354 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



should be set shallow, in broad bottomed pans. 

 It would require too much time to adjust the 

 cover. It is too expensive. But for use in large 

 towns and cities, where people set only a gallon 

 or two of milk, and where rats, cockroaches, flies 

 and other interesting vermin invade their eata- 

 bles, it must prove an excellent article, and 

 would not be too expensive. It is a capital ven- 

 tilator and cooler. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 HUNQARIAIf GRASS. 



Mr. Editor: — When I was a lad, some fifty- 

 five years ago, I distinctly recollect of hearing 

 an old gentleman declare, (sportively,) that, the 

 farmer who would make two spears of grass grow 

 where only one grew before, and would make a 

 yearling steer weigh as much as an ox, was enti- 

 tled to much credit, and would most assuredly 

 get a feather in his cap. 



When I read the communication in the last 

 Farmer from Mr. Richard, of Richmond, relat- 

 ing to his Hungarian grass, I w.as led to feel 

 that he, too, was entitled to much credit, for he 

 most positively declares that he prepared his 

 ground, and between the fifteenth and twentieth 

 days of June, '58, sowed thereon twenty-nine 

 quarts of Hungarian grass seed ; the product 

 of which, he informs us, was seven and one-half 

 tons of hay secured, and, moreover, from the hay 

 he threshed out eighty-five bushels of well-ri- 

 pened Hungarian grass seed ! 



If Mr. Richard, (in some future number of the 

 Farmer,) will be so obliging as to give the actual 

 measurement of the land from which he took so 

 large and valuable a crop of grass and seed, the 

 character of the soil, and the manner in which 

 he prepared the ground for the seed, whether 

 by top-dressing or otherwise, he will confer a fa- 

 vor upon every farmer who takes delight in see- 

 ing fat cattle upon a thousand hills, and all those 

 who are most willing to learn the science where- 

 by two spears of grass may be made to grow, 

 (throughout the farm) where only one grew be- 

 fore. A. Brow>'E. 



Dalton, Mass., June 13, 1859. 



For the New England Farmer. 



APPLES AND APPLE TBEES. 



In your paper of June 11, your correspondent, 

 "S. P. Baker," says that apple seeds planted 

 where they are to stand permanently, will be 

 worth twice as much, and will live as long 

 again, bear twice as many apples, &c. I consid- 

 er his remarks partly true, but not wholly so. In 

 my own mind, an orchard will do better to have 

 the seed planted where they are to stand, as then 

 the tap-root goes directly down, and on dry land 

 the tree will stand the drought better, and will, I 

 think, live longer; but to say they will live twice 

 as long, and bear twice as much fruit, is, I think, 

 a mistake. My opinion from long experience is, 

 that the flavor of fruit is aflected by the soil, and 

 very little generally by the tree. Putting the 

 Baldwin on a warm, dry soil, the flavor is richer 

 and more melting. It ripens earlier, but will not 



keep so long. On low land it does not ripen so 

 early and the pulp is more firm, and the flavor 

 not so pleasant to the taste. 



From one paragraph of your correspondent 

 from Ipswich I disagree wholly. "Apple trees 

 grafted from scions that are two years old will 

 bear every year, as a one year old scion has only 

 half come to maturity, and consequently bears 

 only half the time." I have grafted with my 

 own hand and taken the scions myself from one 

 year old, to two, three, and four, but more gen- 

 erally from two, repeated it every year, and the 

 cases are very rare that the Baldwin will bear 

 every year ; there are some kinds of apples that 

 will bear every year, but it is not, in my opinion, 

 because the scions were one or two years old. 



In consequence of a very fine apple that orig- 

 inated in Sherborn, where I lived seventy years, 

 running out or failing to produce fair and hand- 

 some fruit, which was esteemed by every lover 

 of good fruit, and was fit for the table from Octo- 

 ber to April, my father before me had grafted 

 probably a hundred trees of that kind, and up to 

 1810 produced as handsome and fine fruit as I 

 have ever seen. Since that year it has not been 

 worth raising. That settles the question that 

 some apples have and will run out. I tried every 

 way I could think of to restore them by pruning 

 and cultivation, but they grew worse by it. Some 

 writers have supposed that the flavor of fruit is 

 influenced by the stocks on which they are graft- 

 ed, but I have thought more by the soil. 



Daniel Leland. 



East Holliston, June 13, 1859. 



For the New Engl«md Farmer. 

 ONION AND TURNIP CROPS. 



Mr. Editor: — Mr. Proctor does not believe 

 there is any remedy for the onion maggot. Has 

 he tried the guano and did it fail him ? If he 

 will fix a little bed in his garden, and sprinkle 

 the plants with guano when about three inches 

 high, and again when they are setting for bot- 

 toms, and the maggot meddles with them, they 

 will do difi"erent with him than they have done 

 with me. I have now a little bed in my garden 

 of about ten square yards of as handsome onions 

 as I have ever seen at this time in the year. They 

 have had two coats of ashes and one of guano. 



I see I am not alone on the turnip crop. My 

 experience has been the same as your correspon- 

 dents, "C." and "J. L. T." I never had a good 

 crop of anything after a crop of turnips till I had 

 manured the ground. Ed. Emerson. 



Mollis, June 11, 1859. 



The Slaughter which Sustains us. — When 

 we ride we sit upon the skin of the pig ; when 

 we walk, we treak upon tho skin of the bullock ; 

 we wear the skin of the kid upon our hands, and 

 the fleece of the sheep upon our backs. More 

 than half the world are human beings in sheep's 

 clothing. We eat the flesh of some creatures, of 

 some we drink the milk ; upon others we are de- 

 pendent for the cultivatioH of the soil ; and if it 

 is a pain for us to suffer hunger and cold, we 

 should scrupulously avoid inflicting wanton mis- 

 ery upon the animals by which we are warmed 

 and fed. 



