AGRICULTURAL MEMORANDA.
Caterpillars.—Hemp is a great enemy to caterpillars. By surrounding a bed of cabbages with a row of hemp, the cabbages will be preserved.
Churning.—After churning some time, throw into the churn one spoonful of distilled vinegar for every gallon of cream. When churning proves tedious, this will greatly hasten the separation of the butter.
To cure Hams Westphalia fashion.—Sprinkle your ham with common salt for one day; then wipe it dry. Take 1 lb. brown sugar, 1⁄4 lb. saltpetre, 1⁄2 pint bay salt, and 3 pints common salt. Stir these well together in an iron pan over the fire till moderately hot. The ham to lie in this pickle for three weeks.
Rue.—The growth of this plant ought to be cherished in every stock yard; nothing being more salutary or even pleasant to fowls.
Guinea Corn.—The stalks of this grain, if pressed, are said to yield a juice sweeter and of greater body than the sugar cane.
Carrots.—According to some agricultural reports, carrots will yield 600 or even 900 bushels per acre.
At the last meeting of The Columbian Institute, some valuable specimens of American plants, beautifully preserved, were presented by Dr. Darlington, a representative in Congress from Pennsylvania; and several fine specimens of American minerals, chiefly collected in the valley of the Mississippi, by Mr. Schoolcraft, the ingenious author of a work which has lately appeared on the lead mines of Missouri, and natural history, &c. of the western country.
To make fat Lamb.—"To make or fatten lamb for the market, let your ewes be well attended to, and fed upon a patch of rye; upon turnips, or other corresponding food; affording abundant milk. As fast as your lambs fall, and can run well alone, all you have are to be shut up together in a dark pen or stall, of proportionate size to the number of lambs you expect, having a narrow trough, breast high to them, to be daily supplied with Indian corn meal; with the bran in it; and hanging up within their reach one or more wisps or small bundles of fine hay for them to nibble, at. This stall must communicate with, or adjoin, a larger apartment, into which you are to turn ewes twice or thrice a day, to suckle their lambs, and to sleep all night with them.—Before turning the ewes out to pasture, each time, the lambs must be lifted into their small dark pen, or stall, (one six or eight feet square, is sufficiently large for thirty lambs or more,) where they will have no room to skip or play their fat away; here they will nibble so much of the fine hay, and eat so much of the dry Indian corn meal, from want of other employment, as to render themselves voraciously thirsty against the next meal of milk from their dams; which, with the other causes mentioned, makes them grow surprisingly large and fat in a short time. Lambs thus educated, will often promiscuously suck the ewes, without knowing or being attached to their own dams.—Hence a very great advantage: for when all grow large and strong, they become capable of consuming more milk than a single ewe can afford; and more especially those ewes which have two or more lambs each. For upon killing off all the lambs of a ewe, that ewe continues to give suck to the other lambs promiscuously as before, to the great advantage of the surviving lambs, now requiring additional nourishment. This is not the case when lambs run out at large with their dams."
New method of inoculating trees.—A common method of inoculating is by making a transverse section in the back of the stock and a perpendicular slit below it; the bud is then pushed down to give it the position which it is to have. This method is not always successful; it is better to reverse it, by making the verticle slit above the transverse section, and pushing the bud upwards into its position—a method which rarely fails of success; because as the sap descends by the bark, as has been ascertained, and does not ascend, the bud thus placed above the transverse section, receives abundance, but when placed below, the sap cannot reach it.
Grape Vines.—About one month since, I trimmed a very luxurious grape vine, calculating that I was early enough to allow the wound made by the cutting to heal before the sap began to rise; but to my surprise I found, three days since, the sap issuing from every part where the knife had been used, the ground was completely wet with it: I tried rosin and other things to stop it, without avail. In conversation with a neighbour he informed me, that to stick a potato on the part would stop the sap. I tried it and found it to succeed completely. Apprehending that many persons may, at this season, have vines similarly situated with mine, I thought communicating the above might give them an opportunity of benefiting by the information. A. B.
[N. Y. Daily Adv.
To dry Peaches.—The following mode of drying peaches is adopted by Thomas Belanjee, of Egg Harbour, New Jersey:—He has a small house with a stove in it, and drawers in the sides of the house, lathed at their bottoms. Each drawer will hold nearly half a bushel of peaches, which should be ripe, and not peeled, but cut in two, and laid on the laths with their skins downwards, so as to save the juice. On shoving the drawer in they are soon dried by the hot air of the stove and laid up. Peaches thus dried are clear from fly dirt, excellently flavoured, and command a high price in market. Pears thus dried eat like raisins. With a paring machine, which may be had for a dollar or two, apples or pears may be pared, and a sufficient quantity dried, to keep a family in pies, and apple bread and milk, till apples come again. With a paring machine, one person can pare for five or six cutters.