Jo. 105.] 191 



24. I have 270 sheep : they are grade Merinos, and were all lambs 

 of the spring of 1844, and therefore produced but few lambs ; they 

 are about half ewes. The clip of the year averages 2i pounds and 

 sold at a little less than 30 cents. I do not sell to butchers, as I 

 have need of them on the farm, and the wool is too valuable. The 

 worst wooled, I select and fatten for family use.* 



25. I usually fatten from eight to ten hogs of the Leicester breed, 

 for family use only. They are fattened on peas soaked, and finished 

 with corn ; at one year old, weigh from 250 to 300 pounds. 



26. I have as yet made no trial experiments with the )oot crops, 

 for feeding or fattening. I use mostly mill feed, as slops for milch 

 cows. As to roots, I should prefer carrots and beets for cows ; for 

 working oxen, potatoes and ruta bagas, and for fattening, corn and 

 barley meal, before all other feed in my estimation. 



Fruit. 



27. I have 120 apple trees, all grafted. Greenings, Spitzenbergs, 

 Swaars, 20 or 25 Pippins, Russets, Seek-no-farthers, Early harvest. 

 Boughs, &c. 



100 peach trees, of choice early kinds. 



12 plums. Gages, Orleans, Bolmers, and Blues. 



12 cherries of the Heart and Kentish varieties. 



29. Apples with us, have no natural enemies except the caterpil- 

 lars, whose nests are easily destroyed, if attended to early enough in 

 the season, by twisting out with a switch, or firing with light charges 

 of gun powder, or with swabs wetted with tobacco juice, whale oil 

 soap or spirits of turpentine. Peaches are liable to the grub at the 

 root, which are easily prevented by raising a mound of earth at the 

 root in June, and removing it after the first frost, then killing those 

 that have made a lodgment. 



The curculio, the insect that stings the plum, is beyond the reach 

 of my art, and in some years commits great ravages. 



30. My practice is to cultivate the land with hoed crops among 

 young trees ; the grasses have a very bad and fatal effect in the course 

 of cultivation. I give them their share of manure until they are 



* Since making the above statement, I have changed my flock of sheep and it now 

 consists of 409 nearly full blood saxony. There are 209 ewes, 12 rams, 81 weathers, 

 and 107 spring Iambs. 



