62 
THE CULTIVATOR 
has been applied we are unable to say, as our expe¬ 
rience in liming only extends to 1840. Perhaps you, 
or some of your correspondents, can tell us something 
about it. Joseph M. Nesbit. Lewisburgh, Union 
Co. Pa. Jan. 1, 1848. 
Farmer’s Town Associations. 
Editors of the Cultivator: —Quite a number of 
the farmers of my township, (Danville, Iowa,) have 
recently formed an Agricultural Association for the im¬ 
provement of the u Soil and the mind;” and as this is 
the first association of the kind that has been formed 
in our State, I wish to put it upon record, believing 
that such associations will increase so rapidly in the 
next five years, that we will be astonished to find that 
there was but one in the winter of 1847. Let me re¬ 
spectfully recommend to the farmers of the West, such 
associations. Besides receiving much valuable infor¬ 
mation from the agricultural periodicals of the day, 
it is a very pleasant way of spending a winter even¬ 
ing once a week with our neighbors and friends, dis¬ 
cussing the topics with which we are best acquainted, 
and most interested in. J. A. Pinto. Hartford, lo. 
Iowa as an Agricultural State. 
. Eds. Cultivator — I consider Iowa as first in 
point of natural advantages of any State in the Union 
for Agricultural purposes. Our prairie soil is a black 
vegetable mould, from one and a-half to three feet deep. 
The subsoil is a stiff clay. The Prairies are not ge¬ 
nerally over two to three miles in width, and the tim¬ 
ber is good. There is, probably, about an equal pro¬ 
portion of prairie and timber. 
We seldom or never have a failure in our corn crop, 
and vegetables of all kinds grow to an enormous size 
with little cultivation. Iowa is one of the best water¬ 
ed states in the Union for hydraulic purposes. Wheat 
some seasons is very abundant, but is frequently win¬ 
ter killed. I trust we shall find by close and practical 
observation, a remedy for this evil before many years. 
Corn being our staple production, it will naturally 
lead us to be |a great pork-making people—and were 
we nearer the ultimate market for this great staple, or 
had we a direct railroad communication to the Atlan¬ 
tic states, in five years we would be second to no 
state in the production of pork. 
We have made more fresh pork this season in Iowa, 
than our capitalists are able to purchase, and the diffi¬ 
culty of getting it to market, as well as the want of 
knowledge in regard to the number of hogs to be 
slaughtered in our state, has prevented eastern capital 
from finding its way here. 
Consequently, the price is very low, and a majority 
of the farmers are packing their own pork. This 
should never be the case. Farmers can never put up 
their pork and send it to market as advantageously as 
men accustomed to that business. They should, and 
generally would be willing to sell at a fair price rather 
than have the trouble of packing and shipping for them¬ 
selves. 
I am astonished that more capital is not invested 
in our state in the growing of wool; from the experi- 
rince of all who have engaged in it, to any considerable 
extent, it has proved the adaptation of our soil and cli¬ 
mate to this important branch of husbandry—and is 
found as lucrative as any other branch of agriculture. 
I am informed by a pretty extensive wool grower in 
my neighborhood from Washington County, Pa., that 
his sheep are not subject to many of the diseases here, 
that they were in Pa. 
I do not think it probable that the eastern wool 
grower upon land worth $50 to $100 per acre, and 
hay worth $15 per ton, could successfully compete with 
Feb. 
the western, where land is worth $5 per acre, and hay 
$2.50 per ton. 
We are only in the first year of our existence as a 
state, and the fourteenth as the inhabitant of a white 
man—still our population numbers between 150 and 
200 thousand inhabitants, a great portion of them from 
the New England and Middle states; they are proba¬ 
bly as well informed, and as industrious as the same 
number in any of our sister states; and all that we 
want to make us prosperous and happy, is the commu¬ 
nication before spoken of with the east. 
The health of Iowa, off the water courses, is as 
good as in any other state. On the water courses, we 
like all the west, are subject to fever and ague. 
The ease with which we cultivate our prairie farms, 
would astonish our New England farmers. They would 
hardly believe that one man with a pair of horses, 
could cultivate forty-five acres of land in corn, and do 
it well; but this is not an uncommon occurrence. 
We can raise 500 bushels of potatoes to the acre 
with no other work than to plow them twice or thrice, 
with the shovel plow after they are planted, that is, 
without the use of manure or hoe. 
The shovel plow is the only tool used in the after 
culture of corn, and an average crop is from forty to 
sixty bushels per acre; besides, our corn fields are ge¬ 
nerally so well lined with pumpkins in the fall, that a 
man can walk on them all over his corn field. 
I may add that I raised the last season 150 bushels 
of potatoes from two bushels, planted in one corner of 
my corn field, without manure or the use of the hoe. 
J. A. Pinto. Hartford , Iowa, Dec. 13, 1847. 
Farm Buildings. 
Every farmer is more or less interested in the con¬ 
struction of farm buildings; and I am glad to see the 
subject frequently alluded to in the Cultivator. Three 
essential requisites in a dwelling, are neatness, conve¬ 
nience and durability; and, as a general thing, the mo¬ 
dern built houses possess these qualities in a greater 
degree than the unfinished “ shells” of the last century. 
There is, however, often a failure in one respect, in 
modern buildings: the roof is frequently too flat; this 
may not be so great an objection, when it is composed 
of other materials than wood, but when made of wood 
it should always form an angle of at least thirty-five 
degrees. 
As good shingles are becoming scarce in many pla¬ 
ces, various other materials are being substituted in 
their place, for covering certain out houses, where a 
rustic appearance is no objection. Sometimes boards 
and slabs are used. These make a tolerably tight roof, 
when sufficiently inclined, though not very durable; the 
dampness works in, and causes it to decay. A roof 
made in this way lasts only about 10 years. 
A good roof may be made of sound well seasoned 
boards, about a foot wide and seven-eighths of an inch 
thick, laid crosswise the rafters, clapboard fashion.—■ 
This method requires the least possible quantity of lum¬ 
ber, and as the water wears across the grain of the 
wood, it is quite durable. The edges should be lapped 
over each other about an inch and a-half, and the ends 
about two inches. H. C. B., Otsego Co., 1847. 
Potatoes. 
For the last two seasons I have planted my potatoes 
the last of May—had the ground plowed and furrowed 
the same as for corn. I take good, fair smooth pota¬ 
toes and cut them lengthways, putting a quarter of a 
large, or half of a middling sized one in a hill. In 
this way I get large thrifty tops, which I consider ne¬ 
cessary to insure large potatoes. 
We cultivate with a three-shovel plow, working si- 
