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For the New England Farmer. CHOICE AND CULTURE OF APPLE

if the tree should not literally die, yet the sap vessels would be so hardened and cramped by the TREES. heat, as to render it impossible for the sap to flow in sufficient quantities to give the top its MESSRS. EDITORS:-As the season is fast ap-needed support; consequently, the limbs become proaching when most people purchase their trees stinted, and fail of having that healthy appearfor transplanting, I venture to make a few state-ance which so easily distinguishes a well cultiments relative to my theories and practice in the vated tree.

above line.

The sap which is thus obstructed, like a waterMuch credit is due to many enterprising indi- course must find outlet somewhere, which it acviduals, who have subjected themselves to great complishes by sending out numerous shoots at labor and expense in order to furnish the public the bottom of the tree, sometimes from below the with a supply of good trees; and, whilst this surface of the ground, which with me, in many just meed of praise is cheerfully bestowed where instances, it is impossible to kill by frequent cutit is deserved, no false delicacy will make me ting, as the more I perform this operation, the forbear to give vent to my feelings of contempt more is their name legion. To more fully suband indignation towards those nursery-men who- stantiate the correctness of this theory, let us not only in defiance of all law, both of God and follow nature in her training of the "wild apple man, but in direct opposition to their own pe- tree of the wood."

care of the trees.

cuniary interests-have practised the grossest im- First, the seed of the apple germinates and positions on the ignorant and unwary. Justice, shows itself two or three feet above the ground however, demands it should be concluded that, in before the cattle think it worthy of their attenmany instances, where the fault has been charged tion to browse, when, for a number of years, a to the nursery-man, it really belongs to the one kind of running contest is kept up between them as who had the charge of setting out and subsequent to who shall obtain the mastery, which generally results in the tree, shrub-like, increasing in width Much as I admire a good nursery, with its to such a degree that it is impossible for its foe clean and well-cultivated rows, candor and truth to reach the shoot, which is now ascending from compels me to say that it is not the proper place the centre, and which soon forms a respectable to look for the best trees. First, because they top. The owner, making the discovery that it generally stand much too thick; second, because will grow in spite of beast's browsing and man's their trunks have been entirely sheltered from the neglect, in the course of a few years cuts away sun, to which they must be inevitably, and, in the now useless shrubs and sprouts on and too many instances, fatally exposed; third, be- around its body, and finds that he has a tree as cause the soil in which they are thus far reared, hardy as the most sturdy oak, with which a tree is often richer than that to which they are trans- from a crowded nursery bear about as favorable planted can possibly be made. If it were pos- comparison to as would a Milk street clerk with sible so to do by statute law, I would not lessen a down-east lumber-man.

the number of nurseries, but would rather in- A tree whose body can always be protected crease them. But if the process of depletion was from the rays of the sun, will invariably be much to be applied in accordance with my views, it more thrifty and prolific than one otherwise exwould be in the number of trees contained in a posed. I would recommend to those who are row, which should be not more than fifty per about setting out trees, to let them incline to the cent. of the number usually allowed to stand. southwest about two degrees, from a perpendicThis statement is not intended to lessen the profits ular position, as a protection to their bodies from of those engaged in this branch of business, but the direct rays of the sun. In ten years the dif rather to enhance them, as it an opinion, founded ference in perpendicular appearance will not be on observation and experience, that one dollar is perceptible. not a high price for a good sized, thrifty apple tree.

Should any suckers come out on the bodies of But how shall I be able to select a good tree, trees newly transplanted, cherish them with all and how shall I test the correctness of your dia- possible care, as where two or more are allowed tribe against thick set nurseries? says the in- to grow up and down the trunk, I have never quirer of little experience in this matter. known it to perish by sun-blight. The second

In regard to the selection of a good tree, let spring these may be headed in one-half, and the the trunk be of as pyramidial form as possible, third entirely removed. Excepting this for the the bark smooth and of a dark green color, the first four or five years, if you are tempted to use top being well spread and divided into not less your jack-knife about them, throw it into the than three branches. Examine the twigs of the river immediately, that you may be delivered last year's growth, to see if they are not only of from evil.

PRO BONO PUBLICO.

proper length, but of good circumference, with a N. Bridgewater, Feb. 3, 1855. good full bud at the top, and, all other things

being right, it is of but little consequence whether PRESERVING FLOUR AND MEAL.-The patented the body is straight or crooked, although my plan of Thomas Pearsall, of Hooper's Valley, N. preferences are in favor of the crooked. Y., for preserving flour, meal and grain, from

As to the propriety of purchasing a tree from heating and souring, by having an open pipe runa thick-set nursery, common sense teaches that it ning through the centre of a barrel of flour and is impossible for it to have a quantum sufficit of meal, or a number of such tubes in bins of grain, roots, and those must possess but a feeble nature, we have tested and found to be an excellent invenand who will answer for its trunk surviving the tion. A barrel of Indian corn meal put up in heat of such a sun as that of 1854? It would be May last, with one of his refrigerating tubes, is the height of folly to hope for such a result, for, now as sweet as it was on the day it was packed.

This improvement must lead to a great saving to necessary in New England beyond what a Southour country, as it is calculated that no less than ern clime requires? We will call it the very $5,000,000 is lost annually by the souring of flour small amount of thirty dollars for each family of and the heating of grain in piles,-much, if not all, of which may be saved by the application of about five persons, and this gives us fifteen milthis invention, which is neither complex nor ex- lions more, making eighty millions a year in all. pensive, but simple and cheap. A barrel of corn Now when we consider all this, and the disadvanmeal, packed in one of Pearsall's patent tubular tages under which farmers labor, at the North, barrels, arrived in this city on the 7th of this month from Louisville. It was put up in July; ried and driven to do, our fencing, plowing and as to performing their labor-how we are hurand shipped to New Orleans, was kept several weeks in the hold of a steamboat, and afterwards planting in a very few days, while no farther housed in a warehouse until about the 1st of De- South than Maryland the plow runs every cember, and yet is now perfectly sweet.

Scientific American.

For the New England Farmer.
THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE.

BY HENRY F. FRENCH.

month in the year-it is enough to make us pause and consider, whether, indeed, our lines have fallen in pleasant places, and whether we have a goodly heritage.

It is true, we do pay, in New England, a tax, an annual tax, equal to one hundred millions of It is strange to think how much we pay for the dollars, for the additional food, shelter and fuel privilege of living in a cold climate. The hay crop necessary for subsistence in a cold climate. How of New England, in 1850, was about three-and-a-much additional labor we annually perform to half millions of tons, and was worth, when stored bring out from a hard and sterile soil our varifor use, about thirty-five millions of dollars. All ous crops, beyond what they would require to be this, with a trifling deduction for what was ex- raised by the same skill and thrift, from the deep ported, was fed out to our cattle, sheep and hors- and fertile valleys of the South and West, no man es, to sustain them during the winter months. In would dare to estimate, and the wonder, only, to the Southern part of our country, no such crop is a Southern man who visits New England, is, that raised, for it is not needed. Vast droves of cattle we undertake to cultivate such land at all. find abundant food, summer and winter, in the A hundred millions of dollars a year is a large woods and on the prairies, with no care from sum to pay for sunshine merely—for what, in othman. Thus we pay in New England, for the er words, in another climate, the warmth of the privilege of keeping our very cattle in a cold cli- sun would render unnecessary. mate, thirty-five millions of dollars. And this is But, there is a law of compensation running by no means all. We feed out to them a vast through all nature. If we travel towards the amount of grain. We build for them expensive South, in our own country, as we leave New barns and stables, a luxury which Southern ani- England, we see as we go farther, less and mals neither enjoy, nor have occasion for. They less of the indications of comfort and refinement. are far more comfortable out of doors, under a The house is less and less like a Home. As warm sky. the climate allows the members of the family

We expend a great amount of labor and time in more freedom abroad, less is thought of the infeeding out three-and-a-half million tons of hay, ternal convenience and of the outward adornment a fork-full at a time, each winter. of the dwelling. Living apart, and not in villa

Again, there were in New England, by the ges, there are less advantages for education and census of 1850, a few more than a half-million of social intercourse.

families, occupying nearly half-a-million of dwel- Even in Old Virginia, in 1850, there were by lings. I think it would be a fair estimate, that the census, seventy-seven thousand free white nathe annual average cost of keeping up every tive adults that could not read or write! No dwelling to the necessary point of comfort in New wonder one of her politicians recently expressed England, above the cost in the Southern States, great surprise at a recent proposition in the Mason account of cold merely, is thirty dollars, or in sachusetts Legislature, to limit the right of all fifteen millions of dollars. To this, add for voting to citizens who can read and write! the extra fuel the like amount of fifteen millions, The lavish expenditure of human labor strikes and we have already, for merely hay for our cattle, and additional shelter and warmth for our families, a tax of sixty-five million of dollars a year, for the luxury of cold weather.

every New England man who travels Southward. That human toil is to be saved, seems never to have been thought of. Where the man himself must do the work, the head will do its part, and save the hands; but where the head of one directs the hands of others, the labor is never skil

But again, they say the dog-day costume of a dandy in New Orleans is, a clean dickey and a pair of spurs! We must not forget the matter of fully applied. clothing. What additional clothing is really

Slavery accounts for many of the facts to which

kind.

North Brookfield, March, 1855.

The

we refer. Slave labor produces less than any being generally a little cheaper than other kinds, other, and where the slave exists the master nev- and pretty good eating late in the season. er works, while in New England every man la- Black Chenangoes seem to improve every sucbors with his own hands, and is proud to do so. ceeding year, and are now in this neighborhood esteemed one of the best kinds for cooking, and Yet, back of these considerations, as all histo- owing to the fact that they never suffer from rot, ry shows us, there is a law of compensation as to are more cultivated, I think, than any other climate which seems universal. A cold climate AMASA WALKER. is most favorable to the development of an active] and energetic character. This is, after all, the grand secret of the whole matter. The New England youth sees before him a rugged country, of forest-covered hills, cut through by rushing streams, with the winter snows drifting deep about them. But he feels the power within him to fell the forest, to dam the river, to break the snow-paths-to build mills, to grade the hills and valleys for railways. Everything gives way before an energy and a will of which he, whose cheek is fanned by a Southern breeze in his youth, knows nothing.

Often the Northern man, trained to active life at home, finds himself, by a short residence at the South, enervated and weakened by the climate, and ceases to wonder at the different habits of the people.

We may speculate and theorize as we will, it is true at this very hour, that the sun in his whole course around the earth does not now search out a people of the same number occupying a like amount of territory, so well supplied with the necessaries of life, so well educated, so moral, so free and so happy, as those of New England.

What we might be with a warm and genial climate and a mellow soil we cannot tell. What we are, with the rough north winds, and our rocky hills, and a free sky bending over us, let us consider well and be thankful.

For the New England Farmer.
POTATOES.

SOULS, NOT STATIONS.
Who shall judge a man from manners?
Who shall know him by his dress?
Paupers may be fit for princes,
Princes fit for something less.
Crumpled shirt and dirty jacket

May beclothe the golden ore
Of the deepest thoughts and feelings-
Satin vests could do no more.
There are springs of crystal nectar
Ever welling out of stone;
There are purple buds and golden

Hidden, crushed, and overgrown.
God, who counts by souls, not dresses,
Loves and prospers you and me,
While he values thrones, the highest,
But as pebbles in the sea.

Man, upraised above his fellows-
Oft forgets his fellows then;
Masters-rulers-lords remember
That your meanest kinds are men!
Men by labor; men by feeling,
Men by thought and men by fame,
Claiming equal rights to sunshine
In a man's ennobling name.
There are foam-embroidered oceans,
There are little weed-clad rills,
There are feeble inch-high saplings,

There are cedars on the hill;

But God, who counts by souls, not stations,
Loves and prospers you and me;
For to Him all vain distinctions

Are as pebbles in the sea.

Toiling hands alone are builders
Of a nation's wealth and fame;
Titled laziness is pensioned,

Fed and fattened on the same,
By the sweat of others' foreheads,
Living only to rejoice,

While the poor man's outraged freedom
Vainly lifteth up its voice.

But truth and justice are eternal,

Born with loveliness and light;"
And sunset's wrongs should never prosper
While there is a sunny right;

And God, whose world-heard voice is singing
Boundless love to you and me,
Will sink oppression with its titles,
As the pebbles in the sea.

The crop of potatoes in Massachusetts, and probably in New England generally, was uncommonly fine last year, and altogether the most profitable crop raised. Of the Black Chenangoes, which I have raised for more than ten years past, without any rot in a single case, I last year obtained 320 bushels to the acre. They are now worth at my door 65 cts. per bushel-32065| $208,30. This on land just broken up, and with a moderate quantity of stable manure, say SHEEP.-Lawrence Smith, of Middlefield, has 25 cart-loads to an acre, plowed in, gives a nett been testing the respective merits of the Merino profit greater by far than any I know of in ordi- and Oxfordshire sheep, and finds that the latter nary agriculture. are at the same time the most productive and the

Of the Jenny Lind potatoes, of which kind I least expensive; they are also very prolific, usualplanted only 8 square rods, I raised 24 bushels, ly giving birth to twins, and Mr. Smith has disor at the rate of 480 bushels to the acre-worth covered that while the receipts on ten Merinos now 62 cts. per bushel, equal to $300 to the amounted to $32, the profits on nine Oxfordshires was $60,00. He also states that the lamb This last is a huge, coarse potato, but well of the latter species often attain the weight of worth raising, owing to its wonderful productive- 100 lbs. on nothing but the milk afforded by the ness; they are used for table purposes by many, dam, and says that he has had a seven-month

acre.

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lamb in his flock weighing 104 lbs.-Springfield present law. But as he who breaks into a house Republican.

For the New England Farmer.

and takes property either day or night is made
to feel the rigor of the law, and that justly, so
let him who will break into or enter a garden,
made to feel a like deserved rigor.
yard or orchard, and take fruit day or night, be

LEGAL PROTECTION TO FRUIT TREES. "How does it happen that there is so little Will not our Legislature now in session think of choice fruit cultivated in this place?" I asked of these things? Let them give us a chance to try a resident, last fall. "There are," I continued, what virtue there is in something beside turf "no early or fall apples, no pears, good or bad, and grass. Give us something that will bring very few peaches, no grapes; in fact, though the "boys" down from the apple-tree and pearpossessing every advantage for the successful cul- tree too in double quick time, and make them stay tivation of the very choicest fruits, there is in down! the place scarcely a thing grown worthy the name of fruit!"'

ICHABOD HOE.

THE GREATEST GRAIN MARKET IN
THE WORLD.

"Well, I can tell you the whole and only cause, and it is all told in one single word, 'Boys Boys, big and little, will manage in In the progress of our city and of the West spite of you to get the best of your fruit, and generally, facts of the most astounding character most likely break down and destroy your fruit not unfrequently come upon us unawares, and trees; and it is more vexatious and provoking to before we are prepared for them. If any one had raise the fruit and have such scamps get it and asked us, two days ago, which of the great grain ruin your trees to boot, than it is to have noth-depots of the world, (depots at which grain is ing. I tried it till I got sick of it, and gave it collected directly from the producer,) was the largest, we probably would have named half a If the same dozen before hitting the right one. question were put to each of our readers, we doubt if any one of the whole number could answer it correctly, nor do we believe that any

up!"
The manner in which this response was utter-
ed, showed it was no "fancy sketch," but "real
life."

The man felt what he said.

"But," I replied, "put the law on such fel

lows!"'

one of the whole number would credit the correct

answer to the query, unless it was sustained by an array of figures, the truth of which could not Our attention was called to this be questioned.

"Law!" he repeated, with a scornful leer. "I tried law once, to my satisfaction. I found one of the vermin on one of my trees one night, and made a complaint against him before a justice of subject yesterday, by a gentleman engaged in the the peace, who found him guilty, and fined him grain business in this city, and with his assisone dollar and costs! From that time my gar- tance, we have given it a thorough investigation, den and fruit trees found no peace till the first the result of which, greatly to our surprise and was ruined and the latter broken down and gratification, establishes the supremacy of CHICAGO killed. That's the beauty of the law. If the fel- as a grain port over all other ports of the world! low got into my house, at the same time, and That there may be no ground for incredulity, we stolen a crab, or had passed a counterfeit one proceed to lay before our readers the statistics, dollar bill on me designedly, he would have gleaned from authentic sources, which confirm fetched up at the States prison! But he could this statement. In the table which follows, we trample down my garden, and break down my in wheat, estimating five bushels of the latter to have in all cases reduced flour to its equivalent fruit trees which were worth beyond price to me, and yet the law would fine him only a few dol- one of the former. The exports from the Eurolars, and let him off to run riot in his mischief!" pean ports are an average for a series of yearsWell, thinks I to myself, must these things those of St. Louis for the year 1853, those for be so? Must we be deprived of the inestimable Chicago and Milwaukie, for the current year, blessing of having abundance of choice fruit, a and those for New York are for the past eleven blessing great as it is which every man in the months of the same year. With these explanacommonwealth with only a half-acre lot may entions we invite attention to the following table: joy, because, forsooth, vagrant boys, grown and Wheat. Ind. Corn. Oats, Rye, bush. bush. Barley. ungrown, will steal it? Nothing conduces more .5,600,000 to the enjoyment of the family than abundance of good fruit, and no good can be had with less expense.

Odessa..

Galatz & Ibrelia. 2,400,000 5,600,000
Dantzig... .3,080,000
St. Petersburg..
Archangel.........
Riga.......

St. Louis........3,082,000
Milwaukie......2,723,574

Total. bush.

1,440,000

7,040,000

320,000

8,320,000

1,328,000

all kinds

4,405,000

7,200,000

2,528,000

4,000,000

918,384 1,081,078
181,937 841,650

5,081,468

8,747,161 9,480,335

New York.......5,802,452 3,627,888

If every family which has the means, could have the most tempting fruits of the varieties which flourish here, how greatly would family expenses be reduced! Tens of thousands of dol- Chicago........ ...2,946,922 6,745,588 5,034,216 13,726,728 lars that are now sent abroad for supplies and By comparing the exports of the different for foreign fruits would be saved at home and places mentioned in the above table, it will be added to the wealth of the commonwealth. seen that the grain exports of Chicago exceed It is not the straggling, moss-grown tree that those of New York by 4,296,393 bushels, those stands on the open common or by the road-side of St. Louis by more than two hundred and fifty tempting every passer by to "pluck and eat," per cent., and those of Milwaukie nearly four that needs or merits protection. If a man has hundred per cent. Turning to the great granano more wit than to expose his treasures openly ries of Europe, Chicago nearly doubles St. Peto the public, thus daring them to violate the law, tersburg, the largest, and exceeds Galatz and let him suffer loss under the mild pressure of the Ibrelin combined 5,406,727 bushels.

For the New England Farmer.

Twenty years ago Chicago, as well as most of the country from whence she now draws her DON'T SHOOT THE BIRDS. immense supplies of breadstuffs, imported both MR. EDITOR:-Humanity has the first claim flour and meat for home consumption-now she is the largest primary grain depot in the world, we teach the child; it daily admonishes offending upon our nature. It is the first natural lesson and she leads all other ports of the world, also, in man; it asks your forbearance to do wrong. It the quantity and quality of her beef exports!! We says to the Spring birds,-come and sing your say the largest primary grain depot in the world, because it cannot be denied that New York, Liv- wants your cherries, mount the tree and sing and joyous songs around my dwelling. If the robin erpool, and some other great commercial centres, eat together; so with the beautiful cherry birds; receive more breadstuffs than Chicago does in make them your daily guests. If you have but the course of a year, but none of them will com- few, plant more trees and invite familiar ty; pare with her, as we have shown above, in the When the fruit is gone, the canker-worm and amount collected from the hands of the pro- other insects are their food. Don't shoot these ducers. birds!

What a practical illustration the above facts Build houses for the martin, the wren, the afford as to the wonderful, the scarcely credible, swallow, the blue bird; make the entrance holes progress of the West-what an index it furnishes small for the wren, and according to size for the to the fertility of her soil, and to the industrious other birds. Severe battles are fought for the and enterprising character of our people-what a mastery of the house, but the size of the hole prophecy of the destiny that awaits her, when decides who shall occupy it. The swallow and every foot of her long stretches of prairie and her martin are sallying forth for musquitoes and rich vallies shall be reduced to a thoroughly sci- other insects, while the little wren is picking entific tillage! How long, at this rate, will it be before the centre of population and of wealth will and late they regale you with their music. Have over your fruit trees for bugs and slugs; early have arrived at the meridian line of our city, and Chicago will have vindicated her right to be recogyou a heart to shoot these birds? nized as the great commercial metropolis of the United States? We verily believe such is the destiny that awaits her.-Free Press.

For the New England Farmer.

Few know the value of the woodpecker, who constantly seeks for noxious grubs beneath the bark of your orchard trees, and so dexterously does its work. Will you shoot this bird? There is the "golden robin," that hangs her "reticule" on the limb of the graceful elm, ingeniously beyond your reach. She opens her voice with the ABOUT RAISING STRAWBERRIES. dawn of the morning in rich notes; she lives on I find that my neighbors who cultivate straw-worms and insects; give her thrums to weave berries in a very rich piece of garden ground, are her nest. Don't shoot this beautiful bird. so overwhelmed with weeds that they feel com- There is the thrush-he perches upon the treepelled to make a new bed every year or two. I top and directs you to "plow it," "furrow it," have had a bed in the same spot, a part of it for "drop it," and "cover it up," as a true monitor six and a part for five years, and for the past of seed time. Will you shoot him for this good three years have had comparatively very little advice? The merry boborlink, the lark that trouble with the weeds; the hoe and hand, three whistles, and that little Bible bird, the "spartimes in the season, being sufficient, including row," that chirps around your door, seeks a few therein once late in the autumn. I take poorer crumbs of bread, and becomes the pet of children. land and a larger piece--a piece where nothing Will you shoot these innocent birds? but grass or strawberries will grow, unless it be The hawk dashes into your brood of chickens weeds, owing mainly to the close proximity of with a relish for uncooked poultry, and carries two large elins, whose roots draw largely on the off his victim before the eyes of its terrified, besoil, and partly to the soil being a gravelly loam, seeching mother; yet his principal food is snakes, which has never received much that was enrich- mice and lizzards. So he is an expert fisherman, ing. Sometimes I have given the bed a dressing but there is plenty of fish in the sea for you. of well-rotted compost, sometimes of leaves in the Don't shoot the hawk.

fall, and sometimes nothing whatever. Last sum- The crow pulls up your corn, (soak it in copmer it produced 105 quarts of strawberries. The peras water as a preventive,) but he is your comdimensions of the bed I cannot now give, but mon scavenger, removes carrion and other offal, should suppose it would contain 1000 or 1200 eats worms, and is highly beneficial in his departsquare feet. I would not exchange it for one of ment. His music-any thing but agreeable to half the size, in rich soil, if I had to take the us-is heard by Him "who hears the young weeds also. ravens when they cry." Will you shoot this

As strawberries do not grow on bushes to ac- raven? commodate tall people, and as the sun always It was my intention to have merely sketched shines its hottest rays when they ripen, and it is these birds, that surround every New England a busy time, I find it advantageous to have a home. Wanton is the hand and wicked the bed sufficiently large to pay for the picking, by heart that revels in this destructive, indiscrimallowing my neighbors' children or wives to pick inate sport. Legislation is too tame upon this them on shares, giving me one-half, which half subject; law is disregarded; and, as conventions is sufficient for my family's present consumption, are the order of the day, why not have a great and for their preserve jars, and for the supply of national bird convention and decide whether, in several quarts to friends. God's providence, birds were sent to curse or to bless us. Yours, H. POOR. New York, March 15, 1855.

LEWIS S. HOPKINS.

Yours, &c., Northampton, Feb. 15, 1855.

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