66 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



March 5, 183L 



and Livingston counties were eat off, except that part 

 of it lying west of the Genesee river, which was an- 

 nexed to the county of Genesee at its organization, 

 in 1802, and the south part of the 7th range, sat off 

 from Steuben to Allegany. 



In 1789, Oliver Phelps opened a Land Office at 

 Canandaigua; this was the first Land Office in A- 

 uieriea, for the sale of her forest lands to settlers. — 

 And the system which he adopted for the survey of 

 his lands by townships and ranges became a model 

 for the survey of all the new lands in the United 

 States ; and the manner of making his retail sales 

 to settlers, by Articles has also been adopted by all 

 the other land offices of individual proprietorships, 

 that have followed in sucoession after him. 



The Article was a new device, of American ori- 

 gin, unknown in the English system of land-con- 

 veyancing ; granting the possession, but not the fee 

 of the land ; facilitating the frequent changes nmong 

 the settlers, enabling them to sell out their improve- 

 ments and transfer their possessions by assignment ; 

 and securing the reversion of the possession to the 

 proprietor, where they abandoned the premises. His 

 sales were allodial ; and the other land offices by 

 following his example, have rendered the Genesee 

 farmers, all fee-simple land holders, which has great- 

 ly increased the value of the soil, and the enter- 

 prise of the people. 



Oliver Phelps may be considered the Cecrops of 

 the Genesee Country. Its inhabitants owe a mauso- 

 leum to his memory, in gratitude for his having pio- 

 neered for them, the wilderness of this Canaan of 

 the west, and selling his land to them in fee simple, 

 instead of entailing it by leases. 



Gorham and Phelps sold out about one third of 

 their tract by townships and parts of townships, to 

 companies and individuals, to settlers and specula- 

 tors, who invited an emigration into the country 

 that soon formed the new county of Ontario, (taken 

 from Montgomery) which by the United States 

 census of 1790, contained a population of 1075 — or 

 1081. 



On the 18th of Nov. 1790, they sold nearly all the 

 residue to Rober Morris, containing 1,264,000 acres, 

 for eight pence, lawful money, an acre, who sold the 

 same to Sir William Pulteney, of England, II for the 

 sale of which, he opened a land office at Geneva, 

 and also at Bath, under the agency of Charles Will- 

 iamson. 



Gorham & Phelps not being able to pay the whole 

 purchase money, compromised, and surrendered to 

 Massachusetts that part of the land to which the In- 

 dian title remained unextinguished, being about two- 

 thirds of the western part of it ; in consideration of 

 which, the state cancelled two of their notes. 



In 1796, Robert Morris purchased of Massachu- 

 setts the tract surrendered by Gorham and Phelps — 

 extinguished the Indian title — sold but several tracts 

 ro different persons, of fifty, and one hundred thou- 

 sand acres, in ali, twelve miles width, off the east 



FOR THE GENESEE 1'ABMER. 



SILK. 



Mr. Isaac Foster, of Ogden, called upon me 

 the other day, for some eggs of the silk-worm, 

 and iclated to me several facts on the subject 

 of raising silk, the relation of which may in- 

 terest some of your readers, and call up the 

 slumbering attention of the farmers, to a sub- 

 of much importance to them and the country 

 at large. Mr. Foster came from a part of 

 Connecticut, where silk is made, 10orl2yenrs 

 ago, and purchased a farm in Ogden ; his first 

 objeet was to plant out a nursery of white 

 mulberry trees, from which he has an orchard 

 now of 150 trees. He states that a full grown 

 tree will furnish food sufficient to make one' 

 pound of raw silk in a season ; and midere-, 

 i'erence to a large mulberry tree standing in the 

 steet near Mr. Avery's brick tavern, at the 

 Landing, as capable of doing it ; this tree is 

 from 15 to 18 inches diameter, near the ground, 

 and from the best information I cat) ob 

 lain, is about 20 years old, and has a very 

 spreading top, not unlike a large apple tree. 



During the last war, Mr. F. went to a dis- 

 tant town in Connecticut, where there were 

 many mulberry trees, but where the inhabi- 

 tants were not accustomed to tnuke silk. He 

 obtained permission to cither the leaves, and 

 with the aid of two females of his family, he 

 made, in six weeks, silk enough to yield him 

 I about $u00, after adding to it the labour of the 

 females, five or six weeks longer, in reeling, 

 and making it into sewing silk, silk twist, Ac. 

 I should add, that during the last week offeed- 

 ing the worms, he had the assistance of a few 

 children and others, for in the last stages of 

 their existence, they eat voraciously, and must 

 be kept supplied with food, or all previous la 

 bor is lost. He made his crop of silk before 

 the hay and harvest of his own farm came on. 

 Mr. F. s"aies that it is customary for youngj 

 women to go out to those families who cannot j 

 make their own silk, and make it on shares ; 

 that in this manner, one .vill, in the course of] 

 te! or twelve weeks, make about 15 pounds 

 of silk, reel it from the lulls or cocoons, and 

 return the one half of the raw silk, thus made, 

 to the owner of the trees ; thus making, or 

 earning as much for herself, frequently in a feu- 

 weeks, as a young man will in a year, at com- 

 mon labor. 



It is not often, however, that mulberry 



orchards can be had on shares, as dkery family 



prefers making and manufacturing their own 



side of the tract, and along the Genesee river; and ]| silk, when they have the power, as it is much 



the common white mulberry, and are perfectly 

 hardy. 



If the foregoing remarks, hastily made, are 

 worthy of notice, you are at liberty to insert 

 them in the Farmer. I am, respectfully, vours, 

 O. WILDER. 



P. 8. I might remark that the price of silk, 

 during the war. was much higher in price than 

 it is now ; but raw silk, that is, in the state in 

 which it is reeled from the cocoons, is now 

 worth, in France, from 5 to $5,50 per pound, 

 and is now worth I he same in this country ; but 

 its value is greatly enhanced by the additional 

 labour of converting it into sewing silk, or 

 twist, which every house-wife could soon do. I 

 have been speaking of the domestic manofac- 

 ture of the article, which is only preparatorv 

 to its more extended culture and use, which 

 would be a necessary consequence. 



FOR THE GENESEE FARMER. 



GRAFTING GRAPES. 



Port Lawrr.ncc, [Michigan] Feb. 7th, 1831 

 Messrs. Editors— In the first number o1 

 the Genesee Farmer, information is solicited in 

 relation to the ingrafting of grape vines. As 

 I havo succeeded in the process, I will give tnv 

 views upon the subject. I conceive that the 

 failures have been principally owing to the pe- 

 riod when the ingrafting has been performed. 

 If it is alter the sap begins to flow in the spring, 

 there is almost a certainty of failure. I have 

 attempted it several times after the circulation 

 of the sap had commenced and failed. But I 

 have subsequently succeeded in the following 

 manner. In the first weather that was warm e- 

 nough to thaw an inch of the ground in Match, 

 I inserted the cions, four or five inches long, 

 with one bud at the surface of the ground in 

 the common mode of cleft grafting. Then 

 drawing the earth about it to the top of the ci- 

 on, and covering it with a bunch of straw a 

 foot thick, least the ground might afterwards • 

 freeze and draw it out. After all danger of 

 frost was past 1 removed the straw. In this 

 manner, if the process is well performed, there 

 is as much certainty of success, as in ingrafting 

 the apple, or any other tree. 



B. F. STICKNEY. 



mortgaged the residue, in three parcels, to William 

 Willink and others, of Amsterdam, called the Hol- 

 land Company ; under the foreclosure of which mort- 

 gages, the Company acquired the full title to their 

 large tract — surveyed it into ranges and townships, 

 after the manner of Oliver Phelps, and in 1801 open- 

 ed a land office at Batavia, under the agency of Jo- 

 seph Ellicott, for the sale thereof." 



I will close this lengthy communication, (for the 

 ihread of the subject would have been impaired by 

 dividing it into two numbers,) by an attempt to cor- 

 rect an error in your first number. 



The Newspaper " printed in Genesee, entitled the 

 Ontario Gazette" was probably the one established 



by a Mr. Carey, which soon passed over to 



Gould and Post, and shortly after , to Gould & Bemis, 

 and entitled the Ontario Repository. 



Carey and Post left the country in an early day — 

 Gould died in 1808, and was an early victim to the 

 consumption, in the country. The Repository was 

 continued by James D. Bemis up to, and prob- 

 ably beyond its thirtieth volume, who has lately 

 retired from it with an ample competency. It is still 

 continued by Morse and Willson. Its files must fur- 

 nish many materials for the early history of the coun- 

 try. 

 ( The Vessel was built by Charles Williamson, at 

 Geneva, for the navigation of the Seneca Lake. 



There is no Genesee Lake in the country. 

 JESSE HAWLEY. 



II Toliim individually, and noi to bin family or compa- 

 any, for he was concerned with no company, and had 

 !mt ODe heir. Chariot tc, who married Sir John Lowther 

 Johnstone, whose hcttsnow inherit tho preoertv. 



more profitable, especially where there is a fa 

 mily of children, to iiati'.er leaves, which is ihe 

 chief labor. The reeling can always be done 

 during leisure. 



A firmer could scarce y leavo a better lega- 

 oy to his children, in toe shape of properly 

 than to set out for each of them, 50 white mul- 

 berry 'rees, on such parts of his farm as not to 

 interfere with his ordinary farming operations, 

 he would nave growing a better mine of wealth 

 than the goldmines of the south. 



1 saved eggs of the silk worm last summer, 

 and if they are well preserved through the 

 winter, will cheerfully furnish a few to any 

 person requesting them, free of expense, in 

 he spring. I have a nursery of about 3090 

 irees, of two summers growth from the seed, 

 a portion of which will be fi/r sale, in' the 

 spring, at ten or twehe dollars the 100 trees. 



I have one tree, a variety of the white mul- 

 berry, that 1 prize very highly, the morusmul- 

 tkaulis, which produces a leaf about twelve in- 

 ches long by ten wide, the genuine Chinese 

 mulberry tree. It is yet extremely rare in the 

 United Stales, though I have seen a few ad- 

 vcrtised for dale, in the uurscries near New 

 York. About nine years ago, two trees were 

 brought from the Phillippino Islands, into 

 Fruuce.from which they have been extensively , - „ 



propagated, and from thonee have found their „ ff en been sc ,.„|,,r„ 

 Way tu this country. 



They grow more readily from cuttings, than 



FOR THE GKNFSEE FARMER. 



METEORS. 



Returning to Rochester,sometiine in Augus. 

 last, from Henrietta, when within about amile 

 and a half of the village, upon the high grounds 

 south, I heard an explosion in the air, like llu 

 bursting of a skyrocket. Turning toward it, 

 I discovered at a distance not to exceed 2U 

 rods, and at a height of about one hundred and 

 fifty feet, a large white ball, with a streaming 

 tail, apparently about five yards in length, mo 

 ving rapidly in a horizontal direction, towards 

 the south-west. Its motion was attended with 

 a distinctly whirring sound, somewhat resem- 

 bling a very sudden gust of wind. 



Its career was very short, after the explosion, 

 for the oozing of its substance, which formed 

 the tail, rapidly wasted it away, and from the 

 tune I first saw it, to the time of its extinction, 

 it had passed apparently about one hundred 

 yards. 



The b ili itself, which at first, at that distance 

 appeared ubout the size of a man's head, was 

 nearly white, while the color of the tail was a 

 low s"hades darker than tho sky, which was 

 perfeetly clear, The day w.-is fair, ami I anx- 

 iously looked for some relics, but not a particle 

 reached the ground, that I could discover. 



The first impression was, that it was the 

 work of art, but alter it was wasted, all was 

 still, and not a human form except myself was 

 to be seen. 



I send you this, wilh the hope that you, or 

 some of your meteorological readers will of- 

 fer an explanation of what, to me, was an e\ 

 phenomena. Have they 

 and arc they noi 

 what in the night arc callc ! " shooting st:irs.' 



PHILO.= -- 



