172 



THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



NOTES FOR THE MONTH, BY S. W. 



All that is changed now. — To day, the 7th of 

 May, the canal has been open two days here, and not 

 a single loaded boat has passed our locks. Twenty 

 years ago, the day before the opening, our village was 

 enlivened by the coming sound of the Kent bugle 

 and the boatsman's horn, sent forth from scores of 

 boats loaded to their utmost capacity on deck and 

 below with wheat, flour, pork, whiskey, &c., &c., the 

 rich products of Seneca, Ontario, Yates, Steuben and 

 Tompkins; but up to this time there are no arrivals 

 in our canal from Geneva and the lake ports above; 

 while more than twenty freightless boats that winter- 

 ed here, now line our basins, sighing aloud for em- 

 ployment; the dry dock is also full of boats, so tard- 

 ily repairing that the music of the caulking mallets is 

 no longer heard in full accompaniment as af old. 



Wheat was formerly the great paying staple of the 

 farmer of this reigon, but the continued deterioration 

 of the crop as the soil gave up its wheat pabulum, 

 succeeded by the midge, has induced farmers to re- 

 duce their wheat fallows to the smallest compass. 

 This is the main cause of the failure of our canal ex- 

 ports; but the competition of the rail roads have also 

 contributed very largely to the result. Now instead 

 of large accumulations of pork, whiskey, manufactured 

 articles, &c., during winter, to be forwarded by canal 

 at the opening, all now goes in the winter by rail road. 

 Several hundred barrels of whiskey alone are forward- 

 ed by rail road weekly from this place, from the close 

 to the opening of the canals, to say nothing of the 

 thousands ol live hogs, slaughtered carcasses, &c., &c. ; 

 so that most of our boats of late years have to go to 

 Oswego and Bufi'alo for that employment which for- 

 merly at this season of the year was pressed upon 

 them at high rates of freight. 



But those of our farmers who have not too reck- 

 lessly impoverished their farms, never made money 

 faster by the products of their industry than at this 

 time. Many who grew two hundred bushels of po- 

 tatoes to the acre last season, are now selling them 

 at one dollar a bushel. Hay, which was not a short 

 crop on well treated meadows, has been sold at from 

 $15 to $20 the ton; and beef, pork, but. er acd cheese 

 at almost fabulous prices. Suffice it to say that very 

 blue veal sells at 10c. a pound in our market, and the 

 best pieces from poor beef at 14c. the pound. When 

 ■will farmers learn that it costs double to make the 

 game weight of skin, bone and lean flesh, than it does 

 to make fat or carbonaceous matter? 



Planting Potatoes in June — Early and late 

 QoRN. — An Iowa correspondent ot the Farmer says, 

 that late planted potatoes " bring the best crops, " 

 and that the early varieties planted as late as the 20th 

 of June do well in^'Iowa. Itmay do for those who 

 are blessed with a deep, porous, absorbent vegetable 

 soil in the virgin west to follow such advice, but we 

 who live on the calcareous soils of western New York, 

 where the original vegetable matter has been long 

 since worn out, should by all means plant potatoes 

 early, that they may get their growth of stems and 

 leaves before the trying droughts of summer over- 

 takes them. June planted potatoes in our region can 

 only do well in cold, wet seasons. Corn also should 

 be planted early so that its cereal product only has to 

 be made in a drouth. I have always noticed that 

 cora which has not perfected its stalks before the 

 ijroutlia of July and August ^have commenced, is 



invariably a short crop; but although potatoes grow 

 in the fall months and perfect tubers, corn comes to 

 a stand still as soon as the cool nights of September 

 commence. Frost, as much as some behind-hand farm- 

 ers may dread it, rarely ever injures corn that would 

 have ripened had the frost kept off until December. ; 



The Emigration to Kansas. — A lady writing 

 from near Ossawatamie, says that they were two nights 

 and three days going about seventy miles with a light 

 wagon load of traps, drawn by six mules with a color- 

 ed boy driver; part of the way good roads over dry 

 prairie, and comme ca hotels by the way ; then sloughs, 

 muddy and deep, through which they had to have 

 the aid of oxen; then the steep banked, bridgeless 

 creeks, into one of which she and her trunks and baud 

 box were precipitated from the top of the load. They 

 saw some coarsely dressed men who looked like bor- 

 der ruffians, but they only grumbled at the Yankee 

 crusade as they quietly passed by. When stuck fast 

 in a slough, some Missourians passed them by like 

 the priest and Levite of old, when lots of Yankee 

 wayfarers immediately came to their aid. The Mis- 

 sourians doubtless reserved their sympathy for their 

 own border clan. Near Ossawatamie they went into 

 their brothers' unchincked haekberry log house, but 

 in two days the howling prairie north-wester was 

 chinked and daubed out; they got a board for a table, 

 set up the cook stove, and began to live with that 

 best of Kansas sauce, a good appetite. They then 

 bought an adjoining claim of a Hoosier, sat out cur- 

 rant bushes and made a garden; when the Hoosier 

 rued his bargain and would have his claim back.— 

 The great advent of live Yankees with their pockets 

 full of money now bidding over each other for claims, 

 quite turned his head, and set his honor and honesty 

 adrift. Not another claim to be had in many miles 

 for less than $400, add the government price to this 

 and then the betterments, and you have a new farm 

 at old prices. Bat here you can relish hog and 

 hominy, wear your old clothes, and laugh at the latest 

 fashions; laugh at or ignore fever and ague until it 

 comes, then shake and bear it. 



The Season. — April has been a cold, snowy month 

 for the season, and the present month. May, has been 

 very wet to the Gth; but the long warm rain has 

 brought the grass forward very fast, and to day, the 

 7th, is warm and very growing weather. Peas plant- 

 ed 26th of April on a heavy soil are up and ready to 

 hoe; even a well underdrained soil if heavy, needs 

 two days dry weather after such soaking rains, be- 

 fore it is fit to move with the hoe. I shall plant a 

 few rows of Sorghum and King Philip corn, if warm 

 and dry, to-morrow. 



Waterloo, JV. Y. 



A PKOPOSED KOTAnON. 



Messrs. Editors: — Allow me to propose the fol- 

 lowing " four-course rotation," through your columns, 

 for the consideration of farmers of Western New 

 York. It has no particular claims to originality, 

 though, in one respect, it differs slightly from the 

 usual practice, and looks to a decreased attention to 

 the wheat crop, once our great staple product: 



1. Corn, on green sward, with the bulk of the 

 winter's manure. 



2. Barley, land fall-plowed, sowed after harrowing 

 in the spring. 



3. Wheat, with composted manure, rye the spring 



