100 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
earlier crops than his neighbor who has a 
deep, rich, moist loam ; and if he does not 
have so heavy a crop, he can have two to 
his neighbor’s one. Plow early and deep, 
and put on manure with a liberal hand, and 
you shall have a luxuriant garden, where 
you have now an unproductive and barren 
patch.—R., in N. E. Farmer. 
HOW FARMING IS DONE IN EASTERN CON¬ 
NECTICUT. 
A correspondent residing some thirty 
miles east of Hartford, Conn., in a private 
letter remarks incidentally upon the condi¬ 
tion of agriculture in his vicinity. What he 
says applies not only to many parts of Con¬ 
necticut, where we have traveled, but to a 
thousand other places in the country at 
large, and we trust he will pardon us for 
making the following extract from his letter : 
* * * The mass of our farmers do not 
take any agricultural paper. The farming 
in this vicinity, with a few note-worthy ex¬ 
ceptions, is carried on in the old (I had al¬ 
most said antideiuvian, manner, our farmers 
being rigid conservatives, take care to do 
just as their great-grandfathers did before 
them. 
Book-farming', is folly, and scientific cul¬ 
ture a humbug, in their estimation, and it 
seems almost impossible to start the great 
body of the farmers in the rural districts 
from their old plow-jogging routine. 
How many farmers that now only just 
rake and scrape a living, if they would only 
open their eyes, take a good agricultural 
paper—which they can no more afford to do 
without than without a cow—learn the first 
elements of agricultural science, and judi¬ 
ciously apply their knowledge, would soon 
be on the high road to competence and 
wealth. 
On very many farms there are acres of val¬ 
uable swamplands, with inexhaustible mines 
of muck ; old plains, now used for sheep 
pastures, &c., that need only the subsoil 
plow and the right fertilizer, to make them 
yield a golden harvest; in short, how much 
of the best farms lie waste and useless be¬ 
cause farmers will be ignorant. 
How slow also are farmers to learn the 
value of fruit-growing, especially choice 
fruit, which grows just as easy as any 
other. 
The world does move, and farmers, though 
slow, have made some progress. I notice 
more dispotion to use such fertilizers as 
guano, super-phosphate of lime, &c., though 
in many cases applied most injudiciously; yet 
it is a sign of progress. 
I presume, however, that three-fourths 
of those who used these concentrated fer¬ 
tilizers last year, lost more manure by fail¬ 
ing to save and take care of it, by the escape 
of the fertilizing properties, than all their 
guano, &c., would amount to. 1 know of 
but one barn calculated with vaults and sheds 
to secure all the manure, liquid and all. 
An evenness of living hath too much con¬ 
finement in it. Men will be rather more or 
less, than always the same. 
HOW ARE YOUR BEES THIS WINTER ? 
Some people think bees not worth their 
attention. We do not so think. We have 
kept them for twenty-five years, and they 
have always repaid us for their care in 
abundance of delicious honey, every year. 
They require some care, it is true. So does 
everything from which we get any benefit. 
Some think that bees require a great deal of 
science to manage them. It is not so. They 
are just as simple in their management as a 
hen with a brood of chickens—but not in the 
the same way. Ignorant people talk about 
“ luck ” in bees. So they do in everything 
else they have. Some seasons are better 
for bees and honey-making than other sea¬ 
sons ; but these must be understood. A bee 
will not be robbed with impunity in a bad 
honey season any more than a cow or a 
a sheep will; and the season and the temper 
of the hive must be consulted, and not take 
honey from them when required for their 
own subsistence. 
The last was a bad bee year. On account 
of the cold and the wet in May and June— 
the two bee-months of the year—they nei¬ 
ther swarmed well nor did the flowers yield 
their usual supplies of honey. Therefore 
the honey-crop was light, and some folks 
complain that they had no “luck” ! 
To manage bees well you must have a 
good, understandable treatise on their man¬ 
agement, by a man who knows all about 
them. Quinby is one of the best authors. 
His book is to be found in all agricultural 
book stores. Consult him, and then, with 
your own common sense added, you can not 
go far amiss in your bee culture. 
Winter is the best time to buy and re¬ 
move bees, if you have none, and we can 
safely advise every country dweller to get a 
swarm or two, and raise their own honey. 
Try it._ 
MORE ABOUT “ THAT PUMPKIN,'' 
To the Editor of the American Agricultunst: 
Your January No. contains a notice of a 
“bitter pumpkin,” a specimen of which I 
also received, through the attention of 
Messrs. Balch & Son, of Providence. I can 
not but commend your caution in testing its 
quality by proxy, a more direct experiment 
convinced me that your “ sub ” was justified 
in any contortions of visage which might ex¬ 
press his disgust. There are several mem¬ 
bers of the family to which the squash and 
pumpkin belong, which possess the quality 
of bitterness in an eminent degree, and 
among them are the colocynth, which fur¬ 
nishes the “ bitter apple,” one of the most 
nauseously bitter of all of the disagreeable 
articles of medicine, and the mock orange or 
orange gourd. The latter is frequently cul¬ 
tivated, especially in the country, as an or¬ 
namental vine ; it bears a prolusion of fruit 
about the size and color of an orange, though 
some varieties are curiously marked with 
bands of very dark green. This is also in¬ 
tensely bitter,and is known among the French 
as false colocynth. It is well known that the 
squash family, including squashes, pump¬ 
kins, cucumbers and melons, are among the 
plants which are most disposed to produce 
hybrids or crosses (as many a farmer who has 
planted the seed of the “ real crook-necks,” 
and harvested a crop of nondescript no-necks 
can testify); and it is highly probable that the 
“ bitter pumpkin ” is the product of a spon¬ 
taneous crossing of the mock orange with the 
common pumpkins. This supposition is 
strengthened by finding upon the section 
sent me some markings, though mere lines, 
of the dark green peculiar to the variegated 
forms of the mock orange. It would be inter¬ 
esting if Dr. Whitman would take the trouble 
to cultivate this bitter variety at a distance 
from any other pumpkins. In all cases of 
crosses of the kind I suppose this to be, there 
is a tendency among the progeny to sport, 
and to return to the original condition of one 
or the other parent, and it is very probable 
that, among the otherwise not very valuable 
crosses, some individuals might, be found 
which would satisfactorily establish the ori¬ 
gin of “that pumpkin.”—G. T., New-York. 
FARMERS, “FIX HP” YOUR HOMES. 
We are not about to descant upon the 
pleasures of a neat and tasteful farm resi¬ 
dence, nor .of its usefulness as a means of 
attaching the younger members of a family 
to the paternal home ; nor yetof the human¬ 
izing and elevating effect upon the proprietor 
himself. Much has been said, and much re¬ 
mains to be said upon these topics. We now 
offer only a word upon the direct profit of 
such improvements. 
Let us take, for illustration, two farmers 
side by side, similarly situated as respects 
markets, convenience to schools, churches 
&c., and both equal in the native or acquired 
fertility of soil. Allow also that both have 
equally good buildings, houses, barns and 
other out-houses. But suppose one of these 
dwellings has a fine yard or grassy lawn 
with a moderate supply of well selected 
shade trees and flowery shrubs, and a garden 
stocked with fruit trees of various kinds, and 
supplied with well arranged plots of veget¬ 
ables ; while the other dwelling is devoid of 
these surroundings, save perhaps a shade tree 
or two, and a garden containing an onion 
bed, a potatoe patch, a few hills of corn, 
cabbages and other common vegetables. 
Now let a third person visit these two farms 
with a view of purchasing one of them. 
How many hundred dollars more will he pay 
for the one having upon it the adorned and 
beautiful home ready prepared for him I We 
leave the reader to answer. 
DO NOT WASTE THE COAL ASHES. 
These contain not a little potash derived 
from the wood or charcoal used in kindling, 
and they furnish some fertilizing materials 
in their own composition. We have our¬ 
selves made an excellent garden plot on 
quicksand, thrown from a cellar into a hol¬ 
low. The only manure was a thick coating 
of coal ashes and a fair supply of leaves and 
weeds taken from the roadside. Coal ashes 
and cinders are first-rate for heavy clay gar¬ 
dens and fields. Try them—they can not do 
harm, and it is about as easy to put them 
