82 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Makch, 
. Contents for March, 1867. 
All the Year Round 103 
Apiary in March 84 
Apple— New, Dodge's Crimson Illustrated. .103 
Bald Eagle Illustrated. . 81 
Boys and Girls' Column— Learn to Use What Ton 
Know— Curious Geographical Prohlem— A Borer 
Under Water— Don't "be a Coward— Problems and 
Puzzles— Suspense— A Hit at the Editors-How Large 
i s the Earth ? —Uncle Paul 6 Illustrations . . 107— 10S 
Breeding Young Mares 05 
Buildings for Agricultural Fairs 95 
Buildings in Cold Climates 95 
Canker Worm— Bemedy for 5 Illustrations. .102 
Coal Tar and Asphalt for Floors 9T 
Cold Grapery in March 81 
Concord and Discord Among Grapes 101 
County Agricultural Society— How to Start 95 
Cow Stables Illustrated. . 90 
Cranberry Culture 98 
Drainage— By John Johnston 98 
Earliness in Vegetables 104 
Farm Work in March 82 
Flower Garden and Lawn in March 83 
Fruit Garden in March 83 
Garden— Kitchen in March 83 
Gates— Simple Farm 6 Illustrations. . 97 
Getting a Few Turns Ahead 104 
Green and Hot Houses in March 83 
Hen-Houses— Good and Cheap 2 Illustrations. . 97 
Hobbies in Horticulture 104 
Houses— Country With City Conveniences 5 Ills. . 97 
Household Ornaments 3 Illustrations . . 105 
Housekeepers' Diary— Prize Essay— Setting Table- 
Order in Housework— Care of Young Pigs 105 
Housekeepers' Journal— Shoe Bag— Pickles— Canned 
Fruit— Yankee Pie — Apple Pie— Grandfathers and 
1 Grandmothers 106 
Irrigation— Garden 3 Illustrations .. 98 
Lynx— Canada Illustrated. . 93 
Lynx— European Illustrated. . 93 
Markets 85 
NewTrees 103 
Oranges— North and South Illustrated. .101 
Orchard and Nursery in March 83 
Potatoes— Valuable Experiments 90 
Premiums 84 
Profits from Small Places 103 
Seeds— Cedar and Thorn 103 
Shall We Have an Efficient Dog Law Illustrated. . 91 
Shall We Have the Address— At Fairs 95 
Squirrels Illustrated.. 100 
Sweet-Scented Shrub Illustrated. . 104 
Take Care of the Tools 94 
Tim Bunker on Horse Racing at Fairs 93 
Vinegar from Apple Pomace 94 
Walks and Talks on The Farm No. 39— The Winter ou 
Wheat — Comparative Value of Clover Turned Under 
and Fed Out— Clover Manure and Straw. Manure — 
Raising and Storing Roots 90—91 
Willows and Withes 4 Illustrations. . 92 
INDEX TO "BASKET," OR SHORTER ARTICLES. 
Agricultural Annual 
Agriculture, Hamilton Col 
Always Too Late 
American Cow Milker 
Am. Dairymen's Ass'n.. . 
Am. Journal, Horticulture 
Beans— 100 Kinds 
Bluffton Wine Company. . 
Bommer'e Manure Method. 
Can the Ethiopian Change. 
Catalogues Acknowleded.. 
Cheated by "Doctors"... 
Chicory 
Cockle or Wheat 
Cold Grapery 
Conn. Board of Agl'ture. . 
Cornea Restorers 
Cotton Planter's Manual. . 
Draining to Dry Springs. . 
Dry Earth 
Experience With Ferrets. 
' Excursion — The Grandest. 
Farm Proverbs 
Forty Pages Again 
Fuller's Grape Culturist. . 
Gas Tar for Posts ... 
Good Seeds 
Grain from Germany 86 
Green Crops — Turning in.S9 
Home-Made Binding SS 
Hope for Farmers' Club. 
Horticultural Laws, El .... 89 
Humbugs at the South 86 
So Large Barley 87 
8S Lathing Adobe Walls 8S 
SSLime ...S7 
S7 Liquid Manure Pipe S7 
87 Map of Maryland 86 
ST Mare Foaling 86 
Miles on theHorses Foot. 88 
Officers N. Y. Ag'l Soc'y..S6 
Osage Orange on Sod 88 
Peat and Muck 88 
Plowing Pasture 89 
Poultry Book S8 
Pumpkins or Roots ? 89 
Queries .87 
Raising Calves 88 
Read the Advertisements. S5 
Red-Legged Locust S7 
Selecting Grain Seed 87 
Single Lines in Plowing. .8S 
Sorghum Experience 89 
Staple Article S6 
S. S. Lessons 86 
Sundry Humbugs 86 
Supplying^ Evening Post. .So 
Surprise Oats 87 
Sweet Potatoes 87 
Teeth and Hair S8 
Temperature for Chuming.&S 
Ticket Swindlers 86 
Use for Hickory Withe. . . g7 
Vermont Ag'l Society 89 
Washer and Wringer S9 
W'n N. Y. Fruit Growers. S7 
Back Volumes Supplied.— The back volumes 
of the Agriculturist are very valuable. They contain 
information upon every topic connected with rural life, 
out-door and in-door, and the last ten volumes make up 
a very complete library. Each volume has a -full index 
for ready referenae to any desired topic. We have on 
hand, and print from stereotype plates as wanted, all the 
numbers and volumes for ten years past, beginning with 
1857 — that is, Vol. 16 to Vol. 25. inclusive. Any of these 
volumes sent complete (in numbers) at $1.75 each, post- 
paid, (or $1.50 if taken at the office). The volumes 
neatly bound, are supplied for $2 each, or $2.50 if to be 
sent by mail. Any single numbers of the past ten 
yoars will be supplied, post-paid, for 15 cents each- 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
NEW-YORK, MARCH, 1S67. 
Good or ill success in the farming operations of 
the season depend very much upon this month — 
much upon the weather of this most variable and 
uncertain of all changeable periods, and more upon 
the farmer's own ability, promptness and diligence 
to take advantage of events. There are many 
things in the future that we may calculate upon 
with great certainty, and, planning to take advan- 
tage of tJiem, he able to turn the uncertainties to 
our good also. We shall have in March 31 days 
and nights — many frosty nights and cold days ; 
some storms and rainy days, cold, clear, drying 
northwest winds lapping up the water oyer the 
fields and drying the fall-plowed furrows. We 
shall have sunshine too, warming the ground and 
breaking the frost fetters. The snow on the hills 
will melt and the streams will swell, sweeping off 
fences and bridges, perhaps. The roads will be 
broken up, traveling hindered, and mails detained, 
going to mill with grain and to town for needed ar- 
ticles, will be a labor to be undertaken only by the 
pressure of necessity. Poultry will be laying, aud 
clucking or setting. Foxes, minks and other ver- 
min will be prowling about. Calves, lambs and 
pigs will be coming into the world ; stock will be 
hungry, and we hope, satisfied also. There is work 
to be done and time to do it in. 
Hints About Work. 
Flans for the Month. — We shall all accomplish 
double the work, if it be well laid out, and it will 
be better done. — "What do we want done?" — 
" How and when shall we do it ? " — Let us make a 
list of the things we want to do most, and then see 
how fast we can cancel them off as done. 
Hired Labor. — If a farmer does not hire any 
labor now, let it be his aim to employ as many men 
as he profitably can, aud make arrangements to do 
so as soon as he can. Hired men are often very 
disagreeable associates, and the worst companions 
for o3e's children, but this need not be; lookout 
at once for good, steady, moral men, and sacrifice 
the profits of the farm rather than have a vicious, 
bad fellow about, though his work be never so 
needed. If we do our part to make the men com- 
fortable aud do them good, few will ill reward it. 
Buildings. — The winds will find out any insecure 
weather boards and shingles, and play mischief 
with the exposed hay stacks and with thatched 
roofs. Have nails and hammer at hand; stop 
leaks ; see that door and shutter fastenings are se- 
cure, and that board fences, posts of which are 
loosened by the frost, are not prostrated by the wind. 
Cellars. — Over-haul the roots, put them in bins 
or boxes, or make fresh heaps of sound ones only ; 
clean out cellars, air and whitewash ; stop rat -holes 
with coal tar and mortar, said to be rat-proof. 
Draining. — While the frost is coming out of the 
ground, and the soil of plowed side-hills is liable 
to slide, look to it that no water finds its way upon 
such spots, or great damage may ensue. Open 
surface drains with the hoe, pick, or mattock, so 
that surface water may flow off upon sward ground 
or where it will not wash off the soil. Such water 
from cart paths, roads, or plowed fields brings with 
it, upon the meadows aud pastures, a wealth of en- 
richment, not to be lost. The advantage of 
Irrigation can hardly be over-estimated. If a 
brook can be turned to flow at will (your will) over 
a piece of meadow, even iu the crudest aud simplest 
way, by all means try it, and then profit by ex- 
perience to extend the system, or rather, profit by 
the experience of others and use the best system. 
Grain Fields are especially liable to injury from 
washing, aud surface drains on them should be 
kept Jrce. Top-dressings of plaster, honedust, 
superphosphate, guano, fine fowl-house compost, 
home-made poudrette and such things arc applied 
with great advantage at this season. 
Clover and Grass Seed may be sown on winter grain ; 
best on a still day, after a light snow, which may 
have fallen ou frost-cracked aud thawing grouud. 
Flowing should be done as soon as the ground is 
dry enough, but not one hour before ; better wait a 
week or two thau compact the soil, so that it will 
dry into hard clods, which will last for months. 
Feas may be sown as soon as the ground is dry 
enough to plow well, often in March, in this lati- 
tude ; they may be sown broad cast, alone or mixed 
with oats, or in drills. On warm, early spots the 
drill culture may be recommended. The soil should 
be in good order for a heavy crop of oats, and 
deeply plowed, then plow shallow (4-inch) furrows, 
and in every third furrow scatter the peas, throwing 
in twelve to fifteen to the runniug foot. If you 
have time these may be picked for marketing green, 
and if not, the crop will be ripe enough to cut and 
cure, and leave the grouud for summer plowing, 
and wheat, cabbages or turnips may follow. 
Seeds.— Procure, and test the vitality of all seeds. 
Morses need very thorough grooming, and the 
j feet and legs should be washed and kept clean, long 
i fetlocks trimmed off, and any redness or cracking 
| of the skin or heels treated with pine tar and 
I grease, or an ointment of lard and turpentine. 
I These applications are either of them very good for 
: chafed shoulders, sprains, or harness galls. Blanket 
j carefully if exposed to the wind or cold when warm. 
Working Oxen. — Protect from storms ; feed well; 
U6e the card freely ; impose hard labor gradually ; 
have well fitting yokes, and if their necks become 
tender, give a day or two of rest, and grease the 
spot, rubbing the grease well in. A wet towel on 
the neck, with a piece of blanket bound over it, 
kept ou one night, and the neek greased well the 
next day, will, it is said, cure a very tender neck 
between Saturday night and Monday morning. 
Com. — Give good care, persoual attention, and 
roomy box stalls to cows about to calve. They 
may need assistance, and suffer much or even die 
for lack of it. If milk is worth much the 
Calves should be removed from their dams at 
ouce, aud brought up on skimmed milk gruel. The 
cow misses the calf least if she never even licks it ; 
but we would rather she should worry more, wheu 
she loses her calf after a day or two, than deprive 
her of the satisfaction of loving and licking it awhile. 
Lice, from many causes, show themselves, espe- 
cially among ill-kept stock, more in spring thau at 
any other season. They cannot stand regular card- 
ing and brushing, but if very bad, shuuld be treated 
to an application of alum water, with a good rub- 
bing, and subsequent carding aud greasing, on the 
same day of two or three weeks in succession. 
Mercurial ointment (unguentum), is sure death 
to the lice, and to the ox too, if too much be used. 
A lump as big as a hazelnut, rubbed up with a table, 
spoonful or more of lard is enough for an ox. 
Rub it in behind the horns and along the spine, 
then spread it by thoroughly nibbing with straw. 
Keep the animal from exposure to wet or storms. 
Sheep. — Mutton sheep may be yeaning this month. 
Separate ewes and give them warm quarters, with a 
few extra roots or other feed. 
Hugs. — Isolate breeding 60WS, give warm pens and 
treatment as before directed. Keep others at work 
in the manure, giving sods, etc., to be worked over. 
Poultry.— Gi\d chance to run and scratch and dust 
themselves. Save eggs for setting, and make sure 
of a few clutches of early chickens for winter layers. 
Field work of a miscellaneous kind there will be 
no lack of. Get out and cart off stones loosened 
by the frost. Reset fence posts, or walls, where 
needed, with spuds, spades, and hoes ; clear out the 
bull-thistles, docks, and all bieunial weeds that 
show themselves. Remove also any rubbish from 
fields and fence rows. Open ditches and mend roads. 
Manure. — Haul out while the ground is frozen or 
after it is settled. Spread at once, whether for 
plowing under or for top dressing, but put it ou no 
spots where flowing surface water will wash It 
away. It is best to plow it under at once, unless it 
be well made compost, w-hich will bear weathering. 
