192 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Aug. 



Hints for August. 



Haying and harvesting now being about closed, 

 except oats and peas, look well to your summer 

 fallows ; let them be thoroughly harrowed and 

 plowed. Composts and well rotted manures may 

 be spai-ingly applied. Plaster only benefits wheat ■ fattening 

 by being plowed or dragged in before seeding. ; of January 



Do not sow your wheat before the 10th nor 

 later than the 20th September, if you can avoid 

 it, exsept to follow corn and potatoes. Never 

 sow a bushel without brining and limeing ; it is 

 infallable against smut, and beneficial to the 

 young plant. 



Cut brush and shrubs about the middle of this 

 month, and but few species will survive the next 

 year. Scrub oak, elders, briars, and a few oth- 

 ers, are exceptions. Canada thistles should be 

 cut when in full blossom. A few years' mowing, 

 when in meadow land, extirpates them. 



Set out strawberry runners early this month, 

 for next year's beai-ing ; water well and see that 

 they get a good start. The soil should be deep 

 and rich. Grapes should be now summer pruned. 

 Cut away the vines upon which are clusters, one 

 or two leaves beyond the fruit if they are shaded, 

 and young suckers that are in the way may be 

 pruned off or deleaved to give the fruit sun and 

 air. 



The latter part of this month, and as long in 

 September as the bark will slip, is the period for 

 budding. Insert the bud as near the ground a-s 

 possible in small trees ; they are much surer to 

 survive the winter, and make better stocks. 



three hogs, which weighed on that day as fol- 

 lows: — 



No. 1—18 months old, 274 Ibe. 



No. 2—17 " " 227 " 



No. 3—16 " " 196 " —697 lbs. 



They were fed on barley 48 days, and on 

 corn 48 days — making 96 days that they were 

 They were butchered on the 18th 

 They then weighed, alive, as fol- 

 lows: — 



Total of corn and barley 3271 '' 



The gain in live weight was 702 lbs., which 

 gave a pound gain in live weight for a frac- 

 tion over every 4i lbs. of grain consumed. 



There was nothing fed these hogs besides the 

 grain mentioned, except water, and salt enough 

 to season it well. This feed was all boiled from 

 6 to 12 hours; the barley was all ground, and a 

 part of the corn. Grinding the corn I consider 

 a dead loss, for I think it equally as good with- 

 out grinding, provided it is cooked long enough, 

 and it is no more labor to cook it whole than 

 ground, with proper conveniences. Cooking 

 barley without grinding 1 never tried, but think 

 it would be equally as good as ground. These 



hogs had run in the pasture through the summer 

 Look to your potatoe vines and see if the leaf i up to harvest time, and then were turned into 



curls ; if so. next observe the stalk an inch or 

 two above the soil ; if it is discolored and soft 

 you have got the Rot. The story of insects be- 

 ing the cause is all humbug; the worm in the 

 pith of the stalk is as old as the cultivation of the 

 potato, — and what is fatal to that theory is, that 

 the tuber is not afi^ected particularly in those 

 containing the worm. ^ 



Experiment in Making Pork. 



the wheat stubbles and fed nothing else of con- 

 sequence. 



By turning to the 127th page of the last vol- 

 ume of the Farmer, you will find the result of 

 two experiments in pork making; one in which 

 they estimate the gain in live weight to be 1 lb. 

 for every lOi lbs. of grain consumed; in the 

 other they estimate the gain in live weight to be 

 1 lb. for every 9 J lbs. of grain consumed. This 

 I should think a small gain, even for uncooked 

 feed. Yours, &c., 



B. Densmorf. 



Kendall, N. Y., July, 1847. 



REiMARKS. — Mr. Densmore deserves the thanks 



Mr. Editor. — Some months since I promised 

 several gentlemen, and among them the pub- 

 lisher of the Genesee Farmer, a statement for 

 publication of an experiment that 1 made last fall jof tlie whole farming community for his highly 

 in making pork. But you have been so over- interesting and instructive experiment. The 

 run with cammunications for the Farmer, from cases referred to in the Farmer were experi- 

 raonth to month, that I have felt unwilling to troub- ments made in France by M. Boussingault, and 

 le you with it. However I will give you the state- 1 doubtless state the facts as they occurred. But 

 ment, and you may dispose of it as you please, no one, two or three single experiments, made 

 ' do not make it thinking that there is anything ■ -~ 



extraordinary in the experiment or the end at- 

 tained. There was no more done than any man 

 can do with good hogs, good grain, and good 

 care. 



On the 31st of ]a<5l October, I put into the pen 



with different herds of swine and under different 

 circumstances can be sately regarded as settling 

 the question how many pounds of corn, barley 

 or other grain are required to make a pound of 

 good pork. We commend the experiment of 

 Mr. D. to the imitation of othei-s. 



