82 



THE NEW GENESEE FARMER, 



Vol. 



Pear TrePs. 



We find pcnr trees in less demand than almost any 

 ether article in the nursery. Why should this be so 7 

 The pcnr is one of our most delicious fruits; though 

 from the scarcity of trees in the country, it is not im- 

 probable that many cultivators have never tasted the 

 better kinds. 



As an excuse for neglecting the pear tree however, 

 we have often heard it said, " they are so long befoie 

 they b'gin to boar." Now this isthevery reason why 

 they should be planted without delay — why no time 

 should t/6 lost. 



The remark however, ieonly true inpart. Some pear 

 trees indeed, like the Bergamot, require much tinieto 

 gel ready; but others, like the Julienne, appear to 

 tome into bearing as soon as the apple tree; and this 

 trait o( character is certainly, of no lees importance 

 than the color or the size of the fruit, which pomolo- 

 gista are always so careful to mention. If the time 

 required by each kind to come into bearing, was gene- 

 rally known, purchasers of young trees could bo much 

 better accommodated. Delicious sorts would in all ca- 

 •es be wanted, but we could well afford lo wait seve- 

 ral years for the Summer Rose, the Rousselette de 

 Rheims, or the Belle et Bonne, to glow large and get 

 ready, when Williams' Bon Chretien, the Summer 

 Frankreal, or the Bloodgood, were Bearing in the 

 mean time. Of 81 sorts noticed by Manning in his 

 " Book of Fruits," 17 are mentioned that "come ear- 

 ly into bearing," though several belonging lo this 

 class, he has not marked; and at this time we have in 

 the nursery, many trees of the Julienne, not more than 

 fix or seven feet high, in full flower. Grafts of this 

 Tariety, of the Gushing, of the Johonnot, &c. set up 

 on old stocks, bore in two years. 



The pear is one of our hardiest fruit trees; and bo 

 far as our observations have extended, it is neither 

 •ubject to the attacks of the caterpills'-, nor the borer. 

 Some perish however, with ihe fire-WglU; but it 

 ehould not be allowed. The owner has as much right 

 to complain of bad luck when he stands by while bis 

 cattle are destroying his young trees, as he has when 

 he stands idle, without reaching forth a hand, while 

 Scolytus pyri destroys his old trees. Possibly howev- 

 er, there are two kinds of fire-blight; but be this as it 

 may, many of our trees have stood more than twenty 

 years, without any losses of consequence, though the 

 fire-blight has been several times amongst them, ow- 

 ing entirely as we believe, to this circumstance: we 

 havt cut off the dying limb, and burnt it without 

 dtlay. j 



of the goad fly or gad-Jly, so often seen on the backs 

 of cattle in summer, the scientific name of which is 

 Oestrus bocis, or the Ox-siinger. The eggs ai e depo- 

 sited in the skin, and the larva; produce considerable 

 swellings on the backs and sides of caiile. They ir 

 ritate the flesh, and bf.'come a disease, often painful, 

 weakening, and emaciating to the animal. There is 

 not any prercKa'fc of their depredations, or any remedy 

 for their action, which has fallen under my eye. Their 

 effects are much more powerful upon poorer and weak- 

 er cait'e, and perhaps their eggs are laid with grea er 

 ease in such animals, or that ihey may meet with less 

 resistance fiom weaker cattle. If such is the ("act, tb 

 farmer will find the grand preccntiee in the good 

 strength and power of the animal, and the best remedy 

 in the good keeping and consequent vigor of his cat 

 tie. Lei bim not icintor any infeiior animals, eitbe 

 of cattle or sheep, as both these seem more subject to 

 suffering from the larvae peculiar to them. 

 Rochester, May, 1841. C. DEWEY, 



. to j\. Hunliiigion 

 1 of the Essex Agri 



Ripening of Pears. 



After selecting the article on this subject from the 

 Gardener's Chronicle, which appeared in our last 

 number, we brought two kinds of pears from the cel- 

 lar, where they had remained all winter as hard as 

 when they were taken from the tree, and placed them 

 ill a warm room. In about ten days, one sort which 

 had been as green as grass, changed to a golden yel- 

 low, and became melting and delicious. An accident 

 has prevented us from giving the name. The other 

 ■on also softened soon after, and was considered fine; 

 but it is clearly a misnomer. 



In winters past we have had several kinds of pears 

 (n the cellar, that either rotted or were thrown to the 

 pigs in the spring, which we are now satisfied would 

 hvrt ripened in a warm room. f 



For the J\eu> Genesee Fanner. 

 ^' Grubs in Cattle." 



Messrs. Editors — Perhaps your correspondent, Mr. 

 Miller of Ohio, will find a satisfactory answer to his 

 inquiries on the above subject, in the remarks on "Botsl 

 and Horse Bees," in the last two numbers of the Far- , 



mw. It if T,-«l| k.sw. il,., .K I u , '"■■ '"""'"■« '" " <--eitain extent. This has been mos 



« T. It » T^^ii k««rM-» that thme e>ub, u* th. larre I .trikingly verified by eora. of our We,t Cambrid 



From tlie New Eng-land Farmer. 

 How can Farming: be madeProtitable!-> 

 Subsoil Ploughing. 



Letter of E. Phinney, K: 

 lisheJ in ilie Tranaitclio 

 cieiy, 1840. 



A. Huntington, Esq. — Dear Sir — The question is 

 often asked. How can farming be made profitable ? 

 I answer, by liberal manuring, deep and thorough 

 ploughing, and clean cultuie. I will venture to af- 

 firm, without fear of contradiction, that no instance 

 can be cited, where a farmer who has manured his 

 grounds highly, made a judicious use of the plough, 

 and cultivated with care, has failed to receive an am- 

 ple remuneraiion for the amount invested — nay more, 

 that has not received a greater advance upon hie out- 

 lay than the average profit derived from any other 

 business. One great difficulty ie, that most farmers 

 seem not to be aware of the fact, that the greater the 

 outlay, to a reasonable extent, when skilfully applied, 

 the greater will be the profit; they theretiire nianuie 

 sparingly, plough shallow, and the consequence is, 

 get poorly paid for their labor This has raised a pre- 

 judice and given a disrelish to the business of farming, 

 especially among those who are in the habit and are 

 desirousof realizing something more from their occu- 

 pation than a naked return of the amount expended 



Tlie farniei who is so sparing of his manure that he 

 can get but thirty buehcls of corn from an acre, gets 

 barely enough to pay him for the expense of cultiva- 

 tion; and in addition to this, by the ordinary method 

 of ploughing, his field, at each successive rotation, is 

 deteriorating, his crops becoming less, and in a few 

 years he finds he must abandon his exhausted and 

 Aorn out fields, to seek a subsistence for himself and 

 family in some other business, or in some other region, 

 where the hand of man has been less wasteful of the 

 bounties of nature. 



Instead then of his scanty manuring often cartloads 

 to the acre, which will give him but thirty bushels of 

 corn, let him apply thi ty loads. This additional 

 twenty loads, at the usual price of manure in this part 

 of the country, will cost him thirty dollars. But he 

 now, instead of thirty bushels of corn, gets sixty budh- 

 els, and the increased quantity of stover will more 

 than pay for the excess of labor required in cultiva 

 ting and harvesting the large crop over that of the 

 small one. He has then added thirty bushels of corn 

 to his crop by means of twenty loads ol mnnnre, ivhicb 

 at the tisual price of one dollar per bushel, pays him 

 in the first crop for hia extra outlay. His acre of land 

 is laid to grata after taking ofi'the corn, and the effect 

 of his twenty loads of additional manuring, will be to 

 give him, at the lowest estimate, three additional tons 

 of hay in the three first years of mowing it, worth 

 fit'teon dollars a ton standing in the field. Now look 

 at the result. His thirty dollars expended for extra 

 manuring was paid for in the first year's crop, and at 

 the end of three years more he will have received 

 forty-five dollars profit on his outlay of thirty dollars: 

 and in addition to this, his land is improved, and i/i 

 much better condition for a second rotation.' 'There 

 is no delusion in this. It is a prac'ical lesult, of the 

 realiiy of which any farmer may satisfy himself, who 

 will take the trouble to try the experiment. 



From no item of outlays con the farmer derive so 

 ample and so certain a profit, as from his expenditnics 

 lor manure t' _.. - 



er. 

 ■ry 

 on 





farmers. Jt is not uncommon among some of t 

 farmers in that town, to put on their grounds one hi jind 

 died dollais' woilh of manure to the ocie, and in m 

 instances than one, the gross sales of produce fiihi^ 

 ten acres under the plough, ha\e amounted to fi ini 

 thousand dollars in one season. This is the result 

 high manuring and judicious cultivation of a 6 

 too which is exceedingly poor and sandy. 



The subject of subsoil ploughing is one uponwhi 

 there has been little said, and less done, in this part 

 the country. In all our grounds, c.tcept those whi 

 arc very loose and sandy, there ie no doubt that grt 

 benefit would be derived from the use of the siibsi 

 plough. In England, the effect of subniil ploughii 

 in iiiciessing their crops, as stated by some agriculi 

 ral writers, would seem almost inciedible. By ll 

 means, the crops in that country have been doubl: 

 and in u any instances trebled. The expense howe 

 er, is stated to be very great — so great, as to be beyn 

 the means of most ot our farmers. In one case t 

 vx])ense ol subsoil ploughing on a farm of over fi 

 hundred acres, was estimated by the owner to cost t 

 enormous sum of thirteen hundred pounds sterlin 

 This calculation took into consideration the use oft 

 heavy Deaston plough, which always required foi 

 and in some stiff clays, six horses to work it. I a 

 aware that an implement might be constructed, whii 

 though it might not do the business quite so we 

 could, nevertheless, be made highly beneficial in tl 

 hands of our farmers, andobiained at a far less coi 

 I am informed that Mr. Bosson, of the Yankee Farr 

 er, has, with a highly praise- worthy zeal in the inte 

 est of agriculture, imported from England a suhst 

 plough, which may be woiked with n less powerl 

 team tl an the one commonly in use in that country 



In a climate like our own, which at that seaso 

 the year when our crops, particularly our root crop 

 most need the benefit of moisture that may be deriv( 

 from deep [iloughing, and aie most likely to suff, 

 from drought, the use of the subsoil plough would 1 

 attended with unquestionable benefit. On a field 

 my own, which had been set to an orchard, and ther 

 tiire kept under the plough lor some \ears, in altem] 

 ting to underdrain a part of it that was usually floodc 

 by water in the spring of the year, I noticed what tl 

 English call the " upper crust." This lay some incl 

 es below the surface, at the depth to which the lar 

 had been usually ploughed, formed by the treading i 

 the oxen and the movements of the plough over i 

 This I found to be so hard as to be apparently as in 

 penetrable by the rods as a piece of maible, and dt 

 covered to me at once the cause of the failure, in 

 great measure, of my crop of potatoes the year before 

 Having discovered what I supposed to be the cause i 

 the failure, I set about devising meatures to remedy i 

 I have never seen a subsoil plough, there never ha\ 

 ing been one seen or made in this part of the countr] 1 

 1 consulted my ingenious friends, Messrs. Prouty i 

 Meore, and, at my request, they made an instruniei 

 ol very cheap and simple consiruction, consisting of 

 den beam, about three inches square, and thit 

 feet long, with three tines or teeth of the common cii 

 tivator, placed in a direct line in the beam, extendin 

 about eight inches below the beam; to this handle 

 were attached similar to the hondli sofa plough. O 

 trying this by running after the drill plough, I fount 

 in my hard stony subsoil, it was quite inadequate to ih 

 business, being too light and of insufficient strengtl 

 I then had one constiucted of similar plan, but nuic 

 heavier and stronger. The beam five feet long, si 

 inches square, of white oak, well ironed, with tlirc 

 tines in nearly a right line, made of the best Swede 

 iron, one and a half inches square, extending twelvi 

 inches below the beam, with a spur at the foot, somi 

 less than that of the tine of the cultivator, with stritiif 

 hanHles and an iron beam extending from each hnndli 

 to the centre of the beam, by which the balance is ea 

 sily preserved. This implement, drawn by two yokf 

 of oxen, ffriiowed the drill plough in getting incarruie, 

 ard performed the work better than I had anticii ated. 

 The " upper crust" gave way, the resistance made by 

 the hard gravelly bottom and smaller stones was n adi- 

 ly overcome. "The earth was loosened in most places 

 twelve or fourteen inches from the surface, and though 

 not so thoroughly pulverized as it probably would 

 have been by a perfect subsoil plough, yet, in my very 

 hard, stony subsoil, I am inclined to believe, that for 

 simple drill hui-bandry, this will be found to be a valu- 

 able substitute for the English subsoil plough. And 

 considering the small price of the implement, and the 

 greater ease with which it is worked, the friction be- 

 ing much lessened by dispensing with the sole, I shall 

 continue to use this until I can find a better. A part 

 ol my crop of corrois was sowed upon the same lend 

 nppro^iTiatsd for that crop U«t year; no mors msnur* 



