472 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



THE NEW MONITOR, NAMED "NAHANT." 

 We took a stroll, the other clay, as far as the 

 "City Point Works," at South Boston, to see the 

 new iron-clad vessel "Naliant" now being con- 

 structed at the yard of Harrison Lorixg, Esq. 

 Those who have never seen a vessel of this kind 

 can scarcely realize, by any description, the im- 

 mense strength of one, or the skill and cost re- 

 quired to complete it. The sounds around it were 

 louder than the voice of many waters. Little 

 forges were glowing with red-hot coals heating 

 the bolts that little boys were evcryM'here drop- 

 ping over the sides of the vessel, sus])ended on a 

 hook at the end of a cord. These were eagerly 

 caught in iron tongs, and when entered into the 

 rivet holes, were smitten with blows from two or 

 three sledges and hammers with a rapidity that 

 seemed to outstrip the motions of the quickest 

 machinery. Every part of the vessel Avas going 

 on at one point or another, — the sides, the deck, 

 the engine, water tanks, quarters, the terrific ram 

 in the bows, and the turret. This stood on a 

 platform resting upon the ground, and I suppose 

 when partly done will be hoisted on deck and fin- 

 ished. The whole thing is so unlike any vessel of 

 common construction, and the means of defence 

 and aggression so unlike all the usual arts of war- 

 fare, that the mind was bewildered with the 

 strangeness of the scene, when contemplating 

 ■what it was all for. Some of the proportions of 

 the "Nahant" are — 



Length 200 feet. 



Breadth 47 " 



Thickness of wood armor 3 " 



Thickness of iron armor, outside of wood inches. 



Thickness of turret 11 " 



Thickness of deck plating 1 " 



Diameter of turret 21 feet. 



Into this turret are to be placed two or more 

 guns of great weight, which are to hurl destruc- 

 tion to every approaching foe, or run it through 

 with the terrible beak that projects from the prow. 



For the Netc Enaland Farmer. 



WHEAT— WHEAT. 



Mr. Editor: — I noted your editorial in refer- 

 ence to the small, "black insect that swarms on 

 the wheat this season." Is this insect confined to 

 the wlieat alone ? Are the "fields of wheat" spring 

 or winter grain ? And from whence comes this 

 new enemy ? Has it originated in foreign seed ? 

 Can it be traced to any one field ? Last year, 

 some of your correspondents described a "louse or 

 aphis," of peculiar shape, and if I mistake not, it 

 appears on all grains. You say "these destroyers 

 sometimes infest the wheat in Europe to a great 

 extent." This indicates to me what I have often 

 written, that the eggs of the insect are deposited 

 in or on the berry, and if imported from abroad or 

 transported from the West, or elsewhere, it is fair 

 to su])pose the insect goes with its natural food in 

 the form of an e^s:,, or in its own peculiar form of 

 propagation. No one ever saw the weevil in any 



grain but wheat. It seems to be its natural food. 

 So it is with the onion maggot. 



How is it possible that seed wheat, coming hun- 

 dreds or thousands of miles, and for the first time 

 an attempt is made to raise it on a New England 

 farm, this troublesome insect appears with the 

 grain ? Is it fair to suppose it an incorporated in- 

 sect of the farm, or was it brought there in the 

 grain? This may be a proper subject for your 

 scientific readers. Will they please inform us ? 



Now for the remedy for this evil in the start, 

 which no doubt is more or less eflfectual, and per- 

 haps for the fiftieth time I have troubled your 

 readers to read it — soak the grain in salt pickle 

 twelve hours, then rake it in wood ashes and sow 

 when damp ; soaking throws to the surface foul 

 seed and insects, quickens the germ, and perhaps 

 may destroy the c^j^^ that attaches to the berry. It 

 is a powerful fertilizer, &c. 



I would again say to the farmer, on your light 

 plain rye land, I should not omit putting in wheat 

 as late as the 25th of this month. Many of you 

 have little or no manure. Then plow in ashes or 

 slaked lime with the grain, say three inches deep, 

 or with a cultivator two to three inches deep, 

 and you Mill not regret your labor. Use the rol- 

 ler if you can borrow one. In England and Scot- 

 land they roll all their grass lands in spring ; it 

 packs the roots and increases the crop. We shall 

 learn the value of the roller by-and-bye. 



Brooklyn, L. 1. ' H. PoOR. 



N. B. Light plain lands are two weeks earlier 

 than heavy grass lands. 



MOVING. 



People who live in cities and move regularly 

 every year from one good, furnished, right-side-up 

 house to another, will think I give a very small 

 reason for a very broad fact ; but they do not 

 know what they are talking about. They have 

 fallen into a way of looking upon a house as a 

 sort of exaggerated trunk, into Avhich they pack 

 themselves annually with as much nonchalance 

 as if it were only their preparation for a summer 

 trip to the sea-shore. They don't strike root any- 

 where. They don't have to tear up anything. A 

 man comes with a cart and horses. There is a 

 stir in one house — they are gone ; there is a stir 

 in the other — tliey are settled ; and everything is 

 wound up and set going for another year. We 

 do these things differently in the country. We 

 don't build a house by way of experiment and live 

 in it a few years, then tear it down and build an- 

 other. We live in a house till it cracks and then 

 plaster it overj then it totters, and we prop it up ; 

 then it rocks, and we rope it down ; then it 

 sprawls, and we clamj) it ; then it crumljles, and 

 we have a new underpinning, but kcc]) living in it 

 all the time. To know what moving really means, 

 you must move from just such a ricketty-racketty 

 old farm-house, where you have clung and grown 

 like a fungus ever since there was anything to 

 grow — where your life and luggage have crept in- 

 to all the crevices and corners, and every wall is 

 festooned with associations thicker than cobwebs 

 that are ])retty thick — where the furniture and 

 the pictures and the knick-knacks are so become a 

 part and parcel of the house, so grown with it and 

 into it, that you do not know they are chiefly rub- 



