94 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



immense weight, or, in other words, the force with 

 which all things are drawn towards the centre of 

 the earth, by the power of gravitation, is evidence 

 enough of the fact. 



It is also an interesting fact, that under the ex- 

 panding influence of the heat of the day, the atmos- 

 phere is inhaled into the earth more abundantly, 

 while, under the contracting influence of the cold of 

 the niglit, it is emitted from the earth, so that there 

 is a sort of respiration going on in the soil continually, 

 a breathing in of the atmosphere during the day, and 

 a breathing it out during the night. 



The watery vapor which is inhaled by the soil, of 

 course, holds in solution more or less of fertilizing 

 matters, as ammonia, carbonic acid, &c., which are 

 thus, to some extent, supplied to the soil. — Michigan 

 Farmer. 



SIGNS OF A POOR FARMER. 



He grazes his mowing land late in the spring. 

 Some of his cows are much past their prime. He 

 neglects to keep the dung and ground from the sills 

 of his building. He sows and plants his land till it 

 is exhausted, before he thinks of manuring. He 

 keeps too much stock, and many of them are unruly. 

 He has a place for nothing, and nothing in its place. 

 If he wants a chisel or a hammer, he cannot find it. 

 He seldom does any thing in stormy weather, or in 

 an evening. You will often, perhaps, hear of his 

 being in the bar-room, talking of hard times. Al- 

 though he has been on a piece of land twenty years, 

 ask him for grafted apples, and he will tell you he 

 could not raise them, for he never had any luck. 

 His indolence and carelessness subject him to many 

 accidents. He loses cider for want of a hoop. His 

 plough breaks in his hurry to get in his seed in sea- 

 son, because it was not housed ; and in harvest, 

 when he is at work on a distant part of his farm, the 

 hogs break into his garden, for want of a small re- 

 pair in his fence. Ho always feels in a hurry, yet in 

 his busiest day he will stop and talk till he has 

 wearied your patience. He is seldom neat in his 

 person, and generally late at public worship. His 

 children are late at school, and their books are torn 

 and dirty. He has no enterprise, and is sure to 

 have no money ; or, if he must have it, makes great 

 Bacriftces to get it ; and as ho is slack in his pay- 

 ments, and buys altogether on credit, he purchases 

 every thing at a dear rate. You Avill see the smoke 

 conre out of his chimney long after daylight in win- 

 ter. His horse stable is not daily cleansed, nor his 

 horse curried. Boards, shingles, and clapboards are 

 to be seen off his buildings, month after month, 

 without being replaced, and his windows are full of 

 rags. He feeds his hogs and horses with whole 

 grain. If the lambs die, or the wool comes off 

 his sheep, he does not think it is for want of care or 

 food. lie is generally a great borrower, and seldom 

 returns the thing borrowed. He is a poor husband, 

 a poor fathci', a poor neighbor, a poor citizen, and a 

 poor Christian. — Baltimore Farmer. 



VALUE OF HUMAN EXCREMENT. 



Eoussingault says that the excrements of a man 

 for one ycai- contain about twenty pounds of nitro- 

 gen, a sufficient quantity for the growth of nine 

 hundred pounds — fifteen bushels — of wheat, rye 

 or oats, or for one thousand pounds of barley. And 

 as they can be disinfected and rendered pleasant to 

 handle by admixture with peat ashes, all farmers 

 who have peat upon their estates should see that the 

 valuable fertilizer at the head of this paragraph be 

 not wasted, but that it be treated so as to be rendered 

 tributary to the improvement of his land. 



If the peat in the process of being burnt into ashes 

 be so burnt as to prevettt the fii-e from bursting out, a 

 large proportion of the mass will be carbon, which 

 will act as a fixer of the volatile part of the nitrogen 

 of the excrement, and, by arresting loss by evapora- 

 tion, give the property of lastiugness to it as a 

 manure, thereby enhancing its value. — Amei-ic\m 

 Farmer. 



WHEAT GROWING IN MAINE. 



Mil. Editor : I will now consider one of the obsta- 

 cles, which some regard insunnountable, to growing 

 wheat in our state, viz., the rust. I have not much 

 experience to relate in raising wheat, though I got 

 good wheat for ten or a dozen consecutive years, and 

 never failed of a crop from weevil or rust. I was 

 moderate in my exioectations as to amount of crop, 

 and i^crhaps I should say that three fourths of aa 

 acre, upon which I experimented, were destroyed one 

 year by the rust, and two acres another year were 

 injured by the weevil, from having departed from 

 mj^ iisual time of sowing ; but both years I got good 

 wheat from other lands. Rust, I think, is caused by 

 the bursting of the vessels of the stalk, from an in- 

 crease and accelerated action of the saji or vegeta- 

 tive juices during warm and moist weather, when 

 the plant is putting forth its greatest effort to siipply 

 the filling kernel. Now, it is apparent that whatever 

 tends to harden the stalk, which is tender from a 

 rapid growth, and prepare it to resist the increased 

 quantity and accelerated action of the sap at the 

 period mentioned, or whatever tends to make more 

 gradual the supply and the increased action, will 

 be likely to effect the object. This may be done by 

 avoiding the use of stimulating manures, such as ani- 

 mal manure from the barn- yard, using vegetable 

 manure and fresh lands, such as greensward, instead 

 of land which has been cultivated and manured with 

 barn-yard manure. On unmanured lands, or those 

 di-essed with vegetable manure, the plant will be of 

 slow growth, stock hardy, and the warm and moist 

 weather will not stimulate it to rapid and imhealthy 

 growth. Rich lands are not required ibr wheat. 

 Land which Avill produce good oats will grow good 

 M'hcat. Undoubtedly dressing of the right kind will 

 increase the crop, but even of the right kind, if 

 heavily dressed, will induce rust by causing a rapid 

 growth of the plant ; consequently a tender stalk and 

 a particular state of the .atmosphere at a certain stage 

 of its growth, will cause it to rust. We should sow on 

 good oat land, moderating our desire of a large crop, 

 and increase the sui:>ply by more extensive sowing. 

 I raised from ten to twenty bushels of wheat on 

 greensward, without manure, using a bushel or two 

 of plaster to the acre. Usually I turned under the 

 stubble, and sowed with wheat a second time, and 

 generally got the most abundant yield from stubble 

 groimd. One of my best crops was on land where, 

 before ploughing, I did not cut more than five hun- 

 dred weight of hay to the acre. Plough deep, and 

 if the land is not rich, a good, though not an abun- 

 dant crop will result. Manure lands, and if a cold, 

 favorable season, a large crop may be expected ; if 

 warm and moist, the crop is pretty sure to be lost. 

 On fiesh, unmanured lands, except with such ma- 

 nure as the sods will make, you are sure of a crop, be 

 it cold or warm, which will pay the expense of cul- 

 tivation, always premising you sow sufficiently late 

 to avoid the weevil. — Maine Farmer. 



THE EUROPEAN MOUNTAIN ASH. 



The brilliant apearance of the European Mountain 

 Ash, {sorbus aucupara,') when in autumn it is densely 

 clad with its rich crimson fruit, is a circumstance 

 sufficient to give it strong claims to the care of the 



