388 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



For the New England Farmei , 

 SSIiBCnON OF SmA-WSaKBIES. 

 STATEMENT OF W:,I. R. PRINCE. 



American Institute — Farmers' Club — June 20tli. 



The great point in all culture is economy and 

 its results, and the true test of the strawberry is 

 farm culture, with or without cutting off the run- 

 ners. 



The following I consider the best varieties for 

 field cultivation, where the plants are to cover the 

 entire ground, thus avoiding extra labor and ex- 

 pense, and making the whole of the soil availa- 

 ble. 



Scarlet 2Iagnate, the heaviest of all strawber- 

 ries. 



Diadem, splendid scarlet, very productive ; 

 Mr. M. Bergen, of N. J., stated that he had not 

 deemed it possible for so large a crop of fruit to 

 grow on a given space as he saw growing on this 

 variety. 



Eclypse, early, bright scarlet, upright, clean 

 and b&autiful. 



Minerva, estimable quality, produces more 

 than twice AVilson's Albany. 



Imperial Scarlet, large, bright scarlet, upright, 

 firm for market. 



Perfumed Pine, seedling of Burr's Pine, ob- 

 tuse cone, very large, bright scarlet, sweet, juicy, 

 high flavor, vigorous, very productive, combines 

 more valuable qualities than any other berry. 



Hoceij, qualities well known. 



Malvina, same qualities as Hovey, but more 



firoductive, brighter color, higher flavor and ear- 

 ier. 



Florence, very large, conical, splendid scarlet, 

 fine flavor, vigorous, very productive, valuable. 



Globose Scarlet, large, rounded, very produc- 

 tive. 



Prince's Globose, a late variety, large, scarlet, 

 moderate flavor, very productive and vigorous, 

 ripens twelve days after the general crop, and 

 therefore valuable as a late market fruit. 



■ Six best staminate varieties for field culture, 

 requiring to be cultivated in stools, and the run- 

 ners to be cut off, thus however occasioning ad- 

 ditional expense, besides leaving much of the 

 ground unoccupied, — Scarlet Prize, Wilson's Al- 

 bany, Sirius, Barry's Extra, Primate, Montrose. 



Varieties preferable for families, being of fin- 

 est flavor, — Le Baron, Ladies' Pine, McAvoy's 

 Superior, Sirius, Longworth's Prolific, Ward's 

 Favorite, Globose Swainstone, Fragrant Scarlet, 

 Hooker, Imperial Crimson, Perfumed Pine, Mi- 

 nerva, Scarlet Prize. 



HOOT CROPS — FODDER. 



We are glad to see a return to the culture of 

 roots, fuch as turnips, ruta bagas, mangel wurt- 

 zels and carrots, among us. Not that they have 

 ever been wholly abandoned, but the culture of 

 them, for the last ten years, has fallen off very 

 much. People talk about the comparative value 

 of these things. 



We all know that there is great difierence in 

 the nutritive power of the articles which we use, 

 not only for our own food, but for the food of 

 our domestic animals ; and we also know, that 

 ■we, as well as our animals, are so constituted as 



to require this same variety for the continuance 



of health and activity. Keep yourself on one 

 single article of concenti-ated food, and you may 

 perhaps grow fat, but you will also become sick, 

 or languid and spiritless. Sailors know this. 

 When they get into situations where they are 

 obliged to live on one kind of food, they find 

 their health decline, and their strength and vital 

 powers to flag, and they finally have to "give up 

 the ship." It is, therefore, a duty to cultivate a 

 variety of articles to be used as fodder for our 

 stock, during our long winters. Good hay is the 

 staple crop for this purpose. It is to cattle what 

 bread is to their owner, the staff of their lives. 

 But roots of different kinds make an agreeable 

 and a profitable variety. In olden times, when 

 the potato rot was unknown, the potato, be- 

 ing the easiest raised and preserved, was much 

 used for cattle food. The potato rot put a veto 

 on this root as stock food. — Maine Farmer. 



For the New England Fanner. 

 BIHDS VS. FHUITS. 



Regarding the service or injury of birds, of 

 whicJi so much is now written, I am aware that 

 they destroy considerable fruit, much more than 

 at the time of Wilson. I think that all animala 

 acquire a taste ; for example, the domestic pigeon 

 will now eat the acid currant. Some years 'since 

 I obtained of Col. Jaques, of Charlestown, a pair 

 of Bremen geese for a farm ; these birds I kept 

 for a fortnight, and during that time their food 

 was grass ; corn they would not eat. Some twelve 

 months after this I saw these birds on a farm in 

 Danvers, and was then told that they were great 

 eaters of corn. I say above that in the time of 

 Wilson birds could not have been called such 

 plunderers. In his description of the purple 

 grakle or crow blackbird and the common crow, 

 (these of all birds considered the most destruc- 

 tive to the corn,) he thought that they more than 

 compensated for their depredations, by "follow- 

 ing in the furrow of the plow, and that their ser- 

 vices in the spring, in destroying grubs and lar- 

 va, of which they eat prodigious quantities be- 

 fore, and, as if to compensate for the grain they 

 take, in the fall." 



In the first edition of Manning's Book of 

 Fruits I inserted an article on this subject from 

 which I take the following extract : 



"In speaking of the annoyances sustained from 

 birds, I am persuaded that these plunderers as 

 they are sometimes called, more than compen- 

 sate for their inroads upon our orchards by their 

 services in the spring, and during their incuba- 

 tion, in destroying insects : in the breeding sea- 

 son we see them constantly flying from the nest 

 for a supply, and returning with a grub or a 

 worm. I have seen the ampelis, or cherry bird, 

 that remarkably silent and dove-like species, upon 

 my apple trees, when the canker worm was about 

 half grown, destroying them in numbers, and al- 

 though called plunderers, they are, in fact, bene- 

 efactors likewise. 



"Public economy and utility, says one, no less 

 than humanity, plead for the protection of the 

 feathered race, and the wanton destruction of^ 

 birds, so useful, beautiful and amusing, if not 

 treated as such by law, ought to be considered 



