THE GENESEE FARMER, 



Rearing Calves. — Our method, almost precisely, 

 is that described by W. S., of Canada West. Of 

 course, we think it one of the best which can be fol- 

 lowed. 



There are many other brief and excellent articles 

 in this number, but time fails me for further item- 

 izing. Since I commenced, we have had " growing 

 weather," and farmers are thankful, and busy as need 

 be. B. 



JViagara Co., JV. Y. 



NOTES FOE THE MONTH, BY S. W. 



Fallacy op Newspaper Statistics. — A Lowell 

 hebdomadal says that the Bay State Mills, in Law- 

 rence, raanul'acture 400,000 shawls yearly, valued at 

 upwards of a million and a half of dollars, and that 

 the mills consume 40,000 lbs. of wool per day, or 

 12,000,000 ft)s. a year, requiring 3,000,000 fleeces. 

 Now, as the Bay State Mills have only one hundred 

 sets of cards, and 60 lbs. of fine wool per day being a 

 fair average for a set, there can be only 6,000 lbs., and 

 not 40,000 lbs., of wool manufactured there in one 

 day. This is not the first exaggeration of Lowell's 

 industry from the same weekly — strange as it may 

 seem, when we reflect that Lowell is the cap-sheaf of 

 a manufacturing town, and as such needs no puffing. 



Transplant Beets and Sow Corn Fodder as a 

 Second Crop. — Any one who, on the 4th of July, ! 

 has beet plants the size of the little finger, will do | 

 well to transplant them in vacant spots, or on ground 

 where green peas have been grown, and the soil 

 forked over. If the month is not too dry, they will 

 be as large on a good soil as early planted beets, be- 

 cause they grow in the fall long after the advent of 

 early frosts. Two thirds of the leaf should be cut 

 off when transplanted. If dry and warm, set them 

 towards evening, and pour on water that has had hen 

 dung dissolved in it; they rarely require more water- 

 ing — a little hoeing, to let in dew and atmospheric 

 gasses, is better. Corn for fodder or soiling milch 

 cows in the fall, may also be sown after peas are re- 

 moved ; but if we have a long drouth in July and 

 August, it retards the growth of late planted corn as 

 much as it favors the finishing and perfecting of the 

 early planted. And as beets grow long after corn is 

 chilled and stationary, they are more certain to pay 

 sa a late or second crop. 



Excavate Draining Ponds in Flat Fields — 

 While on a short tramp across lots to Fayette, when 

 the roads were impassable, in April, I encountered, in 

 .a large flat meadow, a pretty little artificial pond, 

 filled with water from large open ditches; the pond 

 iwas circular, not more than one hundred and fifty feet 

 across, and about four feet deep. The Deutscher 

 'told me that it evaporated water very fast, even in 

 cold, rough weather, and that the yield of his meadow 

 was nearly double the last year — an untoward grass 

 season, as farmers' stock this spring generally bear 

 witness 1 Why are not more ponds excavated in 

 the fiat fields, and tenacious, stoneless alluvium of 

 Western New York ? 



Late Planted Corn. — Some writers advise wait- 

 ing until June to plant corn, lest the cold weather of 

 May should rot the seed in the ground. I take it 

 that any soil in which good seed com would rot 

 planted as late as the middle of May, would be alto- 

 gether too wet to plant this ninth day of June, as 

 more rain has fallen ia tb« last twenty-four hours 



than in three weeks before. Let no man in the ge- 

 nial sections of Western New York omit to plant 

 corn as soon as the soil is dry enough after the tenth 

 of May; the notion that corn rots in a well under- 

 drained soil after the middle of May, is ignored by 

 continued experiment. I have corn and. sorghum up 

 and hoed that was planted on the tenth of May, al- 

 though it was wet, cold and frosty for the next twelve 

 days. Corn that is up on the first of June, luxuri- 

 ates in a July and August drouth, it' well tended, and 

 the soil has been well manured ; while corn planted 

 on and after that day, will be pinched by the same 

 drouth. 



The IsrpoLiCT of Selling off Lean Stock — We 

 often hear of a city butcher fined for selling bad 

 meat; methinks the day has come when those farm- 

 ers should be fined who sell to our village butchers 

 starved cattle and blue veal. It is found _to be not 

 only humane, but good economy, to add hasty pud- 

 ding to a calf's mess, as two cents' worth for three 

 weeks would make the veal white and fat Some 

 farmers say "there is no profit in feeding corn to 

 stock." How much more profitable is it to let them 

 become poor and worthless for want of food ? John 

 Johnson, of Fayette, feeds the whole of his always 

 large corn crop to stock. He has paid at the oil 

 mill here $1,200 for oil-meal to feed to cattle and 

 sheep, within the last twelve months. He says it 

 was the best investment he ever made — much better, 

 perhaps, than those farmers have done who sold their 

 corn at sixty cents a bushel, and invested the pro- 

 ceeds in Western lands. It enriches land amazingly 

 to keep fatting cattle; while to sell off lean animals, 

 is a sort of agricultural or chemical suicide. 



The Blessings of a Grass Country. — I have 

 seen large fields of corn at the West, and an extra 

 large breadth of cotton at the South ; yet I have 

 been far more impressed by the evidences of rural 

 picturesqueness, and true domestic comfort, in grass- 

 growing Western New York — even in those high, re- 

 gions where corn is reduced to the early stunted va- 

 riety, yielding barely enough to make the johnny 

 cakes and fat the pork of the family — for here is 

 creamed cheese, and clover- scented butter, and every 

 other substantial article of food that the epicure 

 might envy; fat, sleek cattle, fine wooled sheep, and 

 laughing milch cows ; with plenty of white clover 

 pasture in summer, and the best of shelter and sweet 

 hay (not straw) in winter. While at the South and 

 South-west there is little cultivated grass, and less 

 timothy and clover hay, with only the coarse, inedible 

 corn-stalk, never saved ; no shelter for cattle in win- 

 ter from sleet and rain, and of couree little butter in 

 spring and summer, and less cheese. I have red clo- 

 ver this ninth day of June not yet in blossom, but 

 heavier than I saw it, even in Southern Michigan, at 

 hay harvest, and farther west it was still lighter. 



Waterloo, JY. Y. 



Harvesting Carrots. — Grind a hoe sharp, and 

 send a hand along between the rows to cut off the 

 tops, while another hand, with a team, plows a deep 

 furrow along side of the first row, close to the car- 

 rots; the next furrow will turn them out. Two boys, 

 with a large basket, can follow, pick up the carroty 

 and put them in the wagon. When your carrots are 

 harvested, the ground is fall plowed. 



East Bodman, JY. Y, H. H. Tatlob. ^ 



