280 



NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 



June 



the head, and all the hay they wanted to eat. 

 Now. if you will figure out the "keep" by my 

 method, the result will be — made some money. 



For the Keio England Far/ner. 

 DOES IT PAY TO USE COMMERCIAL 

 MANURES ? 



This is an important question. After the 

 farmer has used all the manure he can possibly 

 make on his farm, I think he can use to ad- 

 vantage many of the fertilizers in the market. 

 1 have used more or less superphosphate of 

 lime for several years past, but with varied 

 success. The brands I have used have been 

 Coe's and Bradley's, from Boston. There 

 has not seemed to be that uniformity in the 

 material or in the manufacture, in different 

 years, that Is desirable. The past season, I 

 used several barrels manufactured by Pad- 

 dock, Dean & Co., which proved the best I 

 have ever used. I mixed two parts of fine soil 

 or dry muck with one part of phosphate, using 

 it in the hill for corn at the rate of 300 pounds 

 of pho^phate to the acre. The soil was loam, 

 well manured on the sod with stable manure, 

 turned under in the spring just before planting. 

 Where I did not use the phosphate, the corn 

 yielded one-third less, by actual weight, than 

 where I used the phosphate. I am sure it 

 paid me more than double the cost. It has 

 one advantage over stable manure in the hill, 

 — it grows no weeds, and breeds no worms. 

 I used it on India wheat on very poor land. 

 Where I put the phosphate at the rate of 200 

 pounds to the acre I had a good crop ; on the 

 other barely enough to pay for harvesting. 

 Jonathan Lawrence. 



St. JoJinshury, VL, 1868. 



TiisiE TO Cut Timber. — A correspondent 

 of the /So«//iern Cultivator in communicating 

 the following experiments, remarks that the 

 best time to cut timber is when in full leaf — 

 July and August — and that the knowledge 

 would have been worth thousands of dollars to 

 him, had he possesed it years ago : 



Lot No. 1, was cut in July 1860 — house logs 

 to put up cabins ; red oak. They were put 

 up, but not covered ; been exposed the whole 

 time ; still sound. 



No. 2 was square timber for gin house, of 

 red oak, post oak and over cup, was gotten 

 out in December, 1860 ; piled and covered 

 ♦ with plank till 1863 ; exposed since that time ; 

 sound on the outside about two inches ; per- 

 fectly rotten in the heart ; red oak the worst 

 rotted. 



No. 3 was of same kind of timber, subject 

 to more exposure ; gotten out in June, 1861 ; 

 much sounder than No. 2 ; green timber sawed 

 in July, 1861 ; subject to same exposure as 

 No. 2 ; still quite sound. 



EXTRACTS AWD REPLIES. 



PREMATURE FALLING OF GRAPES. 



I have a wild grape vine which has been pruned 

 for several years, and stil the fruit drops off as 

 soon, or before it is ripe. Will you be kind enou<rh 

 to inform nic throujih ihc Farmer, if there is any- 

 thintj I ean do lo ])rcvent this. Catawba. 



Weymouth, Mass., April 17, 1868. 



Remarks.— Can any of our grape-growing 

 friends afford "Catawba" the desired information? 

 That fonuidablc disease, the mildew, causes the 

 fruit to drop prematurely ; and so do several of 

 the varieties of the "rot." Most of the wild vines 

 do not bear trimming very kindly, and possibly 

 the vital force of the vine may have been impaired 

 by this means. Perhaps, too, this may be only a 

 youthful freak of this particular vine which it may 

 outgrow in due time. 



the YEAV or TEW FIXE. 



Can you or any of your correspondents inform 

 me where the "Yew" or "Yew Pine" is found in 

 such forests as grow in certain parts of a few coun- 

 ties in Western Virginia. Here in unbroken for- 

 ests, where two or three hundred trees stand on an 

 acre, it shoots up loO or 200 fi. ct, with scarcely a 

 limb on the lower half of its trunk, spreading out 

 its spear-like top into an unbroken wilderness of 

 dense foliage that for ages perhaps has never been 

 penetrated by a single sunbeam. While thus 

 effectuall}- shielding the surface from the sun, ic 

 appears to appropriate every power of the soil. 

 Thus gro^Ti, the timber is excecedingly valuable; 

 being very clastic, strong and of such fine grain as 

 to require the s^harpest tools to work it, and is em- 

 ployed for building and other purposes. But 

 when standing alone, or mixed with other trees, it 

 is of comparatively little value, beuig short, full 

 of knots and limbs and greedily occupying a lu-ge 

 space. It, however, makes a delightful shade-tree, 

 forming a thick egg-shaped mass of foliage, that 

 few of the other evergreens can equal. • h. 



West Virginia, April, 1868. 



Remarks. — The Yews are considered by some 

 botanists as constituting mei'cly a sub-order of the 

 pine family. But so far as we know, they gener- 

 ally seem to prefer solitude, being unsocial in their 

 habits, and we think such a forest as our corres- • 

 pondent describes is very rare. The Yews in the 

 church-yards of England are of very great anti- 

 quity, and of extraordinary size. They are even 

 supposed to mark out the sites of Pagan and 

 Druidical temples which existed before the intro- 

 duction of Christianity. The use of the Yew for 

 making bows was familiar to the earliest Greek 

 and Roman authors ; and at one time in Switzer- 

 land its use was prohibited for any other purpose 

 than bow making. 



TO PREVENT POTATOES FROM SPROUTINO. 



From more than fifty years' experience, I am 

 satislied that wliether intended for late planting or 

 for tlic table, potatoes that have not l)ecn sprouted 

 are far more valuable than those that have been. 

 The first sprout that starts from a potato is strong- 

 er and better for growing than those which start 

 afterwards. 



A convenient and easy way to prevent sprouting 

 is to put the potatoes into barrels carefully filled 

 and head them up. Then lay the barrels in a siii- 



