8 



AGRICULTURE. 



some of the shells ; while the dung contains so 

 much starch as to cause fire-fanging in the com- 

 post heap. 



Six quarts of oats, bruised, and six quarts of 

 carrots, pulped, and the hay chaffed and mixed 

 therewith, will sustain a horse as well as twelve 

 quarts of oats with nearly a double portion of 

 hay in the natural state, not chaffed, and with- 

 out the use of carrots. Fatting cattle will flour- 

 ish well with a less amount of grain when car- 

 rots are substituted in part. We should re- 

 member, however, that for the purpose of 

 inducing appetite, a variety of roots is quite 

 desirable. The cooking of food for cattle is 

 becoming quite general, and many convenient 

 steaming apparatus have been invented for this 

 purpose. Hay is now chaffed instead of being 

 cut ; for it is well ascertained that 23 Ibs. of 

 hay, in the natural state, 19 Ibs. cut one inch 

 long, and 13 Ibs. finely chaffed, are equal in 

 value as food for horses, cattle, etc. ; and when 

 this is steamed before use, its value is still fur- 

 ther increased, particularly if mixed with the 

 meal intended to be used before steaming, after 

 which the pulped roots are added. 



The feeding of cooked food to hogs is a ma- 

 terial improvement now generally acknowl- 

 edged and much practised ; half the amount of 

 corn, after being cooked, will fairly represent 

 an entire quantity in the raw state, as food for 

 hogs. Straw and corn-stalks, when used in 

 place of hay, are found to be of high value if 

 chaffed and steamed before use. 



The thorough ventilation and proper tem- 

 perature of stables are now recognized as adding 

 materially to the economical keeping and health- 

 ful condition of the animals. The use of char- 

 coal dust, plaster of Paris, and other deodorizers 

 in and about the stalls of animals, is a material 

 amendment in practice. 



Mulching. It is now well understood, that 

 protecting the soil with a slight covering dur- 

 ing the colder seasons, materially benefits the 

 crops of the following year. If a board lie on 

 the soil during fall and winter, and be removed 

 in early spring, it will be found that the grass, 

 during the following summer, will grow more 

 profusely on that spot than elsewhere, and this 

 fact has suggested the similar use of slight coat- 

 ings of straw, salt hay, and other cheap mate- 

 rials, which may be removed with a horse-rake 

 in the spring, and then used as bedding for ani- 

 mals. Grass and grain crops, by such treat- 

 ment, are saved from the effects of winter, 

 sometimes so disastrous to their growth. The 

 sprewing or freezing out of crops seldom or 

 never occurs in soils properly prepared to a 

 sufficient depth. 



The use of mowing machines has of late be- 

 come quite general, and farmers who formerly 

 were constrained to keep no more stock than 

 they could supply with the quantity of hay 

 which they, and one or two laboring men, 

 could cut and cure at the proper season, are 

 now enabled to appropriate a greater breadth 

 of land and raise a larger amount of stock. 



Threshing-machines are just taking the place 

 of the flail and barn-floor. Many farmstead- 

 ings are now supplied with a steam or caloric 

 engine, enabling each farmer to grind his own 

 corn, pulp his roots, chaff his hay, straw, and 

 corn-stalks, saw his own wood, thresh, win- 

 now, and clean his grain, etc., by machinery. 



In the culture of small fruits the improve- 

 ments have been very great, and the citizens 

 of New York and other cities, can now vie 

 with those of London and Paris in the quality 

 of fruits of all kinds obtainable in their mar- 

 kets. The culture of dwarf pears has materially 

 increased ; and we have so advanced in grape 

 culture that we shall soon become a wine-mak- 

 ing country ; California furnishing an amount 

 almost as great as produced by all the rest 

 of the Union. Ohio, Missouri, and other States, 

 are wine producers on an extended scale, while 

 all our markets are supplied with grapes as a 

 dessert fruit. Improved kinds are fast being 

 introduced, of this as well as of all other fruit. 



In flax culture the increase is very great. 

 The late improvements in machines for the 

 dressing and preparation of flax, will soon en- 

 able us to become large exporters of this ar- 

 ticle. 



Bones are no longer exported from our shores 

 for the use of English and French farmers, but 

 they are all manufactured into superphosphates. 

 The agricultural societies in all our States and 

 in almost all our counties, are fast disseminating 

 agricultural truths throughout the breadth of 

 the land ; we find from the reports of fairs that, 

 in many agricultural districts, staple crops are 

 continually on the increase. The wasting sys- 

 tem which caused the wheat crop of the State 

 of Ohio to fall from 35 bushels to 12 per acre, 

 and of New York from 30 to 10, as average 

 crops, and Massachusetts to be entirely unable 

 to supply her own population, is fast passing 

 away, and we anticipate that the future census 

 of the Government will show, that as agricul- 

 ture becomes a science, the suicidal skinning, 

 of the soil will cease. American agricultural 

 machinery is now fast supplanting that of Eng- 

 land and other European countries ; even their 

 own colonies, the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 many other African settlements, and Australia 

 and all of Central America, are now our cvfetom- 

 ers for agricultural implements. American inge- 

 nuity is fast furnishing advantages which equal 

 that of the lower price of European labor, and 

 enable the American farmer to compete in the 

 world's markets at their prices. 



In all the older States, worn-out soils are 

 being resuscitated and swamps drained, bring- 

 ing new lands into cultivation ; underdraining 

 and subsoil-ploughing are fast doubling the 

 available power of soils, and when the same 

 kind of enterprise shall become general in the 

 cotton-growing States, the increase of produce 

 will be immense. We find, in almost every 

 county throughout the Union, some individual 

 who raises double the average of the corn crop 

 of his State, double the average of the cotton 



