496 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov, 



One half of the sum received by Massachusetts 

 for these lands will be added to the comnion school 

 fund, and the other half to the Western Railroad 

 Sinking fund. The school fund now amounts to 

 $1,202,G7G 88, to which will be added the further 

 sum of $181,250, or one-half of the amount re- 

 ceived by this sale of the Maine lands. The amount 

 of the school fund is limited by law to a million 

 and a half. There is a provision in the amended 

 Constitution to increase it to tvro million dollars. 



fnr the New England Farmer. 

 OBSERVATIONS 



ON SETTING YOUNG TREES FOR ORCHARDING 

 IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



I have read authors from France, Long Island, 

 Washington and other places, to little advantage. 

 They can send their books and trees, but they 

 cannot send their climate and soil. I have pur- 

 chased trees from the above places, likewise from 

 New Jersey and towns on the North River. They 

 are not adapted to our soil and climate. I would 

 give three times as much for a tree grown from 

 the seed in or near Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, or 

 Middlesex county. 



In determining the right time for setting trees 

 in the autumn, I have compared them to the hu- 

 man body. I say I am like a nursery tree that I 

 am going to move. What is it that continues my 

 life from week to week, and so on ? It cannot be 

 my food, for that is earth, prepared by fallen wis- 

 dom to suit fallen appetite. Neither is it air. It 

 is the circulation of the blood in the body — so is 

 it in the tree. Stop it, in either or both of them, 

 and death will ensue. Now how shall we take 

 the advantage of this blood? In moving the tree 

 we shall be obliged to wound its feet or roots. It 

 will not do to move it in the full flow of sap, as in 

 summer, for then the sap is needed for other pur- 

 poses than healing. It will not do to move it late 

 in the fall, when the sap is still, and there is no 

 action to heal the wounded part. We must take 

 the medium flow of sap, after the last growth of 

 the tree is over, as in the last of Sept. or October. 



Last year I transplanted 2G0 young, unbudded, 

 nursery apple trees about the middle of October. 

 The land upon which I set them, was a rough 

 piece, which had previously been covered with 

 wild bushes and brambles. I took less pains in 

 moving them, than I ever did with any trees, for 

 I cared more about getting them out of the nur- 

 sery, and improving the land, than I did about 

 them. In hoeing them through the summer, I 

 found only three or four dead ones. Many of them 

 made wood from two or three inches, to a foot in 

 length. 



Last fall, I sold a thrifty pear tree to one of my 

 neighbors. He claimed the right to dig it him- 

 self, and kept it in the ground until the frost had 

 stripped it of its leaves — then he moved it. In the 

 spring it put out a few leaves, and appeared as 

 though it would live, but tliese soon dropped off, 

 and it died, although he watered it well. 



I sold quite as large a clierry tree to a man in 

 Salem, early in October. He took it immediately 

 home and set it out. He told me the next season, 

 that the tree had put out well, and had made con- 

 siderable new wood. 



As regards spring setting, there is little to be 

 said. Common sense tells us the sooner the frost 

 is out of the ground the better for transplanting. 

 Last March I set sixty apple trees for orchard 

 trees. In two or three instances I met frost. 

 Every one of them lived, and many of them made 

 new wood, from three and four to twelve and four- 

 teen inches. Some of them bore scattering apples 

 of full size. 



It is more than fifty years since I first set trees. 

 I have set them in all stages of the circulation of 

 the sap, except in summer. I am satisfied that 

 just in proportion as the setting of the trees is 

 neglected until after the proper time, so will they 

 be hindered in healing and in shooting roots, and 

 will come forward with less growth. I have set 

 them after the buds had begun to open. These 

 often live and often make stunted trees. 



Jonathan Botce. 



For the New England Farmer. 



GARGET. 



Friend Brown : — I have recently cured several 

 cases of Garget by administering one or two drops 

 of Aconite. Have you, or any of your readers ev- 

 er treated cattle after the Homeopathic system ? 

 I have for several years endeavored to do so — and 

 considering my want of anatomical and physiolog- 

 ical knowledge, with very encouraging success. I 

 doubt not that some of your readers will smile, if 

 not indulge in a hearty laugh, at this statement. 

 All I ask of them is, that they would try the above 

 remedy for the Garget, at the next opportunity. 

 I have often used the garget root or poke {Phyto- 

 lacca decandra) with success, but I al-^ays believed 

 it had the effect of reducing the quantity of milk. 

 Aconite does not have this effect. 



Yours, &c., MiNOT Pratt. 



Concord, Oct. 11, 1853. 



Reiiarks. — That the poke root is a dangerous 

 remedy in unskilful hands, we do not doubt, and 

 is often the source of injury to the cow. We have 

 practiced the homeopathic treatment with the hap- 

 piest results. A friend informed us the other day 

 that he once cured a case of blind staggers in a 

 horse valued at three hundred dollars, by admin- 

 istering three doses of stramonium in the course 

 of six or eight weeks. If this worst of all diseases 

 in the horse can be cured, we believe any other 

 may be. Try^Mr. Pratt's remedy. 



THE SEASON. 



October, up to the 14th, has been unusually 

 cool, wet and windy. During the early morning 

 of the 9th, there was vivid lightning accompanied 

 by heavy thunder and rain. Now, — the 1 1th — 

 there is the beautiful October sun and calm, and 

 appearances of Indian summer. The grass is 

 still green and abundant, and as late as the 12th 

 we have noticed hay-making going on. There has 

 been, as yet, no severe frosts, so that cabbages and 

 turnips are still growing rapidly. On the night 

 of tlie lith, there was the first heavy frost. 



