108 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



OCT. 14, 1833» 



Products of our Country. 



The wool crop of tlie in-escnt year was probably 

 ■Avorth twenty-five iiiillious, aud, as a general cal- 

 culation of its tnaniifactiires, about fifty niillions. 

 New York funiislies the largest supply of wool. 

 There were 3,485,536 sheep in 1825, now, proba- 

 bly, 7,000,000 ! as will soon be ascertained, this 

 being a year of the State census. Vermont has, 

 perhai)s, 1,500,000, and they are very numerous in 

 many of the Eastern, Middle and Western States. 

 The cash duty payable on woollens, and the more 

 just valuation of the pound sterling, with improve, 

 ments in the collection of them, the rise of price 

 on British goods, and the use of newly invented 

 American machinery, &c. have caused the manu- 

 facture of wool to be a " fiiir business." The 

 range of woollen goods, as those of cotton, has 

 been widely extended. For an instance, 4-5ths 

 of the carpets used are home made, — the duty 

 on coarse wool being abolished. They are cheap- 

 <T and better than the imported, and equally beau- 

 tiful. 



The manufactures of leather and iron, not in- 

 cluding the common smith work, as to the latter, 

 are worth not less than millions a year. But we 

 shall not go into details, or even notice other great 

 and valuable manufactures, just now. 



A new business is making rapid strides to im- 

 portance — the manufacture of silk. This will 

 be, in five years or less, worth from ten to twenty 

 millions a-year, and give a ])rofitable etnployment 

 to vast numbers of women and children at their 

 homes. Already one gentleman has made prepa- 

 rations for feeding 5,000,000 worms, and many a 

 million. The reeling of the silk, and the weaving 

 of it have been much improved by "Yankee in- 

 genuity," and will be more simplified. The power 

 loom has been successfully applied to it — M7fs' 

 Mcjrister. 



EXAMIKE TOUR EARMS. 



Most farmers are shamefully, if not criminaliy 

 ignorant of the resources of their farms, and the 

 facilities they have to acquire competency and the 

 comforts and conveniences of lile. RIany have 

 lived half a century on farms which have been 

 cultivated by their fathers and grandfathers — 

 have worn themselves out with labor and fatigue 

 in obtaining a miserable livelihood, a mere living 

 " from hand to mouth," and now, in their old age, 

 are talking about abandoning their farms as worth- 

 less, and going to Illinois, Michigan, or some other 

 fairy land iu the far-famed West, to spend the 

 remnant of their lives in affluence and without 

 labor. They have worn out themselves and their 

 farms together, and discover no way of reinvigo- 

 rating the one or reclaiming the other. They 

 will tell you that they have tried to raise corn on 

 the same piece of land for twenty years, and can 

 not get more than ten bushels to the acre, wlijch 

 will not iiay them for the labor and e.vpense of 

 cultivation — that their grass lauds have "run 

 out" and they have no means to manure tliem — 

 that their pastures have become overrun yviih 

 bushes and briers, and they cannot destroy them 

 . — that their buildings are going to decay, and 

 they are unable to repair them -r- and, in short, 

 that they are compelled to spend most of their 

 time in cutting down their young timber and car- 

 rying it to market to obtain bread stuffs for their 

 lamilies. Ask them if they have thoroughly ex- 

 plored their farms, with a view to ascertain their 

 capabilities and resources, and they will tell you 



they havi ; but they have endeavored to follow 

 the track of their ancestors, and been extremely 

 careful not to step out of their footsteps, lest they 

 should be ruined by innovations and experiments. 

 Now what has been the result of their investiga- 

 tions and labors .' Are they " well off," and in 

 the enjoyment of good health and buoyant spirits, 

 or are they " put to it," aud sufl^ering under the 

 effects of broken-down constitutions — afflicted 

 with the rheumatism, and tormented with the hy- 

 pochondria .-' Such farmers must pardon us for 

 asking them a few additional questions. Have 

 you ever examined the " Frog Pond," on whose 

 frozen surface you spent so many winter evenings 

 in skating, when a school-boy, to see if it does not 

 contain an inexhaustible quantity of decayed vege- 

 tables and alluvial deposites ? Mud taken from 

 ponds and other still waters, is a valuable manure 

 for dry, sandy, and gravelly soils. It has pro- 

 duced as good crops of corn as manure from the 

 barn-yard or stable. It is also an excellent ingre- 

 dient in a compost heap. Have you ever exam- 

 ined the " Little Brook," in whose rippling waters 

 you used to angle with so much delight, to see if 

 a portion of it cannot be diverted from its natural 

 bed, and spread over that worn out grass land 

 which does not now yield you half a ton of daisies 

 to the acre ? The grass crops of dry soils are 

 astonishingly improved by irrigation, aud every 

 good farmer will ayail himself of it as far as the 

 situation of his farm will admit. Have you ex- 

 amined the " Quagmire Swam))," whore, for thirty 

 years, you have sunk down to your hips in mud 

 and water, when engaged in polling out a kind of 

 hay, the very sight of which makes your cattle 

 bellow loud enough to frighten into fits all the 

 women and chi.dren in the neighborhood, to see 

 if it cannot be drained, and made to produce a 

 good crop of English grass ? Blany swamps 

 whose native products are worthless for forage, or 

 even manure, are easily reclaimed by draining, 

 and made to produce large crops of clover and 

 timothy. Have you ever examined the " I.edge," 

 where the boys apd girls used to hold their whor- 

 tleberry parties, to see if it cannot be converted 

 into as valuable a granite quarry as can be found 

 in Quincy or Maine? Have you attempted to 

 reclaim the "Old Side Hill," where your mother 

 used to gather pennyroyal, and pick blackberries, 

 by the application of plaster of Paris and a rota- 

 timi of crops? Have you cleared up the "Bush 

 Pasture," where you used to catch rabbits and 

 partridges, and set it out with the Italian or Chi- 

 nese mulberry ? We might go im ad infinitum in 

 putting these questions, but these ought to be suf- 

 ficient to satisfy every farmer who gives them a 

 negative answer, that he is deplorably ignorant of 

 the internal resources of his farm. We can point 

 to multitudes of farms which would at this time 

 be worth one hundred per cent, more liad their 

 owners been asleep during the last forty yjars ; 

 for in that event they would have been covered 

 with valuable timber, instead of being exhausted 

 by an incessant and changeless course of cropping. 

 But the iarmer has worn out himself in wearing 

 out his farm, and what can be <lone ? The an- 

 swer is at the head of this article : Examine your 

 farms. — [Silk Culturist. 



GaowTH OF THE WHITE MULBERRV. — A friend 

 of ours who has paid much attention to the culti- 

 vation of the mulberry tree, with a view to the 

 production of silk, has furnished us with a de- 

 scription of a white mulberry nov/ growing in a, 

 garden in this city. It is interesting, especially 

 to farmers, as shovt'ing the rapidity and ease with 

 which any quantity of leaves can be obtained. 

 Many persons, (he says,) with whom he has con- 

 versed on the subject of the silk culture, have 

 expressed their reluctance to engage in the busi- 

 ness from an apprehension that many years would 

 be required to elapse before any thing could be 

 realized from the investment. This apprehension 

 he affirms to be unfounded, and iu jiroof thereof, 

 he adduces the rapid growth of the mulberry tree 

 above iilluded to. The tree is less than four years 

 from the seed, and has had three summers' 

 growth. It came up spontaneously in the fall, 

 and has never received any particular degree of 

 atteution ; its dimensions are as follows : 



Circumference of the trunk . . 11 1-2 inches 



Height of the tree 14 feet 



Area of the ground covered by the 



branches ....... 42 feet 



Growth of the shoots the present 



year 9 1-2 feet 



The severity of the last winter destroyed the 

 extremities of the limbs, otherwise the height and 

 spread of the tree would have been much greater. 

 '1 he ground where it stands is not especially rich ; 

 it is in a garden, to be sure, but the same degree 

 of fertility might, by proper attention, be impart- 

 ed to the most ordinary soil. Trees three years 

 from the seed, with this rapid and vigorous growth, 

 might be advantageously plucked. They would 

 furnish foliage enough to produce from 40 to 50 

 lbs. of silk to the acre per year. 



A Mr Van Horn, of Now Egypt, N. J. has now 

 in his garden, not full grown, a radish, measuring 

 thirty inches in circumference, and thirty eight 

 inches jn length, 



Delaware apples. — A friend who had seen in 

 the newspapers some remarks upon a wonderful 

 Virginia Jipple, which seemed to carry with them 

 an air of challenge to all the apple growers of 

 the country, sent us a day or two ago, sii; pippin 

 apples, the weight and size of wliich are stated 

 below. They grew in an orchard ou the Brandy- 

 wine, about five miles from Wilmington, and as 

 our friend informed us, there was so little atten- 

 tion jiaid to the selection of them, that be could 

 have had a half bushel more from the same tree, 

 equal in size to those before us. 



ounces inches in circumference 



No. 1, 21 15 



2, 20 1-2 14 3-8 



3, 19 3-4 14 



4, 19 14 1-4 



5, 19 - 14 1-4 

 e, 17 3-4 14 



Aggregate weight, 7 lbs. 5 oz. ; wiiole circum- 

 ference, 7 feet, 2 inches. Thus does little Dela- 

 ware give the Ancient Dominion «ij: for one.! — 

 [Delaware State Journal. 



Hay. — The crop of hay in this section of coun- 

 try, is said to be very short ; and in consequence 

 of the scanty feed in the pastures, some have thus 

 early commenced feeding it out to their creatures. 

 It brings a round price. Would it not be well for 

 our farmers to resort, while they can, to every ex- 

 pedient to save their Hay, by feeding their cattle 

 on other articles ? — Middletown (Con.) Sentinel. 



