secured against the elements, would, if judiciously applied to an acre of corn on poor or worn land, increase the crop from 15 to 20 per cent. Oats. A cheap made crop in this region, and not liable to many diseases or mischances; but a heavy feeder on the soil, and a bad crop to lay down with clover, as the foliage is so heavy that it shades and chokes out the young grasses; consequently, a poor rotation for fertilizing. The average price is this year about 37 cents. Rye.-Rye, as a crop, is hardly known in the wheat districts. Peas, on some soils, are profitably cultivated as food for hogs only. The pea bug attacks them so freely, that the seed has to be obtained from Canada, where the pest is not known. Many persons cultivate peas as a renovator of the soil, under the mistaken idea that it adds positive qualities. It is true it is a fine preparation for wheat, a light feeder, leaving the land light and free from weeds; but that the taking off of several tons per acre of its fat and muscle can add anything to its producing properties is preposterous. Yet a field in naked fallow, without grasses, had better be under the pea crop than remain exposed to the elements. Beans are occasionally cultivated, as a crop, on light and thin soils, but to no great extent. Almost every farmer, once in a year or two, raises a small patch for family use. Clover and Grasses. No farmer, with the least pretensions to understanding his business, ever lets a wheat crop pass without sceding with clover, which, in this climate, is generally sown in the spring, on the last fall of snow, or before the heaving and lifting of the soil by night frosts are passed, whereby the seed is carried into the earth and covered. Many persons mix timothy seed, at the rate of 4 quarts to the acre, when they intend to mow it; and there is no objection to the grass, as it only increases by offsets, and dies like clover when once turned under. Old meadows are best renewed by a top-dressing, in the fall, of a good coat of manure, and well dragged with a strong team and loaded harrow in the spring. A system of irrigation, when circumstances will permit, is an important process for producing hay. Low and mucky meadows, which are intended for hay alone, are best laid down with red top, one of the best cattle-hays known, a great yielder, and will stand good till after harvest. The quantity of clover seed sown is generally about 6 quarts to the acre, though many sow double that quantity, with profit over the cost of seed. The quantity of hay produced per acre will average about two tons of cured hay. Dairy Business. This branch of husbandry does not prevail in wheatgrowing districts, as it requires too much land in grass for pasture and for meadow to sustain the stock during our long winters. Butter and Cheese.-The average prices are about 6 to 12 cents per pound. Neat Cattle. The same reasoning will apply as respects the subject of dairies. The Durhams take on fat the easiest, particularly when young, and the Devons and Ayrshires, and natives, or crosses between them, are generally the best milkers. To break Steers-Handle them freely the summer and fall after they are one year old; and before they are two, use them freely to a light yoke; and the winter they become three, break them thoroughly to light work, with a quick step and without noise. Horses.-There are a good many raised in this region, both for profit and from necessity; as, in a wheat-growing community, there are more horses than men. The cost does not exceed $35 to bring them to three years. The raising of mules is not known. Wool.-Wool is not extensively grown in this district, although every well-managed wheat farm should have one sheep to every arable acre; yet, not having much experience in sheep husbandry to any notable degree, I cannot speak with any precision as to the other question. Hogs.-The best breeds are Berkshire and Leicester, or a cross between them. They are usually fattened at from 12 to 18 months old, and weigh from 200 to 400 pounds. They are first fed on cooked potatoes, apples, pumpkins, &c., and finished off by a month's feed of corn in the ear. The best and most expeditious method for fattening hogs is, to keep them in good clover pasture till the middle of September; then house and feed them with ground peas and barley, or barley-meal alone, cooked or sowered in tubs. It will make pork quicker and cheaper than any other process, and of the finest quality. Root Crops are considerably, though not generally, cultivated, owing to the amount of hand-labor required. Carrots are the prevailing crop, and much the most valuable, particularly for horses and milch cows; and stock or store-hogs winter respectably on them alone. The premium crop for this State, in 1849, was within a fraction of two thousand bushels to the acre-showing that the amount of nutriment exceeded the produce of fifteen tons of hay, at two tons per acre. Potatoes.-The average yield since that inscrutable disease-the rotwill not exceed fifty or sixty bushels to the acre; formerly, a bushel to the square rod, or one hundred and sixty bushels to the acre, was common. Potatoes are not made for less than 25 cents per bushel. The merino, round pink-eye, and flesh color are the greatest producers; the long pink-eye, mercers, and Foxites are best for eating. Dry soils, or green sward, or fallow land, without stimulating manures, with early planting, are, since the disease, the safest method of growing. There is some pretty good evidence that the planting of potatoes and corn in alternate rows is a preventive of the rot. Fruit Culture.-Apples, of the best quality, are easily grown in this region; and farmers are extending their orchards, as apples find a ready market both east and west. It is said by some persons that two bushels of apples are equal to one bushel of potatoes, and that two bushels of potatoes are equal to one bushel of corn for feeding; though this estimate is only an approximation. The best winter varieties for this climate. are the Rhode Island greenings, Esopus Spitzenbergs, Swaars, Baldwins, Vandeveers, seek no furthers, northern spies, Newtown pippins, and russets. The best apples known for exportation are Newtown pippins and russets. Peaches, and the other fine fruits, succeed in all that part of western ew York west of Cayuga lake. There is nothing known of the cause, cure, or prevention of the leaf or yellows in the peach, or fireblight in the pear. One thing is quite settled, that insect-depredation has nothing to do with it. Grapes.-The only variety cultivated with any success is the Isabella. The Catawba does not ripen except upon dry, warm land, and all the foreign kinds mildew. The making of wine-veritable wine-is out of the question in any climate not sufficiently genial to develop the saccharine qualities of the grapes sufficiently to make the dried raisin, and generate the tartaric instead of the malic acid. In this new country, the genius of the people is much more bent upon destroying than planting forest trees. Manures.-Wheat crop is principally manured by a rotation with clover; while the corn and root crops, except the potatoes, come from the recent manures of the barn-yard, which are sometimes fermented in the yards and applied on summer-fallows for wheat. Plaster is universally used for a fertilizer, mostly for its benefits to the clover, as it is a mooted point with our farmers whether it affects the wheat plant at all. Lime, applied to our western soils, has not, as yet, as far as observation has gone, produced any beneficial results; which is contrary to all experience in all older counties, and can only be accounted for by supposing that our soils contain a redundancy of that material. As an application to recent manures, it is decidedly detrimental, and only beneficial to stimulate or affect vegetable matter. Your obedient friend, L. B. LANGWORTHY, President of the Union Agricultural Society. To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. MACEDON, WAYNE COUNTY, N. Y., January 10, 1852. SIR: I send a few brief replies to some of the questions in the Agricultural Circular of the Patent Office, regretting that I have been prevented from furnishing them sooner by unavoidable causes. Wheat Culture.-A great loss is sustained by most of the farmers in the northern portion of western New York through shallow cultivation. When the land was first cleared of the forests, and the country was new, 40 bushels per acre was a very common product. Now the farmer is satisfied with one-half the amount. Every one knows the reason of this falling off. The soil has been partly exhausted by bad husbandry of its valuable constituents. But, fortunately, (if the expression may be allowed,) the cultivation has been only of a superficial character, and the subsoil has not been injured by this thriftless treatment; hence, what is usually regarded as very bad farming, has at least one redeeming characteristic-it left a part of the riches of the soil for the present race of cultivators. It is to be hoped that when they find out what a magazine of hidden wealth has been reserved for them, they will not waste it, as their predecessors did, by a remorseless exhaustion in cropping. The experiments which have been made under my observation, in efficiently deepening the soil, have all resulted in a most decided improvement. The wheat crop, more especially, has been benefited. Probably, as an average, this increase is not less than onehalf made; in some cases, it is more than double. In one instance, the earth taken from a ditch was spread on the ground for the distance of a rod each side. A year or two after, during a very unfavorable season, when the field generally did not exceed 5 bushels per acre, this strip, dressed with the subsoil, afforded at least 20. An extensive farmer told me that, so greatly superior was the under soil for the growth of wheat, he would gladly have 6 inches of the top entirely removed from the whole of his farm. Better, no doubt, would it have been to have well mixed the two portions by subsoiling, in connexion with trench ploughing. The Michigan subsoil plough of the larger size, drawn with a strong team, has proved an admirable implement for this purpose. Sowing Grass Seed.-A great improvement might be achieved by sowing larger quantities of seed. Any one, by walking over newly-seeded fields, may usually discover irregular bare patches, without number, when the growth of herbage does not cover the soil. If these bare portions, however small they may be, singly, were all congregated together without the mixture of grass, the farmer would most unwillingly permit so many bare acres to be idle. A year or two since, the writer sowed a small field early in spring with grass, accompanied with no other crop; it was lightly harrowed in. The seed consisted of equal portions of timothy and clover, and was applied at the rate of one bushel per acre. In a few weeks the whole surface was densely covered with a beautiful and even growth of green herbage-not an inch of bare earth was visible. It was pastured that year, and mowed for hay the next. Although the land was ordinary upland, and had never been heavily manured, the crop of dried hay was 3 tons per acre. Being cut early, a fine second growth followed, which was subsequently pastured. It was estimated at onehalf the amount of the preceding crop, which would give the whole growth for the year at five tons per acre, and which could not have been far from correct. It should have been stated that a dressing of gypsum was applied early the previous spring. Breaking Steers.-Very objectionable is the frequent practice of educating oxen to the sound of a loud voice, or a scream, in commanding them, and the free use of the lash in enforcing orders. A most successful trainer of young oxen, who pursues it as a business, adopts substantially the following practice: He first secures a number of yokes for economizing his own labor, and encloses them in a yard. At first they are usually wild and intractable. He passes around deliberately among them till they become familiar with his presence, carefully avoiding any movement, as much as may be, which might in the least degree excite fear. He soon finds it easy to stroke them with his hand-at first, perhaps, with a single touch, which they cease to dislike or avoid when they perceive no injury is received. In this way, by degrees, he makes himself quite familiar with them, until he can freely handle them. He then applies the ox-bow, and afterwards the yoke, to which, in like manner, they become accustomed. This is all done by operating but a moment or a very short time on each successively, so as not to annoy or tire them by constant attention. As they become more familiar, this period is gradually lengthened. In order to lead them, the ox-bow is applied to the neck, and drawn with a moderate force. They may at first resist a little; but if no degree of vio lence is used, they soon find it easier to advance than to submit to a constant pressure at the neck-on the same principle, precisely, that a tight. board fence will resist violent blows, but will yield to the constant pressure of a bank of earth against it. All these drillings are accompanied, at the proper time, with a low, firm word of command. Ultimate obedience is always insisted on. It is surprising what a change is wrought in the external behavior of a dozen wild steers thus treated, in the course of a few days. When the process is completed, they become the best broken oxen I have known; mild, tractable, prompt in obeying, and, above all, not needing a hoarse bawl, nor a lashing whip, on the part of the driver, to enforce orders. Very respectfully, Hon. THOS. EWBANK, Commissioner of Patents. J. J. THOMAS.. SENECA COUNTY, NEW YORK, SIR After consulting with some of our practical farmers, and obtain-ing such information as I could in relation to the subjects embraced in. your Circular, I will endeavor to answer it accordingly. Wheat, with us, is a principal and leading crop; the mode of tillage, a clover-lay of from one to three years, ploughed a good depth. If ploughed again, it should be equally deep, and use the drag or cultivator frequently. Many of our best farmers plough but once, and do the aftertillage with the drag and cultivator, the crop being equally good, and leaving the turf and a great portion of the foul seed below. One other benefit: the soil is less likely to run together and become hard in those extremes of wet and dry so frequently seen in the spring. Much of our land tilled in either of those ways will, in good seasons, with no destruction from insects, yield from thirty to forty bushels to the acre. Breaking up or ploughing to be done by the middle or last of June; best time to sow, from the 10th to the 20th of September; quantity of seed to the acre, 11 bushel-some prefer more; wheat for seed should be put into the mow dry; if damp, a fermentation ensues, which may affect its germination, and also have a tendency to generate smut; when threshed, clean it of all foul seed, and, if the ground is not too dry, wash it in brine and lime before sowing. The average yield of wheat, for all sown in this county, is estimated at from 16 to 18 bushels to the acre; in 1848 it was 18 bushels-some of the towns 20, and one (Ovid) 25. The above estimates for common seasons, and with no extraordinary injury by insects; our average ought to range much higher, and would if we would abandon the system of stubbling in. Cost per acre, including seed, harvesting, and threshing, is estimated at $10; time of harvesting generally about the 20th of July; cut a little before fully ripe. Price, since harvest this year, for white wheat of good quality, 85 cents; varieties most sought for are Soule's, Hutchinson, and white flint. |