262 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



FEBRUARY 2i, 1x3*. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY £2, 1837. 



Providence, Feb. 11, 1837. 

 Mr T. G. Fessenden, 



Sib: — I perceive that you seem to recommend the 

 use of Potatoes in making Bread. It is I presume, fur 

 economy, for no person would use ihem for any other 

 purpose, in preference to flour. It should not be for- 

 gotten that 10 oz. of flour %vill, with a little yeast, and 

 a due quantity of water, n.ake 1.5 oz. of bread, and tliat_ 

 water is clicitper than even potatoes. If the bread be 

 so made as that the moisture of the potatoes supplies the 

 place of wati!r, in the produciion of dough, you will 

 lose all the bread, which would have been produced by 

 the use of water. I have known potato bread made 

 with a total loss of the potatoes, and yet heard a great 

 boasting of the economy of the proceeding. 



Will the black corn produce as much as the blue or 

 white, if planted, both of them as they should be, three 

 feet by 15 foot ? Its earlier maturity is in its favor, but 

 not so much as the loss of one fourth «f the crop ; for in 

 New England the corn is not injured by frost one year 

 in four, or perhaps eight. 



Mr Bateman of Newport, in this State, has raised, as 

 I am told, 1(100 bushels of Mangel Wurtzel on an acre. 

 He uses them in fattening cattle. This crop requires 

 the whole season, while the Ruta Baga may be raised 

 to, perhaps, three fourths of that amount after a crop of 

 grass, or any kind of grain. The difference in the nu- 

 tritive qualities of roos should be considered, and the 

 purposes for which they are fed. 

 With high respect, I am 



Your obedient servant, 



Tristram Burgess. 



By the Editor. — We are ever happy to receive arti- 

 cles like the above, from gentlemen, whose character, 

 mental powers, and standing in the community are cal- 

 culated to turn the attention of the reading and thinking 

 part of mankind to the pursuits of economy. With re- 

 gard to converting water into nutritious matter, and 

 making it food for animals as wed as plants, we have 

 heretofore made some remarks in a note to the Boston 

 edition of Mowbray's Treatise on Poultry, and in the N. 

 Kngland Farmer, vol. x, p. 389. We will now take the 

 liberty to repeat some of those observations, as they are 

 pertinent to one of the topics of our able cerrespondenis 

 communication, and will perhaps be new and useful to 

 some of our readers : 



" It is a fact, which will be acknowledged as soon as 

 stated, that a pouod of Indian meal,of rice, or any other 

 farinaceous substance, wlien boiled, contains more nour- 

 ishment than several pounds in a raw state. Count 

 Rumford has stated " from the results of actual experi- 

 ment, it appears that for each pound of Indian meal em- 

 ployed in making a pudding, we may reckon three lbs. 

 KiTse ounces of the pudding.* And again, three pounds 

 of Indian meal, three quarters of a pound of molasses, 

 and one ounce of salt, (in all 3 pounds IS. ounces of sol- 

 id food,) having been mixed with five pints of boiling 

 water, and boiled six hours, produced a pudding, which 

 weighed ten lis. one ounce. \ Thus sv-i gain from the 



raw material more than 300 per cent, in weight, and, 

 no doubt, the gain as respects the quantity of nutriment 

 contained in the pudding, over and above the compo- 

 nent I arts as they e.\isted before boiling was still great- 

 er. The gain of weight in iice,in consequence of boil- 

 ing, is more considerable than that of Indian meal, and 

 every one knows that a small quantity of oat-meal will 

 produce a very great relative proportion of gruel.'' 



inrWe have received a highly valued favor from the 

 Hon. Abbott Lawrence, dated 15th inst. House of Rep- 

 resentatives, Washington, relating to a parcel of Seed 

 Corn, which has four or five ears on a stalk, »S:c. The 

 package has ni>t yet arrived, and we received the noti- 

 ces of the donation and the statements with which it 

 was accompanied, too late for this paper. We have now 

 only room to express our thanks to Mr Lawrence for 

 this repetition ot his kindness and attention to the ag- 

 ricultural interests of New England. His letter and the 

 documents with which it was accompanied, shall be 

 published in our next. 



inr Mr Hazen's Address, which we have concluded 

 in this day^ paper, will be read with profit as well as 

 pleasure, by all who feel an interest in the welfare of 

 the community, as well as those would willin^'ly pro- 

 mote the progiess of the cultivation. « 



tnf" A Premium of One Hundied Dollars, is offered 

 for the best experiment made in the year 1S37, in fat- 



quarts of soft water, and let it simmer over a alow fire, 

 until it is reduced to one quart ; then add to it a quarter 

 of a pound of brown sugar candy pounded — a table- 

 spoonful of white wine vinegar, or lemon juice ; the 

 vinegar is best to be added only to the quantity you are 

 going immediately to take. Drink half a pint at going 

 to bed, and take a little when the cough is trouble- 

 some. 



This receipt generally cures the worst of colds in one, 

 two or three days, and if taken in time, is said to be an 

 infallible remedy. It is a sovereign balsamic cordial for 

 the lungs without the opening qualities, which engen- 

 der fresh colds on going out. It has been known to 

 cure colds t/iat have almost settled in consumption, in 

 less than 3 weeks — Bost Jour. 



Fruit Trees may be removed and transplanted after 

 the first of October. Most farmers who transplant fruit 

 trees, suffer a great loss by not doing the work well. — 

 The principal care needed, is, first, to dig the holes 

 large, say six feet across, and fifteen or eighteen inches 

 deep; secondly, to preserve carefully, the roots as en- 

 tire and uninjured as possible, and not to suffer them to 

 become dry out of the ground ; and thiriily, to fill the 

 hole with finely pulverized, rich earth, (not manure,) 

 shaking in small quantities, and packing it closely, but 

 gently, about the roots, so as to leave them in their nat- 

 ural pijsition in the soil. The whole expense of this, 

 would not be more than half the price of the tree, and 



. . -„ 1 , ,, - . , 1 in five years it would be three times the size, which it 



tening various animals on apples — the premium lo be ^ ' 



awarded by a Committee of three Farmers, to be named 

 hereafter in this Journal. — Amcr. Temp. Union. 



would be,if transplanted by the common way of digging 

 small holes, and doing the work hastily and imperfectly 

 — Gen. Far. 



French Blues, is the name of a Potato, a specimen 

 of which has been left at our office, by Mr Moses Wins- 

 low, of Westbrook ; it is said that they were imported a 

 lew years since. The appearance of these potatoes re 

 commend them as to productiveness ; they are so large 

 tliat a man could hardly walk straight with one in a 

 side pocket. They are of a good quality when raised 

 on a dry soil ; are very solid and heavy, of a roundish 

 form : the inside is of a beautiful yellow color. Mr W. 

 inforn's us that he has raised a peck in a hill after sep 

 arating the small ones ; and that they produce far more 

 than any other potatoes that he has cultivated. We 

 have these potatoes for sale by the bushel, peck, half 

 peck, or single. Those who try them should put them 

 on rich ground, as they may as well think of making a 

 large hog on a stinted substance, as to raise such pota- 

 toes as these on a lean soil. — Yankee Far. 



* Count Rumfoid'a Essays, vol. i. p. 258. — Boston ed. 



t According to Sir Humphrey Davy's Table of the 

 Quantities of Soluble or Nutritive Matters aff"orded by 

 different vegetable substances, 1000 parts of wheat af- 

 ford 005, whole quaulity of soluble or nutritive matter, 



765 of mucilage or starch, 100 of gluten or albumen 



Potatoes afTurd by analysis, the same materials, but in | benefit the public. 



Receipt for a Cold. — Take a Large tea-spoonful of 

 flaxseed, with two pennyworth of stick liquorice, and 

 one quarter of a pound of new raisins, put them in two 



a smaller proportion and the addition of saccharine mat- 

 ter, viz; from 1000 parts, from 200 to 200, whole quan- 

 tily of soluble matter, from 200 to 155 mucilage, or 

 starch, from 20 to 15 saccharine matter, from 40 to 30 

 gluten. As wheat and potatoes both contain mostly the 

 same constituent parts, one would suppose there could 

 be no loss by their mixture in biead ; but there are 

 properties belonging to the potato part of the mixture, 

 which do not belong to that which is composed of the 

 flour. The potatoes are cooked and boiled before they 

 are mixed with the flour or duugh, while the flour is a 

 raw material, and potatoes, we believe, are not increased 

 in bulk or substance, by any process in cooking, like 

 flour, Indian meal, or rice, &c." This subject, howev- 

 er, deserves further investigation, and curable corres- 

 pondent, by resuming it, would oblige us, and probably 



Life in New York — It is easier, says the N.York 

 American, to write about living in this city, than to find 

 the means of living. Rentfl have universally gone up 

 from 30 to 50 per cent. Flour is at $15 per bbl. and the 

 prices at market are as follows : 



Beef 12 1-2 to 15 cts. per lb Corned Beef 10 cents. 

 Mutton, 17 to 10 cts. Veal, Irt cts. Turkey, 28 cents 

 per lb., equal to from $2 to $3 apiece. A Goose, $2. 

 A pair of Chickens, $2. 



[lj°The London Magazine gives the following recipe 

 for preventing Ink becoming mouldy. Add to each pint 

 bottle of writing ink, five drops of Kreosote. It gives 

 the ink a slight odor of smoked meat, which is by no 

 means disagreeable, and effectively obviates its tenden- 

 cy to become musty. Kreosote may be purchased at 

 the apothecaries. 



[nir A calculating cotemporary says that Rice is al- 

 ways one of the cheapest articles of food, and now it is 

 no higher than usual, notwithstanding flour is nearly 

 double its common price. Nothing is so cheap in the 

 present state of prices as rice, and nothing is more heal- 

 thy or more palatable. 



|Ij= A French writer says that " the modest deport- 

 ment of those who are truly wise, when contrasted with 

 the assuming air of the ignorant, may be compared to 

 the different appearances of wheat, which, while its 

 ear is empty, holds up its head proudly, but as soon as 

 it is filled with grain, bends modestly down, and with- 

 draws from observation." 



" Uncle John," said a little, urchin to an old gentle- 

 man, who was sitting with his head towards the fire, 

 " why are you like an Indian making his house ? D'ye 

 give it up. Because he is making \na wig warm." — 

 (wigwam.) — Com. 



