CORRESPONDENCE. 



113 



DISTILLEEY SLOPS. 



Mr. Editor : — A distillery in this place is now 

 giving away four hundred barrels of slop daily. 

 Some farmers make four trips a day, including part 

 of the night, carrying ofif nearly eight barrels at a 

 time. During the day this slop is taken as fast as it 

 is discharged from the still; but the vats becoming 

 filled at night, the earliest customers have the im- 

 providence to draw off and waste the slop down to 

 within a foot of the bottom of the vat, taking a'Nvay 

 only the thick sediment composed mostly of the bran 

 of the corn and shells of the oats; just as though 

 this carbonrxeous matter was more nutritive than the 

 oil and protien compounds they have wasted with the 

 more liquid parts of the slop. Is it any wonder that 

 Buch farmers have short crops, and are now glad to 

 come all distances under twelve miles, thus to avail 

 themselves of a distiller's bounty? Such men are 

 very likely to prefer the long-exposed carbonaceous 

 mass of the farm-yard manure to its liquid or more 

 strongly arotised constituents; hence, instead of ma- 

 king and saving manure to induce a crop, they de- 

 pend on the chances of a favorable season; and as a 

 general thing, I find there are few good farmers 

 among the great number who never fail to excuse 

 their short crops by a gird at the season. S. W. 



Waterloo, N. T. 



HY BEIGHEOB'S CABBAGES. 



Mr. Editor: — Last season my own garden suffered 

 very much from drouth ; and though my plants were 

 watered often and thoroughly, still they were tough, 

 stringy, and but half the usual size; while, on the 

 contrary, my neighbor's plants were uncommonly 

 thrifty, and vigorous in growth. 



There must be a reason for this difference, and I 

 must study it out. The first two years of his sojourn 

 in my vicinity, my neighbor (a genuine son of the 

 Emerald Isle), not being over fastidious as to the 

 looks of his yard and lot, kept a number of hogs, giv- 

 ing them full range of his premises — and good use 

 they made of their noses in rooting up the ground in 

 all directions. To be sure, the premises were not 

 particularly neat and cleanly, and now and then one's 

 foot would give tangible and satisfactory evidence 

 that the tenants of the yard were not particular in 

 their habits! 



Finding that to buy feed for his porkers was money 

 out of pocket, he concluded to put his lot to a dif- 

 ferent use. The manure made in previous years was 

 scat ered about the premises, and deeply spaded in. 



His plants were set out the 20th of Juno, and 

 thoroughly cultivated. 



The result was, that while the gardens of many 

 were parched from drouth, my neighbor's plants 

 seemed to grow as if water was of no account to 

 them. In the fall, scarce a plant but had a good 

 solid head; while in a lot next adjoining, but about 

 one-third of the plants headed at all, and those even 

 were not marketable. 



Now, though I do not approve of keeping swine 

 in city lots for the purpose of preparing grounds for 

 cabbages, their are some points in their culture 

 that one may notice. First, all plants of the 

 cabbage tribe are gross feeders. The ground can 

 hardly be made too rich, or spaded to deeply. 



As soon as the leaves have put forth, begin your 

 hoeing, and be sure to hoe them once a week at least, 

 and oftener if you have time. 



The cut-worm is a great annoyance on seme soils. 

 The plants will be found eaten off by hundreds at the 

 surface of the ground, and your work of transplant- 

 ing must be done again. 



On page 206 of the Genesee Farmer for 1854, a 

 correspondent states that after having lost all but 

 five ou' of two hundred and forty sweet potato 

 plants, he set out five hundred cabbage plants, and 

 one thousand swoet potato plants, wiih a hickory 

 leaf round each, and not a single plant had been des- 

 troyed since. The leaf should be a half or three 

 quarters of an inch below the top of the ground. 



GOPHEES. 



Mr. Er.iTOR : — Noticing in a late number of the 

 Farmer a request that some of your correspondents 

 would give you some information as to the means of 

 preventing the ravages of these vermin, I would say 

 that death, and nothing short of it, will do the busi- 

 ness. This I have fully tested in the Sacramento 

 Valley. The amount of dirt that a few gophers will 

 bring to the surface of the ground is astonishing. 

 They work early and late. I failed to poison them, 

 but was gratified in finding that powder and shot 

 would finish them. Level down their mounds and 

 tread down their roads; they will at once commence 

 rebuilding them. At the first approach of light in 

 the morning, or at dusk in the evening, advance with 

 groat caution — as a common walk, when you are 

 some rods off, will cause them to stop labor — and as 

 they discharge their loads of dirt, do the same with 

 your powder and shot. Continue to level both mound 

 and gopher, and the victory will be yours. 



Blackwoodtown, N. J. Ira Bradshaw. 



