312 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



May 9, 1832. 



_wliose li;inds is " llie keeping of the last liopes ot 

 liberty," should grow up in ignorance and vice- 

 It will be of little avail that you attempt to throw 

 beauty and fertility over the face of the earth, if 

 the mind and the lieart are left uncultivated and 

 waste. Intelligence and virtue are the vital prin- 

 ciples of this republic'; and if you would perpetu- 

 ate its existence, you must make those on whom 

 you devolve the responsibility of its preservation, 

 intelligent and virtuous. Then, to whatever dan- 

 gers we may be exposed, from the complicated 

 and jarring interests, the local prejudices and sec- 

 tional jealousies of an increasing wide spread i)op- 

 ulation, the yeo.Tianry of the land, the proprietors 

 of the soil, will form a phalanx for our safety and 

 defence, firm as their own hills, and immovable as 

 the oaks that crown them. " Corruption will 

 shrink at their kindling, indignant glance; and ty- 

 ranny in the ruler and licentiousness in the peo- 

 ple, ecpially find in them an inexorable foe." 



'£tmw i3sr>a-aiisj52) j^iiaaiiaiUa 



Boston, Wednesday Evening, May 9, 1832. 



LIST OF OFFICERS 



Of Ihe Massachusetts Society for Promoting 



.Igrictdture, elected June, 1831. 

 His Honor Thomas L. Winthrop, President. 

 Hon. Peter C. Brooks, First Vice President. 

 Hon. John Welles, Second Vice President. 

 Hon. Richard Sullivan, Cor. Secretary. 

 John Heard, Jr. Esq., Treasurer. 

 GoRHAM Parsons, Esq., Recording Secretary. 

 Benjamin Guild, Esq., As.sistaiit Secretary. 



TRUSTEES. 



John Lowell, Esq. ; E. Hersy Derby, Esq. ; S. 

 G. Perkins, Esq. ; Hon. William Prescott ; Israel 

 Tlioriidike, Jr. Esq. ; Hon. John C Gray. 



■ FARMER'S WORK FOR MAY. 



We propose to utter some common-place admo- 

 nilions relative to the management of certain rural 

 attairs, in which ulilily rather than novelty will be 

 our object. If in Solomoti's time there was '^noth- 

 ing new under the- sun " we may well suppose that 

 iu our time every useful topic will be as common 

 as a highway to a mill, or a meeting-house. Still, 

 as lio man is so well versed in the lessons of life, 

 as never to need nor be betiefitted by a prompter, 

 we shall go on with our thrice repeated lectures 

 oil rural economy. 



Mite-ology. — Make a war of extermination with 

 noxious insects. The following substances, sprink- 

 led over plants with a watering-pot, a syringe, a 

 garden engine, or other proper implements, are all 

 destructive to these destroyers, viz. The juice 

 pressed out, or decoctioris of elder, especially of 

 I lie dwarf kind; tobacco; wormwood; walnut 

 leaves ; pepper, and ollifcr plants which are bitter 

 and biting. Water alone, heated to about from 

 100 to 150 degrees, will, it is said, destroy insects 

 without injuring plants. Careful experiments on 

 this subject, to ascertain how hot the water may 

 ]>.; made, to what insects its affusion would prove 

 fatal, as well as at what temperature it would best 

 promote the growth of vegetables, if their results 

 were published, (in our paper of course,) would 

 be of more use than altercations about polemics or 

 politics. The ])op-gun of the political partisan 

 we should be glad to see metamorphosed into the 

 syringe of the bug-destroyer. 



With regard to the application of soap-suds for 

 the destruction of insects, it seems that simply 

 sprinkling plants is not always sufiicient. 



The aphides or plant lice, for example, attach 

 themselves to the under sides of leaves, where 

 they remain " snug as a bug iu a rug," as a certain 

 (not very sublime) poet hath it. But if you can 

 contrive to dip the leaves infested into the rKjuor, 

 so that it may be sure to acconunodate the jiara- 

 sites with wet lodgings, they either die or resign 

 without more ado.* 



Perhaps some practical cultivators, who may 

 Uavc the good fortune to read and profit by our 

 effusions about affusions, may not be so fully aware, 

 as out of regard to their interests we wish they were, 

 of the importance of soap-suds for the purposes 

 of rural economy. The Rev. Mr Falconer, one of 

 the correspondents of the Bath Agricultural Soci- 

 ety, strongly recommended this liquid both as a 

 manure and antidote against insects. He observ- 

 ed, " This mixture of an oil and an alkali has been 

 more generally known than adopted, as a remedy 

 against the insects which infest wall fruit trees. 

 It will dislodge and destroy the insects which have 

 already formed their nests and bred among the 

 leaves. When used in the early part of the year 

 it seems to prevent the insects from settling upon 

 them." This writer prefers soa))-suds to lime- 

 water, because lime soon " loses its causticity and 

 with that its efficacy, by exposure to j(ir, and must 

 of course be frequently applied ; and to the dredg- 

 ing of the leaves with the fine dust of wood ashes 

 and lime, because the same eft'ect is produced by 

 the mixture without the same labor, and is obtain- 

 ed without any expense." He directs to make 

 use of a common garden-pump for sprinkling trees 

 with soap-suds, and says, if the water of a washing 

 cannot be bad, a quantity of potash dissolved in 

 water may be substituted ; and that the washing 

 of Hees with soap-suds twice a week, for three or 

 four weeks 'i\i the spring, will be sufficient to se- 

 cure them from the apliides. 



Manure. — We have been visited this season, 

 with so much uncommon, nngenial, uncomfort- 

 able, and nnheard-of weather, that we arc ai>prr- 

 liensive many diligent cultivators have not yet 

 cleared their barn yards, to manure their fields 

 and gardens This object of course demands im- 

 mediate attention ; and permit me to give you a 

 word by way of reminding you of some indispens- 

 ables, relating to the yborf of plants. 



Imprimis, the man who pretends lo he b. farmer 

 and pays no attention to saving and making the 

 most of manure, is a fair candidate for an alms- 

 house, or on his way to a debtor's apartment with 

 closed doors. 



Manure is as necessary to agriculture as light to 

 vision, air to respiration, water to navigation, food 

 to population, letters to education, language to 

 conversation, and so on through as many sine qua 

 nnns as you can find words for in AVebster's Dic- 

 tionary. Blanure, (or, more i)hilosophically, /oorf 

 for plants,) has three particular enemies which you 

 will please to look out for and guard against — to 

 wit, the sun which exhales it, the air which im- 

 bibes it, and the rain which washes it away. To 

 prevent any robberies from these elements, you 

 must either cover your manure, or put your manure 

 under cover. In the former case you throw eartii 

 over it, and in the latter case you throw it under 

 a shed, into a barn-cellar, or some such place. 



where " the gairish eye of day," as Milton says, 

 cannot peer upon it. " He who is within the scent 

 of a dung-hill," says the celebrated Arthur Young, 

 "smells that which his crop would have eaten if 

 he would have permitted it. Instead of manuring 

 the land he manures the atmosphere ; and before 

 his-dung hill is finished he manures another par- 

 ish, jierhaps another country." It is well, like- 

 wise, if the eflluvia arising from rotting manure 

 heaps has not poisoned the family of their owner, 

 and instead of giving life to vegetables taken life 

 from animals. Some farmers' premises require as 

 much chloride of lime to make them tolerable, as 

 would serve to sweeten a pest-house. All this 

 might be prevented by proper topical applications, 

 as a doctor would phrase it, of fresh earth to the 

 sources of contagion, as we shall prove by what 

 follows : 



The author of "Letters of Agricola " tells us, 

 that " Earth is a powerful absorber of putrefaction. 

 Put a layer of common soil along the top of a fer- 

 menting dung-hill, from twelve to eighleeii inches 

 thick, and allow it to remain there while the pro- 

 cess is carrying on with activity, and afterwards 

 separate it carefully from the heap, and it will be 

 ini]>regnated with the most fertilizing virtues. — 

 The com])osts which of late years have attract- 

 ed so univei'sal attention, and occupied so large 

 a space in all agricultural publications, orig- 

 inated in. the discovery of this absorbing pow- 

 er." Here then, instead of chloride of lime 

 or of soda, both excellent articles, we have, in 

 common earth, a substance at the command of ev- 

 ery cultivator, which will convert poison for ani- 

 mals into food for idauts ; and make you healthy 

 as well wealthy, provided you are wise enough, 

 and not too indolent to profit by its application. 



THE GREAT NEW HAMPSHIRE STEER. 

 A very large and beautiful animal of the Ox 

 kind, is exhibiting in a temporary she<l at the west 

 end of Faneuil Hall, Boston. He is now but four 

 years old, and it is said, weighs nearly four thou- 

 sa7id pounds ! was bred in Greenland, New Hamp- 

 shire, is called Americus, and is the finest as well 

 as the largest animal of American growth, we re- 

 collect ever to have seen. If he continues to in- 

 crease in si/e till fully grown, at the rate he has 

 done, he will vei-y mu»h sur|)ass every creature of 

 his species, of which the annals of oxen have taken 

 honorary notice. No man that is worth nine 

 pence and has a cent's worth of curiosity, will' 

 hesitate to walk in and take a survey of the great- 

 est ox of his years that ever existed. 



' See New England Farmer, vol. iii. p 9, 



THE SILVA AMERICANA, 



Or a Description of Forest Trees i7)di<>-enous to the 

 United States, practically and botanindUj consid- 

 ered ; illustrated by more than one livndred en- 

 gravings. By D. J. Browne. Boston : published 

 by IVilliam Hyde Sf Co. 



This work was announced in the New England 

 Farmer of October 9, 1831, as being in contem- 

 plation. It is now completed and before the public 

 in a handsome volume of more than 400 pages, 

 royal 8 vo. The subject of the work is of the 

 highest interest. "Trees," as the author observes, 

 in a well written preface, " independent of orna- 

 menting the earth and of furnishing us with tim- 

 ber and fuel, arrest the progress of impetuous and 

 dangerous winds ; maintain the temperature of the 

 air, by diminishing extreme cold and regulating' 

 extreme heat ; oppose the formation of ice, and 



