AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
107 
that the inclosed six names have been obtained as 
subscribers, though I am sure they will get ten 
times their money’s worth in the paper itself. 
T. R. Mulford. 
Dane Co., Wis., June 4th 1858. 
Remark —We have other letters similar to the 
above, but have not space for them. We shall 
have a few hundred packages of seed to dis¬ 
tribute this year, as premiums’ to the first appli¬ 
cants, as will be noted in the business columns. 
-_— — -—- 
I Can Raise Turnips. 
A NEW PLAN. 
To the Editor of the American A gricullurist. 
In a former number, I noticed an article, headed 
“Can’t raise Turnips.” It seems surprising to 
me that there should be the least difficulty in rais¬ 
ing a big crop of turnips every year; but, it is 
nevertheless true, that more than one half of 
those who make the trial, fail. I think there is 
scarcely anything done on the farm that is so sim¬ 
ple and easy to accomplish, as to raise three, 
four, or five . hundred bushels to the acre, of 
nice, smooth, sweet turnips, and with less labor, 
perhaps, than any other crop. I have never 
failed but one year, and that year I killed 
the germ of the seed by letting it remain in damp¬ 
ened, unleached ashes, twenty-four hours, pre¬ 
vious to sowing. Nine-tenths of the seed did not 
sprout, and I nearly lost my crop. 
My plan is, after taking off a crop of hay 
where I intend to put corn the next season, I 
turn over the sward smoothly, about the first of 
July, then pass over the furrows lengthwise with 
a roller, to close the seams nicely. I then put 
a light coat of almost any kind of manure over 
the rolled land, harrow it over lengthwise, three 
or four times with a good, sharp harrow. I give 
it another harrowing once a week, up to the tenth 
or twelfth of August, which entirely prevents 
the grass and weeds from growing, and forms a 
nice, loose mould several inches deep above the 
undisturbed sward. 
At the time of sowing, I sift with the seed, 
three or four times its bulk of leached wood-ashes, 
and mix well together. I harrow the ground over 
before beginning to sow, starting the harrow on 
one side of the land, and follow the harrow every 
round, casting the seed high and wide. In this 
way I get the land pretty evenly sown, by using 
about a pint of seed to the acre. This is the last 
that I do to them until pulling time. Let the sea¬ 
son be wet or dry, hot or cold, I have not failed 
to get from three to five hundred bushels to 
the acre, and have my ground in fine condition 
for corn in the Spring. 
When pulling time arrives, I give the eighth 
or tenth bushel for pulling and topping. In that 
way, many families who have no land, and some 
who have, supply themselves with turnips for 
Winter. In feeding, my man gives each milch 
cow about half a bushel daily, with a few quarts 
of corn, ground in the cob, and a little shorts. 
This gives the milk and butter, and the pork fol¬ 
lows from the milk and buttermilk. 
A Subscriber. 
Cattawissa, Pa., 1858. 
Remark. —The above comes from a good source, 
and gives a plan which will be new to many. 
We wish our correspondent had stated the kind 
of soil. All such particulars are important in nar¬ 
rating experiences, for what may succeed well 
on one kind of soil may not on another.— Ed.] 
--- — -*-■- 
Of all the virtues, gratitude has the shortest 
memery. 
Tim Bunker on a Hew Enterprize. 
Mr. Editor :— I never was more astonished in 
my life, than this morning, when on my way to mill 
down the Shadtown road. I have been thinking 
a good deal about miracles lately, and I declare 
they aren’t a bit more strange than some things 
I have lived to see Jake Frink with a watering 
trough in his barn-yard is a poser, aad if you only 
knew the man as well as I do you would say so. 
But that aint a circumstance to what I am going 
to tell you now. You see, I hadn’t got more than 
a mile down the Shadtown road, when I saw a lot 
of men looking over the wall. At first I thought 
there must he a fight, and that there would be 
occasion for me to exercise my office as Justice 
of the Peace. It would be almost a miracle if 
there should be such a thing in Hookertown, for 
we are an uncommonly peaceable community. 
As I drove up, 1 saw uncle Jotham Sparrow- 
grass, with a team and three hands, busy digging 
a ditch, and about a dozen Hookertown people 
looking on. There was Deacon Smith and Seth 
Twiggs, Jake Frink, Tucker, Dawson, Tinker, 
and Jones, and among the rest, the minister, Mr. 
Spooner. It seems uncle Jotham had begun the 
job the day before, and the thing had made such 
a sensation, that a pretty strong delegation was 
out to see Jotham Sparrowgrass at work on an 
improvement. 
There never was a prettier chance in the world 
to do a nice thing for a bit of land. You see, he 
had a peat swamp of about three acres, lying in 
a hollow, mostly cleared of brush, and with a 
small pond-hole in the middle. The peat in some 
places was ten feet thick, and all the edge of the 
bog was wet and springy for at least two acres 
more. The whole was worthless as it lay, ex¬ 
cept for the muck which it afforded, of which, 
uncle Jotham never used a cart load in his life. 
The bog lay high, and by digging about ten rods, 
through the rim of the hollow, there was fall 
enough to drain the whole swamp, three feet deep 
or more. Here uncle Jotham was at work with 
his men, like so many beavers. 
The main drain had been cut, and one could 
see how these peat bogs had been formed. After 
the stones and surface mold had been removed, 
it was a solid, light-colored clay, which would 
hold water tight as a basin. Every thing that 
run into that hollow, and every thing that grew, 
had to stay there. All the wood, biush, and moss¬ 
es, that flourished there before the country was 
settled, had decayed and made a vast bed of veg¬ 
etable mold. The water having no chance to 
get out, had operated as a great millstone to 
press it together very solid. It had now found 
an outlet and was making a straight wake toward 
the North Star, as if seeking liberty for the first 
time. 
“You are just in time Squire Bunker,” said 
Deacon Smith. 
“You have got another convert here,” said the 
minister. 
“ Who would have tho’t it 1” exclaimed Seth 
Twiggs, as he took the pipe dut of his mouth, and 
blew out a cloud of smoke, that made one think 
of a locomotive. 
“ Old Bunker will make fools of us all,” solil¬ 
oquized Jake Frink as he thought of the horse- 
pond, and the lead pipe leading to his barn. 
“ Good morning uncle Jotham,” said I. “ I 
thought you didn’t believe in doing anything with 
muck swamps, eh? What are you doing here?” 
“ Why, you see, Mr. Bunker, I’ve known this 
’ere swamp for risin of thirty years, and have 
raised corn near it, for about the same length of 
time; and I never had a piece of corn any where 
in this neighborhood, that war’nt badly eat with the 
muskrats. You see the scoundrels begin to work 
upon it early in July, and they keep at it, until 
frost comes. I’ve sot traps for ’em, and shot ’em. 
and done every thing I could thmk of to kill ’em 
off, and I believe they are thicker than ever this 
Spring. So you see, I was riding by your house 
last week, and seed where that liorse-pond used 
to be, and I got to thinking, and this ’ere plan came 
to me, all to once, like a flash of lightning. Thinks 
I to myself. I’ve got them pesky animals in a tight 
place at last. I’ll dry ’em up, and put ’em on the 
totalabstinenceprinciple.be banged if I don't. 
You cant have a drunkard without bitters, nor a 
muskrat without water, can you 1 And yon see, 
with one day’s work T’ve took the water all down 
to the bottom of the pond, and I am bound to go 
three feet deeper, by the measure. Whether T 
make any thing out of this bog or not, I’m bound 
to rid the rest, of mv farm of a great enemy.” 
It was a grand sight., Mr. Editor, you may de¬ 
pend upon it. I dont know as I bear any partic¬ 
ular ill will to the tadpoles and turtles, but some¬ 
how I kind o’ like to see their confusion, when the 
water slopes off on a sudden, and thev flop around 
in the mud, not knowing which way to emigrate. 
They lay there by the bushel, evidently very much 
troubled at the day-light. I would go further to 
see such a sight, than to see all the menageries 
ever exhibited. I have heard them tell about 
the fine points in a painting, the contrast of col¬ 
ors, &c. There is no contrast quite so satisfac¬ 
tory to my mind as this light colored clay on top 
of a black muck soil. I am always certain of dark 
green to shade it pretty early in the season. 
You see, full one-half of uncle Jotham’s talk 
about the muskrats is gammon. He don’t like t~ 
own that he has learnt any thing from me, or 
any of his neighbors. But you see he has already 
made up his mind to plant that bog with potatoes 
this season, and substitute tubers for tadpoles and 
muskrats. The fact is, Mr. Editor, that horse- 
pond movement has done the business for quite a 
number of my neighbors, and is working better 
than physic. There are at least four of them 
started on a new track by that enterprise. Now, 
if you have the least spark of patriotism come up 
and see us Independence day. If you expect to 
see any thing of the Hookertown of the present 
generation, you must come quick, for I tell you 
now, this world moves, and no mistake. If you 
dont come and see what’s going on, we shall get 
up a rebellion, we shall—do any thing but stop the 
paper. That we are bound to have, whether you 
come or not. Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hoolcrtown, Conn., June 5, 1858 
(It is put down in our note book to visit Hook¬ 
ertown, July 4tli —if we can. —Ed.) 
- * - •>«» -- - 
Where is “lb” Published? 
We have seen, in several of our exchanges, a 
great number of good articles, (of course they 
were good, we wrote them ourselves), which arti¬ 
cles are credited to “ lb.” Now, we would like 
to know where that journal so often quoted from, 
is published. We want to get hold of it, we do, 
for it must be very valuable, since so many 
are copying from it with due credit. If every 
paper would only credit the Agriculturist for its 
articles, as well as they do our cotemporary “ lb” 
there would be a mighty stimulus to get the very 
best articles in the world, just such as would be 
worth copying and crediting too. 
---—W©*—-—- 
He who greases his wheels, helps his oxen. 
