1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



559 



Gen. William Sutton, of Salem, delegate 

 from the State Board of Agriculture to the 

 National Agricultural Fair at Richmond, is in 

 attendance to-day and expresses himself as high- 

 ly gratified with the Maryland State Fair. He 

 was invited, together with your reporter, to be 

 present at the meeting of the society last evening, 

 when the reports of committees were made and 

 the elections of officers took place. Prof. J. W. 

 HoYT, of the Wisconsin Farmer, is also present, 

 and I have been exceedingly gratified by his ac- 

 quaintance. Tomorrow we shall be en route for 

 Richmond, where I shall inform you of the char- 

 acter of the exhibition of the United States Agri- 

 cultural Society. 



I understand that the Patent Office Report for 

 1857 will be issued in about two weeks. It is 

 delayed now by the engraving onty, and this is 

 nearly completed. 



Corn and other vegetation in the vicinity of 

 Baltimore is as green and flourishing as it is 

 with us on the 10th of September. Sypilix. 



For tJie Neta England Fanner. 

 BOOT CROPS. 



I noticed in the last Farmer the article of D. 

 Needham, on English Turnips. Can he pull, cut 

 off the tops and put in the cellar a hundred 

 bushels for three dollars? If he can, I shall try 

 and hire him to gather ray turnips. 



As to cutting them up, and feeding them out, 

 I found it quite a job. Fifteen or twenty years 

 ago the root-crop was quite fashionable in this 

 region. Almost all our farmers went into it, and 

 the few Vidio did not were looked upon as b,eing 

 behind the times, poor farmers, &c. The raising 

 of ruta bag-as, English turnips, and such crops, 

 to any great extent, is as unfashionable with our 

 farmers now as it was the reverse then. Whi/ 

 this change, is not for me to say. V/hy / changed 

 I am willing to tell. 



My first trial was to throw about three or four 

 papers of ruta-baga seeds over my menure heeps 

 that I vi&s going to put in the hill for corn. It 

 w^orked finely. I had a grand crop, more than 

 one hundred bushels to the acre. They cost al- 

 most nothing, as you would look at it, but the 

 corn told a different story. In those hills that 

 had one or two good stout turnips the ears were 

 small, and many of the stalks had no maturing 

 ears on them. As near as I could estimate I lost 

 at least half the corn crop in the hills where the 

 turnips were, say twenty bushels to the acre. 



The next year, on the same land, I tried Eng- 

 lish turnips — they also did well. But the corn 

 suflered again, and was not near as good as when 

 I did not sow the turnips. I found if mj' hired 

 help had to carry out three or four bushels of 

 turnips in the morning and cut them up and give 

 them to the cattle, it took not less that fifteen 

 minutes to the bushel. They increased the 

 product of milk, but not of butter, either in 

 quantity or quality. This was not all — I found 

 on careful experiments that I have never been 

 able to raise a great crop of grass after turnips 

 till I manured again, or gave the land extra ma- 

 nure. This has been my experience as to effect. 

 On the rich land of the West it may do. 



As to the goodness of the crop to feed out, I 



would not let you put one hundred bushels of 

 turnips into my cellar if you would give them to 

 me. They would scent the whole house more 

 than they are worth, and I would not feed them 

 out for them. e. e. 



Remarks. — Our correspondent is a clear think- 

 er, and bold writer ; does not hide his light, usu- 

 ally, or qualify his opinions, so as to weaken 

 their force. Does not the withholding his name 

 and place, in this case, imply a little doubt 

 whether he is quite right in his views about the 

 root-crops? We are glad of his observations 

 nevertheless, because this will lead to investiga- 

 tion, and every farmer ought to knoiv whether 

 the crops he feeds to his stock are profitable or 

 not. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 ROCK-IiIFTEB AND \p-ALIi-IiAYEB. 



In the Farmer of Oct. 1,1 saw a letter from your 

 "Woods Hole" correspondent, "I. S. T.," in which 

 he attempts to enlighten you in relation to our 

 rock-lifter and wall-layer. But as is frequently 

 the case with those who wish to enlighten others, 

 -"•our correspondent evidently needs light himself. 

 He says there has been one of this same construc- 

 tion and manufacture in use at the State Farm 

 at Westboro' for three years past, and one on 

 the farm of Mr. R. S. Fay, at Lynn, for the same 

 period, and that he has used one himself for eight 

 years, &:c. ; in all of which he is mistaken. There 

 is no such machine at the State Farm, nor at Mr. 

 Fay's, neither has he one himself. The machine 

 to which he alludes is one got out by Mr. Devol, 

 and as you say in your remarks, is a very useful 

 machine, and if he has not been, he ought to be, 

 amply remunerated for his study and enterprise 

 in getting it up ; but Boles' patent is a decidedly 

 better machine, as we claim, and such is the in- 

 variable opinion of all disinterested men that 

 have seen them both in operation, as far as I 

 have ever known or heard. The machine to which 

 he alludes is erected on four wheels ; ours stands 

 on two, and can be moved and set over a rock or 

 on the line of a wall as readily and with as much 

 precision as a common ox-cart. With the Devol 

 machine the rocks are hoisted by man-pov/er' ap- 

 plied to brakes or cranks. With ours the hoist- 

 ing is done with a horse or oxen, saving much 

 hard manual labor, and doing the work much 

 faster. T. Eljlis. 



Ilochester, Mass., Oct., 1858. 



Illustrated Annual Register of Rural 

 Affairs, for 1859, with 144 engravings. This is 

 the fifth number of this popular work ; a work 

 containing more valuable suggestions to the far- 

 mer and horticulturist than many volumes of 

 more pretending titles and size. It is made up 

 by J. J. Thomas, one of the clearest and most 

 practical writers among us, and published by Lu- 

 ther Tucker & Son, at Albany. For sale by 

 A. Williams & Co., Boston, 



