A GOOD WESTERN N. Y. FARMER. 
The Editor of the American Rural Home 
has been visiting the farm of Mr. Daniel E. 
Rogers Of Wheatland, twelve miles south of 
Rochester. He says : 
The peach orchard is located on the highest 
ground on the farm, and nearly the highest 
ground in the town. The soil is a dark loam 
with rather more clay, than sand in its 
composition—a muoli richer soil than is 
generally considered best adapted to peach¬ 
growing. 
Eight years ago, Mr. Rogers planted an 
apple orchard of twelve acres, the trees two 
rods apart each way. Alternating with the 
apple trees, one way, were planted peach 
trees, making them two rods apart- each 
way, or 480 trees to the twelve acres. Thi3 
number would but little more than fill three 
acres at the distance of sixteen by eighteen 
feet, a fair distance for peach trees alone, 
and this fact must be considered in the yield. 
The trees were cut back so as to branch 
near the ground, and every year’s growth 
shortened in so that the heads are low and 
compact, with leaves and fruit growing all 
through them, instead of upon the ends of 
branches where they generally grow on 
neglected trees. 
The orchard has been kept under mellow 
culture, and cropped until last year, if we 
arc. not mistaken, and is now cultivated 
without crops. He has practiced mulching 
his trees winters with muck to keep back 
the buds in the spring, and on some has 
tried wood ashes, both leached and ttn- 
1 cached. 
This spring he discovered that the worm 
or grub was working in the trees, and he 
subjected them to a thorough examination 
with knife, digging them out. In a few 
Instances the trees were entirely girdled 
and killed. He thought the worm had 
worked moBt in those trees mulched with 
muck, and least in those dressed with ashes. 
Thinks leached ashes will keep them out, 
and unleaclicd will kill t-hem after they get 
of his own raising, that combine, in a large 
degree, strength and speed, fitting them 
both for the farm and the road. 
He spoke of one cow, as near a native as 
you can find that he has owned a great 
many years, and which will never go dry. 
He has raised her calves and has a herd of 
good milkers. 
tie has a Heath’s Windmill, operating a 
pump in a well eighty feet deep near his 
house, which affords an abundance of water 
for all of his stock, the year round. The 
supply seems inexhaustible, and as the wind¬ 
mill will work with a very slieht breeze, 
and nearly stop in a gale, it is a very reliable 
power for elevating water. 
We saw maa/ other things about Mr. 
Rogers’ farm and farming, very suggestive 
of thought, which we would like to mention, 
were not this article already too long, but we 
will say that wo were convinced that one of 
the talkers of the Western New York Farm¬ 
ers’ Club, is not by a great deal a poor 
farmer. 
-- 
ADVANTAGES OF CONCENTRATED MA¬ 
NURES. 
This peach orchard, eight years old, has 
produced two good crops of fruit, the last 1 
one amounting to nearly $3,000, and now 
promises a third, just as large as the branches j 
can support. A large proportion of the 
orchard consists of those popular market ! 
varieties, Hale’s Early and Crawford’s 
Early, and we feel warranted in saying that 
no finer peaches are brought into the Roch¬ 
ester market. Hale’s grows large with him, 
ripens the earliest, and only rots where too 
much crowded on the fruit spurs. He has 
also some very flue late varieties, such as 
Morris White, Stump the World, Ward’s 
Late Free, and Old Mixon Cling, remarkably 
fine specimens of which we ate on the 7th of 
last October. That Mr. Rogers lias faith in 
peaches as a profitable crop with him, is 
evinced by the fact that he has about 1,500 
young trees, many of them planted the past 
spring, growing in the same field. 
This is decidedly a wheat farm, and Mr. 
Rogers has not lost faith in wheat growing, 
lie usually raises from sixty to seventy 
acres of wheat, and the ordinary yield is 
thirty bushels, and over, to the acre, so that 
in ordinary seasons he harvests about 2,000 
bushels of wheat. This year he does not an¬ 
ticipate over 1,000 bushels from his sixty 
acres. He makes his wheat with clover, or 
rather clover roots, as he pastures off the 
clover, He has followed this system for 
sixty years, with no diminution of crops, 
except in seasons like the present, when 
wheat fails from other causes than the 
poverty of soil. He is raising now the 
Clawson variety almost exclusively, so well 
pleased with it is he, from his limited ex¬ 
perience. 
The fields which he intends to fallow this 
summer are not looking very attractive at 
present. The clover was entirely frozen 
out by the winter (not hoveu, but dry 
frozen), and sorrel has come in to fill the 
vacancies. How much his next wheat crop 
will suffer from the loss of his clover remains 
to be seen, but we are of opinion that a good 
article of superphosphate, drilled in with 
his wheat, would go far towards compen¬ 
sating for the loss of one crop of clover. 
Mr. Rogers keeps about twenty head of 
horses and cows, for the uses of the farm 
and family. lie breeds his own stock, 
following after no particular blood, but pro¬ 
pagating from such animals, of both the 
equine and bovine species, as he ha«* pencil 
to be worthy. He has some very flue colts 
The Editor of the Massachusetts Plough- 1 
man says One of the advantages of the 5 
use of concentrated fertilizers is that they * 
are free from the seeds of innumerable 1 
weeds with which our stable manures are 1 
usually filled, and though we would not 1 
recommend the indiscriminate use of these •' 
substances as substitutes for barnyard ma- 1 
nure, there is no question that if they can be 1 
got pure and honestly made, this freedom 
from vile seeds is worth careful considera- 1 
tion. A judicious practical farmer puts it 
in this way. “Twenty loads of barnyard ’ 
manure, says he, is worth #40, and costs the 1 
farmer perhaps twice that sum in the con- ; 
Bumption of hay by the necessary number of 
cattle, over and above their winter product 
of milk, even if the cattle are not dry during 
that season. Those twenty loads, worth #40, 
will fertilize but an acre of land, while half 
that sum will furnish a manufactured fertil¬ 
izer of equal potency, the labor of applying 
which will save at least five dollars more. 
The freedom from wild carrots, dock, Caua- 
da thistles and other noxious weeds is a 
further consideration in favor of this con¬ 
centrated manure over the crude article of 
the barnyard. Calico printers for many 
years used the solid excrement of the cow to 
brighten and fast colors in cotton cloth. 
Some latent quality was ascribed to fcho 
living animal, till it was discovered that a 
mixture of phosphate of soda and some 
other chemical salt answered the same pur¬ 
pose, and was more cleanly, economical and 
convenient in application. Peruvian bark, 
for many centuries, was regarded as the 
only cure for fever, and the poor patient 
was compelled, under the direction of the 
family physician, to drug his port wine with 
this nauseous and bulky remedy ; but medi¬ 
cal and chemical science discovered that 
the curative principle of this bark consisted 
of the quinine to bo extracted from it, and 
the useless woody fiber is now dispensed 
with. Agricultural chemistry has discovered 
that the larger part of the bulky and useless 
portions of barnyard manure may be dis¬ 
pensed with, and the fertilizing value is 
thereby reduced to a few chemical elements 
which furnish food for plants or produce 
soluble action in certain ingredients of the 
common soil. Guano, bone dust, phosphate 
of lime and gypsum, constitute important 
representatives of the fertilizing qualities 
needed, and when we reflect that but one- 
fortieth of the weight of even the much 
valued horse manure,“when reduced to fertil¬ 
izing matter, we are irresistibly driven to 
the belief that a corresponding reform in 
fertilizing land is as necessary in agriculture 
as the introduction of minute doses of qui¬ 
nine to cure the fever, instead of filling the 
patient's stomach with bushels of Peruvian 
bark. If science was permitted to do for 
farming what it has done for manufacturing 
and other occupations in this commonwealth 
our lands would double in value and in pro¬ 
ducts.” 
BEE KEEPING. 
O. C. Wait of West Georgia, Vt., writes as 
follows in the Vermont Farmer : 
The objection is often urged that bee-keep¬ 
ing is unreliable. So it is, but no more so 
than most farm products, and all earthly 
hopes. The wheat crop, for i nstance, is no 
more reliable, and when it is a good crop the 
prices are liable to run dow n so low that a 
fair estimate of the use of land, manure, 
labor, seed, interest, taxes, &c., will equal or 
exceed the market value of the entire crop 
through the State. So it is with the corn 
crop, while an average honey crop intelli¬ 
gently managed will all sell at a very uni¬ 
form price, and although the 'original stock 
has not diminished in value, the receipts will 
pay full 100 per cent, on all investments. 
We are often reminded of the obstacles in 
the way of prosperity in bee-keeping, such 
as millers, moths, robbing, going to the 
woods, &c. These are all imaginary, and if 
properly managed need not be feared. Really 
the greatest obstacle in the way of progress 
is ignorance, followed (as the swordfish and 
shark swiftly follow the wounded whale) byw 
swindling Impostors who live and feed on ig¬ 
norance and who have bled and nearly de¬ 
voured our bee-keeping interests. Just in 
proportion as bee-keepers, or any other class, 
are informed, they cease to be easy game for 
sharpers and knaves, whether they be vend¬ 
ers of complicated non-swarming bee-hives, 
with moth traps, drone traps, and other 
useless clap traps, or whether they vend 
morus multicftulis, Chinese yams, wine plant, 
branching corn, with the ears nicely glued in, 
or choice varieties of apple trees, grafted on 
miserable crab roots, sold at double the usual 
prioe, to double the sales and quadruple the 
profits. The rule holds good, apply it where 
you will. 
Bee-keeping is now reduced to a science 
and though in its infancy has its main princi¬ 
ples ascertained and fixed. Only those who 
learn the science and become familiar with 
its application will be likely to succeed. As 
in all other avocations, especially rural pur¬ 
suits, the unskillful and unscientific will fail 
to realize their expectations. Such bee¬ 
keepers are fast yielding their unprofitable 
business into other and more skillful hands, 
wliilo those better versed in bee-culture are 
many of them beooraing quite independent, 
and a few in favored localities are amassing 
fortunes. 
It is very desirable that more of our farm¬ 
ers should try bee-keeping. Only a few | 
colonies at first are advisable. Their busy 
hum and untiring industry cannot fail to en¬ 
list every lover of nature in their behalf, and 
a little investigation will deepen that interest. 
Bees not only lend a eh arm to our home, but 
by saving nature’s waste they furnish us a 
delicate luxury, and, if we choose, a veiy 
wholesome and palatable diet, Among our 
rural population all our sous, and daughters 
too, should have an opportunity of becoming 
familiar with and qualified to manage bees, 
which is far more pleasant and profitable 
than the rearing of sheep, swine and poultry, 
which always require a part of the produce 
of the farm, nearly or quite equivalent to 
their market value when sold. 
testing with success. This letter was as 
full of life and interest as any one that he 
wrote us eighteen years ago. 
-♦♦♦• 
PRUNING BEES. 
Most apiarians would be benefited vastly 
by having the combs lifted out of each hive 
just hefore they gather any quantity of 
honey to fill the combs and give them a 
thorough examiuatiou ; some have too much 
drone comb, which should be cut out ; 
others have ill-shaped or crooked combs, 
which may be straightened or cut out. 
Brood combs after being in use a few years, 
get filled up with cocoons so as to reduce 
the size of the cell and require more labor of 
the bees to keep them in order than to make 
new ones. We have extracted out of one 
cell forty-four cocoons or bee shrouds, which 
was evidence that forty-four bees had been 
raised in this cell; such CGtnbs should be re¬ 
jected, bub not on account of being black or 
of a dark color. 
The dressing up of the combs of a stock of 
bees, if properly done, will encourage and 
infuse new' industry into them. We have 
known colonies that were doing little or no 
I good, which, by pruning, were made to pay 
a large por cent. The combs of each colony 
-should be examined, at least once a year ; a 
careful inspection will do a prosperous 
colony no harm, while it will aid the de¬ 
fective ones.— Sd. 
n oilman. 
GOOD ADVICE TO FISHERMEN. 
First— Find out if there are any fish in the 
river to which you are going ; if so get some 
one who knows the water to show you where 
the fish lie ; and when he shows them to 
you, don’t show yourself to them. 
Second—Don’t imagine if the fish does not 
dart away, that he has not seen you ; on the 
contrary ho is very likely devoting his 
whole attention to you, and preparing to 
start the moment danger is imminent. 
Third—If you are fishing with a fly and 
you pass it neatly three times around him 
and he refuses it you need not wait any long¬ 
er for he has seen your lino of invitation and 
refuses to come. 
Fourth— If you are above a fish when you 
hook him, get below him as soon as you can; 
for if you pull him one instant against the 
stream and he is a heavy fish, he will break 
bis hold. 
Fifth—Never throw a long line if a short 
one will answer as well. 
Sixth—Never mind what may be said 
about “playing your fish until he is tired 
put him in your basket, as soon as possible. 
Seventh—Remember that all depends upon 
the way you begin your acquaintance. If 
you can prevail upon a fish to go down the 
stream a little way with you, you will after- 
wards have uo difficulty in persuading him 
to let you have the pleasure of his company 
to diuner. 
Last—Never fall in love with a woman by 
the water-side, there are situations when 
every woman looks an angel. 
-- 
GAME ON THE YELLOWSTONE. 
DEATH OF MR. QUINBY. 
Pear Growing in the Gulf States.—A 
new industry, the growing of pears, has 
been inaugurated in the Gulf States. G. 
Laurents of Lake Arthur, La., writes to 
the Southern Plantation that he is experi¬ 
menting with upwards of fifty varieties. 
Some of those planted three years ago are 
now in bearing, but only one specimen is 
allowed per tree the first year. Mr. Lau 
rents proposes to plant 8,000 trees, including 
ail the leading varieties. The trees bear the 
summers well, and the fruit is ripe several 
weeks earlier than at the North, 
The death of this veteran bee culturist and 
writer on the subject, which recently occur¬ 
red at St. Johnsville, N. Y., is thus appropri¬ 
ately noticed by the American Bee Journal: 
As we go to press, the sad news comes to 
us that Mr. Quiuby is dead. This will be to 
most of the bee keepers a personal loss. No 
other among those who are eminent in this 
business has been so loved and honored. He 
was the pioneer of progress in the work, 
and to him more than all others, we are in¬ 
debted for the light thrown upon the bee¬ 
hive, explaining all mysteries and making 
the management of these little workers 
easy and simple. To us he has been a guide 
and friend. When first interested in bee 
keeping his book was our guide, and when 
we went to him for advice the long, cordial 
letters received in answer were full of 
encouragement. Mr. Quinby was singularly 
free from any jealousy or self-seeking in the 
business which he first elevated to the rank 
of a profession. He never had any selfish 
ends to gain, but was ready at all times to 
aid a beginner, by sympathy and advice. 
He was to the end of his life making new 
experiments and testing the inventions of 
0 there. The last letter we received from 
him was in relation to some comb founda¬ 
tions pewly invented and which he was 
The late expedition up the Yellowstone 
river, must have been extremely interesting. 
We quote the following from the account of 
one of the party j—“ Around us every¬ 
where game abounds, principally elk, ante¬ 
lope, deer and mountain sheep ; the latter is 
a delicious vension, more delicate and richer 
than the finest black-tailed deer or antelope ; 
they bound with ease and agility over the 
steep cliffs, where the suspicion of a mis¬ 
step would plunge them hundreds of feet to 
destruction—but then they don’t make mis¬ 
steps. The immense herds of Buffalo are 
farther North aud West. Catfish abound, 
with an occasional genuine mountain-trout. 
The water becomes pure and clear and free 
from sediment, a pleasant relief from the 
muddy and turbid Missouri.” 
-♦♦♦-—- 
SPORTSMEN’8 NOTES, 
The Deposit of Salmon Spavm in Michigan 
lakeB has yielded well, aud myriads of young 
salmon from two to three inches long are 
now sporting in clear waters. There is 
scarcely a doubt that our creeks, rivers and 
lakes, will become the habitats of some of 
our choicest fish. 
The Fishway, at Holyoke Dam, Mass , 
which cost #50,000, has proved a failure. 
Thera are too many turns in it, and the shad 
become confused and fail to find their way 
UPi 
