1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



325 



a drouth. The surface of the soil is light and 

 porous ; the air, containing moisture, rests upon 

 it, and passes through the loose particles, until it 

 gets down where the soil is cooler than itself, and 

 is then condensed, and the field is actually wa- 

 tered in the middle of the hottest day in July ! 

 This operation is continually going on through 

 the hot, clear days. In the night, when the air 

 becomes cooler than the earth, the moisture is 

 condensed on the leaves of plants, and blades of 

 grass, and is called dew. Some of this falls to 

 the ground, and is taken up by the loose soil, 

 other portions are absorbed by the plants, and the 

 remainder goes back into the air by evaporation, 

 when the solar rays impart their heat to it. 



Thus the field of the careful farmer, which is 

 nicely hoed, is daily watered in the hottest days 

 by nature's own processes, while that of the care- 

 less farmer is pinched for the want of moisture, 

 the corn leaves curl, turn yellow, and lose so 

 much vitality that the crop is ruined. 



Who will say, then, that hoeing is not among 

 the most important items of farm work ? 



A SENSIBLE WAT TO GET MORE FOOD, 



The Homestead, published at Hartford, has the 

 following among several excellent articles, on the 

 means of producing food. 



Another item in securing more food, is more 

 manure. The last shovelful that can be gathered 

 from the yards, stables, sties and privies should 

 be used. In addition to this, we can safely buy 

 Peruvian guano, Coe's superphosphate of lime, 

 and perhaps some other brands ; bone dust, wood 

 ashes, and other concentrated fertilizers, if we 

 can get them from responsible parties. These 

 can be used in the hill, or as top-dressing during 

 the growth of the crops. Farmers who make the 

 most stable manure and compost, are most likely 

 to buy these concentrated fertilizers. The only 

 kind of farming which pays on our exhausted soils, 

 is that which feeds the land generously with plant 

 food. We have sunshine and rain enough to 

 grow as good crops as were ever gathered from 

 the virgin soil of New England. There is a strong 

 temptation to buy manure this year, for prices for 

 food will undoubtedly rule high next fall. 

 « » * « • 



There is also an opportunity to increase food, 

 by top-dressing pastures and meadows. The rea- 

 son of the barrenness of so many of our pastures, 

 is the fact that they have never received any care. 

 Cows have been kept in them during the day, and 

 full one-half of the manure made from the grass, 

 is dropped in the yard, or by the way-side. They 

 have been systematically robbed for a century. 

 If these pastures could be top-dressed with some 

 of the concentrated fertilizers, especially with 

 bone dust, they would recover their fertility, and 

 again make the products of the dairy abundant. 



Many of the meadows that now yield a ton of 

 hay or less, can be made to double their crops by 

 the same process. With hay at twenty dollars a 



ton, farmers have a pretty strong motive to get 

 three tons to the acre. More manure makes more 

 hay, and more hay, more food for man and beast. 



EXTBACTS AND REPLIES. 

 THE CROWS AND THE CORN. 



My feelings were much shocked by reading an 

 article on page 257 of your last issue of the Far- 

 mer, concerning the prevention of cornfields be- 

 ing disturbed by crows and blackbirds. Being a 

 contributor and constant reader of the journal, I 

 feel it my duty to say that such inhuman cruelty 

 as that which you there prescribe is beneath the 

 usual standard of the articles appearing in your 

 sheet. I think if you but consider the lingering 

 suffering and death of a bird so tortured, your 

 higher sentiments as men will predominate over 

 the desire for gain, and that in recalling the sug- 

 gestion you will seek to place before your read- 

 ers some less barbarous method to prevent these 

 birds from eating that which they have no reason 

 to believe, (not having been gifted by God with 

 that power) is not for them. I think I know of 

 at least two families, (farmers,) who previous to 

 allowing their children to examine your usually 

 unexceptionable work, will call into service a 

 pair of scissors. j. a. l. 



Boston, June I, 1861. 



Remarks. — It would certainly give as pain to 

 publish anything unnecessarily to shock the sen- 

 sibilities or sentiments of humanity in any one of 

 our readers. The article objected to was thrown 

 into the "copy drawer" under the impression that 

 the process was one of those innocent ones often 

 indulged in by boys in our streets, as well as in 

 the country, of tying a thread to one or more ker- 

 nels of corn, and laying them before doves or 

 hens. They swallow and disgorge without inju- 

 ry, but get too much frightened to return often 

 to the same localities for supplies. There is no 

 need of destroying crows, blackbirds or squirrels 

 to prevent them from pulling up com. If hot 

 water is turned upon the corn, and a spoonful or 

 two of tar is added and stirred among it, each 

 kernel will become so coated with the tar as to 

 prevent its being palatable, and it is safe. 



BRAHIVLV FOWLS. 



In the Farmer of March 2d, you published an 

 account from me of the laying propensities, &c. 

 of the Brahma fowls for three winter months. I 

 have received many letters of inquiry as to their 

 laying this spring, as many think they must have 

 exhausted themselves in the winter, and therefore 

 will not lay well in the spring. With your in- 

 dulgence I will answer them through the columns 

 of your paper. I have kept 15 hens this spring; 

 they have been fed as in winter, with the excep- 

 tion of vegetables ; they have laid, during the 

 three spring months, 68J dozen eggs, weighing 

 129 lbs. They have not been cooped this spring, 

 although I have two acres of land planted with 

 fine seeds bordering within ten feet of the coop. 

 They have not scratched it or molested it in any 

 way. John S. Ives. 



