Chapter 16

Unless the weather be very wet, clover will cure in this way, without opening until time to haul it in, and will retain its beautiful green color, almost equal to that of England and Germany, cured in the shade, which, at two or three years old, appears almost as bright as though not cured at all. If the weather be quite wet, cut clover when free from dew or rain, wilt it at once, and draw it in, put as much as possible in thin layers on scaffolds, and under cover, to cure in the shade. Put the remainder in alternate layers with equal quantities of dry straw, with one peck of salt to a ton. A ton may bear half a bushel of salt, less is better, and more is injurious to stock, by compelling them to eat too much salt. The most beautiful and palatable clover hay is that cured in the shade, on scaffolds and afterward mowed away.

Timothy should never be cut, until the seed is far enough advanced to grow. Careful experiments have shown that cut in the blossom, the hay will contain only about one half as much nutriment, as when cut in the full-grown seed, but before it commences shelling. Cure as clover, but in twice as large cocks, and never salt, unless compelled to draw in when damp or too green.

HEDGE.

The question of fencing in this country, so much of which is prairie, and in other parts of which there is such a wanton waste of timber, gives great importance to successful hedging. The same plants are not equally good for hedge in all parts of the country. There are but few plants suitable for hedges in our climate.

_The Osage Orange_--is the best, in all latitudes where it will flourish. It has no diseases or enemies by which it will be destroyed, except too cold winters. Of Southern origin, yet it flourishes in many places at the North. In cold localities, where there is but little snow, it suffers much until three or four years old. It is being extensively introduced into central and northern Illinois, where unusually cold winters destroy vast quantities of young plants, and kill the tops of much old hedge. It is still insisted that it will succeed; but we consider it too uncertain, and consequently too expensive, for general fencing in such climates. The roots and lower parts of the plants may be preserved, however, by setting them out for a hedge on level ground, instead of ridges as usual, and plowing a furrow three feet from each side of the row, to drain off surplus water. Mulch thoroughly in the fall, and thus protect from frost until they have been set in the hedge for three years, and they may succeed and make a good live fence. To raise the plants, soak the seeds thoroughly, and, at the usual time of corn-planting, plant in straight rows, and keep clean of weeds. Set out in hedge the following spring. The soil of the hedge-row should be deep, mellow, and moderately, not excessively rich. Too rich soil makes a larger growth, of spongy and more tender wood. Plants should have a portion of the tap-root cut off, and be planted a foot apart in the row.

_The Hawthorn_--will never be extensively cultivated for live fence in this country, being subject to borers, as destructive as in fruit-trees.

_The Virginia Thorn_--is equally uncertain.

_The Buck Thorn_--after fifteen years' trial, in New England, bids fair to answer every purpose for American live fence: it is easily propagated, of rapid growth, very hardy, thickens up well at the bottom, and is exempt from the depredations of insects. It may yet prove the great American hedge-shrub.

_The Newcastle Thorn_--cultivated in New England, is much more beautiful, and promises to rival the buck thorn, but has not been sufficiently tested to settle its claims. Much is anticipated from it.

There are plants well adapted to hedge at the South, which are too tender for the North. In White's Gardening for the South, we have the following given as hedge-shrubs, adapted to that region: Osage Orange, Pyracanth, Cherokee, and single White Macartney roses. The Macartney, being an evergreen thorn, and said to make as close a hedge as the Osage Orange and much more beautiful, is quite a favorite at the South. They usually train the rose-shrubs for hedge on some kind of paling or wire fence. They render some of them impenetrable even by rabbits or sparrows; this is done by layers, and trimming twice a year, commencing after the first three months' growth. Pruning is the most important matter in the whole business of hedging. A hedge set out ever so well, and composed of the best variety of plants, if left in the weeds, without proper care in trimming, will be nearly useless. A well-trimmed hedge around a fruit-orchard will keep out all fruit-thieves. The great difficulty is the _unwillingness_ of cultivators to cut off, so short and so frequently, _the fine growth_.

Shear off the first year's growth (_a_) within three inches of the ground (_b_). Cut the vigorous shoots that will rise from this shearing, four inches higher, about the middle of July, and similar and successive cuttings, each a little longer, in the two following years; these will bring the hedge to a proper height. The form of trimming shown in end view of properly-trimmed hedge, protects the bottom from shade by too much foliage on the top: the effects of that shade are seen in neglected hedge in the cut.

HEMP.

This is one of the staple articles of American agriculture. It is much cultivated in Kentucky and other contiguous states. Its market value is so fluctuating that many farmers are giving up its cultivation. The substance of these directions is taken from an elaborate article from the pen of the honorable Henry Clay. Had not the length of that article rendered it inconsistent with the plan of this volume, we should have given it to the American people as it came from the hand of their greatest statesman, who was so eminently American in all his sentiments and labors.

_Preparation of the Soil_--should be as thorough as for flax;--this can not be too strongly insisted on. Much is lost by neglect, under the mistaken notion that hemp will do about as well on coarse, hard land. Plants for seeds should be sown in drills four feet apart, and separate from that designed only for the lint. The stalks should be allowed to stand about eight inches apart in the rows. Plants are male and female, distinguished in the blossoms. When the farina from the blossoms on the male plants (the female plants do not blossom) has generally fallen, pull up the male plants, leaving only the females to mature. Cut the seed-plants after the first hard frost, and carry in wet, so as to avoid loss by shelling. Seed is easily separated by a common flail. After the seeds are thrashed out, they should be spread thin, and thoroughly dried, or their vegetative power will be destroyed by heat or decay. They should be spread to be kept for the next spring's planting, and not be kept in large bulk. Their vegetation is very uncertain after they are a year old. Sow hemp for lint broadcast, when the weather has become warm enough for corn-planting. Opinions vary as to the quantity of seed, from one bushel to two and a half bushels per acre. Probably a bushel and a peck is best. Plowing in the seed is good on old land; rolling is also useful. If it gets up six inches high, so that the leaves cover the ground well, few crops are less effected by the vicissitudes of the weather. Some sow a part of their hemp at different times, that it may not all ripen at once and crowd them in their labor. Cutting it ten days before it is ripe, or allowing it to stand two weeks after, will not materially injure it. Hemp is pulled or cut. Cutting, as near the ground as possible, is the better method. The plants are spread even on the ground and cured; bound up in convenient handfuls and shocked up, and bound around the top as corn. It is an improvement to shake off the leaves well before shocking up. If stacked after a while, and allowed to remain for a year, the improvement in the lint is worth more than the loss of time. There are two methods of rotting--dew-rotting, =and= water-rotting--one by spreading out on grass-land, and the other by immersing in water; the latter is much the preferable mode. The question of sufficient rotting is determined by trial. Hemp is broken and cleaned like flax. The stalks need to be well aired and dried in the sun to facilitate the operation. Extremes in price have been from three to eight dollars per hundred pounds: five dollars renders it a very profitable crop. Thorough rotting, good cleaning, and neat order, are the conditions of obtaining the first market price. An acre produces from six hundred to one thousand pounds of lint--an average of about one hundred pounds to each foot of height of the stalks. Hemp exhausts the soil but a mere trifle, if at all; the seventeenth successive crop on the same land having proved the best. Nothing leaves the land in better condition for other crops; it kills all the weeds, and leaves the surface smooth and even.

HOEING.

Much depends upon the proper and timely use of the hoe. Never let weeds press you; hoe at proper times, and you never will have any large weeds. As soon as vegetables are up, so that you can do it safely, hoe them. The more frequent the hoeing while plants are young, the larger will be the crop. Premium crops are always hoed very frequently. Hoeing cabbages, corn, and similar smooth plants, when it rains slightly, is nearly equal to a coat of manure. But beans, potatoes, and vines, and whatever has a rough stalk, are much injured by stirring the ground about them while they are wet, or even much damp. We have known promising crops of vines nearly destroyed by hoeing when wet. Hoeing near the roots of vines after they have formed runners one or two feet long, will also nearly ruin them;--the same is true of onions: hoe near them, cutting off the lateral roots, and you will lessen the crop one half. In hoeing, make no high hills except for sweet potatoes. High hilling up originated in England, where their cool, humid, cloudy atmosphere demands it, to secure more warmth. In this country we have to guard more against drought and heat.

HOPS.

These are native in this country, being found, growing spontaneously, by many of our rivers. There are four or five varieties, but no preference has been given to any particular one. Moist, sandy loam is the best soil, though good hops may be grown in abundance on any land suitable for corn or potatoes. Plow the land quite deep in autumn; in the spring, harrow the same way it was plowed. Spread evenly over the surface sixteen cords of manure to the acre, if your soil be of ordinary richness; cross-plow as deep as the first plowing; furrow out as for potatoes, four feet apart each way. Plant hops in every other hill of every other row, making them eight feet apart each way. Plant all the remaining hills with potatoes. Four cuttings of running roots of hops should be planted in each hill. Many hop-yards are unproductive on account of being too thick;--less than eight feet each way deprives the vines of suitable air and sun, and prevents plowing them with ease. The first year, they only need to be kept clean of weeds by hoeing them with the potatoes. In the fall of the first year, to prevent injury from hard frosts, put a large shovelful of good manure on the top of each hill. Each spring, before the hops are opened, spread on each acre eight cords of manure; coarse straw manure is preferable. Plow both ways at first hoeing. They require three hoeings, the last when in full bloom in the beginning of August. Open the hops every spring by the middle of May; at the South, by the last of April. This is done by making four furrows between the rows, turning them from the hills; the earth is then removed from the roots with a hoe, and all the running roots cut in with a sharp knife within two inches of the main roots. The tops of the main roots must also be cut in, and covered with earth two inches deep. Set the poles on the first springing of the vines; never have more than two poles in a hill, or more than two vines on a pole, and no pole more than sixteen feet high. Neglect this root-pruning, and multiply poles and crowd them with vines, and you will get very few hops. Select the most thrifty vines for the poles, and destroy all the others. Watch them during the summer, that they do not blow down from the poles. They must be picked as soon as they are ripe, and before frosts. The best picking-box is a wooden bin made of light boards, nine feet long, three feet wide, and two and a half feet deep; the poles are laid across this, and the hops picked into it by hand. In gathering hops, cut the vines two feet from the ground, that bleeding may not injure the roots.

_Curing_ is the most important matter in hop-growing. Hops would all be of one quality, and bring the first price, if equally well cured. The following description (with slight abbreviation) of the process of curing, by William Blanchard, Esq., is, perhaps, as complete as anything that can be obtained. Much depends upon having a well-constructed kiln. For the convenience of putting the hops on the kiln, a side hill is generally chosen for its situation; it should be a dry situation. It should be dug out the same bigness at the bottom as at the top; the side walls laid up perpendicularly, and filled in solid with stone to give it a tunnel form: twelve feet square at the top, two feet square at the bottom, and at least eight feet deep, is deemed a convenient size. On the top of the walls sills are laid, having joists let into them, as for laying a floor, on which laths, about one and a half inches wide, are nailed, leaving open spaces between them three fourths of an inch, over which a thin linen cloth is spread and nailed at the edges to the sills. A board about twelve inches wide is set up on each side of the kiln, on the inner edge of the sill, to form a bin to receive the hops. Fifty pounds, after they are dry, is all such a kiln will hold at once. The larger the stones made use of in the construction of the kiln the better, as it will give a more steady and dense heat. The inside of the kiln should be well plastered with mortar to make it air-tight. Charcoal is the best fuel. Heat the kiln well before putting on the hops; keep a steady and regular heat while drying. Hops must not remain in bulk long after being picked, as they will heat and spoil. Do not stir them while drying. After they are thoroughly dry, remove them into a dry room, and lay in heaps, and not stir unless they are gathering dampness that will change their color; then spread them. This will only occur when they have not been properly dried. They are bagged by laying cloth into a box, so made that it can be removed, and give opportunity to sew up the bag while in the press. The hops are pressed in by a screw. In bulk they will sweat a little, which will begin to subside in about eight days, at which time they should be bagged. If they sweat much and begin to change their color, they must be dried before bagging. The best size for bags is about two hundred and fifty pounds' weight, in a bag about five feet long. Common tow-cloth or Russia-hemp bags are best. Extensive hop-growers build houses over the kiln, that they may be able to use them in wet weather. In this case, keep the doors open as much as possible without letting in the rain. Dried without sufficient air, their color is changed, and their quality and market-value injured. These houses are made much larger than the kiln, in many instances, for the convenience of storing and bagging the hops when dry; in this case, tight partitions should separate the storerooms from the kiln, to avoid dampness from the drying hops.

The form of manuring recommended is contrary to the old practice of putting a little manure only in the hill: that practice exposed vines to decay and destruction by worms, and this does not; our system also produces hops equal to new land.

HORSE.

This noble animal is in general use, and everywhere highly prized. By the last census, we see that there are two thirds as many horses as cows in the United States--4,335,358 horses, and over six millions of cows. But, valuable as is the horse, he suffers much ill treatment and neglect from his master. To give a history of the horse, the various breeds of different countries, and the efforts to improve them, would be interesting, did it fall within the limits of our design. The patronage of the kings and nobility of England has done much to elevate the horse to his present standard of excellence. It has now become the custom for intelligent gentlemen in rural districts, in all enlightened countries, to give much attention to the improvement of horses. Unfortunately, some of that enthusiasm is perverted to the channel of horse-racing, a practice alike injurious to horses and the morals of men. A few brief hints are all we have space for, where a volume would be interesting and useful. The farmer should exercise constant care to improve the breed of his horses: it pays best to raise good horses. This depends upon the qualities of the dam and sire, and upon proper feed and care. This is a subject that farmers should carefully study from books and from their own observation. The most important matter in raising horses, is care in working and feeding. Nineteen out of twenty of all sick horses are made so by bad treatment. The prevention of disease is better than cure. Steady, and even hard work, will not injure a horse that is well and regularly fed. But a few moments of crowding a horse's speed, or of an unnatural strain on his strength, may ruin him. Let it always be remembered that it is speed, and not heavy loads, that most injures a horse. A mile an hour too fast will soon run down your horse. A horse fed with grain, or watered, when warm, is liable to be foundered; and if not so fed as actually to be foundered, he will gradually grow stiff. Horses are liable to take cold by any unreasonable exposure to the weather, in the same circumstances as men, and the effects on health and comfort are very similar. A horse having become warm by driving, should never stand a minute without a blanket. When a man goes from a heated room, or in a perspiration, into inclement weather, he takes cold the moment the cold or storm strikes him: in a few moments the effects on the pores of the body are such that there is no particular exposure. It is so with a horse. He takes cold when you are only going to allow him to "stand but a minute," and during that time you leave him uncovered.

If you are under the necessity of doing an unusual day's work with a horse, do not feed him heavily on that day. Unusual feed the day before and the day after will do him good; but on the day of excessive work it injures him. Never feed horses too much; they will often eat one third more than is good for their health. Keep the bottom of the trough in which you feed your horses grain, plastered over with a mixture of equal parts of salt and ashes, that they may eat a little of it when they please. When the water of your horse becomes thick and yellowish, or whitish, give him a piece of rosin as large as a walnut, pulverized and put in his grain. If a horse has the heaves, give him no hay or oats; corn, ground or soaked, should be his only grain, and green corn-fodder in summer, and cornstalks, cut fine, with a little warm water on them, mixed with meal, should constitute his only food. All except a few of the most confirmed and long-standing cases of heaves are _entirely relieved_ by this course of feeding, and that relief is permanent as long as the feed is continued, and it frequently effects a cure so radical that the disease will not return on a change of food. To bring up horses that have had hard usage and poor feed, and to secure growth in colts, feed them milk. The milk of a butter-dairy is not more profitably used in any other way, than fed to horses and colts. Give them no water for two or three days, and they will readily learn to drink all the sour, thick milk you will give them. Colts will grow faster on milk than on any other food.

Horses should be often rubbed down and kept clean, and when put in the stable wet, they should be rubbed dry. It is very essential to the health of a horse that he have pure air. Stables in this country are usually airy enough. But if the stable be tight, it should be well ventilated. The gases from a wet stable floor are injurious. Disinfecting agents are good remedies; a little plaster-of-Paris spread over a stable-floor is very useful. These brief directions, followed, will prevent most of the diseases to which horses are subject; or in case a horse be attacked, he will have the disease lightly, as temperate men do epidemics.

HORSERADISH.

This is regarded a healthy condiment, especially in the spring of the year. Grated, with a little vinegar, it may be eaten with any food you choose. Small shavings of the root are esteemed in mangoes. When steeped in vinegar for two weeks, it is said effectually to remove freckles from the face. Any pieces of the roots will grow in any good garden-soil. Larger and better roots may be produced, by trenching the bed two feet deep, and putting in the bottom, ten inches of good manure, and planting selected roots, about six inches deep.

HOTBEDS.