406 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 14, 1626. 



ence and information. They may be of some use 

 to gentlemen who, being in situations to raise 

 their own vegetahle.s, must desire to have them ot 

 the most delicate flavour, for the gratification of 

 themselves, their families and friends. 



The object of the market gardener is, to raise 

 the greatest quantity, on a given space of ground. 

 He, therefore, is very liberal in the application of 

 manure, which is furnished most abundantly from 

 the stables of the towns which they supply with 

 vegetables. These will be large and handsome, 

 and meet with a ready sale ; while, in my estima- 

 tion, a vast portion of them are fit only for domes- 

 tic animals. During the many years I resided in 

 Philadelphia, I seldom tasted a cabbage ; having, 

 after many trials, found that vegetable ill-flavour- 

 ed, sometimes even to rankness. For the same 

 reason, I became indifferent to asparagus ; and 

 sometimes wholly rejected it, because ill-flavour- 

 ed, from the too ample use of rank stable manure. 

 I never tasted a good niuskmelon that was raised 

 in a hot bed, and forced to ripeness by stable ma- 

 nure. Some, indeed, have been so ordinary that I 

 have forborne to partake of them. Yet I am not 

 squeamish. With a firm constitution and vigor- 

 ous health, I could at any time subsist on the 

 coarsest and meanest food. 



Upwards of fifty years ago, an observing towns- 

 man of mine gave me the following information. 

 He took two cabbages, one of which was raised in 

 his garden, manured every spring from his stable, 

 the other in an open, airy field moderately manur- 

 ed. The two cabbages were boiled in separate 

 pots ; and the water, as he had directed, remain- 

 ed in the pots till the next morning. That in which 

 the field cabbage grew was sweet; the other rank 

 and disgusting. Leaving out of the question the 

 matter of taste, which cabbage would you pro- 

 nounce most wholesome ? 



I discriminate among culinary vegetables. Those 

 which are the immediate offspring of the rank soil, 

 as cabbages, cauliflowers, and asparagus, will suf- 

 fer contamination : while green peas, on the same 

 soil, may please the palate. But the food of peas 

 gives growth first to the vine ; from the vine, the 

 sap passes by a slender neck of fine strainers, and 

 forms the pod ; from the pod, each pea, by a neck 

 still more slender, and doubtless still finer strain- 

 ers, receives its growth ; and thus purified, (per- 

 spiration going on during these processes,)becomes 

 a grateful food. Yet even green peas would be 

 more delicious, if grown on a soil sufficiently rich 

 by the application of other manures, or of which 

 the ran];ness had been dissipated during the 

 growth of some other crop in the preceding 

 year. In the year 1787 I went to live at Wyoming, 

 now Wilkesbarre. I had purchased a lot which 

 had not been cropped for many years, and proba- 

 bly never manured. The tender turf was turned 

 under with a spade, and so completely, that not a 

 blade of grass appeared on the surface. In the first 

 week in May, early Charlton and green marrow- 

 fat peas were planted, in beds side by side. The 

 first produced very fine green peas; but the mar- 

 rowfats were superlatively delicate and rich. — 

 Some peas of each sort ripened on the vines ; and 

 were saved to plant the ensuing year. These gave 

 me unlocked for, but important information. In 

 the spring of 1788, I took both parcels into my 

 garden to plant. Opening the little bag of early 

 Charltons, I fond them,as I had expected,swarming 

 with bugs ; but I knew that the germs of buggy 

 peas were not destroyed. I then opened the bag of 

 marrowfats, where to my surprise, there was not a 



single bug. I recollected that the marrowfat vines ( 

 of the preceding year, furnished no peas until the 

 early Charltons were gone. The inference was 

 obvious ; the flight of the pea-bug — the season for 

 depositing its eggs — was passed before the pods 

 of the marrowfats were formed. This fact furnish- 

 ed me with a rule for sowing the common white 

 field pea, the same year. I delayed sowing until 

 the latter part of May ; and harvested a crop of 

 ripe peas perfectly free from bugs. The next 

 year, I repealed the same experiment, with the 

 same succes.^. But these crops were small ; for 

 the land was poor, and the extreme heat of June 

 in that vale (latitude 41^ 13') pinched the vines. — 

 The third year, I chose a piece of good and moist 

 intervale, or bottom land,u'liich yielded a full crop, 

 and free from bugs. 



About thirty years ago, I went to see the garden 

 of Mr Clifton, near the Navy yard, Philadelphia. 

 It abounded in various fruits — plums, peaches, cur- 

 rants, gooseberries, &c. Seeing several sorts of 

 gooseberry bushes loaded with fruit, and all grow- 

 ing in tlie shade of fruit trees — I asked Mr Clifton 

 if a more open exposure would not be better ? He 

 answered — " Gooseberries love the shade." Mr 

 Clifton was then an old man, of much experience 

 in gardening. At a subsequent period, learning 

 that Lancaster county, in England, surpassed all 

 other parts of the island, in the variety and excel- 

 lence of its gooseberries, Mr Clifton's remark oc- 

 curred to me : and I supposed that in the shade, in 

 a Philadelphia garden, tlic air would be even 

 warmer than the atmosphere of Lancashire. Af- 

 ter my return to Massachusetts, I obtained one sort 

 of Mr Clifton's gooseberries, and planted them in 

 my garden ; and near them stuck a few slips of 

 ozier, which I had brought from New Jersey, in- 

 tending to remove them in a year or two ; but I 

 neglected them. They grew luxuriantly, and bur- 

 ied the gooseberries in their shade, and among 

 some of their vigorous shoots ; yet the gooseber- 

 ries were much superior to what they were after- 

 wards, when the oziers were removed. 



Your horticultural address suggested several 

 other things, which I may communicate, when I 

 find leisure. In the mean time, I remain, 

 Dear sir. 

 Your obliged and obed't serv't, 



T. PICKERING. 

 Da David Hosack. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1826. 



ECONOMICAL MEMORANDA. 



SKIPPERS, BUGS, &C. 



Elder juice will destroy skippers in cheese, bacon 

 &c. Some say, that an infusion or decoction of 

 chler is a remedy against bugs and other insects, 

 which infest cucumber vines, &.c. Try and see. 



MUSqUETOES. 



Oil of pennyroyal, diluted a little with water, 

 rubbed over the hands and face, it is said will pre- 

 serve against the bite of musquutoes. 



LIME 



Will destroy sorrel. Sorrel is acid ; lime is an 

 alkaline earth; ergo the latter will kill the former. 



CORING TAI.NTED MEAT. 



Meat which has been kept too long in summer 

 may be ileprive<l of its bad smell by putting it in 

 water, and throwing into the pot, when beginning 



to boil, a shovel full of live coals, destitute of 

 smoke ; after a few minutes have elapsed the wa- 

 ter must be changed, when the operation, If nec- 

 essary may be repeated. 



PRESERVING BACON EV CHARCOAL. 



Take a tierce or box and cover the bottom with 

 charcoal, reduced to small pieces, but not to dust : 

 cover the legs or pieces of meat with stout brown 

 paper, sewed round so as to exclude all dust — lay 

 them down on the coal in compact order — then 

 cover the layer with coal, and so on till your busi- 

 ness is done, and cover the top with a good tiiick- 

 ness of coal. — The use of charcoal, properly pre- 

 pared in boxes, is of great benefit in preserving 

 fresh provisions, butter and fruits in warm weath- 

 er ; also in recovering meats of any kind when 

 partially damiged, by covering the same a few 

 hours in the coal. 



FOR THE MEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Extracts from " Essays on Field Hushandry, 

 wrote from a Journal of thirty years' erptrience." 

 By the Rev. Dr. J.krkd Eliot, o/ Killingsworth, 

 Conn. Boston, printed and sold by Edes Sf Gill, 

 in Qiffp?! street, 17G0." 



CUTTING BUSHES, &C. 



I was told by an experienced farmer, that if you 

 girdle trees, or cut brush in the montlis of May 

 June and July, in the old of the moon, that day 

 t!ie sign removes out of the foot into the head, es- 

 pecially if the day be cloudy, it will kill almost all 

 before it, they will bleed, he said in a cloudy day, 

 for tlie hot sun dries up the sap." 



" In my fourth essay, I informed the reader I 

 was in hopes, that I had found certain limes for 

 culling bushes, which would be more effectual for 

 their destruction llian any yet discovered ; that if 

 I found it so 1 would give notice of it in my ne.xt : 

 I am glad I am able to perform that promise : the 

 times are in the months of June, July and August, 

 in the old moon that day the sign is in the heart. 

 It win not always happen every month ; it happen- 

 ed so but once this year, and that proves to be on 

 Sunday. Last year, in June or July, I foro-et 

 which, I sent a man to make trial : in going to the 

 place, some of the neighbors understanding by him 

 the business he was going about, and the reason 

 of his going at that point of lime, they also went 

 to their land, and cut bushes also on tliat day ; 

 theirs were tall bushes that had never been cut ; 

 mine were short bushes such as had often been 

 cut to no purpose, without it was to increase their 

 number. The consequence was, that in every 

 place it killed so universally that there is not left 

 alive scarcely one in an hundred. The trial was 



made in tliree or four places on that same day. 



In July or August on the critical day, another 

 swamp was cut, the brush was the greatest part of 

 it, swamp button wood, the most difficult to sub- 

 due of any wood I know; I have been lately to 

 see it, and find the destruction of these bushes is 

 not so universal as among alders and other sorts 

 of growth ; it is hard to say how many remain 

 alive, it may be one third or a quarter part ; all 

 that I can say with certainty, is that they are now 

 few, compared with what there were last year ; I 

 did not know but tliat those which are alive, might 

 be such as came up since ; but upon examination 

 I f:)und the last ye.ir's slumps, and could plainly 

 see where they liad been cut off": this was not be- 

 cause the season was better when there was suc- 

 cess, for in this last mentioned piece of swamp, 



