THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



103 



nianuro worth speaking about, and the animals 

 tliemselves are coniparalivi-'ly valueless; anil if 

 kept generously thri>iigh the winter, and sheltered 

 from the weather, each cnw will give licr two gal- 

 lons of milk per day, and m:ikn from four to seven 

 pounds of butter per week, xvhicli latter should he 

 set down as the profit, as tlie mi!k and cream con- 

 sumed by the family will more than compensate 

 for the feed. In addition to this, animals tlins fed 

 make tliree times the quantity of manure, and are 

 always in a condition to caniniand good prices. We 

 have indulged in no speculative theories in what 

 VfO have said, but have addressed ourselves to the 

 common sense of the agricultural community, in 

 the hope that they will see the propriety of adopt- 

 ing some plan Ijy which our object can be obtained. 

 — Il'cslcni .Idi'ocatc. 



Hints for July. 



From a belief of its utility, confirmed by several 

 years' practice, we earnestly recommend a trial, to 

 those who have notadoptcd the practice, of ruritttr 

 their clover hay and siirh an abounds in clover, i.v 

 GRASS COCKS, instead of spreading and curing it ir. 

 the old way. It will sav^~ labor, save hay, and add 

 mucli to the value of that -.vhich is housed. As 

 soon as the grass has becomi> wilted in the swath, 

 and the external moisture evaporated, and by all 

 means before any of the leaves become dry and 

 crumble, put the grass in grass cocks, as small at 

 the base as possible, not to e.Kceed a yard in diam- 

 eter, and taper them off, by adding fo'rkfulls, to the 

 ape.x, which may be four or five feet from tlie 

 ground. Leave them undisturbed at least 4^ hours 

 and until you are pretty certiiin of sun or a drying 

 wind ; then open the cocks, and if onee turned, the 

 curing will be complete in three or four hours, 

 scarcely a leaf will be wasted, and the hay will be 

 bright, fragrant, and will keep well. 



Cat small grain before it becomes dead ripe, for 

 the following reasons : 1. If omitted, bad weather 

 may intervene and delay the harvest too long. 2. 

 Dead ripe grain wastes much in liarvesting. 3 Ear- 

 ly cut grain makes the best flour. 4. When any 

 portion of the culm or straw is ripened, or become 

 dry, there is no further supply of nourishment from 

 the soil; and the grain then gets as mricli Xood 

 from the cut as it could get tVom the standing straw. 

 Hence, when the straw turns yellow under the ear, 

 however green the rest part af it may be, the grain 

 should be cut. And when the straw becomes bad- 

 ly affected with rust or mildew, the sooner it is cut 

 the better. 



Do not pjd tJte plough into i/our corn, if you have, 

 as you may have for a trifle, a cultivator or hor-je- 

 hoe. It severs the roots, wliich are the mouths of 

 the plants, turns up and wastes the manure, which 

 should always be ajjplied to this crop, and deprives 

 the plants of more than half their pasture. Hill 

 your corn but slightly. Hilling renders it more lia- 

 ble to suffer from drouglit, and induces it to throw 

 out a new set of roots, the old ones being in a man- 

 ner useless, by being burie<! too deep, and bevond 

 the reach of the influence of heat and air, the in- 

 dispensable agents of nutrition and vegetable 

 .growth. — Cultivator. 



Repairing Ronds. 



Where a road has been a long time used and be- 

 come solid and permanent, except a few ruts, we 

 hold it to be bad economy to plough it up, but the 

 ruts should be filled witli ledge chips or the coars 

 est gravel that can be obtained, and if it is necessa- 

 ry to raise it any higlier, plough a furrow at the 

 side where the dirt was formerly taken out to make 

 it, and scrape on the pan which is a vast deal hard- 

 er and will wear ten times as long as top soil, wJiioh 

 should in all cases be rejected in repairing roads ; 

 and yet we have seen surveyors shovel it into a 

 cart and haul it a long distance to fill up the road, 

 which in one year would again need repairing, wlien 

 with but a trifling operation with the plough they 

 might bbtain a hard gravelly pan, which would 

 have endured for 3'ears. 



Anoth.cr fixed principle in repairing roads should 

 be to drian the water thoroughly from the sides. 

 Never construct a ditch at the side of the road to 

 hold water which will snak the earth below, and 

 when heavy ioadcj teams pass over it the wheels 

 will cut through. A day's work spent in draininij 

 the water froni-the side of the road in your district, 

 is labor well spent, if it cannot be done in less 

 time. 



There is another thing in which surveyors arc 

 inexciisably negligent, that is, in repairing and fill- 

 ing up small ruts and holes in the road as soon as 

 they appear. An irour or two emploj'ed in proper 

 season, will frequently save day's works, and per- 

 haps save the town paying for a broken axle and a 

 bill of ciTst, This should be p.ivticularly attended 



to in the spring of the year when the frost is com- 

 ing out of the ground. We should not recommend 

 making any permanent repairs in the sprino- ; but 

 the hcdes and ruts may be very easily filled up so as 



to keep the road passable and prevent accident, 



Maine Farmer. 



Roots compared to Hay. 



Our correspondent R. and some others think they 

 have hitherto held the ruta baga in too hio-h es- 

 teem ; and some are now engaged in cryiuT them 

 down, as much as they cried them up before. Now 

 truth lies in the mean or middle way between the 

 cctremes. We have hitherto liad some little expe- 

 rience in feeding different kinds of roots to cattle 

 and pigs in the winter. 



We still hold th-em in high esteem. Some for 

 one purpose and some for another. It is true that 

 some of them rank higher in intrinsic qualities as 

 food for man tlian others. The potatoes, for in- 

 stance, are better for man because they contain 

 more farinaceous matter or starch than any of the 

 others, but some of the others, but more especially 

 carrots, are better for fattenimr or sustainintr cat- 

 tle. 



One thousanrl parts of the potatoe yields of nu- 

 tritive matter from 200 to26n])arts. This consists 

 principally of starch with a little mucilage — from 

 1.5 to 20 of saccharine matter, and from 30 to 40 of 

 gluten. 



One thousand' parts of the common red beet 

 contain about 150 parts of nutritive matter, which 

 is made up of 14 parts of starch, 121 saccharins 

 matter, and 13 or 14 of gluten. 



One thou.iand parts of the mangel wurtzel con- 

 tain about 136 parts of nutritive matter, of which 

 say 13 parts are starch, 119 saccharine matter, and 

 4 gluten. 



One thousand parts of the common flat turnips 

 contain about 42 parts of nutritive matter, of which 

 7 are starch, and 34 are saccliarine matter. 



One thousand parts of ruta baga contain G4 parts 

 of nutritive matter, of which 9 are starch, 51 sac- 

 charine matter and 2 gluten. 



One thousand parts of the carrot yields 98 of nu- 

 tritive matter, of which 3 are starch and 95 are 

 saccharine matter ; it also contains 2 or 3 parts of 

 an extract which appears insoluble. 



One thousand parts of the parsnip afford about 

 100 of nutritive matter, 9 or 10 of which are starch, 

 and 90 saccharine matter. 



The remainder of the thousand parts are vegeta- 

 ble fibres, useful to the animal that eats itin filling 

 the stomach and aiding the digestive organs by 

 what is called the "stimulus oi^ distension, " and 

 very probablj' affording other aid to them, which 

 we know nothing about, and which cannot be de- 

 tected by the Cliemist in his Laboratory. 



Compare almost any of the above roots, with 

 the nutritive matter procured from the same num- 

 ber of parts of clover, or herds or Timothy grass, 

 as they call it at the south (Phleum Prateuse.) 



One thousand parts of the clover contain about 

 40 of nutritive matter, of which say 31 or 32 are 

 starch, 3 are saccharine matter, 2 are gluten and 3 

 are an insoluble vegetable extract. 



There are difl'erent results obtained by Cliemists, 

 in regard to the nutritive qualities of herds grass, 

 some put it down as 100 in a thousand parts. 



Now if we take into the account the number of 

 pounds of each root which is ordinarily obtained 

 from an acre and of the cost of production, an ap- 

 proximation may be had of the comparative value 

 of each crop, and by fairly understanding the mat- 

 ter we shall not be likely to be carried awaj- by our 

 partialities for this or that crop to day, or by disap- 

 pointments in regard to them to-morrow. — Maine 

 Farmer. 



European Kings, 



[Extract of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Gov- 

 ernor I.angdon, of J\'eic Hampshire, written, 

 in 1810.] 

 "When I observed that the King'of England was 

 acj'pher, I did not mean to confine the observation 

 to the m^re individual now on the throne. The 

 practice of Kings marrying only into the families 

 of Kings, has been that of Europe for some centu- 

 ries. Now, take any race of animals, confine them 

 in idleness and inaction, whether in a sty, a stable, 

 or a state room, pamper them with high diet, grat- 

 ify all their appetites, immerse them in sensuali- 

 ties, nourish their passions, let every thing bend 

 before thein, and banish whatever might lead them 

 to think, and in a few generations they become all 

 body and no mind ; and this too by a law of nature 

 — by that ver}^ law by which we are intiie constant 

 practice of changing the character and jn-opensi- 

 sities of the aninrals we raise for our own purpos- 

 es, ^och ia tfee i-egimen in raising Kings, and this 



is the way they have gone on for centuries. While 

 m Europe, I often amused myself with contempla- 

 ting the characters of the then reigning sovereigns 

 of Europe. Louis the XVI. was a fool of my own 

 knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for 

 him at his trial. I'he King of Spain was a fool; of 

 Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunt- 

 ing, and despatched two couriers a week, one tliou- 

 sand miles, to let each other know what game lliey 

 had killed the preceding days. The King of Sar- 

 dinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The 

 Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by 

 nature. And so was the king of Denmark. Thei'r 

 sons, as regents, exercised the powers of govern- 

 ment. The kin'g of. Prussia, successor to the great 

 Frederick, was a m^rc hog in body as well as mind. 

 Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria were 

 really crazy, and George of England you know 

 was in a straight waistcoat. — Tliere remaned, then 

 none but old Catharine, who had been too lately 

 picked up to have lost her common sense. In this 

 state Bonaparte found Europe: and it was this 

 state of its rulers which lost it with scarce a strug- 

 gle. These animals had become without mind and 

 powerless; and so will every hereditary monarch 

 be after a few generations. Alexander, the grand- 

 son of Catharine, ia yet an exception. Ho is able 

 to hold his own. But he is only of the third gene- 

 ration. H'u race is not yet worn out. And so en- 

 deth the book of Kings, f'rom all of whom the Lord 

 deliver us." 



The .SfiijoH. — A Lancaster county rorrespondent 

 of the United States (Phil.) Gazette has sent that 

 paper the following memorandum, indicating that 

 the present is a remarkably forward season : 

 Fruit trees in fall blossom in Pennsylvania. 

 1S38. 1839. 



Apricot, April 20, Apricot, April 5, 



Peach, May 1, Peach, April 10, 



Cherry, May 1, Cherry, April 12, 



Apple, May 20, Apple, .■\pril 25, 



Plum, April 12. 



Milking. — In the morning the cows should be 

 driven gently around tlie yard before milking ; they 

 will vield more for the exercise. — We have seldom 

 hired a good milker. Females are better than men, 

 they have more patience. A good milker will ob- 

 tain at least one rpiarter more cream than one that 

 milks slov('l3'. We have often proved this ; we 

 hired one summer a man from New Hampshire whd 

 had managed a farm several years. He was clever 

 but extremely moderate ; we then had four cows in 

 milk, and discovered our slow milker wa?/c5( dry- 

 ing up our cows ; we concluded to give him our aid 

 and let hiin milk only two ; on the first trial he ob- 

 tained the quantity that we did. In one week we 

 obtained one quart more than he at a milkinor ; he 

 said his cows were not equal to ours ; we then shif- 

 ted, and obtained within nine days, more milk from 

 his cows than he did from ours. This was wholly 

 to be ascribed to his moderate milking, for he left 

 none in the udder. — Boston Cultivator. 



Workiug bress for Farmers, 



Every person should be clad in a dress adapted 

 to his occupation or calling ; this indicates sound 

 judgment and good taste, and enables a family to 

 save a good many stray dollars in the course of a 

 year. In our country, but little attention has been 

 paid to this important matter, and much unneces- 

 sary expense is anuually incurred for want of a- 

 dopting a cheap and simple costume for a working 

 dress, which W'e should not be afraid of having dir- 

 tied or injured by the business we are engaged in, 

 and which can be quickly put on or off, as occa- 

 sion may require. In France, where convenience 

 and economy has been studied by the agriculturist, 

 there is a particular dress worn, which contributes 

 much to comfort, and has a very neat and pleasing 

 appearance. It much resembles what is called the 

 "hunting shirt" in this country, is made for sum- 

 mer w^car of unbleached linen, comes half way 

 down to the knees, has a breast pocket on each side 

 with buttons, and an open slit in the seam qp each 

 side opposite the pantaloon pockets, to give ready 

 access to them ; the collar fastens with a hook and 

 eye, and two buttons close the bosom slit." Around 

 the waist is a belt eithef of the same material, or of 

 leather buckled in front. 



This dress, which in France is called '■^Blcuse," 

 is cheap, light, cool, convenient, tidy, good looking 

 and tasty, and consequently every way adapted to 

 the every day business of the farmer and gardner, 

 and ought to be worn by men and boys when en- 

 gaged in their daily work, to the exclusion e»' the 

 inappropriate and inconvenient dresses with which 

 many ar« attired. — Anont/mmis. 



