46 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Feb. 



S. W.'S NOTES FOR THE MONTH. 



ii 



It costs too much.— Ask a farmer why he don't 

 farm better, take more pains to make, save, and ap- 

 ply manure to liis crops, and he will say, "it costs 

 too much." Ask him why he don't put his land in 

 better order, plant in better season, tend his corn 

 better, and earlier, that it may be ready to make the 

 cominor draufrht available ; his reply is, "it costs too 

 much." Ask him why he don't fall plow his old 

 meadows, so that the frosts of winter may kill the 

 worms and pulverize the heavy loam ready for a 

 sprino' crop : his reply is, I am too much hurried in 

 the fall to break up sward, and to hire, " it costs too 

 much." Ten to one he ur^es the same reason in 

 the sprinjr, why he hurries the seed into a half-tilled 

 field, that his work all comes at once in the spring, 

 and to hire, " it costs too much.'' If Providence 

 does not interfere and give a season just right to aid 

 slovenly tillage, this man's crops will not pay even 

 for the stinted labor bestowed on it ; but in the event 

 of a short crop, the season bears the blame. Thus 

 this unfortunate man goes on stultifying himself from 

 year to year, in the implicit belief that because he 

 takes as much pains to grow a crop as his father did, 

 it is the fault of the season that he don't get as good 

 crops as his father did. If you tell him that his soil 

 is worn down and exhausted, he will reply that he 

 clovers and plasters just as his father did. If you 

 tell him that a green crop cannot forever compensate 

 for the loss of nitrogen carried away by a succession 

 of cereal crops, and that he must make and apply 

 more stable maiuire, nine times out of ten he will 

 turn the subject and talk of something else. 



Some farmers seem to think, and I don't know but 

 they are right, that no man has a right to teach or to 

 know anything about farming, unless he has himself 

 already, by bad husbandry, worn out one or two 

 farms. I heard of a farmer in a neighboring county, 

 wiio keeps a large stock of cattle, stables them in 

 winter, litters them well and makes a great deal of 

 manure. This year his corn crop did not pay for tlie 

 tillage, because that enormous pile of manure was 

 too formidable to be attacked by the farmer's work- 

 ing force, and he averred " that it cost too much to 

 hire." This great dung heap now stands wasting, 

 a monument of reproach, instead of honor, to him 

 that made it. Had he done like many of his neigh- 

 bors who i>ow laugh at liis folly, kept but little stock, 

 without stabling or litter, and half the time in the 

 highway, he would have had no manure heap to 

 stand as a reproach, and his neighbors would have 

 neglected to laugh at a man who was a fac simile of 

 themselves. Waterloo, .A'. Y.,Jan., 185] 



THRESHING OATS. 



Messrs. Editors : — If the farmers of this vicinity 

 keep pace with the improvements which are now 

 going on around them, they will have to be on the 

 move. A few hours only elapse from the time of 

 shipping such articles as the farmer may have to 

 dispose of, before they are in New York City — the 

 best market in the United States. But here, as in 

 all other markets, the condition in which the article 

 appears has much to do with the price which is re- 

 ceived for it. 



I wish to say one word to the farmers of this region, 

 and to all whom it may concern, about the threshing 

 of oats with a machine. If the farmer has cattle, it 



is much the best way to thresh oats with a flail, and 

 the cheapest. I will give the cost, in this town, of 

 threshing GOO bushels, calling it a day's work for a 

 threshing machine : 



COST OF THRESHING WITH A MACHINE. 



•Cost of threshing, $2,00 per hundred, $12,00 



Four horses, 2,00 



Four hands, 3,50 



Board of seven hands, 2,00 



Board of eight horses, 2,00 



Total, $21,50 



COST OF THRESHING WITH A FLAIL. 



Hand, at $13,00 per month, 30 days, $15,00 



Board fjur weeks, 8,00 



Total, $23,00 



Any farmer can tell whether he had rather have 

 oats threshed with a flail, or machine, by the trial ; 

 and the improved condition of the cattle will testify 

 in favor of the flail ; and unless the thresher be un- 

 commonly wasteful, the farmer will have more bush- 

 els of oats, and his straw will be worth double. — 

 Think of it, brother farmers, figure it up, and see 

 how it stands. Artel. — Hornby, jV. F., Dec, 

 1850. 



CANADA THISTLES. 



The subject of Canada Thistles is often spoken of, 

 and the modes of eradicating them suggested in the 

 pages of the Genesee Farmer. But some who have 

 succeeded in destroying them once, do not seem con- 

 fident that the same mode will always be equally effi- 

 cacious. Now a word on this subject. I have been 

 greatly annoyed with thistles — have supposed it im- 

 possible to extirpate them — have mowed them in all 

 times of the moon — have salted them — and have 

 plowed them two or three times in a summer — and 

 still they have been the victors. And they will con- 

 tinue to be the victors, wherever the ground is tilled, 

 unless the design and determination is to till them to 

 death. If plov.ing is the mode resorted to, it will be 

 absolutely cifcctual in a single season, if repeated so 

 often that the shoots cannot come to the surface and 

 there CTijoy the light and heat. But if plowed only 

 once, or twice, or even ilirice, in a season, and the 

 shoots be permitted to come to the light, and grow 

 two or three incfies, it amounts to nothing more than 

 a transplanting of the root. A broken piece of root 

 only three or four inches in length, will send up a 

 shoot almost equal in size to the root itself. I am 

 confident that in breaking the roots in plowing our 

 • mmer fallows and other grain fields, and scattering 

 the pieces by the harrow, the plant is spread more 

 than by the scattering of the seeds on the wings of 

 the wind. In hoed crops they can be entirely de- 

 stroyed in a single season, by going through the 

 field as they appear, and with the hoe cutting them 

 off" a little below the surface. But even then, the 

 inch of root thus cut off" must be turned up so as to 

 wilt and dry, or it will continue to grow. In small 

 patches, as in the garden, and ornamental grounds 

 around the mansion, I have entirely destroyed them 

 in a single season by cutting them below the surface 

 with a w^eeding trowel, as often as they appeared. 

 The process of repeated plowing, as stated herein, 

 when the patch is extensive, or the use of the hoe or 

 trowel as suggested above, can be confidently relied 

 upon as entirely eflectual. B. 



