THE FARMER'S MANUAL. 9 



Look to your field beans ; pull such as you design to 

 follow with wheat or rye, and remove them to the bor- 

 ders of your field, or on to the field adjoining, in small 

 heaps, to cure ; or yc*ur sowing may be unnecessarily 

 delayed, to the damage of your crops. Beans are a 

 rich, healthy food for the table, occasionally in winter, 

 are valuable feed for your hogs and sheep, are easily 

 raised, and do not exhaust your lands. Even the 

 poorest light lands, or the stiffest clay, with a little 

 plaster, either in, or upon your bean-hills, will give 

 you a profitable crop, which, if pulled, and cured as 

 above, may serve as one of your fallow crops, if you 

 use plaster at sowing as before directed. One of the 

 great mysteries of farming is to suffer nothing to re- 

 main idle, but to make every article of your farm, both 

 animate, and inanimate, produce some steady, and 

 substantial profit : this a careful farmer may always do. 



Your orchards claim your steady attention through 

 this month. Gather your winter apples by hand, from 

 your trees, and put them into your spare flour-barrels, 

 or any dry barrels, directly from the trees ; head 

 them up, and let them remain in the open air, either 

 upon the field, or in some other safe place, until the 

 weather becomes so severe as to endanger their 

 freezing; then house in your cellar, such as have 

 not been marketted ; the saving in this way will 

 doubly repay the extra expense of picking by hand, 

 and the cost of the barrel. Children can do the 

 business of picking, with small baskets, or with bags 

 slung over the shoulders, (as the seeds-man slings 

 his bag at sowing,} with the assistance of a careful 

 hand to move their ladders, and fill and head up the 

 barrels. I have, in some seasons, gathered 3 or 400 

 bushels upon my farm, in this way, in a few days, and 

 always with good success. If you design your apples 

 for the Southern or West-India market, you may pack 

 them in your barrels with clean dry sand, at little ex- 

 pense, and always with good advantage. I have of* 

 tec done this with my winter's store, and with a saving, 



