310 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



APRlt 10, 1833. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 10, 1833. 



FARMER'S AND GAROENER'S WORK FOR 

 APRIL.. 



Fences. As soon as practicable put your fences 

 in thorough repair. Poor fences may be number- 

 ed among the worst of bad things, saving Canada 

 thistles, which can encumber a farm. In conse- 

 quence of low, frail and tottering fences eattle 

 acquire a habit of wandering, and become turbu- 

 lent as a gang of highwaymen. A fanner with 

 poor fences can no more sleep quietly, than if he 

 <were pillowed on clouds and cradled in a storm.' 



The kinds of fence in most general use in this 

 country are post and rail fence. Stone wall, Log 

 fence. Worm fence or Virginia fence, and hedge 

 fence. These should vary according to different 

 of soils, plenty and cheapness of materials, &c. 

 Mr. Preston of Stockport Pa. recommends setting 

 posts with the top part in the ground ; and asserts 

 they will, in that position last three or four times 

 as long as when they are set with the butt ends 

 down. He also advises in making post and rail 

 fences always to place the rails with the heart side 

 up. The posts should be set at least two feet in 

 the ground. If those parts of the post, which 

 are to be placed in the ground are burned in a hot 

 fire till quite black they will last much longer 

 than they would otherwise. It has been found 

 useful to cut posts so long and mortise them in 

 such a manner that when the lower ends become 

 rotten they can be turned upside down. 



The Farmer's Guide says " Post and rail fences 

 and board fences are very good when the soil is 

 dry. In a wet soil the posts will be moved by 

 frosts. Red cedar, locust, and chesnut, are best. 

 Butternut, black walnut, and oak are pretty good, 

 lasting about 15 years. For the rails, cedar is 

 best, lasting perhaps an age. If timber is scarce, 

 and the ground is level and free from stones, post 

 and rail fences set in a bank made of the earth of 

 two email ditches thrown up together ought to be 

 preferred. If the posts are too small to have holes 

 made through them, the rails may be flattened at 

 the ends, and fastened to the posts with spikes, or 

 with wooden pins well secured." It has some- 

 times been the practice to set rows of trees 10 or 

 12 feet asunder, and insert cedar rails into the 

 trees, the latter serving as posts.* 



When ground is wholly subdued, and the 

 stumps of its original growth of trees quite rotted 

 out, stone walls, properly made are the best and 

 cheapest fences. On a hard sandy or gravelly 

 bottom a wall will stand many years without re- 

 pairing. On a clay or miry soil, the foundation 

 should be laid in a trench, nearly as low as the 

 earth freezes. But a wall of flat or square 

 shaped stones, will stand tolerably on any soil on 

 the surface. 



See N. E. Farmer, vol. xi. p. 115. 



Pasture for Sivine. A lot well seeded to clover 

 has been recommended as highly useful for pastur- 

 ing swine. The quantity of land should be so 

 proportioned to the number of swine that they 

 may keep the grass from going to seed. This will 

 prevent waste, and short fine grass will be eaten 

 with more eagerness by the animals than that 

 which is long and coarse. It was the opinion of 

 Dr. Deane that one acre of rich land in clover, 

 would support twenty or more swine large and 

 small through the summer, and bring them well 

 forward in their growth. The hogs should be well 

 ringed, or it is said by English writers, that shav- 

 ing off" the gristle of the noses of young pigs with 

 a sharp knife, will answer the purpose of prevent- 

 ing them from rooting, and be better for the ani- 

 mals than ringing. 



To obtain early Vegetables. It has been recom- 

 mended to scoop out as many turnips as you wish 

 to obtain hills of vegetables, say of cucumbers, 

 melons, summer squashes, &c. fill these with good 

 garden moudl, sow in each tlirae or four seeds and 

 plunge them into a hot bed. The advantage of 

 the scooped turnip as a seed bed over pots or 

 vases is that there is no difficulty in separating the 

 mass of earth and the plants from the pots which 

 contained them, but without injury you may trans- 

 plant the vegetables together with the turnips and 

 find in the decay of the latter nutriment for the 

 plant within it. It is said to be best in making 

 use of hollow turnips as aforesaid to make a hole 

 quite through the bottom of the root, so that the 

 radicles of the young plant may penetrate their in- 

 closure with facility. 



Asparagus. It has formerly been thought nec- 

 essary to make a very laborious and expensive 

 process of the cultivation of asparagus, but it has 

 more recently been ascertained that tlie old modes 

 of growing tiiat valuable esculent may be dis- 

 pensed with, and asparagus raised with about as 

 much facility as potatoes. The Hon. John Welles 

 thus describes his method, which we believe 

 might be adopted, generally, to great advantage. 



" A piece of ground was taken of a deep rich 

 soil, after a common corn crop was taken oft', the 

 land was ploughed and manured in the usual 

 course. Holes were then dug twelve to fourteen 

 inches in depth, and about the same distance 

 apart, and two or three shovels full of compost 

 manure were mixed with a part of the earth. 

 The roots of a year's growth were then inserted 

 at about six inches in depth. This bed has flour- 

 ished, and has been thought as productive as any 

 whatever. I at the same time, with a view to a 

 more full and fair course of experiments, took a 

 piece of land in another place of opposite char- 

 acter, being of thin light soil, and adopted a like 

 course and the result has been equally favourable. 

 The only difference to be noted, was that the lat- 

 ter was more early in coming forward from the 

 nature of the soil. 



" However rare it may be that there is any over 

 cultivation or preparation of the soil for any vege- 

 table production, it would seem here to be the 

 case. The old forms appear to have been kept up, 

 and to have discouraged a more general diffusion 

 of this valuable plant." 



" Dr. Deane, in his husbandry, has somewhat 

 simplified the matter, hut not sufficiently. His 

 proposed method of placing the roots at six, eight, 

 and nine inches apart is quite too near. The du- 

 ration often or twelve years is quite a mistaken 

 one : it lasts with us double that period." 



Mr. Armstrong, in the second volume of the 

 "Memoirs of the JVew York Board of Agriculture, 

 says," It has been asserted, and with sufficient 

 confidence, that a pickle of salt and water of the 

 ordinary strength for preserving meat may be very 

 usefully applied to asparagus beds in the spring. 

 The effects ascribed to it are its stimulating power 

 over the crop, and its tendency to destroy the seeds 

 of weeds and insects lying near the surface. Exper- 

 iments on this subject should be multiplied, and 

 with pickles differing in strength and quality. In 

 the last edition of Deane's New England Farmer 

 it is observed that " to a bed fifty feet by six, a 

 bushel of salt may be applied with good effect be- 

 fore the plants start in the spring." 



Asparagus is reputed to he a very healthy yege- 

 table. Loudon says. In Paris it is much resorted 

 to by the sedentary operative classes, when they 

 are troubled with symptoms of gravel or stone. 

 H'illich^s Domestic Encyclopedia observes, "Aspar- 

 agus is allowed to promote appetite ; and affords a 

 delicious article of nourishment to the invalid and 

 valetudinarian, who is not troubled with flatulency. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS, 



We have on hand several very excellent communica- 

 tions, which, as well as editorial matter, we have been 

 obliged to defer to a subsequent number. We are much 

 obliged by the Rev. Mr. Perry's excellent Address to 

 the Essex County Agricultural Society, and will com- 

 mence its republication in our next. 



ITEMS OF INTELLIGENCE. 



United States Treasury OJjke Burnt. On the morning of 

 the 31sl ult. the Treasury Office of the U. S. at Washington 

 was totally consumed by fire. The cause we have not learned. 



Population of New Bedford. The New Bedford Mercury 

 says — " The present population of tilis lown, as appears by a 

 statement submited at the annual town meeting on Saturday, 

 by the school district committee, amounts to inne thousand two 

 liandred and si.rti/ j shewing an increase since the census of 

 1830, of 1768. By the census of 1820, the entire population 

 was only 3,947." 



It is in a great measure to the whaling business that New 

 Bedford owes the rapid increase of its population. That busi- 

 ness is canied on there with extraordinary vigor, and for the 

 last two or three years witli great profit. 



A Washington letter writer states that parties got so com- 

 pleatly mixed, the politicians, will all have to be collared and 

 marked over again boforc next Presdentlal election, 



Ice Islands. The vessels recently arrived from Europe have 

 met with large masses of ice, in fields and in ice-bergs. One 

 ship, the Hibernia, was for two days fast among it, without 

 howeversufleriny any damage. 



Norfolk March, "9. — It commenced snowing yesterday 

 morning, and continued at 10 o deck last night. The ther- 

 mometer in the evening was at 36, and the slate of the weather 

 portended serious mischief to our peach trees, which are jji 

 bloom. 



