THE GENESEE FAR^rEE. 



113 



JANTJAKY NUMBER OF THE GENESEE FAEMEK. 



Messrs. Editors. — I send a few ideas suggested 

 on reading the January number of the Genesee 

 Farmer. Make what disposition you please of 

 thera ; it will not be material with me. 



Making Roads. — Where stone is not easy to be 

 procured, brush is excellent to put into muddy 

 roads. Place it thick across the road, and cover 

 with dirt. It forms a drain for the water, prevents 

 the wheels from going down any farther than the 

 brush, and when covered a foot with dirt will last 

 many years. 



Keeping Turnips. — A correspondent in the 

 Prairie Farmer says : " Put them into a barrel and 

 cover with a sod." 



Raising Pumpkins. — Your correspondent must 

 allow me to dilfer with him on the propriety of 

 raising corn and pumpkins. Corn likes hot 

 weather, as is demonstrated by their raising larger 

 crops in the Middle than in the Northern States. 

 The pumpkin vines shade the ground, and thereby 

 retard the growth, as well as absorbing the nour- 

 ishment that the corn would otherwise get. They 

 are in the way in working the corn. I believe 

 more than the value of the pumpkins is substracted 

 from the value of the corn crop. In this State, 

 we raise them in great perfection on the prairie 

 sod the first season after breaking. An acre of 

 hand cultivated entirely in pumpkins will yield an 

 immense quantity ; and I think this method pre- 

 ferable to planting among corn. 



The crop is a valuable one — have made excel- 

 lent beef with no other feed but pumpkins and 

 hay. The pumpkins should be cut up and fed in a 

 clean trough. Had two hogs, one of which I 

 intended to fatten, and the other to keep through 

 the winter. As soon as pumpkins were ripe enough 

 to gather, I shut them apart. Fed one on corn all 

 he could eat, with an occasional pumpkin for sauce, 

 slops of the house, milk, &c. The other I fed en- 

 tirely on pumpkins. I should have said at the com- 

 mencement that they were both of an age, and 

 size very nearly alike. In December I killed the 

 one fed on corn, which weighed about 300 lbs ; the 

 other was as heavy, but not quite so fat. I then 

 concluded to fat the last one, and fed him on corn 

 and pumpkins all he would eat. In about a month 

 he was very fat, and weighed nearly a hundred 

 more than the first. This experiment convinced 

 me that pumpkins were good feed for hogs, and 

 that corn and pumpkins fed together were much 

 better than corn alone. 



The Best Mode of Raising Tobacco Plants. 

 — Let them alone. I have used the weed twenty 

 years with great injury to both body and mind. — 

 Shall use it no more, except to kill insects. 



Management of Bees. — The main cause of the 

 loss of bees during the winter, is lack of ventilation 

 in the top of the hives. They will endure any 

 amount of cold, if kept dry. 



Farm Book. — The satisfaction derived there- 

 from more than pays for the trouble. 



Should the Suckers be Removed From 

 Corn?— ^ Our corn does not sucker. The most 

 economical way to harvest corn is to husk it on 

 the hill. Drive the wagon astride the middle of 

 five rows, husk and throw into the wagon-box. It 

 saves all the labor of handling the stalks, and the 



time during fall or winter, and they will feed the 

 stalks down much closer than when fed in the yard, 

 as is the ordinary practice. 



Lima Beans. — I raise these beans with good 

 success without poles. Let them grow as they 

 will. Plant on the poorest soil we have on the 

 prairies, without manure. s. w. aenold. 



Courtland, Da Kalb Co., Bl., Id Mo., 1859. 



QUAETERLY MEMORANDA FROM "DOWN EAST." 



Eds. Farmer : — To-day ushers in the month of 

 Mai'ch, 1859; and a beginning it is, with a ven- 

 geance — mercury down to zero, and the wind 

 blowing a " regular norther," causing the snow to 

 act very uncomfortable and restless. "We feel to 

 exclaim with the poet : 



" The stormy March has come at last, 

 "With winds, and clouds, and changing skies," 



etc., but then we comfort ourselves with the old 

 saying, that if March 



" Comes in like a Lion, 

 'Twill go out like a Lamb." 



We have experienced a cold winter, the ther- 

 mometer at one time marking 28 ^ below zero. — 

 Sledding commenced the middle of November, and 

 continued almost without interruption to the 

 present, when we have two feet of snow. 



The grass fields have had a good covering all 

 winter, and can not fail to produce early feed if it 

 continues this month — a " consummation devoutly 

 to be wished," as five or six months feeding stock 

 makes clean bays and scaffolds. 



"We consumed a greater quantity of hay this 

 winter than in former years, owing to the increased 

 amount of stock kept. This State exports annually 

 considerable quantities of hay, but the farmers are 

 beginning to understand that their land, although 

 naturally strong, can not bear continual cropping 

 without an adequate return, and, as a natural con- 

 sequence, more attention is paid to stock-raising and 

 the dairy, whereby the land receives an equivalent 

 for the stock taken from it. Apropos of strong 

 land, it is told of a person who was looking over 

 the lands of a fjxrmer, (which land, by the way, 

 was rather strong,) who was praising it by allud- 

 ing to the cropping it would bear without manur- 

 ing, winding up with the exclamation, " It is strong 

 land — very stro7ig land." "No doubt of it, no 

 doubt of; it," said the examiner. "It must be 

 strong land to bear up such a confounded load of 

 rocks." 



Jack Frost laid an embargo on our harbors part 

 of the winter. Sonle of them are free from ice at 

 present. 



The following is the market price of some pro^ 

 ducts here at present: — Apples, fresh, $1,00 per 

 bushel ; do. dry, 8 and 10 cents per pound ; Butter, 

 20 cents per pound; Barlej^, $1,00 per bushel; 

 Corn, $1,00 per bushel ; Hay, pressed, $10 and $12 

 per ton ; do. loose, $15 per ton ; Oats, 43 and 45 

 cents per bushel ; Potatoes, 42 and 50 cents ; Wheat, 

 none in the market. geo. e. brackett. 



Belfast, Me., 3Iarch 1, 1859. 



Gapes in Chickens. — Make a pill of equal parts 

 soap, rhubarb, and assafoetida, and give once an 



