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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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off work for the day at three in the afternoon. In other parts, however, they abandon the tandam 



system altogether, and plow, harrow and cultivate as we do here, with two horses abreast. This is 

 called the improved system of farming, and is rajiidly being adojited all over the country. 



B. Your ac<;ount of English agriculture differs vastly from that given by many of oiu* writera 

 on tli« subject I have always understood that England was the garden of the world — that the 

 fiu-mers were reading men and farmed on scientific principles. 



A. Many parts of England and Scotland well deserve the name of gardcna The farmers are as 

 you say, men of education and fortune, and farm in a style far exceeding any anticipations writers 

 would lead us to indulge. The beauty of the landscape, large fields divided by straight and well 

 trimmed hawthorn hedges with occasional shade trees, the luxuriance of the crops, perfection in the 

 breeding of horses and all other domestic animals, the thorough (-ystem of under-draining, their 

 beautifully arranged, substantial homesteads, with steam threshing and other machines, their well 

 filled "stack-yards," and the neatuess and system with which everything is done, command our 

 involuntary admiration. Yet while this is so, the great mass of English farmers are by no means 

 such an intelligent, industrious class of men as the farmers of this country. Tliey expend much more 

 capital and labor on the land than we do, and get much larger crops, yet I by no means think that 

 they can I'aise a bushel of wheat, or a ton of clover, for a less sum than we can. 



SL How is it that they obtain such large crops ? Tlie climate I liave always iinderstood is not as 

 good as that of this country. It would seem that possessing our own farms, having no game or 

 hedge row timber to trouble us, few taxes and no rent and tithes to pay, no restrictions as to our 

 mode of farming, being in short lords of the soil, we could raise better crops than the English. 



A. In regard to our climate being so much better for agricultural crops than that of England, I 

 liave considerable doubt It is true our Genesee wheat is much superior to theirs, being heavier and 

 plumper; yet their barley is much better than onrs, weighing on an average 56 lbs. to the bushel, 

 whereas ours here seldom goes over 45 lbs. Their growing season is much longer and cooler than 

 ours, and the climate is most admirably adapted for the culture of roots, clover, and the far-famed 

 English perennial grasses. It is the culture of these crops that places their agriculture so far ahead 

 of ours. 



B. You think then that our climate is better adaptecT for the growth of wheat and corn, and 

 tlieirs for the growth of clover and other green cropa 



A. They do not raise such heavy crops of red clover as we do here. Many farmers told me they 

 could not raise red clover once in four years, and substitute trefoil, white Dutch, and other varieties 

 of clover and grasses in its stead, sowing the red clover once in eight years, and on the light barley 

 soils once in twelve years. We can beat them altogether in growing clover. But it is the Tiirnep 

 crop that lies at the foundation of England's agricultural glory. It is generally admitteil that nioie 

 nutritious matter can be obtained from an acre of land cultivated with Mangel Wurtzel, Ruta Boga, 

 or common turneps, than from any other crop ; and the climate of the British Isles is, perhaps, better 

 adapted to their growth than that of any other country. 



B. I do not clearly see 1k)w it is that the cultivation of turneps can make such a vast difference 

 in the agriculture of the two countries as to make theirs so much superior to ours. If our climate 

 and soil will grow better wheat and clover than theirs, we can easily dispense with turneps, for I 

 consider clover the most valuable and the least exhaustive crop we grow. If I get a good crop of 

 clover I make sure of good wheat after it 



A. Just so, you get a good crop of wheat after plowing in a growth of clover, because the clover 

 has attracted fertilizing gases from the atmosphere and organized them by the aid of mineral matter 

 from the soil. Tliese when plowed in, or if the roots only are left, decay and furnish just the food 

 in a fit state for assimilation, the wheat plant requii-es. This Ls eminently the case with clover; but 

 the same thing is obtained by the English farmer, to a nmch greater extent, by means of his turncp 

 crop, than we can with clover, and in this respect he has the decided advantage of us ; that is to say, 

 he can obtain more food per acre from his turnep crop than we can from any crop grown here, and 

 can consequently keep more stock on his farm, and make more manure, thereby increasing the 

 available food for plants, or, so to speak, have a greater amount of floating capital at the disposal of 

 tlve plants. 



B. You wish to make it out then that the superiority of British agriculture is not owing so much 

 to science, or to their superior manner of cultivating the soil, but to the possestion of a climate well 

 suited to the production of large crops of turneps. 



