

THE GENESEE FARMER. 



A. Yes ; I saw the machine at work when in England. It did the work well, and is certainly 

 ingeaious ; but I doubt if it will come into general use. You understand the principle of the ma- 

 chine. A borer, to which is attached the drain pipes linked together, is drawn at the required 

 depth through tlie soil, dragging the pipes after it in a string. Any one can see that when the 

 string of pipes is long, great force is required to draw them tlirough the soil. I was surprised that 

 it worked so well as it did. 



B. They have a stationai-y horse-power at one end of the field, and by this means two horses 

 easily draw the apparatus slowly through the soil. I hope it will answer, any how. It would be 

 a glorious thing for this country, where labor is so high, if some cheap means of under-di-aining 

 could be discovered. I think if we had under-drained as much land here as they have in England, 

 we should ere this have had a machine to dig our drains by horse-power. I see no real difficulties 

 in the way. 



A. Cheap labor is a great curse to a country. If wages had been as high in England as they 

 are here, I have no doubt, with you, that they would have had many more labor-saving machine^ 

 than they have. But a brighter day is dawning on the land of our forefathers; the price of labor 

 is gradually rising while the prices of necessaries have been greatly red^ieed. Free trade has mor- 

 tally wounded the landed ai-istocratic Jiarty. State Church, and the law of primogeniture, will in 

 a few yeai-s be done away with ; the great estates will be divided up, and a new order of tilings 

 adopted founded on just priuciplea. 



Agriculture in California. — The following extracts from a letter of one of our 

 California correspondqjits, a Western New Yorker, will be read with interest. Great 

 improvements in agriculture are rapidly progressing. There is a great demand for 

 agricultural reading. Mr. Sanford alone takes one hundred copies of the Farmer. We 

 have large lists in several other places in California and Oregon. All our corres- 

 pondents speak highly of the agricultural capabilities of the soil, and of the prospects of 

 acquiring wealth by farming. 



"Since I last addressed you the weather has been excecdii;gly fine. I notice our wild strawberry 

 is in bloom, and the blossom buds of the peach have begun to unfold their petals. The verdant hill 

 sides seem to smile with great beauty. Soon they will be bedecked with the loveliest of flowers. 



"As soon as farmers can obtain good titles to their lands, you will hear of improvements in farm- 

 ing to an extent that will astonish the agriculturists of the east. 



" Messrs Clakk and Cuktis, of Solano Co., have furnished me with a brief statement of their fann- 

 ing the past season — this being their commencement : 



"They own 40,000 acres of land, and broke 1700 acres, requiring four yoke of oxen to the plow. 

 They sowed 1000 acres to barley and oats, which crops yielded an average of 40 bushels to the acre; 

 100 acres were sown to wheat, yielding only 10 bushels to the acre; and seed being 12^ cts. per lb., 

 600 acres were not sown. They cut and pressed ITOO tons of (wild oats) hay. They have a stock ot 500 

 horses and 1000 cattle, and are investing largely in swine. They commenced sowing wheat the 25th 

 January. They sowed barley all the month of January, and oats all of February. The crojjs were 

 all sowed from one to two months too late, and therefore only half the usual crop was harvested. 



" Quite unlike the lands of old Wayne and Monroe, the first crop of cereals grown on high lands 

 are not a fair test, and never equal to the second and third. 



"They are selling their hay at $50 to $80 per ton — average, §65 ; barley at 3+, oats at 4i-, and 

 wheat at 10 cts. per lb.; and at said prices, these crops will amount to $185,620. The increase of 

 stock, and value of vegetables grown, will swell the amount to $200,000. They employ twenty 

 men on the average, at $60 per month including board. They purchased their farm, in December, 

 1851, for $10,000, and could now sell it for $20,000." J. L. Santokd. — San Francisco, C'al., Feb. 1. 



Stable. — I think of building a stable in the following manner : I will have an addition on tlie side 

 of the bai'n at one end of the barn floor, the floor of which I will hare elevated about six feet above 

 t|ie old sill, the cattle to enter by an inclined plain under or at one side. My floor plank I will 

 have come to within about a foot of the back sill, having a plank running the other way so fixed 

 that it may be turned up, making it very easy to clean the stable and house the maniu'c, thus 

 . ')<^ saving it all without the expense of tanks. D. A. R. — Attica, N. T. . 



