1851. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



281 



Inquiries ani) Q[n^mtx3, 



Messrs. Editors : — The October number of your paper 

 contains a call for information in regard to the prevention 

 and cure of Blurrnin. With your leave, I will give the re- 

 sult of my experience. 



First, the preventive: Let them have at all times plenty 

 of pure water and plenty of salt ; mix salt and sulphur to- 

 gether and place it in a trough under shelter where your 

 stock can have access to it at ail times ; and lastly, give to 

 each animal a table spoonful of pulverized rosin once in three 

 months. This dose should be varied according to the age 

 and size of the animal. 



Tlie Bloody Murrain, if left to its course, proves rapidly 

 fatal, and in order to be treated with success, must be at- 

 tacked in its earliest stages and subjected to energetic treat- 

 ment. My mode of treatment is, first to give a large dose of 

 rosin, then follow with draughts of decoction of smartweed 

 made strong and given in large and repeated doses. After 

 careful and repeated examinations of cattle that have died of 

 Bloody Murrain, I have become convinced that the seat of 

 the disorder IS in the kidneys, hence the utility of rosin both 

 as preventive and cure. 



As regards Dry Murrain, I believe salt mixed with wood 

 ashes in the proportion of three to one, and kept within 

 reach of the animals, to be an effectual preventive. J. R. 

 Taylor.— Waterford, N. Y., Oct., 1851. 



Messrs. Editors : — In the last number of your paper inquiry 

 is made relative to a new species of tly that has lately made 

 its appearance at Reading Centre, N. Y., described as half 

 an inch in length, with yellow body, and covered with a 

 reddish furz, inhabiting the dung hill. If I am not mistaken, 

 it is an old acquaintance of mine. Some twelve or fifteen 

 years ago, a fly answering the above description first made 

 its appearance in Thomaston, Me., where I then resided, 

 and seemed to confine its operations to the dung hill. The 

 same season I found ray onions partially destroyed by mag- 

 gots ; the next year they were nearly all destroyed. I tried 

 it again, and they took the whole. I then gave it up. ,So 

 far as I could learn, its ravages were confined to the onion 

 alone, the cultivation of which was entirely suspended with- 

 in the circle of my acquaintance. It commenced by deposi- 

 ting its eggs upon the top of the onion when quite small, 

 and continued the process through the season. The younc; 

 fly emerges from the soil of the onion bed early in June, and 

 is then of a grey or ash color, with a slender body, and slug- 

 gish in its motions, with little disposition to lly. It retains 

 its ash color, till nearly grown, when it puts on its golden 

 yellow coat with reddish furz. I know nothing of its history 

 or habits, only that it is death on onions. I used as a reme- 

 dy salt and ashes, and lastly a strong decoction of tobacco 

 and burdock without the least effect, they seeming quite as 

 fond of tobacco as their persecutor. I have little doubt that 

 they were brought in in some vessel from a foreign port, as 

 no similar fly had ever been seen there before. 1). K. — 

 Waukega7i, III., Oct., 1851. 



Eds. Gen. Farmer: — In an article in the "Philadelphia 

 Evening Post," I noticed the extract of a letter to the " Far- 

 mer" from a gentleman in Virginia, expressing the wish that 

 100 or 150 northern farmers would come there and buy a 

 tract of land, which could be got at an average price of four 

 dollars per acre, with improvements. I take the liberty to 

 ask a few questions, for answers to which I should be very 

 much obliged to you. 



1. Can land be got there at the same prices by only buy- 

 ing from 100 to 300 acres. 



2. What kind of land is it, and is there any timber on it 

 for fencing 1 I suppose it is worn out tobacco land. 



3. Is it well watered by springs, and is the water soft or 

 hard ? 



I intend to sell my water-cure establishment and go west 

 to buy land, but would prefer Virginia should the expense he 

 not too great in recovering tiie land. C. Baelz, — Browus- 

 ville. Fa., 1851. 



Eds. Gen. Farmer : — Is it possible that your population are 

 all for moving South ? In answer to a communication of 

 mine in your paper, I have received some hundreds of com- 

 munications, from Slaine to Illinois. I cannot possibly an- 

 swer all. Allow me to say, small farms are difficult to he 

 had with good improvements ; but farms containing from 250 



to 1000 acres are plenty and most of them suitable for divi- 

 sion. The usual payments for lands are one-third cash, bal- 

 ance in one and two years. A man may work as hard as he 

 pleases and is thought none tiie less of. Wages of negroes 

 are about $100 per annum, board, clothing, doctor's I'ills, 

 risk of running away, &c., at the risk of the hirer. Work 

 required to be done, if chopping, six cords per w^eek ; all 

 overplus to be paid for to the negro. Other work in propor- 

 tion. Holidays — visiting his family — say six weeks, not less, 

 in the year. White hands about the same, or not quite as 

 much. The crops raised, depend altogether upon the culture 

 and seasons, from seed to fifty bushels per acre. This season 

 the wheat crop is unprecedented for quantity and quality. — 

 Oats, owing to the long severe drouth, say half a crop. Corn 

 may be a fair crop. Tobacco not more than half a crop. 

 Peaches in profusion. Apples, but middling. Early frost 

 sometimes kills early wheat, sometimes the rust, and some- 

 times the fly. Casualties same as elsewhere. Fruit misses 

 say every third year, partially. 



But I suppose no man will think of buying without looking 

 for himself. There is plenty of land to be bought, but the 

 capabilities are being brought out and lands are rising in 

 value. I will venture to say that the region from head of 

 tide water to the Blue Ridge, is as healthy as any other, 

 and possesses as many of the advantages of living ; but 

 1 would advise no man, except in particular localities, to 

 settle singly, |but for a company to purchase large tracts 

 and divide to suit. T. E.— Chesterfield, Va., 1851. 



GAPES IN CHICKENS. 



Eds. Gen. Farmer: — I noticed in your last number 

 an article on "Gapes in Chickens," and having con- 

 siderable practical experience in raising- poultr}^, I 

 have thought it not amiss to give my views. 



In the first place, I think the Gapes aref^enerally 

 caused by using wet feed, and that too fine. The 

 old way is, to soak bread in warm water and feed 

 the little fellows with it as soon as they are hatched : 

 this readily forms a paste, and their stomachs are 

 clogged. The difficulty is, we distrust nature and 

 wofuliy misjudge the power that the Creator has 

 placed in even the little chicken to digest its own 

 food. When I can get screenings from the mill, I 

 feed them with it. If that is not to be had, I feed 

 tlfem with very coarse Indian meal, just cracked, dry. 

 Give them water in a separate dish, and they will 

 wet the food in their crops to suit themselves. I 

 have raised turkeys this year in the same way. I 

 have neither jammed a " pepper-corn" down their 

 throats nor " greased" them, yet I never saw health- 

 ier or nobler birds, and I have not lost one ; while 

 my neighbors, with their pepper, their sour milk, and 

 their curds, fail to raise more than half, and those 

 that survive the treatment look as if they had the 

 consumption. Wet food in warm weather is soon 

 soured, and sour food is unnatural to any creature, 

 unless their taste has been greatly vitiated. It must 

 be wrong ta "pinch off the shell on the point of the 

 beak.'' How unnatural ! ! C. W. — Lake Grove, 

 JV. Y., 1851. 



P. S. I think it is time S. W.'s Notes should be 

 "shorn" of their free trade doctrines. C. VV. 



Coop up poultry to fatten, and they will do well 

 up to 12 or 14 days. Keep them in the coops beyond 

 that time, and feed them as you like, they will grow 

 leaner every day until they grow a skinful of bones, 

 and die. — Ag. Gazette. 



Gooseberries. — Fourteen hogsheads of goose- 

 berries were entered at the Boston Custom House on 

 Saturday, 30th August, imported in the ship Hamp- 

 ton, from London. 



