410 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
once so numerous, were poorly represented. There was 
but one pen of Poland-Cliinas, containing Only one pig. 
lie was a good strong pig, but rather coarse as compared 
with Essex and Berkshires. 
There was a grand display of agricultural implements 
and machines. The exhibition of fruits and flowers was 
what wo should expect from Rochester. We were sorry 
not to see Mr. Vicu. He was attending some of the more 
Western fairs, and did not exhibit at Rochester. An¬ 
other thing to be regretted was the comparatively few 
amateur exhibitors. 
There was a good show of grains and vegetables. We 
were particularly pleased with a line barrel of pure Diehl 
wheat, grown by Mr. Spencer of North Chili. Mr. S. had 
also the good sense to show a bunch of ears and straw of 
his wheat. The adjoining "barrel was said to contain a 
comparatively new variety of white wheat, but the ex¬ 
hibitor had headed it up, and the superintendent seemed 
to be afraid to open it. All we can say of that barrel of 
wheat is that the barrel was well made of good elm 
staves, the hoops were strong, and the head fitted nicely 
in the groove. Hundreds of people passed it and doubt¬ 
less admired it. We 6tood and looked at it for some 
time. There was a fascination about that barrel. There 
was a piece of paper stuck on top telling how many 
bushels of wheat per acre Mr. So-and-so bad grown this 
season. This was useful information ; but it was the 
banel that interested us. It had a neat and tidy look. 
It seemed conscious of its dignity. The other barrels 
were all uncovered before it. It seemed to expect the 
first prize, and we presume it got it. At any rate, we are 
happy to state that the barrel was a very superior barrel. 
We do not say that, having once seen it, we would go 
from New York to Rochester to see it again; but we 
think that all the visitors at the fair who were interested 
in Genesee wheat must have been as much gratified with 
the appearance of that barrel as we were. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 45. 
Since the last number of these papers was 
written I have made a hasty tour of Holland 
and Belgium, aud am now about leaving France 
for the island of Jersey. While it is especially 
desirable not to turn this series of articles into 
a book of travels, there is a temptation to give 
a somewhat detailed account of the many 
things one sees every day which are new and 
interesting to a farmer, and some of which will 
probably be as valuable to the readers of the 
Agriculturist as anything that home experience 
can suggest. Our heads are uow turned home¬ 
ward, and it will probably he many a long 
year before the regular course of our hum¬ 
drum home life will be interrupted by another 
trip to Europe. In view of this fact it may be 
excusable to say something of European farm¬ 
ing, as is seen by the hurried traveler. 
We were in Holland less than two weeks, 
and it may seem absurd to base any expression 
of its agriculture on such a superficial view; 
but Holland is a land to strike one with amaze¬ 
ment at the very first glance, and the amaze¬ 
ment increases with every day’s observation. 
In most countries it is the office of man to sub¬ 
due the soil and bring it into condition to sup¬ 
port a civilized community, and this task is 
often hard enough. In Holland it has been 
the office of man to subdue the sea and cause 
it to withdraw from the marshy beds and broad 
lakes of which it had so long held possession; 
and then to make on the soil thus created a field 
for the most profitable industry, and a home 
for a people which in many respects is the most 
remarkable of the world. 
We pride ourselves, and justly, on the energy 
which has sent our pioneers into the forests to 
turn the virgin fertility of their soils into the 
useful channel of profitable production; but 
what shall we say of a race which has grown 
up on the spongy islands at the mouth of the 
Hi lino, driving the waters back foot by foot, 
and after hundreds of years of incessant toil 
and patient waiting (interrupted by eighty 
years of the most cruel religious war, during 
which they had to call their old enemy the sea 
to their aid and submerge whole districts under 
a waste of water to keep them from the posses¬ 
sion of their new enemy the Spaniard) showing 
to the world a prosperity and an accumulated 
wealth that have no equal in Christendom f 
In some regions, after the waters had been in¬ 
closed within ponderous dykes and then 
pumped.out by windmills, there were devel¬ 
oped only vast beds of barren peat several 
yards in depth. This was cut into blocks and 
piled up to dry, preparatory to being sold for 
fuel; the vessels which took it to market 
brought hack the accumulated refuse of the 
towns, and this was used to make a fertile soil 
in place of the infertile one that had been re¬ 
moved. Thus the former abodes of fishes are 
now the seats of the most prosperous agricul¬ 
ture of Europe. A map of the province of 
North Holland, made three hundred years ago, 
shows a hare network of marshy land, protect¬ 
ed from the North Sea by a range of sand-hills, 
and inclosing within its meshes vast bodies of 
navigable water—the mere outline of a coun¬ 
try entirely unpromising for habitation and 
afflicted with a most rigorous climate. This 
whole province is now a smiling, fertile land, 
busy with every form of industry, and one of 
the great centers of the world’s prosperous ac¬ 
tivity. In a few years, when works now in 
hand shall be completed, there will remain no 
water within its wide boundaries, save in the 
embanked canals, where, high above the level 
of the fields, the lifted waters flow to the sea 
and afford channels for the vast commerce of 
the country. Arrangements are already being 
made for the drainage of the Zuyder Zee, a 
work which will cost over $50,000,000, and 
which will take twelve years for its prepara¬ 
tion alone. When the enormous dyke shall 
have been built, and new channels shall have 
been made for the rivers which flow into it, it 
will take the sixty-three enormous steam-en¬ 
gines several years (working night and day) to 
pump out its water, which has an area of about 
500,000 acres, and an average depth of about 
ten feet. A survey has been made of the whole 
bottom, and the plan of improvement includes 
the division of the land and the construction of 
the canals (for drainage and for communica¬ 
tion) which are to serve the future generations 
who are to inhabit it. This scheme would 
seem wild and impossible were it not for the 
experience with Haarlem Lake, which lies 
within a few miles of it. This magnificent 
farming district was only twenty-five years 
ago a navigable sea about sixteen miles long 
and seven miles wide. It lay between the cities 
of Amsterdam and Haarlem, its surface nearly 
level with their streets, and threatening them 
both with, destruction during heavy storms. 
As a measure of safety it was determined to 
annihilate it. It was surrounded with two 
immense dykes over thirty miles long, inclos¬ 
ing a canal, and three engines with a combined 
force of 1,200 horse-power were set at work to 
pump out its waters. At the end of 3J years 
of incessant activity its bottom was laid dry, 
and now its 45,000 acres, lying about fourteen 
feet below the level of the sea, are busy with 
the production of food for the cities which the 
lake so lately menaced. 
We made a visit to one of the older drained 
lakes (the Beemster), which was drained about 
250 years ago, and has ever since been one of 
the richest dairy regions of Holland. It con¬ 
tains about 17,000 acres, and lies about twelve 
feet below the level of the sea. It is surround¬ 
ed by a canal, by which its water is carried 
away, and into which its drainage is pumped 
by 54 enormous windmills—working only in 
the winter and after heavy rains. In its center 
is a neat old Dutch village, and the small farms 
into which it is divided are approached by per¬ 
fectly level roads, which—like most country 
roads in Holland—are paved with hard-burned 
bricks. Nearly the whole area is in grass, and 
the chief industry of the farms is the produc¬ 
tion of those round Dutch cheeses (weighing 
about four pounds) which are known in the 
cities of the whole world, and which we saw 
piled up like cannon-balls in the squares of the 
towns on market days. We passed some hours 
at the farm of Mr. Wouter Sluis, who kindly 
showed us his whole establishment. He has 
about 128 acres, which he values at $500 per 
acre. He plows only twelve acres each year. 
All the rest is kept in clover and grass. His 
fields are divided by the ditches, which serve 
for the drainage and for the transportation of 
hay and manure in boats. His stock consists 
of 45 cows, 24 head of young horned stock, 
5 horses, 160 sheep, and about 40 swine. He 
uses some improved machinery (which all 
Holland gets from England), and his sheep are 
crossed with prize animals from the English 
exhibitions. The cows are of the much-prized 
Dutch breed—which are wrongly called “Hol¬ 
stein” in America—and capital animals they 
are for a cheese dairy. They were mainly very 
fine specimens of the breed, and some of them 
were as good as it has ever been my fortune 
to see. I was interested to see that he attaches 
great importance to Guenon’s “ escutcheon” or 
“milk-mirror” system, and considers it an in¬ 
fallible index of the milking value of his stock, 
and he sends to the butcher such of his calves 
as, measured by this standard, are inferior. 
The cows are fed entirely on grass (pasture) 
in the summer, and entirely on hay in winter, 
save for a very small quantity of roots. The 
hay is very short and fine, hut the yield is over 
two tons to the acre. The rotation is very 
simple. There are about 50 acres of mowing 
land and about 65 acres of pasture. Each year 
about 12 acres of the pasture is plowed (for 
carraway seed, mustard seed, or other money 
crops), the same area of mowing is added to 
the pasture, and the previous year’s plow land 
is converted to mowing. The haying is between 
June 15th and Juty 15th, and the aftergrowth 
is used for pasture. 
Most of the vehicles and the more common 
implements of the farm are of the rudest aud 
most primitive sort, such as no one of us would 
think fit for use; yet everything indicates that 
the work is well and promptly done. The 
cheese-making is carried on in a dark-looking old 
room, and the apparatus is probably the same 
as has been in vogue on the farm for 200 years. 
At the same time everything was scrupulously 
clean, and the product bears the highest repu¬ 
tation in the local market, which is a large 
one and is frequented by theivholesale dealers. 
I do not know enough of our own manner of 
cheese-making to say wherein the Dutch sys¬ 
tem differs from it; but I do know enough of 
the quality of the article when brought to the 
table to consider the Dutch cheese well entitled 
to its higher price. So far as I could judge, 
there is nothing in the cattle, in the forage, 
nor in the process of manufacture which should 
preven t us from making the same article, and 
supplying our own markets with a kind of 
cheese which is now imported very largely. 
