204 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Sept. 



Book Farming. 



Junius said, when he saw a Scotsman laugh, 

 he always felt an involuntary impulse to conceal 

 himself from mischief. It would seem that many 

 practical farmers feel a like impulse, when they 

 ai"e asked to subscribe to an agricultural paper. 

 But as Junius was distinguished for great illiber- 

 alitv, if not injustice, towards others, so are those 

 book denouncing farmers, who will not read an 

 agricultural paper, because sdme of its articles 

 are unintelligible to them, or contrary to the re- 

 sults of their individual experience. 



Within the last few days, I read an article on 

 growing Indian corn for fodder, which rocorn- 

 mends sowing it as late as the middle of July. 

 Now, had I been moved by the book haling im- 

 pulse, I should have dropped the paper, v/ithout 

 reading another article in it. 'Tis true that I 

 once grew two crops of perfect roasting ears of 

 Indian corn in one season ; but never but once. 

 Four times out of five, corn planted or sown in 

 July, will either be slow to sprout, for want of 

 moisture in the soil, or it will be so much pinched 

 by drought after it comes up, that failing to take 

 root strongly, it becomes dwarfish — not growing 

 to one-fourth its usual weight of stalk, before it 

 begins to tasseli. 



These remarks, the result of many cxperi- 

 iTients, are made to apply to the warm calcareous 



(Soil, md dry oliniato of Soi^cca countv. N. Y. 

 *^ - .-'-■"■ 



\jn the high lands of Allegany, Otsego, and 

 Oneida counties, where hot warm vvcat"hfer is an 

 exception to the general rule, corn planted in 

 mid-summer for fodder, may often succeed well ; 

 but in such a climate grass makes a much more 

 economical fodder, than Indian ccn-n will produce 

 in the sane climate. I have taken an ear of corn 

 from a stalk, whicli had attained only four feet 

 in height, on a very rich soil in Otsego co. The 

 same corn planted the next year in my garden, 

 attained the height of eight feet; the ears in- 

 creased in like proportion. But on the other 

 hand, when our pastures are dried up in August, 

 and almost every other green thing begins to fade 

 and wither, I have seen Ibe white clover half leg 

 high, in the pastures of Oneida county. 



If a farmer would be benefitted, both by the 

 light of science and experience, as set forth in 

 the agricultural papers of the day, he must nei- 

 ther be a man of blind enthusiastic credulity, car- 

 ried away by the fortunate residt of a single ex- 

 periment, nor yet one of stolid, hereditary, un- 

 yielding prejudices. There are but few callings 

 requiring, like that of the farmer, the constant, 

 patient exercise of practical experience, and 

 sound common sense. The regidarity of ma- 

 chinery may indeed be applied to mechanical 

 agriculture, but it has nothing to do with the cli- 

 mate or the season. Although all plants con- 

 tain, to a greater or less extent, the same organic, 

 and the same incombustible elements ; yet one 

 plant may be grown successfully in one particu- 



lar soil, and fail in another. A warm dry cli- 

 mate is necessary to the perfect growth of many 

 vegetables, while a cool and moist one is nece.s- 

 sar}' to the perfect development of others. 



In the last Genesee Farmer, is an article en- 

 titled " Slucly the Soil,'' written by Dr. Lee, the 

 Editor. It should be read understandihgly by 

 every young farmer who has any faitii of human 

 progress in agricultui-al science. When I say 

 young farmer, it is because too many of the old 

 ones are like Goethe"s hero, so conceited that 

 they ai"e beyond the help of the schoolmaster. 



1 like Dr. Lee's plan of setting down the wa- 

 ter absorption of the soil he analyses; as this, its 

 mechanical power, is of as much importance as 

 its chemical composition. I hope he will here- 

 aiter, v/hen giving the analysis of a surface soil, 

 also give a short detail of the manner in which it 

 has been manured and managed for the prece- 

 ding five years. 



In my next, I will give a detail of the amount 

 of grain, «S;c., produced this year from a farm of 

 100 acres in Fa3'ette, Seneca co. Its anglo-Ger- 

 man proprietor, practical as such men always 

 are, has the generosity to confess, that he could 

 not have farmed thus successfully, and with so 

 little labor, was it not for the instruction he has 

 received from the pages of the Genesee Farmer. 



Waterloo, Axtg., 1846, 



S. \V 



Tlie 



Farmer — hi!? Position, EespoMlMli- 

 ties. and Buties. 



NUMBER ONE. 



Mr. Editor : — I propose, in a few articles, to 

 take a cursory view of a subject which to rny 

 mind is one of abiding interest to every farmer 

 in Western New York. I would not seek to ex- 

 cite prejudice against any class; I aim not to 

 depress or injuj-e, but to stimulate the great body — 

 to infuse a proper, a necessary pride into the 

 great controling interest of this country — and to 

 induce them to look to their position as it is, and 

 to what it may and should be. The census of 

 1815, exhibits to us the fact that the great mass 

 of the people of the State of New York are en- 

 gaged in Agricultural pursuits. Every body 

 concedes that the farming interest is the great 

 interest — that it is at the head of every other — 

 exercising the greatest influence over the pros- 

 perity and happiness of the countiy. Indeed, it 

 forms the ground work of society in Western 

 New York, and upon it rest all otlier interests. 

 The inquiry is, then, one of deep interest, as to 

 the condition of this base, upon which so much 

 rests; and nothing is more important than to 

 know whether there be moral and intellectual 

 strength sulficient for the important duties to be 

 performed. 



The character of our political institutions, and 

 the character of our laws, and of society in this 

 country, give to the agricultural portion of our 

 people peculiar importance. We differ from 



