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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



concern— and tlio farm itself the best of all " Hints to 

 the Young Farmer." 



This reads liard and plain, abounding in good advice, 

 and, if taken literally lino for line, might keep the 

 young farmer at home all his life. But who is the 

 gentleman who wrote it ? And where is he ? It is the 

 well-known Mr. Robert Smith, of Exmoor, who, as we 

 take it, is for these passing eight or ten days, busily en- 

 gaged in fulfilling his honorary duties at Chester, as 

 one of the stewards of the yard — 'Who has been judge 

 or steward at such meetings, to his credit be it said, as 

 often perhaps as any man in England — and who as a 

 consequence cannot have been quite so much at home 

 as he might have been. But we will construe Mr. 

 Smith's counsel a little more liberally, and assume that 

 he himself is not a worse, but a better farmer, for all 

 this going about. Did he ever attend a meeting with- 

 out gaining some useful "hint" from it? And 

 has he not often done a good deal more when he 

 got back home, than he might have done had he never 

 left it ? 



Fortunately for us all, there is no rule without an ex- 



ception, and the man that attempted it would cut the 

 ground 'from under him ere he had gone half-a-mile. 

 Even Mr. Smith speaks of " the leisure hour," and 

 quotes Arthur Young for the maintenanceof such a holi- 

 day : — " July is the month for the young farmer to look 

 about him — to see other farms and farming." Let us 

 as unconditionally accept the edict. This is July. The 

 great meeting of the year is on, and let the young 

 farmer look about him. 



It is a mere truism to say these gatherings cannot 

 flourish without him. But even more than this, they 

 cannot do all the good they might for him without his 

 actual presence and influence. Ask the implement- 

 maker from whom he receiv«s the most useful hints, 

 amendments, and corrections ? lie will tell you fairly at 

 once, " From the farmer himself." Who is it that 

 prompts the landowner to introduce better stock into the 

 neighbourhood? Who is at his side, to advise and 

 diree t him ? Corn may not be quite so high as it should 

 be, the Missis may grumble at the money he spends 

 away from home, but the farmer who does not neglect 

 his own business will bo at the Chester Show. 



THE SORGHO, OR CHINESE SUGAR-CANE. 



Every addition to the number of cultivated plants, 

 whether directly applicable to the support of man as 

 food in themselves, or indirectly as contributing to the 

 rearing and fattening of animals for the slaughter- 

 house, must be reckoned as so much gain to our com- 

 mon humanity; valuable, of course, according to the 

 proportion between the expense of their cultivation and 

 the amount of production, as compared also with 

 those plants already in use amongst us. Since the 

 general introduction of root and green crops in the 

 cultivation of the country, an immense increase of food 

 has been added to our stores of food ; and at the same 

 time the condition of the land has been improved, and 

 the produce of the grain crops increased, oy the raising 

 of greater quantities and a better quality of manure. 

 The turnip husbandry drove out the system of fallow- 

 ing ; after a time the ruta baga nearly superseded the 

 common white loaf first introduced ; and till more re- 

 ceutly, the mangel-wurzel has, in a great measure, 

 ridden over both, as yielding a larger and more profit- 

 able crop. The sugar or Silesian beet-root is still upon 

 its trial in this country, as against the common mangel, 

 although on the Continent it is, for special reasons, 

 largely cultivated. When its saccharine properties are 

 as well understood here, it will probably be more gene- 

 rally patronized by the graziers. 



Another plant — for which Europe is indebted to 

 China — has recently been introduced into France, 

 where it is likely to be extensively cultivated. We 

 refer to the sorgho, or Chinese sugar-cane, of which a 

 specimen has been forwarded to us by our agricultural 

 correspondent now travelling through France. As in 

 his letter on the subject, published in a recent number 

 of our Journal, he recommends this plant to the at- 



tention of the British farmer, we have thought it well 

 to look into the subject; and we shall now proceed 

 to give them the result of our inquiries. 



The sorgho appears to be a plant of a nature between 

 the sugar-cane of the West Indies, and the maize 

 or Indian corn. It is like the former in the stem ; but, 

 so far as we can ascertain, is nowhere, like it, a peren- 

 nial plant. It comes to maturity in five months; whilst 

 the cane requires from tv/elvo to eighteen months, ac- 

 cording to the irrigation applied to it. With regard to 

 the maize, the sorgho resembles it in its growth, foliage, 

 and constitution, but is totaily different in granular 

 produce. In saccharine properties the cane and the 

 sorgho are nearly of eq-.al value; for whilst the cane 

 yields from 14 to 18 per cent, of saccharine, the sorgho 

 will yield, according to Leplay, 15, and to Dupeyrat 10 

 per cent, of crystallizablo sugar, of precisely the same 

 character as that of the cane, the beet-root, and the ma- 

 ple. Of the proportion contained in maize we have not 

 the means of ascertaining at hand ; but if our recollection 

 does not deceive us, it is from nine to twelve per cent. 

 This, however, is not now the question which lies be- 

 tween the sorgho in the South and the beet-root in the 

 North of France, in which country the tw^o will proba- 

 bly come into vigorous competition iu the raanufacturo 

 of sugar. 



The sorgho has hitherto been acclimated in France 

 only as high as the dei)artment of the Loire, in the 

 47P N. L.; and wo have reason to think that it 

 will not'pay to cultivate it at a higher latitude, from the 

 noticeable fact that the further north it is grown, the 

 less saccharine it will yield. This accounts for the dif- 

 ference between the two statements given above. M. 

 Dupeyrat speaks of sorgho grown in 474** N., whilst 



