1861.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
111 
Ready for Spring. 
The following soliloquy was overheard at a 
neighboring farm-house, a few days ago : 
“April is near, so the robins and blue-birds 
say, and I am nearly ready for it. Let us see. 
My tools are about all in working order. Last 
Fall, some of them were in a bad plight, but 
they have been well stored through the Winter, 
and by using odd spells of leisure, I have got 
them thoroughly repaired. The handle of a 
plow was broken; my harrow had lost sev¬ 
eral teeth; one of my scythes was badly nicked, 
and another was bent; the horse-rake was out 
of gear in several places, and my hoes, shovels, 
and rakes were pretty badly used.Well, 
now I have overhauled everything, mending, 
painting, buying new where necessary, and so 
have got all in serviceable trim. This season, 
there will be no time wasted or patience tried 
in tinkering too»s just when I want most to use 
them. How many a time have I beaten my un¬ 
offending cattle and horses, and scolded my hired 
men, solely because of my previous neglect to 
buy good tools and then keep them in order! It 
shames me to think of it, but it shall not be so 
this Summer. 
Then, there are the fences. In a few days, I 
shall have them all in complete order. Many of 
the posts in the corner lot are badly thrown out 
by the frost, and then blown over by the strong 
March winds. The soil there is clayey and wet, 
and always racks my fences to pieces. What 
can be done with it ? Doubtless, a thorough 
draining of the land would help the fence. The 
posts must be reset; and in doing it, I mean to 
fill up the holes with small cobble-stones pound¬ 
ed in hard, instead of earth. It is the freezing 
and thawing of the w r et soil near the surface 
which lifts out the posts; and if I can keep the 
soil away from them, perhaps it will keep 
matters straight. I’m bound to try it and see. 
Then, some of the gate-posts near the house 
are out of perpendicular, the gates sag and 
won’t latch. Before I sleep again, these 
must be put in order. I have nailed on the 
boards which were broken off from the orchard 
fence; the garden, too, is safe from the pigs and 
cows; and the rails are all replaced on the fences 
around the wood-lot and pasture. 
What a fine assortment of seeds I have stored 
up! Sweet corn for the garden, King Philip 
and the eight rowed yellow corn for the field, 
and Pop-corn for the children. Here are oats, 
spring wheat, buckwheat, clover, and timothy, 
and potatoes, etc., all sorted and ready for use 
at five minutes’ notice. The kitchen garden has 
not been forgotten. Here, in these d rawers, which 
are divided off into separate b' >xes, are beets, 
(seed) onions, carrots, parsneps, vegetable oys¬ 
ters, tomatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, cucum¬ 
bers, melons, squashes—what an array! And 
the seeds are sound and plump, being chiefly of 
my own raising. Warm up the soil, sun! 
for these early kinds can hardly refrain longer 
from sprouting. 
Who has better reason than I to be proud of 
the manure heap ? See, there are ten piles, of 
no mean size, which have been shot out during 
the Winter from the port-holes behind the sta¬ 
bles. Then, the liog-pens have made a fair sup¬ 
ply. The sheep-yard will furnish some rich 
scrapings. The barn yard for the cattle has 
nearly two feet deep of composted straw, muck 
and dung. Won’t this make the Indian corn 
grow apace, and won’t it give the grass an early 
start and a heavy swath, and won’t it make the 
whole farm fairly laugh '.—And then the hogs¬ 
heads of plaster for the clover, and the ashes for 
the pasture lot! 
I don’t think neighbor Brown has kept his 
cattle and other stock as well for the last two 
months, as he should have done, to have them 
come out strong and hearty in the Spring. His 
cows and steers and yearlings look lean and 
scrawny. If he did but know it, the opening of 
Spring is a trying time for stock, and they 
ought to be fed a little better now than usual, 
instead of being kept on short commons. Hope 
he won’t loose any by his false economy or neg¬ 
lect. I should not be ashamed to show my stock 
now to any body. My horses, in particular, are 
in the highest keeping, and ready for the hard 
work they may have to do. It is a pleasure to 
look at their plump, sleek sides. 
Next week, I’m going to have a “ regular 
clearing up.” Chips, saw-dust, ash-heaps, old 
boards, brush, bones, sticks, leaves and all kinds 
of rubbish that accumulate around a house in 
Winter, shall be raked up and picked up, and 
all the premises, shall be put in apple-pie order. 
Spontaneous Vegetation—Again. 
“ J. S.,” of Woodbury, Conn., takes us to task 
for our doctrines concerning spontaneous vege¬ 
tation, in the December No. of the Agriculturist. 
He cites certain facts which he supposes mili¬ 
tate against the position there taken: viz., that 
there is no such thing as spontaneous vegetation 
known on this earth, but that each plant is 
descended from a parent of like kind. 
1. The well known fact, cited by us, that 
when pine forests are stripped from a piece of 
land, oaks spring up in their place, he explains 
by ascribing it to an original power or property 
in the land to produce oaks. We still hold to 
the old fashioned idea that oaks, in such cases, 
and in every other, grow from acorns, and not 
from any oak-principle in the soil. These seeds 
may have been brought there, long years before, 
by birds, beasts, or freshets, and deposited in 
the soil and covered up. When the shadows of 
the pine forests were removed, and the ground 
was broken up by cultivation, the acorns 
were brought into a favorable condition to ger¬ 
minate, and they did germinate. Perhaps the 
burning over of the land, in clearing it up, 
cracked the tough shells, and so facilitated the 
growth of the acrons. 
2. We said that if mail, taken from ten or fif¬ 
teen feet below the surface, were placed under a 
bell-glass to prevent floating seeds from lighting 
on it, it would often produce white clover and 
other plants. “ J. S.” claims this fact as telling 
on his side. He asserts that “ marl is a deep- 
sea formation, belonging to the cretaceous pe¬ 
riod of geologists;_that no plant or animal* 
now living existed at any former geologic period, 
and that white clover springing from marl heaps 
could not come from clover seed produced 
when the marl was upon the surface, because 
there were no clover plants at that time.” 
This is a poser. But what if it were not true 
that “ marl is generally a deep-sea formation.” 
The most of our marls are alluvial, and may 
have been formed since clover has grown upon 
the earth. Yet even if it were cretaceous, the 
growth of clover in it is curious, but not very 
mysterious. Our friend knows that in many 
geological formations, in which land plants are 
found, petrified seeds and seed-vessels are 
found, proving that then, as now, plants were 
produced from seed. This has been the univer¬ 
sal law of vegetation from the very first. Geol¬ 
ogy proves the necessity of a Creator to begin 
the flora and fauna of each geological period. 
Our friend applied to the wrong quarter when 
he asked geology to support his idea of sponta¬ 
neous vegetation. 
3. If this theory were true, we should fre¬ 
quently find plants growing about, which are 
not described in our standard botanical works. 
But J. S. must use his eyes very sharply, if he 
would find a single plant, in this part of the 
country, which was not mentioned in “ Gray’s 
Botany ” 15 or 20 years ago. Will J. S. please 
give us a catalogue of the spontaneously pro¬ 
duced plants which he has discovered—it would 
greatly help the cause of botanical science! 
4. He thinks that the growth of lichens and 
mosses on barren rocks tells in favor of his 
theory. But he must have used his senses very 
carelessly, if he does not know that they are 
produced according to the established laws of 
vegetation. Has he not seen, or read, what the 
microscope reveals on this point ? 
The other facts to which he alludes may be 
explained in the same way as the growth of 
oaks after pines. ‘ * 
-——- 
Maine Correspondence. 
Temperature—Carrot Raising — F^ee Farms. 
To the Editor of the American Agr* .^iturist. 
We live 170 miles north of Bangor, in latitude 
47° in the valley of the Aroostook, which is sup¬ 
posed to be a cold country. But after summer¬ 
ing and wintering here, I find it but little cold¬ 
er here than in New-Hampshire, or other parts 
of Maine. During December at 7 o’clock A. 
M., the temperature averaged 18£ degrees above 
zero, and for January, 6J° degrees above zero. 
The lowest point last Winter was on Feb. 8— 
26° below zero. 
Speaking of carrots, I have raised great quan¬ 
tities of them, and have fed them to cattle and 
hogs, and find them very valuable fed raw to 
horses and neat cattle, and boiled for hogs. For 
sick horses there is no food equals them for sus¬ 
taining the body, and keeping down inflamma¬ 
tion, and they are as good or better in most cases 
than medicine. I prepare my ground by putting 
on manure at the rate of 30 cords to the acre, 
plow it in 12 inches deep in the Fall; next 
Spring I cross-plow it 12 inches deep, and work 
it extremely fine with harrow and rake, in 
May, and sow 4 lbs. of seed to the acre by drill 
barrow. Then hoe twice, and weed and thin 
out to stand 4 inches apart, each plant to stand 
separate. I have uniformly raised 800 bushels 
to the acre, year after year, and have never been 
able as yet to get any more, notwithstanding 
others tell about 1200 and 1500 bushels per acre. 
I give the ground a top-dressing of 6 to 8 bbls. 
per acre, of poudrette of my own manufacture, 
spread on the rows after sowing, and I think it 
is equal to the other manure used, and much 
better than guano of the same cost. I have sold 
some thousands of bushels, and never had any 
that weighed over 45 lbs. to the bushel, being 15 
lbs. less than stated in the last number of your 
paper as the weight of carrots. 
The government of Maine offer great induce¬ 
ments to all persons to come here and settle, 
giving to each a farm of 160 acres of as good 
land as can be found anywhere, upon which can 
be raised good wheat, and other grain. Corn is 
raised to some extent, and its cultivation is in¬ 
creasing. Our vegetables can’t be beat any 
where. Mudsill. 
Lyndon , Me. 
