:tlO 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



October 1, 1831- 



the whole, and therefore for the public. The 

 Virginian does not want to eat all his tobac- 

 co, nor we our wheat. Shingles, and wood- 

 en dishes, produced on the mountains, would 

 make poor food ; but the grain they exchange 

 for, and the meat, produced in surplus, else- 

 where, sustain the foresters, and form indis- 

 pensable articles, every where, though these, 

 only produced to excess. 



' Sprung a leak !' The sugar tub sprung 

 a leak ! So the children thought, but it was 

 only that the tap -M the bottom had been pul- 

 led out, in order to drain off the molasses, or 

 syrup, from our last remaining tub of maple 

 sugar. This occurrence reminds me of some- 

 thni, r that was probably omitted in a previous 

 number, for the out-door folks of our Farm, 

 the men and boys make th s excellent and 

 delicious sweet, from our very ample Sugar 

 Orchard, abundance for the use of the whole 

 household. One hundred trees have produ- 

 ced us 600 lbs a year, besides a barrel of ma- 

 ple molasses, and two or three of vinegar, 

 from the latest runnings of the sa . This 

 makes work, however; but comes on in 

 March, when we have time to attend to it, and 

 by which time the boys are glad to get out of 

 the school-house, and open the summer cam- 

 paign by a ' demonstation' upon the Maple 

 Orchard. 



When I was a Farmer's boy, I felt all this. 

 Our Sap Works were in a hollow of the 

 breast of the ' Hog Back' Ridge, or Hill, and 

 never were their happier evenings, than oc- 

 curred in that grove of gigantic sugar ma- 

 ples. There were a few scattered hemlocks, 

 and belts of evergreens on three sides, in 

 which the Whet saw, as we used to call it — a 

 mocking-bird, — was very industrious, and 

 very musical, while the owl delighted to hoot, 

 and scream at us, around our evening fire. 

 I well remember the glare of light, the wild 

 and lovely scenery, the music of the night 

 birds, and the occasional Parties, at sugar- 

 ing-off-times. when all the boys and girls 

 came together, to eat, play, and be happy 



[Although the following article was pub- 

 lished in the Plough Boy eight or ten years 

 ago, and a long controversy ensu d, still we 

 find many persons of much respectability, 

 very positive that chess is the production of 

 wheat. They say they have examined it 

 closely, and almost detected it in the very act 

 of turning into chess. In the hopes of lead- 

 ing farmers to more careful experiments, we 

 continue the subject, and recommend the fol- 

 lowing to their attentive perusal. — N.Y. Far- 

 mer.] 



Extract from an Address delivered before tlie 

 Agricultural Society of Cayuga County. 

 By David Thomas. 



" I should greatly regret that the quantities 

 of ivheat and barley cannot be so expeditious- 

 ly and accurately determined, were it not that 

 the quality rather than the quantity ought to 

 be the criterion of merit. Although good 

 crops are greatly dependent on the hand of 

 industn, yet wheat and barley are less so than 

 any others ; and sometimes these appear so 

 capricious, that were we regulated only by the 

 quantity we should adjudge our premium to 

 the undeserving. There are other methods 

 however, by which the careful farmer may be 

 distinguished. The cockle, the chess, and va- 

 rious other weeds which pollute and impover- 

 ish the crop, will stand witnesses against the 

 former class of cultivators ; and / earnestly 

 recommend that no premium be adjudged to 

 Mm who may permit either of those two nui- 



sances to remain in his fields. I trust there 

 are not many who will think these condi- 

 tions unreasonable. On a former occasion I 

 called your attention the subject of cockle. 

 It was shown that the seed will lie for years, 

 if not for ages, in pasture land ; and I sug- 

 gested that our care ought chiefly to be exten- 

 ded to this plant before it attain maturity. 

 The employment of the rolling screen, as a 

 precautionary measure, may also prove im- 

 portant. But whatever means the farmer 

 may adopt totally to extirpate this plant, he 

 will be encouraged during its prosecution, by 

 the conviction that the perverted vigor of no 

 other seed will reproduce it. 



" I wish for the credit of some farmers 

 that they could feel the same confidence of 

 destroying chess. The vulgar opinion res- 

 pecting the orign of this plant is too well 

 known to need a recital, but perhaps all of 

 [you do not know tbut some are indifferent 

 [about its mixing with seed wheat or seed rye, 

 j alleging that it is never produced by its own 

 jseed. When error of opinion results in a 

 practice so preposterous, it is time to enter 

 ! our protest. Perhaps we have all been told 

 of the appearance of this plant in fields of 

 grain where it was never sown ; but this seed 

 \ is so small as to render its detection by a care- 

 less observer improbable. It is true that bota- 

 nists have given us long lists of mule or hy- 

 brid plants ; but chess has never had a place 

 assigned in this catalogue. It is not even 

 pretended by the advocates of this notion that 

 the seed-wheat from which this monster is 

 said to rise, was the offspring of vegetable 

 adultery; they admit that the wheat may 

 rise perfect from the ground, but after being 

 injured by cattle, or in unfavorable situations, 

 its nature becomes changed ; and the stalk 

 instead of being crowned with the golden 

 grain is only burdened with the shrivelled 

 chess. Now, it would be safe to assert that 

 nothing analagous to such transformation 

 can be produced from the vegetable king- 

 dom. It may not be irrevelant however, to 

 remark that chess, though a weaker plant than 

 wheat is yet more hardy ; and accordingly, 

 where wheat is thick and Jlourishing, the chess 

 droops among the stubble ; but, where cattle 

 or excessive moisture have injured the wheat, 

 chess springs with renewed vigor and fills the 

 vacancy. 



" But I am well aware of the inefficacy of 

 reason in combatting inveterate prejudices 

 which have been cherished from infancy ; 

 and to convince the believers of that doctrine 

 that it is founded in mistake, and unworthy 

 of enlightened minds, I shall refer to facts 

 that admit not of contradiction. The chess 

 is a perfect plant, as different from wheat, as 

 the latter is from rye or barley, — with seed 

 completely capableof vegetating, and known 

 in science by the name of B ramus Secalinus 

 The botanist,— who examines things with 

 incomparable more care than the assertors 

 of this doctrine, — would no sooner admit this 

 plant to be a degeneracy of Nature, because 

 it grows in our wheat field, — than the Zoolo- 

 gist would admit the sheep to be the degene- 

 rate offspring the Cow, because it feeds in 

 the same pasture. 



" I shall mention another circumstance 

 which to some may appear still more conclu- 

 sive. A farmer who lives in the vicinity of 

 Philadelphia, and whose veracity I have 

 known by long intercourse to be unimpeacha- 

 ble, lately assured me that for many years not 



From the \ew-KnglaDd Farmer. 



PACKING BUTTER. 



T-he defective manner in which butter is 

 often packed in this country is generally ob- 

 served, and is frequently the occasion of 

 great loss, alike to the manufacturer, the 

 vender, and the shipper. It often happen? 

 that this article is brought to market in fir- 

 kins made of green staves, full of sap, and 

 heads ; the consequence is, that the pickle 

 is sure to leak out, and the butter, impregna- 

 ted with the taste of pine, becomes unpalat- 

 able, and the shrinking of the staves freelv 

 admits the air, and soon renders the butter 

 rancid. In Ireland, where the staves to 

 make the packages cost more than double 

 the price they would heie. the kegs to put but- 

 ter in are made of thoroughly seasoned white 

 oak, entirely clear of sap; should the same 

 attention be paid here, the value and conse- 

 quent profit would be greatly enhanced. — 

 The greatest proportion of the butter bro't 

 to market, particularly for exportation, it is 

 presumed, is taken in by traders in the coun- 

 try. It would probably be to their advan- 

 tage to adopt the following method, that is 

 said to have been successfully tried, of hav- 

 ing a cask of cool and strong pickle in the 

 store cellar.directly under the counter, where 

 the butter is weighed, and a hopper in the 

 counter over the cask, and empty the butter 

 directly from the scales into the hopper, from 

 which it is conveyed to the pickle, and every 

 night or the next morning carefully sort the 

 butter as nearly as can be with regard to 

 color and quality, so that what may be con- 

 tained in a keg should have the same ap- 

 pearance, and the buttermilk well worked 

 out, and the butter c irefully packed in good 

 seasoned white oak kegs, clear of sap. It is 

 eenerally brought to the trader in boxes, and 

 from a considerable number of different per- 

 sons in a day, and of course of various col- 

 ors and qualities, which would remain in the 

 I pickle separately in the same form it was in 

 when it was emptied from the boxes, and 

 | leaves it in the best situation to sort and pack, 

 and puts it at once out of the way, instead 

 of its being left about the store exposed to 

 the air as has sometimes been the case. 

 Portsmouth, N- H. Sept. 9. 



fields." 



THE SILK WORM. 



This useful little animal, the author of po 

 much luxury and magnificence, is one of the 

 most interesting objects in nature. In it> 

 disposition it is perfectly gentle and inoffen- 

 sive,' affording both instruction and reproof, 

 ;o all who may behold them, and withal 

 richly compensating the owner for all the 

 care bestowed upon them. 



The egg which produces the worm is smal- 

 ler than a common sized pin-head, of a 

 blight yellow, which in process of time be- 

 comes of a brownish cast. After the mulber- 

 ry leaf has attained to a sufficient size, the 

 eggs are placed in a room, where if the tem- 

 perature ranges between seventy and eighty. 

 they will hatch in three or four days. — 

 When they first make their appearance, they 

 are diminutive in size as scarcely to be per- 

 ceptible, of a blackish hue, varying in com- 

 plexion as they increase in age. 



The process of casting off their skins, 

 which it is said they do four times, is slow, 

 and to appearance somewhat painful. The 

 time of this change taking place may be 



known by their refusing to eat, rearing their 

 one stalk of chess had appeared in his grain] heads and remaining stationary nearly four 



P hours. They then fasten the extremity of 



