826 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. 



— D. F. Appleton, of Ipswich, a breeder of the 

 Kerry cattle has recently received some choice 

 cows from the Island of Jersey. 



— Cabbage seed should never be grown from 

 stumps, but from a sprout issuing from the center 

 of a perfectly developed head. 



— It is said that Dartmouth College, Hanover, 

 N. H., has received nearly ^100,000 for its Agri- 

 cultural School. It has bought a farm of 200 acres. 

 There are seven in the agricultural class. 



— In a paper read before the Central New York 

 Farmers' Club, Mr. Robert Gibson said he would 

 name the Globe mangel wurtzel as the best root 

 for all purposes. 



The Utica Herald gives a list of 145 new cheese 

 factories to go into operation this spring in the 

 State of New York, and understands this is far 

 from being a complete list. 



— The South Bend, Ind., Register sajs : "Thomas 

 Rockhill, of this place — himself over seventy 

 years of age — is doing his corn ploughing this 

 spring with a span of horses, one of which is 

 twenty-six and the other twenty-seven years old." 



— The Lee Gleaner says that W. S. Clark, Presi- 

 dent of the Massachusetts Agricultural College at 

 Amherst, has been engaged to deliver the address 

 at the next annual fair of the Housatonic Agri- 

 cultural Society in September. 



— The increase in the manufacture of beet sugar 

 in Europe for the present year over that of last 

 year, is about 100,000 tons. The product already 

 exceeds that of Cuban sugar cane. France ex- 

 ported 70,000 tons of beet sugar during 1869. 



— The Sheboygan, Wis., Times, says that the 

 farmers of Calumet county, are preparing to 

 grow hops quite extensively, although hop-raising 

 has not been very profitable of late ; some owners 

 are enlarging their yards and seem resolved to 

 make or break in the business. 



— Somebody says the reason why there is a' 

 greater yield of butter when the whole milk is 

 churned, rather than the cream, is that there is a 

 great deal more caseine incorporated with it. 

 When such butter is fresh, the taste is very agree- 

 able, but it will not keep. Is this so ? 



— A pig about five months old was discovered 

 sucking a cow on the farm of Alex. B. Ramsey, 

 in Clark Co., Kentucky. He watched it afterward 

 for several days and found it in the same per- 

 formance. The pig would rear up, placing its fore 

 feet against the hind legs of the cow, and would 

 remain in that position until it had satisfied itself. 



— There seems to be a great difference in soils 

 with respect to the influence of lime upon them. 

 Accordmg to the report of the Trustees of the 

 Pennsylvania Agricultural College, liming on the 

 eastern and central farms was without benefit, 

 while on the western ones a liberal application in- 

 creased the corn crop nearly one-half. The pre- 



sumption is that in the first instance the soil needed 

 something else, while in the second, lime was pre- 

 cisely what was wanted to impart vigor to it. 



— Thunder sours milk and kills oysters. You 

 may load a vessel to its utmost capacity, start for 

 market, and one good round clap of thunder will 

 kill every oyster in the vessel immediately. 

 Pounding with an ax upon the deck of a vessel 

 when oysters are thereon, or pounding upon the 

 sides of a vessel with a heavy weight, will kill 

 every oyster that feels the jar. 



— The Agricultural College at Hanover, N. H., 

 has been presented with a plough made by Daniel 

 Webster, and used on his Marshfield estate. It is 

 about thirteen feet long and weighs a little less 

 than a ton. From what Horace Greeley "knows 

 about farming," we think he should have had that 

 plough. We fear the New Hampshire farmers 

 will hardly keep its irons from rusting. 



— Mr. Richard Peters, of Georgia, informs the 

 editor of the Ohio Farmer that neither Devon or 

 Short-horn cattle are healthy in that section. Mr. 

 P. finds a cross of the Brahmin stock from India, 

 with the Aldemeys and Devons are healthy and 

 profitable. The long wool English sheep he also 

 finds do not succeed as well there as the Merino, 

 and he will keep none but the Merino. 



— After working eight years and expending some 

 $40,000 in time and money, Mr. S. D. Carpenter, 

 of Madison, Wis., has perfected his "Automatic 

 Binder," which is designed to rake and bind the 

 grain and carry the bundles until enough are 

 bound to form a shock. The editor of the IVesi- 

 ern Farmer has not seen the machine in its pres- 

 ent state, but is informed that it operates in the 

 most perfect manner. 



— According to the Secretary's statistics, the 

 twenty-nine agricultural societies of Massachu- 

 setts, received in 1869, $16,934 from the State 

 treasury, and paid $30,734 in premiums to 5,666 

 persons. These societies owe $110,761, and value 

 their real and personal property at $466,352, be- 

 sides permanent funds amounting to $272,226. 

 Premiums to the amount of 19,319 were offered 

 for live stock, of which $9,261 were for horses. 

 Total amount paid for "farm products," $5,989. 



— Cyrus Smitih, one of the old farmers of Vic- 

 tory, Vt., till recently, never owned a hen. Dogs, 

 cats and poultry, he always regarded as nuisances 

 about a farm. He married a young wife a few 

 months ago who had the hen fever, and persuaded 

 the old gentleman to invest. He has a handsome 

 flock of hens now, and his neighbors do say that 

 when he starts for the barn to hunt eggs, he car- 

 ries with him the zeal and pride of a boy who has 

 just arrived at the egg-hunting age. 



— A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer has prac- 

 ticed shallow planting of corn to avoid the cut- 

 worm for more than twenty years. He says, cut- 

 worms always burrow in the hill around the stalk, 

 previous to cutting it off. Shallow covering gives 



