THE GENESEE FARMER. 



27 



RAISING PTJMPKCNS. 



" On raising Pumpkins — (heir value as food for cattle, and the 

 St method of Jeeding them." 



The best manner of raising, is the time-honored 

 le of i)latiting among corn. For immediate feed- 

 g, gather and feed with a pitchfork, if you 

 lOose, slovenly as it is ; but if you wish to keep 

 em any time, cut otf the vines, leaving the stems 

 L the pumpkins, place them in a wagon carefully 

 ■ hand, and put them in an open shed ; keep them 

 >m freezing by covering or removing to a root 

 liar. Feed with other food, grass, hay, straw, or 

 Iks — and never any more than tlie animal will 

 t up cle;m, and never rely on them for the priji- 

 lal food. As to their value, they are about equal, 



weight, to beets, carrots, and turnips — rather 

 eferable to the common wliite turnip. 

 N"ow, friend Harris, were I Prof. Leibig, Lawes, 

 UNSTOx, or yourself, your readers would l^e bound 

 take the above, without argument or reason, like 

 G, Glasse in the Farmer of November last; but 

 being an obscure individual, your readers would 

 very foolish, and the American farmers are too 

 elligent, to take my mere say^ without a reason 

 it shall carry conviction. 



My manner Of raising needs no argument, as it is 

 iiost universally adopted. No doubt an acre will 

 )duce more corn and pumpkins to plant them 

 jether than separate, for very obvious reasons. 



to the manner of gathering and storing, you 

 ve but to notice that where they are bruised, or 

 } steals knocked otf, there they soon begin to rot; 

 1 all know that a hard frost injures, and freezing 

 )ils them. It is their value for stock, and the 

 inner of feeding, in which men differ widely in 

 iuion. It is a common remark that " they dry 

 cows," " will not fatten cattle," and are "good 



nothing for hogs." No doubt these opinions 

 ke mine) are founded upon experience and obser- 

 tion — like the man who hiew there were ghosts, 

 • he had seen them. Gathered and fed as they 

 jally are, the above quoted results are precisely 

 lat I should expect. It is known to most house- 

 ves, that the seeds are a powerful diuretic. They 

 ve been used as such probably from the time of 

 ppoceates. The effect of diuretics is to increase 



waste of the body, diminish the volume of 

 >od, and the secretion of milk. The ordinary 

 ithod of feeding, is to pitch off a wagon load, 

 3ugh to last two to six days, throwing them kard 

 ough to break the shells. The first meal is made 

 )stly from seeds, producing diuresis, and the 

 ove mentioned effects ; and during the next four 



five days, the animal can no more than recover 

 e efiects of the first day. It is known to agricul- 

 ral chemists, that the pumpkin, like the beet 

 rrot, and turnip, contains a very large propor- 

 'H of water— 85 to 90 per cent.— decidedly too 

 ich to be fed judiciously alone, and too much to 



fed all the animal will eat, while running to 

 iss, which, as it is in the fall wet with dews and 

 .ns, furnishes about as much water as the animal 

 eds. 



Allow me here to digress, and say that the dis- 

 se among horses in the summer and fall of 1857, 

 liich carried off so many in Ontario and Yates 

 unties, (N. Y.) was caused by the excess of water, 

 ken with the grass. I was convinced of the fact 



at the time, from noticing that no new cases occur- 

 red, except immediately after rains, and none 

 among horses kept up nights. 



The full value of the pumpkin is obtained when fed 

 with hay, straw, and stalks, adding grain when fed 

 to fattening animals, and never giving pumpkins 

 enough at a time to cloy the appetite for fodder. 



The real objection to the extensive cultivation of 

 the pumpkin is, that they are short-lived at best. 

 Still, by care in handling, and good places for stor- 

 age, they may be kept till January. I have always 

 found milch cows to thrive and increase their milk, 

 when fed on them in my way, and have fed them 

 to hogs and young cattle with decided benefit ; and 

 I think them, while they last, the most economical 

 food that can be raised. s. b. p. 



Gorham, Oni. Co., N. T., N'ov., 1S58. 



EARLIEST AND BEST MODE OE RAISING TOBACCO 

 PLANTS. 



To raise tobacco plants early and successfully, is 

 a great secret. People often fail to get early plants, 

 because they do not take sufiicient pains to put in 

 the tobacco seed ; nor do they make their beds in 

 the right location, and put them in a suitable con- 

 dition for the rapid growth of the plant. A tobac- 

 co seed seems to be slow to start, unless you resort 

 to the most ingenious means to force it to swell 

 and sprout. 



The earliest, and perhaps the best mode of rais- 

 ing tobacco plants, is as follows : 



Prepare a bed, say 40 feet long and 10 feet wide, 

 in a warm place where the sun wiU help enliven 

 the soil; pulverize the ground thoroughly and 

 deeply, and in the meantime work in fine manure, 

 free from foul seeds, so that weeds will not come 

 up among the plants ; rake down the surface of the 

 bed smoothly and nicely ; and after you have thus 

 perfected a kind of hot-bed — not at aU expensive to 

 make — and when you are satisfied that the ground 

 is warm, or in a satisfactory state to receive the 

 seed, sow it on the bed at the rate of three ounces 

 for a plat of ground of the above size. But, before 

 sowing the seed, prepare it in the following man- 

 ner : Put three or four ounces into a tightly made 

 woolen bag ; moisten it with warmish water, and 

 then hang it up behind the stove in a warm loca- 

 tion. It will soon begin to show signs of sprout- 

 ing, (it should be watched ;) and having found out 

 that it is about to germinate, by its swollen condi- 

 tion and other indications, sow it on your bed in 

 connection with two or three quarts of dry sand or 

 Indian meal. The surface of the bed should be 

 pressed down witJi a heavy plank before sowing 

 the seed, and never rake in tobacco seed; but, after 

 you have distributed it evenly over your plat of 

 ground, either roll it in with a hundred pound 

 roller made for the purpose, or tread it in with 

 your feet. Some press it in with a plank. About 

 the 15th or 20th of April is the time you should 

 sow your seed, if the ground is passably warm. 

 Some sow earlier and some sow later. 



Now for the glass sash work over the bed— the 

 sash made long and not too wide. Some do, and 

 some do not use them. They should be placed 

 over the bed, and the sun soon produces its good 

 effects through the glass upon the surface of the 

 soU, warming it into activity, and thus starting the 



