340 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



the prairies?" I don't, and very much doubt if he 

 or any other man does. His much vaunted red 

 clover is about as coarse a grass as we have here, (I 

 have measured stalks of four feet in length,) and he 

 does not think that a bad article for cows. There 

 are so many varieties of grass here that I doubt very 

 much if all have been described. That which I call 

 the wire grass is the only worthless grass for pastur- 

 age we have here, but is a very different article from 

 either the Poa Compressa or Foa Serotina, both of 

 which are called wire grass, and are among the most 

 nourishing of grasses, and grow abundantly here 

 about. The Poa Pratensis (probably his agrostis) 

 is also abundant here; but as I am incompetent to 

 give a description of our different varieties of grass, 

 will say no more on the subject than to renew my 

 query, as to what he means by the coarse prairie 

 grass? If "more than one woman from the fertile 

 plains of Kansas" was well acquainted with the ter- 

 ritory, she would know there of such natural mead- 

 ows of red clover as she never saw equalled in New 

 York or Massachusetts. 



I made two quarts of first rate syrup of the Sor- 

 ghum last Thursday, from seventy stalks. The stalks 

 averaged nearly thirteen feet in length. They grew 

 in the orchard of Mr. Allen Nixox, near town. We 

 crushed the canes in the crushing machine of the 

 cider mill. Lost full half of the juice; saved sixteen 

 quarts, and made therefrom two quarts syrup. First 

 strained the juice; put one half in a kettle; lohen 

 warm put in a table spoonful of cream of lime, then 

 the white of an ^^g, loell beat vp; brought to boil 

 quickly; as soon as boiling, removed from fire; let 

 settle; skimmed; strained again through flannel; re- 

 duced to syrup of golden color, good flavor, and 

 nearly as thick as ordinary strained honey. The 

 other half was served in the same way, except that 

 it was let boil about two minutes previously to being 

 skimmed. The consequence was, it was of much 

 darker color, though equally good in other respects. 



E. Hodges is right about prairie grass, horses, 

 cows and " milk fever" as he calls it. To be sure it 

 is not universal in prairie countries, except as to their 

 universal exemption from it. They only claim it in 

 the timbered portions of the country. 



If my friend from Duanesburgh will drop his ditch 

 from one to three feet deeper, I think he will have a 

 ditch better in every respect. 



Does D. W. LoTHROP really think the apple and 

 pear short lived trees? I think he must be joking 

 when he intimates that the elm, maple, tulip, pine 

 and hemlock are more desirable because more dura- 

 ble. Commend to me the fruit trees. Let every 

 man plant them, and his children will take good care 

 they are not injured. 



I am glad to see that a new edition of Downing's 

 "Fruit and Fruit Trees" has appeared. We need it. 



Chas. Brackett. 



Rochester, Fulton Co., hid. 



ON THE MANAGEMENT OF CORN FOE FEEDING 

 CATTLE. 



Messrs. Editors : — As the time is now near at 

 hand when we farmers of Indiana and many other 

 parts of the world, will be (and perhaps some are 

 now) engaged in cutting up our corn, and as I have 

 seen many articles on the subject, I will give to your 

 readers a few remarks on the management of corn 



for feeding stock as we do it in Indiana, Illinois, loWa 

 and many other places. Many of our farmers keep 

 from fifty to two or three hundred head of cattle 

 through the winter. This every person who has had 

 any experience in stock raising knows, requires no 

 small amount of feed and labor. It would be use- 

 less for us to think of housing a sufficient amount of 

 feed for that amount of stock. Some of us have as 

 good barns as we have ever seen in any country, and 

 we have them filled with hay, (not with prairie hay, 

 as perhaps some of your correspondents might sup- 

 pose, but with the very best quality of hay,) and many 

 of us have from ten to fifty fine stai'ks in our mead- 

 ows, yet this is not sufficient for our stock. Many of 

 us want to stall-feed quite a number of cattle, and in 

 order to do this, we are under the necessity of cut- 

 ting up a large amount of corn. 



The mode generally practiced here is about as fol^ 

 lows: Immediately after the first heavy frost, the 

 fiirmers who have cattle to feed, raise all the force 

 they can, and commence cutting up their corn, which 

 is shocked in the following manner: We bend the 

 tops of four hills, two hills from a row, together, and 

 tie them, and so on at proper distances through the 

 whole length of the field. This is a very good sup- 

 port to commence the shocks against. We then set 

 up from twelve to sixteen hiils square in a shock, in 

 good order, and tie well, either with a band of straw., 

 or corn stalks tied together. We shock our corn 

 immediately after it is cut, without laying it down to 

 wilt or dry. We have no difficulty in saving our 

 corn sound and good in this way. The fodder is also 

 as nice and bright in the spring as when put up, if 

 rightly managed, but I am compelled to differ with 

 some of your correspondents, in reference to shock 

 corn being heavier than that left to ripen on the hill. 

 As a general thing our shocked corn is not quite as 

 heavy as that on the hill, yet it will keep as sound and 

 good as any way it can be managed rif.'htly. 



Elijah Thomas. J 



Independence, Warren Co., Tnd. 



AGRICULTURE IN VIRGINIA. 



" P.," of " Western New York," tells us that " a . 

 mere census return, which rates New York land 

 many dollars an acre more than ihat of Virginia, 

 may yet not show that New York tillage is there- 

 fore proportionately the more profitable. The high 

 price of land is not always the symbol of prosperity 

 or thrift." And yet, in one of his " good examples," 

 the price of the land raised, in eight years, from 

 " about " fourteen to " over " forty dollars per acre, 

 showing that, after all, P. considers the rise in the 

 price of the land as a symbol of prosperity. ' 



Virginia has 26,000,000 acres of land " in farms' 

 and New York has 19,000,000; but New York has 

 12,000,000 acres of her's " im.proved," while Virginia 

 has only 10.000,000, hence the average cash value 

 per a3re in Virginia is $8.27, while in New York it 

 is .§29. According to P., the crops raised in Vir- 

 ginia are quite as good as those of New York. But 

 New York raises, annually, nearly 2,000,000 bushels 

 of wheat, 3,-500,000 of rye, 1(3,000.000 of oats, 

 nearly 8,000,000 pounds of wool, 14 000,000 fcushels 

 of potatoes, 3,500,000 of bushels of barley, nearly 

 3,000,000 of bushels of buckwheat, 68,000.000 lbs. 

 of butter, 49,000,000 pounds of cheese, 3,000,000 

 tons of hay, 2,500,000 pounds of hops, 9,000,00:0 



