18G7. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



277 



larcrc eye, or germ, comes tlie large potato, and the 

 contrary with the smaller viiies. Our farmers 

 scout tiic ".small potato" planting— as they do all 

 small, mean seed, and all small atumals. On this 

 Island the potato business is reduced to a science ; 

 and a look at the tields in Flathusli and Flatlands, 

 in June, will satisfy one that our liirmers under- 

 stand their business. Perhaps it would not 1)C an 

 exaggeration to say that witliout advantage as to 

 soil or climate, they raise double the crop to the 

 acre, as compared with the New England States. 



H. Pooii. 

 Brooklyn, Long Island, N. Y., April, 1867. 



HAULING WOOD AND MUCK — IMPROVING A FARM. 



Farmers have been very Inisy lumbering, and 

 still a great deal of the timber on some farms must 

 remain in the Avoods where it was prostrated 

 last jMay by a tierce tornado. Since getting 

 mine out I have hauled a lot of muck, and piled it 

 in a long heap so as to have it i-cady to remove 

 next summer, as it dries, to a convenient place 

 near my cow stable, where I can use it behind my 

 cattle to absorb the liquid droppings, and thus en- 

 large the manure heap and consequently increase 

 the fertility of tlic farm. This I think one of the 

 best and cheapest methods of enriching land, situ- 

 ated as we are, so far from market, where the 

 frei^jht on artificial manures makes them so costly. 

 Ten years ago, I took possession of the farm I now 

 occupy. During that time its productiveness has 

 been increased one hundred per cent, without the 

 use of any other means than those I could gather 

 on the farm, without buying manure of any kind ; 

 and yet I see room for more improvement in the 

 same direction. Still, when I plant carrots for the 

 sake of having some to color the winter butter, 

 which I do by feeding them to the cows instead 

 of putting the juice in the cream, if I fail of har- 

 vestingnearly twice as manyas W. W. Chenery did, 

 I feel that I have not fed my land as well he has 

 his imported cattle. I am practically convinced 

 that it is easier and cheaper to raise ten bushels of 

 carrots on one rod of land than on two, and seven- 

 ty-five bushels of corn or oats on one acre than on 

 two, and so on through the catalogue. 



W. I. SiMONDS. 



Roxbunj, Vt., March 7, 1867. 



SPRING WHEAT. 



Please inform me through the columns of the 

 Farmer, what kind of spring wheat I had best 

 sow ? A Subscriber. 



Haverhill, Mass., April, 1867. 



E.EMARKS. — Those who have been sowing spring 

 wheat will please reply. Mr. Wm. Allen, of North 

 Hartland, Vt., prefers the White Flint; Mr. Rufus 

 Nutting, of Randolph, Vt., says the most popular 

 variety in his neighborhood is the Black Sea, and 

 "H.," of Epping, N. H., recommemls an "early va- 

 riety." 



"bone flour." 



Having been a wee little journey in the mud, to- 

 day, I met an old acquaintance who told mc that 

 he ti-ied a barrel of the Boston "Bone Flour" that 

 was sent into this vicinity last season, and thought 

 so highly of it that he intends to try some more the 

 coming season. 



He said he prepared a piece for corn in the usual 

 way, putting manure in the hill, from the barn, 

 and then in every alternate two rows he put a de- 

 cent handful of the bone, on top of the manure. 

 When the corn tassclled out, he found by standing 

 on the side of the field towards which the rows 

 run, that the top of the corn presented an undulat- 



ing or corrugated surface, every other two rows be- 

 ing as much as four inclies higher than the inter- 

 mediate ones. He did not harvest it separately, 

 but thinks tlic bone did good. 



He also sowed four quarts on one rod of run-out 

 grass land ; when he liaj'cd the field in which it 

 was, he did not notice any effect, but the aftermath, 

 or rowen, was larger where the lione was, and 

 there a good deal of clover had come in, though 

 there was none in the rest of the field. I liclieve 

 four quarts to the rod is about ^ bushels, or 6^ 

 barrels to the acre. I am happy to be able to send 

 you the above, believing that the publication of the 

 results of experiments is too much neglected. 



RUFLS NUTXIVG. 



Randolph, Vt., April 9, 1867. 



CULTIVATION OF POTATOES. 



I never ■wTote a line for a newspaper in the world, 

 but as I see by an article in your valualde paper, 

 that a man's sanity would be called in question if 

 he should plant small potatoes, I will give you my 

 way of raising them. Last spring I planted two 

 and a half acres of potatoes on old land that had 

 I)een up three years, and the soil was dry and san- 

 dy. I plowed it three inches deeper than my neigh- 

 bors do, and then I furrowed it out deep and put 

 in each hill a small shovelful of old manure, or 

 compost, as more than half of it was stuff that I 

 carted into my yard. The rows were three feet 

 and the hills two and a half feet apart. I put two 

 potatoes in a hill, six inches asunder. My seed po- 

 tatoes were about the size of hens' eggs, and I 

 never use larger ones. As I market my potatoes, 

 I plant very early. As soon as they are up, I run 

 a cultivator through them, and then a double plow, 

 after which a man can hoe an acre a day. In ten 

 days I run the plow through them again, and it 

 is less work to hoe than at first. I save time and 

 get more potatoes Ijy hoeing twice! I change my 

 seed most every year. I think I got aijout one 

 hundred bushels more l)y changing seed last year. 

 The result of my crop was seven hundred and for- 

 ty bushels of good nice potatoes, mostly Oronoes, 

 My farm lays a mile from the foot of Sunapee 

 Mountain. O. F. Cain. 



Goshen, Sullivan Co., V. II., March, 1867. 



GRAFTING AVAX. 



The directions given in a late Farmer for mak- 

 ing grafting wax are precisely the same that I have 

 practiced over 40 years. A few days since I took 

 four pounds of rosin, two pounds of beeswax, and 

 one pound of tallow, and after dividing each into 

 pieces or lumps as small as walnuts, put the 

 whole into a brass kettle— the tallow first — and set 

 it on the stove over a slow fire, and as it melted I 

 stirred all well together. I then poured it into a 

 brass kettle contamingtwo pails of cold water, and 

 as soon as it was cool enough, I greased my hands 

 well with tallow and divided the compound into 

 eight balls. I then formed the balls into rolls 

 twelve inches long, by constantly working and 

 pulling until the mass was pHable and not lumpy, 

 and have a fine specimen of wax. Spread the wax, 

 when grafting, as thin as coarse In-own paper ou 

 the end of the limb, making it air-tight around the 

 scions. John Ki>'g. 



Eaffle Bridge, N. Y., April, 1867. 



to prevent hens eating eggs. 

 "A Subscril)er" asks in the Farmer of March 

 30, a remedy "for his hens eating their eggs." If 

 he will give his hens fresh meat twice a week, with 

 a mixture of corn, oats, and buckwheat, and a 

 lump of lime, pounded bone, oyster shells, or like, 

 I think, from experience and ol)servaiion, he will 

 find the remedy. In the summer season hens usu- 



