1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



23 



oats, or any other grain, perfectly dry for any 

 length of time. The tarpaulin will last for ten 

 years, ^vith ordinary care. They cost $1 per square 

 yard, and are made of any size. 



HOW TO FEED A COLT. 



A reader of the Farmer wants to know how to 

 grow a two-years old colt to its utmost sixe. I 

 have a thi-ee-years old colt, of the Black Hawk 

 breed, that weighed at 37 months old 1025 pounds. 

 He is said by good judges to be a good model of 

 the original Black Hawk, formerly owned by David 

 Hill, of Bridport, Vt., both in form and action, ex- 

 cept the colt is about 75 pounds the largest. The 

 feed I gave him last winter Avas as follows : — all 

 the hay he would eat, (which was of the best Timo- 

 thy and red clover,) four quarts of boiled potatoes, 

 together with from one to two quarts of oat meal 

 per daj', and all the salt he would eat. I keep him 

 in a box stall, without a floor. His color is a per- 

 fect black, except one white foot and a white spot 

 in the forehead ; is well broke to harness, is per- 

 fectly kind, and it would do any man, \voman or 

 clulu good to get into the sleigh or buggy and ride 

 after liira one mile, for it would give their blood a 

 good circulation. A. B. COLLINS. 



West Dover, Vt, Nov., 1861. 



FINE HORSES. 



I have a Bullrush Morgan mare, one year and 

 five months old, that weighs 923 pounds. I tliinlt 

 this is hard to beat. I have also a horse colt of 

 the same age, that weighs 773 pounds, sired by 

 the Green JNIountain Morgan. If any one can 

 beat these, I would like to see the figures. These 

 colts have not had any extra care, except they 

 were kept in a warm stall last winter. s. D. 



Bolton, Jonewille P. 0., Vermont. 



PBEPABATION OF BONES FOB USE. 



Eds. Country Gentleman : — In your paper 

 of Nov. 14, you ask for a practical and inexpensive 

 method of preparing bones for use. I AvUl give 

 you my Avay, Avhich is so simple that, although I 

 have practiced it for years, I should not have 

 thought of parading it in your columns, but for 

 your inquiry, and also because our friend Howard, 

 of the Cultivator, who notices and remembers 

 everything practical and useful, commended it in 

 his last week's paper. I set an old cask, with one 

 head, in some convenient spot back of the house, 

 in the spring, and of the l^ones Avhich have accu- 

 mulated through the winter, I thi'ow in enough to 

 cover the bottom ; then enough of unleached ash- 

 es thoroughly to cover them ; then another layer 

 of bones, then ashes, and so in alternate layers un- 

 til the cask is full. On top is placed a sufficient 

 covering of ashes, loam or charcoal dust, to pre- 

 vent the escape of any gas. I usually wet down 

 the ashes as I proceed, and leave the cask exposed 

 to the weather, that they may be kept damp. By 

 the next spring, when I wish to use them, the 

 bones are thorouglily digested, and in a fit condi- 

 tion to use. 



By this management I preserve all the material 

 of the bones, and it stands to reason that they 

 must be more valuable than those from wliich the 

 animal matter has been extracated by the soap 



boilers, and which are then burnt for the sugar 

 refineries, and then made into superphosphate. 



I usually take the mixed bones and ashes, and 

 compost with well rotted manure, a liberal sprink- 

 ling of plaster, a little guano and salt, and a load 

 of sweepings from the blacksmith shop, of iron 

 scales, charcoal dust, horse hoof parings and the 

 manure made there. This I apply to trees, espe- 

 cially pears. 



The growth caused by this is astonishing ; as 

 you perceive, this compost contains all the require- 

 ments, both for gi'owth and fruit, better than any 

 purchased superphosphate, for it has the potash so 

 essential to the pear, and the iron, which is very 

 important. I also prepared my grape border with 

 tliis. 



I not only use the bones saved from our own 

 family, but buy a good many, paying Irish and 

 German boys for collecting, about half a cent per 

 pound, Avhich is the market price obtained by the 

 cutlery works for their refuse bones. 



I have gi'eat faith in the efficacy of both ashes 

 and bones, and I think this combination of thera 

 is both cheap and useful. — James S. Grennell, 

 in (Joxintry Gentleman. 



UNDEBDRAINING. 



We have received from Messrs. C. M. Saxton, 

 Barker & Co., 25 Park Row, New York city, a 

 highly valuable work entitled "Farm Drainage," 

 by Henry F. French, Esq., of Exeter, N. H. We 

 rejoice to have this opportunity of calling the at- 

 tention of agriculturists in this vicinity to this im- 

 portant book — satisfied that no farmer can careful- 

 ly read its clearly wi'itten pages without obtaining 

 the choicest rules upon this important subject. 

 We illustrate : Three years since an intelligent 

 young farmer in Huntington, Ct., who had been 

 carefully and thoughtfully examining tliis subject, 

 purchased for a song six acres of "worthless swamp" 

 in that town. There grew upon it occasional blades, 

 thinly distributed, of wide, coarse, swamp grass ; 

 a few bunches of willow and alder bushes a foot 

 or two high, struggling in the midst of the foul 

 and stagnant Avater for an existence ; the long wa- 

 ter moss, skeleton-like in its proportions, a fitting 

 emblem of death, and hosts of revelling bull-frogs. 

 Thus had tliis unsightly swamp been, back beyond 

 the memory of man, and thus did it remain up to 

 the time we narrate. Well, the swamp was pur- 

 chased at a song — the practical old farmers in the 

 vicinity laughed and sneered at the fanaticism of 

 tliis young enthusiast, but he persevered, surveyed 

 and underdrained the six acres at an expense of 

 $150. The water left liis land, so did the swamp 

 grass and moss, ditto hoarse-voiced frogs, and the 

 bushes he pulled up by the roots. He then sowed 

 gi"ass seed over the entire solid surface, and the 

 past summer sold the six acres for $117 per acre, 

 and the crop now averages three tons per acre. 

 This is only one case out of thousands where un- 

 derdi'aining has been wonderfully successful and 

 increased the value of the land more than five 

 hundred per cent. We assure one and all of our 

 readers who are interested in the soil, that .$1,00 

 cannot be appropriated to a better use than by the 

 purchase of this excellent book on drainage, and 

 we tender our thanks to the gentlemanly publish- 

 ers for the opportunity they have given us to ex- 

 amine its pages. — Newark Evening Journal. 



