546 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec 



For the New England Farmer. 



PLOWING---TRANSPLANTING— GRAFT- 

 ING. 



Mr. Editor : — I believe it is not often that you 

 are troubled with communications from Cheshire 

 county — probably owing to the stillness and quiet 

 of her people. She has had three Agricultural 

 Fairs within her borders this fall. Her County 

 Fair, which was very good — one at Nelson, com- 

 posed of the towns of Nelson, Sullivan, Roxbury 

 and Dublin, which was better — and a Town Fair 

 at Fitzwilliara, which was thought to be the best. 

 Besides these, she furnished her quota of display 

 at the State Fair. Her oxen took the first pre- 

 mium for the best county team, and two out of 

 the three premiums offered for the best town teams 

 were taken by towns in this county. The little 

 town of Roxbury, in this county, with only 28G 

 inhabitants at the last census, and distant about 

 80 miles from the place of the Fair, took the sec- 

 ond premium on town teams. Spunky town that .' 



There were many other evidences at the State 

 Fair besides our oxen, that showed that there are 

 some keen folks in this county^ and that our far- 

 mers are wide awake and don't intend to be beat. 

 We can raise as tall corn, as big squashes, as fat 

 pigs, and as many cabbage-heads on one stalk, as 

 any body else. Our soil is hard and rock-ribl)ed, 

 but mother Earth always contrives to pay her 

 honest debts, and pay well too. She don't hold to 

 '■^repudiation." 



Just thank your assocaite, Mr. Holbrook, for 

 me, for his article on " Fall Plowing and the 

 making and application of Manure." I have a large 

 piece, which I have already turned over some 

 eight or ten inches deep, and would like to know 

 of him or yourself, whether it were better in the 

 spring to cross-plow and tear the sods in pieces 

 with the harrow, or to harrow stiffly and then 

 plant upon the sod. (a.) 



I raised fifteen bushels of wheat on a piece of 

 land nine rods long and sis wide, with no extra 

 manuring or labor — nearly forty-five bushels to 

 the acre. Won't that do, Mr. Brown, for New 

 England soil 1 And yet many are discouraged, 

 and will not try to raise wheat, {b.) 



The hay and grain crops in these parts were 

 unusually light ; potatoes a moderate crop and 

 rather rotten ; apples almost minus ; corn very 

 nice and heavy. 



I intend to transplant some apples trees and 

 mountain-ash to graft the pear on ; will you please 

 tell me whether the tap-root should be taken off 

 or not (c) ; and what kinds of pears succeed best 

 on the mountain-ash, and whether they should be 

 grafted the same year the^ are set out, or be suf- 

 fered to grow a year or two. {d.) By answering 

 the above you will oblige a subscriber to your val- 

 uable paper. j. t. w. 



Marlboro\ Cheshire County, (N. H.) 



Remarks. — (a.) The same amount of labor may 

 be more profitably expended in some other way, 

 than to cross-plow in the spring, land that has 

 been turned over this fall. The economical mode 

 is to let the turf remain ; cultivate the top as low 

 down as possible without disturbing the sward or 

 turf, and the corn roots will soon acquire vigor 

 enough in the pulverized soil above to penetrate to 



the decomposing turf below, and there find just 

 the nourishment they need. 



[p.) Your wheat crop is encouraging. There is 

 no good reason why we should not produce in New 

 England a large amount of the best of Winter 

 Wheat ; nearly all the experiments recently made 

 by our farmers have proved eminently successful. 

 For this grain many of our lands would need a 

 little lime, but this may be supplied and readily 

 paid for in the increase crop. Please give us the 

 details of your management. 



(c. ) When Nature puts a tap-root at the bottom 

 of a tree, or a tail on the other end of a pig, she 

 does it for some good purpose, and neither of them 

 should be cut off without a valid reason. What 

 the reason would be for taking off the pig's tail, 

 we cannot conceive ; but that for cutting off the 

 tap-root of a tree is more obvious. If the tap-root 

 were left on nursery trees, for instance, it would 

 require a labor to dig and transplant them, which 

 would scarcely be paid for by the value of the tree. 

 When taken from their seed-bed, they are, there- 

 fore, deprived of the tap-root, and may then be 

 transplanted at little expense. But the tree is, 

 undoubtedly, injured in some degree. So if you 

 can afford to retain the tap-root, do so. 



{d.) Pears that do well on the quince, will be 

 likely to do well on the mountain-ash, though on 

 this point we cannot speak from our own experi- 

 ence. Do not graft your trees, unless quite small, 

 until they have been growing well one year. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 TO CURE WARTS ON COWS. 



Mr. Brown : — In the Farmer, (weekly) August 

 13th, I noticed a subscriber answers my inquiry, 

 " What will cure warts on the teats of cows? " 

 My remedy is as follows : I tried walnut shells on 

 the shoulder of a cow, where the warts covered a 

 place six inches square. I took the walnuts, cut 

 the shells off, and pounded them (the shells) up 

 so that I could press the juice out, and rubbed the 

 warts with my hand and juice for about ten min- 

 utes every day for a week, when the warts began 

 to be quite loose, so that you could pick them off 

 easily. Before applying the juice, I rubbed the 

 warts 80 as to take all off that I could ; the last 

 time I put on the juice, I rubbed the warts till the 

 blood came ; now the warts are all gone, and the 

 place looks as if none had ever been there. 



Having given this a fair trial and found it to 

 prove successful, I send you the result, for the in- 

 formation of all who read the New England Farmer, 

 if you think it wortliy of a place in your paper. 

 Yours, Geo. Cruickshanks. 



Swampscott, Oct. 5th, 1853. 



The Granite Farmer. — This paper has been 

 purchased by Chandler E. Potter, Esq., Editor 

 of the Farmer'' s Monthly Visitor, published at Man- 

 chester, N. H., by whom it is to be conducted. 

 The Farmer has done good service in the cause, 

 and has a fair field in which to continue and ex- 



