1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



36;5 



poets, who have emphatically described what they 

 had never seen. We are not yet five minutes tread- 

 ing the shores of the Dead Sea, and already alt 

 that has been said of it appears as mere creations 

 of the fancy. Let us then proceed fearlessly for- 

 ward, for, if anything is to be dreaded here, certain- 

 ly it is not the pestilential influence of the finest 

 and most imposing lake in the world." 



EXTRACTS AHD REPLIES. 



BLACK ANTS. 



Can you, or any one, tell me how to exterminate 

 black ants, without injury to the shrubs and plants 

 under which they have colonized? I have tried, 

 without success, all the published remedies I have 

 seen, — tobacco-water, snuft', strong quassia, whale 

 oil suds, lime-water, potash-water, turpentine, cam- 

 phor, cobalt and molasses, arsenic, red lead and su- 

 gar, strychnine and sugar, Szc. I have thinned them 

 occasionally, by catching them in coarse sponges 

 baited with sugar, and plunged in hot water. They 

 eat the poisoned sugar and molasses with good ap- 

 petite and apparent impunity. If it kills any of 

 them, they are eaten by the survivors, as I find no 

 dead ones. Camphor seemed to kill a few on the 

 surface, but I cannot make it reach their nests, and 

 it is expensive. In different colonies, they now 

 possess about two-thirds of my flower garden — are 

 under the box edgings, peonies, rosebushes, paths, 

 &c., and will have the whole. Young ducks and 

 chickens avoid them, and I saw a toad hop away 

 from one. Box turtles do not thin them. 



Providence, 1857. w. j. p. 



GUANO AND SUPERPHOSPHATE. 



I Vt^ant to mix guano with water, to put round 

 my beets and cabbages ; in what proportion shall 

 I mix it, and how long must it stand before it is 

 used ? I have heard it said that guano is not good 

 for cabbages ; is it so ? 



You recommend superphosphate of lime for tur- 

 nips. Last season I tried it, and received no benefit 

 from it ; there have been tons of it used in this 

 neighborhood, and people say the bags were worth 

 more than their contents. 1 have heard but one 

 man speak in favor of it, and he has not bought 

 any this season. s. D. 



South Hanson, 1857. 



Remarks. — Put two or three pounds of guano 

 to a barrel of rain water, and use sparingly until 

 you observe its effect. Your own careful experi- 

 ments will be the best guide. 



Thousands are enabled to speak favorably of su- 

 perphosphate on the turnip crop. It is not in our 

 power to tell why it has not done well with you. 

 Were your observations and comparisons close and 

 careful ? 



SALT FOR PLUM TREES— THE BORER — CATERPIL- 

 LARS — FRENCH GRAPES. 



Allow me one word on matters that are so ably 

 discussed by you and your usual correspondents. 

 My careful observation and experience i::ave con- 

 firmed my belief in the salt remedy as the true and 

 only one for the cure of the warts on plum trees. 

 The surgical theory is a barbarism. 



The borer is unknown in Lower Canada, but the 



curculio we know too well ; and the caterpillar of 

 the apple tree, whose butterfly deposits its eggs in 

 the shape of rings on the small branches, seems 

 indigenous, and is our worst enemy in the orchard. 

 We pick off quarts and bushels of those rings in 

 March and April, before they hatch. A few escape 

 our vigilance, and produce their ugly broods, under 

 the influence of the sun in May ; we then crush 

 them with gloves, or touch them with a sponge 

 soaked in spirits of turpentine. 



We, the Laplanders of America, are surprised 

 that the culture of the best French grapes is so 

 much neglected in the States. With proper ma- 

 nuring, priming and training, we always ripen 

 the Sweetwater, and its better varieties, the Chas- 

 selas de Fontainebleau and Chasselas Dore, and 

 they ripen even before the Isabella; and yet, the 

 latter is generally supposed, with j'Ou, to be the 

 hardier. We are obedient to "the order of the 

 day," and trying therefore the Sorghum Sacchara- 

 tum! 3. P. 



Montreal, June 4, 1857. 



DISEASE IN ONIONS. 



Mr. Editor : — Since I wrote you about the 

 malady or disease upon the onions, which for want 

 of name more scientific I called smut, I have 

 learned other facts, which may be worthy of notice. 



1. It is not limited to lands on which gwano has 

 been used as a fertilizer. 



2. It is more apparent on ground where the on- 

 ion has been grown for several years successively, 

 than on new grounds. 



3. It is none the less fatal to the crop than I 

 first apprehended. 



4. Unless something can be done to stay its 

 spread, it must essentially modify the culture of 

 our grounds. No man can long afford to lose his 

 labor and his crop also — especially when beefsteaks 

 are twenty cents per pound, and flour ten dollars 

 per barrel. 



South Danvers, June 12, 1857. 



WARTS ON horses' EARS. 



Mr. Editor : — Will you, or some of your nu- 

 merous readers who may know, inform me through 

 your valuable paper how to cure warts on a horse's 

 ears when they are as large as one-half of a hen's 

 egg, and of such shape that they cannot be corded ? 

 They are raw at times, bleed, and so sore that the 

 horse will not let any one touch his ear, if he can 

 avoid it. What is the cause and nature of such 

 warts? A New SuBt,CRiBER. 



Milford, J\r. H., May 30, 1857. 



YOUNG LADIES WELL EMPLOYED. 

 As I was passing, to-day, the residence of a gen- 

 tleman well known in this and several of the ad- 

 joining States, I saw two young ladies, his daugh- 

 ters I presume, in his orchard applying a burning 

 torch to the nests of caterpillars u])on his apple and 

 cherry trees. I waited long enough to see that the 

 application was entirely eflectual, wherever it was 

 tried. Perhaps there was some degree of neg- 

 ligence iu allowing these nests to accumulate so as 

 1o be conspicuous to the passer-by, but it is none 

 the less creditable to the ladies, who had the per- 

 severance thus to remove them. I inquired how 

 they prepared their torches, and was told that it 



