tivation of the soil, or rearing live stock, shall endeavor to answer, in a discursive manner, some of the interrogatories in relation to Sheep husbandry.

The leading question under the head of sheep and wool-"Is wool-growing profitable?"-can only refer to this description of stock when well managed, receiving the light but necessary attentions during the grass seasons usually bestowed upon them by flock masters, and the preparation of ample supplies of food for their consumption during the winter months.

Sheep, like all other domestic animals, remunerate their owners just in proportion to the care that is bestowed upon them, and the judicious application of the food they consume, and its adaptation to their necessities. In endeavoring to obtain as large a supply of wool as is practicable, regard should be had to good condition. High feeding on grain should at the same time be avoided, as it renders the wool harsh, and the yield is not in proportion to the

cost.

The merinos or Saxon sheep are generally kept in this section of country, and are preferred to the coarse-woolled sheep. They bear confinement in large flocks better than any other breed. They also produce as much wool in proportion to what they eat. Their food is the same; nor are they more dainty in their appetites than the native stock. Their mutton, when fat, is excellent, being tender, juicy, and of fine flavor, when well cooked. This race of sheep, consequently, from the known value and extensive consumption and high price of their wool, together with the good qualities of their mutton, highly recommend themselves to all classes of farmers. They are also peculiarly fitted for the improvement of lands injured by cultivation in the southern States; and, from experiments recently made in the interior of Virginia, it is no longer to be questioned that they will thrive and be profitable in such situations.

The mountain or rolling lands of the southern States will doubtless in a short time yield a handsome revenue in wool, as a shepherd with his dog could keep a large flock of sheep during the growing season at comparatively little expense. Such has been the custom with the wool-growers of this vicinity for many years, the sheep being brought home for the winter.

The prepossessing appearance of sheep farms is much owing to their destroying the weeds and bushes, and to the beautiful sward produced by the minute and equal distribution of their manure over its surface.

Sheep will fertilize, more readily than any other stock, the hill tops, from their habits of seeking the highest land to lie on at night.

There are, however, some other points worthy of mention in connexion with this subject. Merino or Saxon sheep are more readily confined in fields than the native stock, and require much less outlay in fencing than is necessary upon farms where horses or cattle are kept. This, where timber is scarce upon cultivated farms, is a very important consideration.

In this section there are immense quantities of manure made by feeding the sheep during the winter season under barns or other shelters, which are well littered with straw, both for the cleanliness and health of the sheep and for increasing the amount of manure. It is left under shelter until the following summer or fall, when it is hauled out upon the grass-lands designed for corn the next season, or spread and ploughed under for wheat when necessary, or to top-dress meadows. This manure is of course very strong from the little exposure to which it has been subjected, and, being dry, is easily hauled out. The winter feed of sheep in this region, embracing Ohio and Brooke counties, in Virginia, and in the adjoining counties of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of sheep are kept, consists of hay, sheaf oats, corn, and corn-fodder, and what grass may remain upon the fields after the proper grazing season is over.

These sheep certainly pay, or other stock would soon be substituted in their stead, as I know of no people who better understand their true interests than those mentioned.

Cattle do well here, and they could soon be introduced more extensively, as this is a fine region for grass; spear grass and white clover being indigenous to it. Timothy and red clover also grow to great perfection.

It is generally believed that a steer costs as much during the year as ten sheep. The sheep produce wool worth from ten to twelve dollars and a half. The profit on cattle is not so great; if it is, I have not found it out. This is the annual yield of the sheep in wool, independent of the increase, which, in a flock of one-half breeding ewes, would be fully 50 cents per head more.

It appears, then, that 100 sheep, 50 of which are breeding ewes, will produce from $100 to $125 for the wool, and 50 cents per head for the increase, (it being about from 75 to 90 in large, and should be greater in small flocks,) or near that sum, valuing the lambs at one dollar per head. This is not, however, a fair estimate of the best flocks that furnish bucks and choice ewes for the improvement of other flocks. The annual sales of stock in such instances will very considerably increase the above estimates.

There being no sheep kept here the entire year on hay, I am unable to state how much wool a ton of hay will produce. It is usual to feed from seven to ten tons of hay per hundred, with some grain. The amount of feed varies with the severity of the winter.

The Saxon sheep spoken of are not the delicate animals some writers of the present day would have us believe, but are as hardy as any stock of sheep which have as yet been introduced here, and are remarkable for the quality of their wool, and the good property, so essential, of producing animals equal, if not superior to themselves. Some samples of wool taken from my Saxon sheep, just before shearing this summer, were handed to Mr. P. A. Browne by Messrs Houston & Robinson, of Philadelphia. The samples grade as below: Unwashed wool. Grown bucks, No. 1

No. 2

Young bucks, No. 1

1,250 (inch.) 1,875

The wool-growing interest will be much benefited by Mr. Browne's various examinations,* as they can more readily tell the relative value of their sheep, and where to procure good crosses.

The preceding remarks upon the subject of sheep and wool you can use as you think proper.

Yours, respectfully,

Hon. THOMAS EWBANK,

Commissioner of Patents.

H. W. CHAPLINE.

LAFAYETTE, INDIANA, December 16, 1850.

SIR: In answer to your communication, I would say that I never wrote a piece for the press in my life, and you will please take the substance of my communication, which I will endeavor to make intelligible.

* See Plough, Loom, and Anvil for March and May, 1850.

I will, in the first place, give my mode of transplanting young orchard trees. I lay off the ground, and put a small stake where each tree is to stand. I then cut a forked stick of sufficient size, and cut the prongs so that they will measure three feet from point to point. I set one prong where the stake stands, and strike a circle with the other, which will be six feet in diameter, to spade by. I lay the first spit around the hole. If the second spit is good, I merely reverse it; if not, I throw it away, and replace it with good soil. In setting the tree, I raise a little mound in the centre, pressing the tree firmly on the mound, one holding it straight while the other fills up the hole. I do not throw the soil upon the roots in a mass, but carefully press the earth around and into every crevice of each layer of roots, placing the roots, with the fingers, as near as may be, in the same position, as respects divergence, in which they originally stood. I then press the whole firmly with the foot, except three or four inches on the top, which should be left loose and concave to retain and absorb the rain. This completes the setting.

I have next to speak of the after-culture. But I will first describe an implement which I use for that purpose, and which I originally invented for garden culture, but found admirably adapted to the latter use. It simply consists of three spring-steel blades, each one and a fourth inch wide, two of them 18 inches long, one 10 inches long. They are set in a wooden bar, or head, eight inches long and two inches square, fastened with two screws in each blade; they should be two-inch screws. The two long blades are set at each end of the head; the short one in the middle; both ends of the long ones are curved, and one end only of the short one. To this a handle is attached similar to a rake handle. This implement is to be used by a motion similar to raking. It is not to dig or hoe. It can be used to advantage where the ground is too wet for any other tool, for it leaves it in a better condition to receive light and air, which are essential to vegetable growth. The use of the side with two prongs is to run astride of onions, beets, radishes, and all suitable things planted in rows, and also to work anything when the ground is too wet for the three-pronged side, which often happens

The two small figures represent the front and edge of a tooth.

Some of my neighbors have tried to improve on it by fastening the blades to a thin iron head with rivets. But I prefer my original plan. It is lighter, and easier put in repair.

Thus prepared, I go over my newly set trees just before a rain, and mellow the ground from four to six inches deep, the size of the hole. I can thus go over 200 trees every hour with ease. If the rain should be very heavy, I go over them again as soon as the ground is sufficiently dry to break the crust formed by the rain, which is very detrimental to the growth of anything. Thus

I proceed until about the 15th of July. After that I leave the ground undisturbed; for, if continued, the trees would continue to grow until frost, and would be liable to be killed by the winter. If the weather should be dry, I go over my trees once a week, and mellow the ground as deep as I can each time. If wet, and the rains are heavy, I go over after each heavy rain and break the crust. Under the above treatment, there is no need of mulching, and they will make a much better growth than mulched trees. Some may think all this too much trouble. I have tried every way, and I now practise this way exclusively, and never intend to practise any other way.

A word on the position in which trees should be set: Some people are very particular to have a tree set in the same position in which it grew in the nursery. I never found any difference in that respect. But it is very important that some trees should stand in a certain position-a fact, I believe, which has not been noticed by writers on horticulture. A great many trees are crooked and curved in their stems. The crooks and curves incline to an angle of from 10 to 45 degrees. If these inclinations are set to the south, the intense rays of the summer sun scorch the sap. The sap, thus scorched, has an offensive smell, which attracts the borer, which soon reduces the whole south side of the tree to powder in these inclinations. Thus from 10 to 15 per cent., or more, of young orchard trees are destroyed, which might be prevented by observing the above rules.

A word about how nursery trees should be raised: Some nurserymen boast that all their trees are grafted in the root. The common practice is to graft or inoculate the trees from 4 to 12 inches from the ground. This may be the most convenient for the nurseryman. But this practice and root grafting are both wrong, unless for dwarfs. All kinds of trees should be grafted or inoculated where the head is to be formed, because seedling stocks are more hardy than the cultivated varieties; much more so, in general.

The thermometer, in 1843, stood a whole day (the day perfectly clear) at zero; the snow about ten inches deep, and the ground soft. The consequence was, that all my sweet cherry trees that were inoculated low were killed, while the seedling stocks were not injured. A great many large apple trees (root grafted) suffered the same fate; and so of all other fruits-proving the seedling stocks to be much hardier than the grafts. Sweet cherries should be highly worked in particular, they being more tender than any other hardy fruit. When the snow falls deep, and the ground is soft, it should be removed from around fruit-trees until the ground is frozen, to prevent the disaster that happened to me in 1843. The philosophy of it is this: When the snow is deep, and the ground is not frozen, a circulation of sap is kept up in the roots consequent from the warm bed of snow; this, meeting with a low temperature in the clear sunshine-the rays of the sun reflecting from the snow-raises a degree of heat in the focus of those rays to permit the sap to pass up four or five inches above the snow, which freezes in the absence of the sun; thus, the tree is killed as far as the reflection of the sun can reach Such trees as apple, peach, pear, plum, and sweet cherry, are generally killed all round. While the nurseryman continues thus to work his trees low, the farmer will continue to have vacancies in his orchard. If those who set new orchards will observe the above rules in selecting, setting, and after-culture, they will not have many vacancies to fill. The above mode of culture is peculiarly adapted to the first season; any kind of clean culture will answer afterwards. Let no one presume to continue it beyond the 15th of July; otherwise they may pay dearly for it the next winter. The above is all that is original with me. Yours, respectfully,

Hon. THOMAS EWBANK,

Commissioner of Patents.

CANADA FINK.

NOTE.

Seeds ordered for the fall of 1852.

In consequence of the late period at which the foregoing Report is issued, an opportunity is afforded of inserting the following letter, that Congress and the agricultural community may know what measures have been taken to provide seeds for distribution the present fall, and what amount of the appropriation for agricultural statistics, &c., has been devoted to that object:

PATENT OFFICE, September 16, 1852.

SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 14th inst., suggesting that I might consult with advantage the "Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture" on the annual selection and distribution of seeds. To meet the wishes of agriculturists in this matter. is certainly the most direct mode of accomplishing the intentions of Congress in making the appropriation. Some seeds have been ordered from California Brazil, Sicily, &c., amounting probably to one thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars remain for the purchase of American and foreign seeds; and to the most judicious expenditure of this sum I respectfully invite the attention of the Society. As the money is to be expended for the benefit of all the States, the variety of seeds should include some adapted to the climate of all, and such as will meet the expectations of planters. About four hundred packages will be required for members of Congress, heads of departments, &c., and about as many smaller ones for distribution from the office. These the office will address and forward through the mail. The remainder should be put up in packages, for societies and prominent farmers, and may be addressed by the Society and forwarded to the office to be franked. Thus the responsibility of the distribution, as well as of the selection, will be chiefly with the Society. As Col. Wilder, the president of the United States Agricultural Society, and other eminent agriculturists, are attending the Pomological and Horticultural Convention now holding in your city, I would respectfully suggest that they also be consulted. I need not say that the seed should be fresh, of the first qualities, and put up in the best manner. They should be ready for distribution from the office by the beginning, and not later than the middle, of February. Each package should have its contents printed on it, and each paper the name of the seed it contains. "Seeds from the United States Patent Office" should also be printed on every paper and package.

The purchase and preparation of these seeds are left with your Society, and the bill or bills, when approved by your Society or a committee, will be promptly paid by the office. If the Society approve the suggestion, the following words might be printed on each package: "Selected for the Patent Office by the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture."

ISAAC NEWTON, Esq.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

T. EWBANK.