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AND H O R T [ C U L T U R A r. R K G I S T E R 



341 



Kiiti Iho ««lt9 which liiivi) bc«n heroloforo ob- | once of agriculture. At all uvenH, iho oxpcriiiicnt From iho Former's Cnl.iiioi. 



cil, iVoiii ruin, snow and hail. Thia lubject ' should bo oxtoo^ivciy t«atod, na the results aio 



ol" l.ilo excited much attention, and aa the ex- ' doemi'd certain, while iho expense is comparatively D I R D S . 



noo of sallj in anon-, is intimately connected iiothinjr. j,/r EMlor—A^ the season haa again arrived 



.tho old saying, th.U •■ the snow la the poor ! Mr M. also slated as to iho result of another ex- when the feathered Iribca begin to make ihoir an. 

 i-s Miamire," it may bo worth while t.. axamino ; perinient tried upon one of his apple trees last ! pcarnnce omonjjst us, I wish to soy a fow words on 

 foiinJation of this proverb. Like all others of spring. It is a fine thrifty, healthy tree, about « ,„bjocl thai hos received the attention of far 



twenlyfire or thirty years old, but has never in any | Hbler pens than mine ; but a wish to cast my mito 

 oi.e year produced over about two bushels of aj.- into the common trensury on the score of humanity, 

 pies. While in blossom last spring, he nacended has induced me also to put pen to paper. We all 

 the tree, and sprinkled plaster freely on the bios- I l,„ow that from the lime when these little harmles 



class, it will bo found to rest on obacrfktion, 

 is supported by experiment 



SALTPETRK FOR CORN. 

 L friend has placed in [our hands a newapaper, 

 I which we have copied the following article 



ll'.o H'altrloirn Standard. Aa a corroboration 

 ic statement there made, we were lately in- 

 cJ by Pea. Sainl. Raynolds, for many years an 

 lligent and careful farmer of Long Meadow, 

 now of West liavcn, that he has long been 

 istomed to soak his seed corn in a solution of 

 )etre, and that its effects, as a protection from 

 cts, and in giving a rapid and healthy growth 

 le plants, were such as to astonish all who 



not accustomed to use it. Mr Claudius Al- 

 one of the best farmers in New Haven county, 

 ■tated to us a few days since, that he had oc- 

 onally, for several years past, applied to his 



in the hill a small quantity of earth taken 

 I under his barns and other buildings ; that the 

 ication was always followed with gratifying 

 Jts — sometimes with aa marked effects as those 

 td in the Standard. On one occasion, several 

 m aince, Mr Allen took a quantity of earth from 

 aottom of his cellar, and placed it around the 

 9 trees in his orchard ; the consequence of 

 b was, a luxuriant growth of grass, which has 

 inued annually up to the last season. It is 



known that the earth taken from beneath old 

 lings is strongly impregnated with nitre ; and 

 satisfactorily accotinia for its fertilizing effects, 

 ully is .Mr Allen convinced of the ralue of 

 etre, that he and one of hia neighbors have 

 Sher ordered from Boston half a ton of the ar- 



in its crude state, which they propose to apply 

 fferent crops diwing the coming season, in va- 

 I ways. The results of their e.xperiments we 



to publish in the fall. — Con?i. Farmer's Gaz. 

 he following is the article from the Watertown 

 idard, alluded to above : 



IMPORTANT TO FARMERS. 



ttrt Mussey, Esq., of this village, took a small 

 ton of the seed corn with which he planted a 

 and soaked it in a solution of salt nitre, com- 

 ly called saltpetre, and plonted five rows with 

 leed ihua prepared. Now for the result. The 

 Towg planted with corn prepared with saltpetre, 



led more than 25 rows planted without any 

 «ntioD. The five rows were untouched by the 

 while the remainder of the field suffered 

 seJy by their depredations. We should judge 



not one kernel saturated with saltpetre was 

 bed, while almost every hill in the adjoining 



suffered severely. No one who will examine 

 field, can doubt the efficacy of the preparation, 

 will be astonished at the striking difference 



ecn the five rows and the remainder cf the 



.'ere is a simple fact, which if seasonably known 

 Id have saved many thousands of dollars tu the 

 lers of this county alone, in the article of corn, 

 a fact which should be universally known, 

 in all probability, one of tho greatest discovc- 

 of modern times in the much neglected 6ci- 



soins, and the re.^ult is, that it will thi« year yield i friends of tho farmer first arrive in the spring, un- 

 twenty bushels of apples. Now if the plaster will I t,] i|,o day of the. r departure in the autumn, they 

 prevent the blast, it is a discovery of great impor- j arc made the subjects of an unceasing, bitter per- 

 tanco. Mr M. was led to make the experiment by sedition, merely for the sport and fun of the most 

 reading an account of the production of trees ad- | worthless part of society. These valuable eervants 

 joining a meadow where plaster had been sown at of the farmer, who work fur him day after day, and 

 a time when there was a light breezo in the direc- receive nothing for their labor, securing hii frait 

 lion of tho orchard, the trees contiguous to the and crops from destruction, are killed off just for 



meadow bearing well 

 fruit 



vhile the others produced no 



From the Farmer's Gazette. 



GEESE. 



Mr Storf.r — I have eeen much in your paper 

 about hens, but I do not recollect seeing any thinj 

 about geese ; and as it has become a practice 

 among farmers in this vicinity (especiklly those 

 who are blest with one or more fine girls,) to keep 

 them, I will give my views how I think the best 

 way is to roise them. 



ft is often said that young geese are not worth 

 much the first year for goslings. The reason is 

 very obvious to my mind : they are not apt to lay 

 soon enough. They should be fed well through 

 tho winter, and especially tlie last part of it. The 

 eggs should be kept in a cool dry place until the 

 goose begins to set, and then should bo put in a 

 tub sawed from a barrel or lime cask, which will 

 prevent their rolling out of the nest. When hatch- 

 ed, the goslings should be taught to cat corn as 

 soon as possible ; for when the grass becomes 

 short and tough, and feathers begin to grow, they 

 are very apt to die unless they are fed, or trespass 

 too much on the meadows. When their feathers 

 arc grown, they will live very well without feed- 

 ing. 



The young ones should be picked twice in each 

 season, and the old ones three or four times ; 

 which will have a tendency to keep off the lice. 



Hamdtn, ^Ipril 6, 1842. R. 



Disease in Hens. — We have recently seen a 

 form of disease in hens, which to us is a novel one, 

 although it may not be to others who have had 

 more experience. A few days since, one of our 

 hens was found with her head turned round as if 

 looking over her back. She was evidently in pain ; 

 kept stepping backwards (nev«r going ahead,) and 

 almost continually kept up a suppressed cackling, 

 as if frightened. She remained in this state after 

 being discovered, during the whole of one day, 

 when she was killed. A day or two al'ter, we 

 were informed that three hens belonging to our 

 neat neighbors, were similarly affected — all of 

 wiiich wc believe died. If any of our readers can 

 account for this singular disease, or propose a re- 

 medy, its publication would be gratifying to us, 

 and probably to others Ibid. 



The Royal Agricultural Society of England nom- 

 bere upwards of b'OOO members. 



sport ; and a reckless spirit of destruction is en- 

 gendered, which, in the young, m often the fruitful 

 source of crime and punishment in after life. Now, 

 I hold it wrong to take away the life of any of 

 God's creatures for fun or pastime — much more, 

 those that are of such service to man. Nothing 

 was made in vain ; every living thing, iVom the 

 ephemeral insect up to man, was made for some 

 use. True, there are some of our birds — the crow, 

 the hawk and the black-bird — that are supposed to 

 do considerable injury at certain seasons of 4he 

 year, yet it may be fairly presumed that the good 

 they do far overbalances the injury ; for observe 

 tho immense number of worms and bugs of every 

 description that are destroyed by the black-birdi 

 through the summer. It is also true that they 

 will help themselves to a little corn at harvest, but 

 how infinitely email is the quantity they destroy, 

 when compared with that which is destroyed by the 

 cut-worm ! liul those birds whiclj are of the 

 greatest use to the farmer, arc they which suffer 

 the moat — namely, the robin, the blue-bird, and 

 the tom-tit ; and so fast as their numbers decrease, 

 in the same proportion do the tribes of hurtful in- 

 sects increase ; and should this destructive spirit 

 continue for a few years longer, it will be difficult 

 for the ."arnier to raise any crops at all. Let thero- 

 fore the fdiincrs rise up as one man, and stop the 

 wanton LJeatruction of the .inoffensive creatures: 

 let them leach their children the insanity and cru- 

 elty of the practice, and let the public teachers of 

 schools inculcate the blessed doctrines of humanity 

 to brutes and kindness to every thing that has life ; 

 especially to abstain from dsstroying birds and 

 robbing their nests. But more particularly, let 

 every farmer do his utmost to keep from off his 

 property those miscreants whose sole business 

 seems to be to prowl about the country with the 

 gun, and waste their time in the unprofitable em- 

 ployment of destroying tho lives of animals that, 

 after all tho labor, are not worth a tenth part of 

 the cost of powder and shot ; and this they will do 

 in their own defence, when they see the importance 

 of the subject, and experience the loss which is 

 yearly accruing from the destruction of these their 

 most valued friends, and witness the injury done to 

 their fences, fruit trees, and crops in general, by 

 the trespass of a company of freebooters, who are 

 generally the off-scouring of society. Let then 

 our farmers look to it, before it be too l.iie. 



E. BIERER, Jr. 

 Union Town, layette Co., Pa. 



The greatest nobility is that of a noble heart. 



