For the New England Farmer. fectly free from stones, easy of cultivation, and MR. EDITOR:-My husband has for several adapted to wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, years been a subscriber to the New England Far- &c. Fruit, of all kinds, will grow here as well mer, and I am a constant reader of its pages. I as in any part of New England, if we except the have taken the liberty to send you a copy of my peach, which has not yet, to my knowledge, been scribbling on "Spring." It is a homely produc- tried. tion, I am well aware; but if you think it is not too late in the season, and is any way worth a place in the corner of your paper, I shall be glad to see it published. Yours respectfully, SPRING. MYRA MYRTLE. The poets they sing of the beauty of Spring, But they don't tell you half of Spring's glory. So each builds her a nest, and then lays like "possessed," There's the litters of pigs, dancing gallopade jigs There's the old turkey gob, strutting round like a "snob," Then the calves in the stable, fat and plump for the table, And the flocks of young lambs, frisking after their dams, The wild geese flying o'er to some far northern shore, The old mother hen's clucks and the quacking of ducks Yes, the poets they sing of the beauties of Spring, The poets they tell of the flowers in the dell, For the New England Farmer. MR. EDITOR: A communication from my pen appeared in the columns of a late number of your paper, the result of which is that the last two mails have brought me about fifty letters of inquiry, all requesting information of a character so similar, that, with your permission, I will give a general reply through the medium of your paper. I design to be as brief as possible in replying to the questions proposed, and my communication must necessarily appear somewhat incoherent, except to those particularly interested. All the surplus produce raised by the farmer can be sold at his door, and is consumed by immigrants and laborers in the pineries. There are no houses ready for the reception of immigrants. Two men, in two or three days, will throw up a log cabin, or a board shanty, that will be tolerably comfortable, and such are in general use in all new countries. Lumber can be obtained at $22 a $25 in the yard, and for $14 a $16 at the pineries on the Black and Chippewa rivers. The country is generally healthy. Most of the diseases are connected, more or less, with biliary derangement-some cases of fever and ague, but healthy immigrants are seldom troubled with it. There is no wet, marshy land in this vicinity, or in this part of the State. We have no parks or commons laid out in our town. He who piled up the hills and scooped out the valleys of this locality, has forever rendered all such places unnecessary. The current of the river, at this place, is about four knots an hour. Without particularizing the prices of provis ions, it may be safely calculated that the price of living here is 50 per cent cheaper than in New England. Stoves can be purchased here at about eastern prices, adding cost of transportation. Oxen, measuring 63 feet, are worth from $110 Hoping the information herein communicated For the New England Farmer. CALVES MARKED BY FIRST SIRE. MR. EDITOR:-On looking over the well-arLand for sale here is government land, and can ranged pages of the Agriculture of Massachube purchased at a distance of from 2 to 10 miles setts, page 273, it is said, to be "an established from the river at $1.00 an acre. No credit is fact, that calves possess the distinctive traits of given on land, and gold only taken in payment. character which prevailed in the animal that The most that one purchaser can take up at that first impregnated the heifer that bore them." price is 320 acres, and he must then make oath By which, I understand that all the offspring of that he wants it for actual occupation. Persons the same mother will be more or less marked with who have not cash to pay down, can pre-empt the peculiarities of the sire of the first calf. As160 acres, or less, and by commencing improve- sertions of this kind I have more than once seen, ments upon it within 30 days, can secure it for but never before in a form so authoritative. Can one year. If not paid for at the end of the year, this be a law of generation, among animals? If it is subject to entry by any other person. Oak true in animals, why not true in other classes of openings are tracts of land sparsely covered with beings? The principle is too important to be astimber, and free from under brush. Prairie and sumed without ample proof. It was long ago timber land, in juxtaposition, can be found in said that "one swallow does not make a sumlarge quantities. There is plenty of wood for mer." I confess, that I was a little started at fuel and fences. No coal has yet been discovered the assertion, without any note explanatory. I in this vicinity. The soil is a dark loam, per- think the cautious editor of the volume would never himself have penned such a sentence. If Some interesting facts on this subject were true, I should like to see a more distinct develop- stated, and valuable suggestions made at one of ment of the facts that tend to establish this the- the conversational meetings of the Massachusetts ory. Horticultural Society. S. Walker remarked that May 14, 1855. MULCHING. X. I was more ready to notice this exception, he had used tan, sawdust, litter, leaves, &c., but because I recognize in many of the papers correc- he believed short, newly mown grass one of the tions made that are decided improvements. This best things, he had mulched a great deal with volume I think a decided advance upon those it, and found it laid close to the soil. He also before published; and if I do not mistake, there recommended the succulent weeds of the garden is still room for further improvements. or roadside. He found tan and sawdust to be useful merely by retaining the moisture. D. Haggerston had found sedge from salts marshes best, particularly if cut short; a good watering upon it made it lay close to the ground. He This process, although known and practiced found it excellent for strawberries. He had also for many years by a few cultivators, has become found tree leaves excellent, if they had partly deextensively adopted only at a very late period. cayed, so as not likely to be blown away. Old It seems peculiarly adapted to our hot and dry hot bed materials made of leaves and manure had summers, and operates chiefly in preserving the proved particularly fine. Several spoke of the moisture of the surface, and in preventing the ill effects of too deep a mulching, but we think growth of weeds. The moisture at the surface the more common error is in spreading the coverof the earth from rains and dews, is quickly dis- ing of the soil too thinly. sipated under a hot sun; and if this surface is Mulching is a very easy and cheap practice, allowed to become covered with a dense growth and the season is now at hand when our readers of living grass and weeds, there pump out of the may prove by varying experiments the best mode soil and and throw off into the air a much larger of performance.-Country Gentleman. quantity of moisture than is evaporated by a bare surface of earth only. But if this surface is covered with a few inches of old straw, hay or leaves, the moisture is retained in the soil, and the growth of weeds prevented. As a general rule, we have found it most advantageous to leave the surface bare and keep the soil well mellowed till near mid-summer, and then to apply the mulching. For a covering of litter, while it promotes the humidity, also prevents the heating of EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. BLACK LEG IN CATTLE. MR. EDITOR-I wish to make the following inquiry through the columns of your valuable journal:-"Is there any known remedy for the cure of black leg amongst cattle?" Within the past few years I have lost more cat the soil, in and in this way may retard early tle with this disease than by all others combined. growth if applied to soon. There are exceptions, Gladly would I know and seek to obtain that however; one in the case of large, deeply-rooted preventive, if any there is, which shall arrest the trees not affected by nor needing mulching, and progress and restore to health the creature that the other which are removed in summer, need the may be attacked with this worst, it seems to me, careful and constant retention of the earth. We of all diseases a creature may die with. It has been said that bleeding as soon as they were athave succeeded, with scarcely one failure in fifty, in transplanting the strawberry drought this I have not much faith, as one of my neightacked with it, would surely prove a cure; of and heat of summer, by simply giving the surface a mulching of two inches of barn manure, he discovered him ailing, and to all appearances bors had one attacked which he bled as soon as and on which the watering was poured when necessary. Indeed, there is nothing that better it did him no good at all. prevents the ill effects of baking by surface water It seems "rather hard" to lose cattle, and gen ing, than a covering of this sort of a moderate erally the best ones in the lot, with this disease, depth. Mulching will, however, promote mois- and not be able to afford relief to them in any ture in the soil, even when neither artificial nor way, I hope to hear from some of your corresLatural watering is given, simply by arresting Fondents in regard to this subject. Ashfield, Mass, April, 1855. JOSEPH BLAKE. TO KILL TICKS ON SHEEP. such as rises upwards through the earth. In one instance a striking illustration of this effect was furnished during a very long season of drought, which injured and threatened to destroy a row of newly transplanted apple trees. Their leaves MR. EDITOR-In looking over the last number had already begun to turn yellow, and growth of your paper, I noticed an inquiry by a subscrihad ceased, but on coating ground about them ber from Deerfield, N. H., "How to kill ticks on with a crop of mown weeds, a change was soon effected, and in three weeks the leaves had re- answer, I would say kill the ticks on the sheep; sheep and lambs without injuring them ?" In turned to their deep green hue, and in some in- and there will not be any on the lambs; this may stances growth had recommenced. But on no be done by feeding to his sheep sulphur mixed with kind of tree is mulching more necessary than on salt in the month of March, given to them two or newly transplanted cherry trees. Thousands of three times; the quantity should be about three these are lost every season, after they have commenced growing, by the drying heat of mid-summer, and the evil is sometimes increased by superficial watering. A deep mulching will generally prove a complete remedy if seasonably applied. other time in the season will answer equally as pounds to one hundred sheep. I presume that any well, although I have never tried it except in March, while the sheep were about the barn. Ludlow, Vt. R. C. HAVEN. WHITE THIMBLEBERRY. THE WIRE WORM. MR. EDITOR-I saw an inquiry in your paper As this little insect is often very troublesome of the 15th ult. in relation to the white thimble- to many farmers, injuring their potato crop, I berry. They have been in several of the gardens thought I might be doing a favor by stating how of this town for the past ten or fifteen years. I they can prevent their perforating their potatoes. have some that fruited finely last season, but I The remedy is simply this-when planting the find that they will fruit better to be protected in potatoes, drop a piece or the whole of a cob in winter, and partially shaded in summer. They each hill, and the worms will gather around the may be bent down to the ground and covered cob and penetrate it instead of the potato. like the raspberry. The wood is of a pea green color, and exposure to the sun turns it to a dark brown. The growth is very luxuriant; some of mine grew last year twelve feet. West Danvers, 1855. J. S. NEEDHAM. TO PREVENT FOWLS FROM SCRATCHING. North Berwick, May, 1855. THE ONION GRUB. M. Y. A correspondent of the Gardener's Chronicle states that he has applied nitrate of soda to the plants with good effect in preventing the ravages of this grub. He used half a pound of the salt Among the latest inventions of the age is one for the prevention of that pestiferous scratching to a gallon of water, and applied eight gallons to of fowls. Loop a strip of thin leather on the a bed of ten yards in length. He states that it legs about five inches long, and you have accom- checked the progress of the worms, and the crop plished the object. Try it, and be sure and not turned out well laugh the first time you see them waddle. It is a perfect preventive. Vt., May 23. DIX PEAR. JOHN PATIENT. CURE FOR WARTS. J. M. Jessup, in the Country Gentleman, states that paring warts down with a sharp knife or razor until they bleed a very little, and then rub I have grafted the Dix pear on a medium-sized bing them with fine salt, will obliterate them; tree which bore the fourth year, and has borne and thinks the same process will have the same well annually since. I should like to inquire which is the best for milch cows; to give them salt at stated times, or to keep it by them. If at stated times, how much, and how often. A SUBSCRIBER. REMARKS.-Cattle will not take more salt than is useful to them, so that if it is where they can have constant access to it without waste, it is as well as any way. If at stated times, twice a week is often enough-as much as they will take. UNFRUITFUL APPLE TREES. effect on catile. TO DSETROY TICKS. A Subscriber, at Nantucket, says that one pound of tobacco, steeped in six quarts of water, and applied to sheep and lambs, will destroy ticks. VALUE OF STATISTICS. We published last week some strictures on the returns of the last census-four or five cattle and the same number of horse dealers in Ken MR. EDITOR-I have a fine lot of apple trees, tucky. Our attention was called, by a Rev. have taken much pains with them, scraped, dug gentleman, several months since, to the return of and manured them, but they do not bear-many apprentices in Massachusetts, which was as wild of them-as I could wish, and indeed, I think so as that spoken of in Kentucky. But it is not so much as they would, were there not some draw-much in reference to the inaccuracy of the returns back, not well perceived and understood. I find to which we wish to ask attention, as to the cauthe well-scraped trunks and limbs covered with tion required in drawing conclusions from such innumerable little gnat-like or rather louse-like returns, even if they were strictly accurate. For little things, whether animal or vegetable, I cannot certainly say, but apparently the former. Now what I wish, and for what I write, is an explanation and an antidote from you or your correspondents. Please answer, and oblige Northfield, N. H., 1855. A SUBSCRIBER. example, certain employments are deemed very healthy, others very unhealthy, and this conclusion is drawn from the average age of those engaged in those employments, or from the average age at which persons thus employed die. Now this at first view seems a just comparison, but a little thought will show that it is extremely fallacious. Professional men, as ministers, lawyers, and doctors, enter comparatively late into their J. H. Monroe, Esq., of Boston, informs us that business, and once entered remain through life. If common hard soap applied to the end of a re- they engage in some other employment, they still cently pruned grape vine, will effectually stop retain their profession, or so much of it that they the bleeding. Mr. NOURSE, the proprietor of the but they are comparatively few. Hence the average are counted in the number. There are exceptions, Farmer, has recently made trials of this remedy, is high. TO PREVENT GRAPE VINES FROM BLEEDING. and fully confirms the statement of Mr. Monroe, Again, on the other hand, shoemaking, printand thinks sawing better than cutting, as it leaves ing, making clothes, and all the varied mechania rougher surface, to which the soap will adhere cal operations, are called hazardous because a more readily than to a smooth one. In case of large proportion of those who die are young; but it should be remembered that a large proportion accident, this remedy may enable us to save a of those thus engaged are young. Comparatively valuable plant. very few learn a trade after they are 20 or 21 oxen, or mules, would be quite as economical on years old, and in this country very few continue a farm as elephants. But of this, I will leave to work at their trade after middle age. Look at the public to judge for itself, when I inform them the young shoemaker. From 21 to 30 he sticks that he eats three pecks of oats per day, and to the last and the awl, making an occasional about 200 lbs. of hay. The one I use is as docall among the farmer's daughters, and perchance cile as a cow, yet this is not always the case. getting a life lease of one of them. The heaven Three pecks of oats and 200 lbs. of hay per born desire of a home which he can call his own day, would be sufficient for six horses. Will is gratified. A little land, a cow, a pig, a garden, Mr. Barnum be kind enough to give us the live claim his attention. Still the shop is not de- weight of the elephant, and the exact amount of serted. Soon a larger piece of land, lying very food consumed on an average? near him, is for sale. It is added to his little homestead. He has now some plowing, haying and harvesting to do, and when Mr. A. is in a great haste for his boots, the weeds in his corn have a holiday. Soon a little more land is bought, We have examined some of the proof sheets a journeyman takes the shop, and at 40 the cen- of the "History of Medford," by the Rev. sus taker finds him in the field gathering his Charles Brooks, now in press, and find that crops, and writes him farmer. If our young shoe- the volume is likely to prove to be both inmaker had lived in a village instead of on a structive and entertaining. The author seems farm, there would have been a front shop, which to have been most thorough in his researches and would by degrees receive articles from the market his work will be one of great value and interest. as well as from the back shop, and our shoemaker We intend from time to time to make a few short would become a shoe-dealer-a shoe-merchant extracts from the volume. The following account -a merchant. Thus, with slight variations, we of the "Baldwin Apple" will be perused with inmight trace the history of thousands, who com- terest.-Transcript. menced business as mechanics or artizans, labor HISTORY OF MEDFORD. ing with their hands, and at middle age become far- To Medford belongs the introduction of the mers, manufacturers, merchants, &c. But, on celebrated "Baldwin Apple." The first tree, the other hand, who has known the farmer at 45 producing this delicious fruit, grew on the side become a shoemaker? A merchant at 40 become hill, within two rods of the former Woburn line, an artizan? Who has known a minister at 50, and about ten rods east of the present road which leave his desk and enter the work-shop of any leads from West Medford to the ancient boundary mechanic? No, it is not the way Providence has of Woburn. It was on the farm occupied by shaped our destinies. Mr. Thompson, forty or fifty rods south of what The farmer is the long-lived man; therefore used to be called the "black horse tavern." At every man desires to be a farmer, and to this end the request of Governor Brooks, the writer made shapes his plans and regulates his conduct. To a visit to that tree in 1813 and climbed it. It own a piece of land and cultivate that land, to was very old and partly decayed but bore fruit see the fruit grow and mature under his direc- abundantly. Around its trunk the woodpeckers tion, is a wish almost co-extensive with the race, had drilled as many as five or six circles of holes, where man is free and the end within the limits not larger than a pea; and, from this most visof human exertion. We would not say that all ible peculiarity, the apples were called "Woodemployments are alike conducive to long life. pecker Apples. By degrees their name was We do not believe they are. But we do say that shortened to Peckers; and, during my youth, the scale based on the average age of those living they were seldom called by any other name. or dying in any employment, is a most fallacious How they came by their present appellative is one, and leads us to most erroneous conclusions. this: Young Baldwin, of Woburn, afterwards a -Culturist & Gazette. PLOWING WITH AN ELEPHANT. P. T. Barnum informs the American Agricul turist that he has been plowing with an elephant for about a week. He says: colonel, and father of Loami, was an intimate friend of young Thompson (afterwards Count Rumford;) and, as lovers of science, they asked permission of Professor Winthrop to attend his course of lectures in natural philosophy, at Harvard College. Twice each week, these two thirsty and ambitious students walked from their homes He takes the subsoil plow and drives it down in Woburn to bring back with them from Cam16 to 21 inches, in a tight, hard sward, and bridge the teachings of the learned professor. moves so fast and easily, that it is hard to realize One day, as they were passing by the "Woodthat he has anything attached to him. He walks pecker Tree," they stopped to contemplate the nearly twice as fast as a horse, and plows as cor- tempting red cheeks on those loaded boughs, and rectly as the best broken team in the world. His the result of such contemplations was the usual attendant sometimes rides him, and sometimes one-they took and tasted. Sudden and great walks (fast) by his side, while another man holds surprise was the consequence. They instantly the plow. He also draws carts, stone-boats, exclaimed to each other that it was the finest (drags) loads wood, piles timber, picks up stones, apple they ever tasted. Some years after this, and makes himself generally useful about the Col. Baldwin took several scions to a public nursery, and from this circumstance they named the As for the profit of farming with elephants, I apple after him, which name it has since retained. have not taken that part into consideration, and In the gale of September, 1815, this parent tree probably shall not, though at a "rough guess,' fell; but very few parents have left behind so I should think, all things considered, horses, many flourishing and beloved children. farm. NAPOLEON AND URBANISTE PEAR. over this half a grain of strychnine; it kills the NAPOLEON.Rather large; obtuse-pyriform; rat before he can get to his nest. greenish pale-yellow, deeper in the sun, some- It would be wrong to let this statement pass, times a red tinge; stem rather short, rather stout, in a journal like this, without cautioning the in a slight depression; basin of moderate depth; reader that strychnine is a fine white powder, flesh whitish, coarse, melting, extremely juicy, of much like flour, made from the seeds of a fruit a sprightly, slight acid, delicious flavor. October which looks like an orange, growing on a modand November. Sometimes excellent, but rather erate-sized tree in the East Indies, in the island late and uncertain in this region, excepting in of Ceylon and neighboring islands. A sixth of a warm soil and loca-grain of pure strychnine will kill a dog in half a tions. Better furth- minute. One grain, which would easily lie on a er south. Does well three cent piece, or even less, may prove fatal to on quince or pear. than half a grain at a time, and by putting it on a man. Hence the reason for not mixing more -Ripen in a warm room. Foreign. a chip or dirty board, it would not be likely that children would taste it, although the mixture with flour looks very much like white pulverized loaf sugar. As it is such a deadly and instantaneous poison no more than half a grain should be purchased at a time; it should not be allowed to pass out of the hands of the head of the family for a single moment. The mixture should be placed in a room the last thing at night, the door focked, the key put in the pocket, and removed the first thing in the morning, by throwing chips and all into the fire, washing the hands well after doing so, as also after first mixing it, for a great deal less than a grain would kill a man, if it happened to fall on a sore or cut finger.-Hall's Journal of Health. In the last volume of the Essex County Agricultural Transactions, there is a capital article on this subject, by Dr. E. G. KELLEY, of Newburyport, which we read with a good deal of interest last fall, and intended long before this time to have placed portions of it before the reader. The portion which we now give below, no doubt will prompt many farmers to plow a little deeper than they ever have before: renders mulching and irrigation comparatively It turns the drought itself to good account, and useless, or, if used, more efficacious. During a dry spell and in trenched ground roots strike deeper in search of food and moisture, become. more extensively ramified, and sooner find the rich loam and manure intermingled deeply with The Scientific American says "Common red the soil. The leaching process, as it is called, wafers, scattered about the haunts of cockroaches, is reversed, and takes place upwards more than will often drive away if not destroy them." at any other time, or, in more scientific phrase, These wafers, like candies, are colored red by capillary attraction is increased. As each partioxide of lead; a most deadly poison, and so is cle of moisture is evaporated from the surface, it the acetate of lead, or sugar of lead, as it is some- is succeeded by another, and the whole soil is times called, on visiting cards, which being a lit- filled with the ascended moisture and gases, tle sweetish, has been known to destroy young which are appropriated by the numerous rootlets children to whom they were handed, to be amused as they have need. with. Fashion for once acts sensibly in discarding The wet season is also a blessing to the deep glazed cards, using instead Bristol board, more cultivator. The more rain, the more heat, ampliant, less cumbersome, and really more delicate. monia, carbonic acid, and other organic elements And while we are speaking of one of the pests of are left in the soil as it descends. As each drop housekeepers it may be well to know filters through, it is succeeded by another, or by HOW TO GET RID OF RATS, old, young, and mid-air, both essential to vegetation; and to dissolve, dle aged, with the shortest possible suffering to act on, or combine with, the inorganic elements them, and with small probability of their dying of the soil. As the water drains off, air is sure in their holes or other uncomeatable places. to follow, and this is the proper mode of its cirSpread a level teaspoon of flour or cornmeal on culation. Each is also generally at a higher a chip or small piece of dirty board, sprinkle temperature than the undrained land, and the |