164 



NEW ENGLAxND FARMER 



NOV. 84, 1841. 



For the N. E. Farmer. 

 MUCK, ONCE MORE AND AGAIN. 



THE LARGEST SQUASHES YET. 

 Ills stated in the New England Farmer, on the 

 I authority of a genlleii.an who saw thein, that there 



Mr Editor— Thinkin? yoii might liko a little „,gre exhibited at Northampton, Mass., a few days 

 variety in your st.inding dish, niiif*, like the Irish- ■ gjnce, two squashes, one of which weighed 202 

 man, who for the sake of variety, ate his big pota- pounds, and the other ItO pounds, 

 toes one day and his small ones the next, I propose [ These are indeed most extraordinary vegetables, 

 to give you a mess <.f small ones, hoping you will g^j ,^g thj^;. j|,g grower of them would do good 

 relish them, after the A.V "gun from Muckiana." service, were he to favor the public with a paper 



Lust spring I thought I would try the value of „pon ,1,^ g^bji-ct of their particular variety and 

 muck upon potatoes, in a small way. I put on ,„o,ie of cultivation. In the treatment of the lat- 

 thrt'C carts full of muck, which was taken from the | ter part of this duty he should state the ncreable 

 swamp the last of August, 1840, and laid exposed quantity and kind of manure; how far distant the 

 to the frost during the winter. This was applied |,i]is ^ere ; the kind of soil and subsoil in which 

 to four rows through the piece, putting a common ,|,gy ^.g^e grown, as well as the number of times 

 shovel full to the hill ; the next four rows on one ^ they were worked, the mode of working them, and 

 side, I put in the same quantity of strong manure | the number grown on a vine, 

 from the barn cellar ; on the other side, four rows I ^yhen the fact is considered that these two pump- 

 were planted upon straw upon whic-h the calves had i^j^^ ^s<juashes, sir,) afford full feed for a cow C 1-4 

 lain for several weeks. The twelve rows were ; .i^yg^ „.g ^^e sure too much importance cannot he 

 planted with the same kind of potatoes, and the | attributed to their value as cattle feed, and we are 

 same quantity put in each row : they were all cul- ' gg certain that every pains ought to be taken to in- 

 tivatcd alike. i troduce them into general culture. If the seed 



When the potatoes came up, and during the sum- [ ^oM be disseminated throughout the country, and 

 mer, the vines or tops looked as if this mmk was'nt j ,|,e proper pains were taken to do justice to their 

 —to use a homely Yankeoism— " what it is crack'd , cultivation, immense profits would be derived from 

 up to be" by some of the agricultural papers; but : ,|,e increased quantity of butter and milk that 

 upun digging them, the four rows upon the muck would be yielded. 



yielded more than those upon the barn manure, and 

 they were of more uniform size and better quality. 

 The fciur rows upon the straw produced tlie great- 

 est quantity, but they were not so uniform in their 

 size as those ^ipon the muck, some of them being 

 quite large and of very irregular shape, and many 

 quite small. AN ESSEX FARMER. 



NEW AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT. 



A plow has been recently invented by Herrick 

 Aiken, of Franklin, N. H., for making ditches for 

 fences on jirairie lands, also for dfaining wetlands. 



The one he has put into operation makes a ditch 

 three feet at the top, two feet nt the bottom, and 

 two feet deep, carrying the earth upon the land 

 half a foot in the clear from the edge of the ditch. 



As the session of Congress is now at hand, we 

 most respectfully suggest to the public-spirited 

 gentleman at the head of the Patent Office, the 

 propriety of procuring some of the seed for distri- 

 bution through the members of Congress. That 

 appearing to us the most eligibli; mode of effecting 

 our object, we throw ourself upon his indulgence 

 to excuse us for making the suggestion. — American 

 Farmer. 



-Ed. N. E. F. 



The report of these mammoth squashes M-hich 

 we originally inserted, has been confirmed by the 

 Northampton papers. And we should be very 

 happy to receive from Mr G.Cook and Col. Pat- 

 ridge, an account of the process by which they ob- 

 tained these huge vegetables. The largest of these 

 , . , , ^ ,,,,.. ., S'luashes was purchased by Dr Blanden, of South 



It IB seventeen feet long, four and a half feet wide, i r"..,„i;.,„ „„j =„„. »„ - f_;, . i e ^.. ; .i.e.. 



, . ^ , . , r , . , , , t^arolinn, and sent to n friend ot his in tliat State. 



and four feet high, weighing seventeen hundred 



pouiuls. It can be drawn by twentyfive yoke of 

 cattle, and makes a ditch at the same rate that a 

 common plow makes a furrow ; or it can be drawn 

 by two yoke of cattle with a grapple and blocks, 

 half a mile or more per day, with one man to drive, 

 as the plow needs no tending or guiding. The 

 various parts are firmly riveted and bolted together, 

 forming but one piece, like the common plow, and 

 it is no more liable to get out of order. It is call- 

 ed a plow, because it performs the work in a simi- 

 lar manner, although it bears no resemblance to a 

 plow, excepting the mould-board, The same con- 

 struction can be varied to any size required. One 

 could be made to cut four, five or sik feet wide, (fnd 

 a proportionable width and depth, and carrying the 

 earth a foot or more from the edge of the ditch. 

 HEIIRICK AIKEN. 



Franklin, M //., JVor. II, Itill. 



(Jy^'Mr Aiken's model of the implement above 

 described, we have examined with some attention, 

 .ind believe that in the rocky soils and small enclo- 

 sures of New England, it will be of little service ; 

 but on the prairies of the West, for throwing up 

 enclosures around sections of land and for drain- 



COUGH IN PIGS. 



A correspondent in Charleston, apprises us of 

 the loss of several Berkshire pigs by a dry liusking 

 cough, which does not affect their appetite. He 

 seems to think, from the circumstance of several 

 of his other pigs having taken the cough also, that 

 it is contagious. Having lost sevoriil with the same 

 disease, we were under the same impression ; but 

 it has been suggested to us, that from the circum- 

 stance of the hogs running in a yard, and probably 

 exposed to the alternations of the weather, that the 

 disease takes its origin in a heavy cold, the which 

 settling upon their lungs, 1ms given them the dry 

 husking cough which he describes. He says lliiit 

 he has tried sulphur, charcoal, ley and salt with 

 their food. Now this, it is also intimated by a 

 friend wlio has some knowledge of such matters, 

 would have been all very well, provided the pigs 

 have had the advantage of a itry icarm sty, covered 

 from the weather, but while running in the yard, 

 and of course subject to the inlluence of the clian 



ges of weather, the administration of sulphur was 

 ing the low and wet spots, it will be found very j any thing else than advisable, as from its known 

 serviceable. — Ed. | tendency to open the pores, it served but to in- 



crease the susceptibility of the animals to the e 

 fects of the cold already contracted, and to rctai 

 rather than effect its cure. 



On the first discovery of the cough, he shou 

 have removed them from the yard to a dry, war 

 pen, provided with an apartment to sleep on eh 

 vated a lew inches from the floor, so as to secui 

 them against the dampness incident to feedin 

 Their sleeping bunk should have been provide 

 every ffw dnys, with fresh straw, hay, shavings < 

 leaves. Added to this, their food should have bee 

 of a cooling nature, and after bleeding them froi 

 the tail or cars, he should have given them a di 

 coction of garlic boiled in milk, to be mixed witl 

 say to each, half a gill of flaxseed, sweetened wit 

 molasses or honey in their food, (which should b 

 a soft, warm mash, made of some kind of mea 

 three times a ('ay, allowing them also a good sup 

 ply of fresh water. 



This is deemed the proper course of treatmet 

 that ought to have been pursued, and we will re 

 peat what we have said in the previous part of thi 

 article, that a dry pen and comfortable clean lodg. 

 ing are indispensably necessary to a hog whe 

 confined. There is, perhaps, no animal that mot 

 delights in rooting in the mud, when at large, ne 

 ther is there one which instinctively shows a grea< 

 ter desire to seek shelter from the inclemency c- 

 ihe weather, or to repose where they will be pre 

 tected from its influence through the night. Hi 

 iiistinet should, then, teach us, when our interesi 

 induces us to curtail him of his liberty, to do thi 

 fi)rhiin which he would do himself, had we not di 

 nrived him of the power of action Jlmtr. Far. 



ROCK AND SEA WEEDS ^ .MANURES, 

 The following is from an address by ex-Goverm 

 or Hill, of New Hampshire, bqfgre the Kennebei 

 Agricultural Society : 



"Fortyfive years ago — as long as I can well n 

 member — my father occupied a little farm 8eve4 

 miles out of Boston, being the parental premises 

 the first Hills settled in that partof Cambridge lon^ 

 known as the parish of Menotomy. I passed ihl 

 place a few weeks ago : — it is now beautiful, H 

 are all the garden farms around Boston. Th<| 

 abundant crops taken from much of this ground— i 

 the productive apple and peach orchards — evepj 

 species of tree, plant and vegetable growing on il 

 magnificent scale, and two, three and sometimeM 

 four crops produced in the same yeor upon thi» 

 fame ground. Aly father before I was ten yeoip 

 old, lefk this ground and moved further into thH 

 country. The lot adjacent to the house which hM 

 occupied embraced only eight acres, saving a paa* 

 tore upon the rocky hill a mile distant, in which 

 was a broken up field, and an acre or two of sail' 

 marsh on Charles river: these eight-acres were al) 

 the land he cultivated. Not over (hree acres wei 

 annually under the plow, and the five remain! 

 acres in grass filled well a forty foot barn, so tin 

 often times the salt hay and corn stuff" remained 

 be stacked in the open air. It was then a nel 

 thing to make use of rock and sea weed aa manul 

 The experiment in that neighborhood was fi 

 made on these eight acres as many as fortyeigj 

 years ago, to which my recollection just reachi 

 The rock weed was brought from the islands 

 Boston bay, gathered upon their rocky sliores, C8I 

 veyed to Medford in a fisherman's lighter, carti 

 thence about two miles, and spread so as to cc 

 the surface of the grass ground. A neighborii 



