THE CULTIVATOR. 
117 
that gives eighteen quarts of milk per day in June, costs no more in 
their keep than one that gives but six quarts 5 yet the product of the 
first is three-fold, and the profits four-fold, those of the latter. The 
fleece of the Saxon or Merino sheep is twice as valuable as that of the 
common one, though the cost of keeping them is equal. And the same 
corn that will make 100 lbs. of pork upon a lean-legged, long-snouted, 
razor-backed hog, will put 150 or 200 lbs. upon the frame of a Berk¬ 
shire or other improved breed. 
6 . Keep your farm stock well. A certain quantity of food must be 
given to keep them alive, all beyond this goes to increase growth, or 
is converted into meat, or milk, or wool; and if a little extra food is in 
this way profitable, much must be proportionally more so, for the more 
food you thus convert, the greater your return in labor, flesh and milk. 
7. Cultivate no more land than you can improve, with a reasonable 
certainty of handsome nett profit, embracing in the items of expenditure 
the interest on its value, fences, taxes, manure and labor. The good 
farmer, who raises 80 bushels of corn on one acre of land, clears the 
price of 50 bushels, which at 50 cents the bushel, is $25. The poor 
farmer, who cultivates four acres of corn, and gets 30 bushels on an 
acre, barely gets compensated for his labor and expense. We estimate 
the expense of raising and harvesting an acre of corn at $15, or the 
price of 30 bushels of the grain. 
8 . Buy good implements and tools, though they cost more than poor 
ones, and always keep them in repair for use. A good plough is drawn 
with half the team that a bad one is, and does the work twice as well, 
provided the ploughman knows how to use it. One good ploughing is 
better than two bad ones. Hence the farmer is soon compensated for 
the additional cost of the good article. The same remark holds good 
in regard to other implements and tools of the farm. In row culture, 
the cultivator will pay for itself in a season, in the economy of labor; 
the straw cutter will do the like in economizing fodder, and the drill 
barrow is a subject of equal economy in root culture. 
9. We hardly need admonish the reader to use none but clean good 
seed; for every man knows that he will reap only what he sows—the 
cheat controversy to the contrary notwithstanding. 
10. And lastly, we should disregard our duty, did we not press upon 
the consideration of every farmer the importance of agricultural publica¬ 
tions, as the cheapest and most certain means of improving in the prac¬ 
tice and profits of his business. These bring to his notice constantly 
the improvements and discoveries that are going on in the business of 
agriculture, and they detail the practice of the best farmers of our 
country. He that does not keep pace with the improvements of the 
day, in husbandry, as in other arts, cannot long find pleasure or profit 
in his employment. Those who stand still and content themselves with 
the practice of their fathers, will soon find that the business, active 
world, have all gone ahead of them. But we urge this matter particu¬ 
larly as an efficient means of instructing and qualifying the young for 
the duties of mature years—of stimulating them to acquire useful 
knowledge, and that confidence and self-respect which should ever 
characterize the yeomanry of a free country. The seed must be sown, 
and the mind be nurtured in the youth, if we would expect a harvest 
of respectability and usefulness in the man. 
PENNSYLVANIA HUSBANDRY. 
Earthing Potatoes. —A very intelligent farmer from the valley of the 
Susquehannah, Union county. Pa. has stated to us verbally, some of 
the agricultural practices which prevail in his neighborhood, and which 
he is confident may be adopted with profit by others. One of these is 
raising potatoes without earthing. For this crop a young clover ley is 
preferred. The manure is drawn out and spread as the ground is 
ploughed, the potato sets are dropped in every third furrow, and of 
course covered with the next furrow slice. The ground is afterwards 
harrowed, and the crop kept free from weeds, by the harrow or culti¬ 
vator, and hoe, but the plants are not earthed. The plough is only used 
in gathering the crop. Another mode is to draw shallow furrows, at 
the distance intended for drills, drop the seed, and cover by gathering 
two furrows upon the seed. The intermediate spaces are ploughed 
when the crop is first dressed, and turned in equal parts towards the 
two adjoining drills. The soil a sandy loam. 
We have practised the first mqde, except that our crop was earthed 
with a plough ; and wd are persuaded, that had we left a plane surface, 
the crop would have been benefitted—for three reasons. First, be¬ 
cause, by earthing with the plough the seed was too deep, 10 or 12 
inches, and could not receive the genial influence of heat and air; se¬ 
cond, because the crop suffered more from drought in consequence of 
the sharp ridges into which the surface had been moulded, than it 
would if the surface had been left flat; and third, because the plough, 
by throwing a portion of the manure and sod to the surface, diminish¬ 
ed the fertility of the ground. Our ground was partly in a moist swale, 
and partly on a sandy knoll. The crop in the swale gave at the rate 
of more than 600 bushels to the acre product; while that on the knoll, 
a severe drought having intervened, gave less than 300 bushels. The 
whole was highly manured. From this experiment we infer, that in 
damp and stiff soils, it will be best to deposite the seed near the sur¬ 
face, and to earth the plants with the plough ; and that where the soil 
is light and dry, the seed should be planted deeper, and the plants not 
earthed. By earthing the plants, it will be perceived, that double the 
surface is exposed to the drying influence of the sun, that there is 
where the ground is left flat. Ridges correct the defects of a wet soil, 
and they increase the evils of drought on a dry one. 
Clover. —The practice, says our informant, is to mow clover only one 
year, as cattle food, and then to turn it under as food for the crop— 
thus ensuring the return to the soil of a mass of rich vegetable matter. 
Clover is a biennial plant, and of course cannot be depended upon as a 
green crop after the second year; and as this there constitutes the main 
dependance for winter forage, the timothy not being grown, it cannot 
be depended on, after the second year, for hay . Hence clover is not 
only sown with small grains, but in the Indian corn grounds, at the last 
dressing of the crop—-the corn not being hilled. The latter practice is 
found highly advantageous, and is being extended. 
We can add our own experience in favor of sowing clover with small 
grains. It is our general practice; and we find we are doubly paid in 
the autumn feed, and quadruply paid in the feed and the manurewhich 
the green crop returns to the soil. The clover not only imparts fertili¬ 
ty, when turned under, but its roots divide and break the soil while 
growing, and render it pulverous as they decay. In sowing clover de¬ 
signed for a green crop, and indeed in all cases where it is to constitute 
the only herbage, at least ten pounds of seed should be used on the acre. 
The thicker the plants the finer and better the herbage; the more 
abundant the roots, the greater benefit to the soil, both as it regards 
pulverization and fertility. With regard to the utility of seeding corn 
(fields, the only doubt we have, is, whether the clover would acquire 
sufficient strength to withstand our northern winters. As it won! ! be 
sown in July, about the time we put in our ruta baga, we are in in:. ' 
| to think it would acquire sufficient maturity. While on the subject of 
clover, we will state our belief, resulting from experience, that it may 
jbe profitably grown on stiff soils and marsh land, providing they have 
(been sufficiently underdrained—the only impediment to its growth on 
such soils being water upon the soil or subsoil, within the reach of the 
roots. 
Sheep in Corn. —Our informant states it to be a good practice to turn 
sheep into the corn-fields, after the last hoeing in July. They will not 
eat or injure the corn, .but will eat the grass which springs up. The 
corn affords the shelter which those animals require, and serves to pro¬ 
tect them from the fly, which is vexatious, and often seriously preju¬ 
dicial to them, during the hot weather in August. But for the high 
respectability of our informant, we should be disposed to doubt the uti¬ 
lity of this practice. 
Liming. —The use of lime for agricultural purposes in the valley of 
the Susquehannah, between the Blue Ridge and the Allegany, where 
our informant resides, is of recent introduction, but it is found highly 
efficacious, and is increasing. The common application on the alluvi¬ 
al flats is fifty bushels the acre. As lime-stone abounds in the neigh¬ 
borhood, it is sold at the kilns at ten cents the bushel. It is burnt with 
anthracite coal, which is there bought at two dollars the ton. The pro¬ 
cess of burning is cheap and simple. A hole is excavated in the side 
of a hill, in the shape of an inverted cone, with an open passage from 
the base of the pit to the base of the hill, by which to ignite the coal 
when the kiln is filled. The pit is then filled with broken limestone, 
! and broken anthracite, intermixed; the top is well covered with sods 
| and earth, and fire communicated below. No attendance upon the kiln 
| is required, and in about eight days the lime may be drawn for use. 
i| Ascending the valley of the Susquehannah, and above the Allegany 
1 range, we meet with no limestone till we pass some distance into the 
'state of New-York. Hence this material, as soon as the facilities of 
water communication, which are begun, shall be completed, must form 
a prominent article of export from our state into the upper val- 
I ley of the Susquehannah. The application of lime to the red sand¬ 
stone formation is found to be particularly serviceable. As this for- 
| mation extends, with partial exceptions, from the Connecticut river to 
North-Carolina, the publication of this fact may excite new attention 
to the subject. If our recollection serves us, this formation shows it- 
1 self, according to Prof. M’Clure’s geological map, twenty or thirty 
miles on Connecticut river, is seen to underlay the Pallisado rocks up¬ 
on the west bank of the Hudson, emerges to the surface near New 
Brunswick, and occupies a district twenty to thirty miles broad, through 
West New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, &c. 
“THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE COMMUNITY IS THE GOOD 
OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL.” 
There is scarcely a principle so important to be inculcated, as the 
one we here quote. The well-being of a state, or of a community, does 
not so much depend upon its aggregate wealth, as upon the fair distribu¬ 
tion of this wealth among the different classes and individ uals who make 
up its population—not so much upon the learning and wisdom of a few, 
as upon the intelligence and good habits of the mass. He who seeks, 
