440 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



all landed property in Ireland 



extended to 

 (applause). 



The Chairman made some observations with 

 respect to the vast improvements which had, within 



his recollection, been effected in Ireland, and ex- 

 pressed his opinion that the progress of improve- 

 ment, so far from being slow, was, in reality, very 

 rapid. 



AN AMERICAN FARMER. 



Springfield, the residence of George Patter- 

 son, Esq., in Carroll county, contains 1,759 acres. 

 About 700 are in cultivation. In the improvement 

 of his estate, Mr. Patterson casually mentioned that 

 he had applied 240,000 bushels of lime, at a cost 

 of over 50,000 dols. He said that, as a farmer, he 

 " believed in lime, grass, and dung" ; and we had 

 evidence that it was a creed not of words merely, 

 but of actions. For many years Mr. P. has devoted 

 himself closely to his agricultural operations, and 

 has been a minute observer, as well as a careful and 

 thorough practitioner. 



The first thing to spring up after the application 

 of lime he had noticed to be mulleins ; then comes 

 the white clover, and lastly, what he considers 

 undoubtedly the same grass as the Kentucky blue 

 grass, Poa pratensis. In speaking of grasses, Mr. 

 P. mentioned Timothy Hanson, of Baltimore, who 

 first introduced that kind known so widely by his 

 christian name, and which also bears in some parts 

 of the country the sirname of one Herd, who is said 

 to have discovered it growing wild. 



The rotation on which Mr. Patterson has decided 

 is one of nine years, viz., clover for two years, 

 wheat one year, Timothy mowed for hay two years, 

 and then pastured for two years more, and lastly 

 one crop of corn. Timothy and orchard grass he 

 compared thus : the former will make twice the 

 hay, but the latter gives more pasture. Timothy 

 he cuts just as the head is forming. To cure clover 

 hay properly, it must retain the colour of flower 

 and leaf perfectly, and Mr. Patterson recommends 

 this as the cheapest and simplest mode : he lets it 

 lie in the svvatho about six hours, then turns and 

 gives the lower side half an hour to dry in, puts up 

 in small cocks, and takes in the next day. 



His treatment of the corn crop may be interest- 

 ing. The Timothy sod having been turned in, in 

 the fall, as deeply as possible, say by ploughing 9 

 or 10 inches, the field is thoroughly harrowed three 

 times in spring, and laid off by the plough 3.i feet 

 by 4. The corn is dropped in, in the rows laid off 

 by the first ploughing, and is covered by the har- 

 row. There is thus no furrow left for the water to 

 tear out the seed or young plants. 



The Patterson Dkvons. — But Mr. Patter- 

 son's Devons are the main feature of the place. 

 The herd is descended from six heifers and a bull 



presented to a brother of the present owner by Mr. 

 Coke, of Ilolkham, England, who afterwards be- 

 came Earl of Leicester — a man whose fondness for 

 fine trees is as noted as that he manifested for su- 

 perior stock ; it being related of him that he planted 

 1,800 acres in wood, and lived to sail in a yacht 

 made from timber of his own planting. In order to 

 change the blood when necessary, Mr. Patterson 

 has imported five bulls during the twenty-two years 

 since the stock first came into his hands : the bull 

 Anchises (140), bought from the Earl of Leicester, 

 who stated that he had purchased him for his own 

 use from one of the best herds in Devonshire, 

 and impoited in 1836; Eclipse (191), calved in 

 1839, and imported from Mr. Bloomfield, of War- 

 ham, Norfolk, England; Herod (214), calved in 

 1844, and imported from the same herd in 1846 ; 

 Norfolk (266), calved in 1851, and imported from 

 the same herd the succeeding year ; and Chats- 

 field (to be entered in next vol. Herd Book), now 

 three years old, imported two years after from the 

 Quartly stock, and, although somewhat smaller 

 than those previously brought over, still apparently 

 very satisfactory to his owner, and an animal of 

 great symmetry and promise. The price paid for 

 him at home was one hundred guineas, and his 

 cost by the time he reached his present residence 

 not much short of 81,000 dollars. 



The herd now includes between eighty and ninety 

 head — the young cows by " Norfolk," and the 

 older ones by "Herod." Mr. Patterson's stock has 

 always been selected more with a view to the dairy 

 qualities, by which the breed was first mainly dis- 

 tinguished, than to that perfection of form, which, 

 together with some diminution in size, characterizes 

 the more recently " improved " importations. He 

 thinks that his stock will run from 25 to 33 per 

 cent, the heavier of the two, but I should scarcely 

 estimate the difierence so great. I was really sur- 

 prised to notice the evenness that characterizes all 

 the animals we saw, and there] can be few herds 

 anywhere in which the general average of merit 

 must be ranked so high. Doubtless a judge of 

 greater experience would have perceived differences 

 of much importance to him in considering, as a 

 breeder should, the influence each point in the 

 parent j)ossesses ujion his progeny, but I question 

 whether the majority of such comrnittees as render 



