CALENDAR. 
lamb, they must be better kept than before, and re- 
ceive a plentiful allowance of cabbages or turnips. 
During very severe weather, sheep should be brought 
under shelter. Horses, in consequence of the short- 
ness of the days and the occasional inclemency of the 
weather, cannot at present work full time; and may 
be kept on a modified allowance of straw and corn. 
Colts should be kept in their yard or paddock, on 
straw and an allowance of green food. All swine 
ought to be kept well littered, so as always to be 
perfectly clean, and to have their skins of a bright 
and healthy appearance ; and all fat swine, in parti- 
cular, should be kept thoroughly tidy, and constantly 
littered up to their belly. 
All lands designed for either fallow-crops or bare 
fallow ought, in ordinary circumstances, to be so 
tilled before the end of December as to be laid out 
to enjoy the pulverizing, cleaning, and mellowing 
effects of the winter’s frosts. The labours of the 
barn must’ be so attended to throughout the month, 
as to furnish the requisite supplies of fodder and ht- 
ter. A supply of pulled and carted turnips ought to 
be stored under a shed or in some other suitable 
place, as a preparation against the sudden or pro- 
longed assaults of snow or tempestuous weather. 
The hedgers and ditehers ought to be constantly at 
their appropriate work throughout December, so as 
to be disengaged for other labour in spring. In 
weather unsuitable for ploughing, the carts ought to 
be constantly at work in taking home marl, chalk, 
clay, and ditch-earth, and in removing farm- yard 
manure into heaps on the fallow-fields. Water- 
meadows may be flooded, improved, and extended ; 
and the operose labours of draining may be con- 
tinued. 
The Kitchen Garden.—The produce of the kitchen 
garden available for December comprises turnips, 
carrots, parsnips, beet, cabbages, cabbage-sprouts, 
borecoles, savoys, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, 
garlic, onions, leeks, eschalots, rocambole, radishes, 
| horse - radish, parsley, spinach, celery, cardaons, 
thyme, scorzonera, lettuces, sage, marjoram, sea- 
kale, water-cresses, endive, salsafy, and sorrel.— 
In December, remove all decayed leaves from cauli- 
flower plants in frames; remove all pots of early 
purple broccoli into a frame, a pit, or a shed; sow 
successions of small salad herbs; sow a few lettuces 
| Ona warm south border ; give air to lettuce-plants in 
frames ;_sow short-top radishes toward the end of 
the month; sow pease and beans in warm or well- 
sheltered ground; try a sowing of carrots on a warm 
border ; earth up celery on a mild day, and when 
the soil is dry ; tie up large endive plants to blanch; 
earth up ecardoons to blanch; earth up artichokes, 
or cover them with litter; defend mushroom-beds 
from frost and rain, and keep over them a covering 
of clean straw a foot thick; make an asparagus 
hotbed for affording a supply late in winter and early 
in spring; and dig and trench all vacant spaces of 
the kitchen garden ground. 
The Fruit Garden.—The home-grown fruit avail- 
able for use in December comprises walnuts, chest- 
nuts, almonds, filberts, hazel-nuts, apples, pears, 
quinces, strawberries, services, and medlars.—In 
December, prune into regularity any standard fruit- 
trees which require the application of the knife; 
prune vines, plum-trees, cherry-trees, pear- trees, 
and apple-trees, on walls and espaliers; remove 
moss and cracked bark from the stems and branches 
of fruit-trees; protect the roots of newly-planted 
fruit-trees from frost; support with stakes all such 
recently-planted fruit-trees as are liable to be dam- 
aged or overthrown by high winds; dig manure into 
such fruit-tree borders as have a poor soil or are in 
an exhausted condition ; transplant, in open weather, 
any young fruit-trees which it is still thought de- 
sirable to remove; make new raspberry plantations 
CALF. 647 
in open weather; look over the fruit in the fruit- 
room; and destroy all chrysalides which can be found 
under the copings of walls and gates, or in any other 
situation in or near the garden. 
The Flower Garden.—In December, protect choice 
plants in the open ground from frost, snow, and heavy 
rain ; afford special protection, and give alternations 
of covering and exposure, to potted aurieulas, potted 
carnations, and other plants in pots, frames, under 
glasses, and in specially sheltered situations; place 
a succession of hyacinths, polyanthi-narcissi, Persian 
irises, early dwarf tulips, and other similar bulbs in 
water-glasses ; give occasional protection to beds of 
hyacinths, tulips, anemones, and ranunculuses, in 
severe weather; give careful attention to tender 
seedlings; protect the roots of the finer kinds of 
newly-planted shrubs and trees; prune such orna- 
mental shrubs as require the application of the knife; 
take up the suckers of roses and other flowering- 
shrubs, and plant them in a nursery-bed; dig, in 
open weather, the borders, beds, and figured com- 
partments of the lawn and the parterre, the clumps 
and expanses of the shrubbery, and such grounds or 
spots as are intended for new plantations of trees, 
shrubs, or flowering-plants ; prepare some composts, 
and bring home materials for preparing more; plant 
hedges of hawthorn, elm, hornbeam, beech, privet, 
barberry, blackthorn, elder, or any other kinds of 
deciduous shrubs; and plash or lay down such 
hedges as have become open and inefficient at bot- 
tom, and tall, coarse, and irregular at top.— Young’s 
Farmer's Calendar.—Low’s Elements of Agriculiure. 
—The Farmer’s Almanac.—The Gardener's Gazette. 
—Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Agriculture.—Marshall’s 
Reports.—The Gardener's Magazine.—Mawe’s Gar- 
dener’s Calendar.— The Gardener’s New Calendar.— 
The Knowledge Society's British Husbandry. — 
Keith’s Botanical Lexicon.— Adam's Roman Anti- 
quities.— Buffon’s Natural History. 
CALENDULA. See Mariconp. 
CALF. The offspring of the cow. The vari- 
eties of the calf, the modifications of its consti- 
tution achievable by the art of breeding, and 
the accidents to which it is subject in the foetal 
state and in the process of birth, are discussed 
in the articles Cattite, Cow, Brerpine, Axor- 
TIoN, and Parturition. Some means of ascer- 
taining the pregnancy of cows at an early period 
of their gestation, or of closely calculating the 
number of calves which will in one season be 
produced by a herd of cows, would be of consid- 
erable practical advantage to farmers who keep 
a large breeding stock. A common rule is to 
reckon every cow pregnant who does not return 
to the bull for six weeks after being bulled; but 
this rule is exceedingly fallacious, and might 
mislead a farmer to overestimate the number of 
his pregnant cows to the egregious degree of 
more,than one half. A method has been sug- 
gested by a very able and experienced veterinary 
surgeon as easy and conclusive,—that a person 
may, at a very-early period of a cow’s gestation, 
place his ear close to her flank, and hear the 
double pulsation of the foetus; but this method 
has been pronounced by eminent judges who 
have tested it a mere delusion,—not the slight- 
est intimation of the existence of the foetus be- 
ing perceptible by any ordinary ear. Nay, says 
Earl Spencer, “I have tried the use of a stetho- 
scope, but from want of practice in the manage- 
SG le Oe A ar | 
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