516 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



Nov. 



For the New England Farmer. 



CROPS IW EASTERN VERMONT. 



While portions of our country, and even of our 

 own State, have suffered from the effects of drought 

 the past season, we who are favored with a soil 

 unequal in smoothness, and unequalled in fertility 

 and ca])acity to endure the effects of extreme heat 

 and cold, flood and drought, by almost any por- 

 tion of our country, are rejoicing in well stored 

 barns and granaries. Though our hay crop is less 

 than an average by, say one-fifth, the quality is 

 unusually good, and we have at least an average 

 supply for our stock. Our smaller grains are al- 

 most without parallel, even on our own fertile 

 hillsides. Wheat (spring) ranges from 30 to 40 

 bushels, and in some cases even more, per acre, of 

 unusually good quality. Oats, from 60 to 100 

 bushels per acre ; some fields go even higher 

 than this. 80 bushels is a very common yield. 

 Rye and barley also fully repay all the pains be- 

 stowed upon them. Corn is full an average crop, 

 and the fodder is secured much better than it of- 

 ten is, so that we can winter as much stock as 

 generally. 



Now what will our poor kinsfolk on the natu- 

 rally barren pine jilains and white birch hillsides 

 of Massachusetts say to 100 bushels of oats per 

 acre — 75 for an average ? 40 bushels of the finest 

 wheat ? 50 to 75 bushels of corn? 15 to 20 ox- 

 loads of pumpkins per acre ? True, they can sell 

 what rye straw they raise, and get more for their 

 oats. But how many of them think they can af- 

 ford to feed out all the grain they raise, while they 

 strive to raise all they can feed ? True, you have 

 advantages over us, and we have more over you. 

 Do not think that we must send you our oats and 

 corn to raise our interest money. We can better 

 afford to feed them here, and send you our butter, 

 and cheese, and beef, and pork. Think not to 

 buy our oats for a song, though our granaries 

 gi-oan with their burdens. We have learned that 

 as bread is the staff of life, so manure is the staff 

 of the farmer, and that grain is the grand pro- 

 ducer of good manure. You may sell your ber- 

 ries, cherries, and plums, fi'om your worn-out 

 lands at great prices, and then pay your 8 to 15 

 per cent interest. We can find means to pay our 

 six per cent., (a plenty at that,) by selling you 

 butter at 20 cents and pork at 7 cents, nett, and 

 then have the pleasure of seeing our colts going 

 to Napoleon, and our nags to your cities, to draw 

 the solid men of Boston, who have plenty of 

 money to pay for them ! 



Come, brother farmers, in eastern Vermont, who 

 have plenty of grain, let us feed it to our stock, 

 unless we can get fair prices, and then sell but 

 little, and see if our future crops do not show us 

 a better return than the speculator does. 



Vermont Eastern Slope, Oct., 1860. p. j. 



glowing red heat ; at twenty-one miles melt gold ; 

 at seventy-four miles cast iron ; at ninety-seven 

 miles soft iron; and at one hundred miles from 

 the surface all will be fluid as water, a mass of 

 seething and boiling rock in a perpetually molten 

 state, doomed possibly never to be cooled or 

 crystallized. The heat here will exceed any with 

 which man is acquainted ; it will exceed the heat 

 of the electric spark, or the effect of a continued 

 voltaic current. The heat which melts platina as 

 if it were wax is as ice to it. Could we visually 

 observe its effects, our intellect would afford no 

 means of measuring its intensity. Here is the 

 region of perpetual fire, the source of earthquake 

 and volcanic power. — Recreative Science. 



THE MECHANICS' FAIR. 



Central Heat of the Earth. — The rate of 

 increase of heat is equal to one degree of Fahren- 

 heit for every forty-five feet of descent. Looking 

 to the result of such a rate of increase, it is seen 

 that at seven thousand two hundred and ninety 

 feet from the surface the heat will reach two hun- 

 dred and twelve degrees, the boiling point of wa- 

 ter. At twenty-five thousand five hundred feet it 

 will melt lead ; at seven miles it will maintain a 



Among the articles which we noticed with spe- 

 cial interest at the late Mechanics' Fair, were a 

 Patent Bean Sorter and Cleaner, a Huckleberry 

 Picler, an Oat Cleaner, and a Potato Sorter, four 

 small, ingenious, neio, and highly useful articles 

 to any farmer, each of which would annually save 

 three or four times its cost, by enabling him with 

 trifling labor to present his products to the pur- 

 chaser in a clean and perfect condition, and then 

 by materially enhancing their price. It is not the 

 large machinery, the cotton gins, power threshers 

 and mowing machines, that prove of the greatest 

 usefulness to man, but the cooking stoves, apple 

 parers. Babbitt's metal,washing machines, clothes' 

 pins, and many other small and cheap, but indis- 

 pensable articles. The articles enumerated above 

 are of this character. They have been invented 

 and manufactured by Sanford Adams, of Boston. 



An Adjustable Ox Yoke, by J. H. Briggs, 

 Gloucester, Mass., is an excellent article, the de- 

 sign of which is to enable oxen unevenly matched 

 to draw evenly, by a rack at the under side of the 

 yoke ; and it is all the more valuable because it 

 can be fitted to any yoke now without it. 



David S. Neal, of Lynn, had a Fire Escape 

 for Horses, showing the crib, mode of fastening, 

 and means of escape for the horses when their 

 stable is on fire. We think it would be a good 

 contrivance in large stables filled with horses. 



John M. Dearborn, of Roxbury, had a Coal 

 and Ash Screen, of the most j)rimitive character, 

 being merely a straight handle, much like a shovel 

 handle, run through a sieve, and resting in grooves 

 on the top of the barrel. A simple, cheap and 

 efficient mode of sifting coal and ashes, — but does 

 not prevent the flying of dust. 



Messrs. Lookey & Howland, Leominster, 

 Mass., presented one of their unrivalled A2:>ple 

 Parers, which pares an apple so quick and easily 

 that you scarcely know it is done ! 



A Donble-Actiiig Apparatus, for Sifting any 

 flour or meal into different grades, was presented 

 by M. H. Collins, Chelsea, Mass. It is a new 



