258 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Nov. 



i 



S. W.'S NOTES FOR THE MONTH. 



TiTOGRAPiiicAL Errors. — The compositor, in my 

 notice of Jknnv Lind, last month, set up an erasure 

 which spoiled my English. Furthermore, and for 

 his own benefit, I advise him to read Shakspeare 

 over again ; so that when he has a bad manuscript 

 quotation, lie may correct it from memory, and not 

 set up "fall" for "pall." 



Improved System of Manuring and Feeding. — 

 Joseph Harris, in the last Farmer, gives an article 

 which should be read by every farmer. He has the 

 rare good fortune to unite scientific knowledge and 

 experiment with practical skill and experience. Mr. 

 H. contends, witliout undervaluing carbonic acid or 

 the inorganic manures, that nitrogen or its equiva- 

 lent, ammonia, is required in much larger quantity 

 than any other simple substance, to all grain-bearing 

 soils : and that without its liberal distribution in the 

 soil, tlie presence of all the other grain-bearing ele- 

 ments in sufficient quantity for the maximum yield, 

 can not compensate for a deficiency of nitrogen. He 

 sets it dowK as a fixed fact, that if a cereal crop is 

 fed all the nitrogen it requires, in the shape of barn- 

 yard manure, the inorganic part of such manure is 

 amply sufiicient for the crop ; and that any deficiency 

 there may be of carbonic acid, will be supplied by the 

 atmosphere. Hence he urges every grain-growing 

 farmer, by all manner of means, to keep stock enough 

 to work up all his straw into manure ; and that in- 

 stead of continuing the practice of plowing in green 

 clover, it should rather be converted into hay, and 

 fed to stock in preference to timotliy hay, wliicli lie 

 classes among the nitrogen-consuming cereals ; 

 M'hile, on the other hand, clover collects more nitro 

 gen from the atmosphere than it takes from tlie soil. 

 Some of our best wheat-growing farmers have long 

 since found that the plowing in of green clover alone, 

 without the addition of animal manures, was insuffi- 

 cient to keep up, from year to year, tlie wheat-bear- 

 ing pabulum in the soil ; but, strange as it may seem, 

 the system is still persisted in with steadily increas- 

 ing dimunition of crop, without any attempt on the 

 part of many farmers, to save, increase, and apply, 

 barn-yard manure. Mr. Harris, having been two 

 years chemical assistant on the experimenial farm 

 of Mr. Lawes, in England, gives tables to show tlie 

 relative flesh-forming capacity of different articles of 

 vegetable food, in which he sets down oil-cake as 

 containing five times as much nitrogen as Indian 

 corn. This seems almost incredible, as corn con- 

 tains much oil ; and oil-cake, after being subjected 

 to hydraulic pressure, is supposed to contain very 

 little. At any rate, it is certain that no horbiferous 

 animal excrement is so rich in nitrogen as that of 

 the corn-fed hog. But in relation to the flesh-form- 

 ing capacity of food, no one article alone, no matter 

 how nutricious it may be, can be economical food. 

 Such is nature's mysterious laws of nutrition, that 

 it has been found when roots have been supplied to 

 the fatting animal, that a very small portion of corn 

 or oil meal was necessary to put on the most rapid 

 accumulation of both fat and flesh. 



Skneca County Fair. — It is said that the late 

 Fair at Ovid was more than creditable to the rural 

 progress of our all-arable, semper-fertile, uiiroinantic, 

 yet truly picturesque, little county of Seneca. For 

 the details of the exhibition, I refer to the Waterloo 

 Observer. Suffice it to say, that more than 100 fine 

 horses, and 130 head of cattle, were there shown ; 



carriages and farm implements of the most recent 

 and approved construction, and household products 

 of great excellence aiMl variety, were there ; and as 

 if to crown all the outward display, the spacious new 

 court-house was decorated with wreaths, boquets, 

 cornucopias, and ornamental plateaus, containing 

 more than eighty varieties of flowers, the perfume 

 of which filled the surrounding atmosphere. 



" And what a wilderness of flowers ! 

 It seem'd as tho' from all the bow'rs 

 And fiiirest fields of all the year, 

 The mingled spoil were scattered here.' 



So much for the tasteful floral contributions of 

 " Araby's fair daughters." Two essays were read 

 the first evening — one by Mm. Wykoff, on the 

 influence of rural pursuits. Besides being interest- 

 ing and creditable, it was delivered with that mod- 

 esty which in a young man gives evidence of pro- 

 gressive ability. May his example be followed by 

 other of our farmers' sons at the coming Fairs. Let 

 them remember tliat a great school-master has averred 

 that ho had never thoroughly commenced learning 

 until he began to teach. President Delafikld read 

 an essay on " the relation of vegetation to the sea- 

 son." My word for it, it was not like Goldsmith's 

 animated nature elaborated in a garret, but in nature's 

 own laboratory. I hope to see it in print. 



On the second day, after the very animated plow- 

 ing match. Professor NortoxV addressed the assem- 

 bled host in the great square, on the subject of that 

 great staff" in life's pilgrimage, " Wheat." It has 

 been said that the matter, although practical, exceeded 

 the appreciating powers of the auditory. Be this as 

 it may, the address is to be printed, when every farmer 

 who had not the quick ear and practiced perception of 

 a newspaper reporter, can "read, mark, learn, and in- 

 wardly digest" it at his leisure : may none neglect it. 



It is now evident to the most obtuse and limited 

 observer, that the establishment of our agricultural 

 fairs has already done much for rural progress. The 

 spirit of emulation among fanners has increased, to 

 the manifest social elevation of both the farmer and 

 his calling ; and the day has at length arrived when 

 the title of farmer gives to the imagination something 

 better than the figure of a man of more plodding, un- 

 intellectual labor, whose animal comforts and pleas- 

 ures are unrelieved by one single ray of that intel- 

 lectual light which enables him to see and investigate 

 those laws, and that modus operandi, by which nature 

 gives him his corn and his cattle. 'Tis true that 

 there are still among us many book-hating, imprac- 

 ticable farmers, some of whom not many years ago 

 reluctantly tolerated Jethro Wood's "pot metal" 

 plow. I well remember when the bare mention of 

 Clinton's big ditch aroused their indignation. Now, 

 in the era of plank roads coming up to their thresh- 

 holds, they are in a state of continual litigating dis- 

 quietude. But the example of such men (call them 

 not farmers) is no longer a misfortune — they will 

 soon be gone, and the age of better things will toll 

 their requiem. 



Freb Schools. — The editors of tho Genesee 

 Farmer have decided wisely, to keep the exciting 

 discussion of the Free School question out of its 

 columns. That the law will be affirmed by the peo- 

 ple, the signs of the times but too plainly indicate. 

 [f every voter was subjected to a conditional poll tax, 

 the result might be diff'erent. — fValerloo, Sen. Co., 

 jY. Y., Oct., 1850. 



