234 



THE GENESEE FAR^klER. 



troubled him. His White Grape and Large Red 

 Dutfih currants are very fine. Ilis dwarf pears 

 look very well, although the soil where they are 

 planted is somewhat too sandy, and the trees have 

 been allowed to over-bear. He has a large Bartlett 

 pear tree, trained on the side of the house, which 

 not only looks handsoTue, but bears profusely, and 

 affords the largest and richest fruit. 



Mr. Weight lias set out ten acres of Isabella 

 grape vines, which are making a fine growth. The 

 land was an old meadow. A heavy dressing of man- 

 ure was plowed in very deep, and the land planted to 

 potatoes. It was then subsoiled 17 inches deep, and 

 the next year it was also subsoiled the same depth in 

 the opposite direction. The soil is now as fine and 

 mellow as a garden to that depth. Potatoes are 

 planted between the vines. Stakes nine feet long 

 were put two feet in the ground, twelve feet apart 

 each way, and the vines then set out on the south 

 side of the stakes. When required to support the 

 vines, more stakes will be put in. Mr. W. has also 

 set out 60 Delaware vines. 



We have not space this month to allude to Mr. 

 Weight's stock. 



HoEAOE Williams' Garden, near Buffalo, N". 

 Y. — In company with several members of the 

 Western New York Fruit-Growers' Society, w^ vis- 

 ited the grounds of Horace Williams, near Buffa- 

 lo, N, Y. He has 25 acres of land, situated on 

 Buffalo Creek. The soil is an alluvial deposit, and 

 with good culture yields large crops. It is Mr. 

 W.'s intention to raise fruit for the Buffalo market. 

 He has a cold grapery seven hundred feet long ! It 

 is full of exotic grapes, admirably trained, and 

 loaded with large bunches. 



Mr. Williams is engaged in the manufacture of 

 glue from horn-piths^— the piths being subjected to 

 steam under pressure. This extracts the trelatiue 

 and leaves the phosphate of lime in a friable con- 

 dition. When ground it must afford excellent 

 manure. 



Mr. W. has occupied this land only four years. 

 He has accomplished much already. His straw- 

 berries, currants, etc., are truly magnificent. His 

 dwarf pears are, if anything, too luxuriant, and 

 require close summer pruning to throw them into 

 fruitfulness.. In a few years this will be a fine 

 place. 



John Johnston's Farm, near Geneva, N. Y. — 

 We have so frequently alluded to this farm, that a 

 detailed description is unnecessary. When Mr, J. 

 bought it, many years ago, it was so poor that one 

 of his neighbors said he " would starve on it." 



The farm is on the borders of Seneca Lake ; much 

 of it h''gh rolling land, that would seem to need 

 draining as little as any farm in the State. Still it 

 is full of springs, and this was the cause of its un- 

 productiveness. Mr. J. imported, at much cost, a 

 few drain tiles from Scotland, and commenced un- 

 derdraining. . The result was so beneficial that he 

 had them made by hand, at a cost of $28 per thou- 

 sand. He next induced the late John Delafield, 

 Esq., to import a machine for making tiles, and af- 

 ter this the same tiles could be obtained in the 

 neighborhood at $8 per thousand. Mr. J. did not 

 stop his draining operation (who ever did that once 

 commenced tile-draining in a judicious manner?) 

 till his whole farm was thoroughly underdrained 

 from 2^ feet to 3 feet deep. He has laid, on about 

 306 acres of land, fifty-two miles of under-drains. 

 In addition to this the land has been admirably cul- 

 tivated; large quantities of clover have been grown 

 and made into hay — not plowed in ; a heavy stock 

 of cattle and sheep has been kept; all the corn 

 and spring grains grown have been consumed on 

 the farm ; and beside this, many tons of oil-cake 

 have annually been purchased as food for cattle 

 and sheep. All this has made the land very rich 

 — and the land has made Mr. Johnston rich in 

 return. 



It has been Mr. Johnston's practice to summer- 

 fallow for wheat — plowing the land three or four 

 times. But he finds that this makes the land too 

 rich for Mediterranean wheat — it produces too 

 much straw, and tlie crop falls down. Instead of 

 summer-fallow, he crops the land with oats or bar- 

 ley, followed with wheat. Last year he had a 20- 

 acre field that produced 35 bushels of Mediterra- 

 nean wheat after barley, 



James 0. Sheldon's Faem, Geneva, N. Y. — On 

 the 6th of July we visited the farm of James 0. 

 Sheldon, Esq., near Geneva, N. Y. Mr. S. is well 

 known as a successful breeder and importer oi 

 Short-horn cattle. He has one of the finest herd.' 

 in the State, numbering forty-five head. The fara 

 contains 300 acres, principally laid down in grass 

 It is delightfully situated on the high rolling lane 

 which forms the Western slope of Seneca Lake 

 The house and farm buildings are in the centre ok 

 the farm, and the land recedes in a gentle slope o* 

 either side, but rises again at a short distance t( 

 the west, forming a beautiful background of slop 

 ing hill-sides, while the intervening space is dot 

 with noble specimens of the American elm, wi 

 their stalwart trunks and pendant branches. Ii 

 the foreground, we have a very fine view of thi 



