vol,. XVIII. NO. 10. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGLSTER. 



89 



a low shrub or vine assuminir at times the form of 

 a climber, and bearing bunches of brown berries. 

 Whatever the poison may be, it causes cattle to 

 quiver, stacrger, and die within a few hours. If 

 cows eat of it, the milk is poisoned, the butter is 

 also poisoned, and those who partake of either, are 

 as surely injured, as if they had partaken of the 

 original cause itself. The slightest symptoms are 

 vomiting, and this more severe as tlie quantity of 

 poison is greater, until violent spasms and death 

 ensues. Dogs and wolves wlio feed on animals 

 that have died with this disease sliare the same 

 fate, and to prevent the e.\tending of the evil to 

 dogs and swine, cattle that die with the poison are 

 buried carefully to avoid such results. 



In districts where the disease prevails, great care 

 is necessary in killing beef animals, as sometimes 

 the beef will produce vomiting, when the animal is 

 60 little affected as to escape notice. To test the 

 presence of the disease, some butchers are in the 

 habit of driving the animal a mile to heat its blood ; 

 when if it is poisoned it will e.\hibit that peculiar 

 trembling so certainly indicative of the presence of 

 the complaint. 



In remarking on the formidable nature of this 

 complaint, a writer from the west says, — 



"I have seen many farms with comfortable buil- 

 dings and improvements, entirely abandoned, and 

 their owners fled to other quarters, to avoid this 

 dreadful curse." 



But perhaps the most signal instance of its 

 fatality is given in the following extract of a paper 

 from Col. Hinde of Illinois, who has given much 

 attention to the topic : 



" Calling to see a friend on Darby Creek, Ohio, 

 whom I had not seen for twenty years, he pointed 

 to his wife and remarked — ' She is my third wife ; 

 I am her third husband ; and in yon grave yard lie 

 fifteen members of our families taken off by that 

 dreadful disease, the puking complaint !' " 



Surely there must be some unusual fascinations 

 in any place that would lead an individual for so 

 many years to encounter so fatal an enemy to life. 

 Should the announcement of the discovery alluded 

 to, prove well founded, it will be a valuable boon to 

 the west, and save annually great numbers of cattle 

 and many valuable lives. — Genesee Farmer. 



From the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 



CULTURE OF RUTA BAGA. 

 Hon. Isaac Hill — Dear Sir — Believing ruta 

 baga to be of great value to the stock farmers, and 

 as the season for sowing is at hand, I send you an 

 extract from my farm journal, relative to my mode 

 of culture the first year, though, as it was my first 

 experiment, I am far from thirdiingit to be the best 

 mode. However, as I was pretty accurate in de- 

 tail, its publication may be of use to my brother 

 farmers, by inducing some one better acquainted 

 with its culture than myself, to point out the errors 

 in my process. 



ing smooth, marked it into squares of eighteen 

 inches, and planted by dropping two or tlireo seeds 

 in each intersection, which was done by taking the 

 seed from a box, with a single hole in the to[i, I 

 sowed from the 1st to the 4th of June ; on the 23d 

 began to weed, thinning out where the plants were 

 too crowded, and setting out where deficient, which 

 I continued to do occasionally when other work did 

 not press, till the 28th July. On the 26th October, 

 I began to pull and cut, finishing onthedth of No- 

 vember ; and I found the plants last pulled as unin- 

 jured as the first, although tliey had been exposed to 

 several severe frosts. They were pulled by hand, the 

 workmen striking two plants together to shake oflf the 

 dirt, and then throwing them down, where they lay 

 spread for three hours to dry the loose dirt that still 

 adhered to them ; the tops were then twisted otf, and 

 the plants thrown into heaps for carting, so that each 

 root was handled three several times. They 

 might have been got into the cart with less labor, 

 but my object was to get them into tlie cellar in a 

 tolerably clean state. Having heard much of the 

 difficulty of keeping them in cellars, from their 

 tendency to rot, I stored in one cellar 1,500 bush- 

 els without injury to a single root, and I have now, 

 {May 5,) more than 100 bushels as full and as 

 fair as when first placed there. The cellar was 

 thirty feet square, on the bottom of which, eight 

 inch timbers were placed, and covered with plank 

 two inches apart. The whole was divided into two 

 bins, with one foot space between the bins, and one 

 foot between the bins and the cellar wall ; the 

 sides of the bins being made with narrow boards, 

 with a space of four inches between each board. 



I fed out my twelve hundred bushels to my 

 sheep, six hundred to my horned cattle, and the re- 

 mainder to my horses. They all ate with avidity, 

 preferring them to potatoes. For my horses and 

 cattle they were merely cut with a spade ; for the 

 sheep, they were passed through a vegetable cut- 

 ter. They were carted in two carts, each contain- 

 ing thirty baskets holding more than a bushel, and 

 weighing seventyfour pounds. The number of 

 baskets was twentyone hundred, and the whole 

 weight seventyseven ions. Number of roots, 36,000 

 — as put in the extract from my journal alluded to 

 above. I am, sir, very respectfully, your ob't ser- 

 vant, LEONARD JARVIS. 



Riita Baga, Dr. 



To interest on three acres, at $100 per acre, $18 

 Twice ploughing three acres, 6 



Harrowing and rolling, 4 



Seed, 2 



To 130 days' worl> on above, viz. 9 days 

 sowing, 85 weeding, hoeing and setting, 

 and 36 drying and cutting — 130 days, or 

 five months, at $13 per month, 

 "^0 22 week's board, at 9s. per week, 



CV. 



By 2,100 bushels at 10 cents, 

 Profit, estimating at 10 cents, 



$240 



sive practical farmer in the state of New Hampshire, 

 in favor of the root culture. Ho sliows by this exper- 

 iment what much manure will do for a succession 

 of yearii : it gives double payment in a single year 

 for the labor bestowed; and this double payment 

 will extend itself into a series of from four to ten 

 years, according to the capacity for retention of the 

 soil to which it is applied. — Ed. Far. Mon. Vis. 



EGGS. 



Almost every body loves good fresh eggs, and 

 with or without glasses or silver spoons, can con- 

 trive to eat them ; whether boiled or fried, raw or 

 roasted, made into custard with sugar and spices, 

 or swallowed gently with a bordering of old port, 

 they agree with the palate and the stomach, and 

 neatly laid out with fair slices of bacon, they form 

 a repast within the reach of all, and to be despised 

 by none. But though most farmers keep fowls, 

 and raise their own eggs, there are many who have 

 not yet learned the difierence there is in the rich- 

 ness and flavor of eggs produced by fat and well 

 fed hena, and those from birds that have been half 

 starved through our winters. There will be some 

 difference in the size, but far more in the quality. 

 The yolk of one will be large, fine colored, and of 

 good consistence, and the albumen or white, clear 

 and pure ; while the contents of the other will be 

 watery and meagre, as though there was not vitali- 

 ty or substance enough in the parent fowl to prop- 

 erly carry out and complete the work that nature 

 had sketched. In order to have good eggs, the ' 

 hens should be well fed, and also provided during 

 the months they are unable to come at the ground, 

 with a box of earth containing an abundance of 

 fiae gravel, (if of limestone so much the better,) 

 that they may be able to grind and prepare for di- 

 gestion the food they receive. Fowls form no 

 small item in the profits of the small farmer, and few 

 creatures better repay the care and attention they 

 receive. Of eggs, those of the domestic hen are 

 decidedly the best j but those of both ducks and 

 geese may be used for some of the purposes of do- 

 mestic cookery. Eggs can be kept any leiigth of 

 time, if the air is perfectly escluded, and the place 

 of deposite kept at a low temperature. — Genesee 

 Farmer. 



As our cotemporary teaches us how to make good 

 eggs, we beg to reciprocate the favor, by advising 

 him how to cook them. To be nutritious and 

 healthful, and to suit most palates, the yolk of an 

 egg should be cooked hard, and the white should 

 be cooked to a jelly, the consistence of a custard. 

 This is best accomplished neither by boiling, frying 

 nor roasting — but by caudling, that is, by turning 

 upon it scalding water, either in a caudler or other 

 close dish. In this way eggs may be properly 

 cooked ; and by repeating the hot water, or leaving 

 them to lay in it a longer or shorter time, they may 

 be easily graduated to the liking of every one, 

 without tro.uble or waste. — Cultivator. 



