54 



GENESEE FARMER. 



April, 1845 



Miles Hopkins, E^q., imported some to Cayuga coun- 

 ty, which were nUo goorl ; and taking them for all 

 purposes, he did not know that he had evereeen bet- 

 ter. The stock of the late Matthew Bullock were 

 good milkers, but many of them, especially of those 

 bred in early times, had bad constitutions — they had 

 narrow backs and big bones. The Herefords were 

 net formerly considered good milkers, but he thought 

 they had been latterly improved in this respect — a 

 Hereford having received the highest prize of the 

 Royal . Agricultural Society in 1839, as the best 

 cow for dairy purposes, m competition with the Dur- 

 haras and others. He had seen the Herefords of 

 Messrs. Corning and Sotham : and though he, (Mr. 

 Stevens,) was a "Durham man," he must eay he 

 liked th^m. Several of the cow^s in that herd show- 

 ed good developments for the dairy. He could not 

 say how the stock in general might prove in this re- 

 spect. If, as thfiir advocates contend, they are as 

 good as others for dairy purposes, they were certainly 

 a valuable stock ; for he thought their properties for 

 the yoke, and for fattening, were unquestionable." 



[A bull and heifer of the Hereford breed, and we 

 believe the only specimens in Western New York, 

 were purchased of Messrs. Corning and Sotham, of 

 Albany, and brought on here last fall, by our towns- 

 man, Mr. T. H. Hyatt, for his farm on Genesee- 

 street. They aie beautiful animals, and were notice'' 

 in the December number of the Farmer. — Ed. Far.] 



For tlif Geiinsee Farmer. 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES. 

 •• M thi^r, 1 Jdve thy a;i'rtve! 

 The violet, with il^ blos-oms blue and mild, 

 Waves o't-r ihy head. When shall it wave 

 Above thy child?" 



The attention now devoted to public cemeteries 

 thro' out this country', is a cheering manifestation of 

 incrcasiiHg good taste and public spirit in theAmerican 

 people, and one ol the most pleasing features in the 

 spiiit of our times. The citizens of Boston — the 

 emporium of American literature and refinement, 

 may be said to have taken the lead in this sacred en- 

 terprize, by setting apart and embellishing the ex- 

 tensive and beautiful grounds of Mount Auburn. — 

 Their example has exerted a wide and salutary influ- 

 ence. By directing public attention to the subject, 

 it has difiused, throughout our whole country, a de- 

 sire to appropriate, apart from the noise and bustle 

 of cities and the crowded thoroughfares of trade and 

 traffic, a suitable resting-place for the dead; where 

 their graves maybe protected and beautified by Na- 

 ture's ornaments, — trees, shrubs and Jlowers, planted 

 and cherished by the mourner's hand, as w'ell as by 

 the more costly, but less appropriate ones of art. 



How consoling the reflection, that the remains of 

 those whom we loved in life, rest in such a lovely 

 place as Mt. Auburn, or our own Mt. Hope, (ol 

 which, as a citizen of Rochester, we feel justly 

 proud,) instead of in the narrow^, bleak, deserted and 

 appalling-like spot in 1hecit3''s midst, without a sin- 

 gle ornament but the grave-.-;tone! conveying but a 

 Binglc impression — that of n;:A jh ! We have expe- 

 rienced many a bitter feeling, as we passed a family 

 b'lriul-ground in the country, with the fences down, 

 and weeds grown rank over the graves, and all with- 

 in sight of the f-miily IwcUin."-. W-; cannot b<:li, ve 

 that such peorle regard with miici venorati >n the 

 memory of their friends and relativc-3, or that they 

 cherish any of the liner feelings and impulses of 

 humanity. p. B, 



MANURES, 



Their JYaiure arid Action upon the Soil and 



Groiiing Plants. 



BY SAMUEL WILLIAMS, AVATRRLOO, N.Y. 



The great and increasing attention which of late 

 has been directed towards a scientific knowledge of 

 the principles governing the operations of Nature, 

 now bids fair to dissolve the great mystery by which 

 Nature herself produces without creating, and dis- 

 solves without annihilating, and again reproduces 

 from the dissolved elements, the kindly fruits and 

 flowers of the earth. 



In the early ages of man's creation, the Egyp- 

 tians carried the agricultural art to such perfection, 

 that by irrigation, and other mechanical labor, they 

 made the fertile alluvions of the Nile so productive, 

 that when a seven years' famine overspread both 

 Egypt and Asia, the granaries of Egypt alone ar- 

 rested the horrors of a general starvation. 



This same mechanical agriculture, without any 

 knowledge of, or disposition to learn, the secret by 

 which Nature produces, decomposes, and reproduces, 

 does still succeed in the present day, on the fertile 

 virgin soils and bottom lands of our great West. 

 But from the lack of agricultural science, and the 

 preventive wisdom with which its lessons inspire us, 

 the ignorant, improvident farmer in the fertile allu- 

 vions of the West will soon have to lament a dete- 

 rioration in soil, and a diminution, if not a frequent 

 failure, of his crop. 



While every other profession, requiring the aid of 

 science, is considered unattainable without the most 

 patient study ; the profession of the farmer, the no- 

 blest and most god- like of all, is treated, strange as 

 it may seem, even by the farmer himself, as a calling 

 of hopeless, unintellectual drudgery. When the 

 farmer beholds his growing crops and thriving stock, 

 the bounty of Nature is a mystery to him, with 

 which he can hold no communion of thought or in- 

 tellectual feeling ; his love of gain only, the most 

 sordid of the passions, is excited — he sees only the 

 pecuniary reward of a labor which had been to him 

 toilsome, unintellectual, sterile, mechanical ! When 

 this same farmer held the plow, he knew little more 

 of the composition of the furrow it turned up to the 

 action of the atmosphere, than did the team that 

 drew the plow itself. 



******* 



The two great principles to be impressed on the 

 mind of the farmer who wishes to avail himself of 

 the aid of science in his calling, are, first — that 

 urine, stable manure, and all animal manures, fer- 

 ment ; in i^the process of which they will convert 

 three times their own weight of other substances in- 

 to manure equivalent to stable manure itself. Se- 

 condly, that the more intimately the manure is mix- 

 ed with the soil the better, as in the first place it 

 acts mechanically, to open the soil and let in the at- 

 mospheric gases : in the second place it dissolves 

 quicker, and until dissolved, all vegetable physiolo- 

 gists agree, that manure can have no chemical or or- 

 ganic effect upon growing plants. The same with 

 plaster — untd plaster |is dissolved, it can produce no 

 effect ; hence the importance of sowing plaster ear- 

 ly, even before the snow of winter is gone. 



From the first principle, the farmer will see how 

 much he loses by permitting the manure of his barn 

 vard to waste itself by fermentation in the open air. 

 Some agricultural chemists have advised that ground 

 plaster should be strewed over the stables and the 



