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THE GENESKE FAKMER, 



Leached Asites and Rotation of Crops. — Are leached 

 ashes that have lai<i from thirty to fifty years exposed to the 

 weather, worth hauling five miles as a fertilizer '/ If so, how 

 shoulil they be applied V 



The fdllnv.-in!! system of rotating crops, I have a<lopted, 

 and thus far with an increase both in quantity and ciuality. 

 Think you the advantage will be lasting? For wheat, I 

 have tliree lots ; one of which I summer fallow, another 

 take a crop of wheat from, and the third I pasture — always 

 seeding with clover, and applying about two hundred 

 bushels of pl;ister to tlie acre. As 1 summer fallow the lot 

 which I pastured the preceding year, I have a good turf 

 and a heavy crop of clover to turn under. I do not calcu- 

 late to pasture my fallow till after it is broken, but it is hard 

 sometimes to kej.>p the cows out. For otlier crops I have 

 no system, only that I plow and grow three crops of ditl'er- 

 ent kinds — then seed, plaster, and manure, for meadow or 

 pasturing, three years. A Subscbibee vv the Town of G. 



On good roads it will pay to haul leached ashes 

 five miles; they should, however, be mixed ■with 

 lime before their application, unless the soil 

 abounds in calcareous matter. Eventually, your 

 wheat and clover rotation will exhaust your land, 

 if you do not renovat* it occasionally with manure 

 or ashes, to restore potash and bone earth removed 

 in the seeds of wheat. 



Clover draws the earthy ingredients from the 

 subsoil for the benefit of wheat plants; but the 

 supply will not last a century without adequate 

 restitution. Beware of "clover-sick" fields. 



Gas Lime. — "Will you be so kind as to inform me of what 

 value the g;is limes are to put on to land tognjw fruit trees, 

 tliat needs lime in some form or other. At this place 1 can 

 obtain stone lime, fresh and fine, for $W per hundred bush- 

 els. At the gas works in this city, they have a large quan- 

 tity of lime that they have used ,for purifying the gas, and 

 which was the best of the Onondaga lime, which they wii! 

 sell cheap. There is no one here to tell me about it, and 

 not seeing any article in the Farmer, I write you that I may 

 get some correct information. 



The soil is a strong clay loam that has produced wheat 

 twenty-five years with only two or three crops of clover. 

 which now yields about twenty-five bushels to the acre. 

 But as I am to put it to different purposes, I thought I had 

 better supply some of the phosphates first. It is troubled 

 with grubs — the larvfe of the May bug, or a large white 

 grub with brown head — -that gnaw the roots of small trees 

 till they die. I have lost ^.500 worth of plants this year by 

 its depredations. To destroy this insect would be gratifying 

 to me. I have sown thirty bushels of salt to the acre, and 

 plowed it under. I intend to plow it again, following with 

 the subsoil plow, that I may make the soil sixteen inches in 

 depth. 



Now, for manure we shall' use muck from a swamp, that 

 has been sweeten d with luneand salt, adding some plaster 

 to .supply the sulphur. 



I will close this letter, which is much longer than I inten- 

 ded to write at first, but I feel that I am "excused when 1 

 read some of the interesting articles on the relation of sci- 

 ence to agriculture that may be found in your paper. 

 Charles 1'. Cowles. — Syracuse, M Y., Oct., 1851. 



There is more or less organized nitrogen in the 



coal from which gas is made, and the lime used to 



purify it usually contains ammmouiacal compounds 



which, so far as they arc present, are far more 



valuable for agricultural purposes than lime itself. 



Buy the gas lime as cheap as you can, and test its 



value by careful experiment 



Mules. — "WiU some of your correspondents inform me 

 through the columns of your valuable paper, why mules are 

 not reared to a greater extent in this St;ite. It is stated that 

 they are very profitable, easilv reared, and a ready sale at 

 two years old, at prices ranging from $T5 to $100 each. K. 

 —Oneida Lake, N. I'., Ncm., ISDl. 



HORTICULTURAL. 



(R. L. C, King's Ferry, N. Y.) The Filberts, 

 Madeira nuts, and Almonds, of the shops will grow 

 if sound and fresh. Sow in the fall, in any good, 

 dry, friable soil, cover two inches deep. If you 

 cannot plant in the fall, lay them in a thfn layer 

 in the ground, and cover with earth three or four 

 inches deep till spring. Doucain and Paradise 

 Stocks are not raised from seed, 'but layers ; most 

 of those used in this country are imported. 3fa- 

 halch seeds can scarcely be procured in this coun- 

 try, but the stocks can in the nurseries. 



(F. S., King's Ferry.) The various kinds of 

 dwarf stocks can be obtained in the nurseries here, 

 at $2 to $3 per 100. Mazzard cherry and Pear 

 stocks can be obtained at prices you will find in 

 the nurserymen's catalogues. Spanish chestnuts 

 are not to be had here ; young plants can. 



(S. W. R.) The "Fruit Garden" is sold at $1.25, 

 and the postage to jon would be 20 cts. if jtre-paid. 

 The present postal law is unfavorable to the trans- 

 mission of books by mail. 



Will you be so kind as to answer a few inquiries in the 

 Genesee Farmer, and oblige a subscriber. 



1. Does the Angers Quince produce fruit superior to the 

 Orange or Portugal ? 



2. Is the Striped Madelaine Pear tree as hardy and pro- 

 ductive as the Madelaine ? Does it succeed well on Quince ? 



8. Is it better to whip-graft Quince stocks with pears that 

 have failed the first season to grow from bud, and trans- 

 planted in the fall again, than wait until the next faU and 

 bud ag.iin ? S. B. — Susquehanna Co., Pa., Kov., 1851. 



1. We have'not yet fruited the Angers Quince, 

 but it is spoken of by cultivators of Angers as 

 being very good. 



2. The Striped Madelaine pear is, according to 

 our experience, as hardy as the common one, but 

 not quite so vigorous. It is productive and suc- 

 ceeds well on the quince. 



3. You may get a tree sooner by grafting next 

 spring the stocks on which the buds have failed 

 the past summer, but you will have better trees 

 in the end, if you wait and bud them next season, 

 especially if they be transplanted. If inteiidcd '■■ o 

 graft, tliey ought not to have been transplanted. 



The Nuesery Business in Iowa. — A correspond- 

 ent writes us from Maquoketa, Iowa — "There is 

 one great drawback to the nursery btxsiness here, 

 and tliat is winter hilling. Tliere is not more than 

 one-third the varieties of apples that will stand 

 root-grafting in this latitude, 42-| deg. Some nur- 

 seryjiien have lost thousands of dollars by it." 



Will some of our friends in the west, who have 

 tested the hardiness of varieties in climates similar 

 to Jackson county, Iowa, communicate some of 

 their experience. This matter touches upon a 

 subject of great importance to the fruit growers of 

 this country, viz., the adaptation of varieties to 

 certain clim:ites and localities. 



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