2*4 



GEiNESEE FARMER. 



Oct. 



alike both the art and the science of feeding 

 plants ? Unless we study to save labor by every 

 means in our power, and to use our manure to 

 the best possible advantage, the reward for our 

 toil must be degradingly small. If every thing 

 that will aid in making good crops be placed in 

 a water tight vat, and loss of fertilizing gases be 

 prevented, surely a little study and practice will 

 teach us how to use this vegetable nourishment 

 in a better way than we now do. We insist on 

 'he point that, no rational farmer will attempt to 

 ghange wheat straw into wheat, until he takes 

 some pains to learn the things which 1000 lbs. 

 of wheat are made of, and what portion of these 

 things 1000 lbs. of straw can not furnish. Make 

 your straw into compost, and fail not to add the 

 lacking ingredients to form a liberal yield of the 

 seeds of wheat. Many farmers have great suc- 

 cess in making wheat straw, but fail in getting it 

 well filled with plump seed. Three-fourths of 

 the earthy matter in kernels of wheat are phos- 

 phates of lime, potash, magnesia, and soda. 



Do you wish to transform the manure obtained 

 from cattle feeding on timothy hay into a large 

 crop of potatoes ? Let us tell you then that 100 

 lbs. of the earthy elements in timothy contain 

 but 122 pounds of potash ; while a like weight 

 of the mineral elements in potatoes has 5lh lbs. 

 of that alkali. To get the 51| lbs. of potash for 

 your potato crop, will you apply four times more 

 timothy hay manure than you need, or will you 

 add potash to your manure for potatoes, in the 

 shape of ashes mixed with the manure in the 

 compost heap ? 



Kind reader, if you are a farmer, do think of 

 these things. Don't manure as though you 

 thought oat straw and oats are one and the same 

 thing. Your horses know better than that. 



Salt and Ashes. 



"He that makes two blades of grass grow, where butoi^e 

 grew before, deserves better of mankind than the whole race 

 of politicians." 



The above maxim has been repeated, and hon- 

 ored for more than two thousand years. We 

 use it as a text upon which to offer a few remarks 

 on the importance of niaking efforts to improve 

 one's system of farming every year. No person 

 should permit 36.5 days to elapse without being 

 conscious of having learned some valuable lessons 

 in the branch of business to which his time and 

 attention are devoted. So long as the practical 

 farmer can not say in truth, " no more blades of 

 grass or grain cati groiv on my farm than now 

 do," he should both study and labor to make im- 

 provements. Among other means, that of try- 

 ing carefully conducted experiments in the use 

 of available substances as fertilizers, can be 

 named as of great importance. We are anxious 

 to see a compound of equal parts of common salt 

 and wood ashes, applied at the rate of from ten to 

 twenty bushels per acre on wheat fields this fall 

 soon after seeding. If the coals and other hard 

 lumps in ashes are riddled out, and the salt made 

 fine, the two can be evenly scattered over the 

 ground by the machines much used in this sec- 

 tion for sowing wheat and plaster. The machine 

 is drawn by a horse, and sows ten feet wide about 

 as fast as he can walk. Such an implement is 

 of course equally valuable to scatter broad-cast 

 either ashes or salt alone. 



Since the time alluded to in the second book 

 of Kings, when Elisha " healed the waters," and 

 rendered barren land fertile by the use of "salt ;" 

 and since the time of St. Luke, who speaks of 

 " salt which has lost its savor, and is neither fit 

 for the land, nor yet for the dung-hill,'''' this in- 

 valuable mineral has been known to improve the 

 soil. Having a strong attraction for moisture or 

 Corrections. — In a paragraph headed "In- water, and from its extreme solubility, being 

 formation wanted," we used by mistake the word very liable to be washed out of open, sandy soils, 

 Recording instead of Corresponding Secretary of it is on light, gravelly, or sandy land that its ef- 

 the N. Y. State Agricultural Society, in our last fects have been signal, and most useful. In Eng- 

 number. It is the Corresponding Secretary, Mr. land, whose humid climate, and clayey soil would 



lead us to expect but little benefit from the appli- 

 cation of salt, it is regarded as a standard fertili- 



J. B. Nott, and not the Recording Secretary, 

 Mr. Luther Tucker, who was employed to lec- 



tui-e on rural topics in different parts of the State, | zer in the interior of the island away from the 



by the Board of the Society. Since we asked 

 for information in regard to these Lectures, we 

 have seen the Cor. Secretary, who informed us 



sea shore. It is scattered broad-cast with the 

 hand, or mixed up with manure. The quantity 

 applied varies from .5 to 40 bushels per acre. It 

 that he had been busily engaged in collecting in- i is, like other manure, applied to land near the 

 formation up to this time, since his appointment, ; time when the seed is placed in the earth to grow, 

 and that he now is readyto respond to any call for Af? a top dressing it is al'io used with ]?cidf»(l ad- 

 his services as a lecturer. vaiitago. 



In a notice of our Geological Excursion, we} ^"-'^ ^^ ^^^^ contains but two of the eight or ten 

 spoke of Fall Creek as being two miles south of, minerals required by Nature to form cultivated 

 Caledonia. It should have been two miles south ' plants, and which are always found in their as!i- 

 of Geneseo. j es, we earnestly recommenvl the use of such 



■ j ashes as the fat of the land gives to forest trees, to 



The Apple Crop is said to be greatly injured aid Nature in forming for the skilful husbrndman 

 throughout Europe. This will make American bountiful crops. Tell us, practical farmer, can 

 apples in g. eater demand tlian ever. I you not j-idge pretty accurately of the quality of 



