AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
41 
has not exhibited any thing yet at the agricul¬ 
tural shows, except long-woolled sheep, with 
one of which he took the premium against the 
high-priced ram recently imported by the Ken¬ 
tucky Company. 
--•<<- 
THIRTEENTH ANNUAL SHOW OF THE NEW- 
YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
This was held at Saratoga, on the 19th, 20th, 
21st, and 22d instants. It was somewhat behind 
most of the preceding shows in the number of 
animals exhibited, and far more deficient in the 
products of the dairy, domestic manufactures, 
agricultural and other miscellaneous implements, 
vegetables, seeds, &c., than any we have ever 
attended. We are not aware that a single spe¬ 
cimen was exhibited from the dairy. The wea¬ 
ther may have had something to do with this 
meagre display, and we know that many articles 
which had been entered, failed to reach the 
ground in time for exhibition. But whatever 
the cause may be, whether the articles were 
never entered, or the difficulties of transporta¬ 
tion prevented their arrival, the result is conclu¬ 
sive to our mind that the interests of the Society 
ought not to be jeoparded hereafter by the se¬ 
lection of Saratoga, or any other place remote 
from the main routes of travel between the city 
of New-York and the western part of the State. 
The number of horses on the ground, we 
think, exceeded that of any previous show, pro¬ 
bably 200 to 250 in all. There were few bloods, 
no cart-horses, Clydesdales, Cleveland bays, or 
other large horses that we noticed, but a great 
display of roadsters, farm-horses, and the horse 
of all work. The Morgans, principally descend¬ 
ants of Black Hawk, were present in great force 
and excellence. We guessed there were fifty of 
his progeny on the ground, and one of the ex¬ 
hibitors confirmed this estimate. The entries 
which we shall publish will give the exact 
number. 
Of short-horns and Devons we have never 
seen so many together possessing so great merit. 
About twenty of these were imported, picked 
animals, from the choicest herds in England, 
being selected by their owners without regard 
to price, after a close and careful observation of 
the best animals in that country; and great 
credit do they reflect on their judgment and 
taste. The prices recently paid by Americans 
for English stock indicated the selection of the 
very choicest, and the examination of the 
animals thoroughly confirms this conjecture. 
While size and constitution have been fully 
considered, symmetry, compactness, and fine 
handling properties had their due share of 
attention. It requires little sagacity to predict 
from these recent importations, and those to 
follow soon, that America has now the staff in 
her own hands, and that if her best hereafter fall 
behind those of any foreign herds, it will be the 
fault of improper breeding and rearing, results 
which are not likely to follow while in the in¬ 
telligent hands they now are. We cannot here 
specify the successful competitors, but shall do 
so in this or in our next sheet, and as early as 
we can get a perfectly reliable return of the pre¬ 
miums, which the press at the Society’s office 
forbids, till it has dispatched its more urgent 
business. 
There were a few excellent Herefords and 
Ayrshires; a large number, some forty or fifty, 
of well-bred and well-fattened oxen from Ohio; a 
long team of fine working oxen, which, from their 
sleek, well-filled hides, we think early destined 
for the butcher; and besides these, a very few 
miscellaneous animals, native cows, and cross¬ 
bred oxen and steers. 
There were some choice specimen sheep, the 
French Merinoes and the descendants of the 
Spanish, mostly from Vermont; some large, 
well-formed Saxons; but only one small flock 
did we notice from Washington county, which 
abounds in fine sheep, and whose convenience 
was consulted, and whose aid was liberally pro¬ 
mised to sustain the show, if located in Saratoga. 
The recently imported and unsurpassed South 
Down buck of Col. Morris was there, together 
with about a dozen of his ewes, imported from 
the same flock. There were some very good 
home-bred South Downs, but they were not 
numerous, being the representatives of two or 
three flocks only. 
There was an excellent display of the long- 
wools, a few of which could hardly be surpassed 
for size and perfection of points. 
The swine were not numerous, but with slight 
exceptions were very choice. The Berkshires and 
Suffolks were the principal ones present, though 
a few of the Essex or Neapolitans, and some 
cross-breeds, were on the ground. 
Of fowls, there were large numbers of the 
long-legged varieties: Shanghais, Cochin-Chi¬ 
nas, Bramapootras, and Black Spanish, and 
some of the most diminutive of the Bantams, 
the Seabrights, the Javas and others. But of 
the medium sizes, the truly useful birds, there 
were the smallest possible numbers. These 
consisted principally of Polands and Spangled 
Top-knots, Creoles, and a few others. Geese, 
turkeys, ducks, and pigeons were there in very 
small squads, and only enough were present to 
indicate the species. 
No jacks or mules were on the ground, the 
latter among the most useful of the farm stock, 
if farmers would but know it. 
The horticultural display was, on the whole, 
the finest, in the selection of new and choice 
varieties of fruits, ever made in the State. 
The site selected for the show was very judi¬ 
cious, being elevated and dry, and just the soil 
required for the rainy weather. It was con¬ 
venient of access, being scarcely a mile from the 
village. The enclosures, stalls, and other ar¬ 
rangements were creditable to the managers, 
and though the number of visitors was very 
much less than usual, it was, on the whole, an 
interesting exhibition of the industry and skill 
of the farmers of New-York. 
•- ”• • - 
Aerating toe Soil. —The advantages of the 
admission of air about the roots of a plant are 
not, apparently, sufficiently appreciated in this 
country. In the south of France, when vegeta¬ 
tion does not advance satisfactorily, a gardener 
will go over his crops, stirring up the soil to a 
considerable depth with some such tool as a little 
bigot. Indeed, the free admission of air to the 
ground is considered of so much importance, 
that light rains are deprecated; hence, on an 
occasion when a market-gardener was congratu¬ 
lated on the growing-showers that had fallen in 
the night, he replied in a pet, u Bah! La pluie 
ne vaut rienpour les jardins." (Rain is useless 
for gardens.) He added that rain hardens the 
surface of the ground without reaching to the 
roots of plants; but that when water is let into 
the channels between beds in ridges, it goes 
straight to the roots of the plants on them, 
without depriving them of air. This observa¬ 
tion may be applicable to the practice of water¬ 
ing gardens with the rose watering-pot or engine. 
— Gardeners' Chronicle. 
HOW TO MAKE ONE FARM] EQUAL TO THREE. 
“One farm equal to three!” said Mr. Shal- 
lowfield; “never heard of such a thing; be¬ 
sides, I don’t believe it.” 
Of course, Mr. Siiallowfield, we don’t at all 
wonder at your skepticism: there are too many 
agriculturists of the same stamp. But did you 
never hear of a building of one story being 
converted into three, four, six? Mr. S. says 
that is a totally different affair. No, it a’n’t, 
either, Mr. S.; the cases are exactly parallel. 
If there is any difference at all, it is on the side 
of the agriculturist. Besides, it is a secret 
worth knowing. Listen, and we will tell you. 
(Here Mr. Siiallowfield waved his hand quite 
skeptically.) 
G. T. Stewart, Esq., says the Ohio Farmer , 
in a recent address before the Ohio Agricultural 
Society, thus speaks on this important subject: 
“ Many farmers, who are destroying the pro¬ 
ductiveness of their farms by shallow work, as 
they find that their crops are diminishing, think 
only of extending their area by adding acres of 
surface, as if they supposed that their title- 
deeds only gave them a right to six inches deep 
of earth ! If they will take those deeds, study 
their meaning, and apply the lesson to their 
fields, they will soon realize, in threefold crops, 
the fact that the law has given them three farms 
where they supposed they had but one: in 
other words, that the subsoil, brought up and 
combined with the top soil, and enriched with 
the atmospheric influences and those other ele¬ 
ments which agricultural science will teach 
them to apply to their ground, will increase 
threefold the measure of their productiveness. 
“To show to what extent the fertility of the 
soil can be increased, I refer to a statement in 
the last Patent Office Report. 
“ In the year 1850, there were nine competitors 
for the premium corn crop of Kentucky, each 
of whom cultivated ten acres. Their average 
crop was about 122 bushels per acre. At this 
time the average crop of wheat per acre in the 
harvests of Great Britain, on a soil cultivated 
for centuries, is about double that produced on 
the virgin soil of Ohio. Why is this ? Simply 
because the British farmers are educated men, 
and apply work wisely : they pay hack to the 
earth what they borrow from her; they en¬ 
deavor by every means in their power to enrich 
their ground, and in return it enriches them. 
If our farmers, instead of laboring to double 
their acres, would endeavor to double their crops , 
they would find it a saving of time and toil, and 
an increase of profits. 
“Many of them never think of digging ten 
inches into the soil, unless they have dreamed 
about a crock of gold hid in the earth ; but if 
they would set about the work of digging in 
earnest, every man would find his crock of gold 
without the aid of dreams and divination. 
“ We have a great advantage over the British 
farmers in the fact that our farmers nearly all 
hold the lands which they cultivate in fee-simple, 
while in England they are chiefly tenants, hiring 
the lands of the nobility, paying enormous rents 
to the proprietors, besides heavy taxes to the 
Government. Taxes here are comparatively 
light, and our farmers here are their own land¬ 
lords. Hence they have been able to pay three¬ 
fold wages for labor to those paid in Europe, 
pay the cost of transportation, and yet under¬ 
sell the British farmers in their own market.” 
The summary of the above is just this: plow 
a little deeper; pay back honorably to Mother 
Earth what you borrow from her—which is no 
more than just—and by all means acquire 
knowledge. The British farmers are said to be 
“ educated men;” if they were not, they could 
not possibly raise on land cultivated for centu¬ 
ries “ double the crops produced on our virgin 
soil,” and that in the teeth of “ enormous rents 
and heavy taxes.” It is knowledge, then, that 
is the great cultivator, after all; with doltish 
ignorance and stolid indifference we can do no¬ 
thing ; and we hope to see ere long an agricul¬ 
tural professorship established in every college 
throughout the length and breadth of our land* 
Why, indeed, should the American farmer be 
behind the “educated” anywhere? He has, 
