1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



615 



move any stones or clods that may be drawn on 

 the corn. The hoes then follow, remove any 

 grass that may be near the corn, loosen such hills 

 as the harrow may have missed, and set up, and 

 draw a little earth around such plants as the har- 

 row may have prostrated or exposed. The corn 

 is then thinned, leaving two stalks in a hill, and 

 receives two shallow ploughings with the double- 

 shovel plough, which brings it to about the 15th 

 or 20th of June. I then give it a deep ploughing, 

 with a single shovel plough, which brings up the 

 sod that had been turned under in the spring 

 thoroughly rotted, which affords sustenance to the 

 corn at the period when it most requires it — and 

 after it has acquired sufficient rise to shade and 

 cover the ground from the exhausting influence of 

 the sun. It then remains until I finish my har- 

 vest, which is generally between the 5th and 10th 

 of July, when I again run ihe double-shovel 

 plough with a view to level and cleanse the land 

 preparatory to seeding rye, which generally takes 

 place about the 10th of September. The follow- 

 Big spring the field is sowed in clover and plas- 

 tered. 



I have thus, Mr. Editor, submitted to your dis- 

 posal, a detailed statement of my system in the 

 cultivation of corn. The farming interest, and 

 not my supposed mortification at not seeing it ap- 

 pear in your valuable work, will, 1 hope, be your 

 only consideration as to its publication. 



ADDRESS DELIVERED BY JAMES M. GAR- 

 NETT, ESQ., PRESIDENT, BEFORE THE 

 FREDERICKSBURG AGRICULTURAL SOCIE- 

 TY, AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING, ON FRI- 

 DAY, THE 13th NOVEMBER, 1835. 



Gentlemen — Members of the Agricultural Soci- 

 ety of Fredericksburg — 



As I have never been a systematic man in any 

 thing, and have had 16 or 17 years experience of 

 your kind indulgence lor this failing of mine, I will 

 once more presume that ycu are still willing to 

 take me — as every man takes his wife — "for bet- 

 ter, for worse," and shall therefore proceed to ad- 

 dress you in my usual desultory way. 



First, I will venture to present you with a little 

 of that gratuitous donation which every man is so 

 fond of bestowing; but. very few of taking and 

 applying to any useful purpose. I mean — advice. 

 I ought perhaps to abstain, since so many millions 

 before me have failed to accomplish any good by 

 it; but the signs of the times, I think, afford the 

 most cheering hopes, that on the present occasion 

 it will not. be altogether thrown away. This ad- 

 vice is — to cultivate and encourage, by all the ef- 

 forts in your power, that appetite for scientific ag- 

 riculture, which is now so prevalent, as the only 

 sure basis of all good practice, of all real improve- 

 ment. That both these are ''looking up" (as the 

 mercantile men say,) I infer from the increased 

 circulation of agricultural Journals, such, for ex- 

 ample, as those two excellent works "The Far- 

 mers' Register" and "The Cultivator" — both of 

 which contain much valuable information in re- 



fard to all the branches of husbandry. These, 

 y the way, cannot be too strongly recommended; 

 for both are edited by men of unquestionable tal- 

 ent, knowledge, and agricultural skill, whose ex- 



perience and high standing in their respective 

 States form a sufficient guarantee for the utility of 

 any thing they will sanction with their names. 

 Both these Journals and all their ablest correspon- 

 dents concur with me in most earnestly recom- 

 mending to all agriculturists, that they should 

 base agricultural practice upon agricultural science. 

 Indeed, the recommendation to combine sound 

 science with practice — as the best means of per- 

 fecting the latter — may be safely adopted as a uni- 

 versal rule, applicable, not only to husbandry, but 

 to all irades, professions, and callings — nay to all 

 the legitimate pursuits of life with which, what 

 we understand by the term, practice, has any thing 

 to do. For example, if you wish for power, the 

 certain course is, to ga ?i knowledge; do you desire 

 fame, you must obtain knowledge first; would you 

 accumulate great riches, much knoivledge is requi- 

 site for the task; above all, should you seek the 

 greatest comforts, conveniences, and highest en- 

 joyments of life, it is indispensable to acquire 

 knoicledgc, sound, useful, scientific knowledge. In 

 short to gain this inestimable treasure is our great 

 duty in our present state of existence, and accor- 

 ding as it. is fulfilled or violated will assuredly be 

 our condition both here and hereafter. 



This, perhaps, may be "travelling" a little "out 

 of the record" as our brethren of the bar would 

 say; but in extenuation I will urge, that such ex- 

 cursions have often the good effect of attracting at- 

 tention to useful remarks which, otherwise, would 

 pass unheeded, if anticipated as matters of course. 

 With this excuse for my deviation from the beaten 

 tract, I shall proceed to another subject of quite a 

 different character. This wiil be to give you the 

 results of various experiments, made by myself, 

 and of some made by others, since our last meet- 

 ing. I shall state them, rather in the proof of my 

 determination to follow the course which I have so 

 often recommended to all my brother members, of 

 reporting annually their experience, than for any 

 peculiar value which I attach to them. JBut the 

 whole body of husbandry being made up of a 

 great number of minute facts and particulars, 

 they must be given in detail by a considerable 

 number of individuals, or it would hardly be prac- 

 ticable to collect them at all. 



The first two experiments which I will mention 

 have already been stated in the Farmers' Regis- 

 ter, but, as all our members do not take that very 

 useful paper, I will state them again. 



From one pint of skinless oats, drilled in a square 

 of my garden, nine inches apart one way and two 

 inches the other, as near as I could have it done, 

 I obtained one hundred and sixteen pints; one of 

 my brothers made five pints from fifty-seven grains. 

 The oats in my garden covered a space of 247 

 square yards, and would have yielded somewhat 

 more, 1 think, but 3 spots — each 6 or7 feet square — . 

 were lodged and consequently injured. The oats,, 

 when ripe, stood at the average height of about 4 

 feet, and the grain weighed 47 pounds per bushel. 

 The ground between the drills was hand-hoed 

 twice, and the drills hand-wed twice. 



From half a gallon of blue-stem wheat — also 

 drilled — I obtained forty-two half gallons, weigh- 

 ing sixty-one pounds per bushel. The half gallon 

 was drilled, late in October 1834. in some land, 

 from Avhich I had taken a crop of Irish potatoes, 

 manured with stable manure in the trenches. 

 These were reversed in digging, so as to bury the 



