101 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Will BOOK-FAHftteG PAY ? 
Within the last few years agricultural 
books and papers have increased with sur¬ 
prising rapidity. That they are read can 
not be questioned, for if they were not they 
would not be purchased. It is thought by a 
few who read, and more who do not, that 
their teachings tend to no good results. 
Many suppose that to plow, and sow, and 
reap, as their fathers did, is the acme of ag¬ 
ricultural skill, that science, discrimination 
and liberal culture, have nothing to do with 
an abundant and remunerative harvest; that 
full granaries are the blessings of Provi¬ 
dence, independent of the husbandman’s 
skill. 
Napoleon believed himself to be a man of 
destiny, that success was his because de¬ 
creed by fortune or fate ; yet he neglected 
no means for the accomplishment of his 
purposes which human ingenuity could de¬ 
vise or skill execute. “ The Lord helps 
those who help themselves,” has become an 
established maxim. It is true,the sun shines 
and the rain of heaven descends alike upon 
the fields of the thriftless and the thrifty 
farmer; yet he who with judgment puts the 
accumulating store-house of agricultural lit¬ 
erature into full requisition in his every-day 
labors, will have the least reason to repine 
at unproductive seasons, and the greatest 
cause for thanking a bountiful Providence. 
The object of agricultural books and pa¬ 
pers, is to develop the bearings of science 
upon farm interests, and to accumulate the 
successful experiments and experience of 
the most enlightened, and bring such intelli¬ 
gence to the understanding and practical 
comprehension of those who read. The 
object is not to advocate utopian schemes or 
impracticabilities, but to expose error and 
advocate progress in all the departments of 
agricultural knowledge. It is true that pru¬ 
dence and common sense must guide both 
our knowledge and our industry, for facts 
are not of universal application, and judg¬ 
ment is ever requisite to make science trib¬ 
utary to the advancement of the practical 
avocations of life. 
The lawyer would make a sorry appear¬ 
ance before a court of justice, ignorant of 
the literature of his profession ; that physi¬ 
cian would have no reason to boast of his 
success, who had not spent long years in 
study, and who did not, by journals and re¬ 
views, keep posted in the advancement of 
his profession; that farmer who does every 
tiling by chance, and nothing in accordance 
with an enlightened system, will doubtless 
succeed but little better than ignorant prac¬ 
titioners in either of those professions. Sci¬ 
ence appertains to agriculture as much, and 
perhaps more, than to most other branches 
of business. It is expected that the lawyer, 
the doctor, the mechanic, the engineer, &c., 
should understand his business, and is there 
any good reason why the farmer should not 
do the same 1 In all nations, and in all 
times, that nation that has paid the most at¬ 
tention to agriculture, has prospered most; 
n fact agricultural interests stand at the 
foundation of human happiness, progress, 
and prosperity. Every thing connected with 
“ seed time and harvest,” is rich in interest 
to mankind—is the response of Divinity to 
human exertions. He who makes two blades 
of grass, or heads of wheat, or ears of corn 
grow where there is now but one produced, 
is a public benefactor, and does more than 
can be done in any other way to banish 
starvation and misery from the earth. In 
view of these facts, it is not probable that 
the multiplication of agricultural books and 
papers and the dissemination of intelligence 
upon farm subjects, will lessen the profita¬ 
bleness of labor. 
The man whose mind is tlie most meager- 
ly supplied with agricultural knowledge, is 
the most ready to decry the utility of the 
same. The man who reads least, is he who 
inveighs most against book farming, or the 
practicability of knowledge in general to the 
cultivator of the soil. 
Will book farming pay ! is a question 
which involves just this : is intelligence not 
a detriment to the farmer 1 Is not knowl¬ 
edge at a discount and ignorance a source of 
profit to him who cultivates the soil 1 Many 
profess to believe that practice is everything 
and science nothing. Science, it is true, 
will not alone produce wheat, or corn, or 
oats, or potatoes, but there is not an acre of 
land that the practical hand may not make 
produce more, when guided by a scientific 
head. It requires intelligence, and thought, 
and judgment, to dig golden treasures from 
the earth, without exhausting the mine. The 
practical farmer requires the aid of science, 
to adapt manure to soils, and soils to the 
growth of crops he designs to cultivate. 
Many a man has grown poor and his farm 
poorer, while engaged in practical agricul¬ 
ture—has been compelled to sell and change 
his business or his location, while a new 
occupant has enriched his land and, at the 
the same time, his purse, by so combining 
practical and scientific agriculture, that they 
shall go hand in hand in accomplishment of 
the objects for which he labors. 
Many a man has said, “ Away with your 
book farming—your scientific agriculture ; 
give me the practical cultivator.” No one 
holds practical farming in higher respect 
than I do ; but that word practical has done 
much mischief in the world. No man be¬ 
comes a good practitioner at any thing by 
intuition. The best practical lawyer is he 
who—all else the same—is the best ac¬ 
quainted with the literature of his profes¬ 
sion. The same is the case in medicine, and 
we have no doubt but that the principle holds 
good in agriculture. 
Agricultural science is the result of no 
one man's labor, but that of generations of 
men, whose aim and ambition it should be 
to advance it, and to set still further for¬ 
ward, in the regions of unprofitable ignor¬ 
ance, the outposts of agricultural knowledge. 
O. 0. GIBBS, M. D. 
Perry, Lake Co., Ohio. 
The wisest men have their follies, the best 
their failings, and the most temperate have 
now and then their excesses. 
IS BED CLOVER INJURIOUS TO HORSES. 
Many farmers are strongly prejudiced * 
against clover hay, especially for horses, 
supposing, when fed to them for any length 
of time, it produces cough and tends to 
heaves. Perhaps if more care was used in 
cutting the clover for hay at the proper time, 
and in curing it for the barn in the right way, 
much of this prejudice would be done away 
with. 
For many years I have kept my horses 
almost exclusively on clover hay through 
our long winters, and if the clover was cut 
when about one half the blossoms had turned 
brown, and the hay mostly made in the cock, 
in good weather, so as to retain most of the 
leaves and heads, and green appearance, I 
have never known it to produce either cough 
or heaves. But I prefer it to any other kind 
of hay I cut on my farm for horses. Per¬ 
haps if a horse was kept steadily at hard 
work, some other kind of hay might be pref¬ 
erable. 
I suppose the prejudice alluded to among 
a portion of our farmers, and others, is co¬ 
extensive with our country—or, at least, as 
far and wide as horses are kept and stabled. 
For in August, 185-2, Mr. Ewbank, then 
Commissioner of Patents, issued printed cir¬ 
culars to almost every section of the Union, 
propounding a series of questions on rural 
affairs. One of those questions was, “ Does 
your experience show that red clover is in¬ 
jurious to horses V By referring to the an¬ 
swers to the above querry in the Patent 
Office Report, for 1852-3,1 find some twenty- 
five or more responses, from many of the 
different States, most of which I will copy : 
Alabama. —I. W. says, “I do not think that 
red clover is in any way injurious to horses.” 
Greenville, S. C.—II. M. E., has grown 
clover in South Carolina for twenty years ; 
says clover should be cut when free from ex¬ 
ternal moisture, cured mostly in the cock. 
If too old, or wet when cut, stock are not 
fond of it; but the great avidity with which 
they devour it when properly cured, fully 
compensates for all the care necessary to be 
taken ; and therefore we must always keep 
it sweet, for when sour it will salivate a horse 
or mule severely. And this is one reason 
that persons have supposed that it was inju¬ 
rious to horses. And one other way it will 
injure horses, as will any other hayorcorn- 
blades, viz : when it heats in curing, by be¬ 
ing bulked too soon, it gets moldy and dusty, 
and if fed to a horse in this state, it will pro¬ 
duce a cough, and finally bellows, tisic, 
[or the heaves, as we Yankees call it,] but in 
no other way does it injure any stock. 
Virginia, Preston Co. —G. W. L. says, “ I 
do not think that red clover is in any way in¬ 
jurious to horses, provided it is good.” 
Virginia, Fauquier Co. — .1. L. B. says : 
“ Green clover is a preferable grass for rais¬ 
ing colts, but not good for work-horses, as 
they can not endure heat and fatigue when 
feeding on red clover.” 
Dixmont, Me. — W. U. Jr., says : “ My ex¬ 
perience does not show r that red clover is in¬ 
jurious to horses ; on the contrary it is con¬ 
sidered a favorite feed for them.” 
