THE GENESEE FARMER. 



77 



they had access to water, and during the period of gesta- 

 tion shifted for themselves. But when they had their lit- 

 tle families about them, and a week or so prior to their 

 farrowing, I fed them unsparingly." 



Underdrawing.— The Canadian. Agriculturist truly re- 

 marks : " The underdraining of land is the foundation of 

 all agricultural improvement." 



Good Hogs.— B. F. Hancox & Co., of Holley, N. Y., 

 write the Rochester Union that they purchased of D. 0. 

 Bailey, of that town, six pigs only nine months old, that 

 weighed respectively 361, 391, 393, 444, 448, and 487 lbs., 

 an average of 420| lbs. each. 



A Harnessing Arrangement.— A correspondent of the 

 Country Gentleman describes the following method of 

 harnessine and unharnessing a horse to a single wagon : 

 "In the first place my harness is made with a collar open 

 at the bottom, and no buckle, but the hames are fastened 

 to the collar, and there is one buckle to fasten them both. 

 The tugs and hold-back straps are not unhitched; the 

 lines lie over the dash, where they will not get under the 

 horse's feet; they may be unbuckled from the headstall, or 

 remain with it, and all hung up together. I have a wooden 

 hook like an ox-bow, with half the length of one side cut 

 off, so as to hook under the back saddle, collar and headstall. 

 A cord is attached to the long end of the hook, and put 

 up over a pully, and through another pulley, and down to 

 about three feet from one side of the horse. Unbuckle 

 the belly-band and the hame-straps, put under the hook, 

 pull all up, and make the cord fast to a small hook at the 

 side of the carriage-house. A horse will soon learn to 

 place himself back into the breechings when the harness 

 and shafts are let down ; three or four buckles are fas- 

 tened, and he is harnessed." 



planted on yellow loam ground. Thev grew finely, and 

 had far advanced to maturity, when I discovered their 

 tops began to be diseased. I immediately took a sevthe 

 and cut off the tops of all the rows excepting two "near 

 the center of the piece. One of the latter, I left in the 

 state nature had formed it. The other, I pulled the tops 

 by hand, leaving the tubers in the ground. 



" ^°W for the result. At digging time in the fall, I 

 found the tubers in those rows that had their tops cut off 

 and the row that had its tops pulled off, of equal size and 

 as near as I could judge had an equal number of rotten 

 tubers in a row, and they were but few. The row that 

 was left as nature had formed it, had about four times as 

 many rotten tubers as either of the rows that had their 

 tops cut off or the one that had its tops pulled off bv hand. 

 JNot only that, but the tubers that were not injured were 

 no larger than the tubers were in the former rows Thus 

 showing conclusively that they had not grown any after 

 their tops became diseased, and that it would have been 

 better to have cut their tops, thereby checking the disease 

 before it extended to the tubers. 



"Some farmers recommend digging immediately after 

 the tops begin to show signs of the disease. But I prefer 

 cutting their tops and leaving the tubers in the ground 

 till quite late hi the fall, for two reasons. First, they keen 

 their flavor better than they would if exposed to the air 

 necond, there are sometimes tubers that have been inocu- 

 lated with the disease which can not be discovered if due 

 immediately, and if put in the cellar or in heaps in this 

 way will cause the destruction of many tubers that were 

 free from disease at the time of digging." 



Leached Ashes.— Prof. Bdckland, the able editor of the 

 Canadian Agriculturist, says : 



"Wood ashes always contain a considerable amount 

 of carbonate of potash, lime, etc., and are consequently 

 very beneficial to such plants as require large quantities 

 of these alkalies, such as Indian corn, turnips, beets and 

 potatoes. Leached ashes have lost much of the principal 

 alkaline salts, and have been deprived of the greatest part 

 of their most important soluble ingredients; still they 

 must not be regarded as an umimportant fertilizer, as the 

 lime and other mineral matter which they contain is al- 

 ways more or less beneficial to the soil. Unless the land 

 is well worked and contains sufficient organic matter we 

 should not consider ashes, whether leached or unlocked 

 as alone adequate to the production of a good crop of 

 wheat, turnips, or corn." 



There is something about old leached ashes that we do 

 not understand, though we have given the subject consid- 

 erable attention. We have seen instances where old 

 leached ashes have had an excellent effect on wheat, while 

 anleached ashes seemed to do. no good. We have 

 thought thit ptrhopt the potash and soda, which had been 

 washed out, were replaced by ammonia and nitric acid 

 from the atmosphere. The subject is one worthy of in- 

 vestigation. At all events, it is certain that leached ashes 

 frequently have a very beneficial effect; and if the above 

 hypothesis is true, the older they are the better. 



Cutting off the Tops to Prevent Potato Rot. G. P. 



Sbrviss, of Montgomery Co., N. Y., writes as follows to 

 the Country Gentleman : 



" I had about a quarter of an acre of June potatoes 



Warts on Cattle.— The Canadian Agriculturist— good 

 authority— says: "Warts consist in a morbidly increased! 

 growth on the outer skin. They generally originate on* 

 young animals, and are supposed to be associated wi(h" 

 that state of the system when the tissues are in a grow- 

 ing state, »s they usually appear during the period of 

 growth, and disappear as age advances. Epidermic warts, 

 when seen in the horse, are found to occupy various situ- 

 ations, as on the nose, eyelids, ears, between the hint 

 legs, or sheath, and under.tbe abdomen. When occurring 

 in cattle, they are obiefly confined to the inferior parts of 

 the abdomen, teats, dewlap, or about the head. The 

 easiest and quickest method of getting rid of warts, when 

 extending over a large surface, is to remove as much as. 

 possible w,ith the knife, and apply a hot iron to stop the" 

 Weeding, or tie. the blood-vessels, and afterward^ dress - ' 

 cautiously with arsenical ointment, at intervals.^ several] 

 days. When presenting a well defined neck t^ey v may be 

 removed by tying tightly around them a njece of^xed," 

 whip-cord,; this cuts off all nutrition, a,u$ as a conse- 

 quence, they drop off. Calomel is alae c> u,se,fuj'.in removing, 

 these excrescences," 



Cabbages bvbrt Year.— J. J. Hi Gre.gort, of Hubbard 

 squash and M,ammoth cabbage* memory, in a communica- 

 tion in the Cauntry Gentleman, lays it down as an impro- 

 bability, if not an impossibility, to raise good cabbages 

 two or more seasons in. s.uccessio,n. on the same piece of 

 ground. That cabbag* crops succeeding the first will be* 

 of all sorts— some long, legged, and some short legged^' 

 some stump footed, and, some no footed at all, and all of' 

 them lousy, and so, on through all the catalogua of cab- 

 bage infirmities and dispositions. •! ' • ■> 



Sowing P-bas,,— The Michigan Farmer says : « Peas ma*- 

 be planted on any good, dry soil at the earliest moment 

 after the surface is thawed out enough to give earth suffi- 

 cient to make the furrow in which to sow them. Tha 

 varieties which we would recommend to sow first would 

 be the Early Kent, Dwarf Blue Imperial, and the Urge 

 White Marrowfat." 



