574 



NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 



Dec. 



ally: drain, plow, plant and hoe the crop thor- 

 oughly. If it has not grown up to bushes, perhaps 

 draining, ploughing and pulverizing the surface 

 may fit it for sowing grass seed. In such case it 

 should be dressed with fine manure, which should 

 be harrowed in with the seed. 



A CRIPPLED SOLDIER. — POTATO RATSIXG. 



Being lame and feeble from injuries received 

 during my service in the late war, I wish to a-k 

 your advice as to what I had best undertake to do. 

 I have bought ten acres of worn-out land, with 

 miserable old buildmgs, on a road full of rocks, 

 logs and mud holts, in a neighborhood where 

 farms are fdst going to pasture, and five miles 

 from any store, &c. I have an old orchard, a fair 

 meadow, with water in yard. Stock being high, I 

 raised all the calves I could, worked out in the 

 summer, biitrened up the barn, and potatoed my 

 young stock thvougU the winter, to find that prices 

 have gone down. 



For two years I planted the Long Red potatoes 

 on such miserable pljin land that a skunk would 

 feel faint to cross it, and with a little plaster but 

 no manure got glorious crops. This year I 

 thought I would go in for improvement, so bought 

 some Sebecs, Early Goodrich and [^alri^ons, pwc 

 a good shovelful of manure la the hill and — well 

 I have bought potatoes and must keep doing so 

 the rest of the season ! A few of the Long lieds 

 were accidentally planted or sprung up from seed 

 in the ground or with the manure, and they were 

 whoppers! Would like to read an aiticle ad- 

 dressed to A Scrubber of Bush and Buier. 



Hillnboro' Centre, N. H., Oct. 20, 1869. 



Remarks. — Would that it was in our power to 

 aid you by advice or otherwise ; but as your letter 

 clearly shows that you are "a live man," notwith- 

 standing all the battering you got in the service, 

 we conclude that you understand your circum- 

 stances better than we do, and we judge that you 

 ■will be pretty safe if you follow the leading of your 

 own best judgment. We have little faith in poor 

 land, or "miserable old buildings," and we mis- 

 trust that you have put "the worst tide out," and 

 that your ten acres will soon justify a more favor- 

 able desciiption. True, stock is lower now than 

 when at the highest, but so also are many things 

 that you have to buy. Perhaps you will be 

 pleased with an article in another column, on po- 

 tato raising. We are trying hard to make a paper 

 that shall interest the "scrubbers of bush and 

 brier," as well as the cultivators of smooth fields 

 and rich farms, and most heartily endorse your 

 request for articles calculated to interest and bene- 

 fit those who, like yourself, are endeavoriog to re- 

 store the run out soil of New England, even on a 

 small scale. Let us hear from you, again. 



LAMBKILL OR LAUREL PGISOISINa. 



I have been informed by Mr. Nathan Corey of 

 Washington, N. il , that the white of an egg is a 

 sure antidote for Lambkill poison. It will give 

 relief wht- ti a sheep is to fjr gone that it cannot 

 stand. If one egg is not sufficient, give it two or 

 three. 



A GOOD HARROW. 



Ayers' harrow is the best implement to pulverize 

 the soil after it has been broken or turned by the 



plough or to cover grain, that I nave yet seen. It 

 is next to a plough to cover manure. 



Another having taken, without leave, my incog, I 

 will subscribe myself Hollis Towne. 



A CURE FOR GAPES IN CHICKENS. 



Double a long stiff horsehair, so as to make a 

 bow or small loup in the middle ; hold the chicken 

 with its bill open ; introduce the loop of the hair 

 iot't the windpipe, and push it down as far as it 

 will go, turn ic around a few times and draw it 

 out. You will proDably bring out some small, 

 bright red worm«, from half an inch to two incnes 

 long. Repeat the operation until the worms are 

 all out and your chicken is cured. c. s. 



Stoughton, Mass., Aug. 26, 1869. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 4 LITTLE DRAINAGE OPERATION. 



BY JUDGE FRENCH. 



Mr. Bkown, — Dear Sir : — I willingly com- 

 ply with your request to describe the little 

 drainage oprrations upon my farm in Concord. 

 I have both preached and practiced draining 

 land for twenty years and more, and I still 

 find that farmers are very slow to follow my 

 good example. There are several farms close 

 by me where the whole cost of draining some 

 portions of them would be repaid by the in- 

 creased product in two seasons, yet for 

 want of faiih or knowledge, the owners neglect 

 to make the improvement, and year afcer year 

 lose their crops, or work the soil at great dis- 

 advantage. 



The Plan of Operations. 



I bought my farm in the spring of 1867. 

 It has been under cultivation two hundred 

 years and more. The field of which I shall 

 f-peak is the one nearest the house and barn, 

 and next the street. In it is a low place, of 

 about a half acre, which had always in autumn 

 furni.^hed a skating pond for the children. It 

 is a ba-in, filled by heavy rains with surface 

 water, with no outlet, and from which the 

 water slowly passed off by percolation through 

 the soil, leaving it dry in summer, so thit it 

 has been occasionally ploughed, and sowed to 

 grass, producing a fair crop for a year or two, 

 and then going back into wild grass and has- 

 socks, — the condition in which I found it. In 

 the spring of 18G7 I ploughed across one side 

 (jf it, and when I planted my fodder corn on 

 the 4th tf June, it was too wet to plant, and 

 I It ft it untilled through the season. This 

 piece we will c&ll the pond-hole. In the s-ime 

 held, near ray neighbor's line, is a level tract 

 of one acre or more, which produced very 

 little, upon which the water ponded late in the 

 spring, and which hid not been plough-jd for 

 som(! sixteen years or more Under this I 

 found by digging te.-t-holes, that there was a 

 ^oft blue clay at the depth of two or three 

 feet. On my neighbor's field was a similar 

 tract of one or two acres, at the same levrl. ad- 

 joining mine. He or his ancestors had at- 

 tempted some surface drainage, through a 



