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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



calf at three or four weeks old is seen chewing 

 his cud. 



In my opinion, when animals are taken sick, 

 no matter what causes the sickness, they stop 

 chewing their cud from the same reason that a 

 person loses his appetite, but as soon as they 

 are restored to health by letting nature have 

 its course, or by assisting nature with some 

 mild medicine, they get well, and their appe- 

 tite returns and they will raise and chew their 

 cud as before. — Cor. Westtrn Rural. 



AGBICULTUKAIi ITEMS. 

 — Big rocks or heaps of stumps look well when 

 draped with grape-vines. 



— R. W. Scott, of Kentucky, recently sold 100 

 long wooled sheep for ^000. They were to go to 

 Utah. 



— It is estimated that full one-third of the sheep 

 in Weathersfield, Vt., that came to the barn last 

 fall, have died during the winter. 



— One of the reasons assigned for the fertility of 

 soils under stone walls is, the gradual wasting 

 away of the stone composing them, by the action 

 of the elements. 



— A man in Pennsylvania in preparing rhubarb 

 stalks for market, threw the leaves to his pigs. 

 The next morning five out of nine were dead, 

 three appeared convalescent, and one looked 

 doubtful. They exhibited every symptom of 

 poison. 



— The Indiana legislature has located the Agri- 

 cultural College at or near Lafayette, Tippecanoe 

 County. The legislature of Ohio after much de- 

 bate and manoeuvring during several past sessions, 

 has just adjourned without agreeing upon a loca- 

 tion for the proposed Agricultural College of that 

 State. 



— A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says 

 he has broken hens of the habit of eating eggs by 

 keeping a setting hen upon the nest, and removing 

 the eggs every night. His hens that got so bad 

 that they would "go for" a nest in a flock as soon 

 as they heard a cackle, were broken of the habit 

 entirely by this means. 



— When my bees were in box hives, says Mrs. 

 Tupper, I never omitted looking on the bottom 

 board of each one every morning, and destroying 

 the worms. Every one left soon becomes a miller, 

 capable of laying many eggs, that become worms 

 very soon — every one destroyed puts an end to 

 four possible generations in a single season. De- 

 stroy every worm in spring, and you can have no 

 millers hatched in your hives that season. 



— O. S. Murray, of Warren Co., Ohio, writes the 

 Countryman that Iiis experience and observation 

 is against the use of any of the preparations for 

 eeed corn for planting — such as tar, sulphur, salt- 

 petre, salt, or even warm or cold water. He wants 



corn kept on the cob as near as possible to the 

 time of planting. Presupposing the selection of 

 the best ears for seed — ears with grains covering 

 both ends of the cob as perfectly as possible — he 

 would plant all the grains from end to end of the 

 ear. 



— A correspondent of the Rural New Yorker be- 

 lieves that the English sparrow imported into New 

 York city a few years since will prove a great pest 

 to the farmer. In England, he says, from the time 

 the wheat begins to fill in the ear till it is put into 

 the barn or stack, every field must be guarded 

 from early dawn till sundown, every daj', by the 

 bird-keeper with gun and rattle, or they would 

 make awful havoc. At the time mentioned they 

 assemble in the villages and cities very early in 

 the morning, and go in flocks of thousands all 

 over the adjacent country every day to do their 

 destructive work. 



— A correspondent of the Rural World who lives 

 in a part of Missouri where little else than woods 

 are seen, says : when we cut timber at any time of 

 the year except July, August or September the 

 process of seasoning is so very slow that the tim- 

 ber becomes infested with innumerable quantities 

 of worms, and the smaller limbs will, in a few 

 months, fall to the ground from natural decay. 

 But, by cutting timber in July, August or Septem- 

 ber, the bodies of the trees season hard and are 

 not troubled by the worms, whilst the smallest 

 twigs remain sound at least three or four times as 

 long as those of timber cut in the winter or spring. 



— To make a rat and mouse proof house Mr. 

 James M. Hartwell, of Colebrook, N. H., tells the 

 New York Farmers' Club to take some mortar and 

 bricks, and after the frame of the house is up and 

 boarded and the partitions set, lay one or two 

 thicknesses of brick between every stud, both on 

 the lower and upper floors. Then lath and plaster 

 to the floors, and put on a narrow mop or wash- 

 board, not so high as to have the upper edge come 

 above the brick. As the rats and mice gnaw in, 

 just over or under the washboards, bricks thus 

 laid will make the house rat and mouse proof, at 

 an expense of $5. Would it not also make the 

 house damp ? 



— In reply to a question as to the comparative 

 value of the ashes of ditfv.rent kinds of wood, J. 

 A. Whitney of the New York Farmers' Club, said, 

 of trees commonly used as fuel, none contain so 

 mu(!h potash as the elm. Beech is rich in potassa, 

 and so is walnut. Pine, on the other hand, con- 

 tains so little that its ash is not worth saving. 

 Oak has eight per cent, of potassa but a large 

 amount of lime. Ashes vary in weight with the 

 moisture they contain. If a bushel weighs twenty- 

 five pounds, one buys in it from two to five pounds 

 of carbonate of potassa, when the wood was hard. 

 For agricultural uses oak wood ash is as good as 

 any on account of the lime it contains ; for potash, 

 elm, beech, birch and maple should be chosen. 



