THE CULTIVATOR. 
135 
If the smut can be kept out, spring w heat will be the only wheat raised 
in this county. We have about 200 bushels raised from six acres, and 
could sell at $5 per bushel. 
Soil in this county is exceedingly fertile. I know of farms planted for 
nine and ten years, every year in corn, and equally as good now as ever, 
and manure is of no account here. In this town we pay 75 cents a load to 
have it hauled away!!! 
Succession of crops is not thought of here, and in our immense corn 
fields, a hoe is never used. I do not believe 100 hoes are sold yearly in 
the county, and only for gardens. The ground is furrowed or listed, three 
feet to four feet apart, then cross furrowed, and into each corner three or 
four seeds dropped, and returning with the plough is covereu up by the 
ridge. The planting is done. Twice after that at different times the plough 
is run through one way, to throw the dirt up against the stalk, and clean 
the weeds, and the crop is “ laid by,” and at harvest 45, 50, and 60 bu¬ 
shels of corn is confidently expected. 
I earnestly hope and repeat the wish, that w-e may be favored with a 
visit from you; 1 am well acquainted with Indiana and Illinois, and will 
6how you any part. 
I am, sir, yours respectfully, E. A.-ELLSWORTH. 
PIGS WILL FATTEN ON APPLES. 
Plymouth, Conn. September 12th, 1837. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir,—Although it is pretty well established and 
believed by farmers and others, that hogs can be fattened on apples, 
pumpkins, &c. yet many people cannot be persuaded that good, solid pork 
can be made without the aid of corn. For the purpose of removing, as 
much as possible, objections on that account, I send you, for insertion in 
the Cultivator, if you think proper, an extract from a letter to me, from 
F. J. Finn, Esq. of this county, written in answer to an inquiry I had 
made of him, and may be relied on. His letter to me is dated July 12th, 
1837. 
“ As to the apple pork I say, that I shut up my pig the forepart of Sep¬ 
tember. He then weighed fifty-five pounds. The precise day I shut him 
up I do net recollect. I kept him on apples, raw, promiscuously gather¬ 
ed, both sweet and sour, but mostly sour, say four weeks, till I had pota¬ 
toes and pumpkins from the field, ripe, and large enough to boil. I then 
boiled equal quantities of apples, potatoes and pumpkins in a potash kettle, 
to a complete pudding, by mashing them, while boiling, with a hoe, and 
of this consistence I fed him twice a day, as much as he would eat. About 
a fortnight of the last of his feeding, I gave him, in one barrel of the above 
mixture, four quarts of buckwheat ground. This was his only food. On 
the 21st December I killed him, and sold him for $30, weighing nearly 
300 pounds. I then pursued the same course with another, which I am 
now eating. Better pork I never had, and finer ham was never tasted.” 
Yours, C. BUTLER. 
YANKEE HOMMINY. 
As to the word “ Homminy ” and the “ article ” being “ western,” I 
can inform your friend, that I think he is mistaken. I was born, bred, 
and still reside in Yankee land, and have been well acquainted with both 
the name and the thing, more than sixty years, during which time no year 
has, and I could have wished that no week might have, passed, without 
my feasting on it. I am now waiting impatiently for the corn to ripen, so 
that I can feast on it again. I have, however, a much less “ tedious ” 
process of preparing it than that described by your friend. I send the 
corn to mill, and have it cracked, or rather ground as coarse as possible in 
the mill. This disengages the hulls, so that the cook can wash them off, 
and the meal by grinding, is also worked out, and used for culinary pur¬ 
poses. When I was a boy, and no mill was near where we resided, we 
used to prepare homminy in a mortar, as stated by your friend; and the 
old homminy mortar has descended, and still belongs to me. But prefer- 
ing the less tedious process, we have little use for the mortar. As to 
homminy being a good substitute for rice, I should reverse that, and call 
rice a pretty good substitute for homminy. C. B. 
CROPS IN SUFFOLK, &c. 
Upper Aquebogue, JY. Y. September 18 th, 1S37. 
Mr. J. Buel, —Sir,—The opinion is gaining ground with farmers in 
this neighborhood, that bitter weed, of which our lands are full, has a 
very destructive influence on wheat when ripening. We think that a 
wheat field, containing a laTge portion of the bitter weed, has a greater 
tendency to blast and mildew than one where thele is none. We hope 
that observations on the subject have been made elsewhere; if so, will 
you be pleased to state them, and the causes, &c. 
We noticed in the September number of the Cultivator, observations 
on the wheat crop in various parts of the country, which on the whole are 
rather gloomy. May we also be permitted to give a view of the prospects 
of the farmers in Suffolk county, and Long-Island generally? Wheat 
crops average full half, with an excellent kernel; rye is good, with a full 
crop; oats never better, weigh thirty-five and forty pounds to the bushel; 
corn certainly never looked more promising, and bids fair for an abundant 
crop; potatoes fine and large, with great yield; and turnips, old Suffolk 
will be, as she always has been, foremost in producing famous crops o f 
that most valuable vegetable. 
Thus it will be seen that the cultivators of the soil can haye no excuse 
for crying hard times, distress, &c. Yours, &c. 
B. F. WELLS. 
EXTRACTS. 
[From the Records of the United Agricultural Societies of Virginia .] 
GOOD FARMING IN VIRGINIA. 
[The following letter was written at a time when the clover husbandry 
was considered altogether impracticable for the poor lands of Virginia._ 
JVow, when it has been established that calcareous manures will remove 
that natural defect of those soils, this letter may be far more serviceable 
for that region than when it was written, or than its writer could then 
have anticipated. Ed. Fab. Reg.] 
Bremo, Fluvanna, 2l.s? December, 1830. 
Dear Sir —Yours of the 2d December, did not reach me until within 
a few days, from the circumstance of its not being sent to my usual post- 
office. This will excuse me for not being more prompt in my answer to 
you. The consciousness that you have counted too largely upon the infor¬ 
mation I am able to impart, on the various agricultural subjects referred to 
in your letter, and the anxious desire I feel to encourage the spirit of in¬ 
quiry, which seems to be spreading itself amongst the cultivators of every 
section of the state, induce me, the more readily, to comply with your 
wishes, as well to evince my perfect willingness to contribute what I can 
in so good a cause, as to apprise you promptly of the necessity of your ap¬ 
plying to other and better sources, for the desired information. 
Your queries shall be taken in the order in which they are made, and 
without confining myself to the direct answers, shall add such general re¬ 
marks as appear to me any way connected with rural economy” 
1. “The process of fallowing as practised by myself.” This is to 
plough in a crop of clover, as nearly as possible at the stage cf its growth, 
w-hen it is in the best state for cutting to make hay. Of course, where* 
there is a full portion of your rotation in clover, there can be but a part of 
your fallows ploughed exactly in the proper time without extra teams, and 
unusual seasons. Hence, the necessity of beginning a little before the clo¬ 
ver has attained the precise point, to yield the greatest advantage from 
being turned into the earth—and hence too, the necessity of a second 
ploughing, where your first was early, and the season favorable to vegeta¬ 
tion after the process. But I deem it less important to be minute upon 
this head, as for reasons hereafter to be assigned, I do not think summer 
fallows and the clover husbandry (which I consider as inseparable,) suited 
to the sandy soils of the lower part of this state. 
2. “The advantages as to product of a clover fallow over wheat after 
corn?” This maybe stated to vary from nothing to a double crop, 
depending upon the opportuneness and perfection of the process, and the 
adaptation of the land to the use of plaster of paris. Soils suited to plaster, 
with a heavy crop of clover ploughed in, at the proper time, previously 
dressed with three or four pecks of gypsum to the acre, followed by favor¬ 
able seasons for rotting the buried clover, and seeded in the month of 
October, will rarely fail to give two bushels, for one from the same land 
after Indian corn. On the other hand, a crop of clover (and the heavier 
the worse for it,) dried by our powerful sun, and consequently imperfect¬ 
ly buried, from the hard and unmanageable state into which‘the earth is 
brought frequently by the summer droughts, will often not yield a better 
crop lhan the same land would produce after corn. 
3. “The difference in the quantum of labor in fallowing for wheat, and 
wheat after corn.” This can only be decided by referring to the number 
and kind of operations which are performed in each process, and as these 
ought to depend, in number andkind,upon a variety of circumstances, the 
relative expense of the two modes of husbandry mus f necessarily vary in 
like manner. Under a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, fallows 
may be seeded upon the first ploughing, and completed with a single har¬ 
rowing; but it often happens, that a second ploughing, and under particular 
circumstances a third, and two harrowings, may be necessary to do justice 
to the crop. In like manner, a single operation, with a single horse 
plough, and a slight chopping the step, frequently do more ample justice 
to the wheat crop after corn, than, under other circumstances, will result 
from cutting up your corn, breaking up with the double plough, harrow¬ 
ing to receive the seed, and sometimes ploughing with single ploughs before 
the second and last harrowing. 
4. “ The effects as to improvement and exhaustion.” These are also 
much influenced by the circumstances already adverted to as affecting the 
production, but it may be assumed, that the land is left in much better 
heart after a fallow crop, than after wheat succeeding corn; when the 
last, however, has credit by the greater quantity of grain yielded by the 
two crops over the one, it exhibits too imposing a claim, upon the score 
of profit, to be given up, even on our clay lands. On the light sandy 
lands of the lower country, so much better suited to Indian corn, and less 
adapted to fallows, I am of the opinion, that wheat after corn, is the most 
profitable and judicious course of husbandry. 
