1850. 
THE CULTIVATOR, 
185 
former, and has acquired considrable celebrity in 
the central part of this State, having been owned 
for several years by Messrs. Mason & Munro, of 
Onondaga county. Mr. Marks, of Onondaga coun¬ 
ty, also advertises an excellent young horse of the 
same stock. 
Sale of Short-Horns. —We are informed that 
George Vail, Esq., of Troy, has recently sold to 
Mr. Humphrey, of Michigan, a bull called Ameri¬ 
can Comet, 2-| years old, by Meteor, dam Hilpa,— 
together with two cows and two calves, all except 
one having more or less of the blood of the ‘‘Bates’ 
stock.” The aggregate amount paid for these ani¬ 
mals, we learn, was $1,000—the bull being reckoned 
at $300. We trust the enterprise of the purchaser 
will be properly rewarded. 
Tarring Seed Corn.- —Mr. Durand writes us that 
a mistake occurred in regard to his mode of preparing 
seed-corn, as given in our last, (p. 123). He says 
—“It should be soaked 24 hours in strong saltpetre- 
water ;-then take a small quantity of tar in a basin 
and water enough to cover the tar; simmer over the 
fire till the tar dissolves with the water, and turn it 
on the corn, and stir with a paddle till the corn is 
smeared; then plaster till the corn will separate 
freely.” 
Pitts’ Separators. —These machines are still 
being manufactured at Rochester, N. Y. They are 
of great importance in grain-growing districts, and 
so far as we learn, give entire satisfaction. They 
can be adapted to threshing machines of any kind. 
For particulars see Mr. Pitts’ advertisement. 
Transmutation.— Mr. Alex. Culbertson, of 
Pleasant Unity, Pa., writes—“ The idea of the 
transmutation of wheat into chess, is an error 
which is caculated to do great injury to the farmer, 
because he is not likely to use much effort to get rid 
of a pest which he thinks will return with the first 
injury done to his wheat, either by winter-killing, by 
the fly, or by late pasturing. In proof of the fact 
that nature does not cut such wild capers, there are 
farmers within my knowledge who have not a stalk 
of chess on their farms, although their wheat is lia¬ 
ble to the same casualties that other wheat growers 
experience, but they, of course, are not believers in 
transmutation. One of them has been many years 
a reader of The Cultivator , and being a man of 
mind and good judgment, his reading of agricultur¬ 
al works tells well on everything about him.” 
Gilmore’s B.ee-House. —An advertisement of 
this article will be found in our present number. 
We have formerly known the inventor of this bee- 
house, as a successful manager of bees, and we learn 
from various persons in Maine, that this plan is 
thought to possess important improvements. 
H7"We noticed in our last number some of the fine 
animals killed for the display of meat in this city, on 
the 22d of February last. A correspondent, who 
dates at Schodack-Centre, informs us that W m. Cas¬ 
tle had in his stall, in the Centre Market, on the 
day alluded to, a calf, raised aad fatted by Milton 
Knickerbacker, Esq., of Schodack-Centre, which, 
taking age into consideration, he thinks was “'far 
superior” to any of the animals spoken of by us. 
We did not see this calf. 
OCT” Morse’s Grey, a well known and valuable 
horse, it will be seen by the advertisement of Mr. 
Grant, is at his old stand. 
Suffolk Pig. —Messrs. Burdett, of Cambridge- 
port, Mass., furnish to the Plowma7i an accout of a 
Suffolk pig, which was bought by them on the 8th 
of July, 1849,—at which time it weighed 110 lbs., 
alive—and was killed on the 4th of October follow- 
in, when it weighed, dressed, 370§ lbs.—making a 
nett gain of over three pounds per day. The same 
paper gives an account of another Suflolk pig, thir¬ 
teen months old, fatted by J. W. Kimball, Charles¬ 
town, Mass., that weighed, dressed, in Faneuil Hall 
Market, 470 pounds. 
Clinton County, N. Y. Agricultural Socie¬ 
ty. —We have received a copy of the premium-list 
of this society for the current year, together with a 
copy of the constitution, and an able address to the 
“ farmers and friends of agriculture ” in that coun¬ 
ty. The farmers of that section are much awaken¬ 
ed, and are making rapid improvements. The offi¬ 
cers of the society are Elias A. Hurlbut, President; 
Peter Keese, Samuel H. Moore, S. V. R. Havens, 
Anderson Keese, J. S. Stetson, Z. C. Platt, Ros¬ 
well O. Barber, John W, Bailey, A. J. Moses, John 
Dunning, Vice-Presidents; Willetts Keese, Peru, 
Secretary; Jonathan Bat.tey, Treasurer. 
Harrowing Wheat in Spring. —Myron Adams 
of East Blooomfield, N. Y., has for many years 
harrowed over the whole of his wheat fields every 
spring, pulverising the crust and greatly benefitting 
the crop. If the ground is to be seeded with clo¬ 
ver, it is harrowed in at this time. The whole 
amount torn up by the roots has been found by ex¬ 
amination not to exceed the amount of a bushel on 
ten acres. The wheat looks rather unpromising 
when thus dusted over with earth; but the first 
shower washes it off, and leaves it clean, fresh and 
vigorous. 
Corn-fields and Corn-cribs of the West.— 
The Cincinnati Gazette states that James Davis, 
of Waverly, Ross county, Ohio, cultivates eighteen 
hundred acres exclusively in Indian corn, and had 
last winter a corn-crib filled, which was three miles 
long, ten feet high, and six feet wide. It states 
further, that on the Great Miami Bottom, about 25 
miles belowCincinnati, there is one field, (belonging 
to several owners,) seven miles long by three miles 
broad, which has been regularly planted to corn for 
nearly half a century. In the Wabash Valley there 
are also extensive corn-fields-—one between Terre 
Haute and Lafayette, being ten miles long. 
Wheat Changed to Oats! —Prof. Lindley re¬ 
ceived a head of wheat, which had grown in an oat 
field, having a real, genuine oat flower growing out 
of it! He supposed that the oat had been stuck in by 1 ' 
some one trying to mystify philosophers, but a care¬ 
ful examination showed the suspicion unfounded. 
Glue was next taxed, but no glue was found. The 
headwas next pulled to pieces by the Doctor’s old ex¬ 
perienced botanical fingers, when the mystery was 
laid bare ; the slender stalk of the oat flower had be¬ 
come twisted round the ear of wheat when both were 
young, and they had both grown up in strict em 
brace, the wheat chaff completely concealing the 
oat stalk, till the latter, becoming accidentally snap 
ped off in some unknown manner, the oat was left 
fast to the wheat. “The union,” says Dr. Lindley, 
“was so perfect that it would have been almost cer¬ 
tain to deceive every eye except that of an unbelie¬ 
ving naturalist.” It would have been a very inte¬ 
resting specimen for our friend of The Michigan 
Farmer, to have deposited in his cabinet of curiosi¬ 
ties. 
Large Farming. —H. L. Ellsworth of Fayette, 
Indiana, conducts the business of Farming in a de¬ 
cidedly princely manner. He had last year, a thou¬ 
sand acres of corn, which yielded about fifty bush¬ 
els per acre, making about fifty thousand bushels, 
which he has been feeding to twelve hundred hogs. 
