i^ ) 872 THE GENESEE FAEMEK. U ^' 



A. There are a great many scientific farmers there who are deserving of'great credit for the number 

 of experiments they try, and which serve to bring to view great principles in agricultural science ; 

 yet I think that the immediate cause of their growing larger crops of wheat and other grains than we 

 do, is to be ascribed to the turnep crop and to the higher prices they even now command for meat, 

 which enables them to pm'chase from us such large quantities of oU-cake to be consumed on their 

 farms in its production: 



B. It is no wonder that they have good crops if they grow such large quantities of turneps and 

 grass, and buy oil-cake to ent with them, as well as large quantities of guano and other artificial 

 manures. I guess our Western New York land would produce as well as theirs, if treated in 

 this way. 



A. I have not the least doubt that if we were to keep as much stock and manure as highly as 

 the English farmers do, we shoidd obtain, with our superior climate, for the elaboration of grain, at 

 least fifty bushels of wheat to the acre, and one hundred bushels of shelled corn would be considered 

 a poor crop. It is the general impression among farmei-s in England, that we raise much larger 

 crops of wheat than they do. In fact, they have the strangest notions respecting us you can possibly 

 imagine, and I believe the mass of the people who are certainly in love with our democratic institu- 

 tions, think more of us than we are stiictly entitled to. Everywhere I found myself an object of 

 interest and was treated with marked respect and attention. I passed the greater part of my time 

 in the country and thoroughly studied theii* most apjiroved systems of farming, and by no means 

 regret the time and money the journey cost me. I was most pleased with the farming of Norfolk. 

 Some fifty yeai-s since it was nothing but a drifting sand. It is now the best farming county in Great 

 Britain, producing more meat and grain per acre than any other. 



But it is now getting late and I will have another talk on the subject some other night. 



[tD, 



PEA CULTURE IN INDIANA. 



We have repeatedly recommended peas as one of the best crops that farmers can grow 

 in rotation with wheat. They exhaust the soil little, if any, of those substances which 

 wheat plants specially require ; while the consumption of the pea and vines on the fiirm 

 makes the manure of great value for wheat and corn. The great drawbaek to pea 

 culture is the pea bug, though, as we recommended in the September number, if the 

 peas are grown for feeding hogs, they may be all consumed before the bug does much 

 injury. A gentleman in this neighborhood, at our recommendation, sowed four acres of 

 the common white pea, and four acres of the Scotch grey pea, last spring. lie had an 

 excellent crop, the Scotch grey being somewhat the best. At harvest time there was 

 not a bug visible. They were in excellent order when put in the barn. They have just 

 been threshed, and the bugs have eaten nearly all of them. 



The following interesting article from the Indiana Farmer, by I. D. G. Nelson, 

 Wayne Co., Ind., shows that our western readers are wide awake and willing to try any 

 experiments suggested to th-em. In the May number, page 142, we recommended late 

 sowino- as a preventive of the pea bug. The following experiments are to the point : 



"Knowing something of the pea as a field crop when I was a boy, residing in the State of New 

 York, where it is extensively grown, I determined some three or four years ago to make the experi- 

 ment here. I found tlie seed scarce, and was obliged to purchase in small quantities of three diflereut 

 persons — sowed each variety, as I supposed, by itself, but found when ripening all mixed, some 

 'dead ripe,' others scarcely out of bloom. Tlie yield, as you may well know, was a poor one, and 

 the pea bug rendered worthless, or nearly so, those that I did raise. Not entirely discouraged, 

 however, and not distinguishing among them the variety, as I thought, that is familiarly known in 

 New York as the Canada field pea, I sent ana obtained from J. P. Fogg &, Co., Rochester, N. Y., the 

 pure seed. 



"Then the depredations of the pea bug, that is so fatal to i^ cultivation, nearly every where haunted 

 me ; but having read ' a long, long time ago,' in the Genesee Farmer, (a paper that I have always 

 taken since it was established, some fifteen years or more ago,) tliat to prevent the depredations of 

 the bug, peas should be sown after the 10th of June, I made the experiment; sowed one half 1st of 

 April, Uie other half 10th of June. 'Book farming; eh!' exclaimed a friend to whom I explained 



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