1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



195 



their "filthy lucre" without a murmur. Does 

 any one suppose they -would as freely subscribe 

 to funds to promote agriculture ? 



I find it much easier to induce a farmer to 

 subscribe to a political than to an agricultural 

 newspaper. Will those farmers who read this 

 article investigate the matter, and report the 

 result of their researches through the Farmer ? 



D. L. S. 



East Madison, Me., Feb., 1869. 



Remarks. — In taking or refusing to take news- 

 papers, as well as in all their other actions, men 

 are moved by motives. What then are the mo- 

 tives which determine the choice or move the will 

 in deciding this question ? or, in other words, 

 what's the use of agricultural papers ? Many 

 would probably reply that the chief benefit of agri- 

 cultural papers consists in the fact that they make 

 common stock of individual experience and prac- 

 tice ; they tell how the best farmers manage their 

 soils, their stock, their manure; what crops they 

 grow and how they cultivate them ; what imple- 

 ments they use, what teams they employ, what 

 markets they find. 



All this is important and valuable, but has not 

 the agricultural press a still higher purpose in the 

 promotion of the social interests of farmers ? 

 Farmers are becoming a power in the land. Their 

 right to be heard in our State and national coun- 

 cils is recognized. The effects upon their interests 

 of measures of public policy is considered by the 

 law makers of the land. The agricultural paper 

 should therefore become the organ and the advo- 

 cate of these interests, and the opponent of what- 

 ever is calculated to affect them injuriously. 



The commercial and manufacturing interests of 

 the country not only recognize the importance of 

 employing the press to advocate and defend their 

 interests, but they patronize it liberally for so do- 

 ing. "The gods help those who help themselves," 

 and unless farmers recognize this use of agricul- 

 tural papers can they expect their cause to prosper ? 

 The tone of the city press generally on the subject 

 of the renewal of the so-called Reciprocity Treaty 

 shows very conclusively what farmers can expect 

 from papers that are sustained by the commercial 

 and consuming classes. The Boston Daily Journal, 

 for instance, has not only steadily advocated the 

 renewal of that treaty, but in a leading editorial of 

 its issue of Feb. 17, headed "Brussels and Belgi- 

 um," it urged the importance of cheapening food 

 for the crowds that congregate in cities, in a man- 

 ner that we think must be refreshing to its patrons 

 in the country who are producing this food. In 

 speaking of Belgium, the editor of the Journal 

 says : — 



She has sent in one year thirty thousand tons of 

 rails to Russia, and while we exclude the cheap 

 tcool from the basin of the La Platte, the plains of 

 Australia a^id the savannahs of Africa, by a duty 

 of twelve cents a pound, or a hundred per cent., 

 Belgium admits it free and sends the cloth to New 

 York or Canada to supply our citizens with cloth- 

 ing. It has been the policy of Belgium to keep 



down the cost of production by keeping doton the 

 cos<o/'/bo<i, clothing and materials. . . . Under 

 great disadvantages, by the superior education, 

 skill and ingenuity of our people, they have already 

 begun to send again their drills and sheetings to 

 Asia and Africa. This trade is capable of indefi- 

 nite expansion, but to expand it they m«<.si Aai'e 

 cheap %oool, iron, steel, cheap potatoes, aleioines and 

 herring, of which tliey are now deprived by war 

 duties, injurious to revenue, and almost prohibitory 

 in their effect on commerce. 



Under the present prices of farm produce, which 

 the Journal thinks should be reduced, farmers 

 find it difficult to keep their sons and daughters at 

 home; farms in the interior of New England are 

 offered "for less than the buildings and fences 

 cost," and the increase of population is confined 

 to the commercial and manufacturing centres. 

 What, then, would be the effect of lower prices ? 

 of the Journal writer's wool at 12 cents per pound, 

 of butter at the same price, beef at ^'3 per 100 

 pounds, and potatoes at a shilling a bushel ? What 

 sort of newspapers, then, should farmers take ? 



For the New England Farmer, 

 DISCUSSION ON MAICLNO- SUGAR. 

 Westminster, Vt., Farmers' Club, Feb. 15, 1869. 

 Want of room compels us to condense the report fur- 

 nished by M. W. Davis, Secretary, 



N. G. Pierce, Esq. — "Neat and quick" are 

 the watchwords. First I would have tin buck- 

 ets, if necessary to buy new ; but as most have 

 wooden ones, keep them painted, especially 

 the inside, using raw oil and venitian red. 

 Do not attend auctions and buy old musty 

 buckets. I prefer the wooden spout. The 

 bit of half inch, boring three inches deep. I 

 think the amount of sap drawn from the tree, 

 depends more upon the depth of the hole than 

 size. Now if your sap runs through clean 

 spouts, into clean buckets, conveyed in clean 

 holders, boiled in clean apparatus, sufficient 

 so as not to need much storage, keeping every- 

 thing out of the sap rather than strain to get 

 it out, making it into sugar the same day, 

 (not let your syrup stand or cool, for it turns 

 led) and you have white sugar. I have a 

 heater and one pan, and can boil sap enough 

 for 100 pounds sugar in a day. 



Orestus F. Peck. — I tap my trees only when 

 it is a sap day. I use f bit and sumac spout. 

 I consider them the best. I scald them in 

 lime water when done using, to neutralize the 

 acid generated by the absorption of sap, and 

 before using run a hot iron through them 

 which chars them, tending to purify as well as 

 to retard the ingress of the sap to the wood of 

 the spout. I prefer the small bit to the larger, 

 oecause the hole being smaller does not dry 

 up as readily. I boil my sap into syrup every 

 day, and it is best when boiling to drive it as 

 fast as possible and steady, for if it occasion- 

 ally cools down it colors. I then strain and 

 let it stand 12 to 24 hours before sugaring 

 off. Then I turn off the syrup from the sedi- 

 ment. In the early part of the sugar season 



