174 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JimE 



bor of providing for the table. If a good kitchen- 

 garden can be entered and its rich products se- 

 lected at will, the butcher, the baker and the gro- 

 cers' bills will be greatly reduced under the ad- 

 ministration of a skilful housewife. The Garden 

 is a harmonizer, as well as economist. Sow, also, 

 a few annuals and plant perennials, for they neu- 

 tralize care and make the joys of life perennial. 

 During these seven days, whose duties we are ur- 

 ging, do not neglect the claims of the Garden. 



Calves. — There are various modes of feeding 

 calves, when taken from the cow at two or thrije 

 days old, or when not allowed to suck at all. Our 

 practice is, to let the calf suck three days, as we 

 think it greatly benefits both cow and calf. At 

 the end of this time the calf is taken away, the 

 cow milked, the calfs head introduced into the 

 pail, where the thumb of the left hand rises up 

 above the milk. The mouth of the calf is guided 

 to the thumb, when he seizes it and sucks it read- 

 ily. In a day or two, skim milk may be intro- 

 duced if desirable. We use tea made of sweet 

 herdsgrass ur redtop hay, mixed with a little new 

 milk. In a few days, a calf will drink from one 

 to two gallons at a meal of this tea. At the end 

 of a week, a little corn meal may be introduced 

 in the milk or placed in a trough before the 

 calf, and at the end of three or four weeks, he will 

 take a quart per day, without injury. Calves need 

 ample and careful feeding while quite young, in 

 order to secure p. healthy and vigorous growth. 

 They seem never to forget this care,a nd will bear 

 neglect afterwards all the better for it, though 

 neglect at any time is unprofitable. 



For the New England Fanner. 

 BONE DUST. 



Bone dust of the market, so far as I have dis- 

 covered, is a very coarse meal made by grinding 

 refuse bones fine enough to pass through a sieve 

 of about one-fourth inch meshes. At least, so I 

 found two barrels to be, which I ordered from mar- 

 ket last season, for trial. Not being satisfied that 

 I had better put it into the soil and wait from one 

 to ten years to have it decompose, I carried it to a 

 plaster mill to have it made quite fine. In the 

 process the mill was filled with dust almost to suf- 

 focation ; (they had probably been kiln dried.) 

 To allay it, if it would, unground plaster was 

 mixed with it, in proportion about one to one by 

 weight, without much effect as desired. But both 

 together proved an excellent compound to roll my 

 buckwheat in previous to sowing ; as much more 

 adhered to it than either alone would, and enough 

 to show its good eff'ect as it came out of the 

 ground, and through the season. 



Upon a piece of land in too poor condition to 

 produce a good crop of any thing, — which I had 

 made fine for flat field turnips, I sowed said mate- 

 rial at the rate of eight dollars' worth to the acre, 

 and dragged it in. Here I had as large and smooth 

 turnips and of as uniform size as I ever saw. In 

 sowing this piece with the compound, I left two 

 strips through the field, on which there were not 



turnips enough to pay for ploughing the land. It 

 had a similar eff'ect where I sowed it in drills with 

 ruta baga seed. I did not have it in season to 

 experiment with, in the earlier seeding of corn, 

 potatoes and the like. Wm. Richards. 



Richmond, March, 1863. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 CUBING COV7S OF KICKING. 



Mr. Editor : — I was somewhat amused as well 

 as interested, by an article upon this subject in 

 the Farmer of March 21, from a correspondent at 

 Straff'ord, Vt. 1 would like to inquire of Mr. El- 

 ery, Avhat he does with his milk pail while holding 

 on to one teat with his right hand, and slapping 

 the cow smartly with the other? and especially 

 when he catches the uplifted foot and holds it near 

 to the body of the cow until she settles down into 

 his lap ! It seems to me the latter performance 

 must require considerable strength and agility, to 

 be done successfully, without spilling the milk or 

 spoiling the pail. I would suggest if it might not 

 be safe and better in bad cases, to strap up one of 

 the fore legs, after the fashion of the famous horse- 

 tamers ? The cow would soon learn that it was 

 impossible to stand upon two legs-, that even three 

 were not as good as four, and conclude to keep 

 them all in their proper places. 



^iit jyrevenfion is better than cure, and if heifers 

 are treated kindly and gently when fii'st milked, 

 the bag bathed with milk or warm water, and 

 something a little extra given them to eat, I have 

 the impression that comparatively few will acquire 

 the habit of kicking. A. C. AV. 



Leominster, March, 1863. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 IS SHADE A CAUSE OF THE POTATO 

 DISEASE? 



Last year, when digging potatoes in my garden, 

 I observed that those which grew in the shade of 

 an apple tree, wilted much worse than those grow- 

 ing in the open sunshine. This suggested the 

 idea that shade might be a predisposing cause of 

 the blight, and I mentioned it to some of my 

 neighbors. But no one seemed ready to agree 

 with me, so I concluded to say no more about it 

 until I made further trials. 



This year, a small piece of potatoes grew where 

 the wood-house shaded it a part of every day. 

 At harvest time I found rotten potatoes as far as 

 the shade extended, and scarcely one beyond, and 

 the rot was worst in the rows next to the wood- 

 house. 



I also planted about half an acre, last spring, in 

 my field, where there were no trees to make shade. 

 I hoed them well, but late in the season the grass 

 sprang up and grew rapidly. I commenced to hoe 

 the ground again, but other business called me 

 away before I finished it. When I dug the pota- 

 toes, I found them badly infected, but there were 

 not more than half as many rotten ones where the 

 grass was cut down, as where it was allowed to 

 grow. 



Now my theory is, that the grass, hke the shade 

 of trees, or of buildings, prevented the rays of the 

 sun from striking the ground directly, thus pre- 

 venting the free evaporation of the moisture, 

 which, in hot weather, is exhaled from the earth, 

 consequently too much stimulus was applied to 

 the tubers. 



