NEW ENOL.AND FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY J. B. RUSSELL, AT NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Warehouse.)— T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL, IX. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 1830. 



NO. 3. 



FOR the NEW ENGLAND farmer. 



The following letter from T. A. Knight, Esq. will, I 

 think, be interesting to all those who have .seen the illibe- 

 ral and disingenuous remarks in Loudon's Gardener's 

 Magazine, upon the London Horticultural Society ,and that 

 eminent and liberal horticulturist, its learned President. 

 J. LOWELL. 



LosDon, Mat 28, 1830. 

 John Lowell, Esq., 



Rozbury^ near Boston. 



My Dear Si a — I iiitemled to have forwarded 

 to you a ho.x witli plants or grafts of some Bel- 

 gick varieties of Pears, of wliicli the merits have 

 betn ascertained in the ganlen of the Horticultural 

 Society ; but the affairs of that Society became 

 embarrassed the past winter, and the inembcrs 

 have been disagreeing among themselves, and all 

 has been in confusion owing to a heavy debt hav- 

 ing hern contracted. 



.ill parties liave alike been friendly to me ; and 

 reelected me without a dissenting voice. I had 

 declared, when it was first proposed to make nie 

 President, that I, living at so great a distance (170 

 inilesl would take no part in the mauageinent of 

 the finances. Everything is now |)erfectly and 

 amicablv arranged, and all is going on well ; and 

 I hope next spring to forward a box to you. I 

 have two or three excellent new pears in my own 

 nursery, and one very admirable, apple. T have 

 also a new plum which reynains soutiu umj. 

 excellent all winter, and which is the best dessert 

 fruit which I possess in the spring. I shidi be hap- 

 py to bud trees of any kind which I think worth 

 sending you. 



Respecting my dispute with Loudon, Ithought 

 the discovery I had made as to the culture of the 

 potato, of much value to a country circumstanced 

 as ours is, and having the power to silence him 

 with little trouble, 1 thought it best to do so. 



I never engage in controversy till 1 am very 

 sure I am right; and knowing that the public 

 will sooner or later judge correctly I never lose 

 ' my temper, or am in the least degree discomposed. 

 1 think, that, last year, I discovered a mode of 

 mproving cider, which renders it more whole- 

 some, and enables me to obtain from ajiplcs 

 ivhich are without acid, a liquor as free from acid 

 IS any kind of wine. 



During the fermentation of cider sherry, though 

 t be called vinous, a good deal of acetous acid, is, 

 believe, always generateil, maUing those liquors 

 iiore or less hareh, that is, really acetous. I mix 

 n each hogshead of 110 gallons, from seven to 

 ight pounds of newly burnt charcoal finely pow- 

 ereil. This mitigates fermentation, rendering the 

 quor as black as ink so long as it ferments, but as 

 oon as fermentation ceases, the charcoal is de- 

 osited, carrying with it all impurities, and leav- 

 ng the cider excessively bright. No taste or 

 mell is given to the liquor by the charcoal, that 

 eing wholly insoluble. 



I sent you a small tree of the Siberian crab, 



ailed the Bitter sweet, the fruit of which is wholly 



ree from acid and makes a cider which resembles 



light French wine ; it agrees with many who 



cannot bear common cider. I hope it will prove 

 a u.-ieful variety — none was ever seen so produc- 

 tive in our climate. 



Very sincerely yours, 



T. A. KNIGHT. 



N. B. Roxhury, July 30. — Any person may 

 have buds or scions of the Siberian bitter sweet 



J. L. 



•.,■1 



Girl 



LOCUST. 



Mr Fessenden — On the whole, I am extreme- 

 ly well pleased with the New England Farmer ; 

 but should I find a word or two of fault, it will 

 all be intended for the benefit of the paper, as well 

 as its numerous readers. What I particularly al- 

 lude to in this case is the neglect of giving the 

 botanical or scientific name to all vegetables that 

 are brought into notice, either that of liinuEeus, or 

 some other well known and approved author. 

 There is no one of your correspondents, I pre- 

 sume, but might find the botanic name of any 

 vegetable he might wish to bring into notice 

 through the medium of your paper. 



I was induced to make these remarks from 

 reading the observations of Mr Wm. Buckmi.ns- 

 TER, in the last No. of your journal, where he re- 

 commends the culture of the Yellow Locust Tree. 

 I have no doubt but his remarks are worthy of 

 attention — but what species of Locust is this? 

 Eaton describes four, viz : False acacia, (Ro6r- 

 nia pseudo acacia — Clammy Locust {R. viscosa) — 

 I! nse Locust, (K. Hispida) — and Siberian Locust, 

 [R. Caragana.) Nuttall mentions the same, l)tit 

 no Yellow Locust. My first impression, however, 

 was, t.'iat it was the common Locust we often see 

 in our door yards, here in the country, Robinia 

 pseudo acacia ; but ])erceiving Mr B's account of 

 the rapid growth of its sprouts, a circumstance I 

 never happeneil to notice, I began to be suspi- 

 cious that it must be some other species. 



It is well known that common names are often 

 local as well in their application as in their origin; 

 thus a plant may receive a vulgar name in one 

 section of a country where it may be familiarly 

 known by almost every one, yet unheard of in a 

 different section ; but the scientific or Linnjean 

 appellation conveys an idea of the same plant 

 throughout the world wherever the name can be 

 read. 



CROPS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, 



By the way, a few remarks on the state of the 

 crops in this northern section of New England, 

 may not be altogether uninteresting. Our mow- 

 ing fields, but a small part of which is yet cut, 

 will not afford an average crop ; old fields of red 

 top and speargrass are extremely light. English 

 grain is thought to be more promising than it has 

 been for a number of years previous ; but Indian 

 corn must inevitably fall short of an average. 

 Most of the fields of corn in this vicinity met 

 with a seriotis xlisaster in the very outset, es- 

 jiecially where raw, coarse manure was used in 

 the hill, which I believe was a general practice — 

 in addition to the effects of a cold wet season, 

 the farmer, after waiting an unusual length of time 

 for the blade to make its ajipearence, examined 

 for the cause, and on removing the covering, 

 found to his astonishment and vexation, from five 



i or six to ten or twelve wire worms, all standing 

 ready, like the dragon in the Apocalypse, to de- 

 vour the finst embryo that the feeble efforts of 

 nature were able to protrude ; and this I found 

 was the case in a few instances, even where the 

 seed had been stce[)ed in a solution of copperas, 

 or saltpetre — the latter I have never known, be- 

 fore, to fail. This want of success in the solu- 

 tions, may, I think, be accounted for from the 

 frequent rains and great abundance of moisture 

 ill the ground, which extracted or otherwi:?e neu- 

 tralized the salts, and thereby destroyed their 

 efiicacy. 



It may be worthy of remark, that those fields 

 generally which suffered the most from the worm, 

 wore where the seed had been thrown upon the 

 naked dung; but in some few instances where a 

 hoe full of earth intervened, it almost entirely es- 

 caped. Yours, &c. 



TRUMAN ABELL. 

 Lempster, M H., July 19, 1830. 



Remarks by the Editor. — Scientific men have 

 not agreed relative to the varieties of the common 

 Locust tree, [Robinia pseudo acacia.) Michaux, in 

 his JVorth American Sylva, in describing this tree 

 and its properties, says, ' When the trees are felled 

 in winter, while the circulation of the sap is sus- 

 pended, and posts [for fences, split from them] are 

 allowed to become perfectly dry, before they are 

 set, they are estimated to last forty years. Expe- 

 rience ..as s'. r\vn that their duration varies accord- 

 ing to certain differences in the trees from which 

 they are formed ; thus about Lancaster and at 

 Harrisburgh, a small town on the Susqiiehannah, 

 where a considerable trade is carried on in wood 

 that is brought down the river, those trees are 

 accounted best whose heart is red ; the next in 

 esteem are those with a greenish yellow heart ; 

 and the least valuable are those with a white 

 heart. From this variety in the color of the wood, 

 which ])robably arises from a difference in the 

 soil, are derived the names of Red, Green, and 

 White Locust. In the western states there is a 

 variet}', which is sometimes called Black Locust.' 



Mr Briggs, of Bristol, R. I., says, ' of this valua- 

 ble tree I believe there are two kinds, or species, 

 growing pretty generally throughout New England, 

 at least as far as my information extends, viz. the 

 yellow and the white locust. The hitter is very 

 inferior in value to the former. While the white 

 decays as soon as the chesnut, or any common 

 forest wood, the yellow is superior in point of 

 durability to any kind of timber.' * * * * 



Again, he observes that ' The two kinds may 

 be easily distinguished by peeling the bark, or 

 cutting a chip from the wood. The bark of the 

 white is more smooth, and peals off more readily, 

 and the wood is more sappy than the yellow. 

 The white is worth but little, except for fire wood.' 

 &:c. See JV. E. Farmer, vol. v. p. 177. and vol. vii. 

 p. 81. We have no doubt but Mr Buckminster's 

 observations apply to the Pseudo acacia, the only 

 kind which is common in New England, but can- 

 not say whether he has reference to the white or 

 yellow kind. 



We are glad to find that our intelligent corres- 

 pondent appears to entertain a favorable opinion 





