1870. 



NEW ENGLAN]) F.IRMER. 



523 



can be bought for $100, and sheep for what 

 their pelts are worth. 



Garden truck is scarce, — not half the far- 

 mers have enough for their own use. 



Are the cast, iron hand cider mills, so largely 

 advertised in (he papers, practicable for com- 

 mon use ? Can good cider be made with 

 them ? One of my neighbors h^s one of the 

 "5000 now in use," and I got him to make 

 me a barrel of cider from good, ripe apples, 

 and paid $1.60 for making, but the cider is 

 not fit to use, being black and nasty, and tast- 

 ing as bad as it looks ; and this is the complaint 

 of all who have had cider made in it. I no- 

 ticed the cider made at the Fair at Manches- 

 ter with cast-iron mills, had a black complex- 

 ion, and tasted irony. Is this generally the 

 case, or is it the exception ? Will som'i one 

 an-wer who has had practical experience with 

 them ? S. C. Pattee. 



Warner, N. E., Sept. 16, 1870. 



SUBSOIL IN" MAEBLEHEAD, MASS. 



Our correspondent, James J. H. Gregory, 

 of Marblebead, gives the following facts in a 

 letter to the Country Gentleman, from which 

 he draws the inference that in some places the 

 subsoil contains a large amount of fertilizing 

 matter : — 



"Four years ago I had a wall laid along the 

 border of my garden. I had the trench for 

 the foundation dug very deep, well down into 

 the hard-pan, and bad the hard-pan thrown 

 into a pde separate from the loam. The loam 

 was used in the compost heap, and the hard 

 pan — a half .«andy, half gravelly mass, with 

 just enough of coarse soil in it to be seen — 

 was left to be used to fill up some path. 



"In the course of the summer, I noticed a 

 plant growing on it with surprising vigor, 

 which, on examination, proved to be the com- 

 mon mustard, cut with leaves nearly as broad 

 and large as a cabbage — a size I had never seen 

 surpassed in the richest soil. Beside it, and 

 aUo on the haid-pan, was growing a plant of 

 Apple of Peru with a vigor that belonged to 

 the richest soil. The following spring I 

 spread the lot on the flower garden and had a 

 wonderful growth of flowers as the result, 



"A year later, one of my neighbors in anoth- 

 er part of the town dug a ditch, that drained 

 his land through mine, to the depth of over 

 six feet, cutting for about the last three feet 

 through hard-pan, and throwing this on my 

 side of the wall, where it made a heap about 

 three feet in depth, of apparently nearly pure 

 gravel, a little mixed with sand. The next 

 bummer while passing that way, I stepped 

 aside to examine the ditch, when to my sur- 

 prise I found growing on the heap of hard- 

 pan, hog-weed that was nearly as high as my 

 head. The only inference I can draw from 

 these facts is, that under some circumstances 



hard-pan is an excellent manure. In each of 

 these instances the surface soil was a strong 

 loam that had b^en under good cultivation for 

 many years. May it not be that some of the 

 Salts ot the manure applied during this period, 

 passed through the loam to the hard-pan be- 

 low, and there remained, held as in a howl? 

 Lime, it is stated, has this tendency, making it 

 necessary to plough deeper each year to 

 bring it to the surface. By whatever theoiy 

 they may be explained, the farts seera to 

 prove that in this broad country of ours there 

 must be a muhitude of acres underlain by 

 vast areas of fertilizing material. Should 

 further experiments demonstrate this to be a 

 fact, it must prove of immense practical value 

 to our tilled acres, of which the best fed have 

 the habit of calling for a bttle more." 



A MODEL COW STABLE. 



In connection wi;h winter keeping, let me 

 describe the winter quarters of ten cows : the 

 ground slopes g-ntly to the southeast, and is 

 about eighty feet square. On the rear, to- 

 ward the northwest, is a ha'.-house, eighty by 

 eighteen feet, the space under which is occu- 

 pied by cowhouse under the west end and 

 overshoot under the east, each forty feet lon^. 

 The cows are arranged on plank floor, with 

 gutter and four-foot walk behind them, and 

 hay manger and passage in front of them. 

 They all face northwest, each having a space 

 of four feet, with no divisions between th-m, 

 and are kept in stanchions. In the rear are 

 three doors to allow them to go out into the 

 yard, and one at the east end of walk to go 

 under overshoot. The yard is about sixty- 

 twa, by eighty feet, is sheltered on the north- 

 east and southwest sides by low buildings, and 

 on the southeast by a board fence four feet 

 high. In the centre of the yard is an octago- 

 nal inclosure of boards four feet high and 

 twenty feet in diameter, into which all rhe 

 manure of both stalls and yard is thrown as 

 fast as delivered, so that the yard is kept per- 

 fectly clean. Over this yard is kept spread 

 marsh or salt hay about six inches ia depth, 

 so inviting that the cows cin Ite down in any 

 part of it. While in the yard they «re shtl- 

 tered from all the cold winds, and from tbe 

 southeast comes the morning sun as soon as 

 risen. The overshoot furnishes shelter from 

 the rain, and at its western end, between the 

 passage doors, is the water-trough, always 

 full. There is a window on the southwest 

 side of the west corner, to light their heads 

 and the passage in front of thHcn, and two 

 windows in their rear. The hay-margers are 

 level with the floor, and large enough to hold 

 easily five pounds of hay. Each his a lump 

 of rock salt, and the meal is fed on the bot- 

 tom. During all fair weather they are in 'he 

 }ard, except at meals. Thus are they bright, 

 comfortable, and thrifty. — Charles L. Sharp- 

 less, in Country Qentleman. 



