:02 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Sept. 



wealth-giving orchards ? Who grow wool and hemp, 

 mules anil horses, cattle and hogs, and make butter 

 and rhee?^', wheat and rorn, in the best climate in 

 America ? It will be freemen, happily exempt from 

 ■ all the peculiar cares and untold vexations incident 

 to, and inseparabte from, the relation of master and 

 slave. 



It is a great mistake to suppose that a farmer is 

 thought the less of at the south, in any State, if per- 

 chance he tills his fields with his own hands. Mr. 

 Toombs, a member of Congress from Georgia, and 

 liimself a wealthy planter, says that one-fourth of all 

 the cotton grown in that State is planted, hoed, 

 picked, ginne<l, and put up for market, by free white 

 laborers. It is a law of Providence, and one not 

 easily evaded anywhere, that man, whether bond or 

 free, "shall eat'bread in the sweat of his face.'' 

 Citizens that care not to own slave?, but seek to 

 realize an independent living by their own industry, 

 or by hiring help, may do so in Virginia quite as 

 welt as in IN'ew Vork, As a general thing, the soil 

 in the former iStato is not rich, but it is susceptible 

 of easy improvement. It lacks lime more than any 

 otlier element of crops. There are, however, exten- 

 sive districts of fair wheat lands, and corn is grown 

 in all parts of tlie State. Rotation of crops and the 

 art of making money by the dairy business and wool- 

 growing, are little thought of, and less practiced. 

 The climate and the almost spontaneous growth of 

 the best grasses, favor sheep-husbandry and stock- 

 growing of all kinds. The finest sheep that we have 

 ever seen are brought into Washington from Vir- 

 ginia. Col. Waru, of Clarke county, has left with 

 the writer, in the Patent Office, samples of wool from 

 an imported ram, which clips 18 lbs. of wool a year, 

 and weighs 420 pounds. His fat wethers sell read- 

 ily at from $'25 to $35 a head. Being a gentleman 

 of fortune, he buys, regardless of price, the prize 

 rams and ewes at the Royal Agricultural Fair in 

 England, nearly every year ; and seeks mutton sheep 

 and long, combing wool. 



The demand for good roadsters, not race-horses, is 

 most encouraging to the breeders of this noble animal. 

 To the man of small means, fruit eniture promises 

 the largest and surest profit. From the Potomac to 

 the Rio Grande, the consumption of good apples will 

 he limited only by the supply. Pears, peaches, 

 grapes, quinces, plums, cherries, and berries of all 

 kinds, are scarce and high. 



The annual expenditure of several millions in this 

 District, (Columbia) by the general government, and 

 the drawing to n focus of so many gentlemen of 

 wealth, and their families, from so vast an empire, 

 operate greatly in favoi> of skilful farmers and gard- 

 ncrs in this neighborhood. Both land and manure 

 are cheap and abundant. It is said, (we know not 

 with what truth,) that the one hundred square miles, 

 or ten miles square, do not contain over one thousand 

 slaves, and tlieso are nearly all house-servants. 



Instead of migrating to the far off outskirts of the 

 Republic, her enterprising sons liad better come and 

 settle down near her pulsating heart, and reap all 

 the advantages of the best markets on the continent. 

 A thousand dairies can not supjily butter and cheese 

 to the cities of Baltimore, Washington, Alexandria, 

 Georgetown, and to the planters engaged in growing 

 tobacco and other crops. Why bring butter five 

 hundred miles south, when it can be b<'tter made 

 within an hour's drive of the consinner ? We have 

 seen better butter sold in Ohio at six cents a pound, 



than sells for thirty-one cents in Washington. On 

 the 4th of .July potatoes sell at a dollar and a half a 

 bushel. In this climate they should be abundant at 

 a third of the money, at this season of the year. — 

 Garden vegetables are abundant, and generally good ; 

 but the supply does not last as sWill in the keeping 

 of them would effect, provided skill was possessed by 

 the growers of these perishable commodities. How 

 to kecj) potatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots, turnips, 

 onions, apples and other fruit, is a science of great 

 importance to all house-keepers. The wanner the 

 climate, the greater the ditficulty, and the larger the 

 profit to those that study and master the art. It is 

 knowledge, more than land, that we all lack ; al- 

 though we are apt to crave many acres, while we 

 begrudge the appropriation of a few dollars to pur- 

 chase the most useful books. 



In Virginia, agricultural skill and rural science 

 may command a liberal reward, because the field is 

 large and the laborers few. Prejudice alone keeps 

 honest, enterprising farmers of small means, from 

 growing hay at fifteen dollars a ton on land worth 

 from five to ten dollars an acre, which is now vacant. 

 Potatoes and butter sell at three prices, because it is 

 two small business for planters to produce them. 

 Such defective tillage and husbandry can not long 

 endure, and those that make judicous selections of 

 land in Virginia now, may do better than the best 

 did in New York forty years ago. Negroes are 

 going where their labor is nwst profitable. 



PATENT OFFICE REPORT. - Part 11 

 CULTURE OF irSDlAN CORN. — (zEA MATS.) 



Or the whole family of cereals, Zea .Mays is unques- 

 tionably the most valuable for cultivation in the 

 United States. When the time shall come that pop- 

 ulation presses closely on the highest capabilities of 

 American soil, this plant, which is a native of the 

 New World, will be found greatly to excel all others 

 in the quantity of bread, meat, milk, and butter which 

 it will yield from an acre of land. With proper cul- 

 ture, it has no equal for the production of hay, in all 

 cases where it is desirable to grow a large crop on a 

 small surface. 



The report of the Ohio Board of Agriculture for 

 1"849, for a copy of which we are indebted to M. B. 

 Bateham, Esq., editor of the Ohio Cultivator, con- 

 tains many interesting statements in reference to corn 

 culture, made by the officers of numerous county 

 agricultural societies. In Miami county a,0S0,67(> 

 bushels were grown, at an average yield of fifty-five 

 bushels per acre. Three varieties are cultivated : 

 the common gourd seed, for cattle : the yellow Ken- 

 tucky, for hogs and distilling : and the white, for 

 grinding and exportation. According to the returns 

 from Greene county, which produced I. '230,000 bush- 

 els of corn in 1849, "a regular rotatiou of clover, 

 corn, wheat, and clover again, is best for corn : and 

 no crop pays better for extra culture.'' 'I'lie Harrison 

 County Agricultural Society reports the pork crop at 

 4,800,000 pounds ; and it gave its first premium for 

 corn to Mr. S. B. Ldkbks, whose statement is as 

 follows : 



"The ground had been in meadow ton years ; was 

 plowed six inches deep about the middle of April : 

 was harrowed twice over on the 9th May, and planted 

 on the 11th, four feet by two feet. It came up well: 

 was cultivated and thinned when ten inches high : 

 three stalks were left in a hill. About two weeks 



