178 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
guide the eye of alhwho wish to attain a 
high standard in breeding their flocks. 
Correspondence of the American Agriculturist. 
LETTERS FROM MR. PAGE-No. IV. 
From Columbus I went to Bloomfield, by 
stage, over a fine turnpike. I was along 
this route seventeen years ago, before the 
present road was built. Most of the land in 
this region is level ; soil a rich, dark loam, 
entirely free from surface rock ; the subsoil 
and the occasional knolls are gravelly. No 
one who has not tried it knows the almost 
impassable state of a dirt road, laid out but 
not worked, on such land, during one half of 
the year. Of course I was agreeably disap¬ 
pointed to find a fine, well-made road, over 
which the coach was rolled at the rate of six 
miles an hour. When here before we made 
about two miles an hour, with a good pair of 
horses and a light wagon ; yet the turnpike, 
with the exception of one bridge and three 
new farm houses, was the only improve¬ 
ment which I saw in seventeen years. The 
owners, or occupants, I don’t know which, 
are living in the same double log houses, 
many of which were well remembered, and 
look like old friends. I don’t think they are 
any older or worse for wear. 
At Bloomfield I found a saddle horse wait¬ 
ing to convey me to Harniss Renick’s, who 
lives on the Darby Bottom, one mile from 
Darbyville. Mr. Renick has a handsome 
house built on the bluff, between which and 
the creek, a mile or so off, stretches some of 
the finest bottoms I saw in Ohio. These 
bottoms are without doubt made land from 
the wash of the higher ground along the 
stream, and the frequent overflows of winter 
and spring. Their surface is level as a floor, 
and their fertility inexhaustible. Mr. R. 
pointed out' a field which had been planted 
with corn for forty-five years, and as yet 
shows no falling off in its products. Did not 
inquire as to Mr. Renick’s practice in plant¬ 
ing, but I believe the following to be the 
mode on bottom land: With a one horse shov¬ 
el plow split the old hills, and plant, without 
further preparation, four feet apart each way, 
allowing four stalks to the hill. All the cul¬ 
tivation received is with the same shovel 
plow, going through two or three times. As 
the southern corn has rarely more than one 
ear to the stalk, the yield is hardly such as 
one would expect from the rank growth— 
sixty bushels of shelled corn is probably 
over the average on the best bottoms. With 
the fertilizing matter brought on by a fresh¬ 
et, also comes foul seeds of all kinds. I 
have often seen fields that couldn’t be husked 
until a horse with a big branch of a tree had 
passed between each row. I have seen the 
huskers return from work with their clothes 
so completely covered with Spanish needles 
that a place for another one was scarcely to 
be found. 
But a small portion of the corn is husked 
—stalks and all being given to the cattle, in 
what is termed a feed-lot. Hogs follow and 
pick up what the cattle waste or leave. Mr. 
R.’s father, George Renick, now very aged, 
was the first to try the experiment of driv¬ 
ing a lot of fat cattle to the distant eastern 
markets. Fifty years ago, this was a long 
journey, but the Railroads are saving much 
time, besides a great amount in the flesh of 
the beeves. Geo. Renick, Sen., went twice 
to England to select cattle for companies in 
this part of Ohio. I saw many of their de¬ 
scendants of his importations on the farm of 
Harniss Renick. The most of his breeding 
stock were quite thin in flesh, although there 
were several cows which were fine-looking 
specimens of the Short Horn breed. One or 
two of his heifers were very fat; yet Mr. R. 
assured me they had been living on browse 
most of the winter. From their appearance 
I should say that their fattening tendency 
surpassed their procreative, and that they 
would prove barren. 
Mr. Renick considers himself fortunate in 
owning the bull Thornhury, bred by Mr. 
Richard Booth, and imported last season. I 
saw a number of his calves, which did credit 
to the reputation of the Booth blood. As 
Thornburv was the first bull of this blood I 
ever saw, I examined him closely. His 
head is somewhat strong, wide between the 
eyes and horns, the latter large, but not so 
much so as the most of Bates’s bulls. The 
neck is large and masculine, bending finely 
to the shoulder and brisket, which is good ; 
wide along the chine, and particularly good 
over the loin, with well developed hips and 
rump ; of great substance, with good hide 
and hair—but in much lower condition than 
many of the imported animals which I have 
seen ; still fat enough for work. He is 
white, yet his get are in color, yellow roan; 
that is, the colored hairs are yellow and 
much lighter in shade than most roans, ma¬ 
ny of which have hair darker than a full 
red, which gives a bluish tinge to their color. 
1 know of but one or two yellow roans in 
this State; they are fine animals. 
I find there is, in New-York, much misap¬ 
prehension as to Ohio Short Horns, and also 
the same in Ohio as to our cattle. They 
suppose that their cattle are much larger, 
and with a greater tendency to fatten. Now, 
save one or two herds in this State, I think 
New-York cattle will average as large as 
the Ohio breed. Breeders there, as well as 
here, are continually making draughts from 
the fountain head, the best herds of England. 
There, beef is the main object; with us, 
more milk is required. Besides, the Ohio 
breeders, as a whole, are lavish feeders, 
either with corn or in the number of acres 
of pasture which is -allowed to an animal. 
Much damage has been done to the repu¬ 
tation of Ohio Short Horns by speculators, 
who buy up droves of what is there termed 
full bloods , (grades and crosses of all kinds,) 
bring to this State, and by the time they 
have got here, they are all thoroughbred. 
Genuine Short Horns are much the same the 
world over, and more generally in repute in 
southern Ohio than in New-York. Any one 
at all conversant with their selling prices 
will readily see, that, thoroughbreds can not 
be purchased there, driven or carried five 
hundred miles, and sold profitably for $35 to 
$100 a head. 
He who murmurs at his lot, is like one 
baring his feet to tread upon thorns. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
DOES SORREL PROVE AN ACID SOIL 1 
We no not propose here t'o inquire whether 
lime or ashes will kill sorrel, for our experi¬ 
ments have been too limited to justify a hasty 
conclusion, but to express our conviction 
that the peculiarities of plants are, in a great 
measure, independent of the constitution of 
the soil. Every species of vegetable growth 
possesses peculiarities differing from every 
other species ; leaves and flowers and fruit 
are unlike, color and fragrance and taste are 
dissimilar, notwithstanding the same soil, 
sun and atmosphere contributed to their pro¬ 
duction. And plants develop their peculiari¬ 
ties under almost every diversity of circum¬ 
stances. The rhubarb plant grows its acid 
stocks in limestone regions, in no less per¬ 
fection than in soil almost wholly deprived 
of that calcarious ingredient. Sour and 
sweet apples will mature in the same field, 
and even upon the same roots , showing con¬ 
clusively that the soil has nothing to do with 
the acid properties of the one, nor the sac¬ 
charine qualities of the other. Potatoes and 
lemons will grow from the same soil; the 
former composed largely of potash, and the 
latter to citric acid in abundance. Sorrel will 
wind its acid stems around the stock of corn, 
from which sugar can be extracted, or twine 
its slender roots with those of the potato 
plant, deriving its acid from the same ele¬ 
ments that give to the former its sugar, or the 
latter its potash. Lime and ash an orchard 
as you will, and trees that produced sour 
apples before will produce them still. Should 
any inquire where the sorrel derives its acid, 
we answer, for the present, from the same 
sourse that the old nonesuch apple or the 
scarlet rose derives its color. The alder and 
the snowberry will grow upon the same soil, 
the scarlet fruit of the one contrasting with 
the snowey whiteness of the other; the snow 
peach and the red rareripe may be budded 
and fruited upon the same bough ; every va¬ 
riety of rose may be budded upon the same 
stock, and the growth of each bud produce 
its own peculiarity of color and fragrance ; 
every variety of apple may be grafted upon 
the same tree, and each graft produce its 
own peculiarity of leaf and flower, of color 
and flavor of fruit. The blood-root displays 
a snow-white blossom upon alow stem, pro¬ 
ceeding directly from a root whose sap is as 
red as that fluid from which it derives its 
name. 
We trust further illustration is unnecessary 
to show that the distinguishing characteris¬ 
tics of plants are independent of the soil on 
which they grow. The sugar maple and the 
cane, do not find their saccharine properties 
ready formed in the soil'; neither do the sor¬ 
rel and the pie-plant derive from the earth 
their acids. They possess, inherent in their 
constitutions, a chemical laboratory for their 
production. And, what may seem surprising 
is, the sugar of the former and the acid of 
the latter are composed of precisely the 
same ingredients. Thus, sugar is composed 
of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; oxalic 
acid is composed of the same, the relative 
proportion of the ingredients only being 
changed; the varying proportions being de- 
