1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



549 



to death, it is obvious that it will grow in any 

 of the free States, and as it matures its crop in- 

 side of three months, it would come in between 

 spring and autumn frosts, even in Maine. 



As the Peruvian tree produces a staple equal 

 in length and fiiieness to any Sea Island, and 

 yields double the amount per acre, and as the 

 supply from the South is likely, in any event, to 

 be uncertain hereafter, it seems to me, that some 

 inquiry into the character and capacity of the tree 

 were worth the while to northern manufacturers." 



We think so, too, and we hope that Mr. Ken- 

 dall will give us the information he possesses, 

 and which he has kindly volunteered to commu- 

 nicate, if there should be interest enough mani- 

 fested in the subject. 



MAIZE AND TOBACCO. 



The Indian Corn looked over the fence. 



And what do you think he spied? 

 A field of tobacco, just ready to bloom, 



And stretching in lordly pride. 



To the broad-leaved neighbor at once he called, 



In accents loud and clear, 

 "I thought you belonged to a summer clime ; 



Fray, what are you doing here?" 



So then, with a haughty air, replied 



That plant of power and pelf, 

 •'You are pleased to ask of my business, Sir— 



What do you do, yourself?" 



"I feed the muscles, and blood, and bone, 



That make our farmers strong, 

 And furnish bread for the little ones 



That round their table throng." 



"I move in a somewhat loftier sphere," 



The foreign guest rejoined, 

 "As th^chosen friend and companion dear 



Of men of wealth and mind. 



•'I'm the chief delight of the gay young spark ; 



O'er the wise my sway I hold ; 

 I lurk in the book-worm student's cell — 



In the dowager's box of gold. 



"Thousands of hands at my bidding work ; 



Millions of corn I raise" — 

 He ceased to speak, and in angry mood 



Responded the tasseled Maize ; 



"You're in secret league with dyspeptic ills — 



A merciless traitor band j 

 With clouds of smoke you pollute the air, 



With floods of slime, the land. 



"You tax the needy laborer sore ; 



You quicken the drunkard's thirst; 

 You exhaust the soil — and I wish you'd go 



To the place whence you came at first." 



Anonymout. 



Autumnal Tints. — No one can maintain, af- 

 ter this year's experience, that frost has any spe- 

 cial agency in the autumn coloration of leaves. 

 Scientific men have long understood the matter, 

 and have explained the ripening of the leaf as a 

 simple process of vegetable growth, though the 

 coloration of the leaves at maturity can no more 

 be accounted for than the red of the rose, the blue 

 of the violet, or the orange of the lily. The color 

 which leaves assume in the fall is due to the same 

 causes. But the popular idea that the leaves are 

 changed by the frost is so firmly established in 



the minds of unscientific and unobservant people, 

 that it is difficult to dispel. This year the foliage 

 has assumed the most gorgeous coloring without 

 a sign of frost, and, indeed, seems to be more 

 brilliant on account of its non-appearance. This 

 is perfectly natural, as the leaves have been able 

 to gradually and freely assume the colors which 

 belong to their ripeness, unobstructed by sudden 

 cold. — Post. 



For the New England Farmer. 



THE SEASON AND THE CHOPS IN" 

 CHESniRE COUNTY, N. H. 



The weather this fall has been remarkably fine, 

 hardly frost enough up to this date, Oct. 19, to 

 kill tender vegetation. We have had light frosts, 

 but not severe enough to kill the leaves on fruit 

 trees, which have matured and ripened, thereby 

 enabling them so to ripen their fruit buds as to 

 withstand the severe frosts of winter. On the 

 morning of the first of last October we experi- 

 enced a very severe frost, by which apples were 

 frozen like rocks on the trees — the leaves prema- 

 turely cut off — the sap not only vitiated and in- 

 terrupted in its natural course of circulation by 

 the sudden administration of atmospheric influ- 

 ences, but so freezing it as to destroy the af- 

 finity of particles in its constitutional formation, 

 sending the poisoned fluid into root and branch, 

 causing the death of many a valuable tree, and 

 the fruit buds of others set for the present sea- 

 son. To that severe frost I attribute the initia- 

 tive causes of the loss of our fruit crop the pres- 

 ent season. 



I do not remember a season in which fruit 

 trees presented such a deathlike appearance as 

 the last. Almost every wound or incision made 

 upon the trees last fall, or the past spring, has 

 bled freely, of a thin watery substance, in many 

 instances turning the bark black for many feet, 

 causing the ultimate death of the tree. We are 

 also losing hundreds of our finest trees every 

 year from the bark splitting upon the body, usu- 

 ally near where some limb branches oS". I can- 

 not trace the cause of this beyond the fact of the 

 immature condition of the sap, as operated upon 

 by the frosts of the winter and spring months. I 

 believe nurserymen and others, budding fruit 

 trees for orchard or garden purposes, should cut 

 bark the second year from the bud, one-third of 

 its growth, forcing it to throw out shoots near 

 the ground, and so head back in after years as to 

 assist the tree in protecting itself from the scorch- 

 ing suns of summer and deadly frosts of winter. 



The forest trees have ripened their crop of 

 leaves without frost, and show that sublimity in 

 decay — that gorgeous variety of colors and hues 

 which we are rarely permitted to witness. 



With the exception of fruit, our crops have 

 been above the average. The hay crop was large 

 and secured in fine condition. Wheat below that 

 of the last three years. Barley and oats good. 

 Rye, but very little sown this year. Of potatoes 

 we have an abundant crop, and of the first quali- 

 ty. Corn crop good, to say the least. The Da- 

 vis seedling has heretofore stood high as a table 

 potato, but for the last two seasons it has rotted 

 worse than any other variety under general culti- 

 vation in this vicinity. 



We are now having copious rains — pastures as 



