farmers jlWtljlj) fttsitor. 



• ««■ • ■— r"»r= -• 



— w , - r —. -■. 1 1 -1 . ■ 



9HHSP99!«M 



CONDUCTED BY ISAAC IIII.L, 



rnvl l E WHO LAB 'It l\ THi: EA.HTH ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GflD, WHOSE DREAMS HE HAS HADE HIS PKCVLIAB DEPOSITS FOR 9\) l!S T ANT1 AL AND GENUINE VIRILE.'' — J'.:: 



VOL. 10. NO. 1. 



CONCORD, N. H., JANUARY .'31, 1848. 



WHOLE NO. 109. 



THE FARMER'S JIDXTHLY VISITOR, , 



PUBLISHED BT 



JOHN F. BROWN, 



ISSUE!) ON THE LAST DAY OF EVERY MONTH, 



At Ayer's Block, Concord, N. H. 



J^Gexkral Agsivts. — H. A. Rill, Keene, N H.j John 

 Washington St. Boston, Mass.; Thomas Chaxdlek, 

 N. II. 



TEItMS To single subscribers. Ftf? Cuds. Ten per 



cent, will be allowed tu the person who shall send more than 



Twelve copies will lie aeni for the advbnce 



Dollars; twenty-five copies for Ten Dollars; 



•ixty copies lor 7Waty Dollars. The payment in every caseto 



{^/-'.!/ci/f ; / an i tubtcriptionS) b>j a regulation of the Post Master 



Ire! by the Post Master, free or 



£j-.AII gentlemen who have Beretotpve anted as /\LT--nts an- 

 request ue the t Agency. Old subscribers who 



1 h terms, will please notify us of the names 

 already on uur books. 



The Bones of Plants. 



Do |i!:iuts have bones? No, not exactly such 

 holies as you and 1 and oilier individuals of Uie 

 .animal kingdom, and yet they have a solid frame 



. work, which in many particulars is analogous to 

 the hone of the animal system. To make this 

 frame work, which we call wood, and which, in 

 cuillru-di.-ltucttol] to the animal, is called vegeta- 

 ble, it is ULCi'ssary that it have some material. 

 Well, this material is much of it the same as 

 much of the material that enters into the hones 



. of animals, viz : mineral matter, such as lime 

 and potash and some other of the earths and al- 

 kalies. Where do they get these ? They must 

 I'lump it up, in a dissolved state, from the soil, 

 is very evident that they cannot take it into 

 the minute and delicate pores of the roots and 

 stems and leaves ill a solid state. It is necessa- 

 ry, therefore, that these mineral matters should 

 lie dissolved by the moisture or water which is 

 in the soil. A good soil-contains them in the 

 right state to be dissolved up. But a tree or a 

 crop will in time pump up all that there is in 

 that s"pm, and as plants cannot move abbot from 

 place to place, in order to supply themselves 

 when the food suitable for them has become ex- 

 hausted, they must either languish or it must be 

 supplied to the in by the hands of man. 



The manure of domestic animals contains 

 more or less of these materials, for they eat this 

 vegetable matter, and of course this matter is 

 not annihilated but changed by the operation, 

 and what is not converted to the animal body is 

 thrown Dirt in a condition in which it can be 

 ;gain dissolved and passed into the system of 

 plants, by which it can again become Ibod for 

 animals, and thus go the rounds — from the mine- 

 ral kingdom into the vegetable, and from the 

 vegetable into the animal, and from the animal 

 again to the mineral, 



Vegetables fir plants are the medium through 

 which animals receive mineral matter in a form 

 ami condition to he assimilated to their own bo- 

 dies. Heme one reason why animal manures 

 are of such universal application, and good for 

 every crop. They are, iu (art, the necessary in- 

 gredients of plants, chopped into minced meat, al- 

 ready to he taken into the mouths of plains and 

 be eaten by them. We cannot always obtain 

 animal manures, but this need not hinder us from 

 manuring our lauds, crops, trees, &c, with other 

 matters made up of some of tbe materials re- 

 q tired. It may be asked, however, here, how do 

 we know that plants— a tree— for instance, con- 

 tains these mineral matters, and therefore re- 

 quires any supply of the kind ? It has been as- 

 certained by chemical analysis. This has been 

 done repeatedly by different chemists in their 

 laboratories, with instruments and tesls and re- 

 agents nicely calculated to obtain the most accu- 

 rate results, and to separate, weigh and measure 

 each ingredient, even lo the fifteen-hundredth 



pari of a grain. But many a farmer has analysed 

 them in part, although in rather a rough man- 

 ner. The man who makes potash and pearlash. 

 analyses the wood of the forest, and ascertains 

 the results. He seeks, it is true, but for one of 

 the ingredients, but as far as he goes, it is, to all 

 intents and purposes, a thorough analysis, and 

 he can tell you, from experience, that the boms 

 of some plains or trees contain much more pot- 

 ash than others. If it were an object lo him. he 

 would, in a similar manner, learn how to sepa- 

 rate lime from the ashes of trees, and clay or 

 alumirre from the ashes of trees and other mine- 

 ral matters, and would tell you that these all va- 

 ried in quantity according to the kind of tree or 

 the circumstances under which it nvcw. In the 

 application of this knowledge to the culture of 

 trees and plants, consists the great art of sneer ?g- 

 ful tanning. Perhaps no man has gone more 

 carefully and thoroughly into an exact analysis 

 to ascertain the mineral and other matters con- 

 tained in trees, than Dr. Emmons of Albany. 

 Dr. E. is employed in the survey of the State of 

 New York, and has published a volume or re- 

 port on agriculture of that State. His analysis 

 of the pear and apple trees, is valuable, to all who 

 wish to cultivate those fruits, and show what 

 minerals most predominate in each, and of 

 course which should be most abundantly sup- 

 plied in manuring them. 



From 100 parts of the ashes of the pear tree, 

 he obtained the following substances, viz : 



Sap-wood. Bark. 



Potash 22.2S 6.20 



Soda, 1.84 



Chlorine, .... 0.31 1.711 



Sulphuric acid .50 I .SO 



Phosphate of lime. . . . 27. '22 6.50 

 Phosphate of peroxide of iron, 0.31 



Carbonic acid, . . . 27.69 37.29 



Lame, .... 12.64. 30.36 



Ala^nesia, .... 3.00 9.10 



Siler. 0.30 40 



Coal 0.17 0.65 



Organic matter, . . . 4.02 4.20 



100.25 98.30 

 From the apple tree he obtained the same and 

 other materials in very different proportions, as 

 follows : 



100.65 109.450 

 By the above tables it will be seen that the 

 prevailing ingredients are, potash, phosphate of 

 lime, and lime. What, then, is a good manure 

 for these trees ? Evidently, common wood 

 ashes, hones, and lime. 



Tbe ashes will supply potash, the bones will 

 supply phosphate of lime, and lime or plaster of 

 Paris will afford w.hal lime is needed. It would 

 he well if the hones were pulverized, or if they 

 were dissolved in oil of vitriol, (sulphuric acid) 

 as recommended in last volume of the Farmer, 

 they would do as well. — Maine Farnur. 



Feeding Animals. — If one cow daily treads 



three pounds of hay under foot in the mud, she 

 will waste about a hundred pounds per month ; 

 or a head of twenty cows would waste a ton per 

 month. At this rate, how many times everv ten 

 years, would the quantity wasted, pay the ex- 

 pense of making feeding boxes and racks? 



Pins. — A dozen years since, all the pins used 

 in this country were imported. Now, none are 

 imported, except a few German pins for the sup- 

 ply of the German population of Pennsylvania. 

 The invention; by Mr. Samuel Slocum, now of 

 Providence, of a pin-making machine far supe- 

 rior to any then in use in England led to the es- 

 tablishment of a pin-manufactory at Ponghkeep- 

 sie by Messrs. Slocum, Jillsuu &, Co., which 

 soon distanced foreign competition. Of all the 

 Pin Companies which have been established or 

 attempted in the United States, only three arc 

 known to exist at present, viz : the American 

 Pin Company (which has works both at Pough- 

 keepsie and at Waterbury, Conn.;) the Howe 

 Company at Derby, Conn., and Messrs. PhHoii, 

 rairehihl & Co., of Ponghbeepsie. The quanii- 

 ty of pins turned out by these establishments, 

 especially the two first, is enormous. Tbe sta- 

 tistics of one of them, we have ascertained, are. 

 about as follows: per week 70 cases, averaging 

 170 packs each, each pack containing 12 papers, 

 and each paper 280 pins ; making an aggregate 

 of 8!!,! "84,000 pins per week, or 2,079,168,000 per 

 annum. If the products of I lie other two es- 

 tablishments, and the small amount imported, 

 are together equal to the above, we should have 

 a grand total of 4,158,336,000 pins for consump- 

 tion in the United States, equal to 209 on an av- 

 erage, for every man, woman and child in the 

 country. A pretty liberal allowance, we are 

 thinking. The number of pin-making machines 

 employed by said Company is about thirty, and 

 of work people about sixty. 



The wire which is to be wrought into pin3, 

 runs from a reel like yarn, into one end of the 

 machine, and comes out at the other, not wire, 

 but pins, cut, pointed and headed, in the most 

 perfect manner, at the rate of 150 a minute. 

 This is about the usual speed, hut the machinery 

 is capable of being so adjusted as to produce 

 300 a miuiite. Being now of a yellowish color, 

 they are thrown, by the bushel, into kettles con- 

 taining a certain liquid, by which they are whit- 

 ened, and prepared for sticking ; \. e. for being 

 stuck into papers, in rows, as they are bought at 

 the stores. This process of sticking is also per- 

 formed by a machine invented by Mr. Slocum. 

 The narrow paper in which the puis are stuck, 

 is wound from a reel, of any imaginable length, 

 and then cut off at uniform intervals. One 

 sticking-machine will stick as many pins as 

 three pin-machines can make ; and three of the 

 former can he attended by one girl. A part of 

 the pins of the American Pin Company are 

 made of American copper, obtained on the bor- 

 ders of Lake Superior. — Journal of Commerce. 



Rural Lite. — Show me the cottage, the roses 

 and the honeysuckles on w'hieh are neatly [rim- 

 med and trained, and the garden behind is well 

 stocked with culinary herbs and a few choice 

 flowers, and I will speedily find you a cottager 

 who never wastes his time or his money, or de- 

 bases his mind, and learns the "broad road which 

 leadeth lo deMtruclioo," iu the contamination of 

 an ale house. If the garden is neat, one may 

 rest assured that the collage, however humble it. 

 is, is the abode of contentment and happiness; 

 and that however simple the fare may he, it is 

 wealth and luxiijy in full store to the' inmates, 

 because they are satisfied with it, and grateful 

 for the possession of ir. — Farmer's Cabinet. 



A Good Investment. -A correspondent ofthe 

 Yarmouth Register stales that the schooner 

 Hamilton of Harwich, Capt. Wixoti, which cost 

 last spring $3000, has been engaged 6-i months 

 in the fishing business, and has brought into port 

 1295 bbls. of mackerel, having yielded the sum 

 of §10,486. Several of the crew received lor 

 their wages $527 each, ami thirteen more have 

 received $472 each. 



