No. 6. 



Rules for Milking. — Culture of the Plum. 



181 



ducf and put in his cellar some 30 or 40 

 bushels before the rains came on. These 

 are still perfectly sound, while those which 

 remained in the ground during the recent 

 heavy rains are utterly worthless. To the 

 autumn rains many have attributed this rot, 

 and consequently they put their crops in 

 very early, to enable them to arrive at ma- 

 turity before the rains commenced. The 

 experiment mentioned below may be consi- 

 dered of some consequence, as we have seen 

 it satisfactorily tried. A lady from Missis- 

 sippi spent the past season with her friends 

 in our town. The all-engrossing subject of 

 the potatoe rot was on the tapis, when she 

 observed that in that region many of the 

 planters had been experimenting on that 

 vegetable, and the best result was from 

 transplanting the slips into rows, similar to 

 the method of cultivating the Carolina pota- 

 toe. Her friends tried the experiment, and 

 finer potatoes we have not seen or eaten for 

 many years. The potatoe is planted early 

 in a hot-bed, and the slips when about three 

 inches in length, are taken off and trans- 

 planted some eight or fifteen inches distant. 

 The original will continue to send forth 

 shoots for a long time. 



Rules for Slilkiug. 



A WRITER in the Maine Farmer gives the 

 following rules for milking cows: "Having 

 milked more or less, every season since I 

 was a boy, and having seen it done so poorly 

 as to injure the cow, I purpose to give a few 

 rules for it which I have learned from my 

 own and other's experience. They are as 

 follows : 



1. Have a good stool to sit on. 



2. Have all your finger nails pared short 

 and smooth. 



3. Sit down and clean the bag, and wet 

 the teats with the first stream of milk. 



4. Then set your pail under, and milk as 

 fast as you can conveniently — the faster the 

 better. A cow will give more milk when 

 milked fast than when milked slow. 



5. Milk as though the teats were full to 

 the last, otherwise it makes them long to 

 "strip in a little while." 



6. Never scold or strike a cow for running 

 about the yard or kicking. It generally 

 does more harm than good. 



7. If she runs about, have patience, talk 

 kindly to her, and tie her up as a last resort, 

 till she is not afraid. 



8. If she kicks, sit forward far enough for 

 your knee to come forward of her leg, and 

 she cannot easily hurt you or spill the milk. 



9. If she switches you with her tail, in 

 " fly time," fasten it by parting her hair and 



tying it around her leg. Use a string, if 

 the hair is not long enough. 



10. If slie holds up her milk, butt with 

 your hands. What else does a calf butt for, 

 but to make the mother give milk down? 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Culture of the Plum. 



There are few things in the horticultu- 

 ral line that has surprised us more than the 

 small quantity of fine plums cultivated in the 

 vicinity of Philadelphia. It is true the cur- 

 culio is a most persevering enemy to the 

 plum — but this enemy is found more or less 

 everywhere, even up the North river coun- 

 try, where thousands of bushels of the finest 

 quality of plums are produced for the New 

 York market. 



What the plum most requires is a soil of 

 heavy loam — if there is a large portion of 

 clay, so much the better — for it is a fact well 

 known that near Albany and Hudson, where 

 more new fine varieties have been produced 

 within a few years, than all other parts of 

 the country — the soil is nearly a stiff clay. 

 It would seem from the above that where 

 the soil is sandy, or very mellow and porous, 

 a good load of clay should be mixed with 

 the soil about each tree. Swamp muck also, 

 where it is difficult to procure clay, will an- 

 swer an excellent purpose, 



A great variety of measures have been 

 tried to prevent the ravages of the curculio. 

 We will now name some of the most suc- 

 cessful. Salt has been used with the utmost 

 success. Mr. Downing, in his admirable 

 work, the "Fruits and Fruit Trees of Ame- 

 rica," states that the most successful culti- 

 vator of the plum in the neighbourhood of 

 Newburg, applies half a peck of coarse salt 

 to the surface of the ground under each 

 bearing tree, annually, about the flVst of 

 April. There is no doubt but salt is a most 

 excellent fertiliser, and greatly promotes the 

 growth of the tree. It is beneficial to most 

 productions of the earth, and why not to the 

 plum tree] 



A good plan, according to Mr. Downing, 

 is to strew salt under the limbs of the tree 

 about a qarter of an inch in thickness, when 

 the punctured plums begin to fall. Should 

 there be heavy rains, the salt must be re- 

 placed. A correspondent of the Horticultu- 

 rist last season, raised an uncommonly fine 

 crop of plums from having strewed under 

 his trees a quantity of long horse manure — 

 he supposes the ammonia that rose from the 

 manure was so powerful as to drive off the 

 curculio. Another method is to turn in a 

 sufficient number of hogs to eat up all the 

 diseased fruit as it falls to the ground. 



