1878.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



23 



from tlie other. Last spriiif; I ni:ule an cx- 

 Iieriiiieiit for myself. On the Sth of April I 

 harrowed a strip in a very nice wheat field in 

 which the soil was nice and dry. I made 

 marks on the fence so that I could he always 

 sure of (inding the place I had hanowed. 

 Had I not done that I might have made a 

 mistake as to the right place. After a few 

 falls of rain and the season had advanced I 

 found no difierence could be observed in the 

 condition of the grain from that time until 

 harvest, and the wheat on the harrowed part 

 was no bettor than that on the otlier part, but 

 I had a very good crop all over the lield. I 

 also bad a patch of poor wheat that I had 

 sowed very late, and of this I also harrowed 

 a strip, and with the same ivsult as in the 

 former case. I also tried the same exjierimcnt 

 on rye, but it seemed to make no diflerence. 

 Now, I confess I don't know where the secret 

 lies, that I did not reap the same reward that 

 otliers allege they have by harrowing. Is it in 

 the soil or'in tlie barrow i* My soil is a lime- 

 stone soil, and my liarrow a common spike- 

 jiarrow. Probably the writer above alluiled 

 to had Thompson's barrow. If it lies in the 

 harrow it, no doubt, would pay well to get a 

 Thompson harrow. 



[Cause and effect ; action and reaction ; 

 recompense and retribution, are conditions 

 characteristic of the whole world of matter, 

 as well as the world of mind. If we propel a 

 ball against an unyielding surface it will re- 

 bound in a line and with a force correspond- 

 ing with the line and force of the proimlsion, 

 unless some inequality of the rebounding sur- 

 face should cause a deviation ; and if an ob- 

 ject should be interposed the rebountl would 

 be turned in a direction very difl'erent from 

 the angle of propulsion, and tliis principle 

 seems to act upon and modify many effects 

 resulting from prior causes.] 



Effects of Neglect. 



The snowstorm on the last of January tore 

 down a part of my barn roof — about sixteen 

 feet of the one side was demolished. Several 

 of the rafters were not pinned together at the 

 upper ends, and I think that was the chief 

 cause. It is an old saying, " For the want of 

 a nail the shoe was lost, and for the want of a 

 shoe the horse was lost ;" and so, for the want 

 of a few pins my barn roof was blown off. 

 Had I known it I might have easily prevented 

 it, and thus saved the roof. The barn was 

 built in 1849. It was a culpable neglect of the 

 builder, for the boles were bored but no pins 

 in them. The other rafters were pinned. Per- 

 haps tlie pins were exhausted in raising the 

 barn, and then no new ones made to complete 

 the job. I would advise farmers, and all others 

 that put up and own buildings, to watch the 

 carpenters, examine their work, and see that 

 everything is substantial. — J. G., Munheim 

 twp., Jan., 1878. 



^ 



For The Lancastek Farmek. 

 AROUND THE FARM. No. 5. 



VoiiHumbolt can't understand the "fowl" 

 air in my last. I did not spell it quite the way 

 the printer did, but I think I can tell him 

 what would make "fowl" ah- 1 Suppose a 

 farmer keeps poultry and does not provide 

 suitable quarters f(U-" the chichens to sleep in, 

 they often roost in the stables, on the stalls 

 and racks, and as almost everybody knows 

 the nature of chickens, they will agree that 

 this will produce "fowl " air ! 



Thank you for the correction. We like to 

 be criticised. It does us good ; but we ad- 

 mire the ingenuity of Humbolt in putting bis 

 "revu" in phonetic, as criticism is thus well 

 nigh impossible ! This leads me to 

 Poultry- Keeping. 



There are very few farmers who do not 

 keep poultry, but very few have poultry houses. 

 These need not necessarily be expensive. Con- 

 venience should be the first oViject. However 

 simple the house otherwise, it should have a 

 tight floor under the roosting poles, in order 

 to facilitate the gathering of the manure, 

 which is the most concentrated fertilizer we 

 can produce on the farm. 



The whfile interior, including poles, should 

 be wliitewaslied frequently, to destroy vermin, 

 and dry earth sl-.ould be scattered on the ttoor 

 occasionally to absorl) the gases, and, above 

 all, the manure should be removed freciuently. 

 I don't tliink it is advisable to liave the hens 

 confined all the time. Tliey do better if not 

 conlined so closely. But there are so many 

 nights when a fowl house would be good that 

 it "would pay to build in a few years. 

 Tobacco Plant Beds. 



IMy method of sowing tobacco seed is as 

 follows : The bed is dug in the fall or early 

 spring and covered thickly with well-rotted 

 manure ; this is left on until as early in March 

 as the weather will permit, usually about the 

 ITtli. wlien it is raked off and the bed covered 

 with straw, cbiiis, corn-fodder, brush or any- 

 thing that will burn. Fire is then applied, 

 whicli will loosen the soil and dry it .so as to 

 facilitate covering the seed. The weed seeds 

 will also be destroyed, which is alone worth 

 tlie trouble of burniiig. Tlie soil is then raked, 

 after it is cooled off, until it is thoroughly 

 pulverized and then three teaspoonsful of seed 

 are mixed In a basketful of wood ashes and 

 then sown evenly. This quantity of seed, if it 

 is good, is enough for a bed sixteen feet square ; 

 we then take a board and press the loose soil 

 on top. and then it is ready for the covering. 

 Last year I tried both liristles and musbn, 

 and mv experiment proved the superiority of 

 maslin" as a covering. I seeded a bed ltix:52, 

 covering one-half with bristles immediately 

 after seeding ; the other half remained ex- 

 posed nine days, when a sheet of muslin was 

 stretched over it about eight inches from the 

 ground, and the plants under the muslin were 

 up first and were fit to plant from eight to ten 

 days earlier than those under the bristles. 

 We made a box around the bed with boards 

 about eight inches wide, nailing them at the 

 corners, and tacked the muslin on this. When 

 the plants were nearly fit to plant, we rolled 

 back the mu.sliu during the day in order to 

 get them used to the sim.—Buralist, Creswell, 

 Feb. 5tk, 1878. 



THE COMING TOMATO— " ECHOFF." 



There have been many improvements made 

 in the varieties and qualities of this popular 

 esculent, on the gnarled and watery things 

 thev were twenty'or thirty years ago, but we 

 think that experience may demonstrate that 

 to Mr. Amos B. EcbolT, an old and experi- 

 enced gardener, of Coatesville, Chester county, 

 Pa., belongs the merit of originatiuj^ "the 

 last and the best." The tomato has become 

 a domestic necessity, as absolute almost as 

 bread and butter— indeed we think that it 

 would be better to do without the latter than 

 without tomatoes— and therefore any im- 

 provement in their culture, their quantity and 



quality, must 



be recorded on 

 the roll of hu- 

 man benefac- 

 tions. Mr. Ec- 

 lioff claims for 

 his new varie- 

 ty some quali- 

 t i e s which 

 stamp it with 

 rare excel- 

 iti.wv^ 1.. .1 ,.^w.«.-.^. Among these qualities are 

 great solidity, smoothness of skin, symmetri- 

 cal form, lieautiful color, destitute of a core, 

 and ripening fully to the stem ; and the ad- 

 ditional rare (piality of bearing shipment well, 

 which is an essential point to those who culti- 

 vate for market. The seeds, we understand, 

 are all in the hands of Mr. E., and as he is an 

 old cultivator, and knows exactly what is 

 extant in this line of vegetables, he would not 

 sully his reputation by representing it for 

 what time might demonstrate it is not. Our 

 illustration represents the form and general 

 appearance of this tomato, greatly diminished 

 hi size. 



We would ask every reader of The Far- 

 mer to try and procure us a new subscriber. 



lence in a tomato. 



For The I.anca«tkr Farmer. 



PLANTING TREES FOR TIMBER AND 

 FUEL. 



There was a time in the history of our 

 country when the objec:l was to destroy trees 

 and not preserve them as is now tlie case ; 

 then trees were many and the demand for 

 timber and fuel roslrieted ; and as the part of 

 the country first settled was nearly all covered 

 with heavy growth the destruction of the 

 forests was a matter of necessity and not of 

 choice, for it involved mucM hard labor. Un- 

 fortunately the destruction did not cease with 

 the necessity that called it forth, and we have 

 now come to such a pass, in many parts of the 

 country, that timber for buildings and fences 

 must be brought from a considerable distance, 

 and the distance is becoming greater year by. 

 year. 



We liave, indeed, now come face to face 

 with a disagreeable fact— we cannot do with- 

 out timber and to get it from distant parts is 

 becoming more and more expensive, and we 

 will have to submit to such increasing ex- 

 pense or try and escape it to some extent by 

 commencing to plant the various kinds of 

 trees suitable for the different jiurposes of 

 building, fencing, manufactures and fuel. 



The planting of forest trees is engaging the 

 attention of many of our most prominent 

 men, and the Legislatures of some of our 

 States have enacted laws favorable to such 

 culture. Among the most prominent is the 

 example of the State Agricultural Society of 

 Massachusetts, which <;ives prizes for plant- 

 ing ; in the west, Illinois has framed "herd 

 laws," by which it is forbidden to leave cat- 

 tle range at large, and thus favors the plant- 

 ing of all kinds of trees without the necessity 

 of^fencing them in until so large as not to be 

 destroyed by cattle. 



Where to plant is a question that must be 

 well considered, as it must not only be de- 

 termined as to whether the trees will grow at 

 such a place, but may not their shade or their 

 roots do you more injury than the profit de- 

 rived therefrom will "amount to ; or may they 

 not injure your neighbor, when no considera- 

 tion of self should lead you to plant. On the 

 latter account no one should plant trees on the 

 northern or western boundary of bis land 

 where that boundarv is only a fence. In both 

 cases the sun would" be kept fnmi his neigh- 

 bor's land to the injury of the crops. Planting 

 on the eastern boundary would, of couree, injure 

 his neighbor some, but not to the same extent 

 as in the other situations, for it is nearly uni- 

 versally true that vegetation receiving the 

 morning sun up to noon is not near as much 

 injuredlts when it receives the sun only from 

 noon to evening. 



Trees planted along the roadside should be 

 such as do not grow very tall, and. for reasons 

 stated before, should not be i)laiited on the 

 northern or western boundary of the road, biit 

 in this case, if aiiv iiijurv would result, it 

 would fall on the planter, and as he is master 

 of the side of the road next his own land he 

 must determine for himself as to doing so or 

 not. Many trees could be planted along our 

 wide roads" that would bring in a handsome 

 profit in the course of years. 



Along streams, particularly on the eastern 

 and southern shores, and in many cases on 

 both shores, willow and other trees loving 

 moisture, might be planted that would bring 

 in returns for the labor and means invested 

 that would, literally, throw into the shade any 

 farm crop that could be mentioned. 



But it is on land that is too rough for farm- 

 ing or grazing that trees should be planted, 

 and it is'here that we have been losiuL' in our 

 manner of cutting down the woods. On some 

 rough land there was, iierhaps, a good growth 

 of hiekorv, birch or oak, and when they were 

 cut down the land was left to take care of 

 it.self ; if young trees commenced growing up 

 in the course of a few yeare, it was well ; if 

 not, it was onlv what was expected. Had the 

 owner planted "chestnuts, hickory-nuts, acorns, 

 or the seeds of whatever trees he thought best 

 suited, the same season the old growth was 

 cut down, he would have bad a surety of the 



