226 



Hay and Fodder — Peach Trees. 



Vol. V. 



Hay and Fodder. 



Great losses are annually sustained, in 

 some parts of the United States, in making- 

 hay, and in others in curing corn-blades, com- 

 monly called fodder. Mine, in a course of 

 many years, have, I think, amounted to a 

 moiety of the crops; and most of the expedi- 

 ents I have resorted to for avoidint^ these 

 losses, have been but partially beneficial. 

 Grass loses much, both in quantity and sub- 

 stance, by an exposure to the sun, in curino-, 

 and fodder more, being thus exposed in small 

 bundles, while both, particularly the last, 

 suffer greatly by dews and rains ; but this 

 year I have made the most promising experi- 

 ment for remedying these evils. A large 

 meadow, in bottom land, of a grass called red- 

 top, or herds'-grass, was cut in dry weather, 

 and shocked in large siiocks, quite green, but 

 dry, that is, not wet with either dew or rain ; 

 and this was done in the following manner. 

 Four sticks, of five feet long, and the size of 

 a man's arm, were set up in a square of two 

 feet wide at bottom, and meeting at top in a 

 pyramidal form, where the shock was to 

 stand : one of these sticks should, at least, be 

 forked at lop to keep them steady, while the 

 hay is putting round them. A round log, 

 about six feet long, and six inches diameter, 

 was then laid on the ground, with one end 

 reaching to the centre of the two feet square, 

 between the sticks, and the other raised upon 

 a fork about eighteen inches, for the purpose 

 of enlarging the flue, presently mentioned, 

 lest it should be closed by the pressure of the 

 hay, and that the log may be more easily 

 drawn out, when the shock is finished ; and 

 around and over the sticks the shock was 

 made, its top reaching two or three feet above 

 the top of the sticks; the purpose of the log 

 being to make a flue for the admission of 

 fresh air into the centre of the shock, and the 

 expulsion of the air heated by the fermenta- 

 tion of the grass in curing: the flues being 

 made to face the point from which the wind 

 usually blows at the time of haymaking. If 

 any flues happened to be closed by the pres- 

 sure of the grass, they were easily opened by 

 a smaller and pointed log ; or when the 

 largeness of a shock threatened this inconve- 

 nience, it was effectually prevented by in- 

 serting into the flue a short forked-stick, as 

 soon as the log was removed, to hold up the 

 hay : and as the logs are withdrawn as soon 

 as the shocks are finished, two or throe are 

 sufficient for following a dozen mowers. 

 The hay thus made is the best I ever saw, 

 and the efficacy of the mode of curing it was 

 strongly supported by the grass growing under 

 the shocks having been uninjured, whereas, 

 I never left shocks so long in one spot before, 

 without its having been killed by the undissi- 



pated fermentation of the hay in curing. 

 Corn-blades, or fodder, sustain an immense 

 loss — corn, in dry weather, by two or three 

 days' exposure to the sun and dews, and in 

 wet they are nearly ruined. By way of ex- 

 periment, I shocked them in the mode just 

 explained, quite green, but dry, allowing 

 them from four to eiglit hours' sun before 

 they were shocked, and thus was made the 

 best fodder I have seen or known ; but the 

 weather was favourable. The ends of the 

 blades were laid outwards, and the shocks 

 were bound at top by ropes made of the blades. 



Arator. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Peach Trees. 



In reading the last number of the Cabinet, 

 my attention was particularly taken with an 

 article on Peach Trees, by B. H. He seems 

 to tiiink, if we want healthy trees we must 

 cultivate from the stone. Several persons 

 with whom I have conversed, and who have 

 turned their attention to the raising of peach 

 trees, think they are quite as liable to the 

 disease when raised from stones, as when 

 grafted. However, to my own experience. 

 Last summer I paid a visit to a very fine 

 farm of Samuel Trimble's, in Delaware 

 county, and, among other things, he showed 

 me some peach trees that he raised from the 

 stones; they were then, I think, about a year 

 old — all of them looked very yellow. We 

 went to work and examined their roots ; and, 

 in all we did examine, we found numerous 

 small, white worms, which had eaten quite 

 into the tree. I have known a great many 

 cases similar to the above, the cause of which 

 could not have been " grafting." I have 

 been told that lime is an essential thing for a 

 healthy peach tree ; but there are different 

 opinions about that too. A friend of mine 

 purchased a very poor farm in Chester county, 

 on which there were, at the lime, a number 

 of healthy, fine-bearing peach trees. He 

 was one of our "go-ahead" characters; and 

 from the time when he gave the fields where 

 the trees were, the first liming and plouirh- 

 ing, they all began to decline, and finally 

 died. What was the occasion of their death 

 I do not know; it might have been the 

 ploughing, which disturbed and broke their 

 roots ; or perhaps the lime had a bad effect. 

 The most effectual remedy for unhealthy 

 trees that I have ever seen tried, is to lay 

 bare the immediate roots around the trunk 

 of the tree, and apply plenty of soap-suds. 



A Subscriber and Constant Reader. 



Chester County, 1st Mo., 20lh, 1841. 



