200 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
As the foundation of a proper arrangement, it is 
necessary to have a plan of the farm, or at least a list 
of the fields or parcels into which the land is divided, 
describing their productive extent, the quality of the 
soil, the preceding crops, the cultivation given to each, 
and the species and quantity of manure they have se¬ 
verally received. The future treatment of each field, 
for a succession of years, may then be resolved on 
with more probability of success. With the assis¬ 
tance of such a statement, every autumn an arrange¬ 
ment of the crops for the ensuing year ought to be 
made out; classing the fields or pieces of land, 
according to the purposes for which they are respec¬ 
tively intended. The number of acres allotted for ara¬ 
ble land, meadow or pasture will thus be ascertained. 
It will not then be difficult to anticipate what number 
of horses and laborers will be required during the 
season for the fields in culture, nor the live stock 
that will be necessary for the pasture land,, The 
works of summer and harvest will likewise be fore¬ 
seen, and proper hands engaged in due time to per¬ 
form them. 
A farmer should have constantly in view a judici¬ 
ous rotation of crops, according to the nature and 
quality of his soil, and should arrange the quantity 
and succession of labor accordingly. Farm labor, 
when frosts and bad weather do not intervene, should 
be arranged for some months; and hand labor for 
some weeks, according to the season of the year.— 
“ A general memorandum list of business to be done,” 
may therefore be useful, that nothing may escape the 
memory, and that the most requisite work may be 
brought forward first, if suitable to the state of the 
weather. In this way the labor will go on regularly, 
and without confusion, while by a proper attention, 
either a distribution of labor, or an occasional conso¬ 
lidation of it, may be applied to every part of the 
farm. 
The farmer ought to rise early, and see that others 
do so. In the winter season, breakfast should be 
taken by candle light, for by this means an hour is 
gained, which many farmers indolently lose ; though 
six hours in a week are nearly equal to the working 
part of a winter day. This is a material object where 
a number of persons are employed. It is also parti¬ 
cularly necessary for farmers to insist on the punctu¬ 
al performance of their orders. 
The whole farm should be regularly inspected, and 
not only every field examined but every beast seen, at 
least once a day, either by the occupier or some in¬ 
telligent servant. 
In a considerable farm, it is of the utmost conse¬ 
quence to have servants specially appropriated for 
each of the most important departments of labor; for 
there is often a great loss of time where persons are 
frequently changing their employments. Besides, 
where the division of labor is introduced, work is exe¬ 
cuted not only more expeditiously, but also much bet¬ 
ter, in consequence of the same hands being con¬ 
stantly employed in one particular department. 
Previously to engaging in a work, whether of or¬ 
dinary practice or of intended improvement, the best 
consideration of which the farmer is capable, ought 
to be given to it, till he is satisfied that it is advisa¬ 
ble for him to attempt it. When begun, he ought to 
proceed in it with much perseverance and attention, 
until he has given it a fair trial. It is a main object, 
in carrying on improvements, not to attempt too 
much at once; and never to begin a work without a 
probability of being able to finish it in due season. 
By the adoption of these rules, every farmer will 
be master of his time, so that every thing required to 
be done, will be performed at the proper moment, and 
not be delayed till the season and opportunity have 
been lost. The impediments arising from bad wea¬ 
ther, sick servants, or the occasional and necessary 
absence of the master, will, in that case, be of little 
consequence, nor embarrass the operations to be car¬ 
ried on ; and the occupier will not be prevented from 
attending to the smallest concerns connected with 
his business, on the aggregate of which his prosperi¬ 
ty depends. 
OF DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND PERSONAL EXPENSES. 
On domestic affairs, a hint may suffice. Young 
farmers beginning house-keeping, like most others in 
similar circumstances, are apt to sink too great a pro¬ 
portion of their capital in furniture, and furnishing 
riding horses, carriages, &c. and sometimes to live 
up to, and even beyond, their income. We do not 
mean that farmers should not live like other men of the 
same property, but merely that all beginners should 
live within their income. Even in the marketing ex¬ 
penses care is requisite; and the prudent farmer will do 
well, every penny or six-pence he lays out, to reckon 
up in his mind what that sum per day would come 
to in a year. The amount will often astonish him, and 
lead to economy, and, when practicable, to retrench¬ 
ment. Saving, as Franklin has inculcated, is the on¬ 
ly way of accumulating money. 
In regard to house-keeping, it is observed in the 
Code of Agriculture, that the safest plan is, not to 
suffer it to exceed a certain sum for bought articles 
weekly. An annual sum should be allotted for cloth¬ 
ing, and the personal expenses of the farmer, his wife 
and children, which ought not to be exceeded. The 
whole allotted expense should be considerably within 
the probable receipts, and if possible one-eighth of the 
income annually received, should be laid up for con- 
tingences or expended in extra improvements upon 
the farm.— Enc. Ag. 
Pyramids of Butter. 
Col. Meacham, of Oswego county, lately brought 
to this city, two pyramids of butter, the produce of 
his dairy, one weighing five hundred pounds, and 
the other nine hundred pounds. They were cover¬ 
ed with fine white cloth, upon which were various 
devices and inscriptions. The Colonel had previous¬ 
ly sent to Washington a tub of butter, weighing 
1450 lbs ! Col. Meacham’s name was already favor¬ 
ably known to the public as the maker of the large 
cheeses which attracted much notice two or three 
years ago. But it is not the production of large 
cheeses, or pyramids of butter, alone, that gives to 
this worthy citizen a high rank for enterprise and 
usefulness. Col. M. is a self-educated, self-made 
man, and one of the best farmers in our state. His 
example has had a highly salutary influence upon 
all around him, and has tended materially to increase 
the products, and to enhance the value of the lands 
in his neighborhood, and to check, withal, the tide 
of emigration from thence to the far west. How 
highly should such a citizen be appreciated, who 
not only contributes largely himself by his industry 
and enterprise, to the public prosperity, but influ¬ 
ences others, by his example and his counsel, to “fol¬ 
low in his footsteps.” 
Rearing of Cattle. 
We would direct the attention of our farmers par¬ 
ticularly to this branch of husbandry, as one that 
promises to be lucrative in more ways than one.— 
The scarcety of winter fodder for some years back, 
induced many farmers greatly to reduce their farm 
stock. The high prices which beef has commanded 
in our cities and towns, has been a further cause of 
the reduction of our farm stock. But there is another 
cause, of no inconsiderable magnitude, completely 
under the farmer’s control, which good policy, and 
even humanity, imperiously require should be cor¬ 
rected. We allude to the practice among dairymen, 
of destroying their calves at two or three days old, 
to save the milk which they would require, if suffered 
to live. This has become an alarming, and is a 
growing evil, in our state, and unless it is abated, 
threatens the worst consequences. Thousands of 
calves are thus annually destroyed, we are told, in 
the dairy districts, from a short-sighted policy, which 
would sacrifice, to present gain, one of the most im¬ 
portant branches of our husbandry. These causes, 
combined, have caused a comparative scarcity of 
neat cattle; and prices have consequently advanced 
fifty to one hundred per cent, until this branch of 
husbandry, especially since the wheat crop, from the 
effects of winter and the depredations of insect ene¬ 
mies, has become precarious,—until, we say, cattle 
husbandry has become the most certain, and we be¬ 
lieve the most profitable branch of farming. 
But it is not the price of cattle alone that should 
influence the farmer in this matter. To keep up the 
fertility of the soil, is the cardinal point in good farm¬ 
ing. Fertility is the source of our profits; and the 
interest which we receive will ever be regulated by 
the amount of the capital from which it accrues.— 
Cattle are emphatically the cause of fertility. They 
manufacture the hay, the straw, the stalks, the roots, 
&c. of the farm into dung, and dung alone keeps 
up fertility. The more cattle, therefore, which are 
maintained upon the produce of the farm, the greater 
the ability to keep up its fertility—the greater the 
farmer’s fund, and the greater the amount of produce, 
or of interest, which he draws from it. 
We know that there are many persons who own 
rich new lands, who either do not believe in, or who 
do not practice upon, this doctrine. They say fer¬ 
tility is inexhaustible in their soils; and practising 
upon this theory, they have in a measure neglected 
farm stock, and directed their whole efforts to the 
exhausting culture of wi eat. We tel them, that 
the first settlers in the valleys of the Hudson and 
Mohawk once held their doctrine, and practised upon 
it, till their sons have seen its fallacy, to their sor¬ 
row ; and have been obliged to commence an expen¬ 
sive renovating process, and a more enlightened sys¬ 
tem of management, to repair the waste, and atone 
for the errors, of their ancestors. 
Corn Stock Fodder 
Is generally regarded, by northern farmers, as of 
secondary, or trivial importance, in the economy of 
jEeeding neat cattle ; and in the usual way of harvest¬ 
ing, curing and feeding it, perhaps the opinion is 
pretty well founded. The mode of harvesting is 
either to top and leave the tops in the field till the corn 
is gathered, or to gather tops and buts, after the 
corn harvest. In the first mode, the tops are always 
laid upon the ground, exposed to all the vicissitudes 
of weather, for days, and perhaps for weeks. They 
are then bound and stooked till gathered to the barn 
or fodder yard, probably in Oct. or Nov. at which 
time those cut up after the corn is picked, are gen¬ 
erally also brought it. Thus, after attaining to ma¬ 
turity, to'their best condition as cattle fodder,they are 
exposed, for one or two months, to the scorching 
and deteriorating influence of the sun, winds and 
rain, till their nutritive properties are seriously di¬ 
minished, and until a considerable portion is either 
spoiled or wasted. And finally, they are often pulled 
from the stack by the stock which have admission 
to them, or fed, uncut, in a dirty yard, and soon 
trampled under foot. Now we ask any farmer of 
common sense, what his hay would be worth under 
alike system of management! Exposed for weeks 
or months to the wasting influence of the weather, 
afterwards but badly protected, and finally fed to his 
cattle in a like reckless and slovenly way !— 
Would it not impair it half—two-thirds, of its value! 
Sugar, or its elements, constitute the great nutritive 
principle of cattle forage. This exists to a great 
extent in corn stalks, as is evidenced by the sac¬ 
charine matter perceptible in chewing a piece of 
green stalk, but it is more fully demonstrated by the 
fact, that in our revolutionary war, molasses, for 
household use, was manufactured from the stalks of 
corn, in mills constructed for the purpose. All our 
hay grasses possess this nutrient property. The 
moment cattle forage is cut, be it grass or corn-stalks, 
the natural tendency is to decomposition—to sepa¬ 
rate into elementary principles—and heat, moisture 
and air being the agents in effecting this change— 
the change is accellerated in proportion as these 
agents are permitted to operate upon the vegetable 
mass. If exposed to them all, as in the meadow or 
corn field, the change is rapid, and the hay or 
straw consequently more decreased in value; but if 
partially or wholly protected from one or more, by 
being secured in stooks, cocks, stacks, or buildings, 
the tendency to change—to rot,—is either retarded 
or wholly suspended. We all know, that to expose 
hay for weeks, or for days, to the combined influence 
of these agents, is destructive to its good qualities. 
Precisely such, though perhaps in a diminished degree, 
is their influence upon corn-stalk fodder. 
Let us then inquire, what mode we can adopt to 
secure the full advantage of this great auxiliary to the 
cattle yard. Fortunately the mode has already been 
suggested by intelligent minds, and its utility amply 
demonstrated in the practice of many of our best 
farmers. The mode of doing the thing is this :—cut 
at the ground the corn crop, as soon as the grain has 
become glazed, and while the stock is surcharged 
with saccharine nutricious juices ; put it immediately 
into stooks, containing 20 to 25 hills each; secure 
these well with a band above the ears, and another 
on the bonnet, to exclude rain; as soon as the corn 
is gathered, which may be done in ten to fourteen days, 
bind and stook the stalks, and as soon as they are 
sufficiently cured, carry them to the barn or sheds, 
or secure them in stacks; and when wanted, cut 
them with a machine, and feed them to your cattle 
in a clean manger. Thus cured and thus fed, corn 
stalks are equal, if not superior, to hay, for the win¬ 
ter keep of neat cattle. In saying this, we speak 
from the persona! experience of years—our neat cat¬ 
tle have been wintered,—and well wintered, upon 
them, several years ; and we are happy to add, in 
another column of this day’s Cultivator, the corrobor¬ 
ating and unequivocal testimony of Mr. Foote, of 
Williamstown, in favor of the system. 
There is another and important consideiation we 
have to mention, and that is, a belief, that well cur¬ 
ed corn-stalks constitute an excellent food, when cut, 
for horses. At the south, corn blades, we believe, 
are almost exclusively used for the winter keep of 
horses. During last summer, it was mentioned by a 
correspondent on Long-Island, that corn stalk fodder 
was an effectual remedy against that troublesome 
disease—the heaves. Our hack horse had for years 
been troubled with this disease, and it never appear¬ 
ed to be more oppressive to the poor animal than in 
October last. As soon as our stalks were gathered 
to the barn, we directed some to be cut and fed to 
him, and the practice has been kept up to this day. 
We will not say that this has cured him ; but this 
we do say, that since he has been served with the 
corn-stalks, we have not discovered in him the least 
indication of the disorder. 
Cultivator Premiums. 
There are but three crops, two of Indian Corn and 
one of Ruta Baga, that have claims to the premiums 
offered by us in our March number; and all these, 
we are happy to say, are highly deserving of reward. 
