101 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 2. 



business of ' the smith; yet the master should dili- 

 gently concern himself with it, tor it is oftener the 

 consequence of injudicious or bad usage than oi 

 natural vice. It may be expected that there will 

 be some dilliculty in shoeing a young horse for the 

 first lew times. It is an operation which gives 

 him a little uneasiness. The man to whom he is 

 most accustomed should go with him to the forge; 

 and if another and steady horse were shod before 

 him, he might be induced more readily to sub- 

 mit. We cannot deny, that, after the habit of 

 resisting this necessary operation is formed, force 

 may sometimes be necessary to reduce our rebel- 

 lious servant to obedience; but we affirm that the 

 majority of horses vicious to shoe are rendered so 

 by harsh usage, and by the pain of correction 

 being added to the uneasiness of shoeing. It 

 should be a rule in every lbrge "that no smith 

 should be permitted to strike a horse, much less to 

 twitch or to gag him, without the master-farrier's 

 order,and that a young horse should never be twitch- 

 ed or struck. There are few horses thai, may not 

 be gradually rendered manageable for this purpose 

 by mildness and firmness in the operator. They 

 will soon understand that no harm is meant, and 

 they will not depart from their usual habit of obe- 

 dience; but if the remembrance of corporeal pun- 

 ishment is connected with shoeing, they will al- 

 u ays be fidgety, if not dangerous. 



This is a very serious vice, for it not only expo- 

 ses the animal to occasional severe injury from 

 his own struggles, but also from the correction ol 

 the irritated smith, whose limbs, and even whose, 

 lite being in jeopardy, may be forgiven if he is 

 sometimes a little two hard-handed. Such a horse 

 is very liable, and without any fault of the smith, 

 to be pricked and lamed in shoeing; and if the ha- 

 bit should be confirmed, and should increase, and 

 it at length becomes necessary to cast him, or to 

 put him in the trevis, the owner may be assured 

 that many years will not pass ere some formidable 

 and even fatal accident will take place. If there- 

 fore, mild treatment will not correct the vice, the 

 horse cannot be too soon o-ot rid of. 



AMHERST TILLAGE. 

 To the Editor of the Fanners' Register. 



Amherst, May 15th, 1S35. 



I am pleased with the Register, and believe it 

 calculated to do much good, if our farmers would 

 read it. 1 am sorry you have so few subscribers 

 from this section, lying under the mountain, to 

 contribute to fill its valuable columns. The de- 

 sire to improve is confined to a few, and they pret- 

 ty much scattered through the county — and unless 

 a different spirit should pervade the cultivators of 

 the soil, the west must still continue to be the fi- 

 nal home for very many of them. I consider that 

 the present rise in the price of tobacco will be of 

 serious disadvantage to the small spirit of improve- 

 ment that exists amongst us. All the manure on 

 the farms, which should be applied to reclaim- 

 ing the worn out parts of the land, so that the clo- 

 ver would take, is now applied to making tobacco; 

 and many will even raise tobacco to buy corn. 

 We should be glad (some of us at least) if the 

 "Gleaner" would take an excursion through this 

 section; as his observations upon the state of ag- 

 riculture in Albemarle gave several valuable hints 

 for the improvement of our farms. 



As I wish to sow the orchard grass, and am 

 unacquainted with the quantity that it would be 

 proper to sow to the acre, and when it should be 

 sown, I should be glad, if you can give the infor- 

 mation, you would do so — if not, perhaps some of 

 your subscribers can. 



AN AMHERST FAR3IER. 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 TO KILL PERSIMMON BUSHES. 



Fawjaicr, April 28th, 1835. 



Governor Barbour in his address to the Agri- 

 cultural Society of Albemarle* says, "but as yet 

 I have found no satisfactory plan, by which suc- 

 cessfully to root out the annoying growth to which 

 I have referred. Severe grazing will in time, 

 pretty effectually destroy all but the persimmon; 

 nothing will eat that. And for one I am ready to 

 pronounce him a benefactor, who will discover an 

 effectual method of destroying it." Without in- 

 tending to put in a claim for an obelisk, or a statue, 

 or for any other memorial of- my being than 

 a small hillock in the orchard, or under the cedars 

 of Black River, where, my ancestors lie, I will in- 

 form him of what I deem to be an effectual meth- 

 od of destroying the persimmon bush: it is sim- 

 ple and cheap. From the 20th of June to the 20th 

 of August, strip them of their leaves, taking care 

 to pull the buds oil*. Where this is well done, the 

 bush will die. They should be stripped in the 

 field the year before it is fallowed lor wheat, or 

 the second year before it is put in corn. All bushes 

 that are well stripped wilLdie the first year — those 

 that arc not, should be ©tripped the second time. 

 The^small limbs may be pulled oil'. 



R. W. 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 WHEAT CROP IN MONTGOMERY, BID. 



Montgomery County, Md., May 25th, 1835. 



The crops of grain were never more unprom- 

 ising in this neighborhood, and the season is now 

 so far advanced that there is little hopes of their 

 recovery. I have a small lot of three acres, upon 

 which last year I put three hundred large cart 

 loads of farm-pen manure — ploughed it deep with 

 three horses, and cultivated it in potatoes. The 

 crop of potatoes, in consequence of the dry sea- 

 son, was very inferior. Early in the month of 

 November I dug the potatoes — removed all the 

 vines and litter of every description — ploughed if, 

 with a large three-horse plough — which brought 

 the manure which had been turned down in the 

 spring, to the surface, finely rotted. I then har- 

 rowed it twice — sowed on ii ten bushels of blue 

 stem wheat, and shovelled it in with the dou- 

 ble shovel plough, leaving it in nicer order than 

 any piece of land that I had ever prepared, and 

 calculated confidently on forty bushels of wheat 

 per acre. From its present appearance, I should 

 say, it would not make ten per acne, and 1 am con- 

 fident I have no acre of land on my farm that 

 would not, in a tolerable wheat year with common 

 preparation, produce double. I mention this to 

 show the complete failure this year, under ap 

 parently, the most favorable circumstances. 



