AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUDLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aoicultu^al Warbhoub e.j-ALLE N PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUAR Y 25, 1843. 



[NO. 30. 



N. E. FARMER, 



From Ihe Fanner's Monthly Visitor. 



ASHES FOR TOP-DRESSING, &c. 



Gov. HiLi Dear Sir — There has been quite a 



irit of furminj awakcneJ the last year or two in 

 is section of Massachusetts. Some of our peo- 

 e have purchased largely of leached wood ashes, 

 id the *esuUs have conquered the doubts of the 

 optic, and even astonisliod the believer. 

 Capt. Leonard West, of Chilmark, (adjoining 

 wn,) upon a small farm for which he paid twenty- 

 e hundred dollars, commenced three years ago 

 e use of ashes as a top-dressing, being withal a 

 ost industrious collector of other manures. When 



bought tiiis farm, it had been exhausted by bad 

 anagement — there was one ton of hay taken from 

 2 meadows — this year he cut thirty tons. He 

 s about fifty acres of arable and meadow land, 

 liefly e.'ihausted by close cropping and bad man- 

 ement. It is a pattern of neatness. When he 

 ok it, the stock consisted of a cow and horse ; he 

 13 now — head, and declares his belief that ho 

 .n bring it to summer and winter fifteen cows and 

 good proportion of other stock. He will do it. 

 e has to haul his ashes eight miles : they cost 

 m thirteen cents per bushel at the place of land- 

 g. Tliey repay the first cost and every other ex- 

 :nse from the first crop, and leave after crops and 

 e general improvement of the land, as the profit. 



With us, no manure his the effect of ashes. A 

 w years ago, for an e.xperiment, I plowed up an 

 ;re and a half of very dead land, and planted it 

 ith corn — the product, though the season was 

 jod, was six bushels per acre. Early next spring, 



plowed up the hills, and sowed oats with ten 

 >unds of clover seed to the acre, and thirtyfive 

 ishels of unleached ashes over the whole piece, 

 he oats were good, but the clover was superfine ; 

 , least a ton and a half to the aero upon ground 

 ■ the very poorest description. The effect of it 

 as seen for years. But to test the greatest ca- 

 icity of ashes to stimulate production, the grounds 

 lould be entirely free from weeds when they are 

 )wn. And to render the effect permanent and en- 

 jrincr, other manures, having budy, should be ad- 

 ed. If no other manures accompany the ashes, 

 len the plowing in of the green clover will be 

 ngularly beneficial. 



Our farmers on the verge of the ponds on the 

 outh Shore, experience great benefit from plow- 

 in- in the eel grass that the high winds drive ashore 

 X the autumn. It is plowed under the sward 

 reen, and corn is the crop that derives most bene- 

 t from it. Forty and fifty bushels is a common 

 rop, and it has never been known to fail. The 

 econd crop is little benefitted by it. Sea-weed is 

 eld of light account with us. 



There is a breed of swine here of great value. 



cannot learn where it came from, but it is evi- 

 ently a cross of the Berkshire, with a very thin 

 'kin. It grows to a great size, is exceedingly good 

 lejnpered and docile, and fats easily. Bernard 



Low, Esq., killed one this year, IS months old, that 

 weighed b'GO lbs. It had a hundred lbs. of leaf 

 lard" Mr N. Mayhew killed another, 15 months 

 old, weighing r>!)0 and odd lbs. They have never 

 gone higher Ihan (iGO, and seldom fall below 600 at 

 a year and a half old. There has been an instance 

 of 3(10 at nine months. As they are loss inclined 

 to locomotion than any hogs I ever saw, tliey are 

 poor contributors to the muck heap. 

 Yours, 

 Jfest Tisbury, Mass., Dec. 20, 1842, 



J. A.J. 



BOSTON. 



Gov. Hill concludes an article in the Farmer's 

 Monthly Visitor upon the prosperity of Boston, 

 with the following remarks: 



"Our object in extending the remarks upon the 

 great and growing capital of New England was, to 

 call the particular attention of our readers to the 

 value of the railroads, to the construction of which 

 the capital of Boston has been extended within the 

 last few years. There can be no mistake about 

 this matter : never has capital been placed where 

 it has done the country more gbod than it has done 

 here. We were of those who thought that the in- 

 vestment of money on the great western road over 

 and through the mountains of Berkshire, might be 

 injudicious. That enterprise has been carried 

 through ; and instantly has it converted Boston 

 from a place not hitherto felt to be feared by the 

 great commercial emporium (New York,) into a ri- 

 val that will control the better part of the most 

 profitable trade and business of the North — a ri- 

 val, which, tapping the western world, tempts to 

 its bosom the elements of uncounted wealth. How 

 opportunely has this great avenue been opened to 

 the highly favored mart of New England trade ! 

 It has continued and kept up to her, prosperous 

 business, while at all the other great commercial 

 towns of the South and West, the trade has fallen 



away. 



We notice the growth and prosperity of Boston, 

 because in this city, communicating and connected 

 with every other part of New England, is involved 

 the prosperity and welfare of every farmer and 

 producer of New England. A great and growing 

 ciiy a place of extensive trade abroad and exten- 

 sive production and consumption within itselt — 

 must forever furnish the aliment of wealth and in- 

 creased means to all the country about it. Let 

 Boston continue to grow, and there never can be 

 danger that it will not be a place for the profitable 

 sale°or exchange of every article of value that the 

 soil or the skill of the country surrounding it far 

 and near can furnish. Its great population must 

 always be ready to purchase and consume mucii of 

 the surplus of the farmer at its full value. As 

 trade expands to a greater distance from new fa- 

 cilities to the means of transport, so will increase 

 the means and the disposition to give a fair price 

 for every vendible commodity. Trade is but a se- 

 ries of exchanges — what one produces another man 

 buys ; and the ability to purchase is found only in 

 the ability to produce what may be an equivalent 



for the purchase. So truo as the soil of a country 

 may bo made to yield abundance, so true is it that 

 with easy means of transport at the points of ex- 

 change, large and flourishing and wealthy cities 

 will grow up. The unerring laws of supply and 

 demand, will not have it otherwise. If the men of 

 wealth in the cities would reflect how much that 

 wealth may be increased by increasing the means 

 of production in the country about them, they might 

 and would soon give such an impulse to the agri- 

 culturo of the country, as would make the business 

 of the farmer among the most profitable, and the 

 most desirable." 



Cholic in Horses. — I was told lately by a gentle- 

 man of Prince George county, that a tea-cup full 

 of spirits of turpentine would give instant relief to 

 horses laboring under this disorder. Ho added, 

 that on one occasion, all the oxen of two of his 

 carts were hoven — that is, as you know, suddenly 

 swollen by tlie generation of gas in tlie stomach, 

 from eating green food. The overseer expected 

 all would die, when our informant ordered a tea- 

 cup full of spirits of turpentine, diffused in oil, to 

 be given to each. The relief was in every case 

 instantaneous and effectual, almost before he could 

 have thought there was time to swallow. Such 

 facts should always be communicated for wide dif- 

 fusion and preservation, in agricultural journals. — 

 Jlmer. Far. 



To Cook Dunfish — or Cod-fish salted. — A cor- 

 respondent of the American Farmer, gives the fol- 

 lowing recipe for cooking salted fish, which he says 

 was communicated to him by an accomplished lady 

 of Boston : 



" Salt fish (meaning cod-fish,) should be put in 

 a deep plate, with just water enough to cover it, 

 the night before you intend to cook it: take it 

 from that water before cooking and wipe it clean. 



It should not be boiled an instant ; boiling ren- 

 ders it hard. It should be in scalding hot water 

 two or three hours. The less water is used, and 

 the more fish is cooked at once, the belter. 



It may then be served up en a napkin and each 

 one may take his portion and mix for himself with 

 cgs and butter, or it may be picked fine from the 

 bones and mixed with Irish potato and butter. No 

 dish is lighter or more digestible — not even tripe." 



To Eradicate Corns. — Take a small piece of 

 flannel which has not been washed, wrap or sew it 

 round the corn and toe. One thickness will be 

 sufficient. Wet the flannel where the corn is, 

 nifht and morning, with fine sweet oil. Renew 

 the flannel weekly, and at the same time pare the 

 corn, which will very soon disappear. — Leeds In- 

 telligencer. 



He that sympathizes in all the happiness of oth- 

 ers, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness, and 

 he that profits by all the folly of others, has per- 

 haps attained the soundest wisdom — Lacon. 



