W. D. B. being grown, particularly during the last few tree had better be dead than drag out a sickly exyears, when the extra crop required each year istence. You want new shoots of the real thrifty for the consumption of the half million emigrants, color to burst out with unmistakable energy. has been a million and a half of bushels beyond I wish, Mr. Brown, that all your readers the requirement of the previous year, and which, could see my neighbor Goodman's orchard in at the average crop of 100 bushels per acre, Autumn; trees all in straight, handsome rows; would require 15,000 acres of land for their cul- thrifty crops growing among them,-and a team ture. This is not only true of potatoes, but of going to market with the abundance which seems other roots, the consumption of which is not only to have no end. increased from the same cause, but from our own citizens becoming convinced that a large appropriation of vegetable diet is conducive to health. The farmers and livery-stable keepers are also STAY WHERE YOU ARE. feeding roots more liberally to cattle and horses, In the West we have met with persons posand as a consequence, carrots are now sold read-sessed of a mania for clearing land. As long as ily in the New York market at fifty cents per their farms afford unlimited opportunities for bushel; and even parsnips and ruta-baga turnips chopping down huge trees and burning up huge bring prices equally large, as compared with logs, they work away with the ardor of passion; those of former years.- Working Farmer. For the New England Farmer. Concord, Mass., March 23, 1855. but the moment they have made their farms tillable and their houses inhabitable, they take no further interest in them whatever, and are eager to sell out and plunge deeper into the woods to ply again the axe and the brand. Thus the counMR. BROWN-Spring is at hand; and many try is cleared rapidly; but the blood of the people of your readers are planning to set out fruit trees is fevered, and the passion for change continues this season. How can they invest a few dollars after the good done by it has been accomplished. better than to buy twenty, or fifty, or more, The necessity for a rapid clearing of land has trees, and choose a good place to set them, and ceased. We have cleared faster than we have ap-" get them growing as fast as possible. What propriated. The Eastern and Middle States pre"marketing" costs less than the piles of great sent an expanse, almost unbroken, of half-cultiapples so speedily gathered from the bending vated land, dotted with unattractive homes. A trees? Folks talk of potatoes being a profitable large number-probably a majority-of those who crop, they are, but apples are more profitable. occupy those homes are, at least, willing, if they There is little danger of there being a glut in the are not desirous, to sell their farms and try their market for apples. The demand more than keeps fortune in a newer region. They know that the pace with the supply. Better apples are called burden of life is heavy to be borne where they for innlimited quantities. Some that have are; they hope it will be lighter somewhere else. raised apples in a slovenly manner, have been They forget that the life of no honest man is easy. discouraged by the prices obtained. They have They omit from their calculations all the unseen almost shovelled them into dirty, mean bar- and spiritual advantages of a permanent residence. rels, and because they have had to sell them to They overlook the fact that the real nutriment of poor customers at a low figure,-0, apples are a tree or a man flows in from the minute tendrils not worth raising. The better way is, to be lib- of the root, scarcely visible to the eye, which a eral with the trees. Give them something to removal rudely tears away. They have neglected live upon. Don't be afraid to in plow manure about to make their homes charming, by planting the them. It is better than to pile up a lot by the ornamental shrub, the shading tree, the beautiful trunk to dry up and feed insects. If you think flower. They have not enlisted in their corps of to raise a good crop of grass under your trees, co-operators the next-to-omnipotent aid of Science, you will injure the fruit very seriously. Tree nor bound themselves to the fields they till by the roots want a mellow soil to themselves, and no ob- interest of varied, intelligent Experiment. They struction from grass. do not know that new lands, though they give a The easiest way to manage an orchard is to large increase, yet draw large tribute from the have it the cultivated field-the place to raise the men who go to live upon them. The forest and potatoes and corn and vines. It should be on the prairie do not yeld without a struggle, nor good land, accessible from the house readily, not without imparting some of their wildness to their hilly, and so situated that it might be easily over- conquerors. It is a game of Give and Take belooked. If trees are set on good land, they will tween civilized man and wild nature. make a handsome growth without having so To most men, over twenty-five years of age, who much good earth carted about them. An or- have a footing upon their native soil, we believe chard near at hand will be better protected from the advice is good. Stay where you are, and devagrant animals,-four-legged and two-legged. termine to stay as long as life lasts! Persevering If you are to be robbed, it is desirable to see how toil, guided by a thinking head and ennobled by a worthy purpose, will reduce the mortgage by deEvery year thousands of trees are thrown away grees, and beautify the old home, and fertilize the by being stuck down in grass land. When are sterile field, and drain the too fertile marsh, and people all to know, that such an expenditure is convert stones into stone-fence, and make the farm the sheerest folly? Suppose the trees are dug the pride of the township and the delight of its around. Soon the grass gets up again;—it is owner. Stay where you are, and try it! There difficult to get around to the trees, and they come are those who should remove-the young, the to the general stand-still. But suppose they do strong, the uncapitaled, the one-too-many in a just live, and perhaps, grow an inch or two? A family. But, if possible, such should remove but it is done! For the New England Farmer. HINTS FROM THE CLASSICS---No. 1. BY SAMUEL T. READ. once, seeking not a stopping-place, but a perma- his extensive tillage land, so thinly, that those of nent home, in which, and around which, all that the poor plants from which he expects a crop, is best in their natures may gather and centre. will be quite fortunate who do not have to extend Would that we could whisper it convincingly their roots an almost incredible distance, in order into the ears of nine-tenths of our restless, roving to obtain the designed aliment, and then having fellow-citizens, Stay where you are !-Life Illus- reached a small clod of the fertilizer, are not trated. compelled to share it with several of their neighbors. The foolish husbandman expends a vast amount of time, labor and money in plowing and planting his uuprofitable farm, and is so driven, as to be obliged to hurry in his crops at the very latest moment allowable. Hoeing time (if the It is an idea among the agriculturists of the crop is corn) comes on apace, and then all is hurpresent day, and perhaps an idea which in a meas-ry and confusion, early in the morning and late at ure removes incentives to improvement, that their night. He gets the first hoeing about threeprofession is in a higher state of perfection than fourths done, and it is time to hoe again, so that ever before. This, however, is a decided mistake. one-fourth is left to the domination of the weeds. For considering the advantages derived from the He hires more men and commences the second other arts, our skill in husbandry is rather upon hoeing. He hurries his laborers, until they but a retrograde. We have our elaborate treatises half do their work, and gets through his field a upon this subject, (oftentimes too elaborate for few days after the proper time. The portion practical assistance.) We have implements, the which remained after the first hoeing, is gone products of years of studious ingenuity; but, over hastily, but the weeds have become so numerstill, Agriculture has not kept pace with the oth-ous and large, that in their eradication, the daner arts, in the rapid strides of energetic progress. ger attendant upon disregard of the caution in If we turn back the pages of history 1900 years, the old parable,-"Lest ye root up the wheat alwe find in the village of Mantua, a short distance 80," is greatly incurred. Now, look at his field! from Rome, a Mantuan shepherd writing the best Behold the dwindling, spindling, dwarfish, slender dissertation on husbandry ever produced-an es- mockery of vegetation-a regular crop of Tom say replete with wisdom and apt maxims-a Thumb corn. Harvest time is at hand. Hurry! work, which to-day stands forth, defying the hurry! hurry! again; the poor farmer is a perworld for an equal. There is scarcely a principle fect slave. Work! work! work! not so much which is now applied to Agriculture, to which because there is an immense crop to be garthis does not allude, and on the other hand there nered, as because he must go over are a great many, of paramount value comprised dred acres ("the good farm,") and he at last in it, which now, are scarcely known and prac- gets his grain into shocks, but it is almost a day's travel between them, and a near-sighted person would require a spy-glass to see from one to another. Finally, after protracted and disagreeable labor, the diminutive crop-the result of 80 much toil and expense, is in the granary—a small The shepherd was not slow to perceive an error one, partly full. among the Roman husbandmen, which is ex- So much for the hundred-acre-farmer. Reverse erting a very detrimental influence upon our ag- the picture. The farmer with his twenty-fivericulture at the present day. Many of his coun-acre tillage lot, in the spring, first proceeds to cotrymen possessed fields of so great extent, that piously supply his ground with necessary fertilithey were unable to bestow upon them a thorough zers. He plows and plants with no distressing culture, and accordingly, like much of our land, hurries" to distract his mind. He sits pensivethey were but partially cultivated, the thistle and ly reading his paper, or studying his profession, the sterile weed growing quite as luxuriantly as at many a twilight, when his hundred-acre neighthe crops of the farmer, with which they were bor is hurrying and toiling as if his life were demingled. The writer, perceiving this, cautioned pending upon the exertions of that hour. Hoeing his countrymen in the following comprehensive is commenced and ended in its proper time. And and laconic language-Laudato ingentia rura, ex- the wise and happy farmer has the pleasure of iguum colito. The import of the expression is, beholding a luxuriant crop, stretching its rank, that it is better to expend a thorough culture brawny leaves to sun and shower. At Autuinn, upon a small field than a superficial culture upon his granaries are full. And, in short, order and a large one. Many of our farmers boast more of neatness make his life, what the farmer's life much land, than of good land. They seem to should ever be-a life of quiet contentment and think more of reaping a large field for a small honest pleasure. ticed at all. Some of its maxims, especially, are so apt, and so worthy of reflection, that I propose spending a few contemplations upon them, as time will per-1 mit. one hun harvest, than of reaping a small field for a large Remember it. It is worth as much now as it harvest. Sometimes we hear one say, "I've got was 1900 years ago,—Laudato ingentia rura; exia good farm; why, there's over one hundred guum colito. acres of tillage land." And then we hear anoth er say, "I've got a good farm; to be sure I've DURATION OF VEGETABLE LIFE.-Lord Lindsay only twenty-five acres of land under cultivation, states, that in the course of his wanderings amid but it is well cultivated; I spare no pains in sup- the pyramids of Egypt, he stumbled on a mummy, plying it yearly with an abundant coat of fertil-proved by its hieroglyphics to be at least 2000 izing substances, and it pays me for it." years of age. On examining the mummy after it The one-hundred-acre farmer goes out in the was unwrapped, he found in one of its closed hands spring, and scatters a few tons of manure over a tuberous or bulbous root. He was interested in the question how long vegetable life could last, ASPARAGUS. and he therefore took that tuberous root from the A friend tells us that he obtained a plenty of mummy's hand, planted it in a sunny soil, al-Asparagus in one year, from the setting, by the lowed the rains and dews of heaven to descend following modus operandi: upon it, and in the course of a few weeks, to his astonishment and joy, the root burst forth and bloomed into a beauteous dahlia. NEW PUBLICATIONS. LANGSTROTH ON BEES. We recommend to every person who owns bees, or who intends to own them this spring, to read Langstroth's book about In May, 1853, he bought 100 roots of B. K. Bliss, of Springfield, for one dollar. He dug out a spot in his garden 10 feet by 5, one foot deep, .. throwing the earth out on the sides. Next he put in 6 or 8 large wheel-barrow loads of well rotted manure, and dug it into the sub-soil nearly another foot in depth. He then filled up the trench a little above the general level of the ground, putting in about equal parts of manure and soil before thrown out. On all he sowed half a bushel of salt; and then set the plants. On the facts in nearly every thing concerning them, he same day of May, 1854, he cut a large quantity has also made it, by his purity of style and ele- of fine asparagus, and continued to do so through gance of diction, as attractive as many of the that and the following month. them. While it abounds with the most valuable best works of the imagination. RELATIONS OF CHEMISTRY TO AGRICULTURE. By Justus V. Liebig. Translated by Samuel W. Johnson. Pamphlet, 87 pp. Luther Tucker, Albany. Price 25 cents. Suggestions. He did well to purchase the two or three years to grow them from the seed, roots of a skilful gardener, instead of taking and then perhaps failing, for the want of that definite practical knowledge on the subject, which Mr. Bliss has acquired in the prosecution of his business. EVERY LADY HER OWN FLOWER GARDENER. He did well to dig and throw out the soil one Pamphlet, 119 pp. Price 25 cents. Saxton & foot; but would have done better, and in the Co., New York. A pleasant and valuable book. end would be better paid, if he had gone two If it only teaches to rear a single flower, it will feet, and had put the second foot into his barnwell repay the cost. For sale by Redding & Co., Boston. yard or pig-pen. This yellow sub-soil-who would think it?-is excellent for composting. THE AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. By the the premium for the best managed farm, has Harvey Dodge of Sutton, who last year obtained same enterprising Publishers. It will prove a used nothing but sub-soil for composting these wonderful help to most persons owning a garden. years, and few if any farmers have raised better For sale by Redding & Co., Boston. Price only crops, or sold them at a higher profit on the expenses of cultivation. 25 cents. If our friend, instead of putting well rotted THE COLD GRAPERY, from direct American Pracmanure under his bed, had put such as would be tice: being a concise and detailed treatise on the rotting for the next quarter of a century, he would cultivation of the exotic grape-vine, under glass, have done better. Green manure would not without artificial heat. By WILLIAM CHORLTON, have done well. The fermentation would have Gardener. Saxton & Co., New York. Price 50 been too violent for the young plants, and too. soon over. Manure is wanted under an asparagus cents, neatly bound. This little work tells us bed that operates twenty-five years. If he had how to plant the vine, cultivate, prune, and do dug two feet or more, and then filled to one foot all things in relation to it, to secure a crop under of the surface with old boots and shoes, the parglass, but without stoves or fire. NORTHERN FARMER. Woodstock, Vt. & Crosby, Publishers. $1,50 per year vance ings off of the shoe-shop, bones, horns, woollen Brown rags, the parings of cloth dressing establishments, tag-locks from the sheep-shearing, &c., &c., all in ad- mixed in and laid solid with fermented manure, This is a new paper, filled with instruc- and then had filled up to four or five inches above tive articles, both original and selected, of a mis- the general level with equal parts of top soil and cellaneous and agricultural character. We hope well rotted manure, we think he would have laid the foundation for an asparagus bed, which, by it will prove eminently useful in the wide field in being covered with litter over winter, and dressed which it has embarked. each spring with fermented manure and half a bushel of salt, would have yielded more Asparagus TRAINING A BALKY HORSE.-The Michigan Far- than half a dozen families would consume, for at mer says, a horse became balky in Detroit a short least twenty years. The starting of a good and time since, and neither whipping nor coaxing permanent Asparagus bed, is no chep affair; could make him stir. A rope was then fastened but at half the price which the article brings in round his neck and he was dragged a short dis-our markets, it will pay a large per cent. in the tance by another team, but this did not effect a outlay. We saw an asparagus bed of 20 acres, cure. The rope was then taken from his neck, near London, which the owner told us, never yields passed between his legs and fastened firmly to his less than £50 to the acre, and often as high as tail. In this manner he was drawn a short dis- £60.-The Farmer-by Prof. Nash. tance, and when the rope was taken off, the hitherto unruly animal was perfectly obedient to the will of his master. We have seen this method tried with similar results. So far, this Spring, the emigration from New England to the West appears to be greater than was ever before known. THE WHEEL HOE. For the New England Farmer. MATURING PLANTS. (REVIEW OF R. M. I.) This is an implement of which we can speak from a practical experience, having used it personally for two or three years, with the most sat- Mr. McIntire objects to the idea that plants beisfactory results. An implement much like this fore coming to maturity feed more from the athas been in use among the thrifty farmers in mosphere, and that potatoes produced from seed do not come to maturity for some years, &c. Essex county for many years, particularly by the After what I have heretofore said upon the first onion raisers there, and by them is called the of the above ideas, it does not appear to me that onion hoe. anything more is required upon that head. As The knife in the cut below, varies somewhat to potatoes producing large tubers at once, from from the one given in the September number of potato-seed, I am not aware of having advanced the Farmer, for 1853; some prefer one form and any such idea. The potato first produces little some the other. No other implement, probably, will ever supersede the use of the hand hoe; it is to the farmer, what the right hand is to the mechanic; although it may not do the work as fibrous roots. It then supplies the tops with certain mineral substances, as has been ascertained by chemical analysis. When the tops have come to a good degree of maturity, then tubers may begin to form. But at this point let the tops be cut down, and the formation of tubers is at once arrested. Many experiments and facts lead me to this conclusion. The first growth of tops from the potato-seed, fast as some other implement, no other can do it is very small. The tubers produced will be corbetter. It suits all places and conditions of soil, respondingly small. These tubers are planted, and must always remain an indispensable tool on and produce larger tops. Then are produced the farm. But the wheel hoe is more than "cousin larger tubers. Then again those tubers are planted, and produce still larger tubers. Usually, in german" to it, as in good hands it will perform three or four years, under proper circumstances, five times as much service in a given period, and the seedling potato reaches its maturity, when where every thing is favorable, do it nearly as well as the hand hoe. the tubers are as large as they will ever grow, under the same circumstances of culture. Does the young seedling potato produce seed from seed? If that is the ordinary way the potato does business, "we'll give it up." It is an implement which, after long and thorough trial, we unhesitatingly recommend to the farmer and gardener, as one which will save It is a fact that potatoes will sometimes proa great deal of unpleasant labor in weeding, and duce an abundance of seed, and but a very small enable him to raise ten bushels of carrots as yield of tubers, where large tubers were planted, easily with it, as he could five without it. In and the soil and the culture were indifferent. order to give the operator perfect control of it, into the growth of the seed is very evident, I That the carbon of the old potato went directly there should be a cross piece on the end of the think. handle about 18 inches long; this does not seem to be very well represented in the engraving. They are manufactured and sold by Nourse Co., 9 and 13 Commercial Street, at $1,25 cents each. I have been well assured of the fact that enormous crops of potatoes have been produced from in the West, where nothing but the mere eyes of the deep soils composed of old vegetable matter, potatoes were planted. Experiments have abundantly demonstrated that such things cannot be done upon a soil but scantily supplied with old SPRING PURCHASES.-Those persons about pur- vegetable matter. This is a fact which is full of chasing trees, shrubbery, grape or other vines instruction. The experiment has been tried, of and bushes which grow small fruits, if they study dantly supplied with old vegetable matter in a planting the eyes of potatoes, on land less abuntheir own interest, will look at our advertising state of decomposition. It has proved an entire columns. ASA CLEMENT, whose post-office address failure. Among the farmers of New England it is Lowell, JAMES HYDE & SON, Newton Centre, has been found that an excessively rich soil, or ANTHONY & MCAFEE, New Bedford, Mrs. S. W. one full of carbon with such a degree of moisture COLE, Chelsea, EPHRAIM WOOD, Salem, W. HALL, matter, is almost certain to produce disease in poas to produce rapid decomposition of vegetable Bradford, and others. They are persons to be tatoes. relied upon. It has also been observed that seedling potatoes, HOW TO USE FERTILIZERS. generally, for some years after being produced from seed, do not ripen fully. During this period, they are less desirable for cooking. This was the case with the long reds, the blacks and the Dan- can, on their farms, by every fair and possible vers reds. As they grow older, they become bet- contrivance; and when made it will require as ter for table use, ripen earlier, and as far as I much skill to expend it judiciously, as it did to have been able to ascertain, are more liable to collect it. Save everything-lose nothing. Let rot. The idea that a plant feeds more from the air every leaf, straw, chip, every sort of droppings before maturity, and more from the soil while from the animals, from the sink-spout, from the producing seed, seems to be disputed. How can clouds, every bone, old boots and shoes, rags, all we know? Take an English turnip and set it in manner of offal, and every ditch that leads and moist sand, with no carbonaceous food, and it stream that flows, either across or around the will grow and blossom with nearly as much promise as though set in a good soil. When fully in farm, be directed to some appropriate place or bloom, an examination will show that the root is reservoir, where it shall be collected and preserved but slightly changed in its condition. After the from loss as carefully as though it were gold blossoms are closed, the root will change very dust. rapidly, and become used up, before seed is matured. Let the turnip be set in a soil where it When this is done, we advise to one thing can procure a supply of carbonaceous food, and it more, and that is to purchase all the wood ashes will mature seed. As the blossoms fall from short- he can find that shall cost him not more than fiflived plants, a new process in Nature's economy teen cents a bushel, and all the charcoal dust he begins. can obtain at a cost of not more than ten cents a Every man who knows the chemical composition of a tree, knows that it must take the prin- bushel. We advise no man to purchase what are cipal part of its substance from the air. After called the specific manures for the general purpostrees blossom, the fruit makes but little progress es of farming. That they can be used with adin growth until the woody formation for the year vantage in many instances, by those who know is at an end. If, in the latter part of July or the first of Au- how, and are willing to take the pains, we have gust, the supply from the roots is cut short, no doubt. But the losses arising from their use either by the work of borers, or by shortening the last year, in this State, were of no mean magniroots, the supply of mineral elements will be less tude, and we fear they will not be the present than the supply of carbon which had been taken in through the leaves. The natural effect will be that the tree will form fruit-buds instead of continuing the growth of wood. This is a well-known fact. Note explanatory.-The above was mostly written about the first of January last, and it was my intention to add several items to it; but ill health has prevented. I have waited a good while with the hope of being better able to think and write, but I cannot now write much. A. G. COMINGS. year. The only way in which we can learn the value of fertilizing substances at our command, is by experiment, and not by analysis, and with this idea we shall continue to use guano, bone-dust, poudrette, superphosphate of lime, gypsum, salt, saltpetre, and such other articles called fertilizers as we can readily procure. There are thousands, however, who have not yet used any of these, who are desirous to do so, and are constantly inquiring how, and in what PEA WEEVILS.-Few persons, (says Dr. Har- quantities, they shall be applied. In order to aid ris,) while indulging in early green peas, are such inquiries we have prepared, with a good aware how many of these insects they swallow. When the pods are examined, small discolored deal of care, the following remarks upon several spots may be seen within them, each correspond- of the articles commonly used. ing with a similar spot on the opposite pea. If PERUVIAN GUANO.-There are several kinds of this spot on the pea be opened, a minute whitish guano, and the value of each is fixed by the price grub, without feet, will be found therein. It is asked. 300 pounds is not too much on soils the weevil in its larva form, lives upon the mar row of the pea, and arrives at its full size by the moderately fertile-more on poor lands, and less time the pea is dry. This larva then bores a on those naturally rich and recently well maround hole, from the hollow in the centre of the nured. pea, quite to the hull, but leaves the germ of the APPLICATION.-Pulverize it finely and spread future sprout untouched. This insect is limited broadcast upon the surface, if the land has been to a certain period for depositing its eggs. Late sown peas escape its attacks. Those sown after well plowed; if not well plowed, harrow once the 10th of June are generally safe. before spreading, then cultivate the guano under When the peas are green, the Baltimore Ori- from one to three inches, according to the nature ole splits open the green pods, for the sake of the of the soil; shallow in wet, and deeper in dry grubs contained in the peas, thereby greatly con- soils. tributing to prevent the increase of these noxious insects. The instinct that enables this beautiful If Peruvian guano is to be used in the hill, it bird to detect the lurking grub, concealed as it is should receive six to ten times its own bulk of within the pod and hull of the pea, is worthy of muck or loam, be thoroughly mingled, and when admiration.-Harris's Insects, &c. |