294r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
that which is fine, and well decomposed. However, 
by plentiful fertilizing with the prepared artificial 
manures, and by thoroughly mixing these with the 
6oil by harrowing, a very fair crop of good roots 
may be grown even upon comparatively poor land. 
The fine condition and ready solubility of the fer¬ 
tilizers have an immediate effect upon the soil, and 
enable the plants to procure the nourishment most 
readily assimilated as fast as the crop requires it. 
Among the Farmers.—No. 31. 
BY ONB or TBBM. 
Old Wethersfield 
Was represented by one of the three grape-vines on 
the seal and coat of arms of Connecticut, encircling 
which, the motto “ Qui Transtulit Suslinet ,” indi¬ 
cates the abiding faith which gave strength to the 
pilgrim band who settled Hartford, Windsor, and 
Wethersfield, planting a “ Vineyard of the Lord” 
iu the heart of the wilderness, amid privations and 
trials, and dangers which can not now be paralleled. 
The placid Connecticut then as now brought fer¬ 
tility to the meadows in the spring freshets ; shad 
and salmon to the very doors of the settlers, to¬ 
gether with the means of communicating with the 
outside world much more conveniently than by 
hewing their own way through a primeval forest 
100 miles with their ox-teams and axes. Wethers¬ 
field was always a quiet restful place to me. I 
associate it with after-supper drives (we say after 
dinner now-a-days), when the great elms cast no 
shadows on the street or roads, and when onion- 
weeding was over for the day, and the girls had 
unbent their calloused knees, and were tripping 
about, enjoying the cool of the evening after their 
day’s work in the field. The slender-spired church— 
“ built by the women out of onions,” the legend 
runs—is unchanged. The broad street, still elm 
embowered, changed but little, and not a few of the 
old houses are still unaltered ; but change is rife 
even in Wethersfield. Steam-cars and whistles 
break the silence; horse railway cars rumble at 
certain hours. Even the seed-business, which for 
years has spread a sort of beneficent mantle over 
all the land, near the village, giving in a very quiet 
way employment to many hands—even this busi¬ 
ness now obtrudes itself upon the stranger’s atten¬ 
tion as the great seed warehouse of Wm. Megget, 
with its lettered roof, looms up the most conspicu¬ 
ous building in the village. One is forced to think 
of the great yellow and fruitytuty labels of the 
“Wethersfield Seed Gardens,” which one meets 
with in every country store almost from Maine to 
Georgia, or even, very likely, to far-away Oregon. 
Onion Seed. 
They raise onions still in Wethersfield, but they 
export no more—the Connecticut River sloops 
leave no longer their odorous wakes as they plow 
the placid Sound. The redolent esculent is raised 
strictly for home consumption, and for seed, and 
last year I believe they had actually to import 
bulbs, as the home supply was insufficient for 
planting. Immense quantities of seed are raised, 
and the crop is a beautiful one in all stages—early 
in the ground, soon giving the peculiar tender 
bluish green to the fields, requiring clean culture, 
and changing in appearance greatly as the season 
advances, and the flower stems push up, and head 
and blossom. It is off the ground in time for other 
use of the land, and the seed, when harvested, 
dried, cleaned, and ready for market, is worth, in 
different years, from 15 cts. to $1 a pound. So it 
pays well some years, and sometimes the seed- 
growers net a loss.—My visit was particularly to the 
Farm of S. M. & D. Wells, 
who are among the best farmers in the State, are 
widely and favorably known as Ayrshire breeders, 
and raise seeds by contract or for the general mar¬ 
ket. They were large milk producers and sellers a 
few years ago, but now look for their profits more in 
the breeding of fine Ayrshire cattle than in the milk 
business, which was a good deal damaged by the 
skim-milk dealers, though to the consumers’advan¬ 
tage. There have been a number of “ creameries ” or 
butter factories started within a few miles of Hart- 
fort—two at least—the one at Farmington being the 
most famous. They sell their skimmed-milk, which 
during most of the year is quite sweet, to dealers 
who peddle it from house to house at 3 cts. a quart. 
The people found that this sweet skimmed-milk 
was quite as good as the watered milk of most 
milkmen, and thus the price of milk fell off greatly, 
and the demand for pure Ayrshire milk, at a fair 
price, fell off too, so that it was no longer an ex¬ 
citement and a pleasure to produce aud market the 
article. In fact, men ought to be well paid for 
turning night into day and day into night, as milk¬ 
men have to, in order to supply customers with 
fresh milk for their breakfast. The Wellses work 
with their men, and I think were really glad of the 
opportunity to give up this most laborious, though 
frequently very profitable, branch of farming. 
Their Ayrshire Herd 
has long been famous throughout the country. 
They have been judicious and liberal buyers, and 
good breeders, their stock giving excellent satisfac¬ 
tion wherever it is distributed. I meet not unfre- 
quently animals in high repute tracing to the 
“ Dolleys,” “ Floras,” and “ Mysies ” of their herd. 
They have always been good feeders, and as they 
have been proprietors of a valuable milk route in 
Hartford, it has been an object to produce the 
largest quantity of good milk consistent with 
health. 1 say good milk, for having this reputation 
they have usually been able to obtain a higher price 
for their milk than any one else, and 6uch a reputa¬ 
tion is worth maintaining. Some years ago, when 
making experiments with feed, as to the policy of 
steaming, etc., the yield of the herd was 9i quarts 
in winter, and lli in summer, to each cow, count¬ 
ing dry cows and all. This makes the general 
average nearly 3,800 quarts of milk per cow, which 
is extraordinary. I think I have never visited a 
stable where the two objects of keeping cows, 
namely, making both milk and mauure, were more 
thoroughly well done. The cows always have water 
before them in the stable, and are fed all they will 
cat, and though kept at the business of calf and 
milk producing so steadily, they live to old age, 
and are always in good condition, but not fat. 
Stimulants are never employed; but pure air, exer¬ 
cise, variety of food, cleanliness, and regularity, 
are, in my opinion, the reasons for their success. 
Home-made Things. 
Observing the plain and substantial character of 
a particular set of double-harness, I learned that 
it had been made upon the place; a thorough 
journeyman having been employed, the very best 
leather bought for him by the side, and a capital 
job turned out. The harness cost a little more 
than one apparently as good could have been 
bought for, and it will outlast two or three 
“boughten” sets. Not only is the leather of the 
very best, but the thread is of the first quality, and 
the sewiug thorough. Spots where wear comes, or 
which are required to be particularly strong, are 
reinforced by inserting capping, or backing with 
extra pieces. 
An Old Farm-Wagon 
was also pointed out, as showing the value of 
home-made things—home-made in the right way— 
that is, by a first-rate mechanic working under the 
direction of the man who is going both to use and 
pay for the article. It is not necessary that this 
sort of work should be done upon the place. A 
neighboring wheelwright will do better work in his 
own shop than on the farm, but if a man of a little 
experience and common sense cuts his own timber, 
seasons it, tests it, selects with the mechanic what 
is best for spokes, felloes, boulsters, reach, etc., 
he is certain that no dozy or wormy pieces get in, 
and that with good workmanship, he will have a 
set of running gear that will stand some “racket,” 
as they say in New England. As to this wagon, it 
was made some 35 years ago by the father of the 
Messrs. Wells, and has been in constant use ever 
since. Not a spoke has failed or loosened ; tires, 
felloes, and the bottom and side-boards of the box, 
have been worn-out time after time, but the entire 
running part not exposed to wear with the box- 
frame, has lasted intact, and is now apparently as 
good as ever. 1 do not doubt many a parallel may 
be easily found, but our ways of doing things are 
not changing for the better. We are using the 
cheap, but gaily painted wagons, spongy, stretchy 
harness, tricked off with brass, like a brewer’s 
rig, and other showy articles, altogether too much. 
These things are cheap, and in an emergency are 
worth the money asked for them, twice over, per¬ 
haps, but for steady hard work, and every-day 
use, are dear at any price. 
Onions and Tobacco 
on a good clay-loam, well tilled, are very satisfac¬ 
tory crops, even if the price does fluctuate. They 
require plenty of manure ; the soil holds it. They 
need clean culture, aud the soil once free from 
weeds stays so unless the seed is sown again. Ex¬ 
cellent tobacco can be raised with manure enough 
of the right kind, on the light lands across the 
river, but the manure does not last in the soil, and 
being all derived from fields not subjected to the 
same clean culture required by the tobacco, the 
entire farm is not benefited as where rotation can 
be followed, and one field after another be thus 
enriched and tilled. Potatoes are a prominent 
crop, and succeed well, and great use is made of 
Corn for Fodder. 
The variety is Stowell’s Evergreen (sweet), sowed 
in drills 3 feet apart, manured both broadcast and. 
in the drills. A little is put in very early, and fed 
green from the time it is fit to cut, to frost, and 
great quantities cured for winter use. The corn is 
cut up with corn knives, and 6et up in armfuls, in 
good 6ized stooks, securely bound, and well spread 
out at the buts. Thus it is left until needed, or 
until it can be hauled in over frozen ground, when it 
opens out as green, fiavorous, aud fragrant as well- 
cured hay. Large crops of mangels and other roots 
are raised, and a system of cooking the feed of the 
cattle has been followed for many years. Every¬ 
thing is cut up by horse-power,and mixed in a steam¬ 
ing-box, which is of plank, with a false bottom. The 
box extends from the cattle-floor into the main floor 
above, where the fodder is cut, and i6 large enough 
to contain two or three days’ feed for the whole 
stock of 6ome 40 milking aud breeding cows, and I 
don’t know how many young stock. 
Talks on Farm Crops—No. 18. 
By the Author of 11 Wallcs and Talks on the Farm,”' 
“ Harris on tht Pig,” etc. 
“ ‘ I have a piece of timber bottom,’ writes Mr. 
Cobb, of Kansas, ‘ that I have recently cleared up, 
and have had it in corn for the last four years. 
Corn is not very profitable at 20 cts. a bushel.’” 
“ I am glad to hear him acknowledge that,” said 
the Deacon. “ I have long suspected that the men 
who figure out such handsome profits on paper 
from 20-cent corn, are railroad men who have land 
to sell and freights to carry.” 
“Hush, Deacon,” said I, “there is as much 
money to be made in raising corn at 20 cents a 
bushel in many parts of the West, as there is in 
raising it here at 40 cents a bushel.” 
“Just about,” said the Deacon, sarcastically. 
“ Well,” 6aid the Doctor, “ it is no use grumbling 
at prices. They are beyond our control. All you 
can do is to raise good crops, and market them to 
the best advantage. You are not obliged to sell 
corn at 40 cents a bushel. I paid $1.50 for a hind- 
quarter of lamb the other day, and I am sure that 
farmers could well afford to feed out more corn to 
their sheep and lambs.” 
“That is certainly true,l»’ said I, “especially if 
you have the right kind of sheep. As yet, we fail 
to appreciate the influence which the exportation 
of meat to England is going to have on our agri¬ 
culture. We shall feed higher. Our fattening 
lambs and sheep will have grain every day, summer 
and winter. It would be a good thing for all con¬ 
cerned, if we could send a million fat sheep to 
England next year, and two millions the year fol¬ 
lowing. There is nothing in the way, except that 
we have not got the fat sheep. And yet we sell 
corn for 20 cents a bushel in the West, and 40 here.” 
