196 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
corn or cotton the first season, and about a half 
crop only is expected on account of the shade. 
The second Winter a few more of the dead trees 
are cut down for rail timber, and others are blown 
over by the winds. Many of the limbs also rot 
and fall, and the crop for two or three years is a 
good deal injured from this source. Decay goes 
on much more rapidly than in our northern cli¬ 
mate, and after the fourth season, few shrubs or 
trees are left to interfere with the cultivation. It 
is thought to be much more economical to allow 
deoay and the winds to prostrate the trees, than 
to do it with the ax, though the falling trees and 
limbs often do extensive injury to the growing 
plants. In the rich bottom lands cotton is fre¬ 
quently planted six or eight years in succession, 
and where rotation is attempted, corn alternates 
with cotton. 
PREPARATION OF THE SOIL AND PLANTING. 
After the plantation has been cleared of its tim¬ 
ber, the preparation for a new crop begins very 
soon after the old is gathered. There is very lit¬ 
tle frost or cold weather in ordinary seasons to 
interfere with out-door labor. The cotton is al¬ 
most invariably planted upon ridges about five 
feet apart. They begin to prepare these ridges 
in February and March, by turning two furrows 
together. If it is an old cotton stubble, the ridge 
is marked in the middle of the last year’s rows, 
thus giving the crop a little change of soil. In 
uneven ground care is taken to run the furrows 
as nearly level as possible, around the sides of 
hills, to prevent washing. The soil of the best up¬ 
land plantations is a loose friable clay, easily re¬ 
moved by the action of water. Grass is not at 
all cultivated, and there is nothing to hold the 
surface of the soil, when it lies fall»w, but brown 
sedge, nimble will, and weeds. With the best 
precautions, a good deal of it is washed off, and 
all the rivers are as turbid as a mud puddle, for 
the larger part of the year. 
After the ridge is prepared by plowing in April, 
a light harrow is run over t-he top, to break all 
lumps, and to level it. Then a drilling tool or 
marker is drawn by a mule upon the top of the 
ridge, making a narrow furrow, two or three 
inches deep. A hand immediately follows, scat 
tering the seed as uniformly as possible in the 
drill, putting in at least ten times the quantity 
that will be suffered to grow. Another follows 
the sower, covering the seed. This is sometimes 
done with a hoe, sometimes with the foot, and 
again with a sort of scraper drawn hy a mule. 
Cotton seed-planters are beginning to be intro¬ 
duced on the better class of plantations, and they 
make a great saving of seed, and time. They 
open the drill, drop tiie seed, and cover it as rap¬ 
idly as a mule can walk, thus saving the labor of 
two hands, and insuring a much more even dis¬ 
tribution of the seed. No crop is more benefitted 
by manure than cotton, and yet it is not until 
quite recently, that cotton seed, one o( the best 
kinds of manure for the plant, has been saved. 
This is now pretty generally applied in the upland 
districts. 
(To be continued ) 
A Word for the Crows. 
A. A. Mitchell, Westchester Co., N. Y., writes 
that from long observation he is convinced that 
crows are, on the whole, beneficial to the farmer. 
He says, although they may be troublesome by 
pulling a few hills of corn in the Spring, the re¬ 
mainder of the season they are busy destroying 
injurious grubs and insects more than sufficient 
vo pay for all such damage. It may be so, though 
we confess th.e sight of long rows of corn-hills 
that have “ come up missing” from their depre¬ 
dations, has often moved us to war upon them. 
Latterly we have simply put up strings enough 
around the field to suggest the idea of traps and 
snares, and the wary crows keep shy. We thus 
save our corn, and get all the good the crows will 
do by a lease of life. 
The N. Y. City Meat Markets—How Sup¬ 
plied, etc- 
A very natural inquiry from the farmer visiting 
New-York, for the first time, and seeing the mul¬ 
titude of people thronging the streets, including 
residents and strangers, would be: whence do all 
these people derive their food, and especially their 
meats! This is an interesting question. If we 
take into account visitors and business men from 
other parts of this country, and from other coun¬ 
tries, there must be nearly an average of one-and- 
a-half millions of people who must be constantly 
fed from our city markets. Some 25,000 live ani¬ 
mals are weekly brought here to be slaughtered. 
One of the editors of the Agriculturist gives con¬ 
stant attention to our live stock markets, and the 
general result is stated in our monthly review. 
We propose to give some ■particulars which will 
be both interesting and useful. 
BEEVES. 
For the year 1858, the receipts of live bullocks 
at the New-York Markets, numbered 191,170 
head. This includes about 300 head per week 
sold at Bergen Hill, just over the Hudson River, 
in New-Jersey. The greater proportion, say six- 
sevenths, of these cattle are sold at the Forty- 
fourth-street yards, between Fourth and Fifth 
Avenues. There is kept at these yards a regis¬ 
ter of the origin of cattle, etc. From the weekly 
notes taken by our reporter from these books, and 
from the owners of the cattle, we have the fol¬ 
lowing origin of those at 44th-st. 
From the State of Illinois.58,712 bullocks. 
From the State of Ohio.36.5S9 
From the Stale of New-York.3h,980 
From the State of Indiana.11,131 
From the Stale of Kentucky. i) 4H9 
From the Sta'e of Iowa. 2.7H7 
From the Stale of Pennsylvania. 1,661 
From the State of Michigan. 1,372 
From the State of Texas. 1,312 
From the Stale of Virginia..-. 895 
From the State of New-Jersey. 532 
From tho State of Connecticut. 478 
By the above, it will be seen that Illinois sup¬ 
plied us with by far the greatest number of cat¬ 
tle ; Ohio comes next, followed by New-York. 
It may be remarked, however, that a portion of 
the cattle hailing from Illinois, were originally 
from Texas, Missouri, and the Cherokee Nation, 
but fed for a time in Illinois. So also many of 
those from New-York State were grazed in Illi¬ 
nois, or Ohio, and bought up by feeders from this 
State to give a finishing touch, or have them in 
readiness to shove into market at any time when 
there was a prospect of a short supply, and con¬ 
sequently higher prices. 
The business at the West is mainly carried on 
by extensive graziers owning large tracts of 
prairie or other pasture. A single Illinois firm 
sent to this market over 10,000 head of cat¬ 
tle during the last year. Some of ihese graziers, 
are also drovers, bringing in their own cattle and 
occasionally selling them. Others raise the ani¬ 
mals and sell to cattle dealers, or drovers, to bring 
in and sell to the butchers, or more frequently 
consign them to commission men who make a 
business of selling for $2>®$2 50 per head, and 
guaranteeing the sales. This is preferable, as the 
salesmen are acquainted with all the city butch¬ 
ers, and know whom it is safe to trust, as com¬ 
paratively few of those buying cattle to kill, pay 
down for them. The seemingly high commission 
is in anticipation of some bad debts. The brokers 
usually pay the drovers at the close of the 
sales so that they need not be detained in the 
city. Not unfrequently these brokers, in antici¬ 
pation of a rise in the market, will buy the cattle 
in bulk and retail them out on their own account. 
Quite a number of them have large farms within 
a few hours travel of the city, and if they have 
any cattle left upon their hands they take them 
home and await a future market. 
The cattle now come in mainly by railroad. 
Formerly they were driven in by short stages, 
taking six to eight weeks to come from the West 
It now takes but ten days to two weeks to bring 
cattle from central Illinois. A few lots recently 
came through from Chicago, Ill., in five days. 
The charges vary at different seasons, the railroads 
often running in opposition to each other. A few 
weeks ago some dealers contracted to have theii 
cattle brought from Chicago, Illinois, to this city 
tor $3 per head. The freight is now 70c. per 100 
lbs. from Chicago, to New-York, by the leading 
routes, or about $10 per head. This includes 
tickets for one man, or more than one if the 
drove is large, to take care of the cattle, but all 
feeding expenses are extra. As the leading 
routes combine upon a high tariff, the cattle men 
seek out more circuitous routes, with lower 
charges. 
Western cattle dealers usually buy their cattle 
at a stated price per lb. live weight , but as weigh¬ 
ing scales are not always at hand they often agree 
upon the weight by the eye. Those long accus¬ 
tomed to judge in this way will estimate very 
nearly the correct weight. Prices range at differ¬ 
ent seasons, and upon different qualities, at 2Jc. 
i®3^c. and 4c. per lb. at the West. They are 
usually sold here by the head, but with reference 
to their net weight—that is the four quarters of 
beef. Butchers usually estimate whether they are 
paying 10c. or 12c. per lb. for these quarters. 
The animals are sometimes weighed at the yards 
and a stipulated shrinkage allowed, say 44 lbs., or 
if quite fat only 40 lbs. per 100 lbs. live weight. 
(To be continued.) 
-- - a-eg—---- 
Fill Up the Vacant Spots. 
The combined effects of late frosts, insects, 
poor seed, etc., have left, here and there, in the 
farm or garden, more or less of vacant spots 
where there will be from a few feet to several 
square rods of ground in which no valuable plant 
is now growing. The thrifty man will not leave 
these through the season, to disfigure his planta¬ 
tion, to foster weeds, and especially to be so 
much ground ready prepared but wasted. Trans¬ 
planting from thick to thin spots may be easily 
and profilably done, as noted elsewhere. In many 
places pumpkins may be planted among corn and 
potatoes, even during the early part of July. 
Turnips will be in season if planted at any time 
during the month. On very many farms hundreds 
of bushels of turnips may be raised simply by sow¬ 
ing the seed in thin places where corn, potatoes, 
and the various other crops have been destroyed 
Turnips Among Corn. —Apropos to the above, 
we give the following, just at hand, from a 
“Rhode Island Farmer.” He writes : “Perhaps 
the readers of the Agriculturist may not general¬ 
ly know how easy they can raise a crop of the 
purple top strap leaf turnip, or the cow-horn va¬ 
riety, by sowing them among their corn after the 
last hoeing, say one pound of seed to the acre 
broadcast, costing perhaps seventy-five cents and 
the trouble of sowing. They will not make much 
growth before harvesting the corn, but after that 
