AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
395 
give greater satisfaction to the producer, 
seller, and consumer. 
Isaac Emens, 226 Front St. 
New-York, September 8,1856. 
[The above hints are timely and to the 
point. We have long since ceased to buy 
any dressed poultry in this city, and since 
our professional duties have called us to 
examine particularly the various city mark¬ 
ets from week to week, we have declined 
eating poultry of any kind purchased from 
them ready dressed, no matter how nicely it 
may be sewed up. Any one who should see 
the hundreds of boxes of thin, banged,bloody, 
skin-broken things, called chickens, weekly 
sent here would come to the same conclu¬ 
sion. There is a striking difference in this 
respect between the New-York markets, and 
those of Philadelphia, New-Orleans, and 
some other cities. In Philadelphia the long 
rows of plump, clean, dry fowls exhibited 
upon clean tables tempt the epicure to buy. 
Here poultry can only be enjoyed by those 
who have never visited the Washington or 
Fulton market stands.— Ed. 
A TKIAL OE MILLET. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
I promised you an account of two and-a- 
half acres of millet which I sowed last spring, 
but it is hardly worth reporting as it did not 
turn out very well. The seed came up fine¬ 
ly but the “ bitter weeds ” kept it back so 
that it turned out only about one ton to the 
acre. Had it all been like about one quar¬ 
ter of an acre, where there were no bitter 
weeds it would doubtless have yielded three 
tons to the acre. 
Cyrill Read Esq., one of our largest and 
best farmers, cut five tons of millet from li 
acres. The land was an old meadow that 
had not been taken up in a number of years. 
It was plowed last fall, and in the spring 
cross-plowed and six cords of stable manure 
turned in, then planted with corn. The corn 
being distroyed by the worms it was sowed 
to millet—half a bushel of seed to the acre. 
Mr. Read thinks it would have been better 
to have sowed more seed. I send you by 
express a sample of Mr. Reads millet, also 
two stalks of the “ sugar millet ” of which 
I received about a tea-spoonfull of seed from 
the Patent Office. It was sown on a very 
rich piece of ground and came up finely. I 
think it more valuable than the other variety 
because it heads larger and the leaves are 
more numerous and broader. You will do 
me an especial favor if you can tell me where 
I can procure the “ Sugar Millet ” seed, as 
I would like to experiment further with it. 
Millet seems to be very easily raised and 
stands the drouth better than any other fod¬ 
der. 
I have told my millet story Mr. Editor. 
Will some one else follow suit? I should be 
pleased to see experience of others published. 
South Seekonk, Mass. E. A. 
August 19, 1856. 
[The specimen and this description came 
to hand just too late for our last issue. We 
have placed the sample where it can be 
seen by any one calling. We measured the 
stalks and fohnd them 6-£ feet in length. The 
heads are not quite so heavy as some we 
have examined, but this could hardly be ex¬ 
pected where there is such a prodigious 
growth of stalk. Can any one inform Mr. 
Aborn, about the Sugar Millet seed ?— Ed.] 
WRITING EOR AGRICULTURAL JOURNALS. 
Every farmer at all accustomed to use the 
pen should occasionally contribute to some 
paper. Probably not one in a hundred, who 
might do this acceptably, ever makes the 
attempt. Farmers as a class have few aspi¬ 
rations for literary fame, and are much more 
ready to read the teachings of others, than 
to impart their own experience. Some 
so overtax their muscles with labor, that 
they have no heart for writing in the inter¬ 
vals of work. Some distrust their own 
ability to use good English. Some could 
write just as well as not, but have never 
thought they had any experience worth re¬ 
cording. Whatever the cause may be, few 
of them write. 
We doubt not that some of them have 
good reasons, but many have not; and we 
wish to enlist their contributions, both for 
their own sakes, and for that of our readers, 
as well as ourselves. 
We never yet visited a farm or even a 
garden, without getting some new ideas that 
were of service to us in our own opera 
tions. We are cultivators of the soil, and 
every new item from the note-books of our 
fellow-laborers is a direct help to us. Again ; 
such articles coming directly from those 
who hold the plow, show their wants, and 
enable us to draw from our own experience 
and other sources such teachings as shall 
be most serviceable to them. These com¬ 
munications from our readers are short 
visits, which we can immediately recipro¬ 
cate in short articles. Could we visit the 
fields of our neighbors and talk with them 
across the fence, we could doubtless offer 
suggestions that would be of more value to 
them than any thing we can write. Their 
communications will enable us to give the 
best substitute for these familiar field lec¬ 
tures. As it now is, we often have to draw 
the bow at a venture, sure only that the 
topics we treat of will meet somebody’s 
wants, for they have first met our own. 
But these communications would be pro¬ 
fitable to all our readers. Cultivators form 
a common brotherhood, and the “ esprit du 
corps” ought to be as strong among us as in 
any other calling. Every leaf from your 
note-book will help every cultivator at some 
stage of his operations. What would you 
have given for your present experience and 
knowledge of the principles of husbandry 
ten years ago ? How many foolish under¬ 
takings would it have prevented, and how 
many wise ones would it have prompted you 
to ? It is doubtless worth thousands of dol¬ 
lars to you. Now, for the benefit of the in¬ 
experienced, who always form a portion of 
our readers, draw from the store-house of 
your own dear-bought experience, and tell 
us what maybe done economically upon the 
farm, and what quicksands and quagmires 
we ought to avoid. Write for the benefit of 
your neighbors. 
Write for your own instruction. A man 
forgets a great deal that he learns, unless he 
is in the habit of recording his knowledge, 
Unless you keep a record, you cannot now 
recall all the details of an experiment that 
you made two years since. Almost any sat¬ 
isfactory trial of a crop or a fertilizer, of an 
animal, or of an article of fodder, involves a 
multitude of particulars that confuse the 
memory. They should be recorded at the 
time, and the results. Then a man can give 
a reason for the faith that is in him. In this 
way one forms intelligent opinions in regard 
to the details of farming. He grows in 
knowledge and in self-reliance, and conducts 
all his operations upon the farm with much 
higher satisfaction. The cultivation of the 
earth is redeemed from a business of drud¬ 
gery and blind chance to one of intelligence 
and taste. Will you keep the records, and 
hand us over the notes?— [Ed. 
VALUE OE ROOT TOPS-VALUABLE FOR 
FEEDING. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
Allow me just to hint to your root-raising 
readers, that the tops both of carrots and 
bagas, are quite valuable if fed out imme¬ 
diately—before they have time to wilt. Cat¬ 
tle will eat them with great eagerness par¬ 
ticularly if there is left with the top just the 
crown of the root as we are apt to. 
There is evidently a great amount of food 
in the tops of an acre of good rank bagas, and 
if we can manage to make a profitable use 
of them it will all go to help in making up 
those small savings with which a farmer 
must rest content in his vacation. My own 
course has been to take a team into the field 
and with a manure fork collect and throw on 
the waggon the tops, as fast as cut, and cart 
them to my cattle in another field. 
Salisbury, Ct. Wm. J. Pettee. 
September 24, 1856. 
NATURAL PLANTS VS. CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. 
Mr. Thomas Cole, of Fairfield Co., Ohio, 
inquires whether the character of a soil, or 
its adaptability to the growth of particular 
crops may not be ascertained from a knowl¬ 
edge of the natural grasses and weeds that 
spring up spontaneously, with as much defin¬ 
iteness as the same question is now determin¬ 
ed by chemical analysis, We answer yes, but 
in the present state of our knowledge, nei¬ 
ther of these methods furnish us any very 
definite information. Reliable chemists do 
not yet undertake to say precisely what con¬ 
stituent or constituents are needed to adapt 
a particular soil to particular crops. Re¬ 
liable chemists are still investigating the 
subject, hoping that in the future some defin¬ 
ite relation between the inorganic or miner¬ 
al constituents of the soil and plant may be 
discovered. During the coming winter we 
hope to find space and time to discuss the 
question of how far chemistry can aid'the 
farmer. We hesitate not to say in advance, 
that three-fourths of what has been written 
