394 



NEW i: N G L A N D FARMER, 



JONE 16, I'tll. 



have frequently made my breakfast on bread and 

 cherries, or strawberries, with a Httle milk or cof- 

 fee, and found myself equally refreshed as if I had 

 taken more substantial food ; and it is my candid 

 opinion that if Iruits were more generally raised, 

 and formed a part of every meal, it would be found 

 by all to be beneficial to health and at the same 

 time a saving to the purse. A writer in the .Medi- 

 cal and Surgical Journal says, " that instead of 

 standing in any fear of a generous consumption of 

 ripe fruits, we regard them as positively conducive 

 to health. The very maladies commonly assumed 

 to have their origin in a free use of apples, cher- 

 ries, melons and wild fruit, have been quite as ]itc- 

 valent, if not equally destructive in seasons of 

 scarcity. All naturalists will testify to the impor- 

 tance of fruit seasons to the lower animals, particu- 

 larly birds. When there is a failure or an insuf- 

 ficient supply, the feathered tribe are less musical, 

 less numerous, and commence their migrations 

 much earlier, than when amply supplied with the 

 delicate nutrition designed for them at certain pe- 

 riods of the revolving year. 



" There are so many erroneous notions enter- 

 tained of the bad effect of fruit, that it is quite 

 time a counteracting impression should be promul- 

 gated, having its foundation in common sense, and 

 based on the common observation of the intelligent. 

 " We have no patience in reading the endless 

 rules to be observed in this department of physical 

 comfort. No one, we imagine, ever lived longer 

 or freer from the paroxysms of disease, by discard- 

 ing the delicious fruits of the land in which he 

 finds a home. On the contrary, they are necessary 

 to the preservation of health, and therefore caused 

 to make their appearance at the very time when 

 the condition of the body, operated upon by deteri- 

 orating causes, not always understood, requires 

 their grateful, renovating influence. Tyssot, in 

 his advice to people upon their health says : ' There 

 is a pernicious prejudice with which all are too 

 generally imbued. It is, that fruits are injurious in 

 the dysentery, and increase and produce it. There 

 is not perhaps a more false prejudice. Bad fruits 

 and those which have been imperfectly ripened in 

 unfavorable seasons, may occasion cholics and 

 sometimes diarrhoeas, but never epidemic dysente- 

 ry. Ripe fruits nf all kinds, and especially those 

 of summer, are the true preservatives against this 

 malady.' He fartlier says, ' that whenever the dys- 

 entery has prevailed, I have eaten less animal food 

 and more fruit, and I have never had the slightest 

 attack. Several physicians have adopted the same 

 regimen. 



"I have seen eleven patients in the same house; 

 nine were obedient and ate fruit ; they recovered. 

 The grandmother and a child which she was par- 

 tial to, died. She prescribed to the child burnt 

 wine, oil, powerful aromatics, and forbade the use 

 of fruit: it died. She followed the same course 

 and met the same fate." 



The strawberry is considered by many medical 

 men aa a valuable medicine in many diseases ; par- 

 ticularly for putrid fevers and pulnjonary consump- 

 tion. A free use of strawberries, it is said, will 

 both prevent and cure the rheumatism. The cele- 

 brated Linnieue cured himself of the gout by per- 

 severing in a regimen of strawberries. 



I could accumulate testimony on the utility of 

 fruit, but I consider it unnecessary. Intelligent 

 people no longer doubt upon the subject, and we 

 hope the prejudices heretofore entertained against 

 the free use of it, will be done away. 



From the Albany Cultivator. 



THINGS NOT TO BE DONE. | 



Sowing spring wheat without soaking in brine,! 

 and rolling in lime, is a thing not to be done. 

 According tu C. W. Jihnson, salt acts an important i 

 part in germination and promoting the growth of 

 plants; and lime, every one is aware, seems to be ; 

 necessary in some form to the pi'rfection of plants j 

 and their seeds. Both, then, should be used in ' 

 sowing wheat. 



Attempting to keep cattle, sheep and horses, 

 through our lonj; winters on straw or even hay, 

 without roots, is a thing not to be done. Every 

 good farmer, will therefore make his arrangements 

 so as to secure a plentiful supply of turnips, pota- 

 toes, or carrots, for winter and spring use. These 

 fed with the hay, will improve the stock, promote 

 health, and bring the animals through the most 

 trying season of the year with safety and profit. 



Making a yard of the highway, and allowing 

 your cattle and sheep to lie fed, and to drop their 

 dung where it is lost to the farm, is not to be done. 

 This practice, though a common, is a wretched one, 

 and should be reformed altogether. Feed your 

 animals in stalls, if you can ; if not, in yards. To 

 do otherwise, is wasteful in the extreme. 



Allowing your cattle in the spring of the year to 

 go roaming about, poaching your meadows and pas- 

 tures with their feet, is a thing not to be done. 

 The amount of food they can get in this way is a 

 poor compensation for the damage they do, and be- 

 sides it destroys their relish for hay, without offer- 

 ing any substitute. 



Suffering animals to perish for want of attention, 

 at any season of the year, is a thing not to be done. 

 But if any do die accidentally, they should bo con- 

 verted to use by being covered with earth, to ab- 

 sorb the gasses of oxygen and ammonia that are the 

 inevitable results of animal putrefaction, and which 

 are indispensable to the growth of plants. 



Having your pig sty in such a state, or place, 

 that your pigs shall not work for a living, is a thing 

 not to be done. They should have a yard into 

 which weeds, swamp muck, straw, and the scrap- 

 ings of roads and ditches should br- thrown, to be 

 converted into manure ; and if they seem at any 

 time reluctant to begin the task of miving such ma- 

 terials, a few handfuls of corn scaitered over the 

 surface will set them to work most industriously. 



Permitting the chips, pieces of bark, sawdust, 

 &c., of your wood yard to accumulate for years, is 

 a thing not to be done. Remember that all, which 

 has once formed part of a plant can be converted 

 into a plant again, and place all such matters where 

 their decomposition will be most useful, and soon- 

 est effected. 



Nearly every farm has some pond, marsh, or bog 

 which receives a large portion of the wash of the 

 cultivated land ; and to allow this to remain with- 

 out being returned to the soil, is a thing not to be 

 done. There are some such places that may be 

 considered as inexhanetible deposits of fertilizing 

 matter, yet have never been drawn upon for a sin- 

 gle load, by the neighboring farmers. Let those 

 who have such deposits look to them. 



Allowing your work to drive you, is a thing not 

 to be done. The man who is half an hour behind 

 his work, finds labor forever an uphill business. 

 There is here a serious mistake committed by 

 many farmers. They lay out more work than they 

 can do well, or in season, and the consequence is, 



nothing is done at the time, or as it should be. 

 What you do, do in season, and be sure to do well. 

 Being content to allow a single year to pass 



without correcting some error, or making some ir 

 provement in husbandry, is a thing not to be done. 

 In conversation with an intelligent farmer the oth- i 

 er day, he remarked that the practice of all fell be- 

 hind their knowledge, or in other words, none did 

 as well as they knew how. To put the knowledge 

 we acquire from our own or other's experience to 

 use, should be the aim of every one, and would 

 soon do away the reproach that farmers are a sta- 

 tionary race of men. 



From the same. 



HAWTHORN HEDGES OF ENGLAND. 



Metsrs Editors — There appears to be a consid- 

 erable desire to introduce into our meadows and 

 fields, that most beautiful of all fences, the Haw- 

 thorn hedge. But the prevailing opinion, that it 

 will not thrive here, seems to retard its introduc- 

 tion ; the severity of the winter, and dryness of 

 summer, are both urged as causes of its failure. 



In England the thorn is considered to be one of 

 their most hardy plants; and it makes a fence 

 which endures for ages. It grows and preserves 

 its beauty on hills which are almost bare of soil, 

 and are, consequently, liable to be parched with 

 the summer's sun, and are also exposed to the se- 

 verities of winter ; it bears the extremes of sea- 

 sons, and difference of situations, much better than 

 several other English plants which flourish here ; 

 hence it is, at least, reasonable to suppose that its 

 failure must arise from some other cause than that 

 of change of climate. Its proper cultivation may 

 not be well enough understood ; or, some little al- 

 teration may be required to adapt its cultivation to 

 the difference of climate ; such, for instance, aa 

 trenching very deep where the plants are to stand, 

 which would have a greater tendency to preserve 

 them from the injurious effects of the extreme heat 

 and dryness in summer. 



The mode of cultivation in England, is as fol- 

 lows: The plants are those of the whitethorn. 

 This thorn will, if left to grow singly, attain the 

 bulk and height of an apple tree. It bears white 

 flowers in great abundance, of a very fragrant 

 smell, which are succeeded by a little egg-shaped 

 berry, which, when it is ripe in the fall, is of a red 

 color. Within the red pulp is a small stone; and 

 this stone being put in the ground produces a plant 

 or tree, in the same manner that a cherry-stone 

 does. The red berries are called Aau's ; whence 

 this thorn is sometimes called the hawthorn. The 

 leaf is precisely like a gooseberry leaf, only small- 

 er ; the branches are everywhere armed with sharp 

 thorns, and the wood has a fine grain, and is very 

 flexible and very tough. 



The berries are ripe in November. They are 

 beaten from the trees, and cleared from leaves and 

 bits of wood ; then they are mixed with sand or 

 earth, four bushels of sand or earth to a bushel of 

 haws, and kept in a cellar, or other cool place; 

 and, soon as the frost is out of the ground in spring, 

 they are sown as thick as peas, in drills one foot 

 apart; here they come up and stand till the next 

 year, when they arc taken from that situation, as- 

 sorted, the strong from the weak ones, and planted 

 very thick in rows one foot apart in a nursery, 

 where they stand another year ; then they are 

 ready to be planted to become a hedge. In Eng- 

 land, there are two ways of planting a hedge as to 



