1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



235 



For the New England Fanner. 



A MODERN BARN. 



Mr. Brown :— I met Mr. Elijah Wood, Jr., in 

 his barn, a few days ago. He is milking about 

 thirty cows this winter. The animals looked ex- 

 ceedingly comfortable, and well cared for. They 

 were mostly lying down, chewing the cud, and quiet 

 and contented. The udders looked full and gen- 

 erous, as if the cows had passed the season in a 

 fresh clover field. 



Mr. Wood's barn is a modern affair. The lean-to 

 is on one side of the driveway, to which there is 

 ,but one entrance, and across one end of the barn. 

 The cows are fastened by stanchions, and eat from 

 the side of the barn floor. The floor under the 

 cows was the right length to keep clean, and the 

 ample trench received all the droppings. The 

 ■walk behind the trench was tidy enough for a lady's 

 promenade. The hght in this barn was admitted 

 through glass windows, a decided improvement up- 

 on the crack system ! Animals require light to be 

 healthy. I saw a likely steer, that was wintered in 

 a dark stable, blind of one eye in the spring. 



Mr. Wood waters his cows in the barn. They 

 drink freely in the coldest M'eather. His pump in 

 the barn has not frozen this winter. The water is 

 distributed to the cows in pails. The fodder for 

 the cows is cut with a Gale's hay-cutter. I saw 

 corn fodder and coarse hay, cut and soaking with a 

 sprinkling of oil meal, in the great feed trough. 

 Mr. Wood says if the cows leave any tough, buts 

 not eaten, they are much less troublesome in the 

 manure cellar for being short. 



Mr. Wood says cows need to be let out about 

 once a week, on pleasant days. This he finds nec- 

 essary, to have them come in properly another year. 

 Mr. Wood has built an addition to his barn the 

 past season, to accommodate his horses. He con- 

 siders it a disadvantage to be obliged to open the 

 great doors upon the cows. If they see the doors 

 open, they become uneasy, worry, want to get out. 

 He thinks the secretion of milk goes on most fa- 

 vorably when the animals are perfectly quiet. 



Concord, March, 1857. w. D. B. 



the subject, that a new era in agricultural enterprise 

 is rapidly approaching ; that the day is by no means 

 distant when one-tenth of the surface occupied at 

 present by the patient, hard working husbandman, 

 \n\\ yield more than he now derives annually from 

 the whole, independent of all expense. As to the 

 value of carrots for stock feeding, and especially as 

 a feed for milch cows, calves, horses and swine, the 

 introduction of facts having a direct and specific 

 bearing upon the case would, we feel assured, be by 

 most readers deemed supererogatory, if not absurd. 

 We advise every farmer this year to put in a patch 

 of carrots. If he is sceptical, or has merely a large 

 development of "cautiousness," and does not choose 

 to tamper with his interests by putting in a whole 

 acre, let him put in half an acre, or even a quarter, 

 or an eighth of an acre, and with patience wait the 

 result. But to keep pace with the improvements 

 of the age, he must not wait till another decade, or 

 even a single year, has rolled by. 



CARROTS. 



When Mr. Little, many years ago, astonished 

 the world, or at least that portion of it who reside or 

 "most do congregate" in the goodly town of New- 

 buryport, Mass., with his fourteen-hundred-bushel 

 crop of carrots from an acre, there were not a few 

 •who were disposed to disbelieve, while others whose 

 scepticism was equally inveterate at first, but was 

 finally overcome by facts, which are stubborn things 

 no less in agriculture than in law, attributed the 

 unprecedented achievement to necromancy, or the 

 black art, it is said. Now a crop of fourteen hun- 

 dred bushels of carrots from soil managed as liberal- 

 ly as was Mr. Little's, would probably — though 

 greatly exceeding the average acreable product in 

 this country if not in Europe — scarcely excite sur- 

 prise. In this important department of farming — 

 Root Culture, we mean — the capacities of the soil 

 have never been fairly tested. We feel confident, 

 however, as must every one who candidly examines 



For the New England Farmer. 



DEEP PLOWING. 



Mr. Editor : — Bringing up new mould is pecu- 

 liarly favorable to almost all crops, especially wheat, 

 clover, beans and potatoes, and, indeed, without 

 that advantage, these crops usually diminish in 

 quantity, quality and value. Deep plowing is of 

 great consequence, not only in furnishing more, 

 means of nourishment to the roots of plants, but by 

 counteracting the injurious consequences of either- 

 too wet or too dry a season. This is a most impor- 

 tant consideration, for if the season be wet, there is 

 a greater depth of soil to absorb the moisture, an <i 

 the plants are not likely to be injured by the roots 

 being immersed in water ; and in a dry season, it is 

 still more useful, for at the lower part of the culti- 

 vated soil, "there is thus a reservoir of moisture," 

 which is brought up to the roots of the plants by 

 the evaporation caused by the heat of the sun. And 

 deep plowing is a very gootl way of getting rid of 

 weeds in particular, it is the best mode of eradica- 

 ting thistles ; and animal and vegetable manures, 

 which have a tendency to rise to the surface, are 

 properly covered. 



I have ever found deep plowing attended with 

 good crops, when crops on shallow plowed land in 

 the same field were but indiflerent, which seems a 

 decisive proof in favor of deep plowing ; but in deep 

 plowing, when new subsoil is thrown up, it should 

 in most of cases, I think, be done in the fall ; as 

 the frost helps to soften and ameliorate the hard 

 substances, especially where there is a hard pan. 



Barnet, March 19th. J. 



Beaxs. — The prettiest way for a man who culti- 

 vates but little land, to raise his own dry beans for 

 next winter's use, is — not to plant the bush kinds 

 by themselves, for this will require too much land, 

 as the product is small — but to raise white pole 

 beans. The common case-knife beans are excellent 

 for this purpose. Strike out a dozen circles on the 

 ground as large as a cartwheel. Put a wheelbar- 

 row load of manure into each, and spade it up with 

 the earth. Drop the seeds in the circle, on the 



