APPLICATION OF STEAM TO AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES. 



RECIPROCAL DEPENDENCE OF THE DIFFERENT ORDERS OF SOCIETY, &c. 



Mr. BoLLiXG, of Virginia, as we believe we 

 have before mentioned, has a steam-engine in 

 operation on his large wheat-farm on tlie James 

 River. We understand it works to admiration, 

 and causes no fear of damage by fire. On the 

 estates near Darien, Georgia, under the control 

 of one of the most accomplished agriculturists in 

 any country, Mr. J. H. Cooper, there is more 

 than thirty thousand dollars' worth of machineiy 

 of diiferent sorts, all made, except the " Bolton 

 ic Walt" Steam-Eugine, by the negroes on 

 these estates, and all managed by them. They 

 are found, in fact, to make excellent engineers, 

 so far as the management of steam-engines is in- 

 volved. 



In a communication to the Albany Cultivator, 

 descriptive of the establishment of the "Roches- 

 ter City Milk Company." for the accommoda- 

 tion of 100 cows, it is stated that the cellar is to 

 be used for roots and milk-room, and also a part 

 of it for a small steam-engine, employed to cut 

 up and steam the food for the cattle, pump the 

 water from the river to supply the reservoirs in 

 the building, and to heat the stable in the rein- 

 ter by the steam. 



The late Nicholas Biddle, among the most 

 accomplished scholars and gentlemen that our 

 country has ever produced, and a zealous and 

 enlightened friend of its Agriculture, exempli- 

 fied on the banks of the Delaware, the great 

 thoroughfare of American travelers, the practi- 

 cability of watering gardens, and irrigating sur- 

 rounding and higher grounds, at pleasure, by 

 means of a four-horse steam-engine, drawing 

 from the river an ample supply of water for all 

 purposes. 



Thus it would appear that, changing but a 

 single word of an article on this subject in the 

 last Number of the Farmeks' Library, we 

 may consider it as already demonstrated that 

 the American farmer has it in his po'W'er, at a 

 moderate expense, on almost every farm, to 

 lessen the labor of the barn, to extend its (steam) 

 application to various useful purposes, and to 

 place farm economics in a position of advance- 

 ment which they have not hitherto attained. 



If this Milk Company can have a steam-en- 

 gine at work in tlie cellar of a stable, containing 

 all the food of the cows, much of it .so combusti- 

 ble, what is to hinder any farmer and planter 

 '1239) 



from having one where his operations are on a 

 scale to justify and call for it? The Sugar-Plant- 

 ers have them in their sugar-houses. There is 

 one at work night and day in this building 

 where we are writing, comer of Nassau and 

 Spruce streets. New- York — a very large bund- 

 ing of five stories, in which a great variety of 

 business is carried on. Why should not tobacco 

 be pressed as well as cotton is pressed, by steam ? 

 We do not mean that a steam-engine should 

 be erected on purpose, but that besides thresh- 

 ing grain cutting up corn-stalks and straw and 

 vegetables, cooking them, where that may be 

 deemed expedient, grinding all substances, 

 and for all purposes — savviug plank, posts, 

 rails. &c., the same engine might drive the to 

 bacco-pres.s, and prize, probablj-, 100 hogs- 

 heads in a day. It .should pump, too, from a 

 well or neighboring spring, all the water for the 

 domestic animals, so that they need never have 

 to go abroad, exposed to bad weather and wast- 

 ing their manure. 



The patrons of the Farmers' Library have 

 read it to little purpose if they have not learned 

 not only the fact, but (what makes the fact so 

 much more useful) the reason of the fact why 

 a certain degree of varmth is equal tp, and a 

 substitute for, a certain quantity of food. The 

 Milk Company at Rochester seem to be fully 

 aware of this ; hence, they say that the steam- 

 engine to be employed in the cellar of their es- 

 tablishment is intended, among other things, to 

 warm the stable ! 



This immense building, in a comer of which 

 is the office of the Farmers' Library, where 

 we are writing, is heated through the winter en- 

 tirely and throughout with hot air, created and 

 difl'used by means of the steam-engine in the 

 cellar. Not a spark of fire is used anywhere 

 in the whole edifice, except the coal fire in the 

 furnace below ; and thus, the chances for confla- 

 gration are, as the insurance probably is, (and 

 certainly ought to be,) greatly dimuiished below 

 what they would be if each room were heated 

 by a wood or coal fire. 



It would be well if farmers and planters, wbo 

 dwell quietly in the country, too rarely excited 

 to mental action, except at the instigation of self- 

 ish partisans and demagogues, would habituate 

 themselves to rcficction on all the wrongs they 



