138 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



" What will they weigh ? " 



" They will average over 140 lbs. live weight." 



"No doubt about it. This would- make their 

 dead weight about 80 lbs." 



"How do you get at it?" 



"The English rule is to divide the 'fasted live 

 weiglit' by seven, and call it quarters; so that your 

 sheep, if they weigh 140 lbs. alive, would dress 20 

 lbs. per quarter, beside the rough fat. Lean sheep 

 will fall short of the dead weight indicated by this 

 rule, and very fat ones will exceed, it. There are 

 few sheep in this country that will come up to the 

 standard, but I will bet a life subscription to the 

 Genesee Farmer against, the jworest sheep in the 

 yard, that these sheep v/jU go ahead of it. The 

 butcher gets the advantage of good feeding, if the 

 the farmer does not." 



Let us go into another baruTvard. What com- 

 fortable open sheds these are for cattle. They are 

 worthy of good cattle, and here are cattle worthy 

 of the sheds. Look at this lot of eight steers, two 

 years old this spring. They average 1,075 lbs. live 

 weight; have had one quart of oilmeal per head 

 daily, since last fall. 



" What do you give for oilcake ?" 



" Twenty-seven dollars per ton." 



" How do you manage to get it at so low a 

 figure?" 



" By paying the cash for it, and buying it at a 



tl:ue when navigation is closed and there is little 



demand for exportation." • 



"Emeet's Journal of Agriculture says that 



American oilcake is about as nutritious as old 



cliips; that all the nutriment ispressed out of it by 



the present improved presses. What do you say to 



that?" 



"Look at the cattle and sheep, and let them 



answer. Do they look as if they had been fed on 



sawdust? Come- lip to the other yard, and look at 



ninety yearling sheep that have had half a pound 



each of oilmeal per day during the winter, and see 



if they do not tell a different story." 



"You say your two-year-olds average 1,075 lbs. 

 How do you knoAv their exact weights '' 



" I have one of- FouaTTii's Hay Scales, manufac- 

 tured in Rochester, and find it very useful for weigh- 

 ing cattle, sheep, etc., as well as for many other 

 purposes. No farmer should be without one." 



It is impossible to help admiring the order, sys- 

 tem, regularity, and thoroughness, with which 

 everything is done on this model farm. There is 

 a place for every thing, and every thing is in its 

 place. One cause 6f this is to be found in the fact 

 that Mr. Swan has on his farm several cottages 

 which he rents to his teamsters and other laborers. 

 This gives him steady, married men tliat he can 

 trust. They are hired by the year, at lower rates 



than transient hands ^ and tb^ plan is found advan- 

 tageous to both psrties. 



Let us take another look at this fifty acres of 

 wheat before we go. It will be some time lb«iforc 

 we meet with stidi another field. It is only too 

 good. It was elc^cly pastured, last fall, and until 

 the first of Januiary, ami yet n€;w it is bigger and 

 better than any wheat we have seen elsewhere this 

 year, though the wheat crop generally looks well 

 this spring. Look at tliat wheat, and you will con- 

 clude with ns that under draining, good cultivationj 

 plenty of clover, liigh feeding, and heavy manuring, 

 will pay. 



EXPERIMENTS ON INDIAN CORN, 



TuE New York State Agrici^dtnrat Society has 

 awarded the prize of seventy-five dollars for the 

 best experiment with artificial fertilizers on Indian 

 corn, to the proprietor of the Genesee Farmer. 

 Though somewhat too lengthy for our columns, we 

 copy Mr. Harris' report of his experiments entire. 

 B. P. Jonxsox, Esq. — Dear Sir : 



I send you the results of some experiments with 

 artificial "fertilizers on Indian corn. The soil on 

 which the experiments, were made is a light, sandy 

 loam. It has been under cultivation for upwards 

 of twenty years, and so for as I can ascertain has 

 never been manured. It has been some-^fhat im- 

 poverished by the growth of cereal crops, and it 

 was thought that for this reason, and on account 

 of its light texture and active character Avhich 

 would cause the manures to act innnediately, it 

 was well adapted for the purpose of showing the 

 efitct of diflerent manurial substances on the com 

 crop. 



The land was a clover sod, two years old, pas- 

 tured the ]irevious summer. It was plowed early 

 in the' spring, and liarrowed till in excellent con- 

 dition. Tlie corn was planted May 23, in hills 8i 

 feet apart each Avay. Each experiment was made 

 on the one-tenth of an acre. It would doubtlef^-^ 

 have been better to have had larger plots, but I 

 was unable to get sufficient land of similar char- 

 acter to make the requisite number of experimentrs 

 on a larger scale. Each experiment consisted of 

 four (rowl with one row between each plot without 

 any manure. 



The manures were applied in the hill immedi- 

 ately before the seed was planted.' With super- 

 phosphate of lime, and with plaster (gypsam or 

 sulphate of lime,) the seed was placed directly 

 on top of the manure, as it is well known tliat 

 these manures do not injure the genuinating prin- 

 ciple of even the smallest seeds. The ashes were 

 dropped in the hill, and then covered with soil, and 

 the seed plahted on the top so that it should not 

 come in contact with the ashes. Guano and sul- 

 phate of ammonia were treated in the same way. 

 On the plots where ashes and guano, or ashes and 

 sulphate of ' ammonia were both used, the ashes 

 were first put in the hill, and covered with soil, 

 and the guano or sulphate of ammonia placed on 

 the top and also covered with soil before tlie seed 

 was planted. The a^hes and superphosphate of 



