118 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



light serenade from those shaggy sheep-hunters is 

 not at all uncommon. 



—The late Mr. Eli Keller, of Newark, Ohio, a 

 highly successful breeder of Merino sheep, it is 

 said, never kept a written record of his sheep but 

 was able to give the pedigree of each sheep in a 

 flock of 150, and could remember the form and pe- 

 culiarities of a sheep for years after he had seen it. 



—Butter at St. Albans, Vt., Jan. 4th, was worth 

 from 25 to 38 cents per lb., with a few extra lots at 

 38 to 40 cents. The St. Albans, Vt., Messenger says 

 that B. F. Van Vlcet, of Shelburn, sold recently to 

 L. G. Wright, of Wcybridge, Vt., 22 head of sheep 

 for $4,500. They leave Shelburn for Ohio this 

 week. 



—Honey, like most vegetable products, should 

 be fresh every year. It may easily be kept from 

 one season to another ; but when kept beyond that 

 time, unless very carefully stored in a warm tem- 

 perature, it will crystallize in the comb, and it is 

 liable to ferment when in jars separated from the 

 comb. 



—A farmer in Mcdford, New Jersey, has about 

 one hundred acres planted in cranberries, twenty 

 of which were in fruit last year, and yielded an 

 average of one hundred bushels per acre ; in all, 

 two thousand bushels, which brought him, clear of 

 all expenses, $3 per bushel, amounting to $6000 

 from the twenty acres in bearing. 



— The INIassachusctts Board of Agriculture have 

 appointed a committee consisting of Messrs. Sted- 

 man of Chicopee, Prof. Chadbourne and Prof. Ag- 

 assiz, to report to the next annual meeting some 

 system by which the Board may collect and em- 

 body statistical information relative to the propa- 

 gation of domestic animals. 



— Mr. Pardee, of Illinois, has found that lime 

 slaked in salt l)rinc, sown broadcast, had kept in- 

 sects from strawberries. 



— Minnesota has become a great wheat-produc- 

 ing country, and during the past season has ex- 

 ported over five million bushels, besides that re- 

 quired for the consumption of her own people. 



— As curculios prefer plums to any other fniit, 

 the peach growers of Southern Illinois protect 

 their fruit by planting plum trees among their 

 peaches. 



— Mr. Colby of Southom Illinois has invented a 

 machine i'or catching curculios by horse power. It 

 is simply an extension of the hand sheet and jar- 

 ring process. Two men and two boys can visit 1000 

 trees per hour. 



— An ingenious mechanic a native of New Eng- 

 land, has invented a process by which the enamel 

 can be removed from the fibi-e of the milk-weed. 

 The fibre then l)ecomes equal to cotton — soft, silky, 

 and of great strength. Cloth made from it is 

 stronger than that from any material now known. 



— Mr. Mt(-lay stated at a late meeting of the 

 Southern Illinois Fruit Growers' Association, that 



he had known peaches perfectly colorless on ac- 

 count of having been mulched. He objected to 

 sawdust, believing it generates fungi. 



— There have been shipped from Quincy, 111., 

 the past year, l)etween 45,000 and 48,000 barrels of 

 apples, which sold at an average of $3 per barrel. 

 The barrels were new, and made at Quincy, at 60c 

 each. About 80 cents per bushel were paid to the 

 growers. 



— The following rule for ascertaining the num 

 bcr of bushels of apples, potatoes, &c.,in bins anc 

 l)oxes, is recommended as simple and accurate bj 

 a correspondent of the Mirror and Farmer : for the 

 number of "even" bushels, multiply the number 

 of cubic feet in the bin by 8 and point off one deci- 

 mal. For "heaped" bushels, multiply hj 8 twice 

 and point off two. 



— The sticky or gummy condition of some of the 

 cheaper kinds of curried leather and its lialiility to 

 crack is said to be owing to the use of fish oil in 

 the finishing. Neat's-foot oil being the product of 

 the bouvine pecies, seems to be naturally adapted 

 to the tanned skin, and the evils alluded to have 

 only appeared where other oils have been substi- 

 tuted by the currier. 



— S. P. Snow, of Blakesburgh, Iowa, uses a cheap 

 com sheller. Bore an inch and a half hole through 

 a two-inch plank ; put legs to the plank, making a 

 stool of it about as high as a chair. Over the hole 

 in the plank finnly nail a plate of ii-on about an 

 eighth of an inch in thickness, and with a hole 

 through the center of the plate, just large enough 

 to admit the passage of a corn cob. Through this 

 hole, with a small wooden mallet the ears of corn 

 are to be driven. This machine, simple as it is, will 

 shell very clean, and with double or triple the ex- 

 pedition of hand-shelling. 



— Congi'ess is told by the Memorial of the Ver- 

 mont Wool-growers, drawn up by Hon. J. W. Col- 

 burn, that "the present rates of dut,y upon wool 

 are totally inadequate to the protection of the 

 American growth and are rapidly tending to break 

 down this production, and build up our foreign ri- 

 vals, by enabling them, aided as they are by climatic 

 advantages, cheap lands, and cheap labor, to mo- 

 nopolize our own markets, to the exclusion of our- 

 selves, thus leaving our own clips upon our handsi 

 while we are obliged to clothe ourselves and fami- 

 lies with fabrics made ft-om foreign wool, and at 

 much higher prices (induced by intenial taxation) 

 than formerly, when we held a fair com])etition in 

 our own markets." 



— Daniel Miller, Picrccton, Ind., writes to the 

 New York Farmer's Club, that for two years past 

 farming in Northei-n Indiana and Southern Michi- 

 gan, has been carried on under great discourage- 

 ments, owing mainly to bad weather; and some 

 ci-ops have been total losses. Hence farmers are 

 uneasy, they cannot pay high wages, improvements 

 are suspended, and some seek other l)usiness. This 

 is the reason Avhy cities and to^vns grow so fast, 



