AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
138 
Weeding —If care has been paid to cleaning 
the seed and the soil, few weeds will appear; 
but if there be any, they must be carefully pulled. 
It is done in Belgium by women and children, 
who, with coarse cloth on their knees, creep 
along on all-fours. This injures the young 
plants less than walking over it. They should 
work, also, facing the wind, so that the plants 
laid flat by the pressure may be blown up again, 
or thus be assisted to gain their upright position. 
The tender plant, pressed one way soon recovers; 
but, if twisted or flattened by careless weeders, 
it seldom rises again. 
Pulling —When any of the crop is lying, and 
suffering from wet, it should be pulled as soon 
as possible, and kept by itself. So long as the 
ground is undrained, and imperfectly levelled 
before sowing, the flax will be found of different 
lengths. In such cases, pull each length sepa¬ 
rately. When there is much second growth, 
the flax should be caught by the puller just un¬ 
derneath the bolls, which will leave the short 
stalks behind. If the latter be few, it is best 
not to pull them at all. It is most essential to 
take time and care to keep the flax even, like a 
brush, at the root ends. 
Saving the Flax —This requires to be very 
carefully done, as inattention will reduce the 
value of the straw, and yield inferior fiber. 
When made up, for drying in large sheaves, the 
straw is much injured, the outside stalks being 
much discolored by the heat of the sun, before 
the inside of the sheaf is dry, and the weight of 
the straw is reduced. The flax stems should 
be put together in bunches about one-half lar¬ 
ger than a man can grasp in one hand, spread 
a little, and laid on the ground in rows after each 
puller; the branches laid with tops and roots 
alternately, which prevents the seed bolls from 
sticking to each other in lifting. It should be 
stooked as soon after pulling as possible, and 
never allowed to remain over night unstooked, 
except in settled weather. The stooking should 
go on at the same time as the pulling, as, if 
flax is allowed to get rain while on the ground, 
its color is injured. A well-trained stooker will 
put up the produce of a statute acre or more, in 
good order, in a day with two boys or girls to 
hand him the bunches. The flax should be 
handed with the tops to the stooker. The hand¬ 
fuls, as pulled, are set up without being tied, 
resting against each other—the root-end spread 
well out, and the tops joining like the letter A. 
The stooks are made eight to ten feet long, and 
a short strap keeps the ends firm. The stooks 
should be very narrow at the top, and thinly- 
put up, so they may get the full benefit of the 
weather. In six or eight days, at most, after 
being pulled, the flax should be ready for tying 
up in sheaves of the size of corn sheaves. It is 
then ricked, and allowed to stand in the field 
until the seed is dry enough for stacking. To 
build the rick, lay two poles parallel on the 
ground, about a foot asunder, (a very few poles 
will do an acre.) The flax is then built upon 
these, the length of a sheaf in thickness or 
breadth. The poles should be laid north and 
south, so that the sun shall get at both sides of 
the rick during the day. In building, the 
sheaves should be laid tops and roots alternately, 
built seven to eight feet high, and finished on 
the top by laying a single row of sheaves length¬ 
wise, or across the others, and then another 
row as before, but, with the tops all the same 
way, which gives a scope to throw off rain, and 
finished by putting on the top a little straw, 
tied down with straw ropes, fixed to each end 
of the poles upon which the rick is built. In 
this way the bolls will be fully ripened for keep¬ 
ing in a stack, without the straw receiving in¬ 
jury by long exposure to the weather. If the 
straw is discolored, it is very much reduced in 
value. To preserve a fine yellow-colored straw 
should be the object. 
How to Walk. —In walking, always turn 
your toes out and your thoughts inward. The 
former will prevent your falling into cellars, the 
latter from falling into iniquity. 
CORK AND THE WIRE-WORM. 
I wish to give a few hints on the~subject”of 
Corn Planting and the Wire-worm. Having 
heard a number of complaints aboutAhe des¬ 
tructiveness of the wire-worm in *corn, I 
thought, as the season of planting approached, 
it would be a fit time to give the result of my 
experience. At the time of planting I put two 
or three pieces of corn cobs in the hill, and in a 
few days, if there are any wire-worms in the 
soil, they will be found in the pith of the cob. 
They will remain there without interfering in 
the least with the corn. I have also become 
satisfied that the cobs answer in a measure as a 
fertilizer, as they will soon become saturated, 
and retain the moisture through the season. 
These worms are also destructive in wheat. 
Some years since, in the State of New-York, I 
plowed for summer fallow- an old timothy mea¬ 
dow, which w-as of a mucky loam, and sowed it 
to wheat, which they totally destroyed. The 
next year I planted the same lot with the same 
result; they did not leave me the seed. My 
neighbor who had about the same luck that I 
had, tried the cob as an experiment. A few 
days after planting he invited me into his lot, 
where I found, on opening the hill, from one to 
a dozen worms in one cob. 
The result was he had a full crop of corn. I 
follow-ed the example the next year w’ith entire 
success, on the same lot where my crop had 
been destroyed the year before. 
Since then, I and the wire-worm have dis¬ 
solved partnership on the corn dicker. If the 
remedy may prove as successful to others who 
may be troubled with the intruders, as it has to 
me, I shall feel amply rewarded for my scrib¬ 
bling. JOUN WORMLEY. 
[This remedy for the wire-worm is an excel¬ 
lent one, which we also found useful in a corn 
field that had been broken up the fall previous 
to planting. In addition to w-hat Mr. Wormley 
says, the suggestion is thrown out, of the pro¬ 
priety of letting one o r the boys gather the cobs 
at hoeing time, and then burn them, so as to 
destroy the worms. If left in the cob, they will 
wax fat and increase there just as rapidly as 
they would if left alone altogether.— Ed. Mich. 
Farmer. 
-• o ♦-— 
CHEAP WHOLE FLOUR BREAD. 
The present high price of provisions is felt by 
no class more severely than by the laboring 
agricultural population ; and I observe that the 
diffusion among them of modes whereby they 
may husband their resources of food, is one of 
the topics of the day. I shall endeavor to give 
some aid in this by stating the result of an 
economical system of bread-making followed in 
my family for some months. The tailings of 
wheat are sent to the mill, ground into flour, 
and returned with the loss of only about 6 per 
cent, in weight, being moisture evaporated in 
the milling process. This flour is made into 
dough with buttermilk instead of water. A des¬ 
sert-spoonful of carbonate of soda is mixed with 
a portion of the milk, and a little yeast added, 
with salt to taste. This leavens the lump in a 
few minutes; it is at once shaped out into 
loaves, and put into the kitchen oven, from 
which it is taken in rather less than an hour, in 
the form of wholesome brown bread, pleasing to 
the palate and easy of digestion. The cost 
stands thus: A bushel of tailings, weighing 57 
lbs., gave a return of 54 lbs. of flour ; value of 
wheat, 7s. 6 d., (English currency ;) milling and 
cartage, 6 d. —8s. A baking of 6 lbs. flour at 
this rate costs 10 Id .; half gallon buttermilk, 3 d .; 
yeast, carbonate of soda, and salt, 1 \d .; total, 
Is. 3d. From this is produced 10£ lbs. bread, 
which cost 1 \d. per lb., say 5rZ. for the 4 lb. 
loaf! The labor of making is scarcely worth 
reckoning, being an act of pleasing housewifery 
to one of the family. The oven of the cooking- 
stove is, ordinarily, hot enough to fire the bread 
put into it. Thus there is no expense for the 
item of firing. It is true that an ordinary cot¬ 
tager seldom has an oven; but he certainly 
ought to have one even for the daily purposes 
of cookery, and its cost would be made up by 
the savings on a very few weeks’ loaves made 
as above. But, it may be said, all cannot have 
tailings. True ; but even in the event of using- 
full weight wheat at 10s. 3d. per bushel, we 
should add but Id. per loaf to the cost above 
stated; for a bushel of 03 lbs. wheat, costing, 
including milling, 11s., gives 60 lbs. flour; i. e., 
Is. Id. instead of 10£<Z. as above for the 6 lbs. 
flour required to make two and a half 4 lb. 
loaves. Thus, by following the simple process 
1 have described, every one, from the Queen to 
cottager, may, even in the present dear times, 
command a quartern loaf for 3d.! I will not 
promise that it shall be so nutritious as my 5 d. 
loaf; for chemistry, by one of its latest and best 
expounders, teaches us that “the tail corn 
which the farmer separates before bringing his 
grain to market, and usually grinds for his own 
use, is richer in gluten than the plump full- 
grow-n grain, and is therefore more nutritious.” 
By the way, this is another proof that we farm¬ 
ers don’t enough prize our blessings ; for here 
we learn that what we were wont to consider a 
grievance, the consuming at home of our inferior 
grains, has really been one of the causes of the 
goodly development of thews and sinews which 
marks the tenant farmer class .—Agricultural 
Gazette. 
PRACTICAL HINTS ABOUT THE DAIRY. 
We are now approaching a time when those 
who have a dairy, either large or small, should 
pride themselves in the production of the best 
butter and cheese that can be made. The first 
thing the farmer ought to attend is the food for 
the cows, otherwise the labors of the most care¬ 
ful dairy-maid will be of little use. Many are 
tempted to produce quantity rather than qual¬ 
ity; but those who are renowned for manufac¬ 
turing a superior article are sure to find the 
best customers and the best price in the market. 
Next to food for the cows comes cleanliness in 
the dairy. It is no uncommon thing to find 
that the possessors of large dairies are by no 
means celebrated for the best flavored butter; 
we frequently see them beaten by those with 
only two or three cows, where their produce is 
solely managed by the farmer’s wife. Such 
persons are usually found to be scrupulously 
clean in every thing belonging to it. Once let 
it be known, and every one of the neighborhood 
will be a customer, if they want a good article; 
to such the price is no object. It soon gets 
abroad that she rises early, and sees that no un¬ 
washed hands are permitted to milk unwashed 
udders—that the pans and pails are well scalded 
and exposed to the air—that the churn is clean 
and sweet, and the butter washed in clean water 
and made by her own clean hands. What a 
recommendation is this to those whose stomachs 
are not prepared to take any thing and every 
thing that comes in their way, without regard 
to the mode of producing it! In large estab¬ 
lishments the case is frequently very different. 
A certain number of lads or maids have to milk 
a certain number of cowls, and, so long as they 
bring in a fair quantity of milk, few questions 
are asked. In such places from one to two or 
more young dairymaids are kept at low w T ages. 
Their appearence in person and dress should be 
the perfection of neatness and cleanliness, but 
too often the reverse is the case; and in this, as 
many other instances in the preparation of what 
w T e eat and drink, if we did but reflect on such 
things, we should feel but little pleasure in eat¬ 
ing and drinking. Cleanliness in the dairy 
itself is of the highest importance. It should 
be used for nothing else—nothing calculated to 
taint the atmosphere should enter or be near it; 
yet how common it is to see it used as a larder, 
because it is cool! Any thing that is wanted to 
be kept as long as possible is thrust into the 
dairy. In many cases the scullery for washing 
up the utensils, with a heated copper of water, 
joins the dairy, and oftentimes the door between 
