NEW ENGLrAND FARMER. 



Published by JoHS B. RcSsEiiL, at JV*. 52 JVorih Market Street, (at the Agricultural Warehouse). — Thomas G. Fessekden, £rft<or. 



VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JUNE II, 1830. 



No. 47. 



©iiginal fflommunfcnttons. 



If the soil is ricli it seems to nic not necessary 



to dig it ill oiili'i" to make it liglit enougli for the 



Digging the Ground near to Fruit Trees ano ^ fihroiis roots of trcesaud shiiihs to penetrate easi- 

 Grape Vines an Injurious Practice. j ly :_in warm weather there are chemical clianges 



Mr Fessenden— Let me call the attention of ^ continually in process in the soil ; by which g-asse« 

 yonr readers to the practice of digging or plough- Lre evolved, and bv this means the earth distend- 

 ing about fruit trees in gardens an.l tillage land.jed more or less ;— and the earth-worm and vari- 

 It appears to me to be wrong, because it checks j qus other insects not hostile to the trees, are ever 

 or wholly prevents the growth of roots in that | at work, perforating the soil in all directions and 

 portion of soil which is nearest the surface, and ' thus laying it open to the moisture of the atmo 



which is much the richest part of it. 



Where the ground is cultivated for crops, as 

 a leading object, these remarks will, of course, not 

 be regarded. But if the question is, as to the 

 proper treatment of fruit trees and grape vines, 

 it appears to me that the soil near to them (or in 

 that portion of ground which the roots are sup- 

 posed to occupy,) ought riot to be disturbed after 

 the young trees, or vines, have been planted oue 

 year. To plant your tree within a few inches of 

 the surface, has always ap[»eared to me a rule 

 founded in good sense, and no writer of any au- 

 thority, I believe, contradicts it : the reasons for 

 it are precisely those which I should give against 

 working the ground after planting. 



Suppose then your trees set and in a thriving 

 state. The first roots which are formed after- 

 wards, will occupy a portion of the ground not 

 far from the surface. These roots if undisturbed 

 will continue to grow stronger and throw out new 

 fibres, and in the course of five or six years, wir'i 

 jccasioual top dressings, will lie in a mass, the 

 jpper side of which will be just beneath the sur- 

 face. 



If it he objected, that a greater depth ought 

 o be desired for the roots, to, enable them to stand 

 igainst our long summer droughts. To this it 

 nay be answered, that if the roots are in want 

 )f moisture, at such times, they will strike down 

 heir fibres in search of it, and a vigorous tree, 

 .veil nurtured in common times, will be more like- 

 ) to take good care of itself in emergencies, than 

 jne whose roots are less favorably situated and 

 hcrefore less active. 



The reason commonly given for digging about 

 .rees is, that the dews and light rains will penetrate 

 iecper into the ground. But to what ])urpose, 

 f by the very act of digging you cut off all those 

 fibrous roots which are the proper organs, and the 

 Jiily organs by which the trees can, in such case, 

 ivuil themselves. How much better to let the 

 .'round alone, and encourage the fibrous roots to 

 :oiiic up to the surface, where they will be sure 

 i)rofit by the dews and by every shower of 

 "aiii however slight. 



Again, it is sometimes said that digging the 

 ;arth is necessary, in order that the soil may lay 

 ight, and the roots of the trees be enableil to 

 )enetrate through it with more ease. But if you 

 lig and hoe and otherwise elaborate the soil for 

 several inches in depth, these several operations 

 A'ill unavoidably interfere with the progression of 

 he roots in that part ; they will then have no al- 

 ernative but must shoot down out of your reach, 

 ;o that instead of having' a light easily penetrable 

 ;aith to move in, they will be banished to the 

 :ompact substratum, .rendered more solid by the 

 incumbent mass which you have been laboring 

 IS I fear, most unprofitably. 



sphere 



Some of the diseases of tr.'es are thought to be 

 owing to the roots having penetrated into a cold 

 subsoil. Now, 1 ask, what is so likely to give any 

 considerable portion of the roots this direction as 

 the practice of cutting away those within reach 

 of the spade or the ploughshare ? In the use of 

 these implements near to the trees, most persons, 

 I believe, are careful not to penetrate more than 

 a few inches, so near as two or three feet from the 

 trunk, but farther off, turn up the soil to the full 

 depth, wjiatever he the size of the trees, without at 

 all considering that the fibrous roots of trees, may 

 extend ten, twenty, and thirty or more feet, from 

 the bojy. Such management seems to be a great 

 error on the part of those who profess to cultivate 

 trees, grape vines, and shrubs, as a leading object. 



Perhaps no better rule could be given to this 

 dasii of cultivators than the following : — 



Prepare a good compost when you are about to 



'.ant your trees or vines, make the holes large, /jlant 



shallow, and spread out the hair roots horizontally, 



do not crop the ground, keep the surface clean, give 



a liheral top dressing of manure in the autumn. 



If any person can point out a better rule I shall 

 be ready to follow it. 



A HORTICULTURIST. 



FOR THE NEW ENCr.ABD FARMER. 



Observations on making Butter and Instructions for 

 Using Erving^s Patent Churns. 

 Cream or milk being a combined mixture of oil 

 and water formed by nature from causes unknown 

 to the most scientific chymists, has accidently been 

 discovered to contain air of a nature peculiar to 

 itself, in order to effect an adhesion of ])articles 

 of matter in themselves totally heterogeneous, for 

 instance, water and oil; and experience has proved 

 that cream discharged of air that constitutes the 

 adhesion, of the heterogeneous particles, can be 

 decompounded and reduced to the simjile state of 

 water and oil, in which state the particles becom- 

 ing analogous naturally fly to each other and con- 

 stitute two separate bodies, oil and water. The 

 oily substance is called butter, and the watery one, 

 water of butter, or rather butter milk. To cfl^ect 

 this separation, machines are made, which, kept 

 in constant action, the air in the fluid is ejected, 

 and being replaced by atmospheric air, caases a 

 separation of the particles contained in milk or 

 cream, and the butter is made. It is generally 

 tho't that during the churning of butter the churns 

 should be kept closed and no external air admitted, 

 but this to me appears an erroneous notion, for the 

 more confined the cream is, the less opportunity 

 the air in it, has of evaporating and consequently 

 the more it swells, (as it is termed.) My opinion is 



that churns so constructed as to admit air without 

 I the loss of cream, will prevent its swelling, expe- 

 ' dite its evaporation, admit the external air into 

 [ the fluid and sooner bring on a separation, when, 

 the oily particles are collected, or rather when 

 the butter is liinde, it contains a greater or less 

 quantity of butter milk which should be pressed 

 out or extracted in any other way as will be men- 

 tioned. — It is a well known fact that both cream 

 and milk contain impure air, |)articularly in hot 

 weather. I would, therefore, by way of an ex- 

 periment recommend (as practised in Europe) 

 scalding and straining both, and let them cool he- 

 fore you churn them. This may tend to evaporate 

 all foetid or noxiou!j vapor contained in them and 

 preserve the butter from any rancid smell or 

 taste for some time. To prevent any disagreeable 

 taste or smell of a new churn before you use it, 

 scald it well with butter milk, or milk whey, salted 

 and it will remove it, besides preventing the churns 

 from leaking. 



In charging your churn with milk or cream, I 

 recomcnd your filling it no liigher than to two 

 inches below the shaft, for when it is brought to 

 a state for separation, the oily jiartides (being on 

 the surface) will naturally collect and the breaks 

 will assist them in combining together, as they 

 alternately become level surfaces and the butter 

 makes on them with great facility, but if the churn 

 is filled under what is directed, the breaks in per- 

 forming thc'r rr olutions, throw the cream from 

 off the surface to some distance, and prevent its 

 gathering with so much ease again in filling the 

 churn above the shaft ; less external air is admit- 

 ted into the fluid, consequently it cannot be 

 brought to a state for separation so soon. — When 

 your cream or milk arrives at a state for separa- 

 tion, you should lessen the quickness of motion 

 to give time for the particles to gather or collect, 

 and when your butter is entirely made, by draw- 

 ing oft' the butter milk, and replacing it with cold 

 water to about double the quantity drawn off, it not 

 only serves to harden, but by quick turning the 

 dash wheel it crumbles and washes out the but- 

 ter milk ; thus you will extract more of the butter 

 milk than can be beat out by hand, which done, 

 lay your butter on a sieve until the water is drain- 

 ed from it, then make it up as usual. In winter 

 keep your cream and milk from freezing and let 

 your churn be scalded before you use it, and as 

 cold weather greatly tends to prevent butter from 

 making, let your cream or milk he blood warm 

 before you use it. It is scarcely necessary to add 

 that cream should never stand longer than twelve 

 or twentyfour hours without stirring, and butter 

 never made but from sweet cream. 



In treating upon the manner of making butter 

 it may not prove uninteresting to those who are 

 desirous to know what quality of air is necessary 

 to be infuseil or introduced into cream to expedite 

 the separation of the aqueous from the oily parti- 

 cles. I am of an opinion that a temiierature of 65 

 or 70 dcg. of Farenheit's Thermometer of a dry and 

 elastic nature ; would have a more immediate ten- 

 dency to produce a separation than that of a cold 

 or dense nature; for as the air in the fluid itself is 

 of the quality of the last, it necessarily requirei 

 a quantity of a different nature, say dry, warm 



