276 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



land 64 or even 96 quarts of seed per acre, when I 

 can produce, as I have done, nearly 7 qrs. of fine 

 wheat, and nearly 8 qrs. of fine barley, from quanti- 

 ties of seed ranching from 4 to 10 (juarts an acre 

 only ? And I do still more ; for while the thick 

 seeders exhaust their soils with every crop they pro- 

 duce, rendering their operations a continual series of 

 exhaustings and repletions, my laud always improves 

 under my system, from its never being impoverished. 

 But, according to my friend Mr. Mechi's showing, he 

 himself puts into the ground from 12 to 15 grains of 

 wheat to every square foot, and of this quantity " J. 

 B." complains that it is too small; whereas, for some 

 parts of the crops I have referred to, I used only 

 one-eighth or one-tenth as much, nnd for none of 

 them did I use more than one-fifth or one-sLxth; and 

 let it be bore in mind always that I produce crop of 

 wheat after crop as long as I please, and then barley ; 

 and now this year, as I have stated, I will back my 

 clover, for quantity and quaUty, against any crop in 



MESSINA- 



-A COUNTRY SEAT OX THE 

 HUDSON. 



Whoever has not seen the country seats on the 

 upper side of the Hudson, knows nothing of the finest 

 specimens of rural residences in America. There are 

 in the neighborhood or Boston, many beautiful villas 

 and cottages, designed in admirable taste and kept 

 in the highest order, that are indeed admirable in ev- 

 ery respect; but they, like more solitary specimens of 

 the same kind, in the environs of many of our cities, 

 are only suburban residences of a few acres. There 

 are, in various parts of the country, many gentlemen's 

 large seats, well laid out, with lawns, pleasure grounds 

 and gardens, in a simple and unpretended manner, 

 highly creditable to the possessors. But nowhere in 

 America, are there to be found country residences, 

 where nature has done so much to assist man in his 

 attempts to create a beautiful home, as in what may 

 be called the upper terrace of the Hudsoa This m- 



^S^FKSOflJe. 



MESSINA A COUNTRY SEAT ON THE HUDSON. 



England ; and " J. B.," if he will take the trouble, 

 shall be the judge. But perhaps I shall be told, as 

 I often have been, that this is garden cultivation ; 

 and if so, so much in commendation of it ; but no 

 such thing, I cultivate with the plow, roller, harrows, 

 scarifier, and horse-hoe alone ; and, as I have stated, 

 I put my seed in with a two-horse drill, invented and 

 made by myself, and with which I can put in half a 

 pint of seed with as much regularity as I can two 

 pecks, or a bushel or more. "Where, then, I may per- 

 haps be asked, is the secret ? And if so, I answer — 

 in deep and thorough draining, the best plowing I 

 can give, never exhausting, and the feeding of my 

 crops with such food as is proper for them. — George 

 Wilkins, in the London Agricultural Gazette. 



Burdock leaves will cure a horse of the slavers in 

 five minutes; let them eat two leaves. I have tried 

 it many times. My horse will always use them when 

 the slavers are bad, — Ploughman. 



eludes a hill of land on the eastern shore, extending 

 from Hyde Park to Hudson city, a distance of about 

 50 miles. 



The peculiar advantages of this part of the river 

 are these: First, the finest mountain and river views 

 in the country — the river being the Hudson, in its 

 loveliest portion — sometimes two or three miles wide 

 — indented in outUne, and varied by numerous isl- 

 ands; the mountains being the Catskills — their high- 

 est summit 3,000 feet high — near enough to give a 

 character of grandeur to the scene, and distant 

 enough to possess that blue haze of atmospheric dis- 

 tance, which makes a mountain a bit of poetry, in- 

 stead of a bare reality of rocks and trees in the land- 

 scape. Second, they have the advantage of having 

 been held as country seats since the first settlement of 

 the river — with much of the fine natural beauties of 

 wood and water preserved and heightened by the fos- 

 tering spirit of taste, rather than despoiled by the 

 avaricious spirit of the mere tiller of the soil 



