Proceedings of the Fae3iers' Club. 691 



tlie golden article is now taken to the cliecse and butter factories. 

 In the vicinity of railroads, sending milk to the New York market 

 is the business. The railroad facilities are good. Two great rail- 

 wa3's, the Erie and the Midland, Avith their branches, traverse it in 

 nearly every part. By the way, the earnings of a single milk train 

 on the Erie railroad, by running seventy-six miles one trip per day 

 to New York, is $750,000 per annum. Farms generally average 

 about 100 acres, and cost from $80 to $200 per acre, according to 

 the proximity of the railroad station. There is an abundance of 

 stone for fencing, and it is observed that the more ^ionj the land the 

 more productive the soil is found to be when once cleared. The 

 Orange county farmer, by practicing industry and economy, has 

 grown rich and independent ; that is if line houses, fine carriages, 

 and seven-thirties are any index. However, it must not be supposed 

 that Orange county is the real Utopia, as many are found who evince 

 a willingness to emigrate beyond its borders. 



TuE Rotation of Crops. 

 Mr. Albert Long, Dartford, "Wis., excepted to the practice of a 

 former correspondent, who " having sown a piece of grass, does not 

 plow the land again in less than eight years," Mr. Long prefers 

 this system of rotation, namely, meadow, pasture, corn, barley, 

 wheat. He believes if this were adopted by the prairie farmers it 

 would be greatly to their benefit, and would actually enrich their 

 land. He has land (lately purchased) which has been plowed for 

 twenty-two years in succession without manure or grass seed, pro- 

 ducing, as near as he can get at it, eighteen crops of wheat, two of 

 corn, and two of oats. Last year it yielded at least two tons of 

 clover and timothy hay ]jer acre for the first crop. Now, he con- 

 tended, if this land is kept in grass two years in five hereafter, and 

 all the hay and straw made into manure and faithfully returned to it, 

 will it not grow, richer? There can be no question but it will. 

 Hence I would advise our western farmers to try this system of rota- 

 tion first, then if they think they can make it profitable, at the rate 

 we are compelled to sell beef cattle, to mow their lands sixteen 

 years in succession, they may do so. 



Western Nokth Carolina. 

 Prof. Henry Colton, formerly connected with the Nortli Carolina 

 geological survey, spoke at length of the western section of the State. 



