1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



361 



influence on the tree when pruned at different 

 seasons ? I know of none. My practice now is to 

 paint every wound, no matter how small the tree. 



The editor of the Farmer advocates August 

 pruning. But let us see. I find in the spring 

 that a large limb has winter-killed. Now, if I let 

 that remain till August before I saw it oft", where 

 will be the line of demarcation between the living 

 and dead parts. If I cut it in the spring, the new 

 wood begins at once to form over the wound ; if I 

 leave it till August, one year must be lost, and I 

 am inclined to think that, if a dead limb remains 

 dui'ing the summer, the body of the tree be- 

 comes more affected below the dead branch than 

 if removed, just as the mortification in a toe will 

 communicate its poison to the trunk. These are 

 plain, practical questions, and rather lead the mind 

 of those most experienced in these matters not to 

 be too tenacious of any fixed course, but to adapt 

 their practice to circumstances. I have proposed 

 these questions without feeling absolutely certain 

 that I am right. I ask for light. N. T. T. 



Highland School, Bethel, Me., June 6, 1862. 



Remarks. — Where does the editor of the Far- 

 mer "advocate August pruning?" AVe do not re- 

 member to have done so, but have recommended 

 pruning from the fifteenth of June until midsum- 

 mer, because the sap has then — in a great meas- 

 ure — ^been withdrawn from the stem and large 

 branches of the tree, by the leaves, and compara- 

 tively little is left to flow out when the tree is cut. 

 If the work was neglected in June, then, we say, 

 prune in the autumn, after the leaves have fallen, 

 because at that time the tree is in a comparative 

 state of rest, and wounds then made will rarely 

 bleed. 



Not being able to finish pruning last June, in a 

 neglected orchard, we continued the work into 

 November, removing a large number of limbs that 

 should have been taken away two or three years 

 earlier. This spring, and up to the present time, 

 hundreds of these wounds have been carefully ex- 

 amined, and with two exceptions only, they are 

 dry and hard, and present all the usual indica- 

 tions that they will rapidly heal over. 



We are glad to notice, all about us, that sum- 

 mer pruning is becoming common, instead of do- 

 ing the work in ilarch, April or May. 



A Hint that may be Generally Taken. — 

 A friend informs us that at a concert which took 

 place in a town that shall be nameless, last Fri- 

 daj'^ evening, a gentleman in the audience rose up 

 just as the third piece on the programme had been 

 performed, and said : "Mr. Conductor, will you 

 oblige me, sir, by requesting your vocalists either 

 to sing louder or to sing in whispers, as there is a 

 conversation going on close by where I sit that is 

 conducted in such a loud tone as to entirely liin- 

 der my enjoyment of the music. I prefer, cei'- 

 tainly, to hear the concert ; but if I cannot be so 

 privileged, I desire to hear the conversation." 

 There was an extremely quiet and attentive audi- 

 ence in the hall during the rest of the evening. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 FARMERS AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



Mr. Editor : — It is sometimes interesting and 

 amusing to learn from correspondents what is ex- 

 pected of farmers, who, pre-eminently, live by the 

 sweat of the brow. When a person has learned 

 to distinguish a crow from a robin, or a hawk from 

 a dove, a grasshopper from a house-fly, a butter- 

 fly from a mosquito, a flea from a spider, a toad 

 from a frog, or an elm from an apple tree, he at 

 once sets up to exhort farmers to study Natural 

 History, urging the absolute necessity of their be- 

 coming thoroughly acquainted therewith, in order 

 to succeed well in growing potatoes, turnips, corn, 

 wheat and grass. What help docs the farmer, for 

 example, well versed in entomology, derive there- 

 from on a visitation of the caterpillar, the palmer 

 worm, the canker worm or the army worm, over 

 his unread neighbor ? Are not his fields and or- 

 chards as liable to their visitations as those of his 

 neighbor who makes no claim to a knowledge of 

 tliis department of natural history ? When these 

 learned doctors in entomology are applied to for 

 relief from the depredation of insects, is it ob- 

 tained ? Let those who have tried to obtain it, 

 answer. 



It does not follow, because a farmer cannot sys- 

 tematically name birds, quadrupeds, reptiles and 

 insects, coming under his observation, that he 

 knows nothing about them. Observation gives 

 farmers a good practical knowledge of the habits 

 of the animal pests that frequent their fields, or- 

 chards and gardens. When a learned D. D. says^ 

 "Farmers hardly know a chipping sparrow froiEi 

 an owl," he shows himself as ignorant of farmersy 

 as they, forsooth, are of his transcendental specus' 

 lations in metaphysical hypotheses. Everybody, 

 almost, seems ready to echo the charge that faiia^ 

 ers are a terribly ignorant class of men. It has 

 been truthfully said, that "It takes wisdom to see 

 wisdom, knowledge to discover knowledge." In 

 view of this old saying, let these learned pundits 

 first prove their claim to being wiser and more 

 learned than farmers. Until they do it by some 

 more conclusive way than that of accusing farm- 

 ers of ignorance, I, for one, shall pity them rather 

 than feel annoyed by their impertinence. 



I claim for farmers, as a whole, that they under- 

 stand their business as well as any other industri- 

 al class ; and in confirmation of this, allow me to 

 state what no man can controvert, that they pro- 

 duce many times moi-e personal and national 

 wealth than all other industrial classes,.while it 

 is true, beyond successful denial, that the number 

 of farmers is many times greater than tliat of all 

 other business men, yet the number of bankrupts 

 among farmers is very much smaller than that 

 found in the other classes of men engaged in mer- 

 cantile and other manual labor pursuits. 



While I would not object to a farmer's getting, 

 all the knowledge he can, as he journeys on, in 

 regard to all subjects for which he has taste and' 

 leisure, yet I would not impress him with the no- 

 tion that he cannot farm, and farm profitably, too, 

 without being an Agassiz in the Natural History 

 of Animals, or a Gray in Botany, or a Hitchcock 

 in Geology, or a Dana in Mineralogy, or a Liebig 

 in Organic and Agricultural Chemistry. As well 

 might one maintain that a minister, lawyer or doc- 

 tor is unfit to practice liis profession until he first 



