'■^■>!^ ^ 



Xt&«J 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BHECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH M.illKET STREET, (Aqricultdkal WAttEH0U9g.)-ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



VOL. XIX.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 30, 1841. 



[WO. 63. 



N. E. FARMER. 



HAY AND FODDER. 

 Great losses are annimlly sustained in some parts 

 of the United States in making hay, and in others, 

 in curing corn blades, commonly called fodder. 

 Mine, in a course of many years, have I think 

 amounted to a moiety of the crops ; and mo.st of 

 the expedients I have resorted to for avoiding these 

 losses, have been but partially beneficial. Grass 

 loses much both in quantity and substance, by an 

 exposure to the sun in curing it, and fodder more, 

 being thus exposed in small bundles. Dotli, and 

 particularly the last, suffer greatly by dews and 

 rains. This year I have made the most promising 

 experiment for remedying these evils. A large 

 meadow in bottom land, of a grass called red top 

 or herd's grass, was cut in dry weather, and shock- 

 ed in large shocks quite green, but dry— that is, 

 not wet with either dew or rain— in the following 

 mode. Four sticks, of five feet long, of the thick- 

 ness of a man's wrist or more, were setup in a 

 square of two feet wide at bottom, and meeting at 

 top in a pyramidal form, where the shock w.;s to 

 stand. One at least of these sticks should be fork- 

 ed at top, to keep them steady while the hay is 

 putting round them. A round log, about si.K feet 

 long and six inches in diameter, was laid upon the 

 ground, with one end reaching to the centre of the 

 two feet square, beiwecn ina oiioks, and the other 

 raised upon a fork about eighteen inches, fur the 

 purposes of enlarging the flue presently mciilion- 

 ed, lest it should be closed by the pressure of the 

 hay, and that the log may be more easily drawn 

 out when the shock is finished. Around and over 

 the sticks the shock was made, its top reaching 

 two or three feet above the top of the sticks. The 

 purpose of the log was to make a flue for the ad- 

 mission of fresh air into the centre of the shnck, 

 and the expulsion of the air heated by the fermen- 

 tation of the grass in curing. The flues «ere 

 made to face the point from which the wind usual- 

 ly blows at the time of haymaking. If any flues 

 happened to be closed by the pressure of the grass, 

 they were easily opened by a smaller and pointed 

 log ; or when the largeness of a shock threatened 

 this inconvenience, it was effectually prevented by 

 inserting into the flue a short, forked slick as soon 

 as the log was removed, to hold up the hay. As 

 the logs are removed as soon as the shock is finish- 

 ed, two or three are sufticientfor following a dozen 

 mowers. The hay thus made is the best I eier 

 saw, and the efficacy of the mode of curing it was 

 strongly supported, by the growing grass under ihe 

 shocks having been uninjured, whereas I nner 

 left shocks so long in one spot before, without its 

 having been killed by the undissipated fermenta- 

 tion of the hay in curing. Corn blades or fodder, 

 sustain an immense loss, even in dry weather.by 

 two or three days' exposure to the sun and devs ; 

 and in wet they are nearly ruined. For an expri- 

 ment, I shocked them in the mode just explaind, 

 quite green and dry ; but I chiefly allowed tb.m 

 from four to eight hours' sun, before they wtre 



shocked. Thus was made the best fodder I have 

 seen. But the weather was favorable. The ends 

 of the blades were laid outwards, and the shocks 

 bound at top by a rope made of the blades. — Jlrra- 

 tor, 1812. 



MR COLMAN'S ADDRESS BEFORE THE 

 AMEHICAN INSTITUTE, IN N. Y. 

 This is an interesting performance. Few men 

 in the country are better acquainted with his sub- 

 ject — "the Condition of Agriculture in the United 



Stntes" than the Agricultural Commissioner. — 



His remarks (very properly general,) are spirited, 

 and mainly correct. We copy the following ex- 

 tracts : 



"In a country like ours, as yet comparatively 

 new, and with a vast extent of land just rescued 

 from the wild beasts and wild men, that roamed 

 over it with undisputed sovereignty, it cannot be 

 expected that much improvement in agriculture 

 should have been made. The great object has ne- 

 cessarily been, in most cases, production and im- 

 mediate returns. Where immense tracts of land 

 lay untilled, men have used up the soil without re- 

 gard to its improvement or the continuance of its 

 fertility. Excepting in those soil.s which are an- 

 nually overflowed and enriched from the contribu- 

 tions of other fields, no soil under perpetual culti- 

 vaticm can retain its fertility. Thi?; h:'.<i already 

 been demonstrated in some of the oldest States, 

 where cultivation has been highly stimulated, the 

 products carried from the land, and no portion of 

 them returned for its restoration and nourishment. 

 In the new States likewise, the fertility of whose 

 soils to the confident and reckless seems inexhaus- 

 tible, this must ultimately be the case, unless the 

 principles of modern husbandry, the principles of a 

 rotation of crops and seasonable manuring, be un- 

 derstood and adopted. The laws of nature can 

 neither be transcended nor violated with iirpunity. 

 Avarice and selfishness in every department of life 

 are sure of a just retribution. The laboring horse 

 must have his full manger and his comfortable bed, 

 or he will cease to labor. To exhaust the soil by 

 cropping, and to be continually taking away with- 

 out any replenishing, is a husbandry the fatal con- 

 sequences of which are certain. In some parts of 

 the country the soil is exhausted with perfect reck- 

 lessness, and with a determination on the part of 

 the cultivator, that when it ceases to yield abun- 

 dantly he will emigrate; but there are few cases 



It is happy for us that, under a faithful and en- 

 lightened agriculture, the fertility of a soil may 

 not only be kcjjt up, but continually increased. It 

 is a truth, in which the old States have the deep- 

 est interest, that their impoverished lands may in 

 many cases be restored and their waste and irre- 

 claimed lands redeemed and made productive with 

 irreater ultimate advantages and pecuniary profit 

 than a farm can bo taken up and managed on the 

 richest prairi(;s of the far west. Let me slnte a 

 case within my own knowledge. In the neighbor- 

 hood of two or three populous villages, an observ- 

 ing man purchased seventy acres of wet meadow, 

 the product of which was comparatively worthless. 

 The land was estimated at not more than twenty 

 dollars per acre. At an additional e«pense not 

 exceeding twenty dollars per acre, he drained and 

 manured it; and obtains from it at the rate of tl'.ree 

 tons of good hay to an acre, worth at the average 

 price which hay hns maintained in the vicinity for 

 twenty y(^ars past, fifteen dollars per ton. From 

 one measured acre lie s;dd the product of one cut- 

 ting for one hundred dollars, at twentyfive dollars 

 per ton. We are yet, even in the old States, little 

 acquainted with our own resources. I have no 

 prejudice against the new States. Far from it. I 

 admire their unrivalled magnificence, their superla- 

 tive beauty, and their exuberant fertility. They 

 are for the young and enterprising ; for those who 

 liave no i;;e.ins l.T planting theriiselves in the old 

 States; or for those of foreign countries, who flee- 

 ing from the yoke of oppression and degradation 

 which has for centuries galled their necks under 

 the despotisms of the old world, come with their 

 wives and children to our shores, where they may 

 breathe the air of freedom and enjoy the rights of 

 men. Heaven prosper the virtuous, patriotic and 

 industrious among them, as He prospered our pil- 

 grim fathers. But at the same time, I am for the 

 improvement of the old States. I am for doing 

 well here, before I go further under the expecta- 

 tion of doing better, with all the uncertainties at- 

 tending a removal and the sacrifices and the pri- 

 vations which, under the best circumstances it must 

 involve. We have not yet begun a systematic 

 and liberal course of improvement. With respect 

 to the small experiments which have been made, 

 and many have come under my observation, I have 

 not found a single instance conducted with judg- 

 ment, skill, perseverance and liberality, which has 

 not been amply compensatory and successful. — 

 Your own county of Columbia presents many ex- 



in which emigration is not a serious evil, v If the amples of such productive improvement. Lands 

 account were fairly made up and the disadvantages 

 of removal contrasted with the advantages of a fix- 

 ed location, having all those multiplied convenien- 

 ces, comforts and improvements which are found 

 associated only with a long established residence, 

 the policy of such calculations would be as strong- 

 ly Condemned by interest as by considerations of 

 comfort and moral good. The evils of removal 

 and emigration in our country — its physical suf- 

 ferings, its social privations, and its moral trials, in 

 a majority of cases, are necessarily great ; and can 

 be compensated only by extraordinary advantages. 



in this county, which twenty years ago were scarce, 

 ly worth twenty dollars, under a course of perma- 

 nent improvement, are now readily sold at an hun- 

 dred dollars per acre in whole farms, and pay a 

 large profit at that." 



Speaking of speculation and its disastrous re- 

 sults, Mr Colnian says — 



" It is but recently that conventions were as- 

 sembled, the press teemed with encouraging publi- 

 cations, and every where men's mouths were full 

 of the culture of silk. It was gravely calculated 



