No. 7. 



Sketches from the Budget of an Ex-Farmer. 



2ig 



miglit have supposed) lliorcby had at least 

 equal advantag^e with the juljacent bone dust 

 larnep land, both the barley and prass crops 

 were evidently inferior, and this continued to 

 be observable until the ticld was apain piouirh- 

 ed up. A very bulky crop of oats has hecii 

 reaped this season, probably upwards of eijjht 

 bolls per acre, but no part of it is yot threshed. 

 Turneps raised with bone manure and fed 

 off with sheep, Capt. Osrilvy states, has now 

 become a regular part of the system on his 

 ftrni. F^very person the least acquainted with 

 the management of a farm, of which a con- 

 siderable proportion consists of lij^ht, dry, 

 sandy loam, at a distance from town manure, 

 must be aware of the importance of this, fron) 

 knowing the expense at which such land 

 was formerly kept in a fair state of cultiva- 

 tion." J, L. J. 

 Newcastle Co. Del., Jan. 1, 1839. 



For llic Farmers" Cabinet. 

 SKETCHES FROM THE BUDGET OF AN EX-FARMER. 



NO. II. 

 EXPERIMENTS. 



E.xperiments, when conducted on a moder- 

 ate scale, and with an eye to what the farmer 

 can aflbrd to loose, ought to be encou ragged. 

 It is throunjh them that much that is truly val- 

 uable to society has been discovered, and it is 

 from the spread in^^ of the disposition which 

 prompts practical men to undertake them, 

 that we may reasonably hope for further im- 

 provements in agriculture. But experiments 

 should be directed to some valuable end, and 

 judg-ment should never be lost sight of, either 

 in the projecting or carrying them into exe- 

 cution. In elucidation of what I mean, I will 

 relate two occurrences which took place in 

 ♦' our neighborhood" when I was a tiller of the 

 6oil. The first was 



AN EXPERIMENT ON ORCHARD GRA.S.S. 



One of our neighbors, an aged relative of 

 mine, was a man of a sound head, pleasant 

 tnanners, and a kindly heart. He had a ftm- 

 ilyof more intelligence and literary taste than 

 was to be f5i\md elsewhere in the neighborhood; 

 whilst I write, the remembrance of the many 

 pleasant evenings I have enjoyed with them 

 when the family circle was unbroken, rises up 

 and demands this tribute of affection. Knowl- 

 edge and intelligence never hurt a farmer, or 

 a farmer's wife, and where these are found 

 united in each of them, there is as much of 

 the aorreeable in their ingatherinirs round the 

 social fire as is to be found in th^ more dis- 

 turbed domestic groups which collect in the 

 city. This worthy friend once informed me 

 that he had been conducting an experiment 

 touching the relative value of the natural 

 grasses, and orchard grass to his dairy. He 



had kept all his milch cows for one week in a 

 fine piece of meadow-land, abounding in a va- 



j ricty of the good natural gra.sses, and had 

 had the milk obtained from thom set by itself. 

 The cream from this ho had reynlarly collect- 

 ed, and at the clo.se of the week, churned, and 

 the butter carefully weighed. The next week 

 he pastured the same cattle entirely on his 

 orchard grass. He proceeded in the collec- 

 tion of the cream and the churning to follow 

 the plan he had adopted the previous week. 

 When the weight of the butter came to be 

 compared, a very perceptible difference was 

 found in favor of the orchard grass. When I 

 contemplated relating the result of this experi- 

 ment, I endeavored to obtain frotn the family the 

 exactdifl'erencein the weightofthe butter, but 

 they had not reduced it to writing at the time, 

 and could not undertake to remember with suffi- 

 cient accuracy to warrant an insertion. The 

 difl^eronce was however plainly marked. — 

 This circumstance, together with observations 

 made nearer home, gave to my mind an im- 

 pression in favor of orchard grass, which no- 

 thing but the irregularity of its appearance 

 on most of the farms I have visited, ever 

 tempted me to relinquish. 



This is a specimen of a simple experiment 

 directed to useful end.s, and is such an one as 

 most farmers can imitate. But we had ano- 

 ther class of cxperimentors, the result of 

 wliose iavestigations were neither very pro- 

 fitable to themselves or their neighbors. We 

 had one bitten with the old mania of perpetual 

 motion ; another showed his intention of grow- 

 ing rich by buying many things at vendues 

 which he did not need, because they were 

 cheap. Some were experimenting on the possi- 

 bil ity of improving poor soils by putting on them 

 expensive houses, and stately barns instead of 

 manure. These did not succeed much better 



I than two brothers of my acquaintance, who 



I purchased a blood horse for |;250, and who 

 experimented the sight from his eyes, and the 



I flesh from his ribs, by trying the effect oi over 

 driving, and under feeding. The most ex- 

 traordinary occurrence, however, which took 

 place in our vicinity, I shall designate 



AN ORIGINAL EXPERIMENT FOR RAISING ONE- 

 SELF IN THE WORLD. 



had a strong propensity for 



unusual experiment", but I have not heard 

 that any of them ever .succeeded, excepting 

 the one whose history I am now about to re- 

 late. He had contrived to make himself mas- 

 ter of some half a dozen live turkey buzzards, 

 and the idea of making them lend their aid 

 in elevating his own person dawned upon his 

 mind. After properly securing them he had 

 them conveyed to the spot from which he had 

 concluded to lake his flight. Having fastened 

 a rope around each so as not to impede the 



