B^. 



THE GENESEE PARMER. 



ConkMA CoriT.njinnknre, 



Salt vs. Fike. — In the November number of the Farmer for last year, I uoticecl a communication 

 relative to the burning of a barn, as was supposed, by spontaneous combustion, producaid by the grain 

 being drawn in too damp. Your answer directed that the hay and grain should be thoroughly dried 

 before storing. This is good advice when it can be adopted without the hazard of grown wheat, aqd 

 bleached and. half rotten hay; bi;t there are times (instance the last two seasons) when this seems 

 impossible. Now, permit me, with due deference to your 'superior knowledge and ability, to suggest 

 a preventive to you and the readers of the Fanner, which I have adopted with much confidence for 

 some yeai"s past. I refer to salting both hay and grain when drawn in. This to some extent has 

 been practiced among farmers in these parts, but perhaps by few, if any, with a view to this idea. 

 And it is doubtless attended with other advantages. It is a well known principle of chemistry, that 

 substances in passing from a denser to a rarer state, produce cold, as salt, snow, &c. ; and this, so far 

 as I know, seems to be somewhat peculiar to salt. Who is not acquainted with the sensation of cold 

 felt upon immersing the hand in strong brine. Nvmierous illustrative examples might be given, but 

 let th:s one suffice. South Bristol. 



Sheep Frauds. — "We have seen statements published in agricultural journals, by Vermont wool- 

 growers, bra^uing of their sheep and fine wool, and challenging the world to produce their equal. 

 Sucli assertions are a touch beyond the exaggerating advertisements of q\iack doctors,' puffing their 

 nostruins. Tlirse nauseous assertions, like bitter pills, require oiling, as they do their sheep, before 

 the farmers of the west can be made to swallow any more of them. Now, if their wool is as good as 

 they have represented it to be, will you, Messrs. Editore, flr some of your Vermont subscribers, be so 

 kind as to tell us, through the Farmer, why it is that the greater part of last year's clip of Vermont 

 wool was still in the hands of the growers, unsold, on the first of I\Iarch last? and why it is that the 

 manufacturers purchase up all the wool about the country at shearing time, and pass by Vermont 

 wool as unworthy of their notice? The dear bought experience the farmers of the west have had 

 for the past two years, in purchasing eastern sheep at prices much above their value, compels us to 

 state that many of their sheep, like their wool, have proved very different from Avhat they were rep- 

 resented to be. The sheep pedlars cut the eye tee;h of many of our farmers, which has created a 

 great distrust in anything that writers or pedlai-s may say respecting their sheep, and now we are all 

 on the look-out for sharpers, A. — Ann Arbor, Ilich. 



Idj 



E,UTA Baga and Mangel Wuezel. — I have been in the habit of raising about half an acre of rnta 

 baga for several yeai-s, and think them indispensable for my flock of breeding sheep in the spring. I 

 usually sow them the last week in June, in rows about thirty inches apart, and hoe them out ten 

 inches in the rows. I have never used superphosphate of lime, but if sufficient to manure an acre 

 can be made by the farmer himself for four dollars, as you say in the March number, I should think 

 if it does as much good as you say it does for root crops, that it is much cheaper than barn-yard 

 manure. I usually get about tlii-ee hundred bushels of ruta baga from the half acre. I have never 

 grown mangel w rzel, but as you so strongly recommend them in the March number, I mean to 

 plant a quarter of an acre this year, by way of experiment You say that " though this root contains 

 about 87 per cent, of water, yet more nutritive matter can be obtained per acre from this crop thaa 

 any other." I certainly should not have thought that roots contained 87 lbs. of water in every 100; 

 but you say that ruta baga contain even more water than mangel wurzel, and that even green clover 

 contains 80 per cent of water. . 



I was not a little surprised at the amount of water a crop of clover exhales during its growth, from 

 an acre of land — no less than 430 tons, or 8600 lbs., per day. Truly, plants require, or at least take 

 their food in a very diluted state. And it would seem, as you say, that this amount of water, impreg- 

 nated as it is with carbonic acid and ammonia, is capable of taking up every element that enters into 

 tlie composition of the plant, even the most insoluble. A Constant Reader. — JJutehess Co., A'. Y. 



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