THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



73 



do not know that I can boast of any of the noble 

 blood of the Eniprnld Isle. 



In 1S37, Icnltivatcd more than twenty different 

 kinds of potatoes, for the purpose of satisfying niy- 

 self which were the best for culinary purposes.— 

 What we call here the Biscuit variety, a kind re- 

 cently introduced, I found to be tlie best, ar\d to 

 e.xceed any thing of the potatoe kind, I had ever 

 seen. Altliough j'ou may have better kinds among 

 you, I liave taken the liberty to send you half a 

 Iiushel, to the care of Gen, John IM'iN'eil of Boston, 

 which I presume you will receive. 



Sincerely yours, &c. 



ANDREW WRIGHT. 



Fast AVorJiin^ Oxen. 



■ One great — probably the greatest — objection to 

 the employment of o.\en upon the farm and road, 

 is their slow and snail-like movement. This ob- 

 jection, we believe, is oftener the fault of the man 

 than of the beast. Every thing depends upon the 

 early training of steers. No animal siiows the 

 treatment he has received in training more surely 

 than the o.\. Take steers when they are free in 

 the field, and they will walk as fast as colts or hor- 

 ses. The same speed of walking may be secured 

 in the team, by proper training. It is common in 

 "breaking" them to yoke them up with oxen that 

 have acquired a slow pace, cr to load them so lieav- 

 ily that they can liardly move. By such means 

 they soon acquire t!ie habit of working tardily when 

 at work. It is a better plan to commence training 

 them yoked behind a fast walking horse, or to at- 

 tach tliem to a light cart or wagon with an easy 

 load, that they can readily move. By this course 

 a liabit of floetnchis may be secured, which will 

 go far towards obviating the objection we have 

 named. 



Oxen, on the whole, are more profitable than 

 horses. They do not require so expensive keep- 

 ing, are less liable to disease and injury, and when 

 they become old are valuable for beef. But horses 

 are delicate animals ; are liable to many diseases 

 by exposure and ii.ird work, and if one dies, he is 

 good for nothing but his hide. Two horses, we 

 suppose, will do as much work as three o.\en ; but 

 it will cost less to keep tlie oxen than the horses, 

 and their ultimate value, when they can no longer 

 render service, is vastly greater. 



As a general suggestion, we think our farmers, 

 who occu])y farms of fifty or an hundred acres, and 

 find it necessiry to keep two teams, would adopt 

 the best course to own one ox and one horse team 

 — the litter answering also for travelling. 



Maine Cultirator. 



Statistics of England. 



Income of England in 1832 was $1,330,000,000 

 The Governoient received for its^ 



share > $273,000,000 



Tithes, ^ 



Poor-rates, ^■ 



County and other assessments, _3 



Jj20,000,000 



;i7,rj()o,ouo 



7,.300,000 



Income of laborers, $45(1,0110,000 



" Landed Proprietors, 275,000,000 



" Capitalists, 625,000,000 



1,350,009,000 



Population. . Families. 



Laborers, 07d,G36 



Trade and Manufactures, 1,350,230 



All other families, 612,488 



2,941,383 

 The Liverpool and Manchester Rail Road saves 

 nearly £250,000 annually, or about $1,000,000 in 

 cheapness alone, over cost of old modes of car- 

 riage. 



The British Government spent from 1805 to 1814, 

 ten years, more than eight hundred millions ster- 

 ling": or $4,000,000,000 ! ! ! 



] The National defence of Great Britain, from 

 1 J814 to 1833, cost more than $5,000,000,000 ! ! 63 

 j per cent, in 14 years, 1800 — 1814 ; 37 per cent, in 

 22 years of peace, is peace worth having at that 

 rate; — is national life worth it even .'' 



Civir.iziTioN OR What.' Tiie British Govern- 

 ment spends for Army, Navy and Ordnance, $60,- 

 000,000 a year. The ten Universities of 3 king- 

 doms spend $4,000,000 a year : — balance in favor 

 of battles, versus l)ooks, 56 millions dollars. The 

 funds devoted to education amount to 7 millions 

 annually, but much is perverted from i(,s intended 

 use. 17,000 jjersons are on books of universities ; 

 on books of army, about 100,000; of navy, abouj, 

 36,000. — London •SUUislieal Jonrnat. 



Fur tlin Farmer's iMniiUily Visitor. 



Mr. Hill : — In your two last numbers you have 

 favourc d us with the experiments of two of your 

 subscribers in the raising of potatoes. I took si.t- 

 ty potatoes of about equal size, and weighing in all 

 thirty pounds, and planted them in the following 

 manner : 



In 30 hills, one whole potatoe in each hill. 



Seed, 15 lbs. 



Crop, 176 lbs. 



In 30 hills, two thirds of a potatoe in each hill, 

 the butt ends. 



Seed, 10 lbs. 



Crop. 152 lbs. 



In tliirty hills, one third of a potatoe in each hill, 

 the seed ends. 



Seed, 5 Uis. 



Crop, 144 lbs. 



Tiic first thirty liills produced the largest pota- 

 toes, and a mucli greater proportion of small ones ; 

 this I think is inconsequence of the slioots from 

 the seed end of tlie potatoe starting first, and re- 

 taining the advantage thus gained. 



The potatoes of tlie remaining sixty hills were a- 

 bout middling sized, and very ii3W small ones. 

 Yours respectfully, 



WM. IIASWELL. 



Bennington, Vt., April 30, 1840. 



"Cunning is the legitimate offspring of false- 

 hood, and ever merits reprobation and contempt. I 

 know of no person more generally feared, shunned 

 and despised, than one who has acquired the repu- 

 tation of being cunning. He is generally compar- 

 ed to a snake in the j:rass, which slide unseen a- 

 round your oath, and, without giving you the op- 

 portunity of escape or defence, is re'ady to make 

 yoa the victim of his selfishnes or spleen. If you 

 would not leave tiie image of the serpent stamped 

 upon the character of your child, be careful to 

 eheck in him every tendency to cunning." 



Peter Parlcij. 



TiMDER i."J THE HiGiiLANns. — It appears from 

 late Scottish journals that one of the proprietors of 

 forest land in the Highlands, which a few years 

 since was almost unavailable, has lately sold off his 

 wood for £10,000, and another for £5,300. The 

 Duke of Gordon, some 50 years ago, sold the 

 Glenmore Forest for £10,000, and this is said to be 

 now worth treble the sum. Previous to that date 

 the Laird of Grant sold his at 30 pence (say 27 1-2 

 cents) lijr wliat one man coiiKl cut and carry in a 

 vear. This revolution is the fruit of steam ! 



Potatoes. — Newell Moore of Holden, in a com- 

 munication to the Yankee Farmer, makes the fol- 

 lowing statement: 



In the fall of 1838 I broke up three acres and a 

 half of pasture land, which had been pastured for 

 a considerable number of years, and was good pas- 

 turing. Last spring 1 plou^jiied it once, and har- 

 rowed it once, then planted about seventy bushels 

 of potatoes in drills about three feet and a half a- 

 part, placing the hills near two feet apart. I put 

 into each hill a spoonful of plaster, which was all 

 the manure I used. I planted good sized potatoes 

 without cutting, hoed them once, and harvested 

 from three and a halfacres 1,150 bushels of as good 

 potatoes as I ever raised, averaging 3284-7 bushels 

 per acre. I planted three kinds of potatoes, viz : 

 Peach-blows, Early VV hite, and Purple. The Peach- 

 blows produced the greatest yield. I planted ten 

 bushels of those and harvested from tirem 20S bush- 

 els. The soil was clayey loam, and the season un- 

 favorable for potatoes. 



La.vd Sales. — It -appears, tVoin the annual re- 

 port of the General Land Commission"r, an ab- 

 stract of which is given in the Baltimore Ameri- 

 can, that during the year ending December 31, 

 1838, the quantity of Public Lands sold aniounted.l 

 to 3,414,907 acres, the purchase . money of which 

 was $4, 305, .564. During the first and second quar- | 

 ters of the year 1830, the number of acrei sold was , 

 3,771,9r»4, and the purchase money for the same a- I 

 mounted to $4,768,952. " " i 



The sales for one half of the year 1839'exCi'eded | 

 those of the whole preceding year. The year 1336, 

 was distinguished for the large ainount of sales of 

 public lands. The entire proceeds for that year from 

 this source amounted to more than twenty-five rail- 

 lions of dollars, being about six times as great as 

 the amount received in 1833, and probably five 

 times as great as that received in 1339. 



The quantity of land to be surveyed and brought 

 into the market in 1S40, '41, is nearly fifteen mil- 

 lion nine hundred thousand acres. — .V. Y. Post 



Nineteen days absence on a journey from 

 North to South. 



Having spent nearly half of the time from Jan- 

 uary 1829 to June 1836 at tlie seat of the National 

 Government, and h-iving been elected a dele2:ate 

 to one of the National political Conventions holden 

 at Baltimore on the first week of May, the editor 

 of the Visitor readily embraced an opportunity to 

 see the country and witness the progress of in*- 

 provenient or dilapidation. 



It is worthy of remark, thatsince he has become 

 a writer on the subject of Agriculture in the col- 

 ums of a monthly sheet, he feels a greatly increas- - 

 ed desire to search out objects of curiosity in the 

 productions of the earth, and to find out and trace 

 to its source the sure path by which man may 

 start on the journey of life, increasing his estate 

 and his means of living at every step as he ad- 

 vances. 



Although a political object was at the bottom of • 

 our movement, that was by no means during the 

 time of travel the engrossing topic of our thoughts. 

 Vegetation was just springing from the ground; 

 and it was a matter of great and absorbing interest 

 to be able to trace the why and the wherefore of 

 the difllTenoe in the fertility of different grounds, 

 to speculate on what was wanted to convert the bar- 

 ren into the fruitful field, and to assign causes for 

 the earlier spring of vegetation at some points than 

 others. 



Diflference of climate. 



The belt of ground between Concord, the seat 

 of government of New Hainp.shire, and Washing- 

 ton the seat of government of the Nation, covers 

 between six anil seven degrees, or from latitude 37 

 to 43 degrees North. The diflference in the cli- 

 mate, making allowance for the three days time in 

 passing, would seem, to be just about one full 

 month between the two places. This, however, 

 may not give the a.ccuratc idea of the true differ- 

 ence, because it frequently occurs, that while the 

 whole face of the earth at the north point is bound 

 up under cover of frost and snow, vegetation 

 springs at the south point in nearly every month 

 of winter. While at Concord, sometimes from the 

 month of November until the month of April, the 

 ice is congealed in the Merrimack from one foot to 

 twenty inches in depth and the wliole surface of 

 the earth is like an impenetrable rock to the depth 

 sometimes of two feet, it frequently happens that 

 the Potomac at Washington is not frozen at all 

 during the winter; and seldom is there sufiieient 

 frost in the ground for a single week to make a bot- 

 tom for good sleighing. 



Again, to show Iiow much depends upon eleva- 

 tion, or contiguity or distance from the salt water 

 as to the mildness or severity of our winters, we 

 need only revert to the fact that at Worcester, one 

 degree due south of Concord, there fell and re- 

 mained on the ground double the quantity of snow 

 during the last winter in the first place as in the 

 last; the one being situated near the heighiof land 

 between the rivers, and the other in the valley of 

 the river itself. On the same height of land one 

 hundred and more miles south of Concord in the 

 State of Connecticut, on the 24tli April, the grass 

 had not sprung so much out of the ground as at 

 the north point in the vallies upon the river. 



Thursday, .i/iril 23. — Left Concord in the morn- 

 ing : for not more than a week previous had any 

 thintr green apjieared upon the surface except tiie 

 evergreen trees and shrubs of winter. The grass 

 on the south or sunny side of a declivity had begun 

 its vernal exhibition. Approaching near Boston 

 the same day, the difference seemed to be at least 

 a fortnight in favor of the latter. 



Unexpected preparation for National de- 

 fence. 



Friday, Jlpril 24. — Having tarried with a friend 

 who is keeper of the United States Arsenal at Wa- 

 tertown, was agreeably disappointed at witnessing 

 the magnitude of the preparations there made for 

 the defence of the country in case of war. The 

 Arsenal is situated on the margin of Charles river 

 nearly opposite Winship's celebrated Gardens in 

 Brighton, through which the Boston and Worces- 

 torrailroad passes too far depressed in the earth to 

 witness t!ie surrounding scenery. From the ele- 

 gant plat of ground ov/ned by the government 

 upon which stand the exten.?ive buildings attached 

 to the Arsenal covering a hollow square, may be 

 seen several beautifully smooth swells of land, 

 covered with fruit and ornamental trees and with 

 well cultivated fields and gardens, in Brookline, 

 Brighton and Newton on the south side of Charles 

 river. 



The quantity of munitions of v.'ar at this Arsenal 

 consisting of mortars, field artillery, cannon balls. 



