A CONSOLIDATION OF BUEL’S CULTIVATOR AND THE GENESEE FARMER. 
Cult. Vo!. VIII.—No. 12. 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY. 
GAYLORD 80 TUCKER, EDITORS. 
LUTHER TUCKER, PROPRIETOR. 
One Dollar per annum—Six Copies for $5. 
(payable always in ADVANCE.; 
20 per cent commission on 25 or more subscribers, and 
25 per cent commission on 100 or more. 
Subscriptions'to commence with a yolume; and the money 
to be sent free of postage. 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND.’ 
Our Next Volume, 
The present number closes the 8th volume of the 
Cultivator, and we shall commence the 9th on the 
1st of January next. It would be idle to deny that wc 
have not been gratified at the extensive circulation the 
Cultivator has received,—(a circulation unequalcd by 
any agricultural journal in this, and we believe, in any 
other country,)—and with the general expression of ap¬ 
probation which our labors in the cause of an improved 
husbandry have called forth from those best qualified to 
judge, the farmers of our wide-spread country. We 
shall commence our new volume under peculiarly fa 
vorable auspices. Our list of valuable correspondents 
has been greatly augmented the present year, and our 
arrangements for foreign correspondence and publica¬ 
tions are now so perfect that we shall receive as soon as 
published, nearly or quite all the agricultural journals 
or works of interest, from the Old World. The course 
and character of the Cultivator is so well understood, 
that it is only necessary to say that every effort will be 
made by the conductors to fully sustain the high repu¬ 
tation the work has already acquired for usefulness, as 
well as excellence of mechanical execution. The nume¬ 
rous illustrations will be continued ; and such arrange¬ 
ments have been made as will give additional facilities 
for increasing the value of this important feature of the 
Cultivator. 
To those numerous friends and correspondents, who 
have furnished such a mass of most important and use¬ 
ful facts for our paper the past year, we tender our 
most grateful acknowledgments. They have the. satis¬ 
faction of knowing that their papers have passed into 
the hands of more than twenty thousand of the most 
able theoretical and practical farmers of the United 
States, and exercised a proportionate influence on the 
public mind. We cannot doubt they will still feel a 
pleasure in lending their aid to disseminate agricultural 
information, by furnishing such facts, farm reports, no¬ 
tices of crops,—improved implements,—valuable breeds 
of cattle, sheep or other animals,—and all such other 
matter as shall assist in. elevating the character, im¬ 
proving the condition, and increasing the knowledge of 
the American farmer. 
Our sincere thanks are also due to the many friends 
of agriculture, editors of the public press, postmasters 
professional, men, and others, who have aided us, and, 
as we hop6, benefited the farmer by bringing our work 
to the notice of their friends, and procuring and for- 
warding names as subscribers to the Cultivator. That 
aid we trust will be still continued,—and all favors of 
the kind will he reciprocated by us as far as is in our 
power. -- 
The Index, Title page, &c. to the present vo¬ 
lume will he sent to all our subscribers in the course of 
the next fortnight. 
12 
ALBANY, N. Y. DECEMBER, 1841. 
A Word to Our Subscribers. 
At the suggestion of some of our friends, who think 
many of our subscribers would be greatly accommodat¬ 
ed by such a course, we have concluded to send the 
next volume of the Cultivator to all our present sub¬ 
scribers, instead of waiting for them to renew their sub¬ 
scriptions as heretofore, except in cases where a dis¬ 
continuance may be ordered ; and, as we hope to part 
w ith but fdw ot those who have accompanied us the 
past year, we would respectfully request such of our 
present subscribers as may find it convenient, on taking 
this number from the post-office, at once to hand over 
their dollar, either to the postmaster, who will forward 
it to us, or to such agents of the paper as may be most 
convenient. Subscribers may also confer a favor on 
their farming friends who do not receive such a paper, 
as well as on us, if they show them a copy of our Jour¬ 
nal and procure their subscriptions. 
English Correspondence. 
The readers of the Cultivator will remember the ac¬ 
count we gave in the August No. of the current volume 
of some interesting experiments made by John Han- 
nam, Esq. of North Deighton, Yorkshire, on the early 
harvesting of wheal, showing the decided advantages 
of such a practice. We have the pleasure now of lay" 
ing before our readers some extracts from a letter re¬ 
ceived from that gentlemen, dated the 6th of October 
from which it appears he has continued or repeated his 
experiments the present year with the same results • 
and the reasons he gives for the practice we think are 
such as will commend themselves to the attention of 
our farmers : 
If I have been slow in replying to your kind commu¬ 
nication, I beg you will attribute it not more to a pres- 
sure of many avocations than to a desire to return some¬ 
thing more useful or interesting than mere sounding 
words ; and this, I think, I shall do, when I tell you 
that I have, according to my promise in the Quarterly 
Journal, carried on my experiments on reaping wheat 
on a much more comprehensive scale than I "did last 
year. Though unable to state to you the particular re- 
suits, from the fact of each variety being in stack 
(where I intend them to remain till after Christmas ) I 
may venture to say that the sample cut raw (or a fort- 
night before it was ripe) will be the best. This opinion 
I now give not on the strength of my last year’s experi¬ 
ments, but from a more practical and direct evidence 
having thrashed a sheaf of each variety, for the pur- 
pose of exhibiting the samples, at the annual meeting 
of our Wetherby Agricultural Society, at which time 
they were viewed by thousands, whose unanimous opi- 
mon was in favor of the raw—an opinion confirmed by 
the judges, who awarded me a premium of £1 with a 
high commendation of the raw sample.”* 
“ 1 am happy to be able to say that the harvest is 
now over in this part of the conntry, and that it has 
been a veiy favorable one for those who were as stirring 
as they ought to be. A fortnight’s rain (which has only 
afforded the late farmers an opportunity of securing 
their crops a few days ago) has injured some little 
wheat, and much barley and oats. Where this has 
happened, in my opinion, the farmer has no one to 
blame but himself. Too frequently do we see him 
wasting his time at the beginning of harvest, by wait¬ 
ing till his corn is dead ripe, to the detriment of his 
crops, and to the great risk of bad weather coming on. 
ihis 1 have seen in many cases this year, and had I a 
q.* In ,, aa interesting report of the ‘< Wetherbv Agricultural 
Show,” which we find in the "Leeds Intelligencer,” is the fol- 
iowmg notice of Mr. Hannam’s experiments'the present year- 
IMr. John Hnnnam of North Deighton, Wetherby, a Correspon¬ 
ding Member of the New-York State Agricultural Sodety,Ex¬ 
hibited four samples of thrashed wheat which had been cm 
thcTh a *'Deighton, at different periods of the present year- 
ciov!i h mL. Vv?* 1 “ terval 1 s of a week each, and the last afort- 
the third sample. The experiment had demonstrated 
tho IS ^ aC i IOn °,f. a 'f w h<> viewed the different samples, that 
'Ti hlCh w - as cut in what is called the raw state, 
a fortnight before the gram was ripe, was by far the most sune 
tn°he i” d i n T 0n \ Y 16 the grain bettcr > but the straw is stated 
^“??!?7, t 'S ent r P Gr «' 1U superior to that which is suffered 
to grow till fully ripe. Mr. Hannam made similar experiments 
eultnre cf re f°c r ‘ lc - d in the Quarterly Journal of Agrb 
,, A re °f the Highland Society of Scotland for June, 1841 • in 
the Farmer s Magazine for July, 1841: and theNew-York Cnitf 
2» f0 W> I84 S Thc i ud S es awarded £1 for these S: 
ipqf’hnn!^' Jfoftnam also received the premium of £5 for the 
best hunter, there being eighteen entries against him. 
Cult, & Far. Yol. II—No- 12- 
season to point out, to corroborate my former remarks 
on the value of the time we gain by beginning our wheat 
harvest early, I could not find one that would do it so 
well as the present one—nor could I find a better illus¬ 
tration of the greater chance of securing the crop, which 
I stated in my paper on reaping wheat, was afforded by 
cutting early, than is afforded in this immediate neigh¬ 
borhood. Thus on a certain farm in this neighbor¬ 
hood, the wheat (which was rather backward) was cut 
in a raw state—the first result of which was, that it 
was safely housed before the wheat on some farms in 
the vicinity was reaped. But this was only the ‘ be¬ 
ginning of the end,’ (to use a Gallicism.) ’the wheat 
cutting being over early, the barley and oats were cut 
down, and consequently secured in a much shorter time 
than they would if the wheat had been left to get ripe ; 
more especially as this wheat was not so forward in 
ripeness as some in the neighborhood;—in fact the 
whole of the ‘ white corn ’ on this farm was secured in 
fine condition, before the rainy weather began, while 
upon many farms, where the corn was in an equally 
forward condition, some wheat and much of the spring 
corn has been damaged. Such would have been the 
case upon this farm, if the fine weather at the begin¬ 
ning of the harvest had not been made use of. 
“11 it be said, and it has been in my hearing, that it 
‘ happened so,’ and that the ‘ latter end of harvest 
might have been finer weather than the beginning 
then would I beg to urge that in sucli an event the reap¬ 
ing might have been delayed ; for if the weather is un¬ 
favorable for early reaping, we can wait till the grain 
is ripe, in hopes of a better late harvest, but where we 
have fine weather at the beginning, and we do not use 
---- J HO nut uac 
it, we have afterwards no dernier resort , no alternative, 
but to take the weather as it may come. And for this, 
as one reason, 1 say, when the weather is fine for early 
cutting— e. g. this year—' make hay while the sun 
shines ;’ for fine weather is too valuable to be wasted 
anywhere, but in a climate so fickle as our own, we 
ought especially to ‘seize the moments as they’fly. , 
And such is .my estimate of the value of this prompti- 
tude, that it is my firm opinion that by adopting itmore 
genet ally, and by an equally prompt method, sowing our 
wheat before the season gets so far advanced, it is in 
our power to lessen materially the risk of harvest, and 
to guard, in a great measure, against that damage from 
bad weather, which, when it does happen to the crop, 
is a loss not only to the farmer but to the whole commu¬ 
nity.” 
Highland Agricultural Society. 
In the New Farmer’s Journal, and in a supplement 
to the Mark Lane Express, we find full accounts of the 
Annual Meeting and Show of the Highland Agricultu¬ 
ral Society of Scotland, which, in the magnitude of its 
operations, the number of its pi’emiums, the amount 
bestowed,, and the influence exerted, was long the most 
active society in the world, and is even now second only 
to the Royal Agricultural Society of England. It 
was held at Berwick in the last week of September, and 
as usual drew together an immence concourse of the 
best and most public spirited farmers and land-owners 
of Scotland. More than 1,000 animals were present 
for exhibition, among which were about eighty Short 
Horns of the most beautiful kinds. Forty Short Horn 
bulls were offered for premiums in the several ages 
anil twenty-one were entered for the first premium! 
which was £100. The weather, much of the time, was 
very unfavorable, but the arrangements were so perfect 
as in a great degree to obviate this inconvenience We 
find that at these meetings of the Highland Society, as 
well as those of the Royal English one, the price of ad¬ 
mission to the yards, exhibition of implements, &c is 
hxed at a certain rate, and a very large part of the 
tumls oi the societies are derived from this source. 
ihe good which this noble society has effected in 
Scotland is incalculable. It may in fact be said to have 
revolutionized the character of Scottish Agriculture 
and increased the products of the soil in the'accreiratP 
more than two-fold. The best animals of the best 
breeds ; the best agricultural implements, and the most 
perfect systems of husbandry have succeeded the worst 
of each kind, that were to be found in Great Britain 
Long may it continue to flourish, and its usefulness to 
increase and extend. 
’Virtue, like fire, turns all things into itself• our 
tions and our friendships are tinctured with it s 
whatever it touches becomes amiable.” ’ 
