350 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



many of the large flour and grain houses in England and diiferent parts of the continent, haa 

 been occasioned by the injudicious manner in which shipments of grain have been made. 

 The demand for breadstuff's was so great, that corn, wheat and rye were sent forward in the 

 utmost hurry ; evoythiug in the shape of a vessel was loaded — and most of ihem without 

 any judgment. The consequence has been that many have foundered at sea ; others have 

 never been heard from, and a large number have beeu compelled to return, or put into some 

 foreign port with cargoes shifted and damaged. These have occasioned some losses and dis- 

 appointments. But yet a greater evil has been experienced from tl* want of cai-e in haviu" 

 the grain properly dried and prepared previous to being shipped. A very large portion of 

 the grain sent out, has been found, on ai-rival, to be so heated and damaged as to be worth 

 less than tlie mere freight. It is doubted, by men well skilled in the trade, whether one-half 

 of the Indian corn that was shipj)ed from this country last year reached England in a sound 

 state. If this is correct, it is easily exx^lained why the losses have been so gi-eat and so ruin- 

 ous. 



" Tau^it oy experience, shippers now endeavor to profit by the past, and are shipping 

 their corn mostly in bags, and in such a thoroughly dry state that those cargoes now going 

 forward will reach their destination without injury. 



"Corn, during most of the last season, cost 100 cts. freight 60, and other charges 30 to 40 

 — making the aggregate about two dollars, laid down in Liverpool. Now, the cost is 70 

 cents, freight 15 cents, and other charges 25 — making the whole cost about 110 cents. If 

 prices should run down to 50 cents when our immense crop comes in — which will be a large 

 price — corn can now be sent to England at less than a dollar a bushel, or about one penny 

 sterling or two cents a pound. Oatmeal, which is the poorest breadstuff in the kingdom, 

 was selling, at the last low prices, at 1^ penny or three cents a pound." 



The above was intended for the December number. The reader can easily 

 make any allowance necessary for change of prices, if any since that dale. 



ROTATCONS AT SPRINGFIELD, MD. 



SHORT DESCRIPTION OF A GREAT SYSTEM, LEADING TO GREAT RESULTS. 



It would require more time and care than we can now bestow to describe Mr. 

 George Patterson's Springfield estate, in Maryland, near Sykesville, on the Bal- 

 timore and Ohio Rail Road. 



It is a large estate, of some 12 or 1500 acres of undulating, and when he took 

 it, very poor, unproductive land. He has limed a large portion of it, to the tune 

 of some ^30,000 ; but then, instead of his crops not paying for the seed and the 

 harvesting, he now gathers, we opine, some sixty bushels of corn, twenty of wheat, 

 and from one to two tons of best hay to the acre ; and, as we believe, he feeds 

 all his hay and corn on the land, and provides well-littered stables and shelters 

 for his horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, it may be supposed that the action of the 

 lime, and the results of his whole system, are much advanced by the addition of 

 a great quantity of manure. 



We made a flying visit to Springfield lately, in company with Mr. Wierraan 

 of Baltimore, and should have been abundantly repaid if only in viewing an im- 

 ported North Devon Bull, sent out by Mr. Bloomfield, surrounded by six and twen- 

 ty of the sleekest and most beautiful cows and heifers we ever beheld, up to 

 their eyes in the aftermath of an IS-acre grass lot, from Avhich he had cut more 

 hay this year than was yielded by the whole estate when he look possession of 

 it. But, as before intimated, we can 't attempt here anything like a detail of 

 the products of the several fields, at that lime and since, and the processes fol- 

 lowed from year to year. The outline of the system will be seen in the follow- 

 ing extract for which we asked, only because of our laboring under the misfor- 

 tune of a most unfortunate memory, none the stronger for belonging to a mind 

 somewhat overcharged with labor and care. 



((570) 



