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FACTS FOR FARMERS.

LEGUMINOUS crops, like pease and beans, clover and lucerne, contain large amounts of nitrogen, twice as much as that found in the cereals. They also contain large amounts of lime and potash. The lime is found chiefly in the leaf. Silica is very nearly absent in these crops.

A GOOD Crop of red clover, cut for hay, removes a large quantity of nitrogen from the land, but, curiously enough, it leaves the surface soil actually richer in nitrogen than it was before the crop was sown. There is no mistake about this. And yet it is still true that nitrogenous manures usually produce but little effect on leguminous crops. They seem to prefer to pump up their nitrogen from the subsoil, while their broad leaves may get a little from the atmosphere.

POTASH manures have more effect on leguminous crops than nitrogenous ones, but when " clover sickness " or "bean sickness" strikes the land even potash manures fail to cure it. There is no known remedy, and the only way is to grow other crops for a series of years.

WHEAT requires hot and dry weather at the period of ripening, but oats will ripen in a moist atmosphere. Mangolds require heat, and can resist drought, while turnips grow and mature best in a cool, moist air.

By the growth of deep-rooting crops, like red clover, lucerne, mangolds, wheat and rye, in a rotation, the subsoil is made to contribute to the fertility of the farm and to yield up its accumulated wealth. Shallow-rooted crops, like white clover, potatoes, turnips and barley, cannot ask the subsoil to add to the products of the farm. Deep and shallow-rooted plants ought to alternate.

POTATOES are surface feeders, and require liberal general manuring to insure an abundant crop. Both root crops and potatoes require large supplies of potash, and so kainit, or the German potash salts, are very useful to both, but farmyard manure will always supply a considerable amount of potash.

HAY contains a much larger proportion of potash and lime than the cereal crops and a much smaller amount of phosphoric acid. If grass is to be cut for hay, manures containing potash, lime, and phosphoric acid will be required. Grass roots are shorter than those of the cereals and less able to collect the ash constituents from the soil.

FARMYARD manure, or the feeding of cotton seed or linseed meal, grain or roots on the land, is the most appropriate manuring for permanent pasture, if quality as well as quantity of produce is considered.

LARGE crops of hay may be obtained by manuring with nitrate of sodium, which comes by thousands of tons from Chili and Peru, mixed with kainit from Germany, and a little superphosphate, but a continuance of such treatment is apt to promote a coarse herbage.

THE natural clovers of a meadow or field are destroyed by the continued application of highly nitrogenous manures, but they are developed and encouraged by the application of manures containing potash and lime, and by pasturing instead of mowing.

LAND laid down with clover is better than money in bank, drawing more interest than any bank can pay and compounding the interest oftener.

The moral is, sow clover.

DEEP-ROOTING plants like clover, wheat, the mangold and some others, are best able to resist a drought, while shallow-rooting crops, like grass, turnips, etc., are the ones that suffer most from it.

THE Composition of a crop is not a sufficient guide to the character of the manure suited to it, even when we know in addition the composition of the soil on which it is to be grown. It is not only the materials required to form a crop, but the power of the plants to assimilate these materials, that will enable us to judge, and that depends a good deal on tillage.

TURNIPS and swedes draw their food chiefly from the surface soil. Mangolds have deeper roots than turnips and a longer period of growth, and so they have greater capacity for drawing food from the soil, such as nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid. Phosphatic manures are less important for them than for turnips. Purely nitrogenous manures, like nitrate of sodium, produce great effect on mangolds, but turnips require phosphates as well as nitrogen in their food. The special character of the manure for turnips should be phosphatic, that for mangolds nitrogenous.

THE fertility of a soil is closely connected with its power of retaining plant food. Light sandy soils have little retentive power; they allow the water from rains to drain through them, and this carries off much of the constituents of plant food, and so they lose much that is applied to them. They are dependent on immediate supplies.

NITRATE of soda used alone will, in most cases, produce a large crop of mangolds; superphosphate alone, a large crop of turnips, while potash salts alone will produce a striking effect on pastures and clovers.

A LIVING plant is composed largely of water. Many succulent vegetables, like turnips, lettuce, cucumbers and watermelons contain more than ninety per cent of water. Timber cut in the dryest time rarely contains less than forty per cent. If you burn a branch of a tree or any other plant the greater part passes off as a gas, but a small quantity of ash is left behind. The combustible part, often called organic, is largely obtained from the atmosphere; the ash, or mineral part, wholly from the soil.

THE roots of plants will not grow in the absence of oxygen and they rot when they reach the permanent water level. Drainage, therefore, is the best remedy, since it increases the depth to which the roots of plants can penetrate, and so vastly increases their feeding ground and makes the subsoil available to them as a source of nutrition.

THE pig is not a very popular animal on our eastern farms, but it is the most economical meat-making machine we have. The stomach of an ox or a sheep is very much larger in proportion to live weight than that of the pig, while the proportion of intestines is greater in the pig than in the sheep or the ox. So these latter, as ruminants generally, are best fitted to deal with food that requires long digestion, while the pig assimilates food far more rapidly. So the pig increases in weight far more rapidly than either the sheep or the ox, and not only is the rate of increase more rapid, but this increase is far greater in proportion to the food taken. To be sure his food is usually more digestible, but his capacity for assimilation is far greater and hence the more rapid increase.

Total debt, less am't of cash in the Treasury, Sept. 1,'82, $1,658,926,171 96
Total debt, less am't of cash in the Treasury, Sept. 1,'81,

Decrease the past year

TIDE TABLE.

1,816,339,567 43

$157,413,395 47

The tides given in the Calendar pages are for the port of Boston.

The following table contains the approximate difference between the time of High Water at Boston and several other places. The reader is warned that this table will not always give the exact time of the tide, as the difference varies from day to day. It is hoped, however, it will be near enough to be useful.

The difference, if preceded by +, is to be added to, or if preceded by —, subtracted from, the time as given in the Calendar pages.

CARRIAGE FARES IN BOSTON.

For one adult, from one place to another within the city proper (except as hereinafter provided), or from one place to another in East Boston, or from one place to another in South Boston, or from one place to another in Roxbury, 50 cents. Each additional adult, 50 cents.

For one adult, from any place in the city proper, south of Dover Street and west of Berkeley Street, to any place north of State, Court, and Cambridge Streets, or from any place north of State, Court, and Cambridge Streets, to any place south of Dover Street and west of Berkeley Street, One Dollar. For two or more passengers, 50 cents each.

Children under four years, with an adult, no charge.

Children between four and twelve years old, with an adult, half-price.

From twelve at night to six in the morning, the fare is 50 cents above the preceding rates for each passenger.

POETRY, ANECDOTES, ETC.

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DE- No man fears men, but he who knows