NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



261 



It is a common custom, \n villages, to enrich the 

 gardens in the spring with the best manures, costing 

 a high price ; and then, during the summer, men are 

 hired to throw that same manure (now concentrated 

 into plants called weeds) into the street, as if thcy 

 were noxious articles. Carry them to the manure 

 heap, and give them as much attention as the clean- 

 ings of the stable. 



Dead animals are carted to hollows and by- 

 places, as remote as possible, and left to be eaten by 

 crows and other animals, or to decay and render the 

 surrounding atmosphere unpleasant and unwhole- 

 some. This is not good economy. Take the carcass 

 to some convenient place, where you can give it a 

 good covering of earth. As decay progresses, the 

 tlosh passes into gases, which arc taken up by the 

 soil, and thereby the earth forming the covering is 

 rendered more fertilizing than the matter taken from 

 the b«rn-yard. Thus the farmer can manufacture 

 eight or ten loads of rich compost, with little expense 

 or trouble, and cheaper than any other process. The 

 bones arc not to be disregarded. Have them put 

 into a convenient place, and when a rainy day comes, 

 break them up in small pieces, and scatter them on 

 your lands. They arc much used for wheat, corn, 

 and turnip crops. Bone-dust, in some portions of 

 our country, is considered an indispensable article, 

 and in England is in very general use. Human 

 bones have been gathered on the battle-field of Wa- 

 terloo, and carried to England by ship-loads, there 

 to be used for manuring land. They are considered 

 of sufficient value to be transported from this coun- 

 try to England for that purpose. 



Save your soap-suds. Instead of throwing them 

 near the kitchen door, to form an offensive mud-hole, 

 pour them on the manure heap, or sprinkle them on 

 the meadow. Make but one trial of it, and you will 

 not again cast them away as useless. Leached ashes 

 are supposed to be of little value — an entirely erro- 

 neous opinion. Coal ashes are also condemned, and 

 cast into the streets. They are an active promoter 

 of vegetation, and, hence, worth saving. 



If you would raise good crops, they must be fed. 

 All vegetable matter which will decay, affords nour- 

 ishment, producing cash in the shape of grain, &c. ; 

 therefore look after it as carefully as you do the six- 

 pences in the purse. — Deekertoxcn Home Journal. 



MANAGEMENT OF NEWLY-TRANSPLANT- 

 ED TREES. 



The season thus far has been quite auspicious for 

 success in transplanting trees ; yet they should not 

 now be neglected, but they should be well mulched, 

 to keep tlie earth loose and moist, in case a drought 

 should ensue. Apple-trees of good quality, well 

 set, may be considered Avorth not less than one dollar 

 each — enough to take care of. 



It is evident that nature proportions the roots and 

 tops of trees so as to balance : the roots searching 

 out and furnishing nourishment sufficient for the top 

 or branches ; but when trees arc transplanted, more 

 or less of the roots are left in the ground, and not 

 unfrequently many of the small fibres become so 

 dried as to unfit them for performing their office as 

 feeders, (which ought not so to be ;) nature's course 

 must become checked in the vigorous growth of the 

 tree. It must therefore be evident that advantage 

 will be derived from lessening the tops, so as not to 

 impose a tax upon the roots, which their feeble con- 

 dition will not allow them to pay. It is probable 

 that, in most cases, the tree would live if tlic top 

 should not be reduced, but often the struggle be- 

 tween life and death, for a time, is doubtful ; and if 



the former obtains the victory, it is but a pitiful one 



— the tree not ha\nng made any growth, h\ which 

 case it seldom recovers enough to flourish well the 

 succeeding season. In most cases, trees, when trans- 

 planted, rc(iuire some thinning of their tops to give 

 them a good, open, and spreading head, which is es- 

 sential to the good quality of the fruit. 



But when they do not require thinning, heading 

 back, or the shortening system, as it may be called, 

 may be practised to advantage. It is generally au 

 easy matter to form and obtain a good head, where 

 there are healthy and flourishing roots to feed and 

 drive it forward ; and vice versa. D. T. 



Yassalboro', Qlh mo., ISoO. 



— Maine Farmer. 



HOW CITIES EXHAUST THE FERTILITY 

 OF LAND. 



There has been enough of the elements of bread 

 and meat, wool and cotton, drawn from the surface 

 of the earth, sent to London, and buried in the 

 grovmd or washed into the Thames, to feed and 

 clothe the entire population of the world for a cen- 

 tury, under a wise system of agriculture and horti- 

 culture. Down to this day, great cities have ever 

 been the worst desolators of the earth. It is for this 

 that they have been so frequently buried many feet 

 beneath the rubbish of their idols of brick, stone, 

 and mortar, to be exhumed in after ages by some an- 

 tiquarian Layard. Their inhabitants violated the 

 laws of nature, which govern the health of man and 

 secure the enduring productiveness of the soil. How 

 few comprehend the fact, that it is only the elements 

 of bread and meat, evolved during the decomposition 

 of some vegetable or animal substance, that poison 

 the air taken into human lungs, and the water that 

 enters the human system in daily food and drink ! 

 These generate pestilence, and bring millions pre- 

 maturely to their graves. 



Why should the precious atoms of potash, which 

 organized the starch in all the flour, meal, and pota- 

 tatoes consumed in the cities of the L'nited States in 

 the year 18.50, be lost forever to the world ? Can a 

 man create a new atom of potash or of phosphorus 

 when the supply fails in the soil, as fail it must, un- 

 der our present system of farm economy ? Many a 

 broad desert in Eastern Asia once gladdened the 

 husbandman with golden harvests. While America 

 is the only country on the globe where every hiiman 

 being has enough to eat, and millions are coming 

 here for bread, how long shall we continue to im- 

 poverish ninety-nine acres in a hundred of all that 

 we cultivate ? Both pestilence and famine are the 

 offspring of ignorance. Rural science is not a mere 

 plaything for the amusement of grown-up children. 

 It is a new revelation of the wisdom and goodness 

 of Providence, a humanizing power wliich is destined 

 to elevate man an immeasurable distance above his 

 present condition. To achieve this result, the light 

 of science must not be confined to colleges ; it must 

 enter and illuminate the dwelling of every farmer 

 and mechanic. The knowledge of the few, no mat- 

 ter how profound, nor how brilliant, can never com- 

 pensate for the loss sustained by neglecting to de- 

 velop the intellects of the many. 



No government should be wanting in sympathy 

 with the people, whether the object be the preven- 

 tion of disease, the improvement of land, or the ed- 

 ucation of the masses. One per cent, of the money 

 now annually lost by reason of popular ignorance, 

 would suffice to remove that ignorance. — Patent 

 Office llcport. 



Retire early, and rise early, 



