Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 479 



using forest leaves, scrapings from the wood-shed, etc., for bedding, 

 which gives a large pile of snmmer-made manure. In scraping- 

 together absorbents for the stable, the great thing is to be thoroughly 

 imbued with the precept " that every little helps make a muckle." I 

 have been feeding each cow two quarts of meal a day this winter, 

 and find they eat hay and even straw clean, and do better than when 

 allowed to pick over and waste it, without meal. So long as butter 

 and meal bear their present relative price, the farmer who keeps cows 

 may fatten both his wallet and his land. 



Black Walnut fob Woodlands. 



Mr. H. C. Smith, North Londonderry, N. H., seeing it stated that 

 " black walnut might be grown in New England as easily as any of our 

 common forest trees," came to the Club for information regarding the 

 successful planting of the nuts and subsequent culture. He says 

 there are thousands of acres of rocky hillside in his State that are 

 nearly worthless, except for the growing of trees for wood and tim- 

 ber, and he very naturally concludes that if the foregoing statement 

 is true, there is " no reason why the black walnut may not become, in 

 time, as common on our hillsides and in our pastures as the white 

 oak, white pine, or any of our hardy but less valuable varieties." 



Mr. A. S. Fuller — It is to be hoped that Mr. Smith will take the 

 initiative step towards covering the hills of New England with valua- 

 ble timber. There are hundreds and thousands of acres of barren 

 hillsides that might, with very little expense, be made to produce 

 almost as great a return as the best of arable lands in the immediate 

 neighborhood. Black walnut trees will thrive in such situations, and 

 all that is required is to raise the trees in nurseries, and, when two or 

 three years old, transplant them into the situations where they can 

 grow to full size. The nuts should be procured in the fall as soon as 

 they fall from the trees, and either planted immediately, or left where 

 they will remain moist and cold until spring. I have always found 

 it best to transplant when the seedlings are one year old ; at the same 

 time cut off about one-third of the tap-root. This shortening of the 

 tap-root causes the plants to throw out numerous side or lateral roots, 

 which penetrate the surface soil, and the trees grow more rapidly in 

 consequence. 



Mr. Wm. Lawton — Mr. Fuller is right ; the tap-root should be cut 

 off. I have trees ten and twenty years old growing on my place ; I 

 have transplanted frequently ; they are trees of great beauty, and 

 none yield so rich a return to the planter. The seeds can be bought 



