The cold and wet of the first winter are very injurious. After they are a year old they will give very little trouble. The great difficulty with calves is a want of enough to eat. They should not only be kept growing, but fat, all the first year. They will then make fine, healthy, and profitable animals.
Chalk or dry yellow loam, placed within their reach is very useful. They will eat of it, enough to correct the excessive acidity of their stomachs. The operation of changing calves into oxen, should be performed before they are twenty days old. It will then be only slightly injurious.
CANS.
These are much used for preserving fruits and vegetables. There are a number of patent articles said to work well. They are, in our opinion, more expensive, and more likely to fail in inexperienced hands, than those that an ordinary tinman can readily make. The best invention for general use is that that is most simple. Cans should be made in cylindrical form, with an orifice in the top large enough to admit whatever you wish to preserve, and should contain about two quarts. Fill the cans and solder on the top, leaving an opening as large as a pin-head, from which steam may escape. Set the cans in water nearly to their tops, and gradually increase the heat under them until the water begins to boil. Take out the cans, drop solder on the opening, and all will be air-tight. This operation requires at least three hours, as the heating must be moderate. You may preserve in glass bottles, filling and putting in a cork very tight, and well tied, and gradually heating as above; this will require four hours, as glass will be in danger of bursting by too rapid heating. But for tomatoes, or anything that you have no objection to boiling and seasoning before preserving, the best way is to prepare and cook as for the table, putting in only pepper and salt, and fill cans while the mass is boiling, and, with a sealing-wax that you can get at any druggist's laid around the orifice, place the cover upon it; the heat will melt the wax, and when it cools, the cover will be fastened, and all will be air-tight. This will require no process of slow boiling. Set the cans or bottles in a cool cellar, and whatever they contain may be taken out, at the end of a year, as good as when put in. The last method is the best and most simple of all. The whole principle of preserving is to make the cans air-tight.
CARROTS.
These are cultivated for the table, and for food for animals. Boiled and pickled, or eaten with an ordinary boiled dish, they are esteemed. They are really excellent in soups. As a root for animals, they are very valuable. They are often preferred to beets;—this is a mistake—four pounds of beet are equal to five pounds of carrot for feeding to domestic animals. Work the soil for carrots very deep, make it very rich with stable manure, with a mixture of lime; harrow fine and mellow, and roll entirely smooth. Plant with a seed-sower, that the rows may be straight; rows two feet apart will allow a horse and small cultivator to pass between them. Planted one foot apart, and cultivated with a horse, and a cultivator that will take three rows at once, they will yield much more to the acre, and may be cultivated at a moderate expense, exceeding but a little that of ordinary field-crops. Sow as early as convenient, as the longer time they have, the larger will be the product. They grow until hard frosts, whenever you may sow them. There are several varieties, but the Long Orange is the only one that it is ever best to grow; it is richer than the white, and yields as well: the earlier sorts are no better, as the carrot may be used at any stage of its growth. They should be kept in the ground as long as it is safe. They will stand hard frosts, but, if too much frozen, they are inclined to rot in winter. Dig in fair weather, dry in the sun, and keep dry. It is the best of all root crops, except the beet. All animals will eat it freely, while they have to acquire a taste for the beet.
CAULIFLOWER.
The two varieties known in this country are the English and the French—distinguished, also, as early and late. The French only is suitable for cultivation here; especially in the colder regions, as it is earlier. This is cultivated in every way like cabbage. In several respects it is preferable to cabbage; it has a more pleasant flavor, and is more easy of digestion. It is excellent for pickling. Seeds may be raised in the same way, and with the same precautions, as cabbage; but it is generally imported.
CELERY.
This is one of the finest of our table vegetables, eaten raw with salt, or in soups. Sow seed, early in spring, in open ground; or sow in hotbeds, if you wish it very early. When the plants are six inches high, they should be transplanted in trenches eighteen inches deep, containing six inches of well-rotted manure or compost. This should be well watered, and fine mould mixed with it, and the plants placed in it eight inches apart. The trenches should be from four to six feet apart. If the weather be warm and sun bright at the time of transplanting, a board laid lengthwise over the top of the trench will afford perfect protection. As the plants grow, draw the earth up to them, not allowing it to separate the leaves; do this two or three times during the season, and the stalks will be beautifully bleached. Heavy loam is much better than sand.