110 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



pound out by hand after the mice have worked through the 

 mow some in winter. Whoever has ability enough to run a 

 threshing maclune, gets drafted, sooner or later, into some 

 mechanical employment that gives iiim work the whole year 

 through, and our sowings are smaller because of competition 

 with richer lands by railway ; because our manure and farm 

 labor is expended upon tobacco with what appears greater 

 profit, and because there is not the demand there should be 

 from an intelligent people for choice rye for family bread. 

 With a little awakening of public sentiment as to this latter 

 matter, a little greater home consumption of breadstuffs at the 

 west, a little closer attention to what is really a source of 

 lasting profit to the farm and the community, and we may 

 take a " new departure " in rye-growing, with a more general 

 use of capital, manure and harvei^ting machinery. 



The common threshing machine injures the marketable 

 value of the straw, making it less readily portable. I hear 

 by word of mouth, of a power-thresher in common use about 

 Chatham Pour Corners, Columbia county, New York, which 

 preserves the straw as perfectly as if threshed by hand, and 

 wish I could give the maker's name. 



The straw upon an acre is often worth more than the grain 

 itself, bringing $25 and $30 per ton to collar-makers and sta- 

 ble-keepers. Its value for manure is not great, and its depor- 

 tation should not rob the farm of substances that are difficult 

 to obtain. I believe there is authority for supposing that the 

 rye-grower might sell both straw and flour at current prices, 

 retaining the bran and a fair proportion of the price in his 

 business without depleting his land. I- heartily wish there 

 were some philosophic Connecticut man with the leisure and 

 means to make exact experiments in this direction, and in 

 other matters, for our State, as Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert have 

 made for England; and with this suggestion, my dear Mr. 

 Secretary, I leave the rye crop in the hands of the honorable 

 Board of Agriculture and yourself. 



Mr. Gold. I wish we might have the opinions of the com- 

 pany upon the profits of the culture of these crops here in 

 Connecticut, as well as the methods of their culture. 



