NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



187 



Some rekindle the fire every morning, others only 

 once a week, or a fortnight. So what is usually 

 called coal ashes, contains a portion of wood ashes, 

 and that portion varies materially, being ten times as 

 much in some cases as in others. For nice experi- 

 ments, pure coal ashes should be used, which may 

 be obtained, where the fire is continued for several 

 days, by excluding the first lot of ashes after using 

 coal or wood. 



We should depend more on accurate practical ex- 

 periments, than on analyses. The laboratory of 

 nature differs from that of the chemist ; and vari- 

 ous combinations and changes take place during the 

 growth of the vegetable, in the earth, the air and the 

 plant, which no knowledge of chemistry, or vegetable 

 anatomy or physiology can explain. 



Analyze the human system, and feed man by strict 

 rule on the elements in plants and animals that com- 

 pose it, and he will denounce the rules that re- 

 stricts both his taste and his judgment, as earnestly 

 as did Sancho Panza the physician who had special 

 charge of his health, and told him when and what 

 he should eat, touching with his forbidding wand 

 every article his gnawing ai:>petite craved. 



Yet we would not depreciate science, for it is 

 diffusing its beams of light around the path of the 

 cultivator, rendering it more delightful, and his prog- 

 ress more easj% But we would recommend scien- 

 tific rules to the cultivator as a matter of experiment, 

 and their confirmation by practical appUcation, be- 

 fore trying them extensively ; for science, in its prac- 

 tical application to feeding the growing plant or 

 animal, is imperfect. We are told that the potato con- 

 tains very little oil or fattening property, yet it will 

 make fat swine ; and a higher order of beings are 

 made fat and strong on this valuable root, when 

 they can get a good supply. In many parts of Ire- 

 land, it is the principal food, producing a hardy race 

 in good and comfortable condition, far excelling in 

 portliness many who have nothing to do but feast on 

 fat thino-s. 



A SPECIMEN OF PENOBSCOT FARMING. 



We mentioned on Saturday that Captain Nathaniel 

 Bryant, of Dexter, last week sold to John Low, Esq., 

 of the Old City Market, a yoke of beef oxen for 

 $170,50. We learn that these oxen were almost 

 entirely fatted on ruta bagas. Captain Bryant last 

 senson raised three thousand bushels of ruta bagas. 

 On three acres of land he raised between twenty-four 

 and twenty-five hundred bushels, a portion of which 

 he sold in the Bangor market for fifty cents a bus'iel, 

 while the average cost of his whole crop, exclusive 

 of land rent, was but four cents a bushel. He pre- 

 pares the land as for wheat, and sows the seed in 

 rows two feet apart with a sowing machine, with 

 which one man can plant three acres in a day. 



He has never failed to secure a good crop, and they 

 keep well and make good food for all his cattle and 

 sheep. He thinks that fanners in Maine should raise 

 large quantities of this valuable turnip. 



Captain Bryant was very successful last season in 

 liis wheat crop, having raised one hundred and fifty 

 bushels of Georgia red wheat, all fit for seed, from 

 eight bushels of sowing on eight acres of land. This 

 is less than the usual quantity of seed, but he thinks 

 it is quite sufiicient. This seed wheat he has sold 



for about two dollars a bushel. He will sow ten 

 acres to wheat the present season. 



He has upon his farm a flock of one thousand 

 sheep. 



In conversation with Captain Bryant, in which we 

 gathered these facts, he stated to us that he had been 

 visiting the farmers in New Hampshire and Vermont 

 for the purpose of examining stock, and seeing what 

 was going on, and learning something in the great 

 art ; and he had returned better than ever satisfied 

 with the soil of Penobscot, and the prospects of farm- 

 ing here. Industry, economy, skill, and enterprise 

 are needed here in order to succeed ; but without 

 these there can be no success any whore, and with 

 these there can be profitable farming in Penobscot, 

 even with the disadvantages of the weevil and blight 

 of the two or three years past. — Bangor Courier. 



GREAT FARM. 



The United States Patent Office Report says, 

 " One of the greatest dairies in our country is that 

 of Colonel Meacham, of Pulaski, N. Y. His farm 

 consists of one thousand acres, three hundred of 

 which are devoted to grass ; and he keeps one hun- 

 dred head of cattle and ninety-seven cows. In one 

 year he made thirty thousand pounds of cheese, 

 twenty thousand of which sold at one time, in New 

 York, for from six and a half to seven cents per pound. 

 He feeds his cows mostly on hay and carrots ; of the 

 latter, he raises two thou.sand bushels, and gives 

 each cow half a bushel per daj'. And besides the 

 benefit derived from his grass for his stock, he 

 gathers not less than three hundred bushels of grass 

 seed." 



USES OF SOAP SUDS. 



At Towne's Hotel, in Warren, Trumbull county, we 

 saw an Isabella grape-vine, said to bo but three years 

 old, planted under the kitchen window, which had 

 climbed to the second story, a good way towards the 

 ridge pole, and extended its branches around the 

 corners of the building to a distance not less than 

 twenty or thirty feet, and, from Avithin four or six 

 feet of the ground to the extremest branch, was full 

 of clusters of fruit. We were assured that the only 

 extra advantage it had was watering it well, nearly 

 every day, with dishwater, and occasionally soapsuds. 

 The following is from one of our exchange papers : — 



Soap Suds. — The finest peach and apricot trees 

 that we have ever seen, received a weekly or monthly 

 wash of soap suds, after the clothes of the family 

 had been duly cleansed. A bucket fuU to a tree, 

 taking them in rotation, answers a capital purpose 

 to destroy the eggs of insects, and supply potash 

 where it is much needed. Never waste in a sewer, or 

 about the kitchen, a fertilizer so valuable as soap 

 suds. — Ohio Cultivator 



TO TRAIN A HORSE TO THE HARNESS. 



You must be very gentle with him. You may 

 commence bj' throwing a rope over the back and 

 letting it hang loose on both sides ; then lead him 

 about, caressing him, until he becomes satisfied that 

 it will not hurt him ; then put on the harness, and 

 pull gently on the traces. In a short time, by this 

 kmd of treatment, he will be prepared for work. 



Industry. — " There is more pleasure in sweating 

 an hour than in yawning a century." 



