10 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



'o advance tlir art nf agriculture to its utmost de- 

 gree of pcrfcL-lioii, is wanted in this State, secms^ 

 to be admitted almost by the unanimous voice of 

 an enlightened and intelligent community. It is 

 true, there are a lew scattering objections made 

 against the present proposal. Some indulge the 

 fear that it may degenerate from its legitimate end, 

 and become a mere political machine. 



This objection can be obviated in no way, so 

 well, as by taking the paper and testing its char- 

 acter for one year, at the end of which, each sub- 

 scriber %vill have a neat volume of 200 pages for 

 the trifling e.\pense of 67 cents for paper and post- 

 age. To this every farmer may safely add the 

 great ad vantage to be derived in reading at his leis- 

 ure hours on subjects relating to his profession, the 

 benefit and pleasure afforded to every individual of 

 his t'lmily, and the agreeable and useful topics fur- 

 nished in every paper for interesting and profitable 

 conversatinn witli his neighbors. 



Others object and say, that an agricultural paper 

 is of no use, because it does not contain the infor- 

 mation wanted, and it is not adapted to our system 

 of husbandry, and often publishes many articles, 

 which have a tendency to mislead farmers and put 

 them upon useless and expensive experiments. 



This objection, if weighed in the just balance of 

 common sense, will be found of no weight. 



Every farmer will have a large sheet of sixteen 

 pages monthly. These will be spread before him 

 for his careful and diligent reading, for his critical 

 e.tamination, and upon which he is to e.xercise his 

 sound discretion and mature judgment. And will 

 the farmer say, that this exercise of the faculties of 

 his mind may be of no advantage to himself, or some 

 members of his family .' Let him consider it, if he 

 qualify himself to judge correctly on these subjects, 

 it will enable him to do the same on other subjects 

 of equal, or of infinitely higher importance. No 

 man, in the exercise of sound discretion, after ma- 

 ture delibcratioi^vill enter upon a course of ex- 

 periments, unless the probability of success should 

 greately preponderate in his mind. 



Others say, that an agricultural paper is of no 

 use, because we know more on the subject of farm- 

 ing than these editors, and can write better articles 

 from our own experience than is generally commu- 

 nicated. This is a sound and rational argument 

 for the establishment of a paper of this description. 

 The design of this paper is to promote the success 

 and prosperity of the farming interests, and thereby 

 the well being of the whole community. Every 

 benevolent, philanthropic man professing this su- 

 perior experimental knowledge, desiring "to do 

 good and communicate," will take an agricultural 

 paper, and make it the channel through which to 

 communicate his superior knowledge to his less 

 knowinsr neighbors, and thereby encourage, aid, 

 and assist them in attaining the honorable distinc- 

 tion of good farmers. 



It is ordained by the Author of our existence, 

 that man should secure his own happiness and in- 

 dependence, and promote that of his fellow men by 

 the labor of the field. This is the design of prov- 

 idence. A most beautiful illustration of the infin- 

 ite wisdom and beneficence of the Deity is found- 

 ed in the fact, that as the population of the earth 

 advances, the means of subsistence are found to in- 

 crease in an equal, or even a greater proportion. 

 In the earlier periods of the world famines were 

 frequent and terribly destructive. In modern times 

 such calamities are seldom known. The population 

 at present is five or six times greater than in the 

 periods alluded to. 



The reason of this happier state of things is to 

 be attributed to a more general diffusion of knowl- 

 edge, a more improved and productive system of 

 husbandry, and the introduction nf new vegetables 

 and plants into general use as articles of food. 

 Maize or Indian corn introduced into Europe im- 

 mediately after tlu' discovery of .\mcrica has made 

 the circuit of the globe and furnishes food for mill- 

 ions. The potato(' succeeded, as a gift from the 

 new world, adapted to latitudes where corn will 

 not grow, a most palatable and nutrieious food, and 

 has nearly doubled the means of subsistence. 



In this extensive agricultural country, land hold- 

 ers and practical farmers, in order to take their 

 proper rank in society, to promote their own inter- 

 est in the highest degree and that of their country, 

 should and must be intelligent. 



Intelligence, and that too of high order, is the trait 

 of Amer'^can character. And why should not farm- 

 ers possess it equal to any other class of citizens .' 

 There can be no reasonable apology for the absence 

 of it. Our means are abundant. Facilities for 

 rapid and remote intercourse with all parts of our 

 country are unequalled. We lack but the resolu- 

 tion and the determined will to be informed in 

 all that appertains to the husbandry and the 



welfare of the community. 1 shall begin this year 

 by becoming a SUBSCRIBER. 



Jan 1, 1839. 



For the Farmer's .Monthly Visitor. 

 Steam boiler for Potatoes, &c. 



Mr. HiLi.,— From a hint in the Genesee Month- 

 ly Farmer, I constructed a box of two inch plank, 

 tlie sides and ends halved togctlier, the corners 

 strengthened by a strip of sheet iron nailed on— 

 the box about the length and width of a sheet of 

 Russia iron— a sheet of such iron being the bottom 

 of the boiler nailed on in two rows, nails about an 

 inch apart, a strip of thick paper being placed be- 

 tween the wood and iron to make all tight; the 

 box is placed in a wall of brick, so that the wood 

 part will be about two and a half inches from the 

 fire on each side ; the wall of such height as to al- 

 low a fire to be made under it — the flue for the 

 smoke to pass og", carried about a foot beyond the 

 end of the box ; the end at the flue to be done up 

 close to the box with brick and mortar to prevent 

 burning ; take a board rather smaller than the in- 

 side ; nail three cleats on it about three inches thick, 

 the middle hollowed out so that the ends only will 

 touch the bottom ; bore a number of holes through 

 the boards for the steam to pass ; the top to be fit- 

 ted with a tight cover. Two pails of water will 

 steam four bushels. I have used it as a boiler, and 

 also as a steamer. The steaming process is the 

 best, as the work is performed in less time, with 

 less fuel, and the food is neater and more healthy. 

 The water drawn oflf after the process of steaming 

 is very fetid and bad. It is suggested by many 

 farmers, that the water in which potatoes are boiled 

 should not be given to swine. The steam board 

 should be taken out and the boiler cleaned for eve- 

 ry third box full. A box can be made to steam ten 

 or twenty bushels at a time, according to the num- 

 ber of swine to be fed. I think it better to steam 

 every day for fatting hogs, as the food is more pal- 

 atable and nourishing. I have steamed potatoes, 

 apples, ruta baga, the common English turnip, car- 

 rots, the sugar beet, parsnips, pumpkins and oats at 

 the same time. All these mixed together form an 

 agreeable, nutritious compound, which the swine 

 devour greedily, and show that they are gormands 

 and animals of good taste. I will suggest one or 

 two improvements, which farmers will find very 

 convenient in practice. After the process of steam- 

 ing is over, two slides of sheet iron, one to close 

 the mouth and the other the throat of the flue, will 

 retain the heat for forty-eight hours and a good de- 

 gree of warmth for three days. This will be found 

 very convenient in cold weather in feeding store 

 hotrs. The box also, if made of sufficient size, will 

 be "found very convenient for scalding and dressing 

 the hogs. This may be done by fastening four pul- 

 lics above the box in which two ropes may play and 

 serve to let down the hog into the box and raise it 

 out of the water, and a board of sufficient size slip- 

 ped under the hog, will serve as a table to dress it 

 on. A space of ten or twelve feet square in ashed 

 adjoining the hog pen will afford ample room for 

 these operations. I need not remark how much 

 time and labor will be saved to the farmer in the 

 use of this simple, cheap apparatus contiguous to 

 his piggery. 



Every farmer should have a convenient yard 

 about his piggerv, and in the warm season, supply 

 it plentifully %vi"th muck, turf, and straw, and the 

 hog will become a working animal and pay liberal- 

 ly for his board and lodging, so tliat the farmer, in 

 the end, will save the whole hog and his bacon in- 

 to the bargain. M' !•• 

 Salisbury, Jan. 7, 1S30. 



Kuta Baga. 



This is an article so easily produced, that we 

 are surprised it is not more generally attended to 

 by farmers who rear and keep stocks of cattle. 

 With less labor than was bestowed on the same 

 quantity of pntatoe ground producing not more 

 than one hundred bushels, we raised on less than 

 one acre of ground, between four and five hundred 

 bushels of Ruta Baga or Yellow turnips the pres- 

 ent year. Every thing was done to prepare the 

 land after the tenth of June, when the planting of 

 Indian corn and potatoes had been completed. The 

 lio-hter sandy soil, manured principally with soil 

 talien from ditches mixed with lime the season 

 previous, produced the most luxuriant growth, 

 some of the turnips weighing twelve to fifteen 

 pounds each. Much more might have been raised 

 on the same ground, had the ^seed all come up, or 

 had nottlie dry weather of the last summer at the 

 proper time prevented the effectual transplanting 

 on the vacant space. Tile rows were made by 

 ridging the ground two feet apart with the com- 

 mon plough ; and from inability to manage one of 



the Shaker seed-sowers, the sowing was done by 

 hand entirely— the rows having been furrowed di- 

 rectly upon the top of the ridge with a sharpened 

 board, leaving a straight mark from one to two 

 inches deep, and striking off" the pointof the ridge. 

 After the dropping of the seed, the covering was 

 done with the common hay rake. All of it was 

 accomplislied so expeditiously, that the saving of 

 labor in sowing one or more acres with any im- 

 proved machinery would hardly compensate for 

 the expense of borrowing, much less of purchasing 

 such machinery. The advantage of ridging and 

 sowing in this manner is, that the apex of the 

 ridge Ts an invariable index for the row of young 

 plants, so that the ground every where else, may 

 be moved, and the weeds eradicated either by the 

 hand hoe, the plough, or the cultivator. 



For the purpose of more conveniently feeding 

 out roots to cattle, we constructed in a barn erect- 

 ed on the side hill during the last season, a cellar 

 which will hold six or seven hundred bushels : we 

 wish this cellar had been made to hold double the 

 quantity. This cellar was stoned only on the out- 

 side of the building — it was constructed with 

 boards filled in with tan all around, and is so per- 

 fectly close that although above ground on one 

 side it is as warm as a cellar under ground, and so 

 air tight as not to cause either sweating or sprout- 

 ing of the vegetables with which it has been filled. 



For the last two months the editor of the Visit- 

 or had not, up to the time of writing this article, 

 missed a morning in repairing to the cellar before 

 it was light, and preparing by cutting with the 

 common shovel upon the barn floor, three or four 

 baskets containing as many bushels of the ruta 

 baga. This he has fed to oxen, cows, and younger 

 caUle, all of which will stop eating every other 

 kind of fodder while this is preparing before them. 

 Oxen fed with this once a day, with the aid of the 

 coarsest intervale hay, have worked well nearly 

 every week day and continued to thrive ; and cows 

 fed with the same and corn butts and oat straw 

 have yielded milk abundantly— much more than 

 they would have done if fed exclusively on the 

 best of hay. 



One or two circumstances transpired about the 

 time of the gathering of this crop, which have in- 

 duced some already to look upon ruta baga with 

 distrust. A neighbor (George Kent, Esq.) this 

 year had a fine yard of ruta baga, which was gath- 

 ered about the time he disposed of a cow to the 

 butcher: this cow having eaten freely of the tops, 

 a strong turnip taste entered into the composition 

 of the meat after she was killed, and every person 

 who happened to have a piece of the meat reported 

 to his neighbor that ruta baga was ruinous to fat- 

 ting cattle. The wife, also, is in the habit of dis- 

 posing of her milk, by which she is enabled to re- 

 mit her calls for pocket money from her husband. 

 The cows ranged in the fields after the ruta baga 

 had been gathered, and the milk increased in abun- 

 dance ; but alas ! word came from the landlord of 

 the Eagle, who was the largest customer, that no 

 more milk would be taken so long as the cows 

 were kept on ruta baga. The truth was, the eating 

 of the tops of the ruta baga made both the meat 

 and the milk taste ; but the abundant feeding of 

 the root itself to fatting cattle and to milch cows, 

 not only communicates no disagreeable flavor, but 

 contributes much to the flesh of the one as it does 

 to the richness of the milk of the other. 



A single pound of ruta baga seed, whichmaybe 

 purchased for seventy-five cents, and raised at 

 even less expense, sowed by a careful hand, will 

 be sufticient for two acres of ground. We recom- 

 mend that the laud be prepared by spreading and 

 ploughing in either summer or winter manure on 

 a light rich soil. The plants may stand from six 

 to twelve inches apart in the rows, and the rows 

 two feet distance apart. After the plants get fair- 

 ly under way, they will soon grow so large as to 

 cover the ground. Planting between the 10th and 

 20th June, they will be much less likely to be de- 

 voured by the fly. The sowing and gathering of 

 this excellent root may be so timed as not to inter- 

 fere with any other part of the farmer's business : 

 our crop of ruta baga was gathered after every 

 other article on the farm had been harvested. 



Ruta baga may be made to save many tons of 

 hay to the former ; milch cows, with the aid of 

 this vegetable, may be n^fde to produce nearly as 

 much milk in the winter as in the summer. Calves 

 and yearlings, fed by it in moderate quantities, 

 will not only subsist, but tlirive well, upon that 

 and straw, corn butts, or inferior hay. 



Judge Buel, in his excellent paper. The Cultiva- 

 tor, menlions that his neighbor Bement of .Vlbany, 

 kept twenty hogs of the Berkshire breed, mostly 

 full grown breeders, from the first of November to 

 the fifteenth of February of the last winter, upon 

 ruta baga and buckwheat bran, at the rate of six 



