1868. 



NEW ENGLA2JD FAEMER. 



351 



and the almost invaluable Ayrshires, will inev- 

 itably deteriorate, and, much sooner too than 

 most are aware of, will return to their normal 

 state. 



The fatal diseases that have already created 

 such fearful ravages among cattle, may have 

 had their origin in the unnatural development 

 that breeders have sought for with such great 

 success. There is surely a point beyond which 

 it is not safe to pass. Rinderpest or some 

 other form of disease is sure to confront us 

 and warn us to go no farther. 



The dairyman desires to make the roost 

 money out of his cow. He stimulates her 

 milking properties by stimulating food and 

 warm shelter, so that she becomes, as it were, 

 a green-house plant, incapable of withstanding 

 the slightest exposure. Her progeny of course 

 will, to a still greater degree, partake of this 

 lack of vigor, and only a few generations will 

 be required to develop a sufficient want of 

 functional power to perpetuate their species. 

 We see this principle manifest on every hand, 

 in what we term civilized society. The pam- 

 pered child of plenty becomes enervated, dis- 

 eased, unfruitful ; while the poor have a her- 

 itage of children and the mother an abundance 

 of nature's food for their sustenance. I once 

 saw an Indian mother with her infant lashed 

 to her hack pass up her well filled breast over 

 her shoulder to the child, who greedily siezed 

 the coveted food as if it was no uncommon oc- 

 currence to feast in that position. 



It is not, however, in this direction that I 

 proposed to push this question, so very inter- 

 esting to all farmers. This same principle not 

 only applies to men and animals, but to fruits 

 and vegetables. May we not find here one 

 cause of the failure of many of our fruits for 

 some years past ? It is a well known fact to 

 many now living, that parts of our country 

 where the apple, peach, and plum formerly 

 yielded abundantly, now fail altogether or 

 partially to produce these fruits. The first 

 settlers planted orchards, and without nurs- 

 ing, gathered an abundance of fruit from 

 them. But we must wage a constant warfare 

 and give the most untiring care if we hope to 

 secure even a tithe of what our fathers had 

 almost without an effort. 



Our potatoes appear to suffer more than any 

 other vegetable we cultivate, and no doubt 

 from the fact of its being about the only one 

 we propagate fi-om the tuber, and not from 

 the seed. Some years since, in a comtnuni- 

 cation to the Farmer, I asked the question if 

 we were not to ascribe the disease that then 

 was comparatively new in this part of the 

 country, to this cause, and assumed it as the 

 only true hypothesis. I still adhere to the 

 same view. Not one fact has come to my 

 knowledge invalidating this position, while all 

 subsequent developments have served to for- 

 tify it. The fact that they do not rot so badly 

 in a dry season as in a wet one, only shows 

 that the disease is not as fully developed by 



dry as by wet weather. The very fact of their 

 rotting at all proves that the disease is in them. 

 We have fed them up with such surfeits of 

 manure as to destroy their healthy functions, 

 and can never restore them again to health 

 and vigor by propagating from the same stock. 

 Disease is now in the tuber, and the seed de- 

 rived from it must of necessity partake of that 

 disease. Our only remedy is to commence, 

 where those did who first introduced its cul- 

 ture, with seed or tubers from the plant in the 

 wild state. k. o. 



Broad Brook, Conn., 1868. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 FENCING. 



The importance of fences to farmers must 

 be my apology for again reverting to this sub- 

 ject. I should like to see a good thorough 

 discussion, not only of the economical advan- 

 tages of good fences, and of the best and 

 cheapest modes of construction and repair, 

 but of their moral influences. Bad fences are 

 among the worst characteristics of bad neigh- 

 borhoods. Many of the petty estrangements 

 and enmities, as well as most of the more vio- 

 lent animosities, quarrels and law-suits which 

 are too frequent in agricultural communities, 

 originate directly or indirectly in poor fences. 

 No class of citizens probably suffer so much 

 from want of co-operation and social inter- 

 course, and none need to guard so carefully 

 against every thing which tends to prevent 

 such co-operation and neighborly good will as 

 fanners. With the remark, that 1 regard 

 good fences as great peace-makers in a neigh- 

 borhood, I leave the question of their moral 

 effect on the character of both man and beast, 

 to those better able than mj self to express 

 their thoughts, and will merely offer a few 

 practical suggestions. 



The materials of most of the fences on mj 

 farm are boards and posts. A f)art of my 

 farm is a gravelly and part a clay soil. I find 

 that longer posts are needed on the clay than 

 on the gravelly land. On the clay soil they 

 should be set in the ground from two and a 

 half to three feet deep, and the earth should 

 be tamped very solid when setting them, so 

 that each post shall stand as firm as ihough 

 it grew there, and not he liable to be thrown 

 out of place by the frost. 



I have always thought that it would be better 

 if our pastures were fenced into lots, so that 

 different kinds of stock could be kept sepa- 

 rately if desired, or changed from one to 

 another, at pleasure. I have therefore this 

 season drawn the lumber for dividing my old 

 pasture into three separate lots. I find that 

 the building of the fences necessary for this 

 is to be attended with a good deal of labor 

 and expense, and I solicit the opinion of ex- 

 perienced farmers as to the question, Will it 

 pay^ 



I prefer gates to bars \ indeed. I do not 



