No. 2. 



Meeting of the Farmers^ Club. 



55 



I will venture the prediction, that their 

 chance for a crop will be as fair as their 

 neiohbours, who manure from their barn- 

 yards. A. N. R. 



Essex CO., N. J. 



Meeting of the Farmers' Club. 



The New Yirk Sun gives the proceedings on the 

 20th of last month, most of \^hich we copy below. 



General Tallmadge in tlie chair. Mr. 

 Wakeman, the corresponding; secretary of 

 the Institute, called for the reading of a cir- 

 cular from the Farmers' Club to the Garden- 

 ers and Farmers of the Union, on the sub- 

 ject of the Farmers' Convention, in October 

 next, at the Fair in Nev/ York. The circu- 

 lar was read and unanimously adopted. 

 President TallmaHge then offered the fol- 

 lowing rem.arks: — "In looking over some 

 title deeds and other papers recently, I 

 found some specimen cards of wool from 

 Saxony sheep, which I obtained with some 

 of the sheep, in 1>;26 — I present them to 

 you, gentlemen, together with a specimen 

 of the clip of this summer from my sheep, 

 which had been IMerino, crossed by these 

 Saxons. These specimens exhibit the in- 

 fluences of our climate upon this fine wool, 

 in the county of Dutchess, in this State, 

 where I reside. The staple of this Ameri- 

 can wool is much longer than the Saxon 

 clip, and appears to be as fine. The origi- 

 nal Saxon gave two pounds at a clip; this 

 American product gives three pounds at a 

 clip. The weight of the fleece depends 

 much on the fare and keep. Cur flocks 

 have for some six or eight years been ne- 

 glected, or they would have been much bet- 

 ter than they are, and 1 will show the reason 

 why. 



" Before 1800, we had a long-legged, coarse 

 woolled sheep; the wool of which was worth 

 from six to ten cents per pound. Col. Hum- 

 phreys, our INIinister to the Court of Spain, 

 and Chancellor Livingston, who was in 

 Paris, caused some Merino sheep to be sent 

 to us. They were eagerly sought for by 

 our farmers, and the wool gradually spread 

 over the nation. In 1826, tlie Saxon fine 

 woolled sheep were imported ; tlie price in 

 1828, was from sixty to eighty cents per 

 pound. Wheat was sold for two dollars 

 per bu.^hel. But wool went down, down, 

 down to twenty-five cents per pound. The 

 sheep, not being worth their feed and care, 

 were allowed to go to destruction, and one 

 method was to kill and boil them, and get 

 all the fat out of them that was possible. 

 At Catskill, a large sheep-destroying estab- 

 lishment was constructed, where thousands 



of them passed through this trying process. 

 Thus have our finest sheep in ninnber and 

 quality been destroyed. The public prints 

 of Dutchess county have stated truly, that 

 Dutchess had seve7i hundred thousand 

 pounds for sale in the market, at sixty to 

 eighty-seven cents per pound, or at an aver- 

 age of sixty-five cents per pound, per an- 

 num. Bcfoie 1842, this product of Dutchess 

 county sunk to three hundred thousand 

 pounds, at twenty to twenty-five cents per 

 pound only; so that from an annual wool 

 sale for four lumdred and fifly-five thousand 

 dollars, she dwindled down to a sale fbr 

 seventy-five thousand dollars; then adding 

 the loss of the carcass of the sheep, it is 

 just to state, that Dutchess county has sus- 

 tained an annual loss of about half a million 

 of dollars. This is no exaggeration." 



Poisonous weeds. — D. Jay Browne, Esq., 

 moved the. adoption of a resolution recom- 

 mending to city and town authorities, and 

 to gardeners and farmers in general, to ex- 

 terminate all weeds that are poisonous to 

 men or stock, or injurious to crops, before 

 they go to seed. Mr. Fleet inquired if stra- 

 moniutn is not useful as a medicine. Dr. 

 Field replied that there is a much greater 

 quantity than is required for medicinal pur- 

 poses, and that the destruction of weeds is a 

 very important matter. They occupy a great 

 deal of ground, and abstract the moisture; 

 they keep off the dew from other plants, 

 and deprive them of their nourishment ; the 

 seeds of the weeds become scattered far 

 and wide, sometimes lying in the ground, 

 under certain circumstances, a long time 

 without vegetating. Gen. Johnson was of 

 opinion that they last for many years, and 

 when brought to the surface or place favour- 

 able to them they grow, and that such was 

 also the case on some pine lands, which have 

 lost their timber — the acorns of scrub oaks 

 grew, after being in the ground for fifty years. 

 With regard to weeds. Gen. Johnson re- 

 marked that ho made manure of some of 

 them, by mixing them with headland soil 

 and liquid manure from the stable. For an 

 onion bed, he usually took the dry weeds 

 and brush and burned them together — they 

 become a sort of charcoal, and make an ex- 

 cellent top dressing. The place for making 

 the manure ought to be fixed that the liquid 

 manure from the stable and yard would 

 easily run into it, and be absorbed by the 

 weeds, &c. In Flanders tlie urine of a sin- 

 gle cow is considered to be worth te7i dollars 

 per annum. 



Disease amongst potatoes. — Mr. Fleet 

 stated that the potatoes of Westchester and 

 elsewhere, appear to suffer from some dis- 

 ease — the leaves fall from the stems and 



