22 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



of it is immoral. All that may be true By the 

 same rule it might be objected to the raising of 

 corn and rye,because from them they distill whiskey 

 bo of hops and barley — because they are con- 

 verted into lager beer— grapes or its juice into 

 brandy Some one has said that man was a bun- 

 dle of habits, and such is the force of one of these 

 habits, that some persons, if they can not purchase 

 tobacco, will beg it— if they can not be" it will 

 steal it it they can. I hold that it is better to 

 grow it than to obtain it by either of the above- 

 named means. Therefore I go in for raising the 

 weed, and adv.se others, if they can't get along 

 without it, to do likewise. Any one that can raise 

 good cabbages can raise tobacco. Those who wish 

 to go into its culture on a large scale will find ample 

 directions in the Genesee Farmer, May, 1861, p. 144. 



THE WAR AND THEHARVEST IN AMERICA. 

 The Marh Lane Express has an article on this 

 subiect from which we make a few extracts : 



The war at present carried on between the Nor- 

 thern and Southern States has not influenced the 

 American grain production of the present year 

 although it can hardly fail to do so in another" sea- 

 son should the conflict continue. 



Why the war has not influenced the American 

 grain production of the present year may be satis- 

 lactonly explained, ,f this really stands in need of 

 explanation President Lincoln's election took 

 place in last November, and his inauguration was 

 ' n £ r fi ? e fore the first-named tinfe the winter 

 wheat had all been sown, and in March, April and 

 May there was no likelihood of the so-called rebels 

 being able to keep the field. Farming operations 

 were therefore undisturbed, and a breadth even 

 greater than that of the previous year was every- 

 where throughout the northwest planted in the 

 spring with corn, and sown out with wheat, oats 

 and barley. To production on an unusually We 

 scale nothing then was requisite but a favoring 

 season, and that was not wanting. The summer 

 was propitious, the autumn not less so, and if in 

 some districts the corn crop has suffered from early 

 frost the same thing happened last year, and in 

 fact happens every year. In the best of seasons in 

 America, as in the best of seasons here in England 

 there , ji .always some unlucky place or other on 



of the professional Yankee harvester, who wil 

 clear his fields at so much an acre, or at so much 

 per bushel tor the threshed-out grain. Undei 

 such circumstances no difficulty whatever could 

 arise in the gathering and housing of the Ameri- 

 can crop ; and even in those cases where the servi- 

 ces of a professional harvester can not be obtained 

 those cases in which there are no McOormick reap- 

 ers, and not the usual supply of labor, anything 

 hke impossibility of gathering can hardly be con- 

 ceived. The American farmer has always the 

 choicest weather at harvest time, which lasts long 

 enough to enable those ordinarily employed about! 

 farm to clear one held after another at their leisure 

 _ 1 lie war, instead of having diminished the Amer- 

 ican grain production of the present year, may 

 rather on the contrary, be considered to have 

 added to it most materially. For the war the peo- 

 ple of the Southern States prepared themselves- 



and one of the ways in which they did so was to 

 plant a greater breadth of corn and sow a greater 

 breadth of wheat. There are no means of arriv- 

 ing at a knowledge of the extent of their opera- 

 tions; but that an excessive Southern crop has 

 been harvested is beyond dispute. Only the other 

 day, some of the ships captured by the blockading 

 force oft .New Or eans were carrying corn to Cuba 

 and the West India Islands; and had there been a 

 scarcity in the South such a traffic would of course 

 have been disallowed. Threatened with scarcity 

 and with the usual sources of supply cut off in the 

 border States or become precarious, an embargo 

 would unquestionably have been laid on the South- 

 ern export trade in grain had the seceded States 

 not for once been provided in excess of their pro- 

 spective wants ; and thus the war has occasioned 

 wha ; may be called a double American supply 

 lhe Southern planters have exerted themselves not 

 only to produce a crop of cotton, but a crop of 

 gram; and that they have succeeded is not only 

 attested by the fact that the South is able to export 

 gram to Cuba, but letters from the Southern States 

 and particularly from the seat of war in Virginia' 

 speak of the Confederate troops as being abun- 

 dantly supplied with food. In former years the 

 South depended on Missouri and Kentucky for a 

 large portion of its grain supplies, and as this year 

 i is enabled, and practically obliged, to depend on 

 itself alone, it is highly probable that were the war 



which the snn h«.« a i„ IT J F V °" m on ♦ i ' JUfeJUy P rol ™bIe that were the war 



tiaras 1 had too^ii vz z£°v™ m** , r;:; 1 ,^!^ sl** •&*- .<* *« %* 



that has had too much or too little rain, or son e- 

 Sr?L! 'V bUt SU , C1 ' occurre nces are accidental, 

 and not untrequently are more than covered by un- 

 usual productiveness in other parts. Nor 'have 

 military operations in the field interfered with 

 the gathering and housing of the western and 

 noithern crop. A large proportion of the floating 

 and even of the staid industrial population las 

 been attracted from the usual pursuits of peace 

 and the labor market as a consequence has been 

 more or less disturbed, but the American fanner 

 has long since availed himself to the utmost of 

 McOormick and others. Harvesting in America 

 by the time-honored hand-hook has long been dis- 

 used and even the scythe has yielded to the con- 

 v ?,J?S a i ,d t, . ,r « sl ".»^vapor. In those cases in 

 which the American farmer is too poor to possess 

 a reaper, he may borrow from his neighbor on 



would be heaped upon us, but the abundance of 

 he South would also find its way from Savannah 

 aud New Orleans. When the war was inevitable, 

 it w .11 be remembered that, to prevent miscarriage 

 many of the cotton planters took out the cotton 

 and planted corn-a sacrifice at once evincing the 

 germination ol the South, and of itself accounting 

 for the South becoming a grain-producing country.* 

 Thus for the present the American war is scarce- 

 ly calculated to excite uneasiness as to the supply 

 of grain m Europe. Probability is on the side of 

 an early peace, and with peace* the grain held by 

 South and North and West would be sent to mar- 

 ket T\ ere the war, however, to be carried into 

 another year, ^ndthe great Western grain-produc- 



»™^?n English contemporary °'ew»Hniates the a- 

 easy terms, or avail himself of the^ervices ! ^^ 



