410 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JUIiY 6,1835, 



did not materially decline until tlin fouitli croj) 

 and on sowing again it recovered, and liecame as 

 prodnctive as before, yielding on a lliin soil about 

 a load and a lialf ; whilst anoilier patch dressed 

 partly with soot, became so wea'K as to be scarce- 

 ly worth mowing. Its durability when applied to 

 lucerne, has been found to produce very fine crops 

 for five years. As an inssance, both of ils effect 

 and the prejudice which many ^people entertain 

 against it as a manure, an anecdote has been relat- 

 ed of a gentleman, who, having recommended its 

 use, ord 'red his servant to spread a small quantity 

 of it secretly upon an adjoining piece of sanfoin, 

 belonging to an old fanner, who vehemently de- 

 cried it. The crop, proved surprisingly abun- 

 dant on that spot to which the gypsum had been 

 applied, but upon discovering its occasion, the old 

 man, instead of profiling by the circumstance, 

 grew peevish, and wondered why his neighbor 

 should have taken tlie liberty of spreading this 

 new-fangled manure over his sainfoin, which, for 

 aught he knew, might do more harm than good. 

 The laugh, however, going against him, he deter- 

 mined to get rid of it by breaking up the sainfoin 

 and sowing [>eas, when, behold ! they also rose in 

 judgment against hiiri, so evidently on thegy);siim- 

 ed part, that be was constrained, though reluctant- 

 ly, to acknowledge, that " it seemed good stuff; " 

 yet he was never known afterwards to lay a bush- 

 el of it on his farm — Bost. Cour. 



Bf.s— The Vermont Karmer reconnnends I vegetable life. Such plants differ materially from 

 the following method for securing bees when those m which the leaf perishes, and only .he root 



retiiins ils vegetative power ; in wheat this power 

 'TrocufJone or two hemlock hushes, four or in the leaf is only suspended, it is not destroyed, 

 five feet high, and fasten them in the ground as 1 a"'! approaclies to the suspended animation some 

 you do bean poles, so as to stand firm, with all 



ther boughs on, within a rod or two of the bee- 

 house, and nearly in front of it. When they 

 swarm, your bees will almost invariably alight on 

 these, where they can be managed without the 

 li;ast trouble, and the whole business finished in a 

 very few minutes. Very oft^jn by rubbing upon 

 it a little low balm, you can nialje the swarm at- 

 tach itself to just what limb you idease. We 

 have ourselves tried this, year after year with per- 

 fect success. 



Gentlemen : 



Please to give the following remarks and ob- 

 servations, a [ilace in your instructive Long Island 

 Star, and it may lead to greater advantage to the 

 Farmers, and comfort to the lovers of fruit. I 

 have discovered, beyond a doubt, an antidote for 

 the insects that destroy Ftidt Trees at the roots, 

 which is cheap and simple, and can be attended to 

 by every Farmer, and Gardner, in the country, 

 viz : make a recess around the trees, of sntTicient 

 dejitb to contain from a peck to a half bushel of 

 wood ashes, such as are used to make soap, tlien 

 fill the jilace with soft water, and when it is nearly 

 subsided haid on the loose earth, that was remov- 

 ed to give place to the ashes. Tills should be 

 done between the 8th of May, and 15th of Sept. 

 in the several States north of the Potomac, and 

 those States south of that line, between the 5tii of 

 April, and 12th of Oct. and must be repeated 

 every year, until there is not a trace of an insect 

 left. 'I'he ashes so dejiosited will bold their vir- 

 tue during the growing season, and every rain will 

 produce a fresh supply of liquid, which is certain 

 death to the bug or worm, that falls in contact 

 with it, and at the same time will be of great ben- 

 efit to the health and growth of the tree. 

 With great respect &c. 



J'. H. D. 



To FATTER Fowls or Chickens in four on 

 FIVE DAYS. — Set rice over the fire with skimmed 

 milk, only as much as will serve one day. Let it 

 boil till the rice is quite swelled out ; you may 

 add a tea-spoonful or two of sugar, but it will do 

 well without. Feed them three times a day, in 

 common pans, giving them only as much as will 

 quite fill them at once. When you boil fresh, let 

 the pans be set in water, that no sourness may 

 be conveyed to the fowls, as that prevents them 

 from fattening. Give them clean water, or the 

 milk of rice, to drink ; but the less wet the latter 

 is when perfectly soaked the better. By this 

 method the flesh will have a clear whiteness 

 which no other food gives ; and when it is consid- 

 ered how far a jiound of rice will go, and how 

 much time is saved by tliis mode, it will be found 

 to be cheap. 



The Erie Gazette states that a specimen of 

 mineral coal, measuring about eleven and a. half 

 solid feet, and weighing nine hundred pounds, has 

 been sent to that place from the coal mines of 

 theShenango, about eighty miles from that place, 

 and on the line of the proposed Canal. The qual- 

 ity is pronounced of the first order, and the 

 quantity inexhaustable. Should this be the case, 

 and the coal cun be afforded at a (air price 

 at Erie and elsewhere, it will yirld no trifling 

 addition to the means of navigating our lakes by 

 steam- 



WHEAT. 



1 he season is now so far advanced that a toler- 

 able conjecture mny be formed as to the state of 

 the wheat crop, and the effect produced upon it 

 by the past winter. From our limited observa- 

 tion, and from what we have been able to learn 

 from va:ious sources, it apjicars that in what is 

 called Western New York, which is cini batically 

 the wheat district of the slate, tiie wheat has suf- 

 fered to an extent quite equal to what was first ap- 

 prehended. The western counties extending to 

 Wayne and Seneca may expect a medium crop — 

 in Wayne, Seneca and Cayuga counties there is 

 mueh wheat that p-omises well, but as a whole, 

 it has been a good deal thinned, and many pieces 

 entirely destroyed — while farther east, in Onon- 

 daga, Oswego, Madison and Oneida counties, the 

 wheat has suffered still more extensively. In the 

 most favorable sections of Onondagti, where the 

 crops h ve rarely if ever failed, hut few first rate 

 pieces are to be seen ; while in the less favorable 

 sectiotis hundreds of acres have been totally des- 

 stroyed, and have been ploughed up for spring 

 crops. — The same remarks, but in a greater ex- 

 tent, are applicable to Madison and Oneida. 



Wheat in our winters suffers from two causes, 

 extra warmth, and extra cold. 'J he first is gen- 

 erally produced by a covering of snow to such a 

 depth as to exclude the action of the atmosphere 

 on the earth, take the frost from the ground, and 

 by thus producing an unnatural and premature ef- 

 fiit at vegetation, causes the death of such imper- 

 fectly rooted plants as wheat and rye; but which 

 under favorable circumstances remain with their 

 I aves green through the winter, and are conse- 

 quently ready for the first exciting impulses of 



times observed in animals, and occasionally in 

 man. If the vital powers of the plant are called 

 into exercise before the means of renewing the 

 waste caused by the effort can be provided, the 

 plant so excited must perish ; and when wheat is 

 smothered by the great body of snow, as it has 

 been the past winter, precisely this effect is pro- 

 duced. Excluded from the external cold by the 

 covering of snow, the internal heat of the earth 

 soon banishes the frost, the root of the jilant rou- 

 ses from its torpor, hut the leaf is in an exhausted 

 receiver, it cannot act, the revivifying influence of 

 the air does not reach it, and leaf and root must 

 consequently perish. When the snow vanishes 4 

 the leaf looks green, but the sun soon makes it I 

 white and dry. 1 he other way in wbieh wheat 

 is killed in the winter, is by being frozen out of 

 the earth. — Gravelly or sandy soils rarely or nev- 

 er suffer in this way, as the porous earth allows 

 the water to e.?cape and prevents the adhesion of 

 surface, without which the wheat plant cannot 

 be lifted out of the ground. Almost every one 

 has noticed the beautiful columns of frost work, 

 which in low wet spots are formed by the freez- 

 ing of the water, and gradually lift the loose sur- 

 face to the height of several inches. Where the 

 clay in the soil is in sufficient quantities, an adhe- 

 sion of the particles take place ; and by freezing, 

 till! surface, with the roots of wheat, rye or clover 

 in it, is gradually lifted and drawn upwards. With 

 a little sun this surface thaws and .sinks, but the 

 lifted roots do not return to their original position 

 in the soil. The same operaticm of freezing the 

 surface and lifting of the jilants is again and again 

 repeated, until the tender fibres of the roots, com- 

 pletely drawn from the earth, are themselves fro- 

 zen, and the plant necessarily perishes. This is 

 the method in which wheat is generally winter- 

 killed, and is frequently witnessed in soils where 

 the clay predominates. 



15ut though the past winter has destroyed ranch 

 of the wheat; if what remains produces an ordi- 

 nary yield, there need be no apprehensions of a 

 deficiency of bread stuffs. There is at tne pres- 

 ent momenta vast amount of wheat in the coun- 

 try of the last year's harvest, greater perhaps than 

 has often been known, and farmers are in every 

 section industriously endeavoring, by an extended 

 culture of the coarser and spring grains, to supply 

 any apprehendeJ deficiency that may arise from 

 the effect of the winter on the wheat fields. — 

 Genesee Farmer. 



NcELE Flf.eces. — Mr William Nelson of Am- 

 herst, sheared from three lambs 13 months old, 

 this season, liiientyscven and three-fourths pounds 

 of good wool, being nine and one-fourth pounds to 

 each sheep! — We were not informed of what 

 breed these sheep are, but they originally came 

 from Conway, and the buck from which they 

 sprung, generally gave a fleece of fioml6 to 18 lbs. 

 a year. Mr. Nelson purchased bis sheep of Mr 

 Oliver Cowls of Amber.st. — J^Torthamplon Gaz. 



The Mercantile say.s that a strawberry, raised in 

 the garden of Mr Eleazer Breed of Cliarlestown, 

 this season, measured 1 1-4 inches in length, and 

 3 3-4 in circumferenee. 



