FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 43 



as to the disappearance, at an early date, of forest trees, 

 was expressed and the cultivation of such trees was 

 urged. The cultivation of wheat was persistently clung 

 to, and premiums were paid for extra large crops of that 

 grain. The utility of the ruta baga as compared with 

 turnips of the ordinary kind and with mangel-wurzel was 

 much debated, the first premium for a ruta baga crop 

 having been offered in 1819. In 1819 John Prince, of 

 Roxbury, an active member of the society, sent for publi- 

 cation a letter describing a n&w pest which was infesting 

 apple trees, the " borer." He says, " I mentioned the 

 subject to Professor Peck and to the corresponding secre- 

 tary (Air. Lowell) and to several others, none of whom 

 had heard of this destroyer of the apple tree." He 

 recommended extermination by means of a wire, thrust 

 into the hole where the worm is at work. 



In 1818 a letter was received from a farmer of Fra- 

 mingham giving account of a large annual yield of butter 

 from a particular cow, and of his method of generous 

 feeding. The editor of the Journal commented approv- 

 ingly and drew from his reserves a manuscript sent by 

 Rev. Mr. Packard in 1799, the words quoted from which, 

 the editor says, ought to be pasted up in every dairy in the 

 State, viz. : " Three cows [on a farm in Marlboro] pro- 

 duced 278 pounds of butter. They were a more produc- 

 tive dairy than six usually are with ordinary feed. Far- 

 mers egregiously mistake when they overstock their 

 farms. Were dairies always estimated by the pails of 

 milk they produce, instead of the number of cows, many 

 a farmer's wife instead of asking her husband to buy 

 another cow would urge him to sell two, to enrich the 

 dairy.'' During the same year a Norfolk county farmer 

 protests against the prevalent recklessness in pruning 

 fruit trees, by means of a. hatchet or bill hook, lopping off 

 branches six or eight inches from the limb and leaving 

 the remnant to rot. He urges that pruning be done in 

 May or June when the sap is llowing, instead of March, 



