552 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



TO PRE'\'ENT AKTS, COCKROACHES AND OTHER 

 VERMIN. 



Mr. Editor : — Noticing in your paper for Au- 

 gust a writer who mentions having much trouble 

 with red ants, I send you the following method of 

 getting rid of them, as well as cockroaches and all 

 creeping insects that infest our dwellings. 



Take one ounce of corrosive sublimate, (common 

 bed-bug poison) mix it in one pint of New England 

 rum, and let it dissolve. After cleaning the closet 

 or other place thoroughly, take a pencil brush or 

 feather, wet it well with the solution, and draw it 

 along every crack and crevice, and across the thresh- 

 old of the door, (if a closet,) and across the sills of 

 the windows. Do this once in three weeks, in v/arm 

 weather, and it will be found a perfect preventive. 

 I have used this for a number of years, and have 

 never found a creeping insect willing to cross any 

 crack thus treated. I use it also upon my piazza 

 floor where spiders are apt to be troublesome. 



Respectfully, c. c. s. 



JVewtonville, Oct. 5, 1856. 



QUERIES about CRANBERRIES. 



I am just beginning farming on my own account, 

 and find a great deal of useful information in the 

 Farmer, but I want a little on a particular point. I 

 wish to set out a patch with cranberries. I have an 

 excellent run, or meadow, which 1 think is well 

 adapted to such a purpose. I find sand at the bot- 

 tom of the mud. There is a natural bed of them 

 upon it already ; will those plants do to take up 

 and set out ? How far apart the hills or rows, when 

 the best time to set them out, and how prepare the 

 land, Szc. ? A few words of advice will be gladly 

 received by A Subscriber. 



Berry, JV. H., Od. 6, 1856. 



to kill ticks. 

 North Clarendon, Vt. — Mr. J. A. French, of 

 this place, states that flax seed fed to sheep, about 

 a table spoonful each day to an animal, will destroy 

 the ticks, and promote the health of the animal. 

 He mixes it with cut feed. 



A THRIFTY "SCION." 



I have an apple tree scion which I set last May, 

 the entire growth of which measures twenty-six 

 feet five and one-half inches. Perhaps this may not 

 seem to you, or your numerous correspondents, 

 anything extraordinary, but it seems to me to be 

 an uncommon growth, and is at least deserving of 

 being called a little fast. P. B. Hood. 



Milford, J\r. H., 1856. 



A Rare Chance. — Upon application to us per- 

 sonally or by letter, we will inform the person wish- 

 ing to purchase, where he can obtain thirty to fifty- 

 acres of excellent land, at a moderate price. It is 

 a deep, black, sandy loam, without stones, and sit- 

 uated within five minutes' drive of one of the pleas- 

 antest villages in Middlesex county. There are 

 some apple trees now on it — no buildings, but a 

 fine, high location for building, bounded by the 

 highway. 



For the New England Farmer. 



PATENT OFFICE EEPORTS. 



Mr. Editor : — Having often seen in different 

 papers the reports of the Patent Office spoken of 

 as though the statements therein contained were 

 not just the thing, or were, many of them, exaggera- 

 tions, I have been led to examine the subject, and 

 have come to the conclusion that, as a general 

 thing, they are correct. And now for the reason 

 of this. A farmer, or any one else, shall receive a 

 package of seeds from the Patent Office, with direc- 

 tions it may be as to planting, &c. Now in the natu- 

 ral course of human events, the crops expected 

 from these particular seeds will receive very par- 

 ticular attention. Probably they will occupy the 

 best land on the farm. Taking these things into 

 consideration, is it to be wondered at, that the crop 

 is a large one, and the "statement," or report, rath- 

 er a "tall affair ?" Most assuredly not ; for cause 

 and effect have not ceased to follow each other as 

 yet in this go-ahead day of progress. Tiiese reports 

 only illustrate what ought to be a general thing 

 with every crop cultivated on the farm. 



When farmers have learned to carry all their 

 operations to the highest state of perfection instead 

 of attempting so much, and half doing the whole, 

 they will have made a rapid stride in the right di- 

 rection, and they may lawfully be classed among 

 the "progressionists" of the day. The more I reflect 

 upon the subject, the more I am convinced that too 

 much land is the curse of modern farming. In the 

 "good times coming," this great lesson is yet to be 

 learned. Many have already got it by heart, and 

 they are the men who find farming a delight, and 

 a paying business. This class of farmers, beheve 

 in blood stock, in the use of mowing machines, horse 

 rakes and steam plows. They "keep their eyes 

 open," and if you wish to get ahead of them, you 

 must rise early, and be in no hurry to go to bed. 



But the great million have not yet learned this 

 lesson. With them, the Patent Office Report is a 

 humbug, book farming a bore, blood stock, mowing 

 machines, &c. &c., a nuisance. Their eyes need to 

 be opened. Notwithstanding, Mr. Editor, this great 

 stumbling block, the world will continue to pro- 

 gress, and the science of agriculture with it. 

 There is a leaven at work among the farming 

 interest which is destined to affect the whole mass. 

 For one, I rejoice for what the Government at 

 Washington is now doing for the benefit of the far- 

 mers of the United States. It is amove in the 

 right direction, and a vast amount of good must be 

 the result. Let every tiller of the soil speed on 

 the good work. In its distribution of seeds, we 

 have only a prelude, I humbly trust, of what is yet 

 to follow. No better man can be at the head of 

 this department than the present incumbent, D. J. 

 Brown, Esq. I only regret that our government 

 is not liberal enough to supply every legitimate far- 

 mer in the country with the Agricultural Report of 

 the Patent Office. 



October, 1856. NORFOLK. 



I^^ The weather-wise are predicting a mild au- 

 tumn and an open winter. They say that when the 

 sun passed the equinox on the 20th of September 

 the wind set the whole day from the southeast, giv- 

 ing us a warm storm, and that during several days 

 the wind stood in the same quarter. This prognos- 

 ticates a continuance of the same character of 

 weather during the next six months. 



