1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



183 



of manure in making the compost of night soil, 

 charcoal, dust, plaster, and muck ? In a short 

 time I will give my experience in raising garden 

 vegetables, and how to have a good garden. 

 North Oxford, Mass., Feb. 5, 1867. F. W. C. 



AGKICULTURAL ITEMS. 



— Pig's gall is said to be an excellent application 

 for bums. 



— Bees naturally cluster below their stores, and 

 the heat ascending keeps the honey from freezing. 



^It is stated that two-thirds of the manufactur- 

 ing enterprises of the State of New York are con- 

 ducted in and about the city of New York. 



— In Champaign Co., 111., corn stocked last fall 

 is worth 25 cents per bushel in the field for feeding 

 cattle. 



— The Mirror and Farmer is credibly Informed 

 that over forty tons of maple sugar were made in 

 the town of Warren, Grafton Co., N. H., last spring. 



— The next fair of the Illinois State Agricultu- 

 ral Society is to be held in Quincy, commencing 

 Sept. 23. 



— I. H. M. Cochran, of Craftsbury, Vt., raised 

 52 bushels of good wheat from two bushels of seed 

 Bown on one acre and a quarter of land. 



— Alvin Wilkins, of Stowc, Vt., has a pair of 

 Bteers which when less than twenty months old 

 weighed 2,500 pounds. 



— That great English experimenter, Mr. Lawes, 

 states that 500 pounds of barley meal, where it is 

 made a sole feed for swine, will increase the weight 

 of a pig from 100 to 200 pounds. 



— The more honey bees have on hand in March 

 and April, the faster they will rear young bees, 

 and the more workers will be ready to gather the 

 harvest from fruit blossoms. 



— Salve made of linseed oil one pint ; rosin three 

 ounces ; beeswax thi'ce ounces, melted and well 

 mixed, is as good as any ever sold at 25 cts. per 

 box. 



— During the first week in January the mercury 

 sank below zero in several places in Middlesex 

 Co., England ; sinking to 9° below on the Cots- 

 wold hills, Jan. 4th. 



— The London Agricultural Gazette says that the 

 attendance upon the exhibitions of the local agri- 

 cultural societies of that country is constantly de- 

 creasing. 



— L. S. Tucker, Esq., of South Royalton, Vt., 

 who in years past has done so much to improve the 

 horses in his section of the State, has recently 

 bought a flock of twenty-five thorough-bred sheep. 



— It is said that the vetch, a kind of pea exten- 

 sively raised in England, and considerably in Can- 

 ada, is indigenous and of extreme luxuriance in 

 the territory of the Northwest. 



— The abortive cow disease seems to be extend- 

 ing in the dairy districts in Central New York. 



At a late meeting of the Little Falls Farmers 

 Club, the propriety of adopting some such strin- 

 gent measures as crushed out the pleuro pneumo- 

 nia in Massachusetts, and the cattle plague in Eng- 

 land, was strongly advocated. 



— The Franklin County, Vt., agricultural society 

 at their annual meeting at Sheldon, elected R. J. 

 Saxe, president ; L. H. Hapgood, secretary, and 

 W. S. Green, treasurer, all of Sheldon, for the en- 

 suing year. 



— The number of new cases of the cattle plague 

 in England during the four weeks in December 

 were, respectively, 14, 7, 6, and 9. These were 

 nearly all slaughtered, together with 118 healthy 

 ones which had been exposed. 



— We learn from the Portland papers that at a 

 meeting of the Trustees of the Agricultural College, 

 Hon. Phineas Barnes of that city was elected Pres- 

 ident of the College, and his salary was by vote 

 fixed at $3000 per year. 



— No inconsiderable portion of the Ohio Farmer 

 is devoted to notices of the organization of new 

 County Wool Growers' Associations and the meet- 

 ings of old ones. Farmei-s in Maine and elsewhere 

 are also astir as never before. 



— A Hampton Falls, N. H., correspondent of the 

 Country Gentleman says, "Our farmers will not 

 use anything dug from the salt marshes, when fresh 

 mud can be obtained, considering the latter much 

 more valuable." 



— The Country Gentleman notices the importa- 

 tion of a lot of English Lincoln sheep, by Samuel 

 Campbell, New York Mills. They were thirty- 

 five days on the voyage, and ten ewes were lost. 

 Fifteen ewes and two rams survive and are now 

 thriving finely. 



— After a discussion by the New York Farmers' 

 Club on the best means to prevent the ravages of 

 mice, the chairman. Alderman Eli, summed up the 

 arguments by remarking, "It seems, then, that the 

 remedy for domestic vermin is, to be surrounded 

 with rattlesnakes, black snakes, and garter snakes." 



— The New Orleans Times says that the sugar 

 crop of Louisiana this year will reach 50,000 hogs- 

 heads, against 16,000 last year; that only extraor- 

 dinary obstacles will prevent a production of 100,- 

 000 next year, and that the old average of 450,000 

 hogsheads will be restored in three years. 



— An Indiana farmer uses poles instead of tile 

 for draining, by splitting them through the mid- 

 dle, then start the heart with a gouge, and take it 

 completely out with a tool made like a bent draw- 

 ing knife. Two halves are then nailed together 

 with sixpenny nails, when with a tool made like a 

 huge pencil-sharpener the ends are worked off so 

 as to fit each other. Joints need not be tight. 



— Mr. A.Townsend, Oeonomowoc, Wis., informs 

 the New York Farmer's Club that his Delaware 

 grapes bear in 16 months from starting the vines 

 or layers. He layers the ripe wood of the last sea- 



