390 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



have the bone disease. They become gaunt, and, 

 when they walk, they put cac-h foot down with as 

 much care as you would set down an old rickety 

 barrel that you were fearful would fidl to pieces. 



Wc have never had any cows thus affected on our 

 farm. I trust my neighbors will excuse me if I use 

 their names upon this subject. On the farm of 

 Captain Levi Preston, the cows have long been 

 affected in this M'ay. It was formerly thought, in 

 this neighborhood, that it was something that the 

 cows ate in the pasture that caused it. As his pasture 

 joined ours, Ave were fearful, for a time, that ours 

 •Wi'uld be affected in the same way. We think now 

 that we can guard against it. lie has always been 

 one- of the most industrious and prudent farmers of 

 Danvcrs, taking the best of care of his stock ; yet 

 his ows have been the most affected. Now, why is 

 this ? I think I can show. For a long time, the most 

 of the stock kept upon his farm were milch cows ; 

 the manure applied was mostly made by them ; he 

 has never bought manure for his land, nor grain for 

 his stock, so that there has been a constant drain 

 upon the soil of phosphate of lime to supply milk. 



I have never known a cow to be affected in this 

 way on a farm where they have been in the habit 

 of buying shorts for their cows, or buj'ing manure 

 for their land. 



Your correspondent says that this whole theory 

 appears to him unreasonable, because lands which 

 yield an abundance of good feed, would be just as 

 likely to afford sufficient nutriment to the bones as 

 to the flesh of cattle. 



I answer, that they do, bvit that there are some 

 lands which do not afford nutriment enough for the 

 milk and bones l)oth. If this is not the case, why is 

 it that oxen will thrive well in the same pasture, 

 and cows that are dry, while those that give milk 

 become stiff and diseased ? With all due deference 

 to the opinion of Dr. Saunders, I would ask him, whj' 

 is it that it only affects cows that give milk ? And 

 why does the disease first appear at the time when 

 they are giving the greatest quantity ? And why 

 are good cows more likely to be affected by it than 

 those which give but little milk ? 



I would ask him if, in his practice, he has ever 

 known a cow to have this " acidity on the stomach," 

 except in those places where the greater part of the 

 stock kept was milch cows. 



A short time since, I was looking at one of our 

 neighbors' cows. lie said, " My milch cows want 

 something that they cannot get on this farm now. 

 I give them bono meal twice a week ; this helps them ; 

 but it is not exactly wdiat they want." Ho said that 

 he fed his cows better than he did his oxen ; yet his 

 oxen always looked remarkably well, and his cows 

 poor. I refer to Mr. Jonathan Berry, who for manj^ 

 years lived upon the Eurley farm, so called, in 

 Beverly. 



Wliy is it that his cows are affected here, and not 

 there, if it is not the want of some ingredient in their 

 food } Why is it that oxen and drj' cows do well, 

 while milch cows, fed from the same haymow, and 

 meal barrel, become poor and stiff, if it is not because 

 they do not get phosphate of lime enough to make 

 milk and support the bones ? 



WILLIAM R. PUTNAM. 



North Danvers, Nov. 9. 



BLACK WARTS ON PLUM-TREES. 



These warts and the curculio are great evils, and 

 the principal ones with which the fruit-grower has 

 to contend in raising plums. They have long been 

 subjects of close investigation to the scientific and 

 practical man, without satisfactory results. The fol- 

 lowing interesting remarks on the black wart, are 



from Miss Grace Darling, who had peculiar advan- 

 tages for observations, in the numerous horticultural 

 experiments of her distinguished father, the late 

 Judge Darling, of New Haven, Ct. 



Mr. Cole : I hope you will pardon the liberty I 

 take in writing to you, as I noticed, in your excellent 

 work on fruits, that " no cause had as yet been as- 

 signed for the appearance of black knots on plum- 

 trees." They seem to have been entirely extermi- 

 nated from our trees, by cutting off the branches 

 infected, and burning them. I obtained some which 

 contained two kinds of insects, the one a thick, short, 

 Avhitish little grub, destitute of feet, the other longer 

 and more slender, of a color inclining to a reddish- 

 brown. I kept them in a tumbler, parth' tilled with 

 moist earth, and covered with glass. The wdiite 

 larvie went into the ground, and in a few weeks came 

 out curculios ; the others vi-ent into the chrysalis 

 state in and on tlie excrescences, and hatched out 

 about the sumetimc the curculios did. These proved 

 to be a small moth, about a quarter of an inch in 

 length, of a light brown color, with three large spots 

 of a dark brown on the hind margin, and a line of 

 the same color running across the miildle of the 

 wings, pointing backwards, so as to form the letter 

 V. They all died very soon, probably from confine- 

 ment. 



I have examined numbers of the warts, and always 

 found the caterpillars of the moths more plentiful 

 than the curculio ; but why they should both inhabit 

 the same place, and which the author of the mis- 

 chief is, I am unable to say. I have, however, come 

 to the conclusion that it is the curculio, which makes 

 use of the young and tender twigs in default of plums, 

 from this fact : the moth never seems to have bored 

 for itself, but occupies the cavity left by the cur- 

 culio ; and also in years when the crop of plums has 

 failed, the number of black excrescences have very 

 much increased. In an instance a few years since, 

 wild cherry-trees, and plum of the natural growth, 

 were literally covered with them, while the budded 

 and more choice varieties escaped. 



Respectfully, G. D. 



BANNER WHEAT, 



OR KLOSS BLUE STEM WINTER AVHE.VT. 



We have occasionally made some remarks on this 

 wheat. See pages 11 and 320. Brother Drew, of 

 the Gospel Banner, in an. excellent address before 

 the Franklin (Maine) Agricultural Society, makes 

 the following very interesting remarks on this sub- 

 ject:— 



And speaking of personals, you will allow me to 

 advert once more to my own experience with what 

 I call the Banner wheat. I observed, that, originally, 

 I received a single spoonful from the Patent Office, 

 in Washington. Hon. Rufus Mclntire, of Parsons- 

 field, also received the same quantity at the same 

 time. This is all I have heard of in this country. 

 Mr. Mclntire's success in York county has been 

 good. He has published accounts of it in the Boston 

 papers. He thinks it the winter wheat for INIaine. 

 Last year I sent some of it into every county in our 

 state. In some cases, it proved a failure ; and I was 

 glad it did, because it showed causes of failure not 

 chargeable to the grain or to the climate. In all 

 such cases, the wheat had been sown too late the 

 preceding a>itumn, or on flat, heavy lands, liable to 

 be heaved badly by frosts. Whenever sowed in 

 August, or, if later, when sowed on sandy loam, 

 where the water will not stand, and where the snow 

 did not blow off by high winds sweepbig over it, the 

 wheat did well. I consider it perfectly sure against 



