LOTAN SMITH.

I remain, most respectfully, your obedient servant,

NEW JERSEY.

HACKENSACK, BERGEN COUNTY, N. J.,

December 16, 1851.

SIR: Our postmaster, Mr. Peter V. B. Demarest, having resigned the office held by him, requested me to answer the Circular issued from your office in August last. Our location is about 12 miles from the city of New York; and being thus near the market, we are about as much gardeners as farmers.

In regard to wheat, with us it is chiefly raised for home-consumption; and barn-yard manure is ordinarily used; the product averages about 20 bushels to the acre; it is sown about the 1st of October, and harvested about from the 5th to the 15th of July. We soak the seed in pickle, and then mix with dry ashes or plaster, and use about 1 bushel per acre. The yield is increasing. My neighbor sold 150 bushels of this year's crop for $1 15 per bushel.

Corn produces about 50 bushels per acre; cost about $15. My plan is, to plough up old mowing ground, 9 inches deep, as soon as the frost is out, and plant about the 10th of May; then apply about one gill of unleached wood-ashes per hill before the corn is up; hoe twice, and plough between as much oftener as I can until the corn is about 2 feet high. I cultivate the southern horse-tooth and the northern white-flint (no mixture) in preference. I feed the southern corn whole to horses. and swine, as it is easier to masticate, being softer, and have the flint corn invariably ground for feeding, except for poultry. I have never sold the flint corn for less than 75 cents per bushel, and meal $1 50 per hundred weight. I do not sell until about November, when, in our section, it is scarce. Of oats we use about 2 bushels seed, and the yield is about 35 bushels per acre; of rye, about 1 bushel of seed, and the yield is about 18 bushels per acre. Clover yields about 1 ton, and timothy, or herds-grass, 2 tons per acre. Mowing grounds are not manured, as they are not generally cut for more than four years, when the ground is

again ploughed for corn. The cost of producing hay is about $5 per ton, and it is now worth, by the load, loose, $17 per ton in the New York market.

Neat cattle, at 3 years old, are worth $18; good cows, in the spring, are worth $35; in the fall, $25.

Tobacco is beginning to be experimented with. I have tried what with us is called seed-leaf, which is valuable for cigars and wrappers. It has been quoted in the New York market, through this year, at from 16 to 20 cents per pound. Our good average crop is from ten to fifteen hundred weight per acre; but upwards of a ton has been raised from an acre. The cost of producing is about $4 per hundred weight.

Turnips are on the increase. They are generally sown broadcast, and are of the Aberdeen variety. The yield is from 400 to 500 bushels per acre. There is no after-tillage; and I find them as valuable as beets for cattle, with less than half the cost of production.

Potatoes (Irish) will not yield one-half as much when cultivated in the usual way as they did but a few years ago. I use lime liberally on the land, and think it is a preventative against the rot. I this year more than doubled my product by using the following: For a small lot of 2 acres, I carted out and put in a heap 30 loads of barn-yard manure. I took 10 gallons of sulphuric acid, diluted with 30 gallons of water, in which I dissolved two-thirds of a barrel of ground bones; then diluted the mixture with 2 hogsheads of barn-yard liquor, and put it evenly over the heap of 30 loads of manure; mixed it well by turning over for two days. I then carted and spread it out, and ploughed in while wet. Where I used double the quantity of barn-yard manure, I had not half as many, or half as large potatoes; consequently, I shall be induced to try it again.

Manures.- -We use no guano. We have abundance of salt meadow hay, from which we make manure; we use lime liberally; plaster, sparingly; ashes, as much as we can get from New York and elsewhere. Swamp muck is getting in repute as a fertilizer. It is carted on heaps, and mixed with one-tenth its bulk of lime, or one-fifteenth of ashes, and generally lies 6 months before using. I have found the muck mixture equal to barn-yard manure for corn, potatoes, grass lands, or the cereal grains, and at less than half the cost; and as the supply generally is abundant, there is no limit to the amount we may make. I will only say that our section, in regard to farming, is vastly improving. Agricultural associations have been formed, which give a perceptible impulse and create competition among the members by the various experiments. made and facts deduced. I think we produce full one-third more on the same land than we did ten years ago.

With great respect, sir, I remain, obediently, yours, &c.,
DAVID R. DOREMUS.

Hon. THOMAS EWBANK,

Commissioner of Patents.

POST OFFICE, WOODBURY, GLOUCESTER COUNTY, N. J.,

October 28, 1851.

SIR: Not being a farmer myself, I handed your Circular to one of our best practical farmers; and his remarks upon the same I herewith send

you. The articles of sugar-cane, rice, tobacco, and hemp are not, that I know of, cultivated in this county; consequently, I can say nothing about them. Hoping the information I send you may be of service, I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

Hon. THOMAS EWBANK.

ALEXANDER WENTZ.

Wheat. In this county guano is but little used in the production of wheat, and has proved uncertain in its operation where it has been tried; average product per acre, about 15 bushels; best time for seeding, 1st of 10th month, (October;) harvesting from 1st to 10th of 7th month, (July;) 1 bushel sown per acre. Plough twice-the first 6, the last 3 inches deep. The average per acre may be increasing, owing to the improvement of the land; but the quantity grown must decrease, because there are many crops better than wheat, at $1 per bushel, that can be grown. The rotation is corn, potatoes or some kind of truck; wheat, sown with timothy and clover grass-seeds, to remain from 3 to 5 years.

Corn.-Guano is not much used with corn, which is the most profitable of all the grain crops, producing from 30 to 50 bushels without manure. The best culture is with the cultivator and plough-one of which should be used every fortnight from the time the corn is large enough until it shoots in tassel.

Clover and Timothy are the favorite grasses for upland, and yield about 11⁄2 ton per acre. Marl or green sand is much used for the production of grasses, and is, with lime and plaster, the best of fertilizers.

Neat Cattle.-Raising cattle to 3 years old costs about $20, which is about the selling price. Good dairy cows are worth from $25 to $30. More meat is made in a Durham than native animal by the same food.

Horses and Mules cannot be raised to much profit, as it costs from $60 to $70 to rear them to 3 years old, which is about the average value. To handle them while young, and use gentle means, is the best system - of breaking.

Wool-growing is not profitable, but raising lambs for the butcher is; when from 3 to 4 months old, they bring, in Philadelphia, from $250 to $3 per head. Large, open-wool ewes Large, open-wool ewes are preferred, and will average 1 pound each. The most productive system is to pass the whole flock (except the bucks) into the hands of the butcher during spring and summer, and renew in early autumn.

Hogs.-A cross with the Berkshire makes a good breed of hogs. Let the pigs come as late as will allow their mother to get fat by New Year. Keep them well during winter, and turn them on clover in the spring, when they will grow and do well without other feed until fall, when some offal, potatoes, &c., will prepare them for the pen, where from 5 to 8 bushels of corn will make them weigh 200 pounds, which is as heavy as desirable for the selling of hams and shoulders. One of the best receipts for curing is, for 80 pounds meat, 1 pint fine salt, 4 ounces brown sugar, 3 ounces saltpetre, pulverized and well mixed together; rub the meat all over with it, laying them singly on a board; let them remain 24 or 36 hours; then pack them down in a tub, and add 2 quarts of fine salt for every 80 pounds; let them lie 15 days, and then hang them up for smoking.

Turnips.-The cultivation of turnips is rather on the increase. found to be a good plan to plant them directly after digging early Irish potatoes, without any other than the manure put on the potatoes. To use a drill is the quickest way to plant them. Thin and hoe them as soon as possible, when they may be cultivated with a cultivator. Average crop from 300 to 500 bushels per acre.

Irish Potatoes are planted much with marl, without any manure; the yield is about 100 bushels per acre. The crop may be increased by mixing manure with the marl; the mercer variety most in favor.

Sweet Potatoes.-Cultivated in hills 3 feet apart each way; a small shovelful of manure, well rotted, put into each hill, which has but one plant put in it, previously sprouted in hot beds; should be ploughed and hoed about 3 times; yield about 125 bushels per acre; worth from 50 to 100 cents per bushel.

Fruit is not receiving the increasing attention it demands; for an acre of well selected apples, or other fruit, suitable for the market, would yield more profit, if properly taken care of, than if cultivated with grain. For the feeding of hogs and other animals they would not compete with grain. or vegetables. The Roman stem and wine-sop apples are, of late, among our best for keeping.

The best plan to preserve manure from waste, is to apply it to the land soon after made; and the best way to make it, is to collect all the vege table matter possible, and put it in the barn yard and pig pens, &c.; also, when the manure is left in the yard all summer, it is good to cover it with soil, muck, and plaster. Lime is much used-from 30 to 50 bushels per acre. Plaster is also used on clover and on Irish potatoes-about L bushel per acre.

PENNSYLVANIA.

WARREN, WARREN COUNTY, PA.,

October 3, 1851.

SIR: In reply to your Circular, I have to say that the circulation of your Report, however valuable and useful for the agricultural interests, rarely finds its way to the practical farmer. But the political bar-room politician and professional man are generally the only recipients of such favors, and, unless you can adopt some different mode, it will be rendered unprofitable to the cause of husbandry. Would it not be within the scope of your duty and office to circulate it more fully through agricultural societies, who would readily furnish their lists of officers, and be furnished through their secretaries? I have never had a copy but once or twice sent me, and that happened through a friend, then a member of Congress. But, as the fates have it, we never had him returned, nor any one of his stripe, from this district. Now for the grain: Wheat is not very extensively cultivated in this county-winter growing only on the rivers, flats, and bottoms, or on some oak and chestnut ridges; the main reliance being on spring wheat. Guano is not used in this county as a manure for this or any other crop. The average crop of spring wheat of the Black Sea variety may be 20 bushels per acre; but of the other varieties, not to exceed 15 per acre. Fall or winter, 25.

bushels. For the latter, summer fallowing, as a preparation, is still resorted to. But late fall wheat is raised frequently from corn-fields and potatoground by one ploughing, if the soil is adapted; if not, the following spring. Spring wheat, ploughed late in the fall, and sowed as soon in the spring as the ground will admit, gives the best returns. Good crops have been raised of fall wheat from meadow land, broken up after the crop of hay has been removed, ploughing only once; common depth of ploughing, from 4 to 5 inches. I think, of late, a better system of farming has been practised in raising wheat; and I think it is on the increase now. In this, of course, I do not mean to take into account the primitive crop raised on virgin soils newly cleared. Very little system as to rotation of crops prevails. Wheat after corn, and other hocd crops, being manured, seeded down to grass; broken up again, sowed to oats, next rye, and then to buckwheat; then corn, and with all the manure. But many get good. returns, and practise planting corn on green sward, ploughing immedi ately before planting. Rust is the greatest disadvantage we labor underhere. The county being greatly engaged in lumbering, we have a market at home for all descriptions of grain; wheat usually commands $1 perbushel. The average of this is probably 50 bushels per acre-costs, per bushel, 25 cents.

Corn. I think that corn is the only crop that will stand the effects of barn-yard manures, as they are applied in the spring, as they ought to be, to get the full benefit of all their qualities. You ask to "State if you can how much grain the manure from ten bushels of corn consumed by hogs will add to an acre, if carefully saved and skillfully applied, at or before time of planting." In reply to this, I would say, that I have never seen it carefully saved nor skilfully applied; but if skilfully saved, by adding to the sty a full supply of straw and other materials, which hogs would incorporate into manure by their excrements, it would add onefourth to its value.

Oats, average yield 40 bushels; barley, 25 bushels; peas, 20 bushels; beans, 40 to 50 bushels per acre. Least exhausting are rye and peas. Peas are not cultivated as renovating, but buckwheat and clover.

Clover and Grasses. From 1 to 13 ton may be said to be the average yield. The best fertilizer is gypsum, excepting on naturally wet meadow, where it has but trifling effect. Timothy seed is generally preferred; but on the flats and gravelly soils, mixed with clover-mostly the small kind of clover; but the large clover I prefer, as it accords more with timothy in maturing. Four quarts of good clean seed are sufficient, particularly if prepared by an application of gypsum.

Dairy.-130 pounds of butter, on an average, and 350 pounds of cheese, from a cow; comparative cost -say 64 cents per pound of butter, including all expenses; 4 cents per pound of cheese. Average price of butter is one shilling, cheese 6d.

Neat Cattle.-Cost of rearing till 3 years old, $18; price at that age, $25 to $27. Value of good dairy cows, in spring, is from $25 to $30, and in fall $20. The Durham half-breeds seem to feed easier than the purely native, and yield more according to the food consumed. Begin young with calves to accustom them to a light yoke, and they seem nomore to forget it; and it makes a very pleasant pastime for the boys. This is the best mode with all animals-frequent kindly handling.