526 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



can be done with them ? is the anxious inquiry 

 cf thousands. We reply, 



Use More of them as Pood in the Family. 



The apple is valuable both on account of its 

 nutritive and medicinal qualities. As a gentle 

 laxative, they are invaluable for children, and 

 ■when ripe, ought to be used freely by them. 

 An almost exclusive diet of baked apples and 

 milk is recorded as having cured cases of con- 

 sumption, and other diseases caused by too 

 rich food. It is stated, upon high authority, 

 that there is no other fruit or vegetable in 

 general use that contains such a proportion of 

 nutriment. It has been ascertained in Ger- 

 many, by a long course of experiments, that 

 men will perform more labor, endure more 

 fatigue, and be more healthy, on an apple 

 diet, than on the potato. 



They may be used in a variety of forms in 

 the family ; in several kinds of puddings and 

 pies ; baked, stewed, and sliced and fried as a 

 delicious appetizer with meats. Upon the 

 table, they are agreeable, nutritious, whole- 

 some, and ought to be cheap. 



As Food for Stock, 

 they are more acceptable and more nutritious 

 than the potato. Hogs have been well fat- 

 tened on apples alone. Cooked with other 

 vegetables, and mixed with meal of corn, bat<=* 

 ley, rye or oats, they are excellent for fatten- 

 ing pork or beef. Fed to cows, about a peck 

 each day, they will cause an increased flow of 

 milk, and keep them in fine condition. Horses 

 are very fond of them, and when not working 

 hard, apples may well take the place of 

 grain, so long as they are plenty. Boiled and 

 mixed with corn meal or shorts, there is 

 scarcely any food that fowls like so well, and 

 grow so fast upon. 



Gather up all, then, that are not suitable 

 for preservation, store them in a cool, dry 

 place, and make them save the hay which may 

 be sold for $25 or $30 a ton. They may be 

 made to prove profitable in this way. 



TOO MUCH LAND. 



Gen. Butler's address before the Essex 

 County Agricultural Society at Ipswich, on 

 the 28t.h September, was an excellent one. 

 Its leading idea was that we employ too much 

 land in an indifferent cultivation. He could 

 not have hit upon a better text, nor one which 

 needs elucidation more. He handled it in a 



calm and dignified manner, and with pertinency 

 and force. He said : — 



"This aggregation of large quantities of land in 

 one hand has rtsulted in so poor tillage, and so 

 little productiveness, because of the inability to till 

 so much in a proper manner, and has made farm- 

 ing so unprofitable, that, taking the waste and 

 barren pastures, the unimproved woodland, where 

 the shrub-o:^k and the stunted pine have filled the 

 place of the maple, the beech, the birch, the ash 

 and the oak, if all the agricultural land of Massa- 

 chusetts were put at sale to-day at the price which 

 is asked for it, the proceeds would not be sufficient 

 to dig the stone and re-build the walls which fence 

 them." 



The reason why some farmers make more 

 money at the West than they can here is, not 

 because they can obtain more per acre than in 

 New England, but because land is cheaper 

 and they can obtain large tracts of it, and be- 

 cause, being easier handled, they can cultivate a 

 larger breadth. The wheat crop of New Eng- 

 land is greater per acre than that of Ohio or 

 Illinois, and is worth ten to twenty per cent, 

 more per bushel. 



On this point the General says : — "In no 

 State in the Union are the productions of the 

 soil, acre for acre as tilled, taking the dififer- 

 ent kinds, so great in quantity as in Massa- 

 chusetts, and no State where the product of 

 the soil, when harvested, is so valuable." 



The produce of Massachusetts, of cultivated 

 land, on an average of the whole amount, is 

 $28 per acre ; of Ohio, it is $18 to the acre ; 

 of Texas, $21 to the acre; and California, 

 which boasts of her richness in agriculture, 

 gives but $21 to the acre ! 



The address is altogether an excellent one, 

 and if carefully read, would correct many 

 popular errors of opinions among farmers. 



IXTZNSIVE POULTRY GBOUNDS. 



Warren Leland, Highland Farm, Rye, 

 N. Y, in response to an inquiry about raising 

 poultry, made to the Farmers' Club, sent the 

 following: — "If the gentleman will come up 

 and see me I will gladly show him how I man- 

 age my poultry ^ards. I have found that for 

 every hundred fowls you must give up at least, 

 an acre. But rough land is as good as any. 

 Hens naturally love the bush, and I lop young 

 trees but leave a shred by which they live a 

 year or more. These form hiding places and 

 retreats for them. In such places they pre- 

 fer to lay. I have great success and it depends 

 on three or four rules, by observing which I 

 believe a good living can be made by hens and 

 turkeys. 



"1st. — I give my fowls great range. Eigh- 

 teen acres belong to them exclusively. Then 

 the broods have the range of another big lot. 



