86 
CULTIVATION OF THE OSIER.-NO. 2. 
Reflections for the Farmer. —“ There never was 
a class of people more blessed or more prosperous 
than the farmers of the United States now are.” This 
is a self-evident truth. Yet I fear that they do not 
reflect and feel so thankful as is due therefor. 
Abundance of food is so great throughout the land, 
that we cannot realize the blessing of such abun¬ 
dance, because we have never known scarcity. It 
is almost impossible to hear of one of the cultiva¬ 
tors of American soil, suffering for food. How 
easy too for the poor laborer to supply the wants 
of a family. In many parts of the western states, 
a single week’s work at this season of the year, of 
a common laborer, at 50 cents a day, will procure 
eight bushels of Indian corn, four bushels of pota¬ 
toes, or 100 lbs. of good pork or beef. What a 
week’s supply this would be for a family of starv¬ 
ing Irish. Truly, American farmers are blessed 
with an abundance of the fruits of the earth. 
Six Samples of Back-Jersey Farmers. —All of 
these portraits are so true, that I have already 
found more than six dozen originals for each of 
them. 
Decomposition of Manures in the Soil .—This let¬ 
ter of Mr Norton’s upon the subject of the fertiliz¬ 
ing quality of manure settling into the earth, ap¬ 
pears to me sufficient to settle the question. In 
corroboration of his remark upon grave yards, I 
can call to mind one in particular, in good old New 
England, that has been more than a hundred years 
in use, which is located upon a gravelly hill side, 
and the surface of which is very barren, while a 
piece of mowing ground at the foot of the hill, has 
long enjoyed the benefit of the decaying bodies 
leaching down upon it. 
American Forest Trees. —Our friend, L. F. Allen, 
has undertaken to plead an apology for the ruthless 
destructive disposition of the universal Yankee na¬ 
tion, in sweeping down all the forest trees from the 
land they are clearing for cultivation. But the 
roof adduced, does not sustain the plea in my 
umble opinion. I have seen the most beautiful 
park trees that ever grew out of the earth, in the 
hurr-oak openings of the west, as ruthlessly de¬ 
stroyed as I have of any other worthless forest 
trees. It is the want of cultivated taste, and not 
the fear that the trees saved from the axe will per¬ 
ish in the storm, that strips the newly-cleared 
forest farm of every vestige of shade for man and 
beast, when toiling in the field or cropping the pas¬ 
ture. 
And here I close the volume for 1847, assuring 
your readers that they shall hear from me again, 
i have been highly interested in my trip “ down 
east;’’ it is the second time I have visited that 
country, and I find it going ahead now about as 
rapidly as the great west. Finding myself so near, 
I had the curiosity to cross over to Nova Scotia and 
take a look at the “Blue Noses.” I there fortu¬ 
nately made the acquaintance of that renowned per¬ 
sonage, Sam, Slick. His shrewd observations, 
ready wit, and humor, instructed and amused me 
beyond measure. I wish you could get him to write 
for the Agriculturist. Reviewer. 
How to Bring Sows in Season for the Boar.— 
A peck of rye, given to a sow, let her be ever so 
poor, it is said, will cause heT to take the boar. 
CULTIVATION OF THE OSIER.—No. 2. 
Management. —Osier plantations must be care¬ 
fully cleaned and hoed every year. Nothing con¬ 
tributes more to the raising of a good crop of twigs, 
after due preparation of the soil, than keeping them 
clean. The stools should annually be attended to 
from the first year of cutting a crop of twigs, by 
clearing the rotten stumps, and not allowing the 
plants to be over-crowded by the young shoots at 
their base. When these have become too numer¬ 
ous, they should be carefully thinned out, and also 
cut down, leaving only one or two eyes at the bot¬ 
tom of each, until they are reduced to such a num¬ 
ber, as the stool is capable of vigorously supporting 
until the fall of the leaf. A basket maker finds one 
shoot of 6 to 8 feet in length of more value than 
four of 3 feet in length; and one of the former of 
these dimensions will not so much exhaust the stool 
nor the land as four of the latter. 
The proper season for cleaning and thinning the 
stocks is in March or April, or a month or six weeks 
before the osier puts forth its leaves. The reason 
of choosing this period for the operation is, that, if 
it were performed in autumn, the germs of the 
buds existing at the base of the small shoots, which 
have been cleaned off, would swell, in the course 
of the winter, and be liable to throw out shoots in 
the following spring; wdiereas, by delaying the 
cutting of these, till the sap is in motion, the germs 
remain dormant, and the whole current of sap 
is taken up by the buds already formed. The 
cleaning of the plants may be done with a sharp 
knife, and, if it has been regularly attended to from 
the commencement of the plantation, it is neither 
troublesome nor expensive. Indeed, this care is 
deemed necessary, were it only for guarding the 
plants from the ravages of insects. 
Cutting and Disposing of the Crop. —The proper 
season for cutting the basket willow is in autumn, 
directly after the fall of the leaf. The advantage of 
cutting at this period is, that the buds which are left 
to produce the shoots for the succeeding crop, im¬ 
mediately begin to swell, and grow in strength dur¬ 
ing the winter, in consequence of which, they make 
much earlier and more vigorous shoots, in the fol¬ 
lowing spring. As soon as the rod§ are cut, they 
are generally tied up in bundles, 3 feet, 9 inches in 
girt; and if they are not intended to be used green, 
that is, with the bark on, they may be set on their 
thick ends, in standing water, to the depth of 3 or 
4 inches, where they may remain during winter and 
spring, until the shoots begin to sprout, when they 
are ready to be peeled. Sometimes it happens that 
osiers are cut with the leaves on, in which case, 
they should never be tied up in bundles, on account 
of the fermentation that would be produced, by 
binding them closely together in that state. There¬ 
fore, they should be set up, thinly and loosely, on 
their ends, with their tops leaning against a rod 
supported on two props. 
The operation of peeling is so very simple that 
it may be done by old infirm persons at a stipulated 
price per bundle. The apparatus employed for the 
purpose, consists of an iron fork, about 16 inches 
long, with tines or prongs about half an inch in 
diameter, placed sufficiently near each other to 
pinch the osier rods, and tapering somewhat towards 
their tips. The shank, or large end of the fork. 
