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ttiE GENESEi: FARMED* 



New Advertisements this Month. 



Fowh For Sale— E. F. Marsli, Eochesk-r, K. T. 

 Alien Raspberry— Geo. F. Needham, Buffalo, N. Yi 

 Horse Dealers Tricks — Dinsmore & Co., New York. 

 Emery's Journal of Agriculture and Prairie Farmer — Emery 

 & Co., Chicago, 111. 

 The Horticulturist— C. M. Saxton, New York. 

 American Stock Journal — D. C. Linsley, New York. 

 Genesee Academy— Ke v. Charles Eay, Geneseo, N. Y, 

 Landscape Gardening-^Edwin Taylor, Toronto, C. W. 



The next Volume of the Genesee Farmer. 



One more number completes the volume of the Genesee 

 Fanner for 1858. We look back on the year which is now 

 rapidly drawing to a close with feelings of deep gratitude. 

 Notwithstanding the embarrassed state of financial af- 

 fairs, our friends who hare kindly taken upon themselves 

 to act as voluntary agents in obtaining and forwarding 

 subscriptions, have done so nobly that we have now three 

 ihne-3 as many subscribers as when the present piiblisher 

 of the Genesee Farmer purchased tbe paper. During the 

 twenty-eight years in which the Genenee Farmer has been 

 published, its prospects were never so favorable as at the 

 present moment. There was, a few years ago, a disposi' 

 tion to take a weekly, instead of a monthly agricultural 

 ]>aper. So much so, indeed, that the conductor of a mis- 

 cellaneous weekly, who also published a monthly agricul- 

 tural journal for a few years and then for want of support 

 gave it up, boldly asserted that "monthly journals devo- 

 ted solely to agricultural subjects are not adapted to the 

 \vants of the people of this age ol progress." He forgot 

 that the talents requisite to publish a purely agricultural 

 monthly, are very different from those needed to conduct 

 a miscellaneous sheet. A printer, by putting on a know- 

 ing look and a pair of spectacles, may succeed in the one, 

 but these would aid him but little in publishing a strictly 

 agricultural monthly. He would require, at least some 

 theoretical knowledge of the various branches of practi- 

 cal and scieniific agriculture. If he does not know a 

 Devon from a Durham, or a Spanish Merino from a South 

 Down, he could hardly hope to conduct a paper calculated 

 to interest intelligent practical farmers. He ma}^ know 

 how to set type, to get up a charade, to hire some one to 

 write a passable story, to clip news items from the daily 

 papers, and even to punctuate a communication from 

 iome fai'mer correspondent, and yet not have the requi- 

 site qualifications for editing an agricultural paper. 



Such a man ought to understand his true position. In 

 his proper place he is a useful member of society. He 

 may publish an interesting family paper, containing just 

 agriculture enough to suit those who have little taste for 

 agricultural reading. By publishing occasionally a good 

 article from some experienced fanner, he may do much 

 towards removing the prejudices of his readers against 

 book farming, and thus in time educate them to a point 

 waea they can read with pleasure and profit the pages of 



a purely agricultural journal. In this way, a milk-and- 

 Water sort of rural paper may do much good. There are 

 thousands of farmers, so called, who cannot be persuaded 

 to take a purely agricultural journal, who will take a paper 

 of this kind. We are glad they are provided with one, in 

 manj' respects, so unexceptionable. But it ia decidedly a 

 rich joke to hear the conductor of such a sheet assert that 

 any increase or decrease in its circulation is an indication 

 of an increase or decrease of intelligence in the rural popu- 

 lation ! When farmers have found out that, though hoist- 

 ing the flag of agricuiture, the paper depends more on 

 charades and stories than on good agricultural and horti- 

 cultural information, to give it circulation, the publisher 

 will become convinced that he has greatly overestima- 

 ted the intelligence of the community — or that his test 

 is an erroneous one. We believe he has found it out al- 

 ready, for while his paper has lost thousands of subscri- 

 bers the present year, our own circulation is rapidly in- 

 creasing. We cannot think for one moment that this re- 

 vulsion is a retrograde movement — that it indicates a less 

 degree of intelligence, when farmers give^ up a miscella- 

 neous story paper for one devoted exclusively to subjects 

 pertaining to their daily avocation. 



Farmers are beginning to perceive that they can obtain 

 more agricultural and horticultural reading matter in the 

 Genesee Farmer for Fifty Cents a year, (or 37 i cents in 

 clubs,) than in this boasting two dollar weekly. And not 

 only do We give more agricultural matter, for ont-fovrth 

 the price, but it is in a form in which it can be preserved 

 for future reference. Each volume of the Farmer makes 

 a handsome book of 384 pages, that is a valuable acquisi- 

 tion to any farmer's library. The present volume of the 

 Genesee Farmer will contain about six hundred articles, 

 from experienced practical farmers and fruit-growers, in 

 addition to editorial matter, and several hundred valuable 

 original domestic recipes. 



We cannot wondei", therefore, that the Farmer is rapidly 

 increasing in circulation, nor that on this account it is 

 exposed to the unmanly attacks and skulking insinuations 

 of its waning contemporaiy. We trust a little adversity 

 will teach it better manners. We do not wish to glory 

 over its decline, but we cannot but recollect that in the 

 pride of its ephemeral popularity it sneered at the intel- 

 ligent agriculturists of Western New York, who took the 

 Gihesee Farmer, — calling them "old fogies," and "Eip 

 Van AVinkle farmers," — and was constantly talking c-f 

 " slow monthlies" and " cheap papers." 



It is quite true that the Genesee Farmer is "cheap" but 

 is that any reason why it is unworthv the patronage of 

 farmers V If it was a dollar a year, instead of fifty cents, 

 the profits vl^ould he five times greater than at present — in 

 other words, we should make as much naoney on 4,000 as 

 now on 20,000 ; but we prefer to publish a paper with 

 twenty thousand intelligent readers, rather than one with 

 four thousand, — though the profit of the smaller number 

 would be the same, and the labor much less. To the best 

 of our abilities, we are trying to make a good paper. We 

 labor honestly for the promotion of true " progress and 

 improvement." We have the greatest respect for Ameri- 

 can farmers ; considering the circtimstances in which they 

 are placed, we believe them to be the most intelligent 

 cultivators of the soil in the world. They ai-e, as a class, 

 reading, thinking, earnest, energetic, enterprising, prac- 

 tical men. Who would not prefer twenty thousand to 



