THE GENESEE FARMER. 



273 



$12,000 for our farm, I tlo not think I should exag- 

 gerate at all. Well, geutlemen, lime has done by 

 Far the most of this. To be sure, property has 

 raised in value in our vicinity, as well as elsewhere. 

 I think that property has increased in value more 

 through here than almost any other place in New 

 Jersey, on account of raising peaches, which, it is ad- 

 mitted, will equal the best that are sent to "New York. 



But to tell you about the lime. Lime costs us 

 about sLxteen dollars per hundred bushels, delivered, 

 and we always calculate to get pay for our lime in 

 the first crop of oats. We lime whenever it is cou- 

 veuieut, but would prefer it put on at least one year 

 before we plowed the ground. If the ground is 

 liuied over the suiunier before plowing, the first crop 

 will be benefited; but if put on so late, it will not 

 always show in the first crop, but will show itself in 

 the oats and grass. ^Ir. P. must not abandon or 

 condemn Hme, if his wheat should not meet his ex- 

 pectations. Lime, when put on so recently, hinders 

 wheat from ripening. 



Xow I will give you the rotation of crops as suc- 

 cessfully practiced with us; Lime on the sod, from 

 twenty-five to forty bushels to the acre, (I mean stone 

 lime, but nicely slacked, of course, before spreading,) 

 in the fall; plant with corn the following summer; 

 next spring sow with oats and clover; and the next 

 summer plow under the clover, and sow with wheat 

 and timothy. We do not let our ground lie more 

 than two years, unless it best suits our convenience, 

 but consider that it is never in a better state to plow 

 than as soon as it is in a good sod. I notice that a 

 number of your correspondents speak of the ground 

 as getting " clover sick." Well, ours used to do so 

 too, and we had to quit sowing clover after clover; 

 but since we have sowed timothy after clover, and 

 clover after timothy, we have had no cause to com- 

 plain of the land becoming clover sick. 



We have a variety of soils, from a sandy loam to 

 a stiff clay, and are certain that lime will pay on all 

 or any of them. Some of the farmers of the best 

 laud in our county commenced liming when the lime 

 cost twenty-five cents per bushel, and these farms are 

 ahead yet, 1 should judge, more than the lime cost; 

 and I am certain that if Mr. P. commences using 

 lime at twenty- five cents per bushel, he will get so 

 far ahead of his neighbors, while they are looking on, 

 that they will never catch up. 



Pennington, JV. J. John L. Burroughs. 



M^*'^ 



TASTE AND THRIFT IN IOWA, 



Messrs. Editors: — I have seen an article from the 

 pen of "YiOLA," of this county, reflecting severely 

 upon the want of taste, thriftlessness, &c., of the 

 liawkeyes. For the sake of my adopted State, and 

 the county of my choice, I will say a word for the 

 fai-mers of Iowa. It is less than thirty years since 

 the first white settler was fighting the savage for a 

 foothold in this State. Then there were not twenty 

 legal settlers in our territory. Now we have 600,000. 

 Then there were no buildings for the abodes of civili- 

 zation. Now the cities of Dubuque, Davenport, Mus- 

 catine, Burlington, Burin, Keokuk and Washington 

 can each number their thousands of citizens, and 

 their imposing edifices of wood, brick and stone. 

 Then we had only the Indian trail and buffalo path 

 for roads. Now we can boast of our common high- 

 ways, our numerous railroads and magnificent bridges. 



We have spanned the Father of Waters with the no- 

 blest bridge in America, save one. * * * * 



Will "Viola" travel with me to some neighbor- 

 hoods in Iowa, and see our waving prairies of green- 

 ness marked by the hedge row, dotted with orchards 

 and groves, bedecked by neat white CQttages amid 

 1 looming flowers and green trees, and tell me where 

 bus the sun seen a land of better promise ? True, 

 we are careless, and, with our hands full of bounties, 

 we drop some that should be saved. Our faults are 

 of the bountiful order. In the eager, onward rush of 

 myriads, conquering nature, crowning art, extending 

 science, developing " manifest destiny," and coronating 

 popular sovereigcty, we may not be so penurious and 

 saving as the witch burners of Salem, or so C[uiet as 

 the Rip Van Winkles of Sleepy Hollow. This can- 

 not be helped. We are in a fast age, and those who 

 don't " get out of the way " will be jostled out or 

 run over. True, trees grow but little faster than ia 

 olden times, owing to the ignorance of the age re- 

 specting agricultural chemistry, and we cannot yet 

 build houses by any railroad process; yet in all these 

 respects we are making commendable improvement 

 upon our forefathers. Those who come to Iowa ex- 

 pecting to find farms in cultivation, houses built and 

 furnished, churches, mills and school-houses at the 

 first half mile stone, with artificial bowers of luxury 

 on every place, and all for one dollar and a quarter 

 per acre, will be disappointed. 



If "Viola" will confine her complaints next time 

 to the audience that is reputed to listen to curtain 

 lectures, she may do good. But she has not traveled 

 if she imagines Iowa inferior to New York two hun- 

 dred years ago, or one hundred years after that. 

 This county (Washington) alone furnished 15,000 fat 

 hogs and 30,000 bushels of grain to a foreign market 

 in 1855. What if a few hogs did get away to the 

 woods, and a few bushels of g,-rain go back to dust, 

 outside of the regular channel. The earth caught it 

 all, and we will save it when necessity is as hard up- 

 on us as upon the unfortunate dwellers between the 

 ocean and the lakes. 



To say that we do not plant trees, is to make a 

 mistake. True, we are too busy to take the care of 

 ornament, luxury or secondary comforts necessary 

 for their best success. But thousands of trees are 

 planted annually in every settled county of Iowa; 

 and if the frosts freeze some, and the water drowns 

 some, and the rabbits and grashoppers take some, we 

 are gaining, and "Viola" might have written her 

 article with apples, grown in lowa,^ by her side, or 

 under the shade of a planted grove, if she had visited 

 her neiglibors. 



I like the ambition of " Viola " for the improve- 

 ment of our State. She does not consider the neces- 

 sity upon us which drives all new communities to 

 make a home first, and adorn second. The most 

 bountiful gardens for private use I have ever seen, 

 were in Iowa. Green peas, lettuce, beets, radishes, 

 cucumbers, beans, onions, potatoes, strawberries, &c., 

 are common luxuries now, (June 30,) with many of 

 our citizens, and most of these articles have been on 

 hand for some time. 



"Viola" complains of our large tracts of laud to 

 one kind-owner. She ought to remember that, with 

 our improved implements of labor, and with our kind 

 and tillable soil, one man can cultivate three times 

 the amount within the power of a New Yorker. _ As 

 to our large farms, our Eastern friends have in times 



