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THE ILLINOIS F^HnVTER. 



life. The farmers of Japan, however, 

 although they pay great respect to the 

 changes of themoou, depend on making 

 crops by manuring and high cultivation. 

 Their farms are small farms, and they are 

 well tilled. 



Carrots. 



"We do not expect that our farmers 

 will readily go into the cultivation of 

 root crops, as food for stock. Some 

 may do it, and find themselves well paid 

 for their labor ; others will regard the 

 work to make the crop as requiring too 

 much labor, and of a kind that does not 

 suit them. Time, however, will work a 

 change in the minds of small farmers. 



There is no root crop so valuable for 

 stock as carrots ; and there can be 

 grown in large quantities, without a vast 

 expenditure of labor. A light loomy 

 soil, plowed deep, say fifteen inches, with 

 the double Michigan plow, suit them ex- 

 actly. The ground should be rich. — 

 The light Orange and White Belgian are 

 the kinds mostly cultivated. 



Allen's "Book of the Farm" gives the 

 proper mode of preparing the seed and 

 planting : 



*'The carrot should be sown in drills, 

 16 to 20 inches apart, when the ground 

 has become warm and dry. The seed is 

 best prepared by mixing with fine mol-l 

 or poudrette, and stirring it well togeth- 

 er to break off the fine beards ; then 

 sprinkle with water and allow it to re- 

 main in a warm place, and occasionally 

 turn it to produce equal development in 

 the seed. It may remain ten or fifteen 

 days before sowing, and till nearly ready 

 to sprout. It then readily germinates, 

 and does not allow the Aveeds to get the 

 start. The frequent use of the cultiva- 

 tor and entire cleanliness from weeds, 

 are all that is necessary to insure a crop. 

 Two pounds of good seed will sow an 

 acre. Any deficiency of plants may be 

 supplied by transplanting in moist weath- 

 er. Six inches is near enough for the 

 smaller kind to stand, and eight for the 

 larger. They are subject to few diseas- 

 es or enemies, excepting such as can be 

 avoided by judicious selection of soil and 

 careful tillage.'' 



The ground should be kept clear of 

 "weeds. The yield is sometimes extra- 

 ordinary. From 400 to 600 bushels are 

 a common crop. In New York much 

 larger crops have been raised. In the 

 transactions of the N. Y. State Agricul- 

 tural Society for 1856, is the statement 

 of I. Brodio, in regard to a crop raised 

 by hira. The land hiid been originally 



a mirey swale. lie underdrained it, and 

 after sowing a crop of corn, he planted 

 it to carrots. The seed was put in with 

 a seed drill. The yield from the meas- 

 ured acre was 1,600 bushels, weighing 

 60 lbs. to the bushel. The cost of seed, 

 growing the crop, and rent of land, was 



$49 21. 



««« 



The Vhrbena. — A few years since, 

 we had only two or three varieties of 

 this flower, and they are now counted by 

 hundreds, besides, the new varieties are 

 much more beautiful than the old. They 

 are green house plants, and are kept with 

 great difficulty through the winter in 

 pots in the parlor or sitting room. But 

 such is the extent of their cultivation 

 in the green houses that they can be 

 purchased at such small prices, that it 

 would not pay families to grow them 

 through the winter, to transplant into 

 their gardens, if it was practical. They 

 can be bought at the Green Houses in 

 the season of planting out at a dollar a 

 dozen; and a dozen will embrace a suf- 

 ficient number of varieties to make a 

 handsome display. 



If you desire to make the Verbenas 

 flower in the finest manner, the Verbena 

 beds must be dug up in the fall, by 

 throwing the soil into high ridges and 

 spreading Over it a coating of wood ashes, 

 and upon these, old and well decomposed 

 stable manure. The larva of worms is 

 thus destroyed and thesoil becomes well 

 pulverized. In the spring the manure 

 must be worked in. The beds should not 

 be made so high as to cause plants to suf- 

 fer from drought. The plants should 

 be strong and planted out as soon as the 

 weather will permit, so that they can get 

 a good start before hot weather comes 

 on. If the ground becomes dry, thor- 

 oughly, water the plants every other 

 evcnino;. 



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Locusts. — Our advice is not to plant 

 the seeds of the locust in Central Illi- 

 nois. Many of the finest locust groves 

 we have had, have been killed by the 

 borers; and the ground, now full of lo- 

 cust roots, is s ending up shoots that 

 form a thick shrubbery — few trees — a 

 perfect nuisance. Single trees, and 

 even clumps of trees, have yet escaped 

 the ravages of these borers; but where 

 one tree is perfectly healtby, a hundred 

 have boon killed. 



"Swine's Flesh." 



The papers have latterly contained many 

 onslaughts on the use of swiue'g flesh for 

 food. It has been charged that the use of 

 it has caused most of the ills which our flesh 

 is heir to. We have always, however, held 

 in much doubt the statements and we are 

 glad to see an article in the Homestead, on 

 the other side of the question. To our 

 mind, it presents strong facts — entitled to 

 great weight. We give it to our readers : 



"It is very common to hear flippeant girls, 

 would-be delicate women, and would-be very 

 nice young men, who live in cities and stray 

 up here now and then, declaim against pork. 

 Tbey say it is not fit food for the human 

 stomach, and quote Moses to prove it; and 

 they who do not know one other command 

 of the Mosaic law, commend the inspired 

 lawgiver as "a man of sense who knew what 

 he was about" when he told his followers 

 not to cat the flesh of swine, but to hold it 

 in abomination. Pork may be too strong a 

 diet for their weakstomachs and feeble intel- 

 lects, but it is food which nourished the 

 strong frames, iron nerves, stout hearts, and 

 the incorruptible virtue of the heroes who 

 have thus far borne upon their shoulders the 

 ark of our country's safety. Nearly all the 

 gallant men who have served our country in 

 her times of greatest peril were reared on 

 pork. Upon this scorned food were raised 

 our Indian fighters in our country's days of 

 infancy. Pork filled the strong stomachs of 

 such men as John Mason, "the Brave Love- 

 well," and Colonel Benjamin Church ; of 

 Roger Wolcott, Willam Pepperell, and other 

 heroes of the old French war. Upon pork 

 was raised nearly every man of mettle and 

 action who figured in the war of the revolu- 

 tion. Isrel Putnam, Seth Pomcroy, Ethan 

 Allen, Prescott, Stark, Green, Wooster and 

 others, were men who had lived the lives of 

 plain farmers, and the chief of their diet 

 had been pork and rye and Indian bread. — 

 Aud it is a singular coincidence that the 

 only men who disgraced our cause during 

 the war of the revolution, and were either 

 incapable, unsuccessful, or rank traitors, 

 were men who had been bred in cities, who 

 were corrupted by refinements and luxuries, 

 and who probably did not eat pork. Such 

 men were Gen. Cxates, Gen. Charles Lee, 

 Doctor Church of Boston, and that arch- 

 traitor Benedict Arnold, who had been a 

 shop-keeper in New Haven. 



Now let us see why Closes forbade the use 

 of pork as fuud. 



I confess that though I have often been 

 foolish enough to allow my temper to be ruf- 

 fled by the silly affectations of some of our 

 city visitors who could not eat pork, yet for 

 a long time I could not silence them by giv- 

 ing any satisfactory reasons why Moses for- 

 bade it. I examined Scott's Commentary, 



and Henry's Commentary but they did not 



help me a bit. I tried to talk it up with 

 our minister, but got no light from him. I 

 found in his library however, a book on 

 Jewish antiquities, which gave me a clue to 

 a .solution. There I read some travels in 

 Modern Palestine, and at last falling in with 

 an intelligent missionary who had lived 

 several yeara in Syria, I found out the dif- 



