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For the New England Farmer.

The substances above named, being derived from

cipal elements-carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hyFALL PLOWING AND THE CUT-WORM. drogen. When either amimal or vegetable matter is burned, it loses its texture and disappears, MR. EDITOR:—I see, by one of your late pa- leaving behind only a slight residuum of ash. pers, that there is some little discussion on the subject of fall plowing, and being in favor of it, I propose to speak of at least one very good reason the atmosphere, are released, and are termed orwhy it should be practised. I allude to the ganic elements, or constituents. All the multidestruction of insects in general, but to the farious forms and mutations observable in the andestruction of the cut-worm in particular. The imal and vegetable kingdoms, are attributable to farm I live on is the one which my father oc- the chemical combinations, through the operacupied for more than forty years; it is of a light, sandy loam mostly, and during his life the cut- tion of the vital principle, of these primary eleworm was very troublesome, sometimes destroying ments. whole crops in spite of all his efforts, (and they Vegetable oil and starch, sugar and animal fat, were not small,) but he never plowed in the fall. are, by fire, resolved into their original elementsSince I came in possession of the farm, and practised fall plowing, I have never lost a crop by the carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. These, with all worms, or been troubled, to any extent, if the substances of a similar nature, or character, are plowing was done late. the result of, and derived wholly from organized

I will give one instance, where a small part of matter. Wood, burned in the open air, has its a field was left unplowed on account of winter organic constituents dissipated; the inorganic parsetting in while I was about it. The land of ticles only remaining. In the ashes may be dewhich I speak was all under the same cultivation; the part plowed in the fall made 24 rows, tected magnesia, lime, silex, potash, oxide of iron, 16 rods long, and 10 rows from 16 to 10 rods, &c. These latter constitute the inorganic parts of equal to one row 514 rods long; the part not fall- the vegetable system, and are derived from the plowed was 8 rows, from 3 to 6 rods long, equal soil. It may be proper here to observe, that there to 36 rods of one row. The land was plowed and are many organic substances in which no strucmanured all alike in the spring, and set with tomatoes at the same time, and on the 36 rods I ture is visible. Gum, sugar and starch, are all lost more plants during the season than on all the found in plants, and yet are deficient in pores and rest of the 514 rods. It was my practice to go fibres; but being produced by the natural operaover the ground every morning, and kill the tion of living organs, are included, with proprieworms, and reset all missing plants at night, and

I kept an account of the whole transaction at the ty, under the head of organic matter. time, but it is several years since, and I have forIt would be well for our farmers if they could gotten the exact number. I have been particular analyze their crops and soils on which they are in making the account of the rows, as I have had produced. Few, however, are competent to do tomatoes on the same land this year, and make my calculations by the rows the present year. Yours, &c., B. F. CUTTER.

Pelham, N. H., Nov. 27, 1854.

this, and much therefore, remains enigmatical and unexplained. But as time advances, and science diffuses light over the earth, these mysteries will gradually pass away; and the farmer wil then discover that when he gathers in the rich fruits ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MATTER. of his industry in the fall, he collects together a Farmers frequently remark that they do not portion of what was his soil at seed time. In his comprehend the precise meaning of the terms "Or- wheat he will detect lime, flint, and a portion of ganic" and "Inorganic," as applied in agricul- clay. His Indian corn, a crop in which he justly ture. They are at a loss where to apply the glories, contains also the same materials though proper distinction which they suppose ought to differently modified in combination, and so do be observed in judging of the two forms as they most of the grains he cultivates. All vegetables occur in nature. must have a certain proportion of mineral matter All living animals and plants, and their carcas- to perfect them; and it it consequently impores, when the vitalizing principle of life has left tant that he should understand how he can best them, are composed of organic or organized mat- supply them by animal manures, or mineral apter. These are readily distinguishable from inor- plications where there is a deficiency of power to ganic matter by a structure visible to the eye, as supply them in the soil itself. Animal manures observable in the fibres of hemp and flax-the po- contain these mineral ingredients in a soluble rous structure of wood and flesh, and the more state, and consequently in a condition the most complicated texture of hide and hair. perfectly adapted for immediate appropriation.

Rocks and soils-the waters of lakes and oceans No particle of matter can enter into, or be assimi-all things, in short, that do not live, which neith-lated by the vegetable organism, until its texture er are nor have been the medium of vitality, are has been broken and modified by the solvent acto he included under the general division of inor- tion of water. ganic matter. Plants and animals of whatever

Thus, it will be seen that there is an intimate description, are composed mainly of the four prin- relationship, and constant interchange between

the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and principal ingredients that are wanting, they are the more perfectly we comprehend the laws of both cheap and easy to be obtained. At any this union, and the phenomena to which it gives rate, the crop is worthy of more attention than has hitherto been given it. The variety is what rise, the better shall we be prepared to avail our-is termed the blue stem winter wheat." selves of the riches and emoluments which na- Rye is a crop that, as a general rule, has been ture so prodigally holds forth as an encourage-treated very shabbily; but, as the straw has got ment to enlighten toil. to be so valuable now, it is considered worthy of better treatment. I believe there can be but

We should ever bear in mind the important little dependence placed on any soil (unless it fact that manures are endued with different de- contains considerable sand,) for a crop of rye, exgrees of energy, partly from their innate richness, cept what is usually termed burnt land. Now, and partly from the facility and promptness, with whether the application of ashes to the soil would which they part with their fecundating particles render the crop as certain on all lands as the to the soil, and to the roots of plants. These are burning of brush does on new land, or approxigiven off only in solution, or in ærified bodies, but it may be worthy an experiment. mate near to it, is a question I cannot answer, (gas,) the first taking the name of liquid manure, In regard to oats, I differ in two points from which penetrates the soil and is absorbed by it to many people. The first is the quantity of seed to feed the roots of the crop, and the other as air, be sown per acre. I hold that two bushels per which, if not absorbed and fixed by some sub-acre is enough for any land where there is grassstance for which it possesses a strong affinity, will seed sown; if there is more than that quantity sown, the young grass is killed in about the same pass into the atmosphere and be lost. It will proportion to the extra quantity of seed sown, hence be seen that the art of manuring consists (without a corresponding increase of grain,) by not so much in the liberality of your benefac- the oats lodging, shading, and exhausting the tions to the soil, as in the competency of the soil of moisture. If the season is such that the measures we adopt to prevent the escape of the young grass survives until harvest, and it is then soluble and gaseous products of the matters ap-dew before the sun. The other point on which I any way warm and dry, it will then perish like plied. differ is the time of harvesting. My rule is to It has been estimated by a late writer, that harvest when the oats have turned yellow about more than one-half of all the active nutrimental matter formed by the consumption and decay of organic substances, is wholly lost in consequence of the imperfect habits of our farmers in applying them. This is, indeed, an important considera- As for barley, I never could raise a remuneration, and no one who contemplates it philosophi- ting erop; whether from the want of knowledge cally, will find cause to question the verity of the in cultivation, or adaptation of the crop to the soil, is more than I can say. remark above quoted.

For the New England Farmer.
GRAIN CROPS.

REPORTED TO THE CONCORD FARMERS' CLUB, BY

JACOB B. FARMER.

half way down the head; at that time they will not shell by cradling; the oats are brighter, and the straw is worth nearly double for stock; this rule will hold good, to a certain extent, both with wheat and rye.

On all these crops I would recommend, in all cases, more manure and better cultivation, and with these the cultivator will find a largely increased profit.

Concord, Nov., 1854.

ACCIDENT.-Between five and six o'clock Mon

For many years past, it has generally been thought that wheat could not be raised in New day evening, a man who gave the name of WilEngland; but this I believe to be an error. For son, was found upon the track of the Boston and the past two years I have tried the experiment, Worcester Railroad, near Auburn Dale, in a and have succeeded better than I expected to, wounded condition, his nose being badly mangled, raising twenty-eight bushels of fine wheat on and the back part of his head severely cut. about one and a half acres. This is a greater

As

number of bushels than I have ever known to the five o'clock Worcester train from Boston grow of rye, on the same ground, in any one passed the West Newton crossing, a man was year for the last forty years, it having been sown seen upon the top of the cars, and it is supposed many times within that term. The soil is a very that this was Wilson, and that he was knocked light, sandy loam, well adapted to the growth of off by the bridge near Auburn Dale. He was rye. All the manure for the wheat consisted of taken into the house of Mr. Scribner and his two loads of meadow mud, two casks of lime, two casks of plaster and five or six bushels of wounds dressed. It is thought that he will rehen manure, well mixed and sowed broadcast, cover.- -Traveller.

and cultivated in with the wheat. I think it will

not be amiss to state here that there was a part

We learn from the Concord Patriot that

of the ground that had none of this compost on the sum of $11,000 has been subscribed in that it, and it had next to no wheat on it too. I am

satisfied, from the experiments that I made, that city towards the erection of a Unitarian church, the ground on which it was sown was deficient of in place of the structure recently consumed by lime and plaster to a great extent; if these be the fire.

We

A HOME IN THE COUNTRY.

to market the produce of the place, in order to make him work and contrive how he can best and copy the following from the Country Genquickest make a fair salary. Keep horses, cows, tleman. It contains so much sound, common hens, ducks, pigs; raise a great variety of vegesense, that we wish every business man of the city tables; have an ice house, if you can get ice; and to read it: now let us see where you are. Are you not independent? Hundreds of good-hearted men are toiling se- Milk, eggs, butter, and fresh, sweet vegetalles verely in our large cities, wearing out their bo- are luxuries in town-and these you will have in dies and brains in the hopeless endeavor to acquire abundance at the first cost of raising them, for what is called "a fortune," upon the interest of you pay your farmer no five per cent. on these. which they may support their families and them- Your family can have a horse and carriage to ide selves in the decline of life. Their families are with a luxury you seldom dare to indulge in already expensive, and, amidst the vicissitudes of when in town. Your house-rent is cheap, and if trade and business, how rarely is the wished-for the farm does not pay in $400 per year, you still happiness accomplished. It costs from $800 to will have $400 or $500 left of your ordinary ex$1,200 per year to support a family of five or six penditures for living to lay by, or pay off the children, in genteel position, in a city, and it mortgage, or improve the farm. If you have no would require at least $20,000 of positive cash to fruit on the farm, you may have plenty of it by do this without the aid of a business income. To planting trees, in three or four years; apples, support the family, then, and lay by enough to pears, peaches, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, ferm a moderate fortune, within the number of &c., enough to eat freely, and to sell to profityears that a man may reasonably count upon be- Your family get fresh air, pure water, plenty of ing successful in business, is evidently a hercule- exercise, and live in a simple and unexpensive an task, as times go. I know many men, in a manner, free from many of the evils of a great good business position, with $10,000 worth of city. You may combine with this the advantasteck on hand in their stores, a good credit, and ges of good schools, churches, and pleasant socievery free bank accommodations, who cannot sup-ty; and may let your family go to town often port their families in the manner described, for enough to keep the city polish from wearing enthree years in succession, and find themselves $500 tirely off. As for yourself, the pleasure of visitbetter off at the end of that period. They have ing your place two or three times a week, or of first a good year, and make $1,500 or $2,000, and tener if convenient, and spending the Sabbath in then a bad year, and lose two-thirds of former the country, will more than repay you for the accumulations. And so it goes. They are ab- inconveniences of even a partial separation from sorbed in business, they find no time for study or your family, should that be necessary. You will relaxation, the mind becomes fallow, and the body have little trouble about the working of your loses its vital spirit, and disease and misanthropy place if you give your farmer a per centage on follow. sales, for I have tried the plan and know how it Now, to such persons I wish to suggest a means works. Only remember this-get a good man, of becoming independent in a very few years and one who thoroughly understands his business. that happy result which teazes and puzzles the Now where are you? Are you not independbrains of so many ambitious mortals. We will ent? If you die, and keep up the life insurance say that you are in successful business and can (which will cost you less than $100 per year), possibly save $500 per year, or some years at least. Do this, and get together $2,200; take the farm, to say nothing of your business. If you you will leave your family $5,000 in cash and $200 of this, or less, according to your age, and put all your fruit and best improvements on one get an insurance upon your life for $5,000, for side, or one-half of your farm, your heirs can sell the benefit of your wife and children. Make it a off one-half the farm and pay the mortgage if it perpetual insurance, so that your policy shall not is not paid, and have the best half of the farm, run out, and the premium be raised; pay the first and all the cash left. If you have no sons, and year down. Then look about you, and find a your wife is not skilled in business, that would small farm, near the city where you reside, worth, be the better plan. Then, with a neat house and say $4,000 or $5,000. Let it be on a river or a good garden, plenty of fruit, a cow, a rig railroad, easily accessible from town, in about an poultry, a horse and carriage, and the income of hour's ride, without a horse and carriage. Pay $5,000, how comfortably the family could live, down $2,000 and give a mortgage for the bal- at home, as long as they should survive. And all ance; let the place be varied in the character of this can be done for $2,000 to $2,200. There its soil, and as pleasant and attractive as possible; are a hundred other suggestions which rise to my let there be plenty of good water, and a little mind, in connection with this subject, but I will stream if possible; a small pond, and a grove of not write them out now. They will occur to evshade trees and other natural advantages and natery reader. ural beauties, if such can be found. If there are fruit trees, strawberry beds, &c., upon the place, Why, then, toiler in the city, wait till you acso much the better; if not, let the cheapness of quire a fortune of $20.000 or $50,000 before you the land and its undeveloped natural advantages resolve to become independent and make your decide you; send your family to this place (profamily so? Why not look out for a home in the vided, always, your wife takes a fancy to go); hire country and make yourself independent, with a gardener and farmer who understands his busi- $2,000, as soon as possible. I know of no other ness, and pay him two-thirds the ordinary salary; It is a great deal better than going to California that way you can do it so easily and so certainly. with the addition of five per cent. of all the cash in search of gold. proceeds of the place he can obtain, by sending

SPIRIT OF THE AGRICULTURAL

PRESS.

ON BEAUTIFYING THE FARM.

Never was truer thought uttered, than this of the American Agriculturist, that "the time has fully come when our farms should cease to be regarded as mere manufactories of food and the raw material of clothing." It is commenting on an article in the November number of the Horticul

sentiments will be established in the minds of

those mingling in such scenes, will grace and dignify the fireside, the pulpit, the bar, or Senate chamber in maturer life, and awake in others a higher appreciation of the beautiful.

There is a taste for the beautiful in every cultivated mind. The farmer shows it when he turns out his noble pair of Devons, or his Jersey heifers to the wondering gaze of his neighbors; or points out the graceful curves of his polished plowshare,or the exact lines of his recentlyturned furrows. His wife and daughters manifest their taste of the beautiful in the neat lawn, 40 by 80 feet in front of the house, the groups of maples and birches, the shrubs and flowers, and the noble elm standing in the centre as the presiding genius of the whole. A few flowers in the window, a rose-bush under it, or the Ampelopsis or Bignonia over the porch attract and gladden the heart of the traveller, so that he goes on his way with kindly thoughts of his own, and of that home

turist upon "Parks and Pleasure Grounds for the Farmer," and says further,—"It is one of the great wants of our times that these farms should be turned into attractive Christian homes, where men and women shall not only work, eat, sleep and die, but where they shall enjoy life, as social and religious beings, and by loving and cultivating the good and the beautiful on earth, be fitted for the paradise of God. A man should no longer be considered a good citizen, who does not plant trees enough, and give time and money enough, to make his homestead so attractive that it shall retain some of his children to fill his place tiful. Then, where there is land enough, why when he is gone. Multitudes of these old homenot extend these ideas, and let them expand over steads in the north are forsaken, mainly because several acres and call them a park, where the there was nothing but the sternest utility about best sheep and cows and calves may graze,them, in the whole circle of the year." and which will afford equal profit with any other acres on the farm,-where friends may visit, and children stroll and store up unnumbered ideas of the useful and the beautiful?

where he saw the evidences of a love for the beau

Cannot those ingenious" statistical men," who tell us what the effect of occupation is upon the mind and duration of life, tell us, also, what the effect is of the agreeable and beautiful upon the It may be urged that there is no call for the temperament and longevity of the race? It is a farmer to plant forest trees and form parks, common opinion that country life is largely con- either to please the eye or as a protection from ducive to health and happiness, and consequently sun and wind. But the objection would be to vigorous old age. But these cannot be im- without force in thousands of cases. A baleful puted wholly to exercise in the open air, for "spirit of utility,"—a spirit without foresight or many other classes enjoy the same opportunities, judgment, has swept away the finest forests in the and fail to reach as many years as the farmer. land. The "Capotoline Hill" at Washington, Is it not fair, then, to suppose that the constant was covered with noble and majestic oaks when impression upon the mind of the wise and benefi- Washington planned the city, and when the founcent provision in the changes of the seasons, in dations of the Capitol were begun. But ruthless their varied aspects, the ever-varying landscape, hands were laid upon them, and with blind fatuoccasioned by heat and rain and frost, the won- ity, one after another, their towering heads were derful instincts of animals, of birds, and insects, levelled in the dust, and now it will require a coming to the view of the farmer as they con- hundred years, together with a liberal portion of stantly do, have a healing and saving influence the treasure of the nation, to remedy the evil. So upon his mind? What orator ever forgot the on most of our farms, the beautiful forest trees inspirations he found in nature's grand cathe- were all cut where the buildings were to be erectdral, the forest, or the lessons in the stones or ed, and in their vicinity, leaving it open, bleak, running brooks that were familiar to his youth- and exposed to the full play of the elements; and ful rambles? The mind becomes deeply imbued this is the situation of thousands of our New by the scenes familiar to it in early life. If those England homesteads now. Is there not, then, scenes represent violence and vice, the home and good reason to introduce about these homesteads, habits of bandits and freebooters, the crop of something more of the useful and the beautiful ideas which follow will be quite likely to partake combined.

of the character of those scenes. On the other

THINNING FORESTS.

hand, if the home of the farmer is surrounded by This subject is the natural corollary of the one something of the tasteful and beautiful, in the just discussed. "A New Englander, near Clareway of lawns, groups of trees, shrubbery, and mont, N. H." has published in the Germantown occasional paths, borders and flowers, kindred Telegraph an article on the subject of thinning

"Land of the forest and the rock,"

and along the timber-tenanted shores of the gended Songo and broad Sebago, where the pine, peering to heaven,

"Fit for the mast of some tall admiral,"

two!

For the New England Farmer.

How

forest trees, which we think ought to be placed cating teeth. The grain to be ground is placed on record, and give it below. in a hopper above the corrugated cylinder, and is MR. FREAS:-The question is often asked, the concave described and the cylinder, and is made to rotate, when the grain passes between whether wood lots should be thinned? For my crushed between the spiral flanches of the conown part, I am now convinced, after no limited cave and the corrugations on the cylinders, and is reflection and observation, that they should not. then discharged, ground, by an opening in the I have seen a growth of wood, natural growth I end of the concave. This mill is now in use, and mean, greatly and irreparably injured by it: and grinds four bushels per hour by one horse power. I can see no reason why our grain and grass Scientific American. crops should not be sown thin, or thinned out by hand, as well as our woodland crops. The soil is generally found competent to support all that it puts forth, in the case of this class of vegetation, MONTHLY FARMER FOR DECEMBER. and the heaviest, tallest, and most majestic The title page and Index remind us that another growth of wood and timber is always to be found in new countries where the axe and smoke of civ-volume is completed-another year gone. Years ilized man have never been known. There seems, seem short as we grow old. When young, we indeed, to be something contaminating and stul- hurry up time; when old, time hurries us. slowly comes Twenty-one; how rapidly Fortytifying in his very presence to the beautiful productions of the natural forest. I have spent many Yet, instead of growing dizzy or stupid a happy and laborious winter in the dim old as the "wheels of time fly swifter round," the better course is to "work, for the night cometh," woods of Maine, which may well appropriate to and instead of surrendering at the first summons itself the poetic appellation of of old age, bravely reply, like good soldiers,"Come, and take us." Is it not as much the dule-ty of the old to preserve, as it is of the young to tall improve the mind? "Old men for counsel," is the dictate of prudence. The young and inexperienced need this, and they look to the pages of and the majestic oak, made the wilderness which the Farmer for it. But they will not find it had nourished them for centuries, tremble as they there, if old men, who naturally love quietude fell before the logger's glittering axe; and al- and repose, do not, like old Solomon, seek out and though I have seen the trees standing so compact- set in order, the proverbs of their experience. ly as to prohibit the passage of sleds, I have found It is a common complaint that the sons of farmthat this closeness of growth was not, to all ap- thers. Is this strange? Think of the models that pearance, detrimental, but rather the reverse. One thing impresses itself upon the mind of the are placed before them. Plutarch's Lives! Any beholder, as rather remarkable. I allude to the book of biography! Kings, Generals, Congressalmost total absence of dead or decayed limbs on men, Merchant Princes,-what "copies" these for the farmer's boy! "BIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN the trees constituting these vast primeval forests. When a tree has completed its period of growth, FARMERS, Vol. 1." Although I have not yet seen and lived perhaps for half a dozen centuries, it the Prospectus of this work, I have seen in the dies, decays and falls; but the younger and Farmer of this year what I hope will prove to be healthier trees are straight, sound in all their the germs of such a production: sketch of the life limbs, and furnished with a most beautiful pro- of Richard Bagg, and of other friends of agrifusion of foliage, and of the deepest green. I culture, and very brief notices of several men in have frequently passed through clumps of spruce, it strikes me, is a fine field for old farmers. You connection with statements of their farms. Here, occupying acres, and all the trees of more than medium size, where it was impossible to proceed may not have marched an army over the burning more than a few yards in a right line, the dense-sands of Africa, nor been Governor, nor made a ness of the growth necessitating and literally com- fortune by trafficking with Indians or Chinese, but pelling frequent divergencies to avoid the trees. you have a good home, have raised up and educaYet here had been no trimming or lopping-the ted a family, and therefore, must have done somegrowth was as nature produced it, sound and thing-what have you done? Shall not the healthy, and to all appearances to remain so for, word Biography or Autobiography, have a place I have no doubt, hundreds of years to come. But in the index to the next volume of the New Engas soon as man commences his presumptuous "Index to the Sixth Volume."-It is a laborious work of assisting nature in this department, she ceases, in a great measure, to assist herself; be- job to make out an index to such a volume as the comes diseased, with a morbid lassitude pervad- twelve monthly numbers of the Farmer make.— ing all her system, and finally yields to the destroyer, whose kindness to her is death. A NEW ENGLANDER. Near Claremont, N. H., Nov. 22, 1854.

ers are not satisfied with the business of their fa

land Farmer ?

And the person who made the one before us, probably feels that no one ought to find any fault with it. But he will allow me to suggest what, for my use, would be an improvement. I should prefer to have every thing that relates to a few of the leading subjects, placed under their respective GRINDING MILLS.-An improvement in mills heads, so that when investigating any particular for grinding feed has been made by Amory Felton, subject, I should find in the index reference to evof Troy, N. Y., which consists in the employ-ery thing in the volume relating thereto. Taking ment or use of a corrugated cylinder and a con- "Manures," for instance, I would like to find uncave and cap having spiral flanches and recipro-der that word, every thing that is mentioned in

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