NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



341 



One land owner will sow 2,000 acres of flax this 

 year. Claussen's flax-cotton machinery is evident- 

 ly gaining favor. His works at Stepney, near 

 London, are a focus of public interest. There the 

 cottonizing process (splitting the flax fiber by sat- 

 urating it first in a solution of soda and then in 

 one of sulphuric acid) is completed in a few min- 

 utes, and at a trifling cost. It has previously been 

 steeped, however, in a cold solution of caustic so- 

 da, for some twenty-four hours. 



In England, flax straw costs as yet some $15 to 

 $20 per ton, delivered, while it may be profitably 

 grown in this country for $5. We trust its pro- 

 duction will henceforth be rapidly extended. — N. 

 Y. Tribune. 



COWS AND CARROTS. 

 We send the editor of the American Farmer, 

 Baltimore, the original article which appeared in 

 our columns, and which has called out so much 

 valuable information upon a subject on which there 

 was, and still is, a wide difference of opinion. 

 That letter was written by one of the soundest 

 minds and ripest scholars among us ; a practical 

 farmer and horticulturist, although not making 

 either his principal business. It was a letter of 

 inquiry, and we have no doubt has been produc- 

 tive of more good to the cause than any other col- 

 umn of agricultural matter which has been written 

 in the union within the last twelve months. We 

 think the editor of the American Farmer will not 

 he disposed to find fault with it, when he has read 

 the whole letter. 



DOR-BUGS AGAIN. 



These annual and inconveniently large and vo 

 racious visitors have appeared again. At dusk, 

 they leave the retreat to which they resort during 

 the day, and on noisy wing seek the tender leaves 

 of the finest cherry ana other fruit trees, the 

 mountain ash, and sometimes the young elms, 

 if other forage is scarce. They will rarely touch 

 the common mazzard cherry tree if there are oth- 

 ers near. They feed upon the soft part of the 

 leaves, rejecting the nerves and veins of the leaf, 

 which gives the tree, when thus defoliated, the 

 appearance of gossamer or net work. Last year, 

 we saved our trees by shaking the "varmints" from 

 them at nine o'clock each evening ; this year we 

 have resorted to the suds of whale oil soap thrown 

 upon the tree by a syringe. Now is the time to 

 look out for them. 



Extracts. — Mr. Oliver Blanchard writes that he 

 has seen a heifer belonging to Mr. P. A. Sweet 

 which came in the 19th of April, and from the 21st 

 of April to the 12th of May, she gave 1G7 quarts 

 of milk more than the calf could take. After the 

 calf was taken away, on the 13th of May, he saw 

 the heifer milked, and she gave nearly 19 quarts, 

 beer measure. She is half Durham, and weighed 

 on the 20th March last ten hundred and fifty 

 founds. 



Isaac Tabor, Jr., of Topsham, Orange County, 

 Vt., owns a cow which brought a calf a few days 

 ago, that weighed the day it came, one hundred 

 and twenty-one pounds. The cow is a native; the 

 calf one-fourth Devonshire. 



William T. George, of the same place, has 

 made the past year, (ending April IS, 1852,) from 

 the milk of one cow, four hundred and fifty-one 

 pounds of butter. The cow is a native, of medium 

 size ; and thirteen years old. 



For the New England Farmer. 



COAL ASHES. 



Will you or some of your correspondents in- 

 form me whether coal ashes can be used with any 

 benefit in agriculture 1 M. c. 



June 2, 1852. 



filenames' SkparbiLcnt, 2lrts, &"c. 



SAFETY SHIPS. 

 A correspondent of the Scientific American makes 

 the following suggestion : 



"Safety-ships have been constructed in England, 

 divided into water-tight compartments. A variety 

 of other plans have been suggested at diffl :rent 

 times, some of which are very good. Would it 

 not be sufficient to place under the decks and be- 

 tween the beams, tubes or compartments of India 

 rubber or gutta percha, connected with numerous 

 pumps on deck, which might be inflated at a mo- 

 ment of danger so as to support the ship with 

 ease? These tubes or compartments can be made 

 to lie close against the ceilings, and be kept there 

 by pieces of wood, pressed by a spring, which 

 would give by pressure from within. The whole 

 contrivance is simple, in no way inconvenient, 

 might be ornamental, and of but little expense. 

 How much more consoling to run to the pumps to 

 inflate these tubes (one-half of which ought to be 

 made sufficient to support the whole vessel,) than 

 to set to work in anxiety and doubt, amounting to 

 despair, to keep the water out of a leaking, sink- 

 ing ship." 



Tunneling the Hoosack. — A correspondent of 

 the Springfield Republican gives the following ac- 

 count of the state of operations at the projected 

 Hoosac tunnel : 



"The boring machine is on the ground, but as 

 yet hardly resolved into its component parts. A 

 mass of cast iron spokes, cogs, wheels, shafts, 

 bolts, &c. &c, lay around us, out of which the 

 workmen were slowly (for nearly every piece re- 

 quired a derrick and pulleys to get it into place,) 

 re-constructing the ponderous wonder. The car- 

 riage for operating the machine is in place, facing 

 a perpendicular side of solid rock, just off the ac- 

 tual line of the road, which has been prepared for 

 the first actual experiment. The immense shaft 

 was being hoisted into position, and then would 

 come the wheel and its accompaniments, and then 

 the driving power, which consists of engines of 100 

 horse-power, and for which a building was being 

 erected. There have been many delays in getting 

 the machine upon the ground, and in place, and 

 we were told it would probably be six weeks at 



