The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-04-06 00:00:00

3griculturt.

HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF SCOT-
LAND.—The Prince Consort has accepted an invitation
to be present at the annual meetings of this society,
which are to be held at Aberdeen at the close of the
month of August next.
SPRING CHICHENB.—These are always in active
demand from May to September, in the vicinity of all
our cities, and the larger towns. Of course they are
profitable to the farmers and sinall landowners and
cottagers who breed them. This is • good month to
set the hens, and hatch them out. For this purpose, a
warm hen house and coops in sunny places are required.
Let the eggs be kept in • proper temperature, till the
hen is ready to sit on them. Thirteen is the proper
number for • clutch of chickens. When hatched, if
milk curds can be had, this is their best food. If not,
soaked bread for the first few days, and after that,
Indian meal well cooked, like mush for your own table.
Raw meal wet up in the usual way is harsh and scouring
for their delicate stomachs. When a few weeks old,
chopped cabbage, gives, and other tender vegetables, are to
be added, and sour milk is the very best drink they can
have. We would by all means entrust the early chickens
to woman's care. She seems to possess the necessary in-
stincta—worth all the boys and men in the country.
We have known a Scotch, Dutch, or Irish washer-
woman's cottage, surrounded by • close wall, alive with
early ckickens, when the gentleman's and farmer's
premises would scarce supply a fowl for the table before
September. Don't keep the big breeds for srring
chickens either. A close, compact, early matured fowl
is the thing for this purpose. In most large towas a
plump, fat chick, the size of a quail, will sell for as
much in May or June, as a full grown one will in
October ; and if they only know you have them the
tavern keepers and pedlars will be after them every day
in the week. To the habit these latter people have of
confining them in close, filthy coops for days together,
we enter our protest. It is cruel to the chickens. It
poisons and defiles the taste of the flesh. It makes
them poor. Exercise, good air, and plenty of good
food they should have, till wanted for the table ; and
every one who keeps them on band for immediate use,
should be well provided with yards and roosting ac-
commodation. To make chickens edibly perfect. they
should come upon the table plump, juicy, and full of
their own natural gravy. "Plump as a partridge," is
the term which should always be truthfully applied to
the early chicken ; and if they be not so half their ex-
cellence is lost, while, if in perfection of flesh, they are
a positive luzury.—American dirricutfurist.
••

To RAISE EXTRA EARLY POTATOES—Cover the
bottom of several shallow boxes with six inches of equal
parts of stable manure and loam and put any early
variety of potatoes over the surface two or three inches
apart ; then cover them with six inches of the compost.
Nail slates or an open cover over the top, and bury in
the side of • fermenting manure heap, the warmth of
which will soon start the potatoes in growth. If the
heat should be too great, remove a portion of the
manure from the top, and admit air inside the box.
When the weather will allow planting out, remove the
boxes, which will contain a MOM of roots and whitish-
coloured stalks. Leave them in the open air for a few
days to harden off, and having watered them copiously,
take out the potatoes with as much earth as possible,
undisturbed about the roots already formed, and trans-
plant in rows. You will then have potatoes at least
two or three weeks earlier than when planted at first
in the open grounds. The middle or latter part of
March will be a proper season for putting them in the
compost heap, in this latitude.—lbid.

THE ATMOSPHERE AND THE FANNER—The chief
business of the cultivator, of course, is with the soil
beneath his feet; but a little reflection will show that
no unimportant part of his farm lies in the atmosphere
enveloping the soil in which be delves so industriously.
He owns an invisible ocean—fifty miles deep above his
bead ; yet not wholly invisible, either, for if he looks
around and upward he sees it tinged with • beautiful
blue. He can feel it more plainly than he can see it,
espeoially when its waves are put in motion in winds.
The weight of this superincumbent ocean is 115 lbs, to
every square inch, never more ; and were not tido prep
sure the same on all sides, upwards as well as down.
wards, it would oppress, if not crush, every living crea-
ture, Men drink large draughts from thia ocean con.
tinually. A person of medium else and sound health
drinks eighteen times a minute, and in twenty.four
hours consumes fifty-one hogsheads of air. The atinos.
phere is composed chiefly of two gases, oxygen one.
fifth part, and nitrogen four-flftla, with a true of oar.
bent° acid. Oxygen being the chief supporter of life,
and the fraction of it in the air so small, it Is exceedingly
important to preserve it unvitated. Any Moreau of
carbonic avid in the air is injurious to the health of all
animals. It is Increased by respiration, by the decay of
animal and vegetable matters, by stagnant water, and
by eumbutinn. When pure sir, and enough of It is
inhaled, It purifies the blood and promotes the general
health of the system I impure and Insufficient air ups
the very citadel of life. The air of damp cellars and of
stagnant marshes is unwholesome t room lighted with
gas, and heated by coal stoves with poor draft, are often
filled with oarbonio mid and other noxious pees. " A
single gas burner," says Coombe, "common,' more
oxygen and pxoduou more carbonic acid gas than six or
eight candles. Foul and unventilated stables are inju.
eon" to the health of animals, But the atmaphere haa
mush to do with the finnan welfare in another reepeot.
Plante breathe as well as men and their life and health
depend on their breathing, 'Every leaf on the tree, of
our orchards, on the bushes and vines in our gardens, on
the grains, grausa, and vegetables in our fields, has a
multitude of pores or mouths through whioh the plants
breathe, Destroy or shut up those pores, or remove or
seriously vitiate the air, end the plant dies. The air
does a work also 111 the soil, preparing it to nourish the
roote of every plant, Draining, aubsolling, ploughing,
and hoeing, 0 not of themselves maims plants grow;
they are but adjunate or pioneer" to the air, We break
up the ground with machine' not merely to give the
roota a olianee to spread themselves but in order to give
the air free passage between the particles of the mil,
The stratum of air just above the ground is oonstantly
absoibing gases from deoging vegetation, which the
dews and rain carry down into the earth for the food of
plant.. The oxygen of the air "01111611 the particlea of
soil to yield up their oonatituent elements for the sup.
port of vegetable life. Carboni* mid In the air fur.
niches plants with carbon, which ii the chief element in
their oonstitution" A compost heap would be of little
value wore it not for the heist and moisture mcniouni.
sated by the air, A. the sir is essential to the genuine.
lion of plants, It is linportant that seeds iliould be
planted just deep enough to moues needful moisture,
without carrying them beyond the reach of the air,
Hones, also the -importune of a thorough pulverisation
of the mil' about the :mote of all tram and plants.
This is one reason, also, why a Miff clayey soil needs an
admixture of ,and to loosen he texture, and provide
channels for the ingreu of air.
BATH AND WEST OF ENGLAND AGRICULTURAL
Snaterr.—The monthly meeting of the Council was ,
held at Taunton, on Saturday week, W. E. Gillet, Req.,
in the chair. Barnstaple Meeting.—Mr. Robert Smith
brought up a report stating that the requirements of the
society, with regard to trial fields and other matters,
had been guaranteed by the local committee. Arrange-
ments were made, and conditions ordered to be drawn
up for the exhibition of Steam Ploughs at the Cardiff
meeting, in June next. A committee was appointed•to
select the judges in the various departments, and memo.
ben were requested to forward to the Secretary the
names of thou gentlemen whom they might deem
qualified for the office. The following prises are offered
for Essays for the year 1859 :—On Pigs, £l5. Steam
cultivation, £25. Potatoes, £lO. Comparative value
of Corn and Roots in making flesh and making manure,
£2O. Autumn cultivation, £lO. Connection between
the Wert of England and Wales, EEO. A grant of a
sum of money WAS ordered for Mr. Heard, of Saxmund-
ham, for hie Essay on the threshing-wachine. Mr.
Gillett brought up • financial statement, together with
several claims, which were missed.
THE ADVENTURES OF A REED.—Nature has arranged
that plants growing even in the burning desert shall be
provided with enough of water for the generation of
their seeds; and one of the most remarkable instances
of this fact is furnished by the Anurtaticia Hierochun•
ties, or rose of Jericho, which grows in the arid wastes
of Egypt, Palestine, and Barbary; upon the roofs of
houses and among rubbish in Syria; and in the sandy
deserts of Arabia. This little plant, scarcely six inches
high, after the flowering season loses its leaves, and
dries up into the form of a ball. In this condition it is
uprooted by the winds, and is carried, blown, or tossed
across the desert into the sea. When the little plant
feels the contact of the water, it unfolds itself, expands
its branches, and expels its seeds from their seed vessels.
The seeds, after having become thoroughly saturated
with sea water, are carried by the tide and laid upon the
!seashore. Fro.n the seashore the seeds are blown back
again into the desert, where, sprouting roots and leaves,
they grow into fruitful plants, which will in their turns,
like their ancestors, be blown into the sea. These
regular periodie processes of the life-circle of this wee
rose struck the sunple imaginations of the men of old
with superstitious awe, and they invested it with mira-
culous virtues.