

90 



itljc jFarmer'0 IHcntliln Visitor. 



From ihe Albany Cultivator. 

 Farming in Western New York. 



Eds. Cultivator— On leading in the February 

 and March numbers of The Cultivator, F. Hoi 

 brook's description nf .Indue Hayes' farming on 

 a hard, hungry, New England soil, we have a 

 fine example of what industry, economy, and 

 practical science will do towards making the 

 " desert blossom as the rose." But it would he 

 not less an interesting spectacle if we could 

 once look upon a farm in this all alluvial* coun- 

 ty on which n tithe of the same labor and ma- 

 nure, had heen thus judiciously expended and 

 applied. 'Tis true, we have many good farmers 

 in western New York, iiii-n well read in the the- 

 ory, and practised ill the details of their great 

 calling, if we compare them with the mass of 

 farmers in the same favored section of the 

 earth's surface. But how will they compare 

 with such masterly men as Adam Anthony, of 

 Rhode Island, or W. A. Hayes of Maine, in the 

 art of overcoming great natural obstacles, and 

 the quickening of primitive sterility. As well 

 perhaps, as the general who takes his troops to 

 the battle-field on steamboats or railroad will 

 compare wi:h the Carthagenian of old, who had 

 first to soften and reduce the rocks before his 

 army could scale the Alps, to look down upon 

 the battle-field. 



It will be urged that necessity is alike the 

 goail to genius and industry, and the mother of 

 invention: but that our soil requires no such la- 

 bor and expense as the barren detritus of New 

 England, that the extra amount of crop would 

 not pay for the outlay, &c., &c. To meet this 

 stereotyped argument, 1 only ask for a tithe of 

 the labor, and no other amendment to the soil, 

 than a judicious making, saving and application 

 of the manures which are inherent to, and may 

 be made on the farm. I now appeal to those 

 truly intelligent farmers of this (Seneca) county, 

 who read The Cultivator, if a tenth part of the 

 labor and expense bestowed by Judge Hayes in 

 carting clay on his sandy lots, with the other 

 amendments and extra tillage bestowed by him, 

 would not enable theiii to grow twice as many 

 bushels of grain to the acre as they now grow? 

 or at least half as many imperial bushels to the 

 acre, as is grown in England, on the best farms, 

 under the best cultivation. Beit if the best Sen- 

 eca county farmers are still behind some of" those 

 in Old and New England, they are second to 

 none in New York. The premiums awarded to 

 farms in our county by the State Agricultural 

 Society, two years successively, as the best farms 

 in the Empire State, are intrinsic evidence of 

 the fact. 



Much good is to be anticipated from the im 

 proved and improving practice and example of 

 such men; while they adopt the mode of wheat 

 culture, the very tidy fanning of their immedi- 

 ate jieighhors of German blood, they ingraft up- 

 on it those late discoveries in the composition of 

 manure and the art of manuring, which proper- 

 ly belongs to agricultural science. Such is the 

 force of" the example of such individuals on the 

 rural economy of this county, that even those 

 funnels among us who have heretofore scandal- 

 ized book farming as empiricism, begin now to 

 yield to the ocular proofs of what the book bus 

 done, and is now doing. In fact, many of our 

 farmers begin of late to be impressed with the 

 dignity of their calling; and to embrace the be- 

 lief that the book is as necessary to the farmer, 

 as to the mathematician, the architect, the law- 

 yer or the priest. But there is still in every 

 community of farmers, that egotistic impractica- 

 ble class, which blindly abuses heaven's best 

 treasure. Such men will never take the him 

 that the fat of their soil is not as indefeasible as 

 their litle 10 its measured acres, until they learn 

 i' iu the diminution and failure of crop. Such 

 men not only waste their manure, but their gen- 

 eral practice of tillage is alike superficial, behind 

 hand, reckless. When they are told in order to 

 induce them to save Iheir field and house ashes, 

 that no plant can grow without the elements of 

 its ashes, and that the ashes of" all plants are 

 nearly the same, their reply is, "1 don't believe 

 in your book farming* I someiimes think that 

 the art, and 1 may now say the science of tillage, 

 has no charms for such men, beyond the present 



* 1 say alluvial, because diluvion is often without the 

 elemeuls of rich alluvion. 



food and dollars they force from the soil. The 

 earth's products, instead of" exciting the mind of 

 such individuals to the interesting study of na- 

 ture's laws, the modus operandi by which she 

 produces and multiplies, in her vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms, and then dissolves and re- 

 produces from the scattered elements. It would 

 seem that their marvellousness is ihe only facul- 

 ty of the mind interested in the matter. As the 

 Athenian raised an allar to the Unknown God, 

 so do such self-blinded men deify and erect an 

 altar to the moon, as the patron saint of their 

 trade and calling. 



The farmers of western New York have yet 

 but a superficial knowledge of the inexhaustible 

 treasure they possess iu the rich diluvial forma- 

 tion of their soil ; 'tis said that layers of hard 

 pan are in some places deposiied near the sur- 

 iace, but the subsoil generally contains organic 

 remains, with all the sails necessary to produce 

 the maximum yield of cereal grains, to a great 

 depth. On the plateau of Vurirk and Romulus, 

 the table land between the Cayuga and Seneca 

 lakes, Ihe soil is a heavy loam; when the for- 

 est was first cut off, greal crops of wheat and 

 other cereals were produced, hut now the sur- 

 face soil is worn down heavy and dead ; water 

 sometimes stands on a, hundred fields until ihe 

 summer mouths, so that the average yield of the 

 cereal grains, according to the late statistics of 

 our Agricultural Society, is much lower there 

 than in the other towns of Seneca county. 

 Draining is the panacea for such lauds; their or- 

 ganic treasures are inexhaustible. One farmer 

 in Romulus, whose farm is almost a perfect lev- 

 el, told me that the only perfect wheat I e had 

 grown for many years, was on the subsoil 

 thrown out of the main ditch, which he had cut 

 the same season the wheat was sown, to relieve 

 ihe field from surplus water. 



s. vv. 



Waterloo, (Seneca county, JN. Y ) March 12, 1849. 

 The Crop of Acorns. 



BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. 



There came a man in days of old. 

 To hire a piece of land tor gold, 

 And urged his suit in accenis meek, 

 "One crop alone, is all I seek ; 

 That harvest o'er my claim 1 yield, 

 And to its lord resign the held," 



The owner some misgivings felt, 

 And coldly with the stranger dealt, 

 And found his last objection Tail, 

 And honied eloquence prevail. 

 So look Ihe prorler'd price in b and, 

 And lor one crop leased out the land. 



The wily tenant sneered with pride, 

 Anil sowed Ihe 6)iot with acorns wide ; 

 At first, like tinv shoots they grew. 

 Then uroad and wide their branches threw, 

 Bui long before these oaks sublime 

 Aspiring reach'd their forest prime, 

 The cheated landlord mouldering lay 

 Forsaken with his kindred clay. 



Oh ye, whose years unfolding fair, 



Are freeh with youth and free from care, 



Should Vice or Indolence desire, 



The garden of your soul lo hire, 



No parley hold, eject the suit, 



Nor let one seed the soil pollute. 



My child, their first approach beware, 

 AVuh firmness break the insidious snare, 

 Lest as the acorns grew and throve 

 Into a 6un-excluding grove, 

 Thy sins, a dark o'ershatlnwing tree. 

 Shut out the light of heaven from thee. 



Culture of Grapes in Ohio.— It is staled in the 

 Report of the Agricultural Society for the county 

 of Hamilton, O., that not less than five hundred 

 bushels of Catawba and Isabella grapes were 

 sold in Cincinnati during last season, for " table 

 use" — the price $3 to S4 per bushel. But the 

 quantity sold for the table is said to have been 

 inconsiderable, compared with the quantity used 

 in the manufacture of wine. The grape culture 

 is profitably carried on in the vicinity of Cincin- 

 nati, on ihe roughest hill-sides, which are of but 

 I title value for the ordinary purposes of agri- 

 culture. 



The wheat fields in Ashland county, Ohio, 

 promise fine crops. In Williamson county, III,, 

 the worm is destroying the wheat. The fruit 

 ibere has sullered severely from the frost. 



Butter-Making. 



Good butter is always iu demand in our mar- 

 kets, and at prices which will well repay the 

 cost of production. And the cost of manufac- 

 turing a superior article — one that will be credi- 

 table to the manufacturer and satisfactory to the 

 purchaser and consumer, is often but little if any 

 greater than when only an inferior and low 

 priced article is produced. It is, however, a 

 well-known fact that much of the butter manu- 

 factured in this Slate is not of superior quality, 

 and will not command the highest price in the 

 market. And this may be attributed, principal- 

 ly, to a want of knowledge, care and skill on the 

 part of those who make it. 



To make good butter, good cows are requisite. 

 When poor butler is made we do not think the 

 fault is generally in the cows; although there is 

 a very perceptible difference in the milk of dif- 

 ferent cows, and probably from I lie milk of some, 

 good butter cannot be obtained. Suitable food 

 for the cows is another requisite. When cows 

 are obliged to obtain their food in swamps, or 

 to eat weeds, browse and foul stuff, it is unreas- 

 onable to expect to make good butter from their 

 milk. The best butter is obtained from the milk 

 of cows which are kept in good pastures cover- 

 ed with a healthy growth of the cultivated grass- 

 es, such as herds grass, red and » bite clover, 

 and free from weeds, &c. When the pastures 

 are short in the latter part of the season, the 

 stalks of Indian corn, fed when green, will be 

 found to be a very suitable and profitable food 

 for milch cows; when fed with these, more but- 

 ter may be obtained from their milk, than when 

 fed on grass alone, and that, too which is equally 

 good. 



The following directions are from several au- 

 thentic sources, but principally from the pub- 

 lished statements of Mr. B. A. Hall, of New 

 Lebanon, N. Y., who, for two years in succes- 

 sion, received the first premium of the New 

 York State Agricultural Society for the best 

 Butter Dairy. 



The milk room or cellar should he kept per- 

 fectly sweet and clean, and at a temperature of 

 not above CO deg., nor below 45 (leg. With the 

 best butter-makers a thermometer, and a supply 

 of ice for cooling the milk and regulating the 

 temperature, are considered almost indispensa- 

 ble. When the temperature requires it, Mr. 

 Hall draws the milk over ice placed in a can 

 with a faucet, by which means the cream rises 

 in much less time than when cooled in the ordi- 

 nary way. After it is strained, it is put into 

 pans, usually about eight quarts in a pan. Jt 

 ought to stand thirty-six hours before being 

 skimmed, but this time must be varied occasion- 

 ally as the weather changes. The cream should 

 he taken off when the milk is slightly changed, 

 and before it is coagulated. The cream may be 

 kept in stone jars, and its temperature should 

 never be suffered lo rise higher than about 58 

 deg., and it should he churned before any thing 

 more than a very slight fermentation takes place. 



"The great anxiety of dairymen to churn 

 quick," says Mr. Hall, " is at the expense of a 

 first rate article. Any person, at all conversant 

 with butter-making, has observed the whitish 

 yellow color and oily appearance it will present 

 when taken from the churn, whenever the cream 

 has been, or is too warm when the operation of 

 churning commences, thus forever destroying its 

 rich flavor and keeping properties. The butter- 

 milk cannot be expelled without working too 



