1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



469 



find a half acres produced twent)--eight tons of 

 mangolds ; one-fourth of an acre 250 bushels. 

 Commencing early in September the lower leaves 

 of the mangolds may be fed to stock. It seemed 

 to be admitted by the club that carrots do not in- 

 crease the flow of milk, when fed to cows, but that 

 turnips do. A correspondent of the Country Oen- 

 tleman says that a person of his acquaintance 

 who sold milk in Troy, N. Y., after careful exper- 

 iments with various roots to secure the greatest 

 quantity of milk, gave the preference to the sugar 

 beet, and raised that exclusively while he remained 

 in the milk business. 



For the New Ensland Fanner. 

 ABOUT A BOLIiER AND GRASS SEED. 

 Dear Sir : — What is the best kind of roller for 

 farm purposes ? Are they to be found at the ag- 

 ricultural stores in the city ? If so, what is the 

 material, — wood, iron or granite ? And what the 

 cost ? 



In answering the above, you will oblige one of 

 your constant readers, and one, too, who has for 

 many years been a book farmer, and for several 

 years last past, a practical farmer. In this partic- 

 ular, he has had no experience, save the loss of a 

 bushel of herds grass seed, sown two years ago, 

 last of September, on a piece of light upland, not 

 one seed of which has ever been seen, or heard 

 from as yet, though the ground has not been since 

 plowed. Another bushel of the same lot of seed, 

 sown at the same time, on the meadow land near 

 by, came up well, and has done well. Two acres 

 of meadow land, prior to that time full of stumps, 

 windfalls, withey bushes, cat-o'-nine-tails, bull- 

 rushes, frogs, snakes, lizards, and all sorts of of- 

 fensive smells in the height of dog-days, has been 

 reclaimed, drained, and covered with yellow sand, 

 in places where the plow did not reach the white 

 two inches deep, spread from a horse cart in De- 

 cember, after the frost had stiffened the muck hard 

 enough to bear, has produced since that time, 

 what may be termed with propriety a heavy bur- 

 den of hay. It was not weighed, but there was as 

 much as could be made upon the ground. I send 

 you, herewith one head of the herdsgrass, that grew 

 upon the muck beds, 11;J inches long. This must 

 not be taken as a specimen of all the rest. This 

 is the only head of that length found ; 7i inches 

 may be deemed nearer the average length of heads. 

 Many heads were found eight, nine and ten inches, 

 but this is the only one 11^ long. Why the herds- 

 grass seed took well on this, and proved a total 

 failure upon the adjoining upland, I do not know. 

 One farmer of some experience has told me, "it 

 would have come, if I had rolled the land after 

 sowing," He remarked, "The late Judge Hayes, 

 of South Berwick, could never grow a good catch 

 of hay seed on the light soil of his farm, until he 

 used a roller." I therefore want a roller, if for no 

 other reason, to experiment with. 



Old Berwick. 

 BochingTiam County, N. H., 1860. 



Rem.'iRKS. — The rollers sold at the agricultural 

 stores are usually iron, and cost from $10 to $30, 

 mccording to size. Any small seeds come better 



to have the earth pressed a little about them. 

 Where grain is sowed, have you not noticed that 

 it comes quickest and best in the tracks of the 

 cattle ? 



THE USES OF MOUNTAIITS. 

 Rev. T. Starr King, in his work on "The White 

 Hills ; their Legends, Landscape and Poetry," 

 published by Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co., thus 

 pleasantly discourses upon one of the uses of 

 mountains : 



"Mr. Ruskin notes it as one of the most prom- 

 inent uses of mountains that they cause perpetu- 

 al changes in the soils of the earth. The physical 

 geographers assure us that if the whole matter of 

 the Alps were shoveled out over Europe, the lev- 

 el of the continent would be raised about twenty 

 feet. And this process of leveling is continually 

 going on. By a calculation, which he made in 

 the valley of Chamouni, Mr. Ruskin believes that 

 one of the insignificant runlets, only four inches 

 wide and four inches deep, carries down from 

 Mont Blanc eighty tons of granite dust a year ; 

 at which rate of theft at least eighty thousand 

 tons of the substance of that mountain must be 

 yearly transformed into drift sand by the streams, 

 and distributed upon the plain below. On White- 

 face mountain, of the Sandwich group, a slide 

 took place in 1820 which hurled down huge blocks 

 of granite, sienite, quartz, felspar, and trap-rocks, 

 and cut a deep ravine in the sides of the mountain 

 several miles in extent. But compensation vv'as 

 made in part for its destructive fury. An exten- 

 sive meadow at the base, which had borne only 

 wild, coarse grasses, was rendered more fertile by 

 the fine sediment, here and there four or five feet 

 in depth, that was distributed upon it, and now 

 produces excellent grass and white clover. Take 

 a century or two into account, and we find the 

 mountains fertilizing the soil by the minerals they 

 restore to it to compensate the wastes of the har- 

 vests. The hills, which, as compared with living 

 beings, seem everlasting, are in truth, as perish- 

 ing as they. Its veins of flowing fountains weary 

 the mountain heart, as the crimson pulse does 

 ours J the natural force of the iron crag is abat- 

 ed in its appointed time, like the strength of the 

 sinews in a human old age ; and it is but the 

 lapse of the longer years of decay which, in the 

 sight of its Creator, distinguishes the mountain 

 range from the moth and the worm." 



Sheep in Texas. — A Texan correspondent of 

 the Country Gentleman says that he has been in- 

 formed of one man who had 400 and others from 

 100 to 200 sheep frozen to death by the severe 

 northers of the past season. One gentleman 

 who had a varied flock of 500, containing many 

 Merinos and common Mexican sheep, a few Ox- 

 fordshire sheep, a recent English stock from the 

 flock of John T. Andrew, of Cornwall, Ct., lost 

 sixty Merinos, &c., from his flock during the 

 norther of the first of December, while the thick- 

 fleeced Oxfordshires seemed quite indifferent to 

 the cold. 



