Mowing machines were introduced, and used in the two horse machine capable of cutting and various parts of New England last year, and with spreading, with one span of horses and driver, varied success. Some being highly pleased with from 10 to 15 acres per day of any kind of grass, the work which they were made to perform, while heavy or light, lodged or standing; and do it as others were disappointed in the results, and a few well as is done with a scythe by the best mowers." abandoned them as being utterly incapable of confering any advantage to the farmer over the old mode of cutting with the scythe. year. Not having used the mower ourself, we prefer giving the testimony of others rather than express opinions of our own. WILLIAM S. LINCOLN, Esq., of Worcester, and one of the best farmers in the Commonwealth, Our own belief has always been, that the machine would be so improved as to come into general use, and prove highly serviceable. This opin- wrote last year as follows: ion has been greatly strengthened recently, by] WORCESTER, AUG., 1854. an examination of two or three different kinds of MESSRS. RUGGLES, NOURSE, MASON & Co.:machines, and noticing obvious improvements over GENTS.,-Agreeable to your request I return to those of the same manufacturer presented last you the ONE HORSE MOWING MACHINE left with me for trial, and in doing so cannot refrain from The cut at the head of this article represents giving my voluntary testimony to its great value. The machine was used by me to cut over about One of Ketchum's one horse mowers-it cuts a 30 acres of interval land. The grass was in many swath three feet wide, is much lighter than the places heavy and lodged, the bottom fine, soft and two horse, and if it proves well, will become a very thick. In some few places it was a light popular, and a great labor-saving machine. Messrs. crop of fine flexible dried grass, which yielded before the scythe. But whether in heavy thick botRuggles, Nourse, Mason & Co., Proprietors of tom or badly lodged, or in the places of lighter the right for New England, say, in a circular they yield, it cut alike well and close-closer indeed have just issued, that they are constructing the than I deemed desirable, or deem well for the entire frame work and finger-bar of wrought iron land. instead of wood (as represented in the cut above) the machine from the peculiar character of the I apprehended difficulties in the operation of which adds much to the strength and perman- surface of the land. It is an irrigated meadow, ence of the machine, while the weight is reduced not graded, intersected by ditches of different about 200 lbs. Again, they say, "We warrant width and depth, running in different directions, used for carrying on to its surface the waters of loads of muck, and twenty-five loads to the acre; the "Blackstone." Yet notwithstanding these plant with an early kind of corn, and as soon as obstructions the mowing was done to my entire the corn can be harvested, plow again and sow satisfaction. down to grass. Any remarks on the above plan, I may mention perhaps that I used different especially as to the quantity of lime in the comhorses at different periods of the trial, and am post, the quantity of plaster to be applied to the satisfied that a good horse of between 10 and 1100 acre, and as to the probability of getting a growth is sufficiently heavy to operate it. of clover, would be very gratefully received by a Amherst, N. H., 1855. NEW BEGINNER. After all I have said, perhaps you will find the best evidence of my perfect satisfaction with the machine in the order for one which I now give REMARKS.-We think your experiment would you. At any rate, it is the best test I can offer of be a judicious one. The quantity of lime you my entire satisfaction with its operation, and of my sincerity in the above. Yours truly, WILLIAM S. LINCOLN. In relation to the two horse mower, Gen. SurTON, of Salem, a farmer whom no one can visit without receiving material benefit, says:— "I can only say that your mower operated to my entire satisfaction, and I have no hesitation in recommending its use to any farmer who has a large quantity of hay to cut. I worked it altogether with oxen, upon ground of various surface, and found it to be eminently a labor-saving machine, economical and profitable. I am with respect, truly yours, WM. SUTTON." suggest is enough for one application, though many persons use a much larger amount. We would suggest that you cultivate the corn crop flat, instead of in hills, and at the third hoeing sow the grass seed and rake it in ; then you have your field stocked down. The grass seed, being shaded by the corn, is much more likely to come up than when exposed to the full rays of the sun. NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF FOOD. The excessive dearness of all kinds of food should induce not only habits of economy in its use, but should lead to the adoption of those articles of food for the table which are the most Numerous other certificates are given from nutritious in their quality, and which, fortunatepersons competent to judge of the merits of the ly for the laboring classes, are the cheapest in mower. Those not much accustomed to ma- price. Many persons go on in the old way, when chines, should not be discouraged if it does not food was plentiful and cheap, and use what costs come fully up to their expectations upon the first more wholesome articles of diet, considering the them nearly four times the price of better and trial; a little oil and a little patience may bring nutriment which they respectively supply. The every thing right at the second trial. The manufacturers state that the mowers they are constructing this year are made from entirely new patterns, and that they are simplified and improved in many ways. They add to their circular the following schedule of sizes and prices We construct three sizes, as follows: One horse Mower, 3 feet cut,.. ..Price, $90 00 No. 1, Two horse Mower, 4 feet cut.. ......100 00 "2, Two horse Mower, 4 ft. 8 in. cut,.........115 00 "1, Two horse Mower and Reaper combined..120 00 66 2, Two horse Mower aud Reaper combined..130 00 Extras to each Machine,-1 set of Cutters, 2 Cutters, 2 Fingers, and Wrench. Machines delivered at Boston or Worcester. RUGGLES, NOURSE, MASON & Co. comparative quantities of nutriment contained in the principal articles used as food have been tested lent books on the subject have been published, by strict chemical analyses, and some very exceland ought to be studied in all communities where the laboring population predominate. It would teach them to discriminate between the various articles of food, and be the means of introducing more generally among them the use of articles of a much better quality, more wholesome, and far better adapted to supply the wastes of the substance of the body caused by daily toil. The following results of such analyses, which we find in the Baltimore Patriot, derived from the best scientific sources, commend themselves to general attention for their value. It will be seen here what articles are the most nutritious. White beans, corn meal, wheat flour, barley meal, and rice are shown to be the very best kinds of food, For the New England Farmer. and these are the very kinds which are the cheapTO GET POOR LAND INTO GRASS. est to purchase and use. Potatoes, which are MR. EDITOR:-Will you allow me to make a enormous in price, lose more than three-fourths few inquiries through your valuable paper? I of their substance, and are the dearest kind of have a piece of land, the soil a sandy loam and food which can be used.-Philadelphia Ledger. somewhat exhausted. I wish to reclaim it to "It is proper to state that the articles were all grass as soon as possible, and not having much reduced to a perfectly dry state by evaporating manure, I have thought of the following plan, the water they contained, and then subjecting viz-plow the land in August, give it a thor- them to careful chemical analysis. The followough dressing with plaster, or plaster and ashes, ing table, divided into three parts, animal food, Sow to winter rye, with about ten or twelve vegetable food and fruit, shows the quantity of pounds of clover to the acre. When the rye is nutritive matter and of water in each article, and, taken off, plow it thoroughly, and the next spring by comparing one article with another, shows the manure with a compost of swamp muck and comparative value of each as food. But as all the lime, at the rate of about one cask of lime to five elements of nutrition are not of the same value, it must not be inferred that an article that contains a large quantity of starch, for example, is more nutritious than one that contains a small quantity of animal fibrin and no starch. For the New England Farmer. LETTER FROM MR. FRENCH. City of Washington, D. C., } Both starch and animal fibrin are elements of nutrition, but they are appropriated by the animal economy to very different purposes; the former to the formation of fat and animal heat, and the latter to the supply of all the tissues, bone, muscle, &c. The two elements are required in DEAR READER:-Washington is a lovely city in very different proportions, also, in forming food, the spring-time, especially when not beclouded and hence bread (though "men cannot live upon by the session of Congress. Having given in the bread alone,") with its 151lbs. of vegeto-animal Farmer some not very attractive pictures of the matter (gluten,) and its 50lbs. of starch of 35 market, and the agricultural specimens in the lbs. of water, forms a composition of nutriment more nearly complete than any other substance. streets, I feel now, when the leaves are already Starch is required in a much larger proportion developed in full beauty, and the roses are beginthan gluten in vegetable nutriment, and it is ning to unfold their buds, and the newly-mown furnished abundantly in all kinds of grain, beans lawns of the Capitol grounds are looking soft and and potatoes. If potatoes contained a small pro- green, like carpets of velvet-I feel now, when at portion of gluten, say 5 lbs. to the 100 lbs., then the North a cold storm of mingled rain and their nutritive property would compare with that of wheat flour in the proportion of 224 to snow has just passed by, as if I owed an apology 90. That is, potatoes would be worth just one to this more Southern climate, for any expresquarter as much by weight as wheat flour. But sions of disrespect I may have been "left" to as they contain no gluten nor caseine, and very drop in relation to it. Forgetting then the donlittle albumen, consequently little if any of the elements of proteine, a larger quantity of animal keys and darkeys, the scorching heat of last July, food of some kind is required to be combined with the thermometer at 90 day and night, for most with them than with bread, in the formation of of the month, the crisped leaves and seared grass of food. ANIMAL FOOD. 100 pounds fresh Beef con., 26 lbs. nut. mat., 74 lbs. water. 6. Veal, 25" 75 66 66 71 66 Pork, 24" that season of drought, let us take a more agreeable view than either summer or winter can afford us, of Washington in the spring. Looking out at this moment, from the library of a friend on Capitol Hill, into his garden at the rear of the house, I behold an arbor constructed with his own hand, completely covered with roses and honeysuckles and the Washington bower, intertwining their long pliant branches, and throwing out at the top a thousand waving shoots tipped with the bursting buds. Close by is a fountain, throwing high into the air a jet of pure water, sparkling in the light of the setting sun, and falling with a cool and pattering sound into the pool about it, while the children, playing upon the brink, now are watching the gold-fish and now pursuing the humming-birds; and my friend and brother, sitting on a rustic seat near by, with book in hand, finds little time for reading, but much for the enjoyment of the work of his own hands, and of hers, the divinity whose taste has directed the planting of the flowers, the training of the vines, and the wanderings of the walks among them. This is a rational happiness, the enjoyment of nature herself, which one may find if he have the taste for it, without unreasonable cost, in the immediate neighborhood of the Capitol itself. N. B. It must be borne in mind that the animal substances were all clear of bone and fresh, the vegetable fresh and deprived of skins, &c., and the fruits fresh and perfect. It will be perceived that mutton is the most nutritious, as it is The growth of trees, vines and shrubbery, is acknowledged on all hands to be the most whole- much more rapid here than in New England, so some of all animal food; that while beans are that one may create with nature's ready aid, a the most nutritious of all vegetable food, and plums are the most nutritious of all fruits; that wilderness of foliage and flowers under this warmfish is the least nutritious of solid animal food; er sun, while at the North, his trees planted at turnips the least so of all vegetables, and cucum- the same time would have scarcely recovered from bers the least nutritious of all fruits. the shock of transplanting. Washington now numbers about fifty thousand the North performed about three times as much inhabitants. Its "magnificent distances" are work as a slave! fast filling up with dwellings and public build- Good husbandry and energetic farming, are, ings. The new wings of the Capitol, and the however, not limited to New England men. I new dome to be added, will make it the most yesterday accepted an invitation from a leading magnificent edifice upon the continent. The Pa- merchant of this city, Mr. DARIUS CLAGGETT, to tent office,built of white marble upon a basement visit his farm on the Rockville plank road, about of granite, is a structure of which any nation five miles from Washington. His family reside might be proud. The broad grounds of the on the farm in summer, and Mr. Claggett himSmithsonian Institution, laid out and planted self comes to his city business every day except under the direction of the lamented Downing, Sunday and Friday. citizens. and Lafayette Square in front of the President's I have rarely seen a place which gave so decidmansion, the work of the same master, are con- ed evidence of good taste and good judgment, and stantly proclaiming the triumphs of his art and withal, of such persevering faith in our good genius. "The circle" of about one and a half mother earth, as this. Six years ago Mr. Clagacres, near Georgetown, and the triangular gett purchased three hundred acres of land, mostspaces laid out by George Washington himself, ly covered with a small growth of yellow pine enin his original plan of the city, are now under-tirely unimproved. In this short period of time going improvement and will be soon rescued from he has cleared and put under the plow one hun"the reign of the bare and the bald," and made dred and fifty acres, a large part of which is covgreen and beautiful. More than five thousand ered with a choice variety of fruit trees of all detrees have been planted the last and present sea- scriptions that the climate will produce. His sons upon the public streets, under the direction trees appear to be judiciously selected, carefully of the Commissioner of Public Buildings and pruned and protected, and making a growth far Grounds, who is no other than the friend and beyond what I have ever seen at the North. He brother before mentioned. Verily, there are has already 2500 apple trees, 450 pears, 1600 pleasant views that we may take of this goodly peaches, 150 apricots and as many plums. eity, and no one can fail to be impressed with the The apple trees are set forty feet apart, and foresight and wisdom and faith of the Father of the land among them planted with wheat in his Country, as the beauty and symmetry in the drills, with bare strips of a few feet in width plan of the town generally unfolds itself to meet along the rows. They are making generally a the increasing wants of the government and the better growth than we get in New Hampshire. I saw upon them marks of our old enemy, the borBut, it is not in the city alone, that improve- er, and far worse marks of the seventeen-year-loment is going on. Upon all the principal thor- custs of 1852. According to the theory, they oughfares into the country, the value of land for will not be here again until 1869, by which time its products is beginning to be appreciated. A our friend will, it is hoped, have been paid by thorough and intelligent cultivation is finding a the fruit of his trees for all his labors. He said profit where shallow plowing and shallow plow- that when the locusts had possession of his trees, men could not find a subsistence. I have before he could scrape from the body of a newly-set apgiven you a sketch of one of these improved ple tree a pint of the insects at once! His pear farms, owned by Mr. Morrison, a native of New trees, however, far excel his apples. Indeed, I Hampshire. The Yankees are doing wonders have never seen so large a number of pears toboth in this region and many parts of Virginia, gether, that appeared so healthy and as we say at upon what were considered worn out lands. A home, so thrifty as these. I saw no sign of the Virginia gentlemen whom I met recently in a sap-blight or winter-killing, but the trees seemed railroad car, informed me that in his own neigh- full of life, and many of them were full of fruit borhood, Northern men were setting a valuable already set. The peach orchard is already set example, and that he himself had adopted the for a large crop. In 1853, Mr. C. sent to the new idea of deep plowing, and was getting eight market 700 baskets of peaches, and his crop this barrels or forty bushels of corn, where he former- year will probably far exceed that quantity. He ly got but three or four barrels. He said a few has this year in grass, about 20 acres, in wheat years ago a negro and a man were the only force about the same, in corn about 40 acres, and in used to plow for corn, the plow being run from potatoes, about 12 acres besides large tracts of two to three inches deep. He had been travelling vegetables and small fruits, among the rest two in New England, and spoke highly in praise of acres of strawberries. He manures all his crops the energy and industry of the people, which he with Peruvian guano, 300 pounds to the acre, thought on Virginia soil would make them inde- plowed in, and thinks this will insure him abunpendent. He said he thought one free laborer at dant crops. Mr. Claggett has been for thirty years in his to the ball seed, which requires 3 or 4 years to counting-room, and never owned a farm before. mature. The farmer wants the potatoe fully deIndeed he informed me that he never saw a plow veloped to practice upon. He wants neither seed run in his life until he saw his own, on this farm. from the ball or small potatoes. It would seem to be a more safe doctrine to plant the largest, His labor is performed by a foreman, a native of best developed seed. In planting small potatoes the district, and six laborers, mostly Irish, with these pertinent questions arise. Do you winnow two yoke of oxen and three horses, a force by the out your small wheat, barley, rye, oats for seed? way, entirely insufficient to perform such mighty Do you sow inferior grass seed and clover? Do works on New England soil. I did not see the you save your small melons, cucumbers, squashes and pumpkins, for seed? Do you trace up your foreman, but cannot help suspecting that he is a small ears of corn or take the tips for seed? Do farmer of the right stamp. I have good faith in you set out small beets, carrots and the like, to the success of any intelligent man who will read gather seeds from? Do you go into the nursery and inquire, and spend his money freely that he and select small, unpromising trees for your ormay produce satisfactory results in agriculture. lambs or fowls, to propagate from? I need not chard? Do you save your smallest calves, pigs, Still it is a business not learned in a day, and I multiply the chances which would seem to be a have no reason to doubt the correctness of our violation of the common rules of progress. Every friend's remark, that "Farmer Claggett owes good farmer aims to go ahead. merchant Claggett a good deal of money." Again permit me to refer to the Long Island Such men, however, are public benefactors. off the seed end, to avoid small ones. farmers, who plant their largest potatoes and cut In digging They inspire others with faith in labor, and faith time no one would endorse the "depreciation in the heritage which a good God has given us, theory" of planting "small potatoes" if they and if they expend money in the experiments, could witness the large mercers thrown out with small ones. they derive from them the rational satisfaction scarcely any that they leave the earth better than they found Several years experience satisfied me, when sortAs before stated, I hope fair tests will be tried. it. H. F. FRENCH. For the New England Farmer. ing for the bins, half being small, that "small vocates. Brooklyn, L. I., May 19. For the New England Former. LABELLING FRUIT TREES. MR. EDITOR:-We cannot be surprised at the different theories and conclusions among men, in matters of religion, law, politics, &c., for reasons that selfish aims and party ends are sometimes objects to be carried without reference to virtue or beneficial objects for public good. But in matters Fruit trees should be distinctly labelled at the of the mechanic arts and of farming there is but time they are planted out, and when intended for one right way, to be profitably pursued, however an orchard, or where there are several together, much practice may vary. I respectfully beg to a plan should be made of them, with the name of differ widely from your correspondent, S. P., and the variety of each tree plainly written against also your own "remarks" in encouraging the it; then, in case a label is lost by accident, or planting of "small potatoes." Experience has otherwise, by referring to the plan the variety is been my schoolmaster. "S. P." does not say, at once ascertained. Much confusion and perwhen the "large potatoes" were planted, that plexity results from a neglect of this subject; gave his father "100 bushels not large enough fruit of the first quality is often exhibited from for the table," whether the season was one of grafted or budded trees, the name of which is much wet or extreme drought. Nature must have unknown to the owner, although the variety may been exceedingly harmonious on the one hand, or be quite common in many localities. over abundant on the other, to have given 100 Nurserymen should be exceedingly careful to bushels all small potatoes. I should attribute to correctly label their trees, as it is a disappointother causes rather than "large" seed, and then ment, as well as loss, to wait patiently several the singular metamorphoses of the large potatoes years for a tree to bear, and then to have it proturning into small ones, and the small ones to be- duce a different kind from what it was purchased come large again, shows the original large seed for; and should scions be taken from it for propretained its vitality, which had been acted upon agation previous to bearing, the evil might be by wet or drought the first season. much extended. Ecions should be taken from trees which we are Now the farmer who planted "large potatoes" without cutting (at the time the "robin's egg" absolutely certain produce the kinds their name size were planted,) over-seeded to excess. While indicates; the labels put on and kept on, so long 5 stocks to a hill is a full compliment, some 20 to as any of the bundle remain. When scions are 30 sprouts came from a large potatoe. What but obtained from others it should be from men in small vines and smaller potatoes could be expected whom we can place the most implicit confidence, from such a crowded hill? Why is a large po- and then mistakes will sometimes occur when we tato "an artificial growth" any more than a have used the utmost vigilance; but to make as small in the same hill with the same advantages few as possible should be the constant aim of all O. V. HILLS. to grow? So S. P. says "the native growth of propagators of fruit. the tuber is small." This we admit if he refers Leominster, May, 1855. |