1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 



355 



THE COM8TOCK SPADER. 



A few years ago very sanguine expectations 

 of a revolution in ploughing prairie and other 

 smooth land were excited among the farmers 

 of the West by the Comstock Spader, In re- 

 ply to inquiries in respect to this implement, 

 the proprietors have published a frank state- 

 ment in the Prairie Farmer, To remedy the 

 first great objection to the machine, that of its 

 cost, they built last year a smaller one. But 

 they confess that on trial this spring, it "per- 

 forms badly on such conditions as it has been 

 tried in lUipois. It clogs up too easily with 

 trash, especially if wet, and with clean prairie 

 soil when wet ; this of course rules it out, and 

 we regard that style as a failure, because it 

 will not work on varied conditions enough. 

 This however has hurt no farmer, and the loss 

 all falls on us and our backers." 



For the present, therefore, they feel com- 

 pelled to fall back on the first style, that for 

 which they received the silver medal at Paris. 

 One of those machines they say has worked 

 six hundred acres, and thus proved its efficiency 

 and durability. Still they admit that some of 

 the implements that they have put out had 

 better not been, though they are gaining 

 knowledge — some of it dear-bought — all 

 the while. They believe that they have the 

 right combination of principles, and that the 

 question now is simply one of proportions and 

 mechanical construction, which involve many 

 difficulties it is true, but nothing insurmounta- 

 ble. Their own experiments have demon- 

 strated this to them, but they admit that the 

 public has not that evidence, and therefore 

 farmers are not to blame for the Spader not 

 being popular with them. 



AKB SPONGlOIiES HOOTS? 

 If you examine the roots of trees in the 

 spring, especially roots of last year's growth, 

 you will find no spongioles attached to them, 

 but in their place, innumerable little excres- 

 cences, each composed of many cells. From 

 these cells, new rootlets are produced, and to 

 these new rootlets the spongioles are attached. 

 These spongioles are not true roots, any more 

 than leaves are true branches, and they never 

 become roots any more than leaves become 

 branches. As the leaves extract nutriment 

 from the atmosphere so the spongioles absorb 

 it from the soil during the growing season. 



When their work for the season is done, they 

 separate from the roots and decay in the soil, 

 just as the leaves fall from the branches, and 

 decay on the surface. Could we see the en- 

 tire tree, root and branch, the parts below the 

 surface and the parts above, during the grow- 

 ing season, we should see the roots and root- 

 lets clothed with hairy spongioles like a coat 

 of fur, while the branches are clothed with 

 leaves woven into tissues of various forms and 

 degrees of thickness and firmness. When the 

 growth for the year is over, and the season of 

 rest, the sleep of winter comes on, both leaves 

 and spongioles are thrown off, and the tree, 

 divested of all its clothing, remains naked and 

 unprotected through the frosts and bleak winds 

 of winter. 



Gooseberries without Mildew. — In a 

 reply to a correspondent who asks if goose- 

 berries can be grown without mildewing? 

 the Oardener'' s Monthly says, nothing is easier 

 than to grow gooseberries. It is a mountain 

 fruit, and does not like a hot soil. Plant it 

 so that the hot sun will pour down on the 

 clearly cultivated earth, so hot that you can 

 fry a beefsteak or poach an egg on it, and 

 you cannot get gooseberries. But set your 

 plants across the lot in a pretty thick row, 

 and pile up about the plants five or six inches 

 deep of old brush wood, old corn roots, old 

 leather boots, pots, or kettles, even, if you 

 cannot get am thing else, so that the roots 

 will always be near the surface, and yet cool ; 

 and we will guarmtee you a fortune, if you 

 choose to plant enough. In the best goose- 

 berry plantations of Philadelphia, it is no 

 unusual sight to see rows of them which have 

 been in one place perhaps twenty years, so 

 mounded up with this rubbish, that they look 

 as if they were planted on ridges two or three 

 feet above the level of the earth, and every 

 year bearing abundantly. Not only in the 

 gooseberry, but in all fruits, the public must 

 come to this great fact, that their roots must 

 be kept cool and at the surface. 



Brick Lining for Walls. — A correspon- 

 dent of the Rural Neiv Yorker, who has filled 

 the walls of many framed houses in with brick, 

 resulting in a dry wall, warm rooms, and rat- 

 proof, rips a lath twice, making three strips 

 about one-half inch wide, nails these to inside 

 of studding three inches from the face, and 

 then lays the brick on edge, slushing at the 

 end, thus keying with mortar on each side of 

 the strip — the first course to be laid flat. A 

 vacuum is thus formed on either side of the 

 brick wall, and therefore must be dry. If 

 you want a comfortable frame house in any 

 climate, this is the way to have it. 



