TOL. XIX. NO. 44. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER, 



THE EDITOR'S DAYS OF ATTENDANCE 

 AT HIS OFFICE. 

 VVe are the possessor of a small farm about 20 

 miles from the city, on the Eastern Rail Road. On 

 this farm we expect, ordinarily, to spend our time 

 from Tuesday evening ujitil Saturday morninij. On 

 Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, we shall usually 

 be at the office, where we shall ever be happy to 

 see our friends, and any persons who may wish to 

 impart agricultural information, or to receive such 

 as we are able to give. The farm above alluded 

 to has been purchased since we made our engage, 

 ments with the publishers, to become editor. " It is 

 in an exhausted slate, and is not naturally very fer- 

 tile. VVe shall have no wonderful accounts to give 

 of large crops. Having the buildings to remove 

 and repair ; and being almost without manure, our 

 debtor side of the account book will contain a 

 heavy column of figures, while the creditor will be 

 blank, or nearly so, for some time to come. But 

 we must labor with our own hands, for the preser- 

 vation of health ; and we wish to preserve and in- 

 crease our practical acquaintance with the art of 

 husbandry. This arrangement renders it necessa- 

 ry for us to make up the greater part of our paper 

 one week before it is issued ; and communications 

 of much length, cannot often be inserted until one 

 week after tlieir reception. — Ed. N. E. Far. 



From the iMaine Farmer. 



VALUE OF THE SKUNK. 

 Mr Euitor — I have noticed a communication 

 from the .■Mbany Cultivator, respecting the advan- 

 tages that might be derived from the skunk, by 

 Solomon W.Jewett, cfMiddlebury, Vt., and like- 

 wise your remarks upon the profit of the animal, as 

 " remedy to keep the weevils or grain fly from de- 



BERKSHIRES AND DURHAMS. 



What bold sceptics those Boston boys are. In 

 days of yore, they dared to raise a doubt as to the 

 jure ihvino of kings, and now they do not hesitate 

 to sneer at the pretensions of Berkshires and Dur- 

 hams. It seems they hold certain weekly meet- 

 ings, (in Old Faneuil, probably,) where a Mr Col- 

 man had the temerity to more than insinuate, that 

 Durham cattle, for the pail, were not equal to the 

 native stock ; and other free spirits, not having the 

 fear of speculators before their eyes, declared°that 

 Berkshires are selling for more than they are worth. 

 These insinuations have not been without their ef- 

 fect upon the excellent editor of the New England 

 Farmer, who says, that the report is that butchers 

 and meat-sellers dislike the pure Berkshires, and 

 he concludes with the following pretty broad hint 

 as to his own opinion: "Those," he says, "who 

 have them already and like them, will of course 

 continue to keep them: those wlio have fair lio^s 

 of a different breed, may do well not to incur much 

 expense to obtain this famous kind, until their re- 

 lative worth is better understood." 



An intelligent farmer, it was stated, in the neigh- 

 borhood of Boston, who recently slaughtered Bo'rk- 

 Bhires, found his pork so indifl^erent that he would 

 not eat it; and several concurred in the statement, 

 that, notwithstanding their roundness of appearance^ 

 they do not measure so much in the rib as some 

 less valued breeds, thereby verifying the old max- 

 im, that "all is not gold that glitters." 



It would be strange, indeed, if, after all the dis- 

 cussion upon the merits of the true breed, we should 



discover that they were not worth talking about 



We see no reason why the Berkshires should not 

 make as good bacon as any other hog, and care 

 should be taken that an unfounded report does not 

 retard the progress of a stock, that, judging by the 

 eye alone, certainly promises a great impr°ovement. 

 We design to give fairly the views of both sides 

 in the contest, which we see is about to rise on 

 this subject, as well as our own conclusions, so 

 soon as we collect facts on which to found an opin- 

 ion. — Soulhern Planter. 



po.siting their eggs in the heads of our wheat. Sir. 

 I am aware that the usefulness or profit of the 

 skunk is not fully appreciated. If the farmer could 

 but know the amount of the beetle and other insects 

 one of those animals will destroy in the season of 

 them, he would never think of trapping them to 

 string up in his field, or of caging the°n for the 

 purpose of feeding and occasionally "stirring him 

 up" to renew his perfume. Sir, I have been very 

 destructive to these animals myself, before I knew 

 the value of them. About three years since I dis- 

 covered a woodchuck in my mowing, and knowing 

 him to be mischievous in grass and vegetables, I 

 killed him. Soon after a skunk took possession of 

 his domicil, and kept it through the summer ; in 

 the fall after, I ploughed up the field, and in so do- 

 ing, broke into a part of the den that he had used 

 for convenience as a necessary, while he secreted 

 himself frorn his destroyers ; and I found there, I 

 should judge, from .1-4 to ],2 of a bushel of e.\-cr'e- 

 mentitious matter that was mostly shell.s of the 

 wings of the beetle. Since then I have endeavor- 

 ed to cultivate their friendship, and sir, if we let 

 them run, they will destroy more insects than many 

 of our two-legged animals would, thai are tramp- 

 ling our vines and destroying the fruit whicii the 

 skunk has protected. Sir, if I had a wish to cage 

 an animal to keep up a nauseous effluvia for the 

 purpose of driving the fly from my grain, I would 

 catch some of the smoking loafers which infest our 

 villages, that the industrious nart of the community 

 have to support, say four of them, and furnish them 

 with "long-nine" cigars, and cage one on each 

 side of the field, so that they cannot do one another 

 mischief, and my word for it, I would rid society of 

 a useless animal, and raise an effluvia that will be 

 more disgusting to the flies and n surer protection 

 to the wheat, than the scent of the quadruped nam- 

 ed above. As to the flies not preying upon the 

 carcase of the skunk, I think it is a mistake. I 

 know that the flies use the carcase to deposit their 

 eggs on. The best remedy that I know of at pre- 

 sent for the weevil, is the Black Sea wheat, sowed 

 not earlier than the 20th of May. T- P. 



Note. — His skunkship li beginning to be duly 

 appreciated. Tlie substitute wliich our friend re- 

 commends is a good one — but won't it drive all 

 the skunks from the farm too, as well as the wee- 

 vils .=_Ed. Me. Far. 



fl^'If it can be demonstrated that the skunk is 

 a useful animal, we would move, as an act of jus- 

 tice, that a little more euphonious cognomen be 

 applied to him than the one which he at present 

 bears in the nomenclature of quadrupeds. Can't 

 Dr. Holmes, of the Maine Farmer, suggest a name 

 for the creature which will be more expressive of 

 his character and less repulsive to the ear than 

 that of skunk.' — N. E. F.'s Pr. Dev. 



There are two modes of establishing our reputa- 

 tion — to be praised by honest men, and to be abus- 

 ed by rogues. — Lacon. 



MANURING GROUND. 

 If you would have sound and large crops, put on 

 the manure liberally. Don't think to cheat moth- 

 er earth with the appearance of granting her an 

 ample allowance of the food of plants, for she will 

 tell the truth and the whole story in the proper 

 season. 



There is not, generally, care enough taken when 

 applying manure to the earth, to mix it well with 

 the soil, All the lumps both of manure and of 

 earth, should be broken finely up, and the soil 

 stirred till the whole is mixed intimately together. 

 Roots do not want to find a large lump of hard ma- 

 nure of the size of a man's head, in one place a 



lump which they can hardly penetrate, and which 

 may be strong enough to kill the roots as they ap- 

 proach it, and then have to travel over a square 

 yard of poor unmanured soil, getting no nutriment 

 by the way, before it finds another nndigestible 

 lump of rank food. 'I'he food of plants should be 

 as well broken up and mixed before it can go into 

 the bodies of vegetables, as the food of animals is 

 after mastication. We repeat, therefore, mix the 

 manure well and equally with the soil, if you would 

 give your plants the best chance. 



VVe s.'.id " put on the manure liberally ;" but we 

 did not say, put it on extravagantly or prodigally. 



There is such a thing as giving the earth too 

 much, and creating a surfeit for the plants. By 

 this means vegetation is as much injured as is the 

 friend whom you would treat hospitably when you 

 force him to oat too hearty food or too much of it. 

 The best plan is to give the soil just as much as 

 the crop you put on it can and will eat up in the 

 course of the season, leaving the earth in autumn, 

 in about the same state for richness that it was 

 when you began upon it in spring. When manure 

 beyond what the plants can take up in one seflson 

 is applied to and left on the ground, that portioii 

 becomes inert and dead, doing more hurt than 

 good, because it produces a gangrenous state of 

 soil, which will greatly injure the crop the next 

 year. It is for this reason that old gardens that 

 have been long and extravagantly enriched, will 

 not produce good potatoes and beets. They will 

 be warty and wormy, from this cause. Keep the 

 ground just lively and healthy, by applying aj mucA 

 manure, as the plants, which work hard all summer 

 growing, can eat up and convert into seed ; but be 

 careful to apply no more. At least we have al- 



ways found this to be the best system. Maine 



Cult. 



Expeditious Thrashing. — Mr Everly, of Nor- 

 thiews, made a bet of £.5, with Mr R. Leach, of 

 Blackforrington, that he would, within the short 

 space of one hour, in his threshing machine, thresh 

 one hundred bushels of oats and bind the straw in- 

 to bundles. The performance was witnessed by 

 almost all the farmers in the neighborhood, and, 

 extraordmary to relate, within 47 minutes, Mr Ever- 

 ly threshed 133 1-2 bushels, and bound the straw 

 into 240 bundles— a fact unpaaalleled in the annals 

 of agricultural labor English, pap. 



Gold is an idol that can boast of two peculiari- 

 ties ; it is worshipped in all climes without a sin- 

 gle temple, and by all classes without a single hy- 

 pocrite. — Lacon. 



True friendship is like sound health — ics value 

 is seldom known until it be lost. lb. 



