78 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



AMERICAN FARMERS. 



Many thousand fanners in New England rear 

 large families, pay all their debts and taxes promptly, 

 live independently, well clothed and comfortably 

 housed, and provided for on farms of fifty acres. The 

 plea is, that these people labor severely. This is a 

 great mistake. They have much because they waste 

 no time. With them there is " a place for every 

 thing, and every thing in its place." Their horses, 

 cattle, tools, and implements, arc attended to with 

 ciock-Iike regularity. Nothing is put off till to-mor- 

 row that can be done to-day. Economy is wealth, 

 and system affords ease. These men are seldom in a 

 hurry, except in harvest time. And in long winter 

 evenings, or severe weather, which forbids employ- 

 ment out of doors, one makes corn brooms, another 

 shoes, a third is a carpenter, cooper, or tailor ; and 

 one woman spins, another weaves, and a thii'd plaits 

 •' Leghorn bonnets." And the families thus ocqxi- 

 pied arc among the most healthy and cheerful in the 

 world. It is easy with them to reduce their wishes 

 to their means, if convenient or prudent, and to ex- 

 tend their means to their wishes. — Maine Cultivator. 



CLEARING AWAY OBSTRUCTIONS TO 

 THE PLOUGH. 



Messrs. Editors : This is a subject which nearly 

 interests every farmer in our state. Those who 

 have travelled through different parts of our state, 

 and have been at all observant of the state of things, 

 must know that stumps, stones, old logs, and oth- 

 ea" obstructions, are more or less abundant. Now, 

 Farmer Thrifty is one of those men Avho in reasoning, 

 always endeavors to come at the bottom of his 

 subject. And his first object to be accomplished is, 

 to clear away all obstructions from the field, so that 

 a complete unbroken furrow may be turned from 

 one end to the other ; this, as Farmer Thrifty says, 

 is beginning at the right end of business. 



Ploughing is the grand operation in husbandry. 

 If a field be poorly ploughed, it cannot yield a good 

 crop, however skilfully managed in other respects. 

 And let the question be asked, what proportion of 

 the arable land in our state is capable of being Avoll 

 ploughed ? Much has been said lately in regard to 

 improvements in the construction of ploughs. But 

 of what avail is the most consummate skill in the 

 making of this grand instrument of agriculture, if 

 our fields are to remain encumbered with stumps, 

 roots, stones, &c. ? A well-constructed stump ma- 

 chine should be owned in every neighborhood where 

 stumps abound ; and I have heard Farmer Thrifty 

 say that he wished that the inventive genius of 

 some mechanic would make us off just the right 

 kind of thing for extracting stones from the ground. 

 After procuring suitable implements for performing 

 all this business, it will not be so great a task as 

 might be imagined, to clear away all obstructions 

 from our arable lands. Farmer Tlmfty says that ho 

 has determined to persevere in this business, till his 

 whole farm is entirely cleared of obstructions to the 

 plough. Let us, then, gentlemen farmers, imitate 

 this worthy and patriotic citizen, and the agriculture 

 of the state of Maine shall bo placed on equal or 

 higher footing than that of Great Britain. — Okl New 

 Eiiglaad Farmer. 



NEW DUCK. 



There has been read to the Zoological Society the 

 description of a new species of Duck, {FuUgula feri- 

 noicles,) by Mr. A. J). Bartlett. Three examples 

 having passed through the hands of Mr. Bartlett, 



which appeared to resemble rather too closely to 

 admit of their being hybrids, as was supposed of the 

 first which occurred, the author was induced to 

 examine all the species of this genus which are 

 known to inhabit Europe and America. The resiilt 

 has been his conviction that the birds exhibited are 

 not only new to Britain, but have hitherto escaped 

 the knowledge of naturalists altogether. The capture 

 of a female will complete the evidence ingeniously 

 adduced by Mr. Bartlett ; and his discovery will be a 

 subject of interest to the students of British and 

 northern ornithology, to whom a new species is now 

 a thing scarcely to be hoped for. — Book of Facts. 



IMPOLICY OF BURNING GREEN WOOD. 



Few things show the tenacity Avith which we 

 cling, even after the clearest demonstration that 

 such is the truth, to antiqiiated error, than the fact 

 that there are many individuals, at the present day, 

 who religiously believe, and, what is worse, so far as 

 regards the comfort of themselves and families, prac- 

 tice the doctrine that green wood for fuel is better, 

 and of course more economical than d'-v. We think 

 the present season one most admirably adapted to 

 cure such an error as we conceive this opinion to be ; 

 and now, while the farmer is suffering with cold fin- 

 gers from his green wood fire, and he is in good 

 earnest lamenting the leanness of his wood yard, we 

 would request him candidly to review the whole 

 subject, and ask himself whether he had not better 

 desert a position which both soiuid theory and daily 

 experience show is no longer tenable. 



The direct experiments of Dr. Black on fuel, and 

 the later ones of Count Bumford, as the best mode of 

 producing and economizing heat, have, in conjunc- 

 tion with the labors of others, demonstrated the very 

 great loss those sustain who use unseasoned wood 

 for the purpose of fuel. ^Making an estimate of the 

 various kinds of green wood, hard and soft together, 

 and of the same wood when thoroughly seasoned by 

 exposure to the air, the difference is found to be 

 equal to at least one third of the Avhole ; and if dried 

 at a temperature of one hundred, the difference will 

 exceed this proportion. Green wood, therefore, con- 

 tains at least one third its weight of water, and 

 allowing a cord of such wood to weigh three 

 thousand pounds, there will be one ton of wood and 

 half a ton of water in every cord. That the wood 

 A\ill not burn so long as this water is present in the 

 wood, all will admit ; it must therefore be evaporated 

 or driven off in the form of steam ; or, in other words, 

 caloric, or heat enough from other sources, must be 

 combined with the Avater to boil away half a ton, or 

 about one hundred and twenty gallons ; and as this 

 heat mostly passes off in a latent state, no possible 

 benefit is derived from so great a Avastc. 



The amount of dry fuel necessary to perform this 

 operation of boiling aAvay half a ton of Avater every 

 farmer can estimate for himself; and avc think no 

 one can aA'oid seeing that AvhatcA^er this amount may 

 be, it is a total loss to himself. It is true, as many ar- 

 gue, that the consumption of a green stick of Avood is 

 less rapid than that of a dry one ; but such forget, it 

 seems, that a much larger quantity must be constantly 

 kept on the fire to produce the sanie degree of heat ; 

 and that until the green AVOod has absorbed from 

 other sources sufficient heat to expel the Avater with 

 which it is charged, the fire is dull and the heat 

 feeble ; there is abundance of smoke, but combus- 

 tion goes on slowly, or not at all. 



Since the fact of the difference between the weight 

 of dry and green wood as stated aboA'e is indis- 

 putable, Ave think that those Avho have considerable 

 quantities of Avood to move Avould do Avell to bear it 

 in mind, as by attending to this circumstance, a very 



