1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



439 



afterbirth, is not completely separated from the 

 uterus until after the foetus has passed, and con- 

 sequently is detained for a time, longer or shorter. 



Cows almost universally have a propensity to 

 eat the placenta immediately after it drops away, 

 if they can get at it. Whether this is owing to a 

 saltish taste of the liquor, or for some other in- 

 stinctive purpose is not known. They will also 

 lick the entire surface of the calf, apparently to 

 cleanse it, but probably because they like the 

 taste of the slimy liquor in which it has been im- 

 mersed and which adheres to the new born animal. 



We have never known the eating of the clean- 

 ing to do any injury. Perhaps it operates as a 

 cathartic, and thus gives the animal a relief which 

 she feels that she needs. Cows and oxen, and 

 even horses, will often eat salted meat and fish 

 when they can get at them, and seem greatly to 

 enjoy them, and we have never known any injury 

 result. They are supposed to do this on account 

 of the salt they contain. The amniotic liquor is 

 said to contain a peculiar acid, which may possi- 

 bly gratify the taste of the cow. 



PITCH PINE NEEDLES. 



Everybody knows how valuable are most leaves 

 for manure, but I was always taught that pitch 

 pine needles were poisonous to vegetation. 



Some years, owing to the pressure of fall work, 

 I have been unable to save as many leaves as I 

 wished, until they had so decomposed as to be 

 got only with difficulty. 



I have been tempted to store the needles, as I 

 can get them with ttie greatest ease and despatch, 

 whenever the ground is bare ; but owing to early 

 teaching, have not yet done it. One argument 

 urged against the needles is, that vegetation where 

 they lie is alway scant; but it seems to me that 

 this must be in consequence of the form of the 

 needles, which causes them to lie so compact and 

 in such bodies as to prevent the plants pushing 

 through. 



A year ago last spring I raked some needles 

 from a strawberry bed. I then ploughed an ad- 

 joining piece for a new bed, and in one place 

 ploughed in the soil a lot of the needles. Right 

 in this mixture of half needles, half loam, some of 

 the plants were set, and to my astonishment, pro- 

 duced much larger plants in top and root than 

 elsewhere. Still the needles may have a certain 

 poisonous nature, to which some plants may be 

 susceptible of injury. Or the needles might have 

 been more beneficial as a loosener of the soil (it 

 was all loose soil) than injurious as a poisoner. 

 Please state whether it would be well for me to 

 store them for manure in winter ? 



If ttiere is anything poisonous, it is probably in 

 their pitchy nacure. If not injurious, I would like 

 to use all I could, and get them rotten in my ma- 

 nure heap. J. E. Blakelt. 



Remarks. — We have always supposed that the 

 needles or leaves of pine were of little value as a 

 fertilizer, but have never made any careful trial of 

 them, and cannot answer our correspondent's in- 

 quiries from personal knowlege. The soil from 

 which pine trees grow does not seem to be as well 

 fitted for the growth of other vegetation, as that 

 on which hard-wood trees grow and shed their 

 leaves. Prof. Johnson gives a variety of tables of 

 analyses in his book entitled "How Crops Grow," 



and perhaps the following extracts from them 

 will afford some information. One hundred 

 pounds of Red Pine leaves, when burned, gave 

 4.69 lbs. of ashes ; same amount of Oak leaves gave 

 4.90 lbs ; Beech, 6.75 lbs. The per cent, of sev- 

 eral of the constituents of the ash of these several 

 leaves is given as follows : — 



•S 



t'l -§-" 



Qh !? 1^ H b;-» s5 c5 ^ 



Pine ... 1.5 — 2.3 15.2 8.2 2 8 70.1 — 



Beech ... 5.2 06 6.0 44.9 4.2 3 7 33.9 0.4 



Oak. . . .3.5 0.6 4.0 48.6 8.1 4 4 30.9 — 



We should have little fear of any poisonous 

 effects of the needles, composted as proposed, but 

 as more than two-thirds of the ash of pine leaves 

 are silica or sand, and of other leaves less than 

 one-third ; and as they also vary in potash, lime, 

 &c., as indicated above, we should not expect that 

 pine leaves would help the manure as much as 

 oak or beech leaves. 



CABBAGE WORMS. 



I find the green worms are eating my cabbages 

 very badly. I think there must be some insect 

 that deposits nits on the cabbage leaf, especially 

 on the under side. The worm is very small at 

 first, but grows larger as it eats the cabbage. I 

 read in your paper once that the eggs of a butter- 

 fly produced the worm. I think this cannot be so 

 as it would require a greater number of butter- 

 flies than I ever saw to leave so many nits as I 

 find on my cabbages. 1 have to pick the worms 

 off and kill them every few days, or they would 

 eat my cabbages all up. Now if you know of any 

 remedy to get rid of them, please let it be known 

 through your valuable paper, for it is a hard task 

 to pick them off by hand when they are as plenty 

 as they are this year. h. d. u. 



Monroe, N. H., July 12, 1870. 



Remarks. — Nearly all the caterpillars or worms 

 which infest vegetation are the young of butter- 

 flies or moths. Each female butterfly lays from 

 two hundred to five hundred eggs or nits. At this 

 rate a few of them would be able to give a cab- 

 bage patch a good sprinkling of nits in a short 

 time. In the article to which you refer the de- 

 struction of the butterfly or moth was recom- 

 mended. Perhaps the remedies used for currant 

 worms would operate with those on cabbages. If 

 you have fine slacked lime, try a sprinkling of 

 that on the leaves. 



LAME cow. 



Will you inform me what I can do for a lame 

 cow ? She was pricked in the leg, back of the 

 gambrel joint, by a calf's muzzle last spring. It 

 made her very lame. I bathed it in cold water, 

 and she got over it. In the course of a week or 

 two, she was lame again. I commenced bathing, 

 and in two or three days she was apparently well. 

 About a week ago she became lame again ; this 

 time I have used both cold water and a strong 

 brine to no effect ; it swells and is inflamed about 

 the joint, and still grows worse. I think the in- 

 jury was on the cord. l. h. c. 



Middleboro', Mass., July 6, 1870. 



Remarks. — Probably the wound extended 

 tlirough the skin into the cartilage, and most 



