486 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



however, that those reports from the diffbrciit counties should be as brief as perppicuity will allow. 

 Tile Board are already in possession of slatisiics showing the number and average value of tho 

 different kinds of furni-stock in the several counties — the value of the lauds, &e., as given iu ilie 

 returns of the Auditors. 



After all, the average product of this comparativoly new and fertile region 

 will be found to fall below that of England, where science in the knowledge 

 and use of manures particularly, and in the principles of rotation and tillage, 

 have brought up the average product from 17 bushels, in 1821, to 26 bushels to 

 the acre. But what may not be expected of the improved Agriculture of a 

 country where a close observer tells us that on stepping unexpectedly into a 

 country school on the road-side in Scotland, he caught "a class of poor bare- 

 footed boys going honorably through a close examination in Agricultural 

 Chemistry." 



Who can conceive what would be the blessings for Ohio, and for other States, 

 if now she would only take enough of the public money levied on the farmers, 

 directly or indirectly, and establish at Columbus or elsewhere an institution, with 

 a few able Professors, exclusively for the instruction oi teachers (for that is what 

 we want,) who would ultimately take the place of incompetent instructors, and 

 educate all the boys of the State as thoroughly in the science and practice of 

 Agriculture as the Cadets at West Point are now educated in the science and 

 practice of gunnery ? 



It was with a view to address queries sitnilar to these (with others that we 

 will hereafter suggest) that we made the request some time since, that some 

 officer in every Agricultural Society in the country would only have the good- 

 ness to take five minutes' time and the smallest modicum of trouble to give the 

 name and locality of his Association ; but not more than half a dozen answered 

 the call. Had a like call been made on the heads of manufacturing establishments, 

 or Chambers of Commerce, or any other associated interests, they would have 

 come together like gallant soldiers at the sound of the bugle. Not one in (xie 

 hundred would have failed to respond. Such is the difference in sensitiveness to 

 all that particularly concerns them between the artificial classes and the great 

 substantial body of the people — the farmers — on and by whom every other class 

 lives. 



To the question in the Circular as to the introduction and use of improved im- 

 plements in the several counties, Ave observe that Mr. Keene, of Champaign 

 county, savs as to reaping and threshing and drill machines: 



6. Husscy''s reaping-machiup, worked by 

 horse-power, was uitroducod in this county 

 diirini; thi^ past harvest, and some two or 

 three hundrt-d acres of wheat cut with it. It 

 cuts the grain witliout waste, and leaves a 

 short, ev(!n stubble. It enijiloys nine men 

 and fonr horses to work it, and cuts, upon an 

 average, 12 to If) acres per day. Tho man 

 who sit* on the macliiue, to pass the grain ott' 

 the platfoi-ni, works very hard and to great 

 disadvantiige, from the position in which he 

 is obliged to sit. Machine.^ are now being 

 made ni Urbaua, our county town, to order, 

 by a machinist who promises to make them 

 so tliat they will pass off tho grain to the biiul- 



For ourselves, we know of no one who has taken more interest in improved 

 machinery, for these purposes, or who is better prepared to illusirate their ad- 

 vantaires, than .Ioiin Jones, Esq., of Wheatland, Delaware. There only have we 



(lOOG) 



ers for any sized .sheaf that may be desired, 

 tints superseding the necessity of a man on 

 the machine for that purpose. Improve*! 

 threshing-machines, whereby the grain is 

 threshed and cleaned by one oiicration, at 

 the same cost per bushel as was formerly 

 paid for thresliing alone — are now in prettv 

 general use in this county. The wheat-drill 

 was used hy scvt:ral of our farmers last fall, 

 for the first time. The great advantage ot 

 this mode of seeding is said to be in the 

 yield, of which I cainiot speak. We have 

 no Agricultural Society in operation in oiir 

 county, nor any regular Farmers' Clubs. 



