1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



411 



■whatever else it may prove. The quantity of 

 manure usually applied, in the best cultivation, 

 could produce no such effect in any soil, at four 

 feet depth. 



We conclude, on the whole, as to the objection 

 that drains tend to injure land by leaching out 

 the manures, that any loss in this way is far 

 more than compensated by the prevention of sur- 

 face washing, and that the loss is much less in 

 deep than in shallow drainage. 



EXTRACTS AND KEPLIES. 

 THE BUCKEYE MOWER. 



In speaking of Mr. Ayer's experiment with a 

 Buckeye mower, you mention two acres, where 

 it should have been ten. \ he noticeable point of 

 my communication was that an acre of grass, 

 yielding two tons of hay, was cut with this mow- 

 er in forty minutes, and that the entire field of 

 ten acres, yielding twenty tons of hay, was cut 

 with only seven hours'' labor of one man and two 

 horses. 



Mentioning this experiment to Major Allen, 

 who owns a farm adjoining Mr. Ayer's, on which 

 he cuts forty tons of hay annually, he said it Avas 

 better economy to use a scythe — when laborers 

 could be employed for a dollar and a quarter a 

 day — as he had hired them the present season. 



Now let us compare the expense of these modes 

 of cutting grass : 



1 — BY THE MACHINE. 



Costing $100, say at $2 per day $2,00 



Two horses, at $leach 2,00 



One man 2,00 



Entire expense of cutting 20 tons $6,00 



2 — BY THE SCYTHE. 



Supposing the man to cut 2 tons per day. 



Labor of the man 10 days, at $1,25 per day.... $12,50 



Cost of scythe and snathe 2,00 



Grinding and fitting, 30 cents per day 3,00 



Incidentals &0 



$18,t0 



In the one case, the cost of cutting will be 

 $6; in the other $18 — three times as much. 

 How do these items accord with your notions ? 



July 20, 1861. J. w. P. 



Remarks. — Pretty much as it would to see a 

 man set his family — who had enough else to do 

 — to spinning cotton and then weaving it into 

 cloth. We have no doubt, from our own use of 

 the machine, but that the Buckeye will handsome- 

 ly cut an acre in 40 minutes, all day long, where 

 there are two tons of grass per acre. 



CORN AND SPECIFIC MANURES. 



In reply to a Newton, N. H., correspondent, 

 whose corn did not come up, we will say that he 

 probably applied too much superphosphate to the 

 hill. A good sized table-spoonful is enough 

 when planting, and another at second hoeing. 

 We have a field of between three and four acres, 

 managed very much as he describes his process, 

 and it is shoulder high,'and as rank as a vigorous 

 alder swamp. Come and see it, friend T. 



TRIAL OF MOWERS AT SOUTH VERNON. 



We publish for the benefit of the farmers in 

 this vicinity, the draft of several diff"erent mow- 

 ers, as tested by dynamometer at a trial at South 

 Vernon, last week. There were eleven machines 

 entered, among which are noted the draft of the 

 following : 



Gore's Bay State, formerly called 



New England 4 feet cut, 240 pounds. 



Newhall's Winchester 3^ " " 162 " 



Pony, Allen's Patent 4 " " 225 " 



Wood's 3i " " 200 " 



Buckeye 4 «' " 250 " 



Hubbard 4 " " 225 «« 



Manny's 4 " " 240 " 



The Pony was worked with one horse that 

 weighed 830 pounds, and mowed one-fourth of 

 an acre in 22 minutes in the forenoon, and same 

 amount in 17 minutes in afternoon, finishing 

 first. 



Remarks. — A fair trial of mowing machines 

 requires that they should all move at the same 

 moment. Thirty minutes' difference will some- 

 times make several pounds' difference in the 

 draft. For instance : put a machine into a heavy 

 piece of grass at 8 o'clock in the morning, when 

 there has been a heavy shower the previous 

 night 5 then put in 30 minutes later and the draft 

 required will be found materially less than on the 

 first trial. 



KEEPING HENS. 



My stock consists of eight hens and a cock ; 

 they are the common dung-hill fowl, so near as 

 I can tell, at least they are nothing more than 

 "common" hens. My method is this : they are 

 confined in a barn cellar where the manure from a 

 horse is deposited in the summer, and the addi- 

 tion of that of a cow in winter. The wall is 

 pointed so as to render the cellar as warm as pos- 

 sible. So I have no expense in building a house 

 for them. Buckwheat is the chief food they have. 

 1 consider it the best thing they can eat. Also, 

 oatmeal is very good for a change, and they will 

 not thrive so well when fed on one thing the year 

 round. I am never at the trouble of getting meat 

 for them, simply because they lay well without it. 



Claremont, N. H., July, 1861. c. F. H. 



warts ON A HORSE. 



Being a reader of the Farmer, and having no- 

 ticed that through the medium of its valuable 

 columns you are willing to impart useful knowl- 

 edge to all its perusers, I would thank you, or 

 some correspondent, to give a recipe for a safe 

 and efficacious remedy for removing warts from 

 the flesh of a horse. Alden Jajieson. 



Waltham, July 22, 1861. 



Rem-IRKS. — In the Horse-Owner's (?Mi(?e, a book 

 which every horse-owner should own, we find 

 the following remedies prescribed : If hard and 

 dry, dulcamara, sulphur ; with formation of 

 boils, arsenicum ; bloody and painful ones, caus- 

 ticum ; if humid, thuja, sepra; small, in great 

 numbers on the lips, calcaris — carbonica. Under 

 another mode of treatment, if the warts are sin- 



