THE CULTIVATOR. 
107 
Is the improved feature in modern husbandry, as it conduces to the 
constant improvement of land; and while it diminishes labor it in¬ 
creases products. Neither grazing nor cropping, exclusively, can 
be deemed judicious, as both, when combined, are admirably calcu¬ 
lated to aid each other, the former supplying manures to give a 
profitable effect to the operations of the plough; and besides, the 
regular employment given to laborers at all seasons, by uniting the 
different parts into one system, is an advantage which every econo¬ 
mist will appreciate. 
In conclusion, I would decidedly discourage amateur farming, as 
it usually is brief in its history, and disastrous in its results. But 
to such as seek rational employment where a comparative inde¬ 
pendence may be enjoyed, I would recommend agriculture. 
If I may be allowed to speak of my individual undertakings, 1 
would say that an investment of a large sum in the course of a 
few years, in lands, improvements, and animals, commenced in. in¬ 
experience, and misdirected by ignorance, my anticipations of pro¬ 
fit have not been disappointed. The nature and magnitude of the 
trust have tied my attention to its accomplishment, and I have the 
satisfaction of finding my income yearly increasing, and my expen¬ 
ditures diminishing. I am sir, yours, &c. 
Ballston , May 1, 1834. , HENRY W. DELAYAN. 
On Pickling Seed Grain. —This process is indispensably neces¬ 
sary on every soil; otherwise smut, to a greater or less extent, will, 
in nine cases out of ten, assuredly follow. Though almost all 
practical farmers are agreed as to the necessity of pick] mg, yet 
they are not so unanimous as to the modus operandi of the process, 
and the article which is best calculated to answer the intended pur¬ 
pose. Stale urine may be considered the safest and surest pickle; 
and where it can be obtained in sufficient quantity is commonly re¬ 
sorted to. It is either used as a steep, or sprinkled upon the grain. 
Some again are advocates for a pickle made of salt and water, 
sufficiently strong to buoy up an egg, in which the grain is to 
be thoroughly steeped. But whatever difference there may be 
as to the kind of pickle that ought to be used, and the mode of 
using it, all agree in the utility of mixing the wetted seed with hot 
lime fresh slaked ; and this, in one point of view, is absolutely 
necessary, so that the seed may be equally distributed. There is 
some danger from the first of these modes ; for if the seed steeped 
in urine is not immediately sown, it will infallibly lose its vegetative 
power.— New Edin. Encyc. 
Young Men’s Department. 
IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO THE YOUNG FARMER. 
The diseases of cattle. —This is an important subject. There is 
no individual of many years experience in farming, who has not suf¬ 
fered severe losses from the death of horses, cows or sheep. Dis¬ 
eases amongst sheep are perhaps the most common and most exten¬ 
sive, and to whom is the cure of them entrusted? Generally to a 
laboring man, who has not the remotest knowledge of the several 
organs which compose the animal frame, or of their functions, and 
whose education has not fitted him to reason correctly even upon the 
few facts which he knows. What should we think of entrusting our 
friends or relations in sickness to a man who had studied no more 
of anatomy or medicine than a shepherd ? And the mischief is not 
confined to their ignorance of the true remedy. Ignorant men are 
the most irreclaimable theorists. They attribute disorders to the 
most fanciful cause, and then, from their assumed and absurd pre¬ 
mises, they argue away to a conclusion as hard as a geometrician. 
I have heard many striking instances of this from a friend of mine, 
who is himself both a physician and a philosopher. One poor pa¬ 
tient laid the blame of his sufferings upon a cause which few would 
have thought of. “ Sir,” said he, “ it is the wind meeting the diges¬ 
ter;” and no doubt his remedy would have been to put some co¬ 
vering round the digester to keep the wind away. Another poor 
fellow was troubled with a « rising of the lights;” and being asked 
whether he had taken any thing for it, “yes,” he said, “he had 
swallowed some shot to keep them down.” And I beg to assure the 
incredulous, that this is an extremely common disease and remedy in 
this neighborhood; and these are the very men who prescribe for 
our sheep ! Formerly it was common to ascribe diseases to the di¬ 
rect operation of the devil, and of course the cure was co-relevant 
to the assigned cause. “ Touching the heart and liver, if a devil or 
an evil spirit trouble any, we must make a smoke thereof before a 
man or a woman, and the party shall be no more vexed, and the de¬ 
vil shall smell it and flee away, and never come again any more.” 
And the story goes on to say, that in Tobet’s case the evil spirit fled, 
when he had srcmlt it, into the utmost parts of Egypt. But I do not 
suppose that this kind of fumigation would answer now a days. But 
revanons a nos moutons, or rather let us proceed with the horses, with 
which, indeed, the case is not much better. It you send for a far¬ 
rier, the message not unfrequently is, that he cannot come to see 
the horse to-night, but that he has sent him a drink, and will come 
and see him in the morning. Now, try this system by the same 
test:—How would you like it yourself? You are suddenly at¬ 
tacked with a violent complaint, and you send for the physician. 
He never saw you perhaps in his life, and knows nothing whatever 
about what is the matter with you ; but he sends his compliments and 
desires you to take a dose of Daffy’s elixir; and if your complaint be 
what is very common with horses, viz. inflammation of some of the 
viscera, this dose will probably finish you, as out of all doubt it has fin¬ 
ished many an unfortunate quadruped. Not that the absence of the 
farrier signifies much ; he probably does not know a bit the less of the 
disease on that account. The study of horse medicine and surgery 
has no doubt made much greater progress than that of cows and 
sheep, and some of its professors are men of sense and education; 
but how few are they compared to those of an opposite character. 
It was said with much spirit and truth, by an old physician, that in 
all cases of illness there were three things to consider—the pa¬ 
tient, the disease and the doctor; and that if any two of them pul¬ 
led well together, they would be able to beat the third. In the case 
I have been supposing, it is the disease and the doctor against the 
patient. 
“ Cbws, again, stuff themselves with cabbage, or other succulent 
food, which by and by ferments, and gives out a great deal of car¬ 
bonic acid gas ; the stomach becomes distended, and if relief be not 
speedily afforded the animal dies. Many a valuable creature has 
perished in this way, whose life might have been saved if the owner 
had been chemist enough to know what would stop the fermentation, 
or had been provided with mechanical instruments for drawing off 
the gas. And these attacks are sudden—remedies to be useful 
must be near. There is no time to fetch the doctor, even supposing 
him to be worth fetching. The owner himself must know what lo 
do, and how to do it. It is not proposed to make every farmer an 
accomplished surgeon ; that would be impossible; but it is not im¬ 
possible, and it would not be useless, to teach him at school, [or for 
him to teach himself afterwards,] something of the structure, and 
diseases of the animals on whose health his fortune depends; some¬ 
thing of the symptoms by which those diseases are indicated, and 
something of the operation of the most important medicines. Be¬ 
ing so constantly slaughtered for domestic purposes, there never 
would be wanting opportunities for studying their organization. In 
Holland, above 500,000 cattle are known to have died of disease 
within twenty years. At £10 a piece, this would come to £250,000 
($1,110,000) a year. The tenth part of one year’s loss upon this 
article of cows alone, would be enough to put into operation through¬ 
out the whole kingdom, schools, which would create ten times as 
much wealth annually as we ever lost by the death of cows. If the 
money laid out in diffusing knowledge produced a return of only one 
hundredfold, it would be certainly an eligible investment; but a 
hundred fold would be little, compared with its eventual products. 
“ Mechanics.—The art of producing a given result with the smallest 
expense of power. —It is very important to make power go as far as 
possible, because it is the dead weight upon a farm. Horses eat and 
drink, but produce neither meat nor wool. Perhaps the best way to 
show the value of this kind of knowledge, is to point out the losses 
attendant on its absence. Every body must have seen ploughs so 
illy constructed as to require three houses to draw them through a 
soil which might have been worked well enough with two in a plough 
of the improved pattern. Instead of a sharp edge, contrived to cut 
the ground, and a well-formed mould-board to turn it over, you may 
sometimes see a blunt edge dragged slowly through the soil, to the 
intolerable fatigue of the cattle, as well as the rapid destruction of 
the plough and harness ; but little work is done, and that little in a 
slovenly and expensive manner. Carts and wagons too are sus¬ 
ceptible of great improvement; their more common faults are their 
weight—the friction of the axle, the dishing of the wheels, and the 
want of springs; the consequence is, that a horse is jaded and knock¬ 
ed up by what would, under more skilful management, have been an 
easy day’s journey. An acquaintance with mechanics would also 
