616 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



the other manures ; likewise to try a dressing 

 of salt and soot mixed, if it can he had. 



Most farmers have some very poor land, 

 and if they go to ploughing as deep as Mr. T. 

 has done, because Mr. Greeley said so, it 

 would take them half as many years as they 

 ploughed inches deep to fetch their land up to 

 a profitable state for cultivation. Farmers in 

 this country plough up pieces neither round, 

 square nor oval, and all the way from half an 

 acre upwards, commencing at the outside of 

 the piece, going round and round, and form- 

 ing a dish in the middle. How would such a 

 piece look if we commenced sixteen inches 

 deep? 



By ploughing fourteen to eighteen inches 

 deep, manuring heavy, and pulverizing well, 

 we mieht get a heavy growth of grain and 

 grass, mammoth pumpkins, squashes, turnips, 

 potatoes, &c., but our grain and grass would 

 be likely to be laid flat, and our vegetables 

 deficient in quality. But are these the crops 

 farmers find profitable ? Rusted straw, shriv- 

 elled grain, half rotted grass, and coarse 

 vegetables are far from desirable. 



I have an upland farm of 700 acres, and you 

 will believe I have a variety of soils — some 

 deep and some shallow — but I would not have 

 a foot of it ploughed deeper than from seven 

 to nine inches. On portions of my farm it 

 would be amusing, I think, to see any of these 

 great speech-makers take a plough and plough 

 over three inches deep. Me thinks I see the 

 plough jumping one way and their legs going 

 another, as the implement worked its way 

 among the stones. But for all that, I get 

 good crops of grain, and grass of first quality. 



When people advocate such deep ploughing 

 I think they are beginning at the wrong end. 

 It would be more sensible to recommend a 

 better mode of ploughing ; to plough more 

 thoroughly before we plough more deeply. 

 What is more unsightly than a nice, smooth 

 meadow, filled full of ridges by bad plough- 

 ing? Such fields are not only unsightly, but 

 they are an impediment in the way of the 

 mowing machine. There is no excuse for 

 such work. I have seen but very few pieces 

 of mowing since I come to this country that 

 could not be greatly improved by commenc- 

 ing at the proper place to plough, and finish- 

 ing off accordingly. 



I will bring this scribble to a close, by re- 

 peating what some of your correspondents 

 say : "More practice and less theory," "More 

 brains," more light, and better judgment in 

 farmi.ng. E. IIebb. 



Jeffersonville, Vt., Sept. 1, 1869. 



Killing Apple Worms by Machinery. — 

 "Place early in June rags, not hay-bands, in 

 the forks of the tree, or trunk, below the 

 lower limb, and in these the larva will secrete 

 themselves to enter the chrysalis state. Once 

 in two weeks remove these rags, and destroy 



the insects. Mr. Brown does it very quickly 

 and effectively by passing the rags through a 

 clothes-wringer. In this manner he believes 

 the nuisance may be got rid of ; and yet the 

 effort will be useless unless every owner of an 

 orchard does the same thing. There must be 

 united effort. Let every man feel it his duty 

 to urge his neighbor to act at once and per- 

 sistently, remembering that 'eternal vigilance 

 is the price of' — good fruit.'''' — American En- 

 tomologist for July. 



AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. 



— Equal parts of laudanum, alcohol and oil of 

 wormwood make an excellent liniment for bruises, 

 &c., on man or beast. 



—Mr. Griswold, of Vermont, paid $3000 for 

 the Short-horn bull 14th Duke of Thorndale, when 

 a calf. He recently sold him to Mr. G. M. Bed- 

 ford, of Kentucky, for nearly $6000. 



— The Gardener's Motif hly complains that books 

 on vegetable physiology are very much behind the 

 age, and regrets that there are not more students 

 in this interesting branch of science. 



— Broom corn brush is selling in the central 

 part of Illinois at 20 and 25 cents the pound. The 

 expression, as "cheap as a broom" is likely to lose 

 something of its original force. 



— Fifty-five kind-hearted farmers turned out 

 last week near Lansing, Iowa, and cut, bound and 

 shocked sixteen acres of wheat for the widow 

 Guilee, whose husband had recently been killed 

 by the kick of a vicious horse. 



— A monument lately erected in Winthrop, Me., 

 to the late Dr. Ezekiel Holmes, was dedicated 

 September 9. The address was by Dr. N. T. True 

 of Bethel, who remarked, "For the first time in 

 the history of our beloved State have public 

 honors been rendered at the grave of any of her 

 citizens whose life was devoted to the science of 

 agriculture." 



— A correspondent of the Maryland Fanner says 

 that if farmers will look around they will find as 

 large blackberries growing on their lands, as those 

 sold by nurserymen at $3.00 to $5.00 per dozen. 

 He has one plant in his garden which cost $3.00, 

 and the berries are no larger than those on bushes 

 dug from his waste lands. It is his practice to tie 

 a string or mark around plants bearing the largest 

 fruit in Julj' or August. 



— E. P. Savage, of Clinton, Iowa, raised last 

 year from a bushel of Early Goodrich potatoes 

 four and a half bushels of miserable, knotty, small 

 potatoes, and acknowledges that he said hard 

 things of the variety, but thought he would give 

 them another trial. This year the quality is equal 

 to any of the twelve varieties on his farm, and he 

 estimates the yield at 400 bushels per acre. 



— The Canada Farmer says that the natural 

 course of vegetation does not exhaust, but rather 

 enriches the soil, by eliminating plant food, and 



