manufacture of sugar-cost of producing sugar per pound. Is guano used-and, if so, with what result? Rice.-Can rice be successfully cultivated on upland-do you know of any varieties, decidedly superior to others, which deserve increased attention-can you suggest any improvement in the management of rice plantations-quantity grown per acre. Tobacco. Average yield per acre-cost of production per hundred weight or hogshead-describe any new process of cultivation or curingcrops best grown in rotation to maintain the fertility of tobacco land. Is guano used, and with what result? Hemp.-Is the culture of hemp on the increase or decrease? Describe any new process of culture or preparation for market-average yield per acre-cost of production per pound. Root Crops, (turnips, carrots, beets, &c.)-Is the cultivation of these roots, as a field crop, on the increase? Can you suggest any improvement in preparing land, seeding, after tillage and feeding? Average product per acre. Potatoes, (Irish and sweet.)-Average yield per acre-cost of production per bushel-most prolific and profitable varieties-best system of planting, tillage, and manuring. Fruit Culture.-Is the culture of fruit receiving increased attentioncannot apples enough be grown on an acre to render the crop a very profitable one to the farmer-comparative value of apples and potatoes for feeding hogs and cattle-what varieties best to keep for winter use and for exportation-do you know any preventive or remedy for the "blight" on pear and apple trees, or the "yellows" on peach trees? The best method of transplanting, budding, grafting, &c. Make any suggestions on the culture of grapes and other fruit-the manufacture of wine, and on forest culture. Manures.-What is regarded as the best plan of making and preserving manures from waste-are lime and plaster used as fertilizers; if so, in what quantity, and how often applied? Is guano used, and with what success? Quantity usually applied per acre. Meteorology.-Time and degree of highest and lowest range of thermometer-mean temperature of each month and of the year-fall of rain in each month, and aggregate for the year. Note.-Please forward replies as early as convenient-if possible, before the 1st of January—giving the name, post office, county, and State. REPLIES TO CIRCULAR. MAINE. PERRY, WASHINGTON COUNTY, MAINE, December 20, 1851. SIR-I will attempt an answer to a few of the inquiries of your Circular. My residence, as you will see by the heading, is in the extreme "down-east," upon a branch of the Bay of Fundy-exposed to the fogs and damps of that bay, which moderate in some degree the climate, both in winter and summer-the thermometer showing not so great a range as in situations a few miles inland. My answers will have reference only to my own, and similar situations in this extreme east of the Union. The pine tree being as yet the principal crop, there is not much data for information on agricultural topics; yet we hope a better day is dawning. Wheat can be cultivated here, and is a profitable crop. Guano has been used very little, and not with marked success; fifteen bushels is about the average yield, though forty have been raised per acre. Summer wheat is the only kind raised. A few experiments with winter wheat show that it will do well. "Time of seeding," April 10 to May 10; of harvesting, September 10 to September 20. The best "preparation of seed" known here is a strong brine to float out all light wheat, &c.; then dry with quick lime. Our "system of rotation in crops," where any system is practised, is pasture, oats, turnips or potatoes, wheat or barley, hay, pasture-a six years' course. Corn is a very uncertain crop here. This year it did not get even to green corn for boiling. Oats, Barley, Rye, Peas, and Beans.-These we can raise to good advantage. Average yield of oats on green sward, fifty bushels; of barley, twenty-five bushels; rye, fifteen bushels. Barley or wheat is used to lay down land to grass with. The grass-seed takes much better than with oats or rye. Clover and Grasses.-Quantity of hay per acre where land is in good condition, this year, from two to four tons. Best Fertilizers.-Bone dust, hog manure; grass seeds used here, timothy, eight quarts; clover, ten pounds; fowl meadow, eight quarts. Cost of growing hay, including rent of land, taxes, and labor, $5 per ton. Dairy.-Not much cheese made-none for market; average product of butter per cow, one hundred and twenty pounds. Mode ofputting down butter for market:" the best butter is made from sweet cream; let the milk stand from 36 to 48 hours; skim and churn; work out all the butter milk, and the butter cannot fail to be good; and with one-and-ahalf ounce of salt and a tea spoonful of loaf sugar to the pound of butter, packed in spruce firkins, it will be as sweet in a year as on the day it is packed. The price of good butter here is twenty cents. As the rearing and managing of neat cattle is pursued without any system, answers to your question here would be mostly guess work. They must cost about twenty dollars per head, which is about what they sell for at three years old. Good dairy cows are worth twenty dollars in the fall, thirty dollars in the spring. Horses and Mules.--No mules in the county. The rearing of horses. is profitable if we rear fine animals, which will sell at a high price; not otherwise. There are very few raised, and no system pursued; and I must remark the same of sheep. Every farmer keeps a few; but, being fed with other stock from a common mow, no account can be given of the cost of keeping. I am well satisfied that the common coarse-wool sheep, such as are usually kept here, yielding three to four pounds of wool, will not pay the expense of keeping. The merino are as easily kept, are as hardy, yield as much wool per head, and raise as many lambs, on an average, as the coarse-wool sheep. But our winters are too long to have wool-growing or stock-raising made a profitable business, without some better system than we now have. Root Crops. Their cultivation is on the increase since the potato has failed; they are very much taking its place. Beef can be fattened and hogs kept very well with ruta-baga or carrots. The fly, or rather a small bug, has become very troublesome to the ruta-baga of late. The best remedy known here is to sow very thick-say four or five pounds of seed to the acre, and as much of the flat turnip-seed sown broadcast. The bug is said to prefer the flat turnip to the ruta-baga; and by thus furnishing him an abundance of food, enough will escape him to give a crop. I can suggest" no "improvement" in preparing land, &c., on the modes practised by good farmers, viz: land ploughed deep, worked fine, well manured. In after culture I thin, to ten inches apart, the plants as soon as they get too large for the fly, or as soon as the second leaves are well formed; then use the cultivator and hoe freely. I have succeeded well with guano mixed with plaster, half and half in bulk. Five hundred pounds of guano to the acre give a crop equal to the best farm-yard compost. Our crops range from four to ten hundred bushels per acre, and cost from four to ten cents a bushel. In feeding, I have given up cooking them. I winter my swine well on ruta-baga, given raw and whole, from one-half to three-fourths of a bushel daily to each hog. They eat them well, and thrive well on them, much better (I think) than on boiled ones. I fatten my beef in the same way, feeding from one to two bushels per head daily, (or as much as they will eat.) Potatoes, formerly our great and almost only crop, have become so uncertain by the disease that no reliable data can be procured. This year the crop was small, but of good quality; the yield, one hundred and fifty bushels per acre, halfof which were merchantable, and sold for eighty cents per bushel; cost of production, twenty-five cents per bushel. Our "most prolific and profitable variety," and the only variety raised to any great extent, is the "white blue-nose." "The best system of planting," &c., which I have found is, plough, spread the manure, harrow, plough again, dropping the seed in every third furrow; leave them thus till the potatoes begin to break ground; then harrow crosswise the furrows. In this way I have raised 500 bushels white blue-noses to the acre. Fruit Culture.-The culture of fruit is receiving increased attention, and I know of no crop that will yield a better income to the farmer. There has been, and still is, a great want of faith in the capacity of the soil or climate to bring fruit to maturity. This should not be so. We can raise many varieties of apples to perfection. Plums flourish well here, and pears also, wherever they have been tried. We don't yet begin to talk about the value of apples for swine, or think about exportation; and the culture is not far enough advanced to decide what are best varieties; almost any variety raised here will keep well. I think the best method of grafting, so far as I have had any experience, is, to take up the young tree (at a year old from the seed) in April, or as early as the frost will allow; cut it off at the root with a sloping cut, entering the knife at one inch below the line of the ground, and passing it out at half an inch or an inch above this line; select a scion as nearly the size of the stock as possible, and cut with a slope to match that of the stock; place the parts together, matching the barks accurately on one side, let the other come as it may; tie with woollen yarn or cotton wicking, (any thing which is soft and will rot off quick,) and transplant immediately, covering the splice with earth. Use no wax, or composition of any kind; it prevents the thread from rotting off and girdles the tree. The advantages of this mode are, its simplicity, certainty, cheapness, and economy of time, as it may be performed in-doors in stormy weather, being careful not to let the roots dry; and if some fail to take, (very few will do so,) the loss is a mere trifle. They grow very thriftily from two to four feet. I have succeeded well in grafting the plum, by cutting down the stock, near the ground, and inserting the scion by cleft-grafting, covering with grafting-wax. This must be done very early, before the sap begins to move. Pear scions will take in the mountain ash and in the wild pear, (shad bush.) I don't know what kind of trees they will make. "Best plan of making and preserving manure from waste" is the barn cellar, well supplied with dry muck to absorb the liquid. Lime produces no effect, or plaster applied alone to the land. This has been my experience, and that of others who have tried it. Plaster with guano seems to increase its power and prolong its action. Guano is used by very few farmers, and by them with various success. My own experience is, that it is better than any other manure that I can apply at the same cost, Quantity usually applied-three to four hundred pounds per Lowest range of thermometer, 10° below zero February 8; 129 below, January 31; highest, 84°, September 6 and 8. acre. Snow six days; rain three days; quantity not noted. Nine days snowy; 2 inches of rain; fields covered with snow, and good sleighing till 30th; 2 feet snow in the woods. Nine rainy days; 7 inches. Eleven frosty nights; eight rainy days; 9 inches. Twenty-seven fair days; two rainy days; 3 inches. 13 inches; eleven rainy days; ice 17th. Rain three days; 4 inches; snow five days; 10 inches. Winter set in, that is, the ground froze, and sleighing, which continues till this time, commenced on the 10th day of November. From the time sleighing broke up in the spring till it commenced again in the fall, 7 months 11 days. All which is respectfully submitted by THOMAS EWBANK, Esq. WM. D. DANA. NORRIDGEWOCK, SOMERSET COUNTY, MAINE, SIR: In reply to the Circular of queries which I received from the Patent Office in September last, desiring information relative to the agricultural products, and other topics, in this vicinity, I will endeavor to give such information as can be obtained from sources to be relied upon. Wheat. The kinds most used here for spring sowing are a bald white chaff, called tea wheat, and a bearded red chaff, known as Malaga wheat. But a few years since we considered wheat sown in April or May, on good land, ploughed the fall previous and harrowed in the spring, would yield a sure crop; but for the last few years the Hessian fly, the weevil, and rust have almost destroyed the crop; so that many of our farmers have abandoned the attempt to raise spring wheat. This season, however, has been a more productive one, less weevil and rust, a fair yield both in quantity and quality of grain; so our farmers seem more encouraged to renew their efforts, hoping that some way will be found to overcome these common enemies. Many have deferred sowing until the last of May or first of June, and have thereby escaped the weevil, but sometimes lose by the rust. Amount of seed used, 14 to 2 bushels per acre; harvest last of August or first of September. Winter wheat, within a very few years, has attracted the attention of some farmers. Although they commenced the experiment by sowing small parcels, it has succeeded beyond their expectations; and, from reliable sources, an estimate has been made, showing that more than 10,000 bushels have been raised in this and Kennebec counties the past season, all of which is now sown; so that we have now fairly made a beginning to grow winter wheat. The kinds mostly used are the white flint, kloss, or banner, and Oregon, sowed in September, 1 bushel per acre; harvest in August; average yield this season 25 bushels per acre; mode of culti vation: ground well ploughed once, harrowed fine and smooth, seed sown, ploughed in with a small plough. Price this season from $2 to $250 per bushel; spring wheat from $1 25 to $1 50 per bushel. Corn. Since the failure of the wheat and potato crop, corn has received increased attention, and has yielded good and sound crops for several years in succession. Although the last spring was very unpromising, yet the very warm fall gave another good crop. Various kinds are used here, according to soils-some eight, some twelve rowed. Mode of cultivation: about 12 loads-say 6 cords-of manure spread upon the acre and ploughed in, with about 4 cords put into the hills; average product 40 bushels per acre; average price at the farm 75 cents per bushel; plant in May, harvest in September or October; the land sowed with winter wheat in the fall, or spring wheat and grass seed the following spring. Very little is used for making pork or beef, but much used for domestic purposes; the surplus is used for teams lumbering, mixed with oats, and ground, and fed to oxen dry; what is used for making pork is ground and cooked--for making beef, ground and fed dry. Oats. On light and easy soil many oats are raised. Ground ploughed in the fall, sowed as early in the spring as the land will admit being worked. Seed used, 3 bushels per acre; average product, about 25 bushels per acre; average price, 30 cents per bushel. A mixed crop of oats and peas is raised here in large quantities; used for making pork and beef, and provender for teams lumbering. |