726 FARMERS' REGISTER— DAIRY MANAGEMENT— COMMON SALT. 



ly of the great profit which he will in future de- 

 rive from the sale of his cattle. 



Each fiinii, under the direction of a particular 

 steward or liailitT, is cultivated by four negroes, 

 four negresses, four oxen, and four horses. The 

 bailiffs, who in general manage their farms sej)a- 

 rately, assist each other during the harvest, as well 

 as at any other time, when there is any pressing 

 labor. The great declivity of the fields, which 

 would render it extremely troublesome and tedi- 

 ous to carry the produce, even of each farm, to 

 one common central point, has induced Mr. Jef- 

 ferson to construct, on each field, a barn, sufficient- 

 ly capacious -to hold its produce in grain. The 

 produce in forage is also housed there; hut this is 

 generally so great, that it becomes necessary to 

 make stacks near the barns. The latter are con- 

 structed of trunks of trees, and the floors are 

 boarded. The forests and slaves reduce the ex- 

 pense of these buildings to a mere trifle. 



Mr. Jefferson possesses one of those excellent 

 thrashing machines, which, a few years since, 

 were invented in Scotland, and are already very 

 common in England. 'J'his machine, the whole 

 of which does not weigh two thousand pounds, is 

 conveyed from one barn to another in a wagon, 

 and thrashes from one hundred and twenty, to one 

 hundred and fifty bushels a day. A worm, whose 

 eggs are almost constantly deposited in the ear of 

 the grain, renders it necessary to thrash the corn 

 a short time after the harvest. In this case, the 

 heat, occasioned by the mixture of grain with its 

 envelope, from which it is disengaged, but with 

 Avhich it continues mixed, destroys the vital prin- 

 ciple of the egg, and protects ihe corn from the 

 inconveniencies of its being hatched. If the grain 

 continued in the ears, without being s])eedily l)ea- 

 ten, it would be destroyed by the worm, which 

 would be excluded from the eggs. This scourge, 

 however, spreads no farther northwards than the 

 Potomac, and is bounded to the west by the Blue 

 Mountains. A few weeks after the corn has been 

 beaten, it is free from all danger, winnowed, and 

 sent to market. The Virginia jilanters have gene- 

 rally their corn trodden out l)y horses ; but this way 

 is slow , and there is no country in the world where 

 this operation requires more despatch than in this 

 pari of Virginia. JJesides, the straw is bruised by the 

 treading of horses. Mr. Jefferson hopes that his 

 machine, whirh has already found some imitators 

 among his neighbors, will be generally adopted in 

 Virginia. In a country where all the inhabitants 

 possess plenty of wood, this machine may be made 

 at a very trifling expense. 



DAIRY MANAGEMENT. 



From the Transactions of the Essex (Mass.) Agricultural Society. 



MARGARET VVARDWCLL'S STATEMENT. 



To the Committee on the Dairy. 



Gentlemen, — 1 offer for your examination a spe- 

 cimen of butter. One jar was filled in June — the 

 other in September. 



We have nine cows, — all of native breed, and 

 from five to fifteen years old. 



From the 1st of June to the 9th of July, I made 

 three hundred pounds of butter. 



I have made this season eight hundred and forty- 

 eight pounds of butter, and five hundred and fifty 

 pounds of cheese. I put dovy n two hundred pounds 

 in June and July, which I should have exhibited. 



had it not been that the scarcity of butter the 

 month past, induced me to part with it. 



We have had fourteen persons in the family 

 through the season, who have used milk freely ; 

 and we have sold milk to four other families. Our 

 cows have had no feed, but common pasturing. I 

 annex a specification of the times and quantities 

 in which the butter was made, which is attested 

 to, by those who a.ssisted in making it. 



MAUGARET WARDWELL. 



Andover, (S. P.) Sept. 1831. 



SPECIFICATION. 



ACCOUNT OF COMMON SALT. 



From Kidd's Bridgewater Treatise. 

 It does not appear that the mineral kingdom 

 contains a single species capable of being employed 

 as food ; but there is one mineral species which 

 indirectly contributes to the nourishment of many 

 other animals as well as man, and that is common 

 salt, the flavor of which, to a certain extent, is not 

 only grateful to the palate, but, practically speak- 

 ing, mankind could not exist, or at least never have 

 existed without the constant use of it. Thus, 

 though employed in very small quantities at a 

 time by any individual, and almost exclusively 

 for the purpose either of preserving or of render- 

 ing his food more palatable, this substance may 

 fairly be classed among the principal necessaries 

 of life; and correspondently with this statement, 

 we find that nature has supplied it in abundance, 

 indeed, in profusion often, in various parts of the 

 globe; for, to say nothing of those apparently in- 

 exhaustible masses which occur among the solid 

 strata of the earth, and which have been constant- 

 ly quarried through successive ages from the earli- 

 est records of history, the ocean itself is a never- 

 failing source of this valuable substance. In other 

 instances salt springs afford the means of a ready 

 supplj' ; and throughout a considerable part of the 

 sandy districts of Africa and Asia the soil itself 

 abounds with it. The abundant supply of com- 

 mon salt coincides with its extensive utility. It is 

 every where indispensable to the comforts of man; 

 and it is every where found, or easily obtained by 

 him. And, though not to the same extent, the 

 same observation holds with reference to many 

 other natural saline compounds. Thus, carbonate 



