THE ILLIISrOIS FARMER. 



123 



cattle trade as now threatened would be 

 an evil that all would shrink from con- 

 templating, it would be a blow that would 

 require years to recover from. It is 

 understood that should the danger grow 

 more imminent that all cattle will be ex- 

 cluded from our State Fair, and we ad 

 vise our County Societies to hold them- 

 selves in readiness to co-operate in these 

 stringent meausures. Dr. H. C. Johns 

 was not present, having gone East with 

 his stock of fat cattle. Ex-President 

 Webster was also absent, but the cause 

 we did not learn. It is just such emer- 

 gencies as this that the advice and assis- 

 tance of these ex -officio oflScers are need 

 ed and whom it would be highly proper 

 to take their places in the Board, while 

 in the ordinary affairs of the Society, 

 the new officers are supposed to be fully 



competent to manage the business. 



(The above was prepared for July 

 number, but was crowded out. ) 



■<•>- 



Mattoon, July 16, 1850. 

 Editor Illinois Farmer: 



Why cannot you devote more space to 

 market and ornaiJiental gardening? Tell us 

 how to lay out our grounds and to embelish 

 them. We villagers want your assistance in 

 the thousand little mattsrs of fixing up about 

 our dwelling houses, where, what and when 

 to plant. We want better vegetables from 

 the market gai^ener, and we look to you to 

 give such lessons as will enable the:a to 

 serve us with better articles. 



Do, Mr. Editor, come to our help. The 

 farmers all know how to grow corn, wheat 

 and oats, and they almost scout the 

 idea of being further taught in regard to 

 stock in general. Do let them take care of 

 themselves for a time, and give us a little of 

 your aid. MRS. T. H. B. 



Answer. — Ornamental and market gar- 

 dening are branches that interest bat a small 

 number of our readers, and would require all 

 of our space from month to month to do it 

 full justice. To all such persons we would 

 commend the ^^Horticulturist," published by 

 C. M. Saxton, Barker & Co., New York, at 

 §2, which deals largely in ornamental gar- 

 dening, and is an almost indispensible 

 requsite to all those fitting up suburbon 

 residences. The '^Gardener's Monthli/,'^ ed- 

 itedbyThos. Meehan, one of the most scien- 

 tific and practical gardeners in this country, 

 is published in Philadelphia at ^1. It haa 

 no equal in the several departments that it oc- 

 cupies. In the ornamental and market garden 

 it is invaluable, and we would especially 

 commend it to those who have small lots that 

 they wish to make both useful and beautiful. 

 The great mass of our readers are farmers, 

 and many of them new beginners on our 

 prairies. It is a mistake to think that our 



farmers have nothing more to learn. We 

 have always ^been learning, and expect to 

 continue to learn should we live a thousand 

 years. In fact, our farmers are just begin- 

 ning to learn the true nature of our prairio 

 soils ; the effect of sudden changes and of 

 mcwre thorough culture. That they excell in 

 in corn growing, we must admit, but they 

 have yet much to learn. We cannot, there- 

 fore, devote much space to those subjects in 

 w^iich only a small portion of our readers 

 are interested ; yet, we do not intend to 

 overlook these subjects entirely, but give 

 them such space as we can spare from the 

 more pressing duties of the farm, the 

 orchard and the home garden, and we shall 

 be pleased to receive communications in re- 

 gard to them. The samejprinciples that we 

 lay down in farm and garden culture will 

 apply to the house grounds, and the village 

 reader, we hope, will not read the Farmer 

 in vain. It is not possible in a journal of 

 the size of the Farmer to do^ justice to all 

 the various matter within its scope. Only 

 a portion of our time can« be devoted to it, 

 and we therefore, withojit attempting to be 

 perfect, take in hand those subjects more 

 immediately pressing upon us. No one 

 writer is capableof doing justice to all the 

 varied branches of rural economy, and to at- 

 tempt it is simply rediculous, and^we think 

 that our agricultural journals would find it 

 to their interest to attempt less. The list of 

 departments in some of them are really im- 

 posing, and if properly treated, would soon 

 do away with all other species of newspapers. 

 It may be proper to state at this time, that 

 it is the intention of the Publishers to en- 

 large this paper,'" and iu case ^the' Editor 

 cannot give the work more of his time, the 

 propose to procure such assistance as shall 

 make it one of thejmost valuable of agricul- 

 tural journals. It is not their intention to 

 invade the particular province of others, but 

 to continue on in the present course, in mak- 

 ing the Farmer a journal of progressive 

 agriculture, and leave to the newspaper the 

 broad field of news, whether agricultural, 

 religious, political, scientific or literary. 

 Within the past few years there hasgro wn 

 up a species of agricultural literature which, 

 through the influence of the Rural New 

 Yorker and other kindred papers, have be- 

 come not only useful, but popular. These 

 have done, and continue to do much to pop- 

 ularize rural pursuits, and we bid them God 

 speed; but the line marked out for the 

 Farmer lies within the field of practical 

 agriculture, and to such its pages are ever 

 open. 



■ — ■•» ■■ — 



Crops in Adami County. 



QuiHoy, July 12, 18C0. 



M. L. Dunlap, Esq. — Dear Sir: Our 

 farmers are now in the midst of the har- 

 vest. Winter wheat is light and but lit- 

 tle, except on the bluff farms, where 



there is occasionally a good field, much 

 of the land sown to winter wheat last 

 fall, was this spring sown with spring 

 wheat, and the crop is fair as to quantity 

 and superior in quality. I^have seen 

 some specimens which for ^size and 

 plumpness of grain, I have never seen 

 equalled in spring wheat. Oats are do- 

 ing well, and we shall have a good crop. 

 Timothy is light, probably not more 

 than one- half the usual crop will be cut 

 in our county, and to supply the defi- 

 ciency, Hungarian grass seed has been 

 sown, and the crop promises well. Corn 

 is doing well, and never have we had 

 the promise of so splendid a crop. The 

 growth for the last month has been as- 

 tonishing, and if no accidents occur we 

 shall have much the largest crop ever 

 raised in this county, which has always 

 been famous for good corn. If our far- 

 mers could get about twenty thousand 

 stock hogs to put their corn into this 

 fall, they could make it pay well. 



Take it altogether, the promise is for 

 more productive and better crops than we 

 have had since 1856. 



. , ; Truly yours, 



': \ ■'■: ; JI. D. Woodruff. 



-*•* 



[For the Illinois Farmer.] 



CoBDB.v, June 80, 1S60. 



M. L. Dunlap — Dear Sir: — After 

 leaving you at Decatur, we had (that is 

 Uncle Ben Vance and myself,) a pleasant 

 time on our way home. The trains do not 

 make close connections at Centralia and we 

 took advantage of the delay to look about. 

 The Company have large repair shops at this 

 place. We entered the stable of the iron 

 horse, through the kind attentions of the 

 officers in charge; we needed no store 

 clothes to introduce us, and though in our 

 linsey, we were as kindly shown through the 

 shops as though we were simply gentlemen 

 and not sovereigns tilling the soil. Uncle 

 Ben was hugely pleased, for it was the first 

 time that he had been in the stable when the 

 monster was groomed, whose bones are 

 iron, sinews steel, and whose lungs beat re- 

 sponsive to Steam. Uncle Ben looked up to 

 them with awe — a dozen of them in the stalls. 

 The shop, or more properly, the iron horse 

 infirmary, requires a hundred workmen to 

 keep up the running gears of those iron an- 

 imals — more wonderful than the "Big Bull" 

 of Indian tradition, who shook off the 

 thunder bolts of Jehovah, leaped the great 

 lakes and dove deep into the western wilds, 

 beyond the ken of man. A stroll into those 

 shops, while waiting for the train, will enable 

 one to pass the time pleasantly, worth half a 

 dozen visits to the circus. 



The gardens were next in order, and we 

 made our first call at that of conductor C. 

 Montross. Charley is one of the most pop- 

 ular oonductora on the road, and has one of 

 the best arranged and most valuable of all 

 the village gardens in Egypt. His fine 

 Newfoundland dog met us at the gate and 

 wagged a friendly welcome; the owner and 

 his good wife are now on a visit east, and we 

 could only look through the grounds and 

 wonder how one man. from hia few spare 



