164 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



(gHt0r's faille 



April Premiums. — The following are the successful 

 eompetitors for the premiums offered for the largest list 

 of subscribers bj the 15th of April. 



1. I. W. Briqgs, West Maeedon, N. Y., 200 subscri- 

 bers, $50. 



2. J. Little, Seneca, C. W., 150 subscribers, §30. 



3. J. H. Manning, Morristown, C. W., 103 subscribers, 

 t20. 



4. John Horton, Eaton, Ohio, 100 subscribers, $15. 



5. Samuel Gray, Keily, Ohio, 83 subscribers, $10. 

 The above premiums are to be paid in agricultural 



books, and we desire the winners will inform us what 

 works tiiey wish and by what routes they shall be sent, 

 and they shall be immediately forwarded. 



Prize Essays. — We have the pleasure this month of 

 presenting our readers with a " Prize Essay number." — 

 The essays are all short and practical, and cannot fail to 

 be read with interest and advantage by every one interest- 

 ed in the cultivation of the soil. 



We hope the^ respective writers of these prize essays 

 will inform us what dollar book (or books) they wish and 

 it shall be forwarded immediately. 



Old Seeds. — We are not aware the fact has ever been 

 piiysiologically accounted for, but it is certain that some 

 seeds are much improved by keeping. For instance, gar- 

 deners not unfrequently carry melon and cucumber seeds 

 in their pockets in order that the necessary maturation may 

 be accelerated by the warmth of their bodies ; and it is 

 found that old seeds of these plants are more productive of 

 fruit and less prone to run to vines than new seeds. Cauli- 

 flowers and most of the cabbage tribe are less lialde to 

 " bottom" or run prematurely into flower, wliile turnips 

 bulb better, produce less top, and are not as liable to run 

 to seed when grown from seed several years old as when 

 raised from new seed. 



The Powers of Reproduction bt Seed are im- 

 mence. A single capsule of the tobacco plant coiiiains 

 about one thousand seeds ; or,e of the common medicinal 

 poppy, eight thousand ; while the vanilla plant has been 

 computed to contain from ten to fifteen thousand. Each 

 of these produces from twenty to thirty capsules on each 

 plant. Cryptogamous plants possess the power of repro- 

 duction to a still greater extent ; common splcenwort is 

 eetimated to produce one million of seeds. 



To Detect Diseased Potatoes. — It is not always 

 possible to tell by the eye wh.ether a patato is entirely free 

 &om all disease or not. Prof. Way says that a slice of a 

 diseased potato will curdle milk in three or four hours if 

 kept in a. warm place, whereas a slice of sound potato has 

 no euoh effect. 



To Canada Subscribers.— We understand that some 

 of our subscribers in Canada have been compelled to pay 

 postage on the Genesee Farmer. This is manifestly con- 

 trary to law and should not be submitted to. 



Acknowledgements. — We are indebted to Prof. S. 

 W. J011N.SON, of Yale College, for his excellent lecture 

 " On the Relations that Exist between Science and Agri- 

 culture ; " to C. L. Flint, Esq., Secretary of the Massa- 

 chusetts Board of Agriculture, for a copy of his address 

 delivered before the Franklin County Agricultural So- 

 ciety, and also for a copy of the Transactions of tlie Board 

 of Agriculture for 1855 — (Mr. Flint's article on the grasses 

 we consider a valuable acquisition to our agricultural liter- 

 ature ;) to the editors of the California Farmer for the 

 " Official Report of the California State Agricultural So- 

 ciety's Third Annual Fair, Cattle Show and Industrial 

 Exhibition, held at San Jose, October 7 to 10, 1856" — (it 

 is an interesting pamphlet of 80 pages, and an honor t* 

 the State; to M. B. Bateham & Co., Columbus, Ohio, 

 for one of the Spring Catalogues of their Nursery stock ; 

 to B. P. Johnson, Esq., for a pamphlet containing the 

 proceedings attending the Dedication of the New York 

 State Agricultural Rooms, at Albany, February 12, 1857 ; 

 to Eben Wright, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, for the Reports of 

 the Committees of the Society for 1856, and a Schedule 

 of Prizes for 1857 ; to Robert Russell, Esq., of Kil- 

 whiss, Scotland, for a copy of his lecture before the Agri- 

 cultural Society of Scotland, on the Agriculture of Canada 

 and United States ; to the Hon. W. L. Marcy, for a copy 

 of the Army Meteorological Register — a most valuable 

 work, which we shall notice more at length at a future 

 time; to J. M. Thoeburn & Co., of New York, for a 

 package of Chinese sugar cane seed. 



V/no Should do the Milking? — Our offer of a pre- 

 mium for the best answer to the question, "Is it right to 

 ask the women folks to do the milking during the busy sea- 

 son ? " called out a number of replies. In the March num- 

 ber we promised to give extracts from these essays, and 

 have to apologize for not doing so — at present. We stiH 

 continue to receive articles on this subject. The essay of 

 Mr. Wood is the occasion of many of these communica- 

 tions. We give, at random, an extract from one as a spe- 

 cimen : 



"Mr. D. S. Wood says, "shame on the man that asks 

 a woman to milk the cows." Now a few queries arise in 

 my mind and I will give them vent. I wonder if " Mr. W." 

 is married ? I v.-onder if he built the house he lives in ? and 

 if so, if his heart did not exult over the though.t that there 

 he could cage his v.ife, and that although she might hop 

 from base to dome at will, if she opened the outer dooi' 

 for a,ny]usefid purpose she was " cut of her sphere ?" Furth- 

 more, I wonder if 3Irs. W. ever dare ask her leige lord to 

 hold the baby, put some wood on the fire, or fetch a pail of 

 water farther than the door ? Wonder if said " W." does 

 not think that the maidens of the olden time, who drew 

 water for the camels, as REBEKAH.or gleaned in the fieldai 

 as Ruth, were ratlier low lived? I wonder if Sir. W. 

 thinks there are bounds to the usi'fuhiess of either box %— 

 He says, 'the question imples that this woric does not pro- 

 perly belong to the women." I grant it; and so indbor 

 work, because esteemed less hard, is not considered man^ 

 business, but he is not a true man who feels himself i7isulted 

 when in an hour of leisure he is .-iskcd by a hurried wif^ lo 

 assist lier, and (the ladies at my elbow say) she is net a rt-JMj 

 wom.Tiu who refuses to assist her husband or brotliers in 

 anything which she ean do without slighting her acoBs- 

 tomed work." 



Our columns are so crowded this month that we have 

 been obliged to leave out several cuts engraved expressly 

 for thia number. 



