834 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



APRIL. 30, 1S34. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 30, 1834. 

 SPRING WORK. 



Ploughing. It is a good general rule to plough 

 in the fall most of the land which you propose to 



till. J.u-k Frost, Esq. with his liny [Sneers and 

 invisible pulverizers will do more toward subdu- 

 ing a rough and rugged soil than can lie effected 

 by all the implements of husbandry. But in ma- 

 ny soils, fall ploughing is not to be recommended. 

 A light sandy land, which is naturally too loose 

 for vigorous vegetation, is injured by late fall 

 ploughing. The frost destroys the little adhe- 

 siveness which it ever possessed, and its most fer- 

 tilizing particles are swept away by winds, or 

 washed off by floods. Such soils' should be kepi 

 coated and bound together by vegetation as much 

 as possible. In ploughing land of any descrip- 

 tion, but more particularly a light soil, care should 

 be taken to draw the furrows as nearly level, or 

 horizontal as possible. Without this precaution, 

 every furrow will become the channel of a water 

 course, by means of which the best of your soils 

 will be apt to take French leave of your premises. 

 If your land is light and sandy, it will be highly 

 important to turn the furrow quite over and leave 

 it as flat as the narrative of a long-winded story- 

 teller. Then complete your work by harrowing 

 so as to fill the interstices between the furrow sli- 

 ces, and passing a heavy roller over it, your soil 

 will then, probably remain with you, instead of 

 being oft" by wind or water. But if the land is of 

 a stiff", heavy and adhesive nature, the furrow sli- 

 ces should not be laid so flat as to prevent the air 

 from pervading their sides and lower parts. The 

 depth of ploughing should be regulated by the kind 

 of crop prepared, the depth of the sod ami the 

 means of improving it. It is wrong R> turn up at 

 once a great body of hungry earth, unless you 

 have plenty of manure with which to feed it. A 

 soil naturally shallow should be made deeper by 

 degrees, and no more barren earth be turned up by 

 any one operation than you have the means of en- 

 riching by manure. Spring wheat is a very good 

 crop with which to sow clover and oilier grass 

 seeds. It is well lo plough and harrow it in with 

 your spring wheat, you will please to allow not 

 less than about twelve pounds of gootl clean clo- 

 ver seed, and as much as a peck of herds grass. 

 alias timothy, to an acre, you may as well sow 

 grass seed in the spring on winter wheat or rye, 

 and harrow it in. Although some plants of the 

 grain may be torn up by the teeth of the harrow, 

 the remainder will receive so much benefit thai 

 the balance will be much in favor of using the har- 

 row. 



MASS. HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



EXHIBITION OF FRUITS. 



Saturday, April 26. 



By Mr. Hoyt of Gilford, N. H. liusset tipples 

 from a tree raised by him from seed, a fruit oi 

 medium quality, valuable for their late keeping. 



By Joseph Morton, Esq. of Milton, Tolman'.- 

 Sweeling, fine and productive for the table and 

 baking. 



By 1). Posdick, Esq. ofGharlestown, Sweetwater 



Grapes preserved in oak saw dust, they were in a 

 g in I State of preservation, and the flavor equal to 

 the imported grape. 



For the Committee, liun'r Manning. 



GRAPE Vl.vES. 

 Let that farmer who has not a good grape vine 

 about his bouse, mount his horse and go a journey 

 of some 10, 50, or 100 miles to obtain an Isabella, 

 Catawba, or some other choice native vine. It 

 should make a farmer blush, in these days lo be 

 compelled to say, he has no vine to sit under. It 

 implies that he is slow in availing himself of the 

 proffered blessings of Providence — that he cannot 

 think much of adding to the comforts and pleas- 

 ures of his wife and children. — .V. 1*. Farmer. 



ASHES. 



A correspondent informs us, that from his own 

 experience, and the opinion of the best farmers, 

 he is satisfied that a bushel of good .ashes is worth 

 a bushel of corn, to put on corn, flax grass or a 

 garden : and he is surprised that .any person should 

 c ntinue the practice of selling ashes for pot-ash, 

 at the trifling price of 8 or 10 cents a bushel. — 

 Hampshire Gazette. 



BREAD. 



It is not generally known that the best and fin- 

 est bread must contain both alum and potatoes. 

 To five bushels of flour there must be "28 pounds 

 of alum and a bushel of potatoes. The alum is 

 ground in with the wheat at the mill, and the po- 

 tatoes are boiled by the baker's servants and nib- 

 bed unpeeled through a sieve. Without these in- 

 gredients the bread would neither be white or light : 

 so that not only does a great profit induce the 

 usage, but the improvement of the article for sale 

 requires it. The bad taste of the alum is taken 

 away by the fermentation of the dough. Some- 

 times instead of yeast which is occasionally very 

 difficult to procure sweet the great bakers use vol- 

 atile salts, with which they ferment some of the 

 dough, and that ferments the rest without any 

 yeast. The above mentioned quantities of flour, 

 alum and potatoes, will make 80 quartern loaves, 

 and the quantity of potatoes accounts for the fact 

 that excellent bread can be got from the bakers 

 cheaper than it can be made" at home. 



ITEMS. 



Grass seeds. It is very probable that the far- 

 mers of this country, in confining their attention 

 exclusively to clover and timothy, do not realize 

 as much hay and pasture as they would from a 

 greater variety sown in the same field. In Eng- 

 land the quantity sown to the acre for mowing is 

 ten pounds of red clover, two of white do., two of 

 yellow do., and one bushel of perennial rye grass. 

 In this country grass seed is not generally sown 

 later than the 15th of April. — .V. Y. Farmer. 



Bolts in Horses. This is the season in which 

 these worms are injurious to horses. Horses that 

 have their food frequently seasoned witb salt are 

 said to be less liable to injury from them. Since 

 bolts seem to be (bud of sweet liquids, it may be 

 an advisable precaution to administer molasses 

 with their food. — Genesee Farmer. 



The Chinese Mulberry. We should advise eve- 

 ry farmer to obtain at bast one of the Morus mul- 

 ticaiilis. It will not cost more than fifty cents ; 

 and by taking cuttings or by laying, he may next 

 spring have some ten or twenty plants. — Genesee 

 Farmer. 



Young Turkies. No kind of domestic fowl sell 

 better than line turkies; and yet comparatively 

 few are raised in proportion to the numbers hatch- 



ed. It is recommended to keep them from wet, 

 and to i'n;t them on homony and chopped onions. 

 — N. Y. Farmer. 



Grubbing. The manner in which I cleared apiece 

 of ground grown up in bushes and undergrowth of 

 various sizes from three to ten feet high was with 

 a pair of oxen and a chain of ten to twelve feet 

 long, with one end attached to the yoke, and form- 

 ing a noose with the oilier around as many of the 

 sprouts as could be encompassed by it, which when 

 thus made fast, they drew out by the roots with 

 great ease; it was in the spring while the ground 

 was yet loose : it is probable the operation would 

 not he so easy when the ground is dry and hard. 

 Two active boys of fifteen years of age, will clear 

 more ground in this way, than ten men will grub 

 out in the ordinary method with mattocks. — Amer- 

 ican Farmer. 



ITEMS OF INTELLIGENCE. 



A fossil ship containing sculls and bones, both human 

 and brule, lias recently been discovered at New Romney 

 on the coast of England. The earth has been removed 

 so as lo display her whole form, a clinker built craft, and 

 trunnel fastened, having only one mast, being 54 feet 

 lung by 24 wide. Curiosity has been much excited by 

 its developcment. 



Four Banks Failed. The Bank of Washington and 

 the Patriotic Bank, in the city of Washington, the Far- 

 mers and Mechanics Bank at Georgetown, D. C. and 

 the Alexandria Bank, have all stopped payment with- 

 in a few days. They are declared to be solvent, but 

 unable to withstand the pressure of the times. 



From the Kegister kept in Shelburne four miles west 

 of this village, we leain that during the last winter, there 

 tell in that place between Nov. 2b and Dec. 24, 50 inch- 

 es of snow, a very unusual quantity. In Ashfield, Heath, 

 and Rovve, towns lying higher and farther west, there 

 fell from 18 to 24 inches more during the same space of 

 time. In Shelburne, there fell from Dec. 24 to March 

 25, at five different times, 22 inches more, making 75 

 inches in all. — Greenfield Mercury. 



A Distressing hut common Circumstance. A few days 

 since a Mrs. Robinson, wife of Mr. Barnabas Robinson, 

 of Sheridan, in this county, left her child aged six months 

 upon a cotton blanket on the floor, while she left the 

 house for a few minutes, and on her return she found 

 the blanket and child's clothes on fire, supposed to have 

 taken by a coal snapping upon them. The child was so 

 severely burned that it died on the third day. We might 

 here add the usual caution against thus leaving helpless 

 children alone where there-is a fire, but it would prob- 

 ably have as much effect as the hundreds that have been 

 given before. 



Cure for Polypus. A writer in a foreign periodical 

 relates that an obstinate case of polipi of the nose of 

 lono- standing was cured by applying laudanum with a 

 hair pencil to the pubpi. 



Mr. Isaac Edwards, of Pcnntownship, in the western 

 section of Chester county, informs us that he disposed 

 of 211 lbs. of butter, from four cows, in the .'pace of elev- 

 en weeks in the early part of last season : besides fur- 

 nishing the ordinary supplies of a family of from four to 

 seven persons. — Westchester Village Record. 



Last year on the opening of the canal, there was at 

 Albany ready to be forwarded, 21175 tons of goods from 

 New York. This year, alas ! there is only seven hun- 

 dred tons.— N. Y. Star. 



The Meteoric Phenomena. Professor Olmslead of New- 

 Haven, has offered an ingenious hypothesis to theforth- 

 eiiiniiig iiinnlti r oi ' Silliinan's journal, on the subject of 

 the extraordinary shower of meteors during the last fall, 



