I 860 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
207 
A Single Ounce of Seed ! 
Mr. Lyman Strong, of Greene County, N. Y., 
writes that the ounce of improved oats received 
through the seed distribution of the American 
Agriculturist in the Spring of 1858, increased to 
seven bushels in the crop of 1859, which is at the 
rate of about 67 fold increase in each of the two 
years. Only careful sowing and culture could 
have produced so large a yield; but the result 
shows how soon a little parcel of good seed may 
increase to a large amount. If the same in¬ 
crease of 67 fold, should be obtained this year 
and next, the crop of 1861 would be over thirty 
one thousand bushels (31,486 bushels !) in 3J- years 
from the reception of the ounce parcel. This is 
of course a much larger increase than could be 
obtained in any ordinary culture ; but mbst other 
seeds multiply faster than oats, and some idea can 
be formed of the enormous product being obtain¬ 
ed this very year from the million ormore of sep¬ 
arate parcels of seed distributed from the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist office free to subscribers, during 
the past four years alone. 
Timothy Bunker, Esq., at the Uew-York 
Central Park. 
Mr. Editor : I have heern tell a great deal 
about your Park, that Mr. Olmstead is fixing up 
for your city folks, on the upper end of your 
island. Every body that went down to the city 
from our place, had a good deal to say about it, 
and the lots of money they was laying out there 
in making hills higher, and hollows hollower, 
building bridges where there wan’t any brooks, 
and putting pond holes where there used to be dry 
land, making a clearing where there was a forest, 
and putting trees where there was cleared land. 
I expect they talked all the more about it, because 
Mr. Olmstead was a Connecticut man, and used 
to live close by us up here in Hookertown. 
Mrs. Bunker was a good deal stirred up about 
these accounts, and thought she should like to see 
the thing for herself. Sally has n’t said a word 
about visiting since she got back from down 
South. She thought then, she said, she should 
never care to get out of sight of Connecticut 
again as long as she lived. She has held of that 
mind until this Spring, and has hardly been out of 
Hookertown street, except to go down to Shad- 
town to see the baby. I have stuck pretty close 
to home myself, thinking that Hookertown was 
about as nigh the hub of the universe, as any 
other spot in this country. So, one day last 
week, Mrs. Bunker says to me, “Timothy, have 
you read in the papers what Fred. Olmstead is 
doing down there in the city 1” 
“ Well, yes, I have read some things, and 
heern a good deal more.” 
“ They say the city is fixing up a sort of coun¬ 
try place, to walk and ride in, and Fred, is telling 
’em how to spend several millions on brush pas¬ 
ture, and sheep walks, and tad-pole ponds !” 
“ Suppose you go down and see, Sally ; I have 
a little business in the city, and shall be glad of 
your company.” 
Mrs. Bunker’s trunk was packed next day, and 
we took the boat for the city. At first, she was 
inclined to think the whole story -was a hoax, for 
she did not see, where houses were so plenty, 
how folks could find any room for pastures, and 
woodlands. But after riding up on a railroad 
that went by horses, six or seven miles, with 
houses and stores on both sides, considerable 
thicker than they are on Hookertown street, and 
we began to get sight of some vacant lots and 
trees, she thought there might be something in it. 
The city pretty much faded out after a while, 
and we came to a place they told us was the 
Park. We found some very wide roads, they 
called avenues, about as smooth as a barn floor, 
and wide enough for six loads of hay to drive 
along abreast. “ Now,” exclaims Mrs. Bunker, 
“what are these people thinking of! Don’t they 
expect to leave the road behind them when they 
ride out! Fred, ought to have told them better 
than that.” I should think there were more peo¬ 
ple at work there, than we have got on all the 
farms in Hookertown, some drilling rocks, some 
carting stone, some setting out trees, and some 
moving dirt from one place to another, without 
any particular object in view. I could n’t help 
thinking what lots of corn and potatoes, they 
would raise this Summer, if they were only 
working on farms. 
They called one place a Ramble, and had guide 
boards put up, all round, pointing that way, as if 
it was something remarkable. Mrs. Bunker said 
it reminded her, for all the world, of Uncle Jotham 
Sparrowgrass’s cow pasture, before he drained the 
musk-rat pond, and she didn’t think the lay of 
the land was a bit handsomer.” 
It is curious to see how folks’ minds work. 
Here in the country, the great object seems to be, 
to get rid of water, rocks, and brush. You see I 
spent considerable in draining the horse pond, 
and Uncle Jotham made dry land where the musk 
rats built their nests. But Fred. Olmstead has 
got things turned tother end foremost, and gone 
and filled up a valley of well nigh twenty acres 
with water, and made all the shores of the pond 
as crooked as a ram’s horn. I should n’t think 
there was a rod of it any where in a straight line. 
Then, in the country, we plow up huckleberry 
brush, sweet fern, alders, hprd hack, and all such 
stuff, glad enough to get rid of them. But down 
there, we saw lots of huckleberries, blackberries, 
brakes, and things of that kind, put round into 
the shy places, as if they were something very 
nice. % 
In one spot, I remember, we came upon a slug¬ 
gish little pond hole, with rushes, lily pads, pick¬ 
erel weed, and other water plants, and on the 
banks a rank patch of skunk cabbage. At the 
sight of this last plant, Mrs. Bunker put on her 
spectacles to see if she wan’t mistaken, and then 
burst into such a fit of laughter, that, one spell, I 
thought I should have to call a policeman to stop 
her. The idea of cultivating that savory article 
in a flower garden, seemed to upset all her no¬ 
tions of propriety. 
Up here, in the country, we take a good deal of 
pains to bury the rooks, and get them out of sight. 
In the Park, we saw a good many places where 
the dirt had been removed to bring the rocks into 
view, and in one place they had dug a great 
ditch, clear from the pond away under a great 
boulder, as big as a small meeting-house. They 
were fixing it up for a grotto, I believe they called 
it, and they said it would cost five thousand dol¬ 
lars. It looked pretty much like Dick Sanders’ 
saw-mill flume, or, Mrs. Bunker said she thought 
it would, when the moss got grown upon the 
rocks around—I thought it was a smashing price 
for a big rock. In another place they had tum¬ 
bled a great lot of smaller rocks into a swale, 
and turned on a spout of Croton water to make 
it look like a brook. Now it run down under the 
stones out of sight, and again it run over one 
long flat rock, and fell down six or eight feet into 
a pool. This they called a cascade, but it looked 
to me just like a water-fall in a trout brook, only 
it wan’t half so handsome. They said this con¬ 
cern cost over eight thousand dollars, and that 
is mor’n Dick Sanders’ whole farm is worth, 
saw mill, trout brook, and all. The little walks 
around the place they called the Ramble, Mrs. 
Bunker said, made her think, for all the world, of 
a huckleberry pasture full of rabbit paths, and 
she didn’t believe but Fred. Olmstead had just 
made a map of some place up here on our hills, 
and told his hired men to mark it out according¬ 
ly. It was a pretty woodsy place, she admitted, 
but thought the city folks were paying pretty dear 
for their whistle. 
That may be so, but I suppose they have earned 
their money, and can spend it as they please. I 
couldn’t help thinking that it was enough sight 
cheaper for a man, if he has a longing for such 
things, to export himself into the country, than 
to try and import the country into the city, 
where, at best, he only got a small sample, and 
not a very perfect specimen at that. I have n’t a 
doubt that Mr. Olmstead has done his work as 
well as any body could, but it seems to me that 
we who till the soil, get rather better looking 
trout brooks, water falls, and bush pastures at a 
more reasonable rate. We came home thinking 
that we were about as well off as our neighbors, 
content to live in a region where trout brooks 
run naturally, and where brakes and ferns, bull 
rushes and pond lilies are the portion of every 
man’s farm. It is a great country where skunk 
cabbage is grown in the flower gardens. 
Yours to command, 
Hoolcertown, Ct., June, I860.] Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
[We generally let ’Squire Bunker have his say 
in his own words, for he utters a good many solid 
truths in his way. His intended criticisms upon 
our Central Park we think are about the best puff 
it has had—it looks so country like, so “ woodsy” 
that it seemed just like the country to our rural 
visitors, and that is exactly what is aimed at. 
Ed.] 
-- ii a i ^t n* t> »» ■ 
Chicory a Substitute for Coffee. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist■ 
In the February and April Nos. of last volume, 
you speak of chicory as having a deleterious in¬ 
fluence upon the human system, inducing sleep¬ 
lessness, etc , and say you should deprecate its 
general introduction as an article'for the table to 
supersede coffee. Now, with all due deference, I 
must beg leave to speak most unqualifiedly in its 
praise. It was introduced to my notice some six 
or seven years since by a physician, and recom¬ 
mended, as having been analyzed and found to 
possess no injurious qualities ; since that time I 
have raised it in my garden every year, and have 
used no other coffee, and for a good part of the 
time it has superseded not only coffee, but tea. I 
ask for no better coffee or tea, and so far as my 
experience goes, it is perfectly healthy. Jt is 
raised with very little trouble—a row or two by 
the side of a path in the garden will supply any 
smaB family for the year. Persons whose heads 
will not allow them to use coffee, can use chicory 
with impunity, and when properly prepared, a 
stranger, however good a judge of coffee, could 
not distinguish it from the best Java. This I 
have proved by experiment, and I hope it will be 
generally introduced ; it would be a great saving 
to any family, as they can raise their own coffee, 
if they have even half a rod of ground. 
New-London Co., Conn. DAVID BREED. 
[What is one man’s meat is another’s poison, 
and so of drinks. The testimony of medical 
men, and others, is too strong to allow a general 
recommendation of chicory as a beverage.— Ed.1 
Confidence is the companion of success. 
A Book for the Million— -Astor's bank book 
