American Pocket Library of Useful Knowledge/Agriculture
AMERICAN POCKET LIBRARY.
AGRICULTURE.
IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE.
“The task of working improvement on the earth is much more delightful than all the vainglory which can be acquired by ravaging it with the most uninterrupted career of conquests.”–Washington.
The great business of our country is agriculture. Because it feeds us, and furnishes the materials for our clothing; it gives employment to five-sixths of our population; it is the primary source of individual and national wealth; it is the nursing mother of manufactures and commerce; it is essential to national independence. Agriculture is worthy the most liberal patronage of our governments, state and national; it ought to be enlightened by a better (and thorough) education of the agricultural class. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, stand together; but they stand together like pillars in a cluster, the largest in the centre, and that largest is agriculture. We live in a country of small farms; a country, in which men cultivate with their own hands, their own fee-simple acres; drawing not only their subsistence, but also their spirit of independence, and manly freedom from the ground they plough. They are at once its owners, its cultivators, and its defenders. And whatever else may be undervalued, or overlooked, let us never forget, that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labour of man. Man, without the cultivation of the earth, is, in all countries, a savage. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization. If there lives the man who may eat his bread with a conscience at peace, it is the man who has brought that bread out of the earth by his own honest industry. The profession of agriculture brings with it none of those agitating passions which are fatal to peace, or to the enjoyment even of the common blessings of life: it presents few temptations to vicious indulgence; it is favourable to health and to long life; to habits of industry and frugality; to temperance and self-government; to the cultivation of the domestic virtues; and to the calm and delicious enjoyments of domestic pleasures in all their purity and fulness!
Measures (a Substitute).–A box 24 inches by 16 in. square and 28 in. deep, will contain a barrel. A box 16 inches by 16 8-10 in. square, and 8 inches deep, will contain a bushel. A box 8 inches by 8 4-10 in. square, and 8 inches deep, will contain one peck. A box 4 inches by 4 in. square, and 4 2-10 inches deep, contain one quart.
IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL PAPERS.
A good agricultural paper, contributed to by practical and scientific farmers, will be of service in many points of view. It is a storehouse of agricultural knowledge, from which farmers may always draw something new and serviceable. For its contents are made up of the best opinions and best practices, and accurate experiments of the best farmers of the world combined.
The leading object, indeed, in the publication of an agricultural piper, is to afford to farmers a common medium through which to impart and receive instruction. Amongst the most intelligent farmers in the land are always found the best patrons of agricultural newspapers; where the land is in the highest state of cultivation, and where the domestic economy is all regulated in perfect order, you will invariably find agricultural newspapers, and intelligence to appreciate them: but they are seldom met with, where neglect and ignorance prevail! Some farmers may fail for want of sufficient capital, but more for want of sufficient knowledge. There is no class who place more entire reliance on their skill than farmers, yet no one who is acquainted with the general agriculture of the country, will assert that it has yet reached the perfection of which it is susceptible. The intent of cultivation is to obtain the greatest possible amount of produce from the soil; the farmer’s object being to raise it by such means as will afford him the largest profit with the least labour; and there can be no doubt, that the more scientifically he proceeds, the more effectually will both objects be gained.
There is not a subject which absolutely admits of a greater improvement than the cultivation of the soil: vast improvements are in progress, and will yet be made to an almost infinite extent; the slumbering energies of the farmer are awakening up, and agriculture, the broad foundation of a nation’s prosperity, is unmantling some of the brightest features of her hidden glory!
Encourage your Agricultural Papers.
Musty Grain is made sweet by putting it in boiling water, (double the quantify of grain), letting it cool in the water, and then dry it well. Skim the water.
A single Weed may draw out the nourishment that would have given fulness to half-a-dozen ears. To be free from taxes, is far less important than to be free from weeds.
From the Address of Nicholas Biddle, Esq., before the Philadelphia Agricultural Society. Oct. 1840.
Besides lime and other enriching substances, the cost of the mere animal manures applied to the soil of England, amounts to three hundred millions of dollars; being more than the value of the whole of its foreign commerce. Yet the grateful soil yields back with interest all that is thus lavished upon it. And so it would do here, if we would only trust the earth with any portion of our capital. But this we rarely do. A farmer who has made any money spends it not in his business, but in some other occupation. He buys more land when he ought to buy more manure; or he puts out his money in some joint stock company, to convert sunshine into moonshine–or he buys shares in some gold mine or lead mine. Rely upon it, our richest mine is the barn-yard, and that whatever temptations stocks or shares may offer, the best investment for a farmer is live stock and plough-shares. ****** No soil can withstand a succession of grain crops; and instead of letting it lie fallow in order to recruit from its exhaustion, as was the old plan, the better practice now is to plant in the same field a crop of roots. These draw their nourishment from a lower region than the grain crops do; they derive a great part of their food from the atmosphere, by their large leaves, which at the same time shelter the soil from the extreme heats; they provide a fresh and juicy food for cattle during the winter, thus enabling us to keep a large stock, which, in addition to the profit on them, furnish abundant manure with which to return to the grain crops. Now this should be our effort–more roots–more cattle–more manure–then more grain. ****** All these improvements which may adorn or benefit our farms, are recommended to us not only by our own individual interests, but by the higher sentiment of our duty to the country. This is essentially a nation of farmers. No where else is so large a portion of the community engaged in farming; no where else are the cultivators of the earth more independent or so powerful. One would think that in Europe the great business of life was to put each other to death; for so large a proportion of men are drawn from the walks of productive industry and trained to no other occupation except to shoot foreigners always, and their own countrymen occasionally; while here, the whole energy of all the nation is directed with intense force upon peaceful labour. A strange spectacle this, of one, and one only, unarmed nation on the face of the earth! There is abroad a wild struggle between existing authorities and popular pretensions, and our own example is the common theme of applause or denunciation. It is the more important then for the farmers of this country to be true to their own principles. The soil is theirs–the government is theirs–and on them depends mainly the continuance of their system. That system is, that enlightened opinion, and the domestic ties are more stable guarantees of social tranquillity than mere force, and that the government of the plough is safer, and, when there is need, stronger than the government of the sword.
IMPORTANT FACTS.
“A spot of land which, when pastured upon, will yield sufficient food for only one head, will abundantly maintain four head of cattle in the stable, if the crop be mown at a proper time and given to the cattle in proper order. The soiling yields at least three times the quantity of manure from the same number of cattle; and the best and most efficacious summer manure is made in the stable, and carried to the fields at the most proper period of its fermentation. The cattle, when used to soiling, will yield a much greater quantity of milk, and increase faster in weight while fattening than when they roam the fields, and they are less liable to accidents–do not suffer by the heat, flies or insects, and are not affected by the weather, escaping also many disorders to which cattle always abroad are liable. Each head of cattle fed in the statble, if plentifully littered, yields annually sixteen large double cart-loads of dung.”
A visiter to the farm of Josiah Quincy, quoted in the Farmers’ Cabinet, says:–
His farm is extensive, and surrounded by a flourishing hawthorn hedge, but there is not an interior fence on the premises; the whole presents a single field, devoted to all the various purposes of agriculture; no part of it is allotted to pasture, properly speaking, as his cattle are fed in their stalls, and are never suffered to roam over the fields; and the advantages of this system are thus given–formerly, there were seven miles of interior fences to be kept in repair, but by keeping the cattle up, the whole of this expense is saved: formerly, sixty acres of this farm were devoted to pasturage, but now, a greater number of cattle by one-third, are kept on the products of twenty acres, and I never saw cattle in better condition. The saving by these means is enormous, and the immense advantages arising from it too apparent to be dwelt upon. During the summer, the cattle are fed upon grass, green oats or barley, cut the day before, and suffered to wilt in the sun, and the manure which is thus saved will more than pay for the extra expense and trouble. The farm is most highly cultivated, and every kind of grain and vegetables have a place.
Near London, it is the custom to sow large quantities of oats, to be cut green for stall-feeding the milk-cows; these are always sown on land most highly manured for the purpose, with four, and sometimes five bushels of seed per acre; the yield is prodigious, and is found to be one of the most valuable crops that can be grown, coming off the land in time for a full crop of turnips for the winter, or of late potatoes.
Fences. Around each post hill the earth, to carry off the water, and charr the end a few inches above the surface. Cedar fences last about 15 years, which should lead owners to inquire where the fences are to come from hereafter.
Manure.–Every farmer can double the quantity of his domestic or yard manure, with scarcely any additional expense. At least fifty per cent. of the nutritive properties of yard manure are lost by drenching of rains, excessive fermentations, and injurious application to soil. MANURES.
Under the improved system of a rotation of crops, root culture, and alternation of grass and grain, combined with yard and stall-feeding of sheep and cattle, the quantity of manure produced on the farms has in many instances been quadrupled, and the amelioration of the soil has been in the same proportion.
Ship loads of bones have been carried from this country to Europe to be crushed and used as bone-dust in fertilizing their soils; and we have been compelled to purchase, at exorbitant prices, of those nations, the wheat and other grain, that this same manure would have produced at home, and at the same time have lost to our farms the fertility it would have imparted.
Scrapings of streets, leached ashes, lime, refuse from skin, leather and soap boilers’ shops, slaughter houses, bones, weeds, salt, and any kind of animal or vegetable substances, by the addition of earth, may be largely increased in quantity and made to enrich and fertilize the soil.
But whatever improvements or discoveries may be made, it seems clear that the farmer for manure must rely mainly on his stables and yards, and his study should be to render these most efficient and available. One main object should be to prevent the escape of the liquid and volatile parts of the manure, as experience proves that these are the most active in exciting or supplying plants with food and thus accelerating their growth. The yards and the stables should be provided with litter, such as straw, hay, leaves, weeds, &c., with vegetable mould or muck, with the wash of roads or the overflowing of streams, in sufficient quantities to absorb and retain the urine and other liquid parts of the manure, and where these cannot be obtained, common earth or dry sand will be found of great utility in preventing the loss which must ensue where these parts of the manure are allowed to escape from the yard. If when the farmer cleans out his yards, he were to cover them with a hundred loads of vegetable or absorbent earth, he would find in the following year a greater number of loads of the most valuable manure, the greater part of which, without such precaution, would have been wholly lost.
Rotted manure may afford at limes more benefit to a particular crop, or may be more conveniently applied to some crops; but as a general rule, manure should be rotted in the ground where it is wanted. Some crops are rarely injured by any quantity that can be given them, as corn, potatoes, and roots generally; of course such should have the advantage of the first process of decomposition in the manure, while its after effect is reserved for the grains and grasses.
The great object in the application of manure should be, to make it afford as much soluble matter as possible to the roots of the plant; and that in a slow and gradual manner, so that it may be entirely consumed in forming its sap and organized parts.
All green succulent plants contain saccharine mucilaginous matter, with woody fibre, and readily ferment. They cannot, therefore, if intended for manure, be used too soon after their death.
By covering dead animals with five or six times their bulk of soil, mixed with one part of lime, and suffering them to remain for a few months, their decomposition would impregnate the soil with soluble matters, so as to render it an excellent manure, and by mixing a little fresh quick-lime with it at the time of its removal, the disagreeable effluvia would be in a great measure destroyed; and it might be applied in the same way as any other manure to crops.
Green vegetables, when put under the soil and submitted to the process of decomposition, are efficacious in restoring exhausted soils. Buckwheat and clover are striking instances of this power in green crops to fertilize soils, and both have been extensively used for this purpose.
PLOUGHING.
Much time and labour is saved in ploughing long instead of short ridges. For instance, suppose the ridges are 78 yards long, four hours and thirty-nine minutes are spent in turnings in a day’s work of eight hours! whereas, if the ridges are 274 yards long, one hour and nineteen minutes are sufficient in the same length of time.
Plough deep. Let a farmer examine the extent and depth to which the roots of grain, in a loose and favourable soil, will spread, and he will cease to wonder at the failure of a crop where the subsoil has never been stirred by the plough.
Small fibrous roots of vegetation extend to a depth, where the soil is loose and deep; and where vegetables thus take root they are much less affected by drought. The soil being turned up to the action of the sun and air, becomes enlivened, and better fitted for producing vegetation. An acre of land yielding a ton of hay, at the usual season of ploughing greensward contains more than twelve tons of vegetable matter, consisting of the roots and lops of grass, and other vegetable remains upon the surface. Such a method of ploughing, then, as will be best calculated to secure for the benefit of the crop, this mass of enriching substance, the farmer should not hesitate to adopt. By completely inverting the sward, and laying it as flat and smooth as the nature of the ground will admit, and then cultivating without disturbing the sod, with the application of a dressing of compost, land may not only be kept in heart, but wonderfully improved.
The Plough.–By so placing the coulter as to form acute angle with the plane of the share, on the land side, the beam is brought more directly over the centre of the plough, as is the case with Prouty & Mears’ improved plough, and thereby the power necessary to move it, is applied more directly to the centre of resistance, and the force required to move it, and overcome this resistance, is of course less than when applied, as in other ploughs, on one side.
The difference in the force required for ploughs now in use, has been ascertained to be 100 per cent.; showing the great importance of its structure. The work which one team of horses or one yoke of oxen can perform at one plough, will require two yoke at another! GRAINS.
General Remarks.
The compounds in vegetables really nutritive, are very few; farina, or the pure matter of starch, gluten, sugar, vegetable jelly, oil and extract. Of these the most nutritive is gluten, which approaches nearest in its nature to animal matter, and which is the substance that gives to wheat its superiority over every other grain.
There is a particular period at which each species of seed ought to be sown, in order to bring the plants to a perfect state of ripeness.
The condition of the land is, in fact, the best guide; for, if it be in a mellow state, between drought and moisture, the seed may be put in with confidence. Some kinds, however, prefer a dry and warm soil; others, that which is more humid and tenacious. Thus, barley, rye, and buckwheat, succeed best on the former; and wheat and oats on the latter.
The depth at which seed should be sown is a matter of nicety, as well as of importance. If too deeply buried, germination is impeded, and may be altogether prevented; while, if sown too shallow, sufficient moisture is not left in the surface to afford nourishment to the roots of the plants.
The depth at which seed ought to be placed must, therefore, be regulated by the nature of the soil. If stiff, more moderate covering should be used than if light and porous; wheat, barley, and oats also require more than rye or buckwheat; but, except in a few instances, from one and a half to three inches, is in every case, the lowest to which it should be carried.
Seed should be selected from the earliest and most perfect growth of the preceding year. Too much attention cannot be bestowed on this part of the operation, as every kind of seed will produce its like. Late sowing requires one-third more grain to the acre, than if put in early. Land, naturally very rich and too highly manured, is apt to cause during the hot season of summer a too rapid growth of the straw, at the expense of the seed.
Wheat.
The white are superior in the quality of their produce; the red are the more hardy; and in general, the thin and smooth-chaffed are preferred to the woolly and thick chaffed.
The produce of wheat sown in spring acquires the habit of coming much sooner to maturity, than the produce of that sown in autumn. Hence the farmer, when he sows wheat in spring, should sow the produce of that which had been already sown in spring, and not the produce of that which had been sown in autumn.
This change in the habit of ripening, though it may at first view appear somewhat singular, takes place in all the cereal grasses, and also in many other cultivated plants. The minor varieties of any species of wheat, under given conditions, will remain unchanged for an indefinite period; under other circumstances, however, they degenerate–and hence, particular kinds that were once valued, have now ceased to be so.
The soils of the lighter class are the best suited to wheat; and it is an error in practice to force the production of wheat on soils, and under circumstances which are better suited to the production of the other grains.
No wheat, however clean or beautiful, should be sown without being soaked 12 hours in a pickle of strong ley, brine strong enough to float an egg, or lime water, and after being drained, should be rolled in powdered lime.
As the wheat crop generally receives no after-culture, the soil should be brought into as fine condition as possible. Manuring and thorough culture are indispensable.
If it be desirable to sow wheal after a fallow crop of rye, oats, &c., the land should be immediately ploughed or thoroughly harrowed after it is cleared–then one good ploughing with sufficient harrowing is a good preparation for the seed.
As a large crop cannot be sowed in a few days, it is better to begin a fortnight too early than a week too late.
Two bushels of seed to the acre of winter wheat, is not too much: less than six or seven pecks should never be sown.
By sowing too thin, the growth of weeds is encouraged to the great detriment of the growing crop and the loss of the owner.
Ploughing in wheat is best, especially on worn land. The depth at which the seed is buried is more regular, and gives the young plants a stronger bold on the soil.
Corn.
As a general rule it may be laid down that any crop which matures so large a quantity of seed, must exhaust the fertility of a soil much more than a crop which does not produce seed, such as the root crops.
There is probably no other crop that produces so much nourishment for man and beast as this does. It was the opinion of “Arator,” that it was “meal, meadow, and manure.” And the manure which might be made from the fodder that is produced, if returned again to the soil from which it was taken, would keep it in a constant state of fertility, and in fact increase it from year to year.
To plant, plough well in the fall and early in the spring. Manure and harrow well. Select from the host stalks large sound ears–throw out the small, ill-shaped grains from each end. Soak in strong liquid of rich manure 12 hours. Put four grains in hills four feet apart each way. Cover one and a half inches deep, and press down with foot or hoe. Apply leached ashes or plaster, after the corn is up. Use the cultivator instead of the plough, which cuts the roots and makes them bleed–besides, all that is now needed is to keep the ground loose, well pulverized and free from weeds.
The ravages of the wire-worm may be stopped by slacked stone lime.
Of all the grains, corn is the most valuable, taking into view quantity and price. Soaking the seed in a solution of saltpetre keeps off the worm and largely increases the crop.
Topping the stalks diminishes the grain from 6 to 8 bushels the acre, without a corresponding increase of fodder.
Grind corn in the ear for feeding. Pure corn meal does not appear sufficiently to distend the stomach to bring into exercise its digestive faculties fully, without taking so much as to clog and impair its functions eventually. For this reason, a mixture of leas nutritive materials is desirable; and one of our most successful feeders of pork has assured us, that he always mixed oats with his corn, in the proportion of one-fourth, previous to grinding, and thinks he should find a profit in exchanging corn for oats, bushel for bushel, rather than feed the former to his pigs clear. The cob, possessing nutriment in itself, makes about the requisite mixture with the grain, and hence is of great value for the purpose of feeding.
In any district where Indian com is extensively grown, a miller would find it for his interest to attach a cob-cracker to his machinery, as the farmers would find themselves well repaid by the great saving and superiority of the meal so made, for feeding.
SEEDING.
Of all the practices constituting good husbandry, none are more replete with beneficial effects, and which better repay the outlay, than that of seeding. It has become an established practice with good farmers to seed frequently with clover and timothy.
The natural grasses yield less of quantity and nutriment than either clover or timothy, and some others of more recent introduction.
Independent of this, its fertilizing properties to the soil must be considered. Whereas, grounds not seeded, by being loo much exposed, soon become of so compact a nature as to render them in a degree impervious to either heat or moisture, without which they cannot be capable of the least productiveness.
Autumn is deemed the best time for sowing timothy, and the spring for clover.
ALTERNATE CROPS.
The summer and winter food must have a due proportion to each other, and the fields of grain are not to exceed the fields of meliorating crops,–these preserve the soil, as well as produce crops; but grain reduces the soil in producing the crops. Aim at income from live stock, which improves, rather than from grain, which impoverishes your land.
SAVING CLOVER SEED.
The difficulties of saving the seed are imaginary; the process is simple and easy. After the clover field has been cut or grazed, let the second crop come on.
The second crop produces more seed than the first, and hence the economy of first cutting or grazing the field; though from that cut for hay, a careful husbandman might easily save sufficient seed for his own use. Mow when about two-thirds of the heads have turned brown, because, if cut sooner, too many seeds are unripe, and if later, too many shatter out of the beads in cradling and handling.
POTATOES.
Potatoes in general afford from one-fifth to one-seventh of their weight of dry starch.
One-fourth part of the weight of the potatoe at least may be considered as nutritive matter.
The best potatoes are heavier than the inferior varieties.
The American Farmer says: For some seasons past, I have only planted the top eyes, and I have the best crop and the driest potatoes in the country. After the top is cut off, the remainder beeps better and longer fit for use. If housekeepers in towns were to preserve the cuttings of the tops of their potatoes, there would be sufficient to plant all the country, without the cost of a cent for seed!
Preserving Potatoes.–Potatoes should be dug during dry weather. They should be exposed as short a time as possible to the light, as it always injures their quality for whatever use they are intended. They should be kept in a state similar to that before they are dug,–that is, secure from air and light, with a slight degree of moisture to prevent withering, and a temperature so low as to keep them from vegetating. The difference in the quality caused by good and bad keeping is very rarely appreciated.
In planting, have a good supply of rich earth around; but elevate the hills as little as possible after planting, in order to leave the tubers to grow at the depth which they choose for themselves. Besides, a more even surface is better adapted to obtain a supply of moisture, by admitting the rain, &c. The distance of the hills should be governed by the spice occupied by the tops; for much of the nutriment of vegetables is taken from the air, and the tops should therefore be allowed to expand.
STOCK.
Treat Domestic Animals kindly and tenderly.
Domestic animals of all kinds, from a horse down to a chicken, should be treated with gentleness and mildness; men or boys who are rash and bad-tempered, ought not to be permitted to have charge of them or to interfere with their management. Animals that are kept in constant fear of suffering never thrive well, and they often become vicious and intractable by unkind and cruel treatment.
Keep Stock in good condition.
An animal may be kept short of food in the latter part of the fall or first of winter, at a small saving of food, but at a loss in the condition of the animal. It is like salting a hog with a pound of salt–a saving of salt but loss of bacon. One dollar saved by short keeping of animals, will be a loss of five dollars. It will cost more through the winter, and the profit from the animals, either in growth or milk, will be lost.
Provide comfortable sheds and stables. Remember that a want of comfort is always a waste of flesh. Give a sufficiency of food and drink, with great regularity. A meal ten minutes later than the usual time causes the animal to fret, and fretting lessens flesh. Most animals will drink several times a day, and should therefore have it as often as they want it. They should have plenty of clean litter as often as needed. With such management there will be an almost incredible saving of food.
Tight stables should always be ventilated. The breath and manure from animals always causes impure air.
Coarse hay and straw are readily eaten by cattle, when brine is sprinkled upon them.
Corn-stalk fodder should always be cut or chopped,–otherwise the body of the stalk is wasted. This is the best part. It is sweetest and most nutritious. And it is the chief part in bulk. Chop it fine, and cattle will eat it, if the fodder has been well cured.
Quantity.–An acre of corn-stalks, cut and well secured, and chopped when fed, is quite as good as an acre of hay.
Currying.–Nothing contributes more to the health and appearance of cattle, than frequent curryings and rubbings; and nothing enjoys currying more, or shows greater improvement from it, than hogs.
Hoven Cattle.–A band of straw, the size of the wrist, placed in the mouth, drawing it tight, and making fast the ends over the head, just behind the horns, will cause the beast to endeavour to rid itself, by chewing the band; and the act of moving the tongue and jaws will permit the pent-up air to escape.
Over-Feeding.–Administer a pint of cider and half a pound of old cheese, grated and mixed.
Remarks on Neat Cattle.
1. The head small and clean, to lessen the quantity of offal. 2. The neck thin and clean. 3. The carcass large, the chest deep, and the bosom broad, with the ribs standing out full from the spine. 4. The shoulders should be light of bone, and round off at the lower point 5. The back ought to be wide and level throughout; the quarters long; the thighs thin, and standing narrow at the round bone; the udder large when full, but thin and loose when empty–with large dug-veins, and long elastic teats. 6. The bones, in general, light and clean.
To Select.–Adopt the practice of selecting best limbs every year, for stock. In a few years you have first-rate sheep. The same course will produce the same effects in every kind of animal.
THE HORSE.
There is no more danger of injury to the horse than to ourselves by eating a hearty meal when warm. And who ever heard of a man killing himself with a hearty dinner, because he ate it when he was fatigued or heated!
It is hard driving immediately after eating grain that kills the horse. Not an instance can be shown in which he has sustained injury from eating grain merely because he was warm.
We have known men, prudent in most matters, yet guilty of stuffing their horses with grain in the morning just before starting on a journey!
How absurd to let your horse stand for hours, after a violent exercise, to chop up his own fodder and attempt to appease his hunger on hay.
Give the horse half a bushel of oats or one peck of corn–if he has been used to grain–as soon as you lead him into the stable, and he will fill himself in an hour or two, and be willing to lie down and enjoy a nap, even before you retire to rest yourself.
In any part of the country, if you see the grain put into the manger you may be pretty sure the hostler has not forgotten his duty.
Watering.–If you ride moderately, you ought to let your horse drink at any time on the way; but if he has been long without water, and is hot, a load of cold water, greedily swallowed, will chill and deaden the tone of the stomach: but two or three swallows are really necessary to cool his mouth, and may be allowed him at any time.
Spavins are seldom cured: though cures are made by Rigler, at Frankford, Pa.
Heaves.–Mix ashes in his food, and lime-water for his drink.
Prevent Botts by cleanliness, and giving salt often and regularly; and, occasionally, a few potatoes.
When your animal has fever, nature would dictate that all stimulating articles of diet or medicine should be avoided. Bleeding may be necessary to reduce the force of the circulation–purging, to remove irritating substances from the bowels–moist, light, and easily digested food, that his weakened digestion may not be oppressed–cool drinks, to allay his thirst, and, to some extent, compensate for diminished secretions–rest and quiet, to prevent undue excitement in his system,–but nothing to be done without a reason. We might sum all in one general direction:–Treat your brutes like men.
Cuts should be cleaned, laid smooth in the natural position, and allowed time to cure.
Sores, when large, should be protected from the air and external irritation.
Bruises and Sprains should be kept quiet, or inflammation will ensue: endeavour to reduce the heat, if more than natural, and avoid the certain ‘cure-alls.’
Colic.–The horse rolls and is in pain. Administer a table-spoonful of strong mustard, dissolved in a black or junk bottle of water. Wrap the neck of the bottle with twine, to prevent its breaking. If inflammation is suspected, breathe a vein.
A damp stable produces more evil than a damp house; it is there we expect to find horses with bad eyes, coughs, greasy heels, swelled legs, mange, and a long, rough, dry, staring coat, which no grooming can cure.
Lock-Jaw.–Throw two or three hogsheads of water on the spine. The skin becomes loose, then wrap in blankets–feed with gruel and nourishing diet.
Botts are said to be too deeply buried in the mucous coat of the stomach, for any medicine that can be safely ministered, to affect them. Symptoms.–The horse hangs his head, is drowsy, and bites himself. Try a mixture of molasses and warm fresh milk, and rub externally with spirits of turpentine; all of which may loose the botts–then work them off with a large dose or two of oil.
Lampas (the roof) sometimes grow level with the front teeth, and impede the feeding. Touch with a lancet gently, and allow to bleed freely, instead of the usual painful cure of burning.
Age.–From 5. black cavity, like the eye of a bean, in two middle teeth of lower jaw, is filled up. At 6, the two second are filled up, and at 7 until S, the black marks of corner teeth of lower jaw fill up and disappear, and the tushes are no longer concave on the surface next the tongue, but become round or convex. The marks being now obliterated, the age cannot be exactly known; though extreme length of upper fore teeth, their yellow or brownish colour and projecting over the under teeth, disappearing of bars in the mouth, and sinking in of the eye-pits, are proofs of great age.
Ring Bones.–Blister of oil turpentine 1 oz., to which add, slowly, vitriolic acid two and a half drachms, lard 4 oz., powdered Spanish flies one ounce and a half. Mix.
Spavins.–Blister, same as Ring Bone, adding oil of origanum half an oi nee. Apply. First fire the part.
Sand Cracks, owing to excessive dryness of the crust. Moisten in stable, or turn him out into moist ground.
Verdigris is useful in some cases of soreness or inflammation of the foot.
Corns.–Remove the shoe and cut out the corn. Tack on the shoe after applying some tow dipped in tar.
The Frog should never be cut away, nor raised by the shoe above pressure with the ground, as it then loses its function of expnding the quarters of the foot, and will also become diseased.
Canker.–Cut the diseased part away; apply each day a fresh liniment of oil of turpentine 1 1-2 oz., sulphuric acid half an oz., mix slowly; tar 3 oz. Pressure is one of the best remedies.
Shoes should nowhere be in contact with the horny sole.
Pole Evil.–Open and apply ointment, hot, of oil of turpentine 1 oz., verdigris half oz., yellow resin 3 oz.; mix. After disease is destroyed, dress as a common abscess.
Staggers produced by too high feeding and little exercise. Bleed largely and give aloes 7 drachms, Castile soap 2 drachms, water 1 pint: mix at one draught.
Cropping or Docking manifests a want of feeling and a want of taste, which should subject the operator to the loss of a finger by the same useless and dangerous process.
Glanders is so difficult of cure as to require a surgeon, and is so fatal and contagious that he should by no means be allowed to go into the neighbourhood of other horses, nor feed from the same bucket or rack, nor use the same harness. Symptoms are, discharge at the nose, and swelling of glands under the throat. Soon as removed, purify the stall by lime, washing, &c.
Strangles.–Inflammation of under-jaw glands, with cough. Give, once a day, Fever Powder, viz., antimonial powder 5 drachms, camphor 2 drachms. Mix for three doses.
Change from grass to hot stable is injurious.
Chronic Cough.–Blister throat, keep moderately warm, regular exercise, and each day tartarized antimony 1 1-2 dr., aloes 1 1-2 dr., Castile soap 1 1-2 dr. Syrup to form ball.
Fever.–Bleed. Give pint castor oil, keep moderately warm, feed warm bran mashes, and administer, once or twice a day, this Fever Powder: camphor 1 dr., antimonial powder 2 1-2 dr. Mix.
Excessive Purging creates inflammation and is highly pernicious. Give opium, half a drachm, twice a day. Rub well, keep warm and perfectly quiet. If necessary, blister, and rub with turpentine.
Jaundice.–Give, daily, opium 1 dr., calomel 1 dr., and syrup to form a ball.
Diabetes.–Give animal food, at first as broth, until he will feed upon flesh, and omit vegetables and all fluids as far as possible.
The Mange is occasioned by low feeding, want of cleanliness, or by contagion. Rub with oil turpentine 2 oz., sulphur vivum 3 oz., lard 5 oz., mixed.
Wind Galls about the fetlock are from hard labour. Cure by blisters and repose.
Saddle Galls.–Apply cold water, sugar of lead, and water or vinegar.
Brandy and Salt, two thirds brandy and one third salt, good for all kinds of galls, wounds, bruises, and inflammatory sores.
COWS.
Currying.–Cattle are well known to thrive much better where this operation is thoroughly performed, and Dr. B. Rush, in a lecture upon the advantages of studying the diseases of domestic animals, stales that there is an improvement in the quality of the milk, and an increase of its quantity, which are obtained by currying the cow.
Be assured by experience of the truth of the saying, that “one cow well milked is worth two badly milked.”
Curwen, from three acres of grass, cut and fed thirty milch cows with 28 lbs. each day, for 200 days. Their health was excellent, and their milk superior.
Milk clean.–The first drawn milk contains only 5, the second 8, and the fifth 17 per cent. of cream.
Kicking.–If the milker will keep his nails short, not one cow in a hundred will kick.
Sores.–An ointment made on linseed oil and white lead, will cure cracked teats.
Drink.–Those who wish their cows to give large messes of milk in the winter season, should give them warm drink. The extra trouble will be more than rewarded in the increased quantity of milk.
In milking, be kind and soothing: the cow will give down her milk more freely.
Cream.–Do not milk so far from the dairy as to let the milk cool before it is put in the creaming dishes.
SHEEP.
Lobelia (or Indian tobacco) has been found good where the symptoms of disease are a drooping, running at the eyes, weakness in the back and loins, and losing the use of their hind legs, &c.
Foul Noses.–Dip a small mop on the end of a stick in tar, then roll it in salt, and hold it in your sheep’s mouth.
Tar.–During the season of grazing, give tar, at the rate of a gill a day for every twenty sheep. Sprinkle a little fine salt over it. This promotes their general health.
OXEN.
Being well-mated, oxen are more easily trained; and the more easily to effect this, much self-denial on the part of the driver, much coolness of temper, more training by motion and less by voice, may be highly advantageous to man and beast.
HOGS.
Food.–If pumpkins, roots, apples, or any of them be fed to fattening hogs with corn, the advantage will be salutary. Most of the food for swine should be cooked. Swine fatten much faster on fermented, than on unfermented food. Salt, charcoal, and once in a while sulphur, are excellent for hogs under all circumstances.
Good Medicine.–When your hogs get sick, you know not of what, give them ears of corn, first dipped in tar, and then rolled in sulphur.
A Fact.–The first litter of pigs from a young sow are naturally feeble and difficult to raise, and never perhaps acquire the size and weight that litters of the same sow do afterwards.
BEES.
Every farmer should keep bees; a few swarms to furnish honey for his own use, if no more. They toil with unremitting industry, asking but a full sweep of the wing. and no monopoly. Every man, in either town or country, can keep bees to advantage. Dr. Smith of Boston has an apiary on his house top, from whence his little winged labourers traverse the air eight or ten miles in search of food. What a delicious banquet they afford, from the rich nectar gathered! They collect honey and bread from most kinds of forest trees, as well as garden flowers; orchards, forests, and trees–all contribute to their wants, and their owner is gratified with a taste of the whole. Sweet mignonette is especially mentioned as easily cultivated by drills in a garden, and is one of the finest and richest flowers in the world, from which the honey-bee can extract its food.
The cobwebs must he kept away from the immediate vicinity of the hive, and all other annoyances removed.
“Never kill a bee.” The smoke of the fungus maximus, or common puff ball, when dried so as to hold fire, has a stupifying effect on the bees, and renders them as harmless as brimstone does, without any of its deadly effects. By means of this, weak swarms, which would not live through the winter, may be united to strong stocks. It is a fact, borne out by experiment, that a hive thus doubled will not consume more honey in the winter than a stock in its natural state. This was discovered by a Swiss pastor, De Gelior. The additional heat seems to serve instead of additional food, to keep up the vitality of the half-torpid bees. A cold, dry, dark room, is the best winter quarters for bees. They will consume less honey than if left on their summer stands, and will not be weakened by the toss of thousands, which, tempted out by the premature warmth, are caught by cold winds, fall to the ground and never rise again.
Dryness is essential; and ventilation, or proper airing of the hives in summer, is the most valuable improvement in bee keeping.
POULTRY.
Nearly every family can, with very little trouble, have eggs in plenty during the whole year; and of all the animals domesticated for the use of man, the common dunghill fowl is capable of yielding the greatest possible profit to the owner.
The Hen-House should be warm in winter, well ventilated in summer, white-washed and kept clean. Roosts of sassafras poles are less infested with lice. Have no ground floor. Supply slacked lime, fine gravel, or ashes, or burnt oyster shells, &c.
Feeding.–They will sing over Indian corn with more animation than any other grain. The hen must have secrecy and mystery about her nest; watch her, and she wilt forsake her nest, and stop laying.
They eat less, if allowed to help themselves to what they want, than if fed in the usual way; for in the latter case each tries to get as much as it can, and thus burdens itself, but finding in the former case that they have abundance, they eat but little and that generally in the morning early, and in the evening going to roost.
A farmer may keep an hundred fowls in his barn, may suffer them lo trample upon and destroy his mows of wheat and other grain, and still have fewer eggs than the cottager who keeps a single dozen, who provides secret nests, chalk eggs, pounded brick, plenty of Indian corn, a few oats, lime, water, and gravel, for them; and who takes care that his hens are not disturbed about their nests. Three chalk eggs in a nest are better than a single neat egg, and large eggs please them.
A single dozen fowls, properly attended, will furnish a family with more than 2,000 eggs in a year, and 100 full-grown chickens for fall and winter stores. The expense of feeding the dozen fowls will not amount to 18 bushels of Indian corn. They may be kept in cities as well as in the country, and will do as well shut up the year round as to run at large, with proper care.
A Fact.–Eggs the nearest to roundness produce females, and those pointed at one end always produce males.
For Fattening.–Boiled Indian, wheat and barley, is better than oats, rye or buckwheat. One-third is gained by boiling.
MISCELLANEOUS HINTS.
Wild Onion may be destroyed by cultivating corn, ploughing, and leaving the field all winter.
Remember.–The great rule in relation to animals holds perfect in its application to vegetables: breed only from the best animals; defects and imperfections have always a tendency to propagate themselves, and are always, in a greater or less degree, transmitted.
Wheat shoots strongest when there is an interval between the time of ploughing and sowing, but barley is most vegetative when sown immediately after the plough.
Grease Wheels.–50 parts, by weight, of pulverized black lead, 50 of lard, 50 of soap, and 5 of quick-silver. Rub the lard and mercury first together, then the lead and soap. If well mixed, it is invaluable.
Plants, when drooping, are revived by a few grains of camphor.
Flowers beginning to fade, can be restored by putting the stems in scalding water.
Bacon Hams in summer.–Pack in a barrel, in clean dry ashes or charcoal; head up the barrel and put it where it is dry, and as cool as possible.
Timber cut in the spring and exposed to the weather with the bark on, decays much sooner than that cut in the fall.
In Feeding with corn, 60 lbs. ground goes as far as 100 lbs. in the kernel.
Apples.–Experiments show apples to be equal to potatoes to improve hogs, and decidedly profitable for fattening cattle.
Pears are greatly improved by grafting on the mountain ash.
Rats and other vermin are kept away from grain by a sprinkling of garlic when packing the sheaves.
Wet Land.–Money skilfully expended in drying land by draining or otherwise, will be returned with ample interest.
Grass.–Sweet and nutritious grass gives a richness and flavour to milk, attainable from no other source.
Curing Fodder.–Bundles may be so placed around centre-poles as to form a hollow stack, having a foundation of brush, sticks, &c., admitting a circulation of air that will thoroughly cure fodder in the shade.
Turnips of small size have double the nutritious matter that large ones have.
Ruta Baga is the only root that increases in nutritious qualities as it increases in size.
In transplanting trees, the hole should not be proportioned to the extent of the roots as they are, but to their extent as they may be and should be.
Toads are the very best protection of Cabbages against lice.
Peach Trees are protected from hard winters by covering the roots a foot deep with straw, in January, after the ground has become thoroughly frozen, which keeps the frost in the ground, and so prevents the sap from starting until the Spring is fairly opened.
The Udder of a beef cow, sailed, smoked and dried, is rich, delicious eating.
Lard never spoils in warm weather if it is cooked enough in frying out.
Wash your Butter in cold water, work out all the buttermilk, pack it in a stone jar, stop the mouth air tight, and it will keep sweet for ever.
Tomatoes make an excellent preserve.
Sweet or Olive Oil is a certain cure for the Bite of a Rattlesnake. Apply it internally and externally.
To cure Scratches on a Horse.–Wash the legs with warm strong soap suds, and then with beef brine. Two applications will cure the worst case.
A lump of Sal eratus or Pearlash, crowded into the pipe of a Poll Evil or Thistleows, two or three times, will cure this incurable disease.
Corn Meal should never he ground very fine. It injures the richness of it.
Rice is often over-boiled. It should be boiled but 10 minutes, and in no more water than it will absorb while boiling. Put two cups of rice in three cups of water.
Sulphur is valuable in preserving grapes, plants, &c., from insects.
Old Brine.–If sweet and good, and has kept your old pork good, it will keep the new without boiling. If the brine is full of matter which if has received from the old pork, it cannot extract the beat juices of the new, and is quite as sweet.
Salt is really necessary to horses, cattle, and sheep, and they should be supplied with it at regular stated intervals throughout all seasons of the year.
Manure, on a wet soil, produces but half its effect: and gypsum, that grand stimulant of dry soils, on a wet one is useless.
Save your Fire Wood.–Mr. Madison, in his Notes of Agriculture, says, “Of all the errors in our rural economy, none perhaps is to be so much regretted, because none so difficult to be repaired, as the excessive and injudicious destruction of fire wood.”
Sorrel may be killed out by lime, while ashes has no effect on it.
Shumac or Sumac, a poisonous shrub or plant, which grows wild in abundance, and frequently where nothing else will, is used for dyeing in England, at the rate of thirteen thousands tons per annum. It might be made a source of profit to our farmers.
Lime.–A Pennsylvanian farmer raised 400 bushels of wheat from a field of land which five years ago produced but thirty bushels. He spread fifteen hundred bushels of lime on said land.
Barley is becoming more an article of diet. It makes the finest of cakes when prepared like buckwheat. Farmers are finding it as poor economy to turn barley into beer to make paupers and criminals for them to support, as to convert apples into cider to create an appetite in their children for stronger drink. Ground, it is a most valuable food for all kinds of stock.
Sunflower yields 140 bushels per acre, and each bushel of seed one gallon of good oil. Cost of expressing, 25 cents per gallon. Its leaves furnish provender, and its seed is capital food for poultry, cattle, and hogs. It is a profitable crop on poor soils, requiring but little labour.
An Emetic may be made in emergency by taking two teaspoonsful of mustard mixed with water.
Rye is most thrifty on soil of a dry, sandy or gravelly texture, if well manured, and winters better the earlier it is sowed. It is the least healthy of all the grains. Sown early for winter a bushel per acre, and in spring a bushel and a half, wilt generally be sufficient. The earlier harvested, the whiter the flour; later, the grain may be heavier from the thickness of the skin, causing more bran but no increase of flour. Roofs well thatched with rye straw last 20 years.
Corn.–Sprinkling with salt and water will check the Wevil.
Keeping Fruits.–The three best, of eight different modes, fairly tried, are, 1, covering in pure dry sand; 2, in dry fern; 3, in a deal box buried in the earth; in all cases placed in a cool situation.
Orchards of pear or apple trees are more subject to blight and destruction, if open and sloping to the West, than in any other exposure. Either ashes, iron or soap suds, applied to the roots, have cured blight in pear trees.
Caterpillars and other insects are effectually destroyed by a drenching of tobacco juice.
Butter.–Heating the milk in winter, after straining, to 130 degrees, improves the quantity and quality of butter, and reduces the time and labour of churning.
Borer.–Kill this insect’s eggs in apple and quince trees by a solution of potash, applied with a brush about the foot of the tree, occasionally, from April to June.
Draining is important, and covered drains are more lasting and valuable than open ditches. Cut drains three or four feet deep, place a row of poles at bottom, then a layer of brush to within ten inches of the top, then a few inches of straw or dry leaves, and cover with earth well rammed down.
Bone Dust.–An English proverb says, “One ton of bone dust saves the importation of ten tons of grain.”
Ashes, although leached, form an excellent manure.
Pumpkins may be kept a year, sound and well flavoured, if carefully gathered and hung up in a dry cellar. Or, take out the soft parts, slice, and dry in the sun or oven. Keep dry, and boil; a rich good food.
Ducks, when young, should have but little water, and be fed exclusively on boiled food, potatoes, &c. Hominy for fattening is good.
“Salt is health to a gosling, but death to a chicken,” is an old and true saying.
Cider.–Cleanse barrels with lime, then rinse well out. Half a pint mustard seed will preserve it good a long lime. Filtering through a hair sieve and racking off improves it.
Roots.–Feeding with roots, especially with sugar-beet, cannot be too highly prized, being rich, juicy, fattening, and economical.
Turnip Fly may be expelled by the use of fish oil, one or two gallons to the acre.
Pork Cured. Soon as cool enough to cut, and before it freezes, pack a clean cask full, with plenty of salt on all sides of each piece. Fill up with water, taking care, by means of a large stone, to keep the pork under the pickle, and covered from flies, in a cellar. Never boil pickle.
Pork Feeding. It is a well ascertained fact that more meat will be made on half the weight of corn, if ground and made into mush instead of being fed whole.
In Smoking Hams, &c., be careful not to have the fire too nigh, or the smoke-house too tight. It is best done in an upper story to which the smoke is conveyed in tubes, from oak or maple chips in the cellar. In passing this distance, the vapour which smoke usually holds, is deposited, and the hams are perfectly dry and cool during the whole process.
Hollow Horn. Where supposed to exist, feed half peck potatoes twice a week, and treat your cattle kindly in food and shelter.
Timber. To preserve, soak in lime and water, long enough for the lime to penetrate.
Sheep must be fed well, kept dry, have salt often, and pure air, and be grazed in hilly stony pastures.
For packing Plants, use saw-dust.
As a general rule, with but few exceptions, square large fields are more advantageous than small irregular ones, requiring less fence, and being more easily watered, manured, ploughed, and harvested.
SUCCESSFUL FARMING.
The Farmers’ Cabinet relates an instance of a farmer the neighbourhood of Amherst, N. H., who commenced in the world as a day labourer, and who, notwithstanding he has at various times sustained heavy pecuniary losses in the investment of his funds, is now worth at least one hundred thousand dollars.
“This man, when thirty years of age, by the avails of his industry added to a small legacy, was enabled to purchase and pay, in part, for a farm of one hundred and thirty acres of land, one hundred of which was under cultivation, but in a very low state. The farm is altogether upland, with a soil composed of loam, clay, and sand, in the chief of which the latter preponderates, the former being least considerable. When he commenced farming, he adopted a particular system of rotation, to which he has implicitly adhered from that time to the present, which is forty years, and his success is the best comment on the worth of the experiment. His mode was as follows: having divided his farm into eight fields of equal size, as near as possible, three of those fields were sowed with wheat each year, one with rye, one planted with corn, two in clover, and one an open fallow, on which corn had been raised the year previous. One of the two clover fields is kept for mowing, the other for pasture, both of which are ploughed as soon after the harvest as possible, and prepared for wheat in the fall. All the manure which is made on the farm for one year is hauled in the spring on the field intended for open fallow, which is then ploughed, and, after one or two cross ploughings through the summer, is also sowed wheat in the fall. The field on which the rye is sown is that from which a crop of wheat has been taken the same year, and which had yielded three crops. Corn is planted on the field from which rye had been taken the year previous, the stubbles of which are ploughed down in the fall. Clover seed is sown early in the spring on two of the wheat fields, those which have been most recently manured. By this method, each field yields three crops of wheat, two of clover, one of rye, and one of corn, every eight years. Each field, in the mean time, has lain an open fallow, and received a heavy dressing of manure, perhaps at an average of fifteen four-horse loads per acre. His crop of wheat is seldom less than fifteen hundred bushels, but often much more. His average rye crop is about four hundred and fifty bushels, and his corn crop annually about five hundred bushels; all which grain, at the present low prices, would amount to more than two thousand dollars annually, and at former prices to double that amount, and his farm is withal very highly improved.”
ROCKS.
Are easily broken in pieces by building a fire on them, and throwing on water while hot.
SMALL FARMS.
In conclusion, we desire to impress on the common-sense reasoning of every man, the paramount importance of having no more land in culture than can be well cultivated. By no means attempt to manage more than you can manage well. Be a farmer, not a mere earth-scraper, lazily scratching up sufficient earth to destroy the face of the soil, and throw seed away, or you will always have to scratch hard for a living. But make your farm a source of pride, and it will surely become a source of profit. Make the object to be not to have many, but rich acres.