33 



partial protection from the rot, our experience is in favor of early 

 planting. 



We likewise grow beets, carrots, mangel wurtzcls and ruta 

 bagas, chiefly for feeding stock. The soil, a good black loam ; 

 manure well rotted ; the seed sown on ridges turned by a double 

 mould-board plough. The weeds are shaved down by hand-hoe- 

 ing, the plants thinned out, and when the crop is half grown, the 

 double mould-board plough is again used. A thousand bushels of 

 carrots to the acre is an average crop in a favorable soil ; the 

 same of French sugar beets — value per bushel thirty cents. With 

 mangel wurtzels we have had no experience previously to the 

 present year. 



Herdsgrass, clover and redtop are the best varieties of grasses 

 we are acquainted with ; and a rich loam, with a clay subsoil, is 

 the best, in our estimation, for their production. The season 

 selected for mowing is when the grasses are in bloom, or from the 

 first to the twentieth of July. An average yield is two tons per 

 acre. The average cost of mowing, making and harvesting hay 

 is estimated at four dollars per ton. To mow and take care of 

 half an acre of hay would be considered a fair day's work for an 

 able-bodied, experienced man ; and the average price of such 

 work a dollar and a half. 



As before stated, we have about thirteen acres appropriated to 

 fruit trees, — apples, pears and peaches. Tbe quantity of apples 

 raised by us in 1856, was one hundred and fitly bushels Summer 

 and Fall fruit, and the same quantity of Winti-r. In 1857, which 

 was a season of comparative scarcity, we had one hundred and 

 fifty barrels in all. Of pears, we raise, in good seasons, between 

 thirty and forty bushels ; in poor, half this (juantity, or less. 



The crop of peaches is more uncertain. In 1854, we had over 

 four hundred bushels ; in 1855, tAventy ; in 1856, eighty ; and in 

 1857, one hundred and twenty-five. The present season we shall 

 probably realize from four hundred to four hundred and fifty 

 bushels. 



To protect peach trees from the borer, it has been our practice 

 to whitewash, two or three times in the Summer, that part of the 

 trunk nearest the ground most liable to attack, and also to make 

 two or three careful examinations for the worm, during the season. 



For a number of years our apple trees have been enclosed with 

 boxes, designed originally to protect them from the canker worm. 

 These boxes, filled with coal ashes or earth, have also served the 

 purpose of guarding the part enclosed from the attacks of the 

 apple tree borer. As an additional preventive, wc have some- 

 times resorted to an application of lime wash, or a solution of 

 potash. 



But the canker worm is the great pest of the orchard ; and to 



5 



