100 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
licability of further improvement in our domestic animals; 
and we are the advocates of the introduction and dissemi¬ 
nation of the best foreign animals, of undisputed pedigree 
and Herd Book standing, because in such we have the 
most ready and certain means of improvement prepared 
at our hands. We like the improved Short Horns and 
Herefords, because the qualities for which they are de¬ 
servedly famed, are invariably', so far as we have had an 
opportunity of observing, communicated to their progeny- 
in a great degree, when crosses have taken place between 
them and the common stock of the country. We have 
deemed it unnecessary to undertake to produce from our 
native stock alone, by breeding and selection, a new 
breed, when we have ready at our hands animals in a 
farther state of advancement than we could expect to 
reach for years, with native stock as a starting point. 
Pedigree we prize as a proof that the good qualities are 
not accidental, but inherent and fixed; as enabling us to 
calculate in a great degree the result of any cross we may 
make in endeavoring to improve our stock. But we 
must dismiss the subject, inviting breeders to discuss the 
positions advanced by “ A Young Farmer,” and intend¬ 
ing ourselves to return to it again in a short time. 
SALT FOR STOCK—MEADOWS, &c. 
Messes. Editoes —As the pasturing season is near, 
permit me to suggest the propriety of furnishing more 
salt for stock. Often in passing through the fields of our 
best farmers, the stock is so eager for salt as nearly to 
trample you down, and these men let it suffice to give 
salt once in six to ten day-s. Can stock thrive thus? Let 
each farmer furnish a trough, from 4 to 8 feet in length, 
as the stock may require, in each field; the trough to 
hold water in case of rain, that no salt be wasted. (The 
cattle will consume the water in the trough.) After 
salting them a little for three d&jS, place the trough in 
the field in a suitable place, and keep it constantly sup¬ 
plied with salt, and let the animal decide how much and 
often it needs it to promote health. Need I say it adds 
to growth and fatness—let the farmer judge. 
Manueing Meadows.—I see in the April No. infor¬ 
mation is wanted. I have a meadow on the flat land, ra¬ 
ther moist to plow. Some eight years past, in conse¬ 
quence of having many laborers, this meadow was mown 
in July for two seasons. The third season I was surprised 
to find the grass much diminished in quantity; therefore 
deferred mowing it till the grass was matured; thus while 
curing it, some seed would fall as in former times, pre¬ 
vious to the early cutting. In two or three years it was 
restored to its usual growth, which is about two tons per 
acre, t do not manure, nor plaster, nor water it. I turn 
in my fat cattle a few days in the fall, which is all it is 
pastured. My neighbors adjoining me, practice the old 
plan, stack the hay^ on the meadows, and feed it there. 
They say their meadows want manuring; their stock is 
grazing at every chance, and the result is they cut about 
Jjl tons per acre on as good land as mine; hence they are 
one season behind hand for fodder. Their stock feed off 
in winter what they should cut in summer; besides they 
have not that manure for the plow land. ‘‘Judge yc 
which is best.” 
As this season is a tender time for cows, I would from 
experience recommend feeding milch cows with boiled 
oats—if not convenient, swell them with hot water; be¬ 
gin with two or three quarts, and increase the mess to ten 
or fourteen, as is consistent. It adds greatly to the quan¬ 
tity and quality of the milk, and vigor to the animal. 
Dutchess Co , April 15, 1843. T. G. Wheelee. 
WASHING SHEEP, &e. 
Messes. Editoes— With your approbation, I will 
venture to intrude upon the public my method of wash¬ 
ing sheep. I build my sheep yard by the shore of the 
lake, in such a manner as will be most convenient to 
catch the sheep in. The sheep having been tagged, 
(generally- about the first of April,) some by the time 
for washing will begin to get dirty; it is therefore ne¬ 
cessary that such should be tagged again. I have one 
man in the yard to catch and tag for two or three to 
wash. I have seen some so careless as to drag the sheep 
in the water on their backs, or any way to get them in. 
Such practice is very wrong, as well as a very hard way 
to handle sheep. The easiest way is to take the sheep 
up and carry it. By dragging a sheep into the water, 
the sand and gravel get into the wool, where much of it 
will remain, to the great annoyance of the shears when 
the sheep comes to be shorn, besides injuring the sale 
of the wool. The sheep should be caught by a man in 
the yard, carried to the edge of the water, and there held 
upon a bench or stool until the washer is ready to take 
it. The washer then carries the sheep into the water to 
a suitable depth to perform the operation; having squeez¬ 
ed the wool sufficiently in the water, he leads the sheep 
gently to the shore, and then finishes the operation by- 
squeezing the water out of the wool as much as possible. 
In this I have a double purpose : first, if any filth remains 
in the wool after washing in the water, more can be 
squeezed out than will naturally drain out; and second, 
by squeezing the water from the wool, the sheep is re¬ 
lieved of a heavy burden which otherwise would cause 
it to tumble down in the mud, sand or gravel, in running 
off, which is often the case when let go with the water 
in the wool. In such cases they need to be taken up, 
carried into the water and washed again. 
Now if the water is squeezed from the wool, the sheep 
may go away with much more ease than when loaded 
with water. In this way I have been able to cleanse my- 
my wool in such a manner that it suffers in comparison 
■with no lot of wool that I have ever seen. I would far- ^ 
ther state that the sheep should not be suffered to runup- 
on plowed ground or among black logs and stumps after 
■washing, until they are shorn. 
In marking, docking, and castrating lambs, a cold day 
is to be preferred to a warm one, as in warm weather 
there is danger of bleeding too much: sometimes I have 
known them bleed to death. Tar cannot be too highly 
recommended with which to besmear sheep’s noses after 
shearing. It should be repeated once or twice through 
the season. It prevents distempers, keeps off the maggot 
fly-, and promotes the health of the sheep. Ibave some¬ 
times given them tar, sulphur and salt, mixed and fed in 
troughs, with good success. 
I was a little disappointed in not seeing more Merino 
sheep at your State Fair, last Sept. Perhaps it may in 
part be accounted for in this way. Those beautiful 
South Downs and noble Leicesters and Cotswolds, must 
in all probability take the place of the fine wooled sheep 
about the large market towns and upon the banks of the 
Hudson generally, where the growing of good mutton 
must be more profitable than growing wool exclusively-; 
and leave the Merinoes to the hack towns and interior. 
The Saxons present, were beautiful sheep, though not 
large. Other parts of your state, I presume, would have 
presented a better display of Merino sheep. If not, I 
shall petition to have the Green Mountain boy-s admitted 
to come down and compete with their brethren of the 
Empire State with their Merinoes, weighing 160 lbs., 
and shearing from 12 to 14 lbs. of fine clean wool. The 
exhibition of Durham and other neat stock, together 
with an almost innumerable variety of domestic articles, 
was worth the while of any lover of his country to tra¬ 
vel a hundred miles to view. J. N. Smith. 
Chimney Point, Vt., April 19,-1843. 
CULTURE OF WHEAT, PEAS, &c. 
Messes. Editoes —“ Commentator,” in his remarks 
on the Jan. No. of the Cultivator, condemns the i)ractiee 
of “ cultivating the same field two successive years in 
wheat,” and he asserts that in every instance within his 
knowledge, “ the second crop was vastly- inferior to the 
first.” It is no part of my design to advocate the culti¬ 
vation of ‘‘wheat after wheat,” as a desirable practice in 
general, or to doubt the correctness of his own observa¬ 
tions, Wt to say that good crops have sometimes been ob¬ 
tained after the above method, scarcely inferior to the 
first, I will briefly relate my own experience. Some 
years since, I harvested and threshed from a field con¬ 
taining less than two and a half acres, 63 bushels of win¬ 
ter wheat. As it was a matter of convenience, and be¬ 
ing withal a little curious to know the result of so wide 
a departure from what was genei’ally thought correct 
farming, I prepared the ground in my usual manner, and 
put in for a second crop. In due time harvest came with 
a yield but one bushel less in amount than the first crop, 
and of excellent qualify-. Now- for the rest of the story. 
A third crop was attempted from the same field. This 
was pressing the matter too far; less than half the fiist 
amount was obtained. 
CULTUEE or Pe.vs.— This is a crop I have seldom at¬ 
tempted to raise, but from the experience of the last two 
years, am inclined to place a higher value on if than 
formerly. Having obtained a quantity of medium sized 
peas, (not marrowfats of course,) w-hich were said to be 
very prolific, I made the trial as follows;—The ground a 
coarse gravel, or rather stony-, in good heart, preceding 
crop oats, no manure for several years, plowed once, har¬ 
rowed before sowing and both ways after, followed by- 
the roller, seed sown at the rate of about four bushels per 
acre. Threshed as soon as gathered; produce 21 bush¬ 
els; quantity of land sow-n fifty-five one-hundredths of an 
acre. This considerably exceeds the premium crop of 
George White, at the last Fair of the State Society. 
Giving Ceedit, &c. —As a general rule the less a 
farmer has to do with giving or obtaining credit, the bet¬ 
ter. There is a wide difference between expending our 
income in advance, and after receiving it. But in one 
case credit should always be given,—^that to which you 
allude in your last number—by acknowledging the source 
when articles are copied from other papers. By the 
way, neighbor E. remarked the other day in pleasantry, 
that I had not given him due credit in the brief account 
of my new watering place, as I but followed the exam¬ 
ple set by him. Very true, he was before me in this 
matter. Yours respectfully, G. Buteee. 
I /\£. 
BADGER'S HORSE POWER THRESHING MACHINE. 
(See Fig. 49.) 
Messes. Gateoed & Tuckee —Herewith I send you 
a cut of O. Badger’s One Horse Power, as manufactured 
by Hussey- & Burgess, Auburn, N. Y., for insertion in the 
Cultivator. These powers are considered superior to any 
now in use. It has no chain proper, but is an endless 
floor, composed of a series of iron plates, held together 
and supported by strong wrought iron links, and revolv¬ 
ing over strong cog wheels at each end, and supported 
above and below by two rows of cast iron friction wheels. 
This Power is small and compact; only two feet wide 
by ten and a half long, and can be easily carried in a 
common w-agon. It will thresh from fifty to seventy- 
five bushels per day, with one horse and two hands, and 
with a change of horses will do much more. When ap¬ 
plied to a circular saw, it will saw a cord of hard wood 
in fifteen minutes; and at a trifling expense can be made 
to work a cross cut saw to saw logs of the largest size.. 
It is well adapted for driving any kind of maehinery 
where a small power is required. (For price, &c. see 
advertisement in this paper.) Thos. R. Hussy. 
Auburn, May 20, 1843. 
LETTER FROM NOVA SCOTIA. 
Messes. Editoes— The January and February Nos. 
of the Cultivator have come to hand, and are quite equal 
if not superior to my expectations. 
It really astonishes me, that men who pretend to farm 
it, should disregard or discourage so useful a paper, for 
it is the same to an agriculturist that a Medical Journal is 
to a physician, or a political paper is to the politician, 
&c. For what medical man would pretend to offer the 
best scientific advice, or operate agreeably to the latest 
improv-ements in surgery, if, after he left college, never 
read a new publication. And where is the politician who 
would rise in the legislative halls and discuss political 
economy-, &c., without first making himself acquainted 
with the constitution of his country and the political in¬ 
telligence of the day-. Why-, Messrs. Editors, he would 
be called a novice, and very justly; and what view must 
we take of a farmer who will plod along in some old 
beaten or worn out path, adhering to customs and super¬ 
stitions long since thrown aside by the more learned and 
scientific of the present day. 
Agricultural periodicals are, I conceive, greatly mis¬ 
understood by the farmers, for instead of their being de¬ 
voted to the promulgation of wild theoretical notions, 
they contain real practical knowledge, obtained by the¬ 
ory and research, and that same kind of information that 
those ignorant men think they get from performing the 
practical operations of the farm, with this difference that 
the former is more correct. Few men, keeping in view 
their reputation, would hazard theory or attempt to erect 
a superstructure, without first testing it by analysis and 
practice. 
With us, at the present time, there is much to condemn, 
and I regret to say but little to admire. 
I know farmers who can never expect to fill any ofiice 
of honor or emolument in the councils of the country, 
paying their four and five dollars for a paltry political 
paper, (Am. journals seem to aim more at the destruction 
of private character, than advance the public good,) half 
filled with advertisements of rum, merchandise, &c., and 
the other partWritten in a style only befitting a billings¬ 
gate scribbler, than pay One Dollar for a practical agri¬ 
cultural journal, containing all useful and necessary in¬ 
formation upon the profession they follow, to obtain the 
good things of this world, for no man can have a greater 
variety than a scientific, practical, industrious, economi¬ 
cal farmer. To show the state of our Province in this 
respect, I will just mention that in one of the most popu¬ 
lous counties, and peculiarly- an agricultural district, in 
1840, about £200 was paid for political, religious and oth¬ 
er journals, and at the same time only three pounds fo> 
agricultural information. The fact needs no comment; 
the absurdity is too plain not to be readily perceived. A 
better state of things now exists, but far behind what they 
should be. As I have filled my sheet, I will take another 
opportunity to write you the mode of farming in vogue 
with us, and point out some of its observations, and no¬ 
tice some recent improvements. Yours, &c. 
Nova Scotia, Feb. 28, 1843. “Old Nova.” 
BADGER’S ONE HORSE POWER THRESHING MACHINE.—(Fig. 49.) 
