214 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



At the end of the year, you have a plain record of 

 your operations before you, from which you can col- 

 late such tables as you wish. Tou can know the 

 profit or loss of the whole farm, and also of every 

 crop; you can know the cost of every bushel of grain, 

 fruit and vegetables — the value thereof, and the re- 

 sulting profit or loss. 



But the intelligent agriculturist will not stop here. 

 He will wish to make experiments, and keep a care- 

 ful record of them, and all the attending circum- 

 stances and results. In this way he may be acquiring 

 knowledge from year to year, which, if he is liberal, 

 he will be ready to impart to others, through the ag- 

 ricultural journals. The judicious farmer will keep 

 other accounts besides these, which I will not stop 

 to indicate. 



So you perceive, Messrs. Editors, that the farmer 

 has opportunity, in his own vocation, for the vigorous 

 exercise of his intellect, which he will find a certain 

 antidote to that stupidity, that rust of the mind, to 

 which farmers, as a class, are so much exposed. It 

 keeps him in the practice of writing and composing, 

 both of which farmei'S too generally neglect. If 

 young men, who have received a liberal education, 

 and have chosen for their vocation the noble and 

 honorable one of cultivating the soil, would apply 

 their int-ellect to their business, I am certain they 

 would find it much more attractive, and better cal- 

 culated to develop the spiritual man — which is the 

 great end of life — than is generally conceded. 



JVear Palmyra, A"". Y. P. C. Reynolds. 



»-♦-• 



BENEFITS OF AGKICULTUEAL FAIRS. 



Messrs. Editors: — No fact is more apparent to 

 the reflecting mind, than the immense benefits Agri- 

 cultural Fairs have contributed to our material pros- 

 perity. They have contributed more to our vigorous 

 growth as a nation, than all the gold California can 

 pour into our country for ages. They have awakened 

 a spirit of inquiry in the breasts of thousands, who 

 have elaborated and made known their experience to 

 the world — through the Agricultural Press — con- 

 tributing their experiments to the general stock of 

 information (which at best is made up of atoms) gar- 

 nered together, — a rich legacy of facts, from which 

 the principles of Truth shall be deduced by the hand 

 of the future historian. All this has been done qui- 

 etly. The silent step of agricultural progress has 

 not been noted by the world — as it should have 

 been — for the simple reason that it took time to 

 nurture in man the high obligation he owed to his 

 Maker, his country and himself, to so use and de- 

 develop that which was intrusted to his hand, that 

 it might be improved, and the true design of our 

 Creator carried out. 



And what is an Agricultural Fair ? Is it a place 

 where the most superior specimens of agricultural 

 products are exhibited to the view of the visitors ? 

 Yes. What then ? is that all the object, the aim, 

 the end, to be accomplished ? If so, let them go by 

 the board. But a higher object is to be accom- 

 plished — has been, and will continue to be — the in- 

 terchange of thought among those who have pro- 

 duced the articles on exhibition. It is in this light 

 that Agricultural Fairs are accomplishing the grand 

 results which will continue to rank us as a practical 

 farming and progressive people. It is not enough 

 that we should see the superior crop of grain, &c., 



but we should have the man with us, that we may 

 know by what process he produced it, so that his co- 

 laborers may know and realize the facts which are 

 brought before them in its most practical form. It 

 is not enough that we see fat cattle, but that we see 

 the husbandman who produced them, that our less 

 fortunate husbandmen may, by inquiry and observa- 

 tion, be aroused to the necessity of doing likewise — 

 so that the object of the Fair may be the means of 

 perpetuating the progressive tpirit of political and 

 rural economy. 



Fairs, rightly conducted, are great stimulants to 

 good and thorough cultivation of the soil. Nothing 

 is so well calculated to create as healthy a feeling, or 

 develop so thoroughly the true dignity of Nature's 

 noblemen, as this theatre, where all may meet in the 

 exhibition of the arts of ptace and usefulness: where 

 those who have failed to realize their fond anticipa- 

 tions from the exhibition of their products, rejoice 

 in the success of their neighbors. It is this feature 

 which endears them to all good men who know the 

 wants of our farmers, and who have, from the earliest 

 f-tage of their existence, stood by them, believing 

 they were destined to accomplish as much good io 

 their sphere of usefulness, as Education has in hers. 



The benefits accruing from Agricultural Fairs are 

 of a two-fold natr.ie, and apparent to all. Where 

 the Fairs are made an object of attraction, you will 

 find the greatest amount of thriftiness and prosperity 

 prevailing in the sections which contribute to, and 

 take an interest in, their prosperity. The benefits 

 flowing from them are not to be estimated in a pe- 

 cuniary sense. There are benefits conferred on the 

 agricultural interest through the influence of this in- 

 stitution, which command our most hearty admiration 

 and respect for those public benefactors of our race 

 who Lave nurtured and expanded this germ, so that 

 agriculime should take once more her rank as one 

 of the most honorable pursuits of man. 



ff'illiumsburgh, JY. Y. T. C. W. 



A FEW WOKDS ABOUT FEKCES. 



Messrs. Editors: — When this part of the country 

 was new, we had plenty of fencing timber, such as 

 white oak, red oak, while ash, black ash, white elm, 

 red elm, basswood, and a very little whitewood and 

 butternut. Our fences were uniformly made of rails, 

 into what is called a " worm fence." This is made 

 by putting three or more stakes in a straight line 

 where the fence is to be made — -one at each end, and 

 one in the centre. If the ground is level, these stakes 

 can all be seen from either end of the line. In order 

 to make a straight fence, the man who lays the bot- 

 tom rail uses a fence gauge, viz — a stake six or seven 

 feet long, the t-ize of a good hand.^pike, sharpened at 

 the lower end, with a hole one and a quarter inches 

 in diameter — and a stick three feet long, to give the 

 fence a crook, or angle, of six feet. Beginning at 

 one end, the slake is stuck in the ground to range 

 with the stakes above mentioned ; then put each 

 corner of the fouce, at the end oi the three feet stick, 

 or gauge, to the right or left. The fence is laid from 

 five to eight rails high, and staked and ridered, or 

 not, according to circumstances. Since oar limber 

 has been cleared off, fences are very liable to blow 

 down, unless they are well staked and capped. 



When farmers began to get their farms cleared ap, 

 they put up boai-d leaces ia front> and acaund their- 



