14 
WISCONSIN FARMING. 
by have to find, in reference to this foreign arti- 
cle of food, an immense development. And as 
for specially benevolent bodies of men, whose 
grand text is the 'food prospects,' they, I must 
declare, are wandering in darkness with broad 
day beside them, till they teach us to get Indian 
meal, such as our American cousins get, that we 
may eat it with thanks to heaven as they do. 
New food, whole continents of food; and not 
rancid ham, but the actual sound Westphalia ! 
To this consummation we must come ; there is no 
other harbor of refuge for hungry human popu- 
lation; but all the distressed population fleets 
and disconsolate Mathusians of the world may 
ride there ; and surely it is great pity the en- 
trance were not cleared a little, and a few buoys 
set up and soundings taken by competent per- 
sons." 
We have tried various modes of sending maize 
across the Atlantic, shelled and ground, both raw 
and kiln-dried, but seldom has it been shipped in 
the cob. Sound, well-cured corn, stored in a pei*- 
fectly dry place, on ship-board, and kept in the 
cob till ready to grind and eat, we believe is the 
only way of giving to European palates the 
genuine, aromatic, nutty flavor of our unmatched 
Indian corn. 
DOG DISTEMPER— POTATO ROT. 
I see several cures for sick dogs in the Agricul- 
turist ; I have tried the following in extreme 
cases, and have succeeded to a miracle. When 
a weakness across the loins appears as one of 
the symptoms, it is a sure case — give one tea- 
spoonful of laudanum, and repeat the dose in a 
few hours unless relief is found from the first. 
Potato Rot. — Do you want a cure for potato 
rot? Let me give you a sure one. A Mr. Jonathan 
Ackley, living on Holmes' Bay, at mouth of Ma- 
chias River, Maine, burnt brush wood around his 
patch of potatoes, and had perfect potatoes when 
his neighbors had not enough sound ones left to 
tell what destroyed their bed-fellows. Yes — 
but one swallow does not make a summer. 
Well, here is another. A Mr. Getchell of Mid- 
dle River, near Machias, was a thriving man, 
and he burnt bricks while his crops were grow- 
ing. A good burn he made too, for his field of 
potatoes around the kiln were entirely free from 
rot, while all others in the neighborhood were 
affected by it. 
Henry L. Smith. 
Madisonville, La. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. 
Mr. Graham, of England, tried the following 
experiments with potatoes last season : — 
First. He cut off the stalks when in blossom, 
and then covered the drill, to see if, as many 
assert, the yield would be greater than when the 
stalks were left to grow. The crop, when the 
tops were cut off, was scarcely as much as the 
seed! 
Second. He cultivated one drill in the ordinary 
way, and from the stalks of another drill growing 
alongside he plucked all the blossoms. The 
difference in yield of the latter over the former 
was 43 per cent. 
Third. His potatoes self-planted were not dis- 
eased. This is an experiment, however, that on 
account of the greater severity of the winters, 
cannot well be tried in our climate. 
Fourth. In accordance with the recommenda- 
tion of the Belgian government, when any of his 
potatoes showed symptoms of disease, he cut off 
the tops and covered the ground a foot deep with 
earth. But the produce of the potatoes thus 
treated was as badly diseased as those whose 
tops were left growing. 
WISCONSIN FARMING. 
Although I find here and there a few subscri- 
bers to your agricultural paper in this state, it is 
some time since I noticed a correspondent from 
it; and in the hope that I may awaken a little 
attention among the more intelligent readers, 
and induce them to communicate some valuable 
intelligence from this far off region, rather than 
with the expectation I shall impart it myself, I 
am induced to address you. 
There is probably no one of our new states 
that has secured so large a proportion of intelli- 
gent and enterprising settlers from the older 
ones as Wisconsin. The healthfulness and 
general mildness of the climate, the almost uni- 
form fertility of the soil, the abundance of springs 
and water courses, the rolling surface, yet 
absence of mountains, which admits of easy 
natural drainage without the expense of labor 
of leveling or surmounting rugged ascents ; and 
then the happy, natural arrangement of inter- 
spersing woodland, prairies, and groves, with 
the facility of access by the great chain of inland 
lakes from the east and north, and by the Mis- 
sissippi from the Gulf of Mexico from the south 
and west — all have conspired to give to this com- 
paratively recent state, a rapidity of growth, an 
affluence of population, wealth, improvement and 
intelligence, never surpassed, if ever equalled. 
Already we have a commercial emporium in 
Milwaukie, numbering 15,000, and several minor 
places of 2,000 to 5,000, all supported in the ful- 
lest activity in supplying the merchandise and 
manufactures of the surrounding settlements. 
Yet, in the spring of '36, less than fourteen years 
since, I traversed almost the entire length of the 
state without meeting scarcely one comfortable 
abode, and several nights I had to camp out on 
what are now the most thronged thoroughfares, 
without a shelter to my head, save the canopy 
of heaven or the bark covering of the Indian 
wigwam. The whole state did not then contain 
6,000 white men ; now it has near half a million ! 
Such is the rapidity and luxuriance of western 
growth. Milwaukie itself, at that time, boasted but 
one decent house, and that had only one finished 
room ; and grateful indeed did I feel to its polite 
host, Mr. Juneau, (for a long period previously, 
an Indian trader at that post, but whose fine and 
stately form and urbane manners would have 
graced* the court of Napoleon, and has since 
been fully appreciated as a Post Master and 
Mayor of that juvenile corporation,) for a seat 
at his table, and a mattrass, buffalo skins and 
blankets on the floor of his half-finished ware- 
house attic. Now how changed ! We have 15 or 
