THE GENESEE FARMER. 



139 



some valuable suggestions on the subjeet. Will he 

 tell us how to keep them through such winters as we 

 have lately ? 



Whkx 00K3 Wool Grow? — This question receives 

 a very pla isible answer from J. 1). (J., and if gener- 

 ally believed would tend to a better care of these 

 animals. Don't let sheep get poor in the fall or early 

 winter, if you would have them keep easily, and 

 prove profitable either in wool or lambs. 



Large vs. Smat.l Beaxs — The question of beans 

 with me is, " If ill they ripen earl 1/ and cvenli/?'" 

 and then size is to be considered. But is it prolita- 

 ble to grow beans and corn together ? Both crops 

 cannot be good ones — as good as they would be 

 grown separately. 



Buying Western Laniis. — Talk as you will, friend 

 Sanfield, capital will look out for the most profita- 

 ble investments. If money can be made in buying 

 Western lands, there is no infraction of the law of 

 honesty in thus investing it, as a speculation. Too 

 great greediness, however, defeats its own ends. 



Cultivation of Indian Corn. — From repeated 

 trials, I am satisfied that good corn can be raised in 

 the way described by S. S. B. I would plant ear- 

 lier, if the season allowed, and top dress with ashes 

 after the first hoeing, loilhont fail. It " gives corn 

 a good start," which is very important. 



KwEs AND Lambs. — One snowy morning in Feb- 

 ruary, I found an ewe with twin lambs in my flock 

 at the barn. It was altogether unexpected, but 

 the little fellows seemed smart, and determined to 

 make the best of it. So I partitioned off a roomy 

 shed for them and their mother, and have fed the 

 sheep once a day with one pint of oat meal, (con- 

 taining one-third corn,) scalded and salted, watering 

 once a day besides, and supplying all the hay she 

 would eat. The ewe and lambs are doing well — the 

 latter growing finely, and they will be worth almost 

 a year's growth more than May lambs, next season. 

 I never knew that sheep required half the attentions 

 which J. K. recommends, and still have some doubts 

 about it. 



Dwarf Apple Trees. — I had one of these, but it 

 did not bear under six years from the bud, and then 

 died a year afterward, though cared for to the best 

 of my knowledge and ability. But it v/as a very 

 beautiful object when full of ripe apples. The crop 

 wa? not a very large one, nor would it prove profita- 

 ble to depend on such trees for fruit, in my opinion. 



JViagara Co., JV. Y. B. 



K0TE3 I'OR THE MONTH, BY S. W. 



Birds — their Usefulnfs.'?, &c — Bement's article 

 on this subject, in the last Farmer, should be read, 

 learned, marked, &c., by every one who tries to grow 

 a tree or vegetable. But he has neglected to notice 

 how much of the blame for the paucity of birds 

 about the house, fruit-yard, garden and orchard, is to 

 be attributed to the murders of the domestic cat. 

 Where a vigilant grimalkin and her kittens are do- 

 mesticated, no robin and sparrow has any resting 

 place, either on bush or tree; and their fledglings are 

 almost invariably devoured by these feline mousers, 

 either before or after they begin to have the use of 

 their wings. If we could ci)ntrive to prevent the 

 marauding horde of rats from invading the premises, 

 BO that the watchful cat might be dispensed with, 

 robins, sparrows, blue birds, &c., would increase and 



multiply, and, in addition, every house would have 

 its swallows and martins. If it is provoking to have 

 a May Duke cherry tree stripped of its fruit in one 

 day by birds, it is still more so, after driving off' the 

 birds and picking the fruit, to find your tree dying 

 the next j-car, its inner bark completely eaten out by 

 concealed worms. But a propos of insectivora, I 

 have lost within the last two years three out of four 

 young bearing apple trees, killed by invisible borers, 

 although the trees were washed with strong su is, and 

 and the caterpillars burned out. Not a peach tree 

 can I grow of late that is not stung on all sides as 

 soon as it has attained the size of a whip-stock. 

 Trees that got their growth before insects were bo 

 destructive still continue to live, both trunk and 

 limbs full of sores, bearing only a little sickly, wormy 

 fruit. Yet I remember the time when it was no 

 more trouble to grow peach trees than pig weeds; in 

 Ovid und Romulus, thousands of bushels of peaches 

 were fed to the hogs — now, owing to the iusec t en«- 

 mies of the tree, very few peaches are grown. 



The Profits of High Farming. — Our amateur 

 farmer, Joseph Wright, who has so long astonished 

 the cigar makers by his extra large, superior crops 

 of well cured tobacco, sold the last week to Shbl- 

 DON, a New York drover, eleven yeailiugs, coming 

 two years old, for 8G0 each. Such veal as some of 

 us were favored with to-day from one of his yearling 

 calves might founder an alderman. It had all the 

 appearance of young beef, only fatter; it was C( m- 

 pletely mottled with that carbonaceous tissue which 

 represented the sugar of the perfect corn fodder on 

 which the animal had been fed and wintered — Ohio 

 Dent corn, sown in drills, and cut and cured as soon 

 as its full saccharine state was attained. 



Apple Trees. — The best apple trees, and the best 

 fruit in this county, grow on the friable clay loams 

 near the deep ravines which debouch in the lakes. 

 On digging into the side of one of those ravines, ap- 

 ple tree roots were found more than twenty feet b«- 

 low the tree's base. This fact shows that apple 

 trees require a very deeply drained soil, and that they 

 should never be planted where spring water rises 

 nearer than twenty feet to the surface. The famed 

 Wayne county apples grow on gravelly ridges of the 

 Onondaga group, ttie richest of all loose soils in or- 

 ganic remains. 



Saxony Sheep. — It is said by a man of experience 

 in the premises, that no sheep would be more profita- 

 ble to the farmer, if he would only take good care of 

 them, and separate them from other sheep to keep 

 the blood pure, than the Saxony; but when crossed 

 with the Merino, the progeny is less hardy, and ma- 

 terially deteriorated both in constitution and wool; 

 hence the notion that the Saxon is not a hardy sheep. 

 Ten years ago, Perkins & Browi , of Akron, Ohio, 

 had a large flock of pure Saxony sheep, which, by 

 good treatment, became both hardy ind large sized; 

 many of their fleeces weighed six pounds, and such 

 wool has now, in our day of amalgamation, become 

 rare indeed. 



Letters from the South and West— It wjw 

 pleasant to read in the last Farmer Dr. Lee's very 

 interesting letter from Georgia, the mure especially 

 as he now dilates with satisfaction on the rise and 

 progress of the Genesee Farmer, a paper which h« 

 so long and ably conducted. Letters from farmers 

 lately removed to the far West, would be of double 

 importance if almost every man or wouiaa ther« did 



