1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



427 



about one-fourteenth of an inch in length, oblong in 

 shape, and deiwsited side by side, each on its end. 

 A peculiar substance of a very \iscid consistency, 

 and which indurates and becomes strongly glutinous 

 on exposure to the atmosphere, attaches them firm- 

 ly together, and to the tree, or any "other substance 

 to which they are appended. These eggs may be 

 easily destroyed by acids or alkalies applied with a 

 sponge or bnish. 



Professor HL\RRIS mentions nearly every remedy 

 that has been resorted to in order to prevent the 

 ascent of the worm, and those persons troubled 

 with them shoidd consult his work. Some of them 

 are a broad belt of cloth or strong paper, six to 

 twelve inches wide, fastened aroimd the trunli 

 with stiings, and apply the tar as early as the first 

 of November, perhaps in October, and renew it dai- 

 ly as long as the insects continue rising. 



Another method is to fit a collar of boards 

 around the tree, and smear with tar miderneath. 

 Collars of tin-plate, belts of cotton -wool and troughs 

 of tin or lead, filled with oil, have all been resorted 

 to with greater or less success. Showering the trees 

 with air-slacked lime, and sprinkling them with 

 whale-oil soap water, has sometimes proved benefi- 

 cial. 



The apple crop in the vicinity of Boston, where it 

 is usually large, will be greatly reduced this year, 

 through the ravages of these minute yet destructive 

 insects. He who will de\ise some certain remedy 

 against their attacks, will become a public benefac- 

 tor. 



WILLIS' PATENT STUMP PULLER. 



The statement copied from the JV. E. Farmer, 

 on page 121 of this No., we understand to be from 

 the pen of Lieut. Governor Brown, editor of that 

 journal. Since reading it, we have visited Orange, 

 examined the machine, and seen its power fully test- 

 ed. It is all that Mr. Brown has represented ; and 

 in two or three particulars, we thinly, is somewhat 

 more; — 1st, it is equally as well adapted to draM- 

 ing out stones, removing buildings, or almost any 

 other business requiring a higli power, as to the pul- 

 ling of stumps; 2d, it Mill operate without unrea- 

 sonably severe efibrt on the part of the men and 

 team, more ra])idly than Mr. Brown represents ; 

 3d, it has come to its present improved state, slowly 

 and by successive trials ; did not come from the 

 brain of a theorist, as Venus is said to have leaped 

 from the brain of Jupiter, all beautiful and mature ; 

 armed cap-a-pie, ready to love or to fight, but result- 

 ed from the experience of a practical man, one 

 thoroughly schooled in the rough and tumlile busi- 

 ness of drawing rocks and stumps. 



For eight years, Mr. Willis, in as wide a region 

 as can well be found, has been making the rougli 

 places plain. He commenced with a rude machine of 

 his own construction, following the lumbermen, and 

 tearing up what of the old pines they had left in tlie 

 ground. As exigencies required, he m.ide alter- 

 ations, tried them, and adopted or rejected them, 

 accordingly as they answered, or failed to answer, 

 his purpose — that of pulling stumps to liis own satis- 



faction, and that of his employers. In this way the 

 rude machine with which he began has come, by 

 slow degrees, to be the one he has recently patented. 

 We understand he has sold the right to its use for 

 the foiu" counties, cornering on the place of his resi- 

 dence, and that the individuals who have purchased 

 these county rights, are selling out town rights satis- 

 factorily, while yet it is hardly known beyond those 

 limits. The fact of its slow, practical growth, in 

 connection with the ready sale it meets where best 

 known, would seem to be a strong argument in its 

 favor. 



But in commending it, while we are pledged to 

 commend nothing which we do not believe to be 

 worth bujing, we are guided j)rincipally by what we 

 have seen of its working. Mr. Willis took us mto 

 a field, wliich must have yielded a very large crop 

 of pine boards. His force consisted of two men, 

 neither of whom had ever worked at the business 

 before, and a small piir of oxen. He said, " which 

 stump will you see t;iken out." We selected the 

 largest, the ugliest and the worst situated stump in 

 the field. He hitched to it, as described by Gov. 

 Brown, and lifted the great circle of roots and ad- 

 hering earth, raising the side farthest from the 

 machine in advance of the other side, till it stood at 

 an angle of 45 degrees. At this point the men 

 knocked ott" the earth, letting it fall back into the 

 hole, the yellow subsoil at the bottom and the dark- 

 er top soil above it. He then worked the machine 

 again, and di-ew it along until the last root was 

 detached. The time of the whole operation did not 

 seem to be more than eight or ten minutes, but was 

 not measured. He then drew up eight stumps, 

 large and small as they came, in 30 minutes, as 

 measured by the watch ; and neither the cattle nor 

 the men appeared to work foster than would be 

 consistent with a long and steady pidl at the busi- 

 ness. He stated, and we thought proved, that he 

 could clear an acre a day, with a force which could 

 be aff"orded ,including the use of the machine, for 

 ten dollars a day. 



We learn from Mr. Willis, that in view of the 

 prospect that he will be able to manufactiire but 

 few machines, com])ared with what will be wanted, 

 he is wilhng to sell either State or County rights 

 for manufacturing and using them. We ad\ise any 

 who may feel interested in the matter, to visit Mr. 

 Willis at his manufactory, at Orange, which is on 

 the Vermont and Massachusetts Rioilroad, about 16 

 miles east of the Connecticut river. He will afford 

 them the best possible means of judging of the 

 capabilities of his machines ; and we have no doubt 

 will deal with them liberally. It might not be well 

 lor every farmer, perhaps for no one, to be at the 

 expense of procuring one of these machines simply 

 for his own use. But if they Avcre distributed about 

 so that one or two should be owned in a to\«i, and 

 worked by the o\nier, we should think they mi^ht 

 be put to many valuable uses ; and esjiecially that 

 they might become an important auxiliary to a neater 

 ami more ])rofit;ible husbandry than that of cultivat- 

 ing around rocks and stumps. — The Farmer, by 

 Professor JVash. 



Tall Ryk. — A correspondent writes us that he 

 saw on the farm of Mr. Henry Cobb, of Amherst, 

 Mass., on the 20th of June last, a stalk of rye 7i 

 feet in height, and it had not then att;uned its ful 

 a;rowth. 



