Vol. X.— No. 47. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



373 



enrich his land, and produce a valuable though 

 distant crop of timber and cord-wood. He has 

 also ploughed and sowed five acres, this fall, with 

 while pine seed, and was about ploughing in sev- 

 eral acres with white-oak acorns. These exjjeri- 

 nients the committee consider useful to the public 

 and creditable to the enterprising cultivator, and 

 they most heartily wish him success. One man 

 and a boy sixteen years old, are employed con- 

 stantly on the farm ; and in addition, day-laborers 

 are frequently hired. 



It would give the committee pleasure to be able 

 to reconnncnd a premium to this respectable an<l 

 skilful cultivator ; but, considering that the state- 

 ment of the applicant to whom a premium is giv- 

 en, should not only show that his farm was judi- 

 ciously cultivated, and his particular method, but 

 also the quantities and amount of all the products, 

 with as great certainty as the nature of the case 

 will allow, in order that other farmers may be able 

 and induced to improve his example ; they think 

 they should not be justified in recommending a 

 premium to be awarded him ; but they hope the 

 trustees will see fit to bestow on him a gratuity of 

 fifty dollars, for the example he hasset of judicious 

 and skilful husbandry. 



Peter Thacher, Esq., of Attleborough, has claim- 

 ed a premium for his farm in that town, consisting 

 of three hundred acres. Mr Thacher's statement 

 shows that he has exercised good judgment in sub- 

 duing, renovating, and enriching his extensive 

 farm. It appears, that about ten years ago he 

 ])urchased an old farm of two hundred acres, now 

 part of his farm, that for several years yielded him 

 only three or four tons of hay, where he now cuts 

 from thirty to forty tons of English hay. His 

 method of cultivating, he says, has been to remove 

 hedges and subdue the bushes by degrees, and 

 plant but httle and manure that highly. He usu- 

 ally spreads five cords of manure on an acre, and 

 puts five more in the hills, and for four or five 

 years past has gathered crops of two hundred 

 bushels of ])otatoes and sixty bushels of corn to 

 an acre. That which Mr T. seems to consider as 

 his greatest improvement, is the bringing into good 

 cultivation a piece of wet land, on the sides of a 

 hill, covered with weeds and bushes. He com- 

 menced with the upper part, ploughed half an 

 acre, drained it, and then carried on a quantity of 

 old hay and long manure, and planted it with po- 

 tatoes and hoed them without ploughing, and it 

 yielded a large crop of good potatoes; and in this 

 way he reduced the whole piece, and it now pro- 

 tluces a great crop of English hay. His rotation 

 of crops has been potatoes the first year, the sec- 

 ond corn, and the third spring rye, with which he 

 sows grass seed as early as the state of the ground 

 will permit, and rolls it down with a heavy roller. 

 He prefers spring rye to oats, to lay his land with, 

 and the spring to the fall, and thinks the grass 

 seed takes better with rye than oats. Mr T.'s 

 practice is to make large quantities of compost 

 manure in his ham-yard and hog-pens ; in the fall 

 iic carries it all out of his yard, and the next s|)ring 

 spreads the manure thrown out of the barn, over 

 the straw and hay that have been collected in the 

 yard during the winter, and covers the whole with 

 a crust of loam that he carts in, which he thinks 

 prevents the strength of the manure from escaping. 

 This compost he uses both for his corn and grass, 

 Mr T. has five hundred apple trees on his farm, 

 four himdred of which are mostly natural fruit, 

 and appear to have received no particular atten- 



tion from him ; the other hundred are young trees 

 engrafted with. good fruit, and these he has ]irac- 

 tised washing every s])ring with soap and ley, 

 mixed in equal parts, and digging around and 

 manuring them. He keeps fifty sheep, for some 

 of which he says he has received a premium in 

 his own county ; but makes no more butter and 

 cheese than is wanted in his own fatnily. The 

 committee were particularly pleased to find that 

 I\lr T. was able to carry on this large farm without 

 any ardent spirits. This practice, wherever adopt- 

 d, will prove as beneficial to the laborer as the 

 farmer — highly beneficial to both. 



Although the committee cannot report that they 

 consider Mr Thacher entitled to the ])remium pro- 

 posed by the trustees, they with pleasure state, 

 that they think he has great merit as an agricultu- 

 rist, in subduing and bringing to a state of good 

 cultivation a farm, which a few years since, con- 

 sisted of rough, exhausted, and profitless land. 



Jonathan Allen, Esq., of Pittsfield, in the coun- 

 ty of Berkshire, has also presented a claim for a 

 premium on his large and excellent farm in that 

 town, accompanied by a statement of his manner 

 of cultivating, and the products he gets from it. 

 The farm consists of forty acres of meadow or in- 

 terval, wliich receives its manure annually from 

 the overflowing of the Housatonic, and about two 

 hundred and ten acres of upland. Mr Allen ap- 

 pears to liave exercised much agricultural science, 

 as well as care and attention, in the cultivation of 

 his farm and in making useful agricultural experi- 

 ments. It will be recollected, that Mr Allen ap- 

 plied for a premium on this farm last year and pre- 

 sented a statement of his manner of cultivating it, 

 the crops it produced, the rotation he has practised, 

 and the result of his experience as to the best time 

 and manner of laying down land to grass. This 

 statement was noticed by the committee, and pub- 

 lished with their report in the Massachusetts Ag- 

 ricultural Repository. His statement as to the 

 general course of his husbandry is not materially 

 varied this year, and the committee regret to find 

 almost the same want of particularity as to the 

 quantity of products. The quantity of hay, his 

 principal product, rests on estimate, without hav- 

 ing weighed a load ; a small part only of the win- 

 ter rye and oats were threshed, and no part of his 

 spring rye or beans were threshed or in any way 

 measured ; but his Indian corn was, and four 

 acres were found to produce four hundred and 

 fifty bushels of cars ; Indian corn was grown upon 

 the same land the year before, and this year it was 

 manured with seventeen loads to the acre, put in- 

 to the hills. Sheep are the principal stock of the 

 farm ; he kept four hundred and thirty this year, 

 from three hundred and fifty of which he sheared 

 eight hundred and fit'tyone pounds of wool of the 

 first quality. May he considers the best time for 

 lambs to come. Mr Allen states, that in years 

 past, he has made experiments in raising potatoes, 

 and this year has made many more with care and 

 attention, which, in the judgment of the commit- 

 tee, entitle him to the thanks of the public. For 

 a particular account of these experiments they re- 

 fer to his statement, which accompanies this re- 

 port, and recommend it to the attention of agricul- 

 turists. From a remark of Mr Allen, that he 

 could not with convenience thresh out his grain 

 in season to measure it so early as was required, 

 tlic committee ai)prehend he must have misunder- 

 stood their regulation, which only requires that the 

 application should be made by the first of October, 



Init the evidence or particular statement may be 

 exhibited any time before the first of December. 

 It ap|)ears to the committee that Mr Allen has cul- 

 tivated his farm like a skilful and attentive agri? 

 culturist, and realized* great products, and they 

 liO])c profits ; but his statement is too general ant] 

 indefinite, leaving the quantities of the greatest 

 part of the product to dcj)end on estimate; and 

 they think does not, on the whole, show his culti- 

 vation so superior as to justify them in reporting 

 in favor of a |)rcmium. Considering, however, 

 the pains Mr Allen has taken to introduce upon ^ 

 his farm a variety of vegetable products and choice 

 fruit, and especially the nice care and attention he 

 has given to the cultivation of potatoes, the most 

 valuable of our roots, the committee recommend 

 a gratuity of thirty dollars to be granted him, 



WM. PRESCOTT. 



P. C. BROOKS. 



Silk-iDorms. — The editor of the Jerseyman, pub- 

 lished in Morristown, N. J., states, that a gentle- 

 man engaged in the culture of silk informed him, 

 that " the leaves of the oak were equally accept- 

 able to the silkworm, as those of the mulberry 

 tree." For the twentieth time we would suggest 

 to editors the propriety of bestowing much atten- 

 tion to the true nature of silkworms, before they 

 venture to publish such statements as the above. 

 They are calculated to do much mischief, by dis- 

 appointing new beginners, and causing waste of 

 time and money. The editor of the Jerseyman is 

 assured, that silkworms will only cat oak leaves, 

 as men cat old shoe soles, when reduced to a state 

 of starvation ; that there is no substitute for the 

 mulberry leaf in the production of silk ; and that 

 whoever asserts the contrary, is either uninformed 

 on the subject or disposed to hoax his too credu- 

 lous auditor. — American Farmer. 



Fruit Trees. — Great com])laints are made by or- 

 chardists and others at the North, of the destruc- 

 tion of fruit trees during the past winter. The 

 severity of the last winter has been no less fatal to 

 the tender and more choice fruit trees of this part 

 of the country; a large proportion of peach trees 

 are absolutely killed, as well as apricots, necta- 

 rines, and the more choice kinds of ])lunis and 

 cherries. The foreign grape vines have nearly all 

 been killed to the ground. — Illinois Advocate. 



Peach Trees. — A friend informs us, that he lias 

 saved his peach trees from destruction by the hor- 

 cr, by placing the cinders from the forge around 

 the roots. This method keeps the trees in a per- 

 fectly health'y state ; and was discovered by the 

 flourishing appearance of a tree near a blacksmith's 

 shoj). — Salem Observer. 



Cast Sheet Lead. — The "Baltimore Shot Tower 

 Company," it will be seen by their adverliscment, 

 offer to the public lead cast in sheets, to be used 

 for the covering of houses and for all purposes to 

 which lead of this description is usually applied, 

 especially when exposed to the action of the weath- 

 er. Lead thus prepared is said to be as little af- 

 Xected by the heat of the sun as copjier ; and it 

 will no doubt be extensively used, forming as it 

 does, a durable, impenetrable, and incombustible 

 roof — Baltimore paper. 



France, with a population of 32,000,000 has 

 5,000,000 paupers ; 130,000 thieves ; and 3,000,000 

 who liave no certainty of a month's subsistence. 



