1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



449 



a thick whitewash and apply to the body of the 

 trees in June. This will Iccep off the miller, and 

 is, besides, an excellent fertilizer. 



— M. Comaille, of the Paris Academy of Science, 

 tested for a year the laying capacity of three ducks 

 and three hens, under the same conditions, with 

 this result: hens, 257 eggs ; ducks, 617 eggs. 



— Treat your horse with that kindness which is 

 characteristic in all the actions of a merciful man 

 — no animal will appreciate it better or respond to 

 it with more gratitude than the horse. 



— In Utah the gulls are making a vigorous cam- 

 paign against the grasshoppers. The Mormons 

 say that they were once before saved from famine 

 in the same way. 



— Last year red squirrels, cut woi-ms, and cater- 

 pillars were remarkably plenty in Maine, this year 

 farmers are almost entirely exempt from theu' 

 ravages. 



— No man so well understands farming as he 

 who has made poor land rich, and he will keep it 

 rich. He is like one who has earned a thousand 

 dollars. 



— H. C. Farrar, of Richford, Vt., whose name is 

 familiar to the readers of our reports of the cattle 

 market, has sold nearly 300 cows this season to 

 farmers in Vermont, aside from a lai'ge number 

 of cattle which he has sent to market. 



— The Maine Farmer announces the death of 

 Mr. Horace McKinney, of Waldo county, an enter- 

 prising fanner, and a member of the Committee 

 of the New England Agricultural Society on draft 

 horses. 



— A correspondent of the Maine Farmer says, 

 "many a housewife may be glad to know, when 

 she has a piece of fresh meat she wishes to keep a 

 few days, that it can be successfully done by plac- 

 ing it in a dish and covering it with buttermilk. I 

 have practiced the plan for years." 



— A Milwaukee meat thief knocked in the head 

 a fine five months old imported blooded bull calf, 

 belonging to Wm. P. Lynde, and valued at f 300, 

 cut otf the hindquarters with an axe, without 

 skinning or otherwise dressing it, and was ar- 

 rested by the police with his booty. 



— A North Carolina paper says that that State 

 ought to send ^,000,000 worth of blackberries to 

 market. The county of Forsythe shipped $60,000 

 worth of the fruit last year. The blackberry grows 

 wild in great abundance throughout the central 

 and western parts of the State. 



— In reply to a correspondent who asks. Can 

 good wine be made from grapes grown at the 

 North ? the editor of the American Journal of 

 HoHicuUure says, We very much doubt it. What 

 are or have been called native wines are fixed-up 

 stulf— grape juice and water sweetened, not wine. 



— The Utica Herald mentions a cheese factory in 

 Durhamville, N. Y., which is supplied with water 



by a wind mill, which operates to the entire satis- 

 faction of the manager. For the purpose of avoid- 

 ing all taint that might affect the cheese, no hogs 

 are kept at this factoiy. 



— The California Farmer says, that a little while 

 since a lot of wheat was sent from California to 

 Fi'ance ; it was then shipped to Liverpool, thence 

 to New York, thence to Chicago, the Great Grand 

 wheat Depot of the United States, and yet after 

 all these long voyages and repeated shipments, 

 with added costs, it paid a profit all round. 



Mr. James A. Pollard, superintendent of the 

 State Prison, at Windsor, Vt., has probably the 

 largest hog in New England. It measures in the 

 girt 6 feet, 4 inches. In height, 3 feet, 8^ inches. 

 In length, 8 feet, two inches ; age about sixteen 

 months. The estimated weight is about 1000 lbs. 



—An ox belonging to Mr. Daniel Tainter, of 

 Worcester, died Saturday night. On investigating 

 for the cause of its death, a piece of steel skirt 

 hoop, about six inches in length, was found im- 

 bedded in the right side of the heart, and forming 

 an abscess between the heart and the lung. The 

 indigestible substance had been taken with its food. 



— At an exhibition of meat recently held at 

 Nancy, France, a butcher exposed a mare, twenty- 

 seven months old, weighing 410 kilos., and a horse, 

 thirteen years old, weighing 520 kilos. ; these ani. 

 mal had been fattened for the table, and were cov- 

 ered with garlands. The members of the Accli- 

 matization Society, awarded the butcher a silver 

 medal and fifty francs in money. 



— A correspondent of the Vermont Farmer who 

 recently visited the flock of Dr. H. B. Hathaway, 

 of Milton, Vt., speaks of it as one of the best in 

 the State, bred directly from the "pure Hammond 

 stock." He recently sold a buck for $1500. Not 

 satisfied with fine wool, the Dr. has laid out three 

 trout ponds, believing fish to be cheaper and better 

 than pork, and is now preparing a cranberry 

 meadow. 



— At a meeting of the Warsaw, (111.,) Hort. So- 

 ciety, it was stated that the birds which do most 

 injury to fruit are the oriole, robin, thnish, cat- 

 bird, jaybird and cedarbird, while blackbirds, blue 

 birds, hempbirds, goldfinches, wrens and swallows 

 do good. No conclusion was reached except that 

 as birds generally destroy so many insects it was 

 not thought safe to recommend their destruction. 

 Pei'haps the best remedy for their ravages is to 

 have large supplies of fruit. 



— Dr. Trimble stated before the New York Far- 

 mers' Club that since the introduction of the Eng- 

 lish sparrow, the canker worm in New Haven and 

 in other places has disappeared ; also that the worm 

 has another enemy, a parasite, so small as only to 

 be seen by the glass, that lays its minute eggs in 

 the eggs of the canker worm. Others ascribed the 

 decrease of the canker worm to the cold winds and • 

 rains of the past spring, which occurred after the 

 eggs commenced hatching. 



