No. 2. 



Wheat Sowins^. 



49 



ed, there are now warm and substantial 

 offices; and frontinjr all, and flanked by 

 garden walls, and behind them trees, stands 

 a farm-house, in its first days a cottage, but 

 always the seat of plain abundance, and 

 now of every comfort and a generous liospi- 

 tality. Though in a climate not very genial, 

 it is always warm; and from various flower- 

 ing shrubs spread over it, seldom without 

 flowers. It is the cherished residence of an 

 industrious, ingenious, and very worthy man. 

 Many, stimulated by his success, soon fol- 

 lowed his example, though on a less exten- 

 sive scale; but the unpromising wild of tliirty 

 years ago, is now a sheltered, cultivated, and 

 comparatively fertile spot, and the abode of 

 many industrious and contented families. 



For the Farmers'Cabinet. 



Wheat Sowing. 



Although the wheat crop of the United 

 States does not amount to more than a fifth 

 of that of corn — the latter according to Ells- 

 worth's last Report, being in 1843, -nearly 

 five hundred millions of bushels, while the 

 yield of wheat was but about one hundred 

 millions, yet as it is of vast importance to 

 the country, and withal a- more precarious 

 crop than corn, farmers caunot, we think, 

 bestow too mucli care in committing their 

 iSeed to the earth. It would be impossible 

 I to point out the best kind for sowing, as this 

 ] would depend upon various circumstances. 

 Some kinds will best suit light and thin 

 1 soils — some will best bear late sowing, &c., 

 land it is for each practical farmer to make 

 I his own close observations and draw his own 

 ,■1 conclusions on this poijnt. But whatever 

 kind may be chosen, it should not be forgot- 

 ten to sow good seed, well cleaned, steeped 

 in brine and rolled in lime or plaster. If 

 the advantages of steeping seeds in chemi- 

 cal solutions, and doctoring them, as pro- 

 fessor Johnston calls it, spoken of in some of 

 the late numbers of the Cabinet, should 

 prove to be realised, they will indeed be of 

 incalculable importance in the economy of 

 our business. I hope they will claim the 

 attention of our enterprising farmers sufli- 



Bciently to be well tested. Because the re- 

 sults stated may appear improbable, it does 

 not by any means follow that they are not 

 correct — ^there are many things in agricul- 

 ture which are not yet explained, and the 

 first step towards every improvement, is a 

 conviction that we do not already know all 

 that is to be known. 



It is doubtless one of the advantages of 

 our agricultural periodicals, that they render 

 convictions of this kind more easily attain- 



able by throwinp; abroad among us, the com- 

 mon progress of the country. A late writer 

 has remarked, that individuals moving con- 

 tinually within the same circle, comparino- 

 themselves with none but their own neigl> 

 hours, and having few means of seeing or 

 hearing what is done beyond the contracted 

 sphere of their own native village and near- 

 est market town, are not so easily convinced 

 of their own deficiences, as may "be those of 

 wider and more extended intercourse. 



Early sowing of wheat is pretty well de- 

 monstrated by facts, to be almost essential 

 to good crops. The farmer then who drives 

 his business — the fore-handed man, will 

 have the best reason for hope at the coming 

 harvest. 



A late number of the Quarterly Review 

 estimates the average produce of wheat in 

 England, to be 26 bushels, and says if this 

 could be raiped to 27 bushels, it would add 

 to the nation's income, 475,000 quarters, 

 worth at 50 shillings, about £1,200,000. The 

 average yield in the United States, is proba- 

 bly not more than 10 bushels — if we could 

 by improved management, bring it up to 11 

 bushels, we would thus add to the farmers' 

 income, six or eight millions of dollars. 

 Could it be doubled, as no doubt it one day 

 will be, sixty or eighty millions of dollars 

 would be added to the annual receipts of 

 our farmers ! 



I have thrown out these iew unimportant 

 remarks, not on account of my own large 

 operations or experience — for I am but a 

 small farmer — but with a view to stir up to 

 diligent inquiry, every one who handles the 

 plough or sows an acre of wheat. Select 

 good seed — sow early — have the ground in 

 good order, and aim to increase every year 

 the average of your crops. R. N, 



Sweedesbnrougli, N. J. 



Cleanliness in Making Butter. — It 



seems almost unnecessary to allude to clean- 

 liness as peculiarly necessary to the manu- 

 facture of good butter. But I do so to bring 

 under your notice tlie fact, that cream is re- 

 markable for the rapidity with which it ab- 

 sorbs and becomes tainted by any unpleasant 

 odours. It is very necessary that the air of 

 the dairy should be sweet — that it should be 

 often renewed, and that it should be open in 

 no direction from which bad odours can 

 come. — Johnslo7i''s Lectures. 



W. F. Karkeek, in a late Essay on ma- 

 nures, says wliere guano is drilled in with 

 seed, not less than a ton of earth or ashes, 

 should be mixed with each cwt. of guano. 



