The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-08-31 00:00:00

2fgriculture.

STEAM C. tiOnges.
When I look at my steam engine, of nominal six-horse
power, sad see how efficiently it has done its work for
more than thirty years. I begin to calculate how much
would have been my loge in hones by death, accidents
and wear in that long period. Look at the fall oost to
begin with. I paid £l5O for the engine and boiler. or .CPS
per born power. Within the last few years I exchanged
the boiler for • larger one. We cannot work our horses
longer than six to seven hours per day—this engine has
frequently worked for twice that number of hours; there-
fore, for all purpoess requiring power. Including
cultivator., we should use steam as an economy, taking
care in cultivation to use it properly. I said years ago,
and repeat it now, that no arable farm of 150 acres should
be without a steam engine and ni',l stones, assuming that
plenty of live stock are kept, or purchased food and cut
hay, straw, trx.—J. J. lfseki.

WILIMICI GARDENING.
As this is near a market gardening country tramworth),
will give you a few of the prices at Birmingham market
on Monday, which will astonish you anlrmitiiing, others; and
If you, who SO strongly recommended le Crewing,
can show how such prices are to recover struggling farmers ,
from ruin, you w;11 confer a A.sat benefit on many an
unfortunate occupier of dear land. Market gardening land
hereabouts is let at £5 per acre, payments in proportion
to the rent. The pikes at Birmingham market on Monday
were, after a cartage of 16 miles :—cabbages, id. to Id. per
dozen (sixteen); potatoes, is. 61. to Is. per 20 lb. Peas.
from 9.1. to It MI per 40 Ila beano, St to la per 40 lb;
onions. Is. 21. to 4e. per score bunches lettiacce. Id. to 44,
per dozen (fourteen); turnips, Is. for twenty or thiety
bunches, accord, ig to quality. Will these prises recoup
the outlay I I have • relative whole in the bade. A few
dara ago I wr- at his house, a hich is situated only four
miles distant from market. if. informed me many
fanners around him were dabbling in the trade, injuries
those who have nothinc_elm to depend upon, and getting
nothing themselves. Those farmers who take to the
business of gardening are like • man in the deep stream
that cannot se m—it lathe last dying struggle, as I have
wen more than once. The extra expenses all tend to beat
him--such as seals, manure, labour, market expenses,
—in fact, his hansl is in the paying pocket too often to
get • balance in the read% mg pocket I could enumerate
earns half-dosen who were master gardeners in my youth
I end their days in the Union; and if you could see •
schedule of defaulters who did not pay their seed bill last
' year. you would say let every profession "stick to Its last"
, —Nz.Gerdea, in Agrieidtursi Gantt*.
I occupy laud in the imine.liat vicinity of a rabbit
warren, oar nml by another p.oprietor, the rabbits in which
I are fod almost exclusively on my crops. These vermin
i are n t to be aeon, except in Mail numbers, during the
day, and cannot be either shot or trapped b; me In
their Piece of woritY, as that would be trespass on me
Part I reckon that I suffer a yearly loss of nearly LW
from the cause. Anyone can continue. and erea
establish, a rabbit warren on the cut-skirts of his estate.
I and rot his neighbour to food Ws rabbits with impunity.—
I Bei glranCi