Vol.ti.— No. 46. 



t'rom the seemingly insignificant conception ol 

 banding wheels «ilh iron, and the simple contriv- 

 ance tor liarnesKinsr u team of horses, to the more 

 e.xtensive operations ot reclaiming and croppinjr 

 land, subjects which previously had no bren sust- 

 gesled, much less ■gravely and ably recommended 

 in a book. From the moral and economical advice 

 which he imparled, I cannot forbear selectirlg a 

 few lessons, as worthy of respect and obedience 

 now, though almost 300 years liave elapsed since 

 they were first promulj;ated for the instniction of 

 the farmer. "I would advise him," says Fitz.her- 

 bert, "to rise by times in the morning, and go a 

 bout his closes, pastures, fields, and specially by 

 the hedges, and when he seeth any thing that would 

 be amended, to write it in his tables, and if he can- 

 not write, let him nick tlic defects upon a stick. — 

 As if he find any beasts, sheep, or swine, in his 

 pastures that be not his own, and peradrenturi! 

 though they be his own, he would not have them 

 to go there. Let him look, if any water stands on 

 his pastures, upon his arass, whereby he may tase 

 double hurt, both the loss of his grass, and rotting 

 of his sheep and calves. And see if any gate b^ 

 broken down, or findeth or seelh any thing amiss 

 that should be amended. Also take heed, both 

 early and late, at all time.';, what manner of peo- 

 ple resort aud come to thy house, and the cause 

 of their coming, and speoially if they bring with 

 them pitchers, bottles, or wallets, for if thy soi- 

 vants be not true they may do thee great hurt, and 

 themselves little advantage, wlierefore they would 

 be well looked upon." — I'oux's Mdiess. 



ADVANTAGES OF CARROTS IN FAT- 

 TENING OXEN, &c. 



Nothing can e.xceed this root for fattening oxen; 

 but they should have some sweet hay to eat with 

 it, and they will thrive much better on it if they 

 are stalled. It nourishe.' them much, and soon 

 makes thera fit for the butcher. Some oxen will 

 not take to eating them kindly at first. For those 

 they should for a time be parboiled ; but they must 

 every day be less and less boiled, till they come to 

 eat thera quite raw, which in a little while the 

 nicest will do. I also find carrots excellent for in- 

 creasing the milk of cows. 



Hogs are very fond of carrots, and they make 

 them thrive apace ; but they should always be 

 given to them boiled, as they will with great difii- 

 culty be induced to eat a sufficient finantity of 

 them raw. It will be proper, however, to give 

 thera before they are killed, either a few bushels 

 of barley meal, or some grey peas, boiled or some 

 corn, which will complete their fattening to admi- 

 ration. 



There is not a better and raoie hearteninj food 

 for horses than carrots, if given them with discre- 

 tion. They need have no corn, and much less hay 

 than they would otherwise eat. I have all my life 

 heard it said, that carrots were exceeding good to 

 make horses long winded ; and some jockies will, 

 1 have been informed, feed a broken winded horse 

 some little time with carrots before they sell him, 

 when he may be very well passed off for a horse 

 that is only a littlo thick winded. 



A horse dealer in my neighborhood, TOhen he 

 buys a poor, half-starved beast, if ho has youth on 

 his side, ahvays fats him up with cnrrols before 

 he takes him to mirket ; and this practice ho finds 

 answers very well, as the hore» is sooner got into 

 flesh with carrots than any other food ; and they 

 are besides wholesome, breeding in him no foul 

 humours. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



865 



All the danger seems to be to the purchaser 

 wh», if lie imprudently put the horse to too hard 

 work, is in a manner sure to break cither his wind 

 or his heart ; for as the horse was very suddenly 

 got into flesh, his strength is not proportione<l to 

 his bulk, till he has been kept some time on dry 

 iii(-al. 



That a horse thus fed should not be immediate- 

 ly fit for any hard labor, must not be used as an 

 argument against carrots being a proper food for 

 horses. It must be considered, that this man takes 

 a half starved horse, and gives him at once his fill 

 of a nourishing food ; in fact, too nourishing, as it 

 fills him with flesh faster than he can have time 

 to gather strength. — Agricultural Register. 



Rot in sheep. — In the parish of Cheriton Pitz- 

 paiiie, the rot is very apt to bo coraraunicated to 

 the slioep after depasturing upon the low lands 

 subject to the wash and partial overflowings from 

 the higher tillage lands. An instance once oc- 

 curred in the parish, of a farmer turning one hun 

 dred and ten ewes upon a lay field in preparation 

 to he sown with wheat, that had recently been 

 dressed with a mixing of lime, hedge-row and other 

 mould. The grass grew luxuriantly after this 

 dressing, but every ewe was dead by the Candle- 

 mas following, being all cawed or rotted with in- 

 numerable flukes found in the liver of every one 

 of them. The other sheep upon the farm, which 

 had been raised, and in every other respect treat- 

 ed in the same manner, save in depasturing with 

 the one hundred and ten ewes, were free fmm the 

 most remote symptoms of this disease. Watering 

 groumls early in the autumn or fall of the year, 

 and immediately turning sheep upon them, has 

 been found uniformly fatal in producing the same 

 disease. — l^ancouver's Survey 



NEIV ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1828. 



OF COMPOSTS or EARTH, LIME AND UU.VG. 



Mixing farm yard dung, in a state of fermenta- 

 tion, with earth, in which there is much inert veg- 

 etable matter ; as the banks of old ditches, or 

 what is collected from the sides of lanes, &c. 

 will bring the inert, dead matter consisting of the 

 roots of decayed grasses, and other plants, into a 

 stale of putridity and solubility, and prepare it for 

 nourishing the crops or plants it may be applied to, 

 in the very manner it acts on peat. Dung, how- 

 ever, mixed with earth taken from rich arable 

 fields, which have been long cultivated and ma- 

 nured, can have no effect as manure to other 

 land that the same earth and dung %vould not pro- 

 duce app'ied separately ; because there is gener- 

 ally no inert matter in this description of earth to 

 be rendered soluble. 



Mixing dung, earth, and quick lime together 

 can never be advisable ; because quick liuie will 

 render some of the most valuable parts of the 

 dung insoluble. It will depend on the nnture of 

 soil or earth, whether even quick lime only, sliould 

 he mixed with it to form compost. If there be 

 much inert vegetable matter in the earth, the 

 quick lime will prepare it for becoming fond for 

 the plants it may be applied to ; but if rich earth 

 bs taken fr«ni arable fielils, the bottoms of dung- 

 pics, or in fact of any soil full of soluble matter be 

 used, the quick-lime will decompose parts of this 

 soluble matter, combine with other parts, and ren- 



der the \yhole mass less nourishing as manure to 

 plants or crops, than before the quick lime was 

 applied to it. Making compost, then, of rich soil 

 of this description, with dung or lime, mixed or 

 separate, is evidently, to say no more of it, a waste 

 of time and labour. The mixture of earths of this 

 description, with dung, produces no alteration in 

 the component parts of tiie earth, where there is 

 no inert vegetable substances to be acted on ; and 

 the mixture of earth full of soluble matter, with 

 dung and quick lime in a mass together, has the 

 worst effects, the quick lime deeon. posing and 

 uniting with the soluble matters of the earth, as 

 well as that of the dung; thus lendering both, in 

 every case, less efli^ient as manures, than if ap- 

 plied separately from ihe quick lime, and even the 

 quick lime itself interior as manure for certain 

 soils, than if it had never been mixed with dung 

 and earth at all. 



Mixing dung in a state of fermentation with 

 peat, or what in Scotland is called meadow-bank 

 middens, is a successful mode of increasing the 

 quantity of putresceni manure. The peat being 

 dug and partially dried may either be carted into 

 the farm yard, and spread over it, there to remain 

 till the whole is carted out and laid on a dung hill 

 to ferment; or it may he mi.'fed up with the farm 

 yard dung as carted out. If care be taken to 

 watch the fermenting process, as the fire of a clay 

 kiln is watched, a few loads of dung may be made 

 to rot many loads of peat Adding lime to such 

 composts does not in the least promote fermenta- 

 tion, while it renders the most valuable parts of 

 the moss insoluble. Adding sand, ashes, or earth 

 by tending to consolidate the mass will considera 

 bly impede the fermentation. 



COJTPOST FOR A GARDEN. 



Without enumerating the various means that. 

 with carefoi economy may be used for iucrea.sing 

 ' the stock of garden manure, such as collectin"- 

 the urine of animals, chainbe -lie, soap suds, or 

 mixing fresh soils of opposite qualities, I shall con- 

 fine myself to a plain statement of a method I 

 have practised for these several years past with 

 much success. Situated the same as many others 

 to whom the produce of the .stable-yard is the only 

 allowance of dung that can conveniently be allot- 

 ted fur the garden, which, although every way ad- 

 vantageous for hot beds, and other purposes of 

 forcing, yet to use it as a manure for garden 

 crops, without having its qualities altered by fer- 

 mentation, or blended with substances of a heavi- 

 er nature, would in many cases be more injurious 

 tlian beneficial; I, therefore, during the summer 

 ' and autumn, have all the ofTals in the garden, 

 such as weeds, leaves of strawberries, and other 

 vegetables, short grass, peas and asparagus haulm, 

 with the foliage of trees aud shrub.s, when newly 

 j shed, carefully collected into a heap. These are 

 all turned over and tnixed during the winter, that 

 they may be sufBcienlly rotted to mix with the 

 dung against the end of summer. T have also an- 

 other heap formed with the primings from goose- 

 berry and currant bushes, fruit-trees, raspberry 

 shoots, clippings of box-edgings, and loppings 

 from shrubs, also the roots of greens and cab. 

 bages, which are generally burnt at two different 

 periods in the year, in spring and autumn ; but 

 previous to each burning, I endeavor to pare up 

 all the coarse grasses around the garden, with a, 

 portion of the soil adhering thereto, and whenever 

 these are sufficiently dried, have them collected 



