304 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Flaxseed, do 978 



Silk cocoons, lbs 1,515 



Home-made manufactures $562,466 



There are some other facts proven by this table, 

 to which attention might be called. One of them 

 is the large increase manifested (over two millions 

 of dollars) in the Orchard products of the State. 

 Another is the revival of the potato crop, owing 

 doubtless to the gradual diminution of losses from 

 the rot: the potato crop of the State in 1840 was 

 reported at 30,123,614 bushels ; in 1850 it was 

 scarcely one-half as large, viz., 15,398,362 bushels ; 

 in 1855 it was still somewhat smaller, 15,191,852 

 bushels; but during the five years to 1860 it had 

 taken a new start, and amounted by the cerfsus of 

 that year to 26,447,389 bushels. 



It will also be noticed that there is an increase 

 in the area rated as " improved land," amounting 

 to nearly two millions of acres for the past ten 

 years, or 16 per cent, upon the 12,408,968 acres 

 reported under this head in 1850. We have been 

 at the pains to make a careful money estimate of 

 the items in the above table, showing an increase 

 and decrease respectively, with the details of which 

 we need not now trespass upon the patience of our 

 readers. Suffica it to say, that the net pecuniary 

 returns of the agriculture of the State, are thus 

 proven to have increased in just about the same 

 ratio as the extent of land which we are cultivating 

 — showing conclusively that if the returns of our 

 crops per acre are not enlarging as we wish they 

 might, we are fully keeping them up on our old 

 lands, and constantly adding a considerable surface 

 every year to their extent. This, it must be added, 

 is done — probably by the aid of our improved ma- 

 chinery and implements — with little or no addition 

 to the farming population of the State, for that is 

 nearly stationary, the increase of three-quarters of 

 a million during the past decade having been con- 

 fined almost wholly to the enlargement of our cities. 

 The exhibit, on the whole, should therefore be 

 considered a gratifying one to the Farmers of the 

 Empire State. — Country Gentleman. 



GATHERING APPLES. 



The apple crop, this year, says the New 

 Hampshire Journal of Agriculture, will be 

 large and of good quality. Much of its valua 

 depends on the way in which it is gathered. 

 If you put off the job until the hard frosts are upon 

 your heels, and then rush into the orchard with 

 several hands, men, women and children, shake, 

 pull and haul your trees, thresh them soundly with 

 long poles — bring your fruit to the ground two- 

 thirds bruised, one-half pierced with stiff straws — 

 scramble them into barrels and knock the heads 

 hastily upon them, you will have a good long job 

 of picking out decayed apples, fall and winter, and 

 will get the lowest market price for your crop. On 

 the other hand, take the time wasted in picking 

 them over to cull out the worthless ones in winter, 

 hire help if necessary — go about your gathering 

 systematically and in order. Provide good ladders 

 and a pair or two' of high movable steps — theyare 

 easily made, if not by yourself, by any village car- 

 penter, and are always useful about the house or 

 garden. Get a smooth, light pole — two or three, 

 of various lengths, will bo convenient — take a com- 

 •- on salt bag, or, better still, have some made of 



stout ticking or drilling, and distend the opening 

 with a piece of hoop iron, bent in circular form, of 

 sufficient form to let in two or three apples at a 

 time — sharpen the outer, upper edge of the hoop. 

 Handle baskets, holding a peck or more, are also 

 very handy wben suspended by a hook on the 

 branches, while you are on the ladder or in the 

 tree. Thus armed, you first carefully pick off all 

 within reach, and put into baskets or barrels, with- 

 out bruising. And then with pole and bag attached 

 firmly to the end of it by the iron hoop, you can 

 cut off and catch apples on the tallest limbs. Of 

 course we speak of valuable orchards. All things 

 considered, the careful process is the easiest and 

 consumes no more time than the other. You get 

 good fruit, and it brings the highest price ; your 

 trees are not banged or bruised to death, nor the 

 heads of the children cracked by the falling apples. 



HIGH FARMING. 



The New York Evangelist has a sensible article 

 on the Fertilization of Soils, in which farmers are 

 recommended to try guano and superphosphate. 

 We are not prepared to say that these will pay, at 

 the present prices of produce, but the following 

 remarks we can most cordially endorse : 



" The purchase of fertilizers, in about the same 

 proportion as they increase the crops, increases the 

 natural fertilizers of the farm. The fuller the barn 

 is filled this year, the more fertilizing matters are 

 there to go back into the soil next year. The soil 

 is the farmer's bank of deposit. It is the safest 

 bank in the world if the deposits are discreetly 

 made. High farming, with large crops, is more 

 lucrative than low farming with consequently small 

 crops. We are not of those who advise rashly ; but 

 we positively believe that the majority of farmers 

 would be better satisfied and more richly rewarded 

 if they would feel their way cautiously, but not 

 very slowly, to a higher style of farming— one 

 which undoubtedly they would find more expensive 

 when they reckoned by the acre, but which we 

 verily believe would prove less costly when reck- 

 oned by the qualities produced ; less profitable 

 perhaps the first year of trying it, but pretty sure 

 to be more remunerative the second year, and still 

 more the third, and onward." 



New Mode of Catching Trout. — Levi Baetlett 

 describes in the Country Gentleman some trout 

 ponds on the farm of Col. Tappan, of Bradford, 

 N. II., and speaks also of the mode of feeding. Last 

 winter, after the ponds had frozen over, he states 

 that a boy was sent to feed the trout with chopped 

 meat. Having cut a hole through the ice and put 

 in the meat, the boy laid down with his face near 

 the water to watch the fish, when a trout grabbed 

 him by the nose, and the boy, by a sudden jerk of 

 the head, threw the fish upon the ice. He thus 

 obtained a trout of .three-fourths of a pound 

 weight, but at the expense of a sore nose for three 

 weeks. 



