average fleece of 13^ pounds to each. The sheep were all raised by Mr. Barber, and the growth of the fleece is a year, less one day. — A statement of the hogs sold by the farmers of Neponset, III., from Nov. 1, 1869, to March 15, 1870, is published in the Prairie Farmer. The v/hole number is S300, making 2,905,000 pounds of pork, averaging 350 pounds. A list of eighteen farmers is given who sold 932 hogs, that weighed from 400 to 556 pounds each. — J. H. Crook & Son, of Pittsfield, have just pur- chased five Short-horns in Xenia, Ohio, from the strain long famous in that State and Kentucky for beef. They are Kitty Clover 2d, a four year old cow ; Kitty Clover 3d, one year old heifer ; Kitty Clover 4th, a calf five months old, and Country Gentleman, a bull six months old. Their farm contains 230 acres. They are believers in thor- ough drainage and have underdrained five acres with good results, one acre of which is now worth more than the whole five were before it was drained. — The Lawrence, Kansas, Journal, says Alfred Gray, a somewhat noted fruitist of Wyandotte, undertook, a while since, to console some friends whose orchards had been nipped by the frost, in ote of his orchards he built fires to preserve the fruit blossoms, and not a bud was injured. This produced the usual "See there, now," of his audi- tors, when he coolly added, "I had two or three more orchards in whi'oh no fires were built, and not a single bud was injured in them either!" 370 NEW EXGLAOT) FAR:MER. Aug. ON PBUNINQ. HE best season for pruning ap- ple trees is now near at hand. Trees which have been prop- erly managed during their whole growth, will never need the cutting away of large limbs, unless they have been injured by teams, or bro- ken by snow or wind. What are called "suckers," may be thrown out, more or less, every year ; they are often cut out when the sap is in full motion, and where they have stood thickly, the branches from whence they were taken have become black and diseased. It is better to take away even these small shoots at a proper season. All fruit trees growing as common standards, should be allowed to assume their natural form, the pruner going no further than to take out all weak and crowded branches. Some persons go into the centre of a tree and cut away quite large limbs, when the de- sired object could be much better gained by thinning out their extremities. It is always better not to cut a large branch, unless it is actually endangering the tree considerably. Taking off large limbs tends to throwing out suckers the following summer. All these should be rubbed off when they first appear. When priming, — Mr. Downing says, — is not required to renovate the vigor of an enfeebled tree, or to regulate its shape, it may be con- sidered worse than useless. Bearing in mind that growth is always corresponding to the ac- tion of the leaves and branches, if these are in due proportion, and in perfect health, the knife will always be found rather detrimental than beneficial. But the injury arising from pruning apple trees, is infinitely greater from doing work at the wrong time of the year, than from injudi- cious cutting. Our object is now, mainly, to present some authorities on this point. Frof. Lindley says, "If well directed, prun- ing is one of the most useful, and, if ill- directed, it is one of the most mischievous, op- erations that can take place upon a plant. The season for pruning is usually midwinter, or at midsummer. It is, however, the prac- tice to perform what is called the winter prun- ing early in the autumn.'''' Mr. Downing. "We should especially avoid pruning at that period in spring when the buds are swelling, and the sap is in full flow, as the loss of sap by bleeding is very injurious to most trees, and in some, brings on a serious and incurable canker in the limbs. * * * Our experience has led us to believe that, practically, a fortnight before midsummer is by far the best season, on the whole, for prun- ing in the Northern and Middle States. Wounds made at this season heal over freely and rapidly." "The best time for a general pruning is at the close of the first growth of summer, 15th of June to 15th of July." — Am. Agriculturist. "In the spring, the tree in all its parts, is filled with sap, and the wood at the wound cannot season. Hence it readily decays. Any person who should cut timber at this season, and expect it would season with the bark on, would be considered out of his senses." — M. B. Sears, in Maine Farmer. "Ju7ie is the time to prune fruit trees. Limbs taken off at this season, will begin immediately to send out a ring of new wood, just where it is needed, and will thereby pro- tect itself in the soonest possible period from external harm." So states E. D. Wight, in the Genesee Farmer. A writer in The Culturist, says from the middle of June to the first of September is claimed to be the proper time in which to per- form this important operation: We do not know who claims this, but are quite confident that it is postponing the proper time too long. Avoid pruning when the sap is in full flow, and the tree will not be injured when the work is properly done. Most persons have observed that trees show, in August and the early part of September, what is called a new growth. On this growth the color of the foliage is a lighter green, and has, every way, the appearance of being more recent than that of the rest of the tree. And so it is. By the time that midsummer comes, most of the sap that flowed up in the spring has gone to the branches and aided in expanding buds and blossoms, and in sending out new leaves and extending the twigs. When the tree has done this, the superabundant sap returns down the tree through the bark and increases its diam- eter. The tree has now a season of rest. The sap vessels are comparatively empty, so that if 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. i71 its branches are cut, the wound will rarely bleed. The returning sap, we suppose, soon forms a green, healthy ring about the cut, in the bark, and the remainder of the cut dries and shrinks before the sap is again in motion. This sea- son of rest, then, of three or more weeks, is the best time to prune. It has its inconven- iences, we are aware, but they are of less con- sequence than the injury of the tree. No harm comes to the tree, we believe, if pruned in the autumn, soon after the leaves have fallen. The tree is then, also, in a com- parative state of rest and may be cut judi- ciously without injuring it. For the Xew England Farmer, DRAINAGE IN ENGLAND. As the climate and some other circumstances that affect the farmer are different in this country from those of England, and as man)' Americans are prejudiced and set against British or Scotch modes of farming, I feel somewhat reluctant in commending any of their practices. But having had considerable to do with draining land in England myself, and having seen much of the operations of others there in the same line, I beg to give a few instances to illustrate the mode adopted tlftre, the material used and the effect pro- duced. In doing so, I may repeat some facts and particulars stated in an article I wrote some time ago for the Prairie Farmer of this State. 1st. The Right Honorable Lord Forrester in Shropshire, England, had several hundred acres of cold, wet, clay land under the plough. The grain was poor, late in maturing, and not an average crop, compared with other land on the estate. On sinking the drains the clay was found to be so cold and wet that it was decided to drain from four to five feet deep. Some laughed and others ridiculed the idea of putting in a drain Ove feet deep, and said through such a stiff clay, the water would never find the drain. Scores of men were put to work, and the land was drained with two and a half inch pipe (not tile) the drains being fourteen feet apart. The land gently fell to the west. At the mouth of each drain outlet was a little iron door fixed to the pipe by a spring pushed into the pipe, the door being on an easy plajing hinge, so that if only a little water came out it was sufficient to force open the little door to admit of its flowing. The more water the wider the door was forced open, which opened and shut itself. Those doors were to prevent rats and moles from getting into the drain. That effectually drained the land and made it some of the best wheat producing soils on the whole estate. For any person to take out, or steal, or break one of those little spring doors, was in the eye of the law, felony, and on conviction, the offender was sentenced to not less than three months hard labor on "The Tread Mill." up to seven years transportation ; that kind of property coming under the head of "unprotected property." Another gentleman had a deal of useless land, which grew little else but rushes, the water lying on the surface for months in the year. That land was drained with one and a quarter inch pipes laid three feet deep, and the rows twelve feet apart. After it was drained it was deeply ploughed in the fall, let lie till spring, then cross ploughed, sowed with red clover and rye grass, let grow till next year, and when the clover was in full blossom it was ploughed in the contrary way, just deep enough to cover the grass and clover, and in October sown with winter wheat. The rushes soon entirely disappeared and the whole field was transformed into some of the best land on that estate. All drainage used to be done with tile ; a flat tile placed in the bottom and then a four, five or six inch drain tile placed on the top of the flat one ; but it was soon found that in filling in the drain it frequently got broken or cracked, which in time fell in and then stopped up the drain. Pipes were then invented from one to six inches in the bore, which were not easily broken by any pressure, being quite round, and if a rat or mole got into the drain he had no other alternative but to back out. The pipes of one inch bore are nine inches long, others of larger dimensions, ten to twelve inches long, and sold by the thousand not by the foot. Another instance was near the town I came from, — about one hundred acres of grass land which could at will be floated by the town sewer or brook. Surface drains or gutters were dug a spade's width, about six or eight inches deep, in different parts about the land, and the town filth turned on, and in a few hours the whole field would be inundated. It would be left inundated two or three days, when the bolt would be dropped and the water turned off. After a few years it was found the land became too rich, the grass so strong that while growing and looking well on the top, it was rotting in the bottom — and it was found necessary to underdrain. It was too rank for hay, and so it was always grazed by milking cows or fat cattle. The under drains were buried only about eighteen inches, and was drained with one and one-half inch pipe. Let the summer be ever so hot and dry there was always grass in those fields. JOIIX WitATMORE. Bridgenorth Farm, Dunleith, 111., 1870. —Mr. M. L. Sullivant, of Burr Oaks, Ford Co., 111., has this year planted 6,500 acres of land to corn. NEW EXGLAND FARRIER. Aug. ENGLISH PHEASANTS. English farmers have one class of troubles and one source of annoyance, from which American farmers are happily exempt ; we al- lude to the peculations of animals protected by game laws, and the privileges exercised by sportsmen. From the Norman conquest to the present day the game laws have been more or less severe. Originally the killing of one of the king's deers was equally penal with murdering one of his subjects. In 1389 it was enacted that "no manner of artificer, laborer, nor any other la} men who hath not lands and tene- ments to the value of forty shillings by the year, nor any priest or other clerk if he be not advanced to the value of ten pounds by the year," shall keep hunting dogs or use other means of killing game, upon pain of one year's imprisonment. The property qualification was abolished in 1831, and a certificate or license, costing nearly twenty dollars, must be taken out annually, to give one the right. The law is still very severe against killing game on any land by unauthorized persons, and as the enforcement of the laws is in the hands of the class interested in preserving game, it is most rigidly enforced, and the privileged owners and hunters claim rights for themselves and their game that Yankee farmers would be very unwilling to concede. In addition to deers, foxes, hares, &c., sev- eral kinds of birds are protected by the game laws of England. Among these we often see pheasants named, and read accounts of pheas- ant shooting. Peacocks, turke3S, Guinea hens, &c., are sometimes, we believe, included under the general name of Pheasant ; but the word now is generally applied only to a single species, of which there are several varieties, two of which are represented by our illustrations. The first cut shows a pair of Common Pheasants. The male is about three feet long, of which the tail is one-half; color bright rufous above ; head and neck blue with green and golden reflection, and variegated with black and white ; the cheeks bare and red ; the side and lower parts purplibh chest- nut. The ft male is smaller, brownish gray, varied with rt!dd"it.h and dusky. Golden Pheasant. This magnificent bird is described by Mr. Wright as follows : — The head bears a crest of beautiful amber-colored feathers. The back of the head and neck is of a beautifal orange red, passing low down the breast into a deep scarlet, which is the color of the under parts. The neck feathers are arranged like plate-ar- mor, and are often erected by the bird. The 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 373 The Golden Pheasant. back is a deep gold color, the tail covert feathers being laced with crimson ; tail-feath- ers brown mottled with black. The hen is of a more sober tint, being of a general brown color with dark markings. Pheasants are naturally wild, and require great freedom and seclusion and much care in breeding. The eggs are often hatched under common hens. They are bred for beauty, not utility. COARSE WOOL SHEEP 131 liABQE PLOCK3. All young, growing animals, other things being equal, need more food and that at shorter intervals than animals that have at- tained their growth. And the great secret of success in lai&ing improved breeds of stock, is (0 furnish the young animals all the food they can digest and assimilate. As long as they are growing rapidly there is little danger of their getting too fit. The popular notion that we cannot keep Cotswold, Leicester, or Southdown sheep in large flocks arises from the f ict that when so kept the young sheep and lambs do not get the extra food and attention that they require. I have a flock of over ninety thoroughbred Cotswolds and about two hundred and tif:y Merinos. And I am satis- fied that with the Cotswolds a given loeiglit of mutton can be kept in a smaller space than with the Merinos. A neighbor said of the Cotswolds: "You cannot keep so many. You ought not to have more than a dozen or so- These sheep are not like Merinos. Y''ou can. not keep them in large flocks. So-and-So tried it and the sheep pined away." Now all this is sheer and unadulterated nonsense, I happened to know the history of the flock he alluded" to. Many of them were im- ported sheep, brought over at different times, by an English farmer who gave them good care and plenty of food, and they did remarkably well, although they had no "roots" — only good pasture in summer and plenty of good clover hay in winter. Bat by-and-by the farm and the stock passed into the hands of some young men who did not work the land as well, nor give the sheep the requisite atten- tion, and both farm and flock run down rap- idly. My father used to keep a large flock ot Southdown and Leicester sheep, and I spent two years on the farm where one thousand splendid Hampshire down sheep were kept ; I never heard the first intimation that there was any objection to having large flocks, provided they had plenty of food and the requisite care and attention. — /. Harris, in American Ag- riculturist. Failure of Cows to Breed. — In the summer of 18G8 I purchased an Ayrshire co'^ that for two seasons had failed to ■ breed. During her first heat she was with the bull all day ; she came in heat again, was served and left alone; the third and last time I was ad- vised to bleed her; she being rather fleshy 1 took tix quarts of blood from her ; she was then served by the same bull; in. due time she dropped a calf, and is now with calf again. When I have a cow left at my yard that is troubled as above, if low in flesh I take two or three quarts of blood from her and let the bull cover them once, and have not had one of taem fail as yet. — H. W. C, Derby, Conn.y in Country Qentleman. 374 NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. Aug. For the New England Farmer, DBYINO MUCK FOR BEDDING. Tn the Monthly Farmer for June, page 275, I notice an incjuiry by Mr. Smith, as to how I dry my muck so as to prevent its freezing in winter. In answer, I would say that it would not freeze in the cellar where I keep it, if ever so wet. I keep it in one end of the basement, which has a wall on the back side and end, the other side being double-boarded and filled in with flax shives, and is so warm that apples would seldom freeze in it. But as dry muck is worth four timfis as much for an absorbent as wet, of course I get it as dry as possible, and I dry it in various ways as seems most convenient. Last summer the weather was so wet that I drew up a quantity and left it in a broad pile at the end of the barn which has the cel- lar, and near the window through which it is thrown into the cellar, and as fast as the top dried, threw it into the cellar, and so con- tinued to do until all was thrown in. I get my supply from a small natural pond ou my own premises, of about one-half acre in extent, and from one foot to four in depth. i have been at considerable expense to drain this pond, to make it more convenient to get out the muck. I find decayed leaves, wood and bark all the way through the muck, which lies on a bed of pure blue clay. The banks around the pond are hard land, and my usual practice is to throw the muck out on the bank in piles, and in ordinary seasons it will dry sufSciently to put into the cellar after haying. I throw it out at any and all times when I have leisure, and put it in tie cellar at any time when it is dry and I can attend to it. I have a Black Ash swamp of about four acres, in which the muck is from one foot to tea feet in depth. Last year I commenced to drain it. I took the muck from the ditches and put it in a heap near the barn, which was fortunate, as the season was such that it did not dry very deep at a time. I have put in quite a quantity the past week which was thrown out from the pond last fall. The exceedingly dry ■weather of the past month had made it like powder, and it was consequently in the very best condition, Jf I had no barn cellar I would partition off a room in the stable, double-board it, and fill in with some non-conductor, put in the muck and cover over with straw and it would not freeze very much. 1 see that Mr. Upham indulges in occasional flings at the use of muck. Now, it is seldom that I notice such things, but I should like to ask Mr. Upham what he understands by the term muck. He calls it "meadow muck," a term 1 never have used. I should infer from his article in the Monthly Farmer for April, that he would go into any low land meadow that bad a black soil and take it for muck. 1 have a neighbor that has a small pond on his place, from which, one season when it was dry, he carted out a quantity of the bottom which looked about the color of common clay, and when left on top of the ground to dry became as hard as clay. He put it on a clayey soil, and of course it did no good. What I call muck* is the deposit in the swamps and ponds of a black color and as free from grit as dough, and I suppose is composed in good part of decayed vegetable matter, although I am not learned enough to tell what it is com- posed of. Notwithstanding that Mr. Upham has spoilt some of his land by the use of muck, I will say that if any man will take muck out of my swamp or pond and compost it with one-third stable manure, and put it on his land by the side of the same bulk of clear stable manure, and if his crops for three years are not fully equal, and the fourth year greater, on the composted part than on that where the clear manure was used, I will pay him for all his trouble, and if it spoils his land I will buy that too. Understand that I am speaking of dry soils, either slaty, gravelly, sandy, or any soil not naturally moist or clayey. It is singular how some men will jump at conclusions. One will apply a mixture of clay and iron ore or some other substance on clay land, which of course can do no good, and he then comes out and says that muck is of no benefit ! All kinds of fertilizers, and all methods of application, sometimes fail ; but it does not become the energetic, go ahead farmer to give up at the first failure. I have tried it for years, and I know that swamp muck is a good and cheap fertilizer for me to use on dry soils, and it is my opinion that there is no dry soils but it will benefit if prop- erly applied ; some more than others, un- doubtedly, but all enough to pay its. cost, if procured on the farm. B. Oah Hill, N. Y., June, 1870. MOVEMENT OF "WATES IN THE SOIL. If a wick be put in, a lamp containing oil, the oil, by capillary action, gradually perme- ates its whole length, that which is above as well as that below the surface of the liquid. When the lamp is set burning, the oil at the flame is consumed, and as each particle disap- pears, its place is supplied by a new one, until the lamp is empty or the flame extinguished. Something quite analogous occurs in the soil, by which the plant is fed. The soil is at once lamp and wick, and the water of the soil represents the oil. Let evaporation of water from the surface of the soil or of the plant take the place of the combustion of oil from a wick, and the matter stands thus :— Let us suppose dew or rain to have saturated the ground with moisture for some depth. On recurrence of a dry atmosphere with sunshine and wind, the surface of the soil rapidly dries ; but as each particle of water escapes (by 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 375 evaporation) into the atmosphere, its place is supplied (by capillarity) from the stores be- low. The ascending water brings along with it the soluble matters of the soil, and thus the roots of plants are situated in a stream of their appropriate food. The movement proceeds in this way so long as the surface is drier than the deeper soil. When, by rain or otherwise, the surface is saturated, it is like letting a thin stream of oil run upon the apex of the lamp wick — no more evaporation into the air can occur, and consequently there is no longer any ascent of water ; on the contrary, the water by its own weight, penetrates the soil, and if the underlying ground be not saturated with moisture, as can happen where the sub- terranean fountains yield a meagre supply, then capillarity will aid gravity in its down- ward distribution. It is certain that a portion of the mineral matters, and perhaps also some organic bodies which feed the plant, are more or less freely dissolved in the water of the soil. So long as evaporation goes on from the surface, so long there is a constant upward flow of these mat- ters. Those portions which do not enter veg- etation accumulate on or near the surface of the ground ; when a rain falls, they are washed down again to a certain depth, and thus are kept constantly changing their place with the water, which is the vehicle of their distribu- tion. In regions where rain falls periodically or not at all, this upward flow of the soil-water often causes an accumulation of salts on the surface of the ground. Thus in Bengal many soils which in the wet season produce the most luxuriant crops, during the rainless por- tion of the year become covered with white crusts of saltpetre. The beds of nitrate of soda that are found in Peru, and the carbon- ate of soda and other salts, which incrust the deserts of Utah, and often fill the air with alkaline dust, have accumulated in the same manner. So in our western caves the earth sheltered from rains is saturated with salt — epsom salts, Glauber's salts, and saltpetre, or mixtures of these. Often the rich soils of gardens is slightly incrusted in this manner in our summer weather ; but the saline matters are carried into the soil with the next rain. It is easy to see how, in a good soil, capil- larity thus acts in keeping the roots of plants constantly immersed in a stream of water or moisture that is now ascending, now descend- ing, but never at rest, and how the food of the plant is thus made to circulate around the organs fitted for absorbing it. The same causes that maintain this perpet- ual supply of water and food to the plant are also etficacious in constantly preparing new supphes of food. As before explained, the materials of the soil are always undergoing decomposition, whereby the silica, lime, phos- phoric acid, potash, &c., of the insoluble frag- ments of rock, become soluble in water and accessible to the plant. Water charged with carbonic acid and oxygen is the chief agent in these chemical changes. The more extensive and rapid the circulation of water in the soil, the more matters will be rendered soluble in a given time, and other things being equal the less will the soil be dependent on manures to keep up its fertility. — Johnson's New Work, How Plants Feed. ECONOMY IN SMALL THINGS. There is no truer saying in all the prover- bial wisdom of sensible Old Richard's Alma- nac, than that, "he who saves in small things will in time rejoice in great possessions," and in so earnestly impressing the importance of economy upon the attention of Southern far- mers, we think that the newspapers of that section are proving themselves the true friends of their readers. And there is great need for the practice of this homely virtue by the far- mers of this State, who, with their large farms and heavy crops, are too much inclined to under- rate the value of the innumerable small things about them, which by timely attention might be made to enhance their revenue. Tools and implements, if taken care of, would last much longer than they generally do ; the sweepings of the hen-roost, the refuse from the hog- pen and the slops from the kitchen, with one-half their quantity of leaf mould from the fence cor- ners in the woods, would furnish every week,two> or three hundred pounds of fertilizing material, just as good as Chincha Island guano. Tkis ap- plied to the worn-out fields or gardens would largely increase the corn or vegetables, be- sides leaving the ground in an improved con- dition. I'^ow there are numerous instances on every farm where things heretofore wasted as of no value, might by a trifling expenditure of labor, be utilized and made a source of profit. Why not, then, pay the needed atten- tion to such matters as these, when the brief time required could be spared from more important concerns? There is, certainly, nothing discreditable in the prudence that seeks to prevent the waste of anything that may be rendered valuable. Is it the fear of being regarded penurious ? "W^ill you be led to disregard your own interests by such un- worthy apprehensions ? Certainly, the opinions of those who would ridicule such economy are not worth retaining. We do not ask our read- ers to be miserly and avaricious, and we urge only the duty of economy. There is a very wide difference between stinginess and pru- dence, for the one is to be condemned and the other approved. The true philosophy of life is, to enjoy in moderation the goods we have, not wasting nor hoarding, and this is the prac- tice we commend. In times past, more frequently than at the present, comparisons were instituted between the system of farming practiced at the North and that followed in Kentucky, very much to the discredit of our people. Now, if the farmer 376 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Aua. in Massachusetts or New Hampshire makes more money in the year from a tract of not naturally fertile land, with the disadvantage of a severe climate, than the Kentuckian did on a greater number of acres of land as pro- ductive as any in the world, the result must not be attributed to any superior shrewdness, better judgment or greater skill, upon the part of the Northern man, but simply to the fact that he never allows anything to go to waste, no spot to remain idle, no opportunity to save or improve the place, to go unimproved. His stock are housed in winter and their manure all saved to go on the "poor points ;" the feeding is carefully done so that nothing is lost, and yet, we doubt, whether, on the whole, any person enjoys life more fully than this provident, industrious man. We have emi- nent authority for the assertion that "compar- isons are odious" and we have referred to this difference in systems in order to point the moral, that economy, watchfulness, and atten- tion to small matters, will bring profitable re- suits to our people as well as to those in other sectiona. We are entering upon a new era in the South, and we are hopeful that a few years hence will witness a more rapid progress in agriculture, and a greater degree of prosper- ity for our people, than has ever been before. The cultivation will be more thorough, and our people will learn to utilize many things that were thought to be too insignificant for notice in the slow-plodding, unenterprising ante-bellum days — and then we will see the beginning of our growth in wealth, importance and power as a State. — Farmers' Home Jour- nal, Lexington, Ky. Remaeks. — In copying the foregoing sensi- ble remarks from one of our best agricultural exchanges, we cannot avoid the expression of a fear that, while the Southern people are adopting those principles of economy and in- dustry which laid the foundation of the pros- perity of New England, the people of the North are, in turn, falling into those habits of carelessness as to incurring debts and expend- ing monfey, that dread of being considered penurious, and that dislike of labor, which resulted so disastrously at the South. MUIiCHINQ BEABINO FRUIT TREES. There is no doubt now by our most intelli- gent horticulturists about the practical advan- tages to h ' gained by mulching the surface of the orchard and fruit garden. This, should be more generally practiced in fruit-producing distric s, for it is the least expensive and most effective method of protecting the fruit trees against the bad results often following the fre- quent and sudden changes of temperature during the summer and fall months, when the surface of the ground is left exposed to the direct rays of the sun. Again, when the mulch is put two or three inches in thickness, the surface soil is constantly moist and loose, even when no rain falls for a term of several weeks, and the trees or fruit receive no check for want of moisture and food under such cir- cumstances. My method is to cultivate the spaces be- tween the rows of trees in the orchard, using a small one-horse plough and cultivator, run- ning not more than two inches deep, during the early part of the season. From the 1st to the 15th of July I have put on a heavy coat- ing of salt hay, covering the surface as far as the branches extend. After this there is no more trouble with weeds and grass. There may a few scattered ones start up, but they are easily destroyed. Every fruit-grower knows that two or three weeks before the time of gathering the main crop of fruit, fine specimens are constantly falling off or blown off by strong winds. When the ground is mulched the majority of such specimens are not bruised or injured for sale. This saving alone I consider pays me for the trouble of mulching the orchard. There is only one serious drawback to the application of a mulch, that is the danger of the hay or straw getting on fire when rendered dry by continual warm weather. — P. T. Quinn, in N. Y. Tribune. For the Xeio England Farmer, HOW TO MAKE THE MOST MONEY FROM THE FARM. The following is an abridgment of an address given by M. J. Harvey, Esq., at the March meeting of the Eppirg, N. H,, Farmers' Club, as introductory to the discussion of the question "How to make the most Money from the Farm." Before attempting to answer the question which comes before the club this evening, per- haps I ought, in the first place, to attempt to prove that any money at all can be made from the farm. If we take men's actions as evi- dence of their opinions, must we not meet the stern and inevitable fact that "no money can be made by farming?" To prove that suchis the opinion of nine-tenths of the farmers of this town, do we need any better evidence than is furnished by the course pursued by their sons, a large proportion of whom leave the paternal acres, and go to the villages or cities for a clerkship or a trade ? Would they do this if their fathers thought an equal amount of money could be made on the farm ? Leaving this question for some future de- bate, I will, before proceeding to answer the question how to make the most money from the farm, mention a few ways in which not to do it. I have seen so-called farmers pitch out their manure in heaps against the side of their barn, 1870. XEW EXGLA2JD FAEMER. 377 exposed to sun, wind, and rain, until the boards are rotted away, le'^ving large holes in to their cattle stalls, admitting cold and storm ; then the boards are turned bottom end up, leaving the same holes against the hay mow above. I have seen others plough and not plant; plant and not hoe. Others make no effort to furnish absorbents to hog yard or sta- ble ; they never lay up the stones that fell from the walls in the days of their fathers, forty years ago. I heard such an one testify upon the witness stand that '"he was a farmer," a fact that I should have hardly credited, did he not positively swear to it. Others taking up the patriarchal cry, "go down into Egypt and buy corn," depend on the West for their bread. Others feed thsir crops on commer- cial fertilizers, and send their farms into Bos- ton market in the potato sack and the hay bale. If any money can be made by farming in these ways, it is evident that we have not yet answered the question, "how to make the most money from our farms." Such prac- tices were tested three thousand years ago. The ruins of twenty-seven cities on the banks of the Nile, partly covered by drifting sands, attest to the former prosperity of the agricul- ture of old classic Egypt, first in the science of astronomy and architecture, as well as ag- riculture. Country produce was transported to those cities to be consumed, but nothing returned to the soil. All this manurial matter was suifered for ages to pass with the waters of the Nile into the Mediterranean, thence perhaps into the Atlantic, possibly to be de- posited on the Chincha islands — thus, perhaps, answering the disputed question of our last evening — where it was stored for the use of a people living in a then undiscovered world. Save the If anuve. This is the first thing for us to do who wish to make the moft money from the farm. This is the great Archimedean lever in agriculture. It is the corner-stone of the foundation of all successful f.irming. By increasing the ma- nure heaps you take the first steps towards "making the most money from the farm." Give me plenty of manure and I can spread a corn field in every valley ; cover every hill side with waving grain; "make the desert blossom as the rose ;" load a vessel with pro- vision for every hamlet of half starved and down-trodden Ireland ; and hasten on the Mil- lennial days spoken of by Isaiah, so far as the landscape is concerned. The manure heap can be increased by fur- nishing hog yards, cattle and horse stalls with turf, as an absorbent, from the road side, from under the stone walls in the fields, and such corners as no plough can reach. A thou- sand loads can be taken from every small farm, from places where grass has rotted and leaves collected, and only bring the banks down as low as they were fifty years ago. Saw dust and swamp mud answer the same purpose. Cittle and horses should be housed in sum- mer as well as winter, and absorbents be spread under them to save the liquid part of the manure, which, according to Dana, is fully equal to the solid. ISIy own experience proves it to be better. In 1857 I spread loam soaked with cattle urine on one end of a piece of oats, and on the other end sojid manure. Where the urine was spread the crop was far the heaviest and darkest colored. Swamp mud, a thousand loads of which may be found on almost every farm, when rightly prepared, by being drawn out before hand and exposed to sun and frost to remove its acidity, and then mixed with ashes or lime, is another great manurial element to help yoa "make the most money from the farm." In confirmation of these views, I quote from Dr. Andrew Nichols in the Agricultural Trans- actions of Essex County, Mass. He sajs: "If from six to eight bushels of lime are thoroughly mixed with 100 bushels of muck, and that amount applied for two or three years in succession, it will not only bring good crops during the years of its application, but in connection with other manures usually em- ployed, will give a permanent fertility to the land." Oa this subject, Mr. Holbrock says: "I have frequently applied a compost of muck with dry slacked lime, though, when I can buy asihes readily at not too high a price, I prefer a given outlay in ashes, rather than lime. The best fresh unslacked lime is the cheapest, be- cause it is more effective in compost, and swells very much in bulk, when dry slacked for use. Six years ago I had a heap of seven- ty-five half cords of muck, mixed with lime, in the proportion of half a cord of muck to a bushel of lime. The muck was drawn to the field when wanted in August. A bushel of salt to a tierce of lime (6 bushels) was dis- solved in water enough to slake the lime down to a dry fine powder, the lime being slacked no faster than wanted, and spread immedi- ately while warm over the layers of muck, which were about six inches thick ; then a coating of lime, and so on until the heap reached a height of five feet, and of a conven- ient width and length to embrace the whole quantity of mn^k. In about three weeks a powerful decomposition was apparent and the heap was nicely overhauled. Nothing more was done do it till it was loaded the next spring for spreading. The compost was spread on the ploughed surface of a dry sandy loam, and harrowed in at the rate of fifteen cords to the acre. The land was planted with corn, and the crop was more than sixty bushels to the acre..'''' You can see that this is fully equal to barn yard manure, as fifty bushels to the acre of corn is more than an average crop with us, where ten cords of the best barn yard manure is used to the acre. Larger reports are made of late, but I can say that the framers of theso 378 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Aug. reports are ahead of us in exaggeration, or we are behind them in agricultural science. Forest leaves are another great auxiliary to the manure heap, and consequently to "mak- ing the most money from the farm." Every acre of forest leaves, where the rotten mould is three or four inches deep is sufScient to ma- nure an acre in the field, equal, in my opin- ion, once every five years, to twenty loads of barn yard manure. It contains two out of the four bases required for plant food, viz. : pot- ash and nitre ; also a large amount of vegeta- ble matter. I have heard of a man who lost all of his large farm but twenty acres, inher- ited from his father, by dissipation, and who, on concluding to reform, having no manure nor stock, collected from a few acres of pine growth the leaves and mould which he spread and ploughed in to his worn out acres. By this means alone he brought his land up to a high state of fertility, so that it produced more than the whole farm formerly did. Application of Manure. The subject of the application of manure is next to be considered. If I collect all the materials for a splendid house and fail in ar- chitectural skill in building, I become a deris- ion and reproach to the passer by. If Solo- mon in all his glory, after he had gathered the gold and silver for his great temple, had failed to employ the cunning workmen of the King of Tyre, he would have become the laughing stock for surrounding nations. So if manure is misapplied, your labor is lost, and proper results are not obtained. I think manure should be harrowed in on wet land and ploughed in on dry land. Then, in the first case, it will not be leached and go down below the reach of plant roots, nor in the other case, be too high and dry above them, and its strength evaporated in the air, as it was with me on a piece of corn, in 1863. This was broken up ten inches deep, the fall before. Eighfy loads of compost and barn 3'ard manure were harrowed in on the furrow. It was planted with 13,000 hills of corn, which started well, but soon dwindled and proved not worth harvesting. Last year I made a failure on the other extreme. On less than half an acre of tough barn grass sward, I spread fourteen loads of barn yard manure, and ploughed under and planted with corn, the roots of which could not penetrate down- wards in season to reach the manure, and poor corn was again the result. Low land should be ploughed, where practi- cable, even if you have to use a steel plough, and be laid up in beds of about twenty fur- rows each, leaving a dead furrow between for water to run oil, and a compost of sand, rather than muck, applied to the surface, soaked with cattle urine from tbe barn yard or under the stable floors, and sowed down to herdsgrass. Treated in this way it will bear heavy burdens of grass for a long series of years, the pro- ceeds of which, in the shape of barn yard ma- nure, can be carried on to the high ground where it is so often needed. Flowage. Next in order comes the subject of flowage or irrigation ; not that method by which wa- ter is conducted along the brows of hills in ditches at great expense. I once knew a young man in Gilmanton, who inherited a thousand acres of land and thousands of dol- lars at interest, yet came near bankruptcy by digging ditches miles in extent, to irrigate his fields in this way. I refer to the winter flow- age of natural meadows through which a stream of water runs. Only a short dam is needed near the outlet to effect the purpose, with a bulk- head by which the water can be let on or off, and its depth regulated. Land thus flowed would be enriched by an annual deposit of fertilizing matter. Millions of tons of hay might be added to the crops in the New England States by this method. This principle was also well understood by the nations of antiquity. The flat fields of old Egypt were fertilized by the annual over- flow of Father Nile, while her once produc- tive lands, lying above the reach of the en-' riching waters, became a desert of shifting sands. Ancient Rome, too, has remains of vast works which show that the value of water was well understood by the farmers of old. Virgil, in Georgic 1st, says : — "Lo I on yon brow, whonce bubbling springs arise, The peasant bending o'er the expinte below Dir(c;8 the channel el waters where to flow, Down the smooth rocks melodious murmurings glide, And a new verdure gleams beneath the tide," Isaiah testifies to the same sentiment, "As the rain and the snow that cometh down from heaven, returneth not thither again, but wa- tereth the earth and causeth it to bud and blossom, and bring forth seed to the sower and bread to the reaper," &c. Snow water, according to Dana, contains 25 per cent, of ammonia. [A member, Mr. T. Dow, here remarked, that he "had tried it, and made a fine skating pond of his field for the boys, and that his crop of grass was increased four-fold, but it was nothing but swamp grass ; every particle of English grass was killed out. English grass will not grow where the roots do not freeze in winter."] I admit the truth of the statement. Put down your gate, then, in the spring as the .'^now begins to go off, and flow your land for two or three weeks and you will get the full benefit of the water and loose no English grass. Stock. Next, what kind of stock shall we keep to make the most money ? Since the war yearl- ings and two-year-olds have nearly doubled the farmer's money in one year ; cows come next in profit, ofcen times doubbng the price from fall to spring. As to breeds, I think ex- perience teaches us that the native is best 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEJ^IER. 879 adapted to our keeping, which is not the best with the majority of farmers, having much swamp hay and corn fodder and hay of infe- rior quality. I knew a mechanic who had ac- quired money by his trade, who bought a farm, and having read much of the crack stock in the agricultural papers, bought a Durham bull and commenced raising stock. As he fed much inferior hay, his stock was inferior to that of his neighbors who kept the native breed, being gaunt, long legged and poor. Take care to breed from the best native stock and all will be well. The Orchard. Next comes the orchard in our programme. I do not believe in continually ploughing it or that it should be heavily manured, as trees thus treated soon die. There are millions of small roots that run close to the surface and carry sustenance to the tree from the best of the soil. Cut these often, with the plough and you oblige the tree to draw sustenance through the lower roots from the barren subsoil. Neither should orchards go to grass and have it mowed off every year or fed off by cattle. They should be fenced as in old times, when no complaint was made of barren trees, and the grass that grows up suffered to fall down and rot on the surface, forming a mulch and keeping the surface of the ground loose and rich. The Forest. Last of all I shall mention the forest. Many of the New England farmers, from the in- crease of taxes or lack of agricultural skill in keeping up the fertility of their fields, have encroached and committed vandalism upon the forests left them by their prudent fathers. Now that the price of wood and timber has more than doubled since the commencement of the late war, I think the way for you "to make the most money from the farm," is to stand guard with gun and bayonet if need be over your forest trees. I quote from an arti- cle in the New York Sun : — "There is danger that before many years have passed that the United States will become a country without trees. A treeless country is equivalant to an arid desert land, in which agriculture is an impossibility. As trees disappear from the Leads of the great water courses from whence much of our timber comes, the rivers lessen in volume, the annual fall of rain throughout the cleared district diminishes and the agricul- tural product is reduced. Should the destruc- tion of timber in this country continue with its present rapidity, and no provision be made for replanting forests, all the States will prob- ably become a rainless region, like Arizona, where crops can be raised only by expensive irrigation. The present consumption of wood in the United States is enormous. One hun- dred and fifty thousand acres of the best of timber is cut every year for railroad sleepers alone. For railroad buildings, repairs and cars, the annual expenditure in wood is thirty- eight millions of dollars. In a single year the locomotives in the United States consume forty-six millions of dollars worth of wood. There are in the whole country more than four hundred thousand artizans in wood ; and if the value of their labor is one thousand dol- lars a year each, the wood industry of the country represents an amount of nearly five hundred millions of dollars per annum." Thus, if the statements of this article, from which I make but a meagre quotation, be true, one more way to make the most money from the farm, is to preserve the growth of the wood and timber. Epping, N. E., March, 1870. A ■WHOLESOME DRINK FOB SUMMER. More than once we have had occasion to speak of the injurious effects of drinking large quantities of cold water during the hot weather ; and have also advised our readers to follow the suggestion of an old and es- teemed physician, long in successful practice in this State years ago, to use only hot or warm drinks during the excessively hot weather of summer. This physician advised the house- wife to always have the teapot upon the stove, that the workmen at haying might have warm drink, as it satisfied thirst much better than cold water, was more healthful, and when ac- customed to its use would be preferred by the men themselves. In our desire to suggest all the comfort possible to men obliged to labor hard in the heat of a summer sun, we again mention the above, and also present the fol- lowing receipt for a wholesome field drink, furnished by "a farmer's wife" to the Oer- mantoicn Telegraph : — "Take of the best white Jamaica ginger root, carefully bruised, two ounces ; cream of tartar, one ounce ; water, six quarts, to be boiled for about five minutes, then strained ; to the strained liquor add one pound of sugar, and again place it over the fire ; keep it well stirred till the sugar is perfectly dissolved, and then pour it into an earthen vessel, into which you have previously put two drachms of tartaric acid, and the rind of one lemon, and let it remain till the heat is reduced to a lukewarm temperature ; then add a tablespoon- ful of yeast, stirring them well together, and bottle for use. The corks must be well se- cured. The drink will be in high perfection in four or five days. This is a very refresh- ing and wholesome beverage, and one which may be largely partaken of without any un- pleasant results even in the hottest weather." Maine Farmer. —Mr. J. N. Bagg, of West Springfield, Mass., editor of the Ayrshire Herd Book, is about to pre- pare another volume of that valuable work. It will be issued in the latter part of this year, and breeders of Ayrshire stock are invited to forward pedigrees, &c. 380 NEW ENGLAND FARjVCER. Aug, BOTS IN THE UHINAL BLADDER. R. H. L. Small of this place has just lost a horse under rathtr peculiar cir- _ cumstances. No one in this section Jt^* ever saw or heard of a lilie occurrence. ,^^^_ -2' 3) The horse lived about ten days from the^H I St appearance of any difflculty, which to all appearance was a stoppage of water. An exami- naiion after death revealed the fact that the blad- der contained upward of one hundred bots, simi- lar in all respects to those found in the stomach of Ell horses. They covered over two thirds of the interior of the bladder, sticking tenaciously to it, and in many places having nearly eaten through. The bladder where they had eaten presented a pur- ple hue, but the portion that was untouched looked healthy and natural. Now we would like to know how these bots ob- tained access into the interior of the bladder, as the exterior and all other parts ( f the water pas- sages were sound and whole. Mr. Small has the bladder, together with the bots as taken from the horse, preserved in alcohol, and will Dr. Dadd or some one of the professional horse surgeons an- swer tlirour«ti the columns of the Farmer the above inquiry. D. G. SPAtLDiNG. Brownsville, West Windsor, Vt , May 30, 1870. Remarks. — ^We have examined all the books on veterinary practice to which we could get access ; also, the extensive correspondence of Prof. Law, as reported in the New York Tri- bune, and we fail to find a case parallel to the one here described. ■ Bot^ are not, as many persons suppose, worms which commence and terminate their existence in the stomach and intestines of the horse, but they are the larvcs or maggots of the Tiorse gad-fly. Guided by instinct, the fe- male fly deposits her eggs or "nits" on such parts of the horse as are within reach of the animal's mouth — usually upon the fore legs. Here they occasion some degree of irritation, to relieve which, they are seized with the tongue and teeth, and conveyed into the mouth, whence they easily reach the stomach. Sub- jected to the warmth and other favorable con- ditions afforded by that organ, these nits are soon converted into larvce or "bots," and fas- ten themselves to the walls of their temporary abode. Here they feed upon the nutriment contained in the stomach, and, unless disturbed by disease or the action of medicines, remain in these comfortable quarters until the approach of the time far their final metamorphosis. They then detach themselves from the inner coat of the stomach, pass along with the food and feces through the intestines, are ejected from the rectum with the dung, and very soon, (the time being proportioned to the degree of temperature to which they may be exposed,) they are changed into a perfect insect — a lull grown gadfly. Such, in brief, is the history of that little insect, one stage of whose exist- ence is represented by the loathsome maggot called hot, and which in this larva state is the great humbug of ignorant "horse doctors." How often, and to what extent, the presence of bots in the stomach of a horse may become a source of disease, is a disputed question. Doubtless they produce discomfort sometimes, and when existing in large numbers, they may occasion serious disease ; but the most learned naturalists and the most skilful veterinarians agree in the opinion that they are far less in- jurious than most persons suppose them to be ; indeed, it is well known that they exist in con- siderable numbers in the stomachs of most horses, at particular seasons of the year, and that without disturbing the animal's health in the least. The idea that bots gnaw or feed upon a healthy stomach, eating their way through it, sometime, and escaping into other portions of the body, is an erroneous one. The horse's stomach is their natural habitation, and un- less disturbed by some unnatural cause, they will not leave it until their appointed time. But this organ may become diseased. By too much food, by improper food, by too much medicine, by improper medicine, or by the op- eration of some other cause or combination of causes, inflammation may invade the stomach. The horse stamps with his fore feet, strikes at his belly with his hind ones, groans, looks anx- iously and frequently behind him, lies down, gets up, lies down again, bites at his sides, and in various ways manifests his intense suf- fering, and his anxiety to obtain relief. The neighbors assemble ; one calls it a case of bots, another calls it something else, and each recommends a remedy. But the animal gets "no better very fast," and a "horse-doctor" is summoned, who, perhaps, possesses a little more knowledge of diseases and remedies than his patient does. Medicines are now admin- istered with an unsparing hand. The doctor shouts "bots!" and tries his best to find something strong enough to kill the bots, and weak enough to save the horse ! But the dis- ease progresses — aggravated, it may be, by the treatment ; adhesions and ulcerations, more or less extensive, take place ; gangrene or mor- tification ensues ; and the poor sufferer suc- cumbs, at last, to the combined forces of dis- 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAE^IER. 881 ease and doctor. A post mortem or af;er death examination reveals the presence of bots in the stomach, in the intestines, in the cavity of the abdomen outside of the intestines, and in various other localities ; whereupon the doctor looks exceedingly wise, and with the pomposity that ignorance usually imparts, ex- claims : "There! Mr. Smith; didn't I tell you it was the bots that ailed your horse ?'' But we are requested to account for the presence of bots in the urinary b'adder. Our first thought, on reading Mr. Spauldtng's let- ter, was that our Brownsville friends were mis- taken,— that they had been deceived by ap- pearances,— that what they supposed to be bots were some other substance. Stone and perhaps other materials have been found in that organ, but nothing with animal life, so far as we had ever heard. But wishing to consult those better informed than ourselves, and as Dr. Dadd, alluded to by our correspon- dent is dead, we wrot^ to a gentleman whose opinion is entitled to as much respect as that of any veterinary practitioner in the State, stating in biief the facts detailed in the com- munication from Mr. Spaulding. We have been favored with the following reply : — Messrs. R. P. Eaton & Co. — Gents: — Yours of Jans 2cl came duly to hand and contents noticed. After thirty years' expei'ienoe in the cure of horses, I can say that I never knew of death being caused by bots. Atttr a certain timo nature expels them from the system. The case vou speak of — bots in the bladder — is absurd. No such thing could happen. Yours Respectfully, J. Henry Jennings, Veterinary Surgeon. Cambridgfport, Mass., June 8, 1870. But Mr. Small has the bladder and the bots preserved for exhibition. Mr. Spaulding says they are similar in all respects to those found in the stomachs of horses. Now supjwsing there is no mistake in these statements, or in the facts and appearances on which they are based, bots were found in the urinary bladder of the horse in this case, if never before. If they were there, two ways occur to our mind by which it Is possible they obtained access to the interior of that organ. First. It is possible there had been active and extensive inflammation of the bladder, which was indicated by the appearance of that organ after death. Ulceration and gangrene followed the inllammatlon ; this, also, is evi- dent from the appearance of the organ. Such extensive inflammation, ulceration, and gan- {^rcne would, almost ncce^-^arlly, involve adja- cent parts — especially that portion of the in- testines which lies near to the bladder, and adhesion and perforation of the several parts involved would very naturally occur. In this way an opening might be made between the intestinal canal and the bladder, which could not easily be detected, except by the careful dissection of the parts, made by a per- son who expected to find such a thing. Second. By some unaccountable perversion of instinct, the female fly might have depos- ited her eggs at the extremity of or within the vrdhra or pipe which conducts the urine from the bladder ; and when hatched, the maggots might have found their way along the urethra, through the sphincter, or that band of muscu- lar fibres which surrounds and closes the neck of the bladder, and finally into the bladder it- self. We have known beans, peas, pebbles, and other small articles to be passed into the human bladder ; and why might not a little maggot find its way into the bladder of a horse ^ The chief difficulty in the case seems to be in the number of bots found. We can more eadly believe that a small number of these creatures might travel this road, than that a hundred or more of them shou'd do so. This is a pretty severe tax on our credulity. But supposirg the bets to have obtained a lodgment in this unnatural ten'iment, the ques- tions then arise, how did they live there .'' how did they resist the usually deleterious effects on animal life of the contents of this organ ? This is something for which we are unable to suggest even a possible cause. NOW AKD THEW. " There are none so hlind as those ivho tcouH sec." A farmer who used to team a good deal on the road to Boston forty years ago, said to us the other day that he formerly took many barrels of cider into that market. His load was made up of bar- rels, each including cider and barrel, weighing 300 pounds ; in all 2400 pounds. Distance, twenty- five miles. To haul this load he had foiir oxen and one horse, and it was load enough for them. "Now," said he, "we take 3000 pounds of hay, or other product, over the same road with one horse!" "Why this difference ?" we inquired. "Because," said he, "the team was a meadow hay team, small, poor and weak, compared with the team I drive now. The wagon went hard, be- cause it was not made right ; it was too heavy in some parts and too weak in others, and did not 382 NEW ENGLAKD FARMER. Aug. run stiff and strong over tlie road. When the wheels struck a stone the wheel oxen would be jerked to one side or the other, so that there was a continual wiggle with wagon and team. The roads were bad, and altogether it was a considera- ble of a job to get eight dollars, all that the whole load brought." In conversation with another farmer the other day, he said "there had been no improvement in the plough for the last forty years," although he ploughs two acres now with a pair of horses, in about the same time that he ploughed one acre, forty years ago, and does the work much better. There certainly is truth in the old adage, that "There are none so blind as those who won't see." Epping, N. H. Faemees' Club. — In a note ac- companying the abstract of his address, published on another page, Mr. Harvey says that the North River District is the nucleus of this flourish- ing association, and is, perhaps, the most wealthy and energetic agricultural portion of the town. The owners of these well cultivated farms, and of the fine buildings which stand upon them, are, without any exception, holders of government bonds, and other evidences of invested capital, all accumulated by themselves or their predecessors by farming; and yet some of these men join in the common assertion that "nothing can be made at farming!" To the progressive and believing /armer the growing interest in farmers' clubs, and the increasing readiness of the conductors of the local public press to publish agricultural matter, is most encouraging and hopeful. Though farm- ers are busy with hard work at this season, they will obsei've and note facts which may be used next winter when they meet with their neighbors to talk over matters connected with their business. Those who attended such meetings last winter, will perhaps be surprised by the frequency with which they will be reminded, while at work, of something that was then said, or of something that might have been said, at those discussions. In quickening the power, or improving the habit of observation, one of the most valuable results of farmers' clubs will be experienced by every mem- ber. Tomato Fly, not Woem, PoisoNOfs.— S. Hayncs, M. D., of Saranac, N. Y., details in the Plattsburg Sentinel the particulars of the poisoning of one of his patients by a green fly. The insect has a long bill and legs something like a mosquito. He was handling over some tomatoes that he had just gathered, when feeling pain in his foretinger he brushed ofl" a fly. The pain continuing, he soaked the finger in kerosene and in turpentine, which gave relief. On handling the tomatoes again, he saw the same or a similar fly alight on his thumb, and he watched its operation. He says, "the part where the bill was planted began to burn and feel very disagreeable, and ishooting pains extended up the arm, and finally the thumb swelled as large as three or four thumbs, and the swelling extended to the whole hand and arm and glands in the hollow of the arm, and finally, the pain extended to the head, particularly on the side of the injured thumb, and the side of the body became affected." After twenty-one days he had not fully recovered. Dr. Haynes believes the stories of the poisonous effects of the tomato worm to be founded on facts ; but that this fly, and not the worm, is the fact to be guarded against. The experience and observa- tion of others are solicited. The AoRicuLTrEAL Hoese Teot a Peece- DEXT. — In the discussion in the Massachusetts House of Representatives on the Govornor's veto of a bill to legalize horse-racing, Mr. Woodbury urged that it was unfair that tracks near the city of Boston should not be allowed to offer prizes for trotting horses as well as the little tracks in the interior of the State. Mr. Sweetser, of Lowell was still more explicit. He said that "the same thing which this bill sought to legalize, was already done under the cover of law by agricultural socie- ties. Purses were nominally offered by the socie- ties, but were really made up by the men who en- tered their horses." It is certainly a little curious that the presence of a few bulls, cows, sheep and pigs, should legalize prizes and purses, betting and gambling on Fair grounds in the country, which are considered detrimental to public morals at the race courses near the city. This distinction, how- ever, is a compliment to the managers of agricul- tural fair grounds. The law allows them to do what it forbids being done by jockeys. Hence» for the savor of respectability, our law-abiding cit- izens hold agricultural "meetings" and "fairs" in- stead of "horse races," and multitudes attend the "Show" to see the "Race." Cement Water Pipe. — The injurious effects of lead on water has caused much inquiry for some practical substitute for this metal in condueting water, intended for domestic purposes. Mr. N. Reed of Duchess County, N. Y., writes to the Country Gentleman that hydraulic cement is ex- tensively used in his section, and is preferred on account of its freedom from all poisonous effects, its durability, cheapness, &c., to lead, iron or wood. An inch and a quarter pipe was laid from a spring to his buildings a distance of 120 rods for .^'144 for the pipe, — less than seven and a half cents a foot, — the whole cost of digging, covering, and including some iron and lead pipe, &c. for pentstocks, &c., was $238. He says its durability must be indefi- nite, as it grows harder for several years, till it be- comes as solid as stone ; but if broken by accident it is easily mended. The best Roscndale lime should be used, and the work should be done by one who understands the business. —Minnesota has 6G,000 less sheep than it had two years ago. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAK:MER. 383 EXTKACTS A2!«T) KEPLIES. THE SEASON IX WESTERN MASSACHL'SETTS. The wet, lowry weather of late has been favor- ^ We for grass, and the prospects for a fair crop of; hay are more flittering. Corn has come up well, ! but its growth and perfection will depend very much on the wearher during the summer months. Not the usual quantity planted in this section. Broom corn looks finely for this season of the year. Onions have come forward rapidly, but the maggots are destroying them to some extent. Strawberries are being gathered for market. Ap- ple trees are fruiting well and making a vigorous growth. Shall we mulch them ? Early peas will soon be ready to pick. Can they be packed for market in anything better than barrels ? Rasp- berries are loo-king firstrate, and with favorable weather will ripen "about the first of July. Shall we send them to market in boxes or bankets ? Far- mers here are amusiEg themselves by hoeing corn and weeding onions — being tirm believers in thor- ough culture. "W. Sunderland, Mass., June 13, 1870. Remabks.— Mr. Pierce of Arlington, Mass., who has raised good crops of apples yearly dur- ing all the many past poor fruit seasons, ascribes great virtue to mulch. On another page of this number you will find an article on the subject by an experienced fruit cultivator. Most of the small fruit raised in the vicinity of Boston comes to market in boxes ; that from the south in baskets. We think the baskets are grad- ually taking the place of boxes. the CrRRANT VTORM. The currant worm attacked my bushes last fall and damaged them badly, and this spring they began early. I met them with a determination to conquer and have finished the war. Of the vari- ous remedies I used it is useless to speak, but they were many. At last I tried the poke and that finished them. I had about thirty rods of bushes, and I boiled a bushel of the roots and applied it with a force pump, and I found it to be a specific, though more than one application may be re- quired, and now the foliage begins to look healthy. It it is not too lare you can give the remedy and warrant a cure to all that will apply it faiihtully. E. W. Ormsbee. Montpelier, Vt., June 14, 1870. Remarks.— We regard this as a very valuable communication. White Hellebore, Carbolic acid preparations, &c., which have been used and re- commended by "book farmers" and chemical men are somewhat costly, some of them rather dangerous poisons, and on many farms cannot al- ways be immediately obtained. Poke roots are a home-grown material and can be had at any time on most farms for the digging. And if a decoc- tion of them proves destructive to these insects, the public will thank Mr. Ormsbee for his perse- verance in the experiments which resulted in his discovery. Mr. Ormsbee says his bushes were injured last fall. This is an important fact, as the currant worm appears in the spring, and then again later in the season. We wish he had stated at what time they commenced their fall operations. Mr. Riley, editor of the American Entomologist, pub- lished in St. Louis, Mo., says in that section the second brood bursts from the cocoons of the first brood about the last week in June or the first part of July, or occasionally not until the beginning of August. Probably they appear later further north. A correspondent of the same paper, living in Canada, says that after a brief absence he vis- ited his garden on the 19th of August, and found the worms were again stripping his bushes. This second brood must therefore he fought as well as the first. The E7itomologist says the first brood appears in the spring. The fly deposits its eggs along the principal veins on the underside of the leaf. From these eggs worms with eighteen, twenty or twenty- two legs soon hatch, with black heads and many black dots on their bodies, but after moulting for the last time they are entirely of a grass green or yellow color, except large eye-spots on each side of the head. After attaining their full growth of full three-quarters of an inch, they burrow in the ground or elsewhere, spin a thin oval cocoon of brown silk and assume the pupa state, from which the perfect saw-fly again come forth, as before stated, in July or August. These go through a similar process and furnish the army which ap- pears in the spring. Hence it is not yet too late to publish Mr. Ormsbee's remedy, as the second bat- talion will need a dose of poke. Currant worms of other kinds have always been known in this country. But the one that is now making such sad havoc is a foreigner, that landed on our shores only about a dozen years ago. TURNING farmer. — BrYING AND HIRING FARMS. As you are always ready to answer all reasona- ble inquiries, I take the liberty to a;k your ad- vice. I am a journeyman mechanic, and a con- stant reader of your valuable paper, and as close confinement indoors injures my health, I desire to go into the country and own a few acres of land near some good reliable market. Now I have not capital to amount to more than six or seven hun- dred dollars, which I want to invest to the best advantage. If I buy I shall be obliged to pay my small capital down, and then have nothing to commence farming with. Would it be possible for me to lease a small place for from three to five years, with the privilege of b-uying at the expira- tion of said time, or before, and what had been paid as rent be added as so much toward the pur- chase ? What do you think of the suggestion, and how shall I proceed to find such a place, pro- viding such terms can be had. A Maijve Boy. Boston Highlands, Mass., June 12, 1870. Remarks. — You are a journeyman mechanic, but on proposing to change your present business for that of farming you think of assuming at once the cnaracter and responsibilities of "boss." We are entirely ignorant of your qualifications for that position. When landsmen turn sailors, they seldom make their first voyage as Captain, how- ever small the vessel. When farmers turn me- chanics, they seldom buy a shop to begin with. And the same is true of men generally who en- gage in a new business. Why farming should be an exception to the general rule, we do not know, S84 NEW ENGLAND FARISIER. Aug. nor do we think it is safe to assume that it is an exception. If you do not understaml farming, if you have yet to learn the trade, we think it would be better and cheaper to commence as an appren- tice or journeyman under the instruction of some good workman who understands the particular branch of farming that you prefer. The idea that anybody can be a farmer is just as true, undoubt- edly, as the assertion, sometimes made, that any body can be a musician, si mechanic, merchant, &.C. No one can be either only by learning how. And in learning farming an instructor or master is just as beneficial and necessary, as in learning any of the mechanic arts, any of the professions, or any of the fine arts. Farms can be purchased on almost any reason- able terms, in almost any section of the country. And we can think of no better way for you to pro- ceed to find a place to suit you than to invest your money safely, go to work as a journeyman farmer in such location as you fancy, and as you work, and learn, and establish a reputation, keep your eyes and ears open for the best opportunity for a permanent location. It is by no means uncom mon that farms, or at least land, can be hired for a few years for a much less rent than the interest on the sum asked as purchase money. Still there may be a shorter cut, a more royal road to farm- ing, but we thick the experience of journeymen mechanics, retired merchants, professional men, &c., who have tried these by-ways, fully justify the caution, "Not safe to Tkavel," especially by those of small means. as to render that function impossible, the subject dies. The cause of this muscular affection is a disturbance of the nervous system generally; and this maybe caused by injuries of the head, or of the back ; by a wound of one of the larger nerves ; by overloading the stomach, and by taking poisons into the stomach. Sucking calves, pigs, lambs, and other little brutes, like "nursing" babies, are easily, and sometimes fatally affected by sub- stances taken into the stomach of the mother. So much we "know" — we "do not ffuess about it;" but, in the absence of sufficient knowledge of the facts in this case to do any better, we must i)e allowed to make one "guess:" — We guess that the convulsions, of which this calf died, were caused by "Indian poke," or some other poison, eaten by the cow. DEATH OF A CALF BY CONVULSIONS. Did you ever hear of the death of a calf from a fit? I had a beautiful Jersey heifer calf, about four weeks old. It had been taken from the cow at four days old, and learned to drink milk, from which partof the cream had been taken. It seemed to be doing well. I had hitched it out on a plot cf grass several days, for a few hours at a time, which it seemed much to enjoy. I led it into tlie stable about six o'clock, apparently as well as ever, but it immediately began to be agitated and convulsed; to turn round and round; to jump, throw itself down, then up, then against anything that happened to be near, with great violence; to bellow, froth at the mouth, &c., &c. In this state it continued without change, only as its strength was gradually exhausted, till it died in about 30 minutes from the attack. I can hardly think that an animal dying of hydrophobia could suffer more. Have you any knowledge of such a case ? The cow had been out to pasture little more than a week, had been sick one day, five or six days before the calf died, from eating "Indian poke," as we had reason to believe. Could the calf's death be attributed to anything the cow had eaten ? Now, Mr. Editor, I don't want you to guess about it, but if you or your readers know anything bearing upon my inquiry, please let us know it. z. T. Mechanic Falls, Me., May 30, 1870. Remahks. — The death of this calf was caused by convulsions. Convulsions consist in violent in- voluntary contractions of the muscles ; and when the muscles of respiration arc so much affected THE SEASON IN CANADA. We have had a very dry spring. Work com- menced rather later than usual, but the land was in prime condition, and seed was put in about as early as common, althougU there was much croak- ing about t!ie "backward season." Fruit trees were in blossom a week or ten days earlier than last year, and vegetation generally was quite as forward as in several years past. But the severe drought of the last month, injured grass on old fields and grain on clay or gravelly soils. In forty-tive days from the :i5th of 4th month to 8th inst., inclusive, only three-quarters of an inch of rain fell in this vicinity. The weather was warm, and a part of the time hot. The 31st of last month the mercury rose to 82"^ in the shade, and to 90° the 4th of this month. But the spell is broken. The 9th was showery, and the 10th it rained moderately, and quite heavy in the night. The ground is well watered now, and if rain continues to fall frequently, crops will yet be fair, though I think barley must be light. The prospect for fruit is pretty good. The curcu- llo is very abundant, and the currant worm is very destructive. Powdered White Hellebore is an an- tidote to the latter, but I neglected to apply it in season on some of my bushes. I put it in a pep- per-box, and sprinKled it on the leaves. No mat- ter whether it touches the worms or not, they will leave. I have never known any one poisoned by using currants from bushes that had been so treated. A great many curculios have been caught here by jarring the trees, and it is found quite as neces- sary to jar them in the evening as in the morning. One of uiy neighbors has procured a prize of ten dollars, offered by the Canada Fruit Growers' As- sociation for 1000 curculios. Granite. Bloomfield, Ontario, 6th mo., 13;d Bacon for SmnrER Use. — I give you the method which my wife adopted several years ago, and which I find to be the best I ever saw tried, viz : — Cut the ham in slices of proper thickness, fry it just enough to get the moisture out of the lean, (or about half cooked,) then lay the slices kito a stone crock and pour the fat over it which has been fried out ; add enough melted lard to cover the meat and set away in a cool cellar, keeping it covered. Take it out as wanted and finish cooking. This method may not be new to many of your readers, or perhaps most of them know of better methods. — JD. B. Cor- ndl, in Country Gentleman. 390 NEW ENGLAND FAE^JER. Aug. SELECTING SEED "WHEAT. Mr. Fruit tells, in the Prairie Farmer, how he obtained the "Early May" wheat, a very good variety, equal to any, even that which is being advertised at a dollar a pint by the seedsnaen. Being in a wheat field at harvest time, he noticed some heads that appeared riper and sounder than the rest, and got leave to go among the standing grain and select such heads as he chose. He soon made a collection of heads, riper, sounder and better developed than the mass of grain in the field. This he sowed, and has produced what seems to be a new variety of fine, heavy early wheat, which he warrants with fair treatment to yield from twenty- five to thirty bushels to the acre. This reminds us of a story that is told of the Chinese emperor who, noticing a stalk of wheat growing in a field, taller and riper than the rest of the field, caused it to be gathered and planted, and its produce cultivated. He thus introduced a finer variety than had hitherto been grown in China, greatly to the advantage of his people. These instances simply show the advantage of selecting good seed, a matter that receives much less attention than it deserves, and is as applicable to all other grains as to wheat. When wheat is cultivated in the drill it is easy to go through the field and select the ripest, largest and soundest heads. A few quarts of such seed, carefully preserved and cultivated — as of course it would be — would soon produce a marked eflFect in any neighbor- hood. Any farmer who will follow this prac- tice of gathering the best heads in his field would soon make for himself the reputation of having the best seed wheat in his neighbor- hood, which would be a small fortune for him, and the influence of his example would render him a public benefactor. The practice of selecting the best ears of corn for seed, which has long been pursued by New England farmers, is doubtless one reason why the corn crop in our less favorable climate and soil equals or even surpasses the average crops of the corn States at the West, where they dip into the corn bin and use the average corn for seed. The time for selecting the best heads of wheat is now close at hand. How many farm- ers this season will devote a few hours to selecting the best heads of wheat for seed the next year ? Cheese Factories in Michigan. — In giving an account of a visit to a cheese factory in Farm- ington, Oakland county, the editor of the Michigan Farmer says, it is the first institution of the kind established in that part of the State. Milk is de- livered at the factory night and morning, — the practice of delivering it only in the morning hav- ing proved unsatisfactory. About 2300 pounds of milk are received daily, and oj?e pound of cheese is produced for each ten pounds'of milk. A branch factory has been established near by, and another has been built in North Farmington. From a per- sonal acquaintance with the farms of this section when they were more than thirty years newer than they are now, we agree with the remark of the editor that "there is no good reason why the very best of cheese cannot be made in Oakland County, Mich., as well as in Chautauqua or Herkimer, N. Y." The same remark might be made of many other counties in many other western States. The "Wire "Worm.— There is much complaint this season of the wire worm destroying the corn. Especially is this true in the "West. Some whole fields, especially where the soil is black and rather moist, are almost entirely destroyed. The experi- ence of many years has taught us that a small quantity of plaster dropped into the hill with the seed corn is an effectual remedy. It may be used also in the following manner, when it becomes as effectual against the crows as against the worms : Soak the corn a few hours in water, then drain off the water and stir in dry plaster until every kernel is coated with it. The crows do not like plastered corn, and will soon leave it. Plaster also is as effectual in keeping the wire worm from potatoes. They are apt to attack potatoes in moist soil. A small handful of plaster in the hill will ensure smooth-skinned potatoes, free from the scarifica- tions of the cut worm. The remedy is simple, cheap and eflFectual. Cornell University. — This institution seems to be popular with the wealthy men of New York, perhaps on the principle that to those who have shall be given. Hon. William Kelley of Rinebeck, and two other good friends, as we learn by the Ithaca Journal, have given it .f 42,000 in cash. This will be applied to the library. Mr. Gerrett Smith has also made a very handsome gift of scientific works to the University. Hereford Crosses. — A few weeks since our cattle market reporter noticed a superior lot of steers raised by Mr. F. W. Stone, of Guelph, Oata- rio, and sold at Cambridge by Mr. J. C. Hamilton. A correspondent of the Country Gentleman who saw them at home, but after they Lad been sold, 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 391 says that the Hereford cross on grade and common cattle is becoming very popular. Mr. Stone in- formed him that the butchers are always glad to get these grades at extra prices. They have very thick backs, and their flesh is firm and rich-flavored. Those at Cambridge were sold at the highest price paid that week for any cattle, to W. E. Gowing, and we understand that their offal was only 28 per cent, of live weight. Sale of Percheron Horses. — At the late sale by the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, at the Buzzy Farm in West Roxbary, the following stock was disposed of by auction : — Stallion Orleans, 10 years old, imported in 1864 by the Society, for $700 to A. H. Seabury of New Bedford ; stallion Napoleon, 5 years, old, for $1000 to W. A. Woodsworth of Boston ; imported mare Empress, 10 years old, in foal to Napoleon, for $'630 to Francis Dame of Boston ; a three-year-old filly, from Empress by Orleans, for $450 to the same; a 2 -year-old, filly out of Empress by Con- queror, for $380 to the Society; the mare Sultana, in foal to Orleans, for §110 to J. H. Stone of Bos- ton ; a vearling filly, out of Sultana by Napoleon, for $360 to S. Boyd of Boston, and a gray mare by Conqueror, owned by Mr. T. J. Coolidge, for $500 to Dr. Burnett. AG-RICTJLTITKAL ITEMS. —The State of Maine still owns 768,481 acres of "settling and timber lands." — One load of grain, amounting to 100,000 bush- els, was sent down the Mississippi from Dubuque, Iowa, the other day. — Washington Territory boasts of an immense cranberry marsh, yielding one hundred thousand bushels in a single crop. — A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, who kept his hogs on floored pens, cured a Labit they got into of biting each other by feeding them "stove coal." — It is estimated that one-fifth of the meat sup- ply of Paris is veal. At the commencement of the present century the price of veal was half a franc a pound ; it is now three times as much, or one and a half franc. — F. Copeland, of West Dedham, Mass., sowed a "liberal" mixture of two parts of lime and one of salt on a cultivated field filled with sorrel, and has also used it on a mowing field, and completely killed out the sorrel. — The Commissioner of Agriculture has pre- pared for publication a valuable work on the Pleuro Pneumonia, or cattle disease, to be illus- trated with miro photographic illustrations of the diseased parts of the animals. — At a late meeting of the Lexington, Ky., Far- mers' Club, Dr. Spurr said he had noticed recently that his hogs were getting sick, and from circum- stances, he is convinced that their sickness was caused by sleeping in wet straw. He divided the herd, placing some of them in a distant lot where they could make beds in dry ricks of straw, and they are now healthy and vigorous. Dry dust and chaff about the stables are about as injurioas to hogs as is the wet straw. — To make a mare own her colt, J. L., in the Rural New Yorker, says : — "Take some milk from the mare and rub it on the colt's nose; then let the mare smell it, and she will own her colt at once." — An item recommending bells on sheep as a pro- tection from dogs, is met by the Ohio Farmer with the remark, a neighbor of oars had his sheep chased by dogs when five or six cow bells were borne by the flock. —The California Farmer, "to show what our climate is for sheep raising," says a new thing among;^heepmen is reported from Mercer County. A flock of 1300 grade Cotswold lambs, dropped in January and February, have been sheared, yield- ing an average of 2:^ pounds, some few gave 5 pounds. — The Northwestern Farmer says that John Tomlinson, Esq., of Shelby Co., Indiana, fatted $1,200 worth of pork on potatoes last fall, and pronounces potatoes a cheaper food for hogs than corn. He cooked his potatoes, and the hogs were exceedingly fond of them. It is well known that the potato is rich in starch, and that is the chief element of fat. New England farmers discovered the value of potatoes for fattening hogs long ago. — H. I. Kimball, Esq., of Atlanta, Ga., has offered to place in the hands of B. C. Yancy, Pres- ident of the Georgia State Agricultural Society one thousand dollars to be used as special premi- ums as follows : — •$ .500 for the largest and best yield of cotton on five acres ; two hundred for the best wheat crop, and two hundred for the best grass crop, both on five acres ; and one hundred for the best collection of mineral from Georgia soil. — At a recent meeting of the American Institute Farmers' Club, N. Y., Clarkson Tabor, of New York city, in reply to a correspondent calling for the heaviest beef ever killed, said : "Reunion," sent here in 1866, and fattened by T. H. Tripp, of Dutchess county, weighed 3J95 pounds, and dressed 2,575 pounds. I have been nine years in the live stock market, and I never saw a larger animal, and there is no tradition of a heavier one among our New York cattle dealers." —The members of a Farmers' Club in Madison County, 111., took the agricultural statistics of six- teen sections of one town, comprising 10,240 acres. On this land there were 1783 acres of corn, with an average yield of a little less than 37 bushels per acre; 3290 acres of fall -wheat, producing nearly 17 bushels per acre. The average yield of oats was a little less than 40 bushels; Irish pota- toes nearly 100 bushels ; hay one and a half tons. There were over 10,000 apple trees, j)roducing less than one bushel each. There were only 188 milch 892 'SEW ENGLAND FARjNIER. Aug. cows and 273 sheep on the whole tract, while 2815 hogs were reported. There were 52,618 rods of fence. — A correspondent of the Maine Farmer says that in sowing grain, we commence at one corner of the piece of land that is to be sown, step off three paces, stick up a stake, sow across the piece, step uff three paces, set down the pail or basket, step off three more and stick another stake, shift Lands and sow back and forward in this manner. If the ground is mellow we can keep our distance by the tracks. Always throw the grain with the wind and down hill if we can. — A correspondent of the English Journal of Horticulture says that he has never found any cov- ering for small seeds equal to short grass mown from the lawn. This is strewn over the seeds to about half an inch in depth, and then the usual watering is given. It soon shrivels and becomes light, so that the plants come through it freely. The birds never attack them, and the crops never fail. — At a late discussion on making hay, by the Herkimer County, N. Y., Farmers' Club, Mr. Burdick asked if a poorer quality of hay had not been made since the introduction of the mowing machine, up to the time of the introduction of the tedder. The mem!>ers were decided in their opin- ion that such was the case. They all believed that the hay, as it lay after being cut by the machine, did not cure as well as when cut by the hand scythe and spread with a fork. Hence they all considered the tedder indispensable where the mowing machine is used. EXTKACTS AND REPLIES. CROPS IN PENOBSCOT COUNTY, ME. — NEW YORK FRUIT TREES. The crops in this section are looking finely. Grain and grass are about ten days ahead of their usual time. Wheat did well with us the past year, and this spring there was an unusual breadth sown. Our fruit in bloom promised greatly, but the heat of the first few days of this month has caused a bad blight. There have been some agents here from Roches- ter, New York, with fruit trees, or rather soliciting orders for them. I wish to ask if such trees will be hardy here ? There is a great difference in cli- mate between western New York and Eastern Maine. These agents are obtaining many orders ior trees, but I am afraid that we shall be the losers. Upringfield, Me., June 15, 1870. East Maine. Remarks. — The success or failure of Western Ne.v york trees will depend largely on the man- ner in which the trees have been grown, dug, packed and transported, and on the care with with which they are planted and tended. There have been many compl^aints of trees from this section failing to grov/ and failing to prove true to name. We should prefer trees raised nearer home, and by those more directly responsible to the buyer. And it would seem that the success of tree peddlers in disposing of stock produced at so great a distance ought to induce people in places where they are sold to supply the home market. Inferior stock is often disposed of by irresponsible peddlers. grasshoppers, where do they come from ? Noticing, recently, the small white clusters upon the grass, looking much like spittle, and often called here, and by some supposed to be, "snake spittle," a friend called my attention to the fact, as he maintains, that each one of these clusters con- tain an embryo grasshopper. To verify his state- ment, he took several of them in his hand, and opened them, and disclosed the insect to view, which was apparently a young grasshopper. This may be new to some of your readers, as it was to me, and if true, grasshoppers will be plenty in Vermont soon. These clusters have been thought to be poisonous to cattle. If this view of the origin of this insect is correct, I would like to leain more about it. Prof. Agassiz,I saw it stated, once leotured for an hour on this subject. I wish he or some one would tell the readers of the Far- mer all about the matter. b. Essex, VL, June 21, 1870. Remarks. — Though all troubles may no*-, spring from the ground, most of our varieties of g rass- hoppers do, being hatched from eggs deposited there by the mother insef t. A few, however, lay their eggs, like the canker-worm grub and caterpil- lar, on the tv/igs and branches of trees. But these foaming fellows are not grasshoppers in the ordin- ary sense of that word. Here is a picture of one of these chaps. There are at least three varieties in Massachusetts. Some of the books call them Aphrophora, which being translated means spume-bearers. Within a few years past this class of insects have multiplied alarmingly in some parts of New England, and seriously injured the hay crop. We know of no subject better worthy of an hour's lecture than that of these snake-spittle, frog- spittle, frothy, spumiferous pests. orchard, witch, R. I. bent, and KENTUCKY BLUE GRASSES. Will you please to inform me what Orchard grass is ? Is it called by some Witch grass, or Quack grass ? And bow will it compare with Herdsgrass as to value for feed ? W^ould it be a good kind of grass to seed land to that you intended to use for pasture ? What is Rhode Island Bent grass and Kentucky Blue grass ? How do they look when growing, and what kind of a head do they have as to shape ? How do they compare with Herdsgrass and Red- top for pasture feed ? Geo. C. Bidwell. Rockingham, Vt., 1870. I wish to know if Orchard grass makes good hay for sheep. I have some that has come up in bunches about ray farm. It grows quite rank and coarse, being about a foot taller than the other grasses ; it is early, being full in the blow the fif- teenth of June. Is it good to sow wiih clover ? What kind of a sward docs it form ? Is it bad to plough and cultivate when we want to plough it up ? I should think by the way it works in, it would not run out very easilv. C. F. Lincoln. Woodstock, Vt., June 20, 1870. 1 have noticed Rhode Island Bent grass seed quoted in your price list. Please inform me as to 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 893 its use ; where and when should it be used ? Will it take the place of herdsgrass ? Herds grass seed is so scarce and hiffh that a substitute is desirable. Newbury, Vt., 1870. Reader. OKCHAED GEASS. Enclosed you will find a specimen of grass that appears to be working into my fields. Can you give me its name, and something about its value and character ? N. C. Luther. Attleboro', Mass., June 21, 1S70. Remaeks. — This is the Orchard Grass, or Rough Cock's Foot — Dactylis glomerata. The above illus- tration is copied by permission from Flint's Grasses and Forage Crops, a book that ought to be in the library of every Farmers' Club at least. We also copy from this work the following description of the Orchard Grass: Flowers in dense clusters; stem erect, about three feet high, in good soil sometimes five feet ; leaves linear, flat, dark green, rough on both surfaces, which, with the fancied resemblance of its clusters to the foot of a barn yard fowl, have given it the common name in England of Plough Cock's-Foot. Root perennial. Flowers in June and July. Mr. Flint says it makes an admirable mixture with clover, as it blossoms about the same time that the red clover does, but on account of its early ripening it should not be mixed with herds- grass or redtop. A Pennsylvania correspondent of the Country Gentleman sowed about four acres with orchard grass, clover and timothy. The first year the new grass made a small appearance, the others took well and he had a good crop. The second year there was a good deal of orchard grass mixed with the others, but it was hard and wiry before the clover and timothy were fit to cut. The third year the orchard grass was ripe long be- fore the other grass was fit to cut, and the crop was unsatisfactory, the seed was disseminated in other fields by the manure, where it was standing in bunches, and the writer said he should be glad to be rid of it entirely. This shows the importance of understanding its habits and character, and of proper management. Another correspondent seeded eight acres of pasture with orchard grass, redtop and timothy. The orchard grass was two weeks ahead of the other, but he had a fine pasture. Mr. A. B. Allen of New York has had thirty years' experience with orchard grass. He says it should be sown entirely alone, on clean ground, in good tilth, and so heavily that it will occupy every inch of the soil. Then no grass will pay better, either as pasture or for hay. But for hay it must be cut in early bloom. It makes the earliest and latest pasture, and is the moht enduring grass he knows. Some farmers in Kentucky claim that eighty acres well set in orchard grass, and divided into three lots, will feed more cattle than one hundred acres of the best blue grass. Sometimes when the weather is warm and rainy it grows in Kentucky nearly or quite two inches in twenty four hours. Mr. X. A. Willard says in the Rural Xeto Yorker that "wherever we have seen orchard grass it has given abundant satisfaction. A few years ago we saw on the farm of A. A. Mather, Esq., Burlington, N. Y., seven acres that had been down four years, having been se-eded at the rate of two and one-half bushels per acre. The average yield for the four years was stated by Mr. M. at fully four tons to the acre, two crops being taken each year. It stands the drought well." He also suggests its use where daisies abound, as it ripens early, and grows so luxuriantly as to crowd them out. The Practical Farmer says, "an orchard grass sod on being ploughed up is always found to be black and rich. It is a meliorater and improver of the soil." A field sown with it more than twenty years ago, and which we see every summer, still yields a fair crop of this grass. All stock like it. Sheep, it is said, will pass over every other grass to feed upon it. 394 KEW EXGLAOT) FARMER. Arc. The seed weighs only twelve or fourteen pounds per bushel. Early in the spring is considered the best time to seed. The Rhode Island Bent grass we suppose to be the common redtop of our fields and pastures. If so, our correspondent can judge of the propriety of using it instead of herdsgrass. The Kentucky blue grass is regarded by Mr. Flint as identical with our June grass ; the differ- ence between its growth and popularity in the two sections being in the soil and climate. TAXL MEA.D0W OAT GRASS. The bunch of grass left at our office last week by C. Clark, Esq., of Stoughton, Mass., is the Meadow Oat Grass, or Tall Oat Grass, described and figured on pages 127 and 128 of Mr. Flint's "Grasses and Forage Plants." It is the Ray grass of France. It is often found on the borders of fields, woods and pastures. After being mown it shoots up a very thick aftermath. It is of an early and luxuriant growth, and has been recom- mended for soiling. It has been cultivated to some extent in New England, and when once nat- uralized it grows spontaneously on deep sandy soils. CANADA AND THE STATES. It is some time since I have written anytl'ing for tbe Farmer, but being in this place on a visit for a few days, and always feeling interested in agricultural matters, and enjoying much the writ- ings of others in the Farmer, I have thought I would just write a few lines, not that I expect to do that justice to its pages that many of my supe- riors can. I left home in Eaton, Compton Co., Can.ada East, last Wednesday. Our season there, after a very mild winter, was, tbrough the months of April and Mav, very dry, and most of the time cold. After this month commenced the weather became quite warm, but stiil so dry that we be- gan to fear that there would be a short crop for the husbandman. But on the r.ight of the seventh it commenced to rain, which so refreshed the earth that ilII agricultural crops bid fair to be as good as the farmer can expect, except the hay crop ; that must be far below an average, not alto- gether in con-sequence of the drought, but more from the effects of the thaws and sudden changes of the winter, which caused much grass to be winter killed, especially on our richest or most valuable land. Since the rain, the weather has been more or less cloudy and cool. Our season is about two weeks earlier than usual. The state of the crops, as noticed on my way here, as well as at this place, is much the same as in Compton county, Canada, which is some eighty miles further north. This town, Lunenburg, is saul to be one of the most stony towns in the State, but the soil seems to be very strong, and priiduces bountiful crops of grass and all kinds of English grain. It has been settled about 100 years, and yet retains many of the names and descendants of its first settlers, who seem to be wedded to the land that gave them birth. It is an agricultural town in every sense. Cattle and hors'js, potatoes for starch, and butter are its chief products for market, and its people seem contented and happy. The scenery here is most grand, lying as it does on the west side of Connecticut river, and extending back in high ridges of land. Tnese higli hills are cultivated to the very tops, and from them is seen the valley of the river, and at the southeast the principal peaks of the White Mountains stand out in all their gran- deur and beauty, and the snow that still remains on them gives them a cold yet bright and dazzling appearance. I must say, Mr. Editor, that I like the country of my birth much better than this section, and I sometimes think it quite strange that people will settle on such rough and stony land as some parta of these New England States are made up of, wnen such fine, easily culuvated land can be obtained in the section of Canada where I reside. I have travelled considerable in different parts of New England, but 1 have never yet seen any part of it that will, in my estimation, compare with that section of Canada East, contained in the counties of Stanstead and Compton. And I think now, notwithstanding the duties that we have to pay to sell our stock to American buyers, with the less amount of taxes we have to pay, and with our supe- rior farming land we can make and save more money than our American neighbors. If any un- prejudiced person will pass from New Hampshire or Vermont into the counties above mentioned, I think they will see quite as much thriit and more taste than in their own States. I have written the above without any desire to injure the feelings or prejudice the minds of any. I bave always been a friend of the people of the United States, for I believe their prospericy en- hances ours, and vice versa. Hiram French. Lunenburg, Vt., June 13, 1870. PICKING PEARS. The "Flemish Beauty" is the variety best adapted to this climate, and I think it is the only one that is perfectly hardy. It stands our cold winters as well as an apple tree. It is a great bearer, grows large, and is good for the table, and very good for cooking, as it does not break up so badly as many kinds. But I commenced to write about picking. Downing says this variety should be picked before it is quite ripe, for if left to ripen on the tree it loses its flavor and becomes insipid. These are not exactly his wofrds, but the same in substance. Havi-ng two small trees that bore full, I followed bis directions, leaving a few to ripen on the trees. The result is exactly contrary to the book. Those left on the tree were very fine, while, those picked first were juicy and eatable, to be sure, but very flat. What is the experience of others ? Bloomjield, C. W., 1870. Granite. TWIN calves. Though I am not able to answer positively the question of A. S. Hathaway as to whether "twin calves make as good cows as those not twins," I do know that we have in our yard a four-year-old cow which we consider a superior animal whose mate was a bull. My advice to any one having twin heifers would be wait and see, as I am disposed to consider the reports alluded to a hoax. Brookfield, Vt., June 10, 1870. C. B. FiSK. About twenty years ago, I purchased two twin heifer calves. They proved to be the best cows I ever owned. John Beattie. Grafton, Me., June 20, 1870, "the AMERICAN IMPROVED BEET." I have been out this morning at work in my beet yard, and as I labored, I bethought myself of what had appeared in your columns in regard to this beet. I obtained my seed of Mr. Rollins Lane of ; Cornwall Vt., about three years since, and have I cultivated them quite extensively since that time; having now about three-fourths of an acre, all up i and looking finely. I have disseminated the seed 1870. XE'W ENGLA^s'D FARMER. 395 widely among the farmers of this vicinity, so that ! there are several acres under cultivation the pres- ent season. I regard them altogether ahead of all other root crops. I have never seen but one per- son who has grown this variety from seed obtained elsewhere than the town mentioned above. This was a gent'eman from Braintree, Vt., who. after a careful examinarion of speci-mens, avers that he has raised the same from seed pur«hased of seed grow- ers. May it not, then , be raised in other localities besides this ? Enclosed are a few sepds which, though rather late in the season, will if sown soon, sufficiently mature to give vou a good idea of the variety. Brookfield, Vt., June 11, 1870. C. B. Fisk. Remarks —The seeds were received June 20, and immediately planted. We shall be glad to receive information in regard to the mode of cul- tivation adopted by our correspondent. COMBlJjfQ WOOLS. To speak candidly, we consider the climate of England better fitted than ours for a rapid and economical development of mutton sheep. There they can have green feed (grass or turnips) off the ground most of the year — not scorched by our long dry summers — not locked up and rendered inaccessible by the frosts and snows of the severe winters of our Northern States. The artificial advantages are also even more in their favor in England. | The high price of mutton, the inexhaustible j demand for it, the accessibility to markets, the necessity of obtaining manure for grain crops, &c., &c.. probably render sheep about or nearly as profitable there as cattle, without taking the wool of the former into account. Suppose that, owing to natural or artificial circumstances, or to both combined, England can now raise long-wool cheaper than the United States, does that prove that the United States are not fitted to its production. 1. We are yet to learn that long-wool sheep (Cotswolds, Leicesters, Lincolns, ifec.,) are not, under the same treatment, or we should rather say under correspondingly good treatment, as healthy here as in England. They will not bear herding together in large numbers, or severe climatic exposures, or neglects of any kind here, nor will they in England. 2. We have not a particle of doubt that their mutton, when properly fattened, is as good here as in England. 3. We believe that under good manage- ment their wool is as heavy to the fleece and of as good quality here, in every respect, as in England. 4. It is probably true that the demand for mutton, and the all-important consideration of manure in England, renders them more indispensable there; but they now yield a handsome profit here on mutton and wool, to say nothing of the extra one of raising them to sell for breeding purposes. The latter ad- vantage will, of course, diminish as the country fills up with them ; but with a supply properly graduated to the demand, they will always remain profitable while the present wool tariff stands. This would seem to be absolutely inevitable. The relative consump- tion of mutton is constantly inoreasing. Our systems of hu&bandry are steadily improving, and both the necessity and advantage of util- izing manures are being better understood and acted on. Combing wool manufactures are rapidly increasing among us. We believe that the time will come when long-wool sheep will be regarded, throughout extensive re- gions of the United States, as essential an element to the success of mixed and convert- ible husbandry as they are in England. They are as essential on the rich producing grain farms, as the Merino is on the grazing farms to be found in every State, and on the broad natural pasturages of the South and West. — Dr. Randall, in Plural Neio Yorker. TREATMENT OP BHEEDIWO- EWES. As I have bred Leicester sheep for several years, and have carefully studied their habits, wants, &c., 1 will endeavor to reply to inquir- ies for information pertaining to the feeding of Leicester sheep at about lambing time. My idea is that all breeding animals, especially sheep, should be handled and fed with that thing in view long before the lambing time , arrives. To begin, I would say have your ewes in good condition In the fall when they come into winter quarters, and then immedi- ately take the ram from among them, as a great many rams, when they get into a small yard with the ewes, will chase and hunt them, which is not caly injurious to the ewes, but very bad for their lambs, frequently causing abortion. Next, feed them carefully and regularly ; do not allow your feeder to rush suddenly into their yard, making them nervous and wild, but let him approach them cautious- ly for a few days at every feeding, when they will get accustomed to him and he will be paid for his extra care and trouble. Also their feed should be regular as to time, quantity and quality, and not feed one morning at six, another at seven, and then at eight o'clock, but let the hour be the same every day, whether it be six, seven or eight, and then your sheep will not be worrying and waiting for it, as I can assure you that sheep know when feeding time arrives as well as we know when dinner time comes, and will not be easy until they get It. If sheep are not in high condition when winter sets In, a little grain morning and night, (say half a pint to each sheep per day,) will be good for them ; also some roots at noon are excellent. A mixture of oats and corn is my choice, and they should be of good quality. As lambing time approaches roots should be reduced and grain increased, as too many roots are apt to cause too much milk, which is not so desirable until after the lambs are two 396 NEW EXGLAXD FARMER. Aug. or three weeks old, •when the roots can be in- creased again. At laicbirg time be sure and make no charges, but feed the same amount, as also the same kind of grain at each feeding. I have seen very bad effects at that time from ovtT-feeding, as also frcm changing from one kind of grain to another. At lambing time, above all things be sure and keep ycur sheep quiet, and it should be the wcrk of one person only, who understands his business, to see to thera. as the ewe some- times needs a little help in lambing ; and the Iamb, in its first and second nursing. — Jurian Winne, in Country Gentleman. POOH AND GOOD TOOLS. Every man and team on the farm costs me at least $750 a year ; and I question if one farmer in a hundred duly appreciates how much he loses from having poor horses, and in not keeping them in vigorous health and in condition to do a maximum day's work. Do not many of us from having inefficient horses, poor ploughs, dull harrov/s, rusty cultivators, shaky wagons, and other imperfect implements and machines, lose from one-third to one-half the whole cost of man and team ? And be- sides this, do we estimate how much we lose by getting behind with our work from these and similar causes ? I had an old mowing ma- chine that I got with the farm that "for the sake of saving it" I used for two years. Di- rectly and indirectly I have no doubt that ma- chine cost me $1,000 ! It cut just as well as a Wood's or a Buckeye, but it was a one-wheel machine with a wooden cutter-bar. We split the bar and had to repair it ; then we broke the k^ife and had to take it to the blacksmith shop to have it welded. He "burnt" it, and broke it again. Then I sent to New York for a new knife. This cut off the finger of the only man who knew how to operate the ma- chine and laid him up for several days. The consequence was, we did not get through hay- ing until after wheat harvest. And you can imagine what kind of hay I had to leed out the next winter. Now I have two new mow- ers that a man cannot break if he tries ; and in looking back I can hardly believe that I was ever so foolish as to waste time in tinkering an old worthless machine. — J. Harris, in Am. Agriculturist. BUBSOILINQ. I have seen a great deal in your paper on subsoiling, but your correspondents acknowl- edge that they have very little experience in the matter. According to one of them the farmers of Maine have only to provide them- selves with a subsoil plough and go into the co-operative system to renovate their ex- hausted soils. Believe me, these revolutions in agriculture cannot take place thus rapidly. I have had considerable experience in sub- soiling, and I never saw it have the slightest effect either in the present crop or improve- ment of the soil, unless accompanied with un- derdraining, except in isolated cases. For instance, the lower part of a field that has been constantly under the plough accumulates, by washing, a large quantity of rich soil that has been thoroughly exposed to the atmosphere. On such a soil the writer has seen the sub- soiled land clearly defined in the next grain crop. One can easily imagine that clay land naturally underdrained, as underlain with plas- ter, rock or coal mines, would be benefited by the subsoil plough, but under ordinary cirt cumstances the writer believes that the attemps to renovate a worn out soil by these meane without underdraining, would be both a wast- of time and money. The writer has been constantly employed In both draining and sub- soiling for the last seven years and conse- quently can speak somewhat advisedly. — Cor. Maine Farmer. Glycerine and Yolk of Egg. — The Phil- adelphia Journal of Pharmacy has made known a formula for a preparation which is likely to prove valuable for external use. Four parts, by weight, of yolk of egg are to be rubbed in a mortar with five parts of gly- cerine. The compound has the consistence of honey, and is unctuous like fatty substances, over which it has the advantage of being easily removed by water. It Is unalterable, a speci- men having laid exposed to the air for three years unchanged. Applied to the skin, it forms a varnish which effectually prevents the action of the air. These properties render It serviceable for broken surfaces of all kinds, particularly erysipelas and sore nipples, and for cutaneous affections, of which it allays the itching. DEVOTED TO AORECULTimE, HORTICULTtTKE, AJSTD KTNDHED AKTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, September, 1870. YGL. IV.— NO. 9. R. P. EATOX & CO., PiT.LisniKS, Office, 34 Merchants' Row. MONTHLY. SIMON BRO^VN", S. FLETCHER, SEPTEMBER. OME persons live long in a short time, while oth- ers live beyond the allotted three score years and ten, whose days appear to them as but a span, "How short the month has been !" ex- claims one, whose mind has been fully occupied in works of benevolence, in revealing the mysteries of science, and observing the wonderful opera- tions of nature about V^ him. Such a mind has had no ■ heavy moments, but, buoyant and elastic, has risen from hour to hour into some unexplored regions of truth, pushing aside the annoyances in its way, and expanding with the healthful acquisitions which are fitting it for the skies. "How long the week has been !" is the de- Fponding utterance of another, whose time has been frittered away without labor, or the pursuit of any ennobling object which would impart to it life and vigor. All the works of the Creative Hand show unceasing activity. The sea recedes but to return again : when it rests it rots ; as in the expressive language of the • 'Ancient Mariner f — "The very deep cid rot ; O Christ I That even this should be ! Tea, fclimy things di i orawl with legs Upon the elioiy eea." The winds circle the globe, bearing nourish- ment in their breath, and sustain life in all ani- mated beings. Rivers run to the sea, and there, eliminated by the ever-working sun, seek the skies again, and pour their rich treas- ures again and again upon the thirsty earth. So must it be with man. The inactive mind sinks first into indifference and then to in- anity. It has always seemed to us that "The Sea- sons,'' coming each in their allotted time, af- ford the clearest evidence of the consummate wisdom of the Creator. The wants cf God's children, mental and physical, are adapted to the Seasons, and the Seasons to them, else there would be no harmony in them. It was left for man to notice the changing character of each Season, and make a further division into Months, whose peculiarities are as inter- esting, if not as grand as those of the Sea- tons themselves. To the occupied mind, the Months fleet past us so swiftly, that, though we never mistake them while they are present with us, jet the moment any one of them is gone by we begin to blend the recollection of its features with those of the one which preceded it, or that 398 NEW EXGL.VND FAE^IER. Sept. which has taken its place, and thus confuse them together until we know not "which is ■which." And then, to mend the matter, when the whole of them have danced their graceful round, hand in hand, before us, not being able to think of either separately, we unite them all together in one imagination, and call them the Past Year, as we gather flowers into a bunch, and call them a bouquet. "Now this should not be. Each one of the sweet sisterhood has features sufficiently marked and distinct to entitle her to a place and a name ; and if we mistake these features, and attribute those of any one to any other, it is because we look at them with a cold ?nd uninterested, and therefore an unobservant regard." In order to really enjoy the Months, we must be strongly impressed with the peculiarities of each — the weather, atmospheric phenomena, the coming in and going out of plants, ani- mated life about us, in our domestic animals, in insect and bird-life, and the changing sounds which proceed from them at the different stages of their existence. We must "pay equal devotion to each in her turn ; the blooming May and the blushing June disdain the vows of these votaries who have not pre- viously wept at the feet of the weeping April, or sighed in unison with the sad breath of March. And it is the same with all the rest. They present a sweet emblem of the ideal of a happy and united family ; to each member of which the best proof you can offer that you are worthy of htr love, is, that you have gain- ed that of her sisters ; and to whom the best evidence you can give of being able to love either worthily, is, that you love all." This should be the manner in which we should re- gard the Months. They will pass rapidly, to be sure, but will instruct us as they pass of our own and their immortality, — immortal, because ever renewed, and bearing the seeds of their renewal within themselves. "These, as they change, Almighty Fath- er, these are but the varied God ! The roll- ing year is full of Thee." — Oflacial returns received at the Bureau of Sta tistics show that during the month of April there was exported from the port of New York fish spawn to the value of $15,340. There were also exported to France during the same month silk- worm eggs valued at SEPTEMBER EMPLOYMENTS. O sweet September I tby first bretzeB br'ng The dry leaf's rustle ami tbe squirrel's laughter. The coo , frseh air, wheuf^e hea th and vii.tances, with good success. He refers to a man who houses all his hay the day it is cut, and has the best, j'ldging from smell and looks, anywhere seen. K. 0. advocates cutting hay when entirely free from external moisture, and housing when scarcely wilted, and seems to advocate the doc- trine tliat a pound of sap is less injurious than an ounce of water. He thinks it better adapted for milch cows than for team feed ; for the latter he would probably cure more. I have lost the paper containing my article, but belive I made a little mistake in this: I think the man I sp .ke of gets his hay in, and does his mowing afterwards, as a too early mowing would cause the nay to l)lackea with dew. All hay ought to be got in, if not tit before, soon as possible after noon, and if the time occupied is not too long, the machine can do a good piece of work then. I would he very thank- ful to the editor for his opinion on the sui ject, as I am as much in need of enlightnient as our Es- sex county friend, who will please bear in mind that K. O. and others not only consider ic unneces- sary to dry out much of the sap Irom grass, but consider that the heating of hay in the barn, caused by the sap, not by water, helps make the hay. John, Franklin, Mass., June, 1870. Remarks. — This whole subject of making hay was very fully discussed in these columns last winter in the reports given of Farmers' Conven- tions in this State, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Our own practice in curing the grasses is very nearly that which our correspondent describes above as his practice. We cut the grass just at night or in the morning ; wilt it as thoroughly as we can until one or two o'clock, then cock and put caps on. The next day open after the dew is off, turn twice before 2 o'clock, then get in. This course is for favorable weather. In making clover, cut as before stated and wilt, then carefully gather into cocks, put on caps and let it remain two nights even if the weather is favorable. Open the cocks, shake out heavy 406 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. bunches, turn once, then pet it in. Under this treatment, the heads and leaves adhere, the stems are not brittle, but made, "cooked," as it were, and retain their valuable juices. A new mode among us, is that of cutting the grass, allowing it to wilt for a few hours, and then packing it away from the air as much as possible. We have no more doubt that hay is preserved in this way, than we have that it is preserved in any other way. It is testified to in every direction, and barns full of such hay, as sweet as a nut, may be seen by those who will take the trouble to go to them. This process requires that a pretty large amount of hay shall be placed in a compact form, and in a great measure excluded from the air. Few of us have such conveniences. Our barns are di- vided into many spaces where currents of air come and go at will. But because we have not so cured hay ourselves, we do not think that it cannot be done. The evidence placed before us at the Con- vention in Maine, last winter, was perfectly con vincing that hay is successfully preserved in that way, and can be by any of us who have conven- iences for so doing, FRUIT TREES GNAWED BY MICE. Having suflfered very much from the effects of mice for several year.«, I would like to ask the readers of the Farmer how to prevent mice from destroying our apple trees, by eating off the bark in the winter ? Will tar, painted over the bai k late in the fall prevent it, and if so, will tar injure the trees ? I tramped the snow all around them last fall, and put chip manure around the trunks in small sharp piles, eighteen inches high, but neither had any effect. I have lost, the last two years, nearly one husdred tree?, tome of them very valuable. Answers to the above questions will be thankfully received. Hiram French. Eaton, Compton Co., P. Q.,June, 1870. Remarks. — This subject was discussed in our columns last year, but no specific remedy was sug- gested. Offensive matter applied to the tree, if harmless to the bark, is liable to be washed off by rains and snows. And we much doubt whether any other means of equal cheapness and efficacy can be suggested better than plenty of cats and a good mound of earth. Let one or two or more mother cats range the orchard during the fall, — cats that are dependent on their own industry for the support of families, — and the mice census will show a great decrease by the time the snow comes. And then, late in the fall, clear away the grass and •weeds from around the trunk and if the soil affords tolerably easy digging, throw up a pile around the trunk of clear earth at least eighteen inches high, and if the snows are not much deeper in Canada than here, we think the trees would be pretty safe from the mice. If the soil of the or- chard is hard or rocky, a cartload from the near- est bank will answer for several trees. Tar might answer, but we should fear it would injure the trees. When applied to prevent the as- cent of the eanker worna grub, paper or cloth is generally first tied around the trunk. A paint of soot arid milk, compositions of tobacco, sulphur, assafoetida, hen or pigeon manure, wiih mud or clay to give body and tenacity, are recom- mended by some book-farmers. But we have had no experience with them. STAR-NOSED MOLE. As you seem to be authority on insects, perhaps you can tell me what animal the enclosed skin came from. My cat caught it in my cellar. Its fur is something like a mole, but its teeth were like a cat or weazel. I never saw anything with such a nose before. The feelers were eighteen in number. None of my neighbors who have seen it can tell me what it is. We are having uncommonly warm weather here now. Corn loi-ks nicely. Early sown grain is doing well, while that late sown looks very poor. No one estimates the hay crop any more than three-fourths the usual quantity. Lewis Beal. North Fairfield, Me., June 25, 1870. Remarks. — The skin come from a star-nosed Mole — Condylura cHstata, of the books. The American Cyclopasdia says the star-nosed mole of North America has the end of the nose sur- rounded by 22 movable fleshy filaments, radiating in the form of a star, which serve as delicate organs of touch ; feet five-toed ; tail moderate, thinly haired. This variety of the mole is quite rare in this part of New England. Yours is a larger specimen than most of those we have seen described, and perhaps from old age or some casualty had lost some of its feelers. BrCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS IN HAYING. Mr. Brown : — You remember some twelve years ago you had the honor to act as one of the Trustees ot the State Reform School at Westboro', and, with one of your associates, had the principal manage- ment of the farm. You saw fit to employ me to execute your wishes and direct the farm work as best I could. The great meadow of blue joint had always been a trouble and was considered of little value, except for a litter. It was always left for the last work of haying, when the grass would be lodged, tough and hard to cut, and still harder to eat. With your per- mission, I cut it in the early part of June, and again in September, with so much success that our example has been followed, to the present day, and the old, worttiless meadow now atfjrds the State a large amount of excellent fodder. Cutting twice has not injured, but improved ic. Tbe present superintendent told me yesterday, that he measured and found some of the grass six feet long. Now I own a little lot of the same kind just be- low. Most of the Slate's hay is in the barn, and all of mine, and in what I call the best order. I took my pen at first to tell you how 1 cure my hay. I don't like smoky hay ; but the less drying the better, if it can be kept tiright. I had a few tons of old hay left, and 1 ttjoughc it worth more than the high price of last spruig for me to keep. So we began cutting the meadow, and with little, say half drying, began to cart it home and put a layer of the old hay, and then one of the new, with a small sprinkling of salt; then old hay and new, and so on to the end. The benefits are less risk of bad weather, saving of time, and greatly im- proves the hay. 1870. 2^W ENGLAND FAEMER. 407 Now, friend Brown, I am almost seventv-two years old. An accident to my foot has laid me aside and made me a great sufferer for the last six months. My life is barely spared. I can just hobble a little on crutches ; yet, perhaps, my expe- rience may do some one some good, and if you think so, this is at your disposal. If you will call and look at my hay, and see how bright and cool it is, and don't say it looks full of promise for a full pail of milk next winter, I will take you into my carriage and carry you all over the State farm (i/oM open the gates for us), back to supper and give jou a box of strawberries for the good wo- man. Your friend, iiiLMER Bkigham. Westhoro', Mass., June 20, 1870. Remarks. — It gives us pleasure to hear from our old friend again, but mingled with regrets that his activity is somewhat lessened by a painful ac- cident. But impeding his locomotive powers, does not seem to check the activity of his mind and observation. We very well remember the wide meadows, and our anxiety that they should become sources of profit, instead of the home of frogs and almost worthless grasses. That accu- mulating years may sit lightly upon our friend, and a clear faith and calm serenity of mind cheer the pathway of his life, is our heartfelt and sincere wish. H0K8E FEVER, WITH DESTRUCTIVE CHANGES IN THE BLOOD. I have a horse, which on being turned out to grass, swelled up all around the throat and jaws, and remained so a few days ; after which the swell- ing left the throat and settled into the lower part of the head, filling the mouth very full and hard, so that she eats with great dilliculty. She had the horse distemper last winter. Do you think it the effect of that remaining in the system, or has she eaten poison ? She is apparently well in every other particular. She eats as much as she can, but grows poor. Her eye is bright and clear. If you can inform me in regard to this com- plaint, you will confer a great favor on a poor boy who works hard and is unable to lose the value of the horse. A. c. Woodstock, Vt., June 24, 1870. Remarks. — From the frequency of such cases, this year, in horses that have had the distemper, we incline to the opinion that the trouble in this case is the result of the distemper, and we refer cur correspondent to an article by Prof. Law in the Farmer of May 7. In addition to which we copy from Dr. Law's answer in the New York Tri- bune, to an inquiry in relation to the treatment of a horse which was, we judge, in about the same condition of that of our Woodstock correspondent. He says, when the tongue and pharynx are affected, as in the above cases, it may be occasion- ally sponged with a lotion of one part of muriatic acid mixed in 15 parts of water, and applied by means of a sponge firmly tied to the end of a whalebone staff; or in place of muriatic acid, a solution of an ounce of carbolic acid in a pint of water may be employed. Similar lotions may be applied with active friction over the swellings when they appear externally. Stimulating febri- fuge medicines, such as two ounces of sweet spirits of niter, may be given thrice daily to aupport the animal in its great prostration, and for the same reason one drachm of iodide of iron and four drachms of powdered gentian may be given daily. Half-drachm doses of carbolic acid, given twice daily, have appeared to be of benefit in counter- acting the zymotic changes in the blood. The diet throughout must be nutritious and laxative, and special manifestations or complications of the disease must be combatted as they appear. Thug, colic, bleeding from the nose, bowels, or kidneys sweating of blood from the engorgements in the skin, cracks and unhealthy wounds in the bends of the joints, mortification of the skin in patches, imminence of suffocation from swelling of the nos- trils, engorgement of the larynx, or lungs, &c., have to be promptly met in different cases." POKE AND HELLEBORE TOR THE CURRANT AND CRANBERRY WORM. Mr. Ormsby, in your last issue, gives an account of his successful use of a decoction of Poke root, in exterminating the currant worm. We have no doubt of the truth of his statement. In your remarks following his statement, you say that "white hellebore, carbolic acid, and pre- parations which have been used, are somewhat costly, and some of them rather dangerous "oi- son." Now I wish to inquire if the American Hel- lebore, which is sold at the shops under the name of White Hellebore, is not the same thing as Indian Poke, Poke root, and Swamp Hellebore ? There can be no doubt about this. So that whatever dan- ger attaches to the use of the Hellebore, attaches to the use of the Poke root. The change of name, we take it, will not alter the nature of the thing. A very small quantity of the powdered Hellebore or Poke root is suflScient. With a half pound of it, dusted in the morning, from a tin box, with a lid perforated with holes, we completely expelled the first crop of worms from a long row of currant bushes. Now, June 25, a new crop of worms is beginning to appear. We shall repeat the same treatment. Tell "Farmer's Daughter" to try powdered Hel- bore on the cranberry maggot ; or if she prefers, a decoction of Poke root. r. Concord, Mass., June 25, 1870. Remarks. — The common Poke or Garget, with dark-purple juicy berries — Phytolacca decaridra, — which we supposed Mr. Ormsbee used, belongs to a different order of plants from Indian Poke, or Swamp Hellebore, — Veratrum viride, — from which the American Hellebore is made. TOBACCO. The tobacco crop has seldom been in so forward a state as it now is at this season. Ten years ago we had many growers who contended stoutly against transplanting before the middle to the 25th of June, but I notice that these same growers are very apt to set earlier now, if the plants can be obtained in season. The present year has been a very favorable one for the production of plants. In fact the eff^jrt was to get the land fitted tor the plants, rather than to wait for the plants. About the same amount of land is planted to tobacco as last year, perhaps a little more. The amount grown in Western Massachusetts, is about all that can be conveniently grown here, unless we con- trive some way of increasing the amount of ma- nure. Where commercial fertilizers are used too freely, the leaf is not so good ; it does not hajadle aa well,— feels haxsh and stiff. 408 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. We tinished setting the 9th of June this year. In 1867 we did not begin to set until the 18th, and finished the 27th of June, and the part set last was cut August 26th, lacking one day of two months, and was a fine crop. We have had very little trouble so far this year, from black worms ; but we must not crow until we get out of the woods. It isn't too late yet for the pests to cause us much diflSculty. In hoeing I do not care to disturb the roots of the plant much. I have sometimes thought that some men injured their crop more by hoeing and digging so close to the plant, than they would have done to let it entirely alone, except simply removing the weeds. I am in the habit of sow- ing about 500 pounds of Peruvian guano to the acre, at the time of the third hoeing, and think it pavs well for the outlay. Tobacco Grower. Whately, Mass., June 26, 1870. MULCHING TREES IN FRUITING. An article in your last paper from the New York Tribune, on "Mulching bearing Fruit Trees," re- minds me of a fact which I have intended to com- municate for your paper. Last year, m a pasture where some colts were, a sweet apple tree was in full fruiting. The fruit being ot higher value because of scarcity, I de- sired to save the wind-falls. It was upon quite dry ground, and much of the fruit usually fell off early ; although it was a tine-flavored apple which would keep until mid-winter. I had heard re- ports of their keeping until nearly summer. There were grey birch trees in part of the same pasture, and to save the apples from the colts birches were cut in August and hauled whole and put under the apple tree, enough to bar back the colts. Drought did not seem to affect the apples ; bat they kept on growing, and stuck to the tree. Very few indeed tell off', even when there was se- vere wind. About the tirat of October it was diffi- cult to pick them off", they adhered so firmly. They had also grown much larger than ever before since the tree came into my possession. They kept finely during winter, and in this month (June) I have eaten some of them, still in excellent flavor. This is to me very suggestive, and I pass it to you for the Farmer. The grass grew under the birches and rotted there, keeping the surface of the ground moist. Will not others try it ? A. G. c. Lee, N. H., June, 1870. TIME TO CUT OATS FOR FODDER. As I have four acres of very promising oats, which I shall cut for fodder, I wish you would tell me at what stage of their growtn they should be cut. I have been in the habit of cutting my grass too late, but have been mending this year, by cutting when it is getting well into blossom ; and I have been thinking liO better time can be had to cut the oat crop, or Hungarian grass, barley, millet, &c. Woonsocket, R. L, June 24, 1870. Remarks. — Our rule has been to cut oats for fodder just as the grain is formed, and before it will show any "milk," as it is termed, by pressing it between the thumb nails. But the clean straw that is sometimes left in the crib has led us to think it was not cut early enough. FOOT DISEASE IN CATTLE. I have had several cows that were affected, I think, like tiiend D. K- VV.'s cattle, mentioned in a late number of the Farmer. I have succeeded in curing wine by a single operation of cleaning the foot by scraping with a stick, so thoroughly as to make the blood run quite freely. To make the animal stand still during the operation on the hind feet, I chain it to a post, then put another chain around the leg above the gambrel joint ; two men can then take hold of the chain and hold the limb sufficiently still for a third man to clean the foot. T. B. Haydenville, Mass., June 22, 1870. KING BIRDS DO KILL BEES. Experience teaches me that king birds do destroy bees. I have killed several of them lately, and on opening their stomachs found in each from six to a dozen bees. I have also watched them and seen them catch bees when fly- ing about. Our crop prospects are quite flattering here in the Connecticut valley. Corn is looking well, and is forward. Some farmers have already com- menced haying. George A. Russ. Hartford, Vt., June 25, 1870. AGKICULTURAL ITEMS. — D. McMillan, of Xenia, Ohio, recently sold sixty-nine cows and bulls of pure blood Short- horns for $53,326; or #902 on an average. The cows averaged $1040, and the bulls $483. — The cost of fencing a quarter section of land in California is more than five times the amount charged by the Government for the land, owing mainly to the scarcity of timber. — A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer men- tions the loss by a neighbor of 150 nice Leghorn fowls by feeding them ground bone, purchased for that purpose. It is supposed that there was some- thing poisonous in the bone. — The Canada Farmer says the Provincial Board of Agriculture of Nova Scotia have decided to im- port $10,000 worth of pure-bred stock by the 20th of September. It will consist of horses. Short- horns, Ayrshires, DevoQS, Herefords, Alderneys, sheep and swine. — A lady correspondent of the Oh.io Farmer, after having tried a great many processes for preserv ■ ing eggs, finds the best way is to grease them all over thoroughly and keep them in a cool place, but not damp. Place the eggs after greasing, small end down. The French rub eggs with fresh but- ter. The Russians pack them in crocks small end down, and pour melted tallow over them. — Young fruit trees or shrubs which were trans- planted last fall or spring will thrive better and are less liable to suffer from the effc;cts of moving when the ground, as far as the roots extend, is mulched with salt hay, straw, long manure, or charcoal dust. When the last material is used from a peck to half a bushel to each tree will be enough spread evenly around the body of the tree. —At a late meeting of the Little Falls, N. Y., Farmers' Club, Judge Graves of Herkimer, stated that he soiled a horse from early in July until the grass ceased to grow in the Fall, from one-eighth 1870. NEW ENGLAND EAEMER. 409 of an acre of land. The land was in good condi- tion and was seeded to orchard grass. Each mornlDg while the dew was on he cut enough to last until the next morning. Besides the grass, he fed but one peck of oats a day. — Joseph Harris, Esq., in his "Walks and Talks on the Farm," in the American Agriculturist, says : "No matter what branch of farming we discuss either theoretically or practically, we are brought back to the old, old story, that, as a basis of suc- cessful operation, we must have dry, clean land. Everything must be directed to this one point. We can do nothing without it ; we can do every- thing with it." — Charles Carlisle of Woodstock, Vt., writes to the New York Farmers' Club that he experimented last year with ashes on corn, to which he apolied a shovelful of rotten manure in the hill. Fifty hills were left without the ashes ; a handful being put with the manure on the other part of the field. He weighed the product on the fifty hills unashed, and a corresponding number of hills with the ashes. The gain on the part ashed was estimated to be equal to a bushel of corn for each bushel of ashes used. He asks, is it not possible that the corn is benefited by the mixing, if we cover with the mellow soil to receive the liberated ammonia ? — Strips of zinc half an inch wide and two and a half inches long, written on with an ink, made of six grains of sulphate of copper, m-'xed with one ounce of water; dissolve and add three grains of sal-ammoniac and twenty drops of sulphuric acid, all to be had of an apothecary, is said l>y the Germantown Tdegraph to be the best style of fiwit-tree labtl that he has found during twenty- five years experience with labels of many differ- ent styles. Copper wire, No. 17, 18 or 19 must be used for fastening the labels upon the trees, and be cut of sufficient length to allow for growth of the tree. Such ink if well made and put on will last twenty years. with weeds, bushes and wood, and the farmers who, fifty years ago lacked barn room for their upland hay, are now compelled to resort to the sour, boggy land for the coarse fodder which was then considered hardly worth cutting. Bog-Meadow Hat in New England. — In one of Mr. Greeley's articles in which he is telling the readers of the New York Tribune what he " knows of firming," he says, "Fifty years ago, I judge thit the greater part of the hay made in New England was cut from sour, boggy land, that was devoted to grass simply because nothing else could be done with it. I have helped to carry the crop off on poles from considerable tracts on which oxen could not venture without miring." Mr. Greeley spent his boyhood in New Hampshire and Vermont, the same States in which we learned much of the little that we know of farming; but we cannot agree with him in this estimate. In the sections with which we were acquainted we should estimate the proportion of hay from sour, boggy land would not exceed one ton in twenty- five of the whole amount cut. The hill sides which were then productive in clover, herdsgrass and redcop, are in many cases now overgrown AMEBICAM" DAIRYMEN IN ENGIiAND. From a letter dated Longford, Eogland, May SO, 1870, written by Mr. C. Schemer- horn, one of the American cheese-makers who have gone to England to introduce the factory system there, and published in the Utica Her- ald, we make the following extracts : — After my brother arrived he took charge of the factory at Derby, and I struck out for Longford, 10 miles west of Derby, where the other factory was under way, which was com- pleted in a short time, and commenced opera- tions the 5th of May, The building is a new one, thirty-two feet by ninety and two stories high ; make-roora sixty feet long. It has the drop flocm and gates in the vats, saving the labor of dipping the curds by hand. There are twenty-live patrons, and I am making twenty-two cheeses a day, ten inches deep and pressed in a fourteen inch hoop. I have now in the curing room upwards of 600 cheeses in number. It astonishes all to see how fist ihey accumulate. It is more than was ex- pected. I color the cheese some, and use Nichol's fluid exfra(,'t of annatto, which takes the preference in this country, and ought to in America. It is free from sediment, so tisere is none to settle in the bottom of the vat while the milk is coagulating, to leave a streaked color in the cheese afttr curing. This annatto cannot be shipped in basket s. but comes in keg^ or casks, and is a paste before preparing, and is the pure annatto, while it has to be reduced to a great extent to allow shipping in baskets. Ic takes bur. a small quautity to color a large amount of cheese or outter, and gives the best shade desired. England is suffering fjr rain. The grain is backward on this account, and unless rain comes so- n it is anticipated the crops will be light. The grass has not suffered as much, although crops in some sections are turning brown and are getting dry. Saturday, the 21st, was the warmest day of the season. Thermometer stood at 83°, while the i>Jd, in the afte '^noon, it stood at 5t°. The fcky is generally cloudy, smoky or foggy. In the evening the bght of the sun fades away slowly. A few evenings ago I was reading at 'dh o'clock y-n the twilight, while in the winter time I have been told darkness commences at oi o'' clock in the afternoon, especially in Lon- don, which is a very smoky city. The cattle here are good size, and chiefly short-horn. After being in the dairy for thrae or four years they are tatted for beef, (that is, in this section.) They fat very quickly and make good beef. England cannot pro- 410 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. duce enough beef at home. A large quantity of meats come from Au^t^alia, prepared there and shipped here. This section was visited by the cattle plague several years ago, but not so much as othtr sections, although some dai- ries of forty cows were attacked wih it, and they were all slaughtered to get rid of the dis- ease. The cattle here now are troubled with the foot and mouth disease, whiih is extrtmely contagious. The cows first show signs of it by a very quick decline of milk, smacking their lips and drooling from the mouth. The tongue and the mouth are covered with large yellow blisters, which break after a couple of days. The eyes are dull, and the flesh hot. The an- imal dislikes to eat on account of the soreness of the mouth. Occasionally the breaking out is on the feet, and the hoofs drop off at times ; (when the sheep have it, it most generally de- prives them of the hoofs.) The best remedy is gruel of wheat bran mash (some put salt in the mouth) and grass cut tine. The better condition you can keep the animal in the sooner in will recover. After an animal has had it once it is likely not to have it again for several years. TO BHEEDBRS OF HOHSES. I am induced to write a few lines in answer to the frequent inquiry which is made by letter and otherwise, as to the influence of unsound- ness in sire or dam, especially of the dam. upon their produce. I am aware that the sub- ject has been treated of often, but fails to be coni-idered in the proper light by breeders among u«. My experience and that of others with whom I have conversed, ia that more than half of the marts bred are quire unfit to produce first class f)rogeny. I believe more care is taken to se- ect sires, but if a mare has been a good one or not, and has become foundered, or spav- ined, or wind broken or otherwise unfit for market, men believe that something is saved to breed from such animals, and expect to be repaid for the physical disability under which the dam is liboiing, by reproducing a foal lia- ble to the same weakness which caused the in- jury to the dam. And these injuries become fixed types, as the strain upon the animal economy is greater in any given direction through a series of generaMous. Thus dams are selected which have broken down, and are no longer suited foi active labors or the turf. This course pursued for ten years longer as it has been for the last ten years in Maine, and we may bid good bye to the profit and pleasure of breeding the best horse that goes to market. You who spend five years of care and necessary expense to raise a colt fit for the harness, ask yourselves whether you are willing, when selling an animal, to take a doubtful note for his value. There is as much reason in that, as in expecting an animal con- I stitutionally defective, to give you a satisfac- tory progeny. I am not speaking at random, or discussing physiological science, but offer- ing a warning which careful investigation in my own practice has made certain. I can point out to any person who desires to make ob- servation, a large number of mares of consti- tutionally light muscle, which have almost in- variably produced colts that have broken down. And this is more seen when the breed- ing of the mare is so good, (with the excep- tion of the difficulty in question) as to admit of her determining the general characteristics of the progeny. Another point is also of much importance, to those who wish to breed to a given quali- fication. Many men expect to breed a trotter by coupling a mare which has no lines of fast blood in her pedigree, with a fast horse. Ex- perience proes that this is rarely done at the first cross, but may be done by two or three in-crossings. Therefore it is necessary when we wi^h to breed speed, that the dam and sire, both be found in aline of speedy ani- mals. To effect this, I cannot but urge in- breeding much more than is now done, espe- cially the second generation to the grandsire, and the second generations to others, when- ever it is desirable to intensify or increase any characteristic. Will not some of our young breeders take up this suggestion in in-breeding, and give the public the advantage of their experience. — T. S. Lang, in Maine Farmer. For the New England Farmer, MEDICAL TOPICS. * BY A MEDICAL MAN. The diseases of mos^^t frequent occurrence in the latitude of I^ew England, during the months of July, August and September are DiarrLoea, Cholera and Dysentery; — Of these we purpose to write briefly', and in the order here indicated. Diarrhoea. This term literally signifies &fliix or loose- ness occurring from any portion of the body; but as commonly emplo\'ed, it denotes a mor- bid frequency of the discharges from the bowels, the dejections being at the same time liquid, or morbidly soft, and frequently other- wise altered in character. Wuen the dejec- tions consist of feces not much changed in character, but simply lijuid or semi-liquid, the diarrhoea is said to be feful, feculent, stercora- ceous or simple. When, from the yellow or green color of the discharges, bile is supposed to be present in larger quantity than u>ual, the affection is called bilious diarrhoea. When the matter discharged is very watery, consisting mostly of serum, the diarrhoea is cMed serous. When the dejections consist principally of un- digested food, we have a case of lienteric diarrhoea. When the discharges are chiefly mucous or slimy, the diarrhoea is said to be 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARMER. 411 catarrhal or dysenteric. When the matter dejftcted contains fat or oil in considerable proportion, the disease is called adipose or fatly diarrhoea. Diarrhcea may be a symptom of inflammation of the intestines, or of certain diseases of the bowels incident to consumption, typhoid fever, or some other disease ; it may be an element of cholera, dyspepsia, and certain cases of colic ; or, it may be what doctors call an idiopathic disease — that is, a disease of itself — a primary disease — in which case it is Ui>ual- ly the result of the action of undigested food, or else of the depressing and relaxing effeci of extreme heat. The treatment of diarrhoea should vary ac- cording to the circumstances of individual cases. If the affection be symptomatic, that is, if it be only a symptom of some other dis- ease, the parent disease or primary affection must be attended to first, for there is little use in efforts made to stop the effect while the cause is siiffered to continue. Nevertheless, in this form of diarrhoea it is not only useful, but absolutely necessary, sometimes, to ad- minister anodyne and astringent medicines for the purpose of relieving pain and checking the discharges, although the effect be not perma- nent. Among the various remedies employed for this purpose, opium and its several prepa- rations occupy the front rank. One fourth of a grain to two grains of opium ; or, ten to forty drops of laudanum ; or, a teaspoonful to two table spoonfuls of paregoric ; or, five to fifteen grains of Dover's powder; or, one eighth to one fourth of a grain of morphia, are the usual doses for an adult ; for children, the doses must be greatly lessened, and in pro- portion to the age. As a rule, however, these articles are not safe remedies for domestic or family u-e, and, with the exceptions of parego- ric and Dover's powder, should never be em- ployed except as prescribed by a competent physician. The safer remedies for common use, are tannic ac^d or 'tannin," gallic acid, white oak bark, blackberry root, kino, catechu, logwood, cranesbill, or some other one of the many valuable astringents which have a place in the Materia Medica. But anodynes and astringents, such as opium, tannic acid, oak bark, etc., should be used only as palliatives, except in cases in which the discharges are produced or continued by debility and muscular relaxation. If irri- tation caused by improper food has occa- sioned the trouble ; if the discharges are pro- duced by au effort of nature to rid the system of a redundancy of bile, or some other offending material ; or, if the diarrhoea be an element of active inflammation of the bowels, such things as we have mentioned should be used cautious- ly, if at all ; and in many cases they are quite inadmissible. The transient diarrhoeas caused by overloading the stomach, improper food, a redundam;y of bile, &c., do not, as a rule, ' require much medicine. Rest, with abstinence from food and drinks for twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six hours, will generally effect a cure. If the contents of the large intestines be not expelled spontaneously, which may be inferred from the entire absence of solid matter, a cathartic of Epsom salts, rhubarb, or castor oil, may be administered with advantage ; or the following preparation, which is a favorite with many, may be employed : — Take of pow- dered rhubarb one ounce ; saleratus, or bicar- bonate of soda, half an ounce. Mix, and steep a teafpoonful of the powd-er in a gill of hot water for half an hour ; then strain, and add sugar to suit the taste — also a little essence of peppermint or cinnamon. This dose should be repeated every hour, until it operates as a cathartic. Other mild cathartics may be used instead of those mentioned, if preferred. Af- ter the intestines have been thoroughly cleared, mild astringents and anodynes may be em- ployed, if the disease continues. If active inflammation of the bowels be present, or if the diarrhoea be dependent on or connected with ulceration of any portion of the alimentary canal, or if it be "a compli- cation with any organic disease, the case should be placed in the care of a skilful and judicious physician. A proper attention to diet is important in all cases of diarrhoea. During the first day or two all food should be avoided, or nearly so ; and when taken it should be composed of such articles as are most easily digested. Rice meal gruel, farina gruel, arrow-root gruel, wheat flour gruel, milk with bread, crackers or rice, and sometimes tender mett, such as chicken, lamb or beef, may be taken without injury. A moderate quantity of food, taken at short intervals, is generally advisable, rather than a full meal once or twice daily. Drinks should be taken sparingly. A little rice water ; an infusion of good black tea, or of raspberry, or strawberry leaves ; bread or barley coffee, or even good Java ; iced water in small quanti- ties ; — these are the best drinks, in most oases. Sometimes a little old cider, port wine or brandy may be taken witho'it harm, and even with advantage ; but inasmuch as it is difficult to obtain pure wine or brandy, \t is safer to let them alone. Much benefit has sometimes been experienced from wearing upon the ab- domen a compress of dry Jlannel, or a wet compress of cotton or linen cloth, covered by a dry girdle or bandage. The Bee Moth. — Now is the time to be on the look out for the moth-worms. During the next two or three months they breed fast, and every one destroyed now will save you the trouble of destroying hundreds a little later in the season, and besides, save you much loss. The best time to get rid of them is in the morning, when they will be found generally upon the bottom board of the hive. Do not neglect it. — Agriculturist. 412 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. A JQNB VISIT TO AN" OLD FARM. Beauty of the country — Rural taetes of a friend— Far- mers' Convention in N. H.— Farm of Q, W. Lane in Derry— Old friends in council — Stone ■wails, miles of, and ditches — An orchard waked up — Cabbage, mi.k, &c, — Exhausted sc ils revived— Value of example. KiDE across the country in the "leafy month of June" must be a pleasure to any lover of na- ture. But taken in such a June as this, when • heat and mois- ture have given a luxuriance of foliage and flow- ers rarely wit- nessed, the care- ful observer will realize an entertainment and instruction entirely surpassing what is usually found in fashion- able haunts. These outward attractions were greatly heightened by the presence of a neigh- bor and friend, the Hon. John S. Keyes, late U. S. Marshal for the District of Boston, who loves nature and riding as well as old Izaak Walton did "virtue and angling." He finds infinitely more satisfaction in prying into the ways of the wonderful nature about us than into the ways of rogues who operate to deprive the government of its just dues, or who im- peril its safety. So with steeds that seemed to enjoy the travel, as we did the cool air and charming scenery, every mile of the way offered topics which were interesting and in- structive to discuss. At the Farmers^ Convention, held at Man- chester, N. H., last winter, Mr. G. W. Lane, of Derry, in that State, took part in the dis- cussions, and attracted attention by referring to the magnitude of his farming operations, as well as by their diversity and their nature. This led me to make many inquiries, and the conversation ended by his extending an invi- tation to myself, to Joseph S. Abbott, Esq., of Concord, whose fame as a coach builder is well known wherever coaches are run, and to the Hon. J. D. Lyman, then Secretary of the State of New Hampshire, and the gentleman who has offered in the New Hampshire State Society, and paid the $100 premium on corn, and now offers a like sum for the present year. My friend made up the quarto, all farmers, and working more or less jvith their own hands. Mr. Lane purchased what is well known in all that region of country as the "Old Gen. Derby Place," and which is a very beautiful estate. It stands on an eminence overlooking the country for a circuit of at least fifty miles in every direction, bringing into view the ocean, in clear weather, the Monadnock, Kearsarge, Ragged, Wachuset and Unconoo- nak Mountains, and from the cupola of the house, the spires in about forty different towns. The farm consists of some 250 to 300 acres, having a heavy, granite loam soil, full of springs, and originally plenty of stones. The latter have been removed to a considerable extent, and large quantities of them laid up in substantial balance walls, so that now there are between four and five miles of stone walls on the highways. There are one and a quarter miles of ditches, which are excavated three and a half feet deep by the same width. In the bottom of the ditch — which is all what is called hardpan — a duct is formed of substantial stones, leaving an aperture about eight inches square ; this is covered with shavings, coarse straw or brush, as compactly as it can be conveniently made, then with small stones for a foot or more, and finished off by returning the earth which had been thrown out, rounding up the surface as much as it is supposed it would settle. The effect of this drainage upon the soil he describes not only as clearly perceptible, but quite remarkable. An apple orchard which had borne only the most meagre crop of indif- ferent fruit for many years, brought a bounti- ful crop of fair fruit the year succeeding the draining. Some of this fruit, now on hand, June 30, is sound, crisp and juicy. He im- putes the change to the drainage, as no tilling of the soil had taken place, if we understood him correctly. Quite as beneficial a change was manifest on all the crops, he said, as on the apple crop. On the 25th of September last, in passing the farm, I noticed a field of cabbage which seemed from the carriage to be excellent. Mr. Lane informed me that he sold this crop about the middle of April last, after keeping 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEIklER. 413 them through the winter, set out in the ground and covered with leaves, straw and brush. The field contained seven acres. This year he expects to raise 20,000 heads. On one and a fourth acre he got last year 32 tons of rutabaga and mangold wurzel. He keeps 32 head of cattle, among them 25 cows ; sold last year 3,630 cans of milk ; will in- crease it this year to 4,000 cans ; cuts about 80 tons of hay, which quantity he will probably double in a few years, if his operations are successful. Mr. Lane states that after purchasing the farm, his neigbors told him that the land was all exhausted by a long process of annually taking off crops in the fields and grazing the pastures, and that they must be very light hereafter until a thorough process of tillage and manuring had been gone into. "But," said he, "this land where those teams are ploughing brought a heavy crop of cabbage las-t year with only a fair dressing of manure; it was kept entirely free from grass and weeds, and when thf. cabbages were harvested, the land was clean and froze up so.'''' He stated further, that on a portion of tbis land he had just cut a fair crop of grass, although nothing had been done to the land afcer the cabbages were taken cflf! Upon hearing this statement, I left the party, went off to where one of the tearod was ploughing, and found that there was no sward, but the red top was eighteen inches high, and clo- ver in considerable luxuriance, and took samples of each to the other visitors. "This is the land," said Mr. L., "that was pro- nounced exhausted, but was exhausted like a drowning jaan, because it couldn't breathe. Now that I have let the breath of life into it, see what it will do !" And it was wonderful what it, was doing. One of his heavy operations since the snow went off is the pulling up of bushes and young trees by the roots over an extent of forty acres ! This was done by ox-power, and done so thoroughly as to bring the whole into a fine tilth by the usual ploughing and harrowing. A portion of this land is to be devoted to cab- bage, mangold and rutabaga ; another por- tion, and the seven acres where the cabbage grew last year, to barley, which is to be sown early in July. It does not seem to me that the barley crop will be perfected before frosts will overtake it ; but he states that sixty days of favorable weather will biing it to perfection. He will put in sixteen acres of it. These operations cannot be indulged in without the outlay of capital which few farmers can command ; but they are examples of great value to all farmers. If they prove in- judicious, they can avoid them ; if successful, they can imitate them, and find a profit in so doing. They should be carefully observed by all who can occasionally see them, so that they may avail themselves of their lessons, either in avoiding or imitating. To me, they confirm the opinions I have long entertained in regard to the importance of thorough drainage, and of high culture in what we undertake. HAKVESTINQ SMALL GRAINS. The season for harvesting the small grains, rye, wheat, oats and barley, and the importance of cut- ting them at the proper time to secure the best results, have not been fairly considered by most farmers. This is important, whether the crop is to be used as hay or for the grain ; both will be materially affected by the condition in which the crop is when cut. There has not yet, in this country, we believe, been any thorough and reliable experiments made, in order to ascertain the condition of grain which has been cut at different periods of time, or when the grain was in difi'erent conditions. To do this so as to be reliable would not only incur cost of time and money, but the aid of very skilful manipulation, such as few persons among us at present possess. In a discussion on "the influence of the time of cutting on the quantity and quality of the produce of hay and grain," Johnston, in his Elements, expresses a decided opinion that the period at which both hay and grain are cut materially aifects the quantity and quality of the produce. All farmers have noticed, perhaps, that when radishes are left long in the ground they become hard and woody. The same natural change goes on in the grasses which are cut for hay. So it is with grain, both as regards the straw and the grain they yield. The rawer the crop is cut, he says, the heavier and more nourishing the straw. That is, we suppose, after the straw has nearly attained its growth ; for it is not to be supposed that straw half grown would be as nourishing as that which had come nearly to perfection. With- in three weeks of being fully ripe, the straw begins to diminish in weight ; and the longer it remains uncut after that time, the lighter it becomes, and the less nourishing. On the other hand, he adds, the ear, which is 41-1 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. sweet and milky a month before it is ripe, grda- nally consolidates — the sugar changing into starch, and the milk thickening into the gluten and albu- men of the flour. As soon as this change is nearly completed, or about a fortnight before it is ripe, the grain of wheat contains the largest proportion of starch and gluten. If reaped at this time, the bushel will weigh most, owrf will yield the largest quantity of fine flour and the least bran. At this period the grain has a thin skin, but if left uncut, the next natural step in the ripening process is to cover the grain with a better protec- tion— a thicker skin. A portion of the starch of the grain is changed into woody fibre, precisely as in the ripening of hay. It is clear, therefore, that the quantity of starch would be lessened, while the thicker skin would give a larger weight of bran or husk, and a decrease of flour. After going through many experimeiits in the laboratory, in addition to facts gathered else where, Johnston says that "theory and experience both indicate about a fortnight before it is fully ripe as the most proper time for cutting wheat. The skin is then thinner and whiter, the grain fuller, the bushel heavier, the yield of flour greater, its color fairer, and the quantity of bran less ; while at the same time, the straw is heavier, and con- tains more soluble matter than when it is left un- cut until it is considered to be fully ripe." It is said, also, that early cut oats are heavier per bushel, fairer to the eye, and usually sell for more money. A week before full ripeness, how- ever, is the utmost that is recommended in the case of oats. Barley cut in the striped state is also thinner in the skin, sprouts quicker and more vigorously. There are one or two other things to be consid- ered. Where it is intended to feed the straw of these grains to cattle, the early cutting is still an- other matter of importance. The straw, then, if well cured and housed, is better than meadow hay, and scarcely second to much of the English hay. Early cutting also lets the sun in to the young grass, and greatly aids its getting established so as to resist the influence of the winter. A more careful attention to these matters would result, we think, in a very considerable saving to our farmers. NEW ENQIiAND AQ'L SOCIETY. The Premiutu List of the New England Agri- cultural Society for their Seventh Annual Exhi- bition to be held in the City of Manchester, N. H., on the grounds of the Manchester Riding Park, September 6-9, 1870, has been issued. Tire gen- eral arrangement is about the same as last year. The first premiums on cattle are the same now as then, while the second and third are generally reduced. There is also a marked reduction in prizes offered for fat cattle and sheep, — a branch of farming that it seems to us just now to deserve encouragement from the New England Agricultu- ral Society. Very little attention we believe has been given to the subject by the managers of agri- cultural associations. The state of the meat mar- ket and the impoverished condition of our soils, suggest to our minds the expediency of drawing out the experience of the few individual feeders scattered over New England, who have been suc- cessful in this business, and who would probably respond to less premiums than are oflered to the trainers of trotting horses. We are glad, however, to notice that the fast horse is not quite as prom- inent on the prize list as heretofore. Two years ago the "Premiums for Trotting Horses" amounted to $6,550 ; one year ago to #3550 ; while this year only $2250 of the Society's funds are announced as "Special Premiums for Trotting Horses." Any person who does not receive a copy other- wise, can have one forwarded by mail on applica- tion to Col. Needham of Boston, or Col. George W. Riddle, of Manchester, N. H. Wool on the Pacific Coast. — W. Holly, Esq., Secretary of the woolen Manufacturers Af sociation of the South and West, while on a visit to California, writes at San Francisco to the Western Rural that the Pacific coast is a Paradise for wool growers who uDQs>rstand their business. The extraordin- ary yield of wool, and the rapid increase of stock, without the expense of winter feeding or liability to loss by disease, offer great inducements to capi- tal and enterprib°. As compared with last year, statistics show an increase of nearly 3,000,000 pounds, and the condition of the wool this year is very much improved over that of former years. The difference is fully 15 per cent., cleaner than last year; the staple is good, strong, and healthy. On his way to California, Mr. Holly had a per- sonal interview, at Salt Lake City, with Brigham Young, who expressed great interest in the opera- tions of the "Woolen Manufacturers' Association of the West and South," and signified his inten- tion to contribute samples of wool and specimens of cloths manufactured at his mills, and also prom- ised to encourage his people to follow his example. There are seven woolen mills and two cotton mills in Utah Territory. The amount of this year's clip of wool in Califor- nia and Oregon is estimated at 19,830,000 pounds. The St. Albans, Vt., Bitter Market. — Mr. 0. S. Bliss, Secretary of the Vermont Dairymen's Association, in a communication to the Country Gentleman, says that there is no market associa- tion or organization at St. Albans, but simply a coming together of the people, originating chiefly in the fact that the Vermont Central P^ailroad, several years ago, adopted the plan of running refrigerator cars for butter one day in a week from St. Albans. Previous to that time most of the butter was bought by agents who went about the country from house to house, but as farmers were 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 415 often unwilling to dispose of their bntter at the price offered, it was frequently agreed that more should be paid if others got more at St. Albans. The home trade was thus gradually transferred to St. Albans, and Tuesday became market day. As many as four hundred, seldom less than two hun- dred, farmers' teams are now in town on that day, with both butter and cheese. WE BHOTHERS BBO^WM". BY HIRAM RICH. We sing no songs of camps or kings, We write no love-lora story ; We lead no conqueriig column on, Yet we uphoFi its glory. High, brolher-t, high. The btinnera fly and fly — We brothers bro wn — We two bare hands. In many a port the hatches fall, The ship is full and ready — The criiven reef is j ast a-lee. Look lively, lads and steady. Sway, brothers), sway. Haul and DeUy, belay — We brothers brown — We two bare hands. In forests deep, awaiting us. The keels to be arc growing — • The sea has never sa Is enough, The winds are ever bloving. Swing, brothers, swing. The axes ring and ring— We brothers brown — We two bare hands. The prairies roll and bloom and lure As were ihe world one meadow; The clouds are only looms tha' drop Their ripplin« w^fts of thadow. Sow, brothers, sow. The grain will grow and grow — We brothers b.own — We two bare hands. The sea is kind ; throw net and line, It cannot we'l deny us, — There's always netd upon the land — The winds ivcr; madj to try us. Pull, brotbers, pull. Our nets are full and fall, — We bro^h rs brown — We two bare hands. We sow and pull, we swing and away, We whirl the whe^l of Labor, We brini< the d^iy when king and king, Will be but man aid neighoor. Sing, brotnevs, sing. Our song shall ring and ring, We brothers brown — We two bire hands. For the N'ew England Farmer, THE ILLINOIS CORN CROP. BT JOHN DAVIS. Ploughing for corn usually begins after the spring small grains are in, — say from the middle to the last of April, in Central Illinois. It is mostly done with two horses, to a common cast-steel, twelve or fourteen-inch plough, by a man or boy walking in the far- row, holding the h tndles and drivmg the team. It is not uncommon to see three horses driven abreast to a plough cutting fourteen to sixteen inches. Much of the ploughing is done, also, by gang-ploughs, attached to a pair of wh-els, turning two farrows, and drawn by four horses. The driver sits on a seat above the ploughs, managing them by means of a lever, and driving the team with two or four lines. This manner of ploughing is coming much into use and produces good results. Some of the gang ploughs are so arranged that one plough may be placed behind the other, thus forming a trench or subsoil arrangement. This is a very valuable ft ature, as it is impossible to work our Illinois prairies too deeply. After corn ground is broken, it is usually well harrowed, and then marked off with a three -runnered sled or marker, into rows not quite four feet apart. The planting is done by a man and a boy, with two horses and a two-rowed coin planter, traveiiing at right angles to the libove-mentloued marks. The furrows for the corn are opened by a pair of sharp steel-shod runners, under the weight of the boy who sits on the low front seat and works the dropping lever. The corn is cov- ered by a pair of wooden wheels which carry the driver and the principal ws-ight of the nii- chiue. The boy dismounts at the end of the row, to arrange the stake which measures the width of the rows and guides the driver on hid next return trip. The machine is turned by the driver and team, the boy re-mounts and two more rows are planted. Twelve to fif- teen acres are thus planted, in the best man- ner, in a single day. Double or two-bladed shovel ploughs, single shovels and turning ploughs drawn by one horse, are mostly used in cultivation. There are devices for coupling two ploughs together, of each of the above sorts, either with or without wheels, to be drawn by two horses. Some of these devices are very excellent, do- ing good work economically. Tuere are many patent cultivators also, drawn by a pair of horses, managed by a man or boy either on foot or riding. These usu- ally have four blades, or ploughs of various shapes, making four furrows at a single through. In good mellow soils, promptly attended to, these cultivators are valuable, but in negligent, careless h:mds, much bad woikis done. Soils, compacted by rains and becoming weedy, need careful ploughing to throw the dirt into the hills, to cover the weeds, before they get too Lirge. If this is not done at the proper time the crop is seriously damaged, as it would be impossible to clean out by hand hoeing the large crops generally planted. Tbe hand hoe is never u.-ed. and where the crop is properly managed is never needed. I will here say that ploughing is usually done better by men on foot, than by persons riding. This is es'pecially the case if the ploughman is disinterested "hired help." If the corn crop is designed for cattle feed it is cut, during September and October, just 416 NEW ENGT.AOT) FARMER. Sept. above the ground and set on end in round I shocks. There it stands till needed in the winter. It is then hauled on sleds or wagons and | soa'tered on the ground among the t-attls. Hogs follow the oatile and get a good living as scavengers. But hogs are not fattened for market in this way. If the crop is designed to make pork, a portion of the field is fenced off for a hog lot, where it can be readily supplied with water, and the hogs turned into the stanfling crop. The remainder of the corn is jerked from the stalk, hauled in wagon'' and scattered among the hogs as they require it. This fattening process commences in August or early Sep- tember, and should be completed by cold weather. At any rate, not later than the mid- dle of December. Good thrifty hogs fatten very fast on new soft corn, during the usually fine weather of our long western autumns. The best hogs used for this wholesale man- ag*-raent are grade Berk.-«hires, and similar Lardy breeds. They should be from fifteen to twenty months old at the end of the process ; should have fallowed cattle the previous win- ter, and lived on clover and the small grain stubble field through the summer. They should consume the kitchen and other slops and offal, with a little corn from time to time during their early days. Our best beef cattle are grade short-horns, and bhonld be sold in spring or early summer when full four years old. They are often turned off sooner, but it is not considered the mot-t profitable. Some of the graziers and feeders have experimented largely with Te.xas catfle a few years past. Th<'.y did it on the principle that "cattle is cattle ." The experi- ment, however, is seldom tried twice by the same man. It is readily perceived that there is a "vast difference in cattle." Burnt fingers are splendid reminders in such cases, and the lesson is seldom forgotten when learned through heavy losses. These old ways of using up the corn crop are gradually giving place to a direct sale of the crop, for shipment to the markets of the country. On thi.-3 plan it is hulked from the stalk in the fall and thrown into temporary cribs and covered from the weather. Here it awaits the convenience of the owner to be hauled to the railroad station or boat landing. Tt, is then shelled by steam or horse power, sacked and shipped ; sometimes by the farmer, but oftener by men who deal in grain as a busi- ness. The harvested confields, containing the gtalks, husks and refuse or neglected corn, is depastured through the winter by cattle and other farm stock. Box 50, Decatur, 111., June, 1870. — A horse is fond of hay, and he chews it better when he has not a bit in his mouth. EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. SALTPETRE, AND TTTRNHfO IN OKEEN CROPS. I was hiehly interested in your editorial con- cernina; saltpetre. I experimented somewhat on a compound, meant to be a perfect fettilizer — i. e.,to contain all the elements of plant food, last year, — and am still doing so this year. It contains saltpetre or sal- ni're, (crude nitrate of soda). Also nitrate of pot- ash ; — is not the latter also saltpetre ? I suppose it is nitrogen in one of its forms, reduced to, or confined with, a salt or mineral substance — pot- ash— as the former is nitrogen combined with the salt of soda. Bone, gypsum, and salt, (chloride of sodium) were also contained in this manure. As far as I have experimented, it seems to be proving satisfactory. Instead of costing me onlv five cents a pound, however, saltpetre cost me $9..50 a hun- dred in Boston. Nitrate of potash cost 12^ cents a pound. If there is any form in which it can be had at a rate much lower than I paid, or any place where it could be thus had, I would like to know it. Used above, it would (would it not?) cause a growth of vegetation of a rank nature, but lacking silica; and grain thus raised would lodge, just as a strip in a fine acre of wheat on mv place, ma- nured from the barn cellar, lodges, while the rest, fertilized with this compound, ashes, bone dust, &c., alternately, stands upright. (Thanks to Mr. Henry Poor's advice for the wheat.) It would also cause the exhaustion of the other elements of plant food from the soil. How have you been in the habit of using it? Must it be dissolved? It so, how should it be applied? In combination with an absorbent, or in a liquid form ? In the latter way, an H. H. D. on a wagon, with a hole near the bottom, and a furrowed board to cause the liquid to spread out in different directions, would be a cheap mode of facilitating the business. Or can it be applied dry, broadcast, and dis- solved by rain ? I have a field of grass land so far from any barn as to make it inconvenient to cart manure, which I want nearer home, to it. I shall top dress it with something this fall, and for this reason, make these inquirie-*. What would be the difference in the eflFect of nitrate of soda, and nitrate of potash ? Contrary to the rule, I used wood ashes in my compound. What kind of a fertilizer would old bog hay, ploughed in, make ? A neighbor of mine sowed the different parts of a field, last year, with buckwheat, and with oats, and ploughed them under for a fertilizer; he then sowed to winter wheat. The wheat looks by far the best where the oats were turned in. I have heard it stated that buckwheat had a poisonous nature to other crops following it on the same soil, and for this reason it was condemned as a green fertilizer. Several years since a prominent nurseryman and fanner near Philadeluliia, advanced the opin- ion that the southern field pea was by far the best gr< en manure crop that could be raised, espe- cially on light soils ; that it exhausted the soil but little, obtaining a large part of its nourishment from the atinohphere. I think the pea is al-o fitted to draw the inorganic element from the soil in a more crude state than many other crops. A mar- ket gardener told me he could gai as good results from ground hone as a pea fertilizer, in a crude state, as after it had been reduced to a finer condi- tion with sulphuric acid— and that this was the case with few crops. The coarse particles thus appropriated would become suffieiently refined by passing through the vegetable organs of the pea vine, to fit them for food for any other plant. Bone is peculiarly adapted to fertilize the pea 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 417 crop ; and if the cost of the seed be not too great, it would seem to be a good crop for the purpose. The great objection to clover is, that without high manuring, it takes until the second year to get a crop, while it would seem that two crops of peas might be raised and turned in the same year. Th» objection to oats would be, I suppose, that they draw too heavily from the soil, and not enough from the atmosphere. The name "south- ern field pea," seems to indicate a variety grown in the south as a field crop — probably for hog or cattle feed. Then there is the Canada pea, sowed sometimes with oats — the question might arise, what is the value of this pea, with or without the oats, for a green fertilizer ? Probably the south- ern pea, like southern corn, makes a larger growth than the northern varieties. How about winter rye for this purpose ? I should like to hear the opinions of the editor in regard to this question of green manuring. Perhaps other crops than wheat would follow buokwheat, as well as oats. John. Franklin, Mass., June, 1870. Remarks. — Nitrate of potash is, as yon suppose, saltpetre. The experiment with it to which you refer was made before the war, when saltpetre cost much less than at present. Used alone, it would probably have the effect upon crops which you indicate,— greatly increasing their size at the expense of strength and firmness. Wheat, on clay loams that are highly manured, sometimes entirely fails to produce grain, but has a heavy growth of stem and leaves which fall to the ground. In using saltpetre, we get it as fine as we can conveniently by pounding and sow it broadcast. In the experiment referred to, 160 pounds of salt- petre were used, and the same number of pounds, per acre, of plaster. In reply to your question, "What would be the difference in the eflFect of nitrate of soda, and ni- trate of potash," we would say that there is much more of potash in the composition of most vegeta- bles, than of soda. Hence they are more hungry for potash than for soda, and obtain what they need from nitrate of potash. Nitrate of potash contains a larger quantity of nitric acid than does nitrate of soda; hence there is more nitrogen fur- nished for vegetable use than there is from nitrate of soda. In other words, nitrate of potash is more immediately active, and furnishes a larger quan- tity of what vegetables most need. Old bog hay, ploughed under, a little at a time, would probably enrich a soil so as to enable it to produce abundant crops, after the process had been continued for some years. There are several other points touched upon by our correspondent, all of them of interest and im- portance. We hope others will note and remark Ujjon them. With regard to manuring by green crops, we have often spoken encouragingly. By this process any of our lands may be made pro- ductive. Whether this can hQ profitably done, will depend upon a variety of circumstances, which would require considerable space to discuss. But that our "scrub oak" lands and pine plains may be redeemed, we cannot doubt when, to-day, people are making some portions of the desert of Sahara to blossom as the rose. Upon the whole, we are inclined to think the clover is to be the great renovator in preference to any plant yet used, in restoring exhausted soils to a state of fertility. FOOT ROT IN CATTLE. In the autumn of 1868. I went to the pasture to look after and salt my catile. Missing a fine steer from my herd, which always came at my call I searched about and soon found him lying down and unable to rise, — one foot being in the condi- tion described by your correspondent, D. K. W. Having a small can of kerosene oil with me, I saturated the foot with it thoroughly and left the animal in the pasture. I returned ogain the same day to note effect of, and to repeat thie application. Three or four applications cured the foot, and the steer did well. Several cattle belonging to my neighbors and acquaintances have since been similarly aff'^cted, and I have recommended applications of kerosene oil. and with unvarying success. John Durant. BrookHeld, Mass ,June 29, 1870. Remarks. — The carboline, or carbolic acid, con- tained in the kerosene oil, was undoubtedly the curative principle in this case, as its use is recom- mended in this disease. In behalf of D. K. W., and others, who may have cattle with this disease, we thank Mr. Durant for his statement. BLOOD wart on COLT. I have a two-year-old colt that has awai;t on the inside of the hind leg just above the gambrel joint. It is about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and is what we call here a bloody wart. If you can tell me how to cure it yon will much oblige Dudswell, Can., July 4, 1870. J. C. Lassell. Remarks. — As warts left to themselves gener- allly disappear when their time comes, a great va- riety of applications have the credit of cures. Caustics are often used. Pare the wart down to the quick, then with a feather, small brush, or a stick broomed or roughed at the end, apply the caustic, being careful not to touch any part but the wart. Yellow Orpiment wetted with a little water, is re- commended by Dr. McClure ; butter of antimony, or nitric or sulphuric acid by others. Dr. McClure says that the Yellow Orpiment will cause consider- able inflammation, but in t. few days the wart will drop oflF, leaving a healthy sore, which soon heals. If the whole wart does not come oflF on the first applicai-ion, a second must be made. We have known a little of the butter of antimony being ap- plied three times a day until the roots of the wart appear to be dead. After the wart is exterminated, a lotion of one pint of rum, half pint water, one ounce of aloes and one-fourth ounce of myrrh, pul- verized, and mixed, is recommended by a corres- pondent of the Rural New Yorker as a wash to be used three times a day on the sore. Prof. Law, the Veterinary Lecturer of the Mas- sachusetts Agricultural College, recommends tying a stout hard cord round the neck of the wart as tight as you can draw it. If you succeed in cut- ting off all supply of bloud the wart will drop olf 418 NEW ENGLAND FARiVrER. Sept. in about a week. If not, apply a second cord in the same way round the diminished neck of the tumor. CULTURE OF FLOWERS. I think T do not hate flowers. I rather love an orderly flower garden, or the beauties in a hot house, or good specimens upon the window seat. I admire, in a degree, the zeal displayed by the bu>y houGe-keepcr who with all her cares, never fi riets the thirsty soil in the box where stands her favorite plant. But my wife is rather enthusiastic in her love for fljwers, and the catalogues of flower seeds and bulbs have by the illustrations and descriptions brouaht a large variety to her acquaintance. Her lady llriends also have plants that are propagated by "slips; these have been brought home and put into dirt in boxes, bowls, pans, hanging pots, &c., 60 that the windows are filled, the stands, tables and writing desk loaded. Our winters are so severe that nearly all plants are banished to the cellars during that season, but early spring causes them to appear again. This spring soon after they began their growth they were badly infested with lice. My wife wished me to smoke them out. Now it makes roe sick to smoke. Shall I kill myself to kill the litr'e bugs ? I think not. Then new dirt must be had to sow seed in. I turned that jab over to my little boy who with his liu.le wheelbarrow and shovel prospected in every direction, —here for sand, there for black loam, hither and yon for manure, muck, scrapings of the liainyard, &c. But the best seemed to be the re- mains of a compost heap. This, however, soon began to show signs of animal life. Little white worms, a fourth of an inch long, that would curl themseR'es up, then suddenly open and dart an inch or more ; tawny ones, half an inch long and capable of growing longer ; a species of wire worm ; ants, little light red fellows, very busy digging pits and tunnels, appeared in the mass. As it was likelv that the diet of worms was vegetables it was det^ifable to destroy them; so several pans were filled with dirt and put mto the stove oven to bake. In this way the soil was prepared for the seeds, which wtre sown and covered over with sand to prevent the surface from hardening, so the deli- cate sprouts could burst from the tiny seeds. Ttien what anxious watchings for a show of springing vtgetution ! Wtiat deuatings whether it were weeds or flowers that were appearing to view. After several day's doubt in respect to the char- acter of one specimen it was triumphantly de- clared to be a plant, because there was a bug on it! As the plants grew tae number of boxes, basins, pans, bowls and cups increased; small bits of green were transplanted and gradually hardy kiniis were exposed in the open ground. Still for a time the cold nighis rendered occasional pro- tection necessary. One morning after a lengthy search I found my hat out in the garden over a plant. Probabiv, however, the beauty of sum- mer and fall will moie than repay the labor and care of the spring. Let us hope so ! If corn received such care a hundred bushels per acre would doubtless be the result. J. CHOPS, COLLEGE, THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY. Nearly all the crops are looking finely in this vicijity. Corn, wheat, oats, tobacco, bioom corn, grass, (excepting old fielus) are promising more man an average yield. Oiher sections near, com- plain that grass is light, corn small and potatoes bmaller. It is possible we are blessed and in a biate of grace, in consequence of the Agricultural College being located in our district. One great — not peculiar — benefit we have already received iu the shape of a prediction or promise. One of the students of the college says, "Wait a few years, and we will XEW ENGLAND FARilER. Sept. DRYING EFFECT OP PINE AND FIR THEES UPON BO:Ij. One of the dear evidences of a healtbful progress and pros^perity in rural life, is the tendency among our people to ask questions. No man seems contented with his present suc- cess, however complete and gratifying that may be. The sculptor will not rest until he makes the marble under his hands breathe ; nor the physician, until he can take you entirely into pieces, and put you together again just as good &» ever. The manufacturer of the cloth we wear, is not satisfied by clothing us in the finest wool, but ransacks the world for some finer and softer material, so that we may soon expect to see a suit made of thistle's down, or the fur from a fly's foot. And the farmer, too, has become inspired. He is not now sat- isfied with turning over the furrow because it makes the hoeing eatier, but inquires, — "What else is going on in that clod ? What are the frost and rain doing there ? What oflice does this sand and these pebbles perform ? How came the bone that Carlo buried in the gar- den ten years ago, a complete net- work of roots ? Why was the wheat crop in the old lime-kiln lot three times as large as we ever raised in any other field ? Why have pines covered the lot where white oaks, were cut off three years ago ?" These, and many similar questions, come fi'om farmers now, with an evident desire to know more cf the wonderful operations which are constantly going on in the things which they see and handle in their daily labor. Many, very many questions are asked, that no one is wise enough to answer ; but at the present rate of research, many of them will be answered, and those answers will enable the farmer to increase his crops, and at the same time lessen his labor. At one time the question was put, "Can wool and cotton be spun by machinery ?" Mills for the manufac- ture of all sorts of cotton and woollen cloths, answer the question aflirmatively, and they have hushed the cheerful hum of thousands of spinning wheels around the domestic hearth. Constant observation, thought and research, added to industrious habits and frugal lives, are what elevate us as a race, and it is as much a duty to exercise these powers and to pro- gress as it is to be faithful in any other respect. Reading the following article upon the dry- ing effect of fir trees upon soil, suggested the remarks already made : — "A remarkable instance of the effect of pine trees on the soil in which they grow has been pub- lished in the ^ Woods and Waters Reports' of the north of France. A forest near Valenciennes, comprising about eighteen hundred acres of scrub and stunted oak and birch, was grubbed up in 1843 and replaced by Scotch firs. The soil, com- posed of silicious sands mingled with a very small quantity of clay, was in some places very wet ; it contained two or three springs, from one of which flowed a small stream. The firs succeeded be- yond expectation, and large handsome stems now grow vigorously over the whole ground. It was in the early stages of their growth that the re- markable effect above referred to was noticed. The soil began to dry, the snipes that once fre- quented the place migrated to a more congenial locality ; the ground became drier and drier, until at last the springs and the stream ceased to flow. Deep trenches were dug to lay open the source of the springs, and discover the cause of the drying up ; but nothing was found except that the roots of the firs had penetrated the earth to a depth of five or six feet. Borings were then made, and six feet below the source of the spring, a bed of wa- ter was met with of considerable depth, from which it was inferred, the spring had formerly been fed. But in what way its level had been lowered by the action of the firs could not be de- termined, and is still a matter of speculation. But the fact remains and may be utilized by any one interested in tree culture. For years it has been turned to account in Gascony, where the la- goons that intersect the sandy dunes have been dried up by planting the Pinus maritimus along their margin. Hence we may arrive at the con- clusion, that while leafy trees feed springs and maintain the mo>isture of the soil, the contrary function is reserved for spine or needle-bearing trees, which dry the soil and improve its quality." For Vie New England Farmer, SOME CASES OF BAD FARMING. In travelling through several of the adjoin- ing towns within the last two months or so, for the purpose of purchasing tobacco, I have been somewhat surprised to see in what a thriftless way some farmers conduct their op- erations. Perhaps some one better posted in these matters, could state them better than I can, but as I live where the saving of ma- nure is one great object, the wastes of this article alone would afford a theme for an arti- cle. But there are other ways in which thriftless- ness is demonstrated. I saw cows last fall standing out in the cold storm, curled up on the windward side of a stone fence, or out- buildings,— shivering, pinched, sorry looking creatures, — and I have often wished that their very humane masters might have had a berth beside them. Then again they have been no- ticed trying to fill themselves on the frozen grass that they could pick on the already closely fed mowing lots. One day noticing a man endeavoring to keep the half starved cows back in the mowfield, I had the impudence to ask him what benefit he supposed the cows were getting from eating such old frozen 1870. NEW EI^GLAOT) FARMER. 431 stuff as they were endeavoring to gather ? He replied, "Well, I don't know, but I thought that they would pick up part of their living out there." But what possible good can it do them ? Said I, It seems as though 30U would have to give each animal a good dose of salts, along with such feed, to ever get it though them. It don't pay to keep cows in that way, my friend. In order to make good sweet butter, good rich wholesome food has got to be furnished them, with a good warm, comfortable stable, fresh pure water, and kindly care. And then, to think of the damage to the mowing land, to have it browsed all the fall, and then because of the open winter, to feed it all winter too ! And please bear in mind, that where cows are allowed to roam around and browse, the young cattle and sheep are treated in the same manner, and often the colts, if the farmer has any. In my estimation, the loss is, first, in the animals themselves, for they will not grow, or certainly not much ; they come out poor in the spring, and will not be^^in to gtow until the first of July or thereabouts, and the milk and butter is poor in quality, and small in quantity. Secondly, the manure, that might have been accumulated if the stock were stabled, is nearly lost. And, thirdly, the damage to the mowing lots is no inconsidera- ble item. Unmanured mow lots should never, in my opinion, be pastured. When will such farmers learn wisdom ? Then in some yards the manure is all ex- posed to the bleaching process — exposed to rains, winds and washing. It setms as though cheap sheds could be constructed where no better or more permanent covering can be had, and thus nmch v?aste saved. Where practica- ble, cellars should be made for ih>? purpose of storing the manure accumulating upon the farm. One cord of manure taken from such repositories is actually worth two cords of these waterlogged heaps, thrown as they too often are, diiectly under the eaves, so as to make sure of a more thorough washing and drenching. Yet, would j ou believe it, Mr. Editor .'' I can point to at least one such speci- men of thrittlessness in a prominent member of a. Farmers' Club, not over a hundred miles from the famous "Wapping Farmers' Club" place of meeting. I really hope that a hint of this kind, will prove .'sufficient to stir up the members of this famous club, to an exhibition of better husbandry in their midst. We that are in the habit of preaching so much, and so well, ought to practice what we profess, or the world's people will turn up their noses at us. Then another almost infallible sign of thrift- lessness is seen in the case of a farmer who has abundance of wood on his own land, but 60 manages as to have only a small load of green wood hauled up at a time, and only chop it as it is wanted for immediate use. Likely enough when he gets out of bed he has to run out and chop inro, and split off a fr;w sticks from the log, before he can start the fire, or leaves it to be done by the boys, or worse than all by bis poor wife. But hold on, this theme is inexhaustible, my paf>er is more than full, and I will stop where I am. Feanklin Couisty. No. Hatfield, Mass., March 3, 1870. Remarks. — This article was accidentally crowded into a back corner of the copy draw ; but its publication now, though not on time, is perhaps more seasonable than it would have been in March. The horse had been stolen, and locking the door then would do little good. Now is the time to begin to make ready to avoid the mistakes, errors, and bad management exposed by 'Franklin County." For the Seio England Farmer, MUTUAL BENEFIT ASSOCIATIOJSS. Nearly all the professions and different oc- cupations of mankind have long had organized associations for instruction and mutual benefit. The legal profession has its bar meetings for the purpose of consultation, advice and mutual study of technical points of law ; the medical profession has its medical society, and meetings in which the different modes of practi^^e are discussed and dangerous cases of diseases are considered ; the clerical profession has its associations and convocations, in which the interests of the church are considered and the best means of advancing Christianity are dis- cussed ; and so on through the catalogue, — all appear to be connected together in their efforts to advance their several interests, as a class. Even the common people of our coun- try towns associate in lyceums for the purpose of intellectual improvement, by means of de- bate, lectures, &c., and associations of me- chanics and arcizans exist all over the country. Farmers, however, have heretofore formed an exception to the general rule, as our County and State Agriculiural Societies are too gen- eral in their organization and objects to be classed as mutual benefit associations. Far- mers' Clubs appear to be better adapted to the purpose, which it is to be hoped wiil soon become the rule, rather than, as now, the ex- ception. The questions very naturally arise, are they a source of improvement and benefit to their members, and if so, why are they not more generally organized ? Regarding the first part of the proposition, there could scarcely be a doubt that benefit is derived from such asso- ciations. In the first place it is supposed that all persons so associated are reasonably intel- ligent farmers, and engaged in agricultural pursuits ; and in the second place, that each 432 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. individual member, while engaged in his avo- cation, pursues a cour;.e peculiar to himself, and in some respects unlike all the others. Now at the club meeting, as any subject is presented, ea<'h individual will of course relate the results obtained from his peculiar system of cultivation. It follows, then, that the best possible results in that vicinity are made known, and as a matter of course, each indi- vidual having learned the process by which the superior result was obtained, will be likely to adopt the same course as nearly as circum- stances will allow, not only in respect to a sin- gle crop, but to all farming operations. Here, then, is an exchange of experiences ; a com- merce of practical facts, and no person will attempt to deny that an exchange of ideas, whether relating to agriculture or any other subject, promotes mental improvement. Again, it is a self-evident fact that practical experience is the most valuable, especially to the farmers ; and in the farmers' club there is, so to speak, a fund of really practical infor- mation, garnered from innumerable sources, from which each member may draw something for his own benefit. Much benefit may also be derived from the club exercises, in a social point of view. It is a fact to be regretted that as a general rule farmers, in consequence of the isolation occa- sioned by their occupation, are less social than most other classes, and if any method can be adopted whereby this evil, which cer- tainly is an evil, can be eradicated, it should be deemed an important consideration as af- fecting the well being of society in general. The more intelligent the farmer, the better prepared is he to understand and apply the principles of agriculture, and in fact the ad- vancement of the age demands that the farmer should be a thoroughly educated man, and the greater the amount of information that he re- ceives, the more susceptible is he of receiving. At the present time, book farming, as it is called, is growing more popular. Now, what is book farming but pursuing the methods of others that have proved successful and have been recorded in print ? Then why are not farmers' clubs more gen- erally organized ? One reason which undoubt- edly might be given is, that in most cases the farmer ieels that his whole etforts must be put forth in the cultivation of his crops and the general management of his farm. This arises from a sort of morbid state of intellect, per- haps partly the result of severe labor. This ought not to be so. There is no farmer that cannot, it he chooses, easily spare an hour or two each week lor the improvement of his mind, especially if he keeps a close eye to bu- siness, and looks well to it that every thing requiring to be done should be done at the proper time. Twice, yea thri(;e as much time as an attendance upon agricultural meetings require, is lost from not attending to what re- quires to be done at the proper time and place. And, not unfrequently, the same men who would be the first to declare that they could not spend time, when asked to attend an agri- cultural meeting, or to help form a farmers' club, spend one, two, and even three evenings in a week in the grocery or post office. It is undoubtedly a fact, that all great reforms have been brought about by agitation, and that too, when at the outset, obstacles appeared almost insurmountable. Now, as what man has done, man can do, let the agitation of the subject of farmers' conventions or clubs be continued until the day shall dawn when agriculture shall be acknowledged to be, as it truly is, the most healthy, the most honest, and the noblest occupation that has ever engaged man's atten- tion, w. H. Y. Massachusetts, 1870- BUTTER MAKING. From the abstract in the Maine Farmer of two lectures on butter making, delivered by Mr. Willard, in his late course of lectures at the Maine Agricultural College, we copy the following, which may afford some hints to farmers who wish to improve the quality of this article of their productions : — In one quart of cream there are from 13 to 15 ounces of butter. Mr. Horsfall states that a good cow fed on grass will yield one pound of butter for a quart of cream, and that when his cows have been fed on rape cake and other substances containing oily par- ticles, their milk has yielded from 22 to 2-t ounces of butter for a quart of cream. The first portion of cream that rises is rich in but- ter. About 60 degrees is the temperature at which cream should rise. All utensils used in butter making should be thoroughly cleansed. Good cream is often spoiled in the churn by a taint left in it from imperfect cleansing. The cream should be agitated regularly. If the churning is carried on too rapidly the butter will be made and unmade, and if too slowly the particles of butter will not be set free. The best temperature at which butter is made is 55 degrees. The most desirable condition in which butter exists is that of a waxy con- sistency. It is then easily moulded into any shape. It is not always necessary to taste butter to determine its quality. Its smooth, unctuous feel indicates its richness of quality, its nutty smell indicates a good flavor and its bright glistening cream-colored surface indi- cates its state of cleanliness. When the butter has formed and has been taken out of the churn, it should be thorough- ly cleansed from buttermilk. The less the butter IS handled the better. Warm hands, however clean, are apt to impart a taint. A butter ladle should be used in all the manipu- lations. A spring-house should be used when- ever convenient. Cream should be churned 1870. XEW ENGLAND FAE^IER. 433 rather than whole milk. The quality is of the highest importance and should never be sac- rificed to quantity. Poor butter does not pay. The milk should be set at a temperature of 62 degrees and never above 75. When spring-houses are not convenient, the Jen- nings pan can be used, which is a pan for receiv- ing the milk set in a larger pan containing water. The cream should be taken from the milk before old and sour. Butter which has been churned quick will not keep well as there is not a complete separation of the caseine cells. If the butter was entirely free from caseine, salt would not be required. The time of churning should be at least from 30 to 40 minutes. The butter-makers of Orange County, who make one of the best articles in the world, churn from 45 to 60 minutes, using the common churn which is re- garded as the best. The Chester County, Pa., manufactories make the celebrated Phil- adelphia butter which sells at $1.00 per pound. In Orange County, instead of a shallow pan for setting the milk, they use a deep pan, with a tunnel- shaped skimmer for taking ofi the cream. The point in favor of a deep pan is, that the tough surface is prevented from forming on the surface of the cream, there being less sur- face exposed to the air. Butter is oftentimes spoiled by smoke. Po- tatoes, herbs, roots, &c., should not be placed near milk. Soft woods are bad for firkins. Ash contains an acid which is deleterious in its effect. White oak is good. Dampness of the nature of mould should be avoided in the milk room. Pans should not be placed, the one above the other. Butter Factories. In butter factories a barrel and a half churn is used. Into this churn 50 quarts of cream are put and then diluted, with cold wa- ter in summer and warm in winter. The quantity used being from 16 to 30 quarts at each churning. Ice should never be used un- less the temperature rises above 64 degrees. Eighteen ounces of salt will be sufficient for 22 pounds of butter unless wanted for keep- ing, when a little more should be added. To prepare the firkin for the reception of butter, soak it in cold water, then in hot water and then again in cold water. It should then be filled with butter and strong brine poured on. Washing the butter removes the caseine and consequently secures butter that will keep. Batter should be stored in a dry cellar, free from other articles which might taint the but- ter. • Bkim-Mi!k Clieese. There is more profit in butter and skim cheese than in making whole cheese. When skim-milk cheese is to be made, all of the cream is not removed when wanted for churn- ing. The morning's milk should set twenty- four hours and the evening's twelve hours. To make skim- milk cheese, raise the milk in the vat to a temperature of 82 degrees.. Add sufficient rennet to coagulate the milk in 50 or 60 minutes, then cut and break the curds ; after they have subsided, gradually raise the temperature to 96 degrees, stirring the curds meanwhile. Then withdraw the whey and re- move the curds, after which manipulate as with whole milk curds. It is found that twen- ty-eight pounds of milk will produce one pound of butter and two pounds of skim-milk cheese. The average quantity of milk, how- ever, required to make one pound of butter is twenty pounds. If the skim-milk is to be used to make cheese, it should not be allowed to sour. Analysis. Buttermilk, as examined by Berzelius, con- tains cheesy matter 3.4, and whey 92. Cream of average quality yields 24 per cent, butier. Analysis of cream give water from 74.46 to 61 67, butter from 18.18 to 33 43, caseine from 2.69 to 2.62, milk sugar from 4 08 to 1.56 and mineral matter from 59 to 72. Nine pounds of milk on an average will make one pound of cheese. The whole milk should be churned, if at all, at a temperature of from 60 to 65 degrees. There is more labor in churning whole milk than there is in churning the cream. Color. One market requisite for butter is that it have a good golden yellow color. Butter from hay has a light color. Butter is largely colored with annatto for market. To color butter iu late fall and spring, feed upon early cut hay, carrots and oat and corn meal, and no artifi- cial coloring will then be needed. Carrots give a rich yellow color to the butter. An- natto when used is put into the cream in order to color the butter. Little Things Have much to do in dairy management. Due attention must be given to pasturage, to the cows, to milking, to setting the milk, to churning the cream, to working the butter and to packing and storing. Cream readily takes up odors and consequently should never be allowed to stand in the kitchen where culinary operations are going on. The food upon which a cow is kept influences the time of churning and the quality of the butter. Milk produced from food rich in nitrogen produces cream which does not require so much time in churning as the cream I'rom milk produced from food wanting in nitrogen. When neither grain nor meal is fed to cows, the cream mu.-t be churned at a higher temperature than when the cow is fed upon food rich in nitrogen. If milk is allowed to freeze and thaw or to fall to a low temperature while setting for cream, butter cannot be so speedily brought. It should never fall below 50 degrees. Potatoes may be fed in fall and early winter, but grain or meal should be added with good hay the latter part of the winter. Butter is often spoiled by imperfect washing, giving ic a mussy look and a lardy taste. 434 NEW ENGLAND FARTilER. Sept. The term grain as applied to butter implies a waxy appearance. Butter which has a good grain can be drawn out. When the grain has been injured the butter will indicate a greasy appearance. In working butter, it should not be ground against the tray, as the grain will thus be destroyed. The buttermilk should not all be worked out at once. In salting, one important point is to get good salt. The salt i-hould be kept in a dry atmosphei'e. The flavor of salt is very much affected by the manner in which it is kept. The best of but- ter will invariably be injured by poor packing. In factories where gilt edged butter is made, especial care is taken in packing the butter. A cellar used for storing butter should be used for nothing else. These things may seem small but they in- vaxiably influence the quality and consequent- ly the price of butter. A good article com- mands a good price, and it will pay to regard all the minor details of butter-making as worthy of attention, as on them depends the value of the product. CASH VALUE 02" A LABOHINQ MAN. We 6nd the following article in the South Home, credited to a "Northern Exchange :" — It is often remarked of persons who do not possess any property, and who depend upon their daily labor for support of themselves and families, that they are "worth nothing" financially speaking. This language is gen- erally indulged in by men in the community who st\le themselves business men, and who get rich off the necessities of other men. Let us examine the question financially, and see if their assertions are correct. Last year the price of common labor aver- aged $1.50 per day. Admitting that the la- borer received $1.50 per day. and it required the whole of that sum to support his family, nevertheless we contend that the laborer was worth in cash to his family the sum of $7989. The amount he would receive for one year''s labor, at $1.50 per day would be $475,60, which amount would be the interest at six per cent, on $7989, which latter sum would be the cash value of the laboring man to his family. The cash value of the laboring man to the community is nuich more than the above-named gum, as labor is the only true wealth to any country. Without labor our forges, furnaces, woolen mills, and indeed manufactories of all kinds, would cease to be. The music of the loom and shuttle would be silenced forever. Our national and other banks would close their doors, and our most enterprising mer- chants take in their signs. Without labor civilization would recede, and the bat and owl would soon occupy the crimson chambers of our would-be business men. Let the laboring men of the United States realize their true position. Let them reflect that labor is honorable — that labor is wealth. Let them remember that they are a power in the State — that to them this great Government is indebted for all it possesses of liberty, glory, grandeur. "Let them not only reflect" that labor is honorable, but let those who look down on the humble laborer and mechanic reflect for one moment before they speak in terms of dis- paragement of the "hewers of wood and drawers of water." The custom is too prev- alent in the community of making remarks in a sneering manner of the great industrial class of our people, leading youths among us to think that honest industry is not honorable, be it what it may. That time has passed, and the South is too poor to indulge in such sickly nonsense; she needs labor of all kinds. Hon- est, industrious mechanics and laborers are the wealth of States, and until they are en- couraged and fostered, our people cannot be prosperous. It is not the cash value alone by which he enriches the place of his residence but he adds by his labor to its material wealth ; no country or nation that commands the re- spect of the world, but what that respect was gained through the skill of her mechanical population. Then let all classes, more espe- cially the rich, respect and inculcate their chil- dren with the true theory of life, that labor is honorable, and if in after life misfortune should overtake them, willing hands will be put forth to earn their support. Bees and Fruit Blossoms. — E. Gallup, in Western Pomologist says that "the facts of the case are, that instead of the bees injuring the fruit blossom or crop in any case whatever, they are an absolute assistance. So much so, that in the immediate vicinity of an apiary in some seasons, there will be an abundance of fruit, whereas in localities where no bees were kept, there was comparatively little. Bees are a great assistance in fertilizing blossoms that otherwise (or left to nature) would not become fertilized, and the clover or buck- wheat patch that produces the most honey, produces the most seed, invariably. The honey in the blossom, if not taken out by the bees and other insects, would be dried up by the sun or warhed away with rain, conse- quently would be a dead loss ; but if we have be^s to gather it, it is so much gain, not only to the owner of the bees, but to the fruit grower and the farmer." Early Calves. — A correspondent of the Country Oentleman says : — There is a good deal more depending on an early start than is generally supposed; yet every farmer who has raised stock must be aware of the advan- tages attached to a calf or a colt born in March or April, over one not coming into ex- istence till June. The early young animals become strong against their first winter, and 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 435 go through the cold spells without the check those that are younger or tenderer receive, and having gained a good clear start, they will never lose it, and it is the same with lambs, pigs, and young poultry. How attentive to this mat- ter should those be who possess highly bred stock, for if it is worth consideration with good common stock, it must be of immense importance to those who breed animals com- ing to be worth as many thousands as the average grades are hundreds. In England the winters are very much milder than in the Northern States ; yet this is seriously studied with every variety of live stock, for the first winter is the most critical period of agricul- tural animals' existence, and when the young stock is brought to grass at about fourteen months old, plump and fat as they can be, to be perfectly healthy and growing, there is an end to all anxiety concerning them." ITEW PUBIilCATIONB. An Address 07i the Nfitural History and Pathological Ooteology of the Horse. Deliv.^red htfore the An nual coeetlngof the Connecti'int Board of Ag iciihure at Middletown, Jartmry, i870. By N. Creeay, M. D TiluBtrateo. Hartford: Chase, Lock & Brainard, 1870. What is known of the horse in its paleontological lineage, as gathered from remains in the Miocene and Drift formations, is here given, in connection with its more modern history, as introductory to an essay on the diseases of the bones of the horse. Ringbone, Splint and Spavin he regards as only diSerent names of the result of the morbid process of bony growth, called exostosis. By this word is meant any bony growth or tumor which affects the periosteum, another hard word which means, ac- cording to the dictionary, a fibrous membrane cov- ering or investing the bones, and which seems to be as necessary to the health of the bone as the skin is to the health of the flesh. He says, in a case of acute exostosis — or ringbone, splint or spa- vin— or where it is primarily developed without any hereditary predisposition on the part of the immediate parentage, this disease usually occurs as the result of an injury, either from a blow or a strain. An inflammation follows, and an extra quantity of blood, laden with salts of lime, is brought to the part, and thus the periosteum (or boue sKin) and the surrounding tissues is thor- oughly congested. Eventually the phosphate and carbonate of lime becomes deposited within the periosteum at the seat of injury, and a hard, un- yielding, bony tumor is the inevitable result. All of these alTeetions may be developed from similar txcitiijg causes, or from an inherited constitu- tionality. And as a remedy to alleviate the suf- fering and control the progress of the disease, I would earnestly recommend a preparation of Col- orless Iodine Liniment that I have used for several years with marked success in human and veterin- ary practice. Cases of hereditary ringbone that appear early in a colt need no treatment, for their only cure consists in hastening the anchylosis of the joint, which, of course, forever obliterates the freedom of motion there, by soldering the two articulating bones together in firm osseous union. Even with such a cure the creature ceases to limp, because the impaired motion of the joint that caused such excruciating pain in walking has been destroyed. TWIN" HEIFEHS. Our correspondent who inquired some weeks since whether there was any good reason for the idea prevalent in his neighborhood that twin heif- ers were not reliable as milch cows, and those other correspondents who replied that they had had good success with such animals, will read the following statement from the veterinary editor of the North British Agriculturist, with interest : — Calves bom as twins, when of the same sex, breed as regularly and readily as those which come at a single birth, and often inherit the fecun- dity Of their parents. "When, however, a bull and heifer calf come together at one birth, the heifer, in a large proportion of casps, never breeds. Such animals, spoken of by old Roman wrters as Taurse, are popularly known as free martins, and often assume masculine characters, are short and rough-like about the head, but seldom have any appearances connected with their generative or- gans sufficient to account for their not breeding. A few of these martin heifers do, however, breed, but probably not more than two out of erery eight or ten. Bulls born along with heifers do not seem to labor under any disadvantfsge in procreating their species. It has been stated, but without suf- ficient evidence of fact, that the martin heifer is more likely to breed if she happens to be born be- fore instead of after her twin brother. To Use Three Horses Abreast. — As it is becoming quite common to use three horses now instead of two, perhaps it would be an advantage and a saving to some of our young farmers to tell them how to hitch up three horses, with an equalizer that, instead of cost- ing five dollars for a patent article, can be made for a few cents. 1 take a piece of two by four, or two by five, scantling and bore first a hole near each end, as I would for a double-tree ; but the piece need not be over nine to 12 inches long; then bore a hole one- third of the length from one end and two- thirds the length from the other , end, and attach the piece by a clevis and ring to the plough clevis, the longest end vp ; then hitch my middle horse to the top, and the team to the bottom end, or short end of the equalizer — using a long doubletree for the team, long enough for a horse to work in the middle. By using this simple device, a saving can be made of five dollars, and the equalizer is, I claim, better than any other, for the simple reason, that it brings the team nearer the nose of the plough beam and consequently nearer the work. — Western Rural. 436 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. ■jBS stz -,^. '- -^^f^ THE CAT BIHD AND CHEWINK. Of all the birds which inhabit our woods and pastures none are better known than the Cat Bird and Chewink, or Towhee, as the latter is often culled. The Cat Bird had a bad name with the associates of our boyhood. It was accused of kill- ing bees and robbing other bird's nests, and was consequently persecuted and abused by us as an inemy and outlaw. We believe that this treat- ment was unjust, and that this poor bird was the victim of calumny, suspicion and slander, — a mis- fortune which is by no means confined to birds. We now regard him as a friend to the farmer, and his kitten-like mew is more musical to our ears than when we regarded it as the cry of an ad- versary that challecged our slings and shot-guns. Mr. E. A. Samuels, who has carefully watched this bird and studied its peculiarities, makes no allusion to these vicious habits, and we presume that it has been wrongfully accused. That the boys of the present day may better un- derstand the habits and character of the birds that sing such songs and pipe such notes as their Crea- tor has fitted them for, and which feed on insects injurious to vegetation, we present the above illus- tration of the Cat Bird and Chewink, with a de- scription of both, copied by permission from Sam- uels' "Birds of New i^ngland." Of the Cat Bird he says :— This very common and well-known bird arrives in New England about the first week in May, — in Maine, perhaps about the 15th of that month. It is distributed abundantly thrcughout these States, and its habits are well known. During the mating season, and 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 437 indeed through the greater part of the sum- mer, the song of the male is heard in the •woods, pastures and gardens at early morning, and sometimes through the day ; and, although most persons describe it as being harsh and uncouth, it is really very pleasing and molodi- ous. It is a sort of medley, like that of the Brown Thrush, but not near so loud ; the bird usually perches on a low tree, where, standing nearly erect, his wings slightly ex- panded, and his tail spread beneath him, he pours forth his notes sometimes for half an hour at a time. In addition to this song, he, in common with the female, has a plaintive note almost exactly like the mewing of a car, ; and the speciBc name of felivox, given it by some authors, is much more descriptive and appropriate than that of Carolinensis, which is neither descriptive nor proper. The alarm-note is a rattling cry, like the sound of quick breaking of several strong sticks; it is perhaps well expressed by the syllables irat-tat tat tat, uttered very quickly. I have noticed that this bird, as do many others, prefers the neighborhood of thickly settled districts, even a home in their midst, to others of a wilder character ; and, when travelling through the deep forests, I have in- varibly found, that, when these birds became abundant, a settlement was near. Soon after mating, the birds build : this is from about the 20th of May to the first week in June. The nest is usually placed in bushes and shrubs, seldom more than four or five feet from the ground ; the location is often in the deep woods as in the fields or pas- tures. It is constructed first of a layer of twigs and sticks, on which is built the body of the nest, which is composed of strips of grape-vine bark, fine twigs, leaves, and straws ; it is deeply hollowed, and lined with fibrous roots and hairs, and sometimes fine grass. The eggs are usually four in number, some- times five : their color is a bright, deep emer- ald green, and their form generally ovate. Specimens do not exhibit great variations in measurement from the dimensions of a nest complement of four collected in Thornton, N. H., they are as follows: .95 by 67 inch; .95 by .66 inch; .93 by .67 inch; .93 by .66 inch. Two broods are reared in the season, seldom three in this latitude. About the middle of October, this species moves in its Southern migration. Mr. Samuels' account of the Chewink is as fol- lows : — This beautiful and well-known species, although common in Massachusetts and the other southern New England States, is rare in the three northern. It begins to grow scarce in the northern districts of Massachusetts ; and, before we have passed fifty miles beyond its northern limits, it is very rarely seen. It makes its appearance about the 20th of April, the males preceiling the females by a week or ten days. As soon as the females arrive, the pairing season commences. The male perched on a low limb of a tree or high bu>-h, chants his pleasing song, sometimes for half an hour at a time : this song resembles the s}llables, tow-hee ^che ^de ^de 'rfe ^de, uttered at first slowly and plaintively, and quickly increased in volume and rapidity of 'utterance. He has also a sort of quavering warble difficult of de- scription If he is approachf^d, he watches the intruder, and, after ascertaining his busi- ness, utters his note tow-hee, and proceeds his search among the fallen leaves for his favorite food of worms, insects, and seeds, which he is almost continually scratching for among the dead vegetation. About the second week in May, the birds commence building. The locality usually chosen is in low, thick woods, oi in thickets of briers and bushes near streams of water, in which places this species is most often found. The nest is placed on the ground, usually loe- neath a bunch of grass, or in a pile of old brush and fagots ; it is constructed of fine twigs, leaves and grasses, and is lined with tine leaves of grasses, and sometimes a few hair- like roots. The eggs are usually four in number. Their ground color varies from grayish to reddish-white : this is covered, over the en- tire surface with fine dots and points of red- reddish-brown : in some specimens these dots run into each other, and form small blotches. The average dimensions of a great number of specimens in my collection is about .94 by .76 inch. When placed beside an equal number of the eggs of the Brown Thrush, the eggs of this species appear much paler, and with a more roseate tmt ; otherwise, except with regard to size, the two species resemble each other much. In New England but one brood is usually reared in the season. I have found nests with young in June and August, but generally the first brood leaves the nest too late for another to be brougtit out before the early frosts. About the middle of October, the old birds and their young, in small detached flocks, leave New England on their southern migration. Wheat Turned to Chess — A writer to the Dixie Farmer vouches that a person in his neighborhood has exhibited this season, wheat and chess growng from the same root. The bunch or stool on exhibition was carefully taken up, and all the soil washed from the roots, so as to give every one that examines, the opportunity of judging for himself. The stool, or bunch, consists of six stalks — three of them wheat, and three chess — all of them tolerably well-developed. No one that has seen this stool, or those exhibited by the same friend last summer, has a remaining doubt ot the assertion that, under certain circumstan- ces, wheat frequently turns to chess. 438 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Sept. EXTRACTS AND KEPLIES. FANCY BUTTER. Will yon plea«e give rs a chapter on "Fancy but- ter?" Till us all about the making, packing, mar- keting, &c , and explain why it sells in the market so r'lu'h higher than the hest New Hampshire and Vermont butter. W. J. Henderson. Ryegate, Vt., July 12, 1870. Remarks. — "We publish on another page an ab- stract of what Mr. Willard told the students of the Maine Agricultural College about butter making. This gentleman, in addition to what practical knowledge he may have gained in his own dairy, has spent much time among the best butter mak- ers in this country and Europe ; has even, we be- lieve, visited the dairy of Queen Victoria, with its porcelain and its marble equipments, and we suppose he has ;old all that he can tell — not all that he knows — about butter making. There are secrets in this as in all other arts that can never be told, — they can only be learned. One man may know how to chop wood ; another man may know how to set type. But what good will the telling of either do to one who never swung an axe or picked up type ? We apprehend, however, that most of those who desire information upon the subject of fancy butter are making the same mis- take that one Capt. Naaman, of the Syrian host, committed when he got into a rage because the prophet simply told him to "wash and be clean," when he expected to be bid to do some "great thing." Mr. Willard suggests few great things. "Little Things" are words which head his clos- ing paragraphs, and we do not think he would be offended were these words to be used as a cap- tion to the whole of his two lectures. "Small sands the mountain make, moments make the year, and trifles life," and little things, we suppose, have much to do with the quality of butter ; little things out doors and little things inside; little things which imply a fancy farmer and a fancy dairy woman, — one can do little without the other. But fancy prices depend on the freshness of the article as well as its intrinsic quality. The gilt- edged butter must be made near the consumer. It must be delivered often. The maker must have a reputation. "Mr. So and So makes our butter!" Just now it must be made from milk of Jersey cows, and if they cost from #400 to #1000 apiece the butter, you know, will be all the more fancy, all the more gilt-edged. The best dairies of New Hampshire and Ver- mont do obtain prices which are decidedly "fancy" compared with those which an ordinary article commands. This is done io the first place, by producing a reliably good article ; and, in the sec- ond place, by taking some pains to reach those who are willing to pay a good price for a good article. We know of dairies whose products are engaged at some ten cents a pound more than the ordinary price of what is called in market good butter. This, we fear, is not such a chapter as our cor- respondent asks for, but perhaps it will serve as an introduction to the confession which we are obliged to make, that we are unable to answer his questions squarely and fairly. We shall be very happy, however, to serve as a medium for any one who can satisfactorily reply. RUSSIAN WHEAT — VETCH OR TARE. I have jast cut a small patch of wheat from seed imported from Odessa, Russia. I found several plants like the one enclosed. Will it be a pest if domesticated, or is it already so ? I never saw anything like it. The wheat was sown the last of August; it made a very good growth, but became badly beat down soon alter heading, and never recovered. After I thresh and clean the grain I may announce the result. H. Colman. Woodville, Mass., July 15, 1870. Remarks. — The plant was received in good order, and is doubtless one of the many varieties of vetches or tares common in Europe. The seeds are nutritive and are used in the same way as peas, — in fact it is one of the leguminosa, or pea family. It does not seem suited to the climate of the United States, or rather our ordinary field peas and beans do better. Though called a "tare" we do not think there is much danger of its be- coming a troublesome weed. We shall be glad to receive further particulars of your experience with the Russian wheat. AFTERBIRTH. Will you please to inform me through the Far- mer what is the effect on a cow, of eating the "afterbirth," or "cleanings ?" As is well known, there is a propensity in most, or all cows, to do this. A fine young cow (five y^ars old) of mine, did this filthy deed on calving, about ten weeks ago. She has not suffered any harm from it as I can see. She has always before been troubled with swelled bag, but not this year. John. Franklin, Mass., 1870. Remarks. — When the ovum or germ cell of the female is impregnated by contact with the sperm cell of the male, it becomes developed into a sac containing the foetus and a liquid called the am- niotic liquor, in which the foetus floats, attached by the funis or umbilical cord to the placenta, a soft spongy mass, consisting of fleshy cells and blood vessels. The placenta is attached to a por- tion of the inner face of the uterus by a mem- brane filled with blood vessels, through which nutriment is conveyed to the growing foetus. The placenta and sac enlarge and thicken with the growth of the foetus, and when the latter is fully developed and ready to be born, the former has become a large mass consisting of fleshy cells, blood vessels and tough membranes. During the process of delivery the placenta becomes separated from its attachment to the uterus, and in a healthy labor passes away soon after the fcetus. The con- tractions of the muscular coat of the uterus, called labor pains, generally cause a rupture of the sac containing the young, which consequently escapes and first passes away. Sometimes the placenta or 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 439 afterbirth, is not completely separated from the uterus until after the foetus has passed, and con- sequently is detained for a time, longer or shorter. Cows almost universally have a propensity to eat the placenta immediately after it drops away, if they can get at it. Whether this is owing to a saltish taste of the liquor, or for some other in- stinctive purpose is not known. They will also lick the entire surface of the calf, apparently to cleanse it, but probably because they like the taste of the slimy liquor in which it has been im- mersed and which adheres to the new born animal. We have never known the eating of the clean- ing to do any injury. Perhaps it operates as a cathartic, and thus gives the animal a relief which she feels that she needs. Cows and oxen, and even horses, will often eat salted meat and fish when they can get at them, and seem greatly to enjoy them, and we have never known any injury result. They are supposed to do this on account of the salt they contain. The amniotic liquor is said to contain a peculiar acid, which may possi- bly gratify the taste of the cow. PITCH PINE NEEDLES. Everybody knows how valuable are most leaves for manure, but I was always taught that pitch pine needles were poisonous to vegetation. Some years, owing to the pressure of fall work, I have been unable to save as many leaves as I wished, until they had so decomposed as to be got only with difficulty. I have been tempted to store the needles, as I can get them with ttie greatest ease and despatch, whenever the ground is bare ; but owing to early teaching, have not yet done it. One argument urged against the needles is, that vegetation where they lie is alway scant; but it seems to me that this must be in consequence of the form of the needles, which causes them to lie so compact and in such bodies as to prevent the plants pushing through. A year ago last spring I raked some needles from a strawberry bed. I then ploughed an ad- joining piece for a new bed, and in one place ploughed in the soil a lot of the needles. Right in this mixture of half needles, half loam, some of the plants were set, and to my astonishment, pro- duced much larger plants in top and root than elsewhere. Still the needles may have a certain poisonous nature, to which some plants may be susceptible of injury. Or the needles might have been more beneficial as a loosener of the soil (it was all loose soil) than injurious as a poisoner. Please state whether it would be well for me to store them for manure in winter ? If ttiere is anything poisonous, it is probably in their pitchy nacure. If not injurious, I would like to use all I could, and get them rotten in my ma- nure heap. J. E. Blakelt. Remarks. — We have always supposed that the needles or leaves of pine were of little value as a fertilizer, but have never made any careful trial of them, and cannot answer our correspondent's in- quiries from personal knowlege. The soil from which pine trees grow does not seem to be as well fitted for the growth of other vegetation, as that on which hard-wood trees grow and shed their leaves. Prof. Johnson gives a variety of tables of analyses in his book entitled "How Crops Grow," and perhaps the following extracts from them will afford some information. One hundred pounds of Red Pine leaves, when burned, gave 4.69 lbs. of ashes ; same amount of Oak leaves gave 4.90 lbs ; Beech, 6.75 lbs. The per cent, of sev- eral of the constituents of the ash of these several leaves is given as follows : — •S t'l -§-" Qh !? 1^ H b;-» s5 c5 ^ Pine ... 1.5 — 2.3 15.2 8.2 2 8 70.1 — Beech ... 5.2 06 6.0 44.9 4.2 3 7 33.9 0.4 Oak. . . .3.5 0.6 4.0 48.6 8.1 4 4 30.9 — We should have little fear of any poisonous effects of the needles, composted as proposed, but as more than two-thirds of the ash of pine leaves are silica or sand, and of other leaves less than one-third ; and as they also vary in potash, lime, &c., as indicated above, we should not expect that pine leaves would help the manure as much as oak or beech leaves. CABBAGE WORMS. I find the green worms are eating my cabbages very badly. I think there must be some insect that deposits nits on the cabbage leaf, especially on the under side. The worm is very small at first, but grows larger as it eats the cabbage. I read in your paper once that the eggs of a butter- fly produced the worm. I think this cannot be so as it would require a greater number of butter- flies than I ever saw to leave so many nits as I find on my cabbages. 1 have to pick the worms off and kill them every few days, or they would eat my cabbages all up. Now if you know of any remedy to get rid of them, please let it be known through your valuable paper, for it is a hard task to pick them off by hand when they are as plenty as they are this year. h. d. u. Monroe, N. H., July 12, 1870. Remarks. — Nearly all the caterpillars or worms which infest vegetation are the young of butter- flies or moths. Each female butterfly lays from two hundred to five hundred eggs or nits. At this rate a few of them would be able to give a cab- bage patch a good sprinkling of nits in a short time. In the article to which you refer the de- struction of the butterfly or moth was recom- mended. Perhaps the remedies used for currant worms would operate with those on cabbages. If you have fine slacked lime, try a sprinkling of that on the leaves. LAME cow. Will you inform me what I can do for a lame cow ? She was pricked in the leg, back of the gambrel joint, by a calf's muzzle last spring. It made her very lame. I bathed it in cold water, and she got over it. In the course of a week or two, she was lame again. I commenced bathing, and in two or three days she was apparently well. About a week ago she became lame again ; this time I have used both cold water and a strong brine to no effect ; it swells and is inflamed about the joint, and still grows worse. I think the in- jury was on the cord. l. h. c. Middleboro', Mass., July 6, 1870. Remarks. — Probably the wound extended tlirough the skin into the cartilage, and most 440 NEW ENGLAND FARJ^IER. Sept. likely there will be an abscess, which at the proper time, may require opening. You had better poul- tice at present. A SICK cow. I have a four-year-old heifer. She calved early in May, gave a good mess of milk for a while, but the last few weeks has gradually fallen ofiF in her yield, and continues to daily. She is also very poor; her appetite is good, always seeming hungry. If you or some of the readers of the Farmer can inform me of what would benefit her, through its columns, I should be very grateful. J. t. Braintree, VL, July 4, 1870. Remarks. — This description does not enable one to decide what is the matter with the cow. One thing, however, Is certain: — her food does not nourish her, — either it is not digested, or the proper organs do not take up the nutriment. Give her sulphate of iron, pulverized, one drachm, rubbed with ginger, one teaspoonful once a day. Some internal organic disease may have taken place. AGBICUI.TnBAL HORSE BACINQ. Right glad was I to see that noble protest against horse racing at our agricultural Fairs, in the Far- mer of July 16. Since the introduction upon our Fair grounds of the race course and the machinery, more or less complete, of the sports of the turf, I have had only one mind as to their final result, — which is that they will ultimately prove the sub- version and ruin of our "cattle shows" and farm- ers' festivals, if not held in check or entirely ex- cluded. Exactly what course to pursue under the circumstances I do not assume to advise. But this much I may say, the great object, the polar star, — agricultural progress, — must be kept stead- ily in view. Amusement and diversion should not be excluded, but the aim and goal must be the social, moral, and profesiional improvement of farmers. However efficiently and judiciously our Fairs may be managed, unquestionably there will be those who will find occasion to grumble and criticise. But with a firm purpose to encour- age a healthy competition in honorable industry and superiority in productions, and at the same time to discourage every thing that tends to excite ambition to get a dollar without earning it squarely and fairly, we fully believe that our agricultural associations may do much to encourage and bene- fit farmers, and to show them and others that ag- riculture can stand alone and even walk without the leading-strings of any jockey club. Farmington, Me., July 18, 1870. 0. W. True. SIGNS OF THE WEATHER. The writer has been a close observer of signs of the weather for a number of years past, which are far more reliable than any baromerer, he thinks, ever invented. All indications of rain are said to fail in a dry time. With such exceptions, the fol- lowing rules are quite reliable. 1. The state of the weather during the last quar- ter of the moon, is a fair sample of what it will be during the remaining three-quarters, whether wet, changeable or dry. 2. When the spiders spread their nests on the grass so that they are visible in the morning with a heavy dew upon them, though a heavy vapor or fog may hang over the hills and not in the valleys — ominous of storms — yet the insect has shadowed forth with unerring instinct a fair day, though Bometimes slight showers may fall. Some other habits of this cunning and intelligent creature are equally interesting, which cannot be noticed from want of space. Who has not, when travelling through a wood in the morning, in summer time, felt a tiny line drawn across his face, that was the highway bridge of the aerial traveller. At other times they will gather up the corners of their web, and like the aeronaut suspended from a basket ^\ill sail through the air to a new field of operations. 3. A heavy fog on the hills and little or none in the valleys, is often a fair indication of rain, al- though not perfectly reliable. The following observations copied from the "Farmer's and Mechanic's Manual," are claimed to be reliable, which the writer has not fully tested to his satisfaction. 1. The nearer the time of the moon's change, first quarter, full, or last quarter are to midnight — from 10 P. M. to 2 o'clock, A. M. — the fairer will be the weather during the seven days following. 2. The nearer to mid-day or noon the phases of the moon happen, the more foul or wet weather may be expected during the next seven days. The space of this calculation occupies from 10 o'clock, A. M. to 2 P. M. These observations re- fer principally to summer, though they afiect spring and autumn nearly in the same ratio. Barre, Mass., July 4, 1870. Caleb Rvsset. PROTECTING TREES FROM MICE AND BORERS. In the winter of 1868-9 I lost sixty beautiful young apple trees out of my orchard of 180 trees, in consequence of the mice gnawing the bark. In the fall of 1869 I procured a roll of builder's tarred paper, cut into pieces IJ feet by 2J feet. I then coiled one of these papers around each tree, leav- ing a space of about two inches all around the tree, so that the atmosphere could circulate freely between the tree and paper. I then tied a small twine around the paper at the top and bottom to hold it in place. At the same time I placed about two bushels old chip manure about each tree, so that the first (reezing weather in November fas- tened the manure to the paper, rendering it stiff and steady, thereby making a complete fortifica- tion against the little intruders. Last April, after the snow was gone, I removed the papers and found erery one of my trees that I had thus papered in a perfectly healthy condition and untouched by the mice. There were thirty trees in the same orchard which I did not paper, eight of which were completely girdled and killed by the mice. Osmyn Smith. Smith's Mills, P. Q., July 11, 1870. Last fall, before the snow fell, I wound my young trees with felting paper, put as hi^h as the snow was likely to fall. It was tied on at the top and bottom, also in the middle, with wool twine. All my trees thus protected came through the winter and spring uninjured, while those in by- places not protected were destroyed. Soine of my neighbors did the same with like results. I had two apple trees in my fruit yard six inches in diameter, standing near a fence north of them. A severe north snow storm, the 16th of March, banked the snow up to the limbs of these trees. I directed my man to tread the snow down hard around them. He did it well ; but when the snow melted away we found that the Httle hungry mice had girdled the trunk completely for eighteen inches above the ground. I have banked them up high with earth and they are btaring full thia season, but I think they will die next season. I have succeeded in keepmg the borer from my apple trees for the last twenty years, by applying charcoal dust from old coalpit bottoms. J. N. Smith. West Addison, Vt., July 12, 1870. 1870. NEW ENGLAND F.IRMER. 441 GOING ON TO A FARM. "Will you please to give your opinion, whether a man with only $500 could get a living at farming, allowing he sbould attend to his business ? There are a number here with about this amount of capi- tal, that think of moving back, into the country and locating near each other, that they may assist one another in cultivating the land. Perhaps some of your readers can give us their experience in this matter. t. e. p. Newburyport, Mass., July, 1870. Remarks. — We second the motion that this question be referred to "some of our readers." We have so often tried to express our opinion about the probable success of village and city peo- ple in farming, that we should much rather print the experience of those who have tried it, than to repeat our own views. As a general rule we think it is not advisable for men to change either busi- ness or location. The process of acclimation which change of location often implies, and of ap- prenticeship and adaptation which is Inevitable in entering upon a new business, are neither pleasant nor profitable. Many village and city people who get a little book-farming knowledge into their heads, overlook the fact that farming is a trade, and entertain a vague notion that almost anybody can run a farm and do it up in much better style than is done by the old do-as-their-fathers-did far- mers. If our Newburyport friends belong to this class of "progressive farmers ;" if they propose to engage in farming before learning the trade; if they never swung an axe or pulled a hoe or worked a pair of sheep shears all day long; if they have never known how heavy a bushel basket full of potatoes is late in the afternoon after having toted them to the cart sterdily from early morning; if their wives have had no experience in butter and soap making, in trying lard or filling sausages, in taking care of poultry, lambs and pigs, then our advice is most emphatically expressed by just four letters — d-o-n-t ! But perhaps T. C. P. and his friends were brought up on farms and have learned the trade by a regular apprenticeship. If so they do not need our advice. They must know that some peo- ple succeed at farming, and some do not ; and that like causes in their own case will produce like eflFects. Failure or success depends on the man, not on the business, whether on a farm or in a shop. SURPRISE OATS. I have just cut a piece of oats of which I send you a small package. The stalks are the product of one singKi oat. The seed came from the Patent Office three years ago, and a few farmers beside myself have them in my immediate neighborhood. I used one and a half bushels per acre, as I sup- posed, but found after sowing I had a little over an acre and one fourth. They are plenty thick. I shall probably get from fifty to seventy-five bushels from the piece. Last year at thrashing they weighed forty-five pounds a bushel, being altogether ahead of the nasty looking black Nor- way in weight, color, yield and every particular. The stalks sent are about the average length of the piece. The drought here has caused the grain on the lower branches to blast, as you will per* ceive. I think with a favorable season and well fitted ground the yield would be large. These grew on a side hill on rather light soil. Some of my neighbors, on heavier land, have a larger growth than mine y. z. Rutland, Vt., July 23, 1870. Remarks. — The stalks received, seven in num- ber, are over five feet in length, and are certainly very handsome specimens, both as to straw and grain. We suppose it is the variety known as the Surprise, which some say is identical with the New Brunswick. The Surprise Oat has been well spoken of by many who have grown it. hens with scurvy legs. Can you, or any of your correspondents, tell the cause of a sort of a warty or scaly substance that grows on my hens' legs ? Is there any remedy ? Ossipee, N. H., June, 1870. Remarks. — We never heard anything of this disease until the large foreign breeds were intro- duced ; and we suppose they are still more liable to it than other breeds. It is generally supposed that the disease is caused by damp, foul apart- ments, and want of proper care, but we under- stand that fljcks that have good attention have suffered of late. A correspondent of the Rural New Yorker says that fowls that show any symp- toms of scurvy legs should at once be separated from the others and placed in warm dry quarters. Give them plenty of wholesome food, and as often as once a day some animal food. Wash the legs with a weak solution of sugar of lead, in the morning, and annoint them with clean lard, mixed with ointment of creosote, just b 'fore they go to roost. Keep them from wet. Others advise to wash the legs with kerosene oil ; annointing with salt grease. feeding bone and oyster shells to hens. In one of the late Boston agricultural papers there appeared a statement of the loss of a large number of hens in consequence of feeding them with ground bone, supposed to have been poisoned in some way. Having had experience in raising poultry, I am led to remark for the information of new begin- ners, that bone or oyster shells should never be mixed with meal, or anything else, when given as feed. Bone and shell must be kept entirely sep- arate from all other feed, and made accessible to the fowls, all the year round, and they will, of themselves, eat just as much as is needed, but not a particle more. Shell is generally preferred by fowls, and should be somewhat coarse. The way I adopt to supply these articles is to use a box about six inches square and eight inches long, for a dozen hens. If it stands out doors the roof ought to slope in order to shed the rain. Take out about one-third of the width of one side — the top part — and have a partition in the middle to separ- ate the two kinds. g. b. s. Boston, July 21, 1870. REMEDY FOR SCRATCHES. Take a piece of alum as large as a chestnut, dis- solve it in half a teacupful of boiling water ; add a tablespoonful of saleratus, and a teacupful of strong vinegar, and use warm. I have found this to be an excellent remedy. T. Roby. North Staton, N. H., 1870. 442 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. PLOrOHING IN CLOVER. 1 see in the Farmer allusions in regard to plonghinK in clover for manure. I would like to inquire the hest method cf doin^ it. I have heard that out West when the soil gets exhausted they plough and sow on plaster and clover seed, and plough in a crop of clover. How would it work to plough a piece of land in the spring, and sow on plaster and clover seed ? Would the crop get up large enough to plough in the tirst year ? J. M. Westminster, Vt., July, 1870. Remarks. — If sown quite early, on land pretty rich and moist, we think there would, ordinarily, be a good crop to plough under the same season. The ploughing in a crop of clover has become quite common in New England, as a manurial agent, and we think will become general among progressive farmers. It ought to be tried in vari- ous ways, and at different seasons and reported, so that all may have the benefit of experiments made. If ploughing under clover, or any other green crop, will enrich the soil, it would seem that every farmer might keep his land in good condition if he would be careful not to crop his mowing fields until the roots of the grasses are exhausted, so as not to afford a crop worth ploughing under. We must plough more frequently, and while the land is in condition to bring a fair crop to be mingled with the soil and have a visible effect upon it. Where land will bring a second crop of grass of a ton to the acre, that is frequently ploughed in, and the land sowed to grass again at once, or left for hoed crops, small grains or roots the next season. We have great confidence in the utility of plough- ing in green crops, and hope the practice will be- come universal among our people. MASSACHUSETTS AQ'L COLLEGE. With the annual examination of the classes, which took place on Tuesday, August 2, the third year of instruction in the Massachusetts Agricultural College closed. Another class, which will be added September 8, at the com- mencement of the next term, and another year of study and instruction, are still wanting to put the institution in full working order. Is this always remembered by those who are looking for immediate results, and inquiring what has been accomplished by the College ? Next year, for the first time, the usual 'Com- mencement" exercises will be held ; then the first "rotation" of study and of classes will be completed. Many farmers adopt a system of cultivation and cropping which requires four years or more to complete the course. In such case, would it be just to base an opinion of the benefit of (he rotation system on an observa- tion of the results of the first two or three years' cropping? We admit that men do some- times thus judge, and that diverse views are expressed, for instance, of the profitableness of the corn crop, which is usually the first one in the imperfect system of rotation practiced by New England farmers, without due con- sideration of its connection with, or influence on, the several crops of oats and grass which follow. And in like manner, some are disposed to form an opinion of the benefits of an agricultural college by the results of the first year or two of an incomplete course. The Amherst Record says the late examina- tion was well attended, many strangers from' out of town being present. The examina- tions were held in the chapel, which was dec- orated with green. The mottoes, "Practice with Science," "Progress with Prudence," were displayed very tastefully over the plat- form. The young men acquitted themselves well. The examinations were conducted in the usual style by questions, the student being required to turn and face the visitors. The following studies included the course in which the classes were examined : Geology, Veteri- nary Science, Survejing and Drawing, Agri- culture, History, Chemistry, and the Selection and Care of Farm Stock. The latter was conducted in the yard ai^ joining the farm barn, and the students were, in turn, called upon to point out the different parts of the animal un- der consideration. During the evening a levee was held at President Clark's residence, at which mem- bers of the Board of Agriculture, Trustees of the College, the Faculty, and students and in- vited guests were present. Wednesday morning, at half past eight o'clock, the students were exercised in infan- try tactics, under the direction of Captain Alvord, the officers of the different classes taking turns in handling the company. The movements of the company were well execut- ed. The students are hereafter to be drilled in artillery practice, a section of artillery hav- ing arrived for that purpose. The number of students is not far from a hundred, but not so large as stated in last winter's report to the legislature, several be- ing obliged to leave for different reasons. —Many of the farmers of Orleans County, Vt., are saving grass seed this year. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR]VIER. 443 hhks* Oijpartment. From Hearth and Home. MEABURINO- THE BABY. We measured the riotous baby Against the cottige-wall — A Illy grew at the threshold, A id the boy was just as tall I A royal tiiiier lily. With spots of purple and gold, And a heart like a jewelled chalice. The fragrant dew to hold. Without, the bluebirds whistled High up in the old roof trees, And to and fro at the window The red rose rocked her bees : And I he wee pink fists of the baby Were never a moment still I Snatching at shine and shadow That danced on the laltice-sill ! His eyes were wide as blue bells — His mouth like a flower unblown — Two little bare feet, like funny white mice, Peeped out from his snowy gown; And we thought, with a thrill of rapture That yet had a touch of pain, When June rolls around with her roses, We'll measure the boy again, Ah me I In a darkened chamber, With the sunshine shut away, Through tears that fell like a bitter rain, We measured the boy to-day ; And the liitle bare feet, that were dimpled And sweet as a buobling rose, Lay sxde by side together. In the hush of a long repose I Up from the dainty pillow, White as the risen dawn. The fair little face lay i-millng, With the light of heaven thereon — And tbe dear little hands, like rose-leaves Dropped frcm a rose, lay still, Never to snntch at the sunshine That crept to the shrouded sill I We measured the sleeping baby With ribbons as v^hite as snow, For the shining rosewood casket That waited him bi;low; And out of the darkened chamber We went with a ihildless moan — To the height of the sinless angels Our little one had grown 1 I<"or the New England Farmer, FLOWER GAEDENINQ FOB SEPTEM- BER. "If we could open, and unbend our eye, We all, like Moses, shnuld ebpy Ev'u in a bush, the radiant Deity." Surely in all God's works we can trace the im- print of his Divine Hand, and in our gorgeous flowers He grants to us a slight glimpse of the glories of that city beyond the sun, whose light was never seen on land or sea! Our garden beds are at the bright of their beauty and glory, now — but soon the cold hand of King Frost will rob them of all their grace and loveliness. Asters, Zinnias, Petunias, Verbenas, Geraniums, Gladioli, and all the Lily tribe form a mass of aazzling brilliancy. We are greatly indebted to Japan for her contributions to our list of garden beauties. The first Japan Lilies were brought over in 1850, by Dr. Siebold ; he had also collected many other rare bulbs. The packing cases containing them, arrived at Antwerp during the storm of a revolu- tion. They were deposited in a warehouse — after- . wards used as a barrack for a troop of French cavalry, and the glorious Japan Lilies were all that weie saved out of the wreck, the boxes being broken open, and their contents scattered. Prof. Lindley, describing one said, "the diamond bouquets, the queen of Spain's jewels, and even the far famed, priceless Koh-i-noor itself, must pale their inefiFectual fires, when compared with this gorgeous flower." It is perfectly hardy, will stand our coldest New England winters unprotected. At first it was treated as a stove plant, but it did not thrive ; now it grows in great luxuriance in the open border. It is a gross feeder, requires much stimulant to produce its flowers in rare per- fection. Lilitim Auratum, or Golden Banded Lily is much more beautiful, because with its beautiful form, and coloring, it also possesses the most deli- cious fragrance, perfuming the air, and delighting the senses. As yet, a high price is asked for this gem of the Lily tribe, but as it is easily propa- gated, both by offsets and seeds, it will soon be oS'ered at so low a rate that all lovers of flowers can revel in its glories. Gladioli are a very pop- ular flower, and high sums are asked and received for "novelties." Already the species number above a thousand, and each year, by careful hy- bridization, more are produced. The bulbsshould be stored after the leaves are killed by the frost, in a dry frost proof cellar or closet. The handsomest flowers of Asters, Zinnias, Stocks, Balsams, and all annuals should be tied np, to preserve the seed, taking care in all cases, but the stocks, to select those that bloom apart from Jbe single varieties. With a little labor, and close attention, a lady may save her seed for the ensuing year, and be as certain of good varieties as if she depended upon the seedsman. But the largest and first blossoms of the Aiters must be saved, picking ofl"all the smaller flowers, so as to throw all the strength into the one designed for seed. With Zinnias, select the most perfectly double flowers, and mark with twine or yarn. Verbena seed can be saved, and thus a good sup- ply secured for another year. Seedlings blossom much more profusely than plants raised from cut- tings. Mr. Snow of Chicopee, Mass., makes the raising of seedlings a specialty, and his beds are a dazzling mass of beauty. Double flowers pro- duce few if any seed. Stocks are always raised from seed saved from the single flowers. It is well to leave but two or three roots among the double flowers, so as to have them fecundated from them, rather than from the inferior fl)wers of the single species. Double Pinks produce but few seed which must be saved with care, and they will usually blossom true to the parent stock. Keep your garden neatly, in this month ; do not grow careless of its appearance, but prune, slake, 444 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Sept. water and weed with an untiring hand. Cut oft" •the perished blossoms whose seeds are not de- sired ; cut off the rose buds whose glories are de- parted ; trail the straggling vines, and tie up the rampant branches. Perennial and biennial plants that have been raised from seed, can now be transplanted to per- manent situations. Select thereof the largest growth, transplant in rainy weather — or after seven o'clock, P. M., and with a small ball of earth adhering to the roots of each plant ; water care- fully, and the plants will soon take root, and in the following summer flower luxuriantly. All fibrous- rooted plants that may have overspread into a large tuft should be cut off into the desired size. Almost all perennials may be now increased by dividing the roots. Fleshy rooted plants like Frcucinellas, Irises, Peonies, etc., can now be taken np — their roots parted, and planted again, they will become well rooted before winter— and will produce stronger and finer flowers the ensuing summer. The reason why so many perennials die out, is that they are allowed to increase until they are fairly choked to death. They should be transplanted every two or three years. At this season, we should strike cuttings of all desirable house plants ; if it has not been done pre- viously, set about it directly. Verbenas can be easily propagated by sinking small pots in the ground, and pegging a runner into them, covering it tightly with sand. Bedding out Geraniums can be tongued, it is said, and roots will be sent forth. Select a strong vigorous shoot — and cut a slanting slit two thirds through just below a bud or hinge, the plant will endeavor to heal the wound by send- ing out minute white roots ; as soon as two or three appear, separate it from the parent stem, and plant in rich soil. Dahlias were once the most highly cherished flower of the gardens, but like all things else their day is of the past; but the Boquet or Dwarf Dah- lias are exquisitely beautiful; they are smaller than most of the Asters, and each petal is per- fectly cupped. They make most charming pot plants ; we have one entirely covered with mauve- colored blossoms deeply tinted with chocolate. Exquisite is unsurpassed in beauty by any of the "bouquet" class. It is of a rich golden yellow hue, and its petals are tinted with scarlet. This species is worthy of the attention of all amateur florists. They are not equaled by any other flower for vases or baskets. The Double Geraniums are brought to a high standard of perfection. We possess three of them, all in the fullest bloom, and they far surpass all other plants. Any one can grow a geranium; they need plenty of sunshine, a strong, rich soil, and not much water; their succulent habit fits them to endure our hot, dry summers. "Andrew Henderson" is of a glorious scarlet! These delicious novelties were originated by Lemonis, the prince of geranium cultivators in France. And he deserves the thanks of all lovers of the beautiful for his numerous contributions to our gardens. s. o. j. DOMESTIC KECEIPTS. Oxford Dumplings. — Mix well together the following ingredients : Two ounces of grated bread, four ounces of currants, four ounces of shred suet, a tablespoonful of sifted sugar, a little allspice, and plenty of grated lemon peel. Beat up well two eggs; add a little milk, and divide the mixture into five dumplings. Fry them in butter a light brown color, and serve them with wine sauce. Rusk. — Take one-half pint of milk, three eggs, one large teaspoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of sugar, one-half cup of yeast ; mix as batter (not too thin;) set in the sun until light ; then knead into a loaf ; pull oflF pieces of equal size ; roll in the hands ; put them in an oven close together; let them raise and when they have done so, wash them over with egg and sugar, beat together. Bake as quick as possible. Boiled Raisin Pudding. — Half a pound of flour, half a po?Und of bread-crumbs, half a pound of raisins, three ounces of sugar, two ounces of citron, four eggs, half a teacupful of milk, a little nutmeg and ground ginger, one teaspoonful of brandy. Chop half a pound of kidney-suet very fine, add it to the bread-crumbs, with a little grated ginger and nutmeg ; the raisins stoned, the sugar pound- ed, and the citron cut iioto slices. Mix it all together, and then stir with it the beaten eggs, the milk and a tablespoonful of brandy. Beat the mixture well together, and boil it in a fioured cloth four hours and a half. DEVOTED TO ACJRICULTUKE, HORTICUIiTITHE, ANB KHJDEED AKTS, NEW SERIES. Boston, October, 1870. YOL. IV.— NO. 10. R. P. EATOX & CO., PuBLisnERS, Office, 34 Merchants' Kow. MONTHLY. 8IM0X BROWN, I EniTORS S. FLETCIIER, i -^»"ORS. OCTOBER FANCIES AND PACTS. "When all the gay scenes of Summer are o'er, And Autumn slow enters so silent and sallow; And millions of warblers, that charmed us before, Have fled in the train of the sun-seekine swallow. The blue-bird forsaken, yet true to bis home, Still lingers and looks fjr a milder to-mo»'ow; 'Till farced by the horrors of Winter to roam. He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow." — Wilson. CTOBER, inNew England, pre- sents some of the most charm- ing scenes ever ^ presented to the ^^^ eje. Thomson, in the Seasons, s of the au- tumnal foliage in Eng- land, in glowing terms. Even that, probably, bears no fair comparison with what we always see here in October. Many years ago, Dr. D wight, then President of Yale Col- lege, asked an J- intelligent Eng- lishman of taste, while admiring with him this autumnal foliage near New Haven, why the poets of England ever used the terms brown, or russet, in their descriptions of autumn, and received an answer to this effect: ^^ Because thfy never saw any other; such a scene as this never blest their vision.'''' Descriptions of some of our autuma scenery, which were perfectly just, would scarcely be credited by the English people. With us, the coloring is not only infinite in its shades, but glistens and sparkles in its gor- geous profusion. To notice this in perfection, however, one should travel by team through a region diver- sified by hill and valley, so as to see the foliage of the oak, beech, maple, hickory, birch, &e., interspersed with the pine, hemlock, spruce and hackmatack. Then, on the hill-sides and hill-tops, or on the edges of the charming meadows that so beautifully contrast with the higher lands, the sun may be seen lighting up entrances to the woods with a splendor that reminds us of some grand cathedral, with its burning lamps, pictures, statues, and other works of art. We must see it when the morn- ing sun breaks mildly from the east and first touches the leaves on the tree-tops, pencillinor them with unnumbered charming colors. So in the fervid noon, when the unshadowed sun pours fiercely upon the forests and kindles up a carnival of colors ; or, amid the soft haze of the setting sun, when its feebler rays give a world of softer, but not less impressive and beautiful coloring. The full glory of the for- est cannot be realized from a single point. We must see it on hill and plain, in the sweet meadows where the brooks meander and bab- ble, and in deep gorges among the mountains. 446 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Oct. So, early October is the time to travel, when boughs are bending with fruit and apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to let go when no wind is out, and swing in long waver- ings to the earth, which they touch without sound, and lie looking up, till winds rake them, and heap them in fence corners. When the gales come through the trees, the yellow leaves trail, like sparks at night behind the flying engine. The woods are thinner. The days are Cilm. The nights are tranquil. The Year's work is done, and walking in gorgeous apparel, she looks upon her long labor, and her serene eye saith, "It is good." So the October days entice us into the open air. There is health in it, if we will but exercise and freely drink it in. The woods are full of beauty. The brooks sing in the valleys, and all nature invites the invalid, the pleasure-seeker and the man of business, out into the elastic and invigorating air. "Thare pours a glory on the land, Flash'd down from heaven's wide portals, As Labor's hand grasps Beauty's palm, To vow good will to mortals ; The golden year brings Beauty down, To blees her with a marriage crown, While Labor rises gleaning Her blessings and her meaning," October, however, is not only a pleasant month for sight-seeing and visiting, but for performing many duties of the farm, which ought not to be postponed to any other day. Poultry. — When Thanksgiving comes, it is pleasant to go to the poultry-house and find something there to grace the dinner-table, around which our kindred and friends are to assemble and help us enjoy the bounties of the year, and to be grateful for them. This cannot be done in a week or a month before that time comes, but must be attended to now. See, therefore, at once, that the poultry is well fed on a variety of food, has convenient roosting-places, clear water always near, and that the stronger ones do not torment the weaker. Pork. — A hog will probably grow much more in October than in December, on the same amount of food, as hogs are frequently kept. No animal enjoys more a clean, dry, and warm bed. If flies molest him, he will roll in the mire to keep them off, because he has no hands to brush them away. If the sun pours its burning rays upon him, he will do the same, in order to get cool. If his apartments are consistent with his nature, and he has ac- cess to light at will, a dark place to sleep in, and a dry bed to lie upon when he prefers them, he will usually appear with a clean dress on, and have the appearance of a very orderly and tidy animal. His growth will be profit- able, and his flesh as sweet and wholesome as any that we use, and indispensable in one form or another in the culinary department. To secure this, swine must be properly tended in October. The small potatoes, early pumpkins, and windfall sweet apples should be boiled, salted a little, mixed with meal or boiled grain of some kind, and fed to them regularly twice or three times in twenty-four hours. They should have also cool, clean wa- ter once each day. The only danger with pork made in this way is, that it is so excel- lent that persons are apt to eat too much of it. Draining and the Muck heap must not be forgotten. With regard to the first, it is im- portant that something of it should be done every year wherever it is needed. It is better to do it in rather a small way, because it can be better managed in case of storms, or any- thing that occurs to call attention away from it. Find first the outlet for the surplus water, then the amount of fall, and the best course for the ditches. A little study of engineering, if one is not accustomed to the work, will gener- ally enable the operator to go on correctly. With regard to the miick, it is always well to collect it when water is low on meadows and swamps. It does not hurt by keeping, and is really a valuable manure in itself. Lay up stores of it, then, whether it be October or July, if you can consistently with your other work. PlouffMng. — No better time can be found for reclaiming swamp lands — the best lands we have in New England when thoroughly re- claimed, especially if we can control the water which flows through them. On those where the peat is quite coarse and the whole very porous, if the water is taken away too far be- low the surface, the soil wiil soon become too light and dry, so that in a hot, dry season, the crops upon it will fail. In such a case, the ditches should be so arranged as to be closed by a dam and a gate, and the water kept back to within twelve or eighteen inches of the sur- face, or near enough to keep it always moist. So on uplands. The cool and invigorating 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAPJ'.IER. 447 October air is friendly to the team, and the weather will be sufficiently warm perhaps to bring on fermentation of the sward turned un- der, and thus prepare it as plant food for the next spring. Apples. —Save the apples. The crop is abundant this fall. A little cider is whole- some to persons of a bilious temperament, and especially to those subject to inflammatory rheumatism. But only a little — half a 'pint per day, perhaps. Owing to the scarcity of apples for several years past, good vinegar can hardly be found. Now is the time to fill the old vinegar casks. All the vinegar that can be made from good cider may be sold at a profit. Late made cider is best for all pur- poses. Do not gather winter apples too ear- ly. Slight frosts will not hurt them while on the trees. And though leaves are falling, and the flowers are fading, we will go on cheerily, and sing, — "The Spriner, ■with sun and rain, Shall call thf m from the hill and vale To bud and bloom again," "WHITE "WEED. On going over his mowing fields, the observing farmer will now notice numerous fresh and vigor- ous stocks of the white weed. Having been cut off when the grass was cut, they have now thrown out fresh leaves in abundance, and are probably taking firmer root than ever. Is it not now a good time to exterminate them, or, at least, to check their growth so that they shall not completely overrun our fields ? Let us, one and all, make a vigorous attack upon them, some in one way and some in another, hop- ing, that in the midst of numerous experiments, some means of destroying them will be found. In examining the roots of white weed, we have found them in a mass near the surface of the ground, entirely unlike those of the dock and chiccory, which penetrate the earth from one to two feet. Now, if the leaves were cut ofi" with a sharp hoe, and a handful of gas-lime thrown upon the surface, would it not completely kill the plant ? And if not the gas-lime, some other cheap and virulent substance ? Gas-lime may be had at the gas-works in cities, or wherever gas is made, and with small cost, excepting that of transportation. We have no knowledge that experiments of this kind have ever been made, but it seems that some- thing of this nature may be cheap and effectual. ■\Ve hope that many will try something of the kind and report to us the results. In most plants, such as those named above, where the roots go deeply into the ground, it is doubtful whether any application to the surface would destroy the plant; still, gas itself kills trees wherever it reaches their roots, and the gas-lime must be equally destructive. The chiccory roots are rather slender and long, and throw out very few lateral roots, so that a rain might wash the gas-lime down this single root and destroy it. If this substance should be efficacious, it would prove of great value to the farmers of New Eng- land. There will be no need of hunting for the white weed, for M'herever they grow they are per- fectly visible now, and will be again in the spring if not destroyed. On fields nearly covered with them it would be best to plough and cultivate, but where they are introduced in patches, a man might go over two or three acres in a day and cut and dose them. BEES IN SEPTEaiBEK. This is a mouth of comparative leisure with bees. There is but little done now more than perhaps to change about their stores to some extent in the hives, so that it may be most convenient in winter. Bees, in all well man- aged apiaries, will be peacefully enjoying their well-earned treasures, and the quiet move- ments, and the gentle humming about the doors of their houses, speak only of content and happiness. Bees require but little attention now more than to guard against robbing, and but few operations should be performed upon them, the less the better, at this season. Such jobs as transferring from common to movable comb hives should not be done now under any cir- cumstances ; my experience would not warrant transferring bees thus, later than the first of July. If bees are to enjoy the fumes of brim- stone, it is time now ; but the man who suffo- cates his bees in the fall for their honey, will sooner or later be troubled with bad luck, de- pend upon it ; while he who is willing for them to share the fruit of their labor with him, that is, who uses a desirable hive understandingly, will succeed, and his bees will grow more and more prosperous each year, as his stock ot knowledge of their habits and requirements increases. We must learn to profit by the experience of others in this as well as in other branches of business ; and the careful reading of good practical books on the subject cannot fail to be both interesting and instructive, and well worth the necessary expenditure to procure them. I would especially suggest that bee- keepers look into this matter of hives more, and before another season comes, provide themselves with something better than the old- fashioned box-hive. A good working, mov- able comb-hive is very desirable, and quite important to people who would keep up with the times in bee-keeping, and these hives can- not be objected to by any one aside from the needless expense of the frames if they are not to be worked. — O. W. P. Oerrard, P'ymouth, in Maine Farmer. 448 NEW ENGLAND FARI^IER. Oct. CUBING SOWED CORN. It is a laborious task to cut by hand several acres of heavy sweet corn. My neighbors find it almost impossible to gather the shocks into stacks, or mow, and prevent spoiling. Besides, standing in the shock in the field through very much wet weather, as we often have in the fall, greatly lessens its value. My plan is to prepare the ground well, sow early, and roll after sowing ; let it stand until it begins to ripen. Here is the main point of success. When the lower leaves begin to turn yellow, the saccharine matter begins to turn to sugar, and then there is less water to dry out, and the corn is of much more value. The ground being rolled smooth, you can cut with a machine close to the ground ; let it lay four or five days in the sun, then rake with a horse rake and cock up, allowing it to remain in cock two days, when it can be hauled with as much dispatch as the same amount of timo- thy hay. With the aid of one man and boy we hauled off, last fall, three acres in one day, putting into small stacks and mow, and it kept as bright as needs be. We have practiced this plan for several seasons, and have never lost any. — Bural New Yorker. For the New England Farmer. THE GARDEN IN OCTOBER. The season's labor in the garden is now nearly closed ; what remains, is to finish gathering and storing late crops, which should not be put off a single day after fully mature and ripe. In this section we had a very wet winter and spring ; the winter was mild ; spring cool, which delayed planting and vegetation till late, when all at once vegetation seemed to burst forth with a bound, and with rapid, unabated strides came to an early maturity. Early fruits and vegetables are found very good, and much richer than in a more moist and variable season. Bwt the continued drought cut them short, and was quite un- favorable to later planted crops, and consider- ably abridging the succession of fresh, crisp vegetables fcom the garden. Should this abridgement teach us to prize a good garden more highly, and incite in us to improve on former practices, the lessons of the season wi'ti not be without avail. Slight frosts injure the keeping qualities of many fruits and vegetables. All such should be gathered and securely stored before frosts occur. Cabbage and some like crops are not injured by light frosts, but hard freezing affects even the cabbage ; but usually we do not have such freezes till into November. Aside from gathering and storing the crops, there is much that may be done in the garden to enhance next vear's profit, such as ann-ihi- lating weeds, turning up new subsoil — espe- cially on all heavy or clayey soils — to be amend- ed by the actipn of frosts, &c., of winter. Asparagus. — New beds planted out this fall of roots or seed, will be so much done to- wards spring work. The deeper and richer the beds are made, the greater will be the growth of top. For garden culture I believe the roots should not be set nearer than eight- een inches, and for field culture two feet — four feet is near enough for the best growth. Cover the crowns not less than four inches deep, and then mulch with manure after the ground freezes. "Connover's Colossal" is said to be the best, and a real giant in growth. Beans. — Gather any that ripened before freezing, if such remain, shell and dry, and then store in a dry, cool place ; haul up the poles, and store under cover for another season. Beets. — These are injured by the least freezing, and should be gathered and stored before any freezing weather. Any remaining should have their tops pulled off; afttr being pulled, be dried a little, packed down in sand and stored in the vegetable cellar. Cabbage. — Keep them growing as long as safe from hard freezing. The cabbage hardens up and matures the head considerably after cool fall weather, unless already mature, when they should be gatheied, as they will crack and commence a new growth unless pulled. Keep the cabbage and cauliflower plants, sowed for wintering, cultivated and protect, or remove into cold frames upon the advance of freezing weather. Celery — Remove decaying leaves, and finish up the earthing and blanching processes, preparatory to removing the winter's supply into the cellar before frozen in. Cold Frames. — Have these in readiness for immediate use, as wanted. Recollect these are frames similar to hot-bed frames, only the glass is laid on more nearly level, and the bed constructed without manure, and are used for protection, not for forcing. Grapes. — Where grapes are designed for wine-making they should be thoroughly ripen- ed on the vines. On my vines I have this season found the Procris Americana quite plenty, and as early as the last of June the larvjE were full grown. These I caused to be destroyed as soon as discovered, so that they damaged my vines but little, and I think there were none left for another season ; so, if my neighbors have done their part, another sea- son will see them "beautifully less." The Satellite Sphinx also made its appearance, but for all I had a very nice crop of Delawares, Concords and Hartfords. Insects. — Aside from those on grapes, we have had a worm on strawberry vines which has damaged them considerably. I have failed to discover them in any previous seat^on. This worm is the larvaj of the strawberry Saw fly — Emplytus maculatns. In Hearth and Borne for September 3, Prof. A. S. Packard, Jr., has an article describing this insect, in which he says they are readily distinguished from 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 449 caterpillars in that they have "a greater num- ber of feet (twenty-two) than the young of butterflies and moths, which have, at most, eighteen pairs," and for which they are some- times mistaken. Lettuce. — Seed may still be sown in cold- frames. Remove that sown last month into the frames just before severe weather, or it may be protected with clean litter that will hold snow to help protect ; but it should not be used where water will be liable to stand and freeze. Parsnips. — These are best left in the ground through the winter to freeze and sweeten. A few may be packed in sand in the cellar, if wanted for winter use. Spinach. — Thin out the young plants where necessary, and give slight protection before hard frosts. This is best wintered same as cabbage plants. Do any trenching, draining, &c., needed, and do not forget to add to the compost heap everything that can be converted into plant food. Manure, good seed and culture are the three essentials to growing vegetables or any crop. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. For the New England Farmer, "WORMS IN HOBSEB. A writer in the Farmer wishes to know "what will destroy worms in horses." Having tried other remedies without success, I gave my horse, more than one year ago, two doses of linseed oil, one pint at a time, on succeed- ing mornings, and he has not been troubled with them since. Try it. Writing of worms reminds me of a fact related to me recently. Shall "Worms Destroy this BodyP" A relative, having occasion to take up the bodies of two children buried about three years previous, found the coffins in a good state of preservation, but, on opening them, discovered the corpses to be only a mass of crawling, small, white worms, one-half inch or more long ! As the coffins were perfectly tight, it is a question where the worms origin- ated,— in the body, or from germs in the air inclosed in the coffin. Hair Snakes, A young man found, last week, a hair snake in his milk pail, and wondered where it came from. I told him there must be a cricket in the pail. He turned off the milk and found tbe cricket, as I said. These snakes come from crickets. An Egyptian Plague. The present season will be remembered, not only for the hot weather, but also for the plague of flies. Having tried various remedies offered by the fly physicians, and the matter growing no better, but the worse rather, I set up the old-fashioned fly trap with much better success . 'S very clap of this mitrailleuse brought down scores and hundreds at once, but perhaps the usual crowd of mourners or substitutes win follow. These pests have been so annoy- ing to cattle, that in some instances I have noticed the skin had cracked open and was peeling off the fore legs of some cows. About Coloring Butter. Butter-makers who are not so fortunate as to have a supply of that "meanest of fodder," — as Dr. Loring calls it — sowed corn, find it necessary, (on account of the jirought,) if they would receive the best price for tbeir butter, to color it. This is commonly done by the use of carrots, but some use annatto. The latter is used by all cheese-makers in the manufacture of cheese, and in a conversation with Mr. X. A. Willard, who is high author- ity in dairy matters, he said, since the demand was for jellow butter, there was no objection to the use of annatto for coloring butter, pro- vided a pure article was obtained and used in right proportion. Why should it injure butter any more than cheese? "Annatto," says Mr. Willard, "is made from the seeds of a plant which grows in Brazil. The pure article in mass is of a dark red color, not bricky, but of a clearer shade. It has a taste and smell like the extract of licorice. The dark, black look- ing should be avoided." For three ten-quart pans of cream, take a piece of annatto about the size of pea, dissolve it in a little warm water, and pour it into the cream when you begin the churning. Those who try this method with success will not be likely to grate carrots longer. A writer in the Rural Neiv Yorker say. "Carrots contain large quantities of nitrogen, and the use of them for coloring butter is very dangerous.'''' Dairy Prospects. The drought being so severe and general over the whole dairy regions, dairy products must advance in price. If farmers will hold their butter pnd cheese till cool weather, they will realize better prices than they have re- ceived for some years, — at least, so thinks Essex, Vt., Sept., 1870. Roy. Vitality of Seeds — In some remarks on this subject, the Ohio Farmer says, a gentle- man, upon whom we can rely, tells us that in early times, there was a wagon road through a certain piece of thick hemlock woods, in Ashtabula county, over which hay was drawn from one farm to another. Afterwards, this road was abandoned and shut up, and forty years later the forest cut down ; and as soon as sunlight came upon the earth here, a beau- tiful growth of timothy came up the entire length and breadth of the old road. It is stated that people acquainted with this circum- stance generally believe that the hay seed scattered there nearly a half century before re- tained its vitality. 450 XEW ENGLAND FARMER. Oct. LIGHT "BKAHMA" FOWLS. The fine stock of Chinese poultry, of which the above illustration gives a very good gen- eral idea, on account of its great size and uni- formity of characteristics in color, form, and approved good qualities, is now being largely bred all over the United States and in Eng- land, and is deservedly popular. We have published annually, for some years past, a detailed statement, by James Buffing- ton, of Salem, Mass., of the expense of keep- ing a flock of Brahmas, and of the income from the sale of eggs and chickens. Not long since we also published an article, by our intelli- gent correspondent, A. W. Cheever, entitled, "The Brahma Fowls — Why I keep them and how I manage them," which shows the appre- ciation of these fowls by practical poultrymen. The large prices which both the "light" and "dark" varieties commanded at late poultry exhibitions in New York, and at Worcester, Mass., are further evidence of the continued popularity of this race of domestic birds, and it is claimed for them that of aM the Chinese varieties these are the hardiest, the best lay- ers, and the heaviest at maturity. They lay large eggs and a good many of them ; but they are generous feeders. The hens are ex- cellent mothers, and the chickens rear easily, though they at first feather slowly. After alluding to the unsettled question of the origin of the Brahmas, Mr. Wright, the author of an English work recently published in this country, entitled, "The Practical Poultry Keeper." says: — "But one thing 1870. iSTEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 451 is certain : ever since this magnificent breed was introduced, it has steadily become more and more popular, and is now one of the most favorite varieties. To prosper thus in the absence of any poultry 'mania,' a breed must have real and substantial merits." From the same work we copy the following description of the breed: — "Their most marked peculiarity is in the comb, which is totally different from that of any other varie- ty. It resembles three combs pressed into one. In a first-class cock, the effect is such as would be produced were a little comb, about a quarter of an inch in height, laid close to each side of his own proper comb, twice as high, the centre one being thus higher than the others. Each division of the comb ought to be straight and even, irregular or twisted combs being serious faults in a show-pen. In the hens the comb is very small, but the triple character should be equally evident, and the formation is quite plain even when the chicks first break the shell." to the counters. They take much less rubbing and care than they would if treated in the ordinary way. IMPROVEMENT IN CURING CHEESE. We copy from the Utica Herald the follow- ing notice by our correspondent, L. N. Brown, of Edmeston, N. Y., of an improvement in the process of curing cheese, which he thinks may be advantageously adopted by all cheese- makers. He says : — While travelling among the cheese factories in Madison County, recently, I visited the Smith Valley factory. This is a fine factory and managed by Mr. Gritman, a man of sound experience, who has had charge of it for the past three seasons. Mr. Gritman' s dairy is uniform in character, and the cheese are all very fine ; in fact, this is the only factory that I have visited this year that did not show the effect of tainted milk. One feature in the management of this fac- tory is worthy of notice. This is leaving a press cloth on the ends of the cheese while curing. The cloths they used were square, — I would prefer round ones. After the bandage is drawn on, place on the end a round cloth the size of the cheese, then a square press cloth as usual. Put on the hoop and turn the cheese, then place another round cloth under the follower. When taken from the press, leave the round cloths until the cheese goes to market. These are then taken off and cleansed in boiling whey, which renders them fit for future use. The same cloths will answer for years. The following advantages result from this plan : The cheese require no grease. They are free from cracking. They do not adhere NEW PLAN OF SETTING MILK. The present season I have adopted a new plan of setting miik for butter, which I tb'nk is a very great improvement on the old method, and one which, I think, as it comes to be bet- ter known, will be in general use. The method is this : Each milking is put into a single tin vat, made of the heaviest cross tin. The vats are 28 by 40 inches and 14 inches deep, with a one- eighth inch wire around the top, and handles at each end. These vats set into water-tight wooden boxes, with an inch space on the bottom and three inches on the sides for cold water. I use water from a well at a tempera- ture of 48°. If one has running water it would save labor. Five vats are necessary, and with this number milk can be kept 48 hours and have one vat ahead ready for use, or 60 hours if skimmed just before using. The wooden boxes are of clear inch pine, painted inside and out, the vats painted on the outside. I am milking 20-cows and heifers, and find that they seldom fill the vats over eight inches deep ; so I conclude that vats the size of mine would do for a 20-cow dairy, as I have learned that cream will rise as well when the milk is 10 to 15 inches deep, if kept at the right tem- perature. My tin vats cost $4 50 each, my wooden ones $3 ; total cost, including painting and metal f'awcets for drawing off the water, not quite $40. Now for the advantages : it is much easier straining the milk ; is not over one-third the labor to skim and wash the vats ; the butter is of better quality, (I have not seen a '"white cup" thus far;) and when the mercury is up among the nineties, as it has been for weeks together this season, more butter can be made. On this latter point I cannot yet speak de- finitely, but if I only make as much as by the old method I shall be well satisfied It phases the ivomen. There is not a stack of 30 to 50 rattling tin pans to be skimmed, washed, scalded, and aired, but a single pan which can be skimmed, emptied and ready for use in 20 minutes. In this neighborhood there are four dairymen, owning 120 cows, using these vats, and others will do so next season. Tnere is no patent — no farm rights to be paid for — and all who choose can use them — /. S. IF., St. Law- rence Co., N. Y., in Country Gent. — The Spaniards have a maxim that a man is ungrateful to the past generation that planted the tree from which he eats fruit, and deals unjustly toward the next generation, unless he plants the seed that it may furnish fruit for those who come after him. 452 KEW ENGLAND FAEINIER. Oct. IMPOBTANCE OF HOEING. FTER the farmer once begins to get the hay crop, that business is apt to take pre- >y^^ \ AV-sA cedence of all others. The crops which ought to be vhoed, and which have been ^ tended with care up to this time, are neglected, and they become foul with weeds, // JAlW'll ^ome of which are likely to J 'it ^ go to seed and thus infest /I the soil for many years to come. In addition to this evil, the surface of the soil becomes hard and crusty, so that the fertilizing action between the soil and atmos- phere is greatly interrupted, and, consequent- ly, the growth of the crop is retarded. Soon after haying, the^small grains require attention, and thus the corn, potatoes, and root crops are too much neglected. The labor of destroying weeds on the farm, through an ordinary lifetime, is, in the aggre- gate, immense. Like the rolling stone of Sisi- phus, which always went back again the mo- ment he got it to the top of the hill, so it is with the weeds. One crop begets another, and new kinds are introduced, until our soils are crowded with spurious plants which are a burden and a plague. The farmer cannot afford to let them grow among his cultivated plants, because they ex- clude light and heat from them, and in a gen- eral way impoverish the soil. There are several ways by which we may greatly prevent their increase. The first is by the most thorough destruct on of them this season. Even at the postponement for a time of some other things, do not allow a weed to ripen, and thus increase its kind. In order to succeed in the destruction of weeds, we must not rely too much upon the hoe. Where they have become rank there is nothing so efficient as the hand. Tear them out by the roots before the seeds are matured sufficiently to germinate, and then it will be safe to throw them into the hog-yard, or un- der the cattle or horses in their stalls. If the seeds are formed, and would probably sprout under favorable circumstances, throw them into heaps, and burn them when dry, or allow them to pass into a high degree of fer- mentation ; high enough, at any rate, to de- stroy the vitality of the seeds, without regard to the value of the plants as manure. In using the hoe, we generally go forward, and many of the weeds are pulled out of the soil, brought towards us, then trodden into the loose earth, and are thus in condition to grow again. Fields are sometimes seen cov- ered with a dirty growth of various kinds of weeds, hoed out in cloudy weather, where one or two roots only, perhaps, were buried in the soil, and just enough to keep the weed alive. The second hoeing is more expensive, and vastly more disagreeable in such a field, than the first was. Some implement should be used that will lift the weeds out of the soil and drag them a little on the surface before leaving them. In this situation the sun will wilt them, if the day is clear, so that they will not revive. They are then of some value to the soil. For this purpose, the Wheel Hoe is an ex- cellent implement. It not only leaves most of the weeds on the surface, but the operator can run with it close to rows of plants where they are in straight lines, and can accomplish more work and do it better, than three men can with common hoes. Another mode of preventing an increase of weeds, is, to cut grass where white weed and other obnoxious plants are mingled wiihit, before the weed seeds are matured. This will be the best course, even at the expense of some loss in the grass crop. Thousands of acres in New England are overrun with sorrel, white weed, dock, or some other weed, where they are allowed to stand until one-half of their seeds are so far matured as to grow again when applied to the land, mingled with manure in the spring. Most farmers collect a heap of materials through the summer and autumn to be used as a top-dressing. This heap is likely to con- sist of a variety of green plants, sweepings of the barn, loam, muck, and all quickly decom- posing materials that can be obtained. There. is danger lurking in such a heap, and it is bet- ter to let it pass into a high degree of fer- mentation, by an occasional moistening and turning over, than to run the risk of sowing millions of seeds, to throw up millions of ob- noxious plants. The loss of manure by un- due fermentation will be trifling compared with the damage done by sowing the seeds of rank, troublesome and worthless plants. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 453 For the j-Veu) England Farmer, COST OP A SMALL CHEESE PACTOKY. The following article has been kindly fur- nished us by Mr. L. N. Brown of West Ed- meston, N. Y., at our request. It not only answers the inquiries of our correspondent, H. M. Fales, but will be read with deep interest by all dairymen. Mr. Brown's experience as a practical cheese maker, and his extensive acquaintance with building and furnishing Cheese Factories, entitle his opinion to due consideration. The Morning Herald, pub- lished at Utica, N. Y., says "Mr. Brown has planned and furnished more factories than any other man in the State." Mr. Editor: — According to your request I will briefly answer Mr. H. M. Fales, in re- gard to the probable cost of a small cheese factory. The tendency now is to small facto- ries. They are built less expensively than formerly, and mostly by stock companies, — the patrons that furnish the milk taking most of the stock. For 100 cows, a building 60x26 feet, with 16 feet posts, making it two stories, would be required. Take 24 feet from the lower story for a "make room," leaving the remainder and the upper story for "curing rooms." The upper story should be parti- tioned the same as the lower. The 24 feet room over the make room should be plastered and furnished with stoves suitable for curing early and late cheese. The cost depends upon the price of lumber and labor, which differ in localities. A rough, substantial building which will answer in every respect in most localities, would cost $1000. If finished with paint, &c., $1300. It could be furnished with vat, tank, presses, hoops, scales, &c., &c., for $300, making in all $1300 for rough building, and $1600 for the finished one. For 200 cows, the same sized building would answer. For vat and fixtures, $500, making in all $1500 for rough, and $1800 for finished building. This is the size of many that were built in this State this season. Stock companies are formed by those in- terested taking one or more shares, which may be $50 or $100 each. A committee is chosen by the share holders, who superintt-nd the building of the factory, hiring the help, &c. A dairy of 100 cows can be managed by a man of experience, without additional help, who could be hired at from $2 to $3 per day and board. For 200 cows he would want an additional hand, which might be a woman, and inexperienced. The question is often asked. How many cows must a factory number to pay ? For an individual to build a factory to work up milk for others, at $2 per hundred, which is the common price of making and furnishing the cheese all boxed and ready for market, he would want 300 cows or more to make it a paying business. As with an individual, so with a stock company, to make the stock pay good dividends. But by the plan given, the farmers build the factory themselves for the purpose of working up their own milk, which is a great saving to them over the old way, both in ea-pense and quality of cheese. If the price named above will not pay as good inter- est as is just to the stockholders, the price of making should be advanced. As the patrons are the owners of the factory, they can always fix a price that will do justice to all parties. I have used various kinds of apparatus. For small factories, I fuUy agree with Mr. Willard, whom you justly quote as "authority in these matters" that the "Oneida" or "Ralph Vat" is the best in use. Those desirous of building, will find T. D. Curtis's "Hints on Cheese Making" valuable. It giv s measurement of presses, »&c., and much information in general. It will be sent by mail by addressing "Utica Morning Her- ald, Utica," N. Y." Price 60 cents. L. N. Brown. West Edmeston, N. T., July 30, 1870. For the 2\^ew Enplond Farmer. MEDICAL TOPICS. BY A MEDICAL MAN. Cholera. The term Cholera signifies an affection at- tended by vomiting and purging. If the mat- ters ejected consist of undigested food, or of bile ; and if the case occurs independent of any epidemic influence, and is evidently a mere effort of nature for the removal of offending substances from the system, it is called spora- dic cholera, bilious cholera, or in popu'lar lan- guage, cholera morbus. If the disease pre- vails as an epidemic, that is, if it affects many persons at the same time and in the same neighborhood, and if there is a tendency to collapse, with violent and painful muscular contractions or cramps, &c., it is called epi- demic cholera, spasmodic cholera, Asiatic cholera, &c. If the subject affdcted be an infant, and if the disease be caused by denti- tion or teething, or by indigestion, impure air, &c., it is called cholera infantum. But we will describe these three varieiies of cholera more particularly. 1. Sporadic Cholera, or Cholera Morbus. This affection usually comes on suddenly, although it may be preceded by a sense of weight or uneasiness at the stomach, with nau- sea and occasional cholic pains. The attack occurs m-uch ofcener in the night than in the day time, and is ushered in bv vomiting, which is speedily followed by purging, and these continue to recur in quick succession, or sim- ultaneously, until relief is obtained. Severe pains, like those of spasm or cramp, often attend the act of vomiting, and in severe cases 454 NEW ENGLAND FARINIER. Oct. the spasms of (he muscles of the abdomen, feet and legs are very distressing. Hiccup is an occasional symptom. The pulse is more or less accelerated, small and feeble. The skin is cool or cold, and is sometimes covered with clammy sweat. The voice is feeble, and sometimes lost, and there is anxiety, restless- ness, and a sense of exhaustion proportionate to the violence and duration of the attack. This disease runs a rapid course, the patient generally recovering. Occasionally, however, a state of collapse comes on, and death takes place within a few hours from the date of the attack. The causes of sporadic cholera are various. An elevated temperature, doubtless, has some agency in causing it, for it occurs much more frequently in hot weather than in cold, and prevails most in warm climates. Children, youth and middle-aged persons are more liable to this affection than are those in advanced life, and males are more often attacked than females. Unripe fruits and vegetables, un- cooked or improperly cooked food, and an immoderate indulgence in the use of cold drinks of any kind, are the most common exciting causes ; but it is probable that in some cases a special cause is involved, the nature and source of which are not known. The treatment of this aifection should vary some- what, according to the particular circumstan- ces of each case. If there is reason to sup- pose that the stomach contains undigested food, the vomiting may be encouraged by ad- ministering large draughts of warm water or a moderate dose of ipecacuanha, or some other mild emetic. Usually, however, the con- tents of the stomach are expelled by the first acts of vomiting, and an emetic is not called for. The object now is to arrest the vomiting and purging, and also the pain ; and the most effecti/e remedy for this purpose is opium, or some one of its preparations. One-fourth of a grain of opium, or ten to twenty drops of laudanum may be given and repeated every half hour, until relief be obtained ; or, what is better, half a grain of sulphate of morphia may be placed dry upon the tongue, immedi- ately after vomiting. If this be quickly re- jected, a second dose should be given without delay ; and if a second and third dose be re- jected, the administration by the mouth should be abandoned, and a teat^poonful of laudanum, mixed with a little starch, thrown into the rec- tum, to be repeated every half hour until the vomiting and purging ceases. The injection of a solution of morphia under the skin is at present, a popular practice among physicians, and a very successful one too. A highly important part of the treatment of this disease consists in witholding from the patient all liquids, with the exception of a ta- blespoonful of ice water occasionally, or, what is better, a small piece of ice. If spasms or cramps occur, brisk frictions with hot dry flan- nels should be resorted to. Great care, as regards diet, will, in most cases, be required for some time after the disease has been ar- rested. The food should consist of the light- est and most easily digested articles. 2. Epidemic, or Asiatic Chlera. This disease seems to have originated in In- dia, and to have prevailed there for a long period. It commenced its march from Ben- gal in 1817, and during the lifteen years fol- lowing, it traver.-ed nearly the whole of the known world. It visited the American con- tinent first in 1832, and again in 1834. In 1847, it began its march a second time from India, and again travelled over the greater portion of the world, visiting the United States in 1849, '50, '51, and '52. Since then it has occasionally prevailed to a very limited extent. The development of epidemic cholera is, in most cases, preceded by diarrhoea, more or less severe ; but this is not always so. The disease is characterized by vomiting a watery liquid, free from any admixture of bile ; by copious evacuations from the bowels of a thin liquid, resembling lice- water, and by violent and painful muscular contractions or craups of the abdominal walls, feet, legs, and some- times of the arms, hands and face. If relief be not obtained speedily, a state of collapse comes on, in which the pulse at the wrist be- comes extinct, and the blood stagnates in the veins, giving a purple hue to the fingers, lips, face and surface of the body generally. This variety of cholera is exceedingly fatal ; but few of those who suffer from collapse recover, death taking place, usually, within a few hours from the advent of the disease. A special cause is, doubtless, essential to th'^ production of Asiatic cholera ; but this special cause, whether it be a contagious or an infec- tious material, does not, in most cases, pro- duce it independently cf other agencies. In- temperance, improper food, want of sleep, over-exertion, depressing emotions, filthy apartments, an obstructed perspiration, &c., are powerful exciting causes in a large ma- jority of cases. The treatment of this affection is divided into that which is proper during the premoni- tory diarrhoea, and that which s^hould be adopted after the occurrence of the attack. To check the diarrhoea, opium, laudanum, and morphia, as recommended for choiera mor- bus, with the addition, perhaps, of tannin, kino, or some other astringent, are the best remedies. Jf the diarrbcea be not arrested, and the disease becomes fully developed, the same remedies should be continued, wirh the addition of stimulants, such as comphor, am- monia, brandy, &c. ; and if collapse comes on, external warmth, by means of hot blankets, or bottles of hot water placed near the body, and the application of mustard to the chest and abdomen, should be resorted to as aux- iliaries to the treatment above recommended. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 455 3. Cholera Infantum. This is a disease of infancy and early child- hood, the subjects being chiefly between the ages of four months and two years, or about the period of the first dentition. It prevails as an epidemic in all the large cities during the season of the greatest heat. In the coun- try, it generally occurs in a sporadic form, although it sometimes becomes epidemic. It generally begins with a profuse diarrhcea, the discharges being very thin and light colored, green, or yellow. The stomach soon becomes irritable, and rejects every thing that is taken into it. Great languor and prostration come on speedily, and extreme emaciation takes place rapidly. The tongue is covered with a ■white, slimy mucous, the skin is dry and harsh, the pulse is small and quick, the head and ab- domen are hot, while the extremities either retain their natural temperature or become morbidly cool. There is great thirst, but whatever liquid is taken is quickly rejected. In most cases there is considerable fever, es- pecially towards evening, and the child suffers more or less paia, as is indicated by fretful- ness, low moaning cries, frequent change of posture, drawing up of the knees, and occa- fcional acute screams. The abdomen is ofcen somewhat enlarged, and tender to the touch, and occasionally the patient becomes deliri- ous. Death sometimes occurs within twenty- four hours of the first appearance of the dis- ease, but in a majority of cases the sufferings are more protracted. The causes of this affection are a heated, confined and impure atmosphere acting di- rectly on the skin, and indirectly on the mucous surface of the stomach and bowels, assisted, oftentimes, by over-feeding or improper feed- ing, and these causes are rendered more effec- tive by teething. The treatment of cholera infantum should consist in placing the patient in a clean, dry, and well-ventilated room, upon a mattrass or a folded blanket laid upon the straw bed ; in covering the body with a soft, dry flannel ; in administering a warm bath once or twice a day, to be followed by gentle friction over the •whole body with the hand or a soft, dry flan- nel ; in dividing the gums, if they are swollen and hard ; in giving very small quantities of iced water, or of cold, mucilaginous drinks ; in improving the character of the secretions by small doses of aromatic syrup of rhubarb, or equal parts of tincture of rhubarb and chalk mixture ; and in supporting the strength by a weak punch of biandy and milk, with or with- out sugar, as the stomach will bear it best. When the vomiting is persistent, physicians frequently give small doses of bismuth and pepsin, in equal parts ; and if the disease be- comes chronic, tannin, oak bark and other astringents may be employed. The diet should consist of boiled milk, with or without wheat or rice flour, as may best suit the case, boiled wheat flour, arrowroot, and such like articles. For the New England Farmer, USE OF MUCK AND DEY EAKTH. Since I last wrote to you, I have often been prompted to give some bits of my experience, as from time to time I have perused the col- umns of your excellent paper, but pressure of other matters have prevented, and it is quite possible that all concerned are as well or better off for my silence. It occurs to me just now that you may not be so crowded through the busy hay season, as you are at some other times, and feeling like writing, though my gun is not loaded for any particular game, having almost forgotten the various topics that have been presented from time to time, that I wished to have my say about, I will begin with muck. Many farmers are interested in the muck question. I have dabbled in it some for sev- eral years, keeping my hog yards, which are in the barn cellar, under the horse stable, sup- plied with it the year round, putting in as much of it dry, or partiallv dry, as possible. I also use it for my cattle yards and for bedding stock, &c. For this purpose it is necessary to have it quite dry, and I have found it difii- cult to dry it while it lays on the ground, even though the land is dry. I believe it pays to build a floor raised a few inches from the ground beside the pit from which the muck is to be taken, and shovel it first on to that when the weather is pleasant. It will dry much faster than if it remains where it can absorb moisture from the earth. I am confident that we do not take so much pains to save the liquid dropping from our cat- tle as we ought to. If we cannot procure muck or leaves and mould from the forest, sawdust will make an excellent substitute, pro- vided we do not throw the manure out to be washed by storms before we apply it to the land. The hst autumn was wet and winter set in before there was much chance for get- ting leaves, and I found it very convenient to use sawdust. My manure was in very fine condition to apply to the land. Spring opened early giving farmers a chance to commence spring work about the middle of April. Con- sequently the crops were generally got in in good season, and for once we have been able to get our hoeing done so as to commence hajing in June. The prospect now is that we may get our hay this year before it is so hard that the cattle cannot eat it comfortably. Farm crops all look well. Corn especially is forward and of heavy growth for this time of year. I see by looking over my scribbhngs that I have neglected to mention one place where I am very particular to use dry muck, and that is the vault of the privy. Since it has been demonstrated that such places can be kept 456 NEW ENGLAND FAEIVIER. Oct. wholesome by the use of dry earth, that can be gathered so easily in dry weather on our country roads, and in just the proper condition to use, it seems to me that our corn fields may be greatly benefited from this source. When people once try the experiment I am sure they will never abandon it, but will conclude that it is better to save carefully everything that will inci ease the fertility of" our farms than to buy fertilizers, paying more than we can get out of them. W. I. Simonds. Roxhury, Vt., July 10, 1870. For the New England Farmer, SWELLED JAW^S AND THROAT IN BHEBP. Messes. Editors : — It is not an easy mat- ter to give a definite or satisfactory answer to your "Subscriber's" inqui»-y from North Ha- ven, Maine, in regard to the mortality among sheep in that locality, from what he terms "swelling of the jaws and throat." The ac- count given of the symptoms of the malady is quite too limited to admit of anything like a clear or intelligent conclusion upon the question. The only answer which, under the circum- stances, can be given, as I conceive, is to state, in the briefest possible space, the general facts in regard to those diseases which attack those parts of the sheep's system, with such directions about treatment as have been found most beneficial in judicious hands, and leave your "Subscriber" to infer for himself whether the difficulty to which he alludes comes into this catalogue, or whether some new form of disease may be manifesting itself among the flocks in his locality. In the first place, then, swelling is the re- sult of inflammation, and inflammation about the jaws or throat ol the sheep is almost always confined to the loose (cellular) tissue, which lies immediately beneath the skin, between and arouud the muscles, and which forms the framework, like boneycomo to the honey, of all the fatty portions, or to the glands. But an inflammation of the cellular tissue alone is an occurrence so rare, and so harm- less in its results when it does occur, that it may be left out of this account entirely. In all probability then the seat of the disease to which the gentleman refers is in the glands about the mouth and throat of the sheep. Whenever inflammation attacks the glandu- lar system in any part of the animal organiza- tion, it usually spreads with great rapidity. Juit what the mischief is that is thus wrought in the system, whether by this sudden inter- ference in the natural working of the glands some effete matters by being retained in the system act as poison, or whether by t»his rapid inflammation a portion of the glands suppurates, and thence sends out pus to work its results in the organization, no man can tell. Whatever the nature of the disease, or whatever the agencies -through which it works, it seems to generate a poi-son, from the effects of which the animal generally dies speedily. I have seen several instances among sheep, and re- cently one case of the same nature in a horse. The fact that the animal dies, is about all the definite and certain knowledge we have of the matter. Hence the best treatment to be applied to such cases, is the question which most interests the flock- master. When the animal is first attacked, you no- tice a disinclination to feed, or, if it tries t~> eat, it is with difficulty. Hay is only partially chewed, and fails from the mouth. The food is mumbled rather than eaten. The jaw is moved as though each mo'ion produced pain. The eyes grow dull, and the animal finally re- fuses to try to eat. If you examine the patient, you will find the parts between the jaws and underneath the tongue have become swollen. This soon extends down upon the sides of the neck, and finally up upon the sides of the head and face. In twenty-four or thirty-six hours, if the wool is opened, the skin will be found to be discolored, mortification has commenced, and the animal is soon dead. Now, if the patient was a man, the treat- ment would be plain and simple. Warm ap- plications to the swollen parts, and tonics and good food for the stomach. But with a sheep little can be done, and generally because we do not find out the mischief till it is too late to cure, or even palliate the malady. There can be but little doubt that the disease is con- tagious among sheep, and probably among horses, though it is not what is generally known under the common name of "horse distemper." The first thing to be done then is to take the animal away from the flock as soon as it is attacked, and keep it away in an- other barn, if possible, the farther the better and safer for the rest. Give it plenty of fresh air and sunlight ; shear the wool closely from the affected part ; make a hop-poultice, and spread it upon a cloth long enough to reach from the nose down to the brisket, and wide enough to come well up. on the sides of the neck. To the edges of this cloth sew five pairs of strings, one to be tied between the eyes and nose, one between the eyes and ears, and three upon the neck. Let this be changed as often as it gets cold. Give a pint of good oat meal gruel, into which you have put two teaspoonfuls of strong ginger and a gill of v/hiskey, every six hours, and if you lose your patient you will have the consolation of know- ing that you have given it the best treatment that experience could suggest. If a swelling occurs, which is 7iot attended by mortification, or which does not result in that, careful search should be made for any abscesses that mav be forming about the parts, and when any so/t spot is found, it should at 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEI^IER. 457 once be punctured with a sbarp knife. If the the abscess be a large one, or there be several of them, apply the same poultice as recom- mended above, and the same general treat- ment, modified by the mildness or the severity of the disease. Hoping that your "Subscriber" will find here, at least, the evidence of an eflfort to produce something to meet his case, I am, gentlemen, truly yours. Shepherd. For the New England Farmer, FASMS AND SCENERY IN NEW HAMP- SHIRE. In the hilly town of Guilford, beneath the shadow of Belknap mountains, and ovei'look- ing sweet Winnipiseogee, I have pitched my summer tent, or ratbcr domesticated myself for a time within the household of one of the "oldest settlers." On his farm is the founda- tion of the first log hut built in this locality, and he relates a story of the time when, the fire on the hearth going out, the housewife footed three miles in the wilderness, to the next neighbor, for living brands to rekindle it. Out in the orchard is a small graveyard, containing the remains of grandparents an.d other relatives. Many of these rough farms have their burial corner, which was established when neighbors were few and far between. Where strangers po'ssess the old homestead or where the young people have deserted it, these burial places sugg-i-st painful rtflections. Deserted farms are frequent in this part of the State. The old folks obey the decree of inexorable Time, and the young folks finding farming among the rocks unremunerative drudgery, adopt other employments, or leave for the West or California. These ruggeil hills have reared a race of men of clear heads and warm hearts and stalwart forms. They go forth realizing the responsibilities of life ; examples of endurance, uprightness and in- dependence. They have learrned from these eloquent hills the precepts of patience, con- tent and charity — that nothing lives in or for itself— and these teachings follow them through- out life. To Adolphus Don Carlos and Arabella Daffodowndilly, with romantic and extravaga- gant ideas regarding "love in a cottage," and ."summer residences," the cheapness of farms are a constant surprise. The land only is really sold, — the house and out-buildings are thrown in. This farm of 150 acres of pasture, woodland, orchard, and cultivated fields is worth three thousand dollars. That farm near by of eight acres, with a good two-story bouse and barn was sold last autumn for $\}50. Another farm a mile away, containing lUOO acres of which the middle Belknap moun- tain forms a part, is worth between $3U00 and $4000. It has a roomy cottage, well kept and painted, convenient barns and shed, sur- rounded by meadows, maple groves, waving fields of wheat, corn, &c. But still there are valuable farms tn this vicinity. Mr. G. W. Sanders in Guilford, bought mne years ago his farm of 150 wooded acres, bordering on the Lake, for $18,000. The first year he cut lumber enough to pay for it, and the next year as much more. That was, and is sti!l, a p-i'ofitable farm. The land is t'he best I bave seen in this vicinity. Mr. Sanders evidently understands farming and makes it something more than a drudgery. I wish there could be a law concerning fences. In no other State can there be worje fences than one finds in this part of New England. Such promiscuous outlines of stone walls — such bartered and infirm boards, nailed as if affected by lunacy, to ancient, crumbling supports ! — and this in a country where stones grow all the year round. In numerous fields, Httle heaps of stones are piled a few fett apart, and year in and year out the farmers plough around them and mow about them, when an ox-team with a leisure afternoon could clean every stone into a corner and make the fields more valuable and beautiful. Farmer John could erect h'-s own monument, as some farmers of Princeton, Mass., have done, in walls from five to fifteen feet broad, and level and true. Another unpleasant fea- ture are the old orchards, filled with gnarled and dead-limbed apple trees, a protest against good fruit, cumberers of the soA, blotches on the landscape,, and a bad example of farming. The youDg farmers do not care so much for posterity as did their fathers. From Belknap mounta^in, the view of the lake and mountains is more attractive than f:em Red Hill, where the finest survey of the country is obtained. Standing midway in the curve of Winnipiseogee, from the summit, the enraptured eye sweeps over a landscape hun- dreds of miles. Northeast we look straight ahead 150 miles. On a clear day, shipping can be discerned in Portsmoalb harbor. All the mountains of New H^mp-bire are com- prised in the view, many of them fl ittened at the altitude of hills from which we observe them. Every one of the Wnite and Franconia mountains can be distinctly counted, — Mt. Washington being ever an isolated feature from every point of observation. Lake Winnipiseogee is about thirty miles long, one to seven in breadth, and lifts itself 500 feet above the sea. It contains 3G5 islands, 272 having been surveyed. Some of these are thoroughly subdued by cultivation. Davis' island — where we spent a day with a m-erry picnic party — contains over eleven L-un- dred acres, which compose two farms. Over sixty years ago, a Mr. Davis gave his reckless scapegrace of a son this island with conditions that he should live on it. It was then heavily timbered and worth a hundred or two. It has been sold several times for $12,000 although most of the timber is gone. This son ctcd in 1843, aged 79, and is buried in a little lot on 458 XEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Oct. the island, and there also rests his two wives; several of his children are also buried there. His second wife died in Norfolk, Virginia, two years ago, and her body was brought here for burial beside her husband. It is a peaceful little spot — this tiny graveyard ! The eternal hills cast their shadows there, and the waters of Lake Winnipiseogee unceasingly lap the shores with soothing murmur, yet quiet and undisturbed they sleep the sleep that knows no waking. Brown's island close by, is much larger and has a number of farms upon it. A hotel has been kept there, but it is now abandoned, as it did not pay. Just below, the little steamer Cbocorua is gliding behind little Diamond island. There is a small house situated on the verge of the isle and this is a hotel. What are the attractions of the isolated and tiny island. I do not know ; but fishing doubtless, for Winnipiseogee is monopolized by the finny tribes. Yesterday, the landlord of this lonely hotel was conveyed to Concord for burial. No isolation can preclude the search of Death. Vegetation is loudly crying for rain. The wells and streams are drying up, and the earth is fairly baked. Susie Vogl. Guilford, N. H., July 28. For the New England Farmer, THE PaiZE RING. The State of Massachusetts and other States of the Union, annually make liberal appropri- ations to encourage agriculture, horticulture, and the mechanic arts. These appropriations are put into the hands of directors who ofifer premiums at their discretion for objects more or less remotely connected with agriculture and mechanics. Every generation grows wiser, and we have a plan to suggest to the managers of our Fairs, which, although it does not present a new sub- ject, presents it in a new relation. The laws of the State prohibit certain practices, as horse- racing for premiums, prize-fighting, cock- fight- ing, &c., under heavy penalities. But these practices are all connected more or less di- rectly with agriculture, and may be adopted as proper objects for agricultural shows, and thus the penalty of the law be evaded. The matter, so far as it relates to horses, has been settled, and the law has become obsolete. It only requires a little refiection to see that the prize ring is quite as clearly related to ag- riculture as horse-racing, and that if intro- duced on to Fair grounds, it will draw quite as well as the horses, and at much less ex- pense. The prize ring is an exhibition of muscle, endurance and pluck ; qualities which all farmers need, and which are to be acquired by training. Surely in these effeminate days, anything that wiM induce our vonng men to cultivate muscular power, endurance and cour- age will contribute much to success in agricul- ture and mechanics. What would tend more directly to this result than to appropriate a part of the money granted by the State in pre- miums to those who would come up to time most promptly, and punish their opponents most severely in the ring? This would not only prepare men for hard work and great en- durance in the field, but at the same time would cultivate the "noble art of self-de- fence," and would create a remunerative bu- siness for a class of men who should prepare and train the candidate for the honors of the ring. Those men, too, who should win the prizes would doubtless command the highest wages on the farm, and would be the models after which our young men would strive to form themselves. There is no doubt that the Directors have the same power to make such appropriations as they have for racing and trotting, and we think there are honorable gentlemen in the community, who, from their love of agricul- ture, would offer premiums from their own pockets to the most successful entries in the ring. If any person should object to this, let them reflect that it is a leading object with most Boards of Directors to get money into the treasury of the society, and that nothing will attract people like an opportunity to witness contests of muscular streagth and endurance. Experience has proved this from the times when the games were celebrated on the Isth- mus of Corinth, which brought together almost all the inhabitants of Greece. Here foot races were mixed with chariot races, and wrestling with boxing, both with the naked fist and the leaden caestus. This national gathering every five years, in Greece, was justified not only for its social and civilizing influences, but because the exhibi- tion of the athletes and the contests in which they engaged tended to improve the breed of men. At any rate, these contests drew im- mense crowds to witness them, and the same result would undoubtedly follow at our Fairs, were they sanctioned by our Agricultural Boards and thus made respectable. We can think of no way by which our treasuries could be so speedily filled, and we trust our Direc- tors will take the subject into serious consid- eration. A class of very active and liberal men who spend their money freely, would then become interested in our agricultural fairs, — a class which have hitherto not given them their pa- tronage. This will tend to make them more popular and extend their influence in behalf of agriculture. It is the fashion to encourage intellectual culture. Perhaps we are carrying this quite far enough, to the neglect of the cidture of the body. There are many reasons to believe that the race of pure Yankees is depreciating, not only in numbers, but in blood and muscle. Not only is the number of children annually 1870. 2^W ENGLAND FAEMER. 459 diminishing, but the examining surgeons under ■whose inspection a large part of our girown up young men have passed within a few years, tell us that but a small proportion of them have sound and vigorous bodies. Now what would tend more directly to improve the breed than a liberal and generous encouragement of the prize ring ? Progress. Massachusetts, Aug. 1, 1870. A WOMAN'S GAHDENINQ. I have been out looking at my garden this morning (July 7), and it did look so well that I thought 1 would wiite and tell you some of the things I saw there ; and I take a greater pride in doing so, inasmuch as it was partly the work of my own hands. But now for what I saw in the garden. I saw tomatoes in blossom, squashes with eight and tea leaves on them, quite large watermelons, cucumbers, citron and musk- melon plants, also a bed of beets that I think cannot be beat around here, being at least one-fourth of a yard high, a nice onion bed, turnips, Kbol Rabi, cabbages of different varieties, and everything else that go to make up a well-stocked kitchen garden. As for the flower garden, I think it will compare favor- ably with almost any other about here. I will now tell you what my part of the work was. My husband thought he could not af- ford to taake a hot-bed, so I did the next best thing. I took quite a large door that I had, and nailed laths around the edge, so that it would hold the boxes on it, and retain the moisture. I then made a great many little pasteboard boxes, and without putting any bottom in them, set them on it, and planted the various sorts of seeds in them ; and when they were large enough to set out, I slipped them, dirt and all, out of the bottom of the box without disturbing the roots at all, and so there was nothing to hinder them from grow- ing. I started all the melons, cucumbers, squashes, cabbages, tomatoes and bell pep- pers in this way. The beets and onions, parsnips and carrots were sowed in the open ground the 2d day of May, the peas were sowed in April. Everything but the peas 1 planted myself, and I don't know as I am any the worse for it, unless perhaps I have a little more tan on my face and hands than most people care to have ; indeed, one lady said to me the other day, "Why, I would not be tanned the way you are, for all you have in both gardens !" Poor woman, she was neither tan nor any other color, except a dead white, and that is a color I do not fancy, the more so as I carried that color in my own face too many years. A certain amount or" outdoor labor, or ex- ercise, or any other name you have a mind to call it, is just as much a necessity (in my opinion) for a woman, as it is for a man. To be sure, they cannot do much, but still they should do something for exercise out of doors, and what better can they do, than to culti- vate a few flowers, or even work a little in the kitchen garden, if necessary that they should. But almost all the women, seem to be afraid that some other woman will think "she is as tough as an Irish woman" (as a great many are fond of saying), or that she hasn't got ailments enough, or isn't delicate enough, or something else of that sort. Bm"; I will not say too much, for I have been in the same boat myself — I used to think it would be impossible for me to work in the ga3 yet to be learned on the part of those who have the care of dumb creatures, in the way of securing their comfort. CRUELTY TO SHEEP. I have just been informed by a perfectly reliable gentleman that a few days since, during the hot- test weather, he saw in the town of Westport, four wagon loads of sheep from I^aushon Island, hav- ing been brought across Buzzard's Bay, and car- ried some seven or eight miles over a rough road, under the broiling sun, and suffered to remain in this condition in Irout of the slaughter house, until the next day ; havirig been, as be supposed, some forty-eight hours thus incarcerated. When it is remembered how much sheep and little lambs suffer from the heat even in pastures, it must readily be seen how great must have been their sutFering by such unwarrantable cruelty. The earth still groans with cruelty ; and man's inhu- manity to the brute creacion, must cause even an- gels to weep. Let every friend of humanity ex- ert all his influence for an improvement, for with- out humanity thei'e can be no true religion. R. New Bedford, Mass., July 26, 1870. PRUNING APPLE TREES. I wish to know the best way to trim a young orchard. I have one of three hundred trees, sixty- five of which are grafted in the root, and have been set nine years. Some of them cover one rod of ground with the top. How shall 1 trim these ? Shall I cut off the ends of the branches, or other- wise ? About one huncked are seedlings, which commenced to blossom this year; the remainder are grafted trees — some four years, some two years from the scion. How should they be pruned and taken care of? How shall I keep the bark-lice off of them ? I have some trees that are very lousy. Will dry ashes or air-slacked lime, scattered into the trees when wet, do any good ? Backwoodsman. North Montpelier; Vt., 1870. Remarks.— The true way to prune an apple free is to commence upon it as soon as a branch starts in a wrong direction. That is, if it turns in so as to cross the tree, or if its direction will lead it to cross other branches, take it ott" as early as possi- ble. On good soil, nearly every apple tree will throw out more limbs than ought to grow. The cul- tivator, therefore, must see them often during the growing season, and take away such portions of the branches, while young, as will leave the tree suflBciently open to admit light and air, and to be as evenly balanced as possililc. He cannot do this in one year or two, but must bring them into shape in the course of ten or twelve years. He must look at the tree prospectively ; have in his mind's eye all the time just what shape he would like to see when the tree is fifteen years old. It is not common to head in apple trees ; that is, to cut off the ends of the branches. Some of the side shoots of the branches ought to be taken out near their extremities, if the tree is vigorous, which will leave it open to external influences. It will be a slow and difficult thing to keep off the bark-lice. Quick-lime scattered over tba branches might be useful, especially if applied when or soon after the grub hatches out, say from the 20th of May to the 20th of June, according to section and season ; but a pretty strong soap-suds, applied with a scrubbing-brush such as the women scour floors with, would be better. A weak fish brine, such as may be obtained at the stores from mackerel barrels, is said to be efficacious in de- stroying bark-lice, so we are informed. The dry ashes would be excellent for the trees, even if it did not kill the lice. A few simple rules should always be observed in pruning. 1. Never prune when the sap is running freely, as in March, April and May. But, 2. When the sap has gone up to form bud, blos- som, leaf and fruit, and is elaborated into a thick- er, gummy substance, and is descending between the bark and sapwood to increase the diameter of the tree. This will take place about the middle of June, and continue two or three weeks, and again after the leaves have fallen in the autumn. Branches cut off at these times will rarely bleed, but soon form a ring of smooth, green bark around them, and heal over rapidly. 3. All branches should be cut off smoothly, and close up to the stock from whence they are taken. If a stump is left, there is no action in it ; it never heals over, but soon decays, and the decay runs into the main branch, and checks the vitality of the whole tree. More trees are injured by cutting them at the wrong season, we think, than by any other cause. RED-HUMPED CATERPILLAR. — Notodouta COTl- cinna. Specimens of this caterpillar were recently re- ceived from a correspondent in New Hampshire, we believe, but unfortunately the accompanying letter was mislaid. They are something entirely new to our correspondent, who gave a brief de- scription of their gregarious habits, and remarked that they were hideous looking creatures, appear- ing as though they had a head on each end. We have occasionally found them upon our apple trees, but have never known them in sufficieut numbers to cause any serious damage, though they make a clean sweep of the foliage as far as they go. Being an "old acquaintance" we regard them as one of the best dressed and most beautiful caterpillars we ever saw, unless we except the Tussock Moth. With a clean red head and red hump, with bodies handsomely striped with longi- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 465 tndinal lines of black and yellow, black prickles on the back, hinder extremity generally elevated for an extra head, wearing black stockings, social and orderly in their habits, we have always looked upon them as fine specimens of a caterpillar dandy. Mr. Harris says diflFerent broods make their ap- pearance at various times during August and Sep- tember. The eggs from which they proceed are laid in July, in clusters, on the underside of a leaf, generally near the end of a branch. When first hatched they eat only the substance of the under side of the leaf, but as they grow larger and stronger they devour the whole leaf, from the point to the stalk, and go from leaf to leaf down the branches. The young caterpillars are lighter colored than the old ones. When full grown they measure an inch and a quarter, or rather more, in length. All the caterpillars of the same brood descend at one time, and disappear in the night. They conceal themselves under leaves, or just be- neath the surface of the soil, and make their cocoons, and are transformed to moths towards the end of June or the beginning of July of the following year. The moth is of a light brown color. The wings expand from one inch to one inch and three-eighths. We know of no other way of destroying the caterpillar than that of removing the leaves or branches on which they cluster, sometimes so closely as to cover leaves, small twigs and ends of branches. CANKER WORMS. I would like to ask a few questions in regard to the location ot the canker worm. Where did they cause the most trouble this year ? Are they as numerous in other States, as they are in Massa- chusetts ? If so, which ones are they ? Have they got into the Western States to any extent yet ? One Interested. Marlboro', Mass., Aug, 8, 1870. Remarks. — So far as we are informed, the can- ker-worm first appeared in the eastern part of New England, more than one hundred years ago, and for a long time was confined to a narrow ter- ritory. They have several times mysteriously dis- appeared, or nearly so, from certain localities. The cause of their disappearance is not known. Some have supposed that the frost or ice or cold rains occurring soon after hatching, destroyed them. Others have ascribed it to other causes. The can- ker worm Is now more generally disseminated, probably having been carried on trees from in- fected districts. It is appearing in most of the Western States and Canada; but in none of them is it as universal as in the eastern part of Massa- chusetts. We cannot give a correct list of the lo- calities in which they have been most destructive the past year. Three years ago they wholly dis- appeared from some places near Boston ; in others, their numbers were greatly diminished. In some of these places they have since increased to nearly their former numbers. A full reply to your questions would form an interesting article, which we hope some one will write. The canker worm is spreading over our whole country. It threatens the destruction of our fruit and shade trees. Were one-half the loss occasioned by this ii^sect to be caused by fire or flood, the whole population would turn out to save property ; but as it is only a worm that does the mischief, men tamely submit to its ravages with a calm sigh of regret. PETITION OF THE ONION AND CARROT, As heard by an old gentleman of ninety-three Bum- mers, while leaning over the fence of a weedy garden. The undersigned, with good intent. Their humble suit would now present, And ask your honor, much respected. Why is your garden thus neglected ? What his your little Onion done, That he should never see the sun ? And why your humble Carrot needs Be covered thus with giant weeds ? T'would by the calendar appear. Eclipses six there are this year; For them an hour's time is plenty, But ours outlasts the four and twenty. While things are thus, 'tis vain to hope To gather but a scanty crop. We'll tell a story, now in place, And suited to the present case, About a shoe, 'twas like to fail, And all it wanted was a nail ; The owner spared the triiiing cost. And shoe, and horse, and man were lost. So if your garden is not freed From every bad and noxious weed. Your labor proves of no avail, And seed and crop alike must fail, Thus, as in duty bound, we pray You'll grant relief without delay. Onion & Carhot, bv Mnason. Strong, Me., Aug. 6, 1870. "going ON TO A FARM." Having received benefit from many valuable hints in editorials and correspondence of the "Farmer," I will try to reciprocate by giving an ac- count of some of my experience and the results of my observations among my neighbor farmers, for the benefit of T. E. P. and others. Judging from the successes and failures in the various cases under my observation, I am satisfied that a young man and wife with tolerably good constitutions, without children or with one or two smart boys that they intend shall do a reasonable amount of work suited to their strength, can suc- ceed better at farming for a series of years than the average of merchants and mechanics, provided they commence under right conditions and re- quisites. The husband and wife must pull together, with the one single aim of Success ; must make up their minds to some real and perhaps many imaginary privations, and to meet discouragements, sometimes thick and fast. They must leave behind all thoughts of cigars, mint juleps, billiards, oyster suppers, kid gloves, fifteen-dollar bonnets, &c. And if they have had no practice either at farming or gardening they must so govern themselves that they can employ a part of their time for the first year or two at some other occupation, and such as 466 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Oct. will bring in some money, upon which a tii^ht "purse string" will be needed. All important to them are prudence, economy, industry and forti- tude. For this part of the country, I know of no place better for a man with small capital than a farm near some large manufacturing town, large enough to keep a cow or two, a horse and pig, and leave enough land, say from three to five acres, for fruit and vegetables. An elderly, tough horse, to cost say $50 to $75, will do to begin with ; a good native cow, at about the !«ame price, will furnish much of the food for the family, and $5 worth of young pigs make a good machine for turning sour milk and table scraps into pork for the winter, and converting weeds and waste fruit into manure for next crop. Each year I would buy a moderate quantity of good, well tested fruit trees, bushes and vines — no tancy or higb priced ones — making your plan for the entire frxiit patch before setting the first tree. Between these may be cultivated low-growing, small leaved vegetables or strawberry plants. For fruit you must wait patiently two or three years ; meantime cultivating good annual crops of vege- tables for market. In the vicinity of large factory towns such as we have in Worcester county, I have great faith in the profitableness of early crops of onions, turnips and beets ; great pains being taken and reasonable outlay to get them early and of quickest growth. The vicinity of large seaboard cities, like New York and Boston, is to be avoided by the young farmer of small means. Lands theie are high priced. Old, shrewd and experienced gardeners are abundant, and the products of distant States received by steamer, compete with home products. Prices in interior towns average considerably higher, and in fact much of their supplies come second-hand from seaboard cities. I will, in another letter, give a sketch of the re- sult of my first year as a beginner at farming. Worcester County, Mass., Aug. 6, 1870. Ex. Remakks. — We must take exceptions to the re- mark of our correspondent as to childlessness being a desirable condition for a family that pro- poses to engage in farming. The fact that the farm is favorable to the rearing and training of children is, in our opinion, the strongest possible argument in favor of farming that can be urged upon all families who are not smitten by the curse of God or their own criminal acts. Especially on such a farm as that proposed by "Ex," children may be regarded as blessings, even on the lowest financial plane of view. Here their little fingers may assist in a great variety of work, and habits of industry may be established of far greater value to them than the inheritance of a portion of the fortunes occasionally accumulated by men in other profes- sions and pursuits. Contrast the prospects of the young man brought up to idleness, habits of "liberal" expenditure, and the expectation of thousands he never earned and does not know how to take care of, with those of one who, from his earliest recollection, has had a practical knowledge of what every dollar in his pocket costs, and who has been trained and fitted to rely on himself! Which needs our sympathy and our pity ? Which will make the man, and which the fellow ? Above all others, the farm is the place for a family with children of both sexes. For a child- less family, one place is about as good as another. Its course will soon be run. It is an outcast, at war with nature, and unfit for the green fields and the productive soil. Let such meet the oblivion they court amid the brick walls of the city, which but for fresh blood from the country farm would soon be not only childless but manless and woman- less. HORSES IN VERMONT. Wishing to buy a few horses about sixteen hands high, and weighing ten to eleven hundred pounds, I recently visited Windsor County, Vt., and v/as surprised and discouraged by the style and sizes of the horses of that section. Their M'^rgan horses, as they are called, are from 14 to 14^ hands high, with plenty of ringbones on their feet, the result of in-and-in breeding, and of using unsound mares, &c. It appears clear to me that farmers would find it for their interest to raise a better class of horses. If they do not do so, buy- ers of course will look elsewhere for good horses. August, 1870. H. Remarks. — Whatever may be the facts in re- gard to the size and soundness of the present generation of horses in Vermont, we suppose no one will doubt that in Vermont, as well as in other States, there has been a marked improvement in speed within the past thirty or forty years. Ac- cording to Porter's Spirit of the Times, a bet of one thousand dollars was made, in 1818, that no horse could be produced that could trot a mile in three minutes. Now an agricultural horse trot at a county fair at this pace would hardly deserve a "premium." What connection this gain in speed has with the loss in size alluded to by our corre- spondent and admitted by horse breeders, is a question for the consideration of those who would trace cause to effect. ABOUT DITCHING. I cannot agree with you in your instruction to John L. James, of Maine, in regard to running down the hill in the direction of tue general slope, that IS, so as to fall more than two or three inches to the rod. I would run my ditches crosswise, commencing near the top of the wet land, three or four feet deep, and if the land is springy, more below may be needed, but none commenced near- er than the level of the bottom of the one above. It' the water from the drains run down the hill steeper than a fall of two or three inches to a rod in length, it is apt to wash, and then the stones will get out of place and settle ; then dirt is apt to get in and fill it up. I use cedar poles in the bot- tom of the ditch, about two inches apart, then cover with stone and cedar bark. Do not use straw, for mice will cut it and clog the ditch. But different kinds of land may require differ- ent kinds of ditches. If there is much water in the ditch, and it must run down where it is steep, I would protect the bottom with two planks, spiked together like an eave-spout. The straighter the water runs in the bottom of the ditch the bet- ter ; I mean not having it run from one side to the other of the ditch. It will be less liable to wash or clog. I would not recommend having the ditch more than one foot wide at the bottom. A. L. GiLLis. South Danville, Vt., August, 1870. Remarks. — Our reason for recommending drains to run up and down the slope, instead of cross- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 467 wise, was, that when the descent is steep, the water in the higher strips of land, between the drains, will come out at the surface instead of going down to the bottom of the next drain. It must be re- membered that water, whether on the hill-side or in the valley, is always seeking to find its level. It does not conform itself to the side-hill,, but seeks to find a level wherever it is. Speaking of drains across the slope, Judge French says, in his "Farm Drainage," — "Now, looking at the operation of drains across the slope, and supposing that each drain is draining the breadth next above it, we will suppose the drain to be running full of water. What is there to prevent the water from passing out of that drain in its progress, at every point of the tiles, and so saturating the breadth below it ? Drain- pipes afford the same facility [and so do stone drains] for water to soak out at the lower side, as to enter on the upper, and there is the same law of, gravitation to operate in each case." Mr. J. Bailey Denton, Engineer of the English General Land Drainage Company, says : — "I re- cently had an opportunity, in Scotland, of guag- ing the quantity of water travelling along an im- portant drain carried obliquely across the fall, when I ascertained with certainty that, although the land through which it passed was compara- tively full of water, the drain actually lost more than it gained in a passage of several chains through it." With a more careful investigation of the matter, we think our correspondent will conclude that we were right in recommending to follow the general slope, be it much or little. NO CANKER WORMS NEAR PINE TREES. Not long since, I heard a man say that Canker worms would not live among pine trees. The idea was new to me, but on looking around within the circle of my knowledge, I can not disprove it. In a town adjoining Beverly where the canker worm eats very badly, there is a pine tree with two apple trees standing very near it, and while all the apple trees in that vicinity were almost entirely stripped, those near the pine were untouched. I have made frequent inquiries and have not found a man who ever saw Canker worms in the immediate vicinity of pine trees. Now, Mr. Editor, I wish to know if you, or any of the numerous correspondents of the Farmer have any facts bearing on ttiis subject. Beverly, Mass., July 29, 1870. L. Cole. HAY AND HATING IN AVESTERN VERMONT. Th° hay crop in many places in western Ver- mont is very light this year. Last year it was so heavy, that one team and machine would mow for two teams to draw, while this year one ox team can draw what two smart horse teams with two mowing machines can mow. Some men have at- tempcetl to lay down rules for cutting, curing and storing hay. My rule is to cut, cure, and stow away as fast as possible when the weather is good and the hay in proper condition for harvesting. This year the days are all good hay days. I have the horse rake (ttie old wooden revolver, the best hay rake ever invented,) follow the mowing ma- chines after the dew is otf in the morning (but sel- dom we have any this season,) draw the hay into the barn green, put in a layer of hay, salt it a lit- tle, and then put on a layer of oat straw that I stored away last season in good order. I have filled two bays in a barn 52 by 36 feet to the great beams, and I trust my hay will come out bright next winter. ONE WORD RESPECTING LABOR. The Chinese question is being agitated by poli- ticians, by the friends of humanity and by the producing classes. You have not the space to al- low me, neither have I the time or talent, to dis- cuss this question in its broadest sense. I want to see no class of men introduced into this great Re- public as slaves, either apprenticed, or otherwise, but would let all come as freemen to better their condition. One thing is true, we cannot continue to produce for the consumer in New England and pay the present prices of labor. The producers must have their hands strengthened or consumers may expect to face stan^ation. J. N. Smith. West Addison, Vt., July 12, 1870. TO KEEP OFF CABBAGE WORMS. Tell your correspondent "H. D. U.," of Monroe, N. H., who is picking off the green cabbage worm to save his cabbages, to dissolve half a pint or more of salt in a pailful of soap-suds or water, and with a watering-pot wet the leaves every other morning for a week. When there is no rain to wash off the salty sediooent from the leaves, if it does not destroy all worms, lice, or insects that trouble the cabbage, his experience will differ from mine for the last fifteen years. 8. s. t. Holliston, Mass., August 1, 1870. to prevent the SCRATCHING OF HENS. Take a piece of wire some eight or ten inches long ; bend it in the middle around the hen's leg, just above the foot, twist the wire once, leaving the loop hole large enough not to bind or chafe the leg ; then spread the two wires so that the ends will be three or four inches apart, and turn down an inch or so of the extreme ends of the wires so that they will catch in the ground. With such a wire on each leg, the hen will not disturb a gar- den or any place, as they cannot scratch though thev can walk with li'tle difiSculty. C. Keene, N. H., July 18, 1870. Queen Bee Lost and Found. — Mr. Wm. Talmage, a highly respectable and worthy citizen of Athens, Ga., who cultivates bees on a small scale, in the garden adjoining his resi- dence, observed that a swarm from one of his hives, was very much agitated, refused to set- tle, indicated distress by a peculiar buzzing, and after some time flew away to a distance. While trying to discover the cause of their disturbance he accidentally discovered the Queen bee entangled in some grass and weeds in his garden and only attended by a few of her subjects. He relieved her from her criti- cal position and put her under an inverted tumbler on a table in the garden. The faith- ful lieges who had remained with her contin- ued to buzz around her for a little while, and then some of them flew away in the same direc- tion whi«h the swarm had taken. After a short time the whole swarm returned, rallied round their Queen, peace and happiness were restored, and the swarm easily and comforta- bly hived. — Georgia Farm and Home. 468 NEW ENGLAND FARSIER. Oct. THE HARVEST MOUSE. Tn the agricultural books and papers of England this mouse is often mentioned, but we are not aware that it is found in this country. It is only two and a quarter inch- es long from end of nose to root of tail, which measures about two inches more. The back is of a bright ruddy hue and the abdo- men white. The ears are shorter in propor- tion than those of the ordinary mouse ; the head is larger and more slender, and the eyes less projecting. Their food consists greatly of insects, flies being especial favorites, in the capture of which their remarkable agility is most pleasingly illustrated. These beautiful little creatures make their nests, as represented in the cut, among standing wheat, or other grain, or in thistles and other weeds, at some distance from the ground. The nest is a curiosity. According to the description in the book called "Homes without Hands," the nest is made of very "narrow grasses, and woven so carefully as to form a hollow globe, rather larger than a cricket-ball, and very nearly as round. How the little creature con- trives to form so complicated an object as a hollow sphere with thin walls is still a problem. It is another problem how the young are placed in it, and another how they are fed. The walls are so thin that an object inside the nest can be easily seen from any part of the exterior ; there is no opening whatever, and when the young are in the nest they are packed so tightly that their bodies press against the wall in every direction. As there is no defined opening, and as the walls are so loosely woven, it is probable that the mother is able to push her way between the meshes, and so to arrange or feed her young." In this airy cradle may sometimes be seen as many as eight young mice, all packed to- gether like herrings in a box. Being very expert climbers, these mice move among the straws of grain as readily as monkeys do among the boughs of trees. These mice are often carried in sheaves from the field to the barn, where they live and multiply. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 469 PEOFIT IN" STOCK FEEDING, There is a general impression at the East that fattening cattle and hogs at the West is very pro- fitable business. An Ohio feeder states, as the re- sult of experiment, that beef at 6^c. and pork at 9c. per pound, live weight, gave him 55^c. per bushel for corn. An Illinois farmer says that, in his section, they cannot afford to feed corn after the price has reached fifty cents. A farmer in Central Illinois, who is a prudent, careful and economical man, shows by his books that he does not get fair pay for his labor when he sells good ciittle at 8c. per pound, live weight. — New England Farmer. There is evidently something wrong in the above statement. In fattening a large lot of hogs — say from one to five hundred head — it requires eight hundred and forty pounds of shelled corn to put on one hundred and fifty pounds of pork. This gives tbe feeder, at nine cents per pound, gross weight, ninety cents per bushel. la small lots — ten to forty head — the feeder can do much better. Our corn in Kansas costs ns, on an average, among the reasonably good farmers, a trifle less than thirty-five cents per bushel. That our read- ers may judge of the correctness of this statement, we give our estimate. We take twenty-five acres as the basis — about what one man will tend. Rent of ground, at four dollars per acre, one hun- dred dollars; seed, twelve dollars; labor, one hundred and five dollars; team, seventy-five dol- lars ; total, two hundred and ninety-five dollars. We estimate that it requires seventy-nine days' labor to plant, cultivate and gather twenty-five acres. This estimate we know to be fair; but we also know that there are scores of farmers who do better than this. The average yield we place at forty bushels (not ears) per acre. In feeding cat- tle, it is difficult to estimate what the exact profit is, from the fact that hogs and cattle are fed to- gether, and rarely with sufficient care to determine the proportion of grain each one gets ; but at the prices above stated, we know that our farmers realize from eighty-five cents to one dollar per bushel for every bushel of corn fed to either hogs or cattle. What say you, farmers ? — Kansas Farmer. In confirmation of his assertion that there is something wrong in the statements of the three practical feeders cited by us in the brief article above quoted, the editor of the Kansas Farmer presents an "estimate," ■which we copy above in full. To our sense, both the estimate and accompanying remarks have the odor of the office rather than of the field, — of theory rather than of practice. These rose-colored, book-farming estimates of the profitableness of the different branches of ag- riculture, horticulture, &c., from strawberry raising to stock feeding, are objectionable for several reasons. They mislead, disappoint and discourage the producer, they dissatisfy and sour the consumer, and they discredit ag- ricultural and horticultural reading. We do not doubt that stock feeding in Kansas, as well as in other Western States, is reasonably profitable, when conducted by experienced men, of good judgment and sufficient capi- tal, and we have just as little doubt of the incorrectness of many newspaper estimates, which lead consumers to feel that the prices they pay for meats are extravagantly and ex- tortinously high. When Western farmers pay freight on corn to the Atlantic cities, and sell it here for 75 to 90 cents a bushel, the cor- rectness of the statements of the Illinois and Ohio feeders, that they realize only 50 to 55 cents per bushel, when fed to stock, appears to us more probable than the assumption by the editor of the Kansas Farmer that 85 to 100 cents are realized by stock feeders in that State. Crops at the West and elsewhere are sub- ject to the influence of so many conditions of season, insect depredations and other casual- ties, that the estimate by the Kansas editor of an average crop of forty bushels of shelled corn to an acre, still further lessens our confi- dence in his views of the subject. As bear- ing on this subject, and also on that of the cost of production, we copy from the Illinois correspondence of the Country Gtntleman the following statement, taking the liberty to itali- cise a part of one sentence, in which perhaps the Kansas Farmer will see "something evi- dently wrong" : — "If the corn crop of 1870 shall not be of greater proportion and excellence than any since 1860, it will be more the fault of the machinery used to make it than that of the dry summer. Over one- half, perhaps two-thirds, of the whole State where corn has been early planted, then weeded and deeply and well cultivated, there is at present such a stand and earing as has never been seen — no not even in the memorable 1860. The machine plant- ers, which chuck into the soil from six to ten grains in a bunch, the scratching cultivators which truly cultivate the weeds rather than the corn, the sulky ploughs, which straddle the corn rows, but neither plough deeply, stir effectually, nor culti- vate closely, all show their unmistakable marks this year. Wherever they have been there you are pretty sure to find spindling stalks, nubbinly ears, and the field yellow up half way to the tassel. There will be a great many magnificent corn acres this year — a great many more acres where the crop will not yield the product of a ten years* average — while for the whole State over I should doubt whether one-half the whole acreage in corn will come up to an average of five bushels to the acre. Further, there is every reason to think the crop as to soundness will come up to that of 1867." — The official returns just received at the Bureau of Statistics show that the total value of condensed milk exported from the port of New York in the year 1869, was $79,652, of which $21,870 went to England, $14,900 to Australia, $9,494 to the United States of Columbia, $9,176 to China, $8,116 to Brazil, $3,087 to Cuba, $3,093 to the British West Indies, and $1,767 to the Danish West Indies. 470 KEW ENGLAND FARMER. Oct. For the New England Farmer. FANCY BUTT£K. Editors N. E. Farmer: — Mr. Henderson of Ryegate, Vt., asks for a chapter on '■'Fan- cy Bufkr.'''' Your "remarks" are pertinent, but you propose to serve as a medium for somebody el^e to make farther reply, and we take occasion to do so, believing that the public interest may be somewhat advanced thereby. The term '■"■famcy''' as applied in this and many other cases is generally opprobrious, and indicative of the disgust of those who, prefer- ing to educate the public taste rather than to cater to it, are too wise to learn, and too stub- born to conform to the public demand, and who as a consequence, do not receive the high- est prices for their products. It is moreover a relative term, and does not in any two cases indicate the same thing. In our school days we resided a year in Western Pennsylvania, where the "fancy butter" of the village was made by a Connecticut woman yclept "old mother Smith," who was disgust- ingly filthy, but her butter, the product of a large dairy, was really much superior to the other soap grease sold in the village, and was always in demand at prices considerably in ad- vance of any other. We happen to know of several dairies in Vermont where the butter is made and packed in conformity to the taste of a purchaser, and consequently brings ten or fifteen per cent ad- vance upon the very best goods sold in the open market, and of course it receives the sobriquet '■'■fancy butter.'''' J. B. Lyman, Esq., of the New York Tri- bune, read a paper before the American Dairy- men's Association at Utica last winter on "Marketing Butter," and enforced his remarks by passing around among the audience a sam- ple of "Philadelphia prints," a very famous "fancy butter;" but understanding full well the advantage to be derived from comparing the goods with some acknowledged standard, he first exhibited a sample of "good butter" which he bad bought at 50 cents a pound, and then the dollar article, and there is not a man- ufacturer, dealer, or consumer of butter in the land, whose senses are so obtuse that he could not readily comprehend the reason why one should bring twice the price of the other. That class of people, in one sense happily large, whose senses of taste and smell have become so blunted that they may use anything to lubricate their food, may content themselves with a poor article of butter ; but by far the greater part of mankind are always seeking something better, and Mr. Lyman was proba- bly correct when he said — "We have in New York city at least a thousand families who would consume five pounds each — five thou- sand pounds a week — of just such butter as this ; and a price above seventy-five cents would not for a moment check their eagerness to buy." And such families are not confined to New York city, but may be found in every city and village in (he land. If we may judge by the spirit of exultation manifested when a dairyman gets a cent or two a pound more for his butter than his neighbor does, it would be a very great satisfaction to get five or ten cents more which is an entirely practicable feat. We have not now the time to enter into the details of "how to do it," nor is it neces- sary, as they are elsewhere available to your inquirer at an expense entirely within his reach. In general terms, however, the following principles may be enunciated : 1st. Absolute cleanliness must characterize every feature of the business. Bad air, bad water and poor feed, taint the milk before it is drawn from the udder as well as after. 2d. Uniform temperature must be secured for the milk room by the use of water or other- wise. This is a very important matter, sadly neglected by most butter makers, and well understood by but very few. 8d. Care and sound judgment must be ex- ercised, that everything be done at the proper time, and in the best manner. One of the greatest evils of the prevailing system of but- ter making, is letting the milk stand too long before the cream is taken oQ.. It should never be permitted to become loppered. The ap- pearance and quality of the butter should be uniform throughout the year, and this, though easily accomplished by care, can never be the result of chance, so varying and changeable are all the surroundings in the field and the dairy house. 4th. It is not enough to have made a good article, it must be put up for market in a neat, attractive style, and when a style has been adopted it should never be changed except for the most weighty reasons. When the producer has satisfied himself that he is prepared to put an article on the market that is creditable to himself, and of such uniform quality as to be alwaj s and in- variably up to the standard adopted, then, and not till then, should he seek a regular cus- tomer who will take all his product at ' 'fancy prices." We have known persons who lacked the facilities or skill to make a uniformly good article succeed in establishing a good reputa- tion, by judiciously putting only their best goods before their regular customers, and the poorer upon the general market. We lately overheard an old dairyman re- proving a member of his family for waiting time in washing off the outside of a butter tub, saying that it did not make any difference how mu«.h mud and was on the outside, it did not affect the price. It will not always be so, and it is weM to begin to reform in that re- spect. This is a progressive age, and in every de- partment of human industry radical advances 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 471 are being made, and it is the part of wisdom to avail ourselves of all the real improve- ments. If a man in Orange County, New York, or in Penobscot County, Maine, has demonstrated by actual and continued sales at a material ad- vance upon the prices commonly received, that he has hit upon a plan of gratifying the tastes of the consumers of his products, there- by loosening their grasp on their pu-rse strings, it is well for others in the same branch of busi- ness to investigate the merits of his system at whatever cost, and to adopt so much of it as is adapted to their circumstances. The dairy- men of this country have put millions of dol- lars into their pockets as the result of just such investigations during the last ten years alone, and the end is not yet. There are associations of one or another kind, in most of the dairy States for this pur- pose, but their efforts have been mainly con- fined to the cheese department. The Ameri- can Dairymen's Association, however, at its last meeting recognizing its increasing impor- tance, on motion of a citizen of Vermont, voted to embrace hereafter the subject of butter among the objects of their investigation, and it occupies the prominent place in the Ver- mont Association. O. S. Buss. Georgia, Vt., Aug. 1, 1870. For the New England Farmer, MEDICAL TOPICS. MEDICAL MAN, Dysentery. The term dysentery is used to designate m- flammation of the large intestine — the colon and rectum — attended with mucus and bloody discharges. It occurs more or less every season, in sporadic form, and during some seasons, and in some places, it prevails as a frightful epidemic. July, August, September and October are the months in which it most frequently makes its appearance, although it may occur at any season of the year. Dysentery is generally preceded by an or- dinary diarrhoea, more or less severe, with feculent discharges. Soon, however, the evac- uations change to mucus, commingled with blood. The quantity passed at each time is generally small, but the act of defecation is often repeated, slight discharges usually tak- ing place every hour or two, and sometimes after intervals of a few minutes only. The quantity of mucus expelled is, in some cases, abundant, and forms a jelly-like mass, called in popular language slime, and by those are familiar with the preparation of intestines for sausages, they are compared to "the scrap- ings of hogs' guts." A fluid resembling beef brine, or the water in which beef has been washed, is sometimes discharged in smaller or larger quantities, but this is much more fre- quent in epidemic than in sporadic dysentery. Fecal matter of a green color is sometimes mixed with the evacuations, and occasionally round hardened lumps of feces, called scyhala, are expelled. In the course of the disease, the discharges may become purulent — that is, they may contain more or less of pus or mat- ter ; but this is more common in the chronic form of the disease. The inflammation of the rectum occasions a sensation as if this portion of the bowel were filled, and this leads to the frequent desire to defecate, with as much straining as the soreness of the parts will allow. This desire to strain ineffectually ia called tenesmus, and is, in many cases, ex- ceedingly distressing. The griping or cholic pains, which commonly precede the evacua- tions are called tormina, and these, with the tenesmus, are the chief sources of suffering in this affection. There is usually some degree of fever pre- sent in dysentery, but, in many cases, it is very slight. In epidemic dysentery, however, fever is a prominent feature of the disease, and is commonly typhoid in type. The pulse may or may not be accelerated ; the skin may be natural in temperature, or it may be hotter or cooler than natural ; the tongue may be coated, or it may present nearly a natural ap- pearance. The appetite is, in most cases, much impaired, or wholly lost. The intellect is usually unaffected, save in those malignant cases which are much more frequent in epi- demic than in sparodic dysentery. The duration of this disease, from the date of the attack to convalescence, varies from four to twenty-one days usually. No age is exempt from a liability to this affection ; but in the majority of cases, the patients are under thirty-five years. Males seem to be more fre- quently attacked than females. Climate and the season of the year, evidently, have much to do in the causation of dysentery, as is evinced by the fact that this disease is vastly more frequent in tropical and warm climates, than in colder ones, and during the latter part of summer and early part of autumn than during any other portion of the year. The exciting or immediate causes of dysen- tery may be atmospheric changes, excesses in eating and drinking, indulgence in unripe fruits or crude vegetables, fatigue, &c. But in many cases it is not easy to trace its origin to these causes, nor to any obvious cause ; and this fact renders it probable that a special or specific cause is generally involved in the pro- duction of this affection. Sparodic dysentery is never contagious. Whether epidemic dys- entery is or is not contagious is a disputed question among physicians of the greatest ce- lebrity and possessing the best opportunities for observation. Many cases of sporadic, and perhaps a few cases of epidemic dysentery, would, doubtless, end in recovery without medical treatment of any kind ; yet there is reason to believe that disease is sometimes arrested, that its duration may be frequently abridged, and that the dis- 472 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Oct. tressing symptoms may be greatly relieved by judicious medical treatment. It is desirable that, as early as possible, the fecal contents of the colon and rectum should be effectually removed, in order to prevent their continued passage over the inflamed surface or seat of the disease ; therefore the first point in the treatment is to ascertain if the bowels have been spontaneously relieved by large and free evacuations at the outset of the disease. If therei is reason to believe that accumulations of feces still exist in the bowels, an effective purgative should be given. Castor oil has been in much repute for this purpose ; but Epsom salts, Rochelle salts, Seidlitz powder, citrate of magnesia, &c., are preferred by the best physicians of the present day. After pur- gation, opium, in some form, is the best rem- edy. A combination of opium and ipecacu- anha in the form of Dover's powder, is one of the best opiates in this affection. The elixir paregoric is an excellent remedy for children. Opium, in powder or pill, laudanum, by mouth or by rectum, and morphia, may be adminis- tered advantageously, but this should be done by the advice and under the supervision of a competent physician. The subnitrate of bis- muth, tannic acid, gallic acid, rhatany, kino, catechu, logwood, blackberry root, white oak bark, and various other astringents, are some- times used as auxiliaries. The treatment of epidemic dysentery should be simdar to that of the sporadic form, except that more caution is needed in the use of ca- thartics, and there is a greater demand for supporting and stimulating measures. Qui- nia, brandy, and opium are the most reliable remedies in the malignant form of this disease. During the early stages of dysentery, the diet should be restricted to a small quantity of the blandest articles of food. After the first few days, milk, mutton broth, beef tea, &c., may be given in small quantities. It is an object, throughout the disease, to have the food as purely nutritious as possible. Drinks should be used sparingly. Small quantities of iced water, or bits of ice placed upon the tongue may be allowed occasionally, and a little toast- water, rice-water, &c., may be taken at proper intervals. The pat'ient should be kept in bed, with the knees drawn up, and a wet compress, covered with a dry girdle, or a dry flannel compress should be worn upon the abdomen. Enemas of cold water are often very grateful, and a piece of ice, wrapped in cloth and applied to the anus, will frequently greatly relieve the tenesmus. For the New England Farmer, AW OLD RYE-FIELD — FODDER CORN. Mr. Editor : — You will remember that two years ago, when you were at my place, I showed you an old worn-out pasture, covered •with moss and hardback, with an occasional white birch or white pine. At that time we had a consultation as to the best method of improving it. Now this lot was in a worse condition than most worn-out pastures, be- cause years ago rye was raised upon it year after year, without manure, till it would bear rye no longer, then it was turned to pasture, and the last skinning process applied. This spring I fenced off about half an acre, to which, after ploughing, I applied about three barrels of fresh-slacked lime, which was harrowed in. The ground was then furrowed out into rows about three feet and a half apart, and manured in the furrow. Upon one half of it a small quantity of Bradley's super- phosphate of lime was sprinkled. Corn was liber lly sown for, what Dr. Loring terms "the meanest and cheapest of fodders." The corn on the part to which phosphate was applied came up first, and grew the rank- est. On the 15th of July it was eight feet high. That on which the phosphate was not used was about seven feet high. It entirely shadowed the ground, and was of a very dark, rich color. Now, Dr. Nichols says, corn ought not to be so planted, for if the light does not have free access, it will be yellow, and not near so nutritive. Ever since a boy, I have known that light is an important element in the production of vegetation. Without it carbon cannot be as- similated, and vegetables grown in the dark are colorless, and consist of little but water. I have also noticed that when manure was not freely applied, plants were very yellow, though blest, in consequence of their small growth, with a bountiful supply of light, while wher- ever there was a bountiful supply of manure, the plants would be large, many of them, and closely crowded ; but still they would be of a very rich, dark green. The latter was just the condition of my corn, which I find to be a very cheap fodder ; so (hat I can agree thus far with Dr. Loring. While others are complaining of being short of feed on account of dry weather, I have an abundance ; and I see no falling off on ac- count of the change of feed, or the "mean- ness" of the fodder. My young heifers are growing as fast, and are in as good condition as when the pastures were at the best. My cows give as much milk, and their condition is equally good. If it was not for this patch of corn, which Dr. Loring designates as the "meanest and cheapest of fodders," I should now have to do as many others are doing — draw upon the haymow. As it is, I have a good supply of fodder till next October, with half an acre of improved pasture upon whi^h I shall put more manure this fall, and sow with rye and grass. The rye I shall mow in June, and feed green, and thus be able to keep more stock, and thereby increase the manure for this or other parts of the farm. Tnos. Whitaker. Needham, Mass., August 6, 1870. 1870. 2?EW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 473 TRIAL OF VEGETABLES, &c. A part of the grounds of the Michigan Ag- ricultural College is used for experiments, where numerous varieties of any vegetables are planted under like circumstances, and cul- tivated in the same manner. This affords students and others an opportunity of compar- ing the growth of different kinds of garden vegetables, «fec., imder like conditions. A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer furnishes a statement of this year's experiments from which we condense the following : — Onions. — There are eight varieties. The large yellow Danvers. is liked best on account of color. The red Wethersfield yields best. The soil is gravelly, deeply subsoiled, and thoroughly drained, plenty of rich manure ploughed in, and leached ashes on the surface in spring. They yield at the rate of six hun- dred and twenty bushels to the acre. Such culture will produce large crops most cer- tainly, be the season wet or dry. Tomatoes. — They are raising forty-one va- rieties this year, a variety of their own origin- ating is preferred. Beets. — They have ten varieties. The best early is dark red Egyptian ; best winter is new rough skinned or bark skinned. For market, later, the best is Long Smooth Blood. Potatoe'i. — Eighty-one varieties. The early Shaw is the earliest variety that is reliable. Early Goodrich has sometimes rotted a little, and does not always yield well. The early Rose is the first to produce potatoes of good size suitable for market, though the quality is inferior to early Shaw. They are trying seeds of wild species from Mexico and Quito. Peas. — Ten or twelve varieties. Best early Terry & Go's Extra early, later, the best are "Little Gem" and "Champion of England.'" Sweet Corn. — Ten or twelve varieties. Farmer's Club the tenderest; the Mexican, sweetest. Lettuce — Fifteen varieties. For early, the best is Early Curled Simp Farmer. His last article, on 'Trimming Pine Trees," was published in 1868, and was dictated, as from a lameness in his hand he was unable to hold a pen. His articles were marked by practical good sense and extensive information. He em- ployed most of his time on botany, pomology and entomology, and contributed largely to agricultu- ral and scientific publications. The Mirror and Farmer, received since the above was written, says his death occurred on the 14th of August, from dropsy. It adds, that he was one of the most systematic farmers of the State. He was a native of Pelham, and was always content to make the old homestead his dwelling place, though through excellent taste he had added greatly to its value and its attractiveness. He was the origina- tor of that popular berry knovrn as Cutter's Seed- ling Strawberry. The loss of such a man will be felt beyond the circle of home, and even of the town, which he has benefited by his industry and skill. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 489 In sending a communication to the Mirror and Farmer, Mr. Levi Bartlett, of Warner, N. H., who has measured more than his "threescore and ten," remarks, in a note, that the health of his hired man failing this spring, he was left to depend on himself and son, with an occasional day's work, to carry on the farm. He says, "Since the 18th of May I have performed as much labor on the farm as I used to forty years ago. By letting into my work like a 'thousand of brick,' my crops are free from weeds, and, except some falling off in the hay crop, they are a full average with previous years. Never had a better corn crop ; oats ditto ; five varieties of winter wheat, some winter Jiilled, but what survived the winter is No. 1 ; ten kinds of oats." Carlos Pierce, of the firm of Pierce, Flanders, & Co., of Boston, and a breeder and exhibitor of stock, died at his residence in Stanstead, Can., Aug. 20, aged 40 years. He had spent the winter in Washington, and returned home somewhat un- well. His disease was typhoid fever, complicated with an attack of cholera morbus. For the Kew Englanf' Farmer, ILLINOIS PASTURES AND MEADOWS. BY JOHN DAVIS. If the great State of Illinois has any forte, it is agriculture. Soil naturally rich, and so level that there is scarcely a waste acre in a thoi^sand, one can hardly fix a limit to the number of people she will be able to feed, when careful and intelligent farmers shall hus- band all her resources, and bring the soil to its utmost capacity. I am not ignorant of the fact that much of her soil is underlaid with vast coal beds, and that hence her manufacturing capacity is im- mense. Yet, vast as is this capacity, it is not so universal or so cheaply available as is the fertility of the soil. Her climate, of course, is continental, and is more or less subject to extremes of temperature, drought and humid- ity. Yet, on the whole, not more than the average of fertile continental countries. Grazing or grass growing for the production of live stock, is at the very foundation- of Illi- nois agriculture. Reduce her to raising grain merely, and she would cut no great' hgure in the markets of the country. Bat if you would learn of her capacity, look over the cattle market reports of New York city. It is not uncommon to see the number of cattle from Illinois footing up greater than all the other States put together. And when we consider Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa and all the other great grazing States, this report respecting Illinois means a great deal. Our best pasture grass is the Kentucky blue grass {poa pratensis) . It stands drought and cold well. Its season of rest is from the ri- pening of the seed in June, until fall showers commence, say about the first of September. It is reliable for pasturage of the richest qual- ity, from September till July, unless covered by snow. The Redtop (agrGsiis vulgaris) is a fine pasture grass for wet lands. It makes a tight, strong sod, which drives out the weeds and wild grasses, and is not easily poached by the animals. White clover (trifoUum repens) is a hardy, tlutritive little plant, which furnishes much pasturage in spite of us. It is the most ag- gressive plant we have, on some soils ; will stand feeding, grief and abuse better than would appear possible. Upland clay soil, with considerable lime, appears to be its most suit- able home. It is fine for cattle, sheep and hogs ; but for horses, timothy (pMeum pra- tense) is our great meadow grass. It is the universal preference for hay, and in the fall, after mowing, is largely fed down as pasture. Considering its universality, it must be reck- oned, as a pasture grass, next to, if not equal to the blue grass itself. Red clover (trifolmm pratense) is usually the companion of timothy in the meadow for hay, and is most excellent as an early pasture, after mowing. Its season of rest is not in midsummer, but, regardless of heat or drought, springs up immediately after mowing, when it is sometimes much needed. It is not much uj-ed alone, either for hay or pasture. We do not use it much yet as a green crop to be ploughed under. In . the meadow we prefer that it form about one-third or one-fourth of the crop of hay. The periodic decay of its long tap-roots enrich the soil and keeps it mel- low. It does not run out in this region, but continually comes from the seeds, keeping its foot-hold in the meadow, with timothy, quite well. The best time to sow blue grass, is with wheat or rye in the fall, though it frequently comes in the pastures, driving out all else, without the agency of man. Timothy is also sown in the fall, with the winter grains. It never appears of itself, as does blue grass. I have frequently seeded land by carefully scattering hay for the cattle, when snow is on, to prevent waste, on land sown to rye. Sown thus late, the first crop is rye entirely. After that timothy, making good fall pasture among the rye stubble. Red clover is not safely sown in fall, as the young plants sometimes winter kill. It is mostly sown in March or early April, on land sown the fall previous, to timothy. Red clo- ver does not appear on land itself, except the land has in times previous borne clover seed, or has been accidentally seeded by scattering manure. White clover is seldom or never sown. It is universally viewed as an intruder. Though valuable, yet it is objectionable. Never grow- ing large enough for hay, frequently causing horses to slabber badly, it is not near so prof- itable as other grasses. 490 XEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. Oct. In an article like this, and in a State as new as Illinois is, it •would, perhaps, be just to notice the wild grasses of the country, which have contributed so largely to the convenience, ■wealth and credit of the State. Without be- ing tedious, I can only say that there are sev- eral varieties, naturally adapted and almost always found in peculiar localities. Eleva- tion, humidity, and texture of soil being al- most always truly indicated by peculiar natu- ral grasses. They all form tough sod, some of them much more so than any tame grass. Most of them bear seed, stand burning, graz- ing and considerable trampling, with impunity. Yet, when once subdued by cultivation, I have never known them to re-occupy the land, as tame grasses sometimes do. They are never sown by man, and are disappearing from the State very rapidly. Ten to twenty years ago they furnished by far the larger portion of summer grazing for the live stock of the State. The great want in Illinois is cheap farm la- bor ; and one reason why the grasses of the State have become so important, (aside from natural adaptedness,) is the ease and cheap- ness of their management. Pastures, of course, when fenced and established, require little outlay for annual labor. The stock live in them all the time, except during the se- verest winter weather, when the hay crop, or corn in the shock is made a substitute. Hay is now secured on our level meadows, almost entirely with machinery, worked by horses, in a horse-raising country, like this, horse labor is cheaper than Chinese. An in- telligent lad of fifteen to eighteen years old, with a good pair of horses, will cut about eight acres per day, with a forty-eigbt-inch iron mower. The hay is raked with one horse into windrows, at the rate of twenty or more acres per day. A bunching rake, with a horse at each end, managed by two small boys, will throw these wind-rows endways into piles, very fast. The piles are brought from differ- ent directions, and left in pairs— two and tv?o, — near each other. The men then come with forks, throw one pile upon the other, • trim down and top off. The shocks thus made should contain from three to ten hun- dred pounds. Toward the latter part of the week, the day of stacking comes. The two boys, with the bunching rake, bring the hay cocks to the stack. Some eight to ten are pressed together by the horses, for the foun- dation of a rick. The balance are brought alongside for the superstructure. The inevi- table horse, with his crane, puUies and fork, managed by a boy on his back, hoists the hay on to the rick as fast as one man can stack it. Often two are required. One man is required to set the fork. Thus two men, three boys and three horses will stack an immense weight of hay in a day. Were it not out of season, I would describe some of our peculiar hay ma- chinery. It will be more appropriate next June. Haying is not the human drudgery it once was. It is much like going to war when the men are all officers. For the boys it is a reg- ular gala day. On the spring seat, mowing, riding the bunching rake, or pitching hay on horseback, it is little else than fun for them. Box 50, Decatur, III., Aug. 16, 1870. ENCOURAGE HOME PRODUCTION. At the opening of the recent exposition of Textile fabrics, at Indianapolis, the following remarks occur in the opening address of Presi- dent Boweut of Chicago : — "I need not tell you of the great improve- ment that has been made by our manufacturers during the past few years, for any one that has given any thought to the subject would readily notice, in examining the beautiful goods now on exhibition at this place, that we, as manufacturers, are marching on in the high- way to success, and the question is, shaM we make our success certain? The practical question is, shall we receive from the good people of our common country words of en- couragement that shall make our services the more certain, or shaJl the people's verdict be against us, and the great market of our land be given to strangers, in part to our enemies ? Are we able to produce such articles of textile fabrics as the market demands ? Shall we in- fluence our approval of the men and women of our nation in the use of American goods ? Give us these and the fostering care of our government, and we shall soon see our glori- ous land with factories and foundries both north and south, and the tide of prosperity will be with us as heretofore unknown. "We say, then, let us encourage these in- dustries. Let us assert, in the full develop- ment of our great country, in which we all justly take pride, and with a prosperous and healthy state of our manufacturing interests ail over the land, we shall enjoy thrift that will be most gratifying, and a page in the his- tory of our political economy, yet unwritten, will be revealed unto us. I am greatly re- joiced to see so large a display of goods on exhibition from the Southern States of Ken- tucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and Geor- gia, showing to us the great interest our friends of the South are taking in this matter, which is indeed one of great importance to us all." He called upon the ladies to wear shawls of home manufacture, instead of going to Scotland or France to obtain them. The West made just as good ones as the world could produce from wool. — The Farm at the Maine Agricultural College, Orono, Me., contains 375 acres, about half being wood land. About 80 acres are in pasture and meadow. Only 17 acres are under the plough this season. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 491 For the New England Farmer, THE HORSB AT OUR AQKICCTLTUKAIj FAIRS. The horse has always occupied a prominent place at our agricultural fairs ; but within a few years he has taken a long stride forward and left ail other domestic animals in the back- ground, and now receives the major share of the premiums and of the time of both man- agers and attendants of the annual gatherings. Even man himself, with all his attainments, is cast into the shade by a good horse. There can be no doubt that this increased interest in the equine race will result in its im- provement, both in our estimation and treat- ment of it. The most casual observer can see that there is-^a great change of public sen- timent in his favor — that his services are yearly better and better appreciated. Owners of horses take more pride than formerly in hav- ing an animal that bears unmistakable marks of kind usage. This is one of the beneficial tendencies of societies and fairs, and is as it should be. But to secure the desired result, is it necessary that the horse should monopolize the time and premiums of our societies ? It is not a little interesting to see how societies professedly devoted to the general cause of agriculture are making a specialty of the horse : for example, last year the premiums offered for the horse by the New England Society amounted to $4,500, while those for neat cattle in all their grades and classes was $2,190 ; less than $800 •was offered for sheep and abount $260 for swine. According to this schedule of premiums one unacquainted with farming in New England might reasonably suppose, that the value of horses exceeded that of all other stock. But the capital invested in cattle in these six States is 30 to 40 per cent greater than in horses, and yet this society is willing to-expend two dollars upon horses to one upon cattle. The expense, risk and care of taking cattle to a fair is as great as with horses, yet the highest prize for a herd was less than the lowest prize in the trotting matches. The valuation of sheep In New England is nine and a half millions, or about one half of that of horses, yet this society considered a single trot worth more, or at any rate offered to pay more for it than for the benefit of sheep-owners. All the premiums offered for swine would be an insignificant purse for horsemen. Now, I think a prize bull and herd of cows are of far greater value to a community than a fast colt t'jat can win a prize by his speed ; and who will say that the improvement of the sheep and swine of New England is not of greater importance than the best race this society ever has or can get up ? Again, the highest prize for best mower, horse- rake, tedder, or any of these great labor- saving implements, was five dollars ; and throughout the fruit, floral, vegetable and grain departments, and in that of domestic manufactures, merely nominal sums were of- fered. These, perhaps, are the same as other societies give. But I think a society that is willing to pay one thousand dollars for a horse trot, ought to give greater encouragement to exhibitors in all these important departments. One thousand dollars for a horse trot, five dollars for the best mower and thirty dollars for essays upon subjects of vital importance to farmers ! Is this a fair, a just recognition of merit, talent or mechanical genius ? The mower is the greatest blessing that mechanical ingenuity has lately given to farmers, and the price of all the trotting horses in a State would be no inducement to give them up. Five dollars to a trotting stallion and one thousand to the inventor of a mower or any other great labor-saving implement, would be a more just appreciation of what does really promote the welfare of the masses of farmers. Should money be the only inducement for writing an essay, the man so contemplating had better throw aside his pen, buy a fast horse and go in for the races. When the ladies see the trifling premiums offered for the works of their hands — the sum total being less than a horse jockey gets at a single race, — is it strange that they do not contribute more freely to these fairs ? Our agricultural literature abounds with dis- cussions upon "Intellect in Farming," "The Superiority of Mind to mere Physical Power," but is it not working antagonistic to these well established truths when a higher premium is paid for physical than mental labor, — when a fast horse is valued higher than man himself. So long as horsemen receive the lion''s share of the attention and premiums of our fairs, it is not strange that they assume consequential airs, and are inclined to snub cattle breeders and raisers of sheep and swine. It is well known that the bulk of the money given to horsemen goes for racing, or, to speak more guardedly, trotting or trials of speed. The propriety of bestowing a society's income in this manner may well be questioned. Passing by the effect as an amusement upon morals and the intellect, what are its conse- quences or benefits upon our horses? The aim of breeders of horses in this class is to obtain speed, for it is the fastest animal that wins the large premiums. Speed is cultivated to the exclusion of other qualities. In the days when a well mounted courier was the swiftest messenger, and hunting with horses was a favorite employment, there was a de- mand or necessity for breeding expressly for speed. But since the steam car and telegraph came into use, the real necessity for this de- scription of horses has ceased ; the mass of farmers do not want them ; the community, as a whole, have no use for them. The excitement caused by exhibiting at our 492 NEW ENGLAND FARJklER. Oct. fair a few remarkable animals, and continually parading their feats and dwelling upon the money made by them, has caused many a man to attempt to produce likewise a fast steed, who, after all his care and expense, has seen his labors come to naught. With this one object in view, breeders have gone to an ex- treme, and are filling the country with stock horses said to be fast, when they were not needed. Had the enterprise been expended in producing horses of all work, roadsters and draught-horses, the capital would have been better invested, and greater and more lasting benefits would have been apparent, because there is a great and growing demand for horses of these classes. Plain farmers can breed animals of the latter description with some certainty of a remuneration. Great speed is, of all qualities, the least desirable to farmers ; a rapid walk, ability to draw, are qualities that will always render a horse saleable. There are too many dull, slow-walking, slightly built, and stnall horses in our markets. More time is lost daily by slow walking than has been gained by all the improvements in high speed. Another point to be considered in connec- tion with these trials of speed is the immedi- ate effect upon the horses. Trotting inside of three minutes requires great exertion ; few horses can do it without taxing their powers to the utmost. It is like loading a horse with the last pound he can draw, just to see him pull. Because a horse can draw two or three tons, it is no reason for putting that load upon him ; and because a horse can trot a mile inside of 2.40, is it kind, merciful usage to put him to that test for amusement ? Did these trials of speed serve to strengthen, prolong the life, or render a horse more useful, or give any posi- tive benefit to spectators, then something might be said in their favor. They are simply putting a dumb animal to his utmost. Over- driving is the same as over-loading. Whether it is done upon a common road or under the auspices of an agricultural society, it is haz- ardous in the extreme, and such violent exer- tion tends directly to break down and shorten the days of the strongest constitution. Since this fashion for fast driving has prevailed, many a promising colt has been injured, per- manently injured, by the ambitious and vain hope of its owner to make a fast horse of it. The association that fosters this taste by year- ly opening grounds to contests of mere speed, and bestows its highest premiums upon the fastest horses, sanctions fast driving any- where. Thus, in whatever aspect the subject is viewed, it is open to serious objections. The society that desires to promote the interests of farmers, is bound to respect the interests of all, and not let one class of exhibitors, or ob- jects, monopolize the premiums, to the exclu- sion of others of equal and far greater impor- tance. Those societies who choose to make a specialty of the horse, and let horsemen gov- ern, should at least take another name than agricultural. n. 8. T. Lawrence, Mass., Aug. 25, 1870. DO BEES GATHER OR MAKE HOWETP I am decidedly of the opinion that they gather it and deposit it in the hive, without any modification whatever. There are few things we can say we know are not so ; but it seems to me to be too late in the day for any one to maintain that honey is manufac- tured by the bees. As for their making honey from molasses, I will not say I knoio they never will, but I do know 1 never could in- duce them to use a particle of it, and 1 have tried numerous experiments with it. The foundation for the belief that they ever use it, probably lies in the fact that the bees will gather the sugar settled in the bottom of mo- lasses casks, but observation will show that it is only the sugar. I never could detect them carrying off one drop of liquid molasses. Likewise, I have satisfied myself that bees seldom visit more than one kind of blossom during one excursion ; have known exceptions. There is no evidence, however, that, as is maintained by some, they are particular about storing each kind of honey by itself in the hive. One may discover cells of clover honey, discolored by buckwheat, which is neither pure clover or buckwheat. — M. Quinby, in Rural New Yorker. DEVOTED TO AaRECUIiTDTlE, HORTICDTiTUKE, AJSTD KTNDEED ABTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, November, 1870. VOL. IV.— NO. 11. R. P. EATOK & CO., Publishers, Office, 34 Merchants' Row. MONTHLY. SIMOIT BROWN, S. FLETCHER, J!fOVEMBBK. "Low the leaves lie in the forest, on the damp earth, brown and chill; Gather near the evening shadows; Hark I the wind is eorrowing stiU. Vanished are the pine-crowned mountains, hidden in a dusky cloud ; Bee the rain, it faUeth even from the wan and dreary sky; Rusheth on the swollen streamlet, willly whirling, f jaming by ; And the branches, leafless, waving in the Fall wind, low are bowed." O V E M B E R ! the Month cf Thanksgiving Days ; the sea- son of thanks- giving hearts. The crops are harvested and secured ; and though drought, or other causes, may have cut some of them short, an abun- dance for all, man and beast, is left. The terrible famines which occasionally cut off the people of other lands, will not =^^^H probably be felt here. Our country is so widely extended, that some por- tion of it will always be blessed with abundant harvests. If drought, insects or storms pre- vent crops from maturing in this region, some other in the wide domain of our sister States will have a surplus to spare. In earlier times, this might not have availed us much ; but now that the country is threaded with railroads and canals, transportation is so rapid and cheap, that one portion of the country can supply another and distant one with the necessities cf life in a very short period. In this we are highly favored. It is one of the great securities against those ter- rible calamities which have occasionally taken place in other portions of the world. Three or four hundred years ago, the most grievous famines occurred in England, because the land was so wretchedly cultivated. Men, women and children perished of actual hunger by thousands ; and those who survived kept themselves alive by eating the bark of trees, acorns, and pig-nuts. A deficiency in a staple article here, has more than once been made up from the abun- dance at the West, and this change is alwaj s going on in this country. The November work of nature is now going on. Heavy rains usually saturate the earth, fill up the ponds and streams, carrying with them not only moisture for the roots of plants, but treasuring up warmth for winter use. The observing farmer says; — "It will be a cold winter." Why? it is asked. Because little rain has fallen, the ponds and streams are low, and the winter' will be a cold one. And so it would prove if the rain were with- 494 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. held. The full streams and ponds contain a certain amount of heat which is given off in the winter, and the weather is considerably modified by it. But the rains not only do this ; they also carry warmth to the soil, and various elements of fertility, which feed and stimulate the roots of plants, and prepare them for a vigorous spring growth. November frosts are also as useful as the dews of June or the showers of July. They have their time of coming and their part to perform, and will not postpone them to an- other season. All these operations in nature, ought to be suggestive to the farmer, that he, too, has various labors to perform in November, that ought not to be left for December. The permanent improvements of the farm, the care of the animals which serve him, pre- servation of the fruits and other crops, which have been harvested, the security of buildings and cellars against storms and frosts, and the social interchanges between neighbors and relatives, — all require the attention of the far- mer in November. COIiLEQE CATTLE. At the fair at Amherst, the Massachusetts Agri- cultural College, as we learn by the Amherst Re- cord, showed the following stock from its farm :— Short-horns.— 'Q\x\\, "Mountain Lad," bred by Augustus Whitman of Fitchburg, Mass., by "Red Star," 6107. Cow, "Young Acacia," bred by G. Munson of Huntingdon, by "Mameluke," 3114, Heifer, "Yarrico 57th," bred by Paoli Lathrop of South Hadley, by "Autocrat," 5334. And "Au- tumn Rose," bred by Phineas Stedman of Chicopee Falls. Ayrshires.—'QwW, "Colfax," bred by Collins, Collinsville, Conn., by "Robin Dame," "Lady El- len," 123. Heifer, "Lulie," bred by Henry F. Hills, Amherst, out of "Tulip 4th," 799. Cow, "Emily 4th," bred by A. B. Conger of Rockland, N. Y. Devons.—UxxW, "General Lyon," bred by E. H. Hyde of Statford, Conn. Cow, " Winona," bred by E. H. Hyde of Stafford, Conn. Calf, "Little Gen." bred by Massachusetts Agricultural College. Jerseys.— Bull, "Gipsey," bred by the late Chas. G. LoriDg, Esq., of Beverly, from imported stock. Bull, "Enterprise," bred by James Thompson, late or JNantucket, but now of Worcester, Mass., by "Don Pedro," 16. Cow, "Lucy," bred by Henry CoDO of Amherst, by "General Grant" out of "Fanny." ■iLeie were also eight grade cows, twelve South- down bheep, a team of four horses and two oxen, with a Chester white boar and sow, and four Suf- folk grade shotes; also, specimens of corn and potatoes from the College farm. Remarkable Effect of Sun Heat. — Fruit cooked upon the trees ! During some of the last days of August, when the sun seemed to exert its greatest power upon this mundane sphere, toma- toes were taken from the vines, on one or two occasions, and brought directly to the table for use. On taking up one of them, it was thrown suddenly down because it was so hot, and was found uncomfortably so by several who tried it. But this was cool compared with what the Califor- nia Scientific Press states took place out in that land of wonders. There, the fruit actually cooked upon the trees ! Many of the grapes were fairly cooked upon the vines. Plums needed no stew- ing. The thermometer indicated 114 degrees in the coolest shade, but the birds did not drop dead from the trees from the effects of heat, as it is stated they did in Marysville, in 1858. For the New England Farmer, THE GARDEN FOR NOVEMBER. During this month most of our preparations for winter should be completed ; and the ear- lier in the month the better, usually, in our New England climate. If our suggestions have been followed, there will now remain but little fall work to be accomplished. Still it may be well to look around. There may be some late vegetables not yet gathered, Sc-e that they are secured at once. Those late cabbage, — are they to be stored in the cellar, or buried in the garden where they can be reached nicely without difficulty during win- ter ? See that they are stored so that they will not become water-logged ; nor the mice get at them, which will make sad work, if al- lowed to get among them. See that they have good ventilation, whether in the cellar or out doors. Ventilation is necessary for all vege- tables wherever stored, and especially is this the case when in the cellar under our living apartments. An opening into the chimney in the cellar for the bad air to pass off at the top, is about the best arrangement for cellar ventilation. Guard the turnips, carrots, beets, celery, &c., against frost, mould, rpt and ex- cessive dryness. They are all much more relishable when kept as near as possible in the condition of freshness when first gathered from the ground. If your garden soil is a heavy or clayey loam, it will well pay you to spade or plough it deeply, leaving it rough and ridged to throw off surface water, and to subject tbe stiff bot- tom soil to the action of the winter frosts. If a good dressing of manure is turned in at the same time it will tell in the better amendment of the soil, both as to its mechanical condition and fertility, in the future. The gardener on 1870. 2?EW ENGLAND FARMER. 495 such land, who is desirous of deepening his soil, and of having his garden dry and early in spring, will not fail to have it undei drained, as well as thrown into ridges in the autumn. Are the bean poles, stakes for tomatoes, hot-bed frames, melon and cucumber boxes, &o.. gathered and stored under cover? They will last enough longer to pay for such care and attention. The garden, too, looks slovenly, with its summer furniture lying around loose, and gives to the passer-by an impression that the proprietor cares little for his garden or is slovenly and negligent in his habits. Is there a corner of your garden that is wet and has frequently troubled you at planting or other times? If so, it shows that there is need of underdraining, and now is just the time to do it advantageously. Vegetables, vines and fruit trees, can no more live and thrive with wet feet than you can preserve your own health with your feet constantly soaked in cold water Perhaps you have often wished, and intended to drain it some time. Well, this fall is the best time you will ever have to do it. The ground is now clear of crops, and after the late, long, hot, dry sum- mer, there should be little water to interfere with the operation. Cut the drain not less than three feet deep ; secure a good outlet, as drains fail as often from a bad outlet as any other cause ; lay good, well burned pipe and collar tile, not less than two inches bore, hav- ing a true descent from head to outlet, and cover all well before the ground freezes. If well and faithfully done it will yield you bet- ter satisfaction than any other job accomplished in the garden this summer. How about the grape vines ? Have you enough for a good supply for your family ? Now is a good time to investigate the merits of different varieties, and to decide what ones you will add to your collection. Haven't got any ! Then, just sell a dozen or two of eggs, from old "spec," and invest the proceeds early next spring in one Hartford Prolific, one Con- cord, one Delaware and one lona. These will do to commence with, if your garden is not too fdr north or on too high a hill, and my word you Will never regret the expenditrure. Early this month is, perhaps, as good a time for pruning the viae as you will have. L\ter it is too cold to work with comfort, and besides, tbtj vines will be frozen, when it is not good for Ibem to be cut or handled. Most varieties are benefited by some winter protection, which can be applied with less trouble after being trimmed. The extent of pruning must ,b" governed by the habit and vigor of growth oi' the vine ; a rampant, long-growing variety will not bear as close or severe pruning as a less vigorous or short-jointed grower. Save cuttings, burying them in sand in the bottom of the cellar, if not too moist, for increasing stock if desirable. I saw, .as I passed your place the past sum- mer, that you had a variety of roses, flower- ing shrubs, vines, &c., which added erreatly to the attractiveness of your place. Have you given them winter protection? We have had an unusually hot summer, and as 'tis said th^t "one extreme follows another." we may have an extremely cold winter. The hardy June roses bloom better if laid down and slightly covered. The Hybrid Perpetuals are not safe without some protection ; the Bourbons, Noi- settes and Chinas absolutely require it. Nearly all rare shrubs and herbaceous plants should have a few leaves or a handful of rubbish, that will not harbor mice, gathered around the crowns, with a little manure added. Newly planted shrubs, small trees — conifers in particu- lar,— Rhododendrons, Kalmias, Azalias, &g., should have a few pine or cedar boughs tied around them, or stuck in among the branches, so as to pretty effectually shield them from the sun, as a bright sun in winter spoils the beauty of color in the leaves. Small hillocks of fresh soil thrown up around the stems of all freshly planted trees, shrubs, &c., are benefi- cial. No tall grass or weeds should be al- lowed to stand in the vicinity of trees, shrubs, «&c., to furnish harbors for mice during winter. Cold Frames. — Have you provided plenty, and room sufficient, for cabbage plants, cauli- flowers, lettuce, radishes, &c., with good covering to lay over them during the coldest weather? .Keep them open, except when there is danger of freezing. Secure some ventilation, even when most thoroughly cover- ed ; bank up the sides warmly. The extra covering to lay over the sashes may be any- thing most convenient to shut out cold, — leaves, blankets, straw, mats or wood-shutters. Strawberry Bed. — Pine or cedar boughs strewed over the plants make as good protec- tion as can be desired. Give them some win- ter protection, for the hot dry summer has been a haT-d one on them. W. H. White. South Windsor, Conn., 1870. Nevvt Cattle Disease. — The Warren, Trumbull county Chronicle says that farmers and others in that section, complain of a new cattle disease having broken out, called bla:;k- leg. The flesh on the fore legs of the cattle gradhally drops off, leaving the bone exposed. A gentleman from Lorain county tells us that the same disorder is prevailing to a consider- able extent there, the fore legs of the animal swell to such an extent that the skin bursts, and the flesh drops off, having turned black. The same epidemic is also prevailing in Can- ada, opposite Detroit ; some of tbe horses tbere have died with it. The conclusion of many who are familiar with the workings of the disease, attributes its cause to the bite of a peculiar kind of black fly. Some of the best veterinary surgeons are of the same opinion. Washing the parts with strong soap smis, and applying a coating of lard, fish-oil and sulphur, is given as a remedy. — Ohio Farmer 496 NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. Nov. CHEMICAL FERTILIZBHS. Can lands be made fertile ■without the application of barn-yard manure? T the late meeting of the "Editors' and Publishers' Association," at Haverhill, at the farm of Dr. Nichols, who is a chemist as well as farmer, allusions were sev- eral times made to eome of the growing CBops then on the farm as having been produced eiitireiy without the aid of fermentative manure. From an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Nichols, and his reputa- tion as a scientific and upright man, we have no doubt that his statements in regard to these crops are entirely trustworthy. Hoping that Dr. Nichols will, at some future time, inform us of the processes he pur- tues with his chemicals in securing crops, let us at present look a little in detail at the mat- ter, to see whether we, as farmers, have power to restore exhausted lands without the applica- tion of bara-yaid manure. Food which has been fed to stock, such as grass, hay, grain and vegetables, and passed through a state of combustion is now, and probably must continue to be, the principal source of fertiliziDg material on the farm. The question to be settled is, simply. Is there any way of restoring lands exhausted by long cropping, or of bringing lands into a state oi fertility that never were cultivated, such as swamps, stiff, sterile clays or barren lands, without using materials from the barn-yard? Dr. Nichols declares there is, and that he has fields which have produced fair crops for seven years in succession without fermentative ma- nure; gardens tilled with fruits, vegetables and flo(vers, and graperies whose luxuriant burdens vie with the vineyard products of ancient EscqoI. We cannot follow out the doctor's modes of fertilizing ; that must be done by the chemist ; the technical names of the articles used, the quantities, and time and manner of applica- tion, are not known by us. By one process or another, we do believe, however, that all lands may be brought into a produciive state ; that He who created all things never intended that there should be tracts so utterly lacking in recuperative power as to defy all the genius of man to raise them from their native poverty. We believe that blowing sands, even Arabian deserts, can be brought into fertile fields of waving grass and corn. The question of profit in so doing would be decided by the necessity existing that such lands should be made productive. It was found profitable to pump out a lake in Holland and bring 40,000 acres into a high state of fertility, and to reclaim half a million of acres in Lin- colnshire, once covered with coarse grasses, but now teeming with the finest wheat crops in England. Circumstances must decide for us whether we reclaim or not. Many of our farms- have a repulsive aspect, because certain pieces near the buildings are considered irreclaimable, and are left from age to age, the receptacle cf cast-oflf things, unprotitable, sometimes unhealthy, and always a blemish upon the landscape. Or, it may be suppo ed that such lands, if reclaimed, would be at a cost which would not prove remunera- tive. That would depend upon circumstances. If the occupation of such lands saved travelling to remote parts of the farm to cultivate and bring home the harvests, it would justify a very considerable outlay per acre to reclaim them. The first step in making lands productive without the aid of barn-yard manure, would be to drain them, wherever dainage is needed. Then the atmo.'^phere would commence the process of enriching at once. The next step would be to attend to the physical or mechanical condition of the soil. What we mean by this is the texture of the soil, whetbejT fine or coarse, compact or loose, heavy or light. A soil must he fine, because the elements of nutrition are only available to the roots of plants in a liquid form. Those nutritious elements do not travel in the soil ; they are stationary there, and remain inert and without value until acted upon by other agents, if the potash, for instance, that ought to be dif- fused through the soil of a rod of ground, were in a mass in the centre of that rod, it would have little influence toward bringing a good crop. The result would be similar, we think, in making bread. If the fermenting substance were placed in a single'lump, it 1870. XEW ENGLAisD F^iEMER. 497 might impart its influence in process of time, but that would be too uncertain to afford much comfort to those expecting a good loaf of bread the next morning. To be useful, it must permeate the whole mass, being inti- mately mingled with it. So it must be with the soil. If the nutritive substances are held in course, hard particles, roots will not be much more likely to approach them than a child would be to approach a loaf of bread as hard as a rock and as large as a barn. When grains of soil are fine they are readily acted upon by whatever agents are required to dissolve their nutritive qualities into a form to be easily taken up by the roots of plants. If this reasoning be correct, many fields possess all needed elements of fertility, but are unproductive, because these elements are not broken np and mingled with the soil. KEEPING CZDEB. As there is a very large amount of cider now being made, it is of some consequence to keep it in good condition, so that to whatever use it is applied, it should be pure. There Las been so little made for several years past that there is but a small amount of real cider vinegar to be found. Fifty to seventy-five cents per gallon is a/ked for good vinegar, and the probability is that most sold at those prices is made up of articles that ought never to be used as food, in any form. Vinegar at eating houses, and some hotels, is not only not good, but is absolutely dis- gusting. In some cases it is thick and "ropy," and in others sickening to taste and smell, and must be extremely unwholesome. In a late number of the Knoxville Whig, are some suggestions which may prove val- uable to those who think that cider is a health- ful drink. It is as follows : — "Much of the excellence of cider depends upon the temperature at whlcb the fermentatioa is con- ductea ; a poiat too frequently overlookeu by the manutaeturers of this liquor. As soon as ex- pressea from the fruit, it should be strained into sulpliured casks and placea in a cool situation wU'. re the temperature does not exceed 60° i^'aii't — it' letc iQ tbe heating .sun, mucti of the sugar is couvcrtid into vinegar ijy tue absorption "of at- mospheric oxygen, and thus the liquor becomes acid aud rough. On the contrary, it the fermenta- tion De conducted at a low temperature, nearly the whole of tbe sugar is converted intoalcoHol and remains in the liquor, instead of undergoing the process of acetihcation. The acetous termentation or the conversion of alcoHol into vinegar proceeds most rapidly at a temperature of nmety-iive aegrees Jj'areuhtic, aud at a lower tenaperature the action becomes slower, until at forty-six degrees Farenheit.uos'Uch change takes place. Independently ot differences in the quality of the fruit, this is the principal cause of lUe superiority of the cide'' made by one person over another, living in the (>aine neig>jborhood. The one has a cooler ceilar»or barn thau the other to i-tore hU cider in. In practice it has been found that sour and rough apples produce the best ciaer. Ttiis arises because they contam less sugar and more malic aiid, and the presence of tbe latter impedes the conver?ion of alcohol into vinegar; but cider made with such app'es can never equal in quality that prepared at a low temperature from iruit anounding in sugar, which, it properly strained or racKect at every indication of termenta- tion, will keep good twenty years. One very common cause of bad cider is, that it is put into unclean barrels ; barrels that have become musty, or tainted in some other form, by standing through the summer with one or two gallons of dregs left in them after drawing off the cider. These partially putrefy and become as disgusting as anything else that has passed into the putrtfactive state. When the casfe is once thoroughly tainted, it is very difficult to sweeten it again. There is a process of checking the fermen- tation in cider so as to keep it sweet, which may be done as follows : — Take a strip of canvas or other thick cloth, about twelve^ inches long and two broad ; dip it into melted brimstone ; when dry, light it, and suspend it from tbe bung-hole of a cask, in which there are a few gallons of cider until the match is burnt out. The cask must be stopped for an hour or more then rolled to and fro to incorporate the fumes of the match with the cider ; after which it may be filled. Sometimes this process is resorted to for the purpose of giving an additional flavor to the cider. To effect this, some powdered ginger, cloves, &c. , may be strewed on the match when it is made. The burning of these ingredients with the sulphur will convey somewhat of their fragrance to the whole cask of cider. But this should be done as soon as the vinous fermentation is fully perfected. Should fermentation return, re- peat the process. If a candle goes out on being held in the bung-hole, fermentation has commenced again, and carbonic acid is pres- ent. — It is best to handle calves and colts as much as possible, pet them, lead them with a halter, and caress them in various ways. Young stock managed in this way will always be docile and suffer themselves to be approached and handled, both in the pastures and in the barn. 498 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. ABOUT SEED -WHEAT. The Treadwell has been for a long time a favorite wheat with the farmers of Michigan. It is a mixed variety, some of the heads being bearded and some bald. It is inclined to pro- du e very heavy straw, and is apt to lodge during a wet season. These objections have caused many farmers to give it up, and to sow other varieties. Soules wheat was much sown in Michigan, until it became so liable to the attacks of the midge or wheat-fly that it had to be given up. The Diehl is a bearded white wheat, having a very handsome plump berry. Oa good wheat soil, and with proper preparation, a large average yield may be ex- pected. The head of the Diehl is shorter than that of most bearded varieties, and the straw is not liable to lodge. The Tappahannock is a bearded white wheat, which was disseminated by the Agri- cultural Department of the Patent Office sev- eral years ago. It is an excellent variety, which is rapidly coming into favor. It is an early ripening wheat, which withstands the at- tae:ks of the fly, and is not liable to lodge. The straw is of a purplish color, somewhat re- sembling the Blue-&tera. Some per.'ons think that it really is the Blue-stem which has been raised in the Southern States for some time, thus causing its early maturity ; but such is not the case. In growth the Tappahannock ♦ resembles the Soules, but it has less leaves, and on accoyint of its not being liable to lodge it is adapted for seeding to clover and grass. This variety has turned out very well in Alich- igan fjr thn la>t three or four seasons. The Diehl has also done well. The Treadwell is biill raised extensively in many localities. — \\e6tirn Rural. J<'or the yew England Farmer, CEMENT CISTERNS, FILTERS, &c. I hope it will not be inferred that I wish to detract aught from the excellence of Mr. Liv- ermore's article upon this subject, in the Far- mer of August 2G, if I attempt to add a few suggestions, or strengthen the points already made. | And first, most people err in making their cisterns too small. The cost of making them one foot deeper or wider does not increase proportionately to the increase of room ; that is, a cistern 8 by 9 costs but little more than one 6 by 7. The first size, and even larger, is not too capacious to supply the wants of a farm house. | Secondly, in locating, if the north side of the house is chosen, every part must be well down below the surface of the ground, or there will be trouble with the pipes when zero weather comes. Beneath a shed or an ell, frequently, is a good location. There is less danger from frost in these places, and often something may be saved in the length of the pipes. The worst location is in the cellar, under the house. The evaporation from a large open cistern under rooms daily occupied by the family, cannot be conducive to health. The plan of simply plastering to the earth does not answer in all cases. The soil that admits this must be dry, firm and compact. In a loose sand, newly made land, or very wet and spongy soil, a supporting wall is neces- sary, which may be stone or brick. I have cisterns with walls of each material. In mak- ing the first, small stones were used, and a wall one foot thick was laid in good lime mor- tar, with the inside thoroughly plastered with hydraulic cement. When bricks are used, a single course, or a four-inch wall is sufficient. The arch is turned by the eye, without a cen- tre, while with stone, a centre is necessary. An experienced mason will lay a brick arch as rapidly as the wall. A good job with brick, requires a strong cement mortar, — one part pure sand and one part cement. The inside plastering should be of cement only. Consid- ering the price of material and' the greater amount of labor required to build of stone, I think brick are the cheapest. It requires but little cement mortar to lay up a single brick wall upon a large circle. The brick give an even surface, and a thin coat of plastering, if well laid on, is sufficient. This fact, with the la- bor, should be taken into account in estimat- ing the relative cost of cisterns made of brick and those made by plastering on the earth. Where bricks and stone are plenty, they can be used without adding materially to the cost. When the work is thoroughly done, there can be no question of their great durability. The necessity of having a strong supporting wall for the sides, where, as in many villages and cities, all kinds of soils and situations are to be dealt with, is obvious. It frequently happens, in constructing large reservoirs and deep cisterns, for water for fires, &c., that springs are met, and the inflow- ing water is a hindrance to making them tight. They can be built safely and made tight in wet ground and near where water constantly comes in, but an inexperienced builder had better not attempt one in such a location. In such locations it will often be cheaper to make a more shallow one, in the form of a parallel- ogram, or to build two smaller ones — in either case keeping above the springs. Upon a farm there is greater choice in locations, and the top of cistt rns can, in many cases, be made above the original surface of the ground, and a mound raised around it, to prevent freezing. Where water is wanted for drinking, or when an extra nice job is desired, it is a good plan to coat the inside, after cementing, with silicate of soda. Two or three coats of this will give a smooth, glossy and very hard fin- ish, which will at once prevent all taste of the cement. This is inexpensive, and in a liquid form is quickly put on with a common white- wash brush. It is highly important that the inlet and 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 499 overflow or waste pipes should be of durable material, and be permanently put in. Of course these should be near the top of a cis- tern, and if possible, well underground, or at least laid with a good fall for the water, otherwise in winter the water from melting snow that runs slowly, will freeze and stop, if it does not burst the pipes. Three-inch glazed earthen pipes are used somewhat in this vicinity, and answer well, if protected from frost. Tin, zinc, and galvanized iron are also used. Cast iron, though costing most, is best of all. If a cistern is filled in December, the inlet pipe may be shut off dur- ing the three winter months, and all liability to freezing of pipes prevented. No cistern is complete without a filter, for it is not sufficient that there be always an abundance of soft water, it should also oe pure and sweet. The roofs of buildings have more or less dust and smoke upon them, and if pi- geons are kept, filth accumulates rapidly. Among us the most approved method of puri- f) ing the water is by filtering or straining it through brick, thus : let the circle, a, represent the inside of a cistern. A small compartment is partitioned upon one side, by laying, in ce- ment, a single course of bricks, as repre- sented by curve line, 6. The bricks are laid upon the narrow side or edge, and the cement- ing must be carefully and neatly done, that the joints may be perfectly tight, and no ce- ment put upon the wide side of the brick. The quality should be soft brick, such as are of deep red color, or what are sometimes called light hard. Those too hard are too dense for water to pass through freely, while the softest crumble after a few years. The wall of the compartment should be built up close to the top of the cistern, making an air- tight chamber. No dust nor insects can now get into it. A space equal to one or two bar- rels is sufficient, and about one hundred bricks will be required. Water passes through this amount of surface as fast as wanted tor any ordinary use. This method of filtrating gives universal satisfaction, and for simplicity, cheap- ness, and efficiency, has not been surpassed. It is fast superceding the old and more com- plicated apparatus made of sand, charcoal, granite chips, sponges, &c. It is assumed that no one building a cistern would fail to conduct the water to the sink, by a pipe, and have a good pump. In this cold climate the laying of this pipe requires particular attention. It should be well below the frost and without a sag, so that when the water is let down it will run entirely out, and not collect at any point and freeze. If that portion of pipe in the cellar is liable to freeze, it can be wound with woollen, or if it is a straight piece it can be enclosed in a box and packed in saw dust. Of the many varieties of pumps offered to the public, a common, me- dium sized copper one is best. An important adjunct of a cistern, is the means of having a suitable portion of the wa- ter constantly hot. In the farmer's kitchen a large quantity of hot water is daily used. The larger sized cook stoves are now provided with tanks to supply this want. If there is no tank, a smaller copper boiler can be procured at small expense. No extra fuel is required to heat it — the surplus or waste heat of a stove is utilized. Another adjunct is a bath room. This has not been considered an essential part of a farm house. It is looked upon as a luxury beyond the reach of plain farmers. Now no class of society actually need to be in the ha- bitual use of bathing more than farmers and out-door laborers who perspire freely and whose occupation keeps them so many hours in dust and dirt. The pure air and sunshine which they enjoy is not enough ; the free and judicious use of water also promotes health and longevity. The time is coming when higher ideas of cleanliness, comfort and health will prevail, and bathing rooms will be as common in our ordinary houses, as they now are in the costly city homes. In planning for a bath-room, facilities for heating the water to be used, must be consid- ered. It is a mistake to suppose a house must be warmed with steam or a furnace to have a bath-room. Select a medium size room in which a stove can be used. It may be upon the first or second floor. A good position is frequently directly over the kitchen, as there piping will be saved, and the heat from the cook stove may be used. Put in the bath-tub with a waste pipe leading to the drain, and another pipe from the cistein. and attach a pump. A cheap stove and boiler will at the same time heat water and the room. With a short piece of gutta percha pipe attached to the pump, water can be sent directly to the boiler or bath-tub. The fuel requisite to heat up once or twice a weak can scarcely be esti- mated on a farm. Or the room can be heated from the kitchen below, by a register, or by passing the funnel through the floor and into the chimney in the bath-room, while the water is heated below and brought up. A little inge- nuity will make every thmg convenient and ser- viceable, and give the whole a neat appear- ance, and it will be as useful as if it were finished in costly wood and marble. The entire expense of a cistern, filter, pipes, pump, tank or boiler, and furnishing a bath- room plainly, need not exceed one hundred dollars, and if part of the work can be done by any member of the family, it will be con- siderably less. What like investment will pay better ? Surely no share in bank, railroad or city and State bonds. A short trial will re- veal its intrinsic worth, and prove that an 600 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. abundance of pure, soft water, hot and cold, is not a luxury, but a necessity. n. 8. t. Lawrence, Mass., Oct., 1870. For the Xew England Farmer, FILTER FOR CISTERNS. ET B. LIVERM RE. HTDRAULIC CEMENT WATER PIPE LATER, HARTLAND, VT, The common way of filtering water through charcoal, sand, &c., as it runs into the oi--tern from the eaves of the house, proves ineffec- tual. Such a filter may arrest and separate some of the impurities in the water for a fe.w gentle showers, but when a rapid How of water is produced by a hard hhower, a great share of these impurities will be carried through this filter into the cistern. The true way to filter water is to have it pass :?lowly through a filter of such material as will allow nothing but water or liquid to penetrate it. Such a filter is made of brick. The bri. 'ks should be well burnt, — not so hard that water will not penetrate them, nor so soft that time will crumble them in water. A filter which will contain a barrel or a barrel and a half, will be found of sufficient size for a common family. To make this filter, first wet the brick, and lay up a filter, using a mortar made of clear cement, being careful to make the joints per- fectly tight, and keep the face of the brick clean, because if bedaubed with cement, water will not penetrate them. The brick should be thoroughly saturated with water, as the ce- ment mortar will immediately set on touching a d-ry brick, and make it impossible to lay a tight wall. Make this filter at the bottom of your cis- tern with no outlet but the pipe which goes to the pump, and no inlet but ihrough the body of the brick, and a small pipe which reaches above the water to admit air, as the water is drawn out of the filter. About two pails of water will pass through the walls of such a filter in an hour. This with thn barrel and a half of water which it con- tains is suflScieut for common families washing days. A box 28 inches long, 16 deep, and IGi wide, will contain a barrel. The filter may be made without the air pipe, but I think the water is better filtered with it. The water as it passes from the eaves to the cistern, should go through a screen, to keep the leaves, &,c , which lodge on the roof of the house from enteri-ng the cistern. This I make in the form of a box and place it near the ground where I can handdy clean it out when it needs it. The bottom of this box is fine wire gauze. The box may hold about a pailful, and have a lid that may be easily opened to clean the screen. The conductor from the eaves to the cistern should be so fixed that the water may be prevented from running into the cistern during the first part of a shower, after a long drj spell, and till the roof is washed from smoke and dust. Such a cistern, so arranged, will afford far more wholesome water than is furnished many cities and villages from ponds and brooks, and convejed through poisonous lead pipes, and the interest on the money invested in such a cistern will be less than the tax charged for pond and brook water. PraWs Junction, Mass., 1870. Reilvrks. — In consequence of the great trouble which many families have experienced the past dry season from the failure of their usual supply of water, we think the foregoing articles, as well as that by Mr. Livermore published some weeks since, will prove inter- esting to many of the readers of the Farmer, though in some particulars both writers give nearly the same directions. As the form and situation of the brick filter are not essential, each one may adopt such plan as his individ- ual preferences may suggest. Perhaps the aunesed cut, which shows the old style of passing the water through char- coal and sand, at A B C D E, also a brick wall through the centre of the cistern, may illustrate the arrangement of pipes, «S;c., on the plans recommended by Mr. Livermore and N. S. T. G is the pipe for conducting the water from thg roof to the cistern ; and F shows the pipe for drawing out the filtered water, on the opposite side of the partition. Now suppose this partition removed, and the dark portion of the cut to represent one side of Mr. Livermore's brick box, or N. S. T.'s circular partition, the pipe F would enter that, instead of the water above, as is repre- sented in the cut, and consequently there- would be no need of the partition, or of the charcoal, &c., as the water for use would be drawn only from the inside of the filter. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARJiCER. 501 CHEAP AND DEAR LABOR. We have been amused — to use a somewhat non-committal expression — by reading the dis- cussion that has been going on of late in the agricultural and other papers printed at the North and the South, at the East and the West, on the labor question. We are old enough to remember the cheap labor of New England fifty years ago, and we are young enough to have had some experience with the dear labor of which there is just now so much said. Our "young idea" was taught by the winter schoolmaster at eight to twelve dollars a month, and by the summer schoolmi.stress at seventy- five cents a week. We recollect the engagement of a young married man with a neighboring farmer, for the alternate weeks of one season, at eight dollars per month for the time employed, payable in "neat stock in Oc- tober or grain in January." We have ourself done a man's work at sixty-two-and-a-half cents a day. We have also witnessed, in the southern portion of the country, the culmina- tion of perhaps the most magnificent and best contrived system of cheap labor known to modern times ; and we have watched with equal interest the steady growth at the North of perhaps the most vigorous and perfect sys- tem of dear labor that was ever employed in shop or field. Which system is most in accordance with the spirit of the times, with our "free and equal" institutions, with personal and gen- eral prosperity ? We can hardly credit the testimony of our senses, that such a question should still be considered an open one in New England, and that the conductors of industrial papers north of the Mason and Dixon line should find themselves engaged in an argu- ment in favor of cheap labor. We were no better prepared to find southern men, before the dust and smoke arising from the downfall of slavery has cleared away, distinctly announc- ing such principles as are stated in the follow- ing article from the Sou(7i Land, an agricul- tural paper published at New Orleans, and edited bv D. Redmond, E.-q. We have taken the liberty to indicate by italics a few sen- tences which we regard as worthy of particular attention, as the expressions of a Southern man who has recently witnessed the destruc- tion of the cheap labor, or "servanthood," to which himself and his friends had been 6iccus- tomed all their lives : — Disappearance of Servanthood. In the literature of grumbling, the institution known in London and in some American cities as "servant-galism," long since arrived at the dignity* of a first-class nuisance; and one, withal, suscep- tible of slight mitigation indeed for a few of its victims, but for all of them a necessary and inter- minable evil by reason of its inextricable associa- tion with an indispensable element of good. But of late years contributors to this department of litf rature have had a fruitful and eloquent thpme in a different asppct of the servant question. It is the tendency of servanthood, in general, to disappear — that is now the matter. Students of what m>iy be called the morphologi- cal development of history, must, of course, have observed that successive periods are distinguish- able, not less as marks of a progressive transform- ation in the actual conditions of society, than as marks of a progressive transformation in the in- tellectual and mural conditi:)ns of the masses of men. "Under this inexorable law of orderly muta- tion, tue vast structure of feudalism, — ma'-sivebut airy, inar'istic but gloomily splendid, apparently irregular but really systematic, — has been crum- bling for centuries. Piece by piece it has been disintegrating. A single part broken or displa'ed became a logical protest against the repose of some other p.irt, which in due time underwent the same fate ; and this sequence once established was the prophetic announcement of the final dissolution of the whole fabric. Well, we are standing now very near to the ut- ter accomplishment of this prophecy, amid the debris of the feudal system ; a quaint and curious jumble, absurd and yet venerable, grotesquely in- congruous with the new births of time, and yet not without its traces of poetry and romance ; the fragments as it were of some magnificent dream which has lost its spell, or of some cloud-castle disarrayed by a conspiracy of sunlight and heat, of wind and thunder. When villainage and next vassalage disappeared, all fi rms of per!^onal dependence and loyally, and of hereditary privileges and disabilities were doomed. In the long procession of events which this implied, servanthood, in the old menial sense, was at length to be no more. For without caste there can be no iervanthood in that sense, and the same causes that have been sapping those two props of the ancient hierarchical system of Eu- rope, the divine right of princes and the infallibility of theological dogma, have been also fatally at work upon the principle of caste. The great trouble with those who repine and fret at the diffi- culties and perplexities of the servant question — a trouble of which they are for the most part, per- haps, wholly unconscious — is the evanescence of the servant element; or, to speak more philoso- phically, its transmutation into something no more like what it was than a butterfly is like a caterpil- lar, or a bull-frog is like a tadpole, or a mosquito is like a wiggletail. They would do well to recog- 7iize this momentous fact at once ; to cease vainly clutching at the past, but to look around iu the present and forward into the future, with taculties keen to discern and quick to grasp every substan- tial compensation fur loss, every golden opportu- nity for improvement. It is true that glowing hopes have been kindled in many households, that the advent of the indus- trious, docile, deferential, supple and practical Chinese Mongolian, will furnish material for re- establishing the old-time in«titution of servant- hood. Buf, in our candid opinion, they are count- ing the chickens that will never be hatched — that were never in the shell perhaps. In the first place, Chinese immigrants stick together in gangs for purposes of co-operation and self-protection in a strange land, among a strange people. It will be 502 NEW ENGLAND FAR^VIER. Nov. a lone time before they deviate from this rale of cohesion. They will only begin to disperse in a manner to render them available as domestic ser- vants after they have become familiar with the pervading genius of the country, an essential part of which geiiiiisis an invincible antagonism to servant- hood of the primitive menial sort. They cannot bat imbibe in a large measure the spirit of this "antaaoniani. It will be in the air which they breathe. It will be one with the spirit of the age, which is not to he successfully resisted or circum- vented or evaded — which is, in a word, the auto- crat of the age. People, then, who have vexed their heads over the servr.nt question, had better at once remit it to the limbo of obsolete problems. Let them recon- cile themselves as well as they may to the idea of buying n certain kind of hovsehnld labor, a certain kind of personal help, as they would buy any other sort of merchandise, giving them no claims what- ever to general obedience arid deference from the persons selling. In so far as they want service in those kinds beyond what they can buy on these terms, they must be their own servants or go with- out it. Let them prepare their minds, train their faculties, ard adapt their habits accordingly. — The IScuth Land, edited by D. Redmond. Some of the views expressed in the article above quoted remind us so forcibly of those advanced by M. De Tocqaeville, in his "De- mocracy in America," that we cannot refrain from making a single extract from that work, which it will be remembered was written nearly forty years ago. Our extract relates to the antiquity of what the South Land denominates "the tendency of servanthood, in general, to disappear." Some of the manifestations of this tendency, as seen in the history of France during the past seven hundred years, are thus strikingly presented by this celebrated and philosophical writer : — Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided among a small number of families, who were owners of the soil and rulers of the inhabitants ; the right of governing descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation ; force was the only means by which man could act on man ; and landed property was the sole source of power. * * * If we examine what has happened in France at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a two- fold revolution has taken place in the state of society. The noble has gone down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up ; the one de- scends as the other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to each other, and they will very shortly meet. Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. "Whithersoever we turn our eyes, we shall discover the same continual revolution throughout the whole of Christendom. The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere turned to the advantage of demo- cracy ; all men have aided it by their exertions ; those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly — those who have fought for it, and those who have de- clared themselves its opponents — have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to one end, some ignorantly and some unwittingly ; all have been blind instruments in the hands of God. The gradual development of the equality of con- ditions is, therefore, a providential fact, and it pos- sesses all the characteristics of a divine decree : it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress. In several of our Northern papers we have seen utterances which appear to us to be strangely in contrast with these views. That the reader may judge for himself we give, as samples of much that has appeared in these papers, the following extracts of editorial articles recently published in the Prairie Farmer, of Chicago, 111., and in the Daily Journal, of Boston. From want of space we are obliged to omit most of the elaboration of the points quoted, but we have aimed to do as full justice to the writers of each of these arti- cles as is possible without quoting them in full :— It is admitted by all that the great obstacle that stands in the way of development of the resources of this country is the scarcity of labor, and as a consequence, its high price. » * * Statisticians tell us that over a million of dollars a day goes from the United States to purchase goods that are manufactured by means of cheap labor of foreign countries. No persons, as a class, are suffering so much from the scarcity and high price of labor as are the farmers of the West and South. * * * Much of our wheat finds its way to Liverpool, where it is put into the market along with the products of Russia, where harvesters can be employed for a week for less money than they can be hired here for a single day. As a rule, there are very few of our native-born citizens who wish for employment as hired laborers on a farm. Ordinarily they can find occupations more remunerative and better adapted to their tastes. Without disparagement to the European foreigners amongst us, it must be said that they are, tor the most part, seeking homes for them- selves, and only wish to engage temporarily as hired laborers on the farm. * * * Where then are we to look for cheap and abund- ant labor, if not to that ancient empire, the number and industry of whose population are the wonder of the world ? Here are a people ready and willing to become '■^hewers of wood and drawers of water," if thereby they can earn a sum which would not tempt the European, much less the American la- borer, to engage in the most desirable business occupation. — Frairie Farmer. The time was — say twenty-five or thirty years ago — when a race existed known as family ser- vants. This race has become extinct. * * * The wealthy classes in the large cities have done much to demoralize servants by paying large wages and demanding very small returns. The middlinsr classes are obliged to pay higher for this class of labor, because their more wealthy neighbors have, out of their abundance, established a tariff whicti regulates the market price. The rich in this way inflict a positive evil upon society, and they are, we think, responsible in a large degree for this domestic evil. — Boston Journal. We have not a word to say, at present, on the Chinese question. The emigrants from 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 503 that ancient empire may, or they may not, be "ready and willing to become hewers of wood and drawers or water;" they may, or they may not, re-establish the "extinct race of family servants ;" they may, or they may not, furnish that "cheap and abundant labor" al- luded to in the foregoing extracts. We are discussing a broader question, one •which involves the expediency of cheap labor in any form. What does cheap labor imply ? We do not ask what those mean who de- mand cheap labor. We impute no wrong motives to them. The desire to buy cheap and sell dear is universal with business men. A large share of the farmer's crops goes to pay the hired man ; a sad inroad is made on the income of the family by the expense of domestic help ; and by their demand for cheaper help, the farmer and the householder mean no more than do city and village con- sumers when they demand cheaper meat, cheaper flour, cheaper butter, cheaper clothing, &c., &c. Each and all, as the world goes, have the right to buy and to hire as cheaply as possible ; and, after all their bantering, we would by no means deprive them of the poor privilege of grumbling and fretting because they cannot buy or hire cheaper. But all this does not by any means answer our question. What does cheap labor imply ? When we remember that, as Bancroft says, "Slavery and the slave-trade are older than the records of human society," and that in all nations of anticjuity slavery or vassalage was the common condition of the laborer; and then, as we trace the gradual improvement that has taken place in his condition and wages since the advent of Christianity ; as we see how steadily the social revolution has ad- vanced during these centuries, and amid all the vicissitudes of national life, and in spite of all obstacles, even those recently interposed by the friends of "cheap labor" in the south- ern portion of our own country, — we are forced to the conclusion that the demand for cheap labor implies something more than is intended by our respected contemporaries by whom it is made. Our own views of its import have already been intimated. We believe that cheap labor can be secured only by restoring old-time ser- vanthood in some of its various forms ; for we regard the advance in wages to be a necessary result of the increasing equality in social con- ditions— one of the consequences of the recog- nition of the principle that ' 'a man is a man, for all that." In this view of the subject the demand for cheap labor appears to us to be opposed to the spirit and tendency of our "American in- stitutions," and particularly to the Northern idea of "free soil and free men." It is also opposed to that long procession of events which are alluded to by De TocquevUle, and which in another part of his work he says has impressed him with "a kind of religious dread." Can this "irresistible revolution, which has advanced for centuries in spite of such amazing obstacles, and which is still pro- ceeding in the midst of the ruins it has made," be turned back, and the free labor of our Northern fields, shops and households, be sup- planted by that of any "people ready to be- come hewers of wood and drawers of water ?" If it were possible, is it desirable that such a class, or caste, should be introduced among us ? Should we make a more profitable use of cheap labor, if obtained, than did the planters of the South ? Has not cheap labor proved a curse to employers and employed in all places and at all times ? These are some of the questions which we proposed at the out- set to discuss, but the length of this article admonishes us that this must be postponed to another time. And for the same reason we can barely express our dissent from the remark in the extract from the Prairie Farmer, that, "as a rule there are very few of our native- born citizens who wish for employment as hired laborers on a farm." In proportion to the whole number, there may be less now than formerly ; still there are by far too many young men who depend on the earnings of a few years' labor for a start in life as farmers, to be thus summarily disposed of by the advo- cates of "cheap labor." The boys have rights ; and this class of laborers, as well as the employers, have claims on the agricultural press which cannot be ignored, at least, not by the New England Farjier. — It is stated that a fat bullock, driven to mar- ket over ordinarily level roads, rested nights, and well fed three times a day, loses eight pounds per day, where the journey extends over a number of days. 504 NEW ENGLAM) FARIVIER. Nov. EXTKACTS AND BEPLIES. BAD HABIT IN A COW. I have a three-year-old heifer which dropped her calf the middle of June. She did well appa- rently, and is in good order. Bat when I go to milk she will urinate, and moans continually as for her calf. Is it a habit, or a disease ? and can you give any rc-medy ? I have, read meny cures for kicking cows. All dumb creatures should be handled when young, aod with kindness. If y.ou cannot govern your o\vn temper you need not try to control ths'.t of dumb brutes. If my cow is fractions or addicted to kicking without cause, I grip the gambrel cord firmly with my left hand, and milk with my right, showing her I am perfect master, but coaxing her gently at tht same time ; and I never had to re- peat it r^ore than twice. CABBAGE WORMS. How' can I save my cabbage ffom large green worms ? They go into the head and eat it out. I have tried black pepper, salt, and air-slacked lime without any effect. CHEAP STUMP PULLER. Can any reader of the Farmer give a plan for a cheap stump lifter? Patent ones are too ex- pensive. J. C. Miller. Fort Kent, Me., Aug. 18, 1870, Remarks.— If the udder is in good order, so that it is not painful to her when milked, we can see no reason why she should be troubled. Per- haps the mode which you prescribe above for curing kicking cows will overcome the unpleasant habit of the heifer. Feed her while milking with a little nice hay or grain, which may divert her attention and aid in overcoming what may possi- bly be more of a habit than a disorder. A frequent examination of the cabbages, and destruction of the worms by hand, will probably, alone save the crop. We gave an account of a cheap stump puller in the Farmer a few weeks ago. DANGEROUS WATER PIPES. I saw an article in your paper cautioning the public against the use of galvanized iron water pipes. As I am about to purchase some for a cis- tern, I would like to inquire what is the best, cheapest, and most durable pipe for water supply. North Haven, Me., 1870. A Subscriber. Remarks.— Dr. Nichols, Editor of the Boston Journal of Chemistry, says that an iron pipe is more safe than a galvanized iron pipe. We have used wood with great success, even where there were two or three turns at perfect right angles, and should always use it in preference to any metal pipe, where it was practicable. PEEDING AND BREEDING SWINE. Which is the most profitable in fattening hogs, to boil corn with potatoes and pumpkins, and feed to them, or carry the corn five miles to mill, and get it ground into meal, and lose the toll, and time of doing it ? Which will hogs do the best on, to feed them three times a day, or give the same amount, twice each day ? I have only fed twice a day, this season, and think they never did better. I have a Chester County boar, twelve weeks old, that weighs one hundred pounds. Would like to buy a sow pig, to keep for breeder. What would be best to cross with him ? A Subscriber. Northjield, Vt., Aug. 15, 1870, Remarks. — If fuel is cheap, boil the com, pota- toes and pumpkins, feed it out, and note whether any portion of the corn passes in an undigested condition. If it does, to some extent, it will prob- ably be better to get it ground. Quite likely it will all be digested. To form an excellent breed, procure the hand- somest sow you can find, and let her run with the boar. If the progeny is good, select the best and go on again, to perfection, EFFECT OF FODDER CORN ON MILCH COWg. Previous to feeding corn-stalk fodder corn to his cows, by Mr. W. L. Locke, Jr., of this town, they filled 45 pans with milk; alter he commenced feeding them with the fodder corn the same cows filled 51 pans equally as full, and the cream had a better color. z. e. j. Irashurg, Aug. SO, 1870. Remarks. — To the foregoing statement we may add the following dialogue between the editor of the Maine Farmer and a dairyman in the vicinity of Augusta : — "Do you feed your cows ?" we ask. ''Yes," is the reply ; "I have fed them for nearly two weeks, ten days certainly. I give them fodder corn, and feed my working oxen as good hay as I have in the barn." "What was the effect of feeding fodder corn to your cows ?" we inquire. "It increased the flow of milk at once, which for a week kept much above what it had been on pas- ture feed. Now, getting no feed in the pasture and feeding them almost exclusively on fodder corn (which is this year far less succulent than usual) I find that they just about hold their own. Cows that are not fed fodder corn have shrunk fully one-half in the quantity of milk produced." HOW TO LAY A STONE DRAIN. Having frequently seen inquiries about laying underground stone drains, and having had some experience in the work, I will endeavor to give an idea of the way I do it. The ditch should be at least one foot wide at bottom, and wider if large stones are used. The earth should be thrown out on one side only of the ditch, and the stones hauled to the other side. The man who lays the drain must stand in the ditch,.and another man on the ground to pass him the stones to be laid. Now take a stone, say four inches deep, or wide, and of less thickness, and set it on edge against the left bank of the ditch, putting the thinnest edge down, and placing it so ic will fall over if you do not hold it up, then with the other hand set a similar stone in a similar way on the right-hand side, and let the upper edges of these two stones come together over thecentreof the wa'er-course, and you have an arch, or space, in this ^ form. Place other stones in the same manner, tui you have an arm's length or so of this roof, as it may be called, then place other stones against the banks over these, and clink up the whole distance, being careful to make all tight, and not lay any stone so that it can fall through into the water-course. Do not throw on loose stones till you get those thus laid all solid. A dram thus laid will never give out if the ground is hard, nor will it gully. After a man gets his hand in, he will lay a good long piece in a day. Where the drain is made by laying stones on 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 505 each side of the ditch, and then others laid on to them and across the water-course, it is necessary thai the side stones be of pretty uniform size, and the ■ top stones must he of good length, and of tolerably even width. But in the plan I recommend, stones of almost any shape can be used. When I first began to make ditches in this way, I thought it necessary to cover the stones with brush, but with a little practice I was able to clink up the arch so tight that I dispensed with the brush alto- giither. In filling up, I throw on at first some of the coarsest stutf I can get, and tramp it well when the ditch is partly filhd. With well shaped and tolerably flat stones, a larger outlet can be made in this way than in any other. R. Davis. Troy, Vt., Avg. 25, i870. FOWL MEADOW GRASS FOR -WET LAND. I have a piece of flat swamp land that is made quite wet in the spring and fail by water from the surrounding hills. It is not well adapted to til- lage, and I would like to increase the grass crop. Will some one who knows about fowl meadow grass inform me whether it would be likely to do well on suuh land, and of the best time to sow the seed ; also whether it would be better to mix some redcop with the fowl meadow. John Smith. Netobury, Vt., Aug. 15, 1870. Remarks. — The land you describe is we think well suited to fowl meadow grass. It flourishes on the borders of streams and meadows that are only occasionally overflowed, and where tte water stands but a short time. Fowl meadow grass grows tall and thick and makes a soft and pliable hay, which is highly relished by most stock. It is a good plan to allow the grass on some portion of the meadow to go to seed, as it will perpetuate the crop indefinitely. We have never sown the seed, but think it would be properly done in September or in the spring. It thrives best when mixed with other grasses. cranberries. I have a piece of land so near a river that it can not be flowed, in which the muck is from one to four feet deep. Can cranberries be raised on such land ? It so, how ^hall I proceed to fit the land, and to introduce the cranberries ? Shall I sow tht; seed or transplant the vines ; and in either case how near together must they be put, and at what time of year should the work be done? Though this is the first time I ever attempted to write tveu a question for a paper, perhaps you will be able to understand what I wif-h to know. J. x. r. West Paris, Me., Sept., 1870. R.EMAkKs. — The regular cranberry growers re- gard wiater flowage as essential to the most suc- cessful cranberry patch. Siiil many cranberries grow on the margins of streams which cannot be flawed at pleasure. la your case, and with your inexperience, we should advise you to try a small patch, say two or three square rods, by way of ex- periment. O. Judd & Co. have recently published a book on the Cranberry, at ^1 25, which gives in detail all the processes of cultivation and manage- ment, with the experience of individual cultivators. The essential directions seem to be the follow- ing:— 1. The soil, subsoil or bottom, must be peat or peaty matter. This you have. 2. There should be no cold springs, but a head of water, so that the bog may be quickly flowed at all times. This you have not, but perhaps it is flowed in the winter. 3. The turf or top soil of roots, gras"!, &c., must be removed down to the peat. This will make a good material for compost on high land. 4. Ditches must be made so that the water can be drained at least twelve inches below the sur- face during the growing season ; especially the cold water from the borders must be drawn off. 5. Cover the surface of the peat, after the soil is removed, from three to twelve inches deep, as to depth of muck, with sand that contains no loam, nor grass or weed seeds, — such as will not adhere when pressed in the hand. Set vines in hills or rows two feet apart. Spring is the best time for setting vines. AGRICIJLTtJRE, MANUFACTURES, &C., IN GEORGIA. Last week I sent you some papers and docu- ments, and now send you a few more, by v;hich you will see that there are few if auy States in the Union taking more interest in the cultivation and imoT-ovement of the soil, than Georgia. You will see our County Fair comes off the 4th, 5th and 6th of October, at Cartersville. There will be a grand State Fair at Atlanta, on the 19th to 26th of October. Immense preparacions are being made. The National Agricultural Congress will assem- ble at Augusta, Ga., on the 27th of October. Besides these, there will be a number of others in various parts of the State, which fact exhibits a spirit of life and activity hitherto unknown. You will al»o see by Gov. Bullock's message to the State Legislature, by the constitution adopted, and the resolutions pa^^sed by the Atlanta Convention, that the State is wide awake to the subject. 1 here are at least. four periodicals in the State devoted almost exclusively to agriculture, and quite a number of the country weekly papers that keep a standing department in their columns on the same subject. So you see we have more than a •upply in number, but they will s(.>on be pruned up and thinned out to a proper staud, and then we may txoect the best results. Geor^'ia will, I believe, become self-sustaining in the way of her provision supplies, to the saving of many millions annually. She will before long save and make her own fertiliztrs, to the saving of many millions more. She has lana; been manufac- turing a portion of her cotton. This ipdnstry will continue to increase more and more until she will be able to supply her own demands, as she has immense water-power idle. The new railroad running South from here is bringing its rails I am told from New Jersey. The time is coming when this county will he able to supply the whole State wiih railroad iron, al- though there are only two or three works now m operation. Before and during the war, there were nine in a diameter of eight miles. She will also before long make a large proportion of her agricul- tural implements. You may well believe that Georgia possesses the enterprize, energy, and skill, as well as the re- sources, to enable her to become one of the lead- ing States in all that constitutes true greatness ia a State. J- h. r. Cartersville, Georgia, Aug, 31, 1870. Remarks.— We alluded last week to the Agri- cultural Congress mentioned by our respected 606 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. correspondent, and we notice by the Governor's Message, that in addition to the payment by the State of an unclaimed appropriation of $2500 a year, due for ten years, an appropriation of #10,000 annually for the future use of the Society is rec- ommended, and that the publication of the Trans- actions be made by the Society, Instead of a gov- ernment official. In one of the documents sent by "J. H. R." we nodce an article by Col. George N. Lester, Com- missioner of Land and Immigration, in which it is said, "the statement that the present settlers do not want Northern men to come among them and settle, has no foundation in fact. They do not want men to come among them who make politics business, but all laborers, farmers and mechanics, will be welcomed and kindly received." We thank our correspondent for his kind atten- tions and hope to hear from him often. BLOODY MILK. One of my cows, a five-year old, has for some time given from one teat bloody milk ; not every dav, buc occasionally. Can you suggest the cause, '»'• fure, if any, of this complaint ? She is a good cow, and I do not relish the idea of losing her. Fitchburg, Mass., Aug. 29, 1870. G. B. w. Remarks — The trouble with your cow is prob- ably what is generally known as garget. It may, however, result from some injury. About as many remedies for this disease have been recommended as there are cures for colds or warts. Poke root fed with potatoes is an old prescription. Half a pint of beans once or twice a day is another. Some think tomatoes are good. We have given, with apparent benefit, twenty grains of Iodide of Potash three times a day, in the cow's drink. One ounce will make twenty-four such doses. DISEASED LUNGS OF AN OX. Saturday evening, about 7 o'clock, August 20, 1 saw my oxen — a good pair — in the pasture, appar- ently well, and fur aught I knew perfectly healthy. On Sunday morning I found one of them dead. I skinned him, and on opening him I found the heart of an unnaturally small size and very black, and with very little blood in it. One lung was a great deal smaller than the other, and very much inflamed. The other lung appeared healthy, as did also all the other parts of the ox. I wish to know your opinion of the cause of the sudden death of my ox; whether the disease is likely to spread, and what can be done in case my other cattle are attacked. M. F. p. Stralton, Vt., Sept. 1, 1870. Remarks.— We can hardly give a guess as to the cause of this sudden death, nor suggest any remedy in case other cattle are attacked. Inflam- mation of the lungs of cattle, as well as of men, occasionally occur, perhaps oftener than is gener- ally supposed, but death in such cases seldom takes place without previous signs of illness. Possibly you might have overlooke'd those signs, and your ox may have been affected longer than you were aware of. In cases of pleuro-pneumonia the diseased lung is enlarged, and generally adhe- rent to the diaphragm, and the heart and other organs are usually unaffected. This disease is generally considered contagious. A few years ago Massachusetts lost about one thousand cattle from this disease. In all cases of death of animals from diseased lungs, we think it is advisable for farmers to secure an examination by some physi- cian, in neighborhoods in which there is no edu- cated veterinary surgeon. Cattle are far more valuable than formerly, and the presence of a con- tagious lung disease in a herd is a serious matter. We are, however, inclined to the opinion that in this case the immediate cause of death was some disorder in the heart, possibly brought on by want of ventilation in the stable in which he had been kept at some time in his life. IMPROVED IMPERIAL SUGAR BEET. Several weeks' since you invited me to give, through the columns of your paper, my method of cultivating the Imperial beet. I have ^Iso received several letters of inquiry in regard to it. I will therefore now comply with your request. Al- though the subject may seem somewhat out of season for this year, it is just in time for those who may wish to prepare ground this fall for early sowing in the spring. We first procured our seed of the Hon. Rollin Lane, of Cornwall, Vt., some three years ago. — Since that time we have cultivated this variety in preference to all others, first, on account of the large yield per acre; secondly, from the absence of lateral roots, which renders it more readily cleansed for use ; and thirdly, because it grows for the most part above the ground, and therefore is much more easily harvested than the old variety. The yield varies in different localities and under different cultivation, from eight to sixteen hun- dred bushels per acre. Beets flourish best on rich, moist sandy or gravelly loam. But the amount of production depends largely on the proper pre/jara- tion of the soil, Skudi on clean and thorough culti- vation. Opinions differ in regard to the amount of manure per acre, also in regard to the best method of its application. It may, however, be safely af- firmed that there is not the slightest danger of getting the soil in too high a state of cultivation for a maximum crop. We prefer applying the manure on the surface and harrowing it under, as it becomes more thor- oughly mixed with the soil when "ridging" than if ploughed under. We presurne the practice of "ridging" is understood by most farmers, but for the benefit of those not accustomed to its practice, I will say that turning two furrows up together is not satisiactory. It is better to pass through the field with a plough, throwing up a wide, deep fur- row ; in returning let your horse walk on the fur- row, taking such part of it as you wish, aud you have a nice mellow ridge, with the manure thor- oughly mixed with the soil, and the lumps, if any, in the furrow between the riOges. Then with a light harrow or garden rake level the ridge to within two inches of the general surface, and you are ready for the seed, of which about two pounds per acre are required. As to the time of sowing, I find, on referring to our ^arm book, that our present crop was sown May 20th, which is as late as it should be sown. The fact is, the earlier the better, if the soil is sutH- ciently warm to render the seed safe from rottiug. Sow in ridges two feel apart, and when the plants are four inches high thin to one foot apart in the row. Hoe often, keep the weeds back aud give the beets the advantage, and with a favorable sea- 1870. NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 607 son you will be rewarded for your labor with a good crop of beets. In harvesting, which should be done before the ground (rcczes, pile the tops in small heaps, and whi'u the frost hns killed other soiling crops, they will be found excellent food for milch cows or for fattening cattle. I hope the bubject of raising roots for both sum- mer and winter feeding of stock will be discussed in agricultural papers and by farmers' clubs and agricultural societies, and that farmers will be en- couratced to extend their cultivation. Brookjield, Vt., Aug. 25, 1870. C. B. FiSK. SEASON IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, VT. — BEAKS. We have experienced the hottest and dryest season within my recollection, which runneth back more than forty years. Saturday night, Sept. 3, we enjoyed the first rainstorm that has fallen since our crops were put in the ground. Still I buppose we have not suffered so much from drought here among the mountains as some other places have, for wo have had occasional showers, so that all our crops have matured, some of them being a little short. Just here, the hay crop was fair, and secured in excellent condition. Oats good, unless on the dryest land. I harvested my surprise oats in 77 days from the sowing, and my corn in 90 days from planting; but both corn and oats were on land that suffered from the d<-ought, but not so much but the crops were fair. Some pieces of potatoes are good, but the general crop will be a little short. 1 see that you speak of Early Rose weighing 1 pound 10 ounces. We have grown them weighing 2 pounds 10 ounces here. The grasshoppers have eaten most of the fall feed as fast as it grew, but their teeth are getting poor now, and the refreshing rain of Saturday night will probably give us some feed yet and may help late potatoes, as there has not been frost enough to kill the lops yet. Bears have been killing sbeep on our mountains recently, and yesterday Mr. Albert S. Pike shot one that girthed six feet and measured seven feet in length, but they had no conveniences for weighing it. This morning a neighbor caught a smaller one in a trap. lioxbury, Vt., Sept. 7, 1870. W. I. Simonds. CORN HARVEST. Many farmers In this vicinity husk most of their corn in the field, and regard it as the easiest and cheapest way of harvesting the crop. A bench, sixteen or tighteen inches in height, is made of a plank or slab six or eight feet long, by boriug holes, and putting in four long legs. This is easily mov^d about the field. Lay the corn across this bench, place the basket at the bottom of the bundle, and sit astride the bench. This ar- rangement brings everything hanciy, and a smart man will husk and put in a cart from 25 tJ 40 bushels in a day, by aavlight. It can be unloaded in the evening, which is safer than husking by lantern-light. When the bundles are husked set up the fouder as you would shock grain, putting in ten to twenty bundles, and throw the scatter- ings, and three or four bundles on top for a "cap" tj keep out the rain. Fodaer put up in this way will keep out till snow comes, if you wish it, with- out iujury. It will dry off nicely and not heat and moula in the mow. You can husk and crib up your corn early, when the weather is warm, leaving the fodder to cure in the field, and when you cart it put it where you wish it to remain. This saves onte handling. Pitcaing heavy stooks of corn on and off a cart is very hard work, the bundles are liable to be torn to pieces in the process, and the fodder, if packed in any considerable quantity, is liable lO heat, and be very badly damaged. Nearly all the corn in this vicinity was cut in the month of August, and many are already en- gaged in husking it. J. R. w. Springfield, Vt., Sept. 5, 1870. IMPORTATION OF ENGLISH STOCK. Mr. M. H. Cochran, of Compton, Canada, has been in England this season buying stock at prices which have surprised even Johnny Bull himself. A few hundred guineas, more or less, seem to have been a small consideration with him when balanced with the merit of an animal. The English papers give the details of his purchases. They state that the aggregate cost of his purchases amount to about $75,000 in gold. At Wetherby Grange he purchased Duchess 101 for 1500 guineas, and Duchess 103 for 1125 guineas. At Warlaby he bought Lady Grateful for 1500 guineas; and Mabel and bull calf for 900 guineas, &c. It is said that these cows for which he paid 1500 guineas must cost him over €'8000 at his farm in Canada. On the sixteenth of August a portion of this stock arrived in Canada, consisting of 34 Short- horns ; 4 Jerseys ; a large lot of Cotswolds ; 30 Berkshire swine, some of which were from Her Majesty's Shaw farm ; Yorkshire and Suffolk pigs, and a very fine hunter mare. A correspondent of the Country Gentleman says : — We saw the new comers the day of their arrival, many of them fearfully bruised and stiff-jued by the severe storm encountered on the passage. The hunter and a few pigs and sheep were killed out- right, and some of the heifers are in a bad way, but may recover. Mr. C. left behind four < f his choice ones, including Lady Grateful and Royal Commander from the Warlaby herd, not caring to risk all his gems in one boat. A few came over in good shape. Booth's Marksman, a roan, 11 months, seems lively and is a promising young bull, very stylish, with good head, straight top, and of as good points as the average of calves of his age. He is of the same family as the beautiful cow. Star of Braith- wait, imported in 1868. Col. King, of Minnesota, b uisht Booth's Marksman the morning after his arrival. Old Sam is a red, two years, somewhat plain in his horns, but stylish, with level top and bottom lines, very round ribs ; few judges of short-horns will find any fault with this animal that time and care will not mend. Scotsman (27,435) is a roan, calved February 27, 1868; bred by the Duke of Buccleuch, Dalkeith Park, Edinburgh; got by Ro>al Errant, 22780. He wjn first prizes as a yearling, at the R^yal Northern Society and at the Mumyshire Club Shows, also at the Highland Society's Meeting at Edinburg, 1869 ; and as a two year old he won the first prizes at the Meeting of the Royal Agricul- tural Society of England at Oxford, and at the Highland Society's Show at Dumfries, 1870. Capt. Balco, the sire of Scotsman's grandam, was im- ported some years ago by the Shakers of Union Village, O., and Balco, his sire, was imported by Col. Morris of Mt. Fordham. This bull also goes to Col. King's farm, near Minneapolis, Min. Among the females that got over with but slight bruises, is the now 2-yrs Countess of Yarborough, winner of second prize as a yearling at Oxford last month. Booth's Lancaster, a roan 2-years, is in blood a fall sist«r of Mr. Fickrell's prize bull Baron Booth. 508 2^W ENGLAND FAE:VIER. Nov. Rosedale 3d, half sister to the world-renowned j Rosedale, is very neat and promising ; us are t'nc two Duchesses lOlsi and 103d ; also Duchess 2d and 3d, and Candidate's Duchess, although the three latte • have but little affiii-..,y to the great Bates family of the same name. We notice the names of many well-known breeders in this lot, (for ca'al(if;ue apply to Mr. Cochrane,) Capt. gun- ter, the B()L.ths, Rev. J. Storer, Messrs. Bruere, Game, Fo'jamOe, Barnes, Beatiie, Atherton, Aj'l- mer and otuers. The white pigs are pood samples, as are also the Cotswold sheej), and wo chanced to meet at Hill- hurst Mr. Rauliin of lilmois, the well known breeder of Berkshires, who says the new importa- tion is decidedly the btst lot of pigs he ever saw together. Grasses at the South. — The idea that success- ful agriculture can exist only in connection with th,e cultivation of the grasses has been urged of late with much earnestness by some newspaper writers, and attempts have been made to intro- duce their cultivation into the Southern States. A Florida correspondent of the Georgia Southern Cultivator says, from what he can gather up, it appears that the successful culture of the grasses is a failure. Not only during the last thirty years, but of late, under the excitement of grass raising, it appears a failure, for Ohly now and then you hear of a successful grass patch, and the country is, as it was, a no grass country. And he asks the question whether in Egypt, Greece and Iialy, the grasses were regarded as ts.ential in the system of agriculture which fi;d a densse population ; and if wheat was raised in Egypt, why may it not be raised in Florida? Had th.y a variety that we cannot now procure ? A New Binder. — Attempts have been made re- peatedly to attach to reaping machines an appara- tus for binding the grain as fast as cut. The Ad- ams, Mass., Transcript notices an invention for this purpose, by L. O. Locke, which is to be at- tached to the W. A. Wood reaper, manufactured at Hoosic Falls, Mass. The Tra7iscript says that on a recent trial the grain on an acre was cut and bound in twenty-five minutes. The grain is bound with fine wire, at a cost of fifteen to twenty cents per acre for material. Vermont Hokse Stock Company. — We are glad to learn by the Journal and Watchman that the treasurer of this company, Mr. L. T. Tucker, announces that the sum of ^25,000, which it was necessary to raise beiore any active business could be commenced, has been secured, and that a vigor- ous prosecution of the work for which the charter of the company was procured, will be speedily commenced. —John T. Alexander, the great Illinois fanner, has 34,000 acres of improved land. Last year he paid out f 76,000 for wages, and sold $493,000 worth of live stock alone. PHOSPE3CTS OF THE HOP CHOP. As tlie b.'irvest; lor Lops is now near at hand, all who are interested in this bi{i,ncb of agri- culture will be desirous to Icarn the present oondiiion of the plantations in Euglan bad throughout the State. Consolations may be gleaned in very try- ing circumstances. One is in a firm and abiding faith that all events over which man has no con- trol will be conducted for the best, and that a calm and hopeful resignation to them will afford more comfort than any repining. Our correspondent has found another, and a good one, in the baked apples and milk, one part of which, the apples, are abundant. Fed moderately to the cows, this will increase the flow of milk, and thus both apples and milk may be plentiful. . THREE RECEIPTS. I send you three receipts. The first two 1 have many times tried without fail; the third but one year, with perfect success. SCRATCHES IN HORSES. For full-grown horse, feed one table spoonful of sales and one of sulphur three mornings in succes- sion ; then after three, feed again, if needed. FOR LICE ON COLTS AND CALVES. Mix a little sulphur with salt, and feed on the ground before cold weather; you will not be troubled in winter with lousy calves. TO PROTECT FRUIT AND SHADE TREES FROM MICE. Take tarred roofing paper, cut crossways of the piece, which is about two feet wide, strip fifteen inches wide, wrap lengthwise around the tree, which will cover it two feet high ; and put it on io a warm tall dav, as it is had to handle when cold. Shoreham, Vt., Sept., 1870. e. b. d. THE AMERICAN BEAUTY APPLE. I send you two apples taken from the farm of Petf r Wayland, in this neighborhood, called the American Beazity. I know not whether it has at- tained any notorieiy abroad, but think not, as I have never seen any of them in the markets in any of our lar?e cities. It is much cultivated here, and the original tree where I obtained this fruit is often visited by strangers who have been charmed with the beauty of the truit. PiCase examine, and pass your judgment upon its mprits or demerits. R. G. W. Parker. Pratt's Junction, Sept., 1870. Remarks. — Very beautiful specimens ; are solid, weigh half a pound each; bright red, with russet dots. Warder states it is a winter apple, and good in quality. Cr6pS in WEST VIRGINIA — REMEDY FOR SHEEP POISONED BY LAUREL. Messrs. Editors : — We have had a very good season, taking it all together. In the spring it was too wet, then for a short time too dry, and after that very tine. Wheat ahuut two thirds of an average crop ; rye one-half; oats extra; also corn the same. Hay hardly an average crop, — too wet in the spring. Fruit ahnut one-fourth of a crop, and indifferent. Wheat flour at one mill, 4 cents per lb, when others are out. The other two, 3^ cents per lb. No old corn to be had. New, about 50 cents per bushel; rye, $1 per bushel ; oats, 35 cents per bushel ; but- ter, 16 cents per lb; bacon, 20 cents per lb; eggs, 10 cents per dozen; chickens, $1.50 per dozen, and dull. I have seen in your paper a number of cures for sheep when they get poisoned with laurel. When I was a boy, my father was driving his sheep in the spring fromSomers, Conn., to Worthington, Mass., 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 519 and he had several of his flock poisoned hy eating laurel. A Methodist minister happened to corne along, and inquired what was the matter of his sheep ? Fattier mformed him of the fact. He then requested me to catch one, which I did He opened its mouth, and cut the third wrinkle in tne roof from i's teeth and let it go. He said that he would warrant it to cure every one that was not so far gone that it could not swallow the blood. Father lost one only out of over twenty. One of my neighbors wishes to paint the roof of his house with gas-tar. He wants to know what he rau&t put into it, so as to thicken it a little. He wants to apply it with a brush. Can any reader of the Farmer give the required intormation. If they can, we will be under obliga- tions to them. H. A. Pease. IVardensville, West Va., Sept., 1870. SOILINq^OF CATTLE. I would be glad to get a book on soiling cows. Can you inform me where such a book can be had ? L. Starksboro', Vt., Sept., 1870. Remarks. — The Essays by Hon. Josiah Quincy, published by A* Williams & Co., Boston, at #1.25, are the best that we know of. The volume con- tains, in addition to the Essays on Soiling, a me- moir of the author, and an agricultural address delivered by him before the Massachusetts Agri- cultural Society in 1819. ROUND OR WHOLE SHOES FOR OXEN. When an ox has a bad claw by calking, or one claw gets lamed by sprain, gravel or stone bruises, take two of his common shoes, properly fitted, and weld tiaem together at the toes ; put on a toe caik, as on a horse-shoe ; let the claws of the loot touch at the toes ; nail on your shoes, a'nd go to work with your oxen. All will be right in a d«y or two. Shoes thus set will last as long as two or three settings of single shoes, when at work on a stone- quarry or other very rough place. Brother teamster, don't let the blacksmiths frighten you on tnis subject. No dirt or gravel will work up between the claws to injure in the least. At tirst thought, perhaps you will say that it is contrary to nature to thus contiae the claws of the foot of an ex. Be this as it may, you will find that f-uch a shoe will greatly assist nature in cur- ing a very bad foot. By thus shoeing one ox, in particular, that tore off a part of one claw, which had been baeily cut by calking, 1 did not lose a clay's work. The shoe was set with but two nails in tbe lame claw, and those at the heels. 1 have savid tne work of three different oxen by thus shoeing, this season, 1 have no doubt. Our cattle, which are heavy, work on a granite quarry which is as rough as need be. F'riends, iryi tie round or whole shoe, and if not pleased with it, ^ou can cheaply take off the shoe if it does not prove beneficial. Nelson Converse. Marlboroitgh, N. U., Sept. 12, 1870. THE HUTCHINSON PEACH. Fit more than forty years there has not been an eiiiire fjilure of a crop from this peach. It is a native seed ling, retained on the same farm wirhcut mixture from oiher varieties, reproducing iifclf from seed. If any deterioration is produced by budding the peach, then seedling trees from this stock must be desirable. The quality is not surpassed; spicy, juicy, pleasant, tender flesh, wtiite- colored aouut the stone, skin blush in the sun, but mostly light-colored, mottled with pink, of medium size, belongs to the rareripe class of peaches. The tree is vigorous, with long, dark green leaf, t'he fruitfulness and qua;ity of this peacD, to be fully appreciated, should be seen and tastrrt, as it is now, S.'pt. 12r,h, in periectiun, on the Hutchinson farm, in Reading, Mass. The whole crop is in demanet in the immediate vicinity. The crop does not exceed fifiy bu'-hels, whicti, at $4 00 per bushel, is the most profitable product of Mr. Hutchinson's farm. J. W. Manning. Reading, Mass., Sept. 12, 1870. VITALITY OF SEED EYE. R. Lock wood, of Irasburg, Vt., sowed last spring a small piece to rye, the grain beini? seven years old. Not a stalk came up, while adjoining oats, wheat, and peas looked finely. Hence it was not the season that prevented germination. Four years ago he sowed some of the same lot of rye, and it all grew well. Tcis seed that remained in the barrel until this season, has not been exooseel to any influences such as fermentation or damp- ness that could have destroyed vitality. Was "it old age? z. E. J. Irasburg, Vt., Sept. 1, 1870. AGRICULTUKAIi ITEMS. — The Philadelphia Gardener's Monthly com- plains that "our Horticultural Societies themselves lose sight entirely of their mission and objects. There is not one that oflers the slightest encour- agement to the working gardener — the main prin- ciple on which they were founded." — Flower and garden seeds, when done up in papers, are sometimes destroyed by mice. Well dried and put into vials and bottles that may be lying about the house, these seeds will be safe. If the bottles are neatly labelled and put away in or- der, it will be found a very pretty way of preserv- ing seeds. The bottles should be washed and dried before being filled. — Ten imported Jersey cows were sold in Bos- ton, Sept. 2, at #200 to 430; averaging #299 50 each; a Guernsey heifer for #2.60, a Jersey bull for #200 ; two Southdown rams at #50 each ; one Yorkshire sow at #180, another at .#100; one trio Gray Dorkings for #15 ; one trio White Brahmas #10; one trio Rouen Ducks, #17.50; two Ayles- bury Ducks, #5,50. — To cure dogs of sucking eggs, a correspondent of the Southern Cultivator says: — Take an egsr, punch a hole in it large enough to admit the little blade of a knife, and put in through the hole as much tartar emetic as he can pile on a dime piece, and give to his dog, or put in a convenient place where he can find it. Repeal three or four times within ten days or two weeks. — The Horticulturist gives the statistics of the fruit farm of L. A. Gould, Santa Clara, Cal., re- cently visited by the editor, Mr. Williams :— Num- ber of apple-trees 4000 ; pear trees 3350 ; cherry trees 500; English Walnut, peach, plum, fig, &c., 8200. Ten acres of grapes ; two of blackberries ; 35 of strawberries, many of them among trees. Raised 50 tons strawberries ; 8860 boxes apples; 4609 boxes pears; dried 2500; fed to stock 280 520 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. boxes; cherries 12,000 pounds, grapes 65,000 pounds. The fruit boxes contain about two-thirds of a bushel. The strawberries yield two crops a year — May and September. St'BSOiL Attachment. — ^Mr. W.Brown ofHamp- ton Falls, N. H., writes »o the Country Gentleman that he, with others, bought the right to use the patent in his town, with the privilege of ordering the castings from the foundry. They cost nearly double the sum represented by the agent. On light soils it operated in good shape, but on such land as he wished to subsoil he found it worthless and had abandoned its use. It required too much power for an ordinary team, and with a team of sufficient strength there was great danger of break- age. He prefers the regular subsoil plough The attachments, however, gave good satisfaction as an aid in digging tile ditches. Another correspondent of the same paper, in Michigan, says that he has been led to believe, from experiments without a dynamometer, that three horses will turn a furrow ten inches dtep as easily as one five inches deep and subsoil five inches more, and in the former case the soil will be pulverized to the full depth far more perfectly. For the New England Farmer. KENOVATINQ EXHAUSTED LAND. Successful Farming. In all parts of New England, farms are sold and bought every jear, and other farms, occu- pied by the discontented owner or by a tenant, are in the market. Some of these farms have old buililings, and a soil that is at present un- productive. The purchaser usually pays only part of the price, and calculates to pay the rest from his annual crops, dairy products and the growth of young stock. Now, with a worn out soil, there will be dis- appointments often during the first few years. The careless farmer has ploughed freely, manured lightly, and sowed but little grass and clover seed, often using the sweepings of the barn floor, containing various kinds that have been shaken from the hay during the winter. Such land may well be compared to a cow so nearly famisht^d, or to a fine horse in so low a condition, that every bone, muscle, ten- don and cord, as well as the blood, is affrfcted. One generous feed to such animals does not result in a generous flow of lich milk with the one, nor in an ability to travel ten miles an hour or fifty in a day with the other. If such an animal has access to the corn-field or oat- bin, the stomach becomes loaded with nutri- tious food, but it imparts but little benefit to the body. But continuous good care fills the shrunken skin with firm flesh, mingled with fat, f>o that the animal is eventually able to make a good return for the owner's care. I he hist faim oouih of my own was occu- pied by a tenant during the first fifteen years of my remembrance. Its soil is partly of a light character, tending to sand on the tops of the knolls, but on the lower portions so ap- proaches clay that fence-posts are thrown out by the frost, and the soil is slightly sticky when wet. This farm is naturally free from stone, and is part of a valley of 5000 acres of excellent land. During its occupancy by tenants it was at times badly managed. Large fields were ploughed and sowed lo oafs three or four years in succession, then lightly seeded to grass. The ploughing was very shallow, about four inches, and was done by bo\ s, who would in mellow stubble ground run the plough tiwo feet upon the land, only stirring part cf the soil ; but it would farrow smooth. No effort was mad"^ to preserve manure or add to its quantity. What di \ accumulate in spring and fall was drawn to the field, dropped in small heaps, and the boys took stents in spread- ing and gained time. Where the heaps were, the grain would lodge. A small piece of corn was usually well manured, and made a good crop. ITineteen years ago this farm, of 220 acres, was bought by G. B. and Myron Brewster for §3500. These young men, with a widowed mother and sisters, came from the country, near Lake Champla.in, a good corn and stock region, and they commenced the work the first spring with good courage. A pasture was ploughed for corn and potatoes, and plaster applied in the hills. But as corn here must be well manured, this crop was a failure, as the oW residtnts here knew it would be. The grain and grass was light. The pasture was grown up to alders by the brook, and on higher land the sweet elders and raspberry bushes were abundant. The stock pastured, eight cows and twenty sheep, proved enough to consume the fodder raised. No wheat was raised, as the midge would destroy it. So with poor crops, low prices, with flour, sugar and many things to be purchased, the income was but little more than enough to pay the in- terest on the purchase- money. What seemed strange was, that after a piece had been well manured and cropped only twice or three times, and seeded to grass, it would not yield heavy crops but a short time, when sorrel and June grass would come in. Thus seven years passed. Both young men were married; and G. B. Brewster bought out his brother, paying him $1500 and assuming the old debts. More attention was paid to man- uring ; all made in the winter was applied in spring — the coarse ploughed in, the fine har- rowed in ; the soil thoroughly worked ; and more clover and grass seed were sown to the acre. The pastures were improved by cutting bushes and clearing some woodland, and more stock was kept. Dairy products brought higher prices, and cows were kept better. Hops were raised, and with good crops proved remunerative. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAR:VIER. 621 It became necessary to have a new house, and after due preparation a commof^ious one, ■with wood-phed and horse barn attached, was erected in 1862. It was thoroughly built, well linished and painted throughout. Shortly after tLid the estate became so desirable that $10,000 was offered for it, but Mr. B. considered this his home and refused to sell. Help was freely hired, liberal wages were paid, and workmen well treated. The soil, by successive manur- ivgs and good management, became more fer- tile, and wheat began to he raised with good success. As many as 25 bushels per acre were harvested, 70 of oats, 300 of potatoes, 70 of corn and 900 of turnips. More barn room becoming necessary, one was built in 1868, 92 feet long, 48 feet wide, with a cellar under the whole, for muck and manure. The stable above the cellar was the length of the back side and one end, 140 feet lon^, making room for about 40 cattle fast- ened in stanchion. At present the farm can keep this amount of stock, beside horses for team, and a few colts. In 1869 another purchase was made, for $2500, of two lots, 220 acres of very fine woodland and natural meadow, south of the farm first purchased, making 440 acres of choice land. The old debts are all paid up. And all this has been done mostly by straight, practical farming and dairying, with no blood stock, CO injustice to hired help, no stinginess in neighborly deal, and no mf an or unchristian action. A few dollars have bean added to the income by buying hops, and in each of the falls 1867 and 1868, about 500 turkeys were bought, fattened, dressed, and bold, making a good profit. Last fall Mr. B. represented the town in the legislature of the State. In the winter, with his usual energy, he decided to increase his income bv getting lumber from his own wood- land. With two men that he hired by the year to cut the logs, and with his one span of horses that do his farm work, he went at it, and the following amount of sawed lumber was the result of the winter's work : — 10,000 feet No. 1 clapboard, worth $20 per m ; 7.000 feet floor boards, worth $25 per m. ; 26,000 feet railroad fence boards, worth $11 per m. ; 18,000 feet pine (not yet sold,) worth $25 per m. ; 4.000 feet poor fence boards worth $8 per m. ; in all, 65,000 feet, average Worth per m. $18. The sawing was done ibr ^2 50 per thousand. The prin- cipal part of this was immediately sent to marfeet, but some is not sold. The present summer he has commenced to buy butter for Messrs. English, Simpson & Co., Faneuil Hall Square, Boston, and each week buys from one to two and a half tons, as they order. The lessons that I draw from this instance of successful firming, where a man's property has increased from a few hundreds to over $15,0U0, are fir&t, that a worn out farm can- not at once be made fertile evpn by good farming, and a heavy dressing of manure, but that a continued course of good treatment is necessary to restore fertility and strength to the whole mass of surface soil. In the second place, I learn that it is not "economy" that makes farmers rich, but a big income. I know some meanly economical farmers that are poor. In this case good wages are paid; labor saving implements used, and help enough employed to prevent the necessity of forced over work ; food in abundance and variety is furnished; good household furniture provided, with all needed conveniences ; and such freedom from har- rassing, soul-corroding anxiety, that visitors say "if this is farming, I should like to be a farmer." And, in the third place, I am taught that strict honesty, perfect fairness, and eve* lib- erality in all business and neighborly transac- tions are compatible with success m fanning, whatever may be thought to be the restalt of the exerci.-ie of their virtu*»s on individual prosperity in other professions and occupa- tions. " Z. E. Jameson. Irasburg, Vt.^ Aug., 1870. For the New England Farmer. ON FATTENING SWINE. Mr. Editor: — I wish to give your North- field, Vt., correspondent, of Aug. 15, the result of my experience in fattening hogs. I regard apples boiled and mashed, with a half "bushel of meal to a barrel of apples, added while hot, and slightly fermented, ad much better than pumpkms or potatoes. Apples fed in this way make firmer and sweeter pork than any feed I ever tried. I prefer apples to potatoes for keeping store hogs; they consume more in quantity, but will thrive' better on them than on potatoes. Twelve and thirteen years since, I each year wintered a fall pig, let them run with my cows through the summer, giving them only the slops made by our family ; giving all the fkimmed milk to my calves. When apples began to fall off, they had free access to them ; which lasted them until cold weather, without any other feed. When my cows were taken to the barn, the hogs were confined in the barn yard, a good sized one, with a warm shed, and fed on corn-meal mixed in a stiff cold mush, twice a day only. After a while they had as much as they would eat, and the hens immediately finished what was left. They never lost their appetite, nor pined be- tween meals ; being fed regularly, with nothing but water in reach between meals. The feed- ing-trough was in the open yard, well re- moved from their bed. They kept clean and in a wholesome atmosphere, but would fre- quently root through the frozen ground ani he with the navtl in contact with the fresh earth, to rid themselves of an excess of elec- 522 NEW ENGLAND FAEjVEER. Nov. tricity. They were killed near Christmas ; the poorest of them, which was killed the first >ear. was pronounced by the butcher as th^. fattest hog he ever saw, (weight 425 lbs.) The nf'xt year's hog, though smaller, was much the fattest. 1 believe pigs will fit fastest on cooked food, and should be fed three times a day, without being able to get a particle between meals, but old hogs should have uncooked «'orn-meal. which they will eat the most of, and yet dige.'-t it wgll, if fed only twice a day. A large yard, with a chance to root into the fresh earth, are necessary to .•^ecure whole- some quarters, and contentment for a fatten- ing hog. and these are both necessary to make whole^ome pork. Piiineas Field. E. Charlemont, Sept. 15, 1870. Remarks — In the abundance of apples all over New England, it is encouraging to find such testimony as the above, that swine are fond of them, and that they are wholesome and nutritious. We can add our own testi- mony to that of Mr. Field. Since the sweet apples began to drop, some weeks ago, they have been collected, boiled, mixed wiih iorn- meal and a small portion of .'•horts, and fed to the hogs. They are relished better by the swine if a small amount of salt is added, and thoroughly stirred in. In this dry season, when the corn, potato and pumpkin crops are short, the apple crop may be made to go far in making up defi- ciences in other crops. We thank our correspondent for this timely reference to the subject. For the h'ew England Farmer. SEASON AJND CROPS IN MEW HAMP- bHIBE. The Drou?tt,— Wheat,— Corn,— Oats,— Pot atoee —Ap- ples,-Corn Fodder,— Haj ,— Garden Siuff,— Cider Mills, The present season will be long remembered as one of excessive heat and iJronght — the hot- test and dr\ est, probably, in the uuemory of our oldest people. In some localities in this town, people are obliged to ret-ort to the swamps and dig boles to get a supply of wa- ter for ordinary purposes.* Our largest brooks are dry for rods in succession, and stock in many pastures is suffering for the want of wa- ter, and the "green things" that are not grow- ing. All the cereal crops have been uninjured by the drought Corn on the light, sandy soil> is a total failure, but on the hill farms it is bet- ter than last jear. Wheat is mostly threshed, and will average about fourteen bushels to the acre. I know of one or two pieces sown as late as May 15th, entirely ruined by the ru^t, and it was done August 4th, when we had a shower which thoroughly soaked the straw. The kernel at this time was in the milk. After the shower, the sun came out hot, caaping the stem to crack and the sap to ooze out, thereby ren- dering it in just the right state for the attack of the spores of the rust plant. There is no trouble in raising good wheat in New Hampshire if we sow good seed and sow it early. Three bushels of my seed were threshed with a llail. the other six with a ma- chine From careful estimates, the part of the field sown with seed threshed by hand }ielded 33 per cent, more to the acre than the machine-threshed, being earlier, thicker and better every way. In threshing for seed, I thresh the tops of the bundles lightly, without opening. In this way I get the earliest and best kernels for seed. The late, imperfect, and .short heads are in the middle of the bun- dle, and of course are not threshed. I run ihese bundles through the machine, and allow the thresher-! for what I 'hresh off. i Oats ar« fair. The White Swedish, Excel- 1 sior and Probstein being far superior to the I Norway. Some of our farmers think the last I named more suitable fjr shoe pegs, than to i feed to horses. Potatoes are light and small. The Early Rose has done the best of any variety. Every one is pleased with them. The apple crop is enormous. The codlin moth has troubl«-d the fruit but little — conse- quently it is fine and nice, and buyers may expect fine fruit at fair prices. Dairy products will be scarce in this section, as there has been nothing in the pastures to make milk since the middle of July, and most of our farmers did not take the precaution to sow corn for soiling — consequently cows are nearly dry. I wish to add a word here in favor of corn .sown for fodder. I have raised it for the last fifteen years, and have fed it to my cows with the best results. The cows always gain in fiesh and milk, while fed with it ; horses and' oxen eat it in preference to good hay, and work equally as well. I sow it in drills, three and a halt" f-et apart, usually manure in the drill ; sow the corn by band and cover with a I harrow, and hoe twice with Ford's horse hoe. I The plant usually grows about eight feet high, ! and the larg-st stalks are about one and a half I inch in diam<-ter, and will average about I twenty stalks to one foot in length of drill. I find these stalks are very sweet. All my cat- tle have been fed upon them night and morn- ing since the first week in August, and they have not wasted f^vi'. pounds. 1 had rather have it, pound for pound, to feed to my stock, than En^H.^h (urnips, and it does not cost half as much to raise and feed out. The hay crop fell short at least one-third, and stock is on the decline. Six feet cattle 1870. NEW ENGLAN]) F.IRMER. 523 can be bought for $100, and sheep for what their pelts are worth. Garden truck is scarce, — not half the far- mers have enough for their own use. Are the cast, iron hand cider mills, so largely advertised in (he papers, practicable for com- mon use ? Can good cider be made with them ? One of my neighbors h^s one of the "5000 now in use," and I got him to make me a barrel of cider from good, ripe apples, and paid $1.60 for making, but the cider is not fit to use, being black and nasty, and tast- ing as bad as it looks ; and this is the complaint of all who have had cider made in it. I no- ticed the cider made at the Fair at Manches- ter with cast-iron mills, had a black complex- ion, and tasted irony. Is this generally the case, or is it the exception ? Will som'i one an-wer who has had practical experience with them ? S. C. Pattee. Warner, N. E., Sept. 16, 1870. SUBSOIL IN" MAEBLEHEAD, MASS. Our correspondent, James J. H. Gregory, of Marblebead, gives the following facts in a letter to the Country Gentleman, from which he draws the inference that in some places the subsoil contains a large amount of fertilizing matter : — "Four years ago I had a wall laid along the border of my garden. I had the trench for the foundation dug very deep, well down into the hard-pan, and bad the hard-pan thrown into a pde separate from the loam. The loam was used in the compost heap, and the hard pan — a half .«andy, half gravelly mass, with just enough of coarse soil in it to be seen — was left to be used to fill up some path. "In the course of the summer, I noticed a plant growing on it with surprising vigor, which, on examination, proved to be the com- mon mustard, cut with leaves nearly as broad and large as a cabbage — a size I had never seen surpassed in the richest soil. Beside it, and aUo on the haid-pan, was growing a plant of Apple of Peru with a vigor that belonged to the richest soil. The following spring I spread the lot on the flower garden and had a wonderful growth of flowers as the result, "A year later, one of my neighbors in anoth- er part of the town dug a ditch, that drained his land through mine, to the depth of over six feet, cutting for about the last three feet through hard-pan, and throwing this on my side of the wall, where it made a heap about three feet in depth, of apparently nearly pure gravel, a little mixed with sand. The next bummer while passing that way, I stepped aside to examine the ditch, when to my sur- prise I found growing on the heap of hard- pan, hog-weed that was nearly as high as my head. The only inference I can draw from these facts is, that under some circumstances hard-pan is an excellent manure. In each of these instances the surface soil was a strong loam that had b^en under good cultivation for many years. May it not be that some of the Salts ot the manure applied during this period, passed through the loam to the hard-pan be- low, and there remained, held as in a howl? Lime, it is stated, has this tendency, making it necessary to plough deeper each year to bring it to the surface. By whatever theoiy they may be explained, the farts seera to prove that in this broad country of ours there must be a muhitude of acres underlain by vast areas of fertilizing material. Should further experiments demonstrate this to be a fact, it must prove of immense practical value to our tilled acres, of which the best fed have the habit of calling for a bttle more." A MODEL COW STABLE. In connection wi;h winter keeping, let me describe the winter quarters of ten cows : the ground slopes g-ntly to the southeast, and is about eighty feet square. On the rear, to- ward the northwest, is a ha'.-house, eighty by eighteen feet, the space under which is occu- pied by cowhouse under the west end and overshoot under the east, each forty feet lon^. The cows are arranged on plank floor, with gutter and four-foot walk behind them, and hay manger and passage in front of them. They all face northwest, each having a space of four feet, with no divisions between th-m, and are kept in stanchions. In the rear are three doors to allow them to go out into the yard, and one at the east end of walk to go under overshoot. The yard is about sixty- twa, by eighty feet, is sheltered on the north- east and southwest sides by low buildings, and on the southeast by a board fence four feet high. In the centre of the yard is an octago- nal inclosure of boards four feet high and twenty feet in diameter, into which all rhe manure of both stalls and yard is thrown as fast as delivered, so that the yard is kept per- fectly clean. Over this yard is kept spread marsh or salt hay about six inches ia depth, so inviting that the cows cin Ite down in any part of it. While in the yard they «re shtl- tered from all the cold winds, and from tbe southeast comes the morning sun as soon as risen. The overshoot furnishes shelter from the rain, and at its western end, between the passage doors, is the water-trough, always full. There is a window on the southwest side of the west corner, to light their heads and the passage in front of thHcn, and two windows in their rear. The hay-margers are level with the floor, and large enough to hold easily five pounds of hay. Each his a lump of rock salt, and the meal is fed on the bot- tom. During all fair weather they are in 'he }ard, except at meals. Thus are they bright, comfortable, and thrifty. — Charles L. Sharp- less, in Country Qentleman. 524 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. CULTUBB AND USE OP TEA. EA has now become almost a necessity of life in nearly all portions of our country. It is found at noon and at night on most of the tables in not only private families, but at the hotels. It has been in use but a compara- tively short time. even in England ; and was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Romans. In 1660, a duty of eight pence per gallon was laid on the infusion of tea made and sold in the ccfifce-houses in London. An entry in the published diary of Mr. Pepys, secretary to the admiralty, says : "September 25th, 1661, — I sent for a cup of tea, (a China drink), of which I had never drunk btfore." From other sources we learn that the Portuguese had intercourse with China as early as 1517, and were allowed to purchase fallks, porcelain and tea. The Dutch arrived in China for the 6rst time in 1601, but there is no authentic evidence that they or the Eng- lish imported tea into the East during the first half century from 1600. But soon after that, in 1660, its use was beginning to spread. In 1664, the Engli^h East India Company brought home two pounds two ounces of it as a present for his majesty. But in 1667 that company gave the first order to their agent at Bantam to send home 100 pounds of tea for the pur- pose of making "presents to their friends at court." The present consumption of tea in England,is more than 51,000,000 of pounds annually. We have no means of knowing what it is in this country, but probably as much more. There are comparatively few families now that do not have their cup of tea once a day at least. It is common on the tables of all classes, — on that of the day-laborer, perhaps, more frequently than on that of the rich. The tea-tree does not require a tropical climate, but great care is necessary in its cul- tivation. The soil in which it flourishes the best is a decomposition of granite abounding in feldspar. The tea plant is chiefly raised on the sides of hills ; and in order to increase the quantity and improve the quality of the leaves, the shrub is pruned so as not to exceed the height of from two to three feet. The leaves are plucked one by one, selecting them accord- ing to the kinds of tea required. The plant is grown for the most part in gardens or planta- tions of no great extent, by persons little above the rank of peasants. The leaves are immediately taken to market, where they are purchased by a particular class of dealers, who dry and otherwise prepare them to be sold to the "tea merchants." The latter complete the manufacture, sorting the teas according to their qualities, give them a final drying, and pack them up in chests. Teas of the finest flavor consist of the young- est leaves ; and as those are gathered at four diflferent periods of the year, the younger the leaves the higher flavored the tea, and the dearer the article. Some years since a Mr. Reeves, who was for many years the English East India Com- pany's tea inspector, was called before the House of Commons in some matters relating to teas, and said : — "The tea plant in China has two distinct varieties, if not species, which respectively jield the black and green teas. The tree is an evergreen. The pickings of the leaves begin in May, when the plant is in the lull leaf, but ready to shoot out other leaves. In the black tea plant, the first shoot, or the bud coming out, then covered with hair, forms the fine and famous pekoe. A few days more growth makes ibe hair begin to fall off; the leaf then expands, and becomes the black-leafed pekoe. Some yourg shoots have fleshier and finer leaves, which make the Souchong; the next best leaves make the Campoi; the next Congou; and the next, and inferior leaves, the Bohea. The varieties of green tea appear to originate, not from the staces of picking, like the black, but partly from difference of treatment, and partly from difftrence of soil. When a tea merchant buys green tea from the farmer, he subjects it to the following process : he sifts it through one sieve, which takes out the dust, the youyig hyson &r,A the gunpowder, then through another sieve, which passes the small-leaf hyson of commerce ; two other sieves take out the second and largest degree of size, and what does not pass the third, forms hyson-skeri. The teas then undergo the process of tiring in an iron pan, at a great degree of heat, which gives the leaves a lighter twist and brings them up to their color. The tea which passes the first sieve is then rut into a winnowing machine, and the fan blows the light leaf at the further end, and the larger broken leaf at a shorter distance. The heavier teas, as the gunpowder and hyson, fall nearer or farther from ' the hopper, and are separated by the winnowing I machine. When fairly made, the difference be- tween the gunpowder and the young hyson will be I this : the young leaf, which takes the long twist, ' will form the young hyson, and that which takes the round twist will form the gunpowder." 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARilER. 525 Another account states that the leaves are partly dried in the sun, and then in heated pans, where they are stirred briskly about with a brush, to cause them to dry and curl up ; then rubbed through the hands and heated until they assume the appearance which we see. It also states that there is no truth in the report that gretn tea owes its color to being dried upon plates of copper, for it is, in fact, drit^d upon iron plates. The black and the green teas are mottly produced from dif- ferent plants, and in different districts. It was formerly said that tea is neither nu- tritious nor healthy. It seems to us to possess both these qualities. No beverage to us is so invigorating or refreshing. Liebig says it is not shown by facts that its effects upon the constitution, when used in moderation, are of that injurious tendency that has been so fre- quently alluded to ; on the contrary, there is no doubt that, among the lower classes in par- ticular, its substitution for stronger stimulants has been extremely beneficial, and that its character has rieen of late in the medical pro- fession. It contains a substance called theine, and that, in combination with oxygen and some other elements, is the reason why tea so often satisfies the poor as a substitute for animal food ; and why females and literary persons, who take little exercise, manifest such partiality for it. The cultivation of tea has been attempted in various parts of the world, but without any great success attending it. In the spring of 1859, a number of tea plants was sent from the agricultural department to a gentleman in Wayne County, Miss., who reported after- wards as follows : — "They are now from four to six feet in height, and three to four feet across the heads. The heads, formed by the branches and leaves, are very com- pact. As an ornament in the flower garden, the plant is desirable; its dark, evergreen leaves, when interspersed with its white flowers, present an appearance truly beautiful. It commences to bloom in September ; flowers white, with yellow- ish anthers, resembling the single Camellia, and continues to bloom until checked by the severe frosts of December. "During the late war, when our luxuries were cut off hy'the blockade, I made many experiments in drying the leaves of the plant in the shade, in the sun, and by the fire, but failed to secure" the delicate taste and fragrance of the imported tea. I drank of the tea made of the leaves in each of these forms, and also of green leaves, and the effect, physically and mentally, was to some ex- tent the same as that caused by the imported article. I am told that successful experiments were made in South Carolina before the war in preparing the leaves as it is done in China, but the expense was found to be too great to make the business profitable. I reside in the long leaf pine region, sixty miles north of Mobile, Alabama, and my land is, of course, thin and poor. We have always supposed that the names by which teas are known were mere fancy terms, but it appears not to be so. The term Bohea, for instance, comqs from the district where it is principally grown, the Wo-ee-hills in Fokien, the great country f jr black tea. The Congou means "made with care ;" the Souchong, "a very little sort;" the Pekoe, "white leaf bud;" Gunpowder, from the "smallness and roundness of the grain." We have thought that a brief account of an article so highly prized, and so common on our tables, would prove of interest to the reader, and so have compiled the above from various reliable sources. APPLES AS FOOD FOB STOCK. The apple crop is immense this season. It is not confined to some favored localities as it has been for several years just passed, but abounds wherever apple trees stand, — in or- chards, by the road sides and in the woods. On the old trees, where a living branch is left, it is loaded with fruit, and on jourg seedlings, by the dusty highway, the small, old-fashioned cider apples, are glistening in untold numbers, in the sun. What is to be done with them ? is the ques- tion often asked. We have a report from a New Hampshire town, to-day, long famous for its fair and solid apples for exporting, that those of sec- end quality are selling for five cents per bushel, — the purchaser gathering them him- self. From another town in that State, we are informed that "windfalls" cannot be sold at any price ! We have sent one hundred barrels, already, to the cider mill, at fifty cents per barrel, which barely pays for collecting and carting them two miles. But with all this abundance, and the low prices which the farmer receives, the printer of this sheet informs us that he pays for or- dinary apples in Boston, forty cents per peck, or $1.50 per bushel, and $4.00 per barrel ! Even after the markets are supplied, and the cider mills are gorged, there will be an immense surplus to be disposed of. What 526 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. can be done with them ? is the anxious inquiry cf thousands. We reply, Use More of them as Pood in the Family. The apple is valuable both on account of its nutritive and medicinal qualities. As a gentle laxative, they are invaluable for children, and ■when ripe, ought to be used freely by them. An almost exclusive diet of baked apples and milk is recorded as having cured cases of con- sumption, and other diseases caused by too rich food. It is stated, upon high authority, that there is no other fruit or vegetable in general use that contains such a proportion of nutriment. It has been ascertained in Ger- many, by a long course of experiments, that men will perform more labor, endure more fatigue, and be more healthy, on an apple diet, than on the potato. They may be used in a variety of forms in the family ; in several kinds of puddings and pies ; baked, stewed, and sliced and fried as a delicious appetizer with meats. Upon the table, they are agreeable, nutritious, whole- some, and ought to be cheap. As Food for Stock, they are more acceptable and more nutritious than the potato. Hogs have been well fat- tened on apples alone. Cooked with other vegetables, and mixed with meal of corn, bat<=* ley, rye or oats, they are excellent for fatten- ing pork or beef. Fed to cows, about a peck each day, they will cause an increased flow of milk, and keep them in fine condition. Horses are very fond of them, and when not working hard, apples may well take the place of grain, so long as they are plenty. Boiled and mixed with corn meal or shorts, there is scarcely any food that fowls like so well, and grow so fast upon. Gather up all, then, that are not suitable for preservation, store them in a cool, dry place, and make them save the hay which may be sold for $25 or $30 a ton. They may be made to prove profitable in this way. TOO MUCH LAND. Gen. Butler's address before the Essex County Agricultural Society at Ipswich, on the 28t.h September, was an excellent one. Its leading idea was that we employ too much land in an indifferent cultivation. He could not have hit upon a better text, nor one which needs elucidation more. He handled it in a calm and dignified manner, and with pertinency and force. He said : — "This aggregation of large quantities of land in one hand has rtsulted in so poor tillage, and so little productiveness, because of the inability to till so much in a proper manner, and has made farm- ing so unprofitable, that, taking the waste and barren pastures, the unimproved woodland, where the shrub-o:^k and the stunted pine have filled the place of the maple, the beech, the birch, the ash and the oak, if all the agricultural land of Massa- chusetts were put at sale to-day at the price which is asked for it, the proceeds would not be sufficient to dig the stone and re-build the walls which fence them." The reason why some farmers make more money at the West than they can here is, not because they can obtain more per acre than in New England, but because land is cheaper and they can obtain large tracts of it, and be- cause, being easier handled, they can cultivate a larger breadth. The wheat crop of New Eng- land is greater per acre than that of Ohio or Illinois, and is worth ten to twenty per cent, more per bushel. On this point the General says : — "In no State in the Union are the productions of the soil, acre for acre as tilled, taking the dififer- ent kinds, so great in quantity as in Massa- chusetts, and no State where the product of the soil, when harvested, is so valuable." The produce of Massachusetts, of cultivated land, on an average of the whole amount, is $28 per acre ; of Ohio, it is $18 to the acre ; of Texas, $21 to the acre; and California, which boasts of her richness in agriculture, gives but $21 to the acre ! The address is altogether an excellent one, and if carefully read, would correct many popular errors of opinions among farmers. IXTZNSIVE POULTRY GBOUNDS. Warren Leland, Highland Farm, Rye, N. Y, in response to an inquiry about raising poultry, made to the Farmers' Club, sent the following: — "If the gentleman will come up and see me I will gladly show him how I man- age my poultry ^ards. I have found that for every hundred fowls you must give up at least, an acre. But rough land is as good as any. Hens naturally love the bush, and I lop young trees but leave a shred by which they live a year or more. These form hiding places and retreats for them. In such places they pre- fer to lay. I have great success and it depends on three or four rules, by observing which I believe a good living can be made by hens and turkeys. "1st. — I give my fowls great range. Eigh- teen acres belong to them exclusively. Then the broods have the range of another big lot. 1870. NEW ENGLAND F.\R:MER. 527 and the turkeys go half a mile or more from the house. The eighteen acres of poultry yard is rough land of little use for tillage. It has a pond in it, and many rocks, and weeds, and bu.^hes, and saudy places, and ash heaps, and lim*e, and bones, and grass, and a place which I plough up to give them worms. '-2d —When a hen has set I take her box, throw out the straw and earth, let it be out in the sun and rain a few days, aud give it a good coat of whitewash on both sides. In winter, when ir, is very cold, I have an old stove in their house, and keep the warmth above freez- ing. There is also an open fire-place where I build a fire in cool, wet days. They dry them- selves, and when the fire goes out there is a bed of ashes for them to wallow in. Summer and winter my hens have all the lime, ashes, and sand they want. "3d —Another reason why I have such luck is, because my poultry yards receive all the scraps from the Metropolitan Hotel. Egg- mikintr is no easy work, and hens will not do much of it without high feed. They need j ust whar a man who works requires — wheat bread aod meat. Even when wheat costs $2, 1 believe in ft-eding it to hens. As to breeds. I prefer the Brahmas, light and dark. I change roost- ers every spring, and a man on the farm has no other duty tban to take care of my poultry. I fr. quently tu^n off 3,000 spring chickens m a fcingld season." MAKING GOOD CIDSK. Cider that is really good is almost a rarity, and yet a rich, pare quality may be obtained by an orchardist who will exercise care in the preparing of fruit, and the expressing of ifae juice. It is a custom very common to 8 rape together the refuse of the orchard, in eluding rotten fruit,- dirt, leaves, etc., and work up the whole collection together. Good cider cannot be obtained in this way, any more than good wine can be the result of working up half rotten and filthy grapes. Apples should be gathered, as far as sound- ness and cleanliness are concerned, with as much care as for winter storing. They a'-e better for lying awhile in some open shed, where not exposed to the frost, as perfectly ripened fruic makes the best cider. If it is possible, use no straw in pressing, as all f )rtigii substances detract from the rich flavor of the liquid, and use no water unless it be in the I ist pressing whioh may be designed for viriegir. If high color is desired, it may be 0-. Twined by allowing the juice to lie in the po:uace before pressing. By the exposure trie saccharine matter takes up oxygen, and the same change is made in color as sugar un- dergoes in a refinery, and if long continued, a d.rcomposition takes place in which the sugar is resolved into carbonic acid gas and alcohol, the cider becoming sour or hard. People do not usually realize the importance of having pure juice, in order to secure long keeping and high flavor. Impure liquid, ia which fermentation, or natural working is checked, never becomes a good drink. Cider will, if left to itself, work clear, but the time required, and exposure to the atmosphere made, brings about a change of sugar to al- cohol, as above spoken of. The object should be to purify as soon as possible. This may, perhaps, be the most effectually done by straining as soon as it comes from the pre^s through woolen cloths, and putting up in clean barrels, and racking off after standing a few days and run through a filter into a clean cask. Only that which appears to be free fiom sediment should be drawn. After a week or so, rack off and filter again, _ and j ec again if there are any signs of working. To prevent exposure to the air between the times of transfer, use a bent tube, one end inserted in the bung of the barrel and the other in a pail of water ; this will allow the escape of gases which are generated in the barrel. After the cider has been rendered perfectly pure, bung up tight, and a delicious drink will be had, doubly worth all trouble. — Ohio Farmer. FARMERS' BOYS. When I was a boy, my first savings of ten cent pieces, earned by Saturday afternoon work— for school kept half a day on Saturday then — were expended in buying a heifer calf. Then I worked on and paid my fath'^^r a cer- tain sum each month for keeping. When the calf was one year old, I traded it for two steer calves, and now I had to put in good and strong to pay for their keep ; but I occupied all my spare time in learning these calves to work in the yoke, and at one year old they would gee and haw as wdl as old oxen, and my father paid me for their use in leading th>i team for breaking in his two and three-year- olds. Aga=n, I had a piece of ground each year after I was fourteen, that I could plant and work on shares ; and if I wanted help, why I had to give two days of my time to the hired man's one day. I grew just what*ny fancy and rea'iirg dictated, and from the pro- ceeds I dressed as well as any boys now. [ had aWays some time to play, time to read, and now look b^ck with love and plea>ant thoughts to the old farm aud the farm hand who taught me how to use evi ry tool, and whipped me when I neglected to drive the team out straight at the end of the furrow in ploughing. Tnis remembrance of my own boy- hood has always induced me to favor ail items of encouragement at home on the farm ; and I believe if it were more generally practice . we should have more good farmers, and less broken down merchants, or loafing, hanging on, time-serving clerks, ready for anything except honorab'e labor and usefulness belong- ing to the highest order of creation -Farni Advocate, 528 NEW ENGLAND FAR^fER. Nov. WOOL QHOWINQ IN CALIFOBN'^A. Sheep breeding, both for wool and mutton, is an important branch of agriculture in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties, as well as in other parts of California. The climate is peculiarly fivorable to sheep. As they need scarcely any shelter or cultivated food, they are kept at much less expense than in our cold northern latitudes. Having the mountain ranges, diseases so prevalent in other localities are almost unknowo among them. The breeding of sheep for their wool, as I was informed, was first commenced in California by Mr. W. W. Hollester in 1853 Having but little of this world's goods, he was forced to become a borrower for his first pur- <'hase of sheep. He is now the owner of a flock of fifty thousand, and of an immense landed estate fitted for sheep raising, embrac- ing several leagues, all arising from the profits of his sheep. The success of Mr. H. in the breeding of sheep for their wool, was soon followed by that of numbers of others in dif- ferent parts of the State. The exportation of wool Irom California (commencing in 1855 with 86U,0'jO pounds) is computed the pres- ent year at over 18.000,000 pounds. A large propunion of the cheap foot- hills and moun- tain ranges of California being admirably adapted ito sheep breeding, this important branch of husbandry will doubtless for year-i to come be largely increased. The quality of wool is being constant!}' improved by judicious crosses with imported bucks. — Cor. Micliigan Farmer. POULTKY. We make the following extracts from the Repoits of Poultry Committees at the Fairs of the North Worcester and Bristol Counties, Mass., in 1869:— Last winter I procured two barrels of bone, intending to use it for Irish potatoes and other garden crops. My wife appropriated some of ic for her roses in the flower garden, by sim- ply strewing it on the surface of the ground around the bushes. The fowls have free ac- cess to the garden and were discovered eating the meal very eagerly. Thinking it might be of service to them, we gave them some, for several weeks, and I assure }ou, it was but a short cimf. btfore the eggs began to come in such numbers as we had never known before. If a nest was broken up to prevent a hen from !-ining, it was but a few days before she was laying again, and thus it continues to the present lime. One hen has faken possession of a barrel ihat has some bone meal m it, and is la}ing in the meal. Whether she will lay the barrel full or not, time will show. My wife thinks that care and bone meal are great institutions for her poultry yard, aud very extraordinary in their effect ; but as the hens have an unusual amount of cackling to do, fears it may bring on bronchitis. The manuring of hens to make them lay, we think is original, but we have no idea of taking out a patent for it, and hence leave the discovery open to the use of all who may choose^ to try it. — Worcester Report. The noble family of Game fowls was repre- sented by ten coops, many of them of great beauty. There is, p«wrhaps, no breed more truly valuable for the firmer than the Game. Its good qualities are so evenly balanced, that for general purposes, it has no superior, perhaps no equnl. The hens are excellent layers, the best of sitters and mothers, being active, vigilant and fearless. They are also remarkably hardy. The cocks are very gal- lant, seldom or never taking a dislike to one of the flock, and persecuting her unceanngly, as is not unfrequently the case with many other breeds. They are brave but not quarrel- some, seeming to feel conscious of their supe- rior strength and skill, and as if disdaining to engage foemen unworthy of their steel. There can be no doubt that the demand for eggs and poultry in all our large towns and cities is rapidly increasing. The quantity of egffs consumed in the city of New York for culinary purposes, must be at least 500,000 egqs per day. In addition to this there has sprung up, within a few years, a large de- mand from the manufacturers of albumenized paper for photographic purposes. One estab- lishment in New York alone, consuming 900,- 000 per annum. — Bristol Report. CROSB-BEEEDINQ SHEEP. My experience has led me to these con- clusions : — 1. That generally the sire had most influ- ence on the qualities of the fleece, and the dam gave the nutritive system. 2. The superiority in the growth of fleece and flesh depends upin a sufficiency, if not an excess, in the activity of power of the nutri- tive system; and that the best butcher's lambs and fleeces can be obtained from ewes of the long wool, mutton breeds with Merino rams. 3. To engraft a long and rapidly growing wool upon a carcass which has not a nutritive system capable of surplus flesh, is to imperil both fleece and flesh, and that you cannot get really good butcher's lambs from Mermo ewes, whatever may be the sire. But to utilize the almost worthless flocks of Merinos which now exist, Leicester rams would be the most successful cross. 4. That there are advantages in crossing the Leicester with Merino rams — that we should obtain a hardier breed, one that would thrive better than the Leicester in our short pastures and fickle climate, that would vield a fit lamb when four months old — a flaece un- diminished in weight, and wool adapted for delains, and of most desirable quality for gen- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 529 eral u«e, being soft, warm and strong, just such as is needed for stocking yarn and «er- viceable clothing. I have not the least doubt that the uniform- ity of the qualities of such a cross-breed could be perpetuated, if selections of males were made in conformity with an established stand- ard of qualities for several generations. The surprising conformity of half bloods of pure breeds strengthens this expectation, if those that deviate from the type were discard- ed.— Country Gent. EXTBACTS AND REPLIES. A CRIBBING HORSE. I would like you to inform ire tbrough the col- umns of the New Englaxd Farmer, what will cure "cribbing" in a horse ? From what cause does it proceed ? and in a 30urig horse do you know anything that will cure ? Is it a disease or merely a habit ? I feel somewhat anxious to hear from you, as the horse is otherwise sound and good. A Subscriber. Houthport, Conn., Sept. 22, 1870. Remarks. — The first thing to do is, to take away from him everything that he can lay hold of with his teeth. Tie him away from stalls, racks, and partitions, and put his feed on the floor, if long hay, or in a box if cut feed, and remove the box as soon as he is done eating. Continue this for several weeks and the habit may, possibly, be broken up, though it becomes one, sometimes, of a most inveterate nature. Medicine will be thrown away upon him, unless the habit clearly arises from indigestion. To the suggestions above, about feeding, add great r^'gularity in the time of doing so, and exer- cise the horse every day for two or three hours. If the animal has a constipated habit, give him something that will gently move the bowels. Do not resort to any violent measures whatever. Washing the wood work of the stalls with carbolic acid water, will sometimes prevent horses from biting it. CABBAGE WORM. If "W. H. W."of Stanstead, P. Q., and others who have lost their cabbages, this year hy the worm which is the otf'^pring of the Pieris Rapte, will, another year, after setting out his caobages, keep them well sprinkled with a soluiion of olue vitriol and water — a piece of vitrol as large as a walnut to a pail of water — I think they will not be troubled much with the worm. • Hellebore an- swers very well in place of the vitriol. Care must be taken not to get the solution too strong of either, as they are poison. Quite a number in this viciriiiy hive saved their cabbages by using the atiove. Liquid hen manure is also very good; brine, salt, or even kerosene does not seem to dis- turb them. H. L. 8. Albuigk, Vt., Sept. 26, 1870. When I wrote th^t item in the Farmer, a few weeks since, recommending air slaked lime as a complete remedy for the cabbage worm, I had not the least doubt but tbose who would give it a fair trial would be satisfied with the results. But on looking over the Farmer since. I fiad some have tried it without any effect. The old saying is that "a stitch in time saves nine;" S'l it is with the lime, it wants to be applied while the cabbiigfs ara wet, or while the dew is on in the morning, before the worm works its way into the insiieot the head, where nothing can touch it. They tir^^t commence to deposit their eggs or nits upon the ou'.'ide of the cabbage, and then is the time to apply the lime, which dcstr >ys the mother worms before they have time to get into the inside. It proved to be an efiectual remedy with me, last year, and has this year. My neighbors have al-o civen it atrial, with good results." If thtre are any who doubt this, let them visit my garden and I will show them as nice and clean cabbages as ever gre v, but not so large as last year, on account of the dry weather. The wornisthf.t I have reference to are large, green worms, about the color of the cabbage leaf, vary- ing from one to two inches in length. This is too late for this season, bur let those who raise cabbages, give it a fair trial another j ear, when the worms first make their appearance. J. B. Holton. [Vest Charleston, Vt , Sept. 26, 1870. Remarks. — Our correspondent encloses anotice from his local paper of some large squashes and other vegetables of his raising, and takes occasion in his postscript to reiterate his faith in lime. SOIL BEST ADAPTED FOR PASTURES. Here in New England, where hill-sides are so plenty, it ha§ become a settled opinion among many farmers that a hill pasture is verv desirable, and if their farms are river or brook meadows they desire a pasture away upon some tlevaton where sheep, young cattle and colts are expected to thrive wonderfully on account of the elevation, sweet grass, pure air and pure water. It is doubtless true that upland is the best pas- ture. But what is upland ? It is such portions of the country as are free from surplus water, as will give a firm turf, and will not break badly under the tread of the cattle put upon it. There is upland close by large rivers in low valUys, and there is low land near mountain tops, where the springs cf water saturate the mucky soil, making acres a bog, where the sod is cut in pieces by the feet of the cattle. The best toil for pastur- ing, then, does not depend upon its elevation. A farmer may well be satisfied if his whole farm is good tillage land, and all, in rotation, is in pas- ture. Land that can bear a gnod crop of corn, with such manuring as New England farD:)ers give, then a crop of barley or wheat with which is sown a generous seeding of clover and timothy which, the succeeding year, yields two tons or more of hay, is good pasturing, and such grass will show good results in beef cattle or cows. It would surprise some farmers to see the small crop of grass that an old pasture would yield if no animals were allowed upon it. A good strong soil with a good turf is profitable. The Editor of the Countnj Gentleman mentions seeing in Eng- land ninciy-i'our sheep and eigateea cattle iu a pasture ot onlv twenty acres. O.i the island of Rhode Island I saw, in 1869, on the farm of Wm. M. Rogers, 60 sheep and l^mbs in a nine aere pas- ture, with much surplus feed. The turf was or- chard grass. Another pasture of nine acres kept nine cows, and was not stocked to its lull cap icity, as there were portions of the pasture that would cut a good swath of orchard grass. On the estate of E. A. Anderson, on the w^ st sidd the Island, I walked across a pasture of ten acres which kepr, each year ten cows, except that they hud, during a part of the season, fodder orn in addition. This pasture was formerly unprofitable low land, but after being underdrained, ploughed, cultivated, and seeded to grass, it becaaae upland. In m/ 630 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. own neighborhood In Vermont, there are in<;tances of very pood pasturing on lands that tend to wet- ness. All through the season the grass is pushing up green, tender and abundant. It is quite tbe custom to devote the rough, steep, waste places to pasture, because they cannot b • tilled, and what teed is secured is clear gain, yet, in such pastures, those lower portions, over which the melting sno»vs and heavy rains find their way, yield the most abundantly. Land nearly level, with plenty of moisture, is preferable to all others for pasture, as grass is abundant and cattle obtain it easily. In all countries the cattle kept in such situ'itions de- velop into a larger breed, more protitai)le for beef or dairying than those kept in the highlands. Lasburg, Vt., Sept., 1870. z. e. j. SELLING STOCK AND HAY TO PAY DEBTS. Will some one inform me through the columns of the New England Fakmek, what they sfi'vuld do in case they were in debt considerably. I have eight cows, ten yuuns cattle, and about 35 tons of mostly good hay. Will it be advi^anle for me to sell say seven co a-s, and a part of the hay, reserv- ing eoough to winter the young cattle ? If it is a good idea, what is the most successful way to dis- pose of them? A New Cokkesponuent. Warren, Mass., Sept., 1870. Remarks. — Perhaps some of our correspondents have been "through a mill" of this kind, and can make some practicable suggestiops to our "new correspondent." If so, we shall be glad to find space lor them. Circumstances alter cases so ma- terially that advice which would be judicious in one case might not be so in another. The rate cf interest paid, the amount your cows and your hay, if not sold, would enable you to apply yearly to the reduction of > our debt, are among the facts which should be taken into account la forming an (opinion as to the proper course to be pursued. In Eiirope farmers generally rent instead of buying land, and then use what funds they possess, often of cunsiderable amount, in managing their farms. How will it do for you to treat the interest you pay as rent, and keep your cows and hay for profit and the improvement of your land? Selling hay is generally considered as an impoverishing opera- tion. ■WINTKR protection OF GRAPE VIN'ES. Will you inlorm me as to the best way of pro- tecting grape vines laid down for winter, from the mice or ear-oldB After being "grazed" through the Summer, the same cattle are worth 20 per cent. more. Beef cattle, of average flesh, ready for mar- ket, are valued at $25. 532 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. The cattle sent to market usually average about 900 pounds, and not unfrequently go over 1,000. They sell in St. Louis and Chi- cago at an average of 3 1-2 cents per pound — oftener above than below that price. The larger portion of the Texas cattle, however, are shipped direct to New York and other Atlantic cities, where many are packed and sent on to Europe. The price in New York averages eight cents per pound. This makes the value of a &00 pound steer, in the New York market, $72 — or about double the St. Louis and Chicago value. Ihe addition- al freight, however, very nearly covers the difference in quotations. The freight from Abilene to St. Louis or Chicago is six to sev- en dollars per head. The freight from Abi- lene to New Y^ork or Boston is nearly four times as much as to St. 'Louis or Chicago; and there is, in addition, a 20 per cent, trans- portation risk, growing out of the increased extent of the route, and the greater time con- sumed in getting to market. The money actually invested in a Texas steer up to the time of bis reaching St. Louis or Chicago is about $23 00 ; and he brings on an average at three and a half cents per pound, just $31.50 — leaving a profit to the seller, on the total investment, of $8.50, or about 30 per cent. The same steer sent to New York or Boston will represent, on reaching there, about $55 00 ; and he sells in those markets for $72 00, average — giving but a trifle more profit than if sold in Western markets at a price one-half less. The bulk of the cattle held at Abilene are owned by what are called the "big cattle men," who usually have 5,000 to 10,000 each. Small dealers hold from 100 to 1,000 each. The largest dealers control the market. The Topeka (Kansas) Record, from a lengthy article in which we condense the fore- going facts, sajs that last year about 50,000 head of cattle were shipped eastward from Abilene, and so great has been the increase of the business at this point, that the number for the present year is estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand. to the filbert family, and the nuts are about an inch in length. Mr. J. has something of a nursery of the tree or bush, which grows fif- teen or twenty inches high. By heading back about one-third of the annual growth, it is claimed that they receive lip injury from the, cold of winter, though during the nine years that they have been cultivated in Fairhaven the mercury has fallen as low as 19° below zero. The fruit has been exhibited at the shows of the Massachusetts Horticultural So- ciety, and has attracted considerable notice. It has a pleasant taste, and we hope it will prove adapted to general cultivation. The Bahcelona or Sicily Nut. — We have received specimens of a nut grown in the garden of Captain Marston, of Fairhaven, Mass., which was introduced into this country by Mr. L. Jenney, of that town. It belongs THE CABBAGE WORM. In our examination of gardens, during our late visit to Vermont, we did not see a single patch of well headed cabbages. In most cases they had been completely destroyed by what was called a new worm, by all with whom we conversed upon the subject. We see by an article in the Country Oentle- man that HOn. Levi Bartlett, of Warner, N. H., says, "I have been perfectly familiar with the natural history of this cabbage worm, in all its transformations, from the egg upon the leaf of the plant, to the winged butterfly, for over forty years, and I have no doubt of its being a native American, 'to the manor born.' " He also refers to a description of this insect in the New England Farmer for 1829, by Dr. T. W. Harris, in confirmation of his opinion that the worm which has proved so destructive this year, is the same as that which has been so long known by him. In our opinion Mr. Bartlett is mistaken in this. Last year we forwarded specimens of the "new worm" to Samuel H. Scudder, Sec- retary of the Natural History Society of Bos- ton, and in an article which he wrote for the Farmer, (Monthly 1869, page 362,) he said: I suspect this to be a recent, most unfortunate im- portation trom England. Several years ago, a but- ter tiy called Pieris rupee, which has sometimes done great damage in Eurupfi, was discovered a'loiit Que- bec, and has since spread into notherii Maine and Vermont. Ihavenotyet heardof its doing any seri- ous injury, but It certainly will, as its rapid increase proves its accommodation to the New World. Th.is pest was not needed, for we have now a very near relative, first described in your paper, by Dr. Harris as long ago as 1829 (see New England Farmer, old series, vol. 7, p. 402) under the name of Pieris oleracea. This insect has sometimes plundered our k-itehen gardens, — turnips being ap- p irently its favorite food. In the caboage butter- fly, [the new insect — Ed.1 some distinct black spots may be seen on the upper surface of the front 1S70. NEW ENGLAND FARTHER. 533 wings ; in the turnip butterfly, [d-'scribed by Mr. Harris, and alluded to bv Mr. B^rrlett — Ed ] these Wings are pure white; both species produce two broods a year, — one in May and the other in July. Subsequently our correspondents furnished Mr. Si^u der with additional specimens, and he unhesitatingly pronounced them the Pieris rupee, and said, "It is an unfortunate English importation, and is spreading very rapidly. 1 have myself seen it this summmer in the city of Boston and have received it from northern New Jersey, where it is doing great injury." In the "Synopsis of the described Lepiaoptt-ra of North America," published by the Smith- sonian Institute, the Pieris rapce is not men- tioned, V. bile Mr. Harris's oleracea is. The doctors sometimes say a knowledge of a disease is half its cure ; and we think it is of equal importance that farmers should under- stand the character and habits of the insects which attack their crops. We believe that cabbage growers have a new insect to contend with — one nearly related to the old enemy, and of similar general appearance and habits, it may be, but far more voracious and prolific, and, consequently, that ditiereut methods must be adopted to avoid its ravages. THE liOKG SNOUTS VINDICATJED. Simultaneoufly with the publication of Mr. Harris' book on the hog, commendatory of the improved breeds of this animal, there appeared in The North Alabama Times, an article, laudatory of the long snouts or shack gathering variety — "the hogs as nature made him!" The writer, Joseph A. Leech, M. D., Verona, Miss., professes to have had many years' experience with- the hog, and has come to the conclusion that most of the scrofulous and consumptive diseases, which have pre- vailed to a great extent of late years, are chargeable to the use of the flesh of the im- proved breed of hogs. He has sought dili- gently for the best breeds, and adds : — "It is the old-fashioned woods hog, the long nosed bristle-backed, working, rooting, billions hog, black, blue, red, sandy or spotted; I care not for the color, so he is truly a hardy woods hog, that can stand on his head with his body half in the ground and root — root all day and half the night, and never tire or die; but do well and look well on it all the time, independ- ently making a living. These are the right kind of hogs. Not only because they are the next thing to the ant for industry, but for various other reasons. They know their meat and reject what is poison. They are the best doc- tors of aid hogs. They keep healthy. Their fleth is the most healthy to eat. It is the most nutritious, it is the sweetest to the pal- ate ; most easily digested. They are clear of scrofula and consumption, which no other breed is ; which none of the so-called im- proved breeds are ; whose whole ilesh is 611ed with lymphatic, tubercular, adipose, cheesv matter ; breeding scrofula and consumption in all who eat their flesh. — American Farmer. For the New England Farmer, DISA PPOINTMENT. 'Tis crm'iUg, comirg, Ihe blessed rain, The friend we havj waited for long in vain. The hills, in j aotcloth and ai-tee clad, The fainting ftreams, and the fircste sad, The close-mown fltlds iu rasset brown. The gardens, ehcrn cf ihtir floral crown, Are smiling with hope a::d joy again, Waititg the f »11 of the blessed rain. 'Tis coming, coming, the welcome rain, Bearing rich ilefsings in its train. Nearer and nearer, the cloud waves come, Nearer "the roll of r,be thunder-drum," The distant spires are hid from sight, Bhut out by a curtain dense and white, And, almost here, on hill and plain, We hear the roar of the rushing rain. Alas for cur hopes I some nnseen force. Hath stajed the cloud in its onward course. It vatisheB foon — we know not where. And the 86y aga n is b'ight and f lir. A eoucd cf its sighiig throtjgh the trees, A breath of its cool lefrething breeze, A few stray drops on the window-pane, — These are our share of the blessed rain. But we will not murmur, f jr God knows best When to Hl- ten to our request. Safe in the thought that He watches UB still. Be it not ours to question His will. Others, more needy perhaps than we. The silver side of the cloud may see ; While we patiently wait the coming again Of the cloud that bringeth the blessed rain. Marlboro', Mass., Sept., 1870. Mattie. Flooring for Poultry House — Bricks or pavement of any kind are the worst of all materials for the floor ; they retain moisture whether atmos-pheric or arising from insuffi- cient drainage ; and thus the temperature is kept low where warmth is moi-t essential, and di;jeases too often follow, especially rheumatic attacks of the feet and legs. The flooring of a poultry house should be of dry gravel, and quite loose to the depth of two or three inches — nothing can then adhere to it ; and it is not necessary nor right to sweep the floor of a poultry hou'^e. A broom may be drawn lightly over the surface, and everything offen- sive to the smell removed ; but it turned with a spade twice or trice a week, the earth deo- dorizes the dung and becomes a good fertil- izer in the course of a few months, and ought ithen to be removed. — Canadian Poultry Chronicle. 534 NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. Nov. From our Special Rrporter. ESSEX CO. MASS. AQ'L FAIR The fiftieth exhibition of this society has just been held in the ancient and pleasantly situated town of Ipswich. In some respects this soci- ety diifers from the majority of county asso- ciations. It has no exhibition grounds, no haW, no track for the trial of speed, and but liftle of the paraphernalia of those societies •which have permanent locations and buildings. It has one tent for the show of implements, and a ff/w portable pens. With these it circu- lates about the county, holding its fairs in the cities and larger towns, and relies for other accommodations upon the halls and meeting bouses of the place where the fair is held. It chargt's the very moderate sum of fifreen cents for admission to the fruit, flower and vegeta- ble display. Small as this income may seem, it generally exceeds its yearly incidental ex- penses. The society has no debt, and its fund yearly increases. As might be expected, where the fair of a society itinerates, the ma- jority of the exhibitors are from the immediate vicinity of the town having the fair; therefore none of the Essex fairs should be legarded as the show of the whole county. At the late fair the cattle exhibited were chiefly of foreign blood, — the Jerseys and Ayrshires being the most numerous. H Dow of Hamilton had 22 head of Jerseys. Proba- bly not many readers of the Farmer are aware how rapidly this breed is increasing in the eastern part of this State. There is something about Them that pleases amateurs, and as many people here keep but one or two cows, they can give them the best of care and feed, and as quality rather than quantity of milk is de- sired, the demand for the Jersey is good. The principal exhibitor on this occasion has a herd of 32. Mr. Adams of Belmont has up- wards of 70, and numerous herds are found in all the principal towns. Horoes are rapidly superceding oxen in this county, and it does not pay to fatten cattle here, as a business,^ which fdct may account for the small show of fat oxen and steers. The swine were chiefly of the Chester County and other large breeds, while a few )ears ago the Suffolk predominated. Messrs. Appleton & Dane, by their large display of excellent Cotswolds, showed what is meant by long-wooled and heavy sheep. The horses were mostly young, not numer- ous, but of good quality. In looking at these, and those ot the throngs of visitors, one could not help noticing their generally superior ap- pearance,— horses, carriages, harnesses, style of driving, all indicate progress and a decided improvement over what would have been seen upon a similar occasion half a generation ago. Truly it shall not always be said, that farmers are known by their poor horses, old-fashioned, rickety carriages and dilapidated harnesses. Ploughing has been made by this society a specialty. All kinds of ploughs and teams are used and tested, — common ploughs, deep tillers, side-hill, &c. Latterly ploughing by boys has been introduced, through the gener- osity of the President of the society. The matches excite a lively interest ; they come the nearest to racing of anything tolerated at these fairs. As an illustration of the intere>t in this exercise, it may be stated that one of the competitors this year has taken part in the matches forty years, and another, thirty-five years. On this occasion there were fewer en- tries than usual. Among the implements, there were two which are comparatively new, and deserve mention. One was a Pulverizing Harrow. This is made of two pieces of wood, in the form of the old-fashioned A harrow, but has for teeth revolving wheels or cutters, like those upon ploughs. These cutters are set just a little from the line of draught, in which position they make a wider cut and stir the ground more than the thin blade of the wheel or knife would, if placed in or parallel to the line of draught. These literally cut and pul- verize, without tearing up the sod, and leave the surface light and fine. There is a seat for the driver to ride. The few who have used them in this vicinty, speak of them in the high- est terms of commendation. The other, Sargent's Monitor Seed Sower, is an invention of a mechanic of this county. This machine drops the seed at such intervals as the sower de.^ires, — that is, it drops seeds half an inch apart, one inch, or one and a half inches, and so on, up to three inch intervals. It has no brush or agitator, and does not cut or bruise the seed. It has two wheels upon the axle, and the rows are marked by tracking one of them in a rut made in sowing the pre- vious row. Except the handles, it is made entirely of metal, and is compact, strong, dur- able and of very simple construction. It has been thoroughly tested by onion raiser sin sev- eral towns, who pronounce it the best they have ever used. It is manufactured in New- buryport. Last year the delegate of the State Board pronounced the exhibition of fruit tuperex- ctllent, — the apples surpassing the display of the State Horticultural Show. A distinguished pomologist said the same was true this year, and yet only a few towns were well repre- sented either year. Were there a general contribution from the whole county, tbei-e would be a collection which it would be hard to beat. Any one who has attended tbe.>-e fairs fifteen or twenty years, will notice a change in this department. Then it seemed to be the aim of exhibitors to show the largest variety possible. A few nursery men and am- ateurs would occupy most of the table room. One, and even two hundred varieties were sent in by one person. I^rom one to five specimens only of each variety would be upon a plate. Thu fruit was of all colors, shapes and sizes. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 535 and their names had an unfamiliar sound. The visitors appeared to take little interest in them, or at most would admire the patience of the exhibitor, and pass on. Now there are few varieties and many contributors ; well filled plates and baskets, and the crowding throng tarry long to express their praise and discuss the merits of the different specimens. The increased interest and greater familiarity with names and sorts, prove conclusively that fruit culture is extending ; that the multitude now can talk about apples, pears and grapes. In- stead of aiming to produce an endless variety, cultivators are coming down to a few. Be- side the grapes originated by Mr. Rogers, there were a few seedlings produced in the county, which have some local reputation and one or two more exhibited for the first time. The vegetable display was smaller than usual. If the drought has affected them, the specimens were generally larger than most house-keepers would prefer to buy. The Eirly Rose predominated among the potatoes, but most of the samples were so large and coarse looking that it was difficult to recog- nize them. But I will not follow through the address, dinner, after-dinner speeches, premiums, &c., for I am reminded of your injunction to do up county fairs briefly. Suffice it to say all passed off pleasantly, and if farmers did not derive some pleasure or benefit from this gathering, it was their own fault. N. s. T. Lawrence, Mass., Sept. 30, 1870. For the New England Farmer. COTSWOLD SHEEP AND LAMBS. Some time since, I called the attention, (through the columns of your paper,) of my brother farmers to their sad neglect in regard to improving their flocks of sheep, giving them my experience in sheep breeding, and recom- mending the Cotswold as the best kind of sheep to keep. I again beg leave to call their attention to the same subject. I have been engaged for the past year in butchering, and I find too many mutton frames, with but a very slight covering of meat and a still lighter covering of wool. Consumers are calling for better meat or for more meat and less bones, but the butcher cannot get it un- less the farmer will grow it for him ; and he cannot much longer afford to pay farmers for bones, because the American people have not yet learned to eat them ; and, therefore, we cannot find a market for them. If it will pay to keep sheep, will it not pay to keep good ones? 1 answer, yes. Good lambs were worth from the 15th of June to the first of August of the present year, from five to six dollars per head, for mutton. At those prices no one can deny that sheep pay as large or a larger net profit than any other kind of farm stock ; but farmers are neglecting their sheep and letting their flocks run down, because they say the sheep fever is over, and it won't pay to bother with them. But the fault is all with them ; the demand for good, early lambs was larger than the supply the present season, and no one can say that they did not command prices that would pay well for raising them. I called the attention of my brother farmers to the Cotswold sheep as the right kind of sheep to keep for mutton and wool combined. I also asked them to try the experiment and report to me this fall. Several have done so, and are well pleased with the result. I visited the flocks of one or two of them, while on a visit to New Hampton, a few weeks ago. One of them, Mr. Wm. R. Dearborn, of New Hampton, (who has been for two or three years past successfully replenishing his flock,) bought last fall a pure bred Cotswold buck, weighing three hundred and seventy-five pounds, and used him with his sheep. I saw his lambs in August ; he had a pen of six buck lambs, selected to keep for breeders, which were the best lambs I have seen this season. I helped him weigh two of them at that time ; one of them weighed 100 pounds, and the other 112 pounds, and a ewe lamb weighed a day or two after, 117 pounds. These lambs would not average over four and a half months old at the time they were weighed, and for beauty of form, quantity and quality of wool, I think it would be hard to find their equal. A neighbor of Mr. D. v/eighed a lamb from a grade Cotswold and South Down ewe, sired by Mr. D.'s buck, at just three months old, and he weighed 102 pounds ; another neighbor of his carried his sheep to Mr. D.'s and paid him $1 per head ; he had six lambs fiom four sheep, and he had sold the six for $52. I have a buck lamb, sired by his buck, that will weigh 125 pounds, and a yearling ewe, sired by the buck I bought of Mr. Hart, that weighs 150 pounds, and for beauty of form I never saw her equal. I also keep my ewe that I had of Mr. Hart. I should be happy to have any one who has any doubts about their being a good kind of sheep, call and see them, and I would like to have them call and see Mr. Dearborn's flock and examine them, and get his opinion of the Cotswold sheep. I would like to have those interested in sheep breeding, try the Cots wolds. We must have better mutton, or the demand will die out. I believe it will pay to raise mutton, and an improvement in our mutton sheep will be money in the pockets of all concerned, and a source of wealth to the whole country. A word to the wise is sufficient. A. L. Sanborn. Haverhill, Mass., Oct., 1870. —Of Peruvian gnano, the total export last year was over 500,000 tons, of which Belgium took 82,000, England 196,000, and North America, 25,000 tons. 536 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Nov. GRASS FED CATTLE. During a few years past there has existed among the cattle raisers of the Champlain Valley a spirit of rivalry or emulation in the production of good beef on hay and grass alone. Among other cattle from that section, last week, our re- porter mentioned a lot of three-year-old steers, marketed by C. T. Houghton, raised by Ed. Wil- cox of Bridport, and sold at 13c per lb., which the seller regarded as rather below the market price for like quality, as the lot was partially engaged the week previous. A few weeks since Mr. Houghton sold a carload from the same pasture to Mr. J. S. Thomas, who had the same week extra Western steers for which he paid 10c per pound, live weight, in Albany. The meat of some of these Vermont steers was hung up with that of those from Albany. While one of Mr. Thomas's customers was examining this beef and admitting its superior quality, he was told that a part of it was from Vermont grass fed cattle that had never eaten any grain or meal, and was asked to point out the sides from the grass fed animals. After looking them over carefully, he admitted his inability to do so. Our reporter also noticed in his report of Aug. 20, a pair of oxen fatted by Thomas Field, Ferris- burg, Vc, and sold by F. F. Brady to S. S. Learn- ard, at 14^0 per lb., when 14c, 30 sk, was the high- est price reported for Western steers. The hides averaged 110 lbs. each; one had 168 pounds of tallow and 1336 pounds of beef— total dressed weight 1608 lbs. ; the other, 160 pounds of tallow, 1052 lbs. of beef, and a total of 1322 lbs., making the dressed weight of the pair 2930 lbs. These oxen were purchased by Mr. Field four years ago, when cattle were very high for $200, and did not weigh probably over 2500 pounds at that time. They had been worked carefully every year until the past season. They were sold to Mr. Wheeler for $375, and weighed 4330 pounds when delivered. These oxen were fattened entirely on grass and hay. While in Vergennes, a few weeks since, enjoying the hospitality of Ed. Wheeler, Esq., he car- ried us over to the farm of Mr. Field, some two miles from the city. We arrived too late in the day to visit his pastures, or to examine his build- ings particularly. But from his residence, which is situated on a gentle elevation, we had a delight- ful view of a portion of the 950 acres which com- pose this farm. There had been a shower the night previous, and the meadow in front of the house, which stretched west across a gentle de- pression, showed a cheerful green in the rays of the sun that was then sinking behind the Adiron- dac range of mountains, which was in very pleas- ing contrast with the brown and parched appear- ance of the country generally at that time. The soil of Ferrisburg is probably equal to that of any other town in the Champlain Valley for the produc- tion of grass. Besides the oxen above mentioned Mr. Field has sent some 40 three year- old steers to Cam- bridge this season, which have commanded the highest market price. And the immediate object of our call was to learn the means by which such beef was produced without meal or grain, which we were assured had not been fed to his cattle. Mr. Field usually keeps about 100 cattle, but he is careful not to overstock his pastures or his hay- mows. He regarded it as essential that all ani- mals in his possession should be constantly gain- ing. He was unab:e to see any profit in keeping a beast one year, six months, or one month with- out increase in size or quality. Hence feed and care must be such as to secure constant improve- ment, winter and summer, spring and fall. His hay is cut somewhat earlier than is usual with most of his neighbors. By the first of July he intends to have made a good beginning at haying, and by the end of that month to have the last load from bis 250 acres mowed over, in the barns. A few years ago he said he was laughed at for cutting grass "before it was half grown," but of late hay generally in that section has been cut considerably earlier than formerly. In reply to an inquiry he said that the only injury to grass land from early cutting that he had noticed, was in case a severe drought followed the removal of the grass, when there was some danger of injury to the roots. In raising calves, his practice is to feed new milk about two weeks, when that which is skimmed after setting twelve hours is substituted. But whichever or whatever is given them must be of sufficient quality and quantity to keep them grow- ing. During the first winter especially, they must be kept in a thrifty condition. Mr. Field regarded the gentle treatment of all stock, of great, importance. It was understood be- tween him and his hired men, that abuse of ani- mals from loss of temper or patience was closely associated with loss of situation ; and he related some amusing instances in which his oxen, while under the care of fractious teamsters, had been stung by apocryphal hornets and bumble bees! Such excuses were "good for this trip only." It would seem, then, as Mr. F. remarked to us at the outset, that there is no secret about making good beef on grass and hay ; enough of both of good quality, with proper management, will do it. Some grass fed three-year-old steers were sold tho last week at market for #33 each ; others for f 120. In which class is there the most money ? —Milwaukee is the greatest grain market in the world. It has six large elevators, able to hold from half a million to a million and a half bushels. Yet last week five hundred cars were standing in the freight yards and on the tracks of the city, un- able to discharge tiieir wheat. This immense glut is from old wheat, and the merchants estimate that there are a million more bushels of tie crop of 1869 to come. 1870. NEW ENGLAiTO FAPJ,IER. 537 I'abies' Oc^nxtmtnt For the New England Farmer. FLOWER QARDEMING FOB OCTOBEB. Out-Doors and'ln-Doors. Nature's gay day is drawing rapidly to a close. She has already divested herself of many of her sweetest and brightest habili- ments, and is casting her robe of many colors into the dust. "Silent type of human glory, bright and fair to see in the sunshine of pros- perity, mean and dejected as the sport of ad- verse winds !" The frost has laid its icy fingers upon all our cherished darlings, but it waited long ere it appeared. Last season it came the loth of S*^ptember, this year it was not seen until the 7th of October, and then it went on a "rampage," and froze up everything that could be ii jured. Dazzlingly bright Zinnixis, p:-;rfectly cupped Asters, exquisite Heliotropes, and loveliest of Ger miums and Verbenas- Wtive all pinched and blackened ! Still there is work to be done in the garden. The scarlet, white, pink and cherry Qeraniums must be pulled up by their roots ; all the earth shaken from them ; every leaf, bud and delicate shoot cut oiF, and the whole plant suspended by the roots, with a stout string tied around the stems, to the beams of a frost-proof cellar which will iioG mould. Here they will live as the bears live upon their own fat, — will thrive on the suc- culent matter stored up in their branches, and when another spring time has come they will renew their beauty. Scarlet salvias can be packed in dry sand. After their rich blossoms are cut down, take oif the branches to the roots and pack away in boxes. Fuchsias can be also kept in sand after all their leaves have fdUen ; but care must be taken to keep all such plmts where they will not mould, as that will destroy their vitality. Dahlias and Oladioli must be removed before the ground freezes, yet it is well to let them remain until as late as possible, for the bulb matures for another year its rich freight of buds and blossoms, and the longer time it has the better for it. The former bulbs must be stored in dry sand, the latter can lie on a shelf in any dry place where they will not freeze. Salvij, patens, the richest blue flower which is grown, can be stored with them, as it possesses a bulbous root. All leaves should be raked up and laid over the tlower-beds, placing slats or boards to keep them from il>ing away. They make a warm covering, and if dug into the ground in the spring seem to fertilize it. Hybrid perpetual, China, Bengal and Noi- seKe roses can be protected by heavy grass sods, so that they will endure our severest northern winters. It is too early to cover them now ; later in the season we will give the needful directions. Now is the time to prepare a bed of bulbs which will gladden the eyes soon after the snow and ire are gone. "Dutch flotvering bulbs" are offered by all florists. Six of their catalogues lie by our side, and we have been comparing th^ir prices for our own satisfac- tion. The ''Innisf alien Greenhouse,'''' Pitts- field, Mass., offer colkctions by mail at very cheap rates. $1 will bring you eleven fine bulbs, among them four nan:ed Uyarinths. S3 will give you forty bulbs, with nine named Hi/acitiihs ; and $5 puts ninety bulbs of ten different varieties of the rarest kind, number- ing two Japan lilies and twelve named Hya- cinths among them. The last collection will give you a large bed of beautiful flowers. Mr. Wells' catalo 'ue also compiises very cheap collections. He is a Boston florist, and importer of bulbs from Haarlem, and offers Hyacinths, Tulips, Crocuses and all the rarett bulbs at a much lower price than any that we have seen. Our mention of him is not an in- terested one. for we know nothing of him, have only purchased bulbs of him in years past. The earLier the bulbs are put into the ground after Oc^tober comes in, the better, although they may be planted in November, or as long as the frost does not harden the ground. In choosing a location for a bed, select one so sheltered that it will not be exposed to driving rain storms in the early t'pring ; and the soil should be light and friable loam, well drained, so that the bulbs will not become, mouldy, and thus decay. They will grow and bloom in pure sand, if not allowed to dry up. Crude manure will injure them; jet, if the soil is very poor, some very old uecayed manur • will be advantageous, but chicken and pig manure are entirely too strong and rank for them. ^ Bulbs planted in beds should always be pro- tected by two or three layers of heavy manure as soon as planted, but be ture to rake it off before they shoot in the early s[)ring. Hyacinths should be covered at least three inches under the soil, and can reuiain two years without being replanted. In selecting varieties, it is impossible to go into details, for they are all so beautiful and so num rous. The single and" double can be purchased of the Horists in separate colors unnamed at a much lower price than the named varieties, and they are quite as good for mixed beds cf bulbs as the named sorts. The single spi cies, as a general rule, bloom the earlier, and are far more desirable for house culture. These bulbs are more effective when planted in groups of three or five than when plamed in rows or singly. Tulips should be covered from two to three inches with soil. The early varieties, both single and double, should be planted by them- selves ; the double, being much later in flower- ing, should be kept separate from the single early-flowering varieties. Parrot Tulips are remarkable for their peculiar, irregular shaped petals, which are very brilliant in coloring, 538 NEW ENGLAM) FARJUER. Nov. and differently marked from the other kinds, j They are both curious an'! picturesque. The late-blooming Tulips are divided into three cUmscs. Rose or Violets, having white grounds, feathered or striped with scarlet, rose, violet or crimson. Byblcemens, having white grounds flecked with purple, lilac or black, and Bizarres, with yellow groufcds, feathered with white, crimson or purple. These can be purchased cheaply in mixtures, while named varieties command a much higher price ; the former answer very well for plant- ing en masse. They should be taken up and divided every two or three years, but not until the leaf stalks are entirely dry. The Narcissus is divided into several classes ; the Narcissus poeticus, and the double variety of it, are often seen in old country gardens, and should be cultivated in every garden, on account of their fragrance and b^auty. The Polyamthus Narcissus hears several flowers on one head, and is very at- tractive. These bulbs should be planted some- what deeper than the Hyacinth; cover them from i'mr to five inches, according to the size of the bulb. Jonquils belong to the Narcissus family, but the bulbs are much smaller, and should not be planted more than three inches in depth. Crocuses, brightest and earliest of all spring flowers, always excepting their pale sisters, the Snowdrops, should be plant-^.d in a shel- tered location, where they will not be injured by the late spring frosts. They look finely in clusters of ten or a dozen bulbs, scattered about a green lawn. Th-^y can be purchased in purple, yellow, white, blue, violet and fetriped. Snowdrops should be planted about two inches in depth, (and the same rule applies to the crocus ) They should be set out in clumps or circles. Scillas, in all thtir varieties, are very beautiful, and grow from six to eight inches high, bearing spikes of bell-shaped flowers of a lovely blue color ; in planting cover two or three ioches. Anemones and Ranunculuses are a very attractive class of bulbs, but success in their cultivation is rather uncertain in our climate, and it requires an experienced florist to bring them to perfection. We beg all our lady readers ^to cultivate a few bulbs both out doors and in ; and in another article we will tell tbem how to treat them in ^'Window Gar- dens,'''' where they are a decided addition, and are within the reach of all. All our house plants have been carefully potted ; it was done early in the season, and they have had six weeks to rest, so that some of them are now in full bloom, deliguting all the senses. Monthly Carnations are most desirable tor winter flowering — we have a pink and whice species which are now in great beauny. We added one tablespoonful of '•Grafton Fertilizer,'''' to every good sized pot ; it is death on all vermin, we have killed all the red spiders which the intense drought of the summer had bred in legions. We scattered it over the leaves of Fuchsias and Carnations which were terribly infested with them, and nearly ruined ; it, in its turn, scat- tered its forces, and the plants are now filled with buds and blossoms. We number ninety- five pots of all kinds of plants ; more than we intended to attempt to winter, but a kind friend sent us by mail fr m the ^-Innisf alien Greenhouses,'''' eighteen most lovely plants. Geraniums, Variegated-leaved, etc., etc., and we were charmed to receive them ; and now fill five windows with plants in a most flourish- ing condition. We potted them all in the richest loam, with one-quarter silver sand, and the all-powerful fertilizer, which contains Carbonic acid solidified. Prof. Faraday tells us that in the coldest temperature and under the most heavy pressure, this article is pro- duced, and this is mined whei'e the mercury falls to 30° below zero, and under the tremen- dous weight of quartz rock. Savants, who declare that Carbonic acid exists only as a gas, had better test this "■Fertilizer."''' At any rate, it does make plants grow with greas rapidity, and for '' Window Gardening'''' is unequalled. As yet there is none in the New England market for sale, but another season all can obtain it. We must give our plants all the air, in these autumn months, that is not too chilly for their tender leaves. Light, air, and water are three essentials, without which no plant-life can flourish, — without them they are not prop- erly colored nor vigorous. Very much may be done towards stimulating the growth of weakly plants, and assisting the flowering rf healthier ones, by frequent waterings of liquid manure. It is an expeditious and immediately successful method of increasing the fertility of the soil, and forcing the plants. s. o j. Woman''s Sphere — Suppose it were possi- ble to convert all the men in a single place, and leave the women just as they were '; I be- lieve that in the second generation you would find little or no improvement — the great wave of conversion would have passed over that place and left but little trace. But suppose the reverse of this. Suppose all the women were converted, and men left untouched. I think 1 should be found right in saying that a large portion of the second generation would be christian men and women, and an immense and permanent improvement would be found to have taken place. How is this ? bimply because God has entrusted into the hands of us women the nursery, the house, the moral influence on, and the formation of, the charac- ter of the rising generation. —Edwin G. Saunders of Brewer, Me., a wide awake young farmer, lias a pullet only 4 months old, which has laid sixteen good sized eggs. 1870. XEW ENGLAXI) FARMER. 539 DOMESTIC KECEIPTS. Hop Yeast — To Make It and Dry It. — Take of good hops one pint ; put them in a thin bag, made for that purpose ; put two quarts of water in your kettle over the stove ; wet the hops and squeeze them to be sure that they will draw out the strength, as there is more or less air in them ; drop your hop bag in the kettle, let it boil five minutes before putting potatoes in ; have six large potatoes nicely peeled, drop them in the hop water, and let them boil until they are tender enough to mash ; lift the kettle off from the fire, drain off the hop water into the yeast jar, which should be sweet of course ; mash the potatoes fine, add to them one heaping teaspoon of salt, and stir into the potatoes, gradually at first, the hop water. Let this mixture stand until it is lukewarm, then add one pint lively fresh yeast, and let it stand over night; in the morning if light, you can fix it to dry. To dry the yeast, have sifted white corn meal, and stir into this light yeast enough meal to make it a soft dough ; with clean hands make it into rolls on the molding board, cut it as thin as you can into cakes, (only for conven- ience in drying,) for as soon as you can turn it with a knife, do so ; dry it in a free circula- tion of air, without being in the sunshine ; in one day or less it will be dry enough to rub fine into powder, which if done will faeiliate the drying process ; in two days, if thinly spread and often stirred over, it will be nearly as dry a* corn meal; in thr- e days it will be dry. The sooner it is dried, the sweeter it will be. After you have it nicely dried, it is well to air it often, say twice a week, as it keeps bet- ter. This quantity is enough for an ordinary fimily three months; then renew it. — Cor. Country Oentlemen. Liquid for Cleaning Silver. — Add grad- ually 8 oz. of prepared chalk to a mixture of 2 oz. of spirits of turpentine, 1 oz. of alcohol, ^ oz. of spirits of camphor, 2 drachms of aqua ammonia. Apply with a soft sponge, and allow it to dry before polishing. Soap without Lye. — Mix ten pounds potash in ten gallons of water ; let it stand over night and in the morning, boil it, adding six pounds grease ; then put all in a barrel, adding fifteen gallons water. Use soft water only, and you will have good soft soap. To Renew Kid Gloves. — Make a thick mucilage by boiling a handful of flaxseed ; add a little dissolved soap ; then when the mixture cools, with a piece of white flannel wipe the gloves, previously fitted to the hand ; use only enough of the cleaner to take off the dirt, without wetting through the glove. Cleaning Silver-Plated Articles. — White metal articles, electro-plated with sil- ver, should be cleaned with the greatest cau- tion. The use of soap gives to the articles a leaden appearance. If tarnished, rub them with a little whiting, wet with water ; then wash with clean, soft, warm water. Dry care- fully, and polish with fine whiting on a piece of soft leather. To Cleanse Carpets. — First sweep the carpet well, and scour with warm water to which ox-gall has been added, in the propor- tion of one pint of gall to three gallons of wa- ter. This will cleanse a large carpet, and not only extract grease, but freshen the colors. Gall is a liquid animal soap. The Value of Charcoal. — All sorts of vessels and utensils may be purified ftom long retained smells of evt ry kind, in the easiest and most perfect manner, by rinsing them out well with charcoal powder, after the grosser impurities have been scoured off with sand and potash. Jellies — In making jellies of apricots, quinces, peaches, apples or plums, peel, re- move the stones or cores, cut in pieces, cover with water and boil gently till well cooked ; then strain the juice gently through a jelly bag and add a half pint of sugai to a pint of juice. (For berries a pound of sugar to a pint of juice) ; boil till it ropes from the spoon, or from fifteen to twenty minu*^es. In making raspberry jelly use one-third currants and tivo- thirds raspberries. Peach Jei.ly. — Cut peaches in half, peel them and take out the pits from the stones, make a clear syrup of a pound of white sugar to half a teacup of water. When made and boiling hot put in the peaches and part of the pits — too many pits give a bitter flavor — boil gently ten minutes, then take half of the peaches on to a platter and boil the other half ten miiiutes longer ; mix with the liquor of the peaches the strained juice of three lemons or oranges and one ounce of isinglass or Co-x's Gelentien that has been first dissolved and strained ; fill the moulds half full of jt- lly, let it stand till set, then add the rest of the peaches and fill the mould with jelly. Oue dozen peaches will make a good sized miuld full. It is a very handsome table ornament, and very palatable. Fruit Stains. — They are ea'-ily removed if attended to at once, but if left to dry for a day or two it will be a more difficult work. Stretch the stained spot tightly over a deep bowl or pail and pour over it boiling hot; water, letting it filter through till the st lin disappears. The water must be really boiling, not si-mply scaldmg. If the article has been thrown into suds before looking after the stains the hot water will not destroy them. In that case wet the stain, and while wet spread over the spot some chloride of lime, lay the piece on the grass or hang on the clothes line where the sun will stride through for a few minutes, and then wash and boil im- mediately. This is sure, but should bu used with care and judgment or it will eat tbe cloth ; but with proper oversigtit it is safe and reliable. — Mrs Beecherin Christian Union. 540 NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. Nov. ^0utl^s' ptpurlment. From the Bright Side, GKAN'MA. AL'AS DOBS." BY A. H. POE. I -wanta to mend'my wagon, And has to have some nails; Jui' two, free will be plenty. We're going to haul our rails. Tbe spleiidideBt cob fences, We're makin' evt r was I I wis' you'd help us find 'em, Oran'ma ai'.^a Joeu. My horsi-'s name is Betsy; She j imped and hroked her bead. I put her ill the stable. And fad her mils and bread. The 8ta*il:^'8 io the parlor : We diJn't make any muss. I wit' you'd let it stay there, Grjn'ma ai'as does. I's coin' to the cornfield, To ride on CtiLjrlifc'.-* plow; I spect hf'd Ilk'' to have me; I wai.ts to go right now. Oh, won't I geo up aw'ul. Arid whoa I'ke Chirlie whoas? I wis' you wouldn't bozzer; Gran'ma never does. I \^F>.nt8 gome bread ard butter; I'd hungry wi rsttst kitid; But TadUie musn't have none, Cause she wouldr.'t miLd. Put plenty sugar on it ; I tell y >u wh it, I knows I'.'s rigbt to put on fcugar; Oran'ma al'aj does THE FOX AKD THE CaAB. A ) oung laud crab once crept out of his pond to make a little excursion in a meadow and see what was going on in the world. A fox who happened to be passing at the mo- ment, noticed the crab as he crept slowly along, and after having wished him good morning, added in a mocking tone, "Where are you going so slowly ? When do you ex- pect to get to the other end of the field? It seems* to me that you go backwards in- stead of forwards." Now this was a clever young crab, who had heard how sly foxes are, and he thought there wuold be no harm in playing this one a trick, so he answered politely "1 am only a crab, it is true, and I cannot walk so gracefully as jou, Mr. Fox, but I can run much fiister." Mr. F^ox sneered, "Indeed!" "Well" said the crab, "as you appear to doubt my speed, suppose we run a race for a wager, ilave you any objections?" "Nothing would give me greater pleasure," replied the fox, "shall we run from Berne to Bale, or from Bremen to Brabant ?" "Oh no, that would take up too much time. I suggest we try half a mile, or say a mile, that will not be too much for either of us." "A mile," echoed the fox, as if he thought, "What is a mile to me? I can run that while the crab is getting ready to set off." "I will offer you one advantage," added the crab, "which you must accept if I am to race with you." "Well let me hear what it is," said Rey- nard, who was beginning to feel impatient. "I will give you your own length start of me. Place yourself so that your hind feet touch my nose, and when I cry 'away" )0u must set off." This plan seemed to plea'^e Mr. Fox. and he answered, "I will do exactly as you wish." turned himself round, and placed his buthy tail within reach of the crab, who seized the long hair tightly with his claws, without the fox perceiving he had done so, and shouted at the same moment, "away !" Off started Mr. Fox, as if the hunters were after him, his feet hardly touching the ground. As soon as he had reached the next milestone, he turnt;d round and cried "Where are you Mr. Crab; where are you dawdling?" Now as the fox turned round to look for his companion his tail touched tbe milestone and tbe crab, making the best of his opportu- nity, let go his hold, and answered, "Here am I, waiting for you. I was just wondering when you intended to make your appearance ; you have certainly taken time enough to get over a mile." Now, Mr. Fox, who had no idea that he had brought the crab all the way clinging to his brush, looked much astonished at seeing him there, not the least bit heated or tired, and not knowing what to say, he paid his wa- ger and slunk home to his den, determined never to laugh at a crab again. Those who are always trying to deceive others may expect some day to be caught by the vtry people they have been trying to dupe, "A Boy's Composition on the Horse — The horse is the most usefuU animal in the World. So is the Cow. i once had thirteen Ducks and 3 was drakes and a Skunk killed One. he smeldt Orful. I knew a Boy which Had 7 chickens but His father would not let him rais Them and so he got mad and so he boared a Hole in his mothers Wash tub. I wish i had a hors. a hors weights 1000 pounds. DKVOTl&JD TO AaRICULTUKE, HOKTICULTTJBE, AHSTD KINDRED ARTS. NEW SERIES. Boston, December, 1870. VOL. IV.— NO. 12. R. P. EATON & CO., PcKLisnERS, Office, 34 Merchants' li»w. MONTHLY. SIMON BROWN, ) Editors S. FLETCIIEIl, t JiDITORS. DECEMBER BEFLaCTIONS. "Whil3 thus revolving Beasone roll, Ob8equi(.u8 to God'a -wise coatrol, Obedient to his pi m ; With silent eloquence they preach, Ihi most importmt lessona teach. To every ihinking man," — Blake. ECEMBER, in the grand round of the Seasons, has come at last to close the Months that mark the rolling year. — Though sunshine and clouds seem ^% striving for the mastery, and change is written upon the face of every thing, yet, when Nature's operations are understood, we can welcome her as cheer- fully as we lid May or June. In the shlrp wmds and keen frosts, the gloomy skies and leaf- less trees of December, we still find evidences abundant of activity and benevolence in the great controlling Power. Peep into the axils of a branch, and behold the dormant life there ; or into the seeds floating about in the garden, on wings of down, seeking a place of rest, only to burst into active life again when the genial suns and rains of Spring act upon them ! The flower-garden, perhaps, never gave a picture of greater pleasantness than now, if it has been managed with skill and care. "Nature wills that we shall enjoy her beauties during a certain period of the year, whether we use any tffjrts towards obtaining them or not ; yet she lays it down as a general princi- ple, in regard to her gifts, that to seek them is at once to deserve, to have, and to enjoy them ; and that without such seeking, we shall only have just enough to make us sigh afcer more. Accordingly her sun shines with equal warmth upon the gardens of the just and the unjust, and her rains fertilize the fields of all classes alike. In short, as it is with all the loveliest of her works, Woman, her favors are to be obtained by assiduous seeking alone ; her love is the reward, not of riches, nor beauty, nor power, nor even of virtue, but of love alone. No man ever gave a woman bis entire love, and sought hers in return, that he did not, to a certain extent, obtain it ; and no man ever paid similar court to Nature, and came away empty handed." Many persons express feelings of gloom and discontent in December. Washington Irving, in one of his finely written papers, says, — "when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short and gloomy days and 542 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Dec. daiksome nights, •while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings, also, from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social circle." To a rightly constituted mind, there is truth in this view. We have all experienced that truth In many instances. But on the temper and feelings of the selfish and querulous, a very different effect would be produced. Such a person is too prone to exaggerate the inconvenience of the season ; the storm is gloomy to him, and he invests it with his own deeper gloominess. What all more or less need is a fixed liabit of cheerfulness, which would constitute no small portion of the philosophy of daily life. Cheerfulness, when once it becomes a habitual feeling, finds food and nourishment in all scenes and seasons. Nothing will promote this state of feeling in the farmer, so much as the contemplation of the operations of nature in his 'animals and fields and fruits. "The man who is keenly alive to the sublime and the beautiful in Nature, frequently finds the cherished feeling of his soul ministered to by ol jects that to other minds have in them noth- ing to attract or enliven, — so the cheerful mind derives enjoyment from scenery the most unpromising, and perceives, even in the desolation of winter, a beauty and an expres- sion of its own." The bee extracts honey, and the spider poison, it is said, from the same flower. So may man extract joy or gloom from the landscape upon which he is looking, or from the circumstances by which he is surrounded. It is greatly a matter of liabit. Let us see that our habit does not tend to extract the poison. FAHM "WOKK IN DECEMBER. Mere suggestions are sometimes better than long sermons. In the midst of numerous cares, the farmer is apt to forget the impor- tance of attention to certain things. In the winter care of stock, for instance, there should be no guess-work as to feeding and tending them. The farmer should em- ploy some portion of the winter evenings in learning their nature and habits, and the adaptation of certain kinds of iood to their wants. How many times in twenty- four hours to feed them, is not an unimportant inquiry ; nor. is f "at as to the form in which it shaii be applied. The better he understands all de- tails in relatiT orld. CROPS IN SPITE OF DROUGHT. ^ NDOTJBTEDLY all the changes ia the operations of nature, have their compensa- tions. Storms tear up the trees and sometimes demolish our buildings or de- stroy life, but Ihey equalize in the end the cur- rents of air by scattering their impurities, or change them into healthful breezes. In the rains that undermine bridges and destroy other works of art, come many elements that descend into the soil and fit it to sustain the plants we rear. The whirlwind and earth- quake, sand-storm and lightning's flash, do not destroy, but change things from one form into another, and the result of all is the gen- eral good. So it is with the drought. If he will but give attention to it, the farmer will find com- pensations in the operations of nature them- selves, and in the practical lessons which he may draw from them. Some twenty years ago, the opinion was common that deep ploughing tended to pro- duce large crops ; that is, ploughing from nine to twelve inches in depth. That opinion was adhered to quite steadily until recently, when many doubts have been expressed as to its soundness. At the December meeting of the Massachu- setts Board of Agriculture in 1867, when the subject of ploughing was discussed, a majority of the speakers expressed themselves as opposed to the practice of deep ploughing. At the winter meeting of the New Hampshire Agri- cultural Society in 1869, the prevailing opinion was, that deep ploughing is essential to profit- able farming. It seems as though this question ought to be settled by this time, so that every beginner may enter upon the work without a shadow of doubt on his mind whether he shall plough deep or shallow. A careful observation by the farmer will 546 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Dec. soon convince him that plants thrive best where they stand upon a deep and pervious soil ; one which rain water, and also the air and the sun''s rays can readily penetrate. The roots of plants travel in search of food, and in so doing, if they approach a dry, compact soil, tbey will turn aside and seek a way which is more easily penetrated ; and that way will be one which will usually be moist and afford the most food. We are clearly of opinion, that soils which are made up of less than fifty per cent, of sand, drained and ploughed 12 inches in depth, finely pulverized and well manured, will bring a fair crop any year, be the weather wet or dry. Jf too much rain falls, such a soil will allow it to pass readily down out of the way. If too dry, it will retain and use all the dew that settles upon it. If too dry and hot, the evap- oration on the surface will cause the water to ascend from the porous subsoil ; this water alwajs brings with it a quantity of saline mat- ter, which it leaves behind when it rises in vapor. The longer, therefore, the dry weather and consequent evaporation from the surface continues, the larger will be the amount of saline matter coming towards the surface. The saline matter is just what the plants need, and it will certainly come to them if the soil is in a condition to admit its passage up. These views are corroborated by a very able writer, C. C. Langdon, of Mobile, Ala., which we find in the Rural Carolinian, one of our most valued "exchanges," published at Charleston, S. C. He sa}s : — "In a soil thus prepared, the roots not only de- scend without obstruction to a depth sufflcient to he hyond the reach of the burning atmosphere, but the moi-ture from below it is raised to the roots hy .capitlary attraction in time of drought, while, in seasons of too much rain, the water is luac'e to sink below tbe roots by the attraction of gravitation. A fitniliar illustration of the modtis 'operaridi of these important and interesting agen- cies is thus given : 'It you immerse a cimpact loaf of sugar in water, it will require many minutes for the fluid to penetrate through all its parts ; but, it'you reduce it topowder before applying the water, it will be saturated in a few seconds. Just so it is with the earth. If you break it shal- low,, and leave it in clods, it will be slow to ab- sorb the moisture from below ; while, if you plough it very deep and cl )se, and thus separate its particles thoroughly, it will, like the pounded sugar, take up the moiiture with very great fa- cility.' Eveiy year we hear complaints of injury or destruction ot crops by drought. Ic is time for intelligent farmers to under,-tmd that all this is the result of a defective system of culture, and that it is entirely within their power to guard against any such calamity. Examples are nu- raero'is of the entire success of the system, a^d it is founded in reason and sound philosophy. There is nothing at all mysterious about it, and nothing to preveut its universal adoption." Old Mortar bt the Roadside. — Notwith- standing all that has been said with regard to the value of lime added to the soil, there are many persons who do not use it, even when it is in their way and must be disposed of. It is not uncom- mon to notice a cartload or two of old mortar, carried out from a house that is undergoing re- pairs, and dumped down by the roadside ! Here it remains for years, perhaps, in the way, and an unsightly blemish -upon the premises. We know of such heaps on farms now, where they have been lying for a long time, and this, too, where the owner raises wheat. Broken u p and spread where wheat is sown, we have known it to add materially to the crop, and so we suppose it would benefit any of our old gardens, if made fine and mingled with the soil. On clay or peat lands, the sand contained in the mortar would be of essential service. 'WINTERING SHEEP. Winter is near at hand and every owner of a flock of sheep should make his arrangements for it. In most of the Northern States an ex- aggerated f^icling of discouragement still per- vades the growers of tine wool. Many of them wintered their flocks poorly last winter, on the ground that they could not afford to feed them well — and probably will do the same this winter. This in our opinion is a cruel and suicidal policy. Less returns are thus obtained from a given amount of food. Thirty half starved sheep will produce less good merchantable wool than twenty properly kept ones ; will lose twice or three times as many by death ; and will not raise half as many lambs. And what farmer possessing a spark of humanity is willing to see these poor defenceless animals slowly growing thinner and weaker — all of them tottering before March closes — many of the inlambed ewes incapable of rising with their burthen, and d)ing in parturition. A more painful spectacle of brute suffering than a flock in such condition near the close of winter, cannot be witnessed, and we believe that morality has a voice in this matter as well as humanity. Every flock master who has more sheep than he can keep properly or sell, should kill the surplus when winter sets in, if he gets nothing from them but the pelts. — Dr. Bun- dall, in Rural New Yorker. — William A. Wheeler writes to the New York Farmers' Club that he has known a very foul cask to be entirely cleansed by filling it with dry earth and leaving it four or five days. The earth treat- ment, followed by scalding lime-water, will sweeten anything but a very old and rancid tub. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 547 TO KEEP CELLARS FROM FREEZING. An untold amount of labor is annually ex- pended in New England in banking up with earth about the dwelling to keep the cellar from freezing. That process has already been commenced all about us, and is a dirty and expensive one ; and one which, when the work is well done, does not always accomplish the end sought. The method adopted, as described below, was tried by a gentleman with the cellar of an outjiouse, in which, on several occasions, vegetables had frozen, although the cellar was fortified by a process well known to farmers as "banking." The mode of proceeding is given by the Scientific American as follows : The walls and the ceiling were pasted over with four or five thicknesses of old newspapers, a cur- tain of the same material being also pasted over the small low windows at the top of the cellar. The papers were pasted to the bare joists over head, leaving an air space between them and the floor. He reports that the papers carried his roots through last winter, though the cellar was left un- banked, and he is confident they have made the cellar frost proof. We do not counsel the special use of old newspapers for this purpose. It is jast as well or better to use coarse brown paper. Whatever paper is employed, it will be necessary to sweep down the walls thoroughly, and to use a very strong size to hold the paper to the stones. It is not necessary to press the paper down into all the depressions of the wall ; every air space beneath it is an additional defence against the cold. Banking up a house, is not only laborious and expensive, but the earth coming against the wood work, keeps it wet through the winter. The wood dries when the earth is re- moved, and this change going on from year to year, not only rots the clapboards and board- ing, but it is extended to the sills of the house. They become rotten, give way to the weight resting upon them, and then the floors become uneven, the doors will neither open nor shut, and the whole house is in a state of ruin. Such are some of the results of banking up the house ! We have no doubt that the process described above will prove efficacious. Try it. It is inexpensive and easily done. Riding in the cars between Boston and New York on a cold winter night, we suffered exceedingly with cold feet. A fellow-traveller suggested that they would soon become warm if wrapped in a large newspaper ! We did so. In halt an hour they were warm, and we fell asleep. Many times since the newspaper has been used where a blanket was needed, from which decided comfort was obtained. Writing the above quite near a large win- dow against which the cold November wind is beating, we became quite chilled, although the temperature of the room is nearly 70 degrees in the centre. Hanging a newspaper against the window, we are no longer chilled, let the wind blow as it will. So, if you value your potatoes, apples, and a warm floor under your feet, put the newspapers in place at once, and thank the thoughtful and pains- taking person who made the discovery ! Co-OPEEATiVE Drainage. — In 1869 a law was passed by the legislature of New York, which pro- vides that, where there is any low, wet land be- longing to several persons that needs draining for the sake of the public health, or the benefit of ag- riculture, any freeholder interested caa petition the County Judge to have the land drained, and have the expense assessed on the property bene- fited. The County Judge appoints three Com- missioners, one of whom shall be a civil engineer, and none of whom shall be personally interested in the work. These Commissioners shall examine the land, and, if in their judgment the work is necessary, they have power to borrow money and commence operations at once. Change of Time.— At a recent meeting of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture the winter session at Framingham was changed from the 6th, 7th and 8th of December, to December 13, 14 and 15. Pork Fattened on Whey. — In some re- marks on feeding hogs at cheese factories, in a late article in the Earal New Yorker, Mr. X. A. Willard says : — In feeding whey to hogs, bran, ship-stuffn, or some kind of meal should be mingled with the whey. When this is done, a good quality of pork is made, and considerable profits often are realized from the whey. We do not ap- prove of keeping hogs exclusively upon whey. It does not contain the elements of nutrition in the right proportion to preserve the animals in good health and make the best quality of pork. It is true, hogs will live upon whey and take on fat, but the pork is soft, watery and of inferior quality. It is doubtful whether such pork is a healthy article of food, as swine fed exclusively on such watery slop soon show symptoms of disease. StUl, many dairymen keep a portion of their hogs on whey alone, and sell in early fall to the butcher or packer. We notice that those who make a practice of feeding swine exclusively on whey do not generally put up such pork for their own con- sumption. 548 NEW ENGLAND FABMER. Dec. A THHEE-THOUSAND-DOLIiAK AMBBICAH' MERINO BUCK, OWNED AND KEPT BY ROI.I.IN GLEASON, BENSON, RUTLAND COUNTY, VERMONT —[3ee page 661.] Farmers' Clubs. There will probably be more Farmers' Clubs ia operation in New England this winter than ever before. The State Board of Ag- riculture of Maine set the ball in motion in that State pretty efifictually, last winter. The objections that such associations frequently run out, or their exercises run down, is entitled to less considera- tion than it receives. We learn to walk by repeated falls. "Up, and try it again," and avoid the mis- step this time that caused the stumble before. The new Board of Agriculture of New Hampshire are about to prepare notices which will be sent to dif- ferent towns, in which some one or more persons will be requested to move for the organization of clubs in their respective towns. —The census takers have found a little paradise on an island in Narragansett Bay. All the men and all the women work ; the climate is good, the soil grateful, and there is not a criminal, a pauper, or a house- servant on the island. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 549 MEAT AND PEOVISIOTT MAHKBTS OF BOSTON. Department of Agriculture, * Washington, D. C, Oct. 8, 1870. Editors and Pbopbietors New England Far- mer. Boston, Mass. Gentlemen : — I desire to collect information con- cerning tlie market system of our principal cities with especial reeard to abuses in the usages of comrcission dealers and other middle-men, and re- spectiuliy ask attention to the foUowing points : 1. Number of days la the week and hours of the day in which farmers are permitted to sell from their wagons. 2 Amount of space at the market-houses and on the streets, which they are allowed to occupy. 3. Price obtained by middle-men or huckMers compared with the rates allowed by them to pro- ducers. 4. The bearing of prevalent usages of commis- sion-men upon the interests of producers. 5. Amount of license (if any,) required of far- mers, and other municipal restrictions or require- ments in respect to their sales. An article in your paper givirg an account of the characteristic features of the markets of your city, and bearing on the above particu'»ars, would be a valuable contribution to the object which I have in view. Will you have the kindness to con- sider the subject, and in'case you publish such an article, forward to me a marked copy of the paper containing it. Yours very respectlully, Horace Capron, Commissioner. Remarks — Before proceeding to answer the foregoing questions, it may be well to al- lude briefly to the history of markets in the city. It would seem that, from the earliest times to the present, public opinion has been divided as to the proper course for the au- thorities to pursue in this matter, and as to the eflFect of the various systems which from time to time have been adopted. Taking our figures mainly from a report of a joint committee of the Council and Board of Aldermen, on the subject of markets; made in 1865, we learn that market places were first ebtablished by the city authorities in 1733, when the population of the town was but 15,000, and buildings were erected in three localities. Every day was market day, from sunrite till one o'clock. Forestalling was pro- hibited, and also purchasing marketable ar- ticles elsewhere than at the markets. Public feeling, for some unexplained reason, revolted against this plan, and in 1737 the Centre market was pulled down by a mob, and the town voted to appropriate the other two to different uses. In 1740, Peter Faneuil offered to build a market-house in Dock Square, which offer was accepted by a vote of 367 to 360 ; and, in 1742, "Faneuil Hall" was erected. In 1746, a vote was passed to shut up the market-house, and it remained closed till the next spring, when the town went into the market business itself, employing three butch- ers to bring in a supply of meat, and allowing them five per cent, on the sales for their com- pensation. Afterwards the offdl was added to the commissions of the butchers. This plan continued till March, 1749, when £1,000 was voted to the clerk of the market to settle up its accounts, and Faneuil Hall Market was opened again. In 1752, it was again closed, complaints being made of crowded streets and nuisances. In March, 1753, it was voted to lease the fetalis in Faneuil Hall Market. In 1757, a committee reported that high prices were caused by too long maiket hours. In 1761, the market-house was destroyed by fire. In 1763, forestalling was again complained of, but no action was taken. In 1767, the town was requested to build a fence, and to charge fees for stands inside of it ; and the citizens were requested not to purchase of "disorderly persons" outside. In 1778, a committee re- ported against forestalling, and the inhabitants agreed to make two dinners a week on fi;h, and not to have more than two dishes of meat the same day, and to avoid poultry. A few days afterwards the fishermen were complained of for exorbitant prices. In 1779, regulations were adopted forbidding purchases elsewhere than at fixed localities. In 1805 Faneuil Hall was rebuilt and en- larged, covering nearly twice its former area. This with the surrounding streets answered as the market place of Boston, till, under the mayoralty cf Josiah Quincy, Sen., the new building was erected in 1825. Though the legal and proper name of this structure is Faneuil Hall Market, it is often called Quincy Market, in remembrance of the exertions and wise foresight of Mayor Quincy. Up to this time those who occupied street stands paid a fee therefor, and the streets were uncomforta- bly crowded. The new building is 535 feet long, and 50 wide, with streets on each side, known as North and South Market Streets, 100 feet wide, the whole length of the building. At first the new building furnished more stalls than were required, and those under Faneuil Hall were given up and the space divided and rented by the city, for stores. But the demand for stalls having increased, the lower story of old Fa- 650 NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. Deo. neuil was re-opened for market purposes in 1858, and is so occupied at present. These two buildings, separated only by a street, together with the cellars and the ad- joining streets, constitute Faneuil Hall market, which is the only market owned and controlled by the city. In the new building, there are 132 stalls; in the old, 82; total 164. These stalls and the cellars are let at a fixed rent, for a term of years, to tenants for selling at wholesale and retail all kinds of meat, fish and provisions. The adjoining streets are occu- pied by farmers and others without fee or rent. The Superintendent or Clerk of the Market divides the space thus assigned into six di- visions. We are indebted to Mr. Rice, the present Clerk, for the following table showing the number of wagons that have occupied these street stands during the month of September : First Division— Varietiee* > 1223 Be ond Uiviciit — Dret sed Ilogs 18 Triird Div:*'inn— Ureeeed Btef 1277 F. urt'i O visioL— Vegetacles 3620 h th Division— Tripe 76 SiXib Division— Mucton . • • • 623 Total number of wagons during the month, .... 6342 As to the value of these stands, we may re- mark that one individual who occupies one of them, and also one of the inside stalls, said that his outside privileges were worth more to him, though free, than the inside, for Tvhich he paid a heavy rent. Although the city owns Faneuil Hall Mar- ket, there are no restrictions on private enter- prise in the construction of other and compet- ing markets, stores or stalls for the sale of meats, vegetables, &c., all of which are as free from municipal restrictions, except as to selling unwholesome articles, as is the traffic in groceries or clothing. We have obtained a list of the following •'markets" built by individuals, in which stalls are rented by the owners thereof in a manner similar to those in Faneuil Hall Market : — Stall'. FlifkBtone, 72to92Bljck8t.one Street, 19 BJi 1 tin, corner WaBflicgton aua lioyleton, ... 20 Ceiinl, fcO Lsonb, 20 LaKeoja'i, coi'uer LlicketOPe and North, 32 Be. C'liu.ljf, 15 'ach, corner Lined 1 . 14 BoflVli, foul ind, corner SaODury 24 Union, Union, Deiwee) Norm and Hanover, . ... 24 Wasr.i gjun, corjer Wafehington and Lenox, ... 90 Williamc, WabhiLgton, corner Dover, ...... 28 Totiil stalls in these nine private markets, . 2*1 TuUl in Fantuil tlM JVlarKetj Iii4 Total in all the "Markets," 43a ♦Beginning at the head of South Market Street, the first uivi=ion U asH-gned to th^ Hiiln of pouUy, butter, appl-8, beniee, Sc, and is called the "Varleiy Stand." Showing that the city controls little over one-third of the stalls in the markets within the limits of the city proper. South Boston* East Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, &c., have spacious markets, not included in the above list. Washington Market, a fine structure at the south part of the city, with its 90 stalls, was built by Wm. Evans, Esq., the past season, and we understand that most of its stalls are already rented, and that it opens with the most encouraging prospects of success, and of being a great accommodation to that part of the city. The lot on which it stands is 300 feet deep by 116 front, and 130 rear. It has a yard 240 by 60 feet, intended for the accom- modation of wagons, for the use of which it is proposed to charge a small fee. As elsewhere, wagons will probably be allowed the ordinary street privileges. Boylston Market has been occupied about 60 years, and wagons have always had the privileges of occupying a portion of the adja- cent streets, and venders the space in front for temporary stands. From the reports of the police for the pres- sent year, it appears that the number of pri- vate establishments for domestic supply, is as follows : — Stores for the ssle of meat, • 25 Scores for the Bclscf'vegetables, 51 Biores for tbe Bfle of mtnt and vegetables, .... 219 Btorea for the etle of groceries and provieions, . , 3i2 " " " groceries and vegetables, . . 3'^8 " " " vegetables and flah, 65 We will now answer as well as we can the direct inquiries of Commissioner Capron. Question 1. Number of days in the week and hours of the day in which farmers are permitted to sell from their wagons. Farmers are allowed to sell in the streets adjoining Faneuil Hall Market every day in the week, except Sundays, from 2 o'clock to 11, A. M., and from 2 o'clock P. M., till sun- down. Here farmers from any distance may sell their own products, or those of their neigh- bors, in such quantities as they choose, from a cent's worth to a whole load, and to who- ever will get up early enough in the morning or stay late enough in the day to trade with them. Farmers or "any other person," may also peddle from house to house in all parts of the city, meat and provisions, with no restriction as to the articles being produced by the one who offers them for sale. In con- firmation of these statements we quote the 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 651 followlDg State law, passed in 1859, and still in I'orce : — Sect. 1. The City of Boston shall make no by- law, ordinance or regulation excluding from the occupation of street stands, within the limits of Faneuil Hall Market in said city, as the same are or may be defined in the city ordinances, for the sale of fresh provisions and perishable produce, any persons taking such stands for the sole pur- pose of selling such fresh provisions as perishable produce ; provided the same are the product of the farm of the person oflfering them for sale, or of some farm within ten miles of the residence of such person ; or are to be sold at wholesale only by the party offering the same for sale on commis- sion for, or as agent for some person or persons not residing or having a usual place of business •within eight miles ot said market ; or are meats to be sold at wholesale only by the person who slaughtered the animals of which the same was a part. Approved, April 6, 1859. And also the following city ordinance passed Dec. 14, 1857 :— Any person may offer and sell, from house to houbc, in any of the public streets, lanes, alleys or squares in this city, from carts, wagons or sleighs, any meat, poultry, vegetables, fruits, or other arti- cle of provisions, on all days when Faneuil Hall is open. In the 34th section of the city regulations in relation to carriages, it is provided that the rule forbidding vehicles to stop in the streets more than five minutes, without some suitable person to take care of them, or more than twenty in any case, shall not apply "to the vehicles of market or provision men who may stand with the same without the limits of Faneuil Hall Market until eleven o'clock in the forenoon, at such places in the city as the board of aldermen may designate, for the purpose of vending provisions." That the provisions of these laws relating to peddling in the streets of the city are not dead letters, though not extensively practiced, probably for the reason that families prefer to obtain their supplies in other ways, is evident from the fact that from 20 to 40 peddler's carts are filled every morning at Faneuil Hall Market, as may be seen by any early riser who will visit the market about day light; and from the fact that the police officers report that in May last there were 93 wagons going from house to house in different sections of the city. Question 2. Amount of space at the market houses and on the streets which they are allowed to occupy. There is no space in the buildings appropri- ated to this purpose. In the streets adjoining Faneuil Hall there is room specially designed for this purpose sufficient to accommodate about 200 wagons ; but sometimes as many as 500 find accommodation by using a portion of Commercial, Blackstone and other adjacent streets. Here, as elsewhere in Boston, busi- ness lacks elbow room, and farmers, team- sters, and even pedestrians are somewhat dis- commoded thereby. Question 3. Prices obtained by middlemen or hucksters compared with the rates allowed by them to producers. We have not the data for a reliable answer to this question. Statements have been made of a great advance in selling, over buying prices, in some cases, and instances have been related in which articles have been sold much under cost. We know of no market regula- tion or practice which gives undue advantages to "middlemen or hucksters." Here, as in all other branches of business, sharpers and tricksters occasionally show their hands, but not more often, we believe, than in other de- partments of trade. Question 4. The bearing of prevalent usages of commission-men upon the interests of producers. We know of none that have an injurious effect. No farmer is obliged to employ them. Any one can do so who chooses. A large amount of business is done by them. They at least furnish the second string to the bow of farmers. If not satisfied with the prices of- fered by buyers at home, farmers send their produce to the commission dealers, whose terms and conditions of doing the business are, or may be, well known. Farmers, we think, are also benefited by these commission dealers, in their tendency to destroy the effect of com- binations among the ordinary dealers. A far- mer comes to market with a load of butter, pork, beans, potatoes, apples, beef, mutton or other produce. He does not wish to retail. The wholesale buyers are ugly. They offer lower prices than he thinks they ought to pay. The commission houses give him a chance of testing the market by the use of their facili- ties ; and whether he get more or less than he was offered by regular buyers, he is better satisfied than he would have been to accept what he believed was less than market price. A drover finds a sticky market ; there is no "turkey" in all the talk of the butchers ; they don't want his cattle or sheep at any price. He thinks they are bluffing, and turns over his stock to be butchered and marketed on commission. 552 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Dec. The present rates of the commission dealers are 50 cents per 100 lbs of beef ; veals 30 cents, and sheep and lambs 16| cents per carcass ; potatoes and apples 25 cents per barrel ; poul- try, butter, beans, &c., five per cent on sales, which are guaranteed ; that is, if the articles are trusted out, it is at the risk of the commis- sion man. The farmer or consignee is paid the fall amount as soon as a sale is effected, and often a portion of the money is advanced on receipt of goods. For the past ten years we have met the sellers of live stock at tliis market weekly, many of whom sell that of their own raising. We have heard them discuss very freely all the regulations and practices of the market, and if any "prevalent usage" of commission- men or others was antagonistic to their interests we should have heard of it. The "prevalent usages," and whatever there is of "system," are such rules and regulations as parties have established for their mutual benefit, and which are changed as convenience and interest re- quires. The simple fact is that the market was never established; it grew up, and whoever investigates the subject will be surprised to find how nearly the thing still "grows of it- self." A farmer who wishes to come to mar- ket with a single car-load of cattle or sheep or swine pays no more for transportation or yard- age than a regular drover, and he has the same rights and facilities for selling his own stock that a drover has, excepting, perhaps, experience in the business, and the same is true of other kinds of produce. Question 5. Amount of license (if any) re- quired of tarmers, and other municipal restriciions or reqirements in respect to their sales. There is no market license required by the city. The other part of the inquiry has been answered already, as far as we are able to do so. Some five years ago, while the question of a free market was under consideration by the city government, the following petition was signed by Jeremiah Russell, of West Cam- bridge, who had then been in the business thirty- 1. ar years, and by fifty-one others, and presented to the committee to whom the sub- ject had been referred : — To the Commiiiee on Free Markets: — Gentlemen:— We, the undersigned market men, from the towns and farms in the vicinity of Bos- ton, being in the farming and producing business, and bringing our produce and that of our neigh- bors to Fanenil Hall Market for sale, would re- spectfully represent to your Honorable Committee that the privilege that we now have at the market is all that we ask. We dispose of our produce just as we please, from one cent's worth to the^wnole load, as it suits our convenience aiid interests. We have the privilege of standing wii'h our wagons at the said market as long as ic is necessary far the sale of our produce, and, if we prefer, we can re- tail from house to house ^11 over the city. We,- therefore, most respectlully request that the pres- ent regulations of said market may remain as they are at the present time, believing them to be all that the producers need or ask tor. And the following by S. F. Woodbridge, who had been in the business twenty years, and by thirty-nine others : — To the Market Committee: — We, the undersigned beef and mutton butchers, being in the business of buying and slaughtering beef and mutton, and bringing the same to Fancuil Hall Market for sale, wou'd respectlully represent the present regulation of the market is all that we ask for, and that any alteration in the present system would not be of any benefit to either seller or purchaser. We most respectfully request that the present regulations may be continued. UNION" CATTLE MARKET. Cambridge Cattle Market is soon to be given up. The division of the estates of the old proprietors, Messrs. Porter and Meacham, together with the demand for the land occupied by the yards for building purposes, have made the abandonment of this market necessary. Anticipating this event, the managers of the Fitchburg railroad purchased in Watertown, several years ago, some thirty acres of land well located and admirably adapted to the purposes of a cattle market. Having received notice that the yards at Cambridge must be closed. President W. B. Stearns of the Fitchburg Rail- road, with some of the directors, visited some of the principal cattle markets of the country to ex- amine the plans and arrangements which have been adopted for the convenience of buyer and seller, and for the comfort of the beasts. The proprietors of the present Boston cattle markets have been slow to adopt the modern improve- ments that have been enjoyed for some time at Albany, Chicago and elsewhere, particularly in regard to shelter of animals from storms. But in the grounds at Watertown it is the object of those who have the charge of the work, not only to adopt the conveniences of the best markets, but to make such improvements as experience here and elsewhere have suggested. At the commencement of operations at the Union Cattle Market, a stone culvert the whole length of the ground was laid. Into this, pipes will dis- charge the drainage of the yards, which are to be constructed, not on the surface soil, but on gravel, under much of which is a layer of broken stone. Both stone and excellent gravel are found on the grounds, and a large amount of grading is now being done. We visited the location a few days since, but as 1870. m.W ENGLAND FARMER, 653 our stay was brief, we rely on the correspondents of the Advertiser and Jowrno^ for most of our fig- ures. The wharf or landing, full half a mile in length, is built of stone with its foundation below the reach of frost, with hewn granite blocks for cap-stones. Between this landing and the Shute yards is a passage or space ten feet wide. Each of these landing yards is to be equal in length to that of an ordinary stock car. The gates of these receiving yards will open each way so as to form a fenced passage from the car to the yard ; an arrangement which it is believed will prove very useful to the drover in unloading stock. Thess receiving yards open on the opposite side from the cars into a regularly laid street, made of choice gravel and macadamized stone, forty-five feet wide; this street is to be lighted with gas, as well as the interior of the sheep houses. From this street stock passes into sale yards, as well as into the sheep and swine houses, which are large, monitor roofed, well ventilated buildings. The sheep houses are divided into pens that will admit from 125 to 150 sheep, with every conven- ience; sheep racks, troughs and shelves for salt and other food. There are twenty-six double pens in ' ach house, giving each dealer an opportunity to assort his fljcks. Platform scales are situated at the junction of the different entrances in the centre of the buildings, and will admit 200 sheep at a single draft. The double cattle yards, with sheltered roofs, are in close proximity to the sheep houses, extend ing from the main street, up the gradual rise of land, with ample accommodations for food and water. There are also tine accommodations for hogs and calves, and everything possible is pro- vided for the comfort of man and beast. The Corporation have also erected a hotel three stories hiah, with French roof, and basement, con- taining 100 rooms. The cfflv^e will be sii;uated on first floor, 41 by 32 feet, with another room equally as large for the drovers' and butchers' especial use. There is also to be connected with the market a hay barn, 70 by 100 feet. The office is in a central position, easy of access, with large platform scales. There ii also a brick building, directly back of the office, containing a tank and caloric engine, to supply the yards wiih water. An abundance of the needed article is obtained from pipes driven into the ground, and through the help of the en- gine and iron pipes, every yard receives a suf- ficient suy)ply. The whole site is protected from northeast winds by a rise of land. Before commencing operations on these grounds, it was thought they might be ready by the first of October, but the amount of grading, underdraining, building, &c., is so great that even with the largo force now em- ployed the work will hardly be completed before the first of January. STBAW^BEHRY BED 3. Most persons who have land, now raise strawberries, many or few. They are found not only in the gardens of the rich, and in the snug ancj highly cultivated patch of the me- chanic, but have at last found their way to the farm, where a plot of ground is made fertile and devoted to this rich and wholesome f^uit. An opinion was common some years ago that the strawberry does not require a rich soil, but a great abundance of water. It certainly does like the water, and we are quite sure that it likes to luxuriate in a rich, deep, and mellow soil. The crop will generally be in proportion to the richness of the soil. We may be told that they grow luxuriantly in meadows. So they do. But those meadows probably abound in the very elements which the plant needs. Before the ground freezes, it will greatly promote the crop the coming summer, if the weeds and grass are taken out from among the plants, and the ground made light and fine among them, and well manured. Somebody — we do not know who — has given good advice below, which many may profit by in acting upon it, though a portion of the advice comes rather too late. "Don't delay attention to your strawberry beds, if nctaing has been done ti ihera ^ince Iruiting season. Go to work and plough or spade up the ground between the rows thoroughly. Work up the soil in tbe rows with a fork, hoe or spade, cleaning out all weeds; cut off all the old tops, and scatter a liberal supply of well decomposed manure among them— nothing better than hen manure and ashes mixed with mould from the woods. It is also a good plan before spading or ploughing the soil between the rows, to scitcer a compost on and turn it under. Th«} roots are greatly benefited by coming into contact with such. It your bed has been allowed to grow "hilter- skilter" heretofore, and covers the entire surface, simply draw a line and cut it with the spide to show where the edges of the rows are to be, and then spade under the vines between the rows, leaving rows about six inches in width and eigh- teen inches apart from centre to centre. If itie plantation is left in its present comluion, it will be of no value another season. Remember, the more new roots the plant forms this season before winter sets in, the larger the crown will become, and the more fruit stalk germs will be formed this tall, and the greater tne crop another season. It is a mistaken idea with many that the fruit germ is formed in the spring. Feed them well now and they will feed you in return next season." The Jeeseys Nudged.— Mr. C. L. Flint, whfe has imported one or two lots of the little Brittany cattle into Massachusetts, in speaking of them re- cently said : "Nothing is superior to the butter from Jerseys, so far as looks and texture arc con- 654 NEW ENGLAND FARIVCER. Dec. cerned ; but it is probably well known that it lacks flavor. The distinguishing characteristic of the batter from the Brittany cow is a certain sweet, delicate, nutty flavor, in which it is as much ahead of any Jei sey cattle I ever saw, as the Jersey but- ter is ahead of any other in looks." , SHARP STICKS UNDER MUCK. Our correspondent, Norman Call of Allenstown, N. H., has been at work, as have many other far- mers this dry fall, on his muck bed. The muck is nearly foar feet thick, and solid enough to bear up a team, and it lies on a bed of white sand. We find the following statement in the Keene Republi- can: In the course of the digging, large numbers of sticks, about two inches in diameter and from six inches to two feet long, have been found on and driven into the sand. The wood can be easily distinguished by tbe eye, as maple, hemlock or oak, and the remaikable part of the story is that eacb and every stick Is sharpened at eacb end, as if by a tool with a poor edge. One of these sticks was driven into tbe solid sand a foot and a half, six inches beitg in the muck. On being taken up, the wood becomes very dry, cracking badly length- wise and growing as light as charcoal. The questions, Who sharpened these sticks, and for what purpose were they driven into the sand 60 long ago as to allow of the accumulation over them of a stratum of muck four feet in thickness, are asked, but not answered. AGRICULTURAI. ITEMS. —In Connecticut and New England generally, that of 1870 has been the hottest July for 92 years. — The California steam plough is one of the at- tractions at the Cincinnati Industrial Fair. — An exchange says Mr. Frank A. Danforth has engaged 5030 buehels of cider apples at 20 cents a bushel, delivered at the mill at Norway, Me. — Prof. Rilgard of Mississippi says that cotton seed takes nine times as much nutriment from the soil as the lint. — In Marshall County, Kansas, a field that re- ceived no rain from sowing to reaping, yielded 31^ bushels of wheat per acre. —The beet sugar business prospers in Califor- nia. That State has 400 acres in beet and a fac- tory costing $20,000. — S. F. Browning of Northfield Farms, Mass., has raised 65 bushels of wheat this season on a trifle less than two acres of land, after tobacco. — Frizes and medals amounting to $8,505 were cfiFercd by the New York State Agricultural So- ciety this year. — On a ranch on Carson river is to be seen a herd of 20 camels, all of which but two are native Culifornians. —The St. Joseph (Mich.) Herald says :— "The destruction of potatoes by the potato bug has been so complete that potatoes have retailed in St. Joseph at $1 80 per bushel. At least one-half the whole crop of Western Michigan has been de- stroyed." — The estimates of the Agricultural Bureau place the present year's wheat crop at 210 000,000 bushels— 48,000,000 less than that of la&t year. — A Connecticut man writes the Country Gentle- man that two applications of salt water cleaned his hogs of ticks, with which they were covered this summer. — Tennessee is becoming a great potato growing State, and has a very large crop this year, which is also of fine quality, the potatoes in some fields averaging a pound apiece. — The Briggs Brothers, of Marysville, Cal., have cultivated the present season about one hundred and fifty acres of castor beans. Somebody has got to sufi'er. — A farmer of Goshen, Conn., one of the best dairy towns in the State, doubted if the cows in that town would average two quarts of milk to a milking, during the latter part of the late drought. — The New York Horticulturist says we have never discouraged the planting of fruit, but the indications at present show that it is sometimes slightly overdone. — Ploughing up potato fields late in the season, will be the means of killing a great many potato beetles by freezing; the ground in some sections is full of them already. — A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says an individual is travelling through Iowa, claiming $5 of farmers who have drive-wells, as license for using the patent. — On one farm in Scotland, which does not ex ceed five hundred acres, there were over four hundred miles of drains, several years ago, and the work was not then regarded as complete. — A horse owned by the Belfast and Rockland Stage Company, Maine, travelled from Belfast to Rockland and back, 56 miles, every day for six consecutive days. He was thus driven to decide a wager on his endurance. — A correspondent of the Southern Cultivator recommends cobs as manure. He furrows out his ground, places three cobs at the distances he wishes his hills, say three feet apart, hauls on the earth and plants corn over the cobs. — Hon. Judson Lee, who was raised a farmer's son on the Pelham, Mass., hills, but was after- wards Mayor of the city of New York and mem- ber of Congress once remarked, "My father left me an independent fortune — fifty cents in money, and industrious habits." —Mr. I. T. Tillinghast of Factory ville, Penn. recently undertook to watch some bees working freely on white clover, with the view of ascertain- ing how rapidly they gather honey. Selecting a bee that looked quite empty, he watched her just 1870. XEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 655 an hour, in which time she visited five hundred and eighty-two clover heads, when he lost sight of her in flying over some weeds, and does not know that she was even then fully loaded. —The next meeting of the Maine State Board'of Agriculture will be held in Farmington village, at the Court House, about the 1st of January. In connection with this meeting the Farmers' Con- vention will be held. We shall give further par- ticulars hereafter. —A few days since, at an auction sale in Ban- gor, Me., 43 000 acres of timber land were sold at prices varying from #1 48 to $1.75 per acre. The aggregate sum realized was about $70,000. This was one of the largest sales of timber land ever made on private account in Maine. —Mr. J. A. Harwood of Littleton, Mass., has a fine young peach orchard of nearly two thousand trees, about two hundred of which are in bearing. His crop this year amounts to about one hundred and fifty bushels, which he sold for not less than $6 per bushel, amounting to $900 or more. —The cattle disease, which broke out in Egre- mont and the western part of Great Harrington last summer, is still prevailing, and extending its ravages among horses, sheep, and swine as well. George M. Hollenbeck of Egremont has lost nearly $1500 worth of stock, and several other farmers have lost five or six hundred dollars' worth a piece. —The farmer who raises produce for a distant market is limited to a few articles, such as wheat, corn, rye, &c., which greatly exhaust the soil- while he who has a market near at hand can cul- tivate any product for which his soil and climate are adapted, and can have a thorough rotation of crops, so necessary to preserve the vitality of the soil. —The Maine Farmer discusses the value of saw- dust for bedding as follows : There is a great dif- ference in the value of the dififerent kinds of saw- dust. For example, while hard pine sawdust from the shipyard is pure and sweet, even fragrant, and readily takes up the urine, it is not so valu- able or good for the soil as hard-wood dust, or even our native soft-wood dust from spruce, hem- lock, &c. The reason is, because the pine is full of resin, which is almost water and rot proof. It will last quite a ti.me and not decay, whereas the hard wood readily and rapidly decays, thus fur- nishing a small amount of manure to the soil. that the purest strain of carrot seed would some- times produce nothing but seed the first year, but they could give no reason why it should be so. Carrots Going to Seed.— In reply to a com- plaint by some one that his carrots went to seed the first year, a correspondent of the Country Gen- tlemaji, who was formerly a seed grower in Eng- land, says, that the best carrot seed will occasion- ally produce nothing but seed the first year is a fact. In 1SG5 a meeting was held in London, Eng., on the above subject, and attended by men who had made a speciality of raising carrot seed for fifty years, and the experience of these men was, For the Xew England Farmer, EARIiY FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. It Is a fact that cannot be denied, that with many farmers too little attention is given to the culture of early fruits and vegetables. This is the result arrived at after extensive observation and considerable acquaintance with far.ners. If they plant their usual extent of corn and potatoes; sow their ordinary breadth of oats and rye, and sometimes a piece of wheat ; see that their mowings are in ample order, and make provision for a suit- able supply of fall and winter fruit, they have done all that is netiessary to satisfy their own and their families' future material wants, and to ensure a fair degree of temporal success, — but they do not seem to realize the advantage derived from the culture of the tender and delicate productions of the garden and or- chard, for these are almost wholly vegetables. This is not the case with all farmers. There are those, even in the back country, and far from any market, who make it a matter of prime impoitance to provide themselves with an adequate amount of early fruits and veget- ables. And this they do from a sense of duty as well as pleasure, — not that they will afford a large margin of pecuniary advantage, for they do not cultivate them for sale, so much as for use, though they receive more than their full value in the increased health and happi- ness of their families and friends. They know the luxury and advantage of a liberal supply of early fruits and vegetables and they take the necessary steps to secure them, and gener- ally they are not disappointed. While this is the course of some, there are others who, for want of thought or interest, seem utterly indifferent to the whole matter, and practically ignore it. In proof of this we have only to visit their farms in summer. Scarcely an early fruit tree can be found on their premises, and their garden is a mere apology for one. They may have some of the ordinary early potatoes and beans, in some convenient spot ; perhaps a bed of beets arad onions, a few hills of winter squashes, and a row or two of cabbages and turnips, to fill out the allotted space ; of early vegetables there is not a solitary representative. Not that these farmers are idle or lazy ; they are in- tensely active about the weightier matter of agriculture, but of the lighter and minor ones — ; hough of equal importance— they have no just conception, or taste, and so deprive them- selves and families of comforts which, by a little forethought and labor, they could riohly and freely enjoy. To show that I do not speak at random, I will briefly relate a conversation I recently had with a young man who came from the city to 656 NEW ENGLAND FARMER. Dec, spend bis vacation on a farm in the countrj', during the last of July and the first of August, that he might enjoy the luxury of early fruit and fret.h vegetables ; but he has been greatly disappointed, for he said that with the excep- tion of a few peas and berries, he might as well have boarded with the farmer in January ; for not another early vegetable had he seen or tasted, and he should hs obliged to return to the city without getting what he greatly de- sired, and what he had come into the country to obtun. This was a severe criticism upon the farm- er''s system of living and husbandry ; and is, doubtless, true of many intelligent, industrious and successful farmers ; as this very season, after some of the earliest kinds of apples had come and gone, and some of the later kinds were in full maturity, there were those who occupied places that had been owned and kept in the same family for more than fifty years who bid not, as late as the middle of August, seen or tasted any ripe fruit, when, by those who had attended to its culture, it had been a constant luxury for nearly six weeks. Where one has but recently occupied or come into possession of a farm, there are good and sufficient reasons why he should not have an abundance of delicious fruit ; but when one has been upon the same place for fifteen or twenty or more years, the la,ck of a supply of fruit, so essential to health and comfoit, dur- ing the extreme heat of our summer season, is hardly excusable. b. Massachusetts, 1870. For the New England Farmer, CliEABINQ PASrUKES. If a man is clearing up a new-land farm for a home, it 'n usually necessary to be expedi- tious, so that a crop may be realized as soon as possible, to pay for the labor and give a living to the laborers. To that end the forest is chopped down when in full leaf in June, and in the sultry days of early autumn, fire is set so it will run through the fallen timber. A good burn clears the land wonderfully and sometimes leaves but little for the pioneer to do beJore grain is sown or corn planted. Now while this is a quick way to clear land, it is objectionable from the fact that a large quantity of rich soil of vegetable matter is burned, and the ashes left soon expend their strength. In a dry season, several inches in depth of the surface is consumed in common wooland, while in duffy or scurfy soil, com- posed of the leaves of the spruce, fir, cedar or pine, a foot in depth is burned, and I have seen muck consumed more than two feet deep. Such extreme cases may be rare, but usually such a sweeping fire destroys much vegetable matter, that would be valuable to crops. Therefore, after suflicient land has been cleared tor fields, it would be better to clear the land lor pasture, without fire. The branch- es of the maple, birch, beech and elm decay in a few years, and if the bodies of the trees can be drawn away for fire- wood or other pur- poses, and grass seed sown upon the land, the cattle will keep down the sprouting wood, and turf will be formed, yielding abundance of feed. There are in all parts of the country small pastures cleared in this way that are estimated to yield from double to six times the feed that is grown upon land near by, that was severely burned. The foregoing remarks refer particularly to the first clearing of land, but are equally ap- plicable to the improvement of pastures grown up to cedars, elders, white birth, cherry, shrub oak or pine. Whatever may be the bushes that are growing in the pastures, they should be cut. Do not depend upon cattle or sheep 10 destroy the larger growth, as a man with a sharp axe and bush scythe can improve pastures more economically than grazing ani- mals. Cut down the useless shrubbery, but be not anxious to have a great wide-spreading fire. If fire is used at all, let it be to consume snugly-built piles. Leave as much' vegetable matter as convenient on the soil, as it is diffi- cult to replace it if once removed. The wealth of the land is a rich soil, abounding in organic matter. The crop desired in a pasture is grass; therefore sow as much seed upon the land as necessary to give a good tuif, cover the seed by harrowing or by drawing a small evergreen tree over the ground. If there are small branches of trees left to rot, so that it is im- practicable to use harrow or brush, then sow the seed and turn in the cattle. J. KEEPING MILCH CO'WS. We take the following from the Country Oentleman, and commend it to all keepers of milch cows, and especially butter makers. We believe that the use of grain in feeding milch cows is becoming excessive, causing garget and other prevalent diseases, and that the remedy is to be found in a better quality of hay. It was stated a few days since by a large butter dealer in Boston that not more than one-tenth of the butter in the market this season is a prime No. 1 article, owing to the poor feed caused by the drought. Grain will not supply the defect of poor feed. This was probably unavoidable this season, but an important lesson may be learned from it. "Friend Sharpless gives us a nice picture of his cows in the Country Oentteman of Sept. 15 ; but the cost, — 40 cents a day, — wi/l that do ? The amount for seven months is $84, fir beyond the average income of cows, and, if we add the summer keeping, the best dairies will fall below it. 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMEK. 557 It is an axiom among our dairyman here, in southern Herkimer County, that much grain fed to t^tock will not pay — that is to keep it ; fattening it is a diiF=;rent thing, and may pay «or may not. Somt-times it does not, and gen- erally not too much. For milch cows it does not pay, — so it is thought here. There is one thing that will pay. It is the feeding of green, tender hiy. cut gr Hosv shall I make a filter for elderberry or tomato wine ; and how coarse should be the gravel used. Subscriber. Heath', Mass., Oct., 1870. Remarks. — Musty barrels cannot probably be made "perfectly sweet" by any process. Put in a pint of unslacked lime and a commou trace chain, with a string attached for pulling it out, then add three or four gallons of hot water, and roll and , shake the barrel about until the mould is worn off, then rinse well, and it will probably be con- siderably sweetened. We find the following directions for making "a filter," but whether it is suitable for the purposes of wine-making we do not know. Take a flower-pot, or any other vase having a hole in the bottom, fill the bottom with large round pebbles, cover these with small pebbles, then widi coarse sand or fine gravel, and finally with four inches of pounded charcoal. The char- coal may be placed in a bag and broken with a mallet or hammer, then sifted and the finest dust rejected. Lay a clean flannel over the charcoal, held down by stones on the corners. GAME LAWS, AND aVOTATIONS OF PARTRIDGES. I would like to inquire through your valuable paper why birds called partiidges are quoted in the pi ice current ? As I understand the Bird- Law no one can take, kill or destroy any of the so-called biids l)fcf )re the firs-t day of October in each year, without ^'eing liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars. Shrewsbury, Vt., Oct. 3, 1870. A Reader. Remarks.— W^e understand that our market- men are subject to a similar law against selling. We commenced our quotations Sept. 24, at which time they were on sale at this market. STEAMING FEED FOR COWS AND HORSES. I with to ask you, or some of your contributors, for iniuimation in regard to the increased value of feed for cows and horses by the use of steam to cook it with ; also, the best and cheapest apparatus for steaming the feed for, say, fifteen cows and four horses ; also, the best grain or meal for milk and beef combined ? H. B. Canfield. Stanstead, P. Q., Oct. 20, 1870. Remarks. — The economy of cooking feed for stock has been considerably discussed, both in this country and in England, but onr impression is that this plan of preparing food is not gaining favor rapidly with practical feeders. We shall be pleased to publish the experience of any who have tried the experiment of steaming or cooking in any way, cattle or horse fodder. DOG WITH sore EARS. What is the matter with my dog, a large one not yet two years old, whose ears are sore, and he is continually scratching them until they bleed ? He has been troubled thus some six months. I should say he had got the itch. Is there any such thing that does have ? AVhat will cure him ? Ashfield, Mass., Oct., 1870. Reader. Remarks. — Why should dogs be exempt from the ills to which other animals are subject ? Try an ointment of lard and sulphur. For mange on dogs, Frank Forrester's Dog- book gives as a cure, "one ounce of salts for a dog of qioderate size. Then rub well with one quart of train or tanner's oil, a wine glass of spirits of turpentine ; sulphur sufiicient to let it just run off a stick, — all well mixed." water-proof cement. I would like to ask through the Farmer for a receipt for water-proof cement. Any one that can give it will greatly oblige e. f. G. Marlboro', Mass., Oct., 1870. Remarks. — Will not hydraulic cement answer ? la Haswell's Engineers' and Mechanics' Pocket Book the following is given for cisterns and water casks : — Melted' glue, 8 parts ; linseed oil, 4 parts ; boiled into a varnish with litharge. He says this cement hardens in about 48 hours, and renders the joiuts of -wood cisterns and casks air and water tight. Who knows of a better water proof cement ? WEANING lambs. I believe it is the common practice for persons having lambs that they intend to winter, to allow them to run with the ewes without weaning them ; thus keeping the ewes poor, without much ben- fit to the lambs. Perhaps it is cot generally known how easily they may oe weaned. All you have to do is to separate them about thirty-six hours, and the v/ork is done. Thei'e is no patent on this re- ceipt, and all who huve latnbs are advised to try it. Wilminyton, Vt., Oct., 1870. B. WATER-PROOF BOOTS. To have dry feet, and durable and water- proof boots during winter, I set them in a shallow pan or dish, in which is just enough boiled linsed oil to cover tue bottoms without touching the upper leather, and let them set t-heire two days. If the oil gets into the upper leather, it makes them hard. 1 then put on ihe boots, wet the up- pers, and let them dry ou my feet, which g" es me a perfect and easy tit. I then take tar, wa' ~ 660 NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. Dec. it and rub in all I can, holding fheboots to the fire the same as I would do while greasing them. Try this and >ou will not be troubled witti wet ft^et or with hard or stiff uppers; it ali-o preserves the leather and the thread, and I am sure that all who are much exposed to slops and saows will be greatly bcntfited by trying the experiment on a einele pair of boots. Old Subsckiber. Heath, Mass., Oct., 1870. TO SWEETEN FROWY BUTTER FIRKINS. To a cnrrespondent who asks how to extract the taste of the wood from butter firkins, I w(iuld say that sweet or sour milk will do the work much better than salt or saltpetre. There is nothing which absorbs smell or taste so quickly as milk, cream or butter; and there is ro agent so desir- abie to use in extracting the wooden taste (rom all new utensils. A churn can have the taste of wood wholly taken out by it. s. o. J. A TBIP IN HUTIiAND COUNTT, VT. Eutland Village. "While waiting at the railroad depot in Rutland, Vt., for a train to Fair Haven, we had an oppor- tunity, a few wetks since, of contrasting that place as we had previously seen it, and as it now is. In 1831 we fptnt a few weeks in the vi lase; and our impression on « subsequent visit in 1845 was that population and business had decreased during the intervening period, and that it was then one of the dullest and least stirring towns in the Stite,— everj thing indicating a standstill or retrograde. Ever since that time our recollection of Rutland has been asiociated with that of Irvicg's Sleepy Hollow. But this association is now broken. While the bugla blast of the brave Antony Van Corlear was unheeded alike in Petticoat Lane and Sleepy Hollow, the first locomotive whistle that stirred the air of Rutland must have brought every man to his feet. For, now, in place of the quiet, rural town of perhaps 2700 inhabitant?, we fiud a commercial city often thousand wide awake people, wiih new streets stretching out, and new buildings lising up, in all directions. "West Eutland Marble ■Works. In many places in Rutland as well as in Middle- bury, Brandon and other towns through which we had j ist passed, the ground is white with blocks, slabs, and chips of marble, showing that the Grten Mountains were not made for the sole purpo.'e of h'jlding the world together. At AVeat R,utland we visited several "marble works," at one of which we understood that some 200 men were employed in mining and fitting the product for market. Here, at a depth of some 150 feet, steam ci gincs were aiding the workmen in cutting lilotks from the solid mass of geological loaf sHgar that was deposited there, for ought we know, '!in the beginning." Other steam engines were pulling away at huge metallic ropes which raised the blocks from their beds below to the bright tunshine above, where once more steam "shaketb the saw" that shapes the marble to the various forms rtqurircd for use and ornament. There is a marked difference in the tiers or layers of which these beds are composed — as many as eighteen being counted in some mines, — which are characterized as white, gray, taottkd, striped, saccharoidal, laminated, friable, compact, &c. The market demand, at piesent, is mainly for the white. Fair Haven Slats "Works. Passing on to Fair Haven we found slate works instead of maible. Near the station is a mill or factory where slate is planed to desired thickness and then by narrow, or "key-hole" saws, cut rnto elegant forms for mantel- pieces, jambs, and other interior decorations, as well as s^jlit thin for roof- ing. This is the centre of the slate region, and we understood that Vermont slate was rapidly be- coming popular, not only in tlie cities and vil- lages of our own county, but that bailders in Ergland, to whom specimens had been sent some years ago, were so well pleased wiih it that sev- eral large orders have been received from there, and a thousand "sqaares" have already been shipped to London, and fifty to Bangor, Wales, the centre of the Welsh Slate region. Farm of John Balis and Son, Benson. From Fair Haven we passed over a good farm- ing country, with a clay soil, toB.nson, a distance of some ten miles, by stage. Benson lies on Lake Champlain and is consequently one of the West- ern towns of the county. We spent several days iu the eastern part of the town, with John Balis, Esq., and Son, who own and carry on a farm of 1400 acres, a large portion of which is in view from the elevation on which the homestead build- ings stand. We noticed that the elevations in this township trend generally north and south, conse- quently the east and west roads are more hilly than those which run nor;h and south. Mr. Bilis has faith not only in farming, but in farming in Vermont; and as his neighbors have successively caught the Western, or other migratory fevers, and offered their farms for sale, he has bought them out, one after another, until his present farm embraces territory on whith ten families formerly had independent homes. He has been led into this territorial expansion by the good trades that have thus been offered ; but now, wishing to live easier, he would dispose of a part of the estate, and has offered to sell to the directors of the Ver- mont Horse Stock Company 1003 acres, with sev- eral buildings thereon, at $30 per acre, which, on account of its distance from railroad facilities, may not be purch.'sed by them. An offer of land in Shelburne, without buildings, at ^70 per acre, has also been made to the company. With a railroad through Benson, of which there is con- siderable talk, Mr. B. believes that the difference in price between Benson and Shelburne land would at once be greatly equalized. The real value of the land for ordinary farm purposes, however, would not be materiaMy affected by the proposed 1870. NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 561 road, though its nominal value would be. As some account of Mr. Balis's farm, stock and gen- eral management, was published last year in the Fabmer, it is less necessary to enter into details at this time. As we rode over his fields, which are surrounded by excellent fences, we were re- minded of the estates of the English noblemen, of which we have read descriptions. And we do not see why the possession of these broad acres, which had been acquired from the proceeds of farming, and by one who has "worked his passage," thus far in life, was not as good evidence of "nobility*' as are the estates of English land-holders, whose title descends from father to son. At any rate we think it mmt be regarded as an exception to the general rule that farming is unprofitable in New England. Farm and Stock of BoUin Gleason and Father, Benson. While looking about in this neighborhood we saw a herd of Devon cattle on one farm, that at- tratt?d our attention. On inquiry we were told that the stock and farm belonged to Roilia Glea- son, E q., and his father, — the latter having re- signed the management mostly to his son ; and were told that we should see some fancy stock, worth looking at, by calling on them. This we subsequently took occasion to do, when a closer examination of their Devons fully confirmed the favorable impressions they had made when seen at a distance. The Messrs. Gleason have several herd book animals of great excellence, and others that will appear in the forthcoming volume. Their stock bull, "Helena's Huron, 6th," which received first premium at New York State Fair, 1869, as a bull calf, was by Queen Ann's Huron (32U,) by Huron (604,) by Exeter (198;) dam Helena 16th (148,) by Omar Pasha (513) imported by C. S. AVainwright, Rhinebeck, N. Y. Also, with W. R. Sanford, of Orwell, they own "Meriden" (67,) sire Cornet (162 ) dam Fairy (G95,) both the latter imported by Linsley Brothers, West Meriden, Conn. A fine cow "Coles Helena 4th," sire Iroquois, bred by Hon. E. G. Faile, Cayuga, N. Y., 2d sire Cayuga ('287 ;) dam Nemophilla, by Omar Pasha, (473) 2d dam Norina (1521) by May boy (71.) This cow had a fine bull calf by her side, a few weeks old, by Queen Ann's Huron (320,) the style of which we think must please the admirers of Devon stock. They have other stock descended from W. R. Sanford's old imported Beauty (504). Their whole stock are Divons, and the character and style of their herd may be inferred from the few animals thus particularly noticed. But these Devon cattle were not the only "fancy" gto:k we found on this farm. Here were the lusty Cotswold sheep and lambs from the flock of T. L. Hart, of West Cornwall, Conn. ; as well as Lel- cesters and Oxfords from Huntington, Can., but name of breeder not recollected. They were in fine order. But while trying the coarse wools and mutton breeds, the old-fashioned Merinos are not aban- doned nor neglected, as a flock of 150 head are still kept on this farm of some 200 acres. These sheep, from the Hammond and Sanford stock, were at pasture, and we did not see them. A Live Three. thousand-dcllar Buck. We did see, however, at the barn, a venerable representative of one of the "best families" of the American Merino. On another page we present a truthful likeness of this animal, for a half inter- est in which fifteen hundred dollars were once re- fused ! Look at the picture. Could an ar;ist per- sonify Meditation more successfully, to say no- thing of those "points" on which the fancy of breeders may have been somewhat unsettled of late ? After giving his visitors a hasty look, his buckship nearly closed his eyes, and apparently resumed at onee the broken thread of his cogita- tions. But what the drifc of his meditations were, we will leave for solution by those who have more time to study his physiognomy in the picture, than we had when we saw him in the body. Po-sibly he was thinking, ^as others have had occasion to think, — of the instability of earthly glory and popular applause; or of the vanity of praise and admiration generally ; or of friends more abun- dant in prosperity than in adversity ! But cattle and sheep were not the onlv "fancy" stock on the Gleason farm. And if we were not making our story longer than our visit, or in dan- ger of being "too familiar on short acquaintance," we should like to say something about a fine Blackhawk mare for single driving; of pure bred Chester White pigs, from F. Stinson, a careful breeder of Brandon, Vt. ; of a splendid stock of Light Brahma fowls, from J. S. Ives, of Salem, Mass., which at the time we stood in the yard were just going to roost, in a neatly fitted up poul- try house, with the low roosts which befit birds which carry the avoirdupois of poultry that was under their feathers; but this would lead us to say something of the substantial and convenient character of the other buildings, of the nice gar- den, neat wood-pile, door-yard, and of the orderly condition of everything about the premises of these "fancy" farmers; and we should want to notice some 200 bushels of "Bresee's Peerless," or No. 6 potatoes, some 300 of the Early Rose, the corn crops, and the like, — and where should we stop, if not right here, and just now ? Marbleized Slate. During our visit in Benson, our young friend, John Balis, Jr., made up a party for a day's excur- sion. The two-horse family carriage was well filled with gentlemen and ladies, including Fran- cis Pratt and family — (Pratt; & Whitney, machin- ests,) Hartford, Conn., and Nathaniel M. Pratt, of Philadelphia, with a vacant seat for ourself, and the essentials for a picnic, whicia was enjoyed on 562 NEW ENGLAND FARAEER. Dec. the shore of Bombazine Lake, in Hubbardtoa. We also passed "Screw-driver," and one or two other smaller lakes or ponds, whose names we have forgotten. The residence of Albert Bresee, of Hubbardton, the origiqator of the Early Rose and other popular varieties of potatoes, was also passed on our way. In Castleton we examined a large establishment for "marbleizing" or enamelling slate for table- tops, maatel-pieces, jambs, &c. The nature of this stone is such that the materials used for glazing adhere to it in the several processes of baking to which it is exposed, as does the enamel to the clay of which fine earthen ware is made. We saw specimens of the work of great beauty and high finish ; exceeding in these respects the most costly marble, and we understood that it could be afforded at one-fourth the price of marble. Any shade or variety of coloring can be given. Without enam- eling, the slate looks very rich, when polished, and is largely sold with this finish. Roofing slates are also manufactured to a large extent in this place. Slat3 Pencils. In Hubbardton we visited a slats pencil factory. Here the steam engine was whirling the saws, shoving the planes, and operating the other ma- chinery necessary to convert a mountain of rock into pencils for the boys and girls to cypher with ! Men and women, girls and boys, were here at work, as busy as bees, and all were breathing an air so filled with the dubt of this "clay slate for- mation of western Vermont," that we should think but a few days would be required to change the lungs, if not the heart, of every workman into stone. After being mined, the stone is sawed and split and planed into pieces about six inches long, four or five wide and of a thickness required by the diameter of the pencil. These pieces are very rapidly put through one machine which cuts grooves half the thickness of the slate ; they are then turned over, when corresponding grooves are cut on the opposite side, and of the same depth, and the plate of stone becomes a row of well formed pencils, ready to be put up by the gross in pasteboard boxes, which are then packed in wooden boxes for transportation. Notwithstanding the large force employed, we understood that orders were ahead of production. The waste of material is large— one of our party estimating it at 90 per cent. We wtre told that this debris had been used for the manufacture of alum, but to what ex- tent and with what success we are not informed. The country through which we passed this day was "diversified," and exceedingly interesting. Hills and rocks of a most rugged character marked part of our way, while in other places we passed fine farming sections. But as we were on the move nearly all day, we had no opportunity for anything more ttian the most casual observation of the farming interests of this section, but we thought the general aspect was that of prosperity and pro- gress. Massachusetts Agricultural College. — The conductors of the Amherst Record have as- signed a portion of the columns of that paper to matters pertaining to the Agricultural College, to be conducted by the Senior Class, of which W. H. Bowker, Wm. Wheeler, S. H. Richmond, L. B. Caswell, G. W. Woolson, and W. C. Ware are named as Editors. In the issue of the TJtcord of October 26, the College Department is well tilled; most of the space being occupied by an Introduc- tory, an article on the Darfee Plant-House, and one on Drainage. To sustain such a department in a weekly paper, creditably to the Senior Class and to the institu- tion to which they belong, will require an amount of labor which we fear will be hardly consistent with a thorough prosecution of their studies. We agree, however, fully with the editors in the opinion that if this department is well sustained it will accomplish one at least of the objects which they propose, that of placing "the college in its true light before the people, and thus to render it more useful to the agricultural community." FALL PLOUGHING AND MAJfUHINO. We are more and more convinced of the utility cf fall ploughing. At this season the plough may with more safety be put in deeply, and a portion of the subsoil be brought to the surface. The rain and frost, and air and sun- shine, will pulverize it, and prepare it to be mixed with the surface soil in the spring by the plough, the harrow and the cultivator, and to J ield its nutritive elements to the growing plants. When a subsoil is brought up in the spring by the plough, it takes nearly the whole sea- son for it to become fine and mellow, and to be of much value to the growing crops. It is not enough that a subsoil be made fine by me- chanical means. It needs the ripening, per- haps the chemical influence of light and air, to change and render more soluble the salts it contains. Many farmers object to ploughing up the subsoil. They say it is of no value to the crop planted upon it, — that it is ofcen posi- tively injurious. When a heavy subsoil is thrown up in the late spring, and immediately sowed or planted, this is doubtless true, and if is because these same farmers confine their ploughing to the spring, that they have become prejudiced against deep ploughing. If they had allowed the winter to act upon the sub- soil, they would have found the following sea- son, not only a deeper tilth, but a mellow soil capable of mixing with the manure, and yield- 1870. NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 563 ing nutriment to the crops. They would have a deeper soil for the roots to work in, which, in a season like the past; is a matter of vital importance. We need not only to plough deeper, but to plant deeper as a safeguard against our frequent droughts. To be able to do this, we must have a deeper soil. An observing Irishman on digging our pota- toes in a dry soil, remarked, "they are so deep in the ground that they do not appear to have suffered from the drought," The soil was in good condition, and had been ploughed deeply for some years, when the potatoes were planted ; furrows were made with the same plough with which the ground had been ploughed. The seed was put at the bottom of the furrow, and a handful of ashes and bone meal was thrown upon each piece. At the first hoeing the furrows were filled level ; at the second, the potatoes were slightly hilled. They did not appear to have suffered from the drought, but were well grown and smooth. Every one who has observed the superiority of the wheat crop put in two or three inches, by the drill, over broadcast sowing, and of corn and potatoes put in a furrow, and well covered, over the same crops where the seed was dropped on the surface, and slightly cov- ered, would expect just such a result. In a wet soil this cannot easily be done ; but then a wet soil should never be used for wheat or corn, but should be used for grass or oats, or for crops that may be planted later in the sea- son, after it Iftis become dry. In a well drained soil the ground may be worked as deep as we need, and the seed put in early, as deep as necessary. Even in a drained soil, fall ploughing is of great value. In such a soil, the harrow or cultivator may often take the place of the plough in the spring ; and thus much labor be saved, especially in sowing the small grains and grass seeds. In ploughing stubble land in the fall, green or uncomposted manure may be spread on the surface and ploughed in. In this case the land should be ploughed in the spring, to bring up near the surface and mix the manure more thoroughly with the soil. It will be crumbled by the frost ; will have lost its ad- hesiveness and mix readily witli the soil ; or it may be spread upon the surface immediately after the fall ploughing, and covered with the harrow. The weather will then act upon it, I and what is leached out of it will be absorbed by the soil. Very little if any fei mentation occurs in manure in cold weather, especially when spread in thin layers, and on level ground there is little or no loss. Manure in heaps will heat and give off its gases, and there is often more loss when it is deposited in heaps than when it is spread and slightly covered. By thus spreading green manure in the fall, the labor of composting is saved, and the spring work greatly facilitated ; and the land will be found mellow in the spring and ready for the seed some days earlier than when this course is not pursued. We have heard some good farmers object to fall ploughing. When the soil is a thin sandy loam, there may be less advantage from it ; but in a good stiff soil, which it is desirable to deepen and pre- pare to seed down or to plant with corn, we cannot too strongly recommend this treatment. Fix tip for Winter — A spare day can be profitably spent in repairing the stables and barns. Much feed is wasted every win- ter, by having barns and stables so open that every chilling blast of wind reaches the ani- mals sheltered. Young stock, especially, are very sensitive to cold, and they must be shel- tered, or their growth will be retarded. Aside from this, a farm with snug, neat out- buildings, looks better and adds to the value of the farm. Make your poultry houses as warm aS you possibly can, with proper ventilation ; and when eggs get up to ibrty or fifty cents a dozen, they will repay you for all your care and expense. If possible, place their house on the south side of the barn or sheds, so that it will be protected as much as possible from the cold, bleak north and northwest wind. A good plan is to plank up the outiide with plank, and upon the inside nail up with any odds and ends of boards, and fill the space with sawdust, shavings, mortar, or in fact any- thing that will keep out the wind. Keep everything thoroughly clean about poultry. — Kansas Farmer. Blind Staggers in Pigs. — The question is asked "What will cure hogs that are taken with blindness and that go around in circles for a time and then die?" The disease is doubtless the blind staggers. Having had much to do in the raising of swine and the fattening of pork, I have ascertained, to my satisfaction, that too high feeding is the cause of the disease. As a preventive, withhold their food for a day or two and feed them with sulphur and charcoal. Also bleed them a little in the tax.— Joel Draper, in liural New Yorker. £64 NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. Dec. SHOBT-HOKNED HBIFEB "LUCY," BaED AND OWNED BY J. A. IIAEWOOD, ESQ., LITTLETON, MASS. An illustration of Roan Prince, the sire of this beautiful heifer, was given in the Farmer in 18G7, (Monthly, page Hi) and we had the pleasure this fall of seeing him at the State Fair of Vermont at Burlington, where he was \ exhibited with the herd of twenty-three Short- j horns owned by G. L. Reynolds, of Burling- ton, who had purchased him of Mr. Harwood. The above cut of one of his descendants i was engraved for the last Report of the Sec- | retary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, forming the frontispiece of that volume, and was drawn from life. This htifer "Lucy," received the first prize of the Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Ag- ricultural Society, as the best htifdr under three years old. We copy from the Report the following deecription and pedigree : — "Lucy," a roan heifer, was calved May 10, 1868; got by "Roan Prince," 6,370, out of "Flirt," by "Marmion," 1843,— "Lady Sale Ninth," by "Comet," 3,772,— "Lady Sale 1870. NEW ENGLAl^D FARMER. 565 Sixth," by '-Red Koight," 890,— "Lady Sale Third," by imported "Duke of Cambridge," l,03t (5.941.) — "Lady Sale Second," by "Earl cf Chatham," (10,176.)— "Lady Sale," by "General Sale," (8 099,)— "Clara," by "Napier," (1 238.)— "Maid of Orleans," by "Mameluke," (2 258,)— "Heletfa," by "Wa- terloo," (2,816 )— "Moss Rose," by "Bar- on"' (58,) — "Angelina," by "Phenomenon," (491) — "Anne Boleyn," by "Favorite," (252,)— "Princess," by "Favorite," (252,) — "Brighteyes," by "Favorite," (252.) — "Beauty," by "Masterman's," (273,) — "Tripes," by the Studley bull, (621.) VENTILATION- OP BEES IN WINTER. One of the principal causes of loss in the culture cf bees is the want of a proper ven- tilation of the hive in winter. In the first place, bees are usually confined to a spice al- together too small. That is, they do not need much room for placing their combs and per- forming their work ; but they do need wider and more ample surroundings. In their nat- ural condition in a hollow tree, the actual space they occupy may not be larger than one or two cublo feet, while the space above and below the mmay be several feet. In this case, the moisture escaping from the bees finds ample room to pass off, without becoming condensed and f ailing back upon them, as it often does in most cf our artificial hives. When this takes place, even in only a slight degree, it becomes fatal to the family. The cold water wets and chills them so that th'^y will not move to feed ; mould soon ensues, and is extended through the whole mass of bees, and they die. Formerly we lost swarms every winter in this way. An upward ventilation is objectionable, be- cause it carries off the heat which is indispen- sable to the bees, and a side ventilation is found difficult to secure. What is needed is to find some mode of retaining the heat, and at the same time allow the moisture to escape so as not to return in a condensed form upon the bees. These points are pretty well se- cured in the Torrey hive, but not perfectly. It is stated by Mr. J. H. Thomas, of Brook- lyn, Ontario, N. Y., that these essentials may be secured in the following manner : — "Cover all upward ventilating passa£?es or open- ings, withsjme warm materiilthat wiil absorb the moiature, bui retain heat. Thick Manuel or woolen cloth, an old bacr, or qailts made for the purpose, will answer. Hence, if tbe top coverings of tbe hive are removtd entirely, and a frame covered with wire cloth or strong Imen put on iristead, and over this some warm material, ttie UJoi^ture would entirely escape, leaving the bees and combs dry, while all the htat would be retained." This would be easily done, and it seems to us would prove effectual, if the covering used were coarse woollen, so that the escaping va- por would readily pass through it into the open air. If striking on a surface as firm and smooth as stout linen, we should think it would condense there and fall again. Another error is found in most hives. The bottom board comes too near the combs. The castings of the swarm accumulate there and sometimes becoming moist, form^ mass of filth which must be highly offensive to such neat and orderly creatures as bees. The space below the como should be two or three feet instead of as many inches, as is ofcen the case. PHEMIUMS FOR FOREST TREES. The Massachusetts Society for pr amoting Agri- culture has awarded to Mpj >r Bn: Perky Po -re of Indian Hill Farm, near Ne7,b;iryport, thepra- niinm of one thousand dollars, which it off red in 185S for the best pl.intatioQ of f irest trees, planted before 1S60 and growir^ in 1870. The ti.>t pre- mium fur lorest trees cfl'ertd on this continent was by the Mast-afhu-^etrs Soci -ty for Promoing Agri- culture, in 1797 — a gold medal worth two hundred dollars. It was aivarded to Col. Robert Do p-nse under the dairy thin under a system of g ain growing. The dairy farmer has the mt-ans at his command for making large qumtities of manure. That he is wastef il of this miterial, and injudicious in its application it may be often, and perhaps as a general rule, is charged against him. Still, under all mis- management in this regard, it is JDelieved that dairy lands are steaddy improving in the elements of fertility, and are now in better heart for grain crops than when gr:iin-grow- ing was made the bu^iness of the farm. It is ttua that upon many farms the )ield of grass is much less than it should be, but this is not so much on account of any lack of fertility in the soil as from neglect of prop r culture — al- lowing weeds to creep in, overstoikin^ pis- tures, feeding down the aftermiih ( f mead- ows, cutting grass when over ripe, and other abuses which, *in time, have served to lessen the product. When farms have been properly managed, and have received the I'quid and solid excrement orthe stork, judiciju-iy ap- plied, they have been wonderfully ia proved, and are annually yielding immense crops. The dairymen of Central New York, where dairying has for a longtime been fullowed as a specialty, are generally "well off as to worldly goods," and in wealt'a will compare favorably with farmers in any other part of the State. Dairy lands we tl.ink ba^^e in- creased in value more rapidly than the grain lands of the State. Herkimer County, the oldest chee?e dairy- ing county in New York, contains about 278,000 acres of improved land. This is di- vided up into two thousand firms of fifty acres and over, and a thousand firms running from three to twenty acres ; or in all, say about three thousand firms. The value of products taken from the firms in ISGi, accord- ing to the State census, was as follows : — Dairy products fS.IRT.fg (JralQ products 1 1P9 7S> Soae Ibirteen other products 2.5,!4 8 2 Total agricultural products fjr one year . $3,791,7^1 Now, if this sum was equally divided among the 3000 farms, it would give each farm §2263 as the average income. But as there are 1000 farms that run from three to twenty 670 NEW ENGLAND FARMER; Dec. acres, or that are under fifty acres each, some idea may be had as to whether the farming is as productive in its results as in other sections. If we have figured correctly, the average pro- duct per acre in 186-t amounted to some $24. The highest annual produLit of cheese sold from the county has been a little above 18,000,000 pounds. In l8Gi the cheese crop was only a little over 13,000,000 pounds. AMOUNT OF BUTTER IN MILK. With the view of learning the amount of bu. 1 is ihe tip siraium, generally about two feet deep. No. 2 is tbemiduie htraium, and of about the same thiekne.'-s as Nj. 1. In some places there is another variety lesembling No. 2, but tougher; the roots mu' h less decayed, and in color just like old cider pi mace. No. 3 is the lower stratum, and from th:-ee to eigljf feet in depth. I want > our opinion of i;s value, also the relative value of the d.fierent tpeciiuens. Remarks. — We are always glad to notice an in- creased attention given to the su'j-ct of peat. The deposits of this material in New Ergland are not only to become of vast importance as manurial agents, but as an article of fuel. It is already pressed into the form of bricks, dried in the sun and used for household purposes. In some in- stances it is thrown, fresh from the pit, ihto fur- naces under steam boilers, and psrforms an eco- nomical service there ; even the "Wiiter it contains being made to contribute to its heating efifjct." In Germany the most beautiful oils have been ob- tained from peat; and also coal, illuminaliDg gas, paraffiae, kreosote and water, containing from one to three per cent, of ammonia. All the^e sub- stances are susceptible of useful applications in one art or another. But it is in an agricultural point of view that we with to consider the matter at present. The, three samples of peat forwarded by our 1870. NEW ENGLAiH) FARMER. 573 correspondent have been carefully examined. They are all well worth digging, and carting a mile, for use on the farm. Sample No. 1 is the most highly decomposed, and undoubtedly the most valuable of the three ; but even this, upon wetting and rubbing it between the fingers, is found not fine and unctuous to the touch as peat is often found. It is sufficiently fine, however, to be used in any compost. The samples two and three, would be excellent for the barn yard and pig stye; or for bedding under cattle; or as an absorbent in the trench behind them. A thorough analysis of peat would require a somewhat long and expensive process. This is not essential in your case, nor in that of most far- mers, as you cai^experiment wiih all the varieties of peat Tou may have, upon small plats of ground. Be careful, however, that the peat is not mixed with other substances, or if it is, made all alike, and put it all on the same kind of soil. Leave a space of a rt;d or two between the plots, and cul- tivate one plot as much as the other. Such tests will show the value of the peat. INTERCHANGE OF VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES. I value the New England Farmer, as it is so good a medium fir farmers to interchange their thoughts and experiences. Wtien I am in want of instruction io aeri^ulture, I seek it through the columns of the Farmer. I like also to read the reports of weather and crops in diflTerent sections. Remarks.— Thanks for your favorable expres- sions of the Farmer. If sound information can- not be gained from the scores of its intelligent and practical correspondents, it will scarcely be found anywhere. PLOUGHING and SOWING TO KILL BUSHES IN A PASTURE. I have a side hill in my pasture, which I wish to plough to kill the bushes. Now what grain is the best to soiv for feed, and when the best time to sow it,— early in August or early in the spring ? Remarks. — It is somewhat perplexing to deter- mine what is best to be done with such a pasture as you describe. If there are many bushes, the usual way is to cut and burn them, and if not too stony, plough and plant potatoes one year before seeding to grass. If not very stony, and thor- oughly burned over, perhaps a good harrowing would prepare the surface for grass seed and grain to be sown together early in the spring. "We have not known this process tried, but it seems feasible, and if successful would save the cost and delay of ploughing. We should be glad to learn the result of such an operation. Sow oats, rye or barley, and cut green for fodder. ALSIKE AND COMMON CLOVERS. I also want information, concerning the Alsike clover. How much seed is required to the acre, and what is the cost per pound, and will it be good to stock down a pasture ? I am almost discour- aged with the common clover. Fitty years ago my father would seed to clover, and I have known it to produce a good crop the third year. Now, on 1*^^"*" '"'"'' I '"'" ' clover the second year, and yet I get larger corn than my father did. Can you tell the reason that clover dies so quick now ? Remarks.— The Alsike or Swedish clover we have not seen growing, but learn that it promises to become very useful. Only about four pounds of seed are sown to the acre. The foliage is said to be more abundant than our red clover, and does not turn dark to the same extent when the plant has matured. The flowers are very beautiful, of larger size than white clover, of pinkish color and very fragrant. If our common red clover is cut before the seed ripens and falls, and what grows the second time is fed cfif or cut off before the seed ripens and falls to the ground, the clover crop will at once die out. But with such re-seeding it will continue for many years. DROUGHT AND ITS EPFECTS. Here the drought has been severe. I do not think the oldestpeopleever knewits like. Streams that commonly supply ample water for mill pur- poses are now almost dry. We have not had a rain to thtroughly wet the soil Mnce early in April. Corn and potatoes have sufft;red badly in dry soils; to the extent of one-half in some fields. S )me years I mow ten tons of rowen ; this year al)out half a ton. And yet at Ashfield, less than twenty miles distant, soulhwesttriy, no er-DS have been injured by the drought. Elijah Gunn. Montagus, Mass., Sept. 19, 1870. APPLE POMACE. Is there any value in apple pomace formanurial or other purposes ? What is it worth per ton ? Marlboro', Mass., Oct., 1870. Subscriber. Remarks. — Pomace is usually thrown from cider mills into the highway, streams and else- where as though it was generally thought to be worthless. Srill we have seen cattle nibbling at these piles, which would seem to indicate that "unerring instinct" detected value in the ma«s. A friend says that he knows one man who buys all he can get for feeding purposes. But how much he pays, or how he feeds it, our informant could not tell ; probably, however, in small quanti- ties, and perhaps as a relish or seasoning for other food. Applied in large quantities, in its crude state, apple pomace is not unfrequently fatsl to vege- table life, in consequence of the superabundance of acid (tartaric) which it contains. Elder bushes and bushes even more tenacious of life than the elder are often completely deadened in a single season by covering the soil around the roots by a layer of pomace four or five inches deep. But after this acid is neutralized, by quick lime, it becomes a valuable manure, especially for apple orchards, and is highly prized for that purpose in France. Where lime cannot be easily or cheaply obtained, the pomace may be deposited in some low place where it will not be liable to wash away, and what wood ashes is at hand mixed with it, with five or six times the amount of pomace, of old, well-dried meadow-muck. Let it lie at least a year, turning the mass over two or three limes, 674 NEW ENGLAND FAB^MER. Dec. and a few months before using, mix in a load or two of barn manure by way of leaven, and you will have some good manure. PORK TAINTED JUST AFTKR BEING DRESSED. Last fill! I had a hog butchered in the afternoon, and the next morning the lean had begun to pu- trefy, and by night the spare rib and the lean, clear back to the kidneys, smelled so as to be offensive. The hog had been perfectly well, never refused to eat a meal and was butchered and dressed with Others, and all hung up through the night. The others were all right, and mine spoiled. If you or any of the readers of the Farmer can tell me the cause, I should be verv much obliged. Manchester, N. H., Oct., 1870. A Reader. Remarks. — We have known several similar cases. They sometimes occur when the hog is dressed in amoderatcly cold day ; just cold enough to dj-y and contract the skin, but not sufficiently so to cool the inner portions of the flesh. To prevent the taint, as soon as the hog is dressed, split the body down through the backbone, and unless the animal is a very large and fat one, it will cool suf- ficiently quick to prevent any injury. Even if a hog is not a large one, it is always safer to split the carcase down, although it may not be quite so convenient sending it to market as when whole. Possibly the man who dressed the lot of hogs of which yours was one, allowed yours to lie upon the ground, after being stuck, while he was dress- ing the others. Sometimes pork will be tainted by lying in that condition only an hour or two. We are not certain but there may be some at- mospheric influence which induces the taint, for more case? occurred last fall than we have known in a life time before. preparing a hollow for trees. I contemplate filling in a hollow for setting out fruit trees. I have plenty of gravel, sand, loam and swamp mud. Please inform me through your paper the best way to do it. Subscriber. Fiskville, R. I; Oct., 1870. Remarks. — It is difficult to say what material you had best use without seeing the spot itself which is to be filled. If it is loose gravel, fill with loam ; if sand, fill with loam and muck ; but if an adhesive clay soil, fill with sand and loam, and plough deeply so as to mingle them thoroughly before planting the trees. A STUB IN THE HORSE. My brother has a nice five-year old horse which was injured two years ago by having a stub jammed in his side, back of the shoulder. The wound matterated, the stub come out, the sore healed up and left a scar. This summer a bunch has gath- ered n"ar this scar about the size of a goose egg, and is hard and loose. He has tried a number of remedies but it still remams. Can you give us any information of its cau-se, or any means of cuce ? Elbridge Kingsbury. Roxbury, N. H , Oct., 1870. Remarks. — If the horse is a valuable animal, and the bunch is loose, we should advise you to employ the best surgical skill you can get, and have the bunch taken out. The bunch was prob- ably caused by the stub. The operation need not be a long nor painful one. apples and cider. Apples, cooked or raw, are to most people very whc