No. 2. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



21 



CI 



For the iXeir Genesee Farmer. 



The Importance of au Aarricultural Paper in 

 the Genesee Country. 



Messrs. Editors, — I am niucb pleneed with ihe 

 appearance of ibe first number of your New Genesee 

 Farmer. It is nil that could be wished or e.Npected; 

 nnd while it is highly creditable to you, it is worthy 

 of, and I believe will certainly receive, the support of 

 all good farmers. I feel that the continuance of such 

 a paper in this section, is of the utmost importance, 

 not only to me, as an individual, but to the whole ag- 

 ricultural community. And if you will allow me a 

 column for the purpose, I will give my brother 

 farmers a few reasons why I think they should unite 

 in sustaining this paper. 



Having driven or held a plough for more than twen- 

 ty years, in this country, (Genesee,) its soil nnd cli- 

 mate, and the peculiarities incident to each, which 

 need to be attended to by a farmer, are more familiar 

 to me than they can be to many among us, who have 

 recently arrived from a distant or perhaps foreign land. 

 While these bring with tliem industry and enterprise, 

 a good, perhaps a superior, knowledge of the general 

 principles of agriculture, and of its practice, too, as 

 adapted to their former place of residence, they 

 must, from the nature of the case, be ignorant of the 

 local peculiarities of their new homes — of the particu- 

 lar character of our soil, nnd our crops — of the best 

 time and place to market their produce and obtain 

 supplies, &c. Now, to such persons, what can be 

 more important than a publication which has for one 

 of its objects, the giving of this very information, and 

 where a " new comer," when he finds his former ex 

 perience at fault, may apply with Sn assurance of hav- 

 ing his questions answered by those, whose lonfer 

 residence here has rendered these local matters famil 

 iar. But this is not all, which I wish to say to this 

 class of farmers. While we are ready to give inform 

 ation on all these points, we ask, in return, some of 

 the knowledge which our new neighbors bring with 

 them, from a distance. For this puipose, your paper 

 afiFords the best possible means of communication, and 

 indeed the only one, except travelling and conversa- 

 tion, both of which must be casual nnd limited ; I 

 woiUd, th-yrefore, most earnestly call on all such, to 

 aid this puhlicntion, as subscribers and contributors. 



But it is not to these alone, that your paper offers 

 valuable aid — valunbl far beyond the small sum de- 

 manded for it. The general principles of agricidture 

 may be learned, as the general principles of any other 



science, from books. But not so, the practice, this 



can only be learned by experience, — your own experi- 

 ence, or your neighbors'. And this experience must, 

 from the very nature of the caee, be local ; it cannot 

 ibe brought from a distance ; for, although the general 

 irinciples remain the same, experience only can teach 

 ,ow far they are affected or modified by the peculiari- 

 ties of our own soil and climate. It is from a for^et- 

 fulness of this fact, that our "Book Farmers," (as 

 they are frequently called,) so seldom succeed. Not 

 that they have learned too much from hooks, but that 

 they have learned too little from experience. Now, 

 one great advantage of an agricultural paper is, that 

 it makes my neighbors' experience mine. For exam- 

 ple, ten, or more, individuals report in the Farmer 

 what success they have met with in growin" a new 

 variety of corn, potatoes, or any other crops, or new 

 modes of raising them, that gives me the experience 

 of these ten or more persons ; and I may adopt that 

 crop or that particular culture, or discard it, as the re- 

 sult of their experiments may have been favorable or 

 otherwise, and that, too, with more confidence than 

 I could with only a single experiment of my own. It 

 is in that way that most of our valuable improvements 

 have bern introduced, nnd will be in future. And if 

 wo would keep up with thnse around us, adopting 

 what is valuable, ond avoiding what is worthless, in 



the various real or pretended improvemi-uta continu- 

 ally off'ered to us — I know of no way of doing it so safe 

 and effectual as by supporting, in the midst of us, a 

 paper, in which all these matters shall be reported up- 

 on by those who have tried them — by those who can- 

 not be deceived, and have no interest in deceiving 

 others. 



But there is another and still more important reason, 

 why I wish to urge upon my brethren of the Plough, 

 the support of this paper ; and of this paper in partic- 

 ular. It is emphatically our oxen paper, located in the 

 midst of us, and devoted to our interests — a native of 

 our cl imatc, and indigenous to oursoil. Every reason 

 which should induce us to cherish and support a local 

 paper, of any kind, applies with full force to this. — 

 Our portion of the State has obtained a high reputation 

 for agriculture, at home and abroad ; and we reap the 

 advantage of it, in the increased demand for, nnd con- 

 sequent increased value ot, our farms. We arc directly 

 and deeply interested in supporting onr high character; 

 and in no way can we so cfFectually do it — abroad at 

 least — as by a generous and efficient support of a Pe- 

 riodical, by which only v.e are known abroad. This 

 is not theory — it is fuel. We have tried it, and we 

 know it to be so. When the Genesee Farmer was first 

 printed, we were scarcely known abroad ; and the 

 value of ouv location was but poorly understood, nnd 

 the richi:iese of our soil but partially known. The is- 

 suing ofthatpaper setthe world right upon these points; 

 ar.d we were greatly the gainers by it. And now 

 shall we loose all of that advantage, for want of a little 

 timely nesistance to this new paper, which has stepped 

 in to take the place, which the removal of the old one 

 has left vacant ? If we do so, we shall certainly lose 

 character nnd credit, and money, too. I say money 

 too, for there is not one among us, who is not interest- 

 ed in the success of this agricultural paper in our own 

 vicinity, in Ol pecuniary point of view, as a mere mat- 

 ter of money. The cost of it is a mere trifle, what 

 every one of us can afilird to give, nnd for which we 

 shall receive, in return, morotiian tenfold what it cost 

 us, in the pleasure and profit of perusing it ; it will 

 save us from the discredit of having lost ground in ag- 

 riculture, merely by the removal of the former publi- 

 cation — it will sustain our enviable reputation, as an 

 agricidtural district ; and will say to the world, that 

 neither the/unns nor the yarmcrs of Genesee, are too 

 poor to support, what they were first in the State to 

 establish, — a paper of their own. 



Jan. 1840. Genesee. 



Vur the Neto Genesee Tanner. 

 FRUIT TREES FROM CITTTING8. 



Messrs. Editors — I noticed in the Genesee Farmer 

 under date of Nov. 2d., an article on the |jropogation 

 of fruit trees from cuttings. This, like all other 

 wonderful discoveries of the day, has been widely co- 

 pied into the newspapers, both agricultural and polit- 

 ical. It has had a wonderful effect; and there are 

 those, in this age of improvement, who swallow with 

 avidity, every humbug that appears in print, who are 

 of the opinion that this new discover)- will soon sii- 1 

 persede the old slow and up-hill method of plnntino- 

 seed?, engrafting and inoculating, to obtain choice 

 varieties of fruit. 



Now, I shall hazard the assertion that the article nl. 

 luded to is not of recent origin, nnd therefore may not 

 be put down as a new invention under the .sun. It 

 was put forth long before one half of the world under- 1 

 stood the meaning of the terms " moms mullicatilis" 1 

 or "Chinese Tree Corn." Indeed, the same article 



appeared in print in the spring of 18"23, nearly i; ' 



years ago. I think I cannot be mistaken that it is the j 

 same, word for %vord. Being then, as well as now I 

 engaged in the nursery business, I resolved to trv the ' 

 experiment. Accordingly I followed the dirceiione I 

 laid down, and put in about 500 cuttings of the apple | 



and pear. It proved an entire failure — not one grew 

 As the ground had just been highly manured, and as 

 the season had been rather dry, I attributed the failure 

 in a mensure to these causes. I resolved to make an- 

 other trial; and the following spring selected a moist 

 soil, and again planted out some 2 or oUO. A few of 

 them started and grew for n short time, nnd then with- 

 ered away, not one of thein having taken root. So 

 much for this humbug. 



I would here remark, that if writers on ngriculture 

 and horticulture, would merely state what they knote 

 to be facts, after a fair and full investigation; and not 

 rely on their "no doubts," and "appears to do well," 

 talten frequently from hearsay evidence, and often be 

 fore experiments have fully tested them; much great- 

 er reliance could then be placed on their statements. 

 Many experiments that appear to do well at the out- 

 set, prove a failure afterwards. 



Grafting on the Wild Cherry. 



Some three or four years since, I oliserved nn arti- 

 cle in the Genesee Farmer, stating that the cultivated 

 cherry would not grow when inoculated or engrafted 

 on the wild black cherry. Seeing no good reason 

 why it should not, I determined to try the experiment. 

 I procured and planted some of the seeds; they grew 

 and produced fine thrifty stocks. A year ago last 

 summer 1 had some of them inoculated from our best 

 English cherries. I examined them in the autumn, 

 and they appeared to do well. Last spring, I had . 

 some fitly or sixty others engrafted; they appeared to ^ 

 adhere finely, soon after pushed out their leaves and 

 grew vigorously; indeed, they nppenred to be doing 

 quite as well as those worked on the stocks of the 

 English Mazzard cherry. I then cnmeto the conclu- 

 sion that the story of their not growing on the wild 

 cherry was all humbug. And had I possessed more 

 leisure at that season of the year, I fear that I should 

 have come out with a communication, stating my suc- 

 cess in the experiment. But soon my grafts and buds 

 began to wither, and before midsummer the most of 

 them had ceased to be. Some lew have remained 

 green during the spring and autumn, but I do not ex- 

 pect to find one of them alive in the spring. 



B. H. 



Buffalo Nurscn/, January, 1840. 



We esteem communications, such o-j the preceding 

 as not less valuable than the report? of orii'inal exoer- 

 iments. To establish the correctness or fallacy oij 

 written statements, is of great importance. A new- 

 mode of culture became^ of much greater value when 

 the reader can know for a certainty that such mode 

 can be depended on ; and much nee-diess trouble and 

 expense may be saved hy a timely exposure of impo 

 sitions. With regard to tha di6e;>very alluded to by our 

 correspondent, that of propogating fruit trees by cut- 

 tinge, from the repeated failures we have known in 

 past, years, in similar attempts, we hnd concluded that 

 u was long since given up, and were not a little sur- 

 prised to see it come forth again, a few months since, 

 as a discovery of great value,— iWs. A'. G, far. 



Mode of extractikg Wai from Hoket Comb. 



Have on theCre nn open vessel of boiling water, and 

 stand by the fire an open vessel of cold water ; put the 

 comb close tied in the canvass has, in the boiling wa- 

 ter, and repeatedly squeeze it down with a stick <p 

 Largo wooden spoon ; the wax will come through the 

 bag and swim on the top of the water ; skim it off'and 

 put it in the vessel of cold water ; by repeatedly 

 squeezing the bag and skimming, every particle of wax 

 is obtained, when congealed it may be taken off and 

 melted, and cast into moulds of any convenient shape 

 for sale. — Glasgow Mechtmics Mag, 



A gentleman of Liverpool, it ie said, has in .en ted -a, 

 steam engine that will perioral the distttu,.e beiweea, 

 Liverpool and America in six days. 



lie who receive* e good turn should-iiever for^et.il 

 — he who does of.e piould nevf ; remember it. 



