252 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
can be rendered very palatable, however, by a free ap¬ 
plication of salt, in frequent and successive layers as it is 
deposited in the stack or mow; the amount of which 
may vary from a peck to a half bushel of salt to a ton of 
hay. Coarse hay, thus prepared, is frequently preferred 
by cattle to fine hay not so prepared. 
All hay should receive an application of salt when 
stacked or stored away, as the salt not only preserves it 
from injury in keeping, but domestic animals, which 
are frequently much neglected in salting in winter, thus 
obtain a constant and regular supply, administered to 
them in the best possible form. 
DEATH OF DR. AKERLY. 
Soon after the publication of our last number, we re¬ 
ceived the painful intelligence of the death of Dr. 
Samuel Akerly, well known through the medium 
of our columus for several years under the names of 
11 Richmond,” and “A Practical Farmer .” He died at his 
residence on Staten Island, Sunday, July 6th. By this sad 
event we, in common with the readers of the Cultivator, 
have been deprived of a most valuable co-laborer in the 
field of agricultural improvement, and the community 
generally have suffered the loss of an estimable and 
highly useful citizen. Like his eminent brethren, Fes¬ 
senden, Buel, and Gaylord, he was called away sudden¬ 
ly—having been in his accustomed state of health only 
twenty-four hours before his death. He was a learned 
and talented, as well as benevolent and philanthropic 
man; and his death will be sincerely lamented by nu¬ 
merous personal friends, and also by a wider circle to 
whom he had become known through the public press. 
We find in the New-York Commercial Advertiser a short 
notice of his life and labors, from which we give the 
following interesting extract: 
“ Doctor Akerly was born in this city, was a graduate 
of Columbia College, and having inherited from his 
father ample pecuniary means, he received the best me¬ 
dical education this country could furnish, under the su¬ 
perintendence of his distinguished brother-in-law, the 
late Doctor Samuel L. Mitchell. His habits of applica¬ 
tion and study, in the commencement of his professional 
life, brought on a disease which was the source of great 
annoyance through many years, and at length terminated 
his life at the age of sixty years. He has been a large 
contributor to medical and scientific journals—was for 
several years a member of the common council. Du¬ 
ring the late war between this country and Great Britain 
he was hospital surgeon—was mainly instrumental in 
getting up and sustaining, through the first years of its 
existence, the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and 
was the second president of that institution. He was, in 
like manner, instrumental in procuring the passage of 
the act of incorporation of the Institution for the Blind, 
of which he was the first president. 
“ A few years ago the state of his health compelled 
him to leave the city, and he established himself on a 
farm on the south side of Staten Island, where for seve¬ 
ral years, and to the day of his death, he devoted him¬ 
self to agricultural pursuits with great ardor. He has 
given to the world during his retirement, through agri¬ 
cultural journals, many of the results of his observation 
and experience in his new pursuit. 
“ He has also been enabled, during that retirement, to 
prepare, or rather to complete, a full biography of his 
friend and relative, Doctor Mitchell. We have learned 
that the work was nearly ready for the press, and we 
presume that it will soon be published under the direc¬ 
tion of his representatives.” 
PRESERVING EGGS. 
Many receipts are given for preserving eggs, all 
strongly recommended, and many of them failing on 
trial. They may be successful in one case, but varying 
circumstances may cause a different result. For instance, 
lime water may be very successful when of the right 
degree of strength or causticity; but skill appears to 
be required in managing properly such preparations. 
Some have been very successful by packing them in 
salt, plaster of Paris, and other pulverulent substances, 
with different degrees of success. But the main point 
appears to be to pack them in some soft or powdei’y sub¬ 
stances, with the small end doxenwards, in an exactly per¬ 
pendicular position, and so embedded that they shall 
never touch each other. Provided these requisites are 
strictly attended to, it does not appear to be very impor¬ 
tant what they are packed in; we have been uniformly 
successful in the use of salt , never failing in keeping 
them for a year, and a neighbor in one case kept them 
three years in a perfectly sound state. 
STATE OF THE CROPS. 
We have received a letter from Col. A. McDonald, 
of Eufalla, Ala., dated Edgar county, Illinois, July 9. 
Mr. McD. is on a tour through the western states, and 
may, as he intimates, continue his journey to this state, 
and visit the show of our State Society, at Utica, where 
it will give us pleasure to meet him. He informs us 
that he left Eufalla on the 4th of June, that through all 
that portion of Alabama which he travelled, (a distance 
of 100 miles,) the crops were suffering much for want of 
rain. The corn crop in the richest sections, however, 
looked well. From all the information he could gather, 
the cotton crop would probably be a short one. In 
reference to Illinois and Indiana, he writes:— 
“ We have now travelled 130 miles in these states— 
the soil we find immensely rich—particularly in the 
valley of the Wabash. Here we travelled one hundred 
miles over the richest country in point of soil, I have 
ever seen. I thought by far a better farming country 
than middle Tennessee, that I examined last year; as 
the Wabash lands are not only rich but so level that we 
travelled sixty miles in this rich valley of lands, on al¬ 
most a perfect level—passing over extensive prairies of 
the finest soil. On these extensive prairies we find large 
crops of wheat and corn. The report is that from forty 
to fifty bushels of corn to the acre is common, and that 
from twenty to thirty bushels of wheat per acre are here 
produced. I found the coi’n generally planted 4 feet each 
way, and 4 stalks in a hill. Owing to the immense 
quantity of rain that has fallen in the month of June, the 
wheat crop, it is thought, is somewhat injured. The 
corn crop is also injured in some places. It has been im¬ 
possible to plow the fields here for the last three weeks.” 
We have also a letter from Dr. N. B. Cloud, of Ma¬ 
con co., Ala., dated June 19th. He informs us that the 
I cold continued very late—frost having occurred south of 
33 degrees, on the 17th of May. The cotton plant suf¬ 
fered not only from the cold and drouth, but from lice — 
(aphides.) 
“The cotton crop,” he states, “is not so forward as 
the last, yet the warm weather having set in with the 
present month, and showery weather for the last 10 or 12 
days, the crop improves astonishingly. The stalk is not 
as tall as usual at this period, yet it is well formed and 
] exceedingly promising. I counted on the 15th, upward 
of 100 blooms and squares on one stalk. 
“ The corn crop never promised finer in this section— 
the spring has just suited it—the great body of the crop 
has been in silk and tassel since the 1st of June, and the 
jlater corn looks equally well. I have seen but little of 
the crop in the prairies, but what 1 have seen promises 
fair, both corn and cotton, and I have been informed that 
their prospects have seldom been finer. 
“ The oat crop is fully fine through this immediate 
neighborhood, and with our present prospects, after the 
drouth of spring, (which, upon the whole, is favorable,) 
!the rains having set in, I think the crop will prove, at 
least, a fair one.” 
Our correspondent, Solon Robinson, writes from Vin¬ 
cennes, la., July 6: 
“ Wheat was a pretty fine crop here, but there has 
been such a perfect deluge of rains that many fields are 
totally ruined in the shock; while in the northern part 
of the state we suffer with the drouth to that degree that 
wheat headed out not more than knee high in many 
places. The grain is good, but the quantity will not be 
large. Other crops are much injured there by drouth, 
while here, the drouth first injured crops, particularly 
