234 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 CONGRATULATIONS—COWS— YANKEE 

 INVENTIONS. 



BY B. B. FRENCH. 



My good friend and brother, you are really do- 

 ing your brother-men most essential service. You 

 have at last found the very niche that you were 

 born to fill, and how much your native State has 

 lost by not sooner discovering your capacity to stir 

 up and enlighten the farming interest thereof can- 

 not now be calculated ! "Better late than never," 

 is an old, but an excellent adage, and now you are 

 in the right place "go ahead" and make up for lost 

 time ! 



You have asked me, more than once, to write 

 something for the Farmer. You know very well 

 that I am neither practically or theoretically a 

 farmer, and therefore I cannot write anything 

 worthy of publication. You and Henry F. French 

 got me into one alliance, if I may so term it, by 

 recommending our friend King, of the Journal of 

 Agriculture, to entice me into his columns, and he 

 succeeded. I have written him two letters, such 

 as they are, and do not intend to desert him, if I 

 oan find anything in and about Washington that I 

 deem Avorthy of his excellent journal. So you see 

 I am booked for him, and it is hardly possible that 

 I can find enough here for you both. If I do, you 

 shall have your share. I read both your papers 

 as religiously as I do my Bible, and I think it is a 

 pity if I cannot pick up ideas enough on agricul- 

 ture from one to write now and then an article for 

 the other ! And even now, while I think of it, I 

 will give you a little of my own experience about a 

 matter upon which I read an article in your broth- 

 er King's last journal, which came yesterday, 

 headed "Knapp's Patent Cow Milkers." Mr. King 

 condemns that invention, and if, as he says, "it 

 is nothing else than the boy's straw," he con- 

 demns it very justly. I suppose not one New Eng- 

 land boy in one hundred arrives at the age of 

 twenty, without being taught to milk. I was so 

 taught, and have not forgot it to this day. I used 

 to aid in milking my father's cows. Well, about, 

 say thirty years ago, an article went the rounds 

 of the newspapers describing a new invention for 

 milking, and speaking of it in the highest terms. 

 It was, if I remember, the insertion of silver tubes 

 in the orifices of the teats, and thereby drawing 

 off the milk. It not being in my power to pro- 

 cure silver tubes, I resorted to an experiment that 

 none but a Yankee boy would have thought of — I 

 went out and shot half a dozen robins, and of the 

 bones of their legs made tubes, and the cows had not 

 been in the yard ten minutes, after my tubes were 

 ready, before I had the milk running from two or 

 three of them. We all pronounced it a great dis- 

 covery, and flattered ourselves that milking by the 

 pressure of the teat with the hand was an exploded 

 idea ! The new method had been followed less 

 than a week, I believe, when it was discovered 

 that the cows were fast failing to give their usual 

 quantity of milk, and if I remember correctly, some 

 of them began to show symptoms of disease. At 

 any rate the tubes were abandoned, but not until 

 the cows were materially injured ; and we all came 

 to the conclusion that the nearest the milking ma- 

 chine resembled the mouth of a calf in its action, the 

 better it was for the cow ! And I now predict, that 

 if any one undertakes to milk cows in any other 



manner than by the pressure of the hand the cows 

 so milked will soon be ruined. 



In one of your papers some time since, you re- 

 commend the use of sugar instead of salt petre, in 

 curing hams. A lady of your acquaintance, who 

 imagines she knows something about curing hams, 

 is curious to know whether you have ever tried on 

 your recommendation. She expressed the opinion 

 when she read it, that hams cured without salt- 

 petre, would not be easy of digestion for delicate 

 stomachs ! Please enlighten us. 



Winter still lingers with us. The grass is be- 

 ginning to come up, and the buds on the trees are 

 swelling, but nothing except the crocus, which 

 seems to place winter at defiance, gives any imme- 

 diate prospect of bloom. The apricots, which you 

 have seen in full bloom here in February, do not 

 look as if they would bloom this month. I expect 

 spring will burst upon us in a few days, as it 

 sometimes does, like midsummer, and we shall all 

 be roasted. Now we are sitting by our winter 

 fires, and the church was more uncomfortably cold 

 to-day than I have known it this winter, although 

 the coal stoves were red with heat. 



Faithfully yours, b. b. f. 



Washington, D. C, March 7, 1852. 



Remarks. — A pressure of articles already on 

 hand when the above was received, is the reason 

 of its being delayed. We thank our old and stead- 

 fast friend for the warm sympathy and kind ex- 

 pressions in a portion of his letter which we deem 

 sacred to friendship and the still nearer and dear- 

 er ties existing between us. They lead us back 

 through the long years that have departed, to 

 scenes and enjoyments which never can be erased 

 from the memory. 



Our correspondent is diffident about his farming 

 knowledge ; but one thing is certain — he has "tend- 

 ed a saw mill" more than we ever did, and must 

 be qualified to write a luminous chapter on that 

 subject. We can assure the dear black-eyed lady, 

 the friend and companion of our youth, who has 

 always been doing good, curing the hams, educat- 

 ing the children, &c, that we have used no salt- 

 petre for some years in curing meat' of any kind, 

 and that the old Virginia, Maryland, or West- 

 phalia hams, do not come quite up to the tender, 

 juicy deliciousness, of those that are frequently up- 

 on our table. 



HOW CITIES EXHAUST THE FERTIL- 

 ITY OF LAND. 



There has been enough of the elements of bread 

 and meat, wool and cotton, drawn from the sur- 

 face of the earth, sent to London and buried in the 

 ground, or washed into the Thames, to feed and 

 clothe the entire population of the world for a 

 century, under a wise system of agriculture and 

 Horticulture. Down to this day, great cities have 

 ever been the worst desolators of the earth. It is 

 for this that they have been so frequently buried 

 many feet beneath the rubbish of their idols of 

 brick, stone and mortar, to be exhumed in after 

 years by some antiquarian Layard. Their inhabi- 

 tants violated the laws of nature, which govern 

 the health of man and secure the enduring pro- 



