No. 9. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



Inquiries about Orchard Grass, &c. 



Messes. Editors — Can you give me any informa- 

 tion about orchard grass (Dactylie glomernta;) the 

 soil beet adapted to its growth, the time and manner 

 of sowing, quantity of seed per acre, its value for hay 

 or pasture for cows compared with Timothy or other 

 grasses, the number of croppings it will bear in a sea- 

 son, and the time of its duration ? This graee is not 

 cultivated in this section of country, and information 

 concerning it is earnestly solicited through the New 

 Genesee Farmer. 



I was much pleased with the essay on grasses by 

 Professor Dewey, in former numbers of your paper, 

 and regret that he so eoon laid down hie able pen. 

 May we not hope that he will again appear in your 

 columns, and give us further information about the 

 grasses, and also descriptions of the noxious weeds 

 which are becoming so serious an evil insnme parts of 

 the countrv ? And, if you will allow me to make a 

 suggestion, I think it would increase the value of yonr 

 already invaluable paper if you would give cuts with 

 descriptioneofthe most injurious weeds. In this section 

 of the country we are wholly unacquainted with the 

 Canada Thistle, Stein Craut and Charlock, or at least 

 they are not known by these names; and if they have 

 yet been introduced here, we may be better able to 

 guard against them if we are eufficienlly acquainted 

 with their looks to detect them on their first appear- 

 ance. I think we ought to become acquainted with 

 our enemies as well as our friends. 



Respectfully your Friend, 



SERENUS. 

 Lewisburg, Pa., August, 1840. 



Remarks. — Orchard grass is not much cultivated 

 in Western New York. — We wish some one of our 

 readers who has experience on the subject, would fur- 

 nish an answer to the above. — In respect to Professor 

 Dewey, we regret to state that severe illness has for 

 some time past deprived this community of his very 

 useful labors. We are happy to say however, his 

 health is now nearly restored, and we trust he will 

 eoon resume his responsible duties in the Institution 

 over which he presides. — Eds. 



For the New Genesee Farmer. 

 Farming ; Its Advantages. 



Messrs. Editors — Farming is exempt from those 

 great and almost overpowering evils, to which nearlp 

 every other branch of industry has had to succumb of 

 late ; I mean the evils of the credit system. The pro- 

 duction of the farmer is always a caeh article. The 

 Banks will loan money to purchase the staples of the 

 country in times of great money pressure, as the 

 avails places them in funds in New York. This is a 

 great boon to the farmer ; it is one great cause of his 

 success ; it is alone sufficient to make his condition 

 enviable. 



Look at the City trader or the jobber, and the coun- 

 try merchant — what is their condition and daily task, 

 sales all on credit, profits on roper, failures in collec- 

 tions, losses, goading apprehensions, failing credit and 

 consequent inability to buy well, small profits with in- 

 creased cxnensee, skinning usury, bankruptcy and 

 disgrace ; then comes the final struggle between pride 

 and poverty, diminished self-respect, old age, sickness 

 and the grave. 



The extensive mechanic is but litde better off. As 

 times are constituted, he too must give credit and a 

 long one too, on both his stock and his labor. If he 

 makes his employers rich, he of course gets his pay ; 

 but if his employers fail, Shylock grasps the assets, 

 and the mechanic may whistle. 



Not so with the farmer ; even bankrupt millers, and 

 gambling speculators, can find cash to pay him for the 

 fruits of his iudusty. If he sells on a credit, it is be- 

 oanse be gets more than the market price, and more 



133 



than the purchaser ought to pay. It is often said that 

 no miller but a lame duck, will buy wheat on a credit 

 — if a farmer sells to one of these he ought to lose. 



But in the midst of every blessing, farmers do com- 

 plain of low prices and hard times. How do the facts 

 stand 1 are prices lower or is money scarcer than it 

 was 10 years ago ? Certainly not ; but the artificial 

 wants, the style of living of the farmer, have fearfully 

 increased — and he seeks for a pnnacea,|not in the sober 

 lessons of early experience, but in the illusory, soul- 

 sickening promises of future inflations. 



It is true thai farmers aad their families exhibit out- 

 wardly a much higher state of civilization, than they 

 did 10 years ago, but what progress have they made 

 since that time in intellectual cultivation ? Have they 

 learned to prize and enjoy the simple pleasures of ru- 

 ral life, and to understand their endless variety 1 Does 

 the farmer's green fields, ploughed fallows, his trees, 

 his rocks, and hie bubbling brooks, now teach him les- 

 sons which ten years ago he could not understand ? 

 If they do, then is he on the road to that intellectual 

 improvement which will moderate hie self-love, teach 

 him to be satisfied with the day of email things, and to 

 despise those temptations which lead to expensive 

 show, effeminacy and ruin. SENECA. 



Improved Breeds of Swine. 



Much has been said of late in agricultural papers 

 respecting new ond improved kinds of hogs, and we 

 have sometimes been asked why it was that our col- 

 umns contained so little on the subject. Our answer 

 has been, we did not possess sufficient personal knowl 

 edge on the su'iject to enable us to form an intelligent 

 opinion respecting it, and much that we read about it 

 savored too strongly of "speculation" to suit our taste. 

 We are fully convinced, however, that very great im- 

 provements have been made in the breeds of swine. 

 Some good specimens of Berkshire, China, Leicester- 

 shire, and various crosses may now be found in this vi- 

 cinity ; but the finest and most gentcd lot of hogs — 

 (we beg their pardon, we meant to soy swine,) that we 

 have ever seen is the stock of A. B. Allen, Esq. of 

 Buffalo, whom we had the pleasure of visiting a few 

 days since. Mr. Allen has imported several fine ani- 

 mols, and hos purchased largely from other breeders 

 and importers in order to supply the great demand for 

 pigs, for the west and eouth. He has sold a large 

 numberduring the summer and is constantly receiving 

 orders for more. The following account of a purchase 

 of hie we copy from the Cultivator. We intend here- 

 after to give descriptions of some of the most improv- 

 ed breeds of swine. There is much room for improve- 

 ment in this department among farmers, and we hope 

 our readers will not be slow lo perceive it. 



I.arge Sale of Berkshires. 



It will be eeen by the communication below, that 

 the Shakers at Watervliet, near this city, have sold 

 out their entire breeding stock of Berkshire hoge, to 

 A. B. Allen, Esq. ot Buffalo, and that they retire 

 from the business of breeding them for sale. On the 

 day previous to the shipment of the stock to the west, 

 we had the pleasure of riding out to the neat village 

 of these people, and looking over their superior ani- 

 mals ; and, however familiar we may have been with 

 Berkshires, we must confess that the splendid array of 

 these noble quadrupeds excited our astonishment and 

 admiration. While we regret that Albany county 

 should lose this choice stock, we are glad to find that 

 it has fallen into the hands of so spirited and judicious 

 a breeder as Mr. Allen ; and perhaps it is upon the 

 whole for the best, as at Buffalo it is several hundred 

 miles nearer to the Great Western Market, and we 

 are not without hopes that this greater proximity to 

 purchasers, will extend the diffusion of the breed, for 

 we are satisfied that the pork growers cannot possibly 

 make a more profitable investment than in the improv- 

 ed machines, (if we may be allowed the expression) 

 for the manufacture of this great staple article. No 

 farmer would want but one sight of the beautiful store 

 barrows that we saw in the piggery^ to convince him 



of this. Their large fine, and delicate forms, could 

 not fail to excite his admiration. 



Mr. Allen has also purchased a few oiber very 

 lorgc choice animals, of established reputation as 

 breeders, belonging, we believe, to Messrs. Middle- 

 To.v and Meigs of this city. All these animals have 

 b(:en stinted to Mr. Lossing's late imported boars, and 

 cminot Ihil this fall to produce a very choice offspring, 

 \V"u doubt whether, wiih this addition to Mr. Allen's 

 stock, his herd can be beat, or rarely hardly equalled, 

 by any herd in England, at least if we may judge from 

 the finished engravings which occasionally appear in 

 the British Farmer's Magazine. In the March No. of 

 the present year, we find the portrait of a boar bred by 

 the Hon. J. Shaw Lefevre, a wealthy landed proprie- 

 tor, and Speaker of tho British House of Commons, 

 and by the exhibition of which, at the Oxford meeting 

 of the English Agricultural Society, he won the high- 

 est prize of ten guineas ffoO. ) Forward, this might 

 bo colled a good animal, but otherwise he has narrow 

 bams, and a high steep rump, and has nothing of the 

 finished air and faehiouabic range of the Shaker stock. 

 Mr. A. inform us that he intends still to enlarge his 

 stock, and that he has made arrangements to receive 

 in September next some o( the best that the piggeries 

 of England can offord, without regard to price, and 

 unconnecied with former importalions, for a fresh 

 cross. With these additions to the previous high bred 

 stock of Mr. A., the person who cannot be satisfied 

 from its produce must be hard to please. We wish 

 him every success in hie laudable enterprise in the im- 

 provement of the stock of the great and fertile west. 

 "Walervliet, July, 1840. 



"Editors Cultivator — Being situated so far from 

 navigation, and it being so troublesome for us to ship 

 our stock, we have concluded to retire from the busi- 

 ness of breeding Berkshire pigs, and have accordingly 

 sold out all our prime stock to A. B. Allen, of Buffa- 

 lo, reserving only a few sows of medium sizes for the 

 production of our own pork. This is a very superior 

 stock, and such as has universally taken precedence 

 even among Berkshires, wherever sent. Most of 

 these anmials are about as large of their age, as the 

 superb sow Maxima, purchased of us at one hunderd 

 and fifty dollars, by John Lnssing, of Albany, and 

 faithfully figured and described in the May number of 

 the current volume of the Cultivator, and one of them 

 we think, when fully grown, will even be superior ; 

 and we earnestly recommend this stock to the public, 

 and have no hesitation in saying, that it will not be 

 likely to deteriorate in the hands of A. B. Allen, and 

 those who hnvo heretofore addressed their orders to us 

 we respectfully refer hereafter to him. 



" STEPHEN WELLS, 

 " JUSTICE HARWOOD, 

 " Trustees of V. Frienils, commonly called Shakers." 



Disease in Poultry— Inqnirj'. 



Messrs. Thojias &, Bateham My hens and 



chickens are affected with a kind of distemper of which 

 some have died. The disease causes a swelling of the 

 neck, and an appearance of water in the lower part of 

 the neck. If you, or any of your correspondents, can 

 inform ue how to cure or check this evil, you will per- 

 haps oblige more than one subscriber. 



Respectfully Yours, M. H. 



Black Rock, August, 1840. 



Remarks. — We have no personal knowledge of the 

 above disease, and cannot look up an answer in time 

 for this number. Some information concerning it will 

 doubtless be given in our next. — Eds. 



Ring Bone on Horses~Inqniry, 



Messrs. Editors. — I have a valuable young horsa 

 affected with what is called a Ring Bone, on his hind 

 foot; and if you, or any of your readers, can inform 

 me how to stop or cure it, I should esteem it a very 

 great favor. Yours, (fee, 



JOEL P. BENNETT, 

 Wellington, N. V. 



Remarks. — We are proud to say that our editorial 

 aids and valuoble correspondents possess a very res- 

 pectable amount of useful knowledge, and show great 

 willingless to communicate it t« others; but we are 

 sorry to inform Mr. Bennett that we do not expect to 

 be able to furnish a cure for Ring Bone. Some of our 

 friends may be able to tell how to afford some relief; 

 but a aire we apprehend is impossible.— £<<»« 



