SOS 



THE GENl^^SEE . FARMER. 



NOTES FOR THE MONTH.— BY S. W. 



A Coarse Silioious Fertile Soil. — The Forth 

 Manitou is a fine island, twelve miles by six ; its 

 ridges are nearly 200 feet above the level of the 

 lake ; its shores a light yellow sand, pebbles, and 

 small boulders; and in proof of the absence of 

 alumina, even in the substratum, the water of the 

 lake among all these islands is transparent, and the 

 deep anchorage is on stone and sand. Yet the 

 whole area of the island is a dense forest of large, 

 tall beeches and maples, with very few evergreens ; 

 and here was growing, near the wood-wharf, in 

 very coarse loose sand, without manure or the 

 least coloring of vegetable humus in the soil, a 

 large crop of millet, with long, full-eared stalks, 

 now nearly ripe on this 2d of September ; and in 

 the next large field corn was maturing on this same 

 coarse yellow sand. I now picked large eight- 

 rowed ears of corn, nine inches long, from small 

 stalks less than four feet high, and the hills stood 

 only three feet and a hall' apart. The present 

 summer had been too dry for beans and potatoes. 

 The latter iare free from rot here, very large, and 

 of superior flavor. I confess that the organic fer- 

 tility of this extra sandj^ soil was as great a sur- 

 prise to me as it was to every farmer passenger on 

 board our propeller. The proprietor of the island 

 and wood-wharf attributed the fertility of the soil 

 here to its calcareous matter solely ; and although 

 there was not apparently a particle of aluminous 

 matter or clay slate in the soil, lime pebbles and 

 small lime boulders alternated with the white 

 quartz. The deep water of this lake saves this 

 island from those early frosts so common a hundred 

 miles south, in the interior of Michigan and AVis- 

 consin. 



Soil about Milwaifkee. — All say here that the 

 calcareous clays of this lake shore region are much 

 poorer farming soils than those of the country 

 twenty and even ten miles back from the lake, 

 where oak openings and sandy loams are common. 

 But we have yet to see what good dairy farmers 

 can do on this tenacious soil. All agree that even 

 with the present poor farming, winter wheat suc- 

 ceeds much better on this soil than on the open- 

 ings and prairies Avest. And what is strange, the 

 farmers here, instead of dairying and stock-grow- 

 ing, content themselves to live by slovenly tillage, 

 almost without milch cows or sheep, on a soil 

 peculiarly adapted to grass growing, and near mar- 

 kets where mutton is very dear, and good butter is 

 known only in name. 



Causes of the Magio Growth oe Oiiicago and 

 Milwaukee. — The relative position of these two 

 lake ports to the great all-arable prairies and open- 

 ings of Illinois and Wisconsin, made commercial 

 towns there a necessity to the great emigrant host 

 that first settled the prairies ; and the railroads 

 soon after gave speed and permanency to their 

 growth. Yet there is no doubt that the millions 

 expended in making those railroads circulated there 

 to the great increase of wealth and trade. The 

 many millions squandered or misapplied, or stolen, 

 only went to build up these cities, at the expense 

 of the east. True, the eastern Shylock has bis 

 bond, but the West has the roads and the full ben- 

 efit of the money they cost, and Shylock will prob- 

 ably sooner or later be glad to compound for some- 

 thing less than the pound of fiesh. Then again, 



these two great commercial cities are becoming 

 more and more a necessity to the great West. 

 Like St. Louis and Cincinnati, they are just far 

 enough from New England, ISTew York, and Phila- 

 delphia, to become wholesale commercial and man- 

 ufacturing cities, to supply the great fertile regions 

 of the West. Even southwestern Michigan and 

 northern Lidiana buy trom the grocers and jobbers 

 of Chicago; and the jobbers of Milwaukee already 

 sell goods to lake Superior, northern Iowa, and 

 Minnesota. Then the shipment of wheat alone 

 from Milwaukee, up to the 1st of September this 

 year, is 2,527,626 bushels, against 1,446,914 bush- 

 els to the same time last year ; and the shipment 

 of fiour and other products has increased in like 

 proportion. 



A Gale on Lake Erie. — Sunday morning, eight 

 o'clock. Point Pelee light 30 miles or more N. N. 

 W. The wind that had blown all night from the 

 IST. W. now increased to a young gale, with a furi- 

 ous sea, but the Tonawanda, 212 feet long, with 

 800 tons of wheat, etc., on board, made good 

 weather of it, and was now fast coming up with a 

 short AVelland canal propeller, and the Troy bound 

 to Buftalo. In our run to Long Point, we met but 

 one sail vessel, and she was under very short saiL 

 Under the lee of Long Point we saw one bark and 

 fifteen schooners anchored, waiting for the wind to 

 fall. As we drew near Point Albino, late in the 

 afternoon, the wind hauled to W. S. AY., and both 

 wind and sea increased. Capt. Palmer, who is 

 almost always on deck forward, day and night, 

 taking alT responsibility from his excellent mates, 

 now looked, as the Quakers say, "exercised." I 

 heard him say to himself, "13 feet; she'll thump 

 hard ;" and " then that develish man-trap to lee- 

 wai'd." Soon he spoke audibly to the engineer: 

 " Can you bring me up from Black Rock, if I run 

 by ?" " Not with this load," was his reply. — 

 "Tlien I'll try it." The jib was immediately got 

 ready to run up, and the foresail brailed ; then the 

 helm was put down, and she came up handsomely, 

 rolling heavily as she came into the hollow sea. 

 When she faced the lighthouse, I expected to see 

 the jib run up to pay her ofi", but, true to her helm, 

 she fell oft" in time to enter the channel handsomely. 

 As she forged by the light-house, she thumped 

 heavily forward, but the next sea lifted her stem 

 and saved her a thump aft; but her way was sensi- 

 bly checked, and tlie rollers hove us within fifty 

 feet of the lime rock " man trap" ! But " all's well 

 that ends well." I wished, that afternoon, that I 

 could have seen our sublime President and some of 

 his Senators standing by our tried captain, spy-glass 

 in hand, and feeling all the responsibility he felt. 

 Methinks they would become wiser if not better 

 men than they have yet shown themselves to be, in 

 the pertinacity with which they have opposed all 

 appropriations for lake harbor improvements. 



I now leave Buffalo to purge herself from the 

 disgrace of that man-trap ycleped breakwater, as it 

 was undoubtedly conceived in selfishness and spec- 

 ulation, and completed at great expense, without 

 any intention to save vessels from shipwreck. 



Creek Side, Buffalo, Sept., 1858. 



Potat ">es keep better when buried than in the 

 cellar. If well covered Avith straw, very little earth 

 is necessary to keep out the frost. 



