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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



THE FARMER. 



^TOX :— SATURDAY, APRIL Vi. ir,23. 



Farmer's and Gardeners Remembrancer. 

 APRIL. 



,ECTS. The period is approaching or has 



Jy arrived, in which it behoves every far- 

 gardener, and house Iteeper to declare a 

 .f extermination against worms, bugs, and 

 ip mischievous and devouring insects. It 

 iLords of the lower world can devise no 

 iS for repelling the attacks of those little 

 erers, they must even be contented to di- 

 their substance with their puny partners, 

 not only maintain a host of creeping and 

 g tenants, who consume the products of hu- 

 industry, without paying rent, or rendering 

 BF homage or service, but admit some of the 

 leous intruders to their bed and board, 

 'o describe all, or the greater part of the 

 blesome and mischievous beings, which be- 

 to this department of animated nature, and 

 remedies against the evils which they in- 



1 order to destroy lice and other insects, but if the 

 brine be loo strong it will lull t!ic vegetable us 

 well as the insect. Quick lime and even strong 

 wood ashes may also injure young and tender 

 vegetables. The safest way is to apply such 

 caustic and corroding substances to llie soil, 

 some lime before the seed is put into the 



table 



20 :j 



be plants, the sound sends of which will t^t 



iink ; but 1 Aiioti' of none. If to be found in any 

 instance, they would, 1 think, be found in those 

 of the Tulip tree, the Ash, the Birch and Pars- 

 nip, all of which are furnished with so large a 

 portion of wing. Yet all these, if sound, will 

 sink, if put into i;Yirm water, with the wet 

 worked a little into the wings first. 1 incline 



ground. Or they may be used while vegc . . „ , , ,. , , 



are frowin" provided they are placed near to the opinion that we should try seeds as our 

 out touchinp- them. The juice of elder or ancestors tried witches; not by lire but by wa- 



witl 



a pretty strong decoction of elder (elder tea, as 

 Mime would call it,) we believe is an effect- 



ter; and that, loilowiiig up their practice we 

 should reprobate and destroy all that do not 



cgll 



ual remedy against all or nearly all insects, and 

 will not injure any plant. Fall-ploughing and el- 

 der juice we should depend upon principally in 

 gardening as antidotes to insects. As insects are 

 often introduced into gardens by means of dung 

 used as manure, it might, perhaps, be well, in 

 some instances to leach such manure, or dilate it 

 in water, and apply the liquid part alone to a 

 garden. This would be somewhat troublesome, 



but Sir John Sinclair says it is practised by far- .-,,,,„ i . r i, 



mers in Switzerland even in field cultivation, and and this fact has led to the emp oyment of salt 



readihj sink 



AspAUAGUS Beds. — These should be completely 

 loosened with a fork to a moderate dejilh as soon 

 as the frost is out of the ground ; but care must 

 be taken not to go too deep, so as to wound the 

 crowns of the roots. They should then be raked 

 even before the buds begin to advance. " This 

 plant is found growing naturally on the borders 

 of salt marshes, and even upon such marshes. 

 This is considered to be its natural situation ; 



the straw that is washed, is afterwards used as 



If boiling water be used 



, would require folio volumes, and as much r- . . 



|ius ui luiuimaiivii. . jL spawn, would hardly survive the op- 



ourselves to such as are most common, and wun lueu spanu, ..uu ^ j r 



ourselves lu .ui.ua .' „ij erat on. So much for insects in general; we 



It injurious in their operations, and would ei.uiuu. ..u u.ui- o 



mise, that the remedies which we prescribe 

 nst the ravages of one kind of insect, will 



uently be found effectual against every oth- 

 iort. 



mong the substances, which are either of- 

 live or fatal to all kinds of insects, may be 

 ibered elder, especially of the dwarf kind, 

 ;Cco, quicklime, lime water, soot, unleached 

 d ashes, strong lie, tar or turpentine, or wa- 

 impregnated with those substances, common 

 : finely pulverized, brine, old urine, &c. &.c. 

 ling water is, likewise, an effectual and some- 

 les an expedient bug and worm destroyer. AVe 

 I .e known beds or plats in gardens, wellscald- 

 4 previous to sowing them with the seeds \n- 

 lided for them with perfect success against 

 •mis, grubs, and every species of insect, 

 lich had its habitation in the plat, to whiih 

 a boiling water was applied. This operatioi, 

 .1 thoroughly performed, cannot fail to destroy 

 t only every reptile within reach of its inflii- 

 ice, but those eggs or nits which are lodged i« 

 e soil, and are teeming with future mischief 

 would be well after a bed has been well 

 aided to enclose it with slips of boards, bark, 

 • some other suitable material to prevent the 

 ;cess of insects from its neighborhood. Hills 

 Jitended for cabbages, cucumbers, melons, 

 juashes, &.c. &c. after having been scalded, and 

 jmetimes merely carefully dug over and in- 

 pected, have been surrounded with strips of 

 fhite birch bark, and remained impregnable to 

 iTcry kind of creeping thing. If this defence 

 9 covered over the top with a strip of gauze 

 >r muslin the plant is of course secured against 

 he winged tribes. It would no doubt be a good 

 )lan, when boiling water is applied as before 

 nentioned to boil a few elder roots and per- 

 laps tobacco stalks with the water, that the 

 vprms may have the benefit of the decoction. 



Care should be taken, in the application of 

 ome of the foregoing remedies not to destroy 

 the plants instead of, or together with the in- 

 lects which prey upon them. The old editions 

 of Deane's New England Farmer recommended 



shall mention some particular kinds, in our fu- 

 ture essays under this head, with an intention 

 of attending to them, before the season in which 

 their ravages are to be dreaded, and can be best 

 guarded against. 



O.N THE CHOICE OF Seeds.— " The way to try 

 seed is this. Put a small quantity of it in hike- 

 -siarm water, and let the water be four or five 

 inches deep. A mug or basin, will do, but a 

 large tumbler ^lass is best ; for then you 





the application of strong brine to cabbages, in 



then 

 see the bottom" as well as top. Some seeds, 

 such as those of cabbage, radish and turnip, will, 

 ii'g-ood, go to the bottom at once. Cucumber, 

 Melon, Lettuce, Endive, and many others re- 

 quire a few minutes. Parsnip and carrot, and 

 all the winged seeds require to be washed by 

 your fingers in a little water, and well wetted 

 before you put them into the glass ; and the 

 carrot should be rubbed so as to get off part of 

 the hairs, which would otherwise act as the 

 feathers do as to a duck. The seed of Beet 

 and Mangel Wurtzel are in a case or shell The 

 rough things that we sow are not the seeds, 

 but the cases in which the seeds are contained, 

 each case containing from one to five seeds. 

 Therefore the trial by water is not, as to these 

 two seeds, conclusive, though if the seed be very 

 good, it will sink in water, after being in the 

 glass an hour. And, as it is a matter of such 

 great importance, that every seed should grow 

 in a case where the plants stand so far apart ; 

 as gaps in roots of Beet and Mangel Wurtzel 

 are so very injurious, the best way is to reject 

 all seed that will not sink, case and all, after 

 being put into warm water and remaining there 

 an hour. 



" But seeds of all sorts, are, sometimes, if not 

 always, part sound and part unsound ; and as the 

 former is not to be rejected on account of the 

 latter, the proportion of each should be ascer- 

 tained, if a separation be not made. Count then 

 a hundred seeds, taken promiscuously, and put 

 them into water as before directed. If fifty 

 sink and fifty swim half your seed is bad and 

 half good ; and so in proportion as to other 

 numbers ol sinkers and swimmers. There may 



as a manure to it with very gpod cflect. To a 

 bed lifty feet by six, a bu>!icl of salt may be 

 safely applied before the plants start in the 

 spring."t 



Beets may be sown as soon as the ground is 

 fit to receive the seeds. The rows a foot apart 

 and the plants should be left eight inches apart 

 in the rows. Mr. Cobbett advises to soak the 

 seed four days and nights in rain water before 

 it is sowed. It should be put in about two in- 

 ches deep, well covered and the earth pressed 

 pretty hard upon it. " The ground should be 

 rich, but not fresh dunged. Ashes of wood, or 

 compost mould is best ; and the digging ought 

 to be very deep, and all the clods broken into 

 fine earth; because the clods turn the point of 

 the root aside, and make the point short, or 



forked. Fresh dung, which, of course lies in 

 unequal quantities in the ground, invites the tap 

 root, or some of the side roots to it, and thus 

 causes a short or forked beet."' The Mangel 

 Wurtzel may be cultivated much in the same 

 manner, excepting the seeds may be further 

 apart. We believe Col. Powell's method (des- 

 scribed page 276 of our paper,) equal to any 

 which can be adopted. 



Cabbage. — Set out cabbage stumps as soon as 

 the frost is out of the ground. It is said in the 

 Domestic Encyclopoedia that " early cabbages 

 may be procured by the following mode. In 

 the spring as soon as the sprouts on the cabbage 

 stalks have grown to the length of a plant fit 

 for setting, cut them out with a small slice of 

 the stalk, about two inches long; and if the sea- 

 son permit, plant them in a garden, and the usu- 

 al care will produce good cabbages." The seed 

 of cabbages should be sowed in the open ground 

 in rows six inches distance. They may like- 

 wise be sown in autumn and in hot beds, but we 

 have not room to state every possible variety in 

 the mode of cultivating plants ; our object be- 

 ing to mention merely the simplest and most 

 economical. With regard to transplanting, &c. 

 we shall say something in due season. 



Carrot.— Dr. Deane observed " 1 have found 

 by long experience that carrots should be sow- 

 ed early. The last week in April is late 

 enough, when intended for the feeding of cattle ; 

 and they may be sowed earlier, if the ground 



* Cobbett's American Gardener. 



t Deane's N. E. Farpier ; Wells k Lilly's edition, 



