12 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



jri-T 12, isia. 



VALUABI.E PROPERTIES OF GYPSUM. 

 To the remarkably fertilizing poners of gypsum, 

 may be adiled others of a highly valuable charnc- 

 ler. Drilled in with winter turnip seed, it causes 

 so speedy a vegetation, that even in the hottest 

 droughts, there is no danger of losing the first sea- 

 son's growth — a loss which has so fieqnenlly been 

 followed liy that of the crop itself. The young 

 plant, thus rapuily and vigorously grown, is rarely 

 attacked by the fly, and even where that destruc- 

 tive enemy is already in the tifld, it cannot fall 

 under more certain conquest than a top-dressing 

 of gypsum, applied when the plant is wet. Nor 

 is this all ; for even where the fly has commenced 

 us ravages, not only has it been thus at once anni- 

 hilated, but the gypsum has speedily pushed the 

 injured plants into beautiful and healthy growth. 



Alike destructive is the gypsum, similarly ap- 

 plied to the slug, and other destructive insects. 



In respect to wheat, fine gypsum drilled in with 

 the grain, has proved a perfect preventative of the 

 crop being thrown out by the action of spring 

 frosts, by which a loss of 50 per cent, is frequently 

 sustained. The gypsum portion has always grown 

 strong, healthy, and productive, in straw and ear, 

 while a large part of the ungypsumed portion has 

 been thrown out of the ground, and, of course, 

 rendered worthless. In this important apjlication 

 of gypsum no failure has been known. 



Another valuable quality of gypsum is its dura- 

 bility 111 the land; for, unlike the nitrate of soda, 

 guano, rape-dust, soot, &c., whose benefits are 

 limited to a single crop, the gypsuin, from the slow- 

 ness of its 'solution, must much extend its fertiliz- 

 ing powers to three or four crops in succession. 



This article is also exceedingly valuable when 

 sprinkled in stables, pig-styes, ponltry-honses, 

 pigi-'on-cotr , i 1 on dung-hills — pioinoting great- 

 ly the health of animals, and preventing the escape 

 of the ammonia, that very spirit of manure, which 

 would otherwise be carried off in vapor and rob the 

 manure, according to chemical calculation, of full 

 half its strength. — Inverness (Scot.) Herald. 



may bo set down as clear gain, for the skimmed 

 milk will pay for her keeping. This is, for ten 1 

 yeais, a gam of five hundred dollars; for at the ^ 

 end of that time she will bring her original cost: 

 for beef, making the cost about balanced. | 



Now how stands the two accounts of horse and 

 cow? A( the end of ten years. Dr. horse $475: 

 Cr. cow $500. That is, wo have or may have for 

 our cow investment, five hundred bright dollars to 

 buy land with, or to fit out (uir daughter in mar- 

 riage, or to put out at interest ; whereas before we 

 can get the $475 which the horse has cost us, we 

 must earn it. Let ns reflect, then, and see if we 

 have not too many favorite colts upon our hands, 

 kept not because we want them for use, but to 

 please Tommy or Billy ; and for each horse we 

 sell, we can buy two or three cows, that will make 

 the world prosper with us and enable us to look 

 the lax collector in the face. P. 



Frcm the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 



HORSE AND COW. 



A horse costs the price of three cows. The an- 

 noal expense of keeping him is about three times 

 as much, if we include his shoeing. He is worn 

 out or nearly loses his value in ten years, which is 

 a loss of ten per cent, per annum upon the cost. 

 Thus if we give for him scventyfive dollars, that is 

 gone in ten years : keeping and shoeing, say 40 

 dollars a year, is in ten years four hundred dollars, 

 making four hundred and seventyfive dollars in all. 

 Thus lor pvery horse a farmer may keep beyond 

 what may be necessary for farm work, is equal to 

 fortyscven dollars fifty cents out of pocket each 

 year. Upon the Dr. Franklin calculation that a 

 penny saved is two earned, this fortyseven dollars 

 fifty cents is equal to ninetyfive dollars ; for if we 

 lose or expend fortyseven dollars filty cents, it is 

 gone, absolutely out of pocket ; and we have to 

 earn that amount before we can possess it. Now 

 had we saved it, and put it with the same amount 

 earned, it would come to ninetyfive dollars, as plain 

 as can he made. 



Let us now look afier the cow. An excellent 

 one can be had for twentyfive dollars. She will 

 last for ten years, and make on an average fifty dol- 

 lars worth of butler and cheese per year, which 



From the same. 



PAINTING nUlLDINGS, &c. 

 Messrs. Hill ^- Sons — I notice in the Visitor for 

 May, a communication from a Maryland farmer, 

 suggesting the inutility of paint on buildings, 

 which my experience shows to be erroneous. Your 

 correspondent does not say whether he refers to 

 paint on the roof or sides of buildings, but his re- 

 marks seem to apply to both. It is the first time 

 I ever heard doubted the utility of paint on the 

 sides of buildings, though I have frequently on the 

 roofs. It is said the coat on the shingles forms 

 slight dams below the butts, which retain the wa- 

 ter and rot off the shingles at that point. This 

 may be so on comparatively flat roofs — of such I 

 carmot speak from experience — but on roofs sharp 

 or fiterp. the -..-ater falls '' :.m I'^chntta of the shin- 

 gles on the paint and runs off. The coat of paint 

 prevents the shingle from wearing, and that or the 

 oil in the wood, prevents the water from penetra- 

 ting, and the wood from swelling and shrinking, and 

 the shingles are thus kept fast, and not washed up 

 or the nails loosened. To avoid the effect men- 

 tioned on roofs rather flat, some paint each course 

 of shingles as they are put on, so as to have the 

 butts of the next course lap over the paint. I do 

 not know how this operates from any experience, 

 but should think well, and should adopt this prac- 

 tice had I a roof of this description to cover. But 

 my intention is rather to state the result of my 

 own experience and observation, than to go into 

 any speculative reasoning on the subject. 



In 1820, I purchased the house and barn or sta- 

 ble where I now live. They had been built twen- 

 tytwo or three years, for the first settled minister 

 of the parish, and I was thus able to make certain 

 their age. The house was built one or two years 

 before the barn. I occupied them the year before 

 I purchased. The roof of the house was then 

 good, and did not require shingling till 1841. It 

 had been painti^d. The roof of the barn was 

 leaky when I first occupied it, and I had to make 

 partial repairs of so much of it as I needed lo 

 preserve the hay, &c. After I purchased, (in 

 1821, I think,) I took it down and removed it. I 

 found the shingles worn out and thin where not 

 gcme. It had not been painted. The roof of the 

 house, thnt had been painted, though shingled one 

 if not two years before the barn, was in a far bet- 

 ter state of preservation in 1841, than the unpaint- 

 ed roof of the barn was in 181'J. I do not attri- 

 bute the whole difference to the coat of paint, but 



do the most of it. There might have been some 

 difference in the quality of the shingles, hat not 

 enough to account for half the difference in dura- 

 bility. 



Y'our correspondent remarks, that "all are aware 

 the shaded sides of a barn or fence where the 

 moisture combines, or where covered with vines, 

 hasten destruction." I am aware of no such fact ; 

 but my observation loads me to a different conclu- 

 sion. I do not know about vines hastening de- 

 struction, but shade I am confident does not. In 

 front of my house, which faces south, were a row 

 of Lombardy poplars which effectually shaded it 

 when I purchased, and there had been others on 

 the cast and west ends, but had partly died or be- 

 come removed. Some years after I purchased, 

 one of my neighbors, who was the joiner that built 

 and finished the house, a man of good sense, who 

 had imbibed the notions of your Maryland corres- 

 pondent, expressed his wrmder that I retained these 

 poplars to slinde and rot my house. This led lo a 

 discussion of the question, and to an examination 

 of the effects of light and shade on the house. I 

 asked him to examine the state of the clapboards 

 on the front where shaded, and on the west end 

 where the trees had been long removed, and the 

 clapboards exposed to the sun, and freed from the 

 effects of the shade. The difference was palpable 

 and striking, and sufficient to change at once hi» 

 settled opinion, entertained for years. The con- 

 clu.'-ion was irresistible that the shade was a pre- 

 servative and not a destroyer. On the west, and 

 where not shaded, the weather — that is, moisture, 

 wind and sun acting upon and suddenly drying it 

 — had worn off the paint, and the clapboards had 

 become loose and thin, in some places literally 

 worn out, while those shaded on the front, were 

 ftill covered wilh pa' >t — t:lose, with ; ' arp edges 

 as if just from the plane. Soon after this I re- 

 painted the house and set trees lo shade the west 

 end, where 1 found it necessary to replace soma 

 of the worn out clapboards. Tlie difference is 

 still apparent, and would now, I think, convince 

 your correspondent, could he inspect the house, of 

 the fallacy of his opinion about the effect of shade 

 as of the preservative eflects of paint, by compar- 

 ing the state of this building with others in the 

 neighborhood of more recent construction, but not 

 affected by shade or paint. 



It appears to me reasonable that if oil does lead 

 to combustion and to decay, it does nut more so 

 than a hoi summer sun. 



I have no experience of the preservative effects 

 of a wash of lime, but when I shingled my house 

 in 1841, and built a new barn, I covered the shin- 

 gles on both with a composition, the base of which 

 was lime, alkali and salt, not so much under the 

 impression that it would preserve the roof as well 

 as paint in oil, as that it would render it less com- 

 bustible and diminish the danger of fire from fall- 

 ing sparks, and would be a cheaper cover. I can- 

 not yet speak of its preservative efl^ects. 



M. 



Parsonsjidd, Me., June 10, 1843. 



Oceans of ink, reams of paper, and disputes in- 

 numerable, might have been spared, if wranglers 

 had avoided lighting the torch of strife at the 

 wrong end ; since a tenth part of the pains expend- 

 ed in attempting to prove the why, the where, and 

 the when, certain events have happened, would 

 have been n.ore than sufficient to prove that they 

 never happened at all. — Lacon. 



