1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



15 



must not be postponed to February or June, 

 because they belong to the present. 



It is the reason with which we are endowed 

 that enables us to look to the future, and to 

 provide the means of securing comfort and 

 sustaining life. The mariner would make a 

 fatal mistake, if he were to put to sea without 

 first supplying the "ship's stores" upon which 

 the crew were to be fed. So the farmer may 

 find many discomforts — some of them ending 

 perhaps in loss of life — by neglecting the du- 

 ties which properly belong to the month upon 

 which he has entered. The old adage is as 

 true as it is trite, that for the want of a nail 

 the shoe was lost, and for the want of a shoe 

 the horse was lost. This directly applies to 

 many of the domestic concerns of the family. 

 Let it remind us to prepare, this winter, 



A Year's Stock of Wood. — Wet wood is 

 the cause of much poor cooking. It prevents 

 food from coming to the table in a palatable 

 and wholesome condition. It increases the 

 labor of the already overburdened wife ; dis- 

 turbs her equanimity, tries her patience and 

 prevents her from performing her domestic 

 duties in a prompt and efficient manner. In 

 the use of green wood, they become a cruel 

 task imposed upon her, and she not only loses 

 health and patience, but loses credit, as a good 

 manager and skilful wife. 



The use of green wood is an extravagance 

 which farmers cannot well afford. It wastes 

 time to kindle and tend it. It wastes wood, 

 because more is applied than would be neces- 

 sary, if a single stick were used dry enough to 

 kindle into a blaze at once. It smokes, and 

 puts the eyes out; sputters and snaps like 

 some enraged thing, and makes delicate per- 

 sons nervous and unhappy. 



Green wood contains one-tJiird its weight of 

 water, and a large portion of the heat made 

 by it is employed in converting that quantity 

 of water into steam. This carries off a por. 

 tion of the heat with it and is lost. 



One pound of dry wood, burned in a stove 

 fitted for the experiment, will heat 35 pounds 

 of water from ice, 32", to the boiling point 

 212°. A pound of green wood will only 

 heat 2') pounds from 32° to 212°. From this 

 we ought to learn how much better dry wood 

 is in thrt stove than that which is green. 



Again, a merciful man is merciful to his 

 beast; will he be less so to his wife''} He 



will not, if he lays this woody lesson to heart 

 and acts upon it at once 



He will not neglect the creatures at the barn 

 who are entirely dependent upon him for their 

 daily food. 



He will not neglect the best interests of his 

 children, by not engaging with them in their 

 evening readings and question-asking, or by 

 indifference to the lessons they are learning 

 for the next day's recitation at school. 



He will not fail to attend the stated meet- 

 ings of the farmers^ club, nor to read one or 

 two good works on agriculture during the long 

 evenings. 



He will be familiar and cheerful in the 

 midst of the family, encouraging, sustaining, 

 and training all for useful and happy lives. 



These are only a few of the duties devolv- 

 ing upon the farmer in January. He will not 

 need suggestions for many of them that will 

 devolve upon him. 



THE OYSTEH-SHELT. BABK LOUSE. 



While engaged, since the leaves have fallen, 

 in removing new shoots and pruning off oc- 

 casional limbs that were crossing each other, 

 in an orchard that has always been kept in 

 good shape, we have been surprised in no- 

 ticing the countless number of the habitations 

 of this insect. We suppose it is called the 

 oyster-shell bark louse, because the shell 

 which covers the eggs is similar in shape to an 

 oyster shell, and also, because it gives a rough- 

 ness, somewhat like that of its namesake, to 

 the bark upon which the scales are placed. 



As a general rule, insects first attack vege- 

 tables and animals that are not in a thrifty 

 condition. This is the case vith the apple 

 trees. Trees standing near walls, where the 

 surface under them was swarded over, were 

 literally covered with these scales. The bark 

 had a hard, dry, and shrivelled appearance, and 

 the whole tree looked diseased, although the 

 roots had plenty of room to run out into a rich 

 soil. But these pest? were not confined to 

 such trees alone ; tbey weie on trees that have 

 always stood in rich, cultivated ground, and 

 that made a growth of more than eighteen 

 inches the present year, in some of the lead- 

 ing branches, and an average growth all over 

 the tree of perhaps five or six inches. That is 

 enough for an apple tree to do in one year, so 

 far as growth is concerned. 



