as is requisite for the production of a crop of corn or potatoes, as the apple tree must have care in all its stages from the seed to the mature tree.

The successful efforts of a gentleman in one of the eastern counties of Maine, in apple tree culture, practically illustrates the possibility of reviving the earlier interest and results in orchards in that section of the Union. The soil of the orchard referred to was naturally very poor and thin, being composed of a coarse, cold, and loamy gravel, lying on a light pan inclined to clay, and full of schistose stones. Six or seven acres were underdrained, four and a half feet deep. Three experiments were tried in planting the trees. In No. 1 the holes were dug eight feet in diameter and twenty inches deep, and filled with alluvial soil taken from a low island in the river. In the holes thus prepared one hundred trees were planted, twenty feet apart. In No. 2 the land was plowed in ridges twenty feet wide, the dead furrow coming where the rows were to stand. An ox-scraper eight feet long was passed across these ridges, and the contents dropped in each dead furrow, returning in the same line, drawing the other side in. These cavities were then plowed and scraped a second time, and an ox-cart load of black-ash swamp mud and about one bushel of slacked lime, well mixed, put into the holes. Some rich top soil was mixed with this deposit, and one hundred trees planted in the soil, when the field was plowed level. In No. 3 an acre was selected which had been cultivated with potatoes, corn, &c., and about one hundred ox-cart loads of muck and lime and about thirty loads of manure were spread upon it. A road-plow was then drawn through the land twenty inches deep. The following spring, the stones having been removed, the land was again manured, and plowed six inches deep, and one hundred trees planted upon it, not in it, the holes being not more than three or four inches deep. The land has since been dressed with muck, three-fourths of a cord to each twenty feet square, though not all at once, and the soil has been kept under cultivation. The other trees were planted in the ordinary method. The best trees are on field No. 3, on the deep plowing. Most of them have been planted since 1857, many of them since the spring of 1860. This season more than 150 barrels of apples were gathered by hand, and 100 bushels of cider apples picked up, the land at the same time yielding a large quantity of small crops50 bushels of barley and about 800 bushels of potatoes. The gentleman referred to concludes that the same variety of scions will not grow in all trees; that a tree may be planted upon any soil, even a stiff blue clay, and be made to grow and do well; that all soils holding or retaining water must be underdrained, and if clay the drains must be under the trees; that a tree must be fed with those elements constituting its substance, and that such are contained largely in the muck upon which hard wood is growing, mixed with ashes; that the great enemy in our orchards is grass, which must not be permitted to grow in the same field with the trees; and that the orchard, at least in the region referred to,. should be kept in constant cultivation. These observations do not apply to trees standing upon rock maple land.

PRODUCTS AND VARIETIES OF FRUIT.

Apples.-Joseph H. Smiley, of Vassalborough, has about one and five-eighths acre in orchard, raised from the seed and grafted principally with the Baldwin, Greening, and Tolman's Sweeting. About 140 trees have been in bearing several years, the remainder just commencing to bear. His crop in 1863 was 106 barrels, sold for $266; in 1864, 50 bar

rels, sold for $162; in 1865, 104 barrels, sold for $616; in 1866, 160 barrels, sold for $667; each year reserving six or eight barrels for family use, not included above. Land formerly pasture; broken up in 1848, and planted with corn and potatoes, the trees being set the following spring. The orchard was planted and sown to grain alternately for six or seven years, and then seeded to clover; since that time it has been pastured with sheep, the trees being protected with stakes and laths.

Jacob Pope, of Manchester, sold from his orchard of sixteen acres 250 barrels of first quality of apples at $4 to $4 50 per barrel; thus harvesting over $1,000 worth from a rough piece of land, portions of which had never been plowed, but used for sheep-grazing. The trees were mostly the Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, and Rhode Island Greening. Nathan Foster, of Gardiner, recommends the following list for general cultivation in that locality: Apples-Red Astrachan, Sidney Sweet, Moses Wood, American Summer Pearmain, Winthrop Greening, Somerset, Holmes's Sweet, Gravenstein, Fameuse, Tolman's Sweeting, Bellflower, Rhode Island Greening, Northern Spy. Pears-Doyenné d'Été, Rostiezer, Beurré d'Amaulis, Flemish Beauty, Nickerson, Fulton, Nouveau Poiteau, Belle Lucrative, Urbaniste, Winter Nelis, and Lawrence. S. N. Taber, of Vassalborough, recommends the following apples for a family orchard: Early Harvest, Early Sweet Bough, Sops of Wine, Williams's Favorite, Gravenstein, Somerset, Porter, Queen's, Starkey, Hurlbut, Rhode Island Greening, Franklin Sweet, Sawyer Sweet, Baldwin, Golden Russet, Northern Spy, Tolman's Sweeting, and Bellflower.

THE USE OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Mr. Chamberlain, in a report upon this subject, argues that health and economy require more attention, on the part of our farmers, to the production and use of garden vegetables and fruits; and urges the reduction of the consumption of meat, and a greater reliance upon the former for the table, especially in the warm season, not only as a matter of health, but of economy. The kitchen garden should become a general and an important appendage to the farm, being made an object of annual and daily care. In support of the economical view it is stated that a growing animal, or a cow in milk, consumes daily of good hay about three per cent. of its own weight; that it takes 11 pounds of milk to increase the weight of a calf one pound; that 315 pounds of potatoes, 548 pounds of beets, 676 pounds of turnips, and 386 pounds of carrots are each equivalent to 100 pounds of hay; that an ox weighing 1,300 pounds will keep up his weight upon about 22 pounds of good hay per day; but, put up to fatten, he will require 44 pounds, upon which he will gain about two pounds per day. Substituting equivalents for onehalf the hay, we have 69.3 pounds of potatoes, 120.4 pounds of beets, 148.7 pounds of turnips, or 84 pounds of carrots, added to 22 pounds of hay for daily feed, to produce two pounds of beef, live weight. An experiment in feeding hogs, from Boussingault's Rural Economy, is given: Four animals, each nine months old, weight 458.2 pounds; at the end of twenty-one days they weighed 620.8 pounds, increase 162.6 pounds; to attain which they consumed, of barley 151 pounds, beans 140.8 pounds, malt grains 440 pounds, equivalent in nutrition to 1,229 pounds of hay, or 3,871 pounds of potatoes, so that the quantity of nutritive matter, represented by 100 pounds of hay, produced 13.21 pounds of live weight. Otherwise expressed, 64 bushels of potatoes produced 162.6 pounds of live hog. In another experiment, seven hogs, fifteen months old and in good condition, were put up to fatten, their weight being

1,691.8 pounds; at the end of 104 days they had gained 409.2 pounds; they consumed 772 pounds of barley, 1,042.8 pounds of peas, and 9,504 pounds of potatoes; giving equivalents, we have 26,245 pounds of pota toes; the provender equivalent to 100 pounds of hay gave 4.91 pounds live weight, or 456 bushels of potatoes made 409 pounds of live pork. Mutton is fattened at a cost about the same as beef. With such proof of expenditure of vegetables for the production of animal flesh, the writer concludes that course to be true economy which leads us to support ourselves on the products of the garden, the orchard, and the field; reducing our animal food to its minimum, below which vital energy will be lessened, and our usefulness abridged.

SOUR KROUT.

A letter to the secretary upon the manufacture of sour krout gives the following as the popular method of preparation among the kroutmakers of Lincoln County:

The outside and loose leaves should be cut off and the heads quartered and thrown into a tub of clear water, from which they should be taken, one piece or more at a time, and placed in a small box, open at top and bottom, and running in the grooves of the krout machine, which is about four feet long, one foot wide, and six inches deep. The box runs over three or four knives, sometimes made of old scythes, fixed diagonally across the bottom of the machine. The edges of the knives are slightly raised above the level of the bottom, and when the box is moved backward and forward in the grooves, and pressure made with a small piece of board on the cabbage, the latter is cut into thin, small slices, which drop into the tub beneath the cutter. As the cabbage is cut, it is transferred to a clean barrel (a pork barrel is preferable) and pounded with a heavy wooden mallet. The more closely it is packed the better; and, with care, from 250 to 300 pounds of cabbage may be put into a barrel of 40 gallons. One pint of fine salt to the barrel is sprinkled with the cabbage as it is packed down. No addition of water is required. Fill the barrel to a point two inches from the top, cover the Krout with large cabbage leaves, and place over the whole a wooden cover small enough to be inserted within the barrel, where it must be kept firmly, by a heavy stone, until the process of fermentation is past. Place the barrel within five or six feet of the kitchen fire, and in a few days fermentation will commence, which may be hastened by the addition of a little blood-warm water; a frothy scum will rise and run off, when the krout is all right and ready for use, and the barrel may be set in the cellar, porch, or shed. Freezing does it no injury, and it will keep in the cellar until March or April without depreciating, and longer in a cooler place. A barrel of krout can be made in two hours by two men. Any prejudice existing against sour krout, for want of cleanliness, is not well founded where even ordinary care is exercised in its preparation. There are various modes of cooking it, while some prefer it raw, eating it as a salad. It is frequently boiled, three hours or more, with salt pork cut into small pieces. Perhaps the nicest style is to fry it in pork fat or with the gravy from roast pork. For frying, it should be boiled two hours to make it tender. It is a wholesome, hearty food, and is particularly appreciated by men requiring a substantial diet, while it is also relished by many of more fastidious taste.

CULTURE OF BUCKWHEAT.

The report of Mr. Harries, on the culture of buckwheat, recommends increased attention to the production of this grain in Maine, where it

matures in about ninety days from sowing. The writer states that it can be raised as cheaply as oats, while one bushel of it is worth two of cats for making beef, pork, or mutton. When used for feeding purposes the flour and bran are not separated, and thirty to thirty-three pounds per bushel are obtained; in separating, the bolt divides it in about equal parts. It is asserted that the flour is worth as much as wheat flour in the family. If sown on land in high condition it will lodge, and not yield so much as on land in a lower state of cultivation. It will grow on poor soil, and yield a good crop for several successive years without seeming to make the soil poorer, as it is thought to receive a large share of its nutriment from the atmosphere, through its great amount of leaves. The best way to harvest is to cradle it, setting it up in small bunches to dry. It will not sprout at harvest time, and the poor man, without a barn, may raise it. It is best threshed on a bed made of sinall poles, supported at suitable height from the ground, the grain falling beneath. The grain is ready for the mill at any time. Preference is given to the rough variety, as not being liable to blight, and yielding more, while making as good flour as the smooth variety.

CUTTING HAY.

Samuel L. Boardman says, in a paper upon the agriculture and industry of Kennebec County, that farmers do not cut their hay soon enough; that hay, by the present mode of cutting it, loses a large part of its most valuable constituents; that to be properly cured, it should, when this operation is performed, resemble dried grass as much as possible; and, to accomplish this, it needs to remain exposed to the air, after cutting, only long enough to have the water dried out; and that the right time for cutting grass is when it contains the largest amount of matter soluble in water, and not after this has changed to woody matter, as when passing into seed.

The method of curing hay employed by Allen Lambard, of Augusta, is given as follows: He never commences cutting grass in the morning until the dew is all off, which is usually about 9 o'clock. It then lies until afternoon, when it is put up in bunches, in which state it remains through the night and all of the next day, without being disturbed. The second day after mowing, the bunches are all made over with a fork, commencing at the top, shaking it apart somewhat and rebuilding, thus bringing the bottom of one bunch to the top of the other. It then remains until the third day, when, if the weather is good, it is opened, has the sun for an hour or two, and is hauled in. If the weather is not good, it remains untouched until the next day. Hay cured in this way retains its sweetness, brightness, and all the leaves and blossoms until fed out; and not having been burnt up, the best part is not left in the field when it is harvested. The mixture of seed used in seedingtwenty pounds of clover and half a bushel each of herd's grass and redtop to the acre-gives pure grass of an excellent quality.

FARM FENCING.

In a report upon this subject Mr. Prince states that in 1860 there were in Maine 53,956 farms of more than twenty acres, upon each of which it is estimated there are 500 rods of fence, making an aggregate of 26,978,000 rods; that at least two-thirds of this is of wood, and liable to need repair every season, which, at ten cents per rod, will make an annual outlay of nearly $2,000,000, constantly increasing

with the cost of wood and timber; and that this expense must in time become burdensome in the extreme, unless some cheaper and more systematic mode of inclosure shall be devised. It is stated that embankment fences and hedge fence, though pretty to look upon, have been found impracticable in Maine. Another member said it should be a point with farmers to build fences that will last a lifetime. A fence made of pickets, with an iron post and stone foot, is becoming common in open fields devoid of stones, making an excellent fence, and one which will last twenty-five or thirty years. The most substantial fence is the cheapest. Better build a picket fence than to patch up a fence every year with long, straight sticks from the forest, that in a few years would make valuable timber.

SHEEP IN NEW ENGLAND.

At a meeting of the State board it was resolved that the interests of Maine farmers demand that more attention shall be given to the production of mutton, both for sale and for the farmer's table. The opinion was expressed that the keeping of sheep, primarily for the production of wool, cannot be profitably pursued for any length of time in Maine or in New England; that the advantages of the far west for sheep husbandry, and the portable qualities of wool, would so reduce the price as to cause the abandonment of the pursuit in the former section. An increased tariff on wool was regarded as only a temporary relief, which must hasten the time of its cheap production at home. As yet, the native grazing lands of the United States have hardly been reached by civilization. The Indian, the buffalo, the elk, and the wolf have had undisputed possession. These must soon give place to the shepherd and his flocks and herds, producing wool for the New England manufacturers, and meat for the miners in the mountains. A large part of the vast territory lying west of the Mississippi is admirably adapted to sheep husbandry, and the belief was expressed that the time would soon come when a pound of wool would be produced in the United States more cheaply than a pound of cotton. Yet New England should not be discouraged in sheep husbandry, as it will always have a market for mutton without competition. It was argued that the East can also produce finer wool than the West, the climate and condition of the new Territories not being favorable to the production of very fine wool, or the long combing wools for lustrous goods. The Merino was recommended as suited to the situation. It was stated that little good mutton is produced in New England, and no special pains are taken to raise it, though the section is possessed of the elements requisite to the production of mutton sheep in perfection. The farmer can produce no meat so cheap and convenient for his table; he can have it fresh or corned at any time; and it would be a cheap and healthy substitute for much of the pork now used. A resolution was also adopted by the board, that sheep husbandry ought to be encouraged not only as a direct means of support, but also as indirectly tending to maintain the productiveness of the soil, thus enabling it to support a larger number of producers under conditions more desirable than now enjoyed.

USE OF ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS.

A report by Mr. Wasson, discussing the question, "Can artificial manures be profitably used by farmers; if so, what kinds and to what extent ?" holds that, only where adequate returns cannot be made to the