218 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Mat 



raised great wales, he skipping around the floor 

 naked and screaming, wiiile he would say, 

 "Leave your plow out ! will you? Pretty farmer 

 you are, aint you? I'll see if I can't teach you 

 better." Thus he flogged himself most soundly, 

 dressed himself, and went in. from that flogging 

 he came forth a changed man. lie was prompt, 

 orderly, saving, and up with the times. His 

 neighbors were surprised. His family were won- 

 der-struck. He began to thrive, and in less than 

 three years his farm, liis flocks and herds all 

 bore the evidence of being under the guidance of 

 a spirit whose energies were of the amplest order. 

 About this time he sickened and died. 



NEW BOOKS. 



The Practical Fruit, Flower and Vec/etable Gar- 

 deticr^s Companion, with a Calendar. With ele- 

 gant Illustrations. This is another work from 

 the distinguished agricultural publishers, Saxton 

 & Co., New York. We have examined it with 

 some care, and believe it will be found serviceable 

 to every man who cultivates a garden. 



It treats, in the first place, of the fruit and 

 kitchen garden in general, — of situation, shelter, 

 water, soils and manures. Then of the fruit 

 garden, — of the propagation of fruit trees by seed, 

 by layers, by grafting, and planting and training 

 of fruit trees. Something, also, of the grapevine, 

 fig, peach, nectarine, &c., and of the small fruits, 

 the currant, strawberry and blackberry. It then 

 briefly describes nearly all the vegetables usually 

 cultivated in the kitchen garden, and the manner 

 of sowing and tending them. The _/7ou'cr garden 

 is also described, its soil, walks, edgings, &c., 

 and many of the flowers enumerated adapted to 

 the various seasons. The forcing garden comes 

 next, and the construction of furnaces, the modes 

 of heating by steam or hot water, and the ad- 

 mission of light and air minutely described and 

 illustrated by cuts, so that the whole process is 

 plain. 



To these is added a calendar of horticultural 

 duties for each of the months, and a select list 

 of fruits. The modes of grafting, budding, of 

 espalier training, training of wall trees, and 

 horizontal and fan training are all illustrated by 

 good engravings. 



"The work is pre-eminently suggestive. The 

 reader will be surprised at the amount of valu- 

 able thought and accurate information herein 

 embodied." It was prepared by Patrick Neill, 

 Secretary of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural 

 Society, and adapted to the United States by G. 

 Emerson, a gentleman eminently qualified for the 

 work. Price $1.25. 



Breck's Book of Flowers. J. P. Jewett & 

 Co., Boston. By Joseph Breck, Seedsman and 

 Florist, and a gentleman who knew what he was 

 about when he prepared this agreeable and useful 

 work. In its comprehensiveness and arrange- 



ment it is excellent, and its topics are treated 

 with so much delicacy, good taste and pjetic 

 feeling, as to give the ■whole a bewitching charm. 

 If any young lady will look over its pages for 

 half an hour, and then confess that she has no 

 taste for a garden and flowers, why, then, she 

 isn't fit to have the care of children, that's cer- 

 tain ; at any rate, we would not let her teach 

 ours ! Printed and bound l>eautifully. 



For the New England Farmer. 



ABOUT GUANO AND SUPERPHOS- 

 PHATE. 



I took pains early in the spring, Avhen the rain 

 was pouring down in torrents, to go about four 

 miles to an old dry pasture to sow some guano 

 superphosphate and plaster. During the sum- 

 mer, I often went to see its eifects, but saw no 

 efi'ect at all. On a piece of moist pasture, with 

 clay bottom, I sowed some phosphate, afid it 

 caused the clover to come in very thick ; but 

 plaster would do equally as well, if not better, as 

 it is plainly to be seen half a mile distant, where 

 the plaster was sown thickest ; ])ut on corn I 

 was pleased with its effects. Tlie best corn I 

 raised was on a piece that was spi-ead lightly 

 with common manure, and then a small handful 

 of phosphate put in the hill. It was not meas- 

 ured, but was pronounced by good judges to be 

 the best piece of corn in these parts — far better 

 than my other pieces that were spread and 

 dunged in the hill liberally. 



A gentleman of our town had an aci-e of worn- 

 out, gandy land, which he did not consider worth 

 cultivating ; on this I sowed, on the 12th of 

 June, 200 lbs. of guano, and plowed in deep. I 

 then planted it with an early kind of corn, putting 

 75 lbs. of phosphate in the hill, and the result 

 was a very good piece of corn, and ripe in good 

 season . 



In September last I seeded down some land, 

 sowing part with phosphate and a part with 

 guano ; the result you shall have in due time. 

 As I said last year, so I say this, — for corn, give 

 me a tablespoonful of phosphate in preference to 

 any other manure in the hill ; but you want to 

 spread some other manure and plow iu deep, that 

 the corn roots can feed upon in August and 

 September. This is of more special benefit to 

 those who have moist, hilly land, that cannot be 

 worked early. If the manure is put in the hill, 

 the heat of the sun causes it to burn up and 

 leave a dry mass at the roots, and thus not only 

 the] virtue of the manure is gone, Init it retards 

 the growth of the corn during tlie whole season ; 

 while, on the contrary, if this had been pljwed 

 in and phosphate put in the hill, the latter would 

 have given it a good start, and the former would 

 have been incorporated with the soil, ready for 

 the roots in autumn. 



Yours truly, L. W. Curtis. 



Globe Village, March, 1855. 



Prices Thirty-seven Years Ago. — Looking 

 over our file for 1817, we cast our eyes upon the 

 prices current of February of that year ; and as 

 an evidence that the present prices of many lead- 



