154 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



July 



soon after harvest as practical. The price is now 

 high, and must continue until new wheat is offered. 

 It ' J a matter of considerable importance that the 

 m rft economical process of tillage, seeding, gather- 

 ing, threshing, and cleaning wheat, be adopted. No 

 operation has paid better than sub-soil plowing in 

 England ; and the use of reapers is just beginning to 

 attract the attention of English farmers. Messrs. 

 Rapalje & Briggs, extensive dealers in agricultural 

 implements in Rochester, have just filled an order for 

 one of Hussey's Reapers, to go to Liverpool ; and 

 other American implements are in use both in the 

 Britisli Islands and on the Continent, with entire sat- 

 isfaction. Our farmers are most deficient in feeding 

 wheat plants with their natural and appropriate food. 

 Little is thought of beyond the application of lime, 

 gypsum, turning in clover or some other green crop. 

 The elements of wheat contained in all the grain, 

 meat, milk, cheese, potatoes, and other articles of 

 human consumption, annually wasted in this country, 

 are fully equal to the production of 12 bushels of 

 wheat to each person in the United States. At this 

 estimate the aggregate would be 264,000,000 bushels 

 from the fertilizers now thrown away. More thor- 

 ough culture, greater care in saving and applying 

 manures, and better attention to the extirpation of 

 all weeds, like red root, Canada thistles, cockle, chess, 

 garlick, and the like pests, will improve the quality 

 and intrinsic value of this important staple. At the 

 present writing, wheat is backward but very prom- 

 ising in Western New York. 



PATENT OFriCE REPORT. -Part II. 

 Suggestions for the Improvement of Agriculture. 



Sir : Agreeably to your request, I have prepared, 

 and have the honor herewith to submit, a report on 

 the statistics and progress of Agriculture in the Uni- 

 ted States for the year 1 849. 



The communications received in answer to the 

 circulars issued from the Patent Office in the usual 

 form, number some four hundred. Not a few of these 

 are extended essays, and all contain useful facts or 

 suggestions, which have been gratuitously furnished 

 by the contributors. To publish the whole would 

 require two large volumes, in place of one of moder- 

 ate size ; and to reject three-fourths of the matter in 

 hand seemed a poor return to the many gentlemen, in 

 almost every State, who have kindly proft'ered their 

 services to promote the most important interest of 

 the republic. 



Under these circumstances, it was thought not 

 amiss to re-write and greatly condense three-fourths 

 of the letters and essays intended for the report. 

 This labor has been great, but it has saved some 

 $10,000 in printing, and it is hoped with improve- 

 ment to the document, and without doing injustice to 

 any correspondent. 



The undersigned deems it not out of place in sub- 

 mitting this report, to olfer a few suggestions in 

 reference to the ways and means now' available for 

 the improvement of American agriculture. 



I. AGRICIILTIRAI. KDUCATIO.N. 



Since 1823, when Judge Buki. iiilrodiired the tir.'^t 

 bill to establish an agricultural college in the State 

 of New York by legislative aid, constant eftbrts have 

 been made to render the study of rural economy as a 

 science, not less than its practice as an art, popular 

 in this country Twenty-seven years have now 



elapsed, a whole generation has passed off the stage, 

 and New York, with her five hundred thousand cul- 

 tivators of the soil, is still without the first agricul- 

 tural school worthy of the name ; nor is any other 

 State in a better condition. Dark as this view of 

 agricultural education really is, it is the darkness 

 that precedes the da.vn of a bright and happy day. 

 Men who have labored for the improvement of agri- 

 culture and the elevation of agriculturists, for a quarter 

 of a century, with little of hope and less of pecuniary 

 reward, now realize the beginning of an auspicious 

 change in public sentiment. Thanks to agricultural 

 journals and societies, the people will soon discover 

 that labor and capital devoted to tillage and husbandry 

 are as worthy of legislative consideration as labor 

 and capital employed in mining, commerce, and man- 

 ufactures. So soon as this truth shall be fairly com- 

 prehended, the long struggles of the friends of 

 improvement will be crowned with success, and the 

 victory won over both ignorance and its traditions. 



It is indeed wonderful how long those enlightened, 

 reasoning farmers, who, like Washington, cherish a 

 due respect for their high calling, have had to beg, 

 and beg in vain, of State Legislatures and of Con- 

 gress, for a little assistance to prevent the universal 

 impoverishment of American soils. Whatever has 

 been done to arrest the exhaustion of arated lands, 

 has been effected not only without due aid from Gov- 

 ernment, but in spite of a mistaken policy which 

 encouraged the removal of all the elements of bread 

 and meat from cultivated fields, and their speedy 

 transportation beyond the possibility of restitution. 

 Neither the earnest recommendation of the ilhistrious 

 farmer of Mount Vernon, nor the prayers of two 

 generations of agriculturists, nor the painful fact that 

 nearly all tilled lands were becoming less and less 

 productive, could induce any Legislature to foster the 

 study of agriculture as a science. Happily, this term, 

 when used in connexion with rural aftairs, is no longer 

 the subject of ridicule. 



Some pains have been taken in this report, to prove 

 that one thousand millions of dollars judiciously ex- 

 pended, will hardly restore the one hundred millions 

 of acres of partially exhausted lands in the Union to 

 that richness of mold and strength of fertility for per- 

 manent cropping which they possessed in their prim- 

 itive state. 



The continued fruitfulness of the earth is an inter- 

 est far greater and more enduring than any form of 

 government. 



If the twenty-two millions of people now in the 

 United State.-! may rightfully exhaust the natural 

 fertility of one-third of the arable lands of the coun- 

 try, the forty-four millions who will be here twenty- 

 five years hence may properly consume the product- 

 iveness of the, remaining two-thirds of all American 

 territory. 



.'V great principle is involved in the science of agri- 

 culture, which reaches through indefinite generations, 

 and forms the basis of all possible improvements and 

 of the highest hopes of our race. All advancement 

 is impracticable in a country that closely approxi- 

 mates the condition of a desert. 



As a nation of farmers, is it not time that we in- 

 quire by what means, and on what terms, the fruit- 

 fulness of the earth and the health and vigor of its 

 invaluable products may be forever maintained, if not 

 forever improved 1 



These are questions of universal concernment, to 

 the careful and rigid investigation of which no man 



