38 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



For the New England Farmer. 



WHAT A COW CAW" DO. 



Mr. Editor : — Having seen various statements, 

 for several years, in your joiu'ual, of the quantity 

 of milk given by different cows at stated periods, 

 I am induced to send the statement of two years' 

 doings of one that I have owned for the last five 

 years, but lost in calving a few weeks since. She 

 was said to be one-half Native and one-half Dur- 

 ham, or Short-horn. Her ap])earance warranted 

 the latter, at least. Living in the city, I could 

 make no dependence on pasture, but have had to 

 depend on what I gave her in the barn. You will 

 see, she gave the most milk the first year. I ac- 

 count for this in two ways. I milked and fed her 

 myself, and I am satisfied I can make more milk, 

 (with the pasture /had,) to have my cow calve in 

 the winter or fall, when I can feed cut feed, roots, 

 rowen and oil meal, alias flax seed, than I can on 

 grass, when I cannot add the former. I am not 

 one of the fortunate ones who are able to make 

 large quantities of milk on grass alone. I could not 

 obtain the latter, and therefore had to find substi- 

 tutes, or rather auxiliaries, and plenty of them. I 

 have often heard it advanced that cows giving 

 large quantities, could not give good milk. Li 

 answer to this, I will say, — one season when she 

 was farrow. I took the cow into the country where 

 my family were staying, from July to October, 

 when she was giving, on an average, nine quarts 

 daily ; after using all we wanted in the family of 

 seven persons, my wife made over seven pounds 

 of butter ])er week for fourteen successive weeks, 

 which I think is proof positive that her milk was 

 A 1. The most she ever gave me in twenty-four 

 hours, milked 6 A. >L and 6 P. M., was twenty- 

 three quarts, one and a half pints. Thus : 



185fi.— Took calf away Feb. 1st. Qts. 



Amount of milk, Feb. 1st to Auf»-. 1st 2459 



" Aug. 1st to Feb. 1st 1928 



Xumber quarts one year 43S7 



4387 quarts, at 5 cents per qu.art $219,35 



1858.— Took calf away July 1st. Qfx. 



mount of milk, .luly 1st to Jan. 1st 2239-2 



'• " Jan. 1st to July 1, 1859 1083 



Number quarts one year 3922-2 



3922-2 quarts, at 5 cents per quart S190,12 



$415,4: 



All the milk not used in the family was sold at 

 a store, at o cents per quart the year round ; many 

 carts selling at G cents through the year. 



H. R.' CONGDON. 



Providence, R. I., Nov., 1859. 



THE GAKDETJ-. 



The garden is a bound volume *f agricultural 

 life, written in poetry. In it the farmer and his 

 family set the great industries of the plow, spade 

 and hoe, in rhyme. Every flower or fruit-bearing 

 tree is a green syllable after the graceful type of 

 Eden. Every bed of flowers is an acrostic to na- 

 ture, written in the illustrated capitals of her own 

 alphabet. Every bed of beets, celery or savory 

 roots, or bulbs, is a page of blank verse, full of 

 belles lettres of agriculture. The farmer may be 

 seen in his garden. It contains the synopsis of 

 his character in letters that maybe read across the 

 road. The barometer hung by his door will indi- 



cate certain facts about the Aveather, but the gar- 

 den, laying on the sunny side of the house, marks 

 with greater precision the degree of the mind and 

 heart culture which he has reached. It will em- 

 body and reflect his tastes, the bent and bias of 

 his ])erceptions of grace and beauty. In it he holds 

 up the mirror of his inner life to all who pass ; 

 and, with an observant eye, they may see all the 

 features of his intellectual being in it. In that 

 choice rood of earth he records his progress in 

 mental cultivation and professional experience. In 

 it he marks, by some intelligent sign, his scienti- 

 fic and successful economies in the corn field. In 

 it you may see the germs of his reading, and can 

 almost tell the number and nature of his books. 

 In it he will reproduce the seed-thought he has 

 culled from the printed pages of his library. In 

 it he will post an answer to the question whether 

 he has any taste for reading at all. Many a nom- 

 inal farmer's house has been passed by the book- 

 agent without a call, because he saw a blunt neg- 

 aV.ve to the question in the garden yard. — Elihu 

 Buvritt. 



For the Xew England Farmer. 

 FKUIT CULTURE. 



Messrs. Editors: — In Hovey's Magazine for 

 November, the editor, speaking of Fruit Culture, 

 says: "It has been remarked by some horticultu- 

 ral write that all fruits succeed best in the local- 

 ities where they originated." This I am not willing 

 to admit. I am not aware of any writer who as- 

 serts that ^^aU fruits so succeed best," &c. But as 

 regards apples and pears, particularly the former, 

 this is affirmed by many ; thus, in a report which 

 appeared some years since in the Essex Agiicultu- 

 ral Transactions, upon the apple, the Avriter re- 

 commends the cultivation of those varieties which 

 are indigenous, or have been first grown upon our 

 soils, having for many years observed, that the 

 best apples in our markets were generally those 

 sorts which were first produced in New England. 



Henry Ward Beecher, writing from the West a 

 short time after, in corroboration of this, remarked 

 that the best apples in the West were those vari- 

 eties which originated in the "Great Valley." 

 With us, the Hubbardston Nonsuch, Baldwin, 

 Roxliury Russett, Mother, Porter, R. I. Greening, 

 Minister, Danvers Winter Sweet and Hurlbut, 

 are among our best fruits, while the Newton Pip- 

 pin, Esopus Spitzenberg, Red Doctor, Pennock's 

 Winter and Red Gilliflower, fruits which are 

 first-rate when grown in their native habitats, are 

 inferior when grown here. It has been said that 

 the Porter and Baldwin are nowhere so good as 

 in Massachusetts ; while the Newton Pip])in is 

 best on Long Island, and the Spitzenberg in West- 

 ern New York. Mr. Van Buren, of Georgia, says 

 "I have in my orchard the Spitzenberg, Newton 

 Pippin, Minister, Peck's Pleasant, Vandevere and 

 the Swaar ; these northern varieties, although 

 making a good growth, yet for twelve or fourteen 

 years producing not more than a dozen, or half a 

 dozen specimens to each tree, annually, while all 

 our native varieties, bear good and abundant crops 

 in from three to five years after transplanting." 



The same may be said of our imported kinds 

 generally, with the exception of the Graven stein, 

 of Germany, and the Ribstone Pippin, of England ; ^ 



