NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Mat 



ual being held responsible for the facts he commu- 

 nicates, or the opinions he expresses. I say with- 

 out besitation, there is no part of your paper that 

 interests me more than Mr. R.'s report of the far- 

 mers' discussion. I wish every village of farmers 

 would have their own debating club; how could 

 they better employ one evening in a week ? And 

 then let their intelligent secretary report the dis- 

 coveries elicited for the columns of your journal. 

 March 18, 1857. A Looker On. 



For the A'etc England Farmer. 



ABOUT ORCHARDS. 



The season is now at hand for planting orchards, 

 Farmers need not be afraid that the market for good 

 fruit will be overstocked, and delay setting out trees. 

 The supply of fruit now seems enormous, but the 

 demand more than keeps pace. Look at Boston, 

 with its 150,000 inhabitants. Suppose each indivi- 

 dual consumes an apple a day, how many barrels 

 are annually required for this very moderate de- 

 mand ? About a hundred thousand barrels I Now 

 Boston consumes but a portion of the produce mar- 

 keted there. Every vessel carries away more or less 

 to be used on the voyage. Then all the large places 

 on the coast, North and South, rely on Boston mar- 

 ket, more or less, for apples. Last spring, large 

 lots of apples were sent from Concord to Wilming- 

 ton, N. C. The best brought five dollars a barrel 

 there. I understand that Mr. Simon Tuttle, of Ac- 

 ton, Mass., sells his Russets in the spring to go to 

 New York. I have sold apples to go to Maine and 

 Nova Scotia. The fact is, there is no such thing as 

 glutting the market with good fruit. The breadth 

 of country is not large where apples flourish best. 

 Perhaps Massachusetts is as good a latitude as any 

 for orchards. Why should there not be ten times 

 the trees growing ? Will any man say that in suit- 

 able locations, the apple tree is not profitable ? It 

 is true it sometimes partially fails. But so with oth- 

 er crops, from the potato, with its inexplicable rot, 

 to ihe sugar cane at the South, killed by untimely 

 frost. But taking one year with another, how can 

 a farmer get a sum of money easier, than by selling 

 his generous crop of apples ? Let me give a single 

 instance. Last fall, I sold at wholesale, apples from 

 one tree — not the largest one in the orchard — to the 

 amount of twenty-three dollars, hard cash. The 

 tree has not had the value of one dollar put upon 

 it for five years. Now deduct a reasonable sum for 

 gathering, &c., a very neat profit is quite apparent. 



Although hundreds of chapters have been written 

 about tree-setting, and the necessary after culture, 

 multitudes buy trees annually, and stick them into 

 the ground only to die, or what is worse, to exist 

 but for a i'aw years. Now, Mr. Brown, you would 

 pity )our nursery friends, if you knew how they 

 "have to take it" from some of their customers. I 

 hope you will aj[^ain advise, direct, counsel, urge, 

 warn jour inexperienced readers, not to pay away 

 their money for trees unless they know exactly 

 ichal lo do ivilh them. This paying a shilling for a 

 tree, and then sticking it down in grass ground to 

 l)S Liroused by unruly cattle, and holding the poor 

 seller responsible for its continual thrifiiness and 

 abundant bearing, is too bad altogether. 



Set out good trees in mellow earth, give them 

 something to live upon, and continue ^e7^c?•ou5 care, 

 s:ui you will be well repaid for the labor. 



Concord, Jljiril, 1857. w. D. B. 



LEGISLATIVE AGRICULTURAL MEET- 

 ING. 



[Repokted for tee Farmer by H. E. Rockwell.] 

 The Legislative Agricultural Society held its 

 Eleventh meeting, Tuesday evening, as usual. The 

 topics for consideration were : — ''Feeding of cows 

 ivith reference to the production of milk ; and the 

 feeding and breeding of swine." 



Hon. J. W. Proctor, of Danvers, was called on 

 by the President to preside, who, on taking the 

 chair, said : — 



Gentlemen, Farmers of the Legislature : — Since 

 I entered this hall, I have been requested to pre- 

 side at this meeting, without any expectation that 

 I should be called on to do so. But wherever im- 

 provement of the operations on the farm is the 

 subject, I do not feel at liberty to decline any ser- 

 vice in my power. I am sensible that I am in- 

 debted to my long service for this distinction, rath- 

 er than to my accumulated knowledge ; for I hold 

 it to be a distinction of the highest order to be 

 thought worthy to preside, even for a single even- 

 ing, at a meeting of the farmers of the Common- 

 wealth. When I reflect that His Excellency, and 

 other dignitaries of the State, have filled this posi- 

 tion, I shrink, almost instinctively from the task ; 

 but when I see around me, as I do, gentlemen well 

 experienced in all the operations of the farm, ready 

 to lend a helping hand, I take courage for the task, 

 knowing full well that "a faint heart never wins a 

 fair lady." 



The reports of your meetings, gentlemen, as 

 they go abroad in the community, are received 

 with much interest, and the statements made here 

 are looked to as in the nature of authority. It 

 ought to be so, since the gentlemen who participate 

 in the discussions are gentlemen of the Legisla- 

 ture, selected from all parts of the State, from 

 among the farmers to a great extent, and fairly 

 representing that great and important branch of 

 our interest and agriculture. 



The subject especially assigned for this evening, 

 I understand to be, the feeding of cows for milk 

 and dairy purposes, and the rearing of swine. Un- 

 questionably the dairy is one of the most impor- 

 tant objects demanding the attention of the New 

 England farmer. An important question is wheth- 

 er there is any special mode of feeding cows that 

 will make dairies more profitable ? As a general 

 thing, the better cows are fed, the better will be 

 their products. When young, I assisted in the 

 management of a dairy — helping to milk the cows 

 and churn the butter — under as good a teacher as 

 my neighborhood produced, and I have always had 

 a taste for good butter. The best product we used to 

 get was from one to one and a half pounds of butter 

 per daj", during the season of milking, say from the 

 first of June to the first of December; and the 

 best feed of the cows was the natural grasses oi 



