AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
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But there was one plum superior in flavor to 
any of these, known here as the Orange 
Gage. It is not known in the catalogues, 
and we think must be some seedling peculiar 
to this region. The nurseryman who looks 
it up and propagates it will be a public bene¬ 
factor. The ravages of the curculio are not 
yet very seriously felt in this region, and the 
plum seems to be entirely at home. With 
all the fruit consumed in the household, and 
the still larger quantities given away to 
friends, bushels will waste for want of timely 
consumers. Some means must be devised 
by which this great waste in the gardens of 
our amateur cultivators can be saved. 
There are hundreds of them within a few 
hours of the city, and their number is every 
year increasing. New gardens are coming 
into bearing every year, and the work in 
them is very great. The owner is usually 
fully occupied with other matters, and has 
no time to make a market for liis surplus 
fruit, and see to its daily gathering. If some 
enterprising market man would buy his sur¬ 
plus and see to its gathering he would wil¬ 
lingly sell. It would bring much finer fruits 
to our market, and make them much cheaper. 
This kind of economy in small things is 
much more practiced by men of wealth in 
Europe than with us. As our population 
and wealth increase we should have a better 
system of gathering up the fragments of our 
abundance, that nothing be lost. 
THE FARM 
is about two miles from the village, and 
consists of about 250 acres of land. After 
you ascend the bluff, back of the village, the 
country is quite level, and admirably adapt¬ 
ed to tillage. The soil is a mixture of clay 
and sand, and is free from stones and rocks. 
There is nothing to interrupt the plow or 
the mowing machine, and all the implements 
of improved husbandry can be used to the 
best advantage. We found the farm build¬ 
ings all new, and very perfect and conven- 
t in their arrangements. Time did not 
permit us to examine the stock or to visit all 
the fields. 
We noticed, among other good things, a 
large field of corn grown for fodder. It was 
sown in drills about thirty inches apart, cul¬ 
tivated during the season, and about the first 
September cut up, cured in the field, bound 
in bundles and shocked. The burden of 
fodder secured in this way is enormous, and 
we are pretty sure that every farmer has in 
his own hands a complete remedy against a 
short crop of hay. A tun of well-cured 
corn fodder will make as much flesh, fat or 
milk, as the best hay, and six or eight tuns 
per acre can easily be grown on good land. 
Adjacent to the corn field was a beautiful 
field of turnips, the bulbs large, and the 
leaves still luxuriant. They were much the 
best field we have examined this season. We 
were informed that over fifty acres of rye 
were grownthis season,yielding some twelve 
hundred bushels. Besides the fertilizers 
made upon the premises, large quantities 
of guano, super-phosphate and plaster are 
used, and found to be profitable. 
Near the farm house is a young pear 
orchard and garden, which we saw at once 
was a pet with the cultivator. Last winter 
was a sad visitation upon it, and many a 
thrifty stock of last summer now stood 
blackened and leafless. The living trees 
looked in excellent condition, and some of 
them had burst into fruit, and were yielding 
their first harvest. We heard great com¬ 
plaint of dwarf pear stocks all through this 
region, and learned that some were abandon¬ 
ing the cultivation. It is hardly wise, we 
think, after a winter of disaster, such as 
rarely visits us, to give up the quince stock, 
which has so many advantages, and so gen¬ 
erally proves successful. The spaces be¬ 
tween the rows of pears were kept in high 
cultivation, and were cropped with vegeta¬ 
bles. We noticed splendid samples of Val¬ 
paraiso squashes and Crook-necks, Black 
Spanish melons, and Nutmegs that would 
have done credit to the valley of the Con¬ 
necticut about Hartford, or to Long Island, 
It was a beautiful sight to see these fruits 
of the tropics acclimated, and coming to ma¬ 
turity so far to the north. This farm is 
worked upon shares, and as the cultivator 
has an equal interest with the owner in fur¬ 
nishing good stock and fertilizers, and in 
thorough tillage, it yields very satisfactory 
returns to both parties. We were informed 
that it pays much better now than before the 
new buildings were put up, and other im¬ 
provements were entered upon. 
The potato rot has made its appearance 
in this region, and the Mercers are affected. 
But the yield is abundant, and good potatoes 
are selling at twenty-five cents a bushel. 
We here met with the Michigan White po¬ 
tato for the first time. It is a good deal 
cultivated, yields well, and is of excellent 
quality. It is thought that it will replace 
the White Mercer, a variety that has so long 
supplied the market, but which now rots 
worse than any other. 
Mr. Briggs, as a cultivator and as the 
President of the Rensselaer County Agri¬ 
cultural Society, is giving a new impulse to 
husbandry in this region. It is very inter¬ 
esting to see the contagion of one such ex¬ 
ample spreading, to hear the discussion 
awakened, and to mark the slow but sure 
progress of new ideas in husbandry. We 
sow much seed by the way-side and among 
thorns, but much also falls into good ground 
and yields its harvest. “ Corn for soiling” 
has been a theme for agricultural writers for 
some years. It is now a regular crop on 
many a farm, and will become a permanent 
improvement in our system of farming. It 
is encouraging for a thinker sometimes to 
come forth from his retreat and see what 
use the world makes of his thoughts. The 
speeding of the pen speeds the plow. 
Washing Silver Ware. —It seems that 
housekeepers who wash their silver ware 
with soap and water, as the common prac¬ 
tice is, do not know what they are about. 
The proprietor of one of the oldest silver 
establishments in Philadelphia, says that 
“ housekeepers ruin their silver ware by 
washing it in soapsuds; it makes it look 
like pewter. Never put a particle of soap 
about your silver; then it will regain its 
original luster. When it wants polish, take 
a piece of soft leather and whiting, and rub 
it hard.” 
IMPROVING!MEADOWS—MOWING MACHINES. 
Many farmers have objected to using 
mowing machines the past season because 
their meadow's were not prepared to work 
them successfully. Well, then, the sooner 
they pick up the stones, blast the rocks, 
burn the stumps, cut off the bogs, fill up deep 
holes, and drain them sufficiently dry for a 
team to walk over, the better it will be for 
their interests. Meadows thus prepared 
yield a large burden and a superior 
quality of grass. The gain from these 
improvements alone will usually more than 
defray the expense, often quadruple it, in a 
few years ; and this gain is still further in¬ 
creased in the use of the mowing machine. 
The grass on a smooth meadow' can be cut 
by a properly-constructed machine at a cost 
not to exceed 40 cts. to 50 cts. per acre. At 
the average price of help the past tw’O years, 
it can not be cut with the scyth at less than 
$1 to $1 50 per acre, and here is saving 
enough in two seasons to pay for a good 
machine, for any one who has a hundred 
acres to cut for himself and neighbors. But 
the great saving effected with one of these 
implements consists in being able to do the 
work when it is wanted. Thousands of tuns 
of hay are badly injured, and often almost 
wholly destroyed, owing to the inability to 
cut the grass in season, or take advantage of 
the w'eather. 
The horse hay-rake and the horse pitch- 
fork are also good labor-saving implements, 
and greatly facilitate the operations of hay¬ 
making, and unloading it in the barn. 
Mowing machines, properly construct¬ 
ed, will operate in rougher ground than any 
one unacquainted with them would suppose 
possible. We say properly constructed, em¬ 
phatically, for money invested in a poor 
machine is worse than throw'n away, when 
we reckon the time , spent in trying to oper¬ 
ate such implements, and the waste of grass 
w'hen poorly cut. We have had pretty 
good opportunities for observing mowing 
machines the past season, having seen more 
than a dozen different kinds in operation, yet 
out of them all, only two or three patents 
have proved entirely satisfactory. A ma¬ 
chine properly constructed will work very 
well, and with little injury among stones. 
The large and fast ones it will slide over, 
while it will pick up the small ones on its 
strong fingers, and cast them over the board 
behind. Rocks, stumps and trees can be 
cut around if the team be properly driven; 
hassocks and bogs, if not too thick, the ma¬ 
chine will jump over, and wet places it will 
cut any where a team can walk. We have 
seen many acres of salt meadow cut the 
past season, when the horses would fre¬ 
quently mire to their knees, and they had to 
be unharnessed and taken out, and the ma¬ 
chine passed over the slough and then har¬ 
nessed in again. On a side hill we have 
seen this machine worked admirably either 
up or down, or obliquely to the pitch of the 
ground. 
