52 



NEW ExNGJ.AND FARMER. 



Jan. 



a true squash ; this will not hybridize (as far as 

 lean ascertain from others, as well as by my own 

 experience,) with the pumpkin tribe. I cannot 

 say but that it may with the gourd family, but I 

 have not as yet observed this. 



MIXING OF THE JIAKKOW. 



The first indication of the mixing of this fine 

 vegetable with others, is the thickening of the 

 skin and contracting or smallness of the stem. 

 Second, in the green color at the seed end. Third, 

 in the enlargement of the fruit, and lastly, the 

 disappearance of the elevated margin around the 

 seed. This vegetable is now raised in abundance 

 in New York and Pennsylvania, and having re- j 

 ceived them originally from your city, they are j 

 known as "Boston marrow." 



Another vegetable which is considered by the ; 

 cultivators around Marblehead, as an acquisition, 

 and Vvhich they raise with great success, is a mam- 1 

 moth cabbage, weighing twenty-five pounds and 

 upwards. These were first raised by Mr. Mason, 

 of that place, and hence are called Mason's cab- 

 bage. This variety was first raised from seed 

 which I received some fifteen to eighteen years 

 since, from Charlwood & Sons, Seedsmen, Cov- 

 ent Market, London ; it came to me as a new 

 cabbage, marked "Scotch drumhead ;" I gave the 

 small paper to Mr. Mason. This vegetable, by 

 the high manuring for which the Marblehead 

 cultivators are famous, has increased the size of 

 this variety at least one-half. I recently visited 

 afield of these enormous vegetables with a friend, 

 who suggested that in order to identify this va- 

 riety with the town, it should be called "Marble- 

 head mammoth cabbage." John M. Ives. 



Salem, Mass., Nov., 1858. 



For the Niiw England Farmer. 

 TOPPING CORN STALKS, 



"The practice of cutting corn-stalks as soon as 

 the corn is glazed, is still followed, notwithstand- 

 ing the loss in the weight of the corn is more 

 than the value of the stalks." 



I extract this sentiment from page 72 of the 

 forthcoming Transactions of the Essex Coun- 

 ty Agricultural Society ; a work to which I am 

 accustomed to look for sound instruction. 1 

 know of no work of the kind, prepared with more 

 care, or better entitled to confidence. Is it true 

 that this error among farmers is "still followed" 

 almost universally, to the prejudice of the crop ? 

 Who knows that the quantity of corn is dimin- 

 ished by the removal of the stalks ? Has there 

 been any well-conducted experiments to deter- 

 mine tJ^^c fact? Without doubt, the stalks are 

 more valuable to be taken off, and properly cured. 

 But corn is not cultivated for the stalks that can 

 be saved, but for the corn itself. I have often 

 heard it averred, that the kernel will be better 

 filled, if the stalks are left on until the harvest. 

 But this may be all theoretical. If any one 

 knows the fact, let them come forth, and be heard. 



I am pleased to see among the contributors to 

 the pamphlet above named, several talented 

 young men. There is no danger of knowledge 

 fading away, although the fathers decay. I hail 

 with sfitisfaction, among these contributors, the 

 names of Page, Gregory, Sargent, Phippen, Put- 

 nam, Preston, and others. Essex. 



November, 1858. 



For the Nezo England Farmer. 

 AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS. 

 BY WILSON FLAGG. 



Dr. Franklin, on seeing a fly make his escape 

 from a bottle, in which for a long period of years 

 it had been corked up in a torpid state, ex- 

 pressed a wish that he could sleep half a century 

 or more, and then awake, like the fly, to witness 

 the progress which had been made in his beloved 

 country. But if steam-power had been carried 

 into operation to its present extent in Franklin's 

 day, I do not believe he would have expressed 

 any such wish. When I consider the inevitable 

 tendency of this great invention to concentrate 

 all wealth and power into the hands of capital- 

 ists, I feel as if I should be reluctant to wake up 

 some ages hence, to view my country when the 

 world is finished. Though it will be admitted 

 that steam, in its application to travelling and to 

 manufactures, has conferred great apparent ben- 

 efits upon mankind, we still have reason to pon- 

 der seriously upon the ultimate consequences to 

 small independent farmers, of the introduction of 

 steam power into the operations of agriculture. 



I read in the journals of the day, some weeks 

 since, that a company had been formed in the 

 western part of the State of New \'ork, for agri- 

 cultural purposes, and that they had purchased 

 a "mammoth farm," on which they designed to 

 operate by steam, in connection with the several 

 magnificent inventions which have lately attract- 

 ed the attention of our agricultural societies. 

 However expedient this system of associated cap- 

 ital may be for the growth of manufactures, it 

 would very soon be fomid destructive to the 

 prosperity of individual farmers. These corpo- 

 rations, executing almost all their heavy labor 

 by steam power and mammoth implements, 

 would crowd out of the ranks of agriculture all 

 those whose farms were of such small extent, 

 that steam could not be profitably used by them. 

 In competing with the companies, the small far- 

 mer would find himself in the situation of the 

 hand-spinner and the hand-weaver, who should 

 undertake to compete with the manufactories of 

 Lowell and Lawrence. 



Last year, the Illinois State Board of Agricul- 

 ture off'ered a premium of $5000 for the best 

 steam-plow — thus encouraging an invention cal- 

 culated to make the business of farming profita- 

 ble exclusively to great corporations or capital- 

 ists ; to destroy the value of the present mode 

 of farming, and to extirpate the whole class of 

 small farmers from the State ! All such inven- 

 tions tend to make it necessary that agriculture 

 should be carried on by large employments of 

 capital, and on a magnificent scale of operations. 

 All agricultural implements which are moved by 

 steam must be profitable in a certain ratio to the 

 extent of even and uninterrupted surface which 

 is to be tilled. On small fields it would be im- 

 possible to use them with success. Hence fol- 

 lows the necessity of farming by associated capi- 

 tal, of greatly increasing the size of farms by 

 combining many into one ; and under such ira- 

 proved circumstances, the present system of farm 

 labor could not stand in competition with steam- 

 farming. The agricultural steam-company, with 

 their implements carried by steam-power, would 

 cultivate ten acres with about the same expense 



