216 



XEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



small way, and always ■with the same result. 

 I have paid, perhaps, one hundred dollars in 

 all, for ft^rtilizers, but I don't think that I am 

 one dollar better off for the whole. 



It is fclow starting up a farm that is run so 

 low that it will not produce more than ten or 

 fifteen hundred pounds of hay to the acre, but 

 I know it can be done in the way that I have 

 pointed out; and when I cannot see an in- 

 crease cf produce from year to year I shall 

 want to quit farming. 



I am in the greatest want of something to 

 manure f.mr or more acres for corn next 

 spring, more than I shall have ; and would buy 

 some of these fertilizers if I knew that I could 

 get something that would do as well as others 

 tell of doing ; but it is useless to try ; I have 

 been cheated so much that I am sick of it. 



If any man doubts my statements, I think I 

 can sati^fy him that I am correct if he will 

 call on me next summer. W. S. Grow. 



\lesiboro\ Mass., Feb. 16, 1869. 



For the Kew England Farmer. 

 THE PAKM IN "WINTEB. 



We have had here in Connecticut a very 

 open, mild winter, and but little snow. When 

 winter first set in I, for one, was not very well 

 prepared to meet it, as owing to the scarcity 

 of fall help, and considerable improvements 

 made on the farm, by the way of digging it well, 

 laying pipes, building two barns, &c., we had 

 considerable corn to husk afG<-r Dec. 1st, — say 

 from two to three hundred bushels. But the 

 weather being so fivorable we were enabled 

 to secure 'all our corn without wa^te. 



Since then we have devoted most of the 

 time to feeding out what we raised the past 

 year, so as to be able to begin the agricultural 

 year with empty buildings fur storing the next 

 crop. Our winter stock on the farm consists 

 of twenty cows, from which we sell the milk : 

 about a dozen head of young cattle, mostly 

 thoroughbred ; fourteen horses and colts, sev- 

 eral of which are brood mares with foal ; five 

 pairs J oung oxen, two pair of which I shall 

 sell in the spring; a thoroughbred Ayrshire 

 bull, "Duke of Queentsbury,'' No. 160, A. H. 

 Book ; about one hundred good ewe sheep, 

 mostly South Down ; eight good hogs, and a 

 large collection of various breeds of poultry. 



So you will .-ee that there is something to 

 do to properly feed and take care of the "crit- 

 ters ;" besides which we peddle our own milk. 

 We have cut wood and pariially got up a 

 wood pile f.)r the year, besides have drawn 

 out some fifty loads of manure. When I say 

 we, I rt fer to myself and two sons, one 18 

 and the other 15 years of age. I have no 

 hired man this winter, but shall want two this 

 summer. 



And, now, while on the subject of hired 

 help, 1 will say that to obtain a supply of good 

 farm help is the hardest and most perplexing 

 part of farming in this section. It is almost 



impossible to hire good reliable men at any 

 price, and especially at any price which com- 

 mon farmers can afford to pay. Brother far- 

 mers, I appeal to you to know what we are to 

 do to remedy this evil, — this great drawback 

 to New England farming. 



As regards the wintering of mv sheep, I 

 never had sheep winter any better, until within 

 ten days. But recently I have lost three very 

 valuable ewe sheep, each nearly ready to drop 

 twin lambs. The first symptoms of disease is 

 a disposiion to stand alone from the flock, a 

 loss of appetite, finally a slight nodding or 

 jerking of the head and weakness in the legs. 

 I know of no cause or cure. Will some ex- 

 perienced sheep man tell me how to manage 

 them ? 



As to horses, will it pay to raise them here 

 in Connecticut, within two miles of the rail- 

 road depot? What say you, Mr. Editor.!* If 

 it will pay to rai.«e horses, what style or class 

 will pay the best? As regards milk, which 

 will pay the best, "year in and year out," to 

 sell the milk by peddling it, or to make a dairy 

 and raise pork? What say you, Mr. Editor? 

 What say you, brother farmers? What say 

 you all? How many will answer me this 

 question ? 



I am Attening my last thoroughbred Essex 

 hog, not but that I like them very much as a 

 breed ; being quiet, easily kept and make good 

 pork ; but this community is so much opposed 

 to black hogs that I cannot sell the pigs at 

 home. The last pigs of this breed that 1 sold 

 went to Warren County, Iowa. I want to 

 start again on hogs, and I want to start with 

 the best breed there is in the country, all 

 things considered. But whatever the breed 

 is, they must be white. Now who will tell me 

 of the best breed of hogs in America from 

 which to sell pigs at six to eight weeljs old and 

 to make pork of at a profit ? John Dimoi^. 



Pomfret, Conn., March 1, 1869. 



INTESTINAL "WOBM8. 



It is now satisfactorily proved that the tape- 

 worm originates from the passage into the 

 human intestines of little bladder-like crea- 

 tures (^Cystadids), which inhabit the liver and 

 other parts of the hog, and when abundant, 

 cause the meat of that animal to be techni- 

 cally known as "measly pork." And the no- 

 torious Trichina spiralis, which is a very 

 minute worm, also found in the flesh of the 

 hog, effects an entrance into the human body 

 in the same insiduous manner, and when m 

 excessive numbers causes excruciating pains 

 in the muscles, and sometimes even death. In 

 both these cases, cooking destroys the worms, 

 and prevents them from finding their way alive 

 into the body of the living and breathing man, 

 and there increasing and muliipljing. But 

 the same law prevails in all such cases as 

 these, namely, tliat there is no fear whatever 

 of any of these animals being introduced alive 



