1852 
THE CULTIVATOR, 
365 
business of rearing stock, is such that the supply in fu¬ 
ture years will keep pace with the demand 5 and the busi¬ 
ness of feeding for market may fairly be considered yet 
in its infancy. The high eulogies that may in fairness 
be lavished upon the Sciota valley, as a region adapted 
for the grazier and stall feeder, of neat cattle, may 
with equal if not greater propriety be given to the en¬ 
tire states and territories forming what may be aptly 
styled the valley of the upper Mississippi river. If the 
Sciota country can annually send her tens of thousands 
of sleek and well proportioned fat bullocks to the New- 
York markets, Illinois and Iowa may with much less 
difficulty send their hundreds of thousands to our eastern 
seaboard. The undeveloped resources of these states, 
to say nothing of Missouri, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, 
for the fattening of cattle alone, are sufficient to employ 
an active capital of many millions of dollars, and a well 
organized force of laborers equal to the entire adult male 
population of those states. To form some idea of the 
possibility of exhausting the natural capacity of the 
country for the cattle business, the extent of the undis¬ 
posed public domain, and the. extreme fertility of the 
soil are only necessary to be carefully computed ; and 
then to this may be added about an equal amount of un¬ 
enclosed lands in the hands of speculators. 
So soon as the railroads now in course of construction, 
extending westward from the principal Atlantic cities, 
shall be completed to the Great Father of waters, which 
in the course of three or four more years will be con¬ 
summated at three different points, then the entire order 
of things will be changed so far as feeding cattle on the 
prairies for the eastern markets is concerned. Anew 
life will he imparted, not only to the business of rearing 
and feeding cattle, but to all departments of agriculture, 
so soon as the Atlantic and Mississippi shall be bound 
together by the iron rail. These roads running, as they 
will do, in parallel lines across the most fertile portions 
of the vast fertile planes of the west, at intervals of from 
fifty to sixty miles, making, as they will do before the 
lapse of ten years, some six independent and rival roads, 
will have an almost magical influence in bringing into 
favorable notice to travellers and others, the unsurpassed 
undeveloped and neglected resources of the Great West. 
The winters, though as severe as in the same latitude 
on the Atlantic coast, are on the whole much more fa¬ 
vorable for wintering stock, owing to the absence of snow 
during, in many cases, the entire season 5 hut the best 
winter ranges are found skirting the streams among the 
sound growth of timber, where the grass continues green 
later in the season, and makes its appearance earlier in 
the spring ; and the timber forms an excellent protection 
to stock, from the cold and raking north winds that are so 
characteristic to the western prairies during winters. 
Other departments of this subject will, on some future 
occasion be critically discussued. W. G. Edmundson. 
Keokuk, Iowa. 
-- 
Drilling Wheat. 
Edward Stabler, in his admirable essay on the advan¬ 
tages of drill seeding, states that after examining its re¬ 
sults on some 800 or 1,000 acres, besides large experience 
- on his own land, he finds there is not a single instance 
where it has not proved the most profitable, first, in the 
saving of seed, and secondly in the increased product of 
the grain, amounting to from one to six or seven bush¬ 
els per acre. He thinks five pecks of seed drilled are 
equal to two bushels sown broadcast. He has known the 
increase, in one case, by careful comparison of the two 
modes, to amount to nine bushels per acre in favor of 
drilling. He relates an interesting incident:—A vender 
offered a drill for the increase in a crop of fifty acres of 
wheat—to be determined by sowing a few strips broad¬ 
cast for comparison. But before harvest the farmer pre¬ 
ferred paying the hundred dollars, the price of the drill, 
with interest. On carefully ascertaining the increase, 
he found it to be one hundred and fifty-three bushels. 
Agriculture, Unscientific and Scientific. 
Eds. Cultivator —From all quarters comes the cry, 
we want a systematic theory of agriculture. One says 
my land is becoming poor, how shall I enrich it? Anoth¬ 
er, my crops are diseased, how shall I prevent it? Anoth¬ 
er cries, insects devour the fatness of the land, how 
shall I destroy them? From all our borders comes up 
the cry, “come over and help us”—voice answers to 
voice, and hill-side and forest bring back the echoes in 
the length and breadth of our land. 
Aye! aye! sir, shouts some erudite seer, I have a 
panacea for all your ills. Pay for an analysis of your soil, 
and follow my directions, and you may supply all the 
elements of fertility to your impoverished soil. The 
sample of soil and the ten dollars being received, the 
answer conies back in a chemical formula, which the 
farmer must get translated before he understands it, and 
perhaps get corrected before it is light. So many equiva¬ 
lents of ammonia are to be retained, so much phosphate 
of lime is to be applied, so much carbonate of potash 
must be combined, the soil must be yearly analysed to 
ascertain what constituent is wanting- all this being done, 
you have the essentials of successful farming. And this 
we are to understand is scientific agriculture. 
One complaining of blighted crops is told that he must 
underdrain his land and use a sub-soil plow, and his land 
will grow richer day by day, and bis grain escape all 
maladies. Nothing more is necessary to ensure the im¬ 
provement and fertility of a farm. This too is scientific 
agriculture. 
To one who wishes to know how best to preserve ma¬ 
nure and how to apply it, the answer is returned that 
animal and vegetable manure is of little consequence 
compared with mineral fertilizers—that barn-yard ma¬ 
nure is old-fashioned and behind the age—that the bases 
of all soils are mineral substances, and that as these be¬ 
come exhausted by cropping, the soil grows weak and 
worthless, and that these mineral components must be 
restored to bring the land into heart again. This too is 
scientific agriculture. 
Others studiously avoid adopting any particular theory 
and write grandiloquent, non-committal articles on the 
sublime results which the future of scientific agriculture 
will open up. This high sounding method of enlighten¬ 
ing public sentiment has many and zealous supporters. 
Professors suddenly spring into grey hairs and wisdom, 
and would-be agricultural literati become as thick as 
