Hiram Capron's Farm Advice

        ods [sic] and ends or answers to many [quest??] asked in the rural-



Six of Eggs - Long slim eggs are Male
                            Short round eggs are female, try it



        I. have cleared several hundred acre of oak Lands on the Grand River Parks in Canada. I find by practical experience that the best time to Girdle timber is at the full moon in Augt   The timber dies so sudenly [sic] that it is not good for fire wood after the first year - from dead rot (underlined: 3 words) and common sized trees will fall by the wind the 2n + 3rd years - and none ever sprout this is the time to kill Hazle brush bushes and Canada Thistles I have had not [exp???] in Killing (crossed out: 2 words) with Elm Beach or other hard wood Bushes -  I will wager a straw Hat that any bushes cut at that time - will die without benefit of Clergy - and [illegible] sprout again
                            We always Girdle timber         I had an excellant [sic] Arman that lived with me several years and girdled most of the timber for me
                    he used to say that he could see a tree begin to wilt when he was walking up to it with his ax, However this may be it was plain to see they by an to wilt within 24 hours



                The Missisippi [sic] Water which is full of decayed gron [sic] washed
                    To filter Rily water (crossed out: 2 words) down from the Prairie through 5 and it comes out pure + fit for me But a poor farmer puts a little manner on his sandy land and it all Leaches out - this (crossed out) is this not sound Philosiphy [sic]
                    The Richert Lareels now in Europe - 200 years ago was barren sand did not produce  green leaf - with the use of cloves + Plaster and manure made it rich - why did not it not leach



        I have had raised on my [Lai?er] farms from ever to 5000 Bushels wheat annually for the last forty years Except a few years of Mudge entirely had it freeze out, on kid Knowls when the snow was blow off and drown + freeze out in hollows where ponds of water pods over (crossed out: 2 words) formed from thaws in the winter - but it never [sic] turns to ches [sic]
                    Smoot [sic] one man says in the Rural that smut is caused by an insect puncturing the Kernel
            I once raised smut - as follows - in 1830 I sowed about 70 acres of wheat on [?] new cleared - first 2 crop - our practice was to wet + lime all the [s???] that every Kernel was fairly white was hid - then sowed it



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We sowed broadcast in those days having no drills - in finishing the field my seeds man fill short - about 6 or 7 yds wheat seed he went to the barn look the same kind of seed as before, but having no lime at hand - he thought he must do something and a Barrel of plaster - he wet it and covered it with plaister [sic] (Gypsom) [sic] from a Barrel hand by and went and finished the field less than a quarter acre with his wheat completely dirtied over with plaster - at night he told me what he had done I supposed - all right. But to my astonishment the next summer this little piece was a complete bed of smut not on head in ten had a good Kernel wheat in it - and when it laped on to the timed wheat it was mixed for 3 or 4 feet as [?ap???] 3 or 4 from clear smut to pure wheat - The rest of the field was the best wheat I ever raised - yielding 30 to 35 40 B. pr acre + free from chess cockle or smut

If insects puncturing the Kernel were the cause of this little pine being all smut - I can only say they were very kind to me doing all their mischief in one corner of the field - which I mowed the [s????] and carted it to the Hog pasture

written in Hiram Caprons handwriting