liZ 



THE farmers' cabinet. 



VOL. I. 



method is much practised in the lower coun- 

 ticB of this state; though not by good farmers 

 until they have applied lime as the basis of 

 melioration. By this management they have 

 raised their lands from an impoverished state, 

 produced by injudicious cropping, to such a 

 state of fertility, as 1 am informed, to enable 

 them to fatten a bullock of six hundred 

 weight on an acre, and to cut grass from the 

 same acre sufficient to winter another. 



Sandy soils are greatly improved by the 

 use of lime. I lately purchased some of 

 that kind, which was originally covered with 

 chestnut timber, and was called mountain 

 land. It has been cleared seventy years; but 

 lying a distance from the farm buildings, had 

 never rpceived any manure but a dressing of 

 lime. This land I have had repeatedly farm- 

 ed since I owned it; and alihough to appear- 

 ance it seemed to be almost a cnpuf nwrtuum, 

 with the aid of ten or twelve four-horse loads 

 of the gleanings of a yard of a public house, 

 it has produced as much, and as good, wheat, 

 rye, oats, timothy, and clover to the acre, as 

 any land in the township in which it lays. I 

 consider the liming which it had fifty years 

 ago as the principal cause of its fertility. 



It is a general opinion amongst good farm- 

 ers, that liming should be repeated every 

 ten or fifteen years, and that the increased 

 crops richly compensate the expense. It mat- 

 ters very little how it is applied, provided it 

 is evenly spread immediately after it is slack- 

 ed. If suffered to air-slack, or to lie after it 

 has been water-slacked, it re-imbibes car 

 bonic acid, which the fire had expelled, be- 

 comes lumpy, and is more difficult to be in 

 corporated with the soil. Some spread it 

 upon the sod and plough it under, and think 

 they have as much profit from it in this way 

 as in the other. Whe . thus applied, it power- 

 fully contributes to decompose the tougher 

 fibres of the sod, and to convert them into 

 nutriment for the crop. 



Ifew IiiventBons — American In- 

 stitute. 



A New York paper, (The Times) gives the 

 following account of some of the Inventions 

 exhibited at the Fair of the American Insti- 

 tute in that city; particularly those for ob. 

 taining power, and those adapted to agricul- 

 tural purposes. " We shall," says the Editor, 

 "commence with the former, it being the most 

 important article in mechanics, and in our 

 poor opinion capable of great improvement. 

 The present expensive and hazardous mode of 

 procuring it by steam, or by the isolated 

 principle of locating on a run of water, ren- 

 dering the cost for the purchase and transpor- 

 tation of fuel, and of sending grain and goods 

 to the mills, and from thence to market, so 

 ^eat as almost to overbalance the benefit 



that is derived from them- There are two 

 articles at the Fair which will go a great way 

 towards remedying the evil, at least for all 

 the common purposes of life, viz: Gleason's 

 self-supporting Portable Horse Power Ma- 

 chine, and Barton's Suction and Forcing 

 Pump. 'J'he former is a machine about 3 feet 

 by lU, calculated for one horse, or it can be 

 made to any width, and for as many horses 

 as may be desired. It is a chain composed 

 of a species of cog-wheels, and skillfully 

 arranged so as to act upon each other. There 

 is a fiuor composed of various pieces of pine 

 or oak, detached, one for each cog. On this 

 the horse is placed, being secured by sides. 

 He has but to tread on the floor, forming a 

 slightly inclined plane, and tiie machine is 

 kept continually revolving under him. The 

 full weight and strength of the horse is thus 

 brought to bear, without in the least fatiguing 

 him, and which, aided by well-applied ma- 

 chinery, produces great power. The cost of 

 the machine is but $150, and comes within 

 the means of every farmer and every person 

 requiiing machine power, to purchase. There 

 were several machines at the Fair for which 

 the invention is incalculably beneficial, both 

 agricultural and mechanical. At this expen- 

 sive time for all the necessaries of life, when 

 a six cent loaf is only sufficient, with the et 

 celeras, for one hearty boy's breakfast, when 

 good beef is selling in our markets at 15 1-2 

 cents, pork 14 1-2 cents per lb.; butter 34 

 cents per lb., and other articles of food in pro- 

 portion, and when we are threatened with ? 

 rising market, it is well that we should first 

 glance at that calculated to support the stafi 

 of life. 



At the Fair there were machines for thrash- 

 ing,winnovving and grinding grain; there was 

 also a machine for forming the flour into 

 bread, and all that was required to complete 

 it was the patent baking apparatus which if 

 now in use, but which had a good substitute 

 in one of Pierce's Kitchen ranges, which has 

 been in great demand, and done wonders, in 

 the culinary line, at the Fair. The power and 

 ability of the machines may be known, from 

 the fact that good bread was made from the 

 grain on the straw in 13 minutes, having gone 

 through the various processes of being thrash- 

 ed (or the wheat taken from the straw,) win- 

 nowed or sifted, (separating the wheat from 

 the chalf) ground into flour, kneaded into 

 dough, formed into biscuits, and baked ready 

 for the table. 



Attached to the power machine was one of 

 Warren's Patent Thrashing IMachines, the 

 cost of which is but 25 dollars, and which, 

 with the aid of the machine, (requiring but 

 one horse to work it,) will thrash from 75 to 

 100 bushels of wheat per day. — There are 

 also machines of this invention calculated for 



