460 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



perhaps most of our New England eoil, requires 

 no draining, but much of our most valuable land, 

 I am eatisBed, would be doubled in value, at small 

 expense, by draining with tilea, when we have them 

 at a fair price, and know how to use them. 



I have not space now to speak particularly of 

 the fine crops of wheat, and especially of mangolds, 

 nor of the turnips which were fast coming up, nor 

 of the plowing with those queer, old plows, straight 

 furrows for half a mile, such as I never saw in 

 America. We have many talks about plows, but 

 they have one strong argument in favor of their 

 heavy, ungainly implement. Their work is done 

 far better than ours, and it is either because they 

 have better plows or hold them better, and our 

 farmers and plow-makers may settle that question 

 as they can. I have seen a man, in England, with 

 a yoke of oxen harnessed in collars, like horses, 

 with blinders on and bits in their mouths, guiding 

 them with «reins, and holding the plow himself, 

 striking out lands eighty rods long with no stakes, 

 except at the ends, absolutely straight, so that I 

 could not see an inch variation in the distance. It 

 is a common operation here, to plow land into ridges 

 for mangolds, drill four rows at a time with a horse 

 drill, and when the crop is up, to horse hoe four 

 rows at once. Any person who will consider this 

 statement, will perceive that all the operations 

 must be accurate to admit of this treatment. I 

 think bad plowing is one of our national sins. 

 Excuse my abruptness, but my half ounce of pa- 

 per is covered, and so farewell. 



Yours, &c., H. F. F. 



For the New England Farmer. 



APPLE TEEE BOEES. 



Mr. Editor : — As I have had a number of small 

 trees to take care of, in a location where the borers 

 are very troublesome, and have the luck to keep 

 my trees in good shape, I thought perhaps it might 

 be of use to some one to know how I do it. In 

 the first place, one wants to know where to find the 

 eggs, which are always laid in the fresh bark ; and 

 no wash will destroy the eggs or borer, the eggs 

 being laid in and under the fresh bark close to the 

 ground, often in the roots, where they are not cov- 

 ered with earth. The place where the eggs are 

 laid can easily be seen. The borers generally make 

 a hole about the size of a common pin, and loosen 

 t)je b'ark nearly a quarter of an inch, and slip in the 

 eggs, one in a place. Sometimes the growth of the 

 tree makes a crack in the bark, which makes a nice 

 place, but they always loosen the bark and slip the 

 egg under. To take them out, I always take the 

 point of a sharp knife. I have taken out hundreds 

 of eggs and borers, every year for a number of years, 

 and without damaging a tree as much as one borer 

 would, to let him remain in the tree. 



I have taken from twelve to fifteen eggs and bor- 

 ers, a number of times, from one tree, not over 

 three inches through, and in one year from that 

 time, every wound healed over. Trees ought to be 

 attended to once in July and again the last of Sep- 



tember, as the eggs are laid from June to the mid- 

 dle of September. When the borer is first hatched 

 you may often see a drop of juice on the tree, and 

 the first dust to be seen is worked out at the hole 

 where the egg was put in. I always find the eggs 

 laid where, when hatched, the young borer has the 

 juice of the tree to feed on. The thriftier the tree 

 the more borers. l. c. 



July 20, 1857. 



For the New England Farmer. 



INFLUENCES OF FARMING. 



Most men, at the present day, are too apt to con- 

 sider wealth the principal object of life, and the 

 surest means of affording happiness. In their eager 

 and blind pursuit of it, they overlook many things, 

 which, in the end, would prove more valuable. Any 

 occupation, provided it be sufficiently lucrative, is 

 to them worthy of attention, let. its influences up- 

 on themselves and others be what they may. Farm- 

 ing is an occupation in which wealth cannot be 

 speedily amassed ; if at all, it must be by patient 

 and well-directed toil ; hence, unfavorably con- 

 sidered by these. Others still, less mindful of 

 wealth, but with new-fashioned ideas of gentility 

 and independence, disdaining to soil their hands by 

 honest toil as a farmer, spend their lives in minis- 

 tering to their own vanity. Such persons are mere 

 butterflies in existence, with dwarf moral and intel- 

 lectual faculties. ^ 



Each of these classes rejects farming for the above 

 stated reasons. Let us consider some of the bene- 

 ficial eflfects resulting from it, and which they over- 

 look, upon the physical, moral, and intellectual 

 character, and see if they will not exceed in com- 

 parison the vain bauble of wealth, or delicate hands 

 and studied blandishments. 



It is an uncontested fact that farmers, as a class, 

 enjoy better health, and attain to a greater age, 

 than any other. The reasons of this are obvious. 

 They follow the occupation of nature ; and the 

 nearer nature is followed, the nearer right. They 

 breathe the pure air of heaven. And their manual 

 labor, calling as it does, into equal exercise the dif- 

 ferent parts of their physical organization, with only 

 a moderate action of the brain, is well adapted to 

 promote the healthy expansion of each. 



Then, considered in a moral view, farmers enjoy 

 superior advantages. Instead of being engaged in 

 business where their success mainly depends on 

 shrewdness, cunning and deception, thus leading 

 them to appropriate the honor of their success to 

 themselves alone, they receive their subsistence 

 from the hand of Heaven. Away from corroding 

 cares and base temptations, the beauties of nature 

 with which they are surrounded exert upon them 

 a harmonizing influence. 



In intelligence, sound judgment and general in- 

 formation, farmers are not, or need not be, sur- 

 passed. For their abundance of leisure time, with 

 an easy access to reading matter, aflfords rare facil- 

 ities for mental culture, which business men have 

 not the opportunity to enjoy, or, perhaps, taste to 

 appreciate. Considering these advantages, superi- 

 or, as all must acknowledge, why need farmers' 

 sons be ashamed of the calling? Rather let them 

 devote to it their energies, and it will soon obtain 

 the place in the estimation of mankind it once oc- 

 cupied. L. H. Sherman. 



