THE GENESEE FARMER. 



369 



that his great and late improved farming owes 

 nothing to tlie lessons of agricultural chemistry, 

 however deficient he may have found its expound- 

 ers to be in many particulars; but if the results of 

 his experience go to overthrow the dictum of pre- 

 tenders, true science certainly should not be made 

 to bear the blame. Why does Mr. Johnston tell 

 us that he feeds linseed cake to his boviues, because 

 it not only keeps them in good case, and increases 

 the v/inler milk of his cows, but that it in part 

 pays for itself in the extra richness it imparts to his 

 manure heap? Did he not first take the hint from 

 the books, that linseed meal was the richest of all 

 vegetable food in nitrogen ? Again : why does he 

 take so much pains to have his manure heaps so 

 cared for, that decomposition goes on slowly and 

 without fii-e-fang? — and why does lie haul Ids well 

 decomposed piles to his fields in the sliort cloudy 

 days of autumn, instead of spreading it in the long 

 and sunny days of spring, if he did not learn from 

 chemistry's lessons that the most valuable part of 

 manure was also the most easily dissipated and lost 

 by exposure? But methinks Mr. Jorixsxox is a 

 little too severe on Mr, Greeley's Indiana speech; 

 he should at least have given him the benefit of tlie 

 excuse that was made for the ingenious and inde- 

 fatigable GoLDSMtTH — that he was compelled to 

 elaborate his "Animated Kature" in a garret. 



The true Stimulus to Labor. — After speaking 

 of the school at Hohenheim, Ex-Gov. Wright, of 

 Indiana, writes to Secretary B. P. JoirasojJ, from 

 Berlin, (Prussia,) thus : " Man must work, he must 

 labor. But he may work willingly, or as a ma- 

 chine; he may work cheerfully, or as a slave. 

 Labor, undirected by knowledge of the great prin- 

 ciples which govern the development of the soi', is 

 always slavish. It is the grand design of agricul- 

 tural schools, to lead the tiller of the soil to take 

 an intelligent interest in all the an onderful processes 

 of nature, which continually pass before his eyes, 

 in order tliat with his powers of observation thus 

 quickened, and all the better faculties of his mind 

 thus aroused and exercised, he may make every 

 hour of labor attractive, and add new grace, refine- 

 ment and happiness to his home.'''' 



The Cheapest Winter Food for Stock. — Your 

 truly practical Ilolmdel correspondent has wisely 

 decided that market gardening, without stock- 

 growing to aid in manuring, is a bad business, even 

 with the city of New York for his market. Hence 

 he proposes to grow roots as food for stock. To a 

 certain extent, roots are very profitable, as they 

 help digest dry food in the stomach, and give health 

 t J the animal ; but to save hay, a little Indian meal 

 or linseed meal should be sifted on the cut roots 

 Yet there is no doubt but that Indian corn will 

 yield more nutriment for animals to the square 

 rod than roots. But, although it requires no better 

 soil than roots for a maximum crop of each, corn is 

 two-fold more exhausting. I often grow a patch 

 of com where I have taken oflf a crop of the largest 

 wurzel beets the year before, and the corn needs 

 no manuring, because the beets draw tlieir suste- 

 nance from the atmosphere, with very little draft 

 upon the soil. But corn after corn will not thus 

 succeed. All the cereal grasses, I take it, exhaust 

 the soil in proportion to the seed they ripen ; thus 

 continual cropping of ripe timothy liay leaves the 

 ground hard, while clover cut in the blossom leaves 

 it light and pulverulent. 



The large Ohio Dent Corn. — The large stalks 

 of this corn, cut up in September and in shock this 

 10th of November, are as sweet and full of juice as 

 the stalks of the Sorghum. Yet every one of these 

 cornstalks has borne one and some two large six- 

 teen-rowed ears. Jos. Weight, of this town, has 

 a machine to cut up these big stalks into food for 

 his milch cows. He says that those stalks, and 

 also stalks grown for fodder, keep better double 

 shocked in the field than in the barn, through all the 

 winter months. 



Export of Isabella Grapes to Catstaba. — Tons 

 of Isabella grapes have been shipped to Canada 

 this fall, from Cayuga Lake. They were princi- 

 pally grown in the towns of Springport and Led- 

 yard, near Union Springs and Aurora. Such is 

 now the rage for grape-growing, that few grape- 

 vine trimmings are wasted. Some Isabellas were 

 sent from this village to New York, and there sold 

 at one shilling per pound. 



A Great Crop of Apples. — Four hundred bar- 

 rels have been sfold this year of short apple crops, 

 from the orchard at Greatfield, the farmer seat of 

 that gifted pioneer pomologist and florist, David 

 Thomas. lie planted and grafted this orchard with 

 his own hands, when Cayuga county was a wilder- 

 ness. It may be said that the good he has done 

 lives after him; for although he is still in thefiesh, 

 his great and increased physical infirmities have 

 reduced him mentally to the wreck of what he 

 was. Yet 'tis said that he occasionally crawls out 

 to luxuriate among the flowers in his border. 



GROSS AND NET WEIGHT OF SHEEP. 



The usual estimate of the gross and nett weight 

 of sheep is that the dead carcass will weigh one 

 half as much as the gross weight, and therefore; 

 when the sheep are sold at say five cents a pound 

 alive, the price is equivalent to ten cents a pound 

 for the meat, sinking the pelt and all the olial, so 

 that the butcher, if he would sell the carcass at 

 cost, would still have the pelt, rough fat, head, &c., 

 for a profit. Hence it will be seen how it is that 

 mutton in the carcass is often quoted in market re- 

 ports at less than it appears by live-stock reports 

 to have actually cost. — N. T. Tribune. 



A few years ago we ascertained the live and dead 

 weight of a large number of sheep sla"ghtered for 

 the tallow near this city, and found that the carcass 

 weighed about three-fiffhs of the live weight. 

 These were common sheep, aftording only about 

 twelve pounds of tallow. Had they been in bet- 

 ter condition, they would have aftbrded a higher 

 proportionate weight of carcass. 



In England, with the coarse-wooled mutton 

 sheep, fatted for the butcher, it is generally esti- 

 mated that a stone live weight (1-i lbs.) will give a 

 stone dead weight (8 lbs.) The live weight (ascer- 

 tained after the sheep have fasted for twelve hours) 

 is divided by seven, and this gives the weight of 

 the carcass in quarters. Thus a sheep weighing 

 140 lbs. alive, is estimated to weigh 20 lbs. per 

 quarter. We have known whole flocks to exceed 

 this estimate. The fatter the sheep, the greater 

 the dead weight in proportion to the live weight. 



