134: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.—No. 124. 
“R. F. W.of Chester Co., Pa.,writes: “A 
year ago last spring I sowed oats and peas, and 
raised about half as many more as I sowed. 
Last spring I tried it again, and the peas were 
an entire failure. We don’t care about trying 
them any more.” 
Probably the conditions were not favorable. 
The land must be very rich, dry, and mellow, 
and the crop sown early. There is, of course, 
nothing to be gained by sowing two crops on 
the same land if the land is not rich enough to 
produce one crop. If you think the land too 
rich for oats, sow peas and oats together and 
you will stand a chance of getting a great crop. 
This is all there is to it. 
“We also tried,” continues Mr. W., “white 
mustard and rape. Plowed the ground in the 
spring and again in July. Sowed both mustard 
and rape July 21st. The field is rather poor— 
too poor for a good crop of corn. The mus¬ 
tard attained a growth of three to four feet. 
The rape made considerable growth but did 
not bloom. [It ought not.] Both were pas¬ 
tured with sheep, which eat the rape to the 
ground. The mustard was not eaten so well. 
But it was too old when turned into.” 
The mustard should have been fed off in 
September and October. The rape should 
have been reserved for feeding late in the fall 
and winter. Frost will kill the mustard, but 
does not hurt the rape. 
“We have an oat-stubble field,” continues 
Mr. W.,“ which we have been thinking of sow¬ 
ing to mustard in April or May; then pasturing 
the crop with sheep and sowing the land to 
wheat in the fall. Will it pay ? ” 
The difficulty will be in its ripening up so 
fast that it can not be eaten off before it forms 
seed. It ought to be sown at different times, 
say a week or ten days apart. But in this case 
it will be necessary to have hurdles or some 
kind of portable fence to prevent the sheep 
from running over the whole field at once. 
“ It is the prevailing opinion in this section,” 
says Mr. W., “ that 40 or 50 ewes are as many 
as can be kept together to advantage. We un¬ 
dertook to prove the contrary, and last fall in¬ 
creased our flock to 113, of which five died 
early in the season, and of late seven have lost 
their lambs by premature birth. Can you tell 
the cause or suggest a remedy? The sheep 
have been fed corn, corn fodder, and clover 
hay, and have been kept in the yard except 
that they go out to water every day.” 
Perhaps they were kept too closely confined 
in the yard, or crowded each other in rushing 
through the door or gate when watered or fed, 
or perhaps the corn fodder or hay was moldy, 
or you feed too much salt at a time. Mr. W. 
does not say what breed of sheep he keeps. 
There is a general impression in this country 
that the long-wooled and other English breeds 
of sheep can not be kept in large flocks. The 
improved breeds of sheep, which mature early 
and fatten rapidly, will not stand neglect as 
well as the slow-maturing breeds. Texan cattle 
will stand long walks and short commons bet¬ 
ter than a Shorthorn. 
We have yet a good deal to learn in regard 
to the management of long-wooled sheep. We 
can adopt English practices only in part. We 
must think and plan for ourselves. We must 
study our climate and the demands of the 
market. We can raise long-wooled sheep just 
as well as they can in Canada. We can produce 
all the long wool that our manufacturers re¬ 
quire. We can supply our markets with good 
mutton. But how best to do all this is an open 
question. It is far from settled. I think it 
will be done by grading up our common sheep. 
“ C. W. H.,” who has a large farm near 
Columbus, Ohio, asks me several questions. 
He has an apple orchard, in which the trees 
are fifteen years old. They stand in a blue- 
grass sod, very stiff, not having been pastured 
or mown for several years. “The canker- 
worm,” he says, “ is very bad in this section, 
and has been for several years. My orchard' 
escaped until last season, when it had a few 
on it. Had I better plow the sod or had I bet¬ 
ter turn the hogs in it ? ” 
Do both. Plow it very shallow early in the 
spring or late in the fall. The sod will rot and 
enrich the trees. The canker-worm can be 
held in check by scraping off all the rough 
bark and then taking strips of brown paper 
three or four inches wide and pasting them 
tight round the trunk of the tree. Then smear 
these bands with tar or printer’s ink and see 
that the tar or ink is kept constantly fresh and 
sticky. Plowing the orchard and turning in 
the hogs will not kill the canker-worms. I 
would turn in the hogs to eat up the fallen 
fruit, and thus check the spread of the codling- 
moth which produces the worm in the fruit. 
The codling-moth is becoming a terrible pest. 
I hold them so far in check in my orchard by 
pasturing it with sheep. In the garden I have 
over fifty varieties of dwarf apples. They are 
very fine, thrifty trees, and bear well; but the 
codling-moth leaves me very little perfect fruit. 
I have also on one side of the garden seven 
Northern Spy trees set out at the same time as 
my main orchard. The latter last season pro¬ 
duced from two to five barrels to a tree. All 
the good apples I saved last year from the 
seven trees in the garden were put in one barrel. 
The rest were wormy. My old orchard, which 
has been set out forty years or more, has always 
been used as a hog pasture, and the apples are 
entirely free from the codling-moth. 
The Judge has an old orchard of about two 
hundred trees, from which in four years he got 
more money than he paid for his whole farm 
of 75 acres. Three years ago, thinking to im¬ 
prove it still more, he plowed it up the last of 
May or first of June and sowed it to peas. He 
thinks the plowing checked the growth and 
productiveness of the trees. I think the or¬ 
chard will get over it in a year or two; but it 
seems reasonable to suppose that cutting off the 
roots while the trees are in full leaf must be a 
serious check to them. The plowing should 
either be done so shallow as not to cut the 
roots, or done while the trees are compara¬ 
tively dormant—in the fall or early spring. 
From what the editor of the Agriculturist 
said about the barrel of Northern Spies I sent 
him I was afraid we had not pressed them tight 
enough in the barrels. And so the last time I 
was in New York I went to the firm who bought 
my crop. They did not know me. One of the 
young men asked me if I wanted to buy some 
apples. I told him I would like to look at 
some Northern Spies. He opened a barrel, 
and asked me $4.50 for it. “ Have you nothing 
better?” I asked, and he opened another barrel. 
“These are small,” I said. “I want to see the 
best barrel you have. These are not as good 
as those I am now eating.” He called another 
young man, and they whispered together a 
moment. “Not that,” said «the new comer, 
“ open that barrel,” pointing to a barrel that 
had my name on it. On opening the barrel it 
proved to be in perfect condition—just as hand¬ 
some as when put up in the orchard. “How 
much do you want for these ? ” I asked. “ Six 
dollars,” he replied. “ Six dollars! ” I ex¬ 
claimed angrily, “ why, you only ask $4.50 for 
the others; why do you ask six for these ? ” 
“ These,” said he, “ are the choicest Northern 
Spies ever put in a barrel. They were grown ” 
—and here he looked at the head of the barrel 
to refresh his memory—“ they were grown by 
Harris, of Rochester.” 
‘ 1 Did you tell him who you were ? ” asked 
the Deacon. 
No. I told him I would call again—and I 
will the next time I am in New York, as I want 
to learn all I can as to the best method of 
packing and handling the fruit. 
In the market report of the last number of 
the “ Chamber of Agriculture Journal and 
Farmers’ Chronicle,” published in London, it 
says: “Barley: all qualities have been very 
strong everywhere. Some 10,000 quarters 
[80,000 bushels] have been bought in London 
this week for shipment to America, consisting 
partly of French and partly of Danubian. It 
is not known whether this demand from Amer¬ 
ica will continue.” Our brewers »ana maltsters 
have themselves principally to blame for the 
present high price of barley. We can raise in 
this country all the barley that is required, 
provided we could be sure of fair prices. But 
the maltsters are as selfish and short-sighted as 
other people. When they get control of the 
market they force prices far below the cost of 
production, and the farmers stop raising barley. 
In 1850,1 raised 30 acres of barley and sold it 
in Rochester for 37| cents per bushel. In 1852 
it was worth 70 cents. Since then there has 
been a greater advance in the average price of 
barley than in wheat, oats, and corn. But the 
fluctuations in prices have been very discour¬ 
aging. I find in looking over the New York 
market reports in the Agriculturist that the 
highest quotation for barley in December of 
the different years is as follows: 
1856, $130 per bushel; 1857, 80c.; 1858, 
92£c.; 1859, 88c.; 1860, 82c.; 1861, 87*1 2 c.; 
1862,$1.45; 1863, $1.55; 1864, $2.00; 1865, 
$1.15; 1866, $1.20; 1867, $1.90 ; 1868, $2.30 ; 
1869, $1.30; 1870, $1.12; 1871, $1.25; 1872, 
$1.16; 1873, $1.80. 
In 1870 I fed out to my sheep and pigs 800 
bushels of barley, which would now sell for 
$1,500 or $2,000. And so we go. And so we 
shall continue to go. 
“ Well, what are you going to do about it ? ” 
asks the Deacon. 
If you are a barley grower stick to it year 
after year. If not, do not rush into it when 
the price is high only to quit it in a year or two.. 
The truth is, only the best farmers should try 
to grow barley. The crop is a profitable one 
if you average 40 bushels per acre, but to do 
this you require better land and better cultiva¬ 
tion than one fanner in ten is likety to give it. 
Unless your land is just right you will make 
more money raising oats than barley. 
“ Or oats and peas,” says the Deacon. 
Yes; but I have made up my mind not to- 
say anything more about oats and peas. I get 
letters by the dozen about this mixed crop, and 
so does the Agriculturist , some of which they 
answer themselves and some they send to me. 
Here is one just received from southern Ohio^ 
The writer wants to raise them for cow feed. 
“ Will they succeed ? ” he asks. I do not know 
