184 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Atro. 



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wooii-bouse will cost something over SI 00. It was 

 built by the job, and I think it was done at a low 

 rate. But a similar house can be built here, with 

 good management, for from $800 to $900. Some 

 will say it is too small ; but to this I reply, room 

 often depends more upon arrangement than actual 

 size. A small house is easier cleaned, easier taken 

 care of, easier warmed, and furnished with less ex- 

 pense than a large one. Rusticus. — Rutland, Jeff. 

 Co., JV. Y., 1850. 



SUB-SOILING. 



Messrs. Editors ; — Did you ever hear of skinned 

 land ? If not, I will explain the term, this wise : 

 Land that has been cropped for a long succession of 

 years skin deep, i. e., worked four or five inches deep ; 

 the manures made upon the place sold each spring to 

 the neighbor paying the best price for it. Just such 

 a place of twenty-five acres, beautifully located near 

 our city, I have recently purchased, intending to ride 

 my hobby Horticulture lo my heart's content. My 

 first step was to doom to the dung cart a pair of 

 horses, who ply steadily their three cords per day, 

 consisting of stable manures, leached ashes, limed 

 hair, charcoal from the rectifyer's, sweepings from 

 the smith's shops, bones, old plaster, lime rubbish, 

 and last though not least, street dirt. These ingre- 

 dients are carefully spread over the land, preparatory 

 to the slirrivg of the soil, to which particularly I 

 wished to draw your attention. Having purchased 

 from your townsmen Messrs. Rapaljb k. Briggs a 

 No. 2 Nourse k Mason sub-soil plow, the novelty of 

 the tool excited so great an interest that I extended 

 invitations to some twenty practical and amateur 

 farmers to be present at the trial, not one of whom 

 had ever seen the oper ition of sub-soiling. Having 

 fully examined the nature of tlie soil, I determined to 

 run the first furrow with the common plow nine 

 inches deep, turning over a fine and mellow loamy 

 soil. This was followed by the sub-soil plow, drawn 

 by four oxen, eight inches deeper, crumbling and 

 rendering permeable and light without bringing to 

 the surface gravel pan or other dead and inert mat- 

 ter, but comminuting earths rich in organic materials, 

 that have lain dormant doubtless for ages. Here 

 was the charm ! Our friends looked with delighted 

 astonishment — conviction flashed upon the mind — 

 perfectly satisfied of the great and important results 

 that must follow the act, in giving depth for roots to 

 penetrate — in placing a check upon the usual de- 

 struction by summer drouth, and the assurance of 

 moisture at those times by capillary attraction, the 

 greater amount of heat and atmospheric influences 

 earlier in the season, with all those chemical effects 

 nature calls to her aid to produce vegetable growth 

 when relieved by the incubus she has been weighed 

 down by. 



The land was left as light as a feather bed — in- 

 deed, equal to a v> ell trenched garden, the surface 

 being raised some ten or twelve inches above the 

 former level, a stick easily penetrating to the full 

 depth of seventeen inches ! Is not this the great 

 and fundamental step towards rejuvinating mv pooi 

 skinned land '! 



My farm operations are, for the season, principally 

 experimental, such as ordinary plowing of seven 

 inches and si b-soiling seventeen inches alternate 

 strips, each having the same manures, and seeding 

 to oats, corn^ potatoes, &c.; also, top dressing new 



grass land in sections, with charcoal, domestic pou- 

 drette, plaster, stable manure, lime rubbish, guano ; 

 besides jvhich, I am planting some 1000 additional 

 fruit trees, &.C., &,c. The results of these various 

 experiments I hope to detail for the Farmer iit a 

 future time. 



In the draft of the sub-soil plow, we exchanged 

 the oxen for a three horse team, and again to a single 

 pair, which, by the by, were fine ones, and with the 

 exception of hard gravel pan, or plastic clay, two 

 horses worked it without severe fatigue. Three 

 horses abreast or a heavy yoke of oxen, however, 

 make the most desirable team. 



Our friends retired with the full conviction of the 

 utility of sub-soiling, and the determination of troub- 

 ling Messrs. R. & B. for what they may have on 

 hand of that pattern. W. R. Coppock. — Longsight, 

 Buffalo, June, 1860. 



We thank our correspondent for the excellent ex- 

 ample which he has set not only to the farmers in 

 the vicinity of Buffalo, but to the many thousands 

 who will read his valuable communication in this 

 journal. The experiments of one of the most enter- 

 prising and skillful horticulturists in the ''Queen 

 city of the Lakes" will be more than welcome to our 

 columns. 



A HALF DAY IN EAST WAYNE COUNTY. 



A FEW hours of unexpected leisure in the village of 

 Clyde, town of Galen, on the 9th inst.. were employed 

 in the following agreeable manner. First, I visited 

 the farm of Joseph Watson, Esq.. the President of 

 our County Agricultural Society, adjoining the vil- 

 lage. He has at his homestead fifty acres of land, 

 including five acres covered by a cemetery and river. 

 The balance, except an ash swamp reclaimed into a 

 pasture lot, and an adjoining lot of six or eight acres 

 of similar kind this spring put into broom corn, has 

 been raised, mostly by Mr. Watso.\'s personal labors, 

 to the highest state of cultivation, so that an accurate 

 account kept proves the proceeds of this little place 

 last year to have been about S900, and tvi'o years 

 preceding about $800 each year. This year the 

 yield promises greater than last, owing to that muck 

 swamp now covered with broom corn having been 

 reclaimed, giving promise of extraordinary crops. 

 A good share of the farm has been reclaimed from 

 sunken swamp-holes, by means of numerous ditches 

 and careful cultivation. His ditches, and fences par- 

 ticularly, are the best I have ever seen on any farm, 

 and many of them are peculiar to this farm. Some 

 of the fences in a conical form cover deep open ditches, 

 and matiy others are moveable and are kept in their 

 position in the most economical and durable manner. 

 His crops embrace the choicest varieties of all kinds ; 

 some of his acres are covered with kinds raised in a 

 series of years from a single head of grain picked up 

 two or three years ago at an agricultural exhibition. 

 I need hardly say that Mr. Wa rso's crops are enor- 

 mous, and his stock is such as we should e.Npect to 

 find on such a farm,, while his fruit trees exhibit not 

 only scientific cultivation, but also pnining. His 

 barn and out-houses, mostly erected by Mr. W'atso.n 

 in his leisure hours, combine more homemade econ- 

 omy and convenience than I have ever found in the 

 possession of any one farmer. His horsc-pov.'er at- 

 tached to his threshing machine and fanning mill, is 

 so perfect that with one horse it will also turn a 

 circular saw for sawing his wood and making the 



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