1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FAR:MER. 



75 



EXTRACTS AND KEPLIES. 



MICE GIRDLING TREES. 



Some years since you kindly pul)]islie(l a com- 

 munication from the writer, on "How to prevent 

 micegirdlingtrees." As I am unal)le now to refer 

 to the date of the Farmer in wliich it appeared, I 

 will, with your permission, repeat it in substance, 

 for the information of "Jack" or any other of your 

 correspondents. 



Place around your trees tubes or cylinders 

 made from old waste tin, stove funnel, yarn cans, 

 sheet iron, or zinc, any quantity of which may be 

 had for the picking up about stove or tin shops, or 

 perhaps on your own premises. The tubes may 

 be from two to eight inches diameter, and from 

 six inches to anj"- length you may desire and can 

 find material for. A tinman's shears and vise are 

 all the tools necessary to put them in shape for use. 

 Cut to the sizes you want, turn over the edges one- 

 eighth of an inch of two sides in opposite directions, 

 bring it round a tree, clasp it by hooking the 

 parts turned at the edges together, press down a 

 little into the earth and you have a mouse-proof 

 shield that will not easily get displaced, tliat can 

 be put in position and removed in ten seconds, and 

 will last a life-time with very little care. I have 

 used, and so have some of my neighbors, these 

 shields for fifteen years past around trees growing 

 in places where mice are most likely to abound, 

 but have never known of a tree being injured by 

 the vermin when thus protected, while other trees 

 in the same locality, left unprotected, or banked 

 up, have been ruined. The expense of these 

 shields is trifling. A tin worker made a hundred 

 of various sizes for me some fifteen years ago, at a 

 cost of less than three cents a piece. Most of them 

 have been put around trees every winter since, and 

 they arc now as serviceable as when first made. I 

 use them in spring about young cabbages and 

 other plants, and they prove a good protection 

 against cut and slug worms. I sometmies fill the 

 circular space around a tree with coal ashes and 

 let the shield remain the year round as a prevent- 

 ive of the operations of the apple and peach tree 

 borer. 



If your correspondents "Jack" and "J. J. T." 

 will fairly test my method of "circumventing the 

 varmints," if it fails, they may draw on me at sight 

 for all trouble and expense. R. 



Lowell, Mass., Nov., 1868. 



COTSWOLD SHEEP. 



Since the publication in your paper of my arti- 

 cle upon the profits of Cotswold sheep, I am al- 

 most daily in recefpt of letters requesting me to 

 give the result of my experience in breeding and 

 crossing them upon other breeds. To comply 

 with these requests by letter would take nearly 

 the whole of my time. I will, therefore, with your 

 pernli.■^sion answer them in a scries of articles dur- 

 ing the coming winter, through your valuable 

 paper. 



13ut first let me inquire of such men, are you 

 readers of the Neav England Farmer. If not, 

 will you immediately subscribe for if, and endeav- 

 or to induce your neighbor to do the same thing, 

 for I cannot consent to ask the editor to furnish 

 us with the ready-made brick, without first olfer- 

 ing liini the straw to make it of. There is not a 

 reader of this paper who cannot with very little 

 trouble, induce some one of his friends or neigh- 

 bors to subscribe for the New England Farmer. 

 Now friends will you do it ? 



I have many letters saving that thousands of 

 sheep will be "slaughtered for their pelts ;" "we 

 are becoming heartily disgusted with raising fine 

 wool and keeping fine sheep." To all such I 

 would say hold on ! There is a better way than to 



go into the indiscriminate slaughtering of sheep 

 for their skins, and it is my purpose to show a 

 better way. T. L. Hart. 



West Cornwall, Co7in., Dec. 8, 1868. 



application of ashes to fruit trees. 



I often make use of ashes around my trees,— 

 certainly as often as once a year, and believe it to 

 be of great benefit to them. 13ut, like some of your 

 other correspondents, I have learned not to apply 

 it in contact with the bark of the trees, as they be- 

 come moistened and form lye often too strong for 

 the growing wood. I generally use aboutone 

 quart of ashes to a tree, scattering it around them 

 as far as the roots are supposed to extend under- 

 neath. My large trees, in bearing ten or twelve 

 years, receive an application of from six to eight 

 quarts of unleached, or double the quantity of 

 leached ashes to each tree, scattered in same man- 

 ner. I never permit the ashes to lie upon the 

 ground in any place more than one inch in depth. 



It is the excessive use of proff"ered blessings 

 which renders them a curse. Let us profit by each 

 other's experience, truthfully, and candidly given; 

 and thereby avoid errors, which require time and 

 capital to correct. 



In this connection allow me to remark, that I 

 fully appreciate the wide influence, which your ex- 

 cellent journal is exerting, in advancing the great 

 and growing interests of agriculture and horticul- 

 ture. I like the tone of your paper. It has a ten- 

 dency to make young men satisfied with their 

 homes, and teaches them the manhood, indepen- 

 dence and honor of a farmer's life. 



Solon Burroughs. 



Vergennes, Addison Co., Vt., Dec. 4, 1868. 



Remarks. — It may not be improper for us to 

 remark that the foregoing is from a practical nur- 

 seryman. 



application of manure. 



In your issue of November 28, I was not only 

 pleased ^Vith the closing remarks of W. S. Grow, 

 but with your most pungent remarks in reply. 



The most economical application of manure is 

 a study of the greatest importance, and requires 

 the closest observation for a period of many con- 

 secutive years. In my observation for twenty 

 years in the practical applisation of manure, I am 

 convinced that what is ordinarily termed "mulch- 

 ing," or the application of thoroughly decomposed 

 barn-yard manure to the surface, to be the most 

 economical use of this class of fertilizers. From 

 this experience I am convinced that one cord of 

 manure applied to the surface on wheat ground at 

 the time of sowing, or on ground intended for 

 corn, in the late autumn, or applied to all varieties 

 of large and small fruits, is worth three cords 

 ploughed or dug under to a depth of eight inches. 

 My soil is of a gravelly loam, resting upon a clay 

 subsoil. Upon more tenacious soils or upon deep 

 drifts of shale, a different application may prove 

 advisable. 



Hoping to hear from our friend Grow, and others 

 of your intelligent country gentlemen, I am yours 

 truly. E. M. Bradley. 



East Bloomfield, N. F., Nov. 30, 1868. 



KINO OF TOMPKINS. 



I see in the Farmer of last week, a notice of the 

 King of Tompkins County apple, which hardly 

 answers for this locality. 



Some fifteen or sixteen years ago, while living in 

 Tompkins County, I came across this apple, and 

 thought it the handsomest and best apple I ever saw. 

 I sent some scions to my father in Concord, who 

 grafted them into two trees in the orchard. They 



