THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



227 



The following letter from the celebrated Dr. James C. 

 Ayer, gives the honest side of the Nostrum question. 

 Since the public will use these remedies, we wish, for the 

 gate of suffering humanity, there were more of them like 

 his Cherry Pectoral and Cathartic Pills, which require no 

 secrecy to make them go down : 



"Lowell, 2Gth April, 1851. 



" Messrs & Co., 



" New York City, 



"Gentlemen: — Yours of the 2-!d inst., asking me to 

 join in a combination to put down the Ohio Nostrum Bill, 

 comes duly to hand. I cannot accede to your request, for 

 the following reasons : 



" The law requiring that the composition shall be pub- 

 lished of every medicine sold in the State, cannot work to 

 the injury of any one who deserves protection. I have 

 published the recipes of my medicines for fifteen years, and 

 believe this to be the honest way of making their virtues 

 known to the community. The Medical Profession pub- 

 lish their discoveries to the world as soon as made, for the 

 benefit of all mankind. Why should we not? The Liw 

 which you fear will destroy your business, can injure only 

 tliose who falsely pretend to discoveries an J secrets which 

 they have not. It will expose the emptiness of such pro- 

 fessions, and the Public will turn aside from such prepara- 

 tions as are found to be worthless when their composition 

 is known. If medicines have real worth, they will be on- 

 ly the better appreciated and the better patronised by lay- 

 ing their composition open to the Public, that all may judge 

 for themselves. If they have not real merit, it is due in 

 common justice to the sufiering sick, to the public health, 

 and to the cause of humanity, that the people should know 

 them to avoid them. Yours, respectfully, 



" James C. Ater." 



Ferm Leaves from Faxxy's Portfolio; second series. Auuurn, 

 N. Y.: Miller, Oktox & Mulligan. 



Fannv is, perhaps, the most versatile, agreeable, aAd 

 popular female writer of the day, judging from the pro- 

 digious sale of her books. To adopt the language of a 

 cotemporary, " she speaks of home, of fireside, and of 

 f] lends — softening the hearts of the thoughtless, and moist- 

 ening the eye of the gentle reader. She tells of the duties 

 of life, the struggles of the poor, the still more anxious 

 hours that follow too of.ea in the way of wealth. There 

 is no limit to the province of her pen. One moment we 

 see a maiden clad in robes of virgin white led to the altar, 

 and then Fanny discourses on the duties she is about to 

 assume, and with merry voice cheers on the happy pair ; 

 and then again another scene is painfully portrayed, and 

 death is seen euterin * home, till then peaceful and hap- 

 dy, and Fanny t ex:n's admonitions are heard, and she 

 shows the broken-hearted that there is ' one above who 

 doeth all thinM well.' " 



A WRITER in the Ohio Cultivator asserts the following 

 to be the true mode of relieving choked cattle : 



" Again : cattle sometimes die from having their stom- 

 achs bloated with wind, caused by eating clover when wet 

 with dew or rain. In this case we take a stick, about the 

 thickness of a man's wrist, and put it in the animal's mouth 

 like a bridle-bit, and keep it there by a string put over the 

 head and tied to the stick on each side of tlie mouth. As 

 the animal will bite and bite on this stick, it opens the gul- 

 let, the wind escapes from the stomach, and the brute is 

 relieved. This remedy we have tried several times, and 

 always with success." 



Flax-cultuue. — The Loiiisvi/le Journal says a much 

 larger amount of land has been given for the cultivation 

 of flax this spring, than in any former year. " In Ohio 

 there are thirteen extensive oil mills ; in Kentucky, Indiana 

 and Missouri, there are five more ; and in all eighteen miUs 

 that we know of, which manufacture nearly 1,000,000 

 bushels of flax seed annually, and are capable of working 

 double that quantity." 



Farm Implejtexts, and the Principles op their Construction 

 A-VD Use : an Klementary and Familiar Treatise on Mechanics, 

 and on Xatui-al Pliilosophy generally, as applied to the ordinary 

 practice of Agriculture. By John J. Thomas. New York : 

 Harper k. Brothers. 



The above is a truly valuable work for practical farmers 

 and mechanics ; and we trust that our common school li- 

 braries will jilace it within the reach of all the youth of 

 this great State. Every man should be familiar with the 

 elements of natural philosophy and mechanics, for thev are 

 of every day benefit to him in one form or another. Mr. 

 Thomas has treated the subject with a clear perception of 

 the wants of the farming community ; being neither too 

 learned for general use, nor so common place as to fail to 

 interest his readers. 



Inquirujs anli Ensiofrs. 



Will you be so kind as to inform me, through the medium of 

 the Genesee Farmer, which you consider the best straw cutter 

 and the best threshing machine, to be worked_by steam power ? 

 Any information you can give me on these subjects will be thank- 

 fully received. A Canadian Farmer. — Cubourg, C. TV. 



We do not know of a better straw cutter than that ad- 

 vertised in this journal by J. Jones & A. Lyle. In re- 

 gard to threshing machines, we really do not feel warranted 

 in expressing a decided opinion in favor of any one over 

 all others. Kead the advertisement of Mr. Joseph Hall, 

 of this city, in the Farmer. He is probably the largest 

 manufacturer of threshing machines in the United States ; 

 for the Genesee country greatly excels all others in wheat- 

 culture. No other county compares with Monroe in the 

 amount of its agricultural machinery. 



Will you please inform me, either directly or through your pa- 

 per, what are the chemical properties of fish as a fertilizer ? What 

 will be the effect of applying a fish weighing four pounds, com- 

 pared with a shovelful of well-rotted stable manure, to a hill of 

 corn ? What is the best mode of applying fish as a manure to corn 

 or wheat? S. E. Baldwin. — Depere, Brawn Co., Wis. 



Fish are a valuable manure. They may be composted 

 with dry swamp muck, or with dry loam. Being more 

 than three-fourths water, they need a dry material to mix 

 with them, unless covered in the ground at once. They 

 operate speedly on corn or other crops — decomposing at 

 once — but do not last so long as good stable manure. For 

 wheat, we should drop fish in the furrow and cover them 

 with a plow. Evenly distributed, they would be much 

 like guano in their effects. 



What is the relative value of gas lime, to lime from the kiln ? 

 The gas manufacturers say the process of filtering the gas commu- 

 nicates large quantities of ammonia to the lime. My reasoning 

 has been this : the lime loses nothing, and gaining ammonia, is it 

 not more valuable than common lime ? D. R. Pillshury. — Zanes- 

 ville, Ohio. 



Poland Oats. — In answer to the inquiry of J. M. 

 Hamilton, as to the profit of raising Poland and other 

 heavy oats, I will say that if the same number of bushels 



