®l)c jTarmcr's illontljli) lUsitor. 



78 



to West CainliritlgB from Boston, has doubled 

 the price of land there witliiii the hist two yours. 

 The hiisiness ol IJoslon has grown, and its pop- 

 ulation is spreading as if by tinif^ic-, all out 

 of town. Rich or poor, the West Canibriiipe 

 hinds ato wanted for liouse lots. A part of the 

 Swan phioe frontinjj the htrjier f?py pond, a lot of 

 eloven acres between the Watertown road and 

 the pond, advertised in the Boston papers, was 

 qiate lately sol<l at ancliun at the rale of thirteen 

 hundred dollars the acre. It was laid ofT as for 

 house lots including' );ardens. The owner of 

 this place who, if he had not a trade besides be- 

 inj,' a farmer, had been considered really poor in 

 its possession, is satisfieil to sell his poorest elev- 

 en acres for more than a thousaiul dollars per 

 acre, with eighteen acres left on the upper side 

 of the way, still more valuable both for cidiiva- 

 tion or for prospect iti the erection of cottage 

 houses. This is a neighborhood where lands 

 overgrown since oirr recollection with whortle- 

 berry and barberiy bushes and savins have t)e- 

 coine worth from their better ini|irovetnent all of 

 the annual income of five huudre<l dollars to the 

 acre. 



A Suggestion for Keeping Cows. 



Six tons of fodder o.\ a.n acre. — The Gen- 

 liesee Farmer says that IMalcolm Little, Jr., (d 

 Tyre, N. Y., planted one acre of corn in drills, 

 two and a half by eight i'lclies apart. He plough- 

 ed between the rows tuici! with a shovel plough, 

 and harvested in the fall, six tons of fodder, coii- 

 sisiing of stalks with small nid>bins of corn on 

 them. He tied it into bimdles, aful let it stand 

 in the field till late in the fall. — J)liiinc Paper. 



It is a great lunsance in any village neighbor- 

 iiood to ttun cows upon the street: if the prac- 

 tice was not strictly contrary to law, it contradicts 

 all good neighborhood between tliose who do 

 and those who do not attempt to keep animals in 

 this way. The kindest, tnost docile ami inoffen- 

 sive cow, kept one year upon the highway, will 

 become unruly ami ungnverual>le. People s.iy 

 they nuist have milk^lhey caimot find pasturage 

 to liire, and consecpienily there is no resort but 

 the higliway. Hiding the whole length of our 

 village the other day, our modernte calculation 

 was that there were at least one hundrcil cows 

 in the street. If there are one humlred farrulies 

 in the village who mn>t keep cows upon the 

 street, it would seem that one hundred other 

 faunlies may consider themselves entitled to the 

 same privilege. The popular opinion and sym- 

 Ijathy for the street cows is much stronger here 

 than it is for the front yards and gardens upon 

 which these cows cotmnil their ilepredations. 



Without depredation ami injury to the private 

 rights and properly of irulividuals it is impossi- 

 ble that all the cows turned upon the road should 

 there find fee<l sufticient for their subsislance. — 

 The law which forbids the tm-ning of horses, 

 cattle au<l sheep upon the highway has existed 

 for years: the I'asy eidorcemement of this law 

 might make a man's fiehls safe if he did not 

 fence ag.iinst the road at all. In some towns of 

 Massachusetts tencing upon the roads is entirelv 

 dispensed with: last sunuuer we passed fields of 

 rye and corn in Northampton and Springfield in 

 flla.ssachusetts by the road-side where there was 

 no fence, not a spear or blade of which had been 

 touched by depredators from the road ; aiul this 

 where there was no obstacle between the road 

 and the field. 



The worst feature in road • pastm-age of cows 

 is, that with all the pojinlur disposition of iiinn- 

 kiud to favor the non-execuiiiin of the law, nol 

 even tlie honest poor man with one cow, can be 



the least gainer by the practice : every quart of 

 milk he id)tains in this way costs him or her uiiue 

 labor and vexation than would e.'irn two quarts 

 in some diflerent manner. If the poor (iimily 

 nuist keep a cow, the extract at the head of this 

 article will suggest how it may be done. We have 

 a plenty of laiul all around us, the use of whi(h 

 may be had wiili uiamue necessary to its cidtiva- 

 tion, for one half of the erop,or which may be hir- 

 ed at the rale of from one to four dollars per acre : 

 good land for cultivation maybe purchased with- 

 in a iiule and a half of oin- village from six to 

 ten dollars for the acre. Now of the poorest 

 land, one fourth of an acre, plauUMi with corn 

 any lime from May to July inclusive, may be 

 made to yield more sustenance ihnn two cows 

 will obtain both frotn the road and from steallh in 

 front yards, gardens and fields in a whole season. 

 The easiest and best way to procure food for 

 cows, both summer and winter, would be the 

 planting of corn in drills — cutting up and using 

 a part while it is green for summer and fall, and 

 hurvesiiiig and drying the other part for winter. 

 On land well prepared, corn for this use will 

 grow without lioting. Whole flocks of cows in 

 the vicinity of our cities are kept, being fed in 

 the yards, and Huiied into outer enclosures only 

 for healthy exercise. Passing the ftPLean Insane 

 Hospital in Somerville one mile out of Boston, 

 we have several limes noticed the flock of beau- 

 tiful cows kept in what is termed the soiling pro- 

 cess, being fi;d on green feed exclusively in the 

 yard. A single acre in clover, lucerne or other 

 grass fee<l will be suflncieut for several cows. In- 

 dian corn stalks will be preferable to any grass. 

 The manure saved will more than suffice for the 

 annual renovation of the laud necessary for the 

 creature's subsislencc. 



The Western Prairies and New England Hills. 



Then look at the manner in which milking 

 cows areolien managed. From ilie first ol x'\pril 

 to the miildle of May, according to latitude and 

 location, the prairie grass is ready f)r feeding; 

 and from lliat lime till Augusi, cattle have a boun- 

 lil'ul paslure, and becoruu very fat. But the prai- 

 rie grasses are loo ainiuaiic and asliingenl lor 

 any thing like the best food for milking cows. — 

 Alter the firsi ot' August, ihc grass begins to get 

 dry; and by the lasl of the month, it is ordinari- 

 ly a poor feed, or toialiy unfit hir milch cows. — 

 'Pile first frost kills il dead ; and liom this lime 

 till winter, calile fare .-is ihey can ; and the case 

 is common, that cows are entirely dry hmg beliiie 

 that season sets in ; and then we hearlhe reiujirk, 

 •' that it is utierly im|iossible to have milk in the 

 fiill and winter, in this country." — Prairie Fann- 

 er. 



In all the fine lands nf liie west and south-west 

 stales, proilncing vegelaliou .-dmost sponlaueons- 

 ly, we remarked universally that the catlle were 

 much inferior to the calile raised upon the hills 

 of New England : the evidence comes home to 

 our senses at almost eveiy sitting at the table ei- 

 ther ill the noiiproduclion of gooil milk anil biil- 

 ter or in the appearance (<i' thesi! articles of very 

 Infejior qualities. ^V' here (utile suhj ra'ised aiirl 

 reared so r asily as it seems they might be be up- 

 on the extended rich prairies of the western 

 country, one might aniicipale the produciiou 

 there of the heller sort. We have never wan- 

 dered so far as Illinois in that direclion, and we 

 had supposed that in norihern Illinois especially, 

 coming down almost to the .\ew England lali- 

 tildes, and seltled mostly by northern people, the 

 New England habits of rearing cattle would 

 there give them an advantage over us as much 

 greater as the belter natural fertility of their soil. 

 In this antici|intioii,as appear* in the exlract taken 

 down as above from the Chicago agricultural pa- 



per, we have been mistaken. The cattle, the 

 cows and their butler, and cheese, and milk, 

 in Illinois are not what they ought to be. — 

 The luitural feed of the summer there is nothing 

 equal in quality to the iialural feed for cows upon 

 the hills of N. H. anil Vl.; ami ihe country which 

 enables calile to live ahniad all v\ inter is not so 

 good for the prolilable [lurpose of keeping cows 

 lor the dairy as that hard country where the 

 whole fiuce of the farmer is obliged to turn one 

 month of the warm season into labor for secur- 

 ing hay necessary to his callle's sustenance full 

 six months in the year. 



We see in the newspapers at the UKuuent of 

 this wriling that good butter retails in Boston 

 and Salem at thirty cents u [intind. Fanners 

 living a hundred miles in the interior can send 

 their fresh made butter to these markets in » few 

 hours. 'Phe increasing po|.nlation of the towns 

 is greater than the increase of facilities for pro- 

 curing the supplies finthcr frmn the interior. — 

 Next year will open, through onr new railroads 

 Ihe northerly pans of New Hampshire and Ver- 

 mont to daily access with the lower cities ovX 

 towns upon the seaboard : instead of sending ihe . 

 bulter and cheese of Washington, Orange, Cale- 

 donia and Orleans counties to Boston once a 

 year, it will go every week and every day through 

 the summer. 



We have no belief that Illinois and Wiscon- 

 sin farming presents any belter, if so good pros- 

 pects to those who labor in Ihe earlh, as Ihe ' 

 rough New England hills. The prospect here 

 now is, that for years every vendible commodity 

 will sell for inoie than shall be its reasonable 

 cost. If any man only well imdei>tands his busi- 

 ness, he may also understand this fact, that he 

 can obtain full remimeraiion for his labor upon 

 ihe land wherever it is judiciously bestowed. 



Some have enlerlained the idea that sheep 

 raising lieie was to be entirely superseded by the 

 gieater and better fiieilities fur the same pursuit 

 in Ihe wesiern coiintry. This is also a mistake, 

 if sheep and wool growing in New England is 

 lo be superseded at all, it will be that the farmer 

 can find a heller snbsiiiiile in growing hay and 

 potatoes and olliei necessary products which 

 from their bulk and liability lo perish can never 

 be brought so far as sheep and wool can be tians- 

 portpd. 'Phe fiuiuing of Ihe west, when the line 

 of railways shall cover the nearer route through 

 Burliuglon, Ogdensbnrg and Canada West to 

 all the commerce of ihe lakes, will come in lo 

 aid Ihe fanners of New Eiigl.iiul. The frames 

 of cattle and horses cheaply raised upon the 

 western prairies will be brought here lo be fat- 

 tened and perfected for the market. Flour and 

 pork from ihe west will come here lo be easily 

 paid for in the vegetable lirodiiclionsof our fields. 

 There is more benefit than injury in all kinds 

 of conqielilion between various scciions of our 

 country, as there is belween our country and oth- 

 er nations of the world. 



'Phe cultivalion of Cotton in Biilish India was 

 under consiileralioii ;it the recent annual meeling 

 of the Maiicliestei Chamber of Commerce. E. 

 Armitauk, f'.'^q., .Mayor orManelieslHr and Pres- 

 ident of ihc^ Cliamber, stuti d that in 1836 there 

 were 2I'.I,(J00 bags shipped liom India lo Eng- 

 land ; and that ill ihe same year ihe Unileil Slates 

 siippliiid 7ti4,707 bags; in 16-1.5 England derived 

 iVoin India only LjOiOOO hags, sliov\iuL' a diniinu- 

 iiou of production, whilst (li(! Piiiled Slates, in 

 that year, shipped lo England 2,.').5o,000 bags. — 

 Mr. A. tuiriliiiled ihe railiiie in India to ihe abuse 

 of patronage in that ipiarler, and the increase in 

 ilie United States to the self-reliance of our plan- ' 

 ters. 



