^6 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



SPIRIT or THE AGEICULTUEAL FBESS. 



H0KA.0K Grkki.kt, who is on an overland tour 

 through the western portion of this country to the 

 Pacific, in his letters to the Tribune gives some 

 items of agricultural interest. 



Illinois he says is growing, despite the hard times. 

 The farmers are heavily in debt and making a final 

 *tand to keep out the sheriff, by hitching every 

 horse or ox to the plow or harrow and putting in 

 seed on every available acre of land. Fresh build- 

 ings are being added to the cities and villages and 

 fresli land being constantly broken up and put 

 ander cultivation, not a tenth part of the soil being 

 yet occupied. 



He found Missouri had better land, a more level 

 !*urface, but little timber, and less population than 

 he expected. The soil he says is adapted more for 

 stock raising than grain growing; and he thinks it 

 incredible that such lands in a state 40 years old 

 :^ould have remained unsettled till now. 



Kansas he describes as an undulating prairie with 

 intervales of rich black mould 3 or 4 feet deep cov- 

 ered with rapid growing timber, principally cotton 

 wood, elm, hickory, and basswood. 



Buckwheat and wibk-woems. — A correspondent 

 of the I^ew Bngland Farmer says buckwheat grown 

 on a soil invested with wire-worms will entirely 

 exterminate them. This is not new, but the fact is 

 worth repeating at this time. 



Rats in the Cornfield. — The Pontiac (111.) 

 Setitinel says the corn cribs being empty, and but 

 little to be found about the barns, the rats have 

 betaken themselves to the cornfields and in some 

 quarters have rooted up and destroyed whole fields 

 «rf young corn. One gentleman got three and a 

 half pounds of arsenic and mixed it with some corn 

 which he then scattered over his cornfields, and in 

 a few days he carted off six wagon loads of dead 

 rata, and not the half of them are yet removed. 



Sale of Thorough-bbed S>?ort-horn8. — Mr. 

 A'LCiANDKE of Lexington, Ky., one of the best 

 hffioders in America, held his annual sale of short- 

 hora stock on June 1st. Twenty bulls were sold 

 bringing $2,720, the highest priced bull fetching 

 $355. Twenty-three cows and heifers brought 

 $2,715, t-lie highest price for a single heifer being 

 $835. Tliese are low figures. 



Seed Wheat from the North. — An Ohio wheat 

 grower recommends a change of seed wheat at 

 once in three y«ar^, and advises farmers to obtain 

 it "from regions north of their own." Corn is 

 earlier when obtained iff om the north, but wheat is 

 later. Is it not? 



New Hedge Plant. — A correspondent of tb« 

 Am, Cotton Planter recommends the Honey Locnst 

 as a hedge plant, and says it forms a perfect hedg« 

 in half the time required by any other plant now 

 in use. 



A Novel Suggestion in Sttbsoiling. — Th# 

 Farmer and Planter suggests that the application 

 of gun powder in small charges at regular pointa, 

 at some depth beneath the soil, would upheave and 

 disintegrate it to a greater amount and at a cheapei 

 rate than can be done with the subsoil plow. 



The Best Breed for "Working Oxen. — The 

 Valley Farmer says Devons unquestionably mah* 

 the best working oxen from their quick elastic step, 

 readiness to obey, great hardiness, and docility in 

 breaking. 



Hay Seed for Hogs. — A correspondent of tb* 

 Country Gentleman writes, in addition to the grain 

 and meal given to growing hogs in the sty, tliej 

 should have a daily allowance of green clover, ot 

 in winter, when this is not available, a liberal allow- 

 ance of hay seed from the barn, mixed with theii 

 slop, which they will eat with avidity. He knowi 

 of no mode by which so great an amount of growth 

 and weight can be induced with equal cost of food, 

 in the winter season, as by this haying system. 



Steam Plow. — The Illinois Central Railroad 

 Company offer a premium of $1,500 for the best 

 steam engine for plowing, or other farm work; one 

 that can successfully compete with animal power, 

 as regards cost and labor saving, combined. 



Tan Bark for Potatoes. — Mr. R. B. Bamford, 

 of Encjland, in a pamphlet, says he planted his 

 potatoes in the drills with manure and covered 

 them up with refuse tan bark instead of earth ; and 

 that in 1857 he raised six hundred and seventy-five 

 bushels per acre and not a rotton one among them, 

 nor has he had an unsound potato among his crop 

 where he employed tan bark. Rather a big story. 



Ktanizing "Wood. — A correspondent of the Neie 

 York Observer gives a cheap, though not a new, 

 mode of rendering wood durable and impervious 

 to the action of moisture. It is simply tliis : On« 

 pound of blue vitrol to twenty quarts of water. 

 Dissolve the vitriol with a little boiling water and 

 then add the remainder. The end of the stick to 

 be inserted in the groiuid is then dropped into the 

 solution and left to stand four or five days. For 

 shingles, three days will do; and for posta, six 

 inches square, ten days. Care is to be taken that 

 the saturation takes place in a metal vessel or 

 keyed box, as any barrel will be shrunk so by th« 

 operation as to leak. 



