Vol. XV., Skcond Series. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., OCTOBER, 1854. 



No. 10. 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF 



AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE. 



VOLUME XV., SECOND SEIRES. 1834. 



EACH NUMBER CONTAINS 32 ROYAL OCTAVO PAGES, IN 



DOUBLE COLUMNS, AND TWELVE NUMBERS FORM 



A VOLUME OF 38-t PAGES IN A YEAR. 



Terms. 



Single Copy, $0.50 



Five Copies, 2.00 



Eight Copies, 3.00 



And at the same rate for any larger number. 

 £3'^ Remittances properly mailed, and postage paid, at the risk 

 of the Publisher. 



^^° Postmasters are respectfully requested to act as Agents. 

 DANIEL LEE, 

 Publisher and Proprietor, Rochester, N. Y, 



AGRICULTURE — ITS ESSENTIALS 

 NON-ESSENTIALS. 



AND 



We have a pamphlet of sixty pages with the above 

 title, written by Mr. H. N. Fi^yatt, of Bellville, N. 

 J., which deserves something more than a passing 

 notice. 



Very few have studied the " essentials of agricul- 

 ture ;" and if the essay of Mr. Fryatt shall provoke 

 discussion and investigation, leading ultimately to an 

 increase of rural knowledge, he will have rendered 

 the public a valuable service. The leading object 

 for which these sixty pages were written, appears to 

 be to prove that Mexican guano, which contains much 

 more bone-earth and less ammonia than Peruvian 

 guano, is more valuable per ton than the latter for 

 agricultural purposes, while it is sold at a much lower 

 price. The merits of the question turn on the rela- 

 tive importance ^of ammonia and phosphate of lime 

 and potash in the cultivation of agricultural plants. 

 Mr. F. contends that the atmosphere will supply 

 growing crops with all the ammonia needed, so far as 

 it may be lacking in the soil On the other hand, 

 after the phosphates are removed by tillage, or where 

 they are naturally deficient, the atmosphere can do 

 nothing to impart the lacking ingredients. The lat- 

 ter part of the proposition is obvious enough ; but 

 the assertion in reference to the supply of ammonia 

 in the air, or in the soil, in an available condition, is 

 not proved. Additional experiments may, or may 

 not, strengthen the author's views upon this import- 

 ant point. At present, no one can truthfully deny 



that the market value of ammonia in New York, 

 London and Paris, for agricultural uses, is from ten 

 to twelve dollars per one hundred pounds, while the 

 phosphate of lime is worth no more than two dol- 

 lars for a like quantity. To argue against such 

 prominent, unyielding facts as these, however inge- 

 niously, is labor lost. Mr. F. displays commendable 

 industry, but not a thorough knowledge of agricul- 

 tural science. We should be sorry to have his 

 pamphlet go to England and France, and there be 

 read and regarded as a fair specimen of the rural 

 literature of this country. 



We pass by (what we hope is a misprint) the re- 

 marks about "soda water and other beverages taken 

 into the Inngs," to consider his illustration of the 

 action of gum, starch and sugar, and of the heart in 

 animals. He says : " If we present to a plant ready- 

 formed starch,- sugar or gum, it cannot assimilate 

 them ; it requires the elements of starch, sugar and 

 gum, from which it is its peculiar function to form 

 these substances. As well could one animal live by 

 receiving its blood into its veins from the veins of 

 another. It is the province of the heart to prepare 

 blood out of its elements by its oivn action ; without 

 which exercise, the heart would cease to perform its 

 ])artj and the animal would die." Nineteen-twentieths 

 of those writing f6r the press to teach farmers the 

 true principles of rural economy, in the United States, 

 know as Uttle of anatomy and physiology, whether 

 of plants or animals, as the author of the above 

 statements. We do not blame Mr. Fryatt, nor ag- 

 ricultural editors and their correspondents, for be- 

 lieving that it is " the province of the heart to prepare 

 blood by its own action " to nourish the system ; or 

 for teaching that even parasitic plants cannot subsist 

 on, nor appropriate the starch, sugar or gum, ready 

 formed, in the cells of other vegetables. The public 

 has made a still lower standard of intelligence in ag- 

 ricultural literature; and it has decided that we shall 

 have no schools, nor other institutions, to elevate this 

 popular standard. Hence, neither American authors, 

 nor editors, nor the readers of what they write, care- 

 fully study the various organs that exist in all do- 

 mestic animals ,and in all agricultural plants ; nor do 

 they properly study the particular /w7ici/ons performed 

 in the economy of nature by the aforesaid organs. 

 Every product of the farm, the garden and the or- 

 chard, is either a vegetable or an animal substance ; 

 and a clear understanding of the laws which govern 



