THE FARMER^S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



79 



From an article 1 saw in your paper or another, 

 recently, I was inclined to think that the Corn 

 which we call here Red blazed, is the same or 

 similar to the kind called in New Hampshire the 

 "Brown Corn. I would like to know. 



I have been much jsratified in reading accounts 

 of your excursions among the farmers at theeast, 

 particularly your three days spent at the Shakers. 

 Could you find it convenient to make us a visit, 

 I should be pleased to spend as much time with 

 you among our farmers as you could spare, and 

 I think you might here also" see somethings that 

 would be interesting; yet I am of the opinion 

 that your eastern jjeople are rather ahead of us 

 in their method of farming, and decidedly so in 

 the raising and management of cattle. There- 

 fore I think our farmers who read the Cultivator 

 ought to read )our jiaper also. 



I am, sii-, yours, respectfully, 



S. W. 



Remarks. — Our New England country east 

 of the Connecticut river valley, if it in any thin^ 

 goes ahead in farming of the North rivtj- New 

 York farmers above the highlands, to the tran- 

 sient traveller certainly carries not that a|>pear- 

 ance. We have passed through that part of 

 Washington county, N. Y. lying directly west of 

 the south weast poition of V'ermont comprising 

 within its limits the large townships of Cam- 

 bridge and Salem ; and we are fiee to say New 

 England in the interior seems to be much its in- 

 ferior. Cultivation there is more exclusively 

 done with the plough than here. Indian corn, 

 instead of the hand hoe, is there in the main 

 dressed by the plough or the cultivator and 

 horse. In single fields we find twenty, thirty, 

 fifty and up to a hundred acres of Indian corn, 

 oats, rye or wheal; and we remember several 

 years ago, when jiassing across the Hudson at 

 the place of the siu-render of Burgoyne, on the 

 road from Saratoga spiings to Manchester, Vl. 

 we once saw a field of some fifty acres of excel- 

 lent flax, which seemed to be unilormly thick 

 and tall. It is well known that flax requires 

 land of a strong quality, and the very best culti- 

 vation. Some gentleman on the stage informed 

 us that the seed alone would pay all the expen- 

 ses of cultivation of this groimd, and that the 

 heavy crop of flax was deemed to be clear gain. 



We obeerved in this fine country that swine 

 were almost as common inliabitants of pasture 

 grounds as cattle, horses and sheep. Clover was 

 cultivated in many fields for the purpose espe- 

 cially of feeding swine in summer ; large flocks of 

 from twenty to a hundred were conmionly kept 

 by a farm(!r. Pea fields of considerable extent 

 were numerous ; and into these, instead of gath- 

 ering them at the time of harvest, the hogs were 

 gometimt-s turned to gather for thenjseives. Our 

 impressions are that farming is carried on in that 

 part of New York quite as much, if not more for 

 their advantage than the New England farmers 

 carry on their farms. 



Origin of Plodghing Matches. — The occu- 

 pation of jilonghmen is one upon which the very 

 existence of the whole human race depends : 

 shall he not then be considered respectable and 

 worthy of support ? " Lei," says the Maidstone 

 Gazette, "the origin of ploughing matches an- 

 swer. An extensive farmer of Essex not many 

 years ago happened to lose his ploughman, and 

 wont to the overseers to make inquiries for an- 

 other. To his surprise, however, he discovered 

 that of upwards of sixty men who were then 

 working on the roads, not one of them could 

 hold a plough! The magnitude of the existing 

 evil soon induced several other farmers to join 

 h'm in a society which offered premiums to the 

 best ploughmen. This, we believe, was the 

 small beginning from which our present numer- 

 ous and valuable agricultural associations have 

 arisen." 



The desire to live without labour and in lux- 

 ury, is one of our greatest sins : it fills our courts, 

 the jails, and poor-houses ; it demoralizes our 

 youth, and brings the aped whli sorrow to the 

 grave. 



The period of gestation is the same in the 

 horse and ass, namely, eleven months each : in 

 the camel, twelve months; in the elephant, two 

 years; in the lion, five months ; in the dog and 

 cat, two mouths ; in the cow, nine months ; and 

 in sheep, five months. 



THE L,AY or THE MAY SNOW STORM, 



Come cheer up, farmers, don't look pale, 



Although the north wind 's blowing, 

 And all around, o'er hill and dale, 



'T IS true that sometimes long ere thia 



You've done up all your sowing*- 

 You may as well keep quiet now, 



'T is snowing, snowing, snowing. 

 I know 'tis now the tirtt of May, 



And violets should be blowing j 

 But girls cant have their holiday 



Because 't is snowing, snowing. 

 Good uncle Bill a put on his coat, 



And Pat his hands is blowing ; 

 And Sis is scolding round the stove, 



Because 't is snowing, snowing. 

 But courage, farmers — do not fret — 



Your crops will soon be growing ; 

 Dog-days will give you all a sweat 



Though now 't is snowing, snowing. 

 To fancy's eye, in yonder sky, 



The star of hope is glowing j 

 This blustering storm will soon pass by. 



And stop this snowing, snowing. 



Then cheer up, farmers, don't look pale, 



Although the north wind 's blowing; 

 ■' Seed time and harvest ne'er shall fail," 



Though now 'tis snowing, snowing. 



From the Bangor Democrat. 



A VALUABLE TABLE. 



State Debts, Value of Taxable Property, Annual 

 Interest, and ratio of the proceeds of the Public 

 Lands, if divided amoyig the States. 



N. Y. 

 Penn. 

 N. J. 



Miss 



Tenn. 



Kentucky 



Ohio 



Indiana 



Michigan 



•Missouri 

 Arkansas 

 Wisconsin 



29,000,000 



28,000,000 



31,000, 

 208,000,000 



32,000, 



97,000',000 

 C41,000,r- 

 29-1,000,^ 



70,000,000 



100,000,000 

 206,000,000 

 140,000,000 

 200,000,000 

 150,000,000 



200,000,000 

 150,000, 

 230,000,000 

 203.000,000 

 217,000,000 

 110.000,000 

 95,000,000 

 95,000,900 

 89,000,000 

 IGO.OOO.OOC 

 90,000,000 



no debt 



1,678,367 



no debt 



6,500,000 



no debt 



no debt 



27,721,000 



40,000,000 



no debt 



no debt 



15,346,000 



7,953,838 



no debt 



7,753,770 



1,500,000 



3,500,000 



11, .500 ,000 



23,871,000 



12,500,000 



7.118,16a 



3,790,500 



13,724,735 



15,000,000 



6,000,000 



13.643,601 



1,592,000 



3,100,000 



50,000 



;?3,700,000,0C0 216,972,097 11,060,26'! 



Prospects for Corn. — As the planting sea- 

 son will be late this year, many will fear to plant 

 their usual quantity of corn ; but we are inclin- 

 ed to think we may yet have a good corn season. 

 We observe that the sun .which has shone this 

 spring on Europe, has brought forward vegeta- 

 tion there unusually early— if we can be satisfied 

 that theirs is the same as the sun which shines on 

 us, may we not feel confident that he has not yet 

 lost his power of vivifying the vegetable world 

 of the west ? May we not ascribe his recent 

 bashfulness to the unlucky clouds, which are 

 lawless as the winds, rather than to any dark 

 spots which have been observed in his own vi- 

 cinity ? 



Coi-n on warm high land will often come to 

 peifection though planted as late as the last of 

 May. In 1837, a cold season, we had a fine field 

 of ripe corn — it was planted on the 29th and 31st 

 of May, and it was not manured in the hill.— 

 Boston Cultivator. 



OJ' The accounts from England by the steam- 

 er Caledonia arrived at Boston are to May 3d. 



The greater forwardness of the season there 

 than in the United States is matter of astonish- 

 ment, when we reflect that London is some ten 

 degrees farther north than Boston. The island 

 of Great Britain, encircled by the salt sea, has 

 none of our severe frost. Turnips are left in the 

 ground through the winter to be fed in the field 

 by the cattle and sheep : the turnip husbandry 

 there is considered highly important as contri- 

 buting to the increase of meat and wool. The 

 crops at "John O'Groat's," the very northerly 

 point of Scotland, are less affected by trost than 

 they would be in the milder paits of New Eng- 

 land. Who would believe, after leading the 

 statement from the London Morning Herald of 

 May 3d, (the present month) that "the fertilizing 

 showers" had already there pi-oduced astonish" 

 ing effects, such as had not been accorded to that 

 month for nine years; that the season fbr sea 

 kale was then over — that asparagus had been cut 

 in open beds for a fiirtnight, and peas of the first 

 sowing were in blossom and even podded— that 

 currants were formed, and gooseberries nearly 

 ready fbr tarts — and that herbs and trees were 

 full a month in arlvance of last year, although 

 April had been cool and cloudy. 



The weather of the last week of May has ver- 

 ified the anticipations of warm weather brought 

 from England by the steamer : the warm weather 

 seems to have come along with that intelligence. 

 The same sun which shone so auspiciously on 

 Eurojje has reached us — he has no spots "upon 

 his fiice that we fear. For the week ending on 

 the evening of writing this article (May 27)— 

 from the change of the old to the new moon, the 

 progress of vegetation has exceeded all otir for- 

 mer knowledge in this region. The grass, the 

 rye fields, tlie trees and shrubbery, the corn 

 planted eight days ago, (the first opportunity that 

 occurred here this spring,) have all come forward 

 in a manner that seems like a dream of which it 

 is hardly possible to convince the senses that we 

 realize wliat appears before us. 



A most extraordinary efl^ect of the warm 

 weather has been a very considerable rise of the 

 Merrimack river without an immediate previous 

 fall of rain, as is usual. It gi'adually rose for a 

 few days several inches, but on the morning of 

 Wednesday (May 26) it had risen within the last 

 twenty four hours at least three feet on a pievi- 

 ous high spring head of water. The water fell 

 about a foot in the following twenty-four hour.-'. 

 The rise is to be atlributed entirely to the melt- 

 ing of ice and snow upon the elevated forests 

 and mountains from fifty to one hundred miles 

 north of us; and the sudden fall to the exhaus- 

 tion of material by the warm weather. So that 

 we now have a right to expect no more cold 

 fingers till August at least.— £rfi7or Visitor. 



Ergot, or Spurrej Rye.— At a late meet- 

 ing of the Rojal Agricultural Society of England, 

 a lecture was delivered by Professor Henslow on 

 the diseases of corn, which, from the summary 

 which wo have seen, must have been of a highly 

 valuable character. The following abstract of 

 his remaiks relating to ergot, or spurred rye— to 

 the chaiacter and pioprielors of which, public 

 attention has been considerably directed within a 

 few years, is iiiglily interesting: 



" Ergot vyas regaided as a monstrous state of 

 the grain of rye, produced by the external action 

 of a minute fungus, which causes the grain to 

 lengthen into a horn something like a cockspur. 

 It is so exceedingly oily, that it will burn like au 

 almond in the flame of a candle. The action of 

 ergolized coin has been ascertained to be highly 

 deleterious, both to man and animals; the latter, 

 indeed, preferi-ed starvation to feeding upon if, 

 even when mixed with good flour. A duck, 

 which had been fed with ergot mixed with flour, 

 ill the proportion, (say,) of one in 17, died in ten 

 days, after having had the end of its tongue rot- 

 ted off, and drops' of blackish blood oozing from 

 its nostrils. A pig was poisoned in like manner 

 in twenty-tliree days; the ears and the flesh of 

 the tail having rotted away, and the legs having 

 mortified. Fortunately we know little of this 

 |)est in England ; fbr it is equally fatal in its hor- 

 rible effects upon man, as has been amply prov- 

 ed in France. A case, however, was mentioned 

 as being recorded in the parish register of Wat- 

 lisham, a place in Siiflxjlk, which oi-cm-rcd in 

 1769, when, as it was tlinii^hl, in co!i.«cr,.ic!ice of 

 witchcraft, a poor fumiiy wmt Ininentu'hiy pois- 



