1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



449 



For the New England Farmer, 



INFOBMATION" ABOUT "WINTER 

 WHEAT. 



Mr. Editor : — I seem already to have been 

 anticipated in ray inquiries in part, on the sub- 

 ject of wheat-growing, by your intelligent corres- 

 pondents, "P." and "R. B. H." 



It is well known to you and your numerous 

 readers that I have been for the past fourteen 

 years a zealous, and by some thought a fanatical 

 advocate for wheat-growing in your midst. In 

 my early attempts, which were eminently success- 

 ful, an open iniluence was brought to bear preju- 

 dicially by a popular agricultural journal, which 

 doubtless palsied the energies of many who were 

 ready to move. But the thing now is a well de- 

 veloped, well established fact, and should deeply 

 interest every New England man that tills the soil. 



Your welcome correspondent, "R. B. H.," truth- 

 fully says, "By the Avay, wheat is becoming a sta- 

 ple in this region." "P." briefly says to the point, 

 "Wheat will grow in Massachusetts as well as 

 elsewhere." 



Most heartily do I confirm both statements by 

 an experience of six consecutive years with win- 

 ter wheat, (a much safer crop than spring,) in the 

 good old town of Andover, giving me an average 

 of twenty-five bushels to the acre for the Avhole 

 terra. This story has been so many times told to 

 your i-eaders, they may look upon it as a familiar 

 tale, but I beg to say, it would be a profitable cat- 

 echism to remember and put in practice, the last 

 of this, or the first of next month. 



Never have I despaired since the commence- 

 ment of my own experience, that New England 

 would, in due time, raise all the wheat necessary 

 for her rural population, and more or less for her 

 seaboard and inland cities. 



Fifty times repeated have I said, no grain 

 crops will produce half the money per acre with 

 wheat. A trial will prove it. 



The mowing patches, alluded to in my last, not 

 yielding over one-half to three-fourths of a ton of 

 hay per acre, well manured, vi^ould yield 2.3 to 30 

 bushels of wheat, or lo to 20 bushels without it. 

 Now in the coming season of leisure, how quick, 

 cheap and easy a few acres of wheat can be made 

 for next year. Your hay on this laud would be 

 worth $3 to $7. The lowest calculation — say 15 

 bushels wheat, worth $30, and the straw in mar- 

 ket is worth more than the hay. Your wheat is 

 clear gain. Facts are stubborn things, Mr. Far- 

 mer. Is it not an object to try it ? Sod land is 

 best for winter wheat. H. Poor. 



Brooklyn, L. I., Aug., 1860. 



The Haw of the Horse's Eye. — A corres- 

 pondent of the New Y'ork Commercial Advertiser 

 communicates the following description of this 

 membrane from Sir G. Stephen's adventures in 

 search of a horse : 



"There is another variation between the horse's 

 and the human eye, of a very important and pecu- 

 liar character. At the inner angle of the eye is a 

 dark membrane that, apparently at the i^leasure of 

 the animal, is shot rapidly over the eye lilce a veil ; 

 it is instantly withdrawn, and in its rapid transit 

 cleans the eyeball of dust or foreign particles that 

 may have accidentally lodged upon it. This mem- 



brane is called the hav: It is not muscular, but 

 Its action is curiously explained ; it is projected 

 from its place by the compression, or rather de- 

 pression of the eyeball into the socket, occasioned 

 by the retractor muscle. When the eye is de- 

 pressed by the play of this muscle, the elasticity 

 of the fatty substance behind the eyeball causes 

 the haw to extend itself from the corner of the eye, 

 over the visible surface; when the retractor mus- 

 cle ceases to act, the eyeball resumes its ursual po- 

 sition, the fat returns to its place behind, and the 

 haw returns to the socket from which it lias been 

 momentarily pushed forward. 



For the Nctc England Farmer. 

 THE BIRDS OF BTEW EWGLAlKrD— KTo. 1, 



Upon commencing a series of articles upon the 

 Birds of New England, it may be well, in the way 

 of a few introductory remarks, to present some 

 general observations upon that class of beings 

 called birds ; and more particularly upon their 

 classification by naturalists, and the terms em- 

 ployed to designate the different groups, with 

 which the general reader may hardly be supposed 

 to be familiar. 



Birds are regai'ded as holding the second rank 

 in the scale of animated nature, in point of in- 

 telligence and perfection of form, regarding man 

 as the type ; and though falling below quadrupeds, 

 yet far surpass fishes, and the other lower classes 

 of animals, both in sagacity and perfection of 

 structure. As a class they are strongly marked, 

 and widely separated from all the others. Their 

 whole form adapts them eminently for flight in 

 the yielding air ; and though difi'ering greatly 

 among the different orders, are yet connected, in 

 many instances, by almost im])erceptible grada- 

 tions, so that from the powerful, soaring eagle to 

 the swimming and wading water fowl, or to the 

 little, harmless wron, there is no sudden transi- 

 tion ; and, indeed, it often happens that there is 

 so much alliance between the different species of 

 some groups, that they are only distinguished by 

 close comparisons. 



Birds are chiefly distinguished from the other 

 warm-blooded, vertebrated animals, by their ovi- 

 parous generation, in being clothed with feath- 

 ers, and having the anterior members modified 

 into wings, or organs of flight, and are the only 

 animals possessed of true flight, save the bats, 

 that have an internal skeleton. Their whole body 

 is light, the bones hollow, and their general form 

 is well adapted to cleaving the air. There are 

 birds, however, whose wings are too small to sup- 

 port them in the air, but assist them in running, 

 as in the ostrich, or in diving and swimming, as 

 in the auks and penguins. The lungs of birds 

 are very extensive, and their respiration is very 

 perfect; their blood is found to be 12° to 16° 

 warmer than that of other warm-blooded animals. 

 The organs of the senses are similar in birds to 

 those of mammalia; the sight, however, is de- 

 veloped in a remarkable degree, and the eye pos- 

 sesses great powers of accommodation to dif- 

 ferent distances. "Birds perceive even small ob- 

 jects distinctly, at distances at Avhich they v,-ould 

 be quite indistinguishable to the human eye, and 

 are thus enabled to seek their food. Birds of prey 

 also appear to possess in great perfoetion the sense 



