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THE GENESEE FAKMER. 



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CntikeA Cnrresjinnfimre. 



During the last few months we have received a vast amount of useful information fi-om 

 many valued correspondents, which has necessarily been crowded out of our columns. 

 We hope our friends will still continue to write and give us information, which in one 

 form or another will find its way to the readers of the Farmer. Especially do we like 

 to hear from practical, keen, observing, thinking farmers. It is by uniting facts furnished 

 by such men and the indications of science, that a true system of agriculture will be 

 formed. We give extracts from the communications that have accumulated on our hands, 

 and shall try to give the greatest amount of information in the fewest possible words. 



Butter-Making Experiments. — Tlie experiments on butter-making, detailed in your February num- 

 ber, were made in cool November. Mrs. B. is quite certain tlie result would be different and in favor 

 of tiio small pans of milk, if the same experiments were to be made in hot -weather. I hope L. N. will 

 make further trials next summer. R. B. — Fort Covington, N. Y. 



Thick and Thin Sowing. — Some of my neighbors think that wheat, whether sown thick or thin, 

 will grow about so thick. So last fall I selected three lands as near equal as I could find in the field : 

 the first I sowed at the rate of one and a half bushels to the acre, (my common guage) ; the second, 

 three bushels ; and the tliird, three pecks. At harvest, that sown with one and a half bushels was 

 the best ; the three bushels was too thick and the heads small ; and the three pecks to the acre was 

 too thin, rusted and shrunk. Alpheus Calvert. — Reading Center, N. Y. 



To Clean Spring Wheat from Chess, Oats, <fec. — I observed an article in the December number of 

 the Farmer about washing spring wheat, to free it from oats and foul seeds. I send you another 

 method, which I think is much better, as I have tried both. Take the fanning-mill with the chess- 

 board placed so far up in the shoe that by turning fast the good wheat will drop in the mill, and the 

 oats, poor wheat, and other light materials, will blow away, leaving the wheat cleaner than if it had 

 been in water. This method is one of the best for cleaning chess, &c., from winter wheat for sowing. 

 Seneca Lake. — Hoinulus, N. Y. 



Planting Small Potatoes. — I have noticed of late, that the more manure you put on the ground 

 for potatoes, the smaller is your crop ; and it is a well known fact, that the largest and best potatoes 

 in the hill are the first to decay. In 1850 I planted lialf an acre of green sward, plowed in the spring, 

 without any manure, and from necessity used the smallest potatoes I had for seed. I hoed them but 

 once, and gave them a sprinkling of plaster after hoeing. The result was, I obtained from the half 

 acre sixty-five bushels ; and at the time of digging (the middle of October) there was not one peck of 

 decayed potatoes among them. Last year I adopted the same course with similar results. 



This year I propose to plant, for experiment, in an open woodland and cover with forest leaves, 



and will apprise you of the result, feeling that whatever interests the mass of farmers as much as this 



subject, should be looked to and as much light thrown on the subject as possible. A Subscriber. — 



De Lancey, N. Y, 



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Home-made Guano. — I see by dififerent agricultural publications the anxiety many farmers have of 

 enriching their soil by lime, gypsum, guano, Ac, at considerable exjicnse, and at the same time suf- 

 fering a large amount of the best fertilizing ingredients to be thrown to wa-ste, which would cost them 

 nothing to preserve. In the fall and spring I cart many loads of any kind of soil I can procure free 

 from stone to a heap near my kitchen and wash-house door. I put it up like a coal pit — large at 

 the base and small at the top. The top I make concave, so as to contain lialf a barrel of water. To 

 this top I place a plank to which slats are nailed to walk up on, and I have all the dish water, soap 

 suds, chamber-lie, meat and fish pickle, and every kind of refuse from in and about the house, carried 

 to this heap. I frequently add a little plaster. After it has been there six months, mix it well, haul 

 it out, and supply its place with another heap. It is a cheap manure, and far exceeds lime, gypsum, 

 or guano ; all of which I have used to a large extent. S. John. — Mount Ccnnfort, Pa. 



