1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



67 



painting, glazing and repairing that is needed. 

 Let the manure and heating material be accu- 

 mulating against time of need. 



House Plants. — These will need attention 

 in keeping the foliage free of dust, the bane, 

 often, of plants kept in the living room. 

 Wipe the leaves and stems of all smooth, firm 

 leaved plants with a wet sponge or cloth. 

 Give all plants a showering, from a watering 

 pot with a line rose sprinkler, as often as once 

 a week, by placing them in a sink or large tub, 

 and turn them on their side so as to wet the 

 imderside of the leaves as well as the upper. 

 If the green fly, or aphis, trouble, give them 

 tobacco smoke, confined under a tub, a funnel 

 of paper, or box. Treat red spiders to fre- 

 quent showering at evening, keep the atmos- 

 phere damp and they will soon leave. 



Pruning of Currants and Gooseberries, 

 if neglected in the fall, may be done any time 

 •when they are not frozen and the weather is 

 mild. Cut with an eye to a well balanced 

 bush, recollecting that fruit is borne, on the 

 currant, on old wood. Of currants there are 

 none preferable, for general culture, to the 

 Red Dutch, White Dutch and La Versailles. 

 Houghton's Seedling Gooseberry, and other 

 American seedlings, are the most healthy. 

 The larger imported varieties seldom escape 

 mildew in our culture. 



Seed Drill. — No garden of any consider- 

 able size ought to be without some machine 

 for sowing seeds. The machine drops the 

 seed more evenly than it is done by hand, and 

 saves the back from many an ache. These 

 machines are now so commonly manufactured 

 and the price so reasonable that there is not 

 as good an excuse now as formerly for being 

 without them. Some of them are made for 

 sowing any seed, from that of the size of the 

 turnip to peas, beans, &c. 



Tools. — Have you all that are needed for 

 the garden, and are they in good repair ? If 

 new ones are to be procured make a memoran- 

 dum and look among the implement dealers 

 as you visit the city, see what is new, and pro- 

 cure early. Make all needed repairs on old 

 ones ; give the wood work a coat of paitot, or 

 even boiled linseed oil clear is better than 

 nothing. 



Do not let another spring pass without set- 

 ting out some flowering or ornamental shrub 

 in that vacant place in the yard, to shut out 

 that obnoxious view of premises over which 

 you have no control. An ornamental tree sei 

 in the street in front will make your place look 

 more attractive ; as it now is, it looks barren 

 and lonely without a tree or shrub to look out 

 upon, or to meet the eye as we approach the 

 place. W. li. WniTE. 



South Windsor, Conn., 1870. 



— The Melbourne (Australia) Meat Preserving 

 Company are now slaughtering 8000 sheep a week 

 for exportation to England. 



AGKICULTURAL ITEMS. 



— Samuel E. Bacon, Straffjid, Vt., slaughtered a 

 hog December 18, fourteen months and a few days 

 old, which measured from nose to end of tail 

 eight feet, and dressed 734 pounds, giving a daily 

 increase of nearly 1| pounds. 



The New York Farmers' Club is informed that 

 Frederick Selsor, of Ohio, has a thoroughbred 

 bull calf one year old the 23d day of last April, 

 which on the 23d day of November last weighed 

 1,710 pounds. 



— At the Department of Agriculture of the 

 University of Wisconsin, the course of instruction 

 pertaining to agriculture is so arranged that the 

 instruction in the class room can be completed in 

 a single year by students already well acquainted 

 with the physical sciences. 



— A farmer in Putnam County, Ind., has kept a 

 pair of black scakes in his barn for several years, 

 and all kinds of vermin have since entirely dis- 

 appeared. His cribs and bins are no more dis- 

 turbed by rats and mice. The snakes are not the 

 racers or the spotted variety, but a short, thick 

 species, of a jet black color, and they are, he says, 

 better protection than a dozen cats, and are entirely 

 harmless toward chickens and domestic animals. 



— At the East Orwell, Vt., Cheese Factory the 

 milk from an average of 300 cows was daily re- 

 ceived. Number of pounds of milk received, 857,- 

 674. Number of pounds of cheese produced, 90,- 

 G07, showing an average of 94G-100 pounds of milk 

 for one pound of cheese. Cash receii^ts for sale of 

 cheese §14,905. 33, an average of gross receipts per 

 cow, $49 68-100. There will be funds to pay a fair 

 per cent, on the capital stock of the compony. 



— The Hampden Co., Mass., East Agiicultural 

 Society have chosen the following ofBcers for the 

 year to come : President, Dr. William Holbrook, 

 of Palmer. Directors, Samuel Haines and David 

 Knox, of Palmer ; J. S. Blair, of Brimfield ; A. J. 

 Northrup, of Monson ; Silas Billings, of Ludlow; 

 and J. B. Foster, E. N. Fay, and 0. M. Graves, of 

 Monson. Secretary and Treasurer, 0. P. Allen, of 

 Palmer. Delegate to the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture, Hiram Converse, of Palmer. 



— A farmers' club has been formed in Newport, 

 Me. The Secretary, Sewall Pratt, makes the fol- 

 lowing report in the Maine Farmer of wheat raised 

 the past season by members of the club. John 

 Parkman raised one hundred and ten bushels from 

 four and one-half acres ; Samuel Marsh forty-four 

 bushels from one acre and two bushels of sowing; 

 S. S. Wedgewood from two bushels of sowing and 

 one acre of ground, thirty-four bushels. I raised 

 twenty-four bushels from one and three-fourths 

 bushels sowing, from one acre of ground. Mr. 

 Henry Marsh, who is a flourishing farmer, har- 

 vested from two bushels and twenty quarts of sow- 

 ing, eighty-three bushels of wheat from two acres 

 of ground. 



