4 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ januai'y, 



Union, on account of their lime and barn- 

 yard manure facilities, and wliich are made 

 and abound to a greater extent here than 

 elsewhere. 



Of course, every tobacco grower will have 

 his own individual experiences to guide him 

 as to the best plan to pursue in reference to 

 his own particular locality ; for, like growing 

 any other crop, different situations may sug- 

 gest some variations in culture and general 

 treatment. Thanking you for your attention, 

 I will bring my remarks to a close. 



THE YAM- 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 -SWEET POTATO. 



They seem to be too large for some people. 

 We have been raising the white, or yellow 

 and red yams — both yellow when cooked — and 

 dry and sweet, if raised in sandy soil that 

 lays not too low, a great many from one to 

 five pounds in weight; we can manage them; 

 but some of our good housewives in the city 

 seem to be afraid of them. I have sent seve- 

 ral barrels of them to the city, and I must 

 always sort out all the large ones to keep at 

 home. They say it takes too long to cook 

 them. Well, perhaps it does, if they leave 

 them whole; but try our plan once. Pare 

 them raw, slice them thin, as you do the com- 

 mon potato when you fry them raw stew or 

 fi-y them about tlie same way, season to suit, 

 and if done about right you will say they 

 don't eat bad. Xow this is one of the quick- 

 est ways to cook big sweet potatoes; but, as 

 I am no cook, I will leave others to tell how 

 to do it, so dont be backward, but give us 

 your plan. Sweet potatoes should not be 

 planted in heavy clay or wet land; this is one 

 reason why many of the country sweet pota- 

 toes brought to market are not good, and 

 townspeople don't trust to buy them. I don't 

 blame them, for I have tried both, and find a 

 great difference in the quality. Sweet pota- 

 toes aud other potatoes are much better if 

 raised in middling dry, sandy soil. The 

 yams should not be planted as close as 

 the others. I set the plants from 1.5 to 18 

 inches apart in the row. When making the 

 rows I make them a little heavier than I want 

 them, so that the hoe can be used freely to 

 scrape the grass before the vines are too long; 

 I keep them clean aud let theiij run. Per- 

 haps there is a better way, and some one will 

 tell us how to do it. One thing more — never 

 take diseased potatoes for sprouting, it affects 

 the new tubers, and although they may look 

 well, it can be detected in the quality. — Old 

 Cultivator, Lime Valley. 



^ 



For The Lancaster Fariiek. 

 ARE FORESTS A BENEFIT TO FRUIT- 

 GROWING? 



This question presented itself to my mind, 

 ■when Mr. Hiller and others, at the last meet- 

 ing of the " Pennsylvania Fruit Growers' 

 Society," spoke of how fruit could be 

 raised forty years ago, when fruit-trees were 

 healthy. Now, even cherries won't do as well 

 as they did formerly— the trees dying in low 

 localities. 



Forty or fifty years ago our country was not 

 so denuded of its forests, aud our fruit-trees 

 were more or less protected by forests, or 

 shelter belts, as a screen for fruit-trees. 



The climate lias not changed as much, if 

 any, as some suppose, but the cold and freez- 

 ing north-west winds are more severe in the 

 absence of wind breaks. There is a difference 

 of from five to ten degrees between the north 

 and the south side of a forest. It was that 

 protection, which made fruit growing more 

 successful then than now. Then, the pear, 

 and all kinds of stone fruit became more per- 

 fect in the towns than in the open country. 

 The "Reading-Pear" comes to perfection in 

 the City of Reading, but outside of it, it is a 

 failure. Pears and Plums do very well in 

 Lancaster City, all of which is due to the pro- 

 tection afforded by the buildings. Grapes do 

 much better when sheltered, especially the 

 Catawba, which will succeed almost every- 

 where, on a trellis close to the south side of a 

 house. Why not then speak a good word for 



forest-culture ? Ten percentum of all arable 

 lands ought to remain in forests. The inordi- 

 nate and almost universal demand for more 

 clear land, has been the greatest injury to 

 farmers and orchardiste. Ten acres out of 

 every hundred now cleared, ought to be given 

 back to forests. The ninety acres left should 

 be improved, and can be made fertile enough 

 to grow as much as a hundred now yield, and 

 forty-five to grow as much as fifty, or twenty- 

 two as much as twenty-five, and so on down 

 to lesser quantities proportionately. Farmers, 

 by planting a slielter-belt, or a screen on the 

 northern borders of their farms would be- 

 vastly benefited. It would protect their crops 

 from" the piercing north-west winds, and the 

 freezing out of their young clover. 



It would protect their trees from freezing 

 in their trunks and branches — from freezing 

 during their blo.ssoming periods. The apple 

 and pear tree borers would be apt to more 

 readily find a natural nidics in the forests, in 

 which to deposit their eggs, instead of* apple 

 wood. The curculios and the apple tree 

 borers might find some tender place or some 

 congenial growth in which to deposit their 

 eggs, instead of in the apple or the locust 

 trees. 



It is for this reason that the -'borers" de- 

 stroy all the locust trees in the west— they 

 have nothing else to attack. I have thrifty 

 young locust trees, that are free from borers 

 and other insects. I have }roung second 

 growth timber lands, which I find occasional- 

 ly attacked by borers, and the branches bro- 

 ken off them as the natural effects, but they 

 do not do any very material damage, and I 

 beheve they save my locust trees and my 

 fruit trees. Forests'would also be beneficial, 

 in inducing birds to harbor in them and mul- 

 tiply, and then come forth on foraging excur- 

 sions among our fruit trees in pursuit of in- 

 sects. It would afford a convenient cover 

 for the birds, and decrease the insects, while 

 it would increase the number of birds. It 

 would improve the farm, and become a 

 pleasure park for the farmer's family during 

 the hot summer months. It would also con- 

 duce to the health of the people, and it would 

 facilitate rain falls. It would eventually re- 

 turn us two-fold on what we planted, and 

 would make our lands more valuable. It 

 would make our homes more attractive, and 

 would afford more home enjoyment, and more 

 home entertainment, and make country life 

 far more pleasant than town life. — L. S. R. 

 Oregon, 1877. 



EGYPT. 



Alexandria, .Ian. 1, 1877. 



Egypt is a very old country, dating back 

 far beyond history. It possesses some natural 

 advantages, but owes all its prosperity to the 

 grand old Nile river, which has never failed 

 for at least nearly seven thousand years, or as 

 long as we have any record, to bring down a 

 flood of warm water every year from tlie south, 

 overflowing the land, making the heart of the 

 husbandman glad with bountiful crops, and all 

 the people rejoice, for they are entirely depend- 

 ent on the Nile river for the water so necessary 

 to sustain life. The Arabs say this water 

 comes from heaven. 



They never have any rain in Egypt, of any 

 consequence, except along the sea-coast. At 

 Alexandria they may have six or eight rainy 

 days, while at Cairo, they will only have three 

 or four light showers during the year, and once 

 in eight or ten years having a heavy rain storm. 



* The striped "apple tree borer," (Saperda bioittata) 

 originally bred in the hawthorn, aud there is every reason 

 to believe that an apple orchard surrounded by a Hawthorn 

 hedge would be greatly protected by such a hedge. Or, if 

 this was not desirable, then clusters of hawthorn planted 

 at suitable points in the orchard, or in proximity to it, 

 would no doubt have a beneficial efiect. The first specimen 

 of this borer we ever obtained (about thirty years ago) we 

 captured on a hawthorn hedge, and there is the place we 

 usually- looked for them. We also believe that wild cherry 

 trees and gum trees would attract curculios and birds to 

 feed upon them, and thus afford protection to our domestic 

 fruits. We have often seen the wild cherry fourfold more 

 infested by the curculio than we ever did the cultivated 

 kinds. Such trees would, at least, atl'ord these insects a 

 place of resort if we molested them by the application of 

 domestic remedies, and prevented them from returning and 

 resumiug the attack. — Ed. 



They have many canals intersecting the coun- 

 try, and depend entirely on the Nile to supply 

 the water for irrigation, to protluce the crops. 



I was up the country in Egypt during high 

 Nile. It was a great novelty to me to see a 

 great flood covering nearly the whole country, 

 where it seldom rains. Tlie Nile begins to rise 

 the last of .Tune, attains its height about the 

 middle of September, when it slowly falls dur- 

 ing three months. The difference between 

 high and low Nile is aljout twenty-eight feet. 

 It was a singular sight to see many large vil- 

 lages entirely surrounded with water ten or 

 twelve feet deep for three or four months. 

 When the water retires it leaves the land very 

 rich, and the hu.sbandnian is sure of a good 

 crop if he half works, for the sky is always 

 bright, and the sunshine warm all the year 

 round. In most sections of the delta of the 

 Nile the water covers the land about two feet, 

 for a short period during high Nile. After the 

 water retires, during the month of November, 

 they put in their wheat, which grows all winter, 

 and is ready to harvest in April or May. They 

 sometimes grow two or three crops on the 

 same land, during the season. If it were not 

 for the noble Nile river this whole coimtry 

 would be one vast drifting, sandy desert, desti- 

 tute of vegetation or inhabitants, for the only 

 land that can be cultivated is along the bottom 

 land of this river. 



Cotton, corn, wheat, barley and sugar, with 

 dates, oranges and bananas, are the chief 

 products. Cotton is perhaps the most valuable 

 product ; has only been cultivated in this 

 country some fifty years, and yet there is a large 

 amount grown, and mostly shipped to Eng- 

 land. Some good cotton is raised, but the 

 large portion I should say is not equal to our 

 Arnerican cotton, but they can grow first-class 

 cotton here ; the stalk is used for fuel. They 

 do not know how to grow corn. They "rough" 

 it in by sowing, do not generally cultivate it 

 and work among it as we do ; consequently 

 they have very small ears, and they cultivate 

 only the smair,hard flinty variety. Their wheat 

 is splendid, with a fine plump kernel, always 

 producing a good crop, and strange to say, I 

 never have seen a good, bright, clean lot in 

 market. It is always mixed, more or less, 

 with dirt, owing to threshing the grain on the 

 ground, and cleaning it by throwing it up 

 against the wind, which leaves more or less 

 lumps of dirt among the grain. These people 

 have not money to buy a fanning mill, nor 

 have they sense enough to use one if it was 

 given to them. No threshing machines, no 

 mowers and reapers, nor any barns to put 

 tliem in if they had them. They have a thing 

 they call a plow, which is enough to scare the 

 cows. It is constructed as follows : A straight 

 piece of timber some eight inches square and 

 about three and a half feet long, with a kind 

 of a shovel on the end, about six or eight 

 inches broad ; the beam is a crooked-stick 

 framed iii, extending and fastened to the yoke 

 of the cattle or buffaloes, which are always 

 used in plowing. A straight stick with a pin 

 stuck through and standing perpendicular 

 almft the beam, finishes the plow. With this 

 thing they plow backward and forward on one 

 side of the land, rooting up the ground some, 

 about two or three inches deep. A few of our 

 enterprising western hogs would do a far bet- 

 ter job of rooting up the land. Well, no mat- 

 ter about the plowing, the Nile water will 

 bring them a crop anyhow. It would be of no 

 use to give these people good agricultural 

 machinery, for they have not sense enough to 

 use it. 



After the Nile has fallen and the crops put 

 in, the land must be irrigated with water at 

 once. All through the delta of the Nile they 

 have canals and ditches convenient for water- 

 ing the crops, which is generally drawn up 

 with a bucket aud sweep into a small ditch 

 about one foot higher than the land. Then 

 water is let on, enough to soak the land well, 

 which must be repeated several times for each 

 crop during the season. This takes time and 

 labor, but makes a sure thing of a good crop, 

 for the sun shines warm every day the year 

 round, with no cold, soiu- weather to trouble 



