320 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 6 



orders sent to distant places ; and when brought in 

 vessels, and of course in large bulks, heating could 

 scarcely be avoided to such extent as would impair 

 the value of seed. These dangers, still more than the 

 high price, will forbid importations of seed from Eu- 

 rope, or from the north-western states, where the crops 

 are good. Still, in some particular cases, one or both 

 these means of supply may be advantageously used. 



We advise our brother farmers, to buy good seed, if 

 possible to obtain such of their neighbors, at almost 

 any price, rather than to sow very bad seed. If none 

 can be bought that is materially better than what the 

 farmer has made, his next best course is to separate for 

 seed the heaviest and most perfect grains of his entire 

 crop, bj- repeated and very hard fanning. One twenti- 

 eth, or one tenth, of a ver}' bad crop, thus selected, 

 may furnish tolerable seed ; and the labor required, and 

 the injury caused to the sample of the remainder of the 

 crop, left for sale,will be of but little moment, compar- 

 ed to the value secured in the next crop. 



The next palliative is to be sparing of seed : not by 

 sowing any land too thinly — but by sowing no more 

 land than is well worth being put in wheat. Those 

 farmers whose land, or whose locality, causes the wheat 

 crop to be generally of little (if any) profit, would do 

 well to abandon the crop entirely. There is always 

 much more land put in wheat than ouglit to be: and 

 many farmers will be profited ultimately by this most 

 disastrous season, if the loss now sustained should tea,ch 

 them that wheat is not their proper market crop. 

 Lime in some form, and to a certain though very mo- 

 derate amount, is required to produce wheat: and 

 when a soil is supplied with very little more than the 



minimum of lime absolutely lequisite for wheat, the 

 growth will always be very precarious, and will seldom, 

 and only in good seasons, return any clear profit. On 

 good soils, supplied by nature with this valuable in- 

 gredient, (in some form,) and on the worst soils, which 

 may be supplied with calcareous matter by the indus- 

 try of man, wheat will always be one of the most 

 valuable crops of our countr3^ On lands naturally 

 poor, (and still more if sandy,) and to which lime will 

 not, or cannot be applied, the sooner wheat is abandon- 

 ed the better. 



THE SEASON AKD STATE OF CROPS. 



Though there has been some suffering from drought 

 at particular times, the season has contmued to be re- 

 markable for the quantity of rain. Corn on high land 

 is better than an average crop — and much worse on 

 lovvgrounds. The rich and extensive lowgrounds on 

 the Roanoke, on which the corn was all destroyed by 

 freshets, have been again planted, as late as in July. 

 The new growth is good — and promises a large pro- 

 duct for such late planting, unless cut off by early 

 frosts. Even half a crop upon such an extensive body 

 of very fertile land, must have considerable effect on 

 the profits of that region of country, and on the gene- 

 ral supply of the corn markets of Virginia and Nortii 

 Carolina. Tobacco is of average growth — and the 

 quantity made in Virginia, will be unusually large, 

 owing to the circumstance that the high price has 

 caused a great increase of the extent of land usually 

 cultivated in that crop. Cotton is of good growth, but 

 is backward, and the entire crop can scarcely mature 

 w^ell on any land in Virginia. 



Table of €onteuts of WarmersP Mc^ister, JTo, S, ¥1*1. IT*. 



ORIGINAL COaiMUAICATIOIS'S. 



Improvement of worn land - Page 260 



Different effects, compared, of the green sand, 



calcareous marl, and the mixture of both 276 



Legislative action required to aid Agriculture, 



No. I. Agricultural professorships - 231 



No. II. Board of agriculture — Agricultural tours 284 

 On the use of the Osage Orange as food for silk- 

 worms ..... 285 

 Fragments of my memorandum book - - 286 

 Pise versus mud walls ... 289 

 Remarks on Professor Ducatel's Geological Sur- 

 vey of the Eastern Shore of Maryland - 800 

 Report on the navigation of the Upper Roanoke 



by means of steam boats of shallow draught 306 

 Which is the best route, through Virginia, for a 



railway to the south-west? - - - 309 



On curing tobacco .... 313 



Remarks on the (supposed) gypsum discover- 

 ed in New York, and the probable existence 

 of a similar substance in western Virginia 314 



Proceedings of the Mineralogicai Society of 



Virginia ..... 315 



On the effects of long continued use of clover 

 t- and gypsum without other manure - - 317 



Commercial report .... 319 



Wheat of the last crop generally unsafe for seed 319 

 Season and state of crops ... 320 



SELECTIONS. 



Treatise on the formation of animals - - 257 



Page. 



Silk culture proposed at Cape Floritla - 25y 



To fatten fowls in four or five days . - 260 



Mineral manures. — Application of marl - 261 



Electrical shock from a sheet of paper - - 266 



Different kinds and qualities of the mulberry 266 



Beet root sugar .... 267 



Steam versus water .... 26!) 



Price of Chinese Mulberry ... 270 



Marble cement .... 271 

 New mode of overcoming steep inclined planes 



on railways . - - . . 271 



Advantages of manual labor schools - - 271 

 On the manufacture of beet sugar in the United 



States - - . - .278 

 Adulteration of milk in the city of New York 279 

 Hay and haymaking - - - - 279 

 Gurney's safety method of lighting mines - 290 

 Extracts from the Geological Survey of Mary- 

 land - - . - - 292 

 Steam plough .... 300 

 Agricultural jurisprudence ... 301 

 Tarring fruit trees injurious .... 301 

 Breeding of cattle in Chili - - - 301 

 Raising chickens .... 302 

 Practical uses of Geology ... 302 

 List of patents issued iii December, for agricul- 

 tural iin;)lements, &.C., with remarks - 302 

 i he use of cruslied bones as manure - - 304 

 Agriculture in Rhode Island ... 305 

 Implement for milking cows ... 318 



