and permeable to the air by the fall plowing. In the 

 sprinfr, as early as the weather will permit, spread 

 over the remaining half of the manure, and plow it i 

 once more. This throws up on the surface the ma- i 

 nnre first applied, which is already partly decomposed, l 

 and buries beneath the soil that last put on, where I 

 it more readily undergoes the decomposition necessary ! 

 before it can supply the food to the future crop. The i 

 land thus prepared should remain until about the 1st 

 of May, before putting in the seed. It should then be \ 

 gone over with the harrow, and rendered as level and 

 smooth as possible. To sow the seed, a small seed- 

 drill is useful, as it saves much time and labor. 

 When this cannot be procured however, it can be 

 done by hand. The drills should be two/eet apart, 

 and as straight as possible. This is necessary that 

 you may use a horse cultivator or small plow to run 

 through the rows, which saves much labor in weed- 

 ing. The quantity of seed required to the acre is 

 about three pounds. It is best to sow it thick, and 

 the first time you weed them, to thin out the plants, 

 so that they may stand three or four inches apart. 

 In this way they grow much larger, and although 

 fewer in number, they will yield on the whole a 

 much greater crop. It is sometimes said that carrots 

 delight to grow amongst weeds, and it does seem as 

 if the reverse of this is true, that weeds delight to 

 grow among carrots. Indeed, it is the labor of weed- 

 ing them, tliat deters many farmers from cultivating 

 them extensively to feed to stock. But if they are 

 carefully weeded out twice during the season, and 

 frequent use made of the horse-cultivator to run 

 between the rows, it will be found quite sufficient, 

 and will not constitute a very severe tax upon the 

 time and patience of farmers. They should be 

 allowed to remain in the ground as late in the fall 

 as the weather will permit, as it is found they keep 

 much better in this case, than if harvested early. 

 In most parts of France the climate is so mild, as 

 not to render it necessary to dig them up, until 

 they are wanted to feed out to stock during the 

 winter. But in England and other countries where 

 the winters are more severe, they are either stored 

 away in cellars, or piled up in the field, and covered 

 first with straw, and then with a light coating of 

 earth which protects them from the frost. W. 



JPrill ^nsbaniJvtt. 



THE "GOOD TIME OOMma." 



I REOARD the Farmer as the best paper of the kind 

 with which I have the pleasure of an acquaintance. 

 I hail this as a promising era to the Agriculturists 

 of our country. They are, as a mass, awakening to 

 a sense of the importance and honor of their calling, 

 and the time will soon come when, instead of being 

 looked down upon as an inferior class of beings, it 

 will be considered as the most honorable title which 

 can be applied to a man, to call him an intelligent 

 farmer. But this state of things can not be hoped 

 for without an unceasing efl'ort. The farmer, instead 

 of striving to become notorious in the political world, 

 must bend his whole energies to the improvement of 

 his farm, his stock, his system of husbandry and his 

 mind. He must show to the world that he is proud 

 of his profession by bringing his children up to it, 

 and that too, with an education that shall make them 

 men fitted for any station. And then, and not till 

 then, may we expect .Agriculture and Agriculturists 

 to hold that place in society to which tkoy are justly 

 entitled. Utilitarian. — Alfred, JV. Y. Jan. 1860. 



CORN vs. WHEAT -DBILL CULTURE, &c. 



Messrs. Editors : — Much has been said on the rela- 

 tive profits of the wheat and corn crops of Western 

 New-York. If you please, I will give you a short 

 chapter of my own experiments. Last spring I found 

 myself in possession of a field of eight acres on which 

 wheat had been grown the preceding year. It was 

 thickly seeded with blue grass, which I resolved to 

 chastise by thorough summer-fallow. I had it turned 

 over the last of April for that purpose, but then 

 altered my mind and concluded to plant with corn. 

 This last operation has completely annihilated the 

 blue grass, a result which I could hardly have obtained 

 by the most thorough course of summer-fallow. 

 But now for the crop. I harvested from the 8 acres 

 600 bushels of ears of good corn. Not a very extra- 

 ordinary crop you say, but wait a moment. Assuming 

 that two crops of corn can be raised on the same 

 piece, to one of wheat, and we have the following 

 result : — The two crops as above, will give six hun- 

 dred bushels of shelled corn, which at fifty cents a 

 bushel, the average price, would give $300. One crop 

 of wheat, at twenty bushels per acre, which is an 

 average yield, would give, from the eight acres, 160 

 bushels, which at one dollar per bushel, would leave 

 a balance in favor of the corn crop of $140, to say 

 nothing of the cleansing of your fields of bluegrassj 

 red root, insects, and all the mighty hosts of enemies 

 with which the wheat grower has to contend. Try 

 it farmers of Western New- York, and see if I have 

 figured night. Get you a wheat drill, if you have not 

 one already — undone of them will answer. Sey- 

 mour's is the best. By the way, do not be discouraged 

 about the drilling system, because our enterprising 

 friends at Brockport, in their effbrts to simplify and 

 cheapen, so as to bring their drill within the means 

 of all, have given us a machine which is not in all 

 respects perhaps what it should be, they will remedy 

 that another year, and give us a better one. Got you 

 a drill, I say, to plant your corn ; and then a boy, 

 with a team, will plant his 12 acres a day, and grow 

 finely at that. Fill your cribs with the golden har- 

 vest ; not to sell to the distillers to convert into 

 whiskey, that bane and curse to humanity, but to 

 convert into beef, pork and bread, to cause the heart 

 of man to rejoice, and the widow's tongue to sing 

 for joy. Do not plow up your ground in the fall (the 

 opinion of Dr. Lke to the contrary notwithstanding) 

 to bleach and "waste its fragrance in the desert air," 

 but if practicable, plow it up one day and plant it the 

 next ; and then the fertilizing gasses (I do not know 

 their names — Dr. Ler will tell you) as they escape 

 from the earth, will be taken up by tlie growing crop 

 and held in solution or in reserve for the future per- 

 fecting of the crop. Mother Nature rs a great 

 economizer, and curious rectifier of therfe matters. 

 Read again the article in the last Fanner on the Phi- 

 losophy of Tillage, and blush with me, at your 

 ignorance of the profession which you have loved 

 and cherished your life long, and resolve to send your 

 sons to the Agricultural College which the people 

 are now demanding, at the hands of your sapient leg- 

 islators, as there is now some prospect that this jnst 

 and reasonable demand, which we have made in vain 

 these many years, will at last be granted. Cai.vi.n 

 Sperry. — Gates, Monroe County, JV*. Y., Januiiri/, 

 1850. 



■ 



i 



1 



*r 



