142 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
ask with astonishment, how the British farmer can afford to pay a guinea 
an acre rent? [a tenth of his produce in tithes, and an enormous tax.] The 
difficulty is solved if we examine the above statement; since the diffe¬ 
rence between fallowing, and establishing a rotation of crops, amounts to 
more than the difference of our rents and theirs. I know there are some 
stiff soils on which it would be difficult to establish the rotation I mention, 
but this should be no argument against it where the soil will admit of it, 
particularly as clover and vetches may be introduced with a certainty of 
success, even if the ground should be naturally poor, by the addition of 
only four bushels [one bushel] of gypsum to the acre, which will indeed, 
add 16s. [4s.] a year to the acreable expense, but it will in all probability, 
at the same time add nearly a ton to the produce. * * * I would not 
be considered, as confining my observations to vetches, which have not yet 
been sufficiently tried in this country; potatoes or carrots—or peas sown 
thin, and cut green for provender, may all answer the purpose, but above 
all, clover. If this last is the only crop to be brought into the rotation, the 
system must be changed to the following course: 1st, corn; 2d, barley and; 
clover; 3d and 4th, clover; 6th, wheat and one ploughing; by this means 
a crop of clover will be substituted for a fallow.” 
Thus far the extract; to which we would add this suggestion, that as the 
culture of turnips is now successfully progressing among us, and as the 
winter wheat crop is becoming so precarious, as to render a resort to tae 
spring varieties of that grain probable, the tollow’ing course would be bet¬ 
ter adapted to our husbandry, than the one recommended above: 1st 
year, corn or potatoes, upon a clover lay, manured with long manure; 2d 
year, spring wheat with clover seeds; 3d year, clover cut, and followed 
by turnips; 4th year, barley or oats, with grass seeds; 5th year, mea¬ 
dow; 6th year, pasture. In this way seven crops would be obtained in 
six years; three of them w'ould be decidedly ameliorating, and but two 
particularly exhausting—and in five of the seven years the field would af¬ 
ford pasture in autumn. Two objections may be started to this course, 
first, that the clover cannot be cut in time to get in the turnip crop, in 
the third year; and, 2d, that sowing grass seeds twice in the course will 
be too expensive. To the first objection we offer our common practice, 
which is, to sow our ru'a baga upon a clover ley,—the small southern clo¬ 
ver—after the grass has been cut for hay—the white turnip may be put in 
four weeks later. To the second objection we answer, that the value of 
the clover ley, to the soil, to say nothing of the feed which the crop will 
afford to cattle, will twice repay the cost of the seed. We are satisfied, 
from experience, that it is profitable to sow clover with every crop of 
small grain, on lands adapted to alternate husbandry. 
But to come back to our subject. Our readers have probably all heard 
of the agricultural school at Hoffwyl, in Switzerland, where science is 
combined with practice, and where, under M. Fellenburgh, the new sys¬ 
tem of husbandry has for some time been in successful operation. The 
celebrated-Mr. Brougham visited this school in 1816, and in a report to 
the British parliament, on education, he gives the results of his examina¬ 
tion and inquiry. The Hoffwyl establishment comprises but 214 acres.' 
The annual average profit of the pattern farm alone, for four years, amount¬ 
ed, according to Mr. Brougham’s statement, to 886 pounds sterling, or 
about $4,000, exclusive of the cattle concern, which was kept separate. 
In Rees’ Encyclopaedia, we are furnished with numerous comparisons, 
in detail, between the old and new systems of husbandry, two or three 
of which we will notice, in abstract. The first comparison is made on a 
mixed, or grazing, breeding and tillage farm, of 314 acres, in York. Un¬ 
der the old system the nett profits amounted to 313/. I Os. and under the 
new system the same lands yielded a nett profit of 59 61. or near 100 per 
cent increase. The second case is that of a tillage farm, of 139 acres, in 
Lincolnshire. Under the old system the profits were 130/.—under the 
new 452/.—difference in favor of the latter 322/. or 250 per cent. The 
third statement exhibits the profits of an acre of land, being the medium 
of several hundred acres, in Yorkshire, for six years. Under the old sys¬ 
tem the profit was 1/. 9s. 3d. —under the new 17/. 6s. 9 d. —an increased 
gain of more than eleven hundred per cent in favor of the latter. The 
medium profit of an acre in tillage, in England, is 27 to 36 dollars per an¬ 
num. The nett profit upon Mr. Harris’s farm, near Poughkeepsie, which 
we noticed in our third volume, w r as more than twenty-three dollars per 
acre. 
These facts will suffice to show the great superiority of the new, over 
the old system of farming. 
By way of improvement. —The old fashioned farmer is admonished by 
the foregoing statements, that he must mend his ways if he would prosper 
in his business,—that he must study, practise and adopt the new system 
—drain his land,—economise and apply his manures—alternate his crops 
—cultivate roots and clover, and increase his stock. The new settler 
should be admonished to adopt a like course, to perserye the fertility of 
his soil, and to perpetuate its profits to his children. 
In travelling westward, we have remarked an astonishing recklessness 
among farmers in regard to their manures, the primary source of fertility. 
But few cattle yards are cleaned in the spring, and many not at all; and 
we are told of a man, —for we cannot call him a farmer —who chuckled 
mightily among his neighbors, alledging that he had taken in the buyer of his 
farm, inasmuch as he would have to remove the barn, on account of the 1 
manure which surrounded it! These remarks apply particularly to the 
country east of Onondaga. West of that the great wheat farmers some¬ 
times take a more summary way to disencumber their barns and yards— 
they cart their straw to the field and burn it! This is no fiction. How 
long will it take, under this system, to bring down the fertility of the pro¬ 
lific west, to the standard of worn out lands! 
ROHAN POTATO. 
The readers of the Cultivator may remember our former notices of this 
vegetable, as a species of uncommon size and productiveness. We ob¬ 
tained two tubers from France last fall, and the kindness of an esteemed 
friend, J. A. Thompson, Esq. of Catskill, enabled us to increase our seed 
to twelve pounds. We divided the tubers intosets of two eyes each, and 
planted one set in a hill, four feet apart, in a piece of ground much shad¬ 
ed, and in rather low condition. We dug, weighed and measured the 
crop on the 28th September. It weighed 525 pounds, and measured nine 
bushels—35 of the largest tubers filling a bushel basket. We have hardly 
been able yet to decide upon the quality of this potato, having barely tasted 
of one; yet we deem it equal to the English white, orange or the common 
peach blossom variety, which are the kinds commonly cultivated. Others, 
however, in whose opinion we place great confidence, do not hesitate to 
pronounce them superior for the table. They are undoubtedly the most 
productive variety of the potato we have ever met with. 
While on the subject of the potato, we cannot but express our surprise, 
that in our journeyings we seldom have good potatoes set before us. They 
are mostly yellow fleshed, often clammy, and sometimes strong and unpa¬ 
latable. Our farmers look more to the yield than to the quality. Of the 
better kinds known here, we may enumerate the following: 
1. Kidneys, or foxites, white flesh, rather small, and seemingly dete¬ 
riorating, as an old variety. 
2. Pink eyes, white flesh, rather kidney shaped, yield well, and are yet 
in their prime. 
3. St. Helena, very similar in flesh, shape, color and quality to the fore¬ 
going, without the pihk eyes, or blotches—to us a new variety. 
4. Early kidneys —real kidney shaped, smooth, white and of fair size 
—the best early variety. 
5. Mercer —well known and deservedly liked. 
6. Sault St. Maria —the true kind large, long, dark colored and good. 
7. Liverpool blues —colored, good size and productive. Boil white, 
and may be placed in the first class for the table. 
The foregoing we esteem the best kinds. There may be other kinds 
equally good, and some that we have enumerated may be known by other 
names. The forty-fold has been highly commended for its productive¬ 
ness and good qualities, with what truth we will not venture to say. 
EXPERIMENT'IN HARVESTING CORN. 
We think it has been well established, in repeated experiments, that 
the old, and in many cases present practice,-of topping corn, very consi¬ 
derably diminishes the quantity of grain, a result which vegetable physio¬ 
logists had long ago proclaimed. Desirous of knowing how far the product 
would be diminished by cutting up the entire crop, at the ordinary period 
of topping, we invited the public attention to the subject in our March 
number, and have subsequently instituted a small experiment, the result 
of which we give below. We do not mean to intimate that this experi¬ 
ment is conclusive, though the result is such as we expected; and we 
therefore again invite gentlemen who may have experimented in the mat¬ 
ter, to forward us the results, in order the better to arrive at a correct 
conclusion, in a matter which is certainly of high interest to the farmer; 
for if other trials justify our conclusions, an immense loss is annually sus¬ 
tained by the practice of topping corn. 
On the 16th of September we selected thirty-two hills of corn,—being 
a good sample of two acres—in four contiguous rows, eight hills in a row, 
and topped them in the old way. 
We selected thirty-two hills in like manner, adjoining the preceding, 
which we cut at the roots, and stroked,-at the same time. 
And we left thirty-two hills adjoining the last, to ripen on the entire 
stalk. 
The three parcels were apparently alike. 
On the 9th of October, we picked, husked and weighed each parcel 
separately. The weight, and number of ears, of all descriptions, were as 
follows: 
No. 1 standing, weighed 625, and had 139 ears. 
No. 2 cut up, “ 63|, “ 145 “ 
No. 3 topped, “ 55j, “ 135 “ 
We then equalised the number of ears, by taking four from No. 1, and 
ten from No. 2, leaving 135 in each. The weight was then as follows: 
No. 1 standing,. 614 pounds. 
No. 2 cut up,. 6o| “ 
No. 3 topped,. 55& “ 
The field having been planted precisely three feet distant between the 
rows, and about two and a half feet the other way, would average 5,808 
hills on the acre. The acre would, therefore, according to the above re¬ 
sults, give the following product in pounds: 
