VOL. XVlt Ni> 40. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



315 



furrowed the ground four feet and 'six inches apart 

 north and snuth and three feet ap.irt cast and west, 

 a^d planted them the first week in May, when the^ 

 o-round froze every night, and on the north side ol 

 the wall the ground did not thaw through the day ; 

 when I planted the potatoes, I put a table spoonful 

 of gypsum into each hill, and when the vine made 

 its appearance through the ground, I put twelve 

 bushels of wood ashes, lime and gypsum on the hills 

 in the proportion of one half ashes, one fourth lime, 

 and one fourth gypsum; I ploughed and hoed them 

 three times. The produce was one hundred and 

 si.xty bushels to the acre. The kinds, a part of 

 them a red potato called among us here the Rut- 

 land, and a part of them were the blue potato: the 

 soil a gravelly loam. 



The one acre was a green sward ploughed in 

 about the middle of May, this spring, then harrowed 

 the land and spread twenty five loads of long or 

 green manure to tlie acre, and planted it in rows 

 three feet and six inches apart each way ; ploughed 

 and hoed the same twice : the soil was a gravelly 

 loam : the produce one hundred bushels to the acre. 

 The hot and dry weather in the month of August, 

 was very severe with my potato crop upon both 

 fields, and the product not half of au usual crop. 

 The kinds of potatoes were the same as planted 

 upon my other field. 



15. I have among the corn in one of my fields 

 of about three and a half acres, the English turnip, 

 where my corn was very much injured by the crows, 

 and the growth is extremely promising, but I have 

 not harvested them now. 



16. None this year of winter grain ; of spring 

 grain. three acres and three quarters. The ground 

 was prepared by ploughing it fine, then harrowing 

 it, then cross ploughed it, then rolled it, sowed 

 the grain and got it in with the cultivator ; put no 

 manure upon my land in the spring ; the land the 

 season previous having been planted with a potato 

 crop ; sowed two and a half bushels to an acre. 

 My grain was all of wheat of the Black Sea kind, 

 except one half bushel, and that was of the Italian : 

 the soil of a gravelly loam of a hard pan bottom : 

 my method of preparing the grain was by washing 

 all the foul seed therefrom, then put the grain in- 

 to baskets and lot it drain until dry, then put the 

 grain into tubs and soaked it in as strong a solu- 

 tion of salt and water as could be made to dissolve 

 in the water at a heat of one hundred and twenty 

 degrees, and soaked the same ten minutes, then 

 took it out upon a floor and raked in as much of 

 dry lime as would adhere to the grain. When the 

 grain was up about three or four inches in height, 

 I sowed eighteen bushels of wood ashes, lime and 

 gypsum, in the proportion of one half ashes, one 

 fourth lime and one fourth gypsum to an acre ; 

 this dressing is highly valuable to the wheat crop 

 and to the succeeding crops of grass, and visible 

 for a number of years, and one of the cheapest and 

 best manures used. 



The half bushel of Italian wheat was sowed up- 

 on the same field side by side of the Black Sea 

 wheat, and the same process of preparing the land 

 and seed was had as with the Black Sea wheat, 

 and the produce was about the same with the Black 

 Sea wheat, and the crop when ripe for harvest was 

 one week later than the Black Sea wheat. The 

 crop of both kinds was twenty bushels' to an acre, 

 and the last year I raised tliirtyfive bushels to an 

 acre of the Black Sea wheat ; my wheat was sown 

 the last week in April. 



17. I have laid down three acres and three 



fourths of an acre to grass the present season ; 

 I sowed the seed on the first day of May ; my usual 

 practice of seeding is, half a bushel of herds grass, 

 one peck of red-top, and ten pounds o! clover seed 

 to an acre, and I Sowed the same quantity this 

 year ; and was sown with the grain crop after the 

 grain was got in with the cultivator and then roll- 

 ed in. 



18. The means and manner of collecting and 

 making manure, are from my cattle and hogs, and 

 by digging the loam out from undermy walls where 

 I new set them or make new walls ; the loam and 

 sand beside the roads and from loam pits in my 

 pastures, and the same carried into my barn yard. 



19. I keep six oxen, twentysix cows, no young 

 cattle, two horses, sheep none. One of my barns 

 is 84 feet long and 30 feet wide, ono other barn .50 

 feet long, 36 feet wide, and 20 feet posts, and a 

 cellar under two-thirds of the same ; one-third part 

 of said cellar occupied for my liogs to lie under in 

 the winter. Manure not covered. 



20. My cows are all of the native breed. 



21. I have raised no calves. I have fatted all 

 my calves for the market this year and for several 

 years past ; I have fatted 37 calves for the market 

 tills year, which have brought me at my house .$317 ; 

 but I am convinced that I am pursuing a wrong 

 course, and I intend to raise ten or twelve of my 

 best c\ilves yearly in future. 



92. Of butter [ have iBade up to the l.'ith day 

 of October the present year, twentyfive hundred 

 pounds, and of cheese only for my own consump- 

 tion, six hundred and fifty pounds of two meal and 

 four meal and none of new milk. 



23. Of swine I have on hand three old ones 

 and twentytwo pigs ; I intend to fat the three old 

 ones and seventeen of the pigs, and keep five of 

 the pigs through the winter for breeders ; my swine 

 are all of the native breed, and I make my pigs 

 weigh on an average at ten months old, when 

 dres'sed for the market, three hundred pounds, and 

 have for many years past. I fatted seven thousand 

 and one hundred pounds of pork the last year, and 

 sold six thousand and five hundred pounds of the 

 same, wTiich brought me six hundred and fifty dol- 

 lars. 



24. I feed my swine through the summer upon 

 the skim milk and whey from my dairy, and give 

 them no meal in the summer ; I fat them upon corn 

 and potatoes ; I boil my potatoes and mash them 

 fine and make the composition in the proportion of 

 one bushel, of potatoes and half a bushel of meal, 

 and keep my hogs dry and warm, and keep them 

 well littered with straw, which is of the utmost im- 

 portance in tile fattening of hogs. 



25. I have a yard in front of my barns, 100 feet 

 in length by 75 feet in depth, where my cattle and 

 swine'all yard through the summer and winter ; and 

 I get from 300 to 400 loads of manure a year from 

 the same, meaning all that I make of long or green 

 manure and of compost. The materials are of 

 loam, sand that I cart into the yard in the autumn 

 after I have taken the manure out, and of meadow 

 hay, straw and corn stover that I throw out into 

 my yard for my cattle in the winter for them to 

 pick over. It is decidedly the best way that cattle 

 and swine be yarded together for the making of 

 manure. 



26. I employ upon my farm three men for eight 

 months, commencing on the first of April, and one 

 man in the winter, and one man three months by 

 the day : I have paid fourteen, sixteen and seven- 

 teen dollars by the month for the eight months, and 



from five to six shillings by the day, and boarded 

 said men. . 



27. I have five hundred of engrafted apple trees 

 and from two to ' tliree hundred trees not en- 

 grafted. 



28. I have 42 pear, .35 peach, 25 plum, 14 

 cherry, 8 apricot, and 4 almond trees. 



20. My trees have never been attacked by the 

 canker worm, to my knowledge ; the borer has de- 

 stroyed one apricot tree and four or five apple trees ; 

 1 have not taken any means to destroy them. 



30. I do not use any nor alloiv any ardent spir- 

 its on my farm, and have not for the last five years. 



[For the New England Farmer.] 



Stcrbridgr, Feb. 12, 1839. 



Mr Editor. — As it is a pleasure for farmers to 

 communicate their ideas to each other, I think it is 

 a great benefit and even a duty we owe to each 

 other to gather up all fragments that nothing be 

 lost. I ofifer you two short articVes for publication, 

 if you think them worth notice. 



1. On the Culture of Cabbages.— Ahoui thirty 

 years since the snow fell a considerable depth, 

 early in the season, without much frost in the 

 ground, and continued on the ground until late in 

 spring, and many of the cabbage stumps in my 

 cabbage ground lived through the winter. In April 

 I ploughed the ground, turning in the old stumps. 

 The first of May I began setting out early cabbage 

 plants, and finding many of the old stumps had 

 sprouted, and one of the red kind in particular ; the 

 sprouts had the appearance of a plant grown from 

 the seed. , 



I examined and found the sprout came out of 

 the stump very near to the root, while others 

 farther up the stump were in a situation soon to 

 blossom. I broke off all but the one nearest the 

 root, and cultivated that in the way I did the other 

 plants. In the fall I had a very large and hand- 

 some head. I carried it into the cellar, and set it 

 out the next spring with the same success as before, 

 and then continued setting out the same stump 

 with others with it, two years more, from all which 

 I had good heads. 



I have set out stumps, occasionally, ever since, and 

 always had good heads ; therefore, I recommend it 

 to the public as a good practice for raising cabbages 

 for early fall use. 1 find in this metliod most kinds, 

 except red cabbage, will be too early to keep 

 through the winter. 



My method is to cut them off near to the roots, 

 leavino- three or four eyes on the stumps, and set 

 them out early in the spring, setting them in the 

 o-round slanting, say a slant of fortyfive degrees, 

 then cover the end of the stump quite over with 

 loose mould ; when the sprouts get to the height 

 of three inches, by pulling open the leaves you 

 I may easily ascertain those that will go to seed by 

 the appearance of blossoms. Break off all of this 

 description, leave only one without the appearance 

 of blows and you will be likely to have good 

 cabbages. 



I have good red cabbages in my cellar this day 

 raised bv the method above described. 



Gauuinf.r Watki.vs. 



I Early Potatoks.— The Easton (Maryland) Ga- 

 ' zette notices a sample of forward Irish potatoes, 



grown this season, in the open ground, and now 



fit for use. 



