36 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



AUG. 4,1841. 



For the X. E. Fanner. 



WEEDS. 

 Mr EuiToii — I was much pleased to see in 

 your last paper, an article headed " Hoeing and 

 Weeding, &c." This is the season when the far- 

 mer's fjrealest cneniV, weeds, is apt to make mis- 

 chievous encroachments. They advance hy day 

 and by night, steadily and almost unperccived by 

 the farmer, who is busily occipied in gathering his j 

 harvest; and, unfortiinately for him, he often has 

 not quite so great an antipathy to these pests as 

 their noxious qualities merit. They not unfre- 

 quontly do more injury to his crops than a drought 

 which is his great terror. If his neighbor's cattle 

 break into his pasture to take part of his cows' 

 feed, he is quick to drive them out and repair the 

 fence, while he spares the weeds which shoot up 

 in his field and rob his corn and potatoes of the 

 food needed for their nourishment and growth. — 

 The farmer should remember that for every pound 

 of weeds he suffers to grow, he loses a pound of 

 his cultivated crop, and if he allows them to go to 

 seed, his field will be sowed with weeds for the 

 ne.tt year. Hints on this subject, I am sure, would 

 be kindly received, and it is believed you could 

 no^ do a greater service to agriculture, than by 

 calling the attention of farmers to it, in your very 

 useful paper. A Frie.nd to FAriMEKS. 



Lynn, July Qlst, 1841. 



Q^^This friend of ours, brother farmers, has 

 given a hint which should be regarded. The 

 vieeds must be kept down. Let none of them go 

 to seed on the premises. — See article "Weeds," 

 on another page, copied from the Albany Culti- 

 vator. — Ed. 



NEW MANURE. 

 Immediately adjoining the farm I occupy is a tan- 

 yard, with about iiO acres of poor clay land attach- 

 ed. It ii so situated that I can from my fields sur- 

 vey the whole at a glance. A few years since, I 

 observed a small piece in the middle of one of the 

 fields, which was at the time tilled to wheat, look- 

 ing very luxuriant; knowing that no manure heap 

 had been placed there, I went to examine the 

 cause, when the tanner, who is an experimental 

 farmer on a small scale, informed me that he had 

 taken from the yard lour or five barrels of waste 

 hair and spread it upon this spot of about two land 

 yards. I have watched it narrowly from that time 

 to this; the wheat grew so strong that at harvest 

 it was so lain as to be of little value. Oats fol- 

 lowed wheat, and it was very visible in the clover. 

 The field is now again in wheat; I have just been 

 to see if there are any remains of it, but it being 

 wheat after potatoes, and sown late, it is not very 

 observable, although I think it is still visible. He 

 has this year carried the experiment to some ex- 

 tent, both as a manure for wheat and as a top- 

 dressing for clover, on both of which it has an as- 

 tonishing effect. He has likewise turned to ac- 

 count the rotten tan from the yard, by placing it 

 thick on the orchards, and seldom fails of a good 

 crop of apples ; the trees look very healthy, and 

 throw their shoots very .strong. He is now draw- 



bein;; caffol not to let any part of it mix with the 

 top soil ; the manure was then raked in on the sub- 

 soil, and another trench formed by throwing the 

 surface-soil on the manure, and so on, until the 

 whole was completed. Th« land was then plant- 

 ed and sown with garden vegetables, each in its 

 proper season, and my crops will now compare 

 with the best in the neighborhood. My success is 

 complete, and beyond my most sanguine expecta- 

 tions. 



Then, since " like causes produce like effecta,''|O0! 

 is it not reasonable to expect, that if a correspond- 

 ing system of subsoil plowing were adopted on 

 the farm, the same beneficial results would follow, 

 inasmuch as the fibrous roots of all the crops that 

 are cultivated in our fields penetrate the earth to a 

 far greater depth than what is moved by our ordi 

 nary mode of plowing? But by what mode this it 

 to be accomplished, I must leave to your enlight 

 'ened readers, who by their communications on tliit 

 interesting subject, would confer a favor on 



R. W 



From the same. 



USEFUL RECIPES, 



Mr Eoitor — I have been so much pleased one 



instructed in reading your interesting journal, thai 



I cannot wiihliold my approbation of the n)any tru 



y valuable communications which from time l< 



-, " 1.1] IV vaiuaoje communicaiiuns wmtn nuiii iimc u 



g the waste tan on the roads, to be tn.dden up, | J^_^^ ^,^^^^. ^^^ ,.^^, .^ ^ ^^ ^^^ ^^.^^^ 



_eparatory to Its being used as manure for land.- ^^.^^ J^f^^ information maybe in my power, fo. 



prepi 



Mr Doblt, in Ihe Mark-lane Express. 



HOW TO ERADICATE THE BRAMBLE. 



I observe that a correspondent in your last num- 

 ber in(|iiirc8 how the blackberry bush may be de- 

 stroyed. As I have encountered and eradicated 

 some formidable patches which existed on the lands 

 which I have at different times added to my farm, 

 I think I may venture to recommend to your cor- 

 respondent an infallible prescription. Some time 

 in tho winter or spring, cut them close to the 

 ground, and repeat the operation the last of .July. 

 A few will appear the second year, and be sure to 

 cut them also the last of May and the last of July. 

 This specific id based upon the scientific principle, 

 that no tree, shrub or plant, can long maintain the 

 life of the root without the aid of the top. The 

 leaves, &c. are as imlispeiisable to the long life of 

 a vegetable, as lungs are to an animal. 



Tho same plan will destroy tho iron-weed or 

 devil-bit, which so much infests tho blue grass 

 pastures of Kentucky, and which some farmers 

 have vainly tried to eradicate by cutting once a 

 year for thirty years in succession. Such pests 

 are not to be cxti;rminated by cutting in the blos- 

 som or in //ic mi/on, but by the dint of scratched 

 hands and sweated ficcs. You may have remark- 

 ed the freedom of my farm from them, though a 

 scattered one hero and there shows the propensity 

 of the soil to produce them, and that my predeces- 

 sors were industrious enough to raise tli^ir own 

 blackberries Western Farm. ^- Card. 



SUBSOIL PLOWING. 

 To tliu Editor of the Farmer's Cabinet : 



I have for a number of years been engaged in 

 the pursuits of agriculture, but being taught in the 

 "old school," to believe that any variation from 



the beaten track of the farmers of Chester county, | offer them for insertion in the Cabinet, 

 two-score years ago, was any thing but commend- I have been engaged in rearing horses for th' 

 able — namely, one undeviating course: first a i market for several years, and have never had 

 crop of corn, then oats, then wheat and grasses, j case of the botts amongst my stock — presumin 

 with the application of what little manure chanced the reason is, that I salt my horses several times 



the benefit of my brother farmers, many of whoi 

 are frequently deterred from doing thus, from th 

 fear of inability to dress their ideas in such Ian 

 guage as may be acceptable to your numerous an 

 intelligent readers — such, I may say, being m 

 own case, — but hoping the following remarks ma 

 be of use to some of our friends, I am induced t 



It is stated in the Journal of Commerce, that a 

 • Mr Sheridan, residing in Buenoa Ay res, is the own- 

 er of 100,000 sheep. He began in 1820, with a 

 flock of 0(1. He employs about 20 shepherds. 



to he lodged in the barn-yard during the winter 

 season, — these, with a few garden vegetables, 

 have seemed to embrace our whole round of farm- 

 ing operations, ever since. 



But having recently become a reader of the 

 Farmers' Cabinet, and witnessed the beneficial re- 



week during winter and summer ; while some 

 my neighbors, with a much smaller stock, are on 

 casionally losing a horse from that disease, and 

 believe my set;urity lies in perseverance in the us 

 of salt as a condiment, thereby strengthening tl 

 stomach and destroying the grub, which otherwii 



suits produced by the experiments made and mak- niighl destroy the horse 



ing, both in tho use of improved implements of hus- ] Many colts are annually lost by the scours, or 

 baiidry, and in the different and niucli improved ] laxity of the bowels, which disease maybe cure 

 modes of culture described and recommended there- 1 by the following means. Take a pint of stror 

 in, I have determined to rid myself of those preju- coffee o little over milk-warm, add two table-spoom 

 dices under which I have been laboring, and en- 1 ful of flour, and break into it two eggs ; stir we 

 deavor to profit by the experience and experiments together, and give the whole as a drench. Tw 

 of tho agriculturists of the prcsenf (/((I/. And liav- 1 doses are generally sutlicient for tho most invel. 

 ing read in a late number of the Cabinet, an arti- rate attack, if taken in time, 

 clo on gardening, in which the writer earnestly Some time since, a fine young horse of mil 

 recommends a system of subsoil cultivation, and was taken suddenly with the cholic, and after r 

 points out the very beneficial results which would [ sorting to all the means common in such a cael 

 he sure to follow therefrom ; and having had but but without success, ho was given over to di. 

 poorsuccess myself in gardening the past year, I de- wlien, recollecting that I had read of laudanum b 



termincd to try the project, and accordingly, about 

 the middle of February, applied a good coat of ma- 

 nure to a piece of land designed for the experi- 

 ment : here it lay until the middle of JIarcli, when 

 I raked off the longest and driest part, and com- 

 menced digging a trench about seven inches deep, 

 the whole length of the land — throwing off the sur- 

 face-soil, as directed. I then dug up the bottom 

 of the trench a good depth, replacing tlie subsoil — 



ng a sovereign remedy in that dangerous diseaa 

 I lost no lime in administering about half an ounc 

 and in less than ten minutes he appeared perfect 

 well. 



With foundered horses, I generally succeed, 

 taking from the neck vein about a gallon of bloc 

 and admiDistcring as a drink, a quart of sassafr 

 tea, made strong, one table-spoonful of saltpeti 

 and B quarter of an ounce of assafoetida ; wit 



