AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
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agriculture is the most healthy, the most useful, and the most noble employment of man.— Washington 
ORANGE JUDD, A. M., 
CONDUCTING EDITOR. 
Published Weekly by Alien &Co., No. 189 Water-st. 
j UNDER THE JOINT EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OP 
I A. B. ALLEN fe ORANGE JUDD. 
NEW-YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 14, 1855. 
[NEW SERIES.—NO. 75 
VOL. XIII.—NO. 23.] 
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Jbt* prospectus, Serins, &t. f 
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Every one writing to the Editors or 
Publishers of this journal will please read 
“ Special Notices,'" on last page. 
PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN FARMERS FOR 1855. 
There never has been a brighter prospect 
opened for any class of citizens, than looms 
up before the farmers of the United States 
for the coming, and probably many succes¬ 
sive seasons. Three of the leading com¬ 
mercial nations of Europe, and a fourth—a 
second-rate power—embracing over 200,000,- 
000 people, are engaged in mortal combat, 
striving, by every possible means, to reduce 
the products and resources of each other, 
and render them unavailing for their own 
use, or that of neighboring nations. Already 
they have shut up the interior of a continent, 
that has hitherto supplied no inconsiderable 
share of the European demand for wheat 
and other breadstuffs. The immeasurably 
extended and fertile plains of Austria and 
Southern Russia, are hermetically sealed 
against the export of a single cargo of the 
staff of life, and they may thus remain till 
the close of the present European war. In 
addition to the comprehensive hostilities that 
now prevail abroad, Austria assumes the 
attitude of “the fretful porcupine.” She 
stands bristling with 500,000 sabres and 
bayonets; and on the dawn of spring, it 
would not be surprising to find all Europe 
marshaled on one side or the other of this 
hostile fray. 
It is inevitable, in the withdrawal of the 
immense amount of human labor from the 
cultivation of the soil, which these opera¬ 
tions insure, that every article of consump¬ 
tion must continue at very high prices, if 
they do not exceed the present exhorbitant 
rates. Almost every eatable, flesh, grain, 
vegetables, are worth nearly double their 
average rates, and this, too, when manufac¬ 
tured and other articles of necessity are un¬ 
usually cheap, and probably below their cus¬ 
tomary value. Thus while the farmer is 
getting twice as much for his crops as he has 
been accustomed to, he is paying less for 
every necessary article required for his con¬ 
sumption. 
Labor is the only exception to the advan¬ 
tages the farmer has now in his hands, and this 
he may reduce to the most inconsiderable 
point, by the introduction and use of the many 
labor-saving machines, invented and perfect¬ 
ed within these late years for his especial 
benefit. 
He may now plow and harrow with vastly 
better implements ; he may plant his corn 
and other seeds, or sow his grain, with the 
most perfect and accurate seed sowers ; he 
may cultivate his crops with implements 
adapted to every conceivable purpose ; he 
may cut his grass with a mowing machine, 
and his grain with a reaper, and rake both 
with a revolving rake ; he may thresh and 
winnow his grain and shell his corn by ma¬ 
chinery ; all these and innumerable other 
operations about his farm, he may accom¬ 
plish by horse or steam power, with a slight 
superintendence, and aid of human intellect 
and labor; thus placing it in his power to 
become, in a great degree, independent of 
increased wages. Let no man complain then 
of high-priced labor, till he has first supplied 
himself with every labor-saving machine he 
can possibly use with advantage on his 
farm. 
But the advantages we predict for our ag¬ 
riculturists. can be realized only by the in¬ 
telligent and the industrious. If you don’t 
raise the crops, you will surely not be paid 
for them. Set vigorously to work at once, 
and prepare your field as soon as the 
frost will permit; provide your manures, 
and if you have not enough already to give 
an ample dressing to all your cultivated acres, 
procure them elsewhere; ashes, plaster, 
guano, bone-dust, superphosphate of lime, 
and whatever your own experience or that 
of your neighbor indicates as best suited to 
your proposed crops, and which can be read¬ 
ily procured; get the lest seeds and the best 
implements to be had; adopt the most judi¬ 
cious systems of cultivation ; and put every 
idle hand you have about you to the plow and 
the active labors of the farm, and our word 
for it, you will have no cause to complain of 
the occupation, or the times, for any lack of 
success you will encounter. 
Farmers of the United States ! You have 
the most honorable calling that ever engaged 
a class in any nation, ancient or modern— 
you have now an opportunity of making it 
the most lucrative—it will be your own fault 
if you do not improve it. Do not, with the 
foolish expectation of seeing your sons or 
dependents succeed better elsewhere, drive 
or allow them to be drawn away to other 
more promising, ( but only promising) pur¬ 
suits, mercantile, professional or otherwise. 
Attach them to your own honorable calling, 
and let them impart to it whatever they can 
bring to its aid, of intellect and muscular 
vigor, and you will be liberally rewarded in 
their certain and abundant success. 
To assist our readers in carrying out these 
suggestions, and raise the greatest quantities 
of produce at the least cost, we shall give a 
series of articles on the ordinary American 
crops, in the successive numbers of our pa¬ 
per, commencing in our next with Spring 
Wheat, and following with the other import¬ 
ant products in their season. We shall feel 
greatly obliged if our observing and intelli¬ 
gent friends will aid us in this desirable 
work, by giving us any new and successful 
practices which they have adopted, not hith¬ 
erto generally known. They need not ap¬ 
prehend producing an over-supply. Our 
granaries, and those of Europe, are now so 
much exhausted, that there is no danger of 
filling them to repletion for two years to 
come, even if a universal peace were pro¬ 
claimed to-morrow. What may be contribu¬ 
ted by one will be available for all, and thus 
each contributor will be likely to receive his 
share of benefit in return for what he has 
conferred on others. 
TOO MANY SHADE-TREES INJURIOUS. 
We take the following article from the 
Rural New-Yorker, as expressing the same 
opinion that we have heard from Mr. Dick¬ 
inson himself. In order that the application 
of the facts he states may be properly un¬ 
derstood, we may remark that Mr. D.’s own 
farm, and the other pastures which he occu¬ 
pies, lies upon the high rolling lands of Steu¬ 
ben, sloping towards the valley of the Sus¬ 
quehanna ; profusely watered by springs and 
running streams, and a moister country 
than the Lake Ontario slope, lying a few 
miles north of him. Steuben County is 
composed principally of shale and grav¬ 
elly soils, while that on the northern slope 
is based mostly on limestone. This may 
affect the practice more favorably of which 
he speaks ; but we think in a very hot, dry 
climate some shade is essential. 
Mr. A. B. Dickinson, of Hornby, Steuben 
Co., N. Y., one of the most extensive and 
thoroughly practical farmers in the country, 
in a conversation with the writer a few days 
since, advanced many ideas which are not 
in accordance with the received notions of 
farmers generally, and among them one at 
least that was decidedly distasteful. It was 
that no farmer can afford to keep shade-trees 
elsewhere than by the way-side, and hardly 
there. Mr. D. carries on a number of farms; 
his home farm consisting of some 2,500 
acres, upon which, by great expense and 
labor, he has saved a large number of the 
finest shade-trees—but he is now cutting 
