576 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



places must be had, they are necessary evils ; but 

 are they not better concealed than forced into our 

 vision to the exclusion of more agreeable objects. 



Though there is no accounting for tastes, they 

 undoubtedly can be cultivated and improved ; and 

 we thought so the other day when we saw our 

 neighbor from the West, building on a lot lately 

 cleared of every vestige of a tree, intending to take 

 down the old house shaded by tall buttonwoods. 

 On our remonstrating with him on his barbarism, 

 he replied, "When I am in a cleared country, I 

 don't like to live in the woods !" 



If our cheerfully disposed friends would venture 

 to try some modest, unattractive color (if they 

 wish one suggested, let them imitate the old un- 

 painted farm house) and should they at the end 

 of the year find it did not suit the complexion of 

 their feelings, and that they were disposed to be 

 gloomy, then we must refer them to the new dis- 

 coveries of the Jersey Man. Comp. of White Zinc 

 Paint, while we shall be content to keep in the 

 shade and thereby save our dull eyes. 



I intended to have said a word to your Newton 

 correspondent about plums, but fear I have tres- 

 passed on your columns. After trying salt, salt 

 mud, paving, syringing, et cet., on two dozen 

 trees for ten years without success, for the last 

 two years we have scattered lime over the trees, 

 covering some of the plums entirely. Last year 

 we saved half a bushel. 



I saw last autumn a piece of cotton that had 

 been placed around an elm tree, filled with thou- 

 sands of insects, many of them alive. This with- 

 out doubt is the most effectual plan for prevent- 

 ing the ravages of the canker worm. J. H., of 

 the market, has a plan of putting a roll of cotton 

 batting around the trunk of the tree. He finds it 

 filled with the eggs of the insect. By this method 

 he has saved most of the fruit on a Bulmar Wash- 

 ington, s. w. 



Brookline, Oct. 



"ONE" OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE 

 GIRLS. 



A correspondent of the Journal relates the fol- 

 lowing : — 



"While on a visit to my friends in New Hamp- 

 shire the past week, I had the pleasure of an in- 

 troduction to Miss Rosina Delight Richardson, the 

 only daughter of Mr. Nathaniel and Mrs. Mary 

 Richardson, (of East Alstead, Cheshire county, 

 N. II.) Miss Rosina is nineteen years of age, is 

 5 feet 3 1-4 inches in height, measures 5 feet 4 1-2 

 inches around the waist, (6 feet 2 inches around 

 the hips,) 22 inches around the arm, above the 

 elbow, 14 inches around the arm below the elbow, 

 and 2 feet 10 inches in a straight line across the 

 shoulders. At birth she weighed 6 pounds, at 5 

 years 148 pounds, at 15 years 305 lbs., and now, 

 at 19 years of age, she weighs 478 lbs. On esti- 

 mating the quantity of cloth in her clothing when 

 dressed for a ride on a winter's day, we found it 

 to contain 98 1-2 yards of 3-4 yard wide cloth. 



"She has brown hair, dark blue eyes, is of fair 

 complexion, and has what phrenologists would 

 call a well-balanced head, the perceptive organs 

 predominating. She can knit, spin, weave, make 

 a shirt, or a batch of bread, is a good singer, and 

 plays the piano with taste and skill — is considered 

 one of the best scholars in the town Avhcre she re- 

 sides — is courteous and affable, and lively in con- 



versation, and evinces a general knowledge which 

 might raise a blush on the cheek of some of our 

 city belles." 



WINTERING CATTLE AND HORSES. 



Owing to the great drought the past summer, 

 in many parts of the country, winter feed will be 

 exceedingly scarce, and the most rigid economy 

 will be necessary to enable many farmers to carry 

 their ordinary stock through the winter. What is 

 the cheapest method of wintering cattle, sheep 

 and horses? always an interesting question, be- 

 comes now a most important one ; and though we 

 by no means pretend arbitrarily to answer it, yet 

 we will endeavor to throw out a few hints that 

 may be useful. We would premise that no par- 

 ticular method can be laid down, that will be ap- 

 plicable to all cases ; the climate, locality, nature 

 of the crops grown, and prices obtained for them, 

 interfere with any such calculations. A more se- 

 rious drawback, however, is the deplorable igno- 

 rance of us all on the subject of nutrition ; for 

 were the principles of nutrition well understood, it 

 would be easy to alter our modes of feeding to suit 

 circumstances, and so keep the animals in the best 

 and most economical manner. 



Different breeds of animals doubtless require dif- 

 ferent amounts of food ; yet, as a general rule, it 

 may be stated that animals require an amount of 

 food in proportion to their weight. That is to say, 

 an animal weighing 1200 lbs. would require twice 

 the amount of food per week as one weighing 000 

 lbs., other things being equal, (a.) Mure food, 

 too, is required in cold than in temperate weather 

 — more when the animal is worked than when do- 

 ing nothing. Also, cows giving milk or when in 

 calf, and young animals, require more than an an- 

 imal of the same weight in a perfectly normal 

 state. If, too, we wish an animal to lay on fat, 

 we must give more food — or rather the same quan- 

 tity or bulk of food, but of a more nutritious qual- 

 ity — than would be necessary to ke^p it in a nor- 

 mal condition, or without increasing or decreasing 

 in weight. 



The amount of food necessary per week to keep 

 an animal in a normal condition under the most 

 favorable conditions of warmth, is not accurately 

 ascertained. The amount of food, however, which 

 animals eat when given ab libitum, depends to a 

 great extent on the per centage of available non- 

 nilrogcnous substances it contains, and not on the 

 nitrogenous, (b.) Thus, an animal fed on oilcake, 

 peas or beans, and clover hay, will eat nearly three 

 times as much nitrogen as when fed with corn 

 meal, hay, &c, though it is probable that the 

 amount of available non-nitrogenous substances 

 eaten is pretty much the same in either case. The 

 advantage, therefore, in feeding a highly nitroge- 

 nous substance, is not in the less amount required 

 by the animal, but in the increased value of the 

 manure and the increased quantity of fat a given 

 amount of non-nitrogenous food will produce, when 

 eaten in conjunction with nitrogenous substances. 

 We are, however, by no means to suppose that 

 the rate of increase is in exact proportion to the 

 per centage of nitrogen in the food, for it is not; 

 rapidity of increase being attained only at an in- 

 creased proportional consumption of nitrogenous 

 substances. 



By available non-nitrogonous substances, we 

 mean such substances as sugar, starch, oil, gum, 



