318 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



For the New England Farmer. 



THE LATE WILLIAM STICKNEY. 



To THE Editor of the N. E. Farmeh : The grave 

 has closed over another of the farmer's friends. In 

 the bosom of his mother earth sleeps peacefully, now, 

 one who, a short month ago, walked in the height of 

 health and strength, among his growing crops, and 

 had his hopes, and his fears, his calculations, and his 

 disappointments. Now, still in his narrow bed, all 

 hopes and fears, all forethought and all regret, are 

 merged in a changeless, and, we humbly trust, a 

 happy certainty. 



William Stickney was a farmer to his heart's core. 

 Amid all the excitement of a city life, and the fasci- 

 nations of business enterprise, his thoughts ever 

 turned, with unvarying constancy, in their search for 

 comfort, to the hill-side where roamed his noble 

 Devons ; to the vale where pastured the gentle South- 

 Down ; where grew the tasselled com and the wav- 

 ing wheat. 



Thither, as a bird to her nest, he sped to lay down 

 care at the gate, .and to call up all the cheerfulness 

 of other days. The care-worn man became a hope- 

 ful, free-hearted youth, when his foot pressed the 

 greensward of his mountain homo. And the echoes 

 of the hills welcomed, and returned the gleeful laugh 

 of the man that yesterday was the thoughtful, word- 

 sparing merchant of State Street. 



It was as a breeder that Mr. Stickney had especial 

 claims upon the grateful remembrance of the farmer. 

 His Devons, which he has imported and bred in their 

 purity, will challenge comparison with any other 

 herd of this breed in the country ; while his judi- 

 cious crosses upon the celebrated " Creampots " of 

 Col. Jaques, have furnished grade-animals, that will 

 compare at the pail with the milky Short-horns. 

 The older cows of this herd yield from twenty-three 

 to thirty quarts of milk per day, at the height of 

 their flow. 



The South-Downs of his importation and pur- 

 chase also rank with any flock that has come under 

 my notice. 



In his stock of swine, however, there is no one in 

 the country, so far as I am informed, that pretends to 

 a rivalry. 



The beautiful Suffolk, the favorite breed of the 

 late king of England, and also of the present farmer- 

 prince ; the solid and substantial Middlesex ; the 

 clean-limbed, kind-feeding Essex, may aU be seen in 

 his pens at Westminster, Vt., and will weary the 

 nicest judgment with their strong and conflicting 

 claims to superiority. Tired at last with the task 

 that is ever beginning anew, the doubtful purchaser 

 or judge assures himself to a certainty, by selecting 

 all the three. 



It was of a Suffolk sow, of Mr. Stickney's impor- 

 tation, that our friend, of world-wide celebrity as a 

 breeder, (and an old-fashioned gentleman, let me 

 add,) Col. Jaques, of the Ten Hills Farm, advised 

 Mr. Webster as follows : " Mr. Stickney has now im- 

 ported a sow, from which we may form a breed that 

 will defy the world." In this opinion, Mr. Web- 

 ster, upon a careful inspection, coincided. 



Col. Jaques is at work with the models now, but 

 the moulds are at Mr. Stickney's farm. 



How much comfort have not these humble but 

 useful animals afforded to the enterprising and en- 

 thusiastic farmer who has gone from us, as they grew 

 under his watchful eye, models of form ! and how 

 cheering to the good heart, now still, that to beauty 

 was added utility ! 



If we rear a column to him who has devastated a 

 province, and scorched the teeming earth from hori- 

 zon to horizon into the sterility of a desert, consis- 

 tency claims that we should not thus mark our appre- 



ciation of the just and the good, who feed the hun- 

 gry and clothe the naked, by bringing within their 

 reach the best and most economical means of supply. 

 To these men is erected a column of blessings from 

 grateful hearts, that overtops the pyramids, for it 

 reaches heaven, and will outlive them, for it endures 

 as long as want and gratitude exist. 



To the inventor of the cotton gin, which so mate- 

 rially reduced the expense of cotton-cleaning, and 

 consequently of the cloth, how grand a pile of grat- 

 itude has been built by thankful hearts, that never 

 knew his name ! Hastening home with the speed of 

 the wind, to share some new-found joy or sudden 

 sorrow of those dear to us, we invoke a blessing on 

 him who harnessed the resistless power of steam, to 

 be our fleet, yet docile coursers. Unconsciously to 

 ourselves, we pay this silent tribute to a benefactor. 



And hereafter, sir, when these improved animals 

 shall have driven out of reach the hungry, unthriv- 

 ing beasts that, without adequate return, eat up the 

 substance of the poor, and shall furni.sh to him com- 

 fortable subsistence for himself and his family at 

 light expense, let then the " blessing of him that 

 was ready to perish " be the monument of William 

 Stickney. W. S. K. 



For the Neio England Farmer. 

 EARLY MATURITY OF FOWLS. 



Mil. Cole : The subjoined paragraph has been 

 going the rounds of the papers, as giving a fact of 

 unusual occurrence : — 



" In Newark, N. J., a gentleman has two chickens 

 which began to lay when four months old, two 

 months sooner than usual." 



I have met with it so frequently, that it has in- 

 duced me to offer the result of my own stock's val- 

 uable qualities. About the first of last March, I 

 gave half a dozen eggs, a cross between the Shang- 

 hae and the Black Poland, to Mr. William HiUman, 

 of Prince Street, Boston. They all hatched out on 

 the 25th of the same month, and one of the pullets — 

 the only pullet from the eggs, I believe — laid on the 

 9th of August, and laid an egg daily fur the next 

 fourteen days, without intermission. It will be no- 

 ticed that she was only four months and fourteen 

 days old when she laid her first egg. In my own 

 yard I have pullets of the same cross, hatched from 

 the 5th to the 11th of April last, that have laid for 

 some days ; while I have full-blood Shanghaes of 

 both the Forbes and Marsh fowls. White Dorkings, 

 Bolton Grays, and Black Polands, of the same age, 

 that do not yet bear fruit. The inferential fact de- 

 duced from these statements seems to be, that this 

 particular cross show earlier maturity than the full- 

 blood fowls exhibit. What is the experience of 

 others ? !• F. S. 



SoMERViLLE, Sept. 12, 1850. 



For the New Eiigland Farmer. 



WINTER WHEAT IN MAINE. 



Mr. Cole : That Maine has become satisfied it is 

 too expensive to go to New York to mill, is becoming 

 quite evident, from the off'ort making to raise her 

 own bread. Several hundred bushels of winter 

 wheat were sown last fall in this state, and scarcely 

 has a failure been known, under good management, 

 of realizing a good, and in many instances a very 

 large crop, ranging from fifteen to fifty bushels to an 

 acre. Much has been sown the present fall ; in some 

 sections nearly every farmer has tried a little, from 



