358 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



there, its traces were so delicate that we could 

 not detect it. 



In the region of the heart and lungs there ap- 

 peared serious trouble ; they were very dark 

 colored ; the lungs swollen to a monstrous size ; 

 as we had got our hand in, we thought we would 

 look in to the stomach or maw, and entrails. On 

 opening the stomach it seemed literally coated 

 with bots. We commenced counting, scraping off, 

 or cutting them from the maw, until we counted 

 in round numbers, five hundred bots, as large as 

 a bee ; his maw was literally eaten out of him. 



I have been thus particular in this case, hop- 

 ing to draw some instruction from you or some 

 of your correspondents. Have given this colt 

 the past three months, while unable to stand, 

 some laudanum, brandy and molasses, and a 

 great quantity of new milk. I had supposed the 

 bots to be a quick disease. Was it the milk and 

 molasses that made him linger thus long? 



Some one that knows, I wish would inform me 

 how many bots, or how many hundreds of them, 

 a healthy, full grown horse usually has in the 

 maw ? Was the number in my colt a common 

 or an uncommon number ? I think it uncommon. 

 Friend Willard advised me to doctor for the 

 bots, but I want a prescription for killing those 

 five hundred bots, without injury to the colt. 

 Wharton D. Sear. 



Southampton, June, 1859. 



HOEING. 



One of the most important items of business 

 on the farm is hoeing. So much depends upon 

 this particular process of crop-getting, that a 

 farmer may cover broad acres of fertile land with 

 manure and seed, work it in the most approved 

 and careful manner, keep off all beasts and in- 

 sects, and then, neglecting to hoe timely and 

 properly, fail to receive anything like a remuner- 

 ative crop. It is one of the weakest pieces of fol- 

 ly in which the farmer indulges, and is the next- 

 door neighbor to cultivating and raising a fine 

 crop with assiduous labor and pains, and then 

 neglecting to harvest it. Another look at it, 

 shows that the folly is even greater than this. 

 Why? 



A neglect in hoeing allows weeds to grow and 

 perfect their seeds. These are annually shed 

 upon his own ground, stocking it for years to 

 come, and these annual sowings are so many an- 

 nual accessions of new crops of rank weeds, to 

 torment and exhaust the energies of the culti- 

 vator, in his attempts to make them give place to 

 the plants which he wishes to rear. But this is 

 not all the wrong he does. 



Nature is always at work to hide her blemish- 

 es (as we look upon them) with something grate- 

 ful and beautiful to our eyes — some drooping 

 bell-shaped flower with large green leaves covers 

 the otherwise bald roadside, where excavations 

 have been made, or patches of fresh grass, or 

 rushes, or sedge, or shrubs, cover the earth laid 



bare by accident or by man. In order to accom- 

 plish this, she has given many seeds locomotive 

 power, and they fly or float away, perhaps long 

 distances, in vast numbers, to settle a new colo- 

 ny wherever they may alight. 



Is it right, then, for one farmer to raise a crop 

 of pernicious plants and perfect their seeds, that 

 they may invade the premises of another, and 

 cause him years of painful labor from which he 

 derives no profit ? It certainly is not right, and 

 the good husbandman will consider well what 

 his duty is in relation to this matter. 



Hoeing has other advantages beside that of 

 keeping the weeds down. It has something the 

 effect of thorough draining. Well drained land 

 becomes light and porous, is prepared to receive 

 the air and warmth of the sun's rays, and the fer- 

 tilizing properties contained in rain water and in 

 the dews. Lands well hoed are placed in a con- 

 dition much like this, and will produce a much 

 larger crop than lands left unhoed. Neglected 

 hoeing brings — 



1. An unsightly, slovenly field, which is a 

 shame to its possessor. 



2. A hard, unyielding soil, that makes what 

 hoeing is done doubly expensive. 



3. Tons of weeds to rob the soil and deprive 

 the crop of its natural source of support. 



4. Crops of seeds that perpetuate the evil, and 

 an infliction of wrongs upon others that we have 

 no right to inflict. 



5. Loss of reputation as a good farmer and an 

 upright man. 



G. Loss of labor, loss of crop, and what is 

 more than all, loss of that heavenly feeling of 

 duty done, that approbation spoken by every 

 well-tended tree and plant and flower, "Well 

 done, good and faithful servant, thou shalt have 

 thy reward." 



Better neglect haying than hoeing — better ne- 

 glect planting, even, than hoeing ! But it is too 

 hot to say any more about it now. It is cooler 

 and more pleasant to hoe on such a day as this 

 sixteenth day of June, than to sit at the desk 

 and write about it. 



Salt and Ashes for Cows. — On turning my 

 cows to pasture, in the spring,' I provide several 

 small tubs, and having fixed them firmly in the 

 soil to prevent them being overturned, put into 

 each tub one quart of salt and three quarts of 

 sifted wood-ashes, previously well mixed by stir- 

 ring. The cows partake freely of this mixture. 

 It prevents injury from the sudden change from 

 dry to green food, and has, besides, a most in- 

 vigorating effect upon the general system. Some 

 assert that salt should be given only as often as 

 once a week, as its more frequent use would be 

 injurious. But when supplied in this way, no ap- 

 prehension need be entertained. 



