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EDITOR'S TABLE. 



JDiioir'3 I^bie. 



The Genesee Farmer — Its Mission. — Mr. Wrioht, 

 the taleiided and independent editor of tlie Prairie I'ar- 

 mtr, in an article justlj c»mmendatorj of Luther Tuck- 

 EE, Esq., the oldest agricultural editor and publisher in 

 the United States, says : " His old Genesee Farmkk, pub- 

 lished at Ilochester, was a paper of note in its day, and it 

 has been the real parent of the whole Northern brood of 

 similar name and purposes." 



Mr. WmijiiT might hare added that this "real parent" 

 of so minj valuable agricultural papers, gave to both Mr. 

 J. J. Thomas and Mr. Joseph Harris, the associates of 

 Mr. Tucker in conducting the Country Gentleman and 

 Albany Cnllivalor, their first lesions and position before 

 the public in the editorial profession. Journals of agri- 

 culture and horticulture, without professionally instructed 

 conductors, are generally worthless concerns ; while thor- 

 oughly educated men always reflect credit on the institu- 

 tions in which their intellects were primarily developed 

 and cultivated. It is as an educational institution that the 

 Genesee Farmer is entitled to great credit for turning 

 out such men as the affluent and accomplished editor of 

 the Horticulturist, and its enterprising and successful pub- 

 lisher. Others might be named who made the Farmer 

 office their agricultural school, and who have profited 

 largely by the excellent tuition received of this " real pa- 

 rent " of so much rural knowledge and literature. 



But we do not care to exhaust this feature of the Gen- 

 esee Farmer, lest we be constrained to 'admit that its 

 present humble proprietor, first known as an agricultural 

 student through its pages, has been honored in a distant 

 part of the Union with the only liberally endowed chair of 

 agriculture in any American university. 



The Farmer has a national reputation, an historical 

 character, which no extraneous influence can shake or im- 

 pair. When it came into the hands of its present owner, 

 in company with another, it contained but sixteen pages, 

 and had a small circulation. AVithout increasing its price, 

 it was first enlarged to twenty-four pages, and then to 

 thirty-two, and finally, we now incur the additional ex- 

 pense of stitching and trimming every number sent out of 

 the office. The paper being about twice its original size, 

 and costing more per pound, and other incidental expenses 

 bein" greatly enhanced, its prime cost per volume is now 

 some three times as large as it was ten yesrs ago ; while 

 the work is still sold to clubs at tfiirty-seven and a half 

 ceitts a volume. When the Farmer was first printed b\ 

 steam power, wood was sold in tliis city at $2,00 per cord : 

 now it costs $7.00. The writer remembers the time « hei. 

 farmers in Western New York sold wheat at 37J cents n 

 bushel i yesterday (May 9th,) a Ilochester miller told ns 

 that he had just paid $i.C2J a bushel, for 10,000 bushels ol 

 this grain. At this price, a single bushel will pay for seven 

 volu?nes of the oldest agriculrural journal in the Stale. 

 We have seen potatoes sold this spring at $3.00 a bufhe!, 

 and have paid $1.25 for corn. 

 A majority of farmers being consumers and purchasers 







of agricultural staples at high prices, instead of seller 

 the general scarcity is no benefit to them as a class ; bi 

 it is a powerful stimulus for every man who cultivates tf ^j 

 much as ten rods of land, to acquire all the information h 

 can with a view to augment its fruitfulness. Every num 

 ber of the Farmer contains rural knowledge worth to 

 reader of common sagacity, more than a year's subscrif 

 tion. 



It is the only paper of its size, and class, and price, i 

 the world, but what is made up from the old matter < 

 some other jiaper. Every line in the Genesee Farmer : 

 set up expressly to subserve the best interests of its patron 

 and for its pages alone. This never-varying singleness < 

 purpose, looking to its intelligent readers exclusively fc 

 sujiport, has contributed much to impart both charaetf 

 and power to the work. It needs, however, more subscr 

 bers ; and its proprietor, who regards it as having an in: ,, 

 portant mission yet to fulfil, respectfully asks every readf. j|, 

 of this article to send him one more name, with the pa; 

 for volume sixteen, second series, of " the real Parent < 

 the whole Northern brood of similar name." Reliable £ 

 an authority, aud designed from the beginning for the mil 

 lion, its conductor expects hereafter to travel much amon 

 the best practical farmers on this continent, and in Europi 

 and examine in person all useful improvements in tillagi 

 husbandry, and domestic economy, with the view of com 

 municating a knowledge of the same to the public. Th 

 rural literature of this country, not less than its agricultti 

 ral, needs reform ; and it is a pari of the mission of th 

 cheap agricultural journal earnestly to advance the neec 

 ed reformation. Too many are foolifhly attempting t 

 teach a profession which they have never duly studied, an 

 have yet to learn, and are thereby giving currency to erroi 

 alike injurious in theory and in practice. 



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American Beef Cattle for the Crimea. — Th 

 Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Sun says ; 

 is known here that two or three companies at the Nort 

 are under contract with the foreign governments for larg 

 supplies of beef cattle for the Crimea. At the preses 

 period of scarcity thus to reduce the stock of our ow 

 country to famine prices, is a matter of importance whic 

 demands attention, even if no redress can be had," 



As the Washington correspondent of the Sun is a well 

 informed man, and can have no apparent motive to mis' 

 represent the facts of which he writes, this foreign deman< 

 for beef-cattle doubtless exists. In view of tlie great im 

 portance of stock-growing in this country, the senior ed 

 itor of tlie Genesee Farmer has taken unusual pain 

 during the last twelve months to investigate the profes 

 sional labors of the Englishmen, who in the last half o 

 the eighteenth, and the first half of the nineteenih centu 

 ry, have made the farmers of the whole civilized world paj 

 willing tribute to their skill and success in the inipruvenien 

 of diimesti'^nted animals. The principles developed, and re- 

 sults of our researches in this department of rural literature 

 ■we embodied in an essay of nearly 100 manuscript i ages 

 which was written for another work than this journal, 

 We have, however, coniduded to publish it first in the Fab- 

 MER, and in the six last numbers of volume sixteen, second 



