NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



With such a cleraand, increasing every season, 

 will it not pay well for our farmers to keep more 

 fowls, to select the best variety, to feed them higher 

 and more regularly, and in fact to make the rearing 

 of poultry an object of equal importance with that of 

 raising swine or fattening calves ? There are many 

 suggestions which m^ight be offered on this question ; 

 but enough, perhaps, has been said to attract more 

 attention to it than it has hitherto received from 

 the farmers of Massachusetts. 



ALLEN W. DODGE. 



Hamilton, Njv. 11, 1848. 



For the New England Farmer. 



WOOD AND TIMBER LANDS, PLANTING 

 FOREST TREES, &,c. 



Mr. Editor : The faithful injunction of " Axeman, 

 spare that tree," is unheeded by the pioneer. Tim- 

 ber he fells, he burns ; he scatters his fires, and glories 

 in conflagrations which deaden the forests, as though 

 forest trees were his natural enemies, and he was bent 

 upon extermination. He rarely stays his hand until 

 his own wants, or a good m.arket, calls for lumber. 

 But, alas ! he exclaims, I had some once, and knew 

 not its value. 



His forty-acre woodlot, economized, would have 

 produced abundant supplies for home use, and much 

 for market. But he has cut the young, the thrifty, 

 and the straight- grained, because it was more easily 

 prepared for fuel. The aged, gnarled, and decaying 

 stand or lie as scattering monuments of his folly. 

 Kind Natm-e, man's best friend, attempts to repair- 

 these breaches in her sylvan shades, made by man's 

 improvidence. By her various agencies, unaided by 

 man, she scatters her forest seeds, and soon the pippins 

 of the oak, the pine, the white ash, sugar-maple, and 

 hackmatack, valuable varieties, make their appear- 

 ance, and thrive in proportion to the congeniality of 

 the soil. But hungry cattle and sheep are turned 

 to the woodlot to browse before the grasses of spring 

 are sufficiently grown, and the ruin is completed. 

 Nature now, as if disgusted with man's folly and 

 indolence, adopts the suggestion of Solomon, " A rod 

 for the fool's back," and mosses, brakes, thistles, bur- 

 docks, brambles, and worthless shrubbery, are her 

 chastisements. 



Reader, have you wood and timber lands ? Guard 

 them from fires as you would protect the apple of 

 yoiir eye. If fires or the axeman's folly has injured 

 your lots, as soon after it as the following November, 

 select seeds from the best varieties of healthy trees, 

 growing on soils similar to those j'ou wish to plant, 

 and aid nature in repauing the breaches. Thus you 

 may cultivate the valuable, to the exclusion of the 

 worthless. Keep out your cattle till the young for- 

 est is above their reach. Spare the thrifty, and cut 

 the old and decaying ; fell with cai'e, to spare your 

 saplings. 



Plant your white ash on rich, moist soils ; your 

 oaks win thrive on land hilly, rocky, and unfit for 

 tillage. Your pines will grow on almost every 

 variety of soil not too boggy. Your hackmatack, 

 more valuable than oak for knees, beams, and top 

 timbers for vessels, combines strength with durability, 

 and never corrodes the iron fastening, as does the 

 oak from its acidity. This valuable timber * will 



* A writer in the Cultivator thinks tlie hackmatack 

 would thrive on upland. I am not surprised that he 

 should think so. When young, it grows thriftily on tol- 

 erably dry soil; but before it is large enough for use, a 

 dry rot seizes the heart, and the blacli ants eat it to a 

 shell. Having cut thousands of tons witlun the last 

 fifteen years, I am able to say, I have never found one 

 tree of old growth, upon upland, that was sound. Thus, 

 those who would plant for timber should be cautious 

 and select swamps and moist land. 



only grow to maturity on soils too wet and miry to 

 bo profitable for the growth of other timber. 



The alder, black ash, and cedar arc its neighbors ; 

 the borders of bogs and muddy streams are its fiivor- 

 itc locations. Millions of entirely unproductive 

 acres, in New England, are admirably adapted to its 

 growth. 



Shall a commercial people longer shut their eyes 

 to the importance of encouraging the protecting 

 and growing such valuable timbers for ship-building, 

 as the oak and hackmatack ? And who is there that 

 does not know the value of white ash and white 

 pine for other purposes ? Yet how few protect them, 

 either from indolence or a fear that posterity only 

 will be benefited. Yet numerous facts like the fol- 

 lowing may bo found. Near the junction of the 

 Kennebeck and Sebasticook Rivers lived, forty years 

 since, a Mr. William Gatchell. He had occasioji 

 to build him a dwelling-house. In his lot, timber could 

 not be procured for the frame. He was then poor, 

 owning a piece of clay loam, destitute of wood, yet 

 covered with sprouts. Ho cut down the worthless, 

 and left the white oak and white pine. He is now 

 rich, and his j^roperty is timber, on that very land, loorth 

 several hundred dollars per acre. Good judges estimate 

 the increased value to be more than twelve per cent. 

 Yet no man calls liim a usurer. He tills a little pro- 

 ductive farm, lives happy, appears yet in the prime 

 of life, does not keep his prosjierity a secret, but 

 advises all to take care of their sprouts. Beyond this 

 he has no key to unlock the chests of Mammon, 

 save that he never goes to law, seldom swaps horses, 

 or dabbles in politics ; but always takes an agriciil- 

 tural paper, and pays for it. Reader, if your land 

 has sprouts, go and clo likewise. 



JESSE SMART. 



Troy, Maine, Nov. 1848. 



For tli£ New England Farmer. 

 BEE-ROT. 



Mr. Cole : I have observed this disease in the 

 hive for more than twenty years ; but have hitherto 

 been unable to learn the cause, or remedy. The bees 

 perish, and rot while in their cells, in the chrysalis 

 state, and the young in the hive are found to be a 

 complete mass of corrupted matter, with only here 

 and there some young, apparently healthy; which 

 invariably results in the overthrow of the hive 

 generally in the course of a few months, sometimes 

 continuing along a year or two from the commence- 

 ment of the disease. 



My attention has been directed to this subject for 

 many years, and as I had come to the conclusion 

 that dead chrysales were produced bj^ a chill among 

 the j'oung, in the breeding season, I constructed 

 hives in such a manner that a little care would se- 

 cui-e the brood combs from any sudden changes of 

 weather ; but as this remedy seemed to be insuffi- 

 cient, I constructed both the hive and bee-house in 

 such a way that no frost would ever be found in the 

 hive in the coldest weather, and the sudden changes 

 of atmosphere during the breeding .season could 

 have no effect on the brood combs in the hive. I 

 have urged this matter with much confidence before 

 the public in some of my published communications ; 

 but still the rot continues unabated ; but like the 

 disease in potatoes, with increased magnitude. Bees 

 that are kept secure from the changes and chills of 

 weather, seem to be equally liable to this disease as 

 those are that stand out and are more exposed. 



The cause of this disease among the young in the 

 hive appears to me to originate chiefly from an in- 

 efficiency in the pollen of the flowers or bee-bread, 

 or the lioney with which it is mixed, or some other 

 substance that is mixed with pollen and honey, and 



