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GENESEE FARMER. 



De«. 



Letter from S. W. 



•S^-C. THOMAS' PRIZR ESSAT — RHOPE ISLAND — ADAM AKTHO- 

 ^Y'S FARM — PROF. JACKS05, tSiC. 



Mr, Editor : — I was sorry to read Dr. Lee's 

 ^xictwjies on J. J. Thomas' Prize Essay. I like 

 <:jci59iSJonally a little hypercriticism, from prag- 

 «!patiSical men, of the Rev. Sidney Smith School — 

 h^st not from one wlio can so well aflbrd to be 

 .^Jieroiis towards others as Dr. Lee. He seems 

 '"5e thiiik -"SlOO a iiigh premium for an essay of 

 tavs cJose printed pages ; yet, I presume to say, 

 ^JttSt on the other side of the Atlantic, 1 00 guin- 

 '^aafes [ris often been paid for a production much 

 •SROP3 tlK>oretical, prosy, and common place, and 

 •^3 s,mbitiously full of the quibbles of the schools 

 Cfcy to make the best friends of the writer blush for 

 hirrt — ?xit of not a tithe the practical use of this 

 •'^-'Ou^ensed essay of John J. Thomas. 



The Doctor demurs to the analysis given of a 

 ■c.<lii of barn-yard manure, because a difference in 

 tiis feed of the animal will alter the result of the 

 -QiSS-iysls, by which farmers may be led to believe 

 'Srikst ihey are to obtain from their manure, mat- 

 KST ziQt contained in the food of the animal. To 

 ^iils I repl}-, that no farmer can be thus mistaken, 

 •^stir? has read Dr. Lee's editorials in the Gene- 

 see Farmer within the last year. Whenever I 

 ^«-5;«.k ef Dr. Lee, his Avritings, and his practical 

 <sxp^n^nce, to farmers, I tell them that he is 

 !?^rlii^ing in a " better hope," to the farmers of 

 vKJX wheat growing region, than they have hcre- 

 feojibre known. If J. J. Thomas is restricted in 

 Itils analyses to one particular experiment, he 

 #::?rr;)fi!jy errs in good company; I believe Dr. 

 ■■^prengel, Boussingauit, and even that great 

 prluoe of chemists, Liebig, have done the same 

 -iking. I have lately heard one of the most in- 

 ■^le^iligent, masterly, farmers in New England, 

 ^aiigh at Liebig's explication of the magical at- 

 ■«:ub«ite.3 of Gypsum. And yet almost as good a 

 Carmer, Scotch Johnston, of our own Seneca co., 

 'X- Y., would subscribe in full to Liebig's theo- 

 • _'y. The cause of this discrepance in opinion 

 arnong truly practical men, is found in the dif- 

 fer-snce of their respective soils. The New Eng- 

 "apdaaan's surface is barren sand ; subsoil, stone 

 iTid gravel detritus ; Johnson's, an alluvial 

 f^ravelly clay, resting on lime-stone — the sub- 

 soji, full of organic remains, is better than the 

 ■Torn, surface. If J. J. Thomas alludes not to 

 'hff feed of the animals, whose manure is analy- 

 sed, neither does Liebig say that the effect of 

 xi'lsster will be nugatory on sand and detritus. — 

 'If Dr. Lek is more practically explicit in his 

 ~':«aching than the other Doctors, so much tlie bet- 

 ^JiT for his readei-s ; in the end he will have his 

 srevrard, provided always, that he practices that 

 •«3harity which is a great virtue in a great man. 



Within the last month I have made a short 

 '^ip lo Rhode Island. That which struck me 

 ^uci-i. in the altered appearance of vegetable life, 



as distiilguishcd from our dry climate and lime- 

 stone soil, was the extreme verdure of the grass, 

 in September, on the borders of the salt sea.— 

 VV hen I advanced beyond the reach of the muri- 

 atic vapor, the sea and its treasures, fish manure 

 and sea vegetables, all was sand and detritus, re- 

 lieved by occasional swamps and peat bogs — the 

 true element of relief to the hungry upland — as 

 though nature in generous pity, had not left the 

 bane without its antidote. The muck and peat 

 of these swami)s is now, with the aid of leached 

 ashes, being made the means of a perfect renova- 

 tion of a soil capable of improving under judi- 

 cious culture, and of sustaining crops almost be- 

 yond belief. 



Two miles out of Providence, I stepped from 

 the sady road upon the thick set lawn of my ear- 

 ly friend Adam Anthony. When I was a boy, 

 this farm, like the surrounding country, was a 

 blowing sand. It is now, sub-soil excepted, one 

 of the best farms I ever trod on ; 250 bushels of 

 leached ashes to the acre, have already been ex- 

 pended on it — millot,and clover did the rest, with 

 the aid of decomposed hog peat and the animal 

 manure of the farm. Forty milch cows sleeping 

 nightly on dry peat, make manure enough now 

 to keep the farm in good heart ; each cow has 

 her separate stall ; the milk sells at 14 cents the 

 gallon, at the stable, to the Providence milk-men. 

 Adam says that the suckers and barren stalks cut 

 from ten acres of Indian corn, soiled his forty 

 cows six weeks this summer — thus*saving him 

 $150, which he otherwise must have paid for oil 

 cake and shorts. This ten acres yielded at har- 

 vest 1400 bushels of ears, beside the stalks on 

 which the ears grew. I might forgive an Eng- 

 lishman lor disbelieving this account, but I my- 

 self have had a still better yield on a small scale, 

 from that prince of the vegetable kingdom, In- 

 dian corn. 



When Prof. Jackson, the State Geologist, vis- 

 ited this farm, his first words were, " What is 

 your surface?" "Sand." "Your sub-soil?" 

 " Coarse gravel, then stone and gravel." — 

 "Your manure will leach." Adam smiled that 

 a learned academician should thus cling to a dar- 

 ling theory, when he saw its truth disproved, by 

 full grown blooming facts. 



I had no time to go beyond Woonsocket. I 

 wanted to see the lime-kilns of Smithfield, as 1 

 had never yet seen a lime-stone in my native 

 State, except the two little white rocks in New- 

 port Harbor, which stick out like coral reefs from 

 the sea — all else is grey whacke, slate, and gran- 

 ite. In passing through the swamps of Narra- 

 ganset to Stonington, I felt glad that I went 

 at rail-road speed ; as here no farm, like that of 

 Adam Anthony's, presented to the eye the fair 

 spectacle of an oasis in the desert. 



I am sorry to say that 1 had no time to attend 

 our Seneca County Fair, held in this village on 

 the 22d and 23d ult. I believe it was unusually 



