146 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



For the Neiv England Farmer 

 A SHORT TALK ABOUT SHEEP. 



Sheep often become breachy from carelessness. 

 It does not require remarkably good fences to turn 

 them. I have kept sheep for 20 years or more on 

 land fenced almost entirely -with stone walls, and 

 find no difficulty in keeping them quiet and order- 

 ly. In the first place, select those that have not 

 learned to jump ; have all gaps properly repaired, 

 and fasten the bars so that the sheej) can not rub 

 them down. As a rule, look at each flock once a 

 day at least, and see that the fences are kept up, 

 and give them enough to eat, and my experience 

 is that sheep will not learn to jump. Sheep have 

 long been a favorite stock with me, and for the 

 last ten or twelve years vSouth Downs have been 

 the sheep. I have found that 50 ewes well kept 

 will generally raise 75 lambs ; mine have fre- 

 quently done better. The past year I raised 110 

 from 72, and part of the ewes were quite young, 

 and the lambs dropped early. After they are two 

 years old the ewes are very apt to bring twins, so 

 that in some flocks twins seem to be the rule and 

 single ones the exception. 



I often see notices of the best breed of sheep. 

 Perhaps there is no one breed best for all farm- 

 ers, yet the Downs, I think, are destined to occu- 

 py a large s]5ace in New England. They are not 

 so large as the Leicester and long wooled breeds, 

 but I think they are more hardy, and sufficiently 

 large for our soil and situation. The fine quality 

 of the mutton is universally acknowledged, and 

 they often attain a very respectable size. I keep 

 mine in pretty good sized flocks, and the largest 

 lamb I ever owned I think weighed 139 pounds. 

 I have this winter weighed one that brought up 

 119 lbs. readily. Others may have them larger. 

 I have not had extra size particidarly in view, but 

 expect to have yearlings next autumn that will 

 weigh 140 to 180. I have sold GO for breeding 

 purposes the past year ; slaughtered 5 at home, 

 and sold 31 to the butcher. Bought one and lost 

 one lately, and have now on hand 14 more than I 

 sheared. Breeders of the best sheep must look to 

 their laurels, for the South Downs will most assur- 

 edly make their mark pretty high on the list of 

 good stock. Aquidneck. 



For the New England Farmer. 



WHERE TOMATO KETCHUP COMES 

 PROM! 



"Do you ever have anything cheap in your line 

 that will answer for hog feed ?" I inquired, of a 

 Boston dealer in country produce, the other day. 

 "Yes," hs rejjlied, "we oftentimes have waste po- 

 tatoes, sometimes waste beans, ft-aste cheese, and 

 in former years I have sold large quantities of 

 dried apples after they had become of a venerable 

 age, at as low a figure as one cent a pound." 

 "Have you any for sale at present ?" I inquired. 

 "No, bless you," said he, "we dealers have a bet- 

 ter use for them now-a-days ; we make them into 

 tomato ketchup. I myself have made it by the 

 ton with not a tomato in it ; nothing but dried 

 apples!" What a humbug this honest looking 

 man is, was my instantaneous thought. But 

 Chemistry hevc interposed, and said, "Not so fast, 

 not so fast ! What's in a name ? Is not the char- 

 acteristic acid of the tomato and the apple the 



same ? viz. : malic acid ; and in dried or preserved 

 fruits is not the flavor dependent almost wholly 

 on the characteristic acid, most of the more deli- 

 cate flavors of the fresh fruit being too subtle to 

 be retained by such processes ? Now the quan- 

 tity of malic acid in the ripe tomato exceeds that 

 in the ripe apple ; but when the apple is dried, 

 and particularly when it becomes very dry by age, 

 and the acid thus greatly concentrated, may not 

 the proportionate difl'erence be lessened, and thus 

 in all essential characteristics your apple ketchup 

 become tomato ketchup?" 



I was not quite prepared to meet this foil, and 

 so was content to hold my tongue, and ponder on 

 the wonderful capacities of a science that could 

 so readily transform a rogue into an honest man. 



Marblehead, Mass. JAJfES J. H. Gregory, 



For the New Ensland Farmer. 



INSECTS— ORCHARDS— BUTTER. 



Borers — Sugar Orchards — Lawton Blackberry — Coloring Matter 

 for Butter — Scalding Milli. 



Mr. Editor : — In the course of my agricultural 

 reading, I occasionally find subjects for a reply or 

 a few remarks, and I jiropose to bring up several 

 of these for your columns at this time. First, I 

 will speak of several communications in reply to 

 your "Sandy River" correspondent, in referent 

 to some apple trees which were diseased on the 

 south side. 



The general tendency of these articles is to 

 show that exposure to the sun, or some such 

 cause, induced disease first, and the borer attacked 

 them afterward. The tenor of these articles is so 

 much like an article in the IlorticuUurist for Jan- 

 uary, that I quote a few lines from that journal. 

 "Insects do not possess the po^yer of raising up 

 the bark from the wood. The borers merely per- 

 forate it. When we discover diff"ercnt insects lurk- 

 ing between the bark and the wood, we must not 

 accuse them of mischief, but we must attribute the 

 separation of the two component parts of a tree 

 either to some injury from without, or to disease 

 from within." * * * "I invite the attention of the 

 anxious reader to any tree at which the Scohjtus 

 is pursuing his ordinary calling. Then let him ex- 

 amine the same tree during the following summer, 

 and he will find the little round holes in the bark 

 just as the insect had made them. After this let 

 him take a gimlet and bore as many dozens of 

 holes as he may think fit in the sound bark of 

 some undeniably healthy trees. The next summer 

 he will find every gimlet hole made up by new 

 bai'k under the old." Now I am no entomologist, 

 and know nothing of the Scohjtus, and I will also 

 admit that diseased trees are more likely to be at- 

 tacked by borers, but with all due deference to 

 these Amters, who have, very likely, had many 

 years more experience than I have, I must say 

 that I know that one species of borer, at least, (a 

 Saperda, I suppose), does attack healthy trees, 

 and that although it may "not have power to raise 

 the bark," it eats out the cambium, and thus sep- 

 arates the bark from the wood, and the castings 

 of the insect seem to poison the wood, and thus 

 retard the natural growing over. 



Sugar Orchards. — In your weekly of Januaiy 

 7, Mr. "A. Pixley" recommends planting sugar 

 maples on stony hill-sides. I have a sugar orchard 



