MEW ENCJIiANl> FAKMER. 



Published by John B. Russell, ai JVo. 52 A'urf/ t Market Street, (over the Jlgricultural Warehouse).— Thouas G. Fessenden, Editor. 



VOL. VII. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JULY 2.5, 1828. 



No. 1, 



AGRICULTURE. 



Fon THE N£W KNGLAND FARMER. 



HAYING. 



Mr Fessenden — I read in the last Farmer 

 some directions for mowing, from some of which, 

 though sanctioned by general practice, I beg leave 

 to enter my dissent. " The mower's work, you 

 say, will not onl}' be made easier by the coolness 

 of the morning air ; but also by the dew on the 

 grass, wliich is cut the more easily for being wet." 



I admit that the grass is cut with more ease 

 when it is wot than in a dry state ; but when the 

 grass is wet, tlie ground is of course wet ; antl if 

 the grass is thick and suffered to he in the swarth 

 it makes very imperfectly and slowly, and' from 

 its wetness is liable to lose its sweetness ; a.« 

 tea and all other herbs lose their sweetness or 

 strength, by being steepeflK in water. Or if a 

 person follows the mowers to spread the grass 

 soori after it is cut, the ground upon which it lays 

 is not soon thied ; much care is requisite to sepa- 

 rate all the wet locks ; and to spread it complete- 

 ly ; and much time and lal.'or are employed vrith- 

 .out necessity; a matter of no smaii consideration 

 in the busy season of haying. My own wish 

 therefore is never to cut my hay but when it is 

 perfectly dry, and the ground not only dry but 

 warm ; it has then the advantage not only of the 

 direct rays of the sun but of the reflected heat from 

 the ground. Like weeds cut down in a corn field 

 when the sun is clear and wann, it wilts at once ; 

 it requires very liltle tossing about or as the Eng- 

 lish call it, tedding, and it retains its sweetness. 

 So far then it is a very grejit saving of labor and 

 a gain of time and of quality in the hay. 



I am always anxious likewise to have my hay 

 put in cock at night though it may have been 

 mo%ved very late in the day, and be quite green ; 

 provided only, it is not wet. Wetness upon hay, 

 from dew or rain, is always in a degree injurious ; 

 it hurts its sweetness ; but the moisture arising 

 from the natural heat of the hay, is not prejudi- 

 cial ; but serves on the contrary, to forward the 

 making of the hay, unless it is permitted to con- 

 tinue too long, or the heaps when in a green state 

 are made too large. It must not be suffered, if I 

 may use the expression, to go on to the acetous 

 fermentation. The best farmers, I believe, agree 

 that clover-hay shoidd be stirred no more than is 

 indispensable, in order to save it — because of^the 

 loss of its most nutritious parts, the leaves and 

 flowers. By putting my bay in cock at night, 1 

 have the farther advantage of finding the ground 

 round it dry and warm early in the morning, vhicl] 

 is of great importance to the expeditious making 

 of the hay. Clover is always much better for be- 

 ing cured in part by salting. An old experienced 

 farmer in my neighborhood, maintains, that it is 

 so with all hay ; and he told me a few days since, 

 that he considered the cost of a bushel of salt to 

 evei'y load of hay be put in his barn saved in his 

 being able to house it so much sooner and of 

 course with much less labor. 



You will not understand me, Mr. Editor, as 

 w ishing to set up my own in opposition to your 

 iiitelhgence and experience. My remarks arc 



founded upon my own practice ; I hope you vifill 



think tliat there is some reason in them ; and if 



I you please, you may submit them to the agricul- 



■ tural fraternity. C . 



Essex county, July 17, 1828. 



P. S. Sometime since I passed a farm near 

 Boston, which I was told belonged to a gentle- 

 i.um, who had been a ship-master ; and found Iiis 

 hay cocks at night covered with pieces of can- 

 vass, probably parts of an old sail, of a suitable 

 si7,e, painted with a coarse red paint and having 

 weights in the comers to keep them down. They 

 crndd have cost hut little ; if taken care of would 

 last for years ; could be thrown upon the hay with 

 very little trouble ; and fifty or a hundred of them 

 on a small farm in such a capricious, or as the 

 farmers say, catching season as this, would have 

 proved of a utility much outweighing the expen,se 



FOR THF. NEW ENGLAND I^MER. 



STAGGERS IN SWINE. 



Mv.. Fesse.nden.— Within the last two years I 

 have had six })igs of diflerent ages attacked with 

 a disorder, called the Staggers. Other persons in 

 my n^ghborhood have likewise suffered, and that 

 very severely in the loss of some large and valua- 

 ble sJyine. The bog in this disorder is first ob- 

 served to be continually turning himself round or 

 ninnuig from one part cf the stye to the other ; he 

 sooi> becomes totally blind ; refuses to eat, falls 

 .low.i and rolls upon hi.s back in fits, which seem 

 very painful and before long commonly dies. 



7 inquired of a celebrated Cattle Doctor in my 

 neighborhog^, a very useful and well, meaning 

 man, if he knew the disorder and what was the 

 cause and remedy. He replied that he was often 

 called to cases of this kind, and commonly lost half 

 his patients ; that in fact he was seldom success- 

 ful. The cause of it, he said, to use his own ex- 

 pression, was pizun (poisoned) teeth, which might 

 be known by being discolored. The only remedy 

 he knew was first to insert his knife into the ani- 

 mal's neck^ust back of his ears up to the hilt nd 

 "drive in" a piece of garget root ; then to cut a 

 gash beginning between his ears down his fore- 

 head and clean into the bone and then with a 

 punch to beat out the poisoned teeth as ma.iy as 

 there might be. After such horrible cruelty as 

 this, it was no longer matter of sin-))rise to me that 

 half his patients died ; but that any of them sur- 

 vived ; and I wondered much at what medical 

 school such a gentleman could have received his 

 iU])loma. 



I myself at first lost two .swine from entire igno- 

 rance as to what to do ; but in one of the volumes 

 of the Philadelphia Memoirs of Agriculture, (the 

 1st, I think) I found a direction to cut off the tail 

 and ears of the animal as the easiest way of bleed- 

 ing him, and then to give him a strong dose of 

 Castor Oil. I have followed these directions and 

 have then immediately turned the sick hog out of 

 the Stye uito the pasture, and in this way have suc- 

 ceeded in saving them. Sometimes they have re- 

 lapsed but have been restored by being again turn- 

 ed out. They do not soon come to their appetite 

 and the disease materially and for a length of time 



injures their growth. The disorder likewise is said 

 1'. be contagious and likely to go through the whole 

 stye ; but this has not been the case with my swine. 



The cause of the disorder, is as yet, I believe, 

 unknown. Some attribute it to their eating the 

 liquor of meat ■(vhich has been cured by saltpetre ; 

 others to a wet lodging ; others to excessive feed- 

 ing. Neither of these causes apply to my hogs ; 

 nor can it be the weather, as it has liajtpened with 

 me at various seasons. I have no doubt that a 

 release from tlie confinement of tlie stye was of 

 great service to the sick swine. Whatever may 

 be tlie cause, it may be useful to give the result of 

 my own experience, in a case where, certainly, in- 

 terest and humanity are greatly concerned ; and 

 I should be happy to hear from your more exper- 

 ienced correspondents, what they know of the sub- 

 ject. Respectively, yours, 



Jvhj 17, 1828. C . 



FOR THE HEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



INSECTIVEROUS BTIJDS. 



Mr Fessenden — I have noticed in your New 

 England Farmer several accounts of the ravages 

 of the canker worm this season. And I am in- 

 clined to believe this insect, as well as some oth- 

 ers, has been more numerous in the county of Es- 

 sex this season than for many years. Novi', Mr 

 Editor, we are Jold by many people, we must tar 

 our trees and do many other things to preserve 

 our orchards from the ravages df the canker 

 worm, which, cfter all, it avails but little. The 

 insect iiicrca„.i2 in number yearly. But for my 

 own part, I think,- were we to leave off wantonly 

 destroying our small singing birds, we should be 

 less troubled with insects of all kinds. It is a fact 

 well known to every naturalist, that small birds 

 destroy an almost incredible number of noxious 

 insects. The amiable and indefatigable oinitholn- 

 gist, Alexa.>der Wilson, who perhaps was bet- 

 ter acquainted with the habits of our birds than 

 any other person, when speaking of the Sturnus 

 Predatarius, or red winged black bird, which, by 

 the way, is by our farmers considered the most 

 mischievous of birds, says " their food in spring 

 and the early part of summer consists of grub- 

 worms, caterpillars, and various other larvse, the 

 silent but deadly enemies of all vegetation, and 

 whose secret and insidious attacks are more to 

 be dreaded by the husbandman than the combin- 

 ed forces of the whole feathered tribes together, 

 for these vermin the black-birfis search with great 

 diligence ; in the ground at the roots of plants, in 

 orchards and meadows, as well as among buds, 

 leaves and blossoms ; and from their known vo- 

 racity, the multitudes of these insects which they 

 destroy nuist be immense. 



Let me illustrate this by a short computation. 

 If we suppose each bird, on an average to devoui 

 fifty of these larvae in a day, (a very moderate al- 

 lowance) a single pair in four months, the usual 

 time such food is sought after, will consume up- 

 warAs of tweliie thousand. It is beheved that not 

 less than a milUon pairs of these birds are distrib- 

 uted over the whole extent of the United States in 

 summer ; whose food being nearly the same, 

 would swell the amount of vermin destroyed to 

 twelve thousand millions But the number of yoimg 



