172 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



Dec. 14, 1831. 



Agricultural. 



ADDRESS, 



PBI.IVERED BEFORE THE JEfFERSOX COUNTY 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



S£pr. 27, 1831. 



BY MAJOR EDMUND KIRBV. 



Concludod from page 1G5. 



Nothing marks more strikingly the jirogress in 

 iigricuUural science, than the degree of attention 

 which is paid to gardens and fruit. They consti- 

 tute a thermometer, hy which to judge the charac- 

 ter of tlie farmer. Attached to every farm house, 

 there should be a neatly cultivated garden, with a 

 eompartment allotted to vegetables, another to 

 choice fruit, and a third to shrubbery and flowers, 

 which last should he under the exclusive direction 

 of the female part of the family. This may be 

 attained without any interference with the ordinary 

 work of the farm, and besides being a great orna- 

 ment, would constitute a source of substantial 

 enjoyment, to all the inmates of the house. A 

 little attention to the garden, loads the table of the 

 laboring man with the choicest delicacies of the 

 vegetable world, supplying at once a cheap and 

 wholesome diet ; and affording a deli^dltflll retreat 

 for the family in the hours of relaxation from 

 work. 



In the early stages of the settlement of the 

 • ounty, attention was mainly directed to provide 

 the necessaries of life, and an almost total disre- 

 gard of its refinements and delicacies prevailed. 

 Hence it is, that our farms and gardens are so 

 icantily stocked with fruit trees. Public attention, 

 liowever, is awakening to this deficiency, as the 

 numerous young and thrifty orchards in every di- 

 rection testify ; but upon this subject much re- 

 mains to be done ; for it i= ""* suflicicnt to jilant 

 orchards oi seedling trees, and then leave tlicm to 

 the sole care of nature, to be overrun with grass, 

 moss, and shoots from the roots ; or to be brows- 

 ed by cattle, and fiunlly to become black-hearted 

 and die of premature old age. Young fruit trees 

 require as much attention as young corn, to pre- 

 serve them in a healthy state. The ground should 

 be manured and kept loose around the roots, in 

 order to give them an opportunity to expand and 

 impart vigor to the stock. They should be care- 

 fully pruned, at the proper season, which, in this 

 climate, is not till after the leaf begins to open in 

 the spring ; and finally, if not already done in the 

 nursery, they should be grafted or inoculated, with 

 elioicc varieties, so as to supply the table through 

 »he various seasons of the year. 



There are several nurseries in the county, espe- 

 cially that of Mr Hepp, in Le Ray, from wliich 

 good selections, of grafted fruit, may be made ; 

 we may also resort, with great facility, to the ex- 

 cellent nursery of Judge Buel, at Albany, which 

 is situated in a climate not unlike our own, and 

 trees from them succeed admirably here. This 

 nursery has been formed under the care of a gen- 

 tleman distinguished for scienlific and practical 

 attainments, who has been at infinite |)ains in col- 

 lecting, both from Europe and America, the most 

 valuable varieties of every kind of fruit, suited to 

 the climate. These can be procured from him, 

 <ipon the most reasonable terms : and by means of 

 the Erie and Oswego canals, may be brought, at 

 a trifling expense, into the pentre of the county, 

 without any of the damage arising from land car- 

 riage. 



We may row name the grape among our most 

 sure and productive fruits. It is but little more 

 than four years since the foreign varieties of this 

 excellent fruit were, through the instrumentality 

 of your President, introduced to any considerable 

 extent, into the county ; and this year the crop 

 is most abundant, wherever those vines were dis- 

 seminated. Our warmest acknowledgments are 

 due to that gentleman, for the enlightened and 

 persevering zeal, with which he h»s advocated this 

 culture, contending against indifference and preju. 

 dice, till a high degree of success has crowned 

 the effort. 



I am not so sanguine as some, who suppose 

 that we shall at once enter upon the business of 

 making wine : this may follow. But 1 regard the 

 grape as a most valuable acquisition to our table 

 fruits. It is as easy of cultivation as the currant, 

 with a little additional care in trimming, pruning, 

 and laying down the vineg, all of which opera- 

 tions will not occu])y time enough to be taken into 

 the account. Of the numerous varieties of na- 

 tive and foreign grapes, in bearing in the county, 

 all have uniformly remained unaffected by blight 

 or mildew, which prove so destructive to most of 

 the foreign varieties, in many parts of the country. 

 This we probably owe to some peculiarity in our 

 soil, or climate, hitherto unexplained.* 



On land recently cleared, the stumps form a 

 serious obstacle to cultivation. They occupy a 

 considerable jiortion of the ground, and are ex- 

 ceedingly unsightly. The common hard wood 

 stumps, forming the mass of our for(;sls, decay 

 and disappear in a few years, hut the pine and 

 hendock, with their roots spreading wide upon the 

 surface, remain for ages, a great annoyance to the 

 ploughman : their removal, therefore, is worthy 

 of serious consideration. Pratt's Stump Exlrac. 



comiiaratively liitle expense, and l>y convening 

 them into fences, where they will answer n useful 

 purpose for years, they are made themselves to 

 repay the expense of removal. 



I estimate that two hundred and forty such 

 stumps, prevent the idou^h from taking cffiict upon 

 an acre of ground. With the above machine, 

 they may be taken entirely out of the eath, wiili 



•The adaptation of our soil and climate to the produc- 

 tion of the grape, is now placed beyond a doubt, by the 

 uniform success which has attended the cultiiie of nu- 

 merous native and foreign varieties, in almost every kind 

 of soil and exposition, in all parts of ibe county ; as 

 well of the foreign varieties, introduced from the nur- 

 series at Albany and New York, as of ihose imporled 

 directly from France by Mr Le Ray de Chaumont and dis 

 Iributod gratuilou.sly among the members ol this society. 

 Of ihese~ last, a vine, the Meunier, in Major Brown's 

 garden in Brownville, a cutting four years ago, produ- 

 ced two hundred fine clusters last year, and more than 

 three hundred this season. General Lawrence of Brown- 

 ville, presented loMr Le Ray, thirlyninc beautiful clus- 

 ters from a vine in his garden of those distributed and 

 planted last year. Among the great variety exhibited 

 upon the day of the Fair, all ol which were perfectly 

 r'ipe and of delicious flavor, were several clusters of the 

 white Sweetwater, weighing more than a pound each, 

 from vines in Judge Ten Kyck's garden at Watertown, 

 planted but two years ago. Clusters of white, black, 

 and purple grapes were exhibited from the g;arden at Le 

 Raysville ; some the produce of a vine planted tlircc 

 year-s ago, which gave several clusters the very first 

 year, more the second, and no less than fiftysix this 

 season. In Europe, vines rarely bear the first year, but 

 when they do they fail the second year. None o( these 

 vines are trained against walls. — Doctor Guthrie of Sack- 

 etts Harbor, one of the most successfirl cultivators of 

 thi grape in the county, contemplates going extensively 

 into the vineyard culture of the vine. 



all their roots, at twelve and a half cents each ; 

 and they may be removed to the borders of the 

 field, anrl formed into a fence for as much more. 

 — Placed upon their sides cOTiliguous to each 

 other they at once form a barrier against horses 

 and cattle, and hy trirrtming in the straggling rnolB, 

 they may readily be made gooil against sheep and 

 swine. Two stirmps will make n rod, and the 

 fence is better looking, and occupies less ground 

 than the common rail fence. Thus then, if this 

 estimate be true, which I have reason to believe 

 to he so, from recetrt iirquiry in the county of 

 Washington, where this machine is in full opera- 

 tion, and where the stumps form one of the most 

 common kinds of fence, for sixty dollars, an acre 

 of Inird may be brought into use in our best fields, 

 and a hundred and twenty rods of good fence con- 

 structed, to say nothing of the great embellieh- 

 meut the farm will receive hy the operation. 



A great benefit derived from our free institu- 

 tioirs, and one best calculated to perpetuate them, 

 is lire general iliffusion of intelligence among the 

 lahirrirrg classes through the press. By this meaits, 

 all the operations of goveriiiitent are made to pai?s 

 it) review before us. — Within a few years, several 

 paper* have been established, in different parts of 

 the country, ilevoted exclusively to the interests 

 of our vocation, marking distinctly, a new era in 

 the agriculture of the country. — It is no longer 

 considered a pursuit, adapted to the meanest ca- 

 pacity, to be enrbraccd hy those oidy, who cannot 

 obtain a livelihood by any other means. Men of 

 capital and education, are devoting themselves to 

 it, and having become familiar with its details, 

 they, through this channel, shed the lights of 

 science upon our path, and place our profession 

 upon its true elevation. 



Among the most efficient agents in this good 



■^l„k.»lf lU^ X''n.,7 1^npl.,n,l Po'r.,,^.-, puLlioliCll nt 



Boston, the Genesee Farmer, at Rocliester, and 

 the New York Farmer, at New York. These pa- 

 pers are filled with valuuble information upon all 

 the details of husbandry ami domestic economy, 

 and form a cheap mode of conveying instruction 

 upon the operations, from which we draw our sub- 

 sistence. Experiments upon various modes of 

 culture arc detailed with accuracy which enables 

 us to embrace irnprovetncnts with confidence ; 

 while we are wanted against frrihrres. They con- 

 tain also ample directions fiir the management of 

 fruit trees ; a subject upon which wo are singularly 

 deficient. 



Three bushels of wlieat will pay the yearly 

 stihscription to either of these papers, anil would 

 form a judicious exchange for the farmer, for I 

 think that no one can habitually read one of them, 

 without deriving instruction from it to ten times 

 the value of its cost. 



Prudence, perhaps, admonishes me not to ap- 

 proach a subject, which has been heretofore re- 

 peatedly urged upon your notice from this place, 

 without awakening that interest which its impor- 

 tance demands. But, when I recollect to what 

 slight circumstances, we owe the introduction of 

 some of the most valuable staples of the country, 1 

 am encouraged to make a few rciirarks upon the silk 

 worm; a culture which bids fair, at no distant 

 day, to afford eiiiployment to a numerous class ol 

 our population. 



The thrifty appearance of several young nur- 

 series of the white mulberry, which furnishes 

 the food of the silk worm, shows that the tre« 

 may be cultivated among us, without difficulty ; 



