AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
158 
by sales or resliipment, to make up the deficien¬ 
cies above named. 
We beg to call yours to a fact that seems to 
hate escaped general attention. Messenger's 
New- York Circular for the present month, states 
the number of packages in that city on the 1st 
inst. at an amount far exceeding that of the cor¬ 
responding period of any previous year. Now 
we feel some confidence that this statement is, 
to some extent, a deceptive one; for it is a fact 
well known to every one familiar with the trade, 
that the proportion of small packages has been 
continually on the increase for several years 
past, and is perhaps doubly greater, for this than 
for any preceding year. We, therefore, feel 
much confidence that if the actual quantity in 
weight were ascertained, that it would very 
little, if any, exceed the heavy stocks of former 
years, with this difference, that in former periods 
of over-supply in New-York, the supplies in 
almost every other important market were in 
proportion equally excessive—which is very far 
from being the case now. We feel much confi¬ 
dence that the views set forth above are in the 
main correct, and that the sequel will be, that 
by the opening of the spring trade manufactured 
tobacco will have advanced from 83£ to 50 per 
cent, upon present prices.— Ala. Planter. 
From the Journal of Commerce. 
COTTON CROP OF 1853. 
The following estimate of the cotton crop is 
based upon information derived from reliable 
sources in the cotton-growing States; and if it 
serves no other end, it may induce investigation. 
At all events it can injure no interest by calling- 
attention to the contrast between the two sea¬ 
sons—this and the last. 
The crop of last season was a very large one, 
and the weather extremely favorable for picking 
it. This season commenced with a drought; 
and in the early stage of the plant, it was re 
tarded in its growth. The drought was fol¬ 
lowed by continued rains in August and Sep¬ 
tember, and brought on a rapid growth of the 
stock, and caused a portion of the fruit that was 
previously found to fall off; and when a second 
formation of bolls was in process of maturing 
from the latter growth, the caterpillar appeared 
and did serious injury in many sections. 
The picking season is full two weeks behind 
last year in its commencing, and the frost is near 
three weeks in advance of last year ; the first 
killing frost of 1852 was on the 14th Novem¬ 
ber—this year on the 25th October. 
The following figures may not, therefore, 
prove far from the product of the present crop; 
N. Orleans. 1,200,000 bales 
Alabama. 425,000 
Texas. 90,000 excess. 
Florida. 160,000 
Georgia. 300,000 
South Carolina. 380,000 
North Carolina. 20,000 
Virginia. 20,000 
Bales. 2,595,000 
Say, in round numbers, 2,600,000 bales. 
The ciup of 1851 was 2,335,257 bales; that 
of |1852, 3,015,029 bales; and the last crop, 
3,262,882 bales. Yours, R. 
-• * «- 
Mu. Wright gives in his Circular the annexed 
figures of the Cotton movement: 
Season. 
1853. 1852. 
Receipts at the ports.226,000 421,000 
Exports to Great Britain. 71,000 117,000 
Exports to France. 9,000 17,000 
Exports to other foreign ports. 17,000 21,000 
Total Exports. 97,000 155,000 
Stock on hand.187,000 262,000 
On the subject of the ungathered part of the 
crop, Mr. S. says: 
“As far as I am informed, it appears that the 
frost of Oct. 24 was a severe one in most places 
in Georgia and South Carolina, killing Cotton on 
the low grounds and exposed situations. Some 
damage may have been done in Upper Alabama 
and Tennessee. It is yet too soon to know what 
amount of injury has been sustained, as in other 
places than Montgomery the Cotton on light 
sandy soils has so far escaped the effects of frost. 
In the great producing Cotton region of the 
Southwest no frost has yet occurred calculated 
to injure the plant.” 
-S#l- 
GUANO AND NITRATE OF SODA FOR WHEAT, 
GRASS, &c. 
We are alive to any thing that will throw 
light upon the use of nitrate of soda (cubic nitre.) 
We think this article will very soon become in 
part a substitute for guano, and by its greater 
cheapness and freedom from monopoly will so 
compete with guano, as to bring down its price 
within reasonable limits. There is no doubt 
but that proper admixtures with other sub¬ 
stances will be required before we shall be able 
to use nitrate of soda very profitably. As we 
have before stated (see No. 4 of this volume) 
nitrate of soda abounds in the most fertilizing- 
element found in guano. AYe earnestly request 
all the information that can be furnished us in 
reference to experiments with this fertilizer. We 
give the following article from the pen of Mr. 
J. Prideaux, in Mark Lane Fxpress. 
In reply to the query respecting guano, it has 
been found generally successful in the numer¬ 
ous recorded experiments as a top-dressing both 
for grass and wheat: 2 to 3 cwt. an acre early 
in May. For wheat an equal weight of salt is 
useful, to check overgrowth and increase the 
measure and weight of grain rather than straw. 
And though this is not required in grass, salt is 
still good in another way, namely, for rendering 
the herbage tender and keeping- down nauseous 
weeds. It should be spread in damp weather, 
to diffuse it in the soil. I think salt should be 
used with guano more generally than is yet the 
practice. 
With respect to nitrate of soda the experi¬ 
ments are more conflicting. Its strong ten¬ 
dency to rank vegetation has often made it in¬ 
crease straw much more than grain, and it 
would be wrong to apply it where the young 
wheat is already overgrown from wet or other 
causes; but in other cases it has been succes- 
fully applied early this month, in damp weather, 
about l£ cwt. per acre. As salt has just the 
contrary tendency, increasing the grain and 
checking the straw, it is a good corrective, 
weight for weight, (i. e. 1|- cwt. each). For all 
green fodder crops nitrate of soda is unobject¬ 
ionable, and the juicy rankness of its produce 
may be corrected by salt, in the same quanti¬ 
ties as above. A mixture of 1 cwt. nitrate of 
soda, 1 cwt. of gypsum, and 10 cwt. of wood 
ashes per acre, has produced extraordinary 
effects on weak clover. 
On root crops the experiments are discordant, 
though, upon the whole, favorable. In all cases 
it should be applied in damp weather, but not 
in very heavy rain, lest its great solubility 
should cause it to be washed down. How far 
it will pay at the present high price is another 
consideration; but if we can get the crude ni¬ 
trate, for which efforts are now making, it will 
no doubt get into extensive employment. 
I have delayed this a week, in the hope of a 
farmer’s answer rather than those of a chemist; 
but the above are founded upon the reports of 
seven years in the Scotch and English agricul¬ 
tural journals, except the general admixture of 
salt, which is my own suggestion, it having 
bean partially tried, so far as appears in the 
reports. 
A Great Poultry Show. — At the second 
poultry show of the Royal Agricultural Society 
of England, held recently at Gloucester, there 
were several Turkeys -which weighed 49 lbs. 
each! In the geese department there were nine 
pens containing eighteen geese and nine gan¬ 
ders, which averaged thirty-four pounds each in 
weight. Those geese which took the premiums 
weighed respectively 30, 40, 41, and 49£ lbs.! 
AVe here have a practical demonstration of the 
fact that our translantic neighbors are desirous 
of protecting and elevating the condition of 
Turkey; but we certainly were not aware nor 
could we have believed that there were so many 
great geese in England. 
TRIAL OF REAPERS IN ENGLAND- 
A trial of reapers came off in England the 
past summer, and wc have recently received the 
official report of it. Hussey’s, McCormick’s, 
Atkin’s, and several others were on the ground ; 
but it seems the committee awarded the first prize 
to the British reaper, invented many years since 
by Bell. The following extract from the report, 
descriptive of Bell’s, is about all in it that would 
be interesting to an American. 
The judges unanimously awarded the prize to 
Bell’s machine. This machine is different from 
both the Americans, and for novelty of inven¬ 
tion, no resemblance exists between it and any 
other that had been made, except that the horses 
follow the machine, a mode of propulsion which, 
as we have seen, was in use at the time of the 
ancient Romans. 
The cutting is performed by a series of shears 
or scissors, each moving blade being double-edged 
and cutting both ways. 
As the corn is cut, it is pressed back by the 
revolving reel upon the canvas, which has a ra¬ 
pid motion sideways, and which turns it off in 
a continuous swath. The canvas is inclined at 
a considerable angle, and the corn in falling turns 
partially over, so that the heads lie all one way, 
with great regularity. 
The horses walk behind the machine, and 
propel it by means of a pole passing between 
them, to the extremity of which they are yoked; 
a man walks after them, and by means of this 
pole, guides the implement. By bevel wheels 
the canvas may be reversed so that the corn can 
be delivered on either side of the machine. The 
machine cuts a width of full six feet. 
In acknowleding our debt of gratitude to the 
Americans for bringing over their machines, and 
directing public attention to the subject, and also 
for demonstrating in a manner that must have 
convinced the most sceptical and prejudiced, that 
reaping by machinery was as practicable as 
threshing, it must be a source of national pride 
to find that we had in Great Britain, an imple¬ 
ment equal to any brought from foreign coun¬ 
tries, and which only required an opportunity to 
be fully appreciated. 
- 9 © «- 
Agricultural Changes at tiie AYest. —In¬ 
stead of exporting corn to tide-water to the ex¬ 
tent which they have done for the last four or 
five years, the farmers of the AYest are convert¬ 
ing their grain into bacon and pork, by which 
operation they realize important advantages. In 
1851 there arrived at tide-water on the Hudson, 
6,487,540 bushels of corn. During the same 
number of weeks this year, the arrivals have 
been 2,271,370 bushels—a falling off of some 
sixty per cent. In 1851 the arrivals of Bacon 
at tide-water were 10,398,900 pounds; and in 
1853 the arrivals have been 19,330,500 pounds 
—an increase of nearly 100 per cent. The arri¬ 
vals of pork this year exceeded those of 1851 
by more than 100 per cent. These figures are 
instructive in an agricultural point of view, and 
evince wisdom in AYestern farmers. By con¬ 
verting corn into meat, the husbandman retains 
on his farm every pound of manure that his 
coarse grains will produce when fed to swine 
and fattening cattle, for the benefit of his some¬ 
what impoverished fields. If he exports corn, 
oats, peas and other crops as well as his wheat, 
very little manure can be made, and his land 
must suffer a rapid deterioration. 
Farmers in AYestern New-York should look 
closely to this grain and meat question in its 
bearings on the soil. In 1844 Monroe county 
produced 453,463 bushels of corn; in 1849, 
761,021 bushels. At this rate of increase, the 
crop of 1853 exceeds a million of bushels. At 
the present remunerating prices for fat hogs, 
pork-making is profitable, in connection with 
sound farm economy. Produce a full supply of 
