Danvers-port, June 16, 1855.. S. P. FOWLER. with specific descriptions of all our birds. Such a few minutes, at a few cents expense, which, by a book is wanted by the farmer and horticultur- ordinary process, would have demanded several ist to place in their library, for reading and ref- days and dollars to extirpate. Had some of them erence, alongside of other works on the cultiva- lay on railroad route, it was estimated that to tion of the farm or the garden. "Laura" also, remove them, by Irish labor, might have cost and other persons, who love to study the beauti- from ten to twenty dollars. ful in nature, would like to own a perfect and This machine should rank among the many comparatively cheap edition of American orni- appliances of a civilizing kind which characterize thology. Who will furnish such an edition? our times. It causes the crooked to become straight and the rough places smooth, and spreads fertility and a charm over rugged nature. No town, no group of towns, can apply this instrumentality to their fields without sensibly proA "WAKE" AMONG STUMPS! moting their beauty, thrift and value. The town OR, THE "ORANGE STUMP PULLER" IN FITCHBURG. of Orange, where the proprietor resides, is a Willis, with his machine, was on hand accord- happy illustration of what we have in view. ing to promise, and assailed the stumpy race Gentlemen were present from that place, and teswith vigor and success. Many hundreds, perhaps tified touching its practical bearings among them, thousands, during the day, were witnesses of his where it is most known and has been most used. exploits. The power of the machine is great and Many of their best fields have been brought into astounding. With a single yoke of cattle, the notice, in some sense created, by the agency of power made to bear on a stump rose from twenty- this machine. This may be known and read of five to eight hundred tons purchase; and, with all, for, as the intelligent traveller glides through suitable gear, I see not why it might not be in- the smiling village of South Orange, he everydefinitely increased so as to move mountains as where sces evidences of fresh improvement; he well as massive roots. sees large fields of rough land becoming smooth, The stumps he routed were not pigmies, but and new and beautiful fields breaking into view, altogether respectable in girth and expanse of as by enchantment, and on inquiry he learns that root, and most of them rather recently cut; and the Patent Stump Puller has had a hand in all had they remained undisturbed, they might have this advancement. outlasted the most robust man or boy, who saw them hurled from their dominion. The average time consumed on each may have been five minutes, though sometimes, by the aid of crosschains, four and five would heave up at once. few hours covered a large area with huge carcasses; it was what "war hawks" might call a A DESTRUCTION OF WOOD. Dr. Hawks, in a late address before the New York Geographical Society, said: "Civilization uses a vast amount of wood, although for many purposes it is being fast superseded; but it is not the necessary use of wood "well-fought field," with, however, no blood or that is sweeping away the forests of the United groans. The spectators were impressed with but one sentiment, to which they gave enthusiastic States so much as its wanton destruction. We utterance, namely, that the "stump puller" has should look to the consequences of this. Palesthe element of prodigious power, a power easily tine, once well wooded and cultivated like a applied in promoting the good appearance and garden, is now a desert-the haunt of Bedouins; value of rocky and stumpy lands. Every farmer Greece, in her palmy days the land of laurel forwho has lands to cultivate or occupy by buildings, in the cradle of civilization, are now covered beests, is now a desolate wast; Persia and Babylon, knows that their value is much diminished by these odious excrescences-excrescences that may cation of their forests. It is comparatively easy neath the sand of deserts produced by the eradiout-live him and his sons after him; the many live and live on through sunshine and storm, and to eradicate the forests of the North, as they are look with scorn on the longevity of the great other; but the tropical forests, composed of inof a gregarious order-one class succeeding anmajority of mortals. Moreover, as the eye was made for beauty, and numerable varieties, growing together in the most democratic union and equality, are never eradibeauty for the eye, who can look on a lawn-like, verdant field, without being happier? Or who cated. Even in Hindostan, all its many millions can look on a field snarled and blackened by the phoenix-life of its tropical vegetation. Forests of population have never been able to conquer stumps, without wishing these "eye sores" dispatched to Guinea or Botany Bay? Still, many melting and evaporation, and producing a regularact as regulators, preserving snow and rain from a farmer will perhaps daily pass and repass, for a quarter of a century, a spectacle of such deformity in the flow of the rivers draining them. When ities, and wish it gone, all gone, and he, and the they disappear, thunder storms become less freson in his likeness, will live wishing, and die wish-quent and heavier, the snow melts in the first ing, and there ends the stump stir with him. warm days of spring, causing freshets, and in the Whereas, should he arouse himself to a little ac- fall the rivers dry up and cease to be navigable. tion, and apply this "puller," the first day might These freshets and drouths also produce the malthrow up an acre of these "eye sores," the second aria, which is the scourge of Western bottommake of them a durable fence, the third plow the lands. Forests, though they are first an obstacle field, the fourth plant or sow it, and then, loaded to civilization, soon become necessary to its conand waven with fertility, it would at once remind us of the field that Heaven had blessed. The economy of this operation must not escape notice. Stumps were drawn on this occasion, in tinuance. Our rivers, not having their sources above the snow-line, are dependent on forests for future prosperity of the country that they should the supply of water, and it is essential to the be preserved." EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. GRUBS IN CORN. glad to promote such an object, if they understood it rightly, and grant a few small prizes for MR. EDITOR :-Will you, or some of your nu- the society; a rude stage upon a common would the competitors. It would be of no expense to merous correspondents, inform me through the answer all columns of the Farmer, whether there is any repurposes; and here the young farmer medy for the grubs which are destroying whole future usefulness. There are many ways, permight be preparing himself, in several ways, for fields of corn, pumpkins and young hops, in this haps, better than this, in which the officers of our vicinity. VERDANT FARMER. societies, had they inclination, might help the Elmore, Vt., June 16, 1855. forgotten plow-boy and stimulate him to higher REMARKS.-We know of no remedy but that of examples. Will they not take note of this, and FARMER BOY. the thumb and fingers; and a careful application remember us at future shows? of these will accomplish much. It is a tedious REMARKS.-Yes, Mr. "Plough Boy," we will and unpleasant process, we admit, but a necessa- take note of what you say, as your suggestions ry one. There is seldom but one worm in a hill, are of a practical character, and in the right diand an observing eye will soon detect his opera-rection. Our Middlesex Show is to be holden on tions upon one of the plants, and a plunge or two the 26th of September next, and we now offer one of the fingers into the ground will bring him to premium of three dollars and another of two dolthe light, when he may be despatched. Perhaps lars for the first and second best declamation some of our writers may suggest a different rem- upon any agricultural subject, by any young man edy. THE RAPE PLANT. between the ages of 14 and 20 years. The exercise to take place at some convenient time on that day, by the composer himself, and not to exceed ten minutes in the delivery. Competitors to be eligible from any town in the State. PRESERVING FRUITS. DEAR SIR-J. R.," in the first June number of the Farmer, recommends the raising of rape or cole for various purposes. Having received a parcel of seed from the patent office, through the politeness of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, the last year, perhaps some of your readers would like to know of new kind of cans for preserving fresh fruits and success. I was requested, if successful, to report vegetables. Can you give your readers any inthe result to this (the patent) office. formation concerning them? What their size, my MY DEAR SIR-I send enclosed a notice of a I sowed a part of the seed as soon as received, price, &c., and whether they can be procured in (in May, 1854,) on good corn land. The plants Boston? It is very desirable to find something to came up well and flourished finely until Septem-accomplish the object proposed, easily and ecober, when the leaves withered and fell off, leav-nomically. If you can aid the public by advice ing the bare stem, without flowering, a dry mon- or information on this subject, you will do a good ument to mark the spot where something of the work. Yours very respectfully, W. CUSHING. cabbage kind had grown. A neighbor, wishing Bedford, June 7, 1855. for cabbage plants, took some two hundred of the REMARKS.-Arthur's patent air-tight, self-sealplants and transplanted them for cabbage, and his ing can, is manufactured and sold by Arthur, success was the same as mine. Farther experi- Burnham & Co., at 60 South Tenth Street, Philments may be more successful, but I fear rape in our vicinity will prove an uncertain crop. adelphia. The prices are for pints, $2 a dozen ; Sudbury, Mass., 1855. quarts, $2,50; half gallon, $3,50; and gallons, $5,00. It is said the can receives no injury whatever in being sealed or unsealed. Green currants MR. EDITOR-Cattle-show day is a day of or gooseberries may be kept perfectly good for great importance to us farmer boys-a kind of a many months by sealing them up with wax or second fourth of July. But still, it is not a day rosin in clean junk bottles. We have tomatoes of as much importance as we wish it were, and think it ought to be. A number of the "plownow (June 25) perfectly good put up in bottles boy family" met a few evenings since, and were last October. They were stewed and salted a talking-I will not say discussing, for fear you little, and turned hot into hot bottles, and sealed may think we were reaching beyond our sphere with common red sealing wax--the whole being a about our cattle-shows, and the thought naturally perfectly simple and easy process. YOUNG MEN-CATTLE SHOWS. A. B. ABOUT POTATOES. arose, why cannot we take an active part and have direct interest in our fairs? We are now limited to a certain extent, in a few particulars, and in these are under the control of others, so MR. EDITOR-Being a subscriber of your valthat, if there are any honors or satisfaction uable paper, I have noticed for the last few weeks gained, they obtain them. In other words, while a controversy upon the potato between “S. P." we are beating the bush, they are catching the and "B. W." Having myself had some experibird. We wish for something we can exercise ence in the business of raising potatoes, I wish to our own abilities upon, free and independent of relate an instance that came under my observaothers. Why cannot we have a declamatory or tion. In the spring of 1854 I planted an acre of oratorial exercise? There are many wealthy and ground with potatoes. One-half I planted with influential men, we have no doubt, that would be large and the other with small potatoes. The ground upon which the small potatoes were Pliny, who lived at the time of our Saviour, says planted received the same amount of manure and good wine was that which was destitute of spirit. the same attention in hoeing. I received 120 Plutarch calls that wine best which is harmless, bushels from the acre; 70 bushels from the part and that the most useful which has the least planted with large and 60 from the part that was strength, and that the most wholesome in which planted with small potatoes. Now if "B. W." nothing has been added to the grape. will explain this falling off, not only of the amount but size of the potatoes, I would be obliged. Yours truly, TO DESTROY THE ONION MAGGOT. C. S. The Commissioner of Patents has had a bottle of excellent wine presented to him, which, he says, has no intoxicating power. I apprehend no difficulty in making such wine, and having it improve by keeping. The grape can be kept the Tobacco steeped in water and poured along the year round, and the juice pressed out when rows, directly upon the plant, will effectually wanted. Every family, or physician, or church prevent the ravages of the onion worm. This I officer can make what is needful, and keep it in have from several reliable gardeners, who speak small quantities easier than in large, and know from experience, and thinking it worth knowing what they are using.-PHINEAS PRATT.—Amerithrough the community, I send the statement to can Agriculturist. the Farmer, (everybody's newspaper,) for publi cation. Lebanon, N. H., June 18, 1855. BUCKWHEAT OR TURNIPS. INGHAM. What can I sow to advantage on a piece of new land prepared for millet, (but cannot get the seed,) a part of which is well fished. I am more in want of a crop than benefit to the land. W. P. H. PROFITS OF FRUIT. Examples almost without number may be given, where single trees have yielded from five to ten dollars a year in fruit, and many instances in which twenty or thirty dollars have been obtained. If one tree of the Rhode Island Greening will afford forty bushels of fruit, at a quarter of a dollar per bushel, which has often occurred, forty such trees on an acre would yield a crop REMARKS.-There is plenty of time for a crop worth four hundred dollars. But taking but oneof buckwheat, ruta bagas or flat turnips. GRAPES AND WINE. In your paper of last July, I observed a valuable piece on the use of the grape as a food or medicine, which was too good to pass unnoticed. quarter of this amount as a low average for all seasons, and with imperfect cultivation, one hundred dollars would still be equal to the interest on fifteen hundred per acre. Now, this estimate is based upon the price of good winter apples for the past thirty years, in our most productive districts; let a similar calculation be made with The most eminent physicians, and men who fruits rarer and of a more delicate character. have travelled in grape countries, agree with you. Apricots, and the finer varieties of the plum, are It is a common saying, that in wine countries often sold for three to six dollars per bushel; there are but few drunkards. The writer in the the best early peaches from one to three dollars; Observer finds an exception in Paris? What less and pears, from hardy and productive trees, two could be expected of a city like Paris. There is to five bushels per tree, with good management, a wonderful difference between a man's sitting is a frequent crop; and on large pear trees five under his own vine, eating the fruit and drinking times this quantity. An acquaintance received the juice, and going to grog-shops and other de- eight dollars for a crop grown on two fine young testable places, and taking their wines and other cherry trees, and twenty-four dollars from four intoxicating poisons. young peach trees, of only six years' growth Alcohol, whether clear or adulterated, tends to from the bud. In Western New York, single create unnatural thirst, till, like a poisoned rat, trees of the Doyenne or Virgalieu pear have often he drinks himself to death. The pure juice of afforded a return of twenty dollars or more, after the grape, or the fruit, tends directly the other being sent hundreds of miles to market. An way, and also to give strength and health and acre of such trees, well managed, would far exvigor to the system. ceed in profit a five hundred acre farm. The grape is of the easiest culture, by slips, But the anxious inquiry is suggested, "Will cuttings, grafting, or transplanting from the not our markets be surfeited with fruit?" This swamps. There is in this region the best of table will depend on the judgment and discretion of grapes, and the best of wine grapes of native cultivators. With the exception of the peaches growth; the former ripening in August, and of Philadelphia and the strawberries of Cincinbeing sweet, productive, and free from pulp. I nati, a great deficiency is still felt in all our large suppose they may be found elsewhere. There are cities. Of these two fruits, large plantations are families in this place who have made and kept brought rapidly into full bearing. The fruit, for years excellent wine for medical purposes, of when ripe, quickly perishes, and cannot be kept fine flavor and color, and without adding alcohol, a week; yet thousands of acres in peach trees, spirit, or coloring matter to the wine. There are bending under their heavy crops, are needed for two skilful physicians near by, who use this the consumption of the one city, and broad, fifty wine, and no other, for medicine. acre fields, redden with enormous products, send One of the greatest pleas for using intoxicating many hundred bushels of strawberries daily into liquor is, the idea that our Saviour used, di- the other. If, instead of keeping but three days, rected it, &c. A very great mistake and absurd- sorts were now added that would keep three ity. The wine he made was that which he dis-months, many times the amount would be needed. tinguished by calling it the fruit of the vine. But the market would not be confined to large For the New England Farmer. APPLE? cities. Railroads and steamboats would open new channels of distribution throughout the DOES THE CURCULIO PUNCTURE THE country, for increased supplies. Nor would the business stop here. Large portions of the eastern MR. EDITOR-I have a fine-looking young orcontinent would gladly become purchasers, as soon as sufficient quantities should create facili- chard of 100 Baldwin trees, set twelve years ties for a reasonable supply. Our best apples ago on rocky upland on the west side of Mystic are eagerly bought in London and Liverpool, Pond; the soil is uneven, from gravelly knolls to where nine dollars per barrel is not an unusual loamy hollows, underlaid with blue gravel; it is price for the best Newton Pippins. And by an excellent soil for peach trees both to grow and being packed in ice, Doyenne pears, gathered to bear; it is situated high, commanding a view early in autumn, have been sold at mid-winter in of Boston and vicinity, yet it is mainly what Calcutta, peaches have been safely sent to Ja- would be called a warm, sheltered location, on maica, and strawberries to Barbadoes. The Bald- account of the forests above it on the north-west. win apple has been furnished in good condition This orchard has blossomed repeatedly, yet no in the East Indies, two months after it is entirely fruit is obtained of any amount: for the fruit is gone in Boston. punctured in thesame manner as plums by the curculio, but with not exactly the same results; the fruit, by means of the marks, if it holds on, becomes knotty as it grows, and consequently worthless; the marks are already made to the number, on some, of seven or eight, or more. GOOD ADVICE. Eat only what is proper food; Drink only that which does you good; FADELESS IN A LOVING HEART Cheeks be pale and eyes be dim; SIMPLE TRUTH. There's not of grass a single blade, Or leaf of loveliest green, Where Heavenly skill is not display'd Or Heavenly Wisdom seen. FAMILY JARS. Jars of jelly, jars of jam, Jars of cordial elderwine, Jars of honey superfine : Would the only jars were these There was a fine blossom this year, enough to produce, were the trees on the plain, two hundred barrels of fair fruit; but with the operations of those insects I do not expect hardly a single barrel of handsome apples. Now can you or any of your able correspondents give any light upon this subject, and tell me whether I can ever expect fair apples on that soil and location? If things go on as they have thus far, the sooner I cut down the apple trees and set out peach trees, the better. I should have remarked that the land has been kept under the plow the whole time, and good crops of vegetables obtained. JOHN P. WYMAN. West Cambridge, June 16, 1855. REMARKS.-We have no doubt that the cureu lio does puncture the apple. What the remedy is to be we cannot say. Lime, plaster or ashes will prevent their depredations on plum trees, but the operation on an orchard, unless the trees were quite small, would be too tedious and expensive. Will correspondents enlighten us? TROUTING. We put into the brook just below a smart foamy fall. We have on cowhide shoes and other rig suitable. Selecting an entrance we step in, HAY FOR COWS IN SUMMER.-An observing, in- and the swift stream attacks our legs with imtelligent and successful farmer informs us that he mense earnestness, threatening to take us off is in the practice of feeding his cows with hay in from them. A few minutes will settle all that summer, particularly if the season is such as to and make us quite at home. The bottom of afford flush pastures. His reasoning is that a the brook is not sand or gravel, but rocks of full, rapid and vigorous growth of grass gives to every shape, every position, of all sizes, bare cattle that feed upon it, a desire for something to or moss-covered. The stream goes over them absorb the excess of the juice in their food. Dry at the rate of ten miles an hour. The descent is hay they devour greedily, and though in ever so great. At every few rods cascades break over small quantities, evidently with the most benefi- ledges and boil up in miniature pools below. cial effects. Every farmer must have observed The trees on either side shut out all direct rays that in dry seasons, horses, cattle and sheep, kept of the sun, and for the most part the bushes line in good condition upon herbage parched and ap- the banks so closely, and cast their arms over so parently scant, while in wet seasons, in tall pas- widely, that they create a twilight-not a gray tures, though always full, the process of fatten- twilight losing its lustre, but a transparently ing with them was slow. Dry fodder in such black twilight, which softens nothing, but gives cases is required to give substance and tenacity more ruggedness to the rocks, and a sombre asto the green, and can be profitably used by feed-pect even to the shrubs and fairest flowers. ing it to horses and cattle.-Newburg Telegraph. It is a great matter to take a trout early in For the New England Farmer. your trial. It gives one more heart. It serves to keep one about his business. Otherwise you ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. are apt to fall off into an unprofitable reverie; MR. EDITOR-I have been a reader of your you wake up and find yourself standing in a dream, half-seeing, half-imagining, under some paper some three or four years, and, of all the covert of over-arching branches, where the stream agricultural publications with which I am acflows black and broad among the rocks, with quainted, I give it the preference. Its columns moss-green above the water and dark below it. are filled with matter interesting to every farmer. But let us begin. Standing in the middle of Through it we learn the results of experiments, the stream, your short rod in your hand, let out and practices of farmers in various parts of the twelve to twenty feet of line, varying its length State, country and world. according to the nature of the stream, and, as We have a seminary of learning in our town, far as it can be done, keeping its position and that manufactures school-teachers by the dozen, general conduct under anxious scrutiny. Just but where are our agricultural writers? We here the water is mid-leg deep. Experimenting have farmers among us who are growing rich by at each forward reach for a firm foothold, slip-raising hay, milk and cabbages, and others growping, stumbling over some uncouth stone, sliding ing poor by raising weeds, lice and caterpillars. on the moss of another, reeling and staggering, Will not both classes give some of their experiyou will have a fine opportunity of testing the ence? We have no farmers' club, but political old philosophical dictum that you can think of clubs are well attended. Our farmers annually but one thing at a time. You must think of half buy several hundreds of bushels of corn, yet some a dozen; of your feet, or you will be sprawling raise corn to sell. in the brook; of your eyes and face, or the If a person, in passing through our town by branches will scratch them; of your line, or it railroad, were looking for the beautiful in natwill tangle at every step; of your far-distant ural scenery, and highly cultivated farms, he hook and dimly-seen bait, or you will lose the would soon wish to take up a morning paper and end of all your fishing. At first it is a puzzling he should have occasion to alight at the stopping have the car-wheels "fly swifter round ;" and if business. A little practice sets things all right. Do you see that reach of shallow water gath- places on the road, at one he will find himself on ered to a head by a cross-bar of sunken rocks? the skirts of a barren plain, with here and there The water splits in going over upon a slab of a few poor old cows, vainly trying to satisfy the rock below, and forms an eddy to the right and cravings of hunger by clipping its scanty growth one to the left. Let us try a grasshopper there. of grass; at another, the cars will leave him Casting it in above and guiding it by a motion of upon the edge of a swamp, with not an acre of your rod, over it goes and whirls out of the cultivated land, or scarcely a human habitation myriad bubbles into the edge of the eddy, when, in sight; but his ears may be saluted with the quick as a wink, the water breaks open, a tail hooting of owls and the melody of bull-frogs. flashes in the air and disappears, but re-appears Yet there are pleasant locations, fertile farms, to the instant backward motion of your hand, handsome residences and beautiful orchards, away and the victim comes sklittering up the stream, over the tree-tops in the distance. Seekonk, Mass., March, 1855. R. For the New England Farmer. INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. whirling over and over, till your hand grasps him, extricates the hook and slips him into the basket. Poor fellow! you want to be sorry for him, but every time you try you are glad instead. Standing still, you bait and try the other side of the stream, where the water, wiping off the bubbles from its face, is taken toward that deep MR. EDITOR-In the article selected from the spot under a side rock. There, you've got him! Scientific American, in your last on this subject, Still tempting these two shores, you take five in the author did not, as I could discover, underall, and then the tribes below grow cautious. take to account at all, according to his theory, Letting your line run before you, you wade for the phenomena of volcanoes, hot springs, &c., along, holding on by one branch and another, taking into especial regard such as the geysers fumbling with your feet along the jagged chan- of Iceland, and water volcano in Central Amernel, changing hands to a bough on the left side, ica. I may add here that the discussion of this leaning on this rock, stepping over that stranded subject receives additional interest at this time, log. Ripping a generous hole in your skirt as from the fact that Vesuvius, that once overyou leave it, you come to the edge of the petty whelmed two "cities of the plain," and in the fall. You step down, thinking only how to keep admiration of the terrific scenes attending one of your balance, and not at all of the probable depth its most remarkable eruptions, so graphically of the water, till you splash and plunge down described by Pliny the younger, the elder lost into a basin waist deep. The first sensations of his life, is now again, for the fiftieth time since a man up to his vest pockets in water are pe- the Christian era, belching forth its floods of culiarly foolish, and his first laugh rather faint. molten elements and deluging the country with He is afterward a little ashamed of the alacrity desolation. with which he scrambles for the bank. A step R. H. H. or two brings him to a sand bank. But while CABBAGES.-The value of cabbages for breedyou are in a scrape at one end of your line, a ing, especially dairy stock, is probably greater trout has got into a worse one at the other. A than is usually supposed. The field cultivation little flurried with surprise at both experiences, of this plant is much on the increase among the you come near losing him in the injudicious haste farmers of Great Britain. The amount of nutriwith which you overhaul him.-Beecher's "Star ment matter which is capable of being raised Papers." |