416 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



a cubic tenth of an inch, Dr. Hay of Chicago, 

 counted with a powerful microscope forty-five of 

 these minute worms. 



— Last year the Mormons at Utah artificially 

 irrigated and made fruitful 93,799 acres of land. 

 Altogether, they had a large amount of land under 

 cultivation : 80,518 acres of cereals, 1,817 in sor- 

 ghum, 6,838 in root crops, 166 in cotton, 29,876 in 

 meadow, 9U6 in apples, 1,011 in peaches, 75 in 

 grapes, and 195 in currants. The larger part of 

 these lands are artificially irrigated. 



— It is not generally known that wool-growing 

 in South-America has grown into such mammoth 

 proportions as it rea'ly has. Even the Australian 

 breeders nave cause for alarm from this competi- 

 tion. It is reported on good authority that the 

 number of sheep shorn there annually exceed 70,- 

 O0D,O0O. The exports of wool to Europe and the 

 United States amounts to 230,000,000 pounds. 



— A cup of coffee is a fair barometer, if you allow 

 the sugar to drop to the bottom of a cup and watch 

 the bubbles arise without disturbing the coffee. 

 If the bubbles collect in the middle, the weather 

 will be fine; if they adhere to the cup, forming a 

 ring, it will be rainy ; and if the bubbles separate 

 without assuming any fixed position, changeable 

 weather may be expected. 



— A correspondent of the Country Gentleman 

 weighed the hay that he had bought as a ton by 

 allowing 500 cubic feet, and found it weisjhed only 

 1480 pounds. The hay was mostly timothy, with 

 some clover and white daisy. The hay was over 

 a basement, part two and part four feet deep, 

 pressed with straw, but on pitching he found it 

 was not as solid as he expected. 



— A Western horticulturist has "discovered" 

 that grape cuttings on a sunny and sandy slope 

 root earlier than elsewhere, and he proposes to 

 get out a patent to prevent others from using soils 

 thus favorably situated. He has also "invented" 

 a cellar of the right temperature and moisture for 

 preserving vegetables, &c., and proposes to patent 

 that also. 



— A correspondent of the Rural World finds an 

 ordinary hot-bed a capital place for drying fruit. 

 A floor is laid inside on which to place the fruit. 

 Then put on the sash, but be sure to raise both the 

 upper and lower ends about two inches, to admit 

 of a free circulation of air, or the fruit will bake 

 as it would in an oven. Here the fruit will not be 

 wet in a shower, nor will it. be troubled wiih in- 

 sects, which will be kept away by the covering 

 and the intense heat. Parboiled green corn has 

 been sufficiently dried in one day, in this way. 



— Mr. Willard, in his address before the Wis- 

 consin Agricultural Society last fall, stated that 

 Mr. Fish, of Herkimer Co., N. Y., experimented 

 in breeding cattle for milk alone, and succeeded 

 so far as to make Lis herd give an annual average 

 yield of between 800 and 900 pounds of cheese 



per cow, but that the constitutions of the animals 

 became so impaired and weakened that it did not 

 prove profitable. Mr. Willard thought all we 

 should ask was for cows that will yield 500 or 600 

 pounds of cheese, and that can be easily made 

 ready for the butcher. 



— Mr. W. W. Glusher, of Madison County, In- 

 diana, writes to the Prairie Farmer, that he has a 

 Magee sow, that has given birth to sixty-nine pigs 

 in a little less than twenty-nine months. They 

 were dropped as follows: — January 27th, 1867, 

 eleven; December 2oth, 1867, sixteen; June 16th, 

 1867, five; August 22d, 1868, eight; January 11th, 

 1869, thirteen ; June 15th, 1869, sixteen. 



— The Maine Farmer says that a new society 

 was formed at Monroe, June 26, called the Waldo 

 and Penobscot Agricultural SoL'iety, with the fol- 

 lowing officers: President: W.B.Ferguson. Vice 

 President: T. Mayo. Treasurer: A H. Mayo. 

 Secretary: F. A. Piper. Trustees: S. F. Mansur, 

 Monroe; Bidtield Plummer, Winterport; Eli C. 

 West, Frankfort; Rufus Littlefield, Prospect; 

 James Nickerson, Swanville; Capt James Hux- 

 tbrd. Brooks ; J. J. Chase, Jackson ; Joseph Gil- 

 man, Dixment; Albert Whitnej', Newhurgh. The 

 Society propose to hold a Fair early in the fall. 



FSEE PASTUBAGE AT THE "WEST. 



When the new beginner at the West ploughs 

 up five, ten or more acres of land, he builds a 

 fence around it, which generally includes his 

 house, and barn if he has one. The highways 

 and all the other lands in the neighborhood are 

 considered "unoccupied," and are common 

 pasturage. This furnishes abundant forage 

 for stock until about harvest time, when it be- 

 comes scarce or tough, and the more enter- 

 prising animals lead off the herds in quest of 

 something better. Accustomed to shirk for 

 themrelves, these cattle become very unruly, 

 and an old leader soon learns, like Job's Le- 

 viathan, to esteem fences as but straw, 

 although built of heavy rails and to a height 

 which to a New England farmer at first sight 

 seems unnecessary. 



Many years ago one of the editors of the 

 New England Farmer cultivated a field of 

 corn af'joining an Indian Reservation of two 

 square miles in Michigan, which, with a large 

 portion of the other land in the vicinity, was 

 the common pasturage of the whole neighbor- 

 hood. While standing sentinel in his corn- 

 field he has seen an "old ranger" walk delib- 

 erately up to a corner of the Virginia fence, 

 and, beginning at the top, scatter the heavy 

 rails as a child does its cob-house. Another 

 bullock, too lazy to hook, would deliberately 



