1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



453 



bundles to the stook. The heads of wheat are 

 of good length, and the berry plump and fair, 

 with no injury from insects of any kind. The 

 straw stood about breast high, perfectly bright 

 and free from rust or blast. 



I have examined the crop in the barn, both 

 threshed and not threshed, and am pleased with 

 its appearance. A small portion has been 

 threshed, and it would seem, judging from the 

 grain obtained from a given number of bundles, 

 and considering the wliole number in the sixty 

 stooks, that the yield would be between fifteen 

 and twenty bushels to the acre. There is no rea- 

 son to doubt but what more bushels of winter 

 wheat have been grown on the piece this year 

 than it yielded of winter rye three years ago. 

 It is proper to remark that there was a good 

 catch of grass with the wheat. 



Now this is not an extraordinary crop, which 

 other farmers could not hope to equal. But it is 

 a good crop, of winter wheat too, and encourag- 

 ing to others to try and do likewise. Mr. Clark's 

 crop goes to confirm the correctness of Mr. Poor's 

 advice to New England farmers, to attempt the 

 raising of winter wheat. F. Holbrook. 



Brattleboro\ Aug. 20, 1858. 



APPLE PUMICE. 



The general presumption is, among farmers, 

 that apple pumice is an article utterly worthless. 

 This, however, is a mistake. If, upon cutting 

 down the cheese, the pumice be thrown into a 

 close, compact heap, with a sufficiency of quick 

 lime to neutralize the acidity of the mass, and 

 allowed there to remain undisturbed until the 

 following autumn, and then be shovelled over 

 and mixed with a fresh supply of lime, or un- 

 leached wood-ashes, old manure, compost, or dry 

 meadow mud, it will soon become one of the 

 most salutary applications that can be made to 

 apple trees, grape vines, or, indeed, to almost 

 any species of fruitiferous trees or shrubs. 



In its crude state the superabundance of acid 

 which it contains, (tartaric,) renders it highly in- 

 jurious, an.d not unfrequently fatal in its efi'ects 

 when applied to vegetables of almost every kind. 

 A knowledge of this fact sometimes induces the 

 spreading of fresh pumice around bushes which 

 it is desirable to destroy, and the result is speed- 

 ily secured. Elder bushes are often completely 

 deadened down to dry wood, in a single season, 

 by having the surface of the soil around their 

 roots covered with a stratum of pumice four or 

 five inches in depth. Bushes which are even 

 more tenacious of life than the elder, rarely sur- 

 vive more than a year after the application is 

 made. But it is more valuable as a manurlal 

 agent, and to this use should be appropriated. 



In districts where lime cannot be easily ob- 

 tained, a good process is to deposit the pumice 

 in some low and convenient place, where it will 

 not be liable to wash away, mix with it what 

 wood ashes is at hand, and then five or six times 



the amount of pumice, of old, well-dried meadow 

 muck. Turn the mass over two or three times a 

 year, and thoroughly incorporate the whole. Six 

 months before using, cart to the heap a few loads 

 of manure from the barn, mix it minutely, and 

 the heap will be ready for use. 



For the New England Farmer. 



THE TEUE POWL-MEADOW GP.ASS. 



Messrs. Editors : — The July number of your 

 very valuable journal contains answers to ques- 

 tions proposed by me to the N. E. Farmer, no 

 longer ago than May 28th, 1827. And as I was 

 not expecting y»s^ ?iOH', to receive an answer, and 

 having a press of business on my hands, (the 

 Monthly N. E. Farmer being alwaijs good for 

 use,) I did not notice the fact until this morning. 

 My special acknowledgments are due, and are 

 rendered to Mr. Wetherell, for his very interest- 

 ing and instructive article, upon a subject of so 

 much importance to farmers in general. 



The lamented Fessendex, of the old series of 

 the Farmer, was deeply interested in regard to 

 this grass, (the Poa nervata,) and says, in closing 

 his article upon the subject in Vol. 5, No. 45, 

 June 1st, 1827, "We are not able to state the 

 quantity of seed to the acre which should be 

 sown for a crop of fowl-meadow, nor to give sat- 

 isfactory answers to the other questions of Mr. 

 Macomber, but would consider it as a great fa- 

 vor, if any person acquainted with the cultivation 

 of this valuable kind of grass will answer his in- 

 quiries." But it so happens that by far the most 

 satisfactory portions of Mr. Wetherell's article 

 are, after all, contained in the use of the same 

 quotations, from Dr. Elliot's third essay on field 

 husbandry, and from Dr. Willich's Domestic En- 

 cyclopedia, and also from Dr. Muhlenberg; 

 Avhich appeared in Mr. Fessenden's remarks on 

 the same subject more than thirty years ago. 



Upon carefully reviewing Mr. Fessenden's re- 

 marks, we think Mr. W. will become convinced 

 that Mr. F. did not say, as he supposed him to 

 do, that, "this grass is called herds-grass, and 

 white-top, at the South." But says Mr. F, "It 

 is thus described in the second volume of the 

 American edition of Willich's Domestic Encyclo- 

 pcedia, page 268 ;" and we do not understand Mr. 

 Fessenden to affirm it to be so, any more than 

 we do Mr. W. to affirm that which he quotes 

 from others. 



That Mr. F. was mistaken in some respects 

 there can be no doubt ; he answered according 

 to his best information in '27, and Mr. W. has 

 given us in some respects the same, together 

 with the increasing light of '58 ; and the agricul- 

 tural community can but be grateful that a grass 

 of so many valuable qualities, is now so authori- 

 tatively and elaborately, as seen by the many 

 writers cited by Mr. Wetherell, placed within 

 their rightful power. 



Mr. W.'s answer to my third question does 

 not appear to have been understood, he having 

 once for all said in answer, "it is not a salt marsh 

 grass ;" that we well knew from Mr. Fessenden's 

 remarks, in '27. But will it answer provided the 

 soil is sometimes overjloioed by salt water ? in the 

 exact language of the question, is quite another 

 matter. 



