252 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Nov 



I 



and low prices. In a new country where wheal can 

 appjirontly be grown for fifty cents per bushel, the 

 soil i.-f injured, for each bushel raised, that sum, which 

 adJod to the price obtained would make the value 

 thai at which wheat can be grown without impover- 

 ishing the suil. Thus if it cannot be grown, and 

 keep tlio soil in its original fertility by manure, plow- 

 ing in clover, or otlicr means, for less than eighty 

 cents per bushel, and the farmer has to sell for lifly 

 cents, with each bushel he sells thirty cents worth 

 of his soil. 



As the population and mamifiicturcs of the coun- 

 try increase, as they necessarily must do under a wise 

 proVeclive duty on foreign goods that can be manu- 

 factured at home, where there is a superabundance 

 of raw material, farmers will have all the advantages 

 of a home market and high prices, especially of mer/i, 

 the production of which will enable them to grow 

 more wheat and increase the value and fertility of 

 the farm. Tiien, too, the poorer, exhausted soils of 

 the ea.-t, will be scientifically cultivated and delight 

 the eye and fill the pocket by luxuriant clover and 

 heavy harvests. In the meantime experiments should 

 be made in this climale on various nitrogen-collecting 

 plants, as also on the cereals, especially Indian corn, 

 of which little is known in this or any other coun- 

 try, and egregious errors may be committed in cal- 

 culations founded on experimental data of another 

 hemisphere, though they may suggest the direction 

 of inductive scientific inquiries. It is not at all im- 

 probable that turneps will be found a profitable crop 

 and be extensively grown when the proper manage- 

 ment for their growth here shall be understood ; but 

 this can only be ascertained by repeated experiments 

 systematically carried out. 



It has occurred to me that were a row of turneps 

 sown between every row of Indian corn, wliich it 

 would perhaps be necessary to plant a little wider — 

 say five feet — and to keep clean, the plants would be 

 shaded from the hot sun and flourish. If two hun- 

 dred wciglit per acre of super-phosphate of lime, that 

 will no doubt soon be manufactured from the rich 

 mineral phosphate lately discovered in various parts 

 of the country, was drilled icilh the seed, there is lit- 

 tle doubt a large crop would be obtained. It is hoped 

 the gentleman referred to at the commencement of 

 this letter, or some other enterprising agriculturists, 

 will make the experiment and give the results, which 

 if favorable, as I expect, will remove one of the 

 "causes" of the over-estimaled superiority of British 

 agriculture. Joseph Harris. — Rochester, JY. Y. 



LUXURIANT PASTURAGE. 



Messrs. Editors : — In the July number of the Far- 

 mer I noticed an article entitled " Wretched Pastu- 

 rage," the language of which sounds strange to your 

 readers in Steuben. I have no doubt but they 

 laughed, as I did, w.ien they read it, and if you could 

 have told it to our '• Hornby brindlcs," so they could 

 understand, I have no doubt but they would have 

 laughed too, standing as they do in pastures of 

 clover and timothy up half mid-sides. VVe know, in 

 Hornby, that some of our land is rather heavy, but if 

 it is, we can have cash from it without the expense 

 to which our grain-growing neighbors are subject. 

 The good farmers in this town are not troubled in 

 their sleep to invent means by which to clear the in- 

 terest on their property. There are farmers in this 

 town who annual/ clear twice and thrice the interest 



on the money which their farms are worth. It is 

 true that tliere are some hide-bound, ignorance-lov- 

 ing, anti-progress farm skinners, who make no visi- 

 ble progress. But to find such pastures as you speak 

 of, you must visit us when some over-stocked field 

 wliich never heard of gypsum has been denied rain 

 for weeks. In short, if you wish to sec luxuriant 

 pastures, and wealth-giving meadows, excelled by 

 none in the State, you should seek them in Hornby. 



Our lands increase in fertility under cultivation, if 

 not too much plowed. Yet there are fields in this 

 town which produced twelve, fifteen, and twenty 

 crops of oats in succession, and yet grow a wealth of 

 grass, under good management, afterward. 



A plan much practiced in this town for feeding cat- 

 tle, is to stack the hay on the meadow, or put it in 

 small barns or barracks, from which it is scattered 

 upon the lands that produced it. When there is a 

 large stock of cattle to be fed, it saves much labor to 

 haul the hay to dilierent parts of the field where all 

 can have a chance. When your readers, of grain- 

 growing notoriety, are disposed to jest at our expense, 

 please remind them that they are not so far in the 

 advance, but what, in this steam and lightning age, 

 we may overtake them ; and if we cannot cure our 

 heavy land, we at least hive the consolation that we 

 have no "Wretched Pastures." Wm. H. Gardner. 

 — Hornby, J\\ Y., Sept., 1851. 



Our Hornby friends may well be satisfied with 

 choice grazing lands that yield from 14 to 21 per 

 cent interest on their market value ; but let them be- 

 ware lest the few precious atoms in their soils, that 

 form the bones of their cattle and other stock, are 

 not all extracted and either sold or lost before they 

 dream of such a misfortune. The things that really 

 make beef, cheese, wool, and horse flesh, are not so 

 abundant in the surface of the earth, even in the fields 

 of luxuriant clover and timothy of Hornby, as to bo 

 perfectly inexhaustible. All manure, bones, ashes, 

 and vegetable substances of every kind, must be hus- 

 banded with the closest economy, and wisely applied 

 to the needy soil, to avoid its deterioration in coming 

 years. Time will demonstrate that no land produces 

 good crops from air and water a/o?ie— that the ele- 

 ments of fertility are annually consumed in growing 

 plants, which elements must be restored to the ground 

 or its impoverishment is inevitable. 



ANALYSIS OF LONG BLOOD BEET. 

 BY J. H. SALISBURY, M. V. 



The specimens examined were furnished by Mr. 

 Douw, of Greenbush. They were large, fleshy, 

 crisp, and contained about the average amount of 

 woody fibre. Mean length of the roots of the four 

 samples analysed, 20 inches : mean widest diameter, 

 3 inches ; mean length of tops, 21 inches ; mean 

 weight of each root, 2 lbs. 2 oz. 



Per ceniage of water, dry matter, and inorganic matter. 



Fre^h Raoti. Fresh Tops. 



Per rentage of water, 89.0;»j 90.570 



" dry matter, lO.DDo 9. 430 



" inorganic matter,. 1.080 1.850 



" inorganic matter in 

 dry matter, 9.072 19.618 



The above results show this variety of beet to bo 

 more highly charged with water than the carrot, arti • 

 choke, or parsnip. The roots contain a trifle over 

 89 per cent, of water ; the tops 90.67 per cent. — 

 This leaves about 1 1 per cent, of dry matter in the 



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