72 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



potatoes this year, on dry sandy land, manured 

 with sawdust manure, and the more sawdust the 

 more potatoes, as everytliing else. Don't know 

 where the increase might end, but am convinced 

 that such manure will raise most soils to a very 

 high state of cultivation. 



Had half an acre of Java wheat this year, the 

 first that has been raised in this section. The soil 

 had been fertilized Avith sawdust manure, receiving 

 this year — after the wheat Avas up — a top-dressing 

 of five bushels of wood ashes saturated with urine, 

 and left four weeks to digest. It yielded 1 2 bush- 

 els, and had it not been for the tadpole, would 

 have been 20. 



I can hardly tell the greatest advantage arising 

 fi'om using sawdust and tine chips, leaves and oth- 

 er vegetable matter, as litter, for our stables and 

 to compost — that is lying all about the country, 

 and much of it contaminating air and water that 

 would otherwise be pure and wholesome for man 

 and beast to breathe and drink. 



Wherever I have examined the roots of a veg- 

 etable grown Avhere sawdust, chip or leaves and 

 stable manure had been used, I found them em- 

 bracing with their delicate fibres every atom of 

 the vegetable matter within their reach, and draw- 

 ing their natural sustenance from them ; and there 

 is nothing I have ever tried as an assistant fertil- 

 izer that holds so much liquid or retains it so long, 

 where only the air and sun operate on it, as hard 

 wood sawdust ; and nothing that yields up this 

 embryo vegetable so readily to the petitions of the 

 rootlets. 



There is much difference in sawdust, and I 

 woidd make three qualities of sawdust or leaves as 

 fertilizers, and therefore three qualities of muck 

 that is formed from decayed forest vegetables. 



lat quality hard wood, hickory, oak, maple, &c. 



2d quality poplar, basswood, chestnut, &c. 



3<1 quality spruce, hemlock, pine, &c. 



Wayland, 3Iass. F. J. Kinney. 



For the New England Farmer. 



BANDOM NOTES. 



Fine Colts — Effects of the Mild Autumn Weather upon Vegeta- 

 tion — Farmers and Science. 



Mr. Editor :— The remarks of "S. D.," of Bol- 

 ton, Vt., in the Farmer of Dec. 7th, I have just 

 met with respecting some fine colts of his. One 

 he speaks of as weighing 923 pounds, at one year 

 and five months old, and the other at the same 

 age, 773 pounds. The first he thinks is hard to 

 be beat, which is undoubtedly true ; but two colts 

 of about the same age in this vicinity, (raised and 

 owned by the wi-iter's father,) that are considered 

 by good judges to be very large and fine, I may 

 perhaps be allowed to mention, as they also have 

 been favored with but ordinary keeping. One is 

 one year and five months old, (sired by the "Ken- 

 nebunk Chief,") the other, one year and six 

 months, and a short time since weighed 880 pounds 

 each, and what is a little singular, both weighed 

 in the same notch, not even half a pound of dif- 

 ference being perceived between them. The ag- 

 gregate weight of "S. ]>.'s" colts is 1G96 pounds; 

 the weight of these, 1740 pounds. They are both 

 horse colts, finely built, and "'good looking." 



The unusually warm weather of the past au- 

 tumn seems to have had a peculiar influence upon 



vegetation, and in some instances appai-ently quite 

 injurious. Besides the late blooming of violets 

 in the gardens, and the untimely flowering of 

 strawberries and many wild flowers, its forcing in- 

 fluence is quite as apparent, though doubtless less 

 observed, upon the buds of the trees, especially 

 of the forest shrubs and trees ; and I fear will be 

 too apparent, when spring returns, upon the buds 

 and late growth of our fruit trees. During the 

 first and second weeks of November, in my ex- 

 cursions in the Avoods and fields, I frequently met 

 with buds swollen to bursting, and occasionally 

 expanded into leaves, in consequence of the ex- 

 ceedingly and uniformly warm weather of Octo- 

 ber. On the shrub commonly known as the shad- 

 berry, {Amdanchier Canadensis,) it was not un- 

 common to find young, tender leaves an inch or 

 an inch and a half in length, evidently having lost 

 their reckoning, and mistaken the first of Novem- 

 ber for the first of May ; the birches occasionally 

 exhibited the same phenomenon. Xhe buds of 

 the common Avalnut, were generally larger than I 

 ever saw them before at this season ; and I ob- 

 served several instances Avhere they Avere opening 

 into leaves ; Avhile the buds of oaks, maples, and 

 various wild forest shrubs Avere very much SAVoUen. 



The scales that are produced during the autumn 

 as an outside covering to the buds, for their pro- 

 tection during the varying temperatures of Avinter 

 and spring, Avere often, and I think generally, spar- 

 ingly developed this fall, and in cases where the 

 young leaves Avere thus untimely developed they 

 Avere scarcely formed at all. From the late con- 

 tinued activity of the sap, it Avould appear that 

 even our fruit trees are less prepared for the blasts 

 of Avinter than usual, and should the present Avin- 

 ter prove a trying one, it is possible that the stim- 

 ulating effects of our mild autumn upon the veg- 

 etable Avorld may be sadly apparent in the fruit 

 crop another season. 



Even in December there have been several days 

 in succession Avithout frost. But noAV the Avinter 

 seems to have commenced in earnest. The storm 

 of rain and snow that occurred two days since has 

 left the trees loaded heavily Avith ice, and a good 

 foundation of snow and ice on the ground for 

 sleighing. And this Christmas morning the mer- 

 cury has settled doAvn to the zero point ; the bells 

 jingle merrily as the sleighs go creaking by over 

 the frozen snoAV, the forest pines look dark and 

 gloomy, their heads bowed under the great Aveight 

 of ice ; the old nor'Avester has assumed his Avont- 

 ed wintry sAvay ; and Ave can but realize that Avin- 

 ter has at last assumed his regal functions. The 

 weight of ice noAV upon the trees is very great ; 

 the pliant birches are bowed to the ground, and 

 genei'ally the trees are bending beneath the bur- 

 den. 



I am glad to see your correspondents calling 

 the attention of farmers, young and old, to the 

 importance of some knoAvledge of the natural sci- 

 ences. To the farmer, not only in a practical point 

 of view, Avhich is of itself a sufficient rcAvard for 

 any amount of attention that may be bestOAved 

 upon them, but as, a source of enjoyment ever 

 present, delightful and ennobling, they merit study 

 and attention. Many shrink from the task as one 

 of so much labor, and possibly so dry, Avhen if 

 they Avould but devote these long AA'inter evenings 

 to a thorough course of reading even, on one or 

 more branches of science, as agricultural chemis- 



