Corn.-Average yield per acre, 40 bushels. Cost of production, about 10 cents per bushel. Best mode of culture: plough 8 to 10 inches deep, plant in rows 3 feet each way, or 4 feet one way, and drill 10 to 12 inches; stir the ground often (say twice a week) with plough and cultivator. Best method of feeding where corn is cheap, as it is here, (from 15 to 20 cents per bushel,) is that which requires the least labor; it will not do to grind or cook.

Clover and Grasses.-Quantity of hay per acre, 1 ton; grass seeds preferred in laying down are clover and timothy. There should be 8 pounds of each used to the acre. Red-top used on moist land. Cost of hay in the stack, $2. Value of hay per ton, from $3 to $4; difference owing to its being near or remote from a village.

Com

Dairy Husbandry.-Average yearly produce of butter and cheese, 300 pounds per cow. There have been instances of obtaining 500. parative cost, about 3 pounds of cheese, equal to 2 of butter.

Those who follow cheese-making here make very little butter until after the middle of October. They set their milk in pans or crocks, let it stand from 24 to 36 hours, then skim and let the cream stand as much longer, then churn in Crowell's patent thermometer churn. Common sack salt is used; buttermilk all worked out, then put down. No other substance is used. Average price of butter, 12 cents per pound. Cheese, 5 cents at the place where manufactured.

Neat Cattle.-Cost of raising till 3 years old, from $12 to $18-average, say $15. Value at that age, from $15 to $30, according to size and quality-average, say $22. Value of good dairy cows in the fall, about $12 50; in spring, $20. I will merely observe, that our best farmers consider it necessary that their stock of all kinds should be furnished with a full supply of straw, &c., in their yards, stalls, or pens; and that the manure, when made, should be protected, as much as possible, from the heat of the sun and drenching rains.

corn.

Breaking Steers to the Yoke.-My plan is (and I have broken a good many) to break them the winter before they are two years old. First get them into the yard; then into a small pen, so strong that they cannot break out; then feed them corn-nubbing, and handle them gently. Get them yoked, if possible, before they are aware of it; then feed them more corn. Now hitch them behind a steady yoke of cattle; drive them around awhile; then feed them more corn; now make them fast, and then unyoke them, and feed a little more corn. Repeat the whole operation the next day twice, morning and evening; do not forget the The third day put them in the lead. Handle them a little every day, morning and evening; yoke and unyoke every time. Do not beat them. If you cannot make them do as you wish, and get vexed with them, do not abuse them, but feed them corn. You will soon be able to drive them alone. This should be done soon, as they never will be broken right without. Now, if you have a small stock and a light sled, they will haul enough to feed them; and this will be enough for them to do morning and evening, and they will very soon be quite handy. But mind, you must give them corn every time you yoke, and enough, until they become quiet, so that you can handle them and get up to them in any place, and they never will forget it, but continue quiet and gentle all their lives.

Wool-growing is a good business. There is comparatively little differ

ence in growing coarse or fine wool here. Cost per pound, 20 cents. Merino is more profitable than Saxony, however. The difference in price does not compensate for the difference in weight. We have to depend principally on the fleece here at our distance from market. A company have imported here from France, the past season, a lot of the Rambouillet sheep. Their average weight of fleece (in the dirt) was 13 pounds; live weight of heaviest ewe, 187 pounds; live weight of heaviest buck, 220 pounds. Sold the wool at 30 cents per pound. Wool has ranged (that is, the last clip) from 33 to 48 cents per pound, washed. Proportion of lambs to ewes in small flock, one to the ewe; large flocks, unless there is extraordinary care taken, one-fourth less.

A large proportion of Union county is yet comparatively new and unsettled. Some excellent stock are in the south part of it.

Respectfully, yours,

Hon. THOMAS EWBANK,

Commissioner of Patents.

ELIPHAZ BURNHAM.

TARLTON, PICKAWAY COUNTY, OHIO,

December, 1851.

SIR: I received your Circular of August, 1850, through the politeness of the Hon. Edson B. Olds, representative in Congress from this dis trict, on the 26th of October last. The time being short, and I not aware of being called upon to answer any such questions, and the lack of education, and my imperfect knowledge of agricultural chemistry, I fear will render me incapable of replying in a satisfactory manner; yet the interest I have always taken in agricultural pursuits prompts me to say something. It will be a plain, simple statement of facts, of which you can make such disposition as you think proper.

There are four things that all farmers should strictly attend to: 1st, good fences; 2d, good cultivation in good time; 3d, save all manure and everything that will fertilize the soil, and apply it in time; 4th, good care of, and economy with all things.

Manure is one of the most particular things that all farmers should pay strict attention to, and see that it is all saved and well applied. I know nothing of agricultural chemistry only what nature and experience have taught me; and do not credit the statements of learned chemists, such as Liebig, and a host of others, who contend that vegetation receives the greatest part of its nourishment by and through the atmosphere-a thing reason and nature will not admit of. If such statements be true, I have toiled and labored with manure 50 years in vain; that is, if 98 loads of manure out of 100 are in vain. In my opinion there is but one way that manure can be kept till it is decomposed without losing some of its virtue, and that is in a manure-cellar. (See Patent Office Report

[* No chemist teaches the doctrine that "98 loads of manure out of 100 are in vain" or worthless. Our correspondent is fighting a windmill of his own setting up. His theoretical views are of no value; but his suggestions in farm economy are worthy of attention.]

of 1848, page 363.) The next to manure is lime; as for plaster or guano, it is not used in this section of country. The quantity of lime to be applied is immaterial; there is little danger of applying too much if mixed with the soil. In a freestone soil, lime is equal to manure, if not preferable. In this section of country, our lime is all burnt of pebble stone, taken out of the Scioto river and smaller streams; there is no rock limestone in the Scioto valley south of Columbus, while north it is in abundance. Lime out of pebble stone is better for land than that which is burnt out of rock stone. In the year 1839 I put up a brick building; I hauled out all the rubbish and riddlings of lime, which was about four loads, on to a quarter of an acre, which has ever since produced a fourth more than any other part of the field of all kinds of grain. I formerly thought no soil could be fertilized by its own productions; but long experience has taught me otherwise. I commenced improving in the woods in 1808, and have lived on my farm since 1812; it was a thin, white-oak soil-the most of it. When I first commenced, I had to burn considerable logs, brush, &c.; but, by trying experiments, I have ascertained that the brush, litter, and leaves, taken from one acre of new land when first cleared, and spread on an acre of old worn-out land, and let lay a year or two, will make it equal to new land, if not better. There is not an acre of my cleared land that is not better now than when first cleared; but it has cost me labor, attention, and care. I burn nothing on the farm except wood in the house, &c. I do not agree with some learned chemists, who say burn your straw and carry out the ashes, and your land receives all the nutriment it drew out. I have a neighbor that tried that to his sorrow. I burn nothing. Stubbles, weeds, briars, and even stumps-draw them out on a poor spot.

In this section of country wheat and corn are the principal crops, though other kinds of grain are raised to a considerable extent. The corn this year is considerably better than last-I am not able to say to what per cent. I expect it will be made known by abler hands than myself. One thing I will state: A. R. Foreman & Co., in Wayne township, measured one acre of a field of 300 acres, which yielded 150 bushels. In this section of country we cut up all our corn and shock it in 12, and some in 16 hills. Square 16 is rather large; if the season is wet it is apt to mould; it is then generally husked out (when dry) in the field; the fodder reshocked for feed through the winter. I have taken a different plan: I built a shed by planting forks of white oak, which were about a foot in diameter, which have been in the ground 21 years. As soon as my corn is dry, I haul it into my yard, husk it, and put my fodder in the shed. In this way I lose nothing, and have my fodder dry all winter for feeding, and feed on the same yard all winter; and against the middle of August it is ready for hauling out, and is the best manure that can be applied on wheat land. I have often been surprised to see most of our farmers feeding their fodder outside of the fences and in the roads, and losing all their substance. Those that feed fat cattle feed corn and all together in feed lots. I know a number of feed lots that have been fed on several years that are apparently as rich as land can be made.

As to your last question-time and degree of highest and lowest range of thermometer-I have kept a journal for the last two years, and I know no other way than to copy the last year, though I expect it will be of no service, as I only took the degrees of the thermometer each day at sun

rise; therefore, I cannot give the range. The thermometer is placed in a fair exposure to the northeast, and out of the rays of the sun. We have a changeable climate, as will be seen by my journal. I have frequently known it to change from 10 to 20 degrees in 6 hours. It appears that we are situated between two climates: south-say, for instance, in the neighborhood of Chillicothe, which is 20 miles-the harvest is generally from 6 to 10 days earlier than here. I have seen it frequently. Their apple blossoms were all shed off when ours were in full bloom; and north from us-say 40 miles-it is about that much later.

Abstract of my Journal for the year ending December 1, 1851, in Salt Creek township, Pickaway county, Ohio.