THE' GENESEE FARMER. 



SOS 



the energy and enterprise shown, that every ohsta- 

 ele has heen surmounted, and a State Fair held that 

 would do credit to any of the older States. 



HoKSES were hrought out in vast numbers, nearly 

 two hundred in all— every known breed being rep- 

 resented. 



Cattle abounded on every hand, there being 

 over 200 entries, embracing the best animals of 

 and some from other States. 



The show of sheep and also of hogs were very 

 large, and of excellent quality. 



Mules and Jacks were largely shoAvn and are 

 duly appreciated as the most profitable of farm 

 stock for general team purposes. 



Ageioulttjeal Implements were the centre of 

 attraction, as they are of excellence and usefulness. 

 It is not possible to particularize. 



The people, however, made the grand feature, 

 and were the admired of a^l admirers, the real live 

 Hoosiers and their cousins, the "rest of mankind." 



Vermont and Maine have held fairs during the 

 mouth, but we have no accurate data from which 

 to speak concerning them. We hear that of the 

 Green Mountain State was good. 



GREELEY ON THE NEEDS OF AMERICAN AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



HoKAOE Greeley recently delivered a lecture on 

 '• the Needs of American Agriculture," before the 

 Fayette County Agricultural Society, at Conners- 

 ville, Indiana. Though differing somewhat from 

 Mr. Greeley, on some scientific points, we think 

 his lecture eminently useful and suggestive, one 

 which we should like to see in the hands of every 

 farmer in the United States. The principal needs 

 ©■f American Agriculture, according to Mr. G., are; 



I. " An adequate conception by farmers of the 

 nature and the worth of their vocation." 



II. A correction of the common error that farm- 

 ing is an affair of muscle only, and that the best 

 farmer is he who delves and grubs from daylight 

 to dark and from the first of January to the last of 

 December. You will not, I am sure, interpret me 

 as undervaluing industry, diligence, force; cer- 

 tainly, you will not believe me to commend that 

 style of farming which leaves time for loitering 

 away sunny hours in bar-rooms and for attending 

 every auction, horse-race, shooting-match, or mon- 

 key-show that may infest the township. I know 

 right well that he who would succeed in any pur- 

 suit nmst carefully husband his time, making eveiy 

 hour count. What I maintain is, that, while every 

 horn- has its duties, they are not all muscular ; and 

 that the farmer who would wisely and surely thrive 

 must have time for mental improvements as well as 

 for physical exertion. I know there are farmers 

 who decline to take regularly any newspaper, even 

 una devoted to Agricultui-e, because they say they 

 can't aflbrd it, or have no time to read it. I say no 



farmer can afford to be without one. To attempt 

 it, is a blunder and a loss. 



III. The third need, in brief, is to fence well, 

 plow deeper, manure, sow earlier, till more tho- 

 roughly, and keep down the weeds more vigorously . 

 "It seems tolerably clear," says Mr. G., "that a 

 soil that contains ninety per cent, of the elements 

 of a bounteous harvest will better reward the addi- 

 tion of the remaining ten per cent, than one con- 

 taining from twenty to forty per cent, of those, 

 elements wiU reward any application whatever." 

 We are not sure that we understand this ; but if 

 we are to understand that rich land will pay for 

 manuring better than poor land, we think it a mis- 

 take. The farmers of Maryland can certainly us«i 

 guano with more profit than the farmers on the 

 rich soils of the west. 



IV. We need more science. " We ought to hav« 

 a thousand patient observers and careful recorder* 

 of Agricultural phenomena where we now have a 

 dozen ; each school district should have its chemi- 

 cal laboratory and circle of experiments ; demon- 

 strations should be multiplied, sifted, collated, until, 

 in the crucible of genius, a true science of Agricul- 

 ture should gradually be evolved — a science which 

 shall ultimately teach the farmei* to buy or combin* 

 just such fertilizers as his particular soil needs, and 

 such forms and quantities as are precisely adapted 

 to its needs." 



V. Farmers should acquire a knowledge of Entt»- 

 mology, or the laws of insect life. " Our Agricul- 

 ture is in danger of local if not general destruction 

 through the multiplication and ravages of devasta- 

 tors too numerous and too disgusting or contemp- 

 tible to be singly exterminated, yet whose conjoint 

 attacks upon us are more formidable and more 

 destructive than those of any human adversary. 

 Our grandfathers dreaded and loathed the Hessian 

 soldiers brought over to subdue or slaughter them ■ 

 but what were there devastations to those of the 

 Hessian Fly? The frogs of Egypt, the clouds of 

 locusts that often strip the southern and eastern 

 coasts of the Mediterranean bare of every green 

 leaf, begin to be pai-alleled by the Grasshopper 

 pests of our remoter prairies. The Midge, the 

 Weevil, the Chinch-bug, the Fly, are rendering the 

 cultivation of our great Bread staple every year 

 more precarious, and its yield more and more 

 meager. Caterpillars and other vermin infest, in- 

 jure, and ultimately destroy our fruit trees. Grabs 

 and wireworms devour our seed in the ground : 

 bugs are equally pernicious to our melons ; and it 

 is now pretty well settled that the Potato Rot and 

 the Oat-Rust are the work of minute, but none the 

 less destructive, insects. (?) The improvement and 

 careful use of the Microscope will doubtless prove 

 in time that scores of mysteries and inscrutable 

 diseases, to which not only plants but animals fall a 

 prey, have a kindred origin. And these devasta- 

 tions are palpably increasing in extent and miscLiel 

 with each recurring year. We must arrest and 

 repel them, or the farmer's vocation will bo ruined, 

 and thousands perish for lack of 'food. 



The vulgar error that nothing can be effectually 

 done to stop these ravages — that insects must be 

 allowed to come when they will, do what they like 



