1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMEE. 



419 



ing to each other, if you only give room and op- 

 portunity to the cheapest and most perfect natu- 

 ral disintegrator in the world. No rasp, or saw, 

 or mill will reduce the indurated land to soft and 

 wholesome tilth so perfectly as a winter's frost. 

 And all that you need to attain its perfect opera- 

 tion is, first to provide an outlet for the water 

 when it comes — by an efficient drainage of the 

 subsoil, and then to move the land while dry and 

 break it up into clods and fragments, no matter 

 how large they be, and leave them for alternate 

 rain, and drought, and frost, and thaw, to do their 

 utmost. — London Agricultural Gazette. 



^WHEN" TO CUT BUSHES. 



We have no doubt but that late in summer, 

 when the growth of the season is just ended, and 

 the plant has expended all its energies in growing, 

 and is just falling into that rest so essential to 

 vegetable maturity, is an excellent time to behead 

 these plagues of the farm. But we have tried 

 another season, when the labors of the year were 

 not quite so pressing as is usual in summer, or 

 early autumn, and have found it so successful in 

 our case, that we hold it worthy of commendation 

 to others. 



Many years ago, there was a dense patch of wil- 

 lows on a swampy spot at one end of the meadow. 

 They covered about half an acre, and were so 

 thick that any animal, biped or quadruped, would 

 find it difficult to pass through the thicket. It 

 v/as waste land, good for nothing unless it were 

 for wasps and hornets to occupy in rearing their 

 young, or for the bob-o-link to pour out his noisy 

 clatter. More than this, it was a grievous eye- 

 sore, that closely embodied phalanx of willows in 

 full view of the highway, and the first object that 

 greeted the eye in one direction from the win- 

 dows. 



It was in our school-boy days, and it so hap- 

 pened, as was then customary in New England, 

 our school adjourned over from Wednesday night 

 before Thanksgiving, until the following Monday, 

 to give the teacher time to go home and visit all 

 his cousins and neighbors, the big boys to skate 

 and attend turkey shoots, and every one to enjoy 

 themselves in the ways best suited to their fancy. 



Cold weather had set in, in earnest. The ponds 

 were all frozen over, and the streams flowed noise- 

 lessly along under their icy blankets — dark clouds 

 chased each other across the horizon, occasionally 

 spitting snow as from very spite, and the hoarse 

 north wind piped in doleful notes the birth of the 

 season of storms and snow-drifts, of sleigh-rides 

 and singing-schools. Of course, our old enemies, 

 the willows, were firmly lodged in winter quarters. 

 At least Jack Frost had one of them firmly se- 

 cured in his unflinching, relentless vice. Taking 

 that fact into consideration, in connection with 

 the other more important one that we had two 

 whole days all our own, to do what we pleased, 

 with the proviso that we must not be pleased in 

 doing any sort of mischief, we resolved to open 

 speedy hostilities on our old, hateful enemies, the 

 willows, and accordingly with a sharp axe in hand, 

 we commenced our Avarfare, cutting them off" 

 smoothly and rapidly just below the surface. Our 

 progress in the business was very good in these 

 two cold, days. The improved look of the meadow 

 was an ample compensation. We have no doubt 



we made better progress in our studies that win- 

 ter for the triumphs of this two days' labor. But 

 this was but the beginning of the end in this busi- 

 ness. The removal of the willows revealed old 

 logs and stumps ; and there must be drains cut 

 to take off" the water that had fed the willows. So 

 it was concluded to fence off" that end of the 

 meadow for pasturing, while this operation was 

 going on. 



The result was this : The bushes were cut so 

 low, that the first thaw covered their stum])s with 

 water, which froze firmly over them. Whether 

 they drank too much in this drowning process, we 

 shall not presume to say. This we know, however, 

 that the subsequent growth was a very feeble one, 

 and the browsing of the animals pastured there, 

 completed the work of destruction so effectually, 

 that on restoring the old swamp to the meadow, 

 it was destitute of willows as the desert of Sahara. 



We have another piece of swamp, on which 

 much earth had been carried by artificial means, 

 and which in 1859 had become a tangled mass of 

 willows and alders. In January of 1860, we cleared 

 off a portion of this swamp by cutting the crop in 

 the same way as before, just below the surface, 

 when the ground was frozen. Two seasons of 

 growth have passed since then, and the new 

 sprouts make but a very feeble show. Another 

 cutting, -which can be effected in a very short time, 

 would probably eradicate the bushes entirely. 



Now we do not claim that we have taken the 

 best time to cut our bushes. We state when we 

 did, how we did it, and the result, leaving it for 

 the intelligent agricultural world to draw their 

 own inferences. We think, however, that in win- 

 ter, if frost favors the object, and there is no snow 

 to obstruct, it is the best time for us, for then it 

 will not interfere with the ordinary duties of farm- 

 ing, and labor is cheaper. Then the bushes being 

 firmly frozen in, every blow of the axe will tell, 

 and there is no mud to annoy the operator. We 

 have some belief that the freezing and thawing 

 over the stumps, and the water that settles over 

 them in spring, has something to do with drown- 

 ing out these mischievous aquatic shrubs. — Wil- 

 liam Bacon in Country Gentleman and Cultiva- 

 tor. 



BUCKWHEAT A BAD CROP FOR THE 

 SOIL. 



J. W. Colburn, writing to the Country Gentle- 

 man, says : — "In the last number of your paper, 

 Mr. Holden, of North Clarendon, V"t., inquires 

 for the reason of a poor crop of corn the next year 

 after a crop of buckwheat on the same land. 



I can give him what little experience I have had 

 in this way. Several years ago I turned in a light 

 crop of grass the last of June, and sowed the 

 sward to buckwheat, and had a heavy crop. The 

 next year manured the same field well, and plant- 

 ed to corn. It came up feebly, looked pale and 

 sickly for all the first part of the summer, but 

 seemed to recover in a measure towards the latter 

 part, but did not mature before the first hard frost 

 so as to make a fair crop of sound corn — a fair 

 growth of fodder with an undue proportion of soft 

 corn. Not thinking that the previous crop had 

 much to do with the failure of the one following, 

 and liking a crop of forty bushels per acre of 

 buckwheat, which is good swine feed, I repeated 

 the same process within a year or two after, and 



