Vol. l.—No. 61. 



AND GARDINER'S JOURNAL. 



403 



eel, it i- "II t.> repeat, thai smut is prevent- f seldom produces crops in successive yea.s s 

 orl by soaking the seed in brine, and liming t while those which ripen their fruit early, 

 it before sowing. f tne cherry, the Siberian crab, k.c. or pro 



Barky is becoming every year a more gen- duce moderate crops, are frequently annual 

 oval and profitable staple, and most of our j bearers, 



lands are well adapted to its culture. The 

 present vear"s crop has been rather inferior 

 in quality, and deficient in quantity. This 

 has in part been owing to late sowing but 

 principally to the hot weather in July, 

 which ripened it suddenly, before the grain 

 had attained its full growth. The price 

 it has borne in market has however ren- 

 dered it. this year, our best crop — having 

 ranged from one dollar to one dollar three 

 eighths per bushel. 



Indian Corn has clone remarkably well ex- 

 cept where it was injudiciously planted upoi. 

 wet or stiff grounds. Taking the range ol 

 counties upon the river, above the highlands, 

 through which I travelled in August, I esti 

 mate the crop one third beyond the ordinary 

 average. I observe that the practice of cut- 

 ting and immediately stooking the whole 

 Crop, as soon as ihe grain is glazed, is be- 

 coming more general. It certainly is an e- 

 oonomy of labor, when rightly managed, 

 and clears tiie ground in time for a crop of 

 winter jirain ; and it also adds greatly to the 

 fodder, without prejudice to the corn. 



Hay has been abundant, though, as is the 

 case in all wet seasons, its quality is rather 

 inferior : for it is not the volume, so much 

 as the nutritive properties, which give to hay 

 its intrinsic value. Fhese last depend on 

 the season, the soil, the varieties of grass 

 and time of cutting. A dry season, or a dry 

 soil, other circumstances being alike, will 

 produce richer hay than a wet season or a 

 wet soil, because in the former the nutritive 

 qualities are far more concentrated. If the 

 comparison may be allowed in these times 

 • f temperance, the first may be likened to 

 strong, and tne latter to weak grog, the nu- 

 triment, in one being compared to the al- 

 cohol in the other. The grasses differ great- 

 ly in their nutritive properties; and it may 

 almost be bid down as a general rule, that 

 these are in an inverse ratio to their respect- 

 ive volumes. The nutritive matter varies, 

 in the grasses of permanent duration, ac- 

 cording to L melon, from 1 a to 82 per cent: 

 the short jointed and creeping species a- 

 hound generally most in it, as the blue grass 

 (Poa compressa) spear grass (P. pratensis) 

 liorin (A^rostis sioloniffa) Sic. 



Rye suffered from the same causes as 

 wheat and barley, and the crop is short and 

 inferior. 



Fruit. The apple has given but a scanty 

 crop, the plum hardly any thing, and the ] 

 peach a mere nothing ; but pears and grapes 

 have been abundant, and of pretty good qual- 

 ity. Quinces, and the small liuits of the gar- 1 

 den have also been abundant. The failure of i 

 the peach may be ascribed to the unpropitious 

 winter; that of the apple and plum, to the 

 great product of the preceding year, which 

 diminished the production of fruit buds, and 

 to the depredations of the curculio, which 

 were never more numerous. It is well known 

 that orchards do not produce great crops 

 two years in succession, the cause of which 

 is easily explained. The vital energies of 

 the trees are so exhausted in maintaining 

 the fruit, and producing wood buds, which 

 demand the first care of the parent in the 

 vegetable economy, that there is no time to 

 produce the germs of a new crop, before the 

 frosts of autumn arrest the work of elabora- 



li'fjn. Hence a tree that carries its fruit late,; tering 



l'he question has been asked in the Far- 

 mer, if facts could be adduced to prove, that 

 fruit trees, removed from the north to the 

 south, do better than when transferred from 

 the south to the north In answer to the in- 

 quiry, I would beg leave to remark, that most 

 of our fruits arc the natural productions of 

 climates warmer than that which we occupy 

 The cherry was originally from Pontus; :lie 

 peach from Persia, the plum from Syria, 

 and most of our esteemed varieties of the 

 pear from France, the Netherlands, and the 

 south of Europe. Hence the apprehension 

 that in lemoving them farther from their 

 natural climate to the north, they will be 

 come impatient of the cold, and disappoint 

 ou r hopes. The mala carle apple of Italy 

 and even the admired Spitzenburgh, of E- 

 sopus, will not succeed in the colder climate 

 of England without the aid of a wall; and 

 many plants the middle states will not 



at first be.i e gors of a northern winter. 

 But when va • have originated or plants 



ieen raised f om seeds, and acclimated in a 

 higher latitude, they have acquired a more 

 ready habit, nd have invariably grown and 

 hoeduced well on removal to a warmer tem- 

 perature. Thus the. cherries and apples 

 from Russia, and the fruits of Scotland and 

 Canada, are represented in the British po- 

 mological works, as proving remarkably 

 healthy and prolific in England. Plants, 

 within the zone of their natural growth, are 

 more apt, like animals, to be hardy and pro- 

 lific, and less sensitive to the vicissitudes of 

 the seasons, in the north, than in the south 

 of their respective zones. This fact has 

 been ably illustrated by a recent writer in a 

 Philadelphia peiiodical, whose remarks I 

 think were published in the Farmer. But 

 this is digressing from my subject. 



The season has been favorable for Roots. 

 The potato and turnip, which constitute our 

 principal crops ofthis kind, have been abun- 

 dant, and their quality better than ordinary 

 A (act came under my observation in the 

 potato culture, which satisfied me more than 

 ever, of the impolicy of taking two success- 

 ive crops of the same kind fioin one field. 

 Contiguous, and in the same field, I planted 

 potatoes on three strips of ground, on one of 

 which I had beans in 1830, on another pota 

 toes last year; and on a third potatoes the 

 two preceding years. The strips were treat- 

 ed alike, and the crop dug at the same time. 

 The result was. that on the bean ground the 

 product was uncommonly large; on the sec- 

 ond strip, which I capped with potatoes the 

 preceding y ar, it was fifty per cent, less, 

 while on the ground where potatoes had 

 grown the two preceding years, I had little 

 more than a return of seed. This satisfied 

 me, that though all crops take from the soil 

 food in common, yet that each species re- 

 quires some specific food, which others do 

 not take ; and that alternation or change of 

 crops is essential to good husbandry. 



The importance of reclaiming some of 

 our best lands, by draining, and of economi- 

 zing manures, subjects intimately connected 

 with theimprovement of agriculture, are dai- 

 ly becoming more apparent to our farmers ; 

 and on the whole, I think the prospect of a 

 steady advance in rural, as well as intellect- 

 jual and moral improvement, is highly flat- 



It marks: — We have frequently urged 

 our subsciibers to furnish us annual reports 

 of the state of agriculture in their respect- 

 ive counties, oi in their vicinity. Independ- 

 ent of the information which would be col- 

 lected for the public good, there would be a 

 habit of observation acquired by those who 

 uiRke these reports For a young man we 

 know not what would be more beneficial.— 

 Throughout the whole year, his mind and his 

 eye would be observant. Why will not fa- 

 thers educate their sons to farming? 



i.B. 



FARMER'S WORK FOR DECEMBER 



The farmer should obtain his year's stock 

 of fuel as early in the season as possible, and 

 before the depth of snow in the woodlands 

 i ender it difficult to traverse them by a leain 

 It would be better for farmers generally 

 speaking, where wood is not cheap and plen- 

 ty, to use the saw inslead of the axe in pre- 

 paring wood for the liie. It is said that a 

 ifire composed of pillets of wood, not more 

 | than 14 inches long, will give more than 

 jtwo thirds as much heat into the room as 

 that made of wood of double the length; 

 and that billets of from 3 to 4 inches in di- 

 Jameter, on a medium will be found most 

 economical. 



V valuable paper, by the Hon. J. Welles. 

 original;.' published in the Mass. Agr. Re- 

 pository, recommends cutting hard wood 

 trees between 40 and 50 years of age, and 

 the writer states that -though trees may 

 shoot up in height by standing longer, yet 

 the period of the most rapid vegetation is 

 mostly over and by this means much of the 

 under growth is destroyed.' Mr. Welles is 

 of opinion that in cutting over a wood lot to 

 obtain fuel it is best to take the whole 

 growth as you proceed. He observes that 

 'we have been condemned as evincing a 

 want of taste in cutting oft' our forests without 

 leaving what it would take half a century to 

 produce, a shade near where it is proposed 

 to erect buildings. The fact is that trees of 

 original growth have their roots mostly in the 

 upper stratum of earth, and near the surface. 

 A tree acts upon its roots, and is acted upon 

 by the wind, sustaining in common with the 

 whole forest the force ofthis element, and it 

 becomes accommodated or naturalized to 

 this pressure. But when left alone or unsus 

 tained, it iS borne down by the first gale, of- 

 ten to the injury of property and even life.' 

 The Farmers Assistant likewise says 'it 

 woods are old and decaying the better way 

 is to cut all off, as you want to use the wood 

 and let an entire new growth start up which 

 will grow more rapidly.' — JV. E. Farmer. 



A Vermont paper contains the followin 

 statement of the amount of Sheep in tha 

 State : — 



Bennington county 25,416 



55*042 



1S9,996 



109,787 



112,784 



78,155 



55,449 



40,850 



43,643 



91,638 



23,797 



6,076 



8,656, 



The thermometer of Newport, .R.J. stomal, fiv 

 below zero, on the 8th inst. 



