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our agriculture, as to those matters referred to by the State 

 Board in their published inquiries, I desire to direct attention 

 to some highly injurious errors that prevail amongst us. 



1. Waste of Manure. — Many of our farmers suffer their 

 wheat straw to go to entire waste, and pay but little atten- 

 tion to the barn-yard manure. They fatten their hogs in 

 pens, built close by creeks and springs, that the hogs may 

 easily get water. The first heavy rains of winter wash the 

 manure into the streams, and is thus lost to them. The ash 

 pile is suffered to accumulate for years. Thus is the land 

 impoverished by continual cropping, and restoring nothing 

 to it. 



2. Trampling Fields. — One of the injurious consequences 

 resulting from the cultivation of corn, is the trampling of the 

 field during winter and early spring, by turning stock into it 

 to gather up the fodder. This ought to be done in dry or 

 very cold weather only, but the fence once let down, the 

 stock is suffered to have free access until the field is again to 

 be ploughed. Then it is found to be cloddy and heavy, and 

 in a great degree unfit for cultivation. 



3. Want of blue grass pastures. — Many of the evils I 

 have alluded to, result from this want. To supply it, the 

 farmer toils through the spring and summer, to raise food 

 with which to keep his stock through the winter. This food 

 is corn and corn-fodder. His arable ground finds no rest, 

 whilst in general, one-half his land remains a forest. The 

 recent census shows that in Monroe county there is a geater 

 number of unimproved acres than improved. The former 

 are 92,473, the latter 83,200. The capital invested in the 

 first is not less than three quarters of a million dollars, yield- 

 ing but little income. All of this land could be made pro- 

 ductive with but little labor, and no loss of valuable timber. 

 Every acre of our woodlands could be turned into blue grass 

 pastures. Why it has not been done, I cannot state, for I 

 have yet to meet with the farmer who did not, at once, admit 

 their great value. It is neither expensive nor laborious to 



