FARMING OF ROBERT BAKEWELL. 
269 
current, and carried south, to be spread over 
other rocks, and the sand and gravel which the 
current carried along, were spread evenly in 
some places, and in sand or gravel hills in other 
places, over the whole slaty bottom. Since 
then, it has been silently raised up to become 
dry land, carrying its sandy bottom up along 
with it; hence it is that so much of the slate 
district is destitute of fine clay, and the soil bears 
no relation to the rock below, because not de¬ 
rived from it, but from some rock perhaps 50 or 
100 miles more northward. The clays of the 
Highlands are found in Long Island, and the 
water lime and gypsum rocks, forms the trans¬ 
ported soil of part of Cayuga, Seneca, and Tomp¬ 
kins counties. In some places, the slate rock 
has decomposed readily, and mixing with the 
transported sands which overlie the rock, forms 
a loamy mixture of great fertility. Most of the 
soil of Seneca county is of this character. 
FARMING- OF ROBERT BAKEWELL. 
The celebrated Mr. Robert Bake well, ofDish- 
ly, Leicestershire, and the founder of the New- 
Leicestershire sheep, used to tell an anecdote 
with exceeding high glee, of a farmer, not only 
of the olden school, but of the golden times. 
This farmer, who owned and occupied one 
thousand acres of land, had three daughters. 
When his eldest daughter married, he gave her 
one quarter of his land for her portion, but no 
money; and he found by a little more speed, 
and a little better management, the produce of 
his farm did not decrease. When his second 
daughter married, he gave her one third of the 
remaining land, for her portion, but no money. 
He then set to work, and began to grub up his 
furze and fern, and plow up what he called his 
poor, dry, furze land, even when the furze cov¬ 
ered, in some closes, nearly half the land. After 
giving half his land away to two of his daugh¬ 
ters, to his great surprise, he found that the 
produce increased—he made more money, be¬ 
cause his new broken-up furze land, brought 
excessive crops, and at the same time, he farmed 
the whole of his land better; for he employed 
three times more laborers upon it; he rose two 
hours sooner in the morning; had no more dead 
fallows once in three years, instead of which 
he got two green crops in one year, and ate 
them upon the land. A garden never requires 
a dead fallow. But the great advantage was, 
that he got the same money to manage five 
hundred acres as he had to manage the one 
thousand acres. Therefore, he laid out double 
the money upon the land. When his third and 
last daughter married, he gave her two hundred 
and fifty acres, or half which remained, for her 
portion, and no money. He then found that he 
had the same money to farm one quarter of the 
land, as he had at first, to farm the whole. 
He, (Mr. Bakewell,) began to ask himself a 
lew questions, and set his wits to work how he 
was to make as much of 250 acres, as he had 
done of one thousand acres. He then paid offj 
nis bailiff, who weighed twenty stones, rose ■ 
with the lark, in the long days, and went to bed j 
with the lamb—he got as much more work done ; 
for his money—he made his servants, laborers, 
and horses move faster—broke them from their, 
snail’s pace—and found that the eye of the mas¬ 
ter quickened the pace of the servant. He saw 
the beginning and ending of everything; and to 
his servants and laborers, instead of saying, 
“Go and do it,” he said to them, “Let us go, my 
boys, and do it.” Between come and go, he 
found a great difference. He grubbed up the 
whole of his furze and ferns, and then plowed 
the whole of his poor grass land up, and con¬ 
verted a great deal of corn into meat, for sake 
of the manure, and he preserved his black wa¬ 
ter (the essence of manure); cut his hedges 
down, which had not been plashed for forty or 
fifty years; straightened his zig fences, cut his 
water courses straight, and gained a deal of land 
by doing so ; made dams and sluices, and irri¬ 
gated all the land he could; he grubbed up 
many of his hedges and borders, covered with 
bushes, in some places from ten to fourteen 
yards in width, some more in his small closes, 
some not wider than streets; and threw three, 
four, five, and six closes into one. He found 
out that, instead of growing white-thorn hedges, 
and haws to feed foreign birds in the winter, he 
could grow food for man, instead of migratory 
birds. After all his improvements, he grew 
more, and made more of two hundred and fifty 
acres, than he did from one thousand; at the 
same time, he found out that half of England, at 
that time, was not cultivated, for want of means 
to cultivate it with. “I let him rams, and sold 
him long-horned bulls,” said Mr. Bakewell, “ and 
told him the real value of labor, both in doors 
and out, and what ought to be done with a cer¬ 
tain number of men, oxen, and horses, within a 
given time. I taught him to sow less, and plow 
better—that there were limits and measures in 
all things—and that the husbandman ought to 
be stronger than the farm. I told him how to 
make hot land colder, and cold land hotter, light 
land stiffer, and stiff land lighter. I soon caused 
him to shake off all his old, deep-rooted preju¬ 
dices, and I grafted new ones in their places. I 
told him not to breed inferior cattle, sheep, nor. 
horses, but the best of each kind, for the best 
consumed no more than the worst. My friend 
became a new man in his old age, and died 
rich .”—Agricultural Gazette. 
Preservation of Pumpkins through the great¬ 
er part of the winter, if sound and well ripened, 
is easily attained, by stowing them in a mow of 
dry hay or straw, or placing on a barn floor and 
covering with any light forage. A dry cellar 
will frequently keep them sound; but these are 
usually too moist for this purpose. They ought 
occasionally to be looked after, and any showing 
evidence of incipient decay, should be immedi¬ 
ately used. All the partially ripe, small, and 
imperfect should be fed soon after taking from 
the field. 
Bugs on Vines.— Sprinkle them with urine. 
' If too strong, it will kill the vines as well as the 
! bugs. A moderate dose, diluted with water, will 
| drive off’ the bugs and make the vines grow rap- 
i idly. 
