68 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
KEEPING WINTER APPLES. 
A great many persona lose their winter 
apples, not because they will not keep, but 
because they do not know how to keep them. 
We commend the following to the attention 
of all. Recollect that too much importance 
cannot be attached to keeping apples in a 
cool place, but where they will not freeze. 
The keeping of apples and other fruits 
depend very much upon the care with which 
they are gathered, and the place in which 
they are deposited: hence a few hints on the 
subject will not be valueless to the orchard- 
ist and gardener. 
Late autumn and winter apples belong to 
that class of fruits which are gathered before 
maturity, and ripened in the fruit room or 
cellar; and they should be picked Avhen they 
have received from the tree all the valuable 
elements the season will allow it to give 
them. English gardeners have a rule that 
no Iruit should be suffered to remain on the 
trees after they cease to vegetate, and this 
is in general a good one. The apples above 
spoken of, as well as pears of the same class, 
may remain ungathered until there isdangei 
of injury from frost, as the sun and air, and 
the still remaining vigor of the tree seems 
necessary to their perfection and maturity. 
Apples designed for long preservation 
should as far as practicable be picked by hand, 
carefully and seperately, and when they are 
not wet by dew or rain. They should be 
handled so as not to bruise them in the least, 
as carefully almost as eg-gs or glassware. 
Lay them gently upon the floor of a cool dry 
room, a foot deep, to sweat and season for 
two or three weeks ; and then, on a clear 
dry day, sort and pack the apples in clean 
dry barrels, filling them so full that the apples 
cannot move after being headed in. The 
very best, which will keep longest, may be 
wrapped up separately in soft paper before 
packing, or they may be placed in layers 
with dry chaff around and between them. 
Most cellars and ground floors are too 
damp for the perfect keeping of apples through 
the winter and spring, and also of too varia¬ 
ble a temperature—the latter should not 
vary much from forty degrees. If an upper 
room can be so prepared as to retain about 
the same degree of heat, dryness, and dark¬ 
ness, it is a very desirable locality for the 
preservation of fruit, not only apples, but 
pears, grapes, &c. To the preservation of 
the two last named, considerable attention 
has recently been given.— New-Yorker. 
ABOUT CRANBERRIES. 
To Keep Cranberries .—Gather them when 
quite dry, cork them closely in dry bottles, 
and place in a cool, dry cellar. They will 
also keep in bottles or in casks of water, the 
latter being the mode practiced in the north 
of Europe and in this country in which 
it is sent a long distance without injury ; the 
fruit is put in a perfect state into tight barrels 
filled with water and headed up. 
Cranberry Jelly .—Make a very strong isin¬ 
glass jelly; when cold, mix it with a double 
quantity of cranberryjuice,pressed and strain¬ 
ed ; sweeten and boil it up, and make it into 
the desired shape, by straining into the prop¬ 
er vessels ; use good white sugar, or the jelly 
will not be clear. 
Cranberry and Rice Jelly .—Boil and press 
the fruit, strain the juice, and by degrees mix 
it with as much ground rice as will, when 
boiled, thicken to a jelly; boil it gently, 
stirring it, and sweeten to your taste; put it 
into a basin or form, and serve with cream 
or milk. —Germantown Tel. 
Gathering Hops.— Hops should be picked 
when they are full grown and begin to be 
fragrant; by no means let them remain long¬ 
er, as a strong wind or rain will injure them 
greatly. Spread them away to dry. 
''Curing Hams.— The following are the re¬ 
cipes for curing hams, which received the 
first and second prizes at the late annual 
show of the Maryland State Agricultural 
Society : 
To every 115 lbs. of Hams take 3 ozs. 
saltpetre, H do. saleratus, 3Hbs. alum salt, 
6 gals, of pure water, 2 lbs. of ground spice. 
When the meat is perfectly cold, pour in the 
above combination until the meat is entirely 
covered, let it remain 6| weeks, then remove 
and hang it up with the hock down; when 
dry smoke it well witli green hickory wood, 
take the advantage of a clear and dry day 
for smoking, and on the occasion of wet 
weather, open the smoke house door, to pre¬ 
vent skippers, &c. Should bag about the 
middle of February.— Ex. 
For 1,000 lbs. of hock meat,half a bushel of 
fine salt, half a gallon of molasses, three lbs. 
of brown sugar, two and a half of saltpetre 
ground very fine. Mix all the ingredients 
together in a large washing tub, and rub the 
meat therewith until the whole quantity be 
absorbed. The meat must be taken out of 
the cask once a week and rubbed with the 
pickle it makes. The first two times you 
take it out add at each time a plate full of 
alum; it ought to remain in pickle five or 
six weeks, according to the size of the meat. 
Chickopee Journal.! WM. H. HARRIOT. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
THE CORN CROP AND FAMINE. 
To one who has not been an observer, and 
knows nothing of the chicanery resorted to 
by interested persons, as prompted by inter¬ 
est to produce high or low prices, the arti¬ 
cles in many of the papers of the day, rela¬ 
tive to the present drouth and corn crop, 
would lead him to suppose us on the very 
threshold of an alarming and distressing fam¬ 
ine. The farmer who has a surplus to sell— 
though there will be but few of that class 
this year—is interested in producing the im¬ 
pression on the public mind, that the damage 
to the crop is far greater than it really is. 
The speculator is first interested in buying 
low, and, picturing to himself higher profits 
than ever before realized, continues to buy 
largely at high prices, gets up a perfect panic 
as to supply and demand, and at the close of 
the season wonders where all this supply 
comes from or how produced with such a 
drouth, sees prices fall, his hopes disap¬ 
pointed, and thousands that he fancied as 
starving surrounded with plenty. I do not 
pretend to say what will be the result of the 
corn speculation the present season, or 
what will be the price ; but all know that 
supply and demand control the price of every 
commodity, and before anything like an ap¬ 
proximate price could be given by any one, 
it would first be necessary to know the de¬ 
mand for speculation, as this controls prices 
as much, and frequently more, than the de¬ 
mand for consumption. But while it is a 
fact that the corn crop in many portions of 
the Union has been seriously damaged, in no 
one section of the country, of any consider¬ 
able extent, has there been a universal 
failure. In almost every portion of the Un¬ 
ion the so-called bottom lands have yielded 
their accustomed crops, while only a portion 
of the uplands have very seriously suffered, 
and a still smaller portion have failed entire¬ 
ly. This I know to be the case in this coun¬ 
try, while some of the river bottoms, and low 
lands generally, as the farmers themselves 
say, have produced the best crops ever 
known. 
Though the corn crop is far below the 
average, the wheat and oat crop in almost 
every section of the country was a good one. 
If one farm, one neighborhood, one County, 
or even one or more States, should have en¬ 
tirely failed, this would be no occasion for 
alarm. Adjoining lands will furnish ample 
surplus to supply the wants of their neigh¬ 
bors. As to a famine, such a thing we never 
had in the United States, and probably never 
shall have, possessed as we are with such a 
variety of soil and climate—the one soil nev¬ 
er failing from either drouth or rains with¬ 
out benefitting another—as in the case of our 
up and low lands. 
The breadth of land in the cultivation of 
corn the present year is greatly beyond any 
former one. This has been caused in the 
old States by last year’s high prices stimu¬ 
lating farmers, and in the new States by im¬ 
migration ; whence a large portion of soil is 
put under cultivation for the first time, which 
never suffers so much from drouth as to se¬ 
riously injure the crops. And this increase 
of the new land opened for cultivation must 
continue for many years to come, until the 
greater portion of the vast and fertile lands 
of the North-western States and territories 
shall have been brought under cultivation. 
Many of these will be the most productive in 
the Union, as I have no doubt many of the 
lands of Illinois and Iowa would stand a 
succession of corn crops for one hundred 
years, without requiring any improvement 
or showing any very perceptible diminution 
of crops. When all these lands shall have 
been taken possession of, our population may 
be as dense as some of the thickly-peopled 
States of Europe, and even then it would re¬ 
quire a greater famine than ever scourged 
any part of the habitable globe, to bring about 
a famine so alarming as some would have us 
believe the present shortness of the corn crop 
will produce. A. Subscriber. 
SHEEP BREEDING, 
Breeders of sheep—no matter of what 
variety—should be cautious in selecting 
their bucks, and look, not only at the good 
qualities of the individual, but also to his 
adaptation to the ewes, choosing an animal 
that will amend any imperfections in wool or 
carcase which may be observeable in the 
females. The requirements of their flock of 
ewes should be particularly noticed, and a 
careful seperation of them made, so as to as¬ 
certain more accurately their precise defects, 
and to point out with greater certainty the 
peculiar kind of buck necessary to rectify 
these defects. This should be done before 
procuring the buck—not to buy first, and 
then try and suit the ewes to him afterward. 
Never Purchase a buck from an unknown 
flock. An inferior buck from a flock of well- 
known repute will produce better stock than 
an accidental good one from an inferior 
flock. By all means keep to a “ good strain;” 
adhere to flocks of well-known and deserved 
celebrity; you are far more certain as to the 
result. It is always better for a breeder to 
hire a buck than to buy one. Bucks “ now- 
a-days” are so highly kept, so pampered, 
that the vast number of them are defective 
stock-getters. A yearling buck is generally 
supposed to be fully equal to serve 75 to 80 
ewes ; but a two year old buck should not 
have more than 70 to 75. 
In making choice of a buck to suit the ewe 
flock, regard should be had to every require¬ 
ment. Neither wool nor mutton ought to take 
precedence, both must be held of equal value. 
If any quality is to be discontinued, or of 
necessity given up for the time, let it be 
beauty, or symmetry, or some minor point. 
These are truly good in their place, but for 
these never give up the main qualifications— 
a good fleece, a fat back, and a full symme¬ 
trical proportion of great substance. As far as 
possible, put a short-legged buck to a long- Ij 
legged ewe ; a full-chested buck to a narrow 
