1870. 



XEW ENGLAND FARiMER. 



313 



moreover purging is apt to ensue. In some 

 cases, broken wind or heaves is thus produced. 

 Avoid giving warm or tepid water to horses 

 that are often driven from home, because 

 cold or veil water will then perhaps be given 

 them, which will be liable to produce a con- 

 gestive chill, foUowed by lung fever, and in 

 some cases colic. When horses are thus 

 carefully watered, if one or more of them 

 should refuse their accustomed food, some- 

 thing is wrong, and they should not be taken 

 out of the stable to work or driven further 

 that day ; but an examination should be made 

 as to the cause with a view to its removal. — 

 McClure's New Stable Guide. 



EXTRACTS Aim KEPLIES. 



THE ONIOX "WOEM. 



■ Can you or any of your subscribers tell me how 

 I can keep the maggot from eating my onions. 

 Last year they worked upon them till they were 

 pulled. I used sulphur, ashes, hen manure, &c., 

 all to no cffijct. J. Rand. 



South Windsor, Me., April, 1870. 



Remarks. — We wish we could tell you how to 

 prevent the ravages of this insect in some easy 

 way. Last year a Montpelier, Vt., correspondent 

 said that he had saved his onions by removing the 

 earth from the bulb with his fingers, being careful 

 not to disturb the roots, while weeding them. A 

 j)ound of copperas dissolved in a pailful of soft 

 soap and when thinned with water applied to the 

 onions, is said to be good to keep off the maggot 

 and to promote the growth of the onions. Others 

 have poured hot water from a coffee-pot spout 

 upon the bulb. Who knows of a better remedy ? 

 These worms have been very destructive of late in 

 many sections. To avoid their devastations, we 

 have adopted the plan of sowing the seed in August, 

 and when the onions are as large as walnuts, or 

 even when smaller, pull them up, dry them, and 

 the next season as soon as the ground will permit 

 set them out. These are not troubled by the 

 worm. 



"ATTENDED STRICTLY TO FARMING." 



If John P. Gager, Jr., of Scotland, Conn., — see 

 Farmer, April 23, last column, first page, — got 

 rich by '•attending strictly to farming," and 

 wishes to "encourage young men to turn their at- 

 tention more p irticularly to farming," by his ex- 

 ample, why, m the name of reason, does he con- 

 fess to having dabbled in the "outside specula- 

 tions" of saw-mill, grist-mill, shingle-mill and 

 bank-stock ? Such an example, it appears to me, 

 is a very poor one to encourage young men to 

 turn their attention more particularly to farming. 

 Actions speak louder than words and in this case 

 their utterances are not exactly in harmony, to 

 my ear. G. R. Hitchcock. 



Champlain, N. Y., April 23, 1870. 



Remarks. — In the neighborhood in which we 

 served our apprenticeship at farming, grist and 

 saw-mills were as generally owned by farmers as 

 were cider mills and maple-sugar "factories." 

 The only shingle mills then known were the kitch- 



ens and wood-sheds of farmers, many of whom 

 manufa,ctured shingles by the "thousand." The 

 streams in that vicinity were small, and the mills 

 on them were usually run only during the high 

 water of Spring and Fall, when other farm work 

 was not pressing. Farmers' boys engaged in 

 these "outside speculations," but without a 

 thought that by so doing they were becoming 

 "anything but farmers." As to our correspon- 

 dent's strictures on Mr. Gager's bank stock, we 

 can only say that we have had no experience in 

 that "branch of farming" ourselves ; but after a 

 man has paid for two large farms, and has "a 

 thousand dollars worth of produce on hand," we 

 do not see why he should lose caste as a farmer, 

 by taking a share or two in some Farmers' and 

 Mechanics' Bank. Would a blacksmith cease to 

 be a blacksmith the moment he became the holder 

 of bank stock ? Isn't your bedstead a little too 

 short for some farmers, friend Hitchcock, and are 

 you sure it will be best to trim them all down 

 to it? 



ASHES OF PINE BRANCHES. 



Some years ago I found that pine boughs that 

 fall from trees, gathered up and used as bedding for 

 cattle and hogs, or put in yards, were of no value 

 for manure. 



In 1869, I piled the brush, where pines were cut, 

 raked up chips and boughs that had been falling 

 for years, and burnt large piles. About one-third 

 part was clean ashes, the rest coals and dirt. I 

 mixed this with twice the amount of clayey loam 

 from the cow yard, in which a little manure was 

 mixed, moistened with water and shoveled over 

 twice. Of this compost I put one cord on one- 

 fourth of an acre of moist, sandy loam, after 

 breaking up. Sowed to flat turnips and grass seed, 

 and harrowed all in together, the last of July. 

 The seeds came up well, but I did not get two 

 bushels of turnips fit for market, and not ten 

 bushels in all. 



Can you or any of your correspondents tell me 

 the cause of the failure ? Was it the dry season, 

 or too much compost, or is the ashes of boughs, 

 chips and limbs worthless for manure ? I am in 

 the dark about it. w. 



RoUiiisford, N. H., April 23, 1879. 



Remarks. — So are we. Did weeds or herbage 

 of any kind grow that season on the same soil ? 

 If we were on the spot with you, and should get a 

 reply to half a dozeu questions which might be 

 asked, perhaps a reason would become apparent. 

 Pine wood yields but a small amount of ash any 

 way — hardly two and a half per cent., according 

 to Prof. S. W. Johnson, while walnut gives over 

 twenty-five per cent., and then the ash itself is 

 worth but little for soap-making or other purposes, 

 compared with hard wood ashes. 



raising oats. 

 I have a Scotchman on my farm, (a splendid 

 ploughman) who says the universal practice in 

 Scotland is to plough lea or grass land in the fall, 

 setting the furrow slice up on its edge. In the 

 spring, as soon as the land is dry enough, oats are 

 sown broadcast on the furrows without any ma- 

 nure. The field is then thoroughly harrowed 

 crosswise, and finished off by harrowing length- 



