170 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



ding, the shavings will absorb and retain a large 

 amount of valuable material, and if the soil is too 

 compact they will have an excellent mechanical 

 influence upon it. Any fine, dr}', vegetable matter 

 applied largely to the land, has been found to im- 

 prove it ; but the process is a slow one, unless fer- 

 mentation is readily induced in it by the droppings 

 of cattle or something else of this nature. We 

 have known an impoverished field of sandy loam 

 thoroughly fertilized by the use of spent tan, fre- 

 quent ploughings and the bountiful blessings which 

 the atmosphere shed upon it — nothing else being 

 applied. But this was efl'ected through a process 

 of several years, as an experiment. Perhaps it 

 might have been more economically restored by the 

 use of active manures. The experiment proves, 

 however, that our poorest lands may be made in 

 some degree fertile by an expenditure of little be- 

 sides the labor required to keep the surface free 

 from weeds and in a fine and loose condition. The 

 first money cost would be for grass seed, to be 

 grown and ploughed under. 



DISEASE AMONG THE PIGS. 



Will you or some of your subscribers tell me 

 of the cau5e and a remedy for a disease among 

 *. my pigs ? They are taken with a swelling of tht ir 

 hips and numbness of their limbs. Some of them 

 are lame all over. Many have been lost in this 

 section by this disease. Some lay it to buckwheat 

 feed, and straw of the same for bedding; but I am 

 confident it is not the case with mine. 



J. C. Miller. 



Fort Kent, Aroostook Co., Me., Feb., 1869. 



Remarks. — It is quite clear that your pigs suffer 

 from paralysis, but not so clear what causes it. 

 It is often occasioned, however, from exposure to 

 dampness and cold, especially where pigs are 

 obliged to lie upon damp floors, where cold drafts 

 of air pass up between cracks in the floor upon 

 the wet bodies of the animals. Or sleeping upon 

 wet bedding and exposure to severe cold at the 

 same time, would be quite likely to cause paralysis 

 of the hinder parts. Warm and well-ventilated 

 apartments that are kept dry, a table-spoonful of 

 the flour of sulphur, three times in the course of 

 ten days, and good, nourishing food, are the best 

 prescriptions we can recommend. 



80RE TEATS IN COWS. — MANAGEMENT OF LONDON 

 DAIRIES. 



In reply to "G. H. K.," Sterling, Mass., Nov. 

 16, 1868, I beg to give him an old English receipt 

 to cure cow's sore teats. It may be useful to other 

 subscribers to the Farmer. The boilings of pig's 

 feet, ears and laces, after being well salted — and a 

 portion of saltpetre also — for five or six weeks. 

 The following is the mode of preparing it. After 

 the feet are boiled till the meat is quite done, take 

 the boilings and add, in a muslin bag, two or three 

 good handfuls of green mallows, with the roots, 

 and l)oil till quite tender; then chop or pound to 

 a pulp. After the boilings are cold, take off all 

 the fat and put into co/<L water, and set it on the 

 stove to f/ently melt, no^o boil or even simmer, 

 when all the bits of meat and bone will sink in 

 the water. Then set by to get quite cold. Take 

 off the fat and add to it the pulped mallows, and 



mix it well together into a salve which will be 

 found very beneficial for cow's sore teats, and as a 

 preventive of cracking, if occasionally used on 

 those which are hard and rough. Speaking of 

 cows, it will not, perhaps, be much out of order to 

 makealiitle addition to the remarks of Mr. H. 

 Morton, the "city of London cow keeper." Hav- 

 ing been acquainted some years ago with a great 

 cow keeper in London, whose milk walk extended 

 over many miles, I learned that he always had in 

 reserve the same quantity of milking cows out at 

 grass, that he had in the stalls, and regularly 

 milked twice a day. As soon as any stall fed cow 

 began to sink in her milk, she was turned out, and 

 a grass cow brought up into her place. All cows, 

 however, were changed once a month, even if they 

 milked well up to the day of turning out to grass. 

 By thus changing the cows, he was enabled to 

 ki ep up his daily supply oi' milk for his customers. 

 His first stait was with 170 cows, which number 

 he kept up. John Whatmore. 



Bridgenortli Farm, } 



Dunleith, III., Jan. 15, 18G9. S 



raising wheat in new ENGLAND. 



Your remarks in the recent number of the Far- 

 mer, in relation to raising wheat in this part of 

 the country, have led me to think over my expe- 

 rience in raising wheat for the last thirty years. 

 We first sowed half a bushel of spring wheat on 

 about half an acre of land, and raised eleven bush- 

 els of good wheat. The next year we sowed one 

 bushel on some of the best land of our farm, and 

 got a lot of rusty straw and shrivelled grain, from 

 which a man would have to work hard to thresh 

 out enough during the day to make bread suffi- 

 cient for his supper. A few years later we sowed 

 some more spring wheat with about the same re- 

 sults. In 1853, 1 remember, I had the wheat fever 

 again, from reading Mr. Henry Poor's articles. I 

 went to Andover, where he then lived, and bought 

 a bushel of his best winter wheat, thinking that it 

 would not rust. It was sowed on land that usually 

 gives eighty bushels of shelled corn to the acre, 

 when it is manured as we did for the wheat. It 

 yielded twenty bushels of wheat. The next year we 

 sowed it and it rusted worse than the spring wheat. 

 About ten yeai-s ago, one of our neighbors got 

 some wheat from Dunstable, which it was said 

 would not rust, and the wheat fever began to ap- 

 pear again, but it soon died, or rather rusted out. 

 From my experience I have come to the conclu- 

 sion that it costs me twice as much to raise my 

 wheat, as it does to raise other crops and buy my 

 wheat. Wm. R. Putnam. 



Danvers, Mass., Feb. 1, 1869. 



FANCY POTATOES. 



"Every dog must have his day," is an old adage, 

 and as true of potatoes as dogs. Just now the fever 

 runs high, and the man who is fortunate enough 

 to raise a large crop from a small amount of seed, 

 or succeeds in producing an "extra early" tuber, 

 finds amarket for them at any price. "Fast" horses 

 and "fast" potatoes take well. Two years since, 

 in common with others, I "invested" a few dimes 

 in the "Early Goodrich." They did very well. 

 Encouraged to expect a greater yield under more 

 favorable circumstances, I carefully treasured up 

 the product of the first year, selling enough how- 

 ever to my neighbors to realize a little more than 

 my first investment. I planted largely the second 

 year, carefully manuring and cultivating them. 

 The drought came on just when they needed mois- 

 ture most, and the result was a large crop of "small 

 potatoes," from the size of a buck shot upwards, 

 not reaching however the size of decent respecta- 

 bility in but few cases. From one hill I dug one 



