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NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



DECEMBER 4, 1833. 



From the Genesee Farmer. 

 PARKING OPERATIONS. 



As an account of the produce of an acre of 

 wheat raised by me, which was fifty-one bushels, 

 lias gone the usual round in the Agricultural pa- 

 pers, I will give you the result of an experiment 

 made upon an acre in an adjoining field which was 

 sowed with another variety of wheat (the Indiana) 

 and which we have recently threshed, the produce, 

 of which was, fifty-six hushels, of the first quality 

 of wheat weighing sixty pounds to the bushel. 



As I have long been inquired of, respecting the 

 preparation of the hind, 1 have to remark that 

 there was no artificial stimulant applied to the land 

 in the form of manure. 



A part of the acre first noticed had heen enrich- 

 ed by cattle lying upon that part of the field, but 

 the one now spoken of iiad not even heen thus 

 manured. The whole field of twelve acres, has 

 heen under cultivation forty years, and during that 

 period, there has not been twenty loads of manure 

 put upon it. The quality of the land is that of 

 the most of our high lands upon the summit of 

 the hills east of Bristol hollow, hut is not what has 

 heretofore heen considered as our best quality. 



The timber with which this land was originally 

 covered was Black Walnut, Butternut, Oaks of 

 different varieties, Hickory, Ash, &c. The three 

 former were the prevailing kinds of timber. I 

 came into possession of this land fifteen years ago, 

 at which time it appeared rather sterile, having 

 heen much worn by croping and bad husbandry. 

 The three years preceding this crop of wheat it 

 was pastured. In June 1832, it was ploughed as 

 deep as the ploughs in common use would turn 

 the furrow. In September it was well ploughed 

 twice and thoroughly dragged between each 

 ploughing. On the twentieth of September a little 

 short of five pecks of Indiana wheat was sown to 

 the acre, which I procured from Mr. J. Lake of 

 Greece, Monroe County, and the result was as 

 above stated. 



I have also raised this season a fine crop of po- 

 tatoes, which have yielded abundantly. They 

 were of the Ox noble, Pink eyes, Mesbanacs, or 

 Mercers, Merinos, Red, White, and Blues of dif- 

 ferent kinds. The Ox nobles and Merinos, have 

 been the most productive; hut the Mercers were 

 first at maturity. The Pink eyes and Reds I con- 

 sider best for the table. Of the Ox nobles we 

 gathered five hundred and eighty bushels, from 

 one acre. We dug' one which weighed four 

 pounds and ten ounces. 



The land on which the potatoes grew had pre- 

 viously been pastured, was turned over in the 

 spring, rolled and dragged, and planted at the dis- 

 tance of three and a half feet one way by one and 

 a half the other. 



Now Mr. Editor, I venture to affirm that had we 

 not been conversant with the 'Farmer' or some 

 agricultural paper, I should have been deprived of 

 the satisfaction of presenting the public with 

 the account of such rare crops, and you with this 

 detailed account of them, which is not a little fa- 

 vorable to the character of your paper, as it is to 

 your editorial labors that I owe at least some por- 

 portion of that knowledge and skill, which has 

 aided me not a little, in the production of these 

 superior crops. 



I cannot here refrain from expressing my sur- 

 priseand regret, that so few of our Farmers read 

 agricultural papers, and I cannot resist the belief, 

 that did they but know, and duly appreciate, the 



value of those papers, and the actual interest thej 

 have in them, not a Farmer who occupies fifty 

 acres or even twenty, would cultivate so small a 

 patrimony without seeking aid, and assistance 

 through some of those papers, which are wholly 

 devoted to the advancement of his interest, and 

 the improvement of his agricultural operations. 



I have induced a few of our neighbors to be- 

 come subscribers to your useful paper; yet there 

 are many more, who have better farms, richer 

 lands, and are at any rate, in their own estimation 

 better farmers than myself, and yet with all these 

 advantages, I challenge any one of them, without 

 change of practice, to produce such crops as I 

 have raised this season ; and I attribute my suc- 

 cess in no small degree, to the change of practice 

 in my farming operations induced and aided by- 

 knowledge derived from those papers. Speak to 

 them of an agricultural paper, and they startle at 

 the suggestion, and often retort with spirit against 

 " book farming." I am in the regular receipt of 

 three Agricultural and Horticultural papers, which 

 I conceive to be infinitely more to the advantage 

 of my farming operations, than the same number 

 of barrels of whiskey would be, although they do 

 not cost one quarter as much ; yet there are those 

 who prefer the latter and reject the former. 



W. T. Codding. 



Bristol, Ontario co. N. Y. Oct. 25, 1833. 



Ed. Ge.v. Farmer. When we reflect upon the 

 impositions that have been practised- upon farmers, 

 by the numerous publications which have been is- 

 sued, by those who were unaquainted with the 

 practical operations of agriculture, we are not sur- 

 prised at the indifference which they manifest to- 

 wards encouraging agricultural papers, and only 

 wonder that in a thw years such a change as al- 

 ready manifests itself should have been effected. 

 Books have been published with imposing titles, 

 and papers have been issued by those that had no 

 farther interest in common with our farmers, than 

 to secure their subscriptions, and have been edited 

 by those who were as ignorant of the subjects they 

 were writing upon, as they are of the course of 

 tillage practised by the Chinese. They resort to 

 foreign publications for authority, and recommend 

 to their readers whatever they find there put down, 

 whether calculated to facilitate, or retard, our own 

 peculiar course of improvement. It will not be 

 until practical men devote their time to writing, 

 that these prejudices can be done away, neither is 

 it right they should be. 



CURIOUS RESULT IN POTATOES. 



William A. Minchin, Esq. of Belville, county 

 Dublin, has left at our office, for the inspection of 

 the curious in such matters, four potatoes growing 

 from one common stalk, two of which are large 

 red apples, and the other two large pink eyes, 

 each exhibiting their original characteristic appear- 

 ance, though derived from one common parent. 

 Capt. Minchin endeavors to account for the seem- 

 ing phenomena by stating the fact, that before 

 the planting they cut a few apples and a few pink 

 eyes right across, and joined half of one species to 

 half of another, by means of a skewer ran right 

 through the centre of both, in which state they 

 were placed in the earth. To us it would appear 

 that by this or a similar mode of engrafting, the 

 pink eye might have been first derived from a 

 mixture of the apple and white, but that the char- 

 acter of each should be preserved distinct, as in 



the present case, seems a little extraordinary. — 

 Dublin Evening .Mail. 



From the American Farmer. 

 ON THE SELECTION OP SEED CORN. 



Now is the time tor those who may not be done 

 gathering corn to select their seed ears. It has 

 long been the judicious practice of many farmers 

 within my knowledge, to select their seed corn 

 from the best bearing stalks. Many other farmers 

 consider this practice as idle, and some sneer at it; 

 but they only betray their want of observation ; 

 every attentive gardener is well aware of the ad- 

 vantage of selecting the best seeds — and how many 

 farmers are constantly in quest of the best variety 

 of wheat. Now, of all the grains we know of, 

 corn mixes its kinds with the greatest facility. 

 The natural effect of this is, that the varieties of 

 corn are almost infinite — and hence the need for 

 selecting your seed corn is vastly greater, and 

 more palpably manifest than for selecting any other 

 seed grass. 



Those who sneer at a farmer for selecting his 

 seed corn, must be under the impression, that the 

 corn in a field is all of precisely the same kind, 

 and that one stalk's bearing three ears, another 

 two, and a third but one, is the mere effect of ac- 

 cident. But this cannot be the fact. In passing 

 through a poor part of my field the other day, I 

 was struck with a stalk, and upon examination 

 found five good ears on it. I looked to the next 

 hill — there were two stalks — one had one ear, the 

 other none. I examined many hills around — I 

 found most of the stalks with one good ear, seve- 

 ral with two, and one or two with three ; but this 

 single stalk, though not larger, had more ears on 

 it than any hill near it, where there was either 

 "lie or two, or three stalks in the hill. Now, sir, 

 this could not have been the effect of accident ; it 

 must have been the effect of breed. I do not be- 

 lieve that you can find a corn field in which there 

 are not twenty different kinds of corn, mixed in 

 endless shades and degrees. What a field then is 

 here every where open to select a choice from. 

 You plant from a stalk that has borne you three 

 ears, it will be most likely to bring you such bear- 

 ing stalks ; not from accident, but because it is 

 natural for like to beget like, and for seed to pro- 

 duce its own kind. I heard a farmer say, the first 

 year he thus selected his seed corn, he produced 

 an increase of twenty per cent, or twenty bushels 

 in every hundred of his crop. The second year 

 the increase from the second selection was not so 

 manifest, nor so great ; but his crop still improved ; 

 and when he went into his field to gather his seed 

 after three years previous careful selection, he as- 

 serted to me, that he found more stalks bearing 

 three ears than he could find of stalks bearing 

 two ears the first season he began to make the se- 

 lection. Cornucop.£. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN BRICK-MAKING. 



It is well known that bricks for our buildings 

 are often very rough, and quite unfit for handsome 

 walls ; two important improvements in the manu- 

 facture of this article have been lately made. One 

 a machine for tempering the clay better, and less 

 injuriously to the work-people. The other is a 

 machine for pressing the bricks in a half dry state, 

 which renders them greatly superior to dressed 

 bricks, and less expensive. One of the latter ma- 

 chines is now at work at Handford, and it is ex- 

 pected the other will be shortly. — English paper. 



