144 



THE GENESEE FARMEE. 



NOTES FOR THE MONTH. -BY S. W. 



OoRsr versus Root Crops. — As turnips so often 

 fail in our hot, dry, Indian corn climate, and beets, 

 for a lai'ge crop, require as much manure as that 

 king of the cereals Indian corn, it should be the 

 rule of all farmers to plant but few roots and much 

 corn for both grain and fodder, being careful, how- 

 ever, to grow enough roots for the cows, or, as sailors 

 say, for greens, to keep olf scurvy ; and the testi- 

 mony of the animal is quite as significant as that 

 of the sailors. I have a cow that is messed night 

 and morning, generally with a pint of Indian meal 

 and a pint of oil meal scalded, into which is cut 

 one or two large wurzel beets, which, with water, 

 fills the pail. The cow then, after eating, licks the 

 pad clean ; but if the beets or other green substi- 

 tute is left out, she never fails to leave some of the 

 meal in the bottom of the pail, when she holds up 

 and shakes her head until she gets a cut beet! 

 I feed some early-cut, well-cured hay, which is seven 

 times as nutritious as straw, and the cow gives at 

 least as much milk as two ordinary farm cows, and 

 more than four that have been wintered on straw 

 alone. Her calves at three weeks old are much 

 fatter than any six weeks calves in the market. 



Mowing Machines. — E. A. Bundy, of that fine 

 grass region, Chenango county, reasons logically, 

 and makes out a good case against mowing machines 

 as a mere money-saving institution. I once asked 

 an astute farmer, who was cutting a very large 

 meadow of heavy grass on a Buffalo creek bottom, 

 if he found a machine profitable, expecting an 

 affimative reply, as the machine did perfect work 

 on that stoneless alluvial flat; but his reply was, 

 " No, if we could get such help as we once got ; 

 but there is no dependence on men now ; for when 

 you bargain with them and think you have them 

 fast, you have to run after them and hire them over 

 again at higher wages ; and when they come, they 

 take advantage of your necessities, and don't work 

 as many hours or as well as they used to at lower 

 wages. But with my machine," said he, "I am 

 independent of the rascally mowers; and common 

 fweign help is plenty and cheap." Yet there can 

 be no doubt but that the mowing machine will do 

 .away the scythe to the end of the world. No man 

 J «ver yet went back from machinery to hand-labor, 

 ■ bee5.5jse its unavoidable efifect is to emasculate 

 jnanual labor and make it irksome ! 



Fapmikg in Georgia. — Dr. Lee writes from 

 Athens, Georgia, tliat if he had the water that runs 

 througli cfpnN Johnston's extensive tile drains, to 

 pass it' f)v^r his fields that now yield only three 

 boshels of com to the acre, he thinks they would 

 .soon yield thirty bushels. This must be doubtful, 

 as he tells lis thiit fifteen bushels of good house 

 ashes (which implies hard wood ashes) produced 

 very little efiect. His soil evidently wants nitro- 

 gen, or carbonaceous matter to produce nitrogen as 

 it decomposes ; and I trust that the water from 

 Mr. Johnston's drains 'coiitains very little organic 

 piatter after being filterefl .-tln'ough three feet of 

 ^eavy clay loam. We who livs^ in the ever-blessed 

 grass regions of the North, knpyv yery little of the 

 iriials of the poor southron to keep up, not the fer- 

 tility, but the breath of life in his soil. The hot, 

 dry t^dinjate,, and long drouths there, are death to 

 the b.ei'baceoiiis gra8se^s ; and, as Dr. Lee says, when 

 the 8<;*A is vm- bek)w the cow-pea-bearing point, it 



is past renovation by the plowing in of a green crop 

 for manure. I once took a Georgia planter to visit 

 the farm of John DELAriELO. When he saw the 

 large-growing Indian corn, the hills three feet each 

 way and four stalks to the hill, with an ear to each 

 stalk, he exclaimed, " How do you keep such close- 

 planted corn from fireing? We have but one 

 stalk to the hill, and have the hills six feet apart. 

 If we had it closei-, it would fire, and we should 

 not get an ear." But tliat which deliglited him 

 most was the great milch cows, with their large 

 udders fully distended so long before miUiing time. 

 This was to him a desideratum in farm economy 

 which, he said with a sign, "the South could not 

 hope to attain." 



Transplanting Evergreens. — Much has been 

 said and printed, of late, about the most successful 

 mode of transplanting evergreen trees. A coiTes- 

 pondent of the Ohio Cultivator says that he pulled 

 up a young hemlock by hand, shook off the soil 

 from its roots, and carried it four miles in a hot 

 sun before he planted it; yet, strange to tell, it 

 lived and grew well. But the considerate editor 

 explains the miracle to his credulous readers, by 

 saying that they might all have the same "success 

 in transplanting the natives," if they only had such 

 nice springy soil as that of his favored subscriber ; 

 " but to attempt it on a dry soil, with a thirsty sub- 

 soil, is labor lost." To succeed well in transplant- 

 ing evergreens from a moist or springy location to 

 a dryer one, the large extendmg roots of the young 

 trees should be cut ofi" two or three feet from the 

 tree the year before it is transplanted. This will 

 induce a large growth of short roots. These may 

 be taken up undisturbed, with a large ball of earth 

 from the base of the tree. Other soil from the 

 same place should be filled in around the young 

 tree in its new and dryer location, and it must also 

 be watered in dry weather, at least until it begins 

 to show signs of renewed life. But, of aU trees, 

 the hemlock is the most diflScult to acclimate in a 

 dry, calcareous soil. Better substitute the not lees 

 beautiful red cedar; because, on such a soil, the 

 hemlock, if it lives, is always unthrifty and dwarf- 

 ish, while the red cedar finds its best nutriment in 

 a dry, warm soil ; and although it may not attain 

 so large a size, it is never more beautiful than on 

 the interstices of the precipitous limestone cliff. 



The Hollow Horn. — I was in hopes that after 

 John Johnston gave the quietus to the inquiry for 

 the best cure for sheep ticks, that we should hear 

 no more queries from men ycleped farmers, how to 

 kill sheep ticks or cure the hollow horn. Although 

 I have always kept at least one cow, I never had 

 to cure but one of the hollow horn. As soon as 

 this disease was known, I said to myself, " thou art 

 the man," as I knew it was caused by my own 

 neglect. Who ever heard of the hollow horn afliict- 

 ing animals that were warmly stabled in winter 

 and weU fed with nutritious food. But the best 

 cure for the disease, when prevention has been 

 neglected, is to rub a little spirits of turpentine in 

 the hollow between the horns, then a drench of 

 linseed oil, and daily scalded messes of Indian meal 

 or oil meal, roots, etc., with early-cut well-cu?ed 

 hay. Boring the horns is a traditionary cruelty. 



Mr. Lewis, of Palmyra, Ohio, has a mare that 

 had a healthy foal when thirty-ttoo years old. 



