vated to some extent as field crops. I have reduced the labor very much in raising the beet and carrot crop by the use of a seed sower and wheel hoe of my own construction, as follows: The seed sower is simply two light wheels-say 14 inches diameter-made fast to a shaft 4 inches diameter, turned down three-fourths of an inch at each end for gudgeons, and 2 grooves, 16 inches apart from centre to centre, deep enough for seed boxes, over each of which is slipped a tin band with holes for the seed to pass. This is set in a frame similar to the frame of a wheelbarrow, and revolves as the wheels are pushed forward. There are two pins set in the frame directly in front of the seed boxes which make the furrows for the seed, and directly behind the seed boxes is attached a rake or roller to cover the seed. With this implement a person can sow two rows at a time as fast as he can walk, without stepping on either of them. The hoe is made thus: take two wheels-say 8 inches in diameter; attach them by an Ex of the desired length to run between the rows, as sown by the seed sower; take a thin piece of plate steel-say 13 inches long; rivet one end of two arms to the blade, and screw the other end of the arms to the front side of the Ex in such a manner that the blade will lie flat on the ground; then attach a handle 4 feet long to the back side of the Ex at a proper angle, that you may walk erect, and you may pass it between the rows as fast as you please to walk; you can regulate the depth of cultivation by elevating or depressing the handle; the ends of the blade should set in range with the outsides of the wheels, that you may push it forward rapidly without danger of cutting the plants, the wheels answering for a guide to the eye. This implement should be used on the field as soon as the plants are large enough to follow the rows, and as frequent as is necessary. In preparing the ground, I plough as deep as I can with an ordinary plough, and manure as for corn; feed mostly the milch cows, horses, and calves the first winter, and find them an indispensable crop; produce from 600 to 800 bushels per acre. I hardly know what to say in regard to potatoes; all varieties suffer more or less with the rot; the Cork-reds are perhaps the least affected of any. All systems have failed under different circumstances, and there seems to be a falling off in yield per acre, aside from the rot. I think the average for the county will not go above 80 bushels per acre, although the crop has not suffered as much with the rot this year as last. Fruit is receiving increased attention. We have several nurseries started in the county, including all the best varieties of fruit; and, I think, are well patronized. To promote the cultivation of fruit, we have been liberal in our premiums, and it has undoubtedly had a great and good influence upon the community; and perhaps it would not be saying too much to say that our county agricultural society has been the means of a decided improvement in the general management of farms and the breeding of domestic animals. With my best wishes for your success in the forthcoming Report, and that it may be of great use to the agricultural community, I am, sir, re spectfully, yours, CHARLES L. SMITH Hon. THOMAS EWBANK, Commissioner of Patents. BRAINTREE, ORANGE COUNTY, VERMONT, SIR In replying to your Circular, I shall only report on sheep, wool, and fruit. "Is wool-growing profitable?"-Most of our farmers think not; and from two and a half pounds of wool to three and a half do. not pay in this State, which is almost the average per fleece. There are men who shear from five to six pounds of well-washed wool per head, and those make it profitable. The merino sheep, which weigh from 60 to 100 pounds, of round form, healthy, long, thick, fine wool, are the most profitable. Some flocks of 100 sheep, which it is estimated consume 18 tons of hay, will shear 600 pounds of wool, and raise from 80 to 90 lambs. Such flocks are profitable; and when our farmers understand their own profes sion, they will improve their flocks, which is easily done by saving their best ewe lambs for breeders, instead of selling them to drovers and keeping their poorest, as is usually the case. A sheep weighing 100 pounds, live weight, should shear from 8 to 12 pounds of washed wool; and I have no doubt that with care it can be done by proper crossing. From 20 to 40 pounds of fine merino wool can be grown from 1 ton of hay, and from 15 to 25 of ordinary coarse wool. Large sheep may be more profitable for mutton, but small, healthy, fine ones for their fleece and mutton combined. About four-fifths as many lambs raised as there are ewes. There have recently been a large number of large French merinos imported into this State. The sleep are large, well formed, skin in coarse folds, and weigh from 200 to 300 pounds, and are said to shear from 12 to 30 pounds unwashed wool. Many are confident that a cross of them with our small merinos will improve their flocks. I don't believe that they will produce as much wool from a ton of hay as our small merinos do, and a cross will tend to impair our best flocks. Fruit. When our State was first settled, and young orchards planted of the native varieties, no place in the world provided apples inore bountifully than some parts of this State. Cider was a drug at 50 cents per barrel. In many parts of the State there were more cider mills than school houses, and more distilleries than places of public worship. Every orchard planted seemed to flourish. The soil was full of vegetable mould, and the trees set were healthy. Being reared near where they were set in the orchard, making them perfectly acclimated and of natural growth, they could withstand our hard winters, and, having a rich soil to support them, abundant crops were the result. Some trees were grafted 40 or 50 years ago; those have borne abundantly. There are orchards which yield from $200 to $500 to the acre. Most of the old orchards are dying, and there is not one fourth enough good apples grown here to supply the wants of the people. Within a few years a great many thousand nursery trees have been brought from their sandy soil in Massachusetts and New York; but they do not flourish. They soon prove to be rotten at the heart, and die. We must raise our own trees on our hard soil, graft them in the limbs, or at least three or four feet from the ground, (for the natural stock is harder than the grafted,) and set them for the orchard, on land recently cleared and rich with vegetable mould, and where it will be protected from the alternate thaws of winter; and if on the streams and in the valleys, a northern slope is preferred; on high land, a southern or eastern is best. We have about 4,000 young apple and plum trees set for orchards; for those set on old land we dig a hole six feet across, and from twelve to fifteen inches deep; mix four or five bushels of compost manure with the soil where we fill the hole, and have the tree planted just as deep as it was when it stood in the nursery. The ground around the tree should be covered with straw, or leaves, to protect the tree from drought, and to keep the grass from growing. We are well satisfied with the result thus far. We have about 2,000 set on land that was cleared without a burn. The soil is rich, with an abundance of vegetable matter, which is usually burned when the land is cleared. Trees set two years; holes were dug three feet in diameter and one foot in depth; about ten bushels of decayed leaves put around each tree for mulching. Last season we mowed the grass, and put it around the trees when it was green, to kill the grass under the tree and keep the soil light. Thus far we are well satisfied with the result. To protect the trees from the mice, we take blocks of wood six inches in length, by three in diameter, and, with a six-quarter auger, bore a hole four inches in depth; mix one dessert-spoonful of arsenic with one quart of Indian corn meal; or, in that proportion, put one spoonful in each box, prepared as above, and put it under each tree, beneath the mulch, and renew the meal once or twice each year. This proves a secure protection. We have quite an extensive nursery-mostly of apple trees. With proper management, as good trees and as good fruit can be raised in this State as in any State in the Union. Trees grafted in the root, as is practised in many western nurseries, will not flourish here, being too contrary to nature for our climate; neither should young trees be trained to a stake, as some nurserymen practise. Training to stakes makes them small at the bottom and large at the top of the stake. True, they are straight; so is a young lady who wears corsets; but they are both feeble and short-lived. I have not known of a tree taken from sandy soil that has done well. We have a few thousand pear stocks, which had grown one year on sandy soil, and they are worthless. Leaves fall in August, while those grown on hard soil remain bright till November. The Baldwin is our best apple for late winter and spring use; also, for growth. With good care, one thousand bushels can be raised on an acre of ground in one year. Porters are our best late fall and early winter apples. Sweet apples might be raised to great profit for our stock. Our sheeppastures might be covered with sweet-apple trees to great advantage; for there is nothing that will fatten sheep as fast as sweet apples. Plums do well, and no doubt an abundance of the best varieties can be grown here. In grafting old trees, limbs from three fourths to 1 inch in diameter are best to cut. Large limbs grow the scion too fast the first season, starts the composition, and the grafts are very liable to winter-kill. Small limbs heal over the scions the sooner, and bear abundantly the third. We have not one agricultural or horticultural publication in the State. Political, religious, and miscellaneous abound; but the day is not far distant when the people may learn that we live by agriculture. Respectfully, To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. LEWIS H. SPEAR. SPRINGFIELD, VT., January 10, 1852. SIR: I have been thus far remiss in not complying with your request for a communication for the Patent Office, and, in responding at this late period, must beg the privilege of confining myself to a few observations of practical experience of my own method of farming. I am located upon the alluvial flats on Connecticut river--a soil naturally rich and fertile; but, as it grows old by cultivation, it loses the essential ingredients necessary to the production of certain kinds of crops, particularly that of wheat. The soil of this part of our county never was sufficiently impregnated with lime to become a permanently wheat-growing district, and the cultivation of this valuable grain is, in a great measure, abandoned. Indian corn, oats, and the various kinds of cultivated grasses, are the most remunerative and profitable of any crops that can be grown at intervals upon the borders of this beautiful river, and nowhere in the known world, I believe, does there exist a better soil for the production of these crops; but even here they will not grow spontaneously. It requires care and labor, skill and judgment; and, these properly exercised, a sure annual return in full compensation is the result. In order to insure a good crop of corn, deep ploughing, high manuring, and thorough cultivation are indispensable. My method is to break up the mowing lands late in the autumn, as fast as they decline in grass, down to one ton of hay to the acre, turn the sward flat over to the depth of six inches, and roll them down smooth with a revolving plank or log-roller; and early in the following spring harrow lengthwise of the furrows unul the soil is pulverized and mellow, without disturbing the sod; then seed with oats, and harrow crosswise, applying 50 pounds of plaster to the acre as the young oats begin to appear above surface. I generally obtain from 45 to 50 bushels to the acre. Upon this same field, the next spring, I put on 50 ox-cart loads of manure to the acre, from the cattle, sheep, and hog yards; spread it broadcast, and plough ten inches deep; harrow well after ploughing, and plant with Indian corn from 15th to 25th of May, as the season happens to be; rows 4 feet, and hills 2 feet apart. At the first hoeing, which I have done with great care and neatness, the stalks are reduced to three in each hill; after which a compound-of three parts of unleached ashes, two parts of slaked lime and one part of ground plaster, well mixed-is applied-a large single handful to each hill of corn, and after the second hoeing, plaster alone; a common table-spoonful to each hill is applied; the third hoeing soon follows, using the cultivator each time, and elevating the earth but slightly around the hills of corn, and keeping the crop essentially free from weeds, grass, and everything else that takes sustenance from the soil. Of my corn crop the past year, (of about ten acres,) two acres were accurately measured; and the result was, from one acre a fraction short of 93 bushels, and the other acre 88 bushels of shelled corn, weighing 56 pounds to the bushel. The drought late in the summer injured the crops some, or there would have been as many bushels as I received in 1849, viz: 416 bushels from four acres of land. The last crop before returning again to grass, and with which I sow my grass seed, is another oat crop, after ploughing again ten inches deep, and seeding with not over two bushels of oats to the acre, in order that the straw may expand and get strength to hold itself up with long and heavy heads upon the top, and also that the grass seed may take root and come forward better. It is a common saying among farmers here that oats are a bad crop with which to seed down grass. I have always practised it, and never lost a seeding or failed of grass in abundance. Of the oat crop of the past year, which followed the corn crop of the year previous, there were 88 bushels to the acre, weighing 34 pounds to the bushel. The kinds of grass I cultivate are timothy, clover, clover and red top; and sow half a bushel to the acre. I always sow broadcast 50 pounds to the acre of gypsum on the grass lands in the spring of the year, and I believe with good success. Guano has never been used to any extent in this section. After going through the process above described, the same field will produce grass six years-the first three from 3 to 4 tons to the acre, and the last three from 1 to 2 tons-when it is again ready for another routine of grain crops. In old and new mowing lands I cut over about 50 acres the past year, and had not less than 125 tons of hay -2 tons to the acre upon an average; the cost of which when in the barns, counting six per cent. interest on the lands, at $100 per acre, (which is no more than its cash value when in a high state of cultivation,) is $4 per ton. The cost of obtaining a crop of corn by the above process, counting the stover to pay the harvesting, and charging nothing for the manure, except the labor in applying it, as it is made from and belongs to the farm, is not above 30 cents per bushel; and for oats, counting the straw to pay the threshing, 20 cents per bushel. But I wish to be understood that these estimates apply only to the soil and manner of cultivation here described. On our common and ordinary lands, with common and ordinary cultivation, the expense must be nearly double. Corn should be ground to feed to horses or cattle, and both ground and cooked to give to hogs; but may be fed to sheep in a natural or raw state to advantage, as this animal appears to possess powers of digestion stronger than the horse, the ox, or the hog. At the prices for which wool has been sold for the last two years it is profitable in this section. Wool. The cost of growing fine or coarse wool is not materially dif ferent, so far as the fleece is concerned. The carcass of the coarse sheep> is larger, and better adapted to mutton; yet it is a law of nature, that in rearing, sustaining, and fattening an animal, it requires nutrition in proportion to the natural weight of carcass; and from this view of the case I am satisfied that the small, short-legged, round-bodied merino sheep, with a close, compact, even, and fine fleece, with a good length of staple, and averaging, in flocks of 400 or 500, 3 to 4 lbs. of wool per head annually, are the best and most profitable kind of sheep that haveever been introduced into this country. It may be that I estimate this |