574 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Deo. 



O. L. K., Bedford, N. /T.— All fruits decay some 

 years much more than in others. It is sometimes 

 difficult to keep the Baldwin apple, for instance 

 until the first of February, and in the next year 

 the.same variety of fruit, may be kept soundly in 

 the same cellar until April. Good cranberries may 

 be well preserved through the winter, by placing 

 them in firkins or jars and filling them with pure 

 water, and kept above the freezing point. We 

 have kept them well in the cellar without water, 

 and have just finished our last year's supply kept 

 in this way. They were good flavored and quite 

 sound. 



Levi Varney, Bloomfield, C. W. We cannot 

 see the advantage of inserting the prices of pro- 

 duce in the Montreal market, in the Farmer. But 

 a few of our readers would be interested in it, and 

 such as desire the information, can get it much 

 fresher and more satisfactory in their own local 

 papers, than after it has travelled to Boston, and 

 been transferred to our columns. If friend Varney 

 will help us to increase our list to some eight or 

 ten thousand subscribers in the vicinity of Mon 

 treal, we shall be most happy to keep them well 

 informed of the prices of the market commodities 

 of that city. 



To Reuben Daniels, Woodstock, Vt., about 

 Hay and Corn Cutters. — Our correspondent, who 

 furnished the account of the Vermont State 

 Fair, is not a mechanic, nor in any way interested 

 in the manufacture or sale of agricultural, or any 

 other implements. If he erred in supposing your 

 Hay Cutter might be sold for $13, instead of $18, 

 it was an error of judgment, and not intended 

 either to injure the sale of your article, upon which 

 he bestows so much praise, or to benefit any one 

 else. No communication, with a sinister motive 

 such as you suspect, will ever find its way to these 

 columns with our knowledge. While 



"We -would not flatier Neptune for his trident," 



we would say nothing to disparage any man's la- 

 bor, if that labor tends to the common welfare. 

 That we shall never err, is too much to hope ; but 

 in common with every just and generous mind, 

 shall be free to correct as far as possible as we go 

 along. We wish you great success in your im- 

 proved implement. 



G. S. M., Groveland, Mass. — While we thank 

 ■ you for your attentions, we must decline publish- 

 ing your poetical effusion. Read Addison's Spec- 

 tator, Webster's State Papers, write good vigor- 

 ous prose, and you will then be in the way of 

 making yourself useful with the pen. 



Mr. Editor. — Will you inform me of the best 

 mode to destroy the Canada thistle, and also the 

 best time to sow plaster on pasture lands ? 



A Subscriber. 



Acton, Nov., 1853.. 



Remarks. — By an excellent regulation in France, 

 n er may sue his neighbor who neglects to cut 



or root up the thistles on his land at the proper 

 seasons, or may employ people to do it at the 

 other's expense. We need some regulation of the 

 kind here. The plant is furnished with winged 

 downy seeds, so that they are capable of being 

 multiplied and carried almost to any distance. 

 The farm, and road-side, should be purged of this 

 and all other, weeds, as carefully as vermin are 

 destroyed from the domestic animals. One infest- 

 ed herd may infect a whole neighborhood ; so the 

 neglect of one farmer to eradicate the noxious 

 weeds on his premises, may be the means of cov- 

 ering large tracts with them. In this case, he 

 not only suffers himself, but inflicts an actual in- 

 jury upon those who, perhaps, have done all in 

 their power to avert the evil. 



The first thing, then, to be done, is to destroy 

 them at their first appearance. A great many 

 devices have been resorted to for their destruction 

 after they have become thickly planted. Mowing, 

 digging, salting, burning and machines, have been 

 resorted to, to extirpate them. The legislature of 

 New Hampshire, many years ago, offered a pre- 

 mium for some certain mode of destroying them. 

 But the most effectual method, in this case, hap- 

 pens to be an easy one. Low and frequent cut- 

 ting down in summer about the blooming period, 

 will destroy them, however tenacious of life they 

 may be. Plants cannot live without their lungs 

 much better than we can, and if you follow up, 

 faithfully, the plan of cutting them down often, 

 and allowing none to go to seed, you will be victo- 

 rious. 



Sow plaster on your pasture land in the spring ; 

 in the morning when there is a heavy dew, or 

 during a gentle April shower. 



John S. Taggart, of Portsmouth, N. H., wants 

 slips of the basket willow to plant three acres. 

 Who has them? 



A GOOD yield. — A correspondent says Mr. Hen- 

 ry A. Barnes, of Ashjield, raised 85 bushels of 

 corn on 158 rods of ground. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 SUBDIVISION OF LANDS AND FENC- 

 ING. 



This subject presents itself in two points of 

 view — first, the actual division of lands on our 

 farms; second, the best mode of dividing them. — 

 Any one, who glances his eye over our New Eng- 

 iand farms, will perceive that these have general- 

 ly been the result of accjWen/a/ causes. To illus- 

 trate the advantages to accrue from judicious sub- 

 divisions of lands, let us suppose the cultivable 

 lands of the farm to be 60 acres— in the form of a 

 parallelogram, 60 by 160 rods— the 60 rods being 

 on the line of the highway and extending in to 60 

 rods of the shore of the sea, or the meadow or the 

 pond as the case may be. On such a lot, how 

 shall the buildings be placed, and the grounds di- 

 vided, to be cultivated to the best advantage? 

 Under ordinary management, the proprietor would 



