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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Nov. 



doscrvof the undividel attention of snch as write 

 liabitn;il]v for the agricultural press. Neither wri- 

 ter nor reader can increase his professional knowledgrc 

 without carp, ptudy, and effort to improve. Careless 

 readinjr. careless writing', and neglect of study and 

 of schools are prominent defects in the rural litera- 

 ture of this country. More pains ought to be taken 

 to separ'^te tlie chaff from the wheat in what we pub- 

 lish in our periodicals, tlie Transactions of our State 

 Boards and Societies, and annual Reports. These 

 are becoming quite voluminous; and with much mat- 

 ter thaf, is truly valuable there is accumulating a vast 

 quantity for which the rising generation can have no 

 possible use. Solomon said in his day, that "to the 

 making of many books there is no end." Had he 

 lived in our time of steam presses and cheap litera- 

 ture, he would doubtless have been still stronger 

 impressed with the endlessness of the book business. 

 If we printed fewer papers and books, and made them 

 better, or made tiiem better without any diminution 

 in quantity, the community would be greatly bone- 

 fitted. But until children are taught a more refined 

 and elevated taste, and have their knowledge of agri- 

 cultural geology, chemistry, physiology, mechanics, 

 and meteorology, what it should be when they be- 

 come men, their agricultural reading must be of the 

 most elementary character througii life. If every 

 reader of agricultural books had a knowledge of the 

 terms necessarily used to give names to newly dis- 

 covered things, and an account of the relations which 

 these things ijear to each other, good books would 

 be not merely perused with pleasure, but diligently 

 studied with great profit. To the unitiated, the hin- 

 guage of science is an unknown tongue. This 

 tongue can be best learned in a school when the 

 pupil is young, with the aid of a competent teacher. 

 Agricultural journals cannot do everything, nor the 

 half of what some appear to expect of them. Rural 

 arts and sciences are too important and too valuable 

 to be attainable bv a single day's work, or in ex- 

 change for a dollar in money. If we will not use the 

 means, nor pay the price of real knowledge, it can 

 never bo ours. We speak plainly, for we feel the 

 importance of our subject. If American farmers have 

 brought their sober minds to the conclusion that tiie 

 laws of nature as displayed in the mineral, vegetable, 

 and animal kingdoms, which govern the natural fruit- 

 fulness of the earth, and the results of their labor, 

 should never be studied by their sons, and that the 

 man who raises oats ought to know no more of the 

 things that make oats than tlie horse that eats them, 

 even then we shall regard it as our duty to work on 

 while life- lasts, and reverse this erroneous judgment, 

 or do our best to attain that consummation. 



Agricultural colleges have been condemned with- 

 out a trial. This is unfair treatment, and their 

 friends have a right to demand a reasonable oppor- 

 tunity to demonstrate the practical utility of these 

 institut.ons. Medical science has no better claims 

 to public colleges supported in part by the Legisla- 

 ture, than agricultural science ; and if the latter is 

 wholly neglected by the people of the State of New 

 York, while the State supports five or six medical 

 schools with six or eight professors in each, it shall 

 not be the fault of the Genesee Farmer. 



See that all your preparations for winter are com- 

 plete, so that when the storms come you sit by a 

 pleasant fire and read some valuable book, with a 

 mind at ease. 



EASTERN VIRGINIA. 



NowHKRE has the farming interest advanced whh more rn- 

 piility than it hns of late years in the Tidewater District of 

 Virginia. It was stated by a gentleman from Lancaster 

 county, tlie olhi-r day, tliat tlicre was annually more than 

 (ioul)lo the quantity of wheat sown in his district than 

 was reaped twenty years ago. Another large proprietor 

 ohsrrved that he hud realized upwards of 15 per cent, on his 

 investment in land cultivated in wheat. This change has 

 been brought about by the application of Marl, inexhaust- 

 ililo in that quarter, and the free use of Guano — one farmer 

 in Westmoreland, we learn, having I;i.st year applied twenty 

 Ions of that manure with striking effect in the improvement 

 of his lands. — [Vestchesler Virginian. 



We have witnessed the extraordinary and deeply 

 interesting effects of good guano in the production of 

 wheat on poor lands ; and we regret our inability to 

 make eveiy reader understand how 100 lbs. of bird 

 dung operates to organize 700 lbs. of ripe wheat 

 plants, more than would grow without the manure. 

 A scientific principle is involved in this matter which 

 applies equally to every crop produced by the labor 

 and care of the husbandman. What the unlearned 

 farmer does not clearly see, is the relation that ma- 

 nure bears to the plants for the nourishment of which 

 it is applied. He fails to discover hoic it happens 

 that 2000 lbs. of manure brought from Peru is worth 

 !S50, while a like weight of common barnyard ma- 

 nure is not worth 50 cts. Why one kind oi" food for 

 plants is worth ten times more than another kind in 

 general use, is a problem which most practical tillers 

 of the earth have yet to solve. 



Guano in its best condition, contains in a highly 

 concentrated form the most precious elements of fer- 

 tility, which are deficient in quantity in ordinary 

 soils. And they are deficient, mainly, because all 

 the people that subsist on the fruits of improved 

 land, foolishly waste the only things that can by any 

 possibility make bread, meat, wool, potatoes, and 

 cotton. The principal value of guano, in the long 

 run, will be to stimulate hard-working men and boys 

 to think — to study the great and honorable profession 

 of agricuhure. They now over-estimate the money 

 value of mere muscular toil, and sadly under-estimate 

 the worth of well-cultivated common sense. They 

 believe in common sense, but it must be the indige- 

 nous offspring of the mind, the sense of wild savages, 

 not common sense developed under the instruction of 

 teachers who have made the systematic investigation 

 of the laws of vegetable and animal growth the busi- 

 ness of their lives. The philosophy of manures, the 

 economical improvement of soils, and the skilful pro- 

 duction of wheat and other crops, involve principles, 

 and have their foundation in natural laws, which can- 

 not be learned by simply holding a plow, or carting 

 and spreading dung from a stable or barnyard. We 

 must first improve ourselves, then all other improve- 

 ments will be easy. 



UsR OF Guano and Lime. — I some fifteen years 

 ago was among the first who introduced lime as a 

 fertilizer on our farms, since which most every far- 

 mer is making efforts to procure it, although at con- 

 siderable cost. We have to haul our lime from 12 

 to 15 miles, at a cost of 15 cents per bushel- 

 Within the two last years I have been experiment- 

 ing with the Peruvian guano, and so far as it relates 

 to my wheat crop, it has had the happiest effect. — 

 Where I guanoed, the wheat was one-third better 

 than where I limed at the rate of fifty bushels to the 

 acre, accompanied with a good supply of barn-yard 

 manure alike in all other particulars. A. 



