28 



]ST:W ENGLAND F.VRIVIER. 



Jan. 



For the Neto Evgland Farmer. 



AW AUTUMN BAMBLE. 



Carrot Orop — Deep Plouetliins — I? tliere lose of Vegeta- 

 ble Force in penetrating nard eub-eoil? 



The last (lay of October came to us m a 

 pleasant interval of sunshine amid many cbeer- 

 less days of autumn cloud and rain. A warm 

 west wind blew over the brown fields, and 

 chased the maple leaves into tl'e shelter of old 

 walls, or rustled among them until some pro- 

 tecting hedge of briar, or thorn, or barberry, 

 interposed and turned the baffled winds away 

 into country lanes, or down slopes of mowing 

 land, thickly matted with luxuriant aftermath, 

 or along pleasant valleys hazy with an after- 

 noon of dreamy Indian summer time. 



The aspect of the roads, and fields, and 

 farms, had induced us to withdraw for a single 

 half day from the toil and tumult of the town, 

 and spend its hours among the scenes and 

 haunts of quiet country life. 



So far as our observation goes, h is not a 

 difficult matter to engage a Kew England far- 

 mer in conversation, whether the subject be 

 agriculture, religion, or politics. 



But for this "half day, your correspondent 

 had eschewed the meanness of the one, had 

 turned aside from the sectarianism of the other, 

 and had determined to acquaint himself some- 

 what with the Avays of the farmer. 



The harvesters were in the fields, finishing 

 the season's labor by reaping a plenteous re- 

 ward for all the season's toil. In one lot men 

 were at work digging carrots, with the expec- 

 tation of getting at the rate of twenty-five 

 tons to the acre. The land on which the crop 

 was grown, had been twice ploughed in the 

 spring, making it exceedingly light and mel- 

 low ; and although the plough had not gone 

 below a depth of eight or ten inches, there 

 were carrots that would measure from fifteen 

 to twenty inches in length. It was claimed 

 that the land upon which this vegetable had 

 grown, would, next year, be even better adapt- 

 ed to the production of a crop of onions than 

 land upon which onions had this year been suc- 

 cessfully raised ; and yet the statement is fre- 

 quently made by the growers of this vegetable, 

 that onions do best when planted upon the 

 same land during consecutive years. 



It occursto the writer whether the policy of 

 shallow ploughing for carrots, as practiced by 

 some agriculturists, may not be detrimental 

 to the interests of the husbandman. Here 

 were carrots, some of which had thrust their 

 roots at least live or ten inches into the hard 

 ground below the lowest point attained by the 

 plough. Now it is a (juestion with us whether 

 vegetables, during their growing season, do not 

 labor. The roots of these long carrots went 

 tapering away to a very slender point. Had 

 the ground upon which this crop was planned, 

 been turned up by a plough running twenty 

 inches deep, would not the force of growth, 

 inherent in vegetables, instead of partially 

 wasting itself in an effort to penetrate a stiff 



subsoil, been reserved for the development of 

 the size and quality of carrots? Or is it pos- 

 sible that shallow ploughing is really a better 

 method of procedure ; and by leaving a hard 

 subsoil from five to ten inches below the sur- 

 face to impede and thwart the penetrative 

 propensities of the carrot, is the work which 

 the root performs turned in another direction, 

 ;rul finding itself in its early stages arrested 

 in the effort to penetrate iar into the earth, 

 does development manifest itself more quickly 

 in a circumference, and meeting less resistance 

 amidst the loose upper soil, does that develop- 

 ment result in an increase of weight as the 

 product of a given area of land ? 



But whether the leaving a subsoil near the 

 surface of the soil to check the deepening 

 of the plant, with a view to reaping an in- 

 creased harvest, be policy or otherwise, the 

 result in this. field was certainly very satis- 

 factory. 



But we will not tire the reader with any 

 farther reference to the carrot crop. There 

 were other vegetables remaining in the fields. 

 Plots of purple cabbage made a fine show in 

 the lowlands ; and, scattered about in the dif- 

 ferent fields, the large, red skinned, flat tur- 

 nip had been assigned a place on higher and 

 mellower soil ; while, farther away, on the 

 western slope of a hillside, the cereals were 

 represented by a field of yellow corn — or what 

 had been such. And the yellow leaves of the 

 maize stalk, rustling in the light autumn wind 

 and glowing in the sunlight, imparted a feel- 

 ing of warmth to the landscape, and added 

 another item to the pleasures of an afternoon 

 spent in the autumn fields. xx. 



Salem, Mass., Nov. 4, 1867. 



For the New England Farmer. 



A PLEASANT WORD FROM MAINE. 



Crops, Buildings, Real Estate, &c., in IJncoln, Ken- 

 nebec and Sagadahoc counties. 



New England Farmeh : — We are happy 

 to greet you on your weekly trip, laden with 

 so much information from our agricultural 

 brethren. How much information can be 

 gained by communicating with each other. 

 We down here in INlaine hear from those in 

 the old "Bay Sta'e," as well as in all other 

 States in our agricultural section. 



With us autumn has robbed the orchards of 

 their fruit and the forests of their green foli- 

 age. As we drove through Lincoln, Kenne- 

 bec and Sagadahoc counties not long since, we 

 were led to exclaim, "God sees all things and 

 does all things for the benefit of all his crea- 

 tures. Surely He has given us a bountiftd har- 

 vest. As we passed one field the owner had just 

 gathered an immense load of cabbages as nice 

 as we ever saw. Corn, as a general thing, has 

 done well except on low land, some of which 

 has, this season, been too moist for that crop. 

 One man informed me that he harvested nine- 



