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THE GENESEE FARMER. . ( &i 



a dollar a cord, and twenty-five cents per bushel of his crop. A corn grower in Virginia 

 has tried many experiments with guano, and finds that one hundred pounds which cost 

 two dollars and fifty cents, will generally add ten bushek to his harvest. The manure, 

 like that used in Connecticut, costs a quarter of a dollar for enough to produce a bushel 

 of corn. Many letters from practical men, of close observation, and large experience, 

 have been received at the agricultural department of the Patent Office, going to show 

 that if one draws not upon the natural fertility of land to form his corn plants, the raw 

 material to make a bushel of eoi-n can rarely be obtained for a less sura than twenty- 

 five cents. There is collateral evidence worth naming, that corroborates this estimate. 

 Long experience in France and Belgium establishes the fact, tliat the excreta, from an 

 adult person are worth five dollars a year for agricultural purposes. The night soil 

 obtained from the human species is equal to the production of twenty bushels of corn 

 to each inhabitant; and for the obvious reason, that no animal has the power to annihi- 

 late a single atom consumed in its daily food, nor to create one, if needed to prevent 

 starvation. Field laborers at the South consume about thirteen bushels of corn meal, 

 and as much bacon as from ten to thirteen bushels of corn M'ill make, as the yearly 

 allowance to each. Children consume loss, but often waste more, than adults. Taking 

 our entire population of 25,000,000 at this time into account, and each consumes, in 

 one form and another, fertilizing atoms drawn from the bosom of the earth, equal to 

 those contained in twenty bushels of maize ; showing an aggregate annual consumption 

 of 600,000,000 bushels, which the soil loses as eflectually as it would if that amount of 

 grain were cast into the sea every year." 



r.RITISH AND AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



(^Continued fro77i Page 146.) 



A. You were asking the other day respecting Engli.-b cheese making, and Ih? difi'erenee between 

 tlifii- pi-oeess and o'jp own. Tlie Gloucester dairy di-tiiet? I did not visit, but in the equally celebrated 

 "Cheshire cheese " district I spent consideralile time. I would here say that many gi-oeers told me 

 that the American cheese was gi-eatly preferred among the poorer classes (or those that eat cheese 

 not as a luxuiy, but as their princijial food) to the best Cheshire cheese. The prices obtained at 

 retail when I was there, were Cliesliire cheese, 12 cts. per lb.; American cheese, 13 cts. per lb. I 

 was also jileased to find tli'.it the storehouses of many grocers I visited were filled with Ameiican 

 bacon, obtained principally from Ohio. The sides were large and very fat and when in good condi- 

 tion were of a deligiiti'ul flavor and much preferred to English bacon. But it was not always in 

 good condition, and for tliis reason the dealei's were a little afiaid of large orders. The grocers 

 were strong free-traders and seemed to prefer to sell Ameiican cheese and bacon, to that of "domes- 

 tic manufacture." 



B. That argues little for their patriotism, but I suppose they consider themselves as having been 

 grossly injured by the aristocratic land-owners, and now that they begin to feel their power they 

 are not over-scrupulous as to the means employed to retaliate. 



A. That is so. But we will not talk of free-trade, I am tired of it. In England you cannot talk 

 for .five minutes on any subject but what free-trade is dragged in. Thus in the matter of cheese 

 makin.g, I was desirous to make myself acquainted with their process in all its details, but in most 

 eases they m'xed up their accounts with descriptions of the good times under "pi'otection" and the 

 miseries they were now suffering under "free-trade," that I could make nothing of them. For 

 iurtuice I would ask, how much do you realize per annum from each cow? They would tell me 

 t' a tl.'<y formerly made £15 ($75) per head, but now tliey ^(^vq Jcshig mo7ieij. "Free-trade be 

 ruining tlie farmer," is the universal wail from Land's End to John o' Groat's. 



B. Do you siq-ipose they ever made $75 per cow a year? 



A. No douljt aliout it One of the most intelligent farmers I met with informed mo that he 

 averaged $75 each from tliii'ty cows for many years, and even then, under free-trade, he told me — 



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