1863. 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMEE. 



357- 



have the total cost ten cents a bushel 

 in the hill. To this add five cents a 

 bushel for digging and picking up, and 

 five more for hauling to market, we 

 have a pretty cheap crop, the most of 

 which is due to the use of the new cul- 

 tivator. 



THE NEW CULTIVATOK EST THE COKN FIELD. 



We will now try the corn field on 

 autumn plowed land. "With a planter 

 attached to the roller, the planting and 

 rolling is done at the rate of fifteen 

 acres a day. We give this fifteen acres 

 four cultivatings with eight days work, 

 making the cost as follows : 



8 days' plowing in fall. 



1 " planting and rolling. 



8 " cultivating. 



11 " total. 



Or a little over a day to the acre to cul- 

 tivate corn in the most thorough man- 

 ner. How long can the East compete 

 with the prairies in the growing of 

 (Corn? 



When labor was very much depress- 

 ed, before the construction of railroads, 

 and when the rent of land was merely 

 nominal, the growing of corn to be fed 

 in the field to stock at five dollars the 

 acre was but a poor business. If farm- 

 ers had then had the new cultivator, 

 they would have made corn growing 

 profitable, allowing three dollars an 

 acre for rent of land, which at that time 

 would have been considered a good 

 business. Forty acres to the hand and 

 team was then considered a good sea- 

 son's work, now 60 to YO are but an 

 ordinary one ; so much for the new cul- 

 tivator. 



We now come to the spring seeding 

 of the small grains. As before we must 

 hare the land plowed in the autumn. 

 With the new cultivator we harrow in 

 eight acres a day, and finish by rolling 



fifteen a day, thus putting in at an 

 average rate with the harrow, and at 

 the same time have the surface deeply 

 cultivated. Shall we write the history j 

 of the lost harrow ? With a hand sow- 

 ing machine costing ten dollars, a man 

 can sow thirty acres in a day, or three 

 times as much as by hand, and at the 

 same time do the work much better. 

 Our Egyptian friends know nothing of 

 fall plowing, and as a matter of course 

 must wait in the spring for the land to 

 dry off before plowing. There the 

 spring answers to our winter, they get- 

 ting, rain when we have snow at the 

 north. If they would plow their clay 

 lands in autumn, and put in their crops 

 with the two horse cultivator, they 

 need not wait for the close of the rainy 

 season, which with them is the growing,^ 

 season, and the very time the crop"^ 

 should be growing, the whole aspect 

 farming in Egypt would be changed 

 and good crops would be the mle, in.- : 

 stead as now, the exception. ■ ^v 



The cultivator to which we allude ia^ 

 known as the Stafford Patent, made at 

 Decatur, by Messrs. Barbor & Hawley^ 

 and which took the first premium at 

 the trial of implements under the di^- 

 rection of the State Agricultural Sod3 

 ety. As a corn cultivator it has four 

 shovels, to which two others are added 

 when used for other purposes. It 

 the most durable of all the cuM#^ 

 tors in use, and the least liable to g# 

 out of order. 



Sanitary Stores from the West foe 

 Prison. — The Chicago Post says that the Nor 

 western Sanitary Commission will send a shjjtifi 

 ment of sanitary stores to the NorthwestemaaOT?; 

 in Libby prison, in season for the ne^ flag of 

 truce to Fortress Monro|. It made OBie 

 ment some ten days ago, \^hich is 

 affording comfort to our captive 

 the bastile of Richmond. 



