324r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[September, 
Yield, of Cora in. Iowa.— J. E. Darby, 
of Madison Co., Iowa, expresses his surprise at the state¬ 
ment made by Walks and Talks, that the premium crop 
of corn in Ohio last year was only 51 bushels per acre, 
and that after heavy manuring; We may remark hero 
that this statement was pronounced incorrect by a prom¬ 
inent member of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, but after 
investigation he admitted that W. and T. was right. Mr. 
D. says: “I have lived in New York and Ohio, and have 
formed some ten years in this State. That amount would 
certainly be nothing more than an average yield hero 
with very ordinary cultivation. I have noted the average 
of nearly every crop I have raised in this State, and with 
the exception of two years, one a very wet, and the other 
a very dry season, when the yield was about thirty bush¬ 
els, my average has been nearer sixty bushels per acre 
than fifty, and this without manure, though manure 
does as much good here as elsewhere. Perhaps if your 
readers saw this statement they might be induced 
to leave the ‘ stones of Western New York,’ aud the 
stumps and swamps of Western Ohio, and try the windy 
prairies of Iowa.”—We are always glad to present such 
facts. Nevertheless, we are satisfied that farmers need 
not be discouraged from attempting to get out the stones 
or remove the stumps, or drain the swamps, or undertake 
a"ny other improvement of their present farms, because 
there is richer and better land in some other section. We 
would dissuade no one from going to the rich land of 
Iowa. We merely want to urge those who are there to 
improve their farms and not leave them because they hear 
of better land elsewhere. Our agriculture lacks stability. 
'File Iffsiy Crop Isa Cfl>mira.ecillc'ait.— 
Mr. II. S. Collins writes us that the yield of hay this sea¬ 
son is less than for the last two years. “ That cold win¬ 
ter killed the clover and other filling, leaving the grass 
thin. I must plow up and re-seed. We are not on nat¬ 
ural grass land here, but my grass usually averages from 
2 to 2J4 tons per acre. This year I fear it will be not 
over 1 54 tons. I cannot put up with that. Fields cut¬ 
ting 3 tons per acre dropped to 1*4 tons at once. Iam 
sowing more tall grasses. Fine grasses do little on iny 
land except on two drained pieces. But of rye grasses, 
orchard grass, timothy, and tall meadow oat grass, I can 
get large crops and steam them to advantage.”—We think 
this a valuable idea. When all the fodder is cut up and 
steamed for the cows, with more or less meal, it is prob¬ 
ably more important to secure a large crop of grass of 
even a rather inferior quality, than to get a small crop of 
a better quality. Where cows are kept on hay alone, with¬ 
out steaming, quality is more important than quantity. 
BHigfla t mini S^eft-Iasanad I*lows.—We 
continue to receive a great many letters on this subject. 
Most of the writers are in favor of the left-hand plows. 
We have no sort of objection to them. We presume they 
are just as good and just as convenient as the right-hand 
plows, but after reading all that our correspondents have 
said on tire subject, we arc not prepared to advise our 
readers to throw away all their right-hand plows. If wo 
lived in a section where left-hand plows (that is to say, 
plows having the mouldboard on the left side of the plow) 
were used, we should use them, but as the writer has at 
ways been accustomed to right-hand plows, aud can man¬ 
age to turn a very fair furrow with them without any 
special difficulty, he sees no urgent reason for changing. 
A Fig- ILot rat tlac Sosatlio—A Northern 
man who has purchased a plantation in Mississippi 
writes us; “ How to map out a pig lot is one of my 
present anxieties. What will do North will not quite do 
for this climate.”—We cannot help him. Better adopt 
the method of the country aud improve it, rather than to 
strike out a new plan at first. 
Floors lor Cow —A gentle¬ 
man in Connecticut, who keeps a large dairy and soils 
his cows, writes ns: “ I am exercised about a cow stable 
floor. Cement will freeze some cold snap and then scale. 
Is there no mixture of coal tar, ashes, etc., that will an¬ 
swer better and not be so strong smelling as to suffocate 
my animals ? No ordinary coal tar concrete used on our 
walks would answer, but I am sure some mixture could 
be made that would do well. Chestnut planks rot in two 
or three years, and are expensive.”—One of our editors 
paved his cow stable two years ago with stones, but as 
they were net evenly laid lie drew into the stable a quan- 
ti.y of rather clayey soil and pounded it firm all over the 
floor wlmrc the cows stand, giving a gentle slope towards 
the back of the cows for the liquid to drain off. As he 
lives in the grain growing district he has plenty of straw 
for litter, and in his case this floor answers a good pur¬ 
pose. Stiff clay, put in wet and thoroughly pounded, 
will, when dry, make a floor almost as hard as a brick, 
and if it wears in holes where the cows stand, it can 
dasily be patched up with more clay and pounded in. no 
4oes not hiiotv of any cheaper or better material for floors. 
THE 
CHEAPEST 
IN THEWORLD!!! 
Fleas© Look at this, anal Tell 
all your Neighbors afeoait it l 
Having increased the size of this Journal to 
44 large pages, with the beautiful cover upon 
each number, the last poiut of cheapness would 
seem to be reached. But for the sake of secur¬ 
ing at once the proposed 250,000 subscribers 
for 1870, we now put in an extra premium to 
every new subscriber received during Sep¬ 
tember, as follows: 
IB Months Subscription for $00.0®. 
Every New Subscriber to the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist for 1870 ( Vol. 29,) 
whose subscription comes to us before 
Sept. 30f/t, will be presented with the pa¬ 
per the rest of this year without charge. 
$!. 50 Received during September will 
pay for this paper, for one new subscriber, 
for all of 1870, and for the last three 
months of this year , also!— (15 months!) 
$5, 00 Will pay for Four new subscrib¬ 
ers, (only $1.” each) for 15 months ! 
$12. 00 Will do the same for Ten new 
subscribers, ($l. 2u each) for 15 months! 
$1. 00 Will do the same thing for each 
new subscriber, where twenty or more 
club together.—(15 months for $1.) 
pg" The above offer will positively expire 
on Sept. 30, except in the few cases where sub¬ 
scribers are too distant to respond by that date. 
The names had better come right in at once, 
so as to be properly arranged before the next 
paper is ready for wailing. 
Ilroutli Better than too much 
Rain.— A Kansas correspondent of the Country Gen¬ 
tleman writes: “Still it rains—it will average a rain 
every hour. My hay all rotted, barley has sprouted, and 
wheat is sprouting. Oats cannot be harvested. This all 
happens in dry, parched, sun-scorched Kansas, aud it lias 
been so nine out of twelve years. Give me a drouth; I 
can do better farming in a drouth than in a flood.”—This 
is the true doctrine. It is what we have always asserted. 
We can do much to guard against drouth, hut compara¬ 
tively little against too much rain and too little sum 
TJnderdraining will help, hut we cau do nothing without 
solar heat. The sun is the great motive power in farm¬ 
ing ; and yet from the complaints we usually hear, one 
would think that drouth was the greatest of agricultural 
calamities, while in truth a good former rarely suffers 
much ultimate loss from a dry summer. Some crops may 
suffer, hut others will do well, and at any rate it gives 
him a good opportunity to destroy weeds, and get his 
laud into good order for the next year’s crops. Stock, 
especially sheep, “do better on roast meat than on boiled.” 
The farmer will never he independent of tire season, hut 
lie can do much to guard against the injurious influence 
of unpropitious weather. Fortunately the means best 
adapted to secure good crops in a wet season are pre¬ 
cisely the means necessary to avoid the ill effects of a 
drouth. Underdraining is the first step, and thorough 
tillage and the destruction of weeds the next. No matter 
what the season may he, a well-drained and properly 
worked farm will always produce the best crops. But 
the good farmer will always do better in a dry season than 
in a wet one, and lienee it is that we contend that our 
climate is admirably adapted for agricultural pursuits. 
The lot of the American farmer is fallen in sunny places. 
Never let us complain of drouth and heat. 
ISeecher’s (Sermons.—The sermons of 
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher are published by J. B. 
Ford & Co., each week, in a neat form, convenient for 
reading and for preserving. We do not feel that we are 
advocating any particular sect when we commend Mr. 
Beecher’s sermons. Mr. Beecher belongs not to any ono 
denomination, hut to the world, and men of all beliefs 
claim their share in him. When a large mind, coupled 
with a large heart, and both joined to a large body, 
speaks, one may be snre that there will be something 
worth hearing. It is remarkable that the sermons of one 
who lias so much personal “magnetism,” and who en¬ 
chains his audience so completely, are so thoroughly 
cnjoj r able when read without the charm of the speaker’s 
voice. In our corps we have some four or five widely 
different denominations represented, and they all unite 
in this commendation of Beecher’s sermons. We some¬ 
times wonder whether Mr. Beecher is greater in the pul¬ 
pit than he is out of it. AVe enjoy an occasional visit to 
his church, hut we still more enjoy his too infrequent 
visits to our office. If one is sad, he touches his sympa¬ 
thies. If one is jocular, he can find no one more ready 
to join him than H. AY. B. Does one wish to talk horti¬ 
culture, agriculture, art, literature, or religion, there is 
the same readiness. It is largely to the fact that Beecher 
is cultivated in all his faculties, and not a one-sided man, 
that his power is due. Let a naturalist try to catch him 
and he is ready for him. Let a AVall Street Broker take 
him up, and he knows all about AA'all Street. He can talk 
to the boys at West Point or address a Peace Society, deliv¬ 
er a better horticultural address than any one we know of, 
and the next day preach a sermon wortli hearing, worth 
printing, and reading and preserving and reading over 
again. We expect to get overhauled for what we have 
said, for our friend is—contrary to the general belief—a 
modest man. Let us have moro Beechers. 
Draining without Outlets.—E. N. 
Leighton, Lynn, Mass., wants to drain a lot (50 ft. by 100 
ft.) without the expense of digging a drain across adjoin¬ 
ing property. There is one chance in a hundred that ho 
may he able to do it. If a well, dug early in the spring, 
will not be filled to within a few feet of the top during 
the wettest weather, then, by digging or boring deep 
holes at distances of 20 feet from each other, and filling 
them to within 2 feet of the surface with small stones, 
the drainage may be made complete. This system will 
work only when an impervious subsoil is underlaid by a 
very porous under stratum which has a free outlet , so that 
water will at no time remain in it. Soils so circum¬ 
stanced, no matter what may bo their character,-are al¬ 
most always well drained naturally. Porous under strata 
usually have no outlet, and arc themselves gorged with 
water in wet seasons, so that by tapping them wc are 
more likely to get water than to get rid of it. If the bore- 
drain plan will not work,—aud generally it will not,— 
there is nothing to he done in the case but to get an out¬ 
let, for without an outlotadrain is likeabarrel without a 
spigot; you can get water into it, but cannot draw it off, 
and an underdrain, whether made of stone or oft He, filled 
with stagnant Avatcr, is worse than no drain at all. 
