DKVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND KINDRED ARTS. 



NEW SERIES. Boston, Septeml^er, 1868. VOL. II.— NO. 9. 



R. P. EATON & CO., Publishers, 

 Office, 34 Merchants' Row. 



MONTHLY. 



SmON BROWK, ) Editors 

 S. FLETCHER, ( J^ditors. 



SEPTEMBER FORETHOUGHTS. 



,EPTEMBER, the 



first of the Au- 

 ^ tumn months, is 

 a happy and a 

 pleasant one. 

 It brings Fruits 

 and Fairs, both 

 of which farm- 

 ers should en- 

 joy. It also 

 brings longer 

 evenings and 

 more time for reading, 

 thought, and planning. 

 Enterprising and suc- 

 cessful farmers, as" well as 

 skilful mechanics, have a 

 Ian by which they work, and 

 to which they conform with 

 more or less strictness. Every 

 good farmer has decided al- 

 ready what field is to be seeded down to grain 

 this fall or next spring, and what sod land 

 shall be cultivated next year in corn or pota- 

 toes, and what grass land shall.be top dressed. 

 He sees, in anticipation, the smooth and well- 

 worked surface of this or that field clothed 

 with the green of the springing grain, or 

 waving with the golden harvest. He sees 

 the rich and thrifty corn standing thick on 

 that field from which he has just taken a 

 scanty crop of grass, and he works with ref- 



erence to the accomplishment of these results. 

 He gets in his winter grain, if he did not do 

 it in August, as early in September as possi- 

 ble, that it may become well rooted and make 

 a good "stand" before the setting in of the 

 frost. Winter wheat, we think, should be 

 sowed before the 10th of September; If the 

 ground is well prepared and the seed well cov- 

 ered with a light plough or cultivator and 

 smoothed with a roller, it will better endure 

 the effects of the frosts and winds of winter, 

 and there will be less complaint of winter 

 killing. 



Winter wheat starts earlier in the spring, 

 and matures its grain earlier than spring sowed 

 wheat, and often escapes the enemies that are 

 so destructive to the latter. It is liable in 

 some seasons, and on some soils, to be in- 

 jured by the freezing and thawing and heav- 

 ing of the surface. But if it is well drilled in, 

 or well covered with the plough and gets well 

 rooted in the fall, the liability to injury from 

 this cause will be more than counterbalanced 

 by the earliness of the crop ; by the greater 

 strength of the straw, making it less liable to be 

 broken down by storms ; by its greater ex- 

 emption from insect depredation ; and", in gen- 

 eral, by the better quality of the flour. 



The spring may be cold and wet, and the 

 ground unfit to receive the grain until late ; 

 but in August and September, none of these 

 difllculties occur, and the work may be more 

 easily and thoroughly done. 



