FARMERS" REGISTER— FARMING IN YORK COUxXTY. 



157 



whether, without either, much might not be gain- 

 ed from the Locust as a " tenant at stifferance." 

 I use the phrase just quoted in reference to the 

 state of my own form, much of which having 

 been cleared within the hist eight to twelve or fii'tecn 

 years, continued, for half those periods, to produce 

 a considerable number of sprouts from the roots of 

 defectivelocustSjWhich were felled in clearing; or, 

 perhaps, from seed pi-omiscuously and accidentally 

 scattcredover the ground. Many of these I suffered 

 to grow where they came up, partly for ornament, 

 partly for shade for stock, but mainly with a viev/ to 

 future use, for posts, scantling, &c. They require 

 no culture nor attention of any kind, except an 

 occasional pruning to lengthen the stem ; they do 

 not injure the crop growing about or under them ; 

 and I think I may say that every Locust suffered 

 to grow, in good farm land, for ten or tuelve 

 5'ears, is worth, where grown, for various uses, 

 from one to two dollars. But I will specify an in- 

 stance, and let you judge of the value of one of my 

 tenants at sufferance. 1 wanted lately three pieces 

 of good Locust scantling three and a half by nine 

 or ten inches, and twelve ket long — to have found 

 with certainty, a stock for this small quantity of 

 scantling, I must have gone some eight or ten 

 miles to some rich mountain holloAv, except for 

 the trees in my own fields — one of which was se- 

 lected. It made the scantling wanted, of first rate 

 quality ; and there was left of it, what for other 

 smaller scantling and posts, was of equal value to 

 the stock used. This stock was cut down, sawed 

 off, and put on the wagon in less than two hours ; 

 whilst to have procured such a one at the distance 

 of eight or ten miles, would have consumed a day, 

 with wagon and team, and two or three hands.! 



Now, as " money saved is money made," I sub- 

 mit to you to fix the value of the locust specified. 

 Very little attention will insure an endless suc- 

 cession to the trees that may be occasionally used 

 on, or spared from a farm ; nothing more being 

 necessary than to leave in their stead one of the 

 many sprouts springing up from the roots of the 

 parent stock ; the supernumeraries might be set 

 where wanted. And if, as I suppose. Locusts do 

 not materially impede the culture or lessen the 

 product in other things of the land growing them, 

 would it not be well for all farmers to have their 

 outside and other permanent lines of fencing pret- 

 ty thickly set with them, (say two to the rod,) be- 

 sides some three or four to each acre enclosed : 



Perhaps farmers would answer this query them- 

 selves, were you to tell them the number of lo- 

 custs that would be grown, in the way the ques- 

 tion supposes — on a farm of two hundred and forty 

 acres, laid off in six fields of forty acres each ; 

 telling them also, the value you afifix to the Locust 

 specified, by Y'our most ob't. serv't. 



REUBE?f GRIGSBY. 

 FARMING IN YORK C0U?;TY. 



Bellfield, York Co. July 11, 1833. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



I regretted that it was impracticable for me to 

 see you and show you my farm when you visited 

 this region some time since. As you well knov/ 



* The locusts of our common forest land are e:erieral- 

 ly defective — not so when grown in cultivated fields. 



t With us, a wagon, team and driver, is usually csii- 

 ,mated at $3 by the day. 



that my farm when I purchased it was poor, and 

 continued poor for several years, you would have 

 been gratified in finding that it Avas now tolerably 

 productive; and it would have been interesting to 

 you to have understood tlic process by which it 

 liad been improved. My object now in writing 

 to you is, first, to give you some idea of the man- 

 ner in which I have managed it, with the results — 

 and to ask you to send me the first No. of your 

 Register, and to consider me a subscriber for one 

 year : on the other side you have a checlc for .$5. 



As soon almost as I purchased this farm, I dis- 

 covered that it furnished an abundant supply of 

 marl. I began to carry it out, but found that it 

 involved a great deal of labor ; and my force being 

 limited, I determined to ascertain w hether marl 

 was equally beneficial in each of my fields, and 

 then to wait until I could be certain whether its 

 effects were lasting or not ; devoting much of my 

 labor to making manure, and in hauling out ma- 

 nure from town, where I could then procure it in 

 large quantities, whilst I waited to see the result 

 of the experiments made on the marl I carried 

 out. I followed this course steadily for six or 

 eight years. ]My fields improved every year. — 

 Manure in the meantime became scarcer, as 

 others came into competition with me, and the 

 price increased. I found that the improvement 

 from the marl was lasting, and that every soil 

 was greatly benefitted by it, but that the stiffer 

 the land, the larger the quantity which was re- 

 quired, to give it equal improvement. I then set 

 to work in carrying out marl, with the design to 

 marl all the land which I cultivated, and have now- 

 covered two hundred and thirty four acres with 

 this valuable manure 



I did not relax in my efforts to raise, and to haul 

 out from town all the manure that I could make, 

 and all that I could procure ; and it has become a 

 fixed rule not to cultivate a hill of corn that has 

 not been manured in the course of the winter and 

 spring. I begin by manuring broad cast, then I 

 come down to manuring in the drill, faking care to 

 reserve a sufficiency of manure to give a double 

 handful of well rotted manure to each hill, which 

 I put around the corn after the first weeding, and 

 immediately cover with a small Freeboi-n plough, 

 running one furrow on each side, with the mould 

 board next the corn. The corn manured in the 

 hill produces almost as well as in either of the 

 other methods; but of course the small grain 

 which follows the corn is much less benefitted'than 

 by the other manuring. 



My experience satisfies me that neither the four 

 or five field system will answer on my lands. They 

 are subject to wire-grass, and unless a cleansing 

 crop is raised once in three years, they become so 

 foul, that the labor of raising a corn crop is scarce- 

 ly compensated by the produce : and moreover, 

 the fields grow up in bushes, and briers, and other 

 things, so extensively, that every fourth year great 

 labor is necessarily expended in clearing them. — 

 The small grain crop too, after a fallow, is al- 

 most always very much injured by the fly, even 

 when the small grain after the corn escapes en- 

 tirely. Hence I have given up fallowing, and 

 have returned to the three field system, and the 

 rather because I have found the corn crop by far 

 the most certain, and indeed more valuable than 

 the wheat crop. 



Marl in the proper quantity! regard as very 



