The comparative value of sweet apples for feeding hogs or cattle is considered equal to potatoes, and they are frequently grafted for that purpose, the hogs being kept through the summer in the orchard, to keep the soil light and to eat the apples as they fall; the rest being picked to feed them in the winter.

What varieties best to keep for winter use and for exportation: The best variety is decidedly the Roxbury Russet; it bears well; and, being hard and dry, will keep in a cold, dry cellar until October. Next best varieties are Rhode Island Greening, (keeps here till June,) Baldwin, Esopus Spitzenberg, Nonsuch, Yellow Bellefleur, Talman Sweet, &c. We have not found a remedy for the "blight," or what we call the "sap blight," in apple or pear trees.

The best method of transplanting is to prepare the borders, or dig the holes, as they are sometimes called, by digging at least three times as large a hole as the roots of the tree to be set; then, unless the soil is very light and sandy, so as to cause the roots to extend downwards too much, spade up the soil to the depth of a foot and a half at least, and the growth will be very much promoted by this course. The tree should be set exactly as deep as it grew in the nursery; the roots will then take a natural position, and not be turned up at the ends, as they will be if the holes are dug too small.

The tree should be mulched with straw manure, sawdust, old tan, or something to prevent the escape of moisture at midsummer, which is better than watering often; it will keep the soil light.

Budding is not much practised, except on small stocks; cleft-grafting is mostly for larger trees or in the branches, and wrapped with clay or grafting wax, made of rosin, beeswax, and tallow.

Nearly all our fruit trees are being grafted, and many are enlarging their orchards, it being considered the most profitable crop raised. The more we raise, the greater the demand, with a better price. Other States can raise better fruit than we do, but none can compete with Maine for raising apples to keep for winter or for exportation; and it is my opinion that, if this State were a forest of orchards, as it was formerly a "forest of pines," we could export to Europe and other places, and find a ready marke for all we could produce.

With great respect, I have the honor to be your obedient servant, D. A. FAIRBANKS.

To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

JONESBOROUGH, WASHINGTON COUNTY, MAINE,

November 20, 1852.

SIR: In answer to your Agricultural Circular of August last, I will now proceed to make a few statements, as approximate to what is required as the nature of the various queries and my location in so high a northern latitude will permit.

Wheat.-During the last five or six years the cultivation of wheat has been almost entirely neglected; our farmers having become discouraged from the sure and fatal attacks of its natural enemies—the rust and mildew. This season some sowed spring wheat in small quantities, and generally with success. One individual in this vicinity raised 9 bushels

That amount seems generally admitted to be the right quantity, upon the principle both of profit and economy. I have strewn it broadcast, and ploughed it under, seven, eight, and nine inches, which was recommended by the first experimenters, believing it was putting it unneces sarily deep. I have, this fall, fallowed all my wheat land the same depth, sowed the wheat and guano the same day and hour, harrowed both in together, and I never had wheat to come up better. It is a mistaken notion that, if the wheat and guano be sown together, the causticity of the guano will injure the sprout of the wheat. Smut in wheat this season has partially prevailed in this region; as a remedy, I washed my seed in strong brine that would bear an egg, then rolled in lime. As an experiment, I added guano to one bushel-literally every grain was coated over with lime and guano; sowed it so, and fully one half failed to vegetate. This experiment proved a failure. This washing in brine and rolling in lime was pursued till I procured blue-stone, in which I had more confidence; one pound of which was dissolved in about 15 gallons of water, in which I put five bushels of wheat, stirring and washing it well, skimming off with a cullender the false grain and chess. This process was done the day preceding, to get a supply of seed for the next day, remaining in pickle about eight hours; longer will not injure. When taken out, drain it well over the pickle barrel to prevent waste, then spread upon the barn floor to drip and dry; the wheat will absorb near half the pickle; add water to supply the deficiency, and half a pound more of the blue stone for the next five bushels. The kinds of wheat cultivated in this section are various-say Mediterranean, dark grain, bearded, weak straw, and upon good land, apt to fall; Etrurian, white bearded, New York, white flint, early white, and red purple straw much approved. Smooth heads not liable to fall. For uplands the blue stem, or, more proper, Polish, which was distributed from the Patent Office. White, a large grain, smooth head, stands well, and very productive. I never cultivate bearded wheat; it is bad to handle, shatters badly, the straw is coarser than beardless wheat, and the chaff unfit for feeding. I estimate the chaff of 1,500 bushels of wheat, for feed and manure, worth $75. I grind my stock corn to a fine meal, giving to each horse and mule two quarts in the morning, two quarts at midday, and three quarts at night, well wet and mixed with a bushel basketful either of chaff or cut-straw, which will keep farmhorses in good plight. The wheat crop the present year is of good quality, except smut and damage by the joint worm, partially. The estimated average upon corn-land, 10 bushels to the acre; upon low ground and tobacco land, 20 to 25 per acre. Our common time of seeding, and for several years past, has been early in September; much too early. Thirty to forty years ago, seeding was delayed until October, to pass the egging season of the fly. In a few years they were nearly destroyed for want of the wheat upon which to deposit their eggs. The few flies remaining made their attack in the spring, which is much less destructive than an autumnal attack.

Finally, from the great diminution of the fly, and scarcely a complaint of their damage, many good farmers thought they could seed wheat earlier, and commenced in September. I have seen it sown the 4th day of September in this county, and heard the fly had destroyed it; the Sep

ing cost, for there is an actual profit over and beyond the cash value of the animal which most farmers but little appreciate, because of its seeming indirect aid. The worth of three years old heifers is $20 to $25, and steers $22 to $28 per head.

As to the different modes of feeding cattle, I have never experimented enough to give a satisfactory opinion. "How do you break steers to the yoke?" Yoke them when calves, certainly; when a year old handle them often, and in a spirit of kindness; learn them to draw light loads, if no more than a common draught chain with a billet of wood attached. If permitted to run till two or three years old, yoke them, give them a free, smooth yard or field, and let them be, to act their own pleasure for two or three hours at a time, only with a watchful eye upon them; in this manner they will soon become accustomed to the various duties of the yoke, and, what is more desirable, easily managed. Here it is no uncommon thing to see a yoke of yearlings drawing a light cart or sled; but I deem it a lack of sagacity in the owner. So far as my observation goes, it tends to stint the growth, and make small, unsalable cattle. Kindness should ever be used to cattle; and I know of no better mode to judge of a man's manner with his cattle than to see him enter the yard where they are: if rough, they will move about, and even run to escape his touch; if kind, they fear not his approach, but rather solicit his presence. Price of good dairy cows in fall, $20 to $25; in spring, $30 to $35; of working oxen, $65 to $125.

Grasses. Quantity of English hay per acre, on an average, about 14 ton. The best fertilizer for highlands is stable manure. The grassseeds preferred in laying down lands are red-top, Timothy, and on porous soils a quantity of clover is admissible. One peck red-top, 4 quarts Timothy, and 4 pounds clover, per acre, is a fair quantity for seeding. I think a mixture of seed preferable to all of either kind on the same or any soil. The cost of growing is near $5. (In your Report of 1850, you make me say $3, which is too cheap)

Hay this season, owing to a failure in the crop, is very high; averaging $15 in barns. Those who have hay to sell are disposing of it at large profits over the cost of raising. What is very remarkable is that beef should be so high when the demand for hay keeps pace with and in advance of the supply.

Dairying-Average produce of butter per cow per annum, about 150 pounds. Cheese, none of consequence made; butter-making being much the most profitable. The cost of making butter is not less than 14 cents per pound. Butter this season has not been lower than 16 cents, while for the last and present month 20 and 25 cents are paid, and glad to get it at that. Many individuals hereabouts keep cows and manufacture butter on purpose for the market, carrying it on their teain wagons in quantities varying from 50 pounds to ton; and they say, "We make it profitable." Cellars are most used for setting milk in, though some have their milk-houses erected on purpose for their milk and butter business.

Treatment of Milk and Cream.-About the following is practised among our dairy women, so far as my observation and inquiry permit of speaking: The milk is strained into thoroughly cleansed pans, set in the milk room so long as cream will rise to the surface, which varies in different cows from three to seven days; it is then skimmed off, and put

in stone or earthen pots-stone much the best-and then churned in quantities to suit convenience. The old dash churn is mostly used. Time was when patent churns of complex models and forms were much in vogue; but the cost of keeping clean, and the poor butter often made, caused an almost general return to the old churn with its perpendicular dash, which is now conceded, everything considered, to be decidedly the best. After churning is through, the butter is gathered, taken from churn, put into a tub selected for the purpose, and covered with pure cold water, well beaten and washed out, and then in tubs again, worked over and beaten by the hands until the butter-milk is all removed; then salt added to suit the taste." After which, for winter use, pack solid into kegs, or, if soon to be offered in the market, "lumps" are preferable, as customers are more readily suited as to the choice of quality and quantity.

Potatoes suffered very materially from the rot the present year. Notwithstanding this serious impediment to potato growing, our farmers manifest a very great unwillingness to abandon so desirable and profitable a crop. All attempts to avoid the disease, and all the expended skill, theoretically and practically, have alike proved failures.

Farmers do not feel safe to plant extensively since the potato failed; but we find there is a way, though the rot come, whereby a fair crop may be secured. My mode for the last five years for raising potatoes has been much more successful than that of most others of my aquaintance. I use new land, ploughing the first week in May, and planting as early in the month as possible. I plant in hills, making furrows with the plough crosswise the piece ploughed, about three feet asunder, and six to eight inches deep; then drop the manure new from the stable or sheep-house, (the latter is preferred,) in hills thirty inches apart, and cut my potatoes, (not the small ones, nor do I plant them if I can get large ones,) putting three pieces in each hill, and covering as soon as dropped three to four inches deep. I seldom have a hill to fail of coming, and they are up and ready for the hoe the first time the last of June; then again, about the 20th of July they need rehoeing, which in my opinion saves them in no small degree from the rot, while it pays well otherwise, as the potatoes will be larger, with few, if any, small ones in the hill. The last of August, or the first of September, look out for the blight on the leaves, if it come at all, when I dig and put them in the cellar, before I allow the main stalk to become much affected by its ravages. Many think it best to let their potatoes lie in the ground till they get done rotting;" but I differ with them, as I did so the first two seasons of the rot, and lost nearly all my potatoes, the same as they generally do now. I have put my potatoes in the cellar the first and second weeks of September, and planted some of the same the following May, and had them for use during the summer months, as good, as sweet, and as sound as of olden time. I prefer light, loamy, or gravelly soil for potatoes. Ten bushels of cut seed is sufficient for an acre; and a crop of 200 to 300 bushels a fair yield. I think thirty cents the average cost of producing potatoes; while in the fall they sell for 50, and in the spring 75 cents per bushel. Sheep and Wool.-I consider raising sheep profitable to the farmer, aside from the benefit derived from wool. The profit attached to the production of wool alone is of little importance, aside from the actual wants of the family. We have no wool depôts, nor manufacturing

establishments, in any of the eastern counties of this State; and exchanging wool for cloth with the traders and wool peddlers is attended with so great inconvenience and loss that our people, though formerly much accustomed to do so, have now generally abandoned the practice; wool is generally worth 20 to 30 cents per pound. Our butchers, the past season, paid as high as $2 per head for live lambs; and in the market the meat has been worth 6 to 10 cents per pound. On an average, it requires one ton of hay to seven sheep for winter fodder. Seven sheep, Saxony and Merino blooded, will shear 25 pounds wool, worth $6 25. They will raise, at common increase, six lambs, worth $10 50, making, in all, $16 75; while the only actual outlay and expense of production, save a little time, is the value of the ton of hay, which, in ordinary years, is $10 to $12, though this year it is much more. The wolves have been very destructive to sheep during the past season, killing probably 25 per cent. of the flocks in this vicinity.

Fruit culture is rapidly coming into favor with our agricultural community. A few of the orchards, the present year, produced from 100 to 300 bushels of apples. Some are planting new orchards, while others are nursing and grafting, and bringing to productiveness, those hereto. fore worthless. An acre of thrifty, productive apple trees will give yearly a greater amount of profit than the same ground, under any other process of cultivation possibly can. Apples are worth, on an average, 50 cents per bushel. Damsons and Egg and Sweet-water plums are also coming in for a share of attention.

Having dwelt briefly upon most of the queries propounded in your Circular applicable and adapted to our soil and climate, and which, if published, will occupy as much space as one correspondent, unless more interesting than I, is entitled to, I will now close. It is indeed interesting to our people to get the communications contained in your Reports from the farmers of the South and West, showing how differently they pursue the agricultural vocation, and what different results are obtained.

The good of the agricultural work emanating from your Office, I trust, is too sensibly felt by the farmers of the American Union, and too generally appreciated by all classes of the community, ever to be neglected or abandoned by our government. To agriculture and its vast resources, as well as to the enterprise and perseverance of its agricultural people, is our country chiefly indebted for its present conspicuous and honorable position among the nations of the earth. Let our people go on from acquisition to acquisition until they shall have searched well the hidden treasures of agricultural knowledge, and possessed themselves of all that well-investigated theory and thoroughly tested practice can impart, to facilitate the cultivation and increase the production of the soil, and add to the well-being and dignity of man.

With high respect,

GEO. W. DRISKO.

BLOOMFIELD, SOMERSET COUNTY, MAINE,

December 27, 1852.

SIR: Your Circular of last August was duly received; but press of business has prevented my noticing its contents till now. In answer