28 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
10. On. the comparative value of potatoes, ruta baga 
and mangold wurtzel, as food for cattle and sheep. 
[Committee, Messrs. Grove and Rotch.] 
11. On the value of apples for neat cattle, sheep and 
hogs. [Committee, Messrs. Grove, Ball and Arm¬ 
strong.] 
On motion of L. F. Allen, 
Resolved, That J. B. Nott, C. N. Bement. and Volkert 
Bullock, be a committee to examine such agricultural 
implements as may come under observation, and pre¬ 
sent their views of the utility of the same at the next 
annual meeting of the society. 
On motion of Mr. Allen, Messrs. Allen, Buel and Nott 
were appointed a committee to memorialize the legisla¬ 
ture, in behalf of this society, to pass a law for the im¬ 
provement of agriculture, in accordance with the report 
and bill introduced by the committee on agriculture at 
the last session. 
On motion, it was resolved, That the Hon. Ambrose 
Spencer, Paraclete Potter, John P. Beekman, Anthony 
Van Bergen, and J. B. Duane, be appointed a commit¬ 
tee to take into consideration, and to report at the next 
annual meeting of the society, the present state of the 
silk business in the United States, together with such 
information and recommendations for public use, as 
may best, in their judgment, promote its future increase 
and prosperity. 
On motion, it was resolved, unanimously, that the 
thanks of this society be presented to John J. Viele, 
Esq. for his interesting and highly valuable address, 
delivered yesterday before the society in the Assembly 
Chamber; and that Gen. Clark and Judge L’Amoreux 
be a committee to present the thanks of the society to 
Mr. Viele, and to request a copy of the address for 
publication. 
Resolved, That the thanks of the society be given to 
the presiding officer, for the able and dignified manner 
in which he has discharged the duties of the chair. 
The society then adjourned to the first Tuesday in 
February, 1840. 
On Farm-Yard Management. 
The committee to whom was assigned the duty of furnish¬ 
ing an essay on the above subject, have the honor to report, 
as follows. 
As the business of farming is one of the utmost importance 
to the community, it is not only necessary that those engag¬ 
ed in it should be well acquainted with the theory, but also 
with the minutia of the practice in all its forms, and he who 
farms it on theoretical principles alone, will in nine cases out 
of ten be most wofuily disappointed in his calculations. 
Our subject involves one of the lesser branches of this art, 
and may be said to be, that sort of management that relates 
to the business of wintering the different kinds of domestic 
animals, and the making and preserving the best and largest 
quantity of manure to be derived from them. 
Whatever can contribute to the former, either as to their 
accommodation or subsistence during the winter, and to the 
latter as to the quantity and quality of the manure, is of the 
utmost consequence. Upon the good order and economy of 
the farm yard and buildings, and the care and attention be¬ 
stowed, depend in a great measure the health and thriftiness 
of the stock, and the vigor and productiveness of the land to 
be manured by them. 
To compass these ends, farm buildings should be put up 
with a view to convenience in foddering out the hay, in ac¬ 
commodating the stock, and in taking care of the manure. 
On grazing farms, good roomy sheds, lacing the south and 
east, are absolutely necessary. In proof of which it may be 
stated, that on farms, not overstocked, and where fodder is 
abundant, cattle may be wintered as well under open sheds, 
as they would have been if housed, and belter than they 
would have been, if tied up in the cold open ricketty stables 
of the slovenly farmer. 
The yard should be divided into as many compartments as 
there are different kinds of stock, and different grades of the 
same stock, to be wintered ; that is to say, the young stock 
should be separated from the old, and the calves from the 
young stock and yearlings—thus subdividing them, they are 
not restive, but feed quietly and do better. Sheep, which 
are kept to some extent by all our farmers, should never be 
suffered to run with the neat stock, they are liable to be hook¬ 
ed, to lose their wool and be defrauded of their provender. 
They should have a comfortable shed, furnished with racks, 
troughs, and a yard proportionate to their number. 
The common practice of watering stock at an adjoining pond 
or brook is not a good one. If there should be no spring in the 
vicinity which can be brought into the yard, a well should be 
dug and furnished with a pump, whence the water might be 
led by conductors into each yard, and the cattle, sheep, &o. 
might drink as often as they pleased; it is said they will drink 
half a dozen times a day, when the water is at hand. In go¬ 
ing some distance to water a great deal of manure is lost, 
and in cold boisterous weather they will suffer thirst a long 
time before they go at all. 
To keep the yard dry, and to preserve the liquid manure, 
there should be a shallow basin in the middle of it, into which 
all the weeds, parings of the road side, old rubbish, and every 
thing that will make manure, should be deposited; these be¬ 
ing well mixed with the stalings of the cattle, make a strong 
and rich compost which answers well on grass lands. By 
following up this practice during the summer and fall a great 
amount of good manure may be obtained. A farm yard kept 
dry and well littered with straw, keeps the stock clean and 
comfortable, and by absorbing the moisture, is converted into 
manure, and adds greatly to the dung heap. 
As soon as the foddering season arrives, the cattle should 
be brought up and folded in their respective yards during the 
day, by which practice lots of manure are saved, which 
would otherwise be scattered abroad and lost—at night they 
are tied up, with chains or ropes in a well ventilated but 
warm stable, the floor of which should have descent enough 
to carry off the stalings of the animals into the gutter behind 
them, and be thence carried into a.receptacle prepared for it, 
or if there be no such place, into a heap of manure which 
may at least retain a share of it. 
It is said that neat stock thrive better, and consume less 
fodder when stabled, than when left to take their chance in 
the barn yard. It is certain they do not waste so much. 
But it is necessary, in order to reap the advantages to be de¬ 
rived from stabling them, that the stables should be warm 
and the stalls roomy and well bedded with straw, that the 
curry comb or card be applied every morning, and that a por¬ 
tion of carrots, potatoes or turnips, be allowed them daily , 
and here let it be remembered, that it is the interest of every 
farmer to keep his stock in as high condition as possible—the 
cows will pay for it when the milking season comes, and the 
young stock will sooner get their growth and be saleable at 
any time. 
It has not in this country been the practice of our farmers, 
to raise root crops expressly for the purpose of feeding store 
cattle during the winter. Feeble attempts are only now being 
made to introduce the cultivation of turnips for sheep, but it 
is hoped that a new era of better husbandry is beginning to 
dawn upon us, and that farmers will ere long see the necessi¬ 
ty of growing all coarser, but invaluable root crops; the libe¬ 
ral feeding of which during thq foddering season, will be sure 
to keep their stock in a progressive state of improvement, be¬ 
sides lessening the consumption of hay and grain. In win¬ 
tering young stock and yearlings it is not customary, norin- 
deed is it necessary to tie them up in stalls; a good warm shed 
well littered for them to lie under, abundance of good hay, 
with a little corn or a few roots daily, will keep them in 
a growing stale, and having the run of the yard, will always 
present a clean healthy appearance. 
In bringing calves through the winter it is necessary to he 
more careful than with any other species ofstock. The com¬ 
mon practice of giving them a little skimmed milk or whey 
from the cheese tub, during the summer, with whatgrass they 
can get in a paddock, is not enough to put them in a condition 
to bear our cold winters with impunity. They should be 
taught to eat a little oil cake, or ship stuffs, or meal of any 
kind, which will keep them growing and generally healthy. 
If at any time, they are attacked with purging, which is a 
common disease with them, as either too much or too little 
feed will bring it on, a little chalk or ashes mixed with their 
meal will generally remove it. In the cold wet storms of the 
fall of the year it is highly proper to house them, the strong¬ 
est and thriftiest apart from the weakest; during the winter 
they should be fed with roots of some kind or other, morning 
arid evening, and at noon with ship stuffs mixed with ground 
oats. This way of bringing calves through the winter, may 
be thought to be rather extra and expensive, but it is not so, 
for when a year old, they will be as large and far more likely 
than the common half starved animal of twice the age. Up¬ 
on turning them out to grass in the spring, it will not be ad¬ 
visable to discontinue their accustomed supply of meal or 
bran on a sudden, it ought to be done gradually, and as theif 
natural food increases, they will learn to do without it. 
- There are various other small matters, relating to the good 
order and economy of the farm yard in the disposition of slock, 
other than neat cattle, which we will mention before quitting 
this part of the subject; much of what has been said of them 
will apply to horses; all they require is to be kept clean, well 
fed and well worked. 
Sheep, as has been observed, should have a yard and shed 
to themselves, and supplied with water. The fashion of com¬ 
pelling them to eat snow in order to quench thirst, is a bad one 
and ought to be abandoned. Turnips or some other vegetable 
should be allowed them during the winter, and these roots 
arc particularly useful to them as the lambing season ap¬ 
proaches If a portion of the flock should be weak and sick¬ 
ly they should be removed and put by themselves, and meal 
or ground oats given them in addition to their ordinary food. 
The ewes about lambing, should also be separated from the 
flock; they will be more likely to save their lambs, and if 
young ewes to own them. 
The shed should be well littered with straw and kept dry, 
and as wet and moisture is deleterious to them, they should 
always be brought up and housed in stormy weather. Salt 
should occasionally be given them; as it should also to ail 
the stock indiscriminately. 
It will be seen then from what has been said, that all that is 
necessary to bring a man’s stock through the winter in a thriv¬ 
ing condition is to keep them clean and warm, and to give 
them abundance of food and water. In many cases the com¬ 
mon mode of wintering stock on dry hay and drier straw may 
he attributed to ignorance The great body of our small far¬ 
mers whose habits and situation in life do not lead them to 
acquire information, seem to think the great art in wintering 
their stock, consists in getting them through with the least, 
possible quantity of provender. A saving disposition with a 
view to present profit appears to animate the whole fraterni¬ 
ty, while a liberal expenditure, holding out certain promises 
of ulterior benefit to them, seems to meet with no favor. 
Their sole object is to force a living out of the earth some 
how or other, regardless of the good to be derived from adop¬ 
ting the improvements daily making in every branch of farm¬ 
ing. They go on in the old track of their fathers, and trans¬ 
mit the same nearly unchanged to their children. 
In the business of saving manures they are equally remiss; 
the forming of composts, and manfacturing Lirge quantities of 
manure by mixing the various vegetable matters with top¬ 
soils, with lime and with mud, is seldom or ever thought of. 
To save the greatest quantity of manure, and to preserve it 
from losing its strength, it should be protected from the wea¬ 
ther. If this cannot be done under cover, it is advisable to 
stack it, so that it will shed rain, and escape the dissipating 
effects of the sun arid the wind; during frosty weather it will 
lose none of it virtue, but in the spring, the stacks must be at¬ 
tended to, and as the bed of the farm yard feels the influence 
of the sun and begins to thaw, the manure should be scraped 
up and added to the stacks; this should never be omitted, oth¬ 
erwise the strength of it runs off or is dissipated, leaving no¬ 
thing but the unfermented straw behind. Any means that 
will save it from being leached by rain should be adopted, 
and in addition, and to prevent the yards being flooded by 
heavy rains, the buildings adjacent to it should be furnished 
with gutters and drains to lead off the water; without these 
precaulions a great share of the manure in every barn yard 
will be exhausted of its best properties before it is applied to 
the land. It is not uncommon to hear farmers complain, that 
manure has little or no effect on their land. And such ma¬ 
nure as some of them make, which has lain for months expos¬ 
ed to all the vicissitudes of the weather, can have no effect. 
Perhaps it is drawn out in the winter, spread abroad in small 
heaps, and not turned under tiil nearly all its useful proper¬ 
ties are extracted by lrequent washings. Now nowithstand- 
ing the great value of manures to the farmer, the increasing, 
preserving and judicious employment of them seems to he a 
secondary object; considerable quantities are daily lost about 
every farm, and what is collected is of little value owing to the 
manner in which it is treated. No farmer can expect to suc¬ 
ceed in his agricultural operations without the aid of good 
manure and plenty of it, still its augmentation and preserva¬ 
tion seems to be little cared for; provided his barn yard is 
cleaned out once a year, he thinks he has done enough. 
It is feared that advances in this branch of farming, in com¬ 
mon with others, will not be very rapid until our rulers, in¬ 
fluenced by the true principles of a wise political economy, 
shall see fit to do something for the cause. The rage lor spe¬ 
culation and the desire to gather riches too fast, which but 
lately filled the whole community with golden dreams, has in 
a measure subsided, and peoples minds now being sobered 
down to realities of life, they are willing to go to w ork for a 
living. It seems then, there never was a time when the fos¬ 
tering care ol the government might be extended to the in¬ 
terests of the farming part of the community with a better 
prospect of advancing the permanent good of the whole than 
the present. 
The art of farming in all its various details, is an employ¬ 
ment requiring constant care and attention, as well as judg¬ 
ment in bringing its operations to a successful issue. 
It is the great employment of the rank and file of the coun¬ 
try, and as such deseives to he considered by our rulers, and 
were they seriously to entertain the purpose of encouraging 
it, the zeal of its followers would be sharpened and their ef¬ 
forts redoubled to place this science, to which our country 
owes so much of its prosperity, upon a proper looting. Com¬ 
mittees of agriculture, it is true, are appointed year after year, 
in our national and state legislatures, to watch over its inte¬ 
rests, but what have they done for the cause which feeds and 
clothes them. J’he silk business may have been talked over 
in the former, and the Canada thistle choked in the latter, 
but no important measure for its encouragement has been pas¬ 
sed, at least of late years. Every other great interest of the 
country seems to have been cared for but the one under con¬ 
sideration; commerce, manufactures, education, civil and 
military, the fisheries, &c. are all bountifully endowed by 
government, while for the benefit of the profession, to which 
the great mass of the people belong, there is no board formed, 
no school house raised, nor bounty for its amelioration or en¬ 
couragement offered. Is it neglected by our rulers, because 
it is less useful or needs less help than others? It has, to be 
sure, by its own life supporting power, felled the forest of the 
west, and converted the howling wilderness into fertile fields; 
but it has not yet succeeded in rendering us independent of 
other nations, for the very staff of life. The fact alone, that 
bread stuffs to a large amount were lately imported from 
abroad, and potatoes are even now being imported from No¬ 
va Scotia and elsewhere, would seem to call upon the 
government in the loudest terms to embrace the patriotic as 
well as popular measure of encouraging agriculture. Indivi¬ 
dual enterprise has done much for the cause, by disseminat¬ 
ing among us by means of periodicals, the results of experi¬ 
ments and good advice in every department of farming. But 
these means of information are very limited in their circula¬ 
tion. The attachment to old habits, the dislike to book farm¬ 
ing, and the utter ignorance of what is going on in the agri¬ 
cultural world, are also serious drawbacks to improvement; 
which it is feared, nothing can remedy but the formation of 
agricultural societies in every county of the state, under the 
patronage of the government. 
Under such a system, the results of good farming and an 
improved state of culture, would be brought home to every 
man. Knowledge would be more generally diffused, and great 
improvements consequently made in every branch of rural 
economy. Discoveries in agriculture are continually making, 
and must continue to be made ad infinitum, for no limits can 
oe assigned to the capabilities of the earth, in producing the 
necessaries as well as the luxuries of life. There seems to he 
no end to the improvement of the qualities and perfections of 
domestic animals—yet how few of our common farmers are 
aware of these facts. They know little or nothing of the 
principles of vegetation, or of the management and effect of 
the different kinds of manure, nor have they any very clear 
ideas on the subject of breeding the different kinds of domes¬ 
tic animals. 
Until a spirit of emulation js aroused by means of agricul¬ 
tural societies this state of things must continue. To get up 
such a spirit, has been and is the aim of the agricultural so¬ 
ciety of this state. It has thus far struggled through a 
feeble existence, upheld alone by the exertions of a few spi¬ 
rited individuals, headed by the patriotic and intelligent edi¬ 
tor of the Cultivator. Under better auspices than we have 
yet had cause to boast of, the society might flourish arid be 
productive of incalculable good—but unless a favorable ear 
is turned to our petitions tor aid to the cause, there is reason to 
fear that after this meeting, it will be adjourned to meet no 
more. W. AUG. S. NORTH, Chairman. 
Report on the mangement of Sheep. 
Your committee, on “The feeding and management of 
sheep in winter,” while they are fully aware of the impor¬ 
tance of the subject thus brought under their notice, feel, that 
though they can suggest but little that is new and instructive 
to the intelligent farmer or flock-master, in the home manage¬ 
ment of sheep as now practised, yet are inclined to believe 
there is much, both interesting and useful, which may he ga¬ 
thered from a knowledge of sheep hnsbandry in other coun 
tries, where its vast importance, (forming as it does, in some 
cases, the very wealth of the nation,) has called to its aid all 
that education, science and close observation could suggest 
for its improvements; and there are instances where this va¬ 
luable amount of intelligence has been practically applied in 
this state, with a success that warrants your committee in of¬ 
fering some suggestions from the German practice, that may 
materially improve the winter management of sheep in this 
state. 
The main body of sheep in the northern and middle states 
produce wool of an improved quality, being more or less mix¬ 
ed with the Merino, or the improved Merino of the Saxony 
family, and are principally kept for their fleece; the carcass 
being asecondary consideration; but within a few years this 
has become more valuable, from causes which it is not neces¬ 
sary here to examine, as they are self-evident to every observ¬ 
ing mind. Your committee would therefore have it under¬ 
stood, that their attention on this occasion has been nearly 
confined to the management of the Spanish sheep in all its va¬ 
rious grades, as found in this country. 
Many plans have been recommended, rules have been pre¬ 
scribed, maxims laid down, and the requisite quantities of food 
stated, for maintaining a sheep in thriving and good condition. 
But all these can only be relatively understood, for we ought 
