290 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



gether with witnessing the gratitude of the ani- 

 mals receiving them, amply paid for doing it my- 

 self. I did not raise them as did your correspon- 

 dent, who found them an unprofitable crop side 

 by side of a corn-field, that produced seventy-five 

 bushels of corn per acre, but on a plot of ground 

 60 cold and ill adapted to corn, it would not have 

 produced ten bushels. I hope the present sea- 

 son, those who hold the turnip culture in the 

 least esteem, will not fail to raise enough to give 

 their animals as feed, as often as they provide 

 their families with fresh fish, or perhaps some 

 other less frequent change in the variety of food. 

 Waitsfield, Vt. S. P. Joslin. 



SORKEIi. 



Thi-i grass should be cut early. If permitted 

 to stand till the seed has become fully matured, 

 the crop not only proves worthless in itself, but 

 an injury to the soil. By cutting when it is green 

 and succulent, or before the seed has shattered 

 out, we obtain an article possessing considerable 

 value, and which is eagerly devoured by sheep 

 and horses, besides accomplishing much towards 

 eradicating it from the soil from which, ordina- 

 rily, it is expelled not without considerable diffi- 

 culty when once it has obtained root. 



In curing sorrel, care should be had to expose 

 it as little as possible to the sun. We have found 

 it an excellent plan to mow in the morning, and 

 cock in small bunches as soon as the dew is off. 

 This j)lan prevents the seed, by far the most val- 

 uable part of the crop, from being wasted, as 

 well as much useless trouble in spreading and 

 cocking up. There are few seeds, perhaps, more 

 tenacious of life than the sorrel. The pericarp 

 or seed vessel, in which the vital germ is en- 

 closed, is singularly firm and indurated, and when, 

 by any chance, it becomes imbedded in the soil 

 to a depth which excludes it from warmth, it re- 

 mains dormant, and will retain its vitality, un- 

 impaired, for years. If a field which has pro- 

 duced sorrel in large quantities, be turned out to 

 pasture, it will, on being again plowed and sub- 

 jected to tillage, even after the lapse of many 

 years, become filled with sorrel plants, although 

 not a vestige of that plant has been seen during 

 the interregnum, or while in pasture. And this 

 is sometimes the case with other plants. We 

 once plowed a pasture which had been grazed 

 for twenty-five successive years, and upon which 

 scarcely a mullein had been seen during all that 

 time. Upon disturbing the soil it brought the 

 long imbedded seed to the solar influences and 

 the air, and the surface was covered before July 

 with so luxuriant a crop of mulleins as to make 

 it necessary to pull up and carry off cartloads of 

 the plants. By sowing lime, in liberal quanti- 

 ties, and taking especial care to eradicate and 

 destroy all the plants that appear, the pest may 

 be entirely overcome. The lime neutralizes the 



peculiar acid which gives life and sustenance to 

 the weed, and by converting it into a healthy and 

 salutary pabulum for more profitable species of 

 vegetable life, deprives it of its appropriate nu- 

 triment, and thus starves it out. Clayey soils 

 rarely become infested to any considerable ex- 

 tent with this production. When it does make 

 its appearance upon them, it is generally attrib- 

 utable, as a result, to the seed having been dis- 

 seminated with the grass seed employed in stock- 

 ing down, and rarely lasts more than one year, 

 when it is crowded out by the cultivated grasses, 

 generally without maturing its first crop of seed. 

 It requires a high, dry and hot soil, and does 

 not flourish vigorously except in the very face of 

 the sun. Sandy lands, of all descriptions, pro- 

 duce sorrel more or less abundantly. And it is 

 this description of soils which are always the 

 most remarkably benefited by ashes and lime. 

 They are non-calcareous, and to be improved, 

 and rendered permanently productive, must be 

 supplied artificially with that of which they ar 

 deficient. 



TOMATOE3. 



Physicians are unanimous in their recommen- 

 dation of this vegetable. Its nutritive character 

 has procured it many friends, and perhaps there 

 is at present no vegetable in this country, which 

 is more extensively cultivated, or which com- 

 mands, in our principal markets a more ready 

 sale, or a more remunerating price. It delights 

 in a free, warm and rather vigorous soil, and 

 should be assisted in its development by liberal 

 and continued applications of old and invigora- 

 ting manure. It is remarkably prolific, one plant 

 often producing a bushel of fruit. The matura- 

 tion of tomatoes does not take place at once, but 

 the fruit ripens in succession, so that the branches 

 are burdened with ripe and green fruit at one 

 and the same time. The methods of cooking 

 and appropriating tomatoes have been varied to 

 an almost infinite extent. In all its forms, how- 

 ever, it has innumerable admirers, and is proba- 

 bly, at this day, the most popular of all our gar 

 den edibles. For family use, a few hills, planted 

 as soon as the soil can be suitably prepared, in 

 the spring, will be sufficient. Guano and gypsum 

 have a very favorable eflect on the tomato. 



Commissioners on Flowage. — The Board of 

 Commissioners appointed at the recent session of 

 the Legislature, will meet at 12 o'clock, noon, on 

 Monday next, to enter upon their view of the 

 land flowed. After this examination, which will 

 probably occupy two or three days, they will give 

 a hearing to the petitioners at the Town Hall, in 

 Concord. 



