1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



457 



to the country, where you can breathe. Our pure, 

 mountain air will do you good; and our farmers 

 ■will be glad to make your acquaintance. 



Should any gentleman desire information re- 

 specting lands, or favorable locations for business, 

 1 should be happy to answer any inquiry addressed 

 to me, at East Wallingford, Vt. 



A. A. CONSTANTINE. 



East Wallingford, Aug. 8th, 1857. 



FvT the New England Farmer. 



WINTEE WHEAT. 



Can you, Gov. Brown, give a JVew England Far- 

 mer devourer any information of the New England 

 wheat crop ? Or is there no such crop to report 

 this season ? Has not the spring wheat been a vic- 

 tim lo rust ? I had supposed if your weather had 

 been like curs the past two weeks, your spring 

 grains would have mildewed. Now, to obviate this 

 difficulty, as it regards wheat, let us advise the far- 

 mers, one and all, to try their luck with lointer, in- 

 stead of spring wheat. We will make our reasons 

 plain, and we trust, satisfactory. 



First — Winter grain ripens two to three weeks 

 earlier than spring grain. 



Second — Its yield is greater. 



Third — Its great safety is maturity, before dog- 

 days set in ; and there is more leisure in September 

 than in May. 



Fourth — Its flouring and delicious properties are 

 far superior for all domestic cooking. 



Nothing frets the cook so much as "clammy 

 flour ;" nothing mortifies the hostess so much as to 

 pass her guest the plate of rfarA:, so^i'rf biscuit, which 

 are only made palatable with her good, sweet but- 

 ter. Such is the real difference in flour, made 

 from winter and spring wheat. Nearly all the 

 poor, dirk flour from the West, is made from 

 spring wheat. 



Mr. Farmer, you can afford to raise wheat for a 

 dollar a bushel, unless your land is in "city lots." 

 You can get more bushels of wheat than of rye to 

 the acre, with the same treatment. How much 

 more labor is it to raise wheat than rye ? How 

 much more is the crop worth when harvested ? 

 Make your own figures. Wheat will fill on strong 

 land, when rye will make a great show of heads, 

 (without brains,) and not a berry be found ! So 

 on plain lands and rocky knolls, where the sham 

 pretence of husbandry appears, (for it costs some- 

 thing for labor and seed,) wheat in these deserts 

 is a better crop than i-ye. I have seen many 

 rye fields the past summer that would not yield six 

 bushels to the acre. At this rate, bi-ead is expen- 

 sive. 



Now, Mr. Editor, if you will consent to publish 

 this article, I will contract with Mr. Farmer, if he 

 owns good corn, potato or grass lands, that he shall 

 raise 20 to 30 bushels of wheat to the acre, pro- 

 vided he shall follow my directions. 



First — Plow an old mowing field, and the stub- 

 ble is a good coating of manure, or a cultivated 

 field, and manure it as for any grain crop. 



Second — Soak in salt pickle 12 hours, then rake 

 the grain in ashes ; skim off all foul seed.* 



• The story in yesterday's Farmer, of the birds eating the 

 weevil, and some found in the berry, will show the benefit of 

 salt pickle in killing this insect, which probably is deposited 

 in the kernel and thus transported from State to State. 



Third — Sow the first week in September; put 

 it in with a cultivator, two to three inches deep if 

 possible. It will not then winter-kill under any 

 circumstances. Its early siart and depth of roots 

 will hold it firm against the heavings of frost. 



Fourth— -Sov/ one and a half to two bushels to 

 the acre. 



Fifth — Be sure to get it in by the 10th of Sep- 

 tember, especially on strong land. 



Sixth — Should it be a dry time, use a heavy rol- 

 ler after sowing. 



Seventh — Should chess grass appear when it is 

 heading out, pass through and pull it up, as it in- 

 creases from year to year. 



Eighth — Sow on a few bushels wood-ashes in 

 spring, as it accelerates the growth. 



Follow these directions, and your wheat crop is 

 as sure as any other grain crop ; and remember 

 that/o?<r bushels of wheat is to every family, worth 

 as much as a barrel of flour, and far sweeter than 

 any flour from the West. 



Mr. French's interesting letters say they weed 

 their wheat in England. IJrilling gives this advan- 

 tage of weeding, also producing much larger crops 

 than we get ; yet we can produce as much to the 

 acre as they can, by the same care and cultivation. 



Xew York, Aug. 11th. H. Poor. 



Remarks. — We have, in a letter in another col- 

 umn, spoken of the wheat crop as we recently saw 

 it in passing through a portion of this State and 

 New Hampshire, — but we did not, we believe, state 

 that the wheat spoken of was all spriiig wheat 

 Our people do not feel much certainty yet, that 

 they can raise winter wheat, though if they follow 

 the suggestions of our ardent friend and fellow- 

 worker, we cannot doubt but they would succeed 

 to their satisfaction. We have seen some pieces of 

 winter wheat this season, that were very fine. Try 

 a quarter of an acre or more this fall, and let us 

 know how you succeed. We have raised twenty 

 bushels per acre, on land where orchard trees were 

 drawing largely upon the soil. 



HAYCOCKS. 



We occasionally see cloth caps on the cocks of 

 hay upon our Jersey farms. But they are not used 

 extensively, and yet they save considerable percent- 

 age of the value of the crop merely by preserving 

 it from the eff'ects of dew. Their utility is of course 

 more apparent in case of a shower before the al- 

 most dried hay can be transported to the barn. 

 Their expense will be less, we believe, than the loss 

 which would be otherwise sustained from dew and 

 rain. 



It seems to us that farmers are behind hand in 

 the old arithmetical rules of Mensuration. The 

 common practice seems to be to pile up the partly 

 dried hay in diminutive cocks, in the apparent ex- 

 pectation, that it will be thereby protected from 

 wet to as great a degree as practicable, forgetting 

 that according to the principles of Mensuration al- 

 luded to, small cocks present a greater surface to 

 be injured than large ones. These little bunches 

 of hay cannot be surely at all similar in size to 

 those of our grandfathers, as described in that no- 

 ble and instructive volume, entitled "Mother 



