204 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
July 
FARM STATEMENTS. 
We give below the statement of Mr. Geddes, who 
received the first premium of the N. Y. State Agricul¬ 
tural Society on farms. The statements of others will 
follow hereafter. 
Luther Tucker, Esq., 
Rec., Sec’y N. Y. State Jig. Society: 
The following answers to the interrogatories of the 
New-York State Agricultural Society are respectfully 
submitted: 
1. My home farm consists of three hundred acres. 
Thirty are in wood. About ten acres of the side hills 
are unsuitable for plowing, and are only used for pas¬ 
ture; the remainder is under cultivation, except what 
is required for roads, yards, &c. 
2. The soil is principally a disintegrated gypseous 
shale, it being the first stratum below the Onondaga 
lime, running up to and taking in some sixteen acres 
of the lime, which is covered with about one foot of 
Soil. This is in the wood lot, and furnishes quarries of 
good stone. There were formerly a few cobble stones on 
the surface, and one very large granite boulder. A small 
brook running through the farm is bordered by about 
forty acres of soil that has been deposited by the brook, 
and is not suited to the production of wheat. In the 
valley of the brook is found marl and peat, and at the 
springs that come from the hill sides calcareous tufa. 
3. I consider the best modes of improving the soil 
of my farm to be deep plowing, application of barn¬ 
yard manure, free use of sulphate of lime, and frequent 
plowing in crops of clover. 
4. Unless I am plowing in manure, I plow from six 
to eight inches deep. Deep plowing upon the gypse¬ 
ous shales, never fails to increase fertility. Full trials 
justify my speaking with confidence on this point. 
5. I have not used the subsoil plow, as I have no re¬ 
tentive subsoil on my farm. 
6. I apply my barn yard manure in large quantities 
at a time, preferring to at once do all for a field that I 
can in this way. About fifty loads of thirty bushels ! 
each, of half rotted manure to the acre at a dressing. 
My stables are situated on two sides of a square; the 
manure, as it is taken from the stables, is at once piled 
in the centre of the yard, as high as a man can pitch it. 
Sulphate of lime is put on the manure in the stables, and 
the heap, as soon as fermentation commences, is whiten¬ 
ed over with it. My sheep are all fed under cover, and 
most of their manure is piled under cover in the spring, 
and rotted. As to keeping manure under cover, my 
experience has led me to believe, that the best way is 
to pile it under cover, when it is most convenient to do 
so, and only then as I am compelled to apply water to 
the heap to rot it, unless it has received the snows and 
rains out doors. The coating of sulphate of lime, will, 
I believe, prevent loss of the gases, and in process of 
fermentation the heap will settle so close together, that 
water will not after that enter into it, to any considera¬ 
ble depth, particularly if it was piled high and came 
up to a sharp point. 
7. My means of collecting and making manure, are 
the straw, corn stalks, and hay raised on the farm, fed 
to farm stock, and what is not eaten, trampled under 
foot, and converted as before described, so much of it 
as goes through the stables. But large quantities of 
straw never pass through the stables at all; stacks are 
built in the yards, and the straw is from time to time 
strewed over the ground, where it receives the snows 
and rains, and is trampled by the cattle. Embank¬ 
ments around the lower sides of the yard, prevent the 
water from running off, and confine it in water tight 
pools, which are filled with straw to absorb the water, 
except so much of it as is wanted to put on the garden. 
8. I make from four to five hundred loads of manure 
annually, and it is all applied. 
9. Most of the manure is put on corn ground. It is 
drawn on about one-half rotted, and spread over the sur¬ 
face, and plowed under about four inches deep. The 
reason I do not plow it under deeper is, that I suppose 
I must plow deeper the next time to bring up the earth 
into which the manure has been carried by the rains. 
10.1 have never used lime in any quantity, excepting 
in the form of a sulphate as a manure, believing that 
there is enough in the soil. Sulphate of lime, I use in 
large quantities; fourteen tons this year. It is sown on 
all the wheat, corn, barley, and oats, and on the pas¬ 
tures and meadows in quantities varying from one to 
three bushels to the acre. All the ashes made by my 
fires is used as a manure, and I think that it is worth 
as much as the same bulk of sulphate of lime to use on 
corn. Sulphate of lime has been used on the farm for 
many years, and in large quantities,and I think it essen¬ 
tial in my system of farming. I have not used salt or 
guano as manure. 
I raised this year about 
77 acres wheat yield’g 1,616 bu., 
averaging pr. acre 
i, 20.99 
15| « corn, “ 821 
(( 
52.96 
18 te barley, “ 665 
a 
36.94 
38 “ oats, « 2,249 
tt 
56.55 
2| (( potatoes, (( 292 
it 
116.80 
5,643 
50 acres of pasture and 30 of meadow. 
12. I sow at the rate of two bushels to the acre, 
about the fifteenth day of September. I summer fallow 
but little, and only to kill foul stuff, and to bring the 
land into a good state of cultivation. A part of my 
wheat is sown on land that has been pastured, or mowed, 
plowing it but once, but that done with great care, and 
as deep as I can. The oat and barley stubble, as a 
general rule is sown to wheat, plowing only once, hav¬ 
ing previously fed off the stubble with sheep so close 
as to have most of the scattered grain picked up. The 
plowing is done as near the time of sowing the wheat 
as is practicable, and the wheat is sown upon the fresh fur¬ 
rows, and harrowed in. I have tried various modes of 
treating stubble, but none of them has answered as well as 
this. What little grain of the spring crop is left on the 
ground is turned deep under, and the wheat bein^ on 
top gets the start of it. The harvesting is done with a 
cradle. Corn, is generally planted by the tenth day of 
May, on sod land; most of the manure is put upon this 
crop. The corn is planted in hills three feet apart each 
way; from four to six kernels in a hill, and no thinning 
out is practised. Sulphate of lime, or ashes is put on 
the corn as soon as it comes up. Two effectual hoeings 
are given to it, and a cultivator with steel teeth, is run 
twice each way of the field between the rows, to pre¬ 
pare it for the hoe. Corn plows and cast iron cultivator 
teeth are entirely discarded. 
At the proper time, the stalks are cut up at the sur¬ 
face of the ground, and put into small stooks, and when 
the corn is husked, the stalks are drawn at once into the 
barn, without being again Set up. In this way they are 
kept in good condition, and labor saved. 
Oats or barley is sown the next spring, on this corn 
stubble. Of each of these grains, three bushels of seed 
is put upon an acre. As soon as the grain is up, sul¬ 
phate of lime is sown. These grains are also sowed 
on sod land. The reason of this is, I cannot command 
the manual labor necessary to cultivate one-fifth of my 
land in corn, and secure it at the proper season. The 
rotation of crops I attempt to pursue, is—first corn, 
second oats or barley, third wheat on the oat or barley 
stubble, fourth clover and herds grass pasture—the seed 
sown on the wheat—fifth meadow. But inasmuch as 
certain portions of my farm are not suited to raising 
wheat, and as I cannot command the force necessary to 
cultivate the proportion of corn, I am compelled to 
modify; but I come as near to this rotation as I can. 
The usual time of sowing barley is as soon as the 
ground is settled—commonly by the 20th of April. 
The oats are sowed later generally early in May. 
The yield of the crops for this year has already been 
given, and I think I am safe in saying, that the average 
of one year with another, upon the system of rotation 
before given, comes up to that of this year. The pas¬ 
ture will sustain two cows upon an acre, end the hay 
will generally yield two tons to the acre. 
