294 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
the left is “Pride of the Village,” (No. 3,833), a re¬ 
markably beautiful heifer, with her first calf. 
“Pride of the Village ” was one of the herd exhib¬ 
ited at the Centennial. She is by “ Litchfield,” has 
his fine color, and is a very promising animal. 
The management of this herd is a model that 
might well be adopted by many breeders, In the 
treatment of the animals the greatest gentleness 
and quietness are exercised ; there is no loud talking 
in the stables, and the very common but purpose¬ 
less vice of swearing is never practised here. The 
animals are tame and docile and are perfectly at 
their ease. There is profit in this as may easily be 
discovered on trial in other dairies. The regimen 
of the herd is calculated to ensure robust health, 
and although all the appointments of the stables 
and yards are calculated for the comfort and ease 
of the cows, yet they are trained to endure expos¬ 
ure to all sorts of weather. The herd is out nearly 
every day in the winter, for a longer or shorter time, 
according to the weather; are kept out in the field 
at night quite early in the spring and late in the 
fall. The stable is a marvel of cleanliness, the 
litter is white sand and the sanitary arrangements 
are excellent. This is the first herd that we have 
visited in which the arrangements for keeping 
the calves are such as the young and tender animals 
ought everywhere to have. The calf stable is 
furnished with a separate stall for each calf, the 
stalls are provided with mangers, ties, and gutters, 
the same as for the cows, and the stalls and stable 
are littered down with white sand. As the calf is 
the making of the cow, it is doubtless to this early 
training in the ways of healthfulness that the ro¬ 
bust condition of the cows is due. Mr. Starris al¬ 
ways prepared to entertain visitors between certain 
hours in the day, and the herd is always to be seen 
in the field in working condition, none of the 
animals being ever gotten up for show as samples 
of what the others are not. To visit the herd 
would be highly instructive to any dairyman who 
desires to learn how dairy animals may be bred and 
managed, and very interesting to any breeder or 
admirer of the beautiful and useful Jerseys. 
Among the Farmers.—No, 19. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
Insects. 
The monotonous clamor of the 17-year locusts 
will be hushed before this is printed, but it is quite 
loud and harsh enough now, and our trees will 
be brown from the withered leaves of the injured 
twigs, but the pestilent Doryphora will still beat his 
work. The Potato-beetle comes early and stays 
late, and may be fought in every stage of its exist¬ 
ence. We have to let the Cicadas have their own 
way, they will not eat, and only the birds can get 
at them. They have done us one favor, however, 
which is worth making a note of: not a crow or a 
blackbird has pulled a spear of corn so far as I have 
seen. They have been too well fed, I conclude, 
aud this I set down to the credit of the locusts. 
Foolish people continue to fear that the use of 
Paris Green will poison the crops or the soil, or 
something besides the Potato-beetles. If it would 
only affect the cut-worms we would rejoice through¬ 
out this section—but it will not. One chemist is 
reported to have said that, being insoluble, it would 
remain in the soil, and thus gradually accumulating 
might produce serious disease. Another, that wa¬ 
ter from lower sources than the land thus poisoned 
would not be safe to drink. I wonder somebody 
has not started an alarm about poisoning the air, 
for it is a fact, that whole families have been 
poisoned by dwelling in rooms papered with green 
wall-paper—Paris Green being sometimes used as 
a pigment in making paper-hangings. 
My potatoes have suffered much more from the 
cut-worm than they have from the beetle, so far. 
One small field of Alphas, from which I expected 
great things, has been terribly cut to pieces. The 
planting was made with single eyes, and they start¬ 
ed well, but being cut off as soon as they showed 
themselves above the ground, perhaps two or three 
times, I now find that the 6talks decay, and thy 
plant succumbs. Those plants which have not 
been cut off are ready to blossom, while others, and 
the majority, are just visible above ground.. 
We can destroy those worms which we happen to 
find where, and after, they have done the mischief, 
but that seems a small matter. It would appear 
that the more we kill the more we may. It is said 
that sods laid, grass side down, were good traps 
for them. I find a few do take shelter in such 
places, but I cannot sod a potato patch of two acres. 
A MotU Trap. 
I saw in the papers that the moth of the cut¬ 
worm might be caught by setting a lantern in a tub 
of water covered with a film of oil. This I have 
been trying, amj. believe it will prove a success. 
The cut-worm moth, if I know the fellow, is not 
flying now, but the multitude of flying things 
which cover the water were a sight worth seeing. 
Cockchafers, and a dozen different beetles, and 
moths, great and small, innumerable, and among 
them perhaps some friends, though I saw none. 
Still I consider the plan an excellent one, and the 
gamewdl icorth the candle, especially in gardens. 
High Manuring for Peas. 
My neighbor, Clark, a genius in his way, gets a 
great many good results which the world is no wiser 
for, unless he tells me, and I “ ventilate ” them for 
him. He has been experimenting in the matter of 
manuring peas. We are generally cautioned in the 
books against manuring heavily, lest the peas run 
to vines and we get too little fruit, especially from 
early peas. Mr. C. finds that the more heavily he 
manures his Tom Thumb peas, the larger they 
grow, aud the more they produce. This is his fa¬ 
vorite early sort, and he has vines 18 inches to 2 ft. 
long so loaded with peas that it is a pleasure to see 
them. I have no doubt it is with peas as it is with 
strawberries and some other things—different va¬ 
rieties will bear .different treatment. Some straw¬ 
berries can hardly be too heavily manured, while 
others so treated go all to vines and bear nothing. 
Tile City’s Filtll. 
This spring I took a run up into Connecticut. 
The passage to New London was a pleasure from 
first to last—a charming evening’s sail with pleas¬ 
ant company through East River and the widening 
Sound, and a good night’s rest fill up the measure 
of a pleasant night’s trip. As we steamed out past 
Fort Schuyler, and entered the Sound, we ran for 
some distance through a stream of filth. What it 
was, and where it came from, was a mystery. The 
water around no “ dumping dock ” in the city ever 
looked worse. Some miles further on the mystery 
was cleared up. One of the city tugs, towing three 
or four immense “ flats ” was slowly working back 
to the city, while workmen, fairly swarming upon 
the flat-boats, were shoveling off the mixture of 
ashes, dirt, street sweepings, store and house 
sweepings, tin cans, and refuse of all 6orts, into 
the water. The tortuous track of this unsavory 
flotilla could be seen for miles in the clear water by 
the light still lingering in the west. It seems as if 
some better use could be made of this material, a 
large part of which is of more or less value as ma¬ 
nure, while the incorruptible portions are certainly 
useful within the city limits for filling-in purposes. 
My course, after reaching New London, lay 
through parts of New London and Windham coun¬ 
ties, and up into Tolland. The apple trees were in 
blossom, and the corn was up, a good deal of it, 
though farmers were still plowing and planting. 
Connecticut hills and valleys never looked fairer, 
nor the soil mellower, nor the crops better. I ad¬ 
mit I am prejudiced in. favor of New England 
things, and I would be glad to see all over the coun¬ 
try, as good fences, as neat buildings, as clean cul¬ 
ture, and as good cattle, as I was impressed with 
during that morning ride. At a little station on the 
Palmer road, I left the railway train, and a power¬ 
ful bay made light of the long hills of old Mansfield. 
The Stows’ Farm. 
My errand was to see some of the Short-horn cat¬ 
tle belonging to Mr. Augustus Storrs, and very well 
pleased was I with the inspection. They are noble, 
deep-milking cows of the Yarico family, and re¬ 
mind one in style, stature, and udder, as well as 
pedigree, of the grand old cows of the Connecticut 
Valley breeders, which have proved their value not 
less at the pail, and in the hands of “ common 
farmers,” than when bred for beef qualities almost 
exclusively on the rich prairies of the West. A.t 
the head of the herd stands the fine bull “ Earl of 
Sharon,” 19,701, by “The Doctor,” 13,021, out of 
“ 1st Rose of Sharon,” by “ Baron,” 5,343, and 1 
tracing his pedigree back to imported “Rose of 
Sharon ” by “ Belvedere.” He is a very superior 
bull, symmetrical, compact, deep-bodied, and so 
well formed, that he is hard to criticise. The sight 
of him paid me for the trip. Mr. Storrs’ farm is an 
old family estate, which has been put in beautiful 
order by the present owner, and by his brother, of 
whom it was recently purchased. The house and 
barns have been repaired or rebuilt, fields have 
been reclaimed, remodeled, and refined, and a great 
deal of very judicious, telling work has been done. 
It is not the large farm alone which has gained 
by the liberality of these two brothers. The old 
burial-ground has been enlarged, walled, laid out 
anew, and called a “ cemetery ”; the roads have 
been planted with shade trees, and the church and 
other institutions have shared in their beneficence. 
Reclaiming a liig Swamp. 
One of Mr. Storrs’ operations is worthy of special 
notice. There was a swamp about 100 rods long, 
in which the muck and peat was of indefinite depth, 
say two to twenty feet. Through this meandered 
a lively stream, curving here and there among the 
reeds and 6edges, alders and willows. I have never 
seen a more tough and tangled mass in my life,, 
even in the Southern swamps. The stream is now 
carried in a straight channel not less than four feet 
deep and eight feet wide. A part of the way this 
is substantially walled in on either side with stone. 
Into this ditch main drains discharge at intervals, 
and these not only cut off and bring to the ditch, 
underground, the water of the springs around the 
edges of the swamp, but all that flows down from 
the surrounding hills, while that which falls upon 
the surface of the swamp itself, is carried away by 
a system of laterals to the same mains. When I 
was there, the whole swamp was dry, and much of 
it had been plowed. It required a team of several 
yokes of powerful oxen to do the work, and I think 
many of the furrow-slices, 50 feet in length, might 
have been hauled off the field by attaching a team 
to one end. Several systems of culture were being 
attempted, according to the condition of the sur¬ 
face, which iu different parts varied greatly. Over 
a portion of the surface, the matting of roots 
might be lifted in sheets, (or blankets), 12 or 14 ft. 
square, revealing a beautiful, soft, mellow, peaty 
soil underneath, in which corn or cabbages might be 
planted without even plowing. This surface was- 
being hauled off and burned, and the ashes re¬ 
turned. It was a plucky undertaking—the whole 
reclamation—not only the “grand canal,” but the 
miles of tile drains laid—and the result will be well 
worth watching. I have little doubt that the whole 
outlay will be returned in two seasons’ crops after 
it is all under cultivation. 
Wild Onions Flavoring Milk. 
The flavorous onion is the unsavory fly in many a 
“ pot of ointment ’’—not to say pat of butter. We 
have been fortunate for several years, and fields in 
which onions abound have been saved for summer 
pasturage, or made some other use of, but my 
neighbor F.—as good a farmer and breeder as he is 
banker and broker—has been going through “afflic¬ 
tions sore,” on account of the onions, or leeks. He 
gets double the market price for his butter, supply¬ 
ing friends and fastidious people, who enjoy their 
butter as they do their Sauteme, and study its sub¬ 
tile flavors, rolling it as a sweet morsel under their 
tongues, demanding that it be little salted, and per¬ 
fect in odor, flavor, and texture. His fields are blue 
with onions early in April, and they (the onions) 
are the particular delight of the cows. We were 
discussing the taste of the cows, and the flavor of 
the butter the other day, when he favored an opin¬ 
ion he had somewhere seen advocated, namely, that 
the flavor was nearly lost after a few hours, thus, 
that the morning’s milk would be quite free from 
the flavor, if the cows were kept shut up in the 
