454 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



knowledge of the construction and habits of ani- 

 mals is not always power alone, but often capital 

 to the farmer. Should he not be constant, then, 

 in studying them, and patient in his investigations? 



NOTE FROM A BROTHER. 



Below are a few extracts from a letter from one 

 of the editors of the Michigan Farmer, published 

 at Detroit. The reader will observe his opinion 

 in relation to deep plowing and thorough cultiva- 

 tion. It would seem needless to urge these points 

 more, were it not that after all that has been said, 

 thousands are half cultivating too many acres, and 

 wondering why they cannot make more money in 

 farming ! Brother Betts will accept thanks for 

 his invitation to "eat salt" with him, and ramble 

 again over the Peninsula State. We should not 

 half so much fear the "Wolverines," as we should 

 the sinking and fiery steamers in getting there. 



Detroit, Aug. 19, 1852. 



* * * * The weather is excessively hot 

 and dry, and were it not for very heavy dews, 

 vegetation would suffer severely. Pastures are 

 parched and dried up. 



The wheat crop came in good throughout our 

 State. Corn will be a middling crop ; the seed, 

 owing to carelessness in sowing, failed to vegetate 

 at the first planting last spring, and the crop is 

 backward. Where proper care was taken to 

 gather seed early and keep it dry, no trouble has 

 been experienced. Grass and oats are light — po- 

 tatoes also. 



Such a season as this affords a thorough test of 

 the great advantage of deep and thorough over 

 shallow culture. The difference in favor of the 

 former practice is truly astonishing. On a recent 

 visit to the farm of Linus Cone, Esq., of Oakland 

 county, who is noted for his practice of deep plow- 

 ing and subsoiling, he took us over a meadow from 

 which he had just taken the hay, and seldom have 

 we seen such a growth of grass. An acre was left 

 standing for seed, and we should judge there was 

 over three tons upon it. He had taken from the 

 five acres cut, 30 loads of usual size, of cured hay. 

 It was not what would be considered in New Eng- 

 land good grass land, lying on the slope from a 

 high ridge, and is naturally a heavy soil. The 

 great yield was the result of deep plowing, thorough 

 culture and drainage. A neighbor's field, much 

 more favorably situated, yielded about a ton to the 

 acre. 



He uniformly gets good crops. Since he com- 

 menced the practice of deep plowing and draining, 

 he says, the seasons are always good. Wis wheat 

 is free from rust and insects, and he never suffers 

 from drought or flood. 



Truly yours, Charles Betts. 



U. S. Agricultural Society. — We have re- 

 ceived through the Secretary, Dr. Lee, the first 

 number of the Journal of the United Stales Agri- 

 cultural Society. We have only time now to ex- 

 press our gratification at the promptness and neat 

 general appearance of this first-born of an associa- 

 tion which ought to bo of immense benefit to the 

 world. We shall refer to it again. 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 



ADDITIONS TO THE STOCK OF CUL- 

 TIVATED PLANTS. 



Messrs. Editors : — In a recent communication 

 I suggested the increase of the number of our do- 

 mestic animals and cultivated plants by domesti- 

 cation and importation. It is in the vegetable 

 department that this subject presents the most 

 interest and importance. Its great value to the 

 farmers of the State may be somewhat appreciated 

 by the consideration of the great benefit to be de- 

 rived to them, and to the agriculture and wealth 

 of the State, by the introduction of only one plant, 

 as of a new species of wheat that should be more 

 productive, more hardy and more adapted to our 

 meagre soils than any now known to us. But in 

 portions of Europe and Asia are many species of 

 this grain that have never been tried in this 

 country. In France, among other varieties they 

 have, of the common bald wheat, the white Flan- 

 ders, said to be very fine and productive, but best 

 adapted to good soils ; the Hungary, of superior 

 quality, very similar to the Chevalier, a most ap- 

 proved variety; the Pictel, the Saumur, much com- 

 mended, coming to maturity a week earlier than 

 others; the Tunstal or Hague wheat, one of the best 

 in Norfolk, England ; of bearded, the Saisette of 

 Provence, said to be the best of that class, if not 

 the best of all known wheats ; the bearded March 

 Tuscan, from the straw of which the fine hats are 

 made ; the Caucasian, the kind called in France 

 Herisson, very productive, heavy, and of good 

 quality, may be sown as spring or fall wheat; the 

 red bearded March wheat, a beautiful variety, par- 

 ticularly suited, by its precocity, to late' sowing. 

 Of other cereals, both of those used for bread stuffs 

 and for fodder, there are varieties unknown with 

 us. But perhaps it is in the way of pasture 

 grasses that we may derive as large a benefit from 

 new kinds as in anything else. Many of our pas- 

 tures are despicably meagre, ready to be fed not 

 before June, beginning to be dry and short early 

 in August, as reported by the milk, which is not 

 likely to misrepresent in the case, and, in the best 

 estate, feeding at the rate of five or six acres to a 

 cow. Now it is no trouble at all to intermix this 

 miserable provision for forage with earlier and 

 later flowering grasses, so that the pasturage may 

 bo prolonged three or four months, and with others 

 that would much improve the quality and increase 

 the quantity of the feed. There are seven or eight 

 species of clover known in the French agriculture ; 

 while, we think, only three or four are cultivated 

 with us. There is the Buchara clover, growing 

 seven to eight feet high, the Siberian Melilot, 

 Melilotus Alba, which is well suited to poor and 

 dry soils, though possessing some qualities which 

 detract from its value, and said to have the bad 

 effects as food which are attributed to clover, and 

 in a greater degree, various kinds of lucerne, some 

 of which are not unknown to our agricultm-e, and 

 an innumerable multitude of grasses, some of which 

 might, perchance, be found, on trial, to be very 

 superior, or better adapted to our soils than any 

 now in use with us. 



There maybe found, too, some very palatable es- 

 culents, which are now strangers to us, and which 

 might be practicable to our soil and climate. The 

 psoralia csculenta, or prairie potato, indigenous in 

 this latitude on the western prairies, the wild rice 



