196 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



Mt'UlATE OF LIME. 



"Is not Mr. Gould]8 advertisement of muriate 

 of lime, an error, which recommends 300 barrels 

 to the acre ? One would tliink that a pretty 

 strong auKKint, and if not very cheap, rather ex- 

 pansive as a dressing G. G. G. 



Chester, Conn., Feb. 7, 1854. 



Read 300 pounds, instead of barrels. 



MTR.VTE OF SODA BURDEN GRASS. 



To J. W. Webster, North Fairhaven, Mass. 

 The price of "Burden grass," per bushel, is $1,- 

 50 — tliere is very little in market. After making 

 inquiries at several places, where similar articles 

 are sold, we could find no "nitrate of soda," at 

 any price. 



A HALF SUFFOLK PIG. 



Samuel Aldex, of Lyme, N. H., killed a pig 

 eight months and twenty-two days old which 

 weighed when dressed (exclusive of rough lard) 

 401 pounds ! k. c. b. 



Or/ordville, 1854. 



OLD COLONY sweet CORN. 



R. 0. STOnoxiiTi^WesfJielJ, Vt. — "I planted this 

 kind of corn last year on the IGth of May ; it was 

 in silk the first of August. Gathered some for 

 the table on the 4tli of Sept. — the stalks were 

 large and some of them ten feet high, many of the 

 oars being 6 feet from the ground. There being 

 no frost until the last days of Sept., it came to ma- 

 turity. As an experiment, I pulled the suckers 

 from two rows, and I thought the ears were bet- 

 ter and earlier for it, notwithstanding some say 

 'don't sucker your corn."' 



BEST SEED SOWER. 



E. S. AhLES, Jacksonville, Vt. — "You will confer 

 a favor on a subscriber, and others, by informing 

 them through your very valuable paper, Avhicli is 

 the best Seed Sower, now used for sowing car- 

 rots." 



The best Seed Sower with which we are ac- 

 quainted is one represented in Messrs. Rugglcs, 

 Nourse, jMason & Co.'s Catalogue, and called 

 "Seed Sower No. 2." The brush and cylinder of 

 No. 2, which distributes the seed, go by gradua- 

 t'3d rows of iron cogs or gearings, which operate 

 simply and uniformly, are durable, not likely to 

 get out of order, and by which the speed of the 

 dropping may be increased or lessened, and large or 

 small seeds sown, in all their varieties, at any 

 desiraljlc distances, in hills or drills. There is a 

 larger kind for use by horse power. 



E. Inguam, Lnhanoa, N. H. — See vol. 4, page 

 108, Monthly Farmer, for an excellent article on 

 the buclithorn. There is no difficulty, whatever, 

 in cultivating it. Buckwheat or clover may be 

 turned in green, with great advantage, on the 

 light lands you speak of. 



Improved Poudrette. — Thisarticlc is advertised 

 in our columns. We know nothing about it, nev- 

 er having used it. It may bo easily tested by the 

 purchase of a barrel or two for trial. 



For the Ifew ilngland Farmer. 



CITY RAIIROADS---A MODEL STABLE. 



1!V HENRV r. FKE.VCII. 



One would hardly expect to find in the midst of 

 a great city, much that would be of value to the 

 practical farmer, but during a day latel}' passed in 

 New York, I chanced to ascertain some facts, which 

 seem worth placing on the record. 



By invitation of J^uies S. Libby, President of 

 the "Sixth Avenue Railroad Company," which* 

 runs from Barclay Street, just in the rear of the 

 Astor House, to Forty-fourth Street, a distance of 

 three and a half miles, I passed over the road and 

 visited the stables of the company, where are kept 

 the four hundred horses, which draw the cars, in 

 which are conveyed annually, for greater or less 

 distances, five and a half iniU'ums of passengers. 



City railroads are much discussed, now, both in 

 Boston and elsewhere, and probably some statisti- 

 cal information on the subject may not be unin- 

 teresting. Again, the exact amount of food re- 

 quired for each animal, and the amount of labor 

 he can endure, ought to be known to every farmer, 

 but unfortunately, the man who cuts his own hay, 

 guesses at the quantity, and lets the boys feed it 

 out, without weight or measure, is not in the pre- 

 cise position to inform us of the expense of sup- 

 porting his live stock, and on the farm, labor is 

 too irregular to furnish much information as to" 

 the capacity of animals for work. 



The human force of the company referred to. 

 consists of sixty drivers, sixty conductors, one 

 man for each sixteen horses at the stable, eight 

 blacksmiths who do the shoeing for the whole, be- 

 sides harness makers and painters and a few oth- 

 ers. 



The stable is of brick, two hundred feet square, 

 and two stories high, with an attic. The two sto- 

 ries are occupied by the horses, which are led up 

 to the second story, over an inclined plane. The 

 attic is occupied as a hay and grain room, and 

 one old horse, wdiich seemed nearly blind, proba- 

 bly because, like the fish in the Mammoth Cave, 

 there was nothing to see in that position. This in- 

 dividual amused himself, and served his race, by 

 woi'king a horse power hay-cutter, with whicli,in 

 seven hours daily application, he is able to supply 

 the wants of his four hundred bi-ethren in the lower 

 regions. The philanthropists of the great city, 

 who labor so zealously for their fellows, and seem 

 to make so little progress, I think may gain cour- 

 age, by contemplating the example of this patient 

 quadruped. Although constantly striving forward, 

 he has never advanced a single inch, but he is ac- 

 complishing a vast deal of good by his efforts in 

 the*riglit direction. Water is brought by an aque- 

 duct into the attic, as well as theoblier stories,and 

 all the food is prepared by mixing the chopped 

 hay with corn meal, and wetting it in one large 

 box. It is then dropped, through wooden conduc- 



