1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



173 



more frequent applications were given, with 

 the expectation of corresponding increase of 

 crop ; no such increase was obtained, in fact 

 tlieir action was soon imperceptible ; and dis- 

 appointment and general distrust in all special 

 fertilizers were the natural consecpience. In 

 accounting for failures of this kind, may it not 

 be safely inferred that the land had received a 

 sufhcient quantity of these particular elements, 

 and no excess could stimulate the plants to 

 greater growth. 



These thoughts are suggested by my own at- 

 tempts at experimenting, and reading and study- 

 ing the efforts of others, and are offered to my 

 brother liirmers, simply to show that experi- 

 ments, unless most skilfully conducted, are of no 

 value, however honest may be the motives that 

 actuated them, in giving them to the pub- 

 lic, every circumstance that can possibly influ- 

 ence the result should be carefully stated, that 

 all may draw their own conclusions. 



•Jan., 1SC7. n. s. t. 



Goitre. — A correspondent of the Bural 

 New Yorker in Oakland County, Mich., lost 

 most of his lambs in 1862, by goitre, and three 

 quarters of them in 1863. Attributing it to 

 feeding too much corn he changed the feed to 

 oats, but the disease contined just as fatal. 

 The next winter he gave no grain to his ewes, 

 but fed them ruta bagas, and lost about half 

 of his lambs. During all this time the ewes 

 were kept closely yarded, having an open shed, 

 and were let out of the yard half an hour each 

 day. Thinking that perhaps they did not get 

 sufficient exercise, he, in the winter of 1866, 

 when it was not too cold, daily turned them 

 several hours on an old meadow, forty rods 

 from the barn, where they could get consider- 

 able green grass. He thus sums up the re- 

 sult: — '"A few old crones died and I cannot 

 keep my sheep in quite as good condition as 

 before, but 1 lost but four lambs out of eighty 

 from goitre — though most of them had it very 

 lightly." 



The same amount of study, tact, talent, energy 

 and enterprise that suffices to make a man moder- 

 ately successful in a professional or a mercantile 

 career will place liim in tlie front rank of the tillers 

 of tlie soil. 



This item is going the rounds of the agri- 

 cultural press. We wonder at it, for we do 

 not believe it is true. On the contrary we 

 think it would be full as correct to transpose 

 the sentence and say, that the same amount of 

 talent, tact, industry, energy, economy and 

 enterprise that suffices to make a man a mod- 



erately successful farmer would place him in 

 the front rank of the professional or mercan- 

 tile classes. And we appeal to the history of 

 those who have left farming for the professions, 

 and to that of those who have left the profes- 

 sions for farming, for confirmation of the truth 

 of our version. 



Addison Co., Vt. — At a meeting of the agri- 

 cultural Society of this county, at Middlebury, 

 Jan. 23d, Victor Wright, of Middlebury, was 

 elected President ; H. O. Giffbrd, of New Haven 

 and E. S. Stowell, of Cornwall, Vice Presidents ; 

 Geo. Hammond, Middlebury, and A. J. Child, 

 of Weybridge, Secretaries : Edward Vallette. 

 Treasurer. 



Board of Agriculture. — His Excellency 

 the Governor, with the advice of the Council 

 has appointed Louis Agassiz of Cambridge, 

 and William S. Clark of Amherst, to be mem- 

 bers of the State Board of Agriculture of the 

 State of Massachusetts. 



The Mothers. — The Vermont Farmer says 

 that Mrs. Hannah Brown of St. Jolmsbury, 

 who is in her 68th year, has, during the past 

 season, besides doing her own work and a 

 great deal for others, spun 68 skeins of yarn, 

 and woven 400 yards of cloth, and that Mrs. 

 Betsev Church of Chester, 74 years of age, has 

 spun 350 ten-knotted skeins of Avoolen yarn 

 within the last four months. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 NOXIOUS ANIMALS, IWCIiCJDrN G IN- 

 SECTS.— WO. I. 



BY I. B. HARTWELL. 



However it may be in other sections and 

 other countries, in New England we suffer but 

 little from the depredations of the larger wild 

 animals, Avhile some of the small vertebi'ates, 

 especially the rodents, are (piite troublesome ; 

 and that class of the articulates called insects, 

 are yearly making such insiduous and extensive 

 inio'ads upon vegetation as to excite alarm 

 lest these implacable and uncompromising foes 

 shall at length become our con(]uerors and 

 masters. 



We find in a late number of the New^ Eng- 

 land Farmer, the statement, "that $300, 000,- 

 000 a year will not cover the damage done to 

 farmers in this country, by insects alone." 



But before speaking more particularly of ob- 

 noxious insects, we have a word for the ro- 

 dents ; and because in the Norway rat, Mus 

 Decumanus, culminates all the villanies of his 



