VOL.. XII. NO. 11. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



83 



MILCH COWS. 



Tue American Farmer, in the course of a long 

 article on the treatment of Cows, mentions the fol- 

 lowing circumstance. It strikes us as being worthy 

 of the consideration of farmers, and those who 

 keep Cows. " And, let us remark, good water is 

 as essential to good milch-yielding as good pasture. 

 We had a cow last summer that yielded five gal- 

 lons of rich milk a day. She ran in a tolerable 

 pasture, but there was a stream of pure spring 

 water running through it. We also kept salt con- 

 stantly within her reach. The same cow, this 

 summer, in a much better pasture, does not yield 

 three gallons of milk. The reason of this falling 

 off is, that she is supplied with water from a 

 pump, occasionally, when her attendants conceive 

 she wants it — not when she thinks she wants it, 

 which is the great point. She also gets salt ' as 

 it happens.' " — Bost. Cenlinel. 



BROOM CORN. 



Broom Corn is cultivated in the Hadley Mead- 

 ows and about that town extensively this year. — 

 Last season but little of it was raised, in conse- 

 quence of the reduction of prices occasioned by 

 an excess of it being planted the preceding year. 

 The stock of brush now on hand is light and the 

 market not glutted, scarcely supplied, and the crop 

 this year will yield well and good prices be sus- 

 tained. Mr. Shipman, of Hadley, is one of the 

 most extensive, if not the largest Broom-manufac- 

 turers in New England. His Factory is spacious, 

 and not less than Fifty thousand corn Brooms, 

 we suspect, are annually made and sold by him. — 

 Making Brooms is a striking illustration of the 

 value of a suitable systematic division of labor. 

 The handles are made by one set of men. The 

 brush prepared by another. Tied on by a third, 

 the trimming performed by a fourth, and painting 

 or staining the handle and putting on the finishing 

 touch administered by a fifth. In this manner a 

 Broom, which if all the component parts succes- 

 sively were made by one man, wonld cost from 

 seventy-five cents to a dollar, is now afforded, in 

 consequence of the proper subdivision of labor, at 

 less than one sixth part of that sum. — .Northampton 

 Courier. 



FENCES. 



No man possessing a particle of the pride which 

 should be felt by every farmer in the excellence 

 and utility of his profession, can travel through 

 any section of our country without feeling that 

 pride deeply mortified at the miserable manner in 

 which too many of our farms are fenced, and the 

 total neglect of providing means to repair those so 

 rapidly rotting away. It is a fact, and one which 

 should be known and felt, that scarcely any part 

 of the United States is more deficient in good 

 fencing stuffs after the land has once been cleared 

 than west New- York. We have few of those in- 

 exhaustible quarries of stone found in the eastern 

 mountains — our fields furnish after repeated 

 ploughings but very inadequate quantities of loose 

 stones for fencing — and the axe is used almost as 

 unsparingly in our few remaining forests, as it was 

 when thirty years ago they overshadowed the 

 whole land. The consequence of this state of 

 things is easily foretold — in fact, it is already seen 

 and felt. The worn fences of the first settlers 

 have mouldered away, and the fields at first small 

 have gradually enlarged their bounds, until on 

 many farms the outside fence is all that deserves 



the name. Boys and girls that ought to be at. 

 school, pokes and clogs, and fetters of all varieties, 

 are employed as substitutes for fences ; and dogs 

 are multiplied to prey on the flocks of the thrifty 

 and provident farmer. This state of things ought 

 not to exist — there is no necessity fir it — plant 

 nurseries of trees suitable for fencing stuffs, and 

 in a few years your farms will advance in price 

 fifty per cent. The chesnut, the locust, &c. arc 

 easily raised and are of rapid growth — impervious 

 hedges are readily formed, and no man should al- 

 low a stone as large as a four pound shot to lie on 

 a field devoted to mowing or tillage ; all should 

 be worked up into fences. The man whose farm 

 is divided into fields larger than ten acres, may 

 depend that he does not understand his true in- 

 terest. — Auburn Journal. 



AUGUST, 1833. 



This month, it appears, has been the coolest 

 August within our recollection. It is two degrees 

 cooler than August of last year, and one degree 

 cooler than August 1829, the coolest in the last 

 sixteen years. The mean average of August for 

 the last twelve years, was about four degrees warmer 

 than this. The three summer months this year 

 have averaged very low, being nearly the same as 

 last year, and nearly six degrees below the general 

 average of twelve or fifteen years. 



The weather during the month has been pleas- 

 ant and delightful, and though so very low an 

 average heat was exhibited, there was no appear- 

 ance of frost. The crops that have been reaped, 

 have proved very abundant, and the important one 

 of Indian Corn bids fair to be more than an aver- 

 age. 



But little rain has fallen during the month. The 

 most abundant shower was on the 4th, which fell 

 in torrents, accompanied with the most terrific 

 thunder and vivid flashes of lightning, ever re- 

 membered by our oldest inhabitants. — Newport 

 Mercury. 



SPOTS IN THE SUN. 



A spot on the Sun was seen in this town, yes- 

 terday, for the first time since the Spring. It 

 probably entered on the Suu on Wednesday, and 

 will occupy about a fortnight in crossing his disc. 

 It is quite small and cannot be seen without a tel- 

 escope. 



Perhaps it may be remembered, that the sum- 

 mer of 1816 was one of the coldest ever experi- 

 enced in New England ; a severe frost having oc- 

 curred in every month, proving descructive to the 

 hopes of the agriculturist and " causing as much 

 loss as the embargo and war." This remarkable 

 coldness was generally ascribed to the immense 

 spots visible the whole summer on the Sun, which 

 were sufficiently large to be seen through a piece 

 of blackened glass, aud were ascertained to cover 

 about one third of his surface. But bow shall we 

 account for the almost equal coldness of the Sum- 

 mer of 1833. It cannot be ascribed to the same 

 cause as that of 1816, as during the last four or 

 five months we have not been able to perceive any 

 spot, and the whole surface of the Sun has appear- 

 ed, even when viewed through a powerful teles- 

 cope, clear and serene. — New Bedford Mercury. 



CHLORIDE OF SODA. 



A singular case of a severe burn cured by the 

 use of a solution of the chloride of soda, is record- 

 ed in the London Lancet. An attorney, in attempt- 



ing to put out the flames that had attacked the 

 curtains of his bed, had got his hands burned — 

 blistered, but not broken. He sent for a couple of 

 quarts of the lotion, (4 oz. of the solution to a pint 

 of water,) had it poured into soup plates, wrapped 

 his hands in lint, as no skin was broken, and so 

 kept them for some time. Next morning he was 

 so perfectly well that only one small dried patch 

 of burn remained; yet an hour and a half had 

 elapsed before the application. The same solution 

 has been equally effectual in scalds and bruises. 

 It never fails almost immediately to heal a ' black 

 eye.' When the choride is used for scalds, it is 

 necessary to use with it in the after applications 

 some spermaceti oil. — Philadelphia Sen. 



HINTS ON INDIGESTION. 



To lay down general rules for dietetics, to pre- 

 dict or threaten the same terrific catastrophe to 

 every sinning gourmand ; to explain by the same 

 universal cause, " indigestion," every malada to 

 which flesh is heir to, is absurd, even when such 

 generalizations are confined to a large class of so- 

 ciety in this country, without wandering abroad. 

 One can no more find two stomachs than two noses 

 alike. The whole secret lies in learning how the 

 stomach of our patient has been educated, aud ac- 

 cording to that education to deal with it. This 

 involves an individuality in the attention to be 

 given in cases of " stomach complaints," which 

 physicians would find too troublesome ; yet with- 

 out it justice cannot be done to the patients. It 

 is sheer nonsense to talk of classing human stom- 

 achs and civilized stomachs; stomachs of drunk- 

 ards and stomachs of abstemious people ; stomachs 

 of aldermen and stomachs of Pythagoreans ; stom- 

 achs of literary men, lawyers, physicians, and par- 

 sons, and stomachs of young collegians, sportsmen, 

 and dandies, under one and the same rule. Each 

 has had its physical education as peculiarly differ- 

 ent from that of the rest as that which the posses- 

 sor has received at the nursery or college ; and 

 each must be dealt with accordingly.. A friend of 

 mine, who had occasion to see a physician write 

 several directions for invalids laboring under what 

 are called " stomach complaints," wondered that 

 he did not give a printed circular to each, in imi- 

 tation of a great authority, who had always the 

 same printed page to refer to, and thus save him- 

 self the trouble. Had he followed such a plan, he 

 would have done his patients injustice ; for, as far 

 as my own experience goes, I am confident he 

 never met with two stomachs alike. — Dr. Granville. 



THE COTTAGE. 



If men did but know what felicity dwells in the 

 cottage of a virtuous man — how sound he sleeps, 

 how quiet his breast, how composed his mind, 

 how free from care, how easy his provision, how 

 healthy his morning, how sober his night, how 

 moist his mouth, how joyful his heart — they would 

 never admire the noises, -the diseases, the throng 

 of passions, and the violence of unnatural appe- 

 tites, that fill the houses of the luxurious, and the 

 hearts of the ambitious. — Jeremy Taylor. 



ARDENT SPIRITS. 



No " proper place " for it. — A law of Virginia 

 allows the retailing of spirituous liquors at "pro- 

 sper places," in the different counties. In one of 

 the counties, the Magistrates have decided that 

 there are no " proper places" within their jurisdic- 

 tion for such a purpose. 



