368 [Senate 



among the productions of a large proportion of the county. The 

 exhaustion of the lime in the soil, is probably the cause of the disease 

 which rusts the straw and shrinks the kernel. The cheapness of 

 flour in market, brought from the west, and far west, will not war- 

 rant the outlay for lime, to restore our farms to a wheat growing con- 

 dition. We have therefore, to a great extent, turned to the raising of 

 stock, dairying, coarse grain and the fattening of pork. 



Corn, oats, barley, peas, beans and buckwheat, continue to make 

 large returns for the labor bestowed on them. Roots of all kinds 

 yield well in our soil. The potatoe, until the two last seasons, has 

 been raised to an extent which it is confidently believed few sections 

 of the State can equal. Five, ten, and even fifteen acres, were not 

 uncommon fields ; yielding from two to six hundred bushels per acre. 

 On them we fattened our pork, wintered our store hogs, and large 

 quantities were fed to our dairy cows at the close of winter, and in 

 the spring. Almost every farmer has his piggery, with a cauldron 

 set in an arch, for the purpose of boiling his potatoes and provender. 



A few words as to the disease which has made such sad ravages 

 with the potatoe crop the two last years. Like the cholera, it defies 

 all ordinary rules ; its cause, to some extent, seems inexplicable. To 

 my mind, the most rational theory for accounting for it is, that it is 

 caused by the fermentation of the soil. For the last two years, while 

 the crop was maturing, the weather was extremely warm, accompa- 

 nied by occasional warm, almost scalding rains. This caused the fer- 

 mentation too powerful to be withstood by the tubers. Another 

 argument in favor of this position is, that cool weather immediately 

 checked the disease, and few potatoes rotted the last fall after the first 

 of October. But my confidence in this position is somewhat shaken 

 from the fact — and I believe it is generally conceded — that the rot- 

 ting of the tuber is connected with the curl or rust that strikes the 

 vines. Last summer, and the one preceding, I had a piece of pink- 

 eyes that were in each year struck with the rust as early as the last 

 of July, and in a few days the leaves on the vines were entirely with- 

 ered. The potatoe immediately stopped growing, so that last year I 

 had not more than one-third, and this year one-fourth of a crop ; yet, 

 in each caso of those thus early struck with the rust, I did not lose 

 one bushel by the rot. Possibly their being so early killed, gave 

 them a chance to mature, so that the fermentation would not affect 

 them. After all, I have no very great confidence in the above, or any 

 other theory I have seen. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE. 



Of late years, and particularly since the formation of the Oneida 

 County Agricultural Society, and the more general diffusion of papers 

 and essays on the subject, our farmers have awakened to the impor- 

 tance of their calling, and a spirit of improvement and reform in gene- 

 ral pervades them. Firstly : In no branch of our husbandry was there 

 a more thorough reformation needed than in the tillage with the plow, 

 and in none are the improvements more perceptible. Half plowing. 



