1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



235 



vegetables, which, in a light and excessively 

 porous soil, do not take hold' with sufficient 

 firmness. 



KULES FOR BUYING WOOL. 

 At a union convention of the INIichigan Wool 

 Growers' Association, Wool Buyers and farm- 

 ers generally, the following rules for pre- 

 paring wool for market were adopted : — 



1st. Sheep should not be allowed access to the 

 straw-stack, especiallyof barley or Ijearded wheat. 



2d. All sheep, except perhaps l)ucks, should be 

 well washed, if practical)le, in a running stream, 

 and as early in the season as the weather will per- 

 mit. 



3d. Sheep should be shorn, weather and other 

 circumstances permitting, within six to ten days 

 after washing. 



4th. At the time of shearing, the fleeces should be 

 carefully rolled up as snugly as practicable, with- 

 out ))ting too tightly pressed, wound with light 

 colored strong twine, put twice each way around 

 the fleece, carefully excluding all dead wool and 

 unwashed tags. 



In place of propositions to discount one-half 



on unwashed rams' fleeces, and one-third on 



other unwashed wool, which were rejected, the 



following was agreed to : — 



Reasonable deduction should be made on un- 

 washed or otherwise unnicnhantable condition — 

 this deduction to be determined, however, ac- 

 cording to the quality and condition in each 

 case, and not by any arbitrary rule of deduction 

 to be applied indiscriminately to all cases. 



In the course of the discussion upon the 

 adoption of the above, Mr. Stuart of Kalama- 

 zoo said he thought the rule deducting one- 

 third on bucks' fleeces, simply because they 

 are bucks' fleeces, was arbitrary and unjust. 

 He had a mixture of buck's and ewe's fleeces, 

 and if any Avool-growcr or buyer could distin- 

 guish one from the other, he would give him 

 the whole crop. 



This \\'ool Growers' Association elected 



the following officers for the year : — 



President, Hon. C. E. Stuart, Kalamazoo; Vice 

 Prctidcnr, Sanford Howard, Lansing; Treasurer, 

 W. G. iJcckuitli, Cassdpolis ; Secretary, W. J. 

 Baxter, Hillsdale; Ex. Com., C. W. Green, J. R. 

 Hcndryx, L. S. Wood, Charles Rich, N. Pugsley. 



IinuG.vTiON. — A correspondent in West 

 Townshend, Vt., gives us some particulars of 

 the success of Mr. J. H. Kimball, in the irri- 

 gation of about three acres of a gravelly and 

 sandy soil, which was previously almost too 

 poor to grow weeds. A tannery which stood 

 on the stream from which the water was taken 

 may have added something to its manurial 

 value. Last season, which was the second or 

 third of the irrigation, five tons of hay, fifty 



bushels of corn and seventeen of beans were 

 harvested as field crops, besides seventeen 

 bushels of turnips and a liberal supply of vege- 

 tables, which were grown on a portion of the 

 land occupied as a garden. 



EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. 



CHEMISTRY ANB FARMING. 



I have heard that a thorough knowledge of chem- 

 istry is important to successful farming. Please 

 to state through the New England Farmer the 

 reasons why it is so. Most of the farmers I ever 

 saw knew little or nothing about chemistry. How 

 much will Ijooks suflicient to obtain a fair knowl- 

 edge of it, cost ? ROBEKT. 



Easton, March, 1867. 



Remarks. — There can be no doubt, we think, 

 that a thorough knowledge of chemistry is import- 

 ant to successful farming. But that it is absolute- 

 ly necessary, we do not believe. There are thou- 

 sands of excellent farmers who have no exact 

 knowledge of chemistry — but still would find a 

 "thorough" knowledge of that science important 

 to them in their farming operations. Indeed, a 

 very large majority of all farmers have very little 

 knowledge of chemistry, and yet they succeed 

 well and honor the calling. Some knowledge of 

 chemistry would not only prove profitable to the 

 farmer in a money point of view, but it would be- 

 come a source of pleasure to him, and kindle in 

 his mind a still greater desire to understand better 

 the wonderful things that surround him in all his 

 labors. 



The best book for you is "Elements of Agricul- 

 tural Chemistry and Geology," by Prof. J. F. "W. 

 Johnston. Costs 1^1.50. 



CHANGING SEED — SALT FOR WHEAT. 



Having promised to write about the cultivation 

 of wheat, and the importance of changing seed, I 

 must say. in the first place, that wheat is of all 

 grain the most valuable. It is a very hardy plant, 

 sustaining alike without injury the frosts of winter 

 and the heats of sununcr. It delights most in a 

 stiff, mellow, well pulverized soil, and very suc- 

 cessfully follows beans, clover, peas, vetches or 

 corn. On very light soils it is not profitable. Nor 

 does it suecceil well after potatoes, because this 

 root is exhausting to the soil and renders it light 

 and porous. When this succession is adopted, a 

 large quantity of manure should be used to the 

 potatoes. 



The smut, which often proves fatal to wheat and 

 other grain crops, appears to be occasioned liy the 

 peculiar state of the seed, and in England various 

 saline, alkaline and other steeps are used to re- 

 move this infection. When, however, it becomes 

 very much sulijectto this disease, it is attributed to 

 sowing one kind of seed u])on the same quality of 

 land tuo long. Therefore English farmers have so 

 mueh faith in the beneficial ctteets of a change of 

 seed, that they sometimes will go a great distance 

 for that which is fresh. They are also very particu- 

 lar to have seed wheat clean of all foul seed, &c. 

 They generally make it wet with old chamber-lye, 

 and then dry with quick lime. 



I adopted the same mode here, but sowed one 

 kind of wheat for seven or eight years. I thus got 

 considerable smut among it, and it also deteriora- 

 ted considerably. My straw was good, ears long, 



