Vol. IV. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



!y particularly under favourable circumstances, 

 increasing one, two, and sometimes even three 

 hundred per cent, annually. Our hills and valleys 

 are enamelled with flowers, on which they can 

 feed during six months of the year ; and our or- 

 ciiards, our wood-lands, and even our cultivatW 

 fields, afford many products from which they may 

 gather their delicious harvest, and abundantly 

 store the mellifluent hive. 



It is said that our summers are not sufliciently 

 long to allow the bees, with all their industry, to 

 lay in a suflicient stock of food for the long winter. 

 This is not the fact ; for if properly treated, they 

 require, at most but a mere trifle, or none at all. — 

 It is a wellknov.-n trutli that the bee, as many other 

 insects, is rendered torpid by a certain degree of 

 cold, and will continue inthis state for a long time 

 without injury ; ami while tlie powers of animation 

 are thus suspended, no food can be, nor is it ne- 

 cessary that it should be, taken by the insect. If, 

 then, alter the season of making honey is past, say 



395 



I CARDING OF WOOL. 



Merino wool, eitlier partly or full blooded, has a 

 gnm adhering to it near the root, or next to the 



jsl;in of the animal. Tlus gum nmst be cleared oif 



j before the cards will afford good rolls. 



Kecipe. —MiK one pail of stale chamberlye with 

 ■I pails full of soft water, heat this mi.xture as hot 

 as you can bear your liand in ; turn it into a cistern 



] or tub sutKcient to hold fifty pounds of wool ; stir 

 the wool tiioroughly with a stick till the gum is 

 disengaged, then put the wool into a basket and 

 rin.'-e it clean witli water. 



Too much oil or grease often renders it impossi- 

 ble tor the carder to make good rolls, — To eight 

 pou.ids of wool u.-5e one pound of grease, free from 



j salt or other impurities ; or to ten pounds of wool, 

 one pound of pure spermaceti oil. 



Memoranda from Lewis and Clark's expedition. 

 In the Missouri below where Soldier's River en- 

 ters it, there is a bend in the river of twelve miles, 



in November, the hives be placed in a situation i ». , /. , . , 



sufliciently cold to stupify the bees, and they be ! '""'= ^; '^''^ '^'^ ^/""' P°'"t^' """ '='^''■'"'=6 is only 



kept thus until the opening of Spring, not an ounce 

 of honey would be consumed during the whole 

 Winter, for their support. 



But it may be asked, how can this be done in 

 our variable climate ? By having a proper vault 

 or cellar constructed in the vicinity, or under the 

 bee-house, fitted with suitable shelves, or niches, 

 where to place the hives, and in which a quantity 

 of ice has been previously deposited. Thus a uni- 

 form temperature may be preserved, not so cold as 

 to kill or injure the bees, nor yet so warm as to 

 quicken their dormant vital powers. Something 

 similar to this is said to have been tried with full 

 success ; and indeed there seems to be no good 

 reason for distrusting the feasibleness of the plan. 

 There are certainly many inducements at present, 

 for our farmers to give more attention to this sub- 

 ject than has been of late. Among these a prin- 

 cipal one is the trifling care, and still less expense 

 that is required to give them an abundant supply 

 of a luscious and useful article of domestic con- 

 sumption, and even an important commodity for 

 commerce. [Worcester Yeoman.] 



MAPLE TREE. 

 The beauty of our domestic maple has long been 

 acknowledged, having obtained a conspicuous 

 place in the ornamental finish of our fancy articles 

 of furniture. It is known to be susceptible of as 

 fine a polish as any wood ; and we are glad to be 

 informed — we hope from good authority — that it 

 is even in New York superseding, by the decree 

 of fashion, and of course by the common consent 

 of taste, the use of mahogany. It is said that the 

 maple is now beginning to be generally adopted in 

 the manufacture of our tables and chairs, and also 

 in finishing the interior of our most costly build- 

 ings. We know nothing more beautiful than some 

 of the specimens of the c\irled maple, which we 

 have seen worked up in ladies' work stands ; and 

 it will be a fit subject of congratulation, when we 

 may bo allowed, without disobedience to good 

 taste, to go to our forests, in preference to tliose 

 of St. Domingo, for the materials of beauty and 

 comfort. [National Journal.] 



Justice Abbot, lately in the Court of King's 

 Bench, England, decided, and laid it down as law, 

 that a tenant has no right to remove the trees and 

 shrubs he had planted on the premises he occu- 

 pied. 



three hundred and seventy-five yards, 

 I Below Fort Charles there is a bend of eighteen 

 ( miles and three quarters : by land 974 yards. 

 '' The distance across the great bend of the Mis- 

 souri is 2000 yards ; the circuit by water is thirty 

 I miles. 



The animals along the Missouri are elk, buffa- 

 loes, and deer in immense herds. Antelopes and 

 beaver are in great numbers. 



An antelope measured five feet three inches 

 from the hoof to the shoulder. 



A white bear weighed three hnudred pounds, a 

 brown bear between five and six hundred pounds, 

 nd measured eight feet seven inches from the 

 nose to the extremity of the hind feet. 



The bag of a pelican which they shot held five 

 gallons. 



Just below Cedar Island on a hill to the south, 

 is the backbone of a fish forty-five feet long, in a 

 perfect state of petrifaction. 



At tlie mouth of the Columbia river, there were 

 pine trees of eight or ten feet in diameter and 

 one hundred feet high ; others of twelve feet di- 

 ameter and two hundred feet high. [Nat. Journal.] 



Wholesome Advice. — The editor of the Hamilton 

 (Ohio) Advertiser says, after noticing the injury 

 done to a building by the lightning, " the first 

 thing after a man has built himself a house, should 

 be to procure a security against lightning." But as 

 fires are less often caused by "touch etherial," 

 than by carelessness, accident or design, we take 

 the liberty of recommending in addition to the 

 lightning rod, a good sound policy of insurance. — 

 In the building way this is certainly one of " the 

 best policies," — the rod may act as a preventive to 

 one kind of evil, but the insurance is a happy and 

 effective remedy for all. 



THE WEATHER. 

 It was two weeks, yesterday, since the raina 

 began to descend upon the parched and thirsty 

 earth, and it has rained, more or less, nearly every 

 day since. The weather is warm, and the eflec 

 which has been pioduced upon veget.-ition is mos 

 wonderful. The grass which lately looked so 

 miserably appears now yielding, if not cut too 

 hastily, nearly a middling crop. Corn and the 

 small grains look well, and we may reasonably 

 anticipate, with proper economy, a supply for all 

 the wants both of man and beast. [Mass. Spy.] 



saga:;ity of a dog. 



On Saturday las,, a boy of Mr John Hawkes, Jr. 

 about 8 years of are, wi)ile playing in a gondola 

 near Chase's mils, fell overboard. His dog, a 

 water spaniel, immediately without being told, 

 jumped in and dragged him on shore ; no person 

 being near, the hoy must have been drowned had 

 it not been for the dog. [Lynn Mirror.] 



OHIO. 



It is estimated that the annual harvest of grahi 

 of all descriptions in Ohio is more than ."iO mill- 

 ions of bushels. — It is calculated that 125 miles 

 of the Ohio canals will be completed early in the 

 summer of 1827. The extent of both canals is 

 370 miles. One will extend from Cleaveland on 

 Lake Erie to the Ohio river ; the other from Cin- 

 cinnati to Dayton on the Great Miami. [Ham.Gaz.] 



Ilay has recently been sold in Philadelphia at 

 the rate of forty dollars per ton. 



CANAL MEDALS. 



The corporation of New- York have caused a 

 number of medals to be struck to commemorate 

 the completion of the Western Canal, and trans- 

 mitted to Messrs. Adams, Carroll, and Jefferson, 

 the three surviving signers of the Declaration of 

 Independence. Each of those gentlemen have 

 sent a letter of acknowledgement to the Corpora- 

 tion. 



TREES. 



The largest tree in England seems to be on the 

 estate of LaAy Stourton in Yorkshire, which, in 

 171G, was nearly 85 feet in height, 48 feet in cir- 

 c uinference, at a yard from the surface, and 78 ft. 

 in circumfefence, when measured close to the 

 ground. 



Virginia. — The Agricultural Society of Albe- 

 marle liave announced a second Agricultural Cat- 

 tle Show and exhibitiori, in Charlottesville or its 

 vicinity, on the 2(jtli and 27th of October next, and 

 offer a variety of premiums, the aggregate amount 

 of which exceeds .$'300. 



We are informed by the Nantucket Inquirer 

 that in the year 1820 there were more than five 

 hundred persons in the townof Nantucket bearing 

 the name of Coffin, all probably the decendants of 

 Tristram Coffin, who settled in this country about, 

 the year 1044. 



It is stated in a late London paper, that .3500 

 guineas were lately refused for Lord Lowther's 

 celebrated horse Monarch. 



Application is to be made to the New- York 

 Legislature at the next session, for leave to build 

 a McAdamized turnpike road from Albauy to Troy. 



The following fact, copied from tlio Hampshire 

 Gazette, is a confirmation of Mr Pierce's method 

 of preparing seed corn, first published in the New 

 England Farmer : 



" Mr Ralph Owen, of Belchertown, in May last, 

 planted 3 or 4 acres with corn which had been 

 soaked in copperas water ; the seed came ud "'"" 

 and not a plant was destroyed by worms. An aa- 

 joining field, planted with corn which had not been 

 steeped, was very much injured." 



