1825.] 



NEW ENGLAND FA TIMER. 



37 



this truly innocent one ; :ind wlule it affords ;i 

 present enjoyment, awakeHS the hope of more 

 in future." How excellent the art, '■ which en- 

 ables us to collect from all quarters of the world 

 (climate not forbidding) the most choice fruits, 

 and plant them on stocks hardy and mature ; ca- 

 pable of affording as much fruit in two or three 

 years, as the seeds would yield in a dozen or 

 more. And who can deny, from nur present im- 

 perfect knowledge of grafting, and the hardy hy- 

 brids, producible thereby, but that frees destin- 

 ed to eternal barrenness, may be burthened with 

 the produce of the Palm, the Olive, and the 

 bread fruit? We have seen the peach blossom 

 as the rose ; apd with our present knowledge ol 

 the principles of ingrafting, it is practicable for 

 «very moderate farmer, by devoting to the ex- 

 ercise of this art, the lime he in wont to sacri- 

 iSce to inglorious sloth, or to criminal amusement, 

 to create a Paradise of fruits and flowers, where 

 thorns and briars now grow but to curse the 

 land." 



GREEN MOUNTAIN CALF. 

 A cerrespondcnt, who has lately visited Ver- 

 mont, inlorms us that he suw at Plymouth in 

 thai slate, on the farm of Capt. Moses Pollard, 

 a calf eleven months old, that measured seven j 

 feet long, four feet three inches high, and " girt- 

 ed" five feet and three inches. Capt. Pollan] 

 ia well-known in that region for his good hus- 

 bandry and his dairy of tifty cows. — Hamp. Gaz. 



INSECTS. 

 It seems that the English farmers have as 

 many troubles from insects, &:c. as those of 

 America. The London Liteiary Gazette of June 

 18, mentions cold and drying winds, blights, and 

 in&ects. One species of moth or saw-fly cuts uff 

 a "reat many apple blossoms ; peach trees are 

 injured by the black and white a[ihides, and by 

 a glutinous suiiilance that exudes from the tree. 

 " Tbe aphides" says the Gazette " may be kill- 

 ed by watering with strong lime water, or to- 

 bacco juice ; but the wrinkled leaves and glut- 

 inous matter remain, and the best gardeners are 

 puzzled in a rise of this kind. Some pick off 

 the leaves, others cut out ttie shoots." — ibid. 



WHEAT. 

 A New York pappr stales that Mr. Humphry 

 Howland, of Scipio. Cayuga County, has raised 

 the present season 7G5 acres of wheat, which it 

 is supposed will produce 19,125 bushels. 



BRICK MAKING EXPLOITS. 

 The Pitlstield Sun gives accounts of tliree 

 exploits at Brickmaking in that place during 

 the late hot weather. On the 16lh .)uly, it ap- 

 pears, that 6 workmen in the yard of Messrs. 

 Jeffords and Co. prepared the clay, struck and 

 laid in the yard 20,756 bricks. This exploit 

 iiaving been announced as '■'•A great day's work,'''' 

 and Brickmakers called upon to beat it if they 

 could, on the SUth July three men who are nam- 

 «d shoveled the mortars, struck and laid od (he 

 yard, 12,300 bricks, without any boasting. On 

 the 4lh August, three other men, -also named, 

 shoveled the mortar from the pits, moulded and 

 laid on the yard of Mess. Morton and Francis, 

 12,183 bricks, between sunrise and an Lour be- 

 fore suaaet ; and these last have annouDced that 



it any other exploit is attempted, and the num- 

 ber of bricks made does not exceed 15000, they 

 will again try their hand at quick work. Such 

 emulation does credit to the country. 



CAST IRON PLOUGH. 

 Mr Feleg Barlow, of Amenia, in this county 

 has invented a model for a cast iron plough, 

 beam and handle, which he is confident will be 

 of great utility to the farming interest. The 

 beam and handle being cast hollow, will weigh 

 but little more than those of wood, and their 

 strength will be sufficient beyond a doubt. One 

 of these )>looghs may d. -^oend trom father to son 

 ihrough miny successive generations, before 

 worn out; and then will furnish the material, 

 with a small addition, lor making an entire new 

 one. The share to be cast separate, and in a 

 manner to be sharpened or replaced by a nevv 

 one when necessary. There can be lU) doubt 

 tiut that iron will, in a li(tle time, occupy the 

 place of wood in a great variety of uses, and to 

 an extent at present but little imagined. 



Poughkeeptic paper. 



A child in Upper Canada, bit hy a mad dog, 

 and exhibiting the usual appearance in the suh- 

 lingural glands, has been perfectly restored, by 

 the careful and repealed applications of the 

 lancet and caustic to the pimples and tumours 

 beneath the tongue. These tumours made their 

 appearance on the evening of the tenth day 

 after the bite, and were immediately discharged 

 by the lancet. The same process on every re- 

 appearance of the tumours, produced a cure of 

 this alarming disease in about a week. 



JV. Y. Slalesman. 

 OiT-The process alluded to above may be found 

 lu the New England Farmer, vol. iii. page 380. 



Peaches are selling at a shilling a piece in N. 

 York: in our market, very line ones may be had 

 at a cent a piece. In New-York the best new 

 Milk is selling at three cents a quart — here it 

 costs four and five cents. — Phil. pa. 



From the Thomaston Register. 



WHITE WEED. 

 Mr. Editor, — At the time the complaiflts of 

 a Middlesex Farmer against white weed, togeth- 

 er with the remarks of the Editor of the N. E. 

 Farmer, appeared in your paper, I was too bu- 

 sily employed in cutting and curing that val- 

 uable grass to think of taking up the pen in its 

 defence ; and 1 was not without hopes, that some 

 abler hand would have done it before this time, 

 and saved mine from the necessity of attempting 

 it, stiffened as it is, ivith labor. As nothing of 

 the kind has appeared, however, you will per- 

 mit me to call the ittention of your readers to 

 a production, which, notwithstanding its humor, 

 betrays a degree of prejudice on the subject, 

 which is truly surprising to farmers in thisquar 

 ter, and would be wholly unaccouutable, did we 

 not know that prejudices like other weeds, a- 

 bound most in old settled places; and that, like 

 the plant in question, they sometimes spring up 

 in our good old parent state, even under the 

 walls of her enlightened metropolis, and grow, 

 and bloom, and spread, in spite of ber learned 

 universities, agricultural societies, and far iain- 

 ed periodical publications. 



Get rid (if white weed ! Get rid of clover and 

 live. But to destroy your white weed is to des'- 

 troy your last hope. It i."? the last resource of 

 an im[)overished soil ; and when other grasses 

 have failed, you can still for years cut a tolera- 

 ble crop of this, H ben otherwise you would have 

 nothing but johnswort, mouse-ear oi nothing at 

 all. To extirpate white weed in this country, 

 would be as wise as to expel tobacco from Vir- 

 ginia, cotton from the Mississippi states, or tha 

 sugar cane from the West Indies. I hazard little 

 in saying that one third of all the hay made in 

 this vicinity consists of white weed, and that 

 this is by no means the least valuable part. 



Some 30 er 40 years ago, a similar prejudice 

 against this plant prevailed here, though I have 

 never learned that it extended to the horses, as 

 it seems to have done in Massachusetts. An es- . 

 act and careful farmer at that time in a neigh- 

 boring town, was so alarmed at the strides this 

 plant was making, that he used to send his boys 

 over all his grass ground to gather up the while 

 weed as its blossoms appeared, and cast it into 

 the fire. Nature, however treated him as the 

 indulgent mother does her little urchin, who, 

 long accustomed to rags and tatters, refuses to 

 have on a new suit. She beguiled him with the 

 silver blossoms, (he was a lover of silver) as the 

 mother shows the buttons on the new clothes ; 

 she withdrew his crops of other grasses one af- 

 ter another; and, half persuaded, half compel- 

 led, he at last suffered his fields to be clad in this 

 new garment. His sons (for the old gentleman 

 is not living) are now among the warm friends 

 of white weed. 



It is really inexplicable what can have induc- 

 ed this writer, at this late day, in the full rays 

 of agricultural illumination, to renew the old 

 hue and cry against white weed. Verily, I can 

 attribute it to nothing but its unfortunate name. 

 Like Don Quixote, he has perhaps had his en» 

 thusiasm excited by his books upon husbandry, 

 has sallied forth in quest of adventures, Jind is 

 resolved to attack something ander the name of 

 an enemy, though it be but an innocent flock of 

 sheep. Like Hannibal, he may have been made 

 in his childhood, to swear eternal hostility to 

 weeds; and like the Romans with regard to Tar- 

 quinius, is determined to banish every thing 

 that goes by that name. Had he known this 

 vegetable only by reading, and under its botan- 

 ic name; had he been obliged at great expense 

 to import its seed from Birinah or Japan; he 

 might perhaps have claimed great merit in iu- 

 troducing a competitor of burnet and lucerne, 

 and called on farmers to renounce their preju- 

 dices in favor of clover and red-top, and covec 

 their fields with the prolific flowers Chrysanthe- 

 mum Lencanthemum. 



The philosophic definition of a weed is noth- 

 ing but a plant out of its proper place; and the 

 same vegetable may be a weed in one field and 

 a crop in the next. There is nothing specific 

 in the name that should entitle it to universal 

 execration. It is the business of the husband- 

 man to ascertain the qualities of the several 

 plants which nature bestows, and select those for 

 cultivation that yield the greaipst profit, wheth- 

 er ;hey are called weeds, heriis, grass or grain. 

 If nettles have been found a good substitute for 

 hemp, why may not white weed be for clover? 

 Experience has con* inced me that there are few 

 plants indeed, which if cut in seasirn a:id prop- 

 erly cured, will not be readily devoured by cat- . 



