1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



221 



and new he was compelled to lay the land down, 

 and he wanted to know what it was best to sow. 

 A deceased friend of his from whom he had often 

 derived excellent information, had a thrifty 

 growth of young trees, and he had sowed his 

 land with barley and it had killed the trees, and 

 he wished to know whether this would have the 

 same effect on his trees. He had been told that 

 barley, oats, rye, or any of the cereals, were ruin- 

 ous to an orchard, and he was in a quandary. He 

 did not think the fruit-raisers around Boston 

 needed so much information as the broad acre 

 farmers of the Commonwealth, to give more at- 

 tention to the raising of fruit, and this auxiliary 

 to the cultivation of their land. 



The Chairman said that if he was obliged to 

 seed land down situated as Mr. Bancroft was, he 

 would take the trees from it, as without extra- 

 ordinary cultivation he could not get a double 

 crop from the same land. The only case he knew 

 where this had been done was that of Mr. Pell, of 

 New York, who grows wheat with his fruit trees, 

 and this he removes in July or August, and man- 

 ures specially for each crop. 



Mr. Howard, editor of the Cultivator, also 

 spoke of the fact of Mr. Pell growing wheat in his 

 orchard, and said that his apple trees were young, 

 and he manured for both wheat and his trees. 

 Mr. Peil had been eminently successful in the 

 growth of the Newtown Pippin. 



Col. Stone did not like seeding orchard land 

 down, but if he must do it, he would sow oats 

 and cut them down when a few inches high, and 

 let them remain on the land. 



It having been announced that the subject for 

 discussion would be "Root Crops, and their cul- 

 tivation in Massachusetts,^' when Charles L. 

 Flint, Esq., Secretary of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture will preside, the meeting adjourned. 



SHOULD ■WE WASH OUB SHEEP? 



Humanity, at least, says No ! With the nat- 

 ural fear a sheep has for water, it must be cruel 

 to subject them to such treatment as they some- 

 times get by the process familiarly called "wash- 

 ing ;" yet, in truth, it is not only a detriment to 

 the wool, but to the sheep. 



We take it for granted, that what is good for 

 the health of man in the way of care, holds good 

 with the sheep ; and who among all our shep- 

 herds would think of following his sheep home 

 from the mill pond, without a change of clothes, 

 when sometimes it is cold enough to make his 

 teeth chatter. How can we then expect it to ben- 

 efit our sheep, especially when we have a week's 

 rainy weather just after washing, and very often, 

 in this climate, it is cold and unhealthy for man 

 and beast. Yet some will say it does the sheep 

 no harm ; but facts prove that this is not the case 

 — both your sheep and lambs suffer materially. 



But this is only one feature. It costs a great 

 deal of time and motiei/f which could be applied to 



a better use in cultivating our spring crop. It is 

 no trifle to wash 3,000 sheep every yeai\ 



But the most potent argument in favor of not 

 washing our sheep is, we can shear from three to 

 four weeks sooner, and thus give the more time 

 after shearing for the growth of wool, to protect 

 them from the fall rains and from the cold in 

 winter, which is no inconsiderable item. How 

 often do we delay washing on account of the wa- 

 ter being too cold, when the weather is abundant- 

 ly warm to shear. The sheep will not suffer with 

 the cold in May, if they are cared for during the 

 three days immediately after shearing. We would 

 gain one-sixth more clothing, to protect our sheep 

 from the cold of winter, besides a stronger con- 

 stitution and a healthier sheep, than if we had 

 frozen our sheep in May, by washing them. 



Finally, manufacturers would rather Jiave the 

 wool 'unwashed. They have to re-wash it after 

 us ; why not let them do their own washing, and 

 then if it is not well done, they will know who to 

 complain of. One-half of the wool in some sec- 

 tions of country where they have no clear running 

 water, is actually damaged by the attempt to wash 

 it on the back. It is made a bug-bear of in mar- 

 ket, and thus the producer is forced to take less 

 than his wool is really worth. Wool-growers ! 

 we stand in our own light upon this subject. But 

 taking unwashed wool to market cannot be prac- 

 ticed by one here and there. It must be a gen- 

 eral reform. How then shall we best and most 

 diiectly get at it ? It can be done by "Country 

 Organizations." Shall we make the attempt ? 

 By so doing we shall practice humanity, save la- 

 bor, save time and money, improve our sheep, 

 benefit ourselves, and benefit the manufacturer. 

 — Cor. Ohio Farmer, 



For the New England Farmer. 

 EXPERIMENT WITH POTATOES. 



Mr. Editor : — There has been much of late 

 in the Fanner respecting the potato disease ; al- 

 so upon the chemical preparation of Mr. Lyman 

 Reed, of Baltimore, the efficacy of which has been 

 tested by actual experiment upon our farm, two 

 years ago this coming season. 



Mr. Daniel Reed, brother of Mr. Lyman Reed, 

 gave notice that he would prepare seed potatoes 

 for the farmers here for fifty cents per bushel, his 

 brother having sent him some of the preparation. 

 Thinking that it might be the means of saving 

 the crop of potatoes, I had two bushels prepared ; 

 one of Eastports and one of Davis Seedlings. 

 At least, I thought it worth a dollar to know 

 whether or not there was any good to be derived 

 from it. The potatoes were kept in a warm room 

 till they were well sprouted, then put into the 

 liquid, which killed the sprouts, and made the tu- 

 bers look withered as though they were a year 

 old. To give it a fair trial I planted those that 

 had been prepared side by side with those of the 

 same variety that were not prepared, the manure 

 and culture being the same with each. Eighteen 

 per cent, of those that were prepared never came 

 up at all, and the rest not till a fortnight after 

 the unprepared. They continued to be two weeks 

 behind the others all the season, and when we 

 dug them the unprepared ones were much the 

 larger and nicer potatoes. 



