1. WORK FOR JANUARY.—If you have done as you ought to have done, you
have a snug ice-house, with double walls, the space between which is
filled with non-conducting substances, as pulverized charcoal, or
dried saw-dust, or tanbark, which are mentioned in the order of their
value. Cut your blocks of ice of a size and shape with reference to
close packing. Cover over thickly with clean straw when the stock of
ice is all in. Look out not to lose all your chance in waiting for a
better one; sometimes careful folks mean to have such glorious ice,
that an open winter cheats them out of any at all.
WARMTH.—The best fire in winter is made up of _exercise_, and the
poorest, of _whisky_. He that keeps warm on liquor is like a man who
pulls his house to pieces to feed the fire place. The prudent and
temperate use of liquor is to let it alone. If you don’t touch it, it
certainly won’t hurt you; he that says there is no danger, boasts that
he is something more than other men.
The way to summer your cattle well is to winter them well; and half
the secret of good wintering is _to keep them warm_. Animal heat is
generated in proportion to the abundance and excellence of their food.
Exposure to the cold air withdraws heat rapidly, and of course makes
more food necessary to re-supply it, just as an open door makes it
necessary to have more wood in the stove. If your stock run down in
the winter and come out lean and feeble, all the summer will not fully
bring them up again.
2. WORK FOR FEBRUARY.—Get out rails, both for present use, and for the
fence which you expect to lay in March and April. Cut, haul and stack
up near your house a good supply of _fire-wood_; no matter if the
forest is within ten rods of your door, your wife ought to have her
wood chopped and dried ready for use. Look at every fence upon the
place; see if the corners of your rail fences are rotting down; if
some rails have not broken; if pig-holes have not been made; if boys
and cattle have not thrown down top-rails; and in short, put your
fences into proper repair.
Of course your tools will now be overhauled; those with steel blades
should be thoroughly cleansed when laid aside in the fall, and if you
rub a little oil over them and hang them up, all the better. Repair
all that are out of order. These things and all your ordinary work,
may be done; and still leave you leisure for _reading_. You should
have good books and good papers, and read them carefully for your own
sake and for your children’s. A man who brings up a family of ignorant
children, cheats his children of their rights, and cheats his country
of its rights; it is therefore a crime.
GARDEN WORK.—If there be no snow on the ground, the gardens may be
cleared of all rubbish, manure hauled and stacked carefully; and if
you have a clay soil, and can catch the ground without frost for a few
days, it will mellow and ameliorate it to spade it up, leaving it in
lumps and heaps, through which the frost may thoroughly penetrate.
It is time to prepare your hot-bed, if you design having early plants
in your garden.
3. WORK FOR MARCH.—Begin the year by thorough, deep plowing, where
your fields are in good order for it. Depend upon it, that deep
plowing is the only good plowing. Your first crop, generally, will
tell you so. But if the subsoil is such that the first crop is rather
poor, a year’s exposure of the land will ameliorate it so that your
second crop will remunerate all expenses of time and labor laid out in
deep plowing. No farmer should be without a subsoil plow who has got
his lands clear of stumps and roots.
Take especial care of cows now just coming in with calf. See that
those which are heavy are carefully handled, well fed, and warmly
sheltered. Mares with foal should be tenderly used, exercised a
little, but not put to hard or straining work. _The condition of the
mother will to a great extent determine the condition of the
offspring._ Cows, mares, sows, ewes, etc. etc., should be kept in a
hearty condition, without being _fat_.
ORCHARD.—Do not trouble your trees with premature pruning. Let the
axe, and knife, and saw alone. Loosen the dirt or sod around and
beneath your trees. The best manure for your trees is fresh mold, or
forest soil and lime in the proportion of about one part to ten. Take
soft soap, dilute it with urine, scrub your trees with it plentifully,
having first scraped off all rough bark. If you would work easily
always, never let your work drive you.
4. WORK FOR APRIL.—Gather from your barn the loose hay seed, and sow
it upon your wheat fields; it will give good pasturage, after harvest,
and make fine stuff for plowing under. Push forward your plowing, but
look well to the teams; as cattle and horses are like men, unable in
early spring to endure severe labor all at once. Your spring wheat
should be got in; barley is a better crop, usually, than rye. The
middle and last of the month will keep you in the corn-field. Plow
deep—plow thoroughly; and after planting, give the plow no rest, if
you wish good corn.
YOUNG ANIMALS.—You will now begin to have plenty of calves, colts,
pigs, and lambs. If you mean to have profitable pork, you ought to
_push_ your pigs from the birth. Look carefully after your lambs; see
that the mothers are well cared for; have dry and warm pens for any
that are feeble. A little tenderness to the lambs will be well repaid
by and by.
GARDEN.—Your lettuce may be transplanted from the hot-bed the middle
and last of this month. A foot apart is none too much, if you wish
head-lettuce. Sow your main supplies of radishes, cabbage, tomatoes,
etc. Get your pie-plant seed in early as possible; also carrots,
parsnips, and salsify or oyster-plant. Prune your gooseberries,
currants, and raspberry bushes. Grapes, which were not laid in last
fall should be pruned and laid in early in March; but if neglected
then, let them be till the leaves are large as the palm of your hand.
Look out or worms’ nests, and destroy them promptly.
5. WORK FOR MAY.—Your whole force will be required in this month. If
the season has been late or wet, you still have your corn to plant.
Pastures will be ready for your stock; remember to salt your stock
every week. Weeds will now do their best to take your crops. Your
potato crop should be put in, as there will be little danger of frost.
After the 15th, you may put out sweet potato slips. If you have not
grass-land for pasturage, try for one season the system of _soiling_,
_i. e._ keeping up your cattle in the yard or home-lot, and cutting
green-fodder for them every day. An acre or two of corn, sown
broad-cast, or oats and millet, should be tried. Above all other
things, if you have warm, deep sandy loam, put in an acre of lucerne.
During the last of this month, and at the beginning of the next,
pruning may be done. If the limbs be large, cover the stump with a
coat of paint, wax, grafting clay, or anything that will exclude air
and wet.
The garden will require extra labor in all this month. After the 15th,
tender bulbs and tubers may be planted, dahlias, amaryllises,
tuberoses, etc. Peas will require brush; all your plants from the
hot-bed should by this time be well a growing in open air. Roses will
be showing their buds. If large roses of a favorite sort are required,
more than half the buds should be taken off, and the whole strength of
the plant be given to the remainder. The soil for this best of all
flowers, cannot be too rich, nor too deep.
6. WORK FOR JUNE—May, June, and September are the _dairy months_. The
best butter and the best cheese are usually made in these months. If
you are not neat, you do not know how to make cheese or butter.
Uncleanliness affects not only the looks, but the quality of butter.
Broad, shallow glass pans are the best, but the most expensive. In
these milk seldom turns sour in summer thunder-storms. Tin pans are
good, but unless the dairy-woman is _scrupulously_ neat, the seams
will be filled with residuum of milk and become very foul, giving a
flavor to each successive panful. The principal requisites for prime
butter are, good cows, good pasture for them, clean pans, cool, airy
cellars, clean churns. Let the cream be churned before it is sour or
bitter; and when the butter comes, at least three thorough workings
will be necessary to drive out all the butter-milk.
GARDEN.—Transplant flowers; destroy all weeds; get out cabbages; more
lettuce; get ready celery trenches; layer favorite roses, vines, etc.;
examine and remove from the peach-tree root, the grub which is
destroying them. Sow salt under plum-trees—put on a coat two inches
thick.
Transplant flowers; bud roses with fine kinds; see that large plants
are tied neatly to frames or stakes. Every morning examine your beds
of cabbage, etc., for cut-worms, and destroy them if found; plant
succession crops of peas, corn, radishes, lettuce, etc.
7. WORK FOR JULY.—Great difference of practice and opinion exists as
to the methods and time of harvesting. Some cut their grass while the
dew is on it; others cut it when perfectly dry, and say that if so cut
it need not be spread, but will dry in the swath in one or two days.
As to the _time_ of cutting grass, we should avoid both extremes of
very early or very late. Just before the seed of _timothy_ is ripe,
is, upon the whole, the best time for this best of grasses for the
scythe. Clover should be cut when in full blossom; instead of
spreading, the best farmers make it into small cocks and leave it
there to cure, which it will do without shrivelling or losing its
color.
GARDEN WORK.—As soon as your roses are done blooming, if you wish to
increase them, take the young shoots, and about eight inches from the
ground, cut, below an eye, half through, and then slit upward an inch
or two through the pith; put a bit of chip in to keep the slit open;
bend down the branch and cover the portion thus operated on with an
inch or two of earth and put a brick upon it. It will soon send out
roots, and by October may be separated from the parent plant. Quinces,
gooseberries, and almost all shrubs which branch near the ground, may
be propagated in this way. Still keep down weeds. Sow successive crops
of corn, peas and salads, for fall use. Begin to gather such seeds as
ripen early. Take up tulips, hyacinths, etc., as soon as the tops
wither.
8. WORK FOR AUGUST.—If during this hot month you will clear out fence
corners, and cut off vexatious intruders, the sun will do all it can
to help you kill them. If your wheat is troubled with the weevil,
thrash it out and leave it in the chaff. It will raise a heat fatal to
its enemy without injuring itself. Every farmer should have a little
nursery row of apple, pear, peach and plums of his own raising. Plant
the seed; when a year old, transplant into rows eight inches apart in
the row and two feet between the rows. During July, August, and
September, you may bud them with choice sorts, remembering that a
_first-rate_ fruit will live just as easily as a worthless sort. This
is a good month to sow down fallow fields to grass. Plough
thoroughly—harrow till the earth is fine; be liberal of seed, and
cover in with a harrow and not with a bush, which drags the seeds into
heaps, or carries them in hollows. The early part of the month should
be improved by all who wish to put in a crop of buck-wheat or turnips.
If your pastures are getting short, let your milch cows have something
every night in the yard. Corn, sown broadcast, would now render
admirable service.
If you have neglected to raise your bulbs, lose no time now. Take
cuttings from roses and put in small pots, invert a glass over them;
in two or three weeks they will take root, and by the next spring make
good plants. Gather flower seeds as soon as they ripen.
9. WORK FOR SEPTEMBER.—You should finish seeding your wheat grounds in
this month. If sown too early, it is liable to suffer from the fly; if
too late, from rust. Those who sow acres by the hundred, must sow
early and late both. But moderate fields should be seeded by the
middle of this month. In preparing the land, if the surface does not
naturally drain itself, it should be so plowed as to turn the water
into furrows between each land. Standing water, and, yet more, ice
upon it, being fatal to it. See that your cattle are brought into good
condition for wintering. Fall transplanting may be performed from the
middle of this month; _take off every leaf_—re-set, and stake.
By the latter part of the month, or early in October, according to the
season, it will be necessary to raise and pot such plants as you
intend to keep in the house; to raise and place in a dry and
frost-proof room your dahlias, tuberoses, amaryllis, tigridia,
gladioli, and such other tender bulbs as you may have. Let your seed
be gathered, carefully put away where it will contract no moisture. Go
over your grounds and examine all your _labels_, lest the storms which
are approaching should destroy them. Sow in some warm and sheltered
part of your garden, early in this month, for spring use, spinage,
corn salad, lettuce, etc. As soon as the leaves fall, take cuttings
from currant bushes and grapes, and plant them out in rows. They will
start off and grow earlier by some six weeks, the next season. Fill in
your celery trenches every ten days.
10. WORK FOR OCTOBER.—Push forward your hogs as fast as possible. If
they have had a good clover range in the summer, they will be ready to
start off vigorously from the moment that you begin to put them upon
corn. See that good paths are made in every direction from your house;
and be sure to have walks through your barn-yards raised so high as
never to be muddy. Your cattle-yards should slope toward the centre in
such a way that horses and cattle need not wade knee deep in going in
and out.
Frosts will now begin to strip your trees and stop the growth of
garden shrubs, and all your preparations should be made for protecting
tender trees and shrubs. For cherry and pear-trees, especially, you
should provide good covering for their trunk, until they have grown
quite large. A good bundle of corn-stalks set round the body so as to
keep out the sun, but not the air, will answer every purpose. For beds
of China and tea, and dwarf roses, we advise a covering of three
inches of half-rotted manure. Cover this with leaves about six inches.
Moss is better, if you will take the trouble to collect it; and straw
will do if you have neither moss nor leaves. Half cover the part that
remains exposed, with fine brush, or pine branches. For single plants,
drive a stake by their side, and tie the plant to it; wind loosely
about it a wisp of straw or roll of bass matting, or cloth, so as to
exclude the sun and not the air. The _sun_, and not the _cold_,
usually destroys plants.
11. WORK FOR NOVEMBER.—During this month, if the ground is not locked
by frost, you may plow stiff, tenacious clay soils to great advantage.
By being broken up and subjected to the keen frosts, your soil will
become mellow and tender. See that every provision is made for
sheltering your cattle and horses; be sure that your sheep are not
obliged to lie out in drenching rains.
IN THE GARDEN see that your asparagus bed is dressed if neglected last
month. House all your brush, poles, stakes, frames, etc., which will
be fit for use another season. If your tulips, hyacinths, etc. have
not been planted, you had better reserve them for spring, as they will
be liable to rot in the ground if planted so late in the year. Cover
with brush, or leaves, or straw, your lettuce, spinage, and other
salad plants designed for spring use. If tender plants, roses, vines,
etc., have been left unprotected, cover as directed last month. If you
have no cold frame for half-hardy plants, they may be _laid in by the
heels_, i. e., taken up, and the roots laid into a trench, the tops
sloping at an angle of about twenty degrees, and then covered with
earth. The soil should cover about half the stem.
It is now a good season for cutting grafts. Take them from the outside
of the middle of the tree; let them be done up in small packages, and
set up endwise in the cellar, and covered with about half-dry sand.
Roots may be taken from pear and apple-trees, and packed in the same
way for root-grafting.
12. DECEMBER.—The year is about to close. Look back upon your toil. In
what respect will your year’s labor bear an approval when calmly
examined? Can you honestly acquit yourself of indolence and
carelessness? and as honestly take credit for enterprise, activity,
and a desire for improvement? Your barns are full—your granary is
heavy with grain—the year’s bounty has followed a year’s labor, and if
you have the heart of a man you will not forget the source whence your
blessings have come. You have perhaps done well by your stock, and in
so far as the body is concerned, for your children; but what have you
done for their education? What have you done to promote popular
education? Are you doing anything to make your neighborhood better?
What good newspapers do you provide for your family? Do you lay out as
much money for books as you do for tobacco? In looking forward to the
next year, you ought to mark out your personal course by good
resolutions, and your business course by a definite plan of
operations. It would be well if a farmer should know beforehand
everything he means to do; and afterwards, if he has kept such an
account that you can tell anything that you have done.
Sleighing for the young and gay, and warm fire-sides for the aged, are
what are now most thought of. Those who are best provided with the
comforts of life should remember their less favored brethren.