274 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



JXTKE 



recently said, "all my money did, was to advertise 

 a grape already known ; thus improvement was 

 cliecked, not stimulated. I am a liitle discouraged 

 by the result, and do not propose to offer another 

 bank note for a plate of common grapes." 



— A correspondent writes to the New England 

 Fakmer that people have come to church in 

 ftleiphs eighteen Sundays in succession, in Con- 

 cord, N. H., this winter. 



— After losing one hundred chickens, a corres- 

 pondent of the Country Gentleman fed them with 

 the scales th>^t fall from heated iron around a black- 

 smith's anvil, and the remainder were cured and 

 remain healthy. 



— A correspondent of the Gardener's Monthly 

 wishing to remove the old putty from a large num- 



EXTKACTS AND KEPLIES. 



BARN-ITCH. — BEST BREED OF CATTLE. 



Can you or any of your numerous readers inform 

 me, through the Farmer, of a remedy f r barn- 

 itch ? It is very prevalent in this vicinity, there 

 being hardly a stock of cattle free from it. I have 

 tried the usual r..meciics, — salt, grease, sulphur, 

 &c., but with little or no benefit. 



What is the best breed of thoroughbred stock, 

 all thing:* considered, for the faimers in this part 

 cf Maine ? Alvin B. Jordan. 



E. Raymond, Me., 1869. 



Remarks. — During their winter confinement to 

 the barn, our stock are in a more or less artificial 

 condition. They are crowded into stables which 

 are sometimes too open for comfort, and sometimes 

 too close for health. The droppings cf animals, 

 ber of sashe? stacked them all in one pile and j both solid a.nd liquid,— not to speak of the exhala- 

 smothered the whole in stable manure, just fit to j tions of their lungs and skin,— emit a vast amount 

 make hot beds, and after steaming them a few j of gases of different kinds, which are unfit for 

 days found the putty soft and very easily removed. ! respiration. Then again they are obliged to sub- 

 — In the course of an essay headed, "No perfect j sist on dry fodder,— fodder that owing to an un- 

 Animal without perfect Care," a correspondent of favorable season, one too wet or too dry, may have 



been imperfectly grown, or over-ripe, or struck 

 with rust, or it may have been imperfectly cured 

 in the field, or have become mouldy in the mow. 

 The ammonia of the stable may escape by the ven- 

 tilator, if your barn has one, but what becomes of 

 the carbonic and sulphurous gases, which are 

 heavier than the air ? The effect of bad air and 

 poor food on men when crowded into prison ships 

 and Andersonvilles is well knov^n. Scurvy, lice, 

 and the most fearful diseases are the results. If 



the Country Gentleman says, every time a colt, a 

 calf or other young animal feels miserable, hun- 

 gry, cold or tired, a mark to a certain extent will 

 be left on the general figure. 



— A committee of Boston ladies has appeared 

 before a Committee of the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society, and consulted with them on a 

 plan for a school of gardening for women. They 

 Avant 100 acres near a good market, and propose to 



make the school industrial and self-supporting. 



our animals could talk or write, perhaps we should 



-A gentleman of Brookhne, Mass., informs us ; ^^^^^^ understand the diseases to which they are 



that a neighbor of his, Mr. E. F. Bacon, has a ' 



coarse wool sheep that dropped a lamb February 

 20, and on the 13th of March, another lamb, both 

 of which she owns, and is apparently proud of, as 

 both are likely thriving lambs, 



— Col. Mallet, Professor of applied chemistry in 

 the "University of Virginia, says the droppings of j 

 a cow for a year are worth as much as $30 worth | 

 of guano; and a success- ful dairyman and farmer 

 in Connecticut reckons his stable manure as worth 

 $36 a year for each animal. 



— The tea plant is in successful cultivation some | 



subject, and should watch more carefully for the 

 causes which produce them. The old "conjurer" 

 who applied a pcultice to the axe that cut the 

 man's foot, may not have been so crazy after all. 

 And we are not sure that it may not be good ad- 

 vice to you and your neighbors, who are troubled 

 with the "barn-itch," to anoint your stables and 

 j'our fodder, instead of your animals, not exactly 

 with "salt, grease and sulphur," but with a few- 

 grains of careful investigation, to be "well shaken 

 before taken." 

 In submitting your inquiry for a remedy for the 



ten miles from Knoxville, on the farm of Capt. I barn-itch to the readers of the Farmer, we wish, 

 Jas. Campbell, where it has been grown for about : therefore, to add the question. What is the barn- 

 ten years. It is said that East Tennessee tea itch, and what causes it ? 



drinkers can easily raise their own tea with very 

 little cost or trouble. The plant is a deep ever- 

 green shrub, and grows about five feet high. It is 

 hardy, and needs no protection from frost. 



— Mr. Meehan, of the Gardener's Monthly is very 

 positive as to the uselessnessof attempting to pre^ 



The books tell us that the itch in man, the scab 

 in sheep, and the mange in horses and pigs are 

 caused by insects. The microscope helped them 

 to this discovery, and its use appears to be develop- 

 ing a great many new facts in relation to diseases 

 of men and animals. But out West a fatal disease, 

 serve the tap-root in transplanting. He says "the , known as the Mad-itch is supposed to be caused 

 shortening of a tap-root is of no more injury to a by cattle eating the indigestible chankings of the 

 tree than the shortening of the finger nails to a hogs that run with the "steers" which are fed on 

 man. This matter was settled by Sencbier and corn in the bundle or stook. 



others over a hundred years ago. Their experi- There are so many circumstances to be consid- 

 ments we have repeated ; and no intelligent man cred in the selection of a breed of cattle for a par- 

 teaches any other doctrine. ' ! ticular locality, that one must be governed consid- 



