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trimmed thorn hedges, and tilled with garden-like precision and cleanliness." It is an "expensive style of agriculture," as Mr. Read calls it, that one finds here; and the soil, naturally weak, is of that kind that if farmed badly, will ruin any man," but so long as those results with an account of which this chapter was commenced, are here accomplished, it is worth some time and study to look into the means that are employed to produce them."

flocks which are the sheet anchor of the occupiers of these lands." Here the poppy, which I had seen so extensively blooming on the continent, is also a troublesome pest, in the wheat-fields particularly. By plowing the "ley' or grass land, early, and letting it lie for some time after a light rolling, the winter annuals get quite a start before the harrowing and heavy rolling take place to prepare the ground for wheat sowing. As early in the succeeding sea son as February, the field is well horse or hand hoed; the The story of the improvements wrought out by Mr. wheat, if buried, soon grows through its covering, while Coke, afterwards the Earl of Leicester, has been so often the poppy, which is as tender when young as it is tough in told, that we shall not care to recount it here at length. more advanced stages of its existence, is either pulled up Finding his tenants throwing up their leases at $1.25 per or turned under, and after its eradication, together with the acre when he came into the estate, he was able finally to consolidation and manuring of the land, even a blowing command a rental of $5 and $6. It became his object sand produces fair crops of wheat, which is said to be less to secure the best of tenants, and through their enlightenaffected by dry seasons here than either barley or oats.ment to develope the agricultural resources of his property, Sainfoin is highly esteemed here-proving less likely to fail, or to suffer from drouth, than clover and other "seeds." Rye is sown largely for sheep feed, it is stated, I suppose to be eaten off before other grazing is ready turnips follow advantageously, and are mainly fed to fatting sheep, while after the rye is used, "the sainfoin and other layers, with a run on some of the sheep walks," supply the wants of the breeding flock, and, when finally the lambs are weaned, they continue during the day to keep well on the heather, and at night are folded over the "ley ground for wheat."

because he soon found it to require a degree of personal supervision which no one man could possibly bestow. At the Holkham's sheep-shearings, he invited leading practical men to meet his tenants and himself in discussing his measures;

was found an essential pre-requisite that more stock should be kept, and to this natural source of increasing fertility was added the application upon the surface of the marl which was found to be underlying it almost everywhere. Then came Art, scattering rape-cake as a fertilizer for the wheat, introducing clover and artificial grasses, and thus enabling the farmer to keep better live The experiment has recently been made of planting stock, while at the same time enlarging his production of belts of firs across these open sandy districts, to break the the cereals. The Devons and South Downs were accordwind, and I judge from Mr. Read's remarks, quite suc-ingly brought into the county and the four-course or cessfully.

The best soil of Norfolk lies to the north-eastward of Norwich-a "free working loam of capital texture and great depth." There is also a strip of still stiffer loam running from the southeast to the middle portion of the county-not stubbornly stiff, however; requiring drainage, but with good management favorable both for sheep and for all the grains. The two improvements that have taken place here, Mr. Read observes, are a greater growth of roots, and better draining. Bush drains are of ancient date, and still somewhat in use, although pipe are now most common; the ordinary depth heretofore has been from 2 to 3 feet-"now the general depth is 34 feet, or from that to 4 feet."

To complete our glimpse at the Norfolk soils, we should not omit to mention the other marshy district that skirts the rivers Yare and Bure in the cast, where windmills are largely used for draining, and where grass is the chief product. It will thus be seen that there is quite a variety of surface in this one county-that on which its most noted improvements have taken place, and which forms the most extensive and important part, I have reserved until after enumerating the others, for it is there that my time was chiefly spent, and of which I have therefore the most to

say.

Norfolk system of husbandry was established.* The wise and far-sighted views of Mr. Coke not alone effected these immediate changes: but, by the liberality he showed his tenants, and the spirit of improvement he fostered among them, the future as well as the present was embraced within the sphere of his influence; and, although passed away from the scenes of his exertions, his example still survives, and is conducive of farther progress not only there, but wherever in other counties the better systems are supplanting the worse.

We shall resume hereafter the subject of Norfolk agriculture.

CULTURE OF CURRANTS.

I would be glad to see in your paper, a complete article on the cultivation of the currant. I got some plants from Toronto last fall, called White Grape and Red Cherry currants, and would like to know how to treat them, and what sort of soil is best for them, J. D. w. Kingston, C. W.

No fruit will more certainly grow under adverse treatment than the currant or to use the quaint phrase of our facetious friend BROOKS of Wyoming county, which will "stand grief" better. Planted under the fence of a neglected and weedy garden, or enveloped in tall grass, and never pruned, currant bushes still continue to afford yearly One difference between it and the richer land in the crops. But these crops are very puny fruit-such as they north-east is, that it bears more forcing without producing are, however, they are better than the owners deserve, who ought to be willing to devote to them a small share straw instead of grain; indeed it is said that while the appearance of a field in the one will lead to an over-esti- of the cultivation which other crops receive. For no fruit mate of the crop, a stranger travelling in western Norfolk is more improved under right management than the curwill often place his figures four bushels below the actual result obtained. "The general appearance of the coun try," says Mr. Caird, "is flat and unpicturesque to the eye of the tourist, though the experienced agriculturist will find much to admire in the large, open, well cultivated fields divided from each other by straight lines of closely

rant. We have known the berries to be increased at least ten to twelve times in size by pruning, manuring, and cultivation. The annexed cut is an exact representation of the size of common red currants grown on neglected

In this summary I have followed the outline presented by Mr.

Caird in his Notes on English Agriculture, already frequently referred

١٢

bushes, and on those under proper treatment. (Fig. 1.) not so perfect a mode as the tree form, is well adapted to Those new varieties, the Cherry currant, which grows five ordinary culture, where it may prove inconvenient to make eighths of an inch in diameter, and the White Grape, new plantings frequently. But successive pruning and which is often an inch in diameter, when both are fairly good and enriching cultivation are especially necessary treated, often greatly disappoint purchasers, who totally VARIETIES. The common red and white currants, as neglect them, when they become but little larger than we have already remarked, are capable of great improve other sorts.or hol or Dow vod nedsment by pruning and cultivation. The Red and White betongs His boot us Dutch are much like these, but the bunches are much Fotos hoje ya nylonger, and they are consequently greatly preferred. The JRoode and tones bolquins flow godwatte bus Cherry Currant is the largest red variety, (Fig. 3,) being qsa bol i bidone odhody to as w bogat tad bis hodno auds now botalias od fiz

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The currant is propagated by cuttings. shoot is taken, seven or eight inches long, cutting it off close to the old wood, and set about two-thirds of its length in the earth, which is closely packed about it. As roots are apt to be thrown out at each bud, all the lower ones are taken off. (Fig. 2.) It will make a good well-rooted plant by autumn. Scarce varieties may be layered at midsummer, if growing rapidly, and will root the same season. usually about half an inch in diameter under good culture, and five-eighths with the best management. It is a vigor, The bushes will grow in any good soil. It should be kept rich with frequent manuring. The ground must be ous grower, and was formerly supposed to be a poor bearer, kept clean and mellow, the same as for a cabbage or hill but this has proved to be a mistake. A row, thirty feet of potatoes. The best way, both for facilitating cultiva-long, three years planted, bore last year one bushel of

tion, and for neatness of appearance, is to allow but a single stem to grow at the surface of the ground, the branches spreading out into a regular head a few inches up. These branches should be kept thin by pruning, or at regular distances, so as to admit air and sun to the leaves and branches in every part. If the growth is allowed to be come dense and thickly shaded, the fruit will be smaller, of inferior flavor, and less in quantity. As the branches

become old, they should be cut out, and new and vigorous ones, which have been allowed to grow for this purpose, take their place somewhat similar to the renewal pruning of the grape-but with this exception, that while the grape bears on the present year's wood from last year's shoots, the currrant bears on shoots one year or more older; hence the renewal should not be so frequent. Some skill must be exercised, when shoots are left for new branches, to leave them on the lower parts of the bush, in such a position as to fill up regularly the future vacancies.

Bushes preserved, as here described, in the tree form, or with but a single stem at bottom, lose their vigor in a few years, and should be replaced by new plants, which will give larger fruit. But if allowed to grow in the bush form with several stems springing up from the earth together, they may be thinned out and pruned at the surface in such a manner as to afford a continued succession of new branches with roots, to take the place of the older portions as they are successively cut out. This, therefore, although

fruit. The White Grape is perhaps the largest white sort being usually nearly half an inch in diameter. (Fig. 4.) It is not a very vigorous grower, and is of rather a spreadbunches and red berrries; under good culture they are ing habit. The Victoria, a late, rather acid sort, has long quite large, but if neglected, no larger than the common red currant. Knight's Sweet Red, is light red, and rather insipid but not sweet. Prince Albert is a rather new ripening, productive and valuable. The Versaillaise is a variety, a vigorous grower, fruit red, quite large, late in new sort, deep red, very large, next in size to the Cherry currant, and productive-but its merits are not yet established. The Black Naples is the largest of the black varieties, but its strong musky flavor is agreeable to but few.

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WORMS IN HORSES.-A correspondent of the Southern Cultivator recommends copperas as a remedy for worms in horses. He administers a tablespoonful, pulverized; in lieved of the worms at once-eats and thrives, and his three or four days the dose is repeated; the horse is rehair becomes sleek.

HAY REQUIRED TO KEEP A HORSE.-A correspondent of the Wisconsin Farmer, who has given careful attention to the subject, says that five pounds of hay at a feed, or fifteen pounds per day, with twelve quarts of oat meal, or its equivalent in shorts, will keep a good sized horse in fine condition for all road or farm work, and is amply sufficient. Some will keep on considerably less; this, however, is a fair average.

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[For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator:]
exam of How to Make Farming Pay---III.14
bus
Another step towards rendering farming a paying busi-
ness, was then, as it now is, the adoption and carrying out
of a renovating system My idea was, that if twenty tons
of grain and straw were removed from a field, not less

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at a meal, more or less of the nutriment is voided in the excrement, which, had it been brought in contact with other food during digestion, would have been assimilated, us supplying the waste of the body or going to make fat. So with feeding stock; if we grind together oats, rye, barley, and

thus

more equal quantities of each, stock

than that number of tons of good manure must be returned will derive an

nutriment from the meal thus min

gled, than they will if each kind is fed separately. "So with feeding all coarse fodder. I have always found that I can make my stock eat more, by feeding cornstalks, hay, and straw, when well mingled together, than they will eat when each kind is fed separately; and more nutriment will be assimilated when thus fed out, than if they are not mingled

crop of grain or grass for the succeeding year. For this reason, all manure should be sheltered; and I am satisfied that it pays quite as well to protect manure as it does to protect stock: The better an animal is kept, the more valuable will be the manure, and the better it pays to protect it from the influences of the weatlier. The ordure of cattle, which consume several pounds of any kind of meal per day, will be worth twice as much as a fertilizer, as that is from very poor cattle, which are compelled to subsist on straw and fodder that is not very nutritious.

to it. To carry out this theory, my stables and barn-yard were so arranged and constructed, that no manure, either fiquid or or solid, was lost. The manure from the horse stalls, instead of being thrown out in a heap, where it would soon heat and become fire-fanged, was taken on a wheelbarrow from the stable and scattered about the yard under the open sheds. The manure from the cattle stalls was treated in the same manner. The liquid manure was, and There will be much nutriment voided in the excrement, now is, collected beneath the stable floor, and pumped even when we exercise all possible economy in mingling into wooden conducters which carry it to any desired part and feeding the produce of the farm. Consequently, of the sheds, where it is absorbed by the stable manure. everything that has not been assimilated by animals should This aids its decomposition and keeps it from being fire-be carefully deposited in the soil, where it will build up a fanged; and as it is all under shelter, there is no danger that the manure will be saturated with water, so as to make it unnecessarily heavy to haul out, nor will it lose any of its fertilizing qualities by leaching. When manure is exposed to the influences of the weather, where it can leach, the best part of it is always carried away first. Another step in carrying out a renovating system is, to consume as much coarse grain as possible, in making beef and mutton. A farmer, in order to make farming pay well, must be a consumer as well as a producer. Point us to a farmer who does not consume, yearly, a good portion of his coarse grain in making beef and mutton, and of course does not make a good supply of barn-yard manure, and we will point out a system of management which will soon impoverish and ruin, for one generation, any good farm, unless a vast amount of foreign manure is applied to the soil. Every farmer should make his own manure as far as is practicable. It is a most ruinous policy to expend large sums, annually, for foreign manure or for any kind of fertilizers, when all the available substances of a farm are not wisely used up in making manure in some shape.

One of my first steps towards renovating my farm, when I commenced farming, was—and I have never abandoned it-to keep as many steers or bullocks during the winter as I could conveniently, so as to consume all the coarse fodder and coarse grain, ground-into meal, that could be used up economically. Of course, my cattle have always been fed in stalls, and nothing is wasted. I always endeavor to have all their food palatable, and make them eat everything up clean. And while multitudes of farmers aim to keep their stock during the winter on the least possible allowance, my aim is to make them eat as much as I can, by feeding a variety of food every day.

I have always considered raising stock one of the most important steps towards making farming pay. But when a man computes appearances in the matter, and is always influenced by what seems to be the present cost to produce a given result, his farm will soon become impover ished and ruined, and his stock will seem more like the "lean kine," spoken of by Moses, (Gen. 41:19,) than like the stock of a thriving farmer.

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In the autumn of 1848, I had a lot of rather good steers, two years old, which I wished very much to dispose of for needed cash; but no one was willing to give me $25 per head for them. I had but little hay that season, and but a limited quantity of cornstalks. Every one who came into my barn and saw my fodder and the number of cattle, would shake his head, and say, if you keep all those cattle until spring on this quantity of fodder, I would like to see them, &c. One good old farmer, who now rests from earthly toil, when he saw how much each animal received, said: "It is a piece of consummate folly for you to feed your animals so much. You will never see half the value of what you feed." And then went on to tell how he kept his stock, &c., without feeding any meal or hay until towards spring. I kindly told him that if I could not make such an operation pay, I would have the satisfaction of doing one thing as it ought to be done. Now for the result.

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It is by no means an economical way to consume fodder or grain of any kind, by feeding only one kind at a time. Some farmers confine their stock for a long time Those steers received, night and morning, a bushel each on cornstalks, for instance; and then keep them on hay of cut straw, cornstalks, and a little hay cut with it, and for a number of weeks, and then switch off on to straw, about two quarts per day of corn and oat-meal, mingled or something else. Stock of all kinds experience a very with the straw after wetting it. Towards spring the quangreat inconvenience many times, from such changes of tity of meal was increased to about four quarts per day. food; just as a man would whose food for one month Each steer consumed about twelve bushels of meal, which might be mush and molasses, and the next month nothing would then have sold for about forty cents per bushel-say but wheat bread, and the next month bean broth, or beef $5 worth of meal for each steer. I managed to have a field soup, or nothing but potatoes, squash, or something else. of early pasture, sufficiently large for the cattle to fill themThere is one very important consideration in feeding selves, before most other people had even thought of havanimals and this is all intimately connected with my ing pasture." Each steer received as much meal for two subject—which not one farmer in a hundred ever thought weeks, when in the pasture, as he did before they were of, until it has been pointed out to him, which is, mingling allowed to feed on grass. After they had run to grass two different kinds of food, for the purpose of rendering a weeks, I received fifty dollars per head for them; and larger amount of the nutriment contained in them assimi- they made a large lot of excellent manure, which increased lable. the grain crop of my farm full one-quarter more than there would have been without manure. I will not stop to foot up the account, to determine whether or not “it paid," for the data are before us. Fifty dollars per head was then thought to be an exhorbitant price for such steers. Such has ever been my system of management; and it has always seemed to pay so well, that I have followed it from year to year, and when distributing seventy-five cents

Suppose, for example, that a man were to subsist for one day on beef, the next day on pork, the next day on beans, and the next day on wheat bread. He will not feel as well, nor be able to labor as many hours each day, as he would if he should eat a portion of every kind of the food mentioned at each meal. Now, the true reason for the fact, is this: when only one kind of food is eaten

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worth of meal among a few calves per day, or among any other stock, this question often arises, "will it pay?" Experience always answers, that if a calf or steer be fed during the winter, five or six dollars worth of meal of several kinds of grain, in addition to the straw and other fodder which he eats, he will be worth in the spring, enough more to pay for the meal he has eaten, than he would have been without having eaten any meal. And besides this, the good effect of the meal will be seen in an animal until the next winter, just as the effect of manure on a field is seen from year to year.

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A neighbor of mine spent a day with me, a few days since, who, seeing the meal, and cut straw, and turnips, which my cattle received, laughed heartily at me when I told him I fed everything regularly, three times per day, in order to induce them to eat all they would. Said he, my practice is directly the reverse of yours: "I endeavor to have my cattle live on as little as they can.7% unit set As this respected friend takes no agricultural paper, I have no hesitancy in penning what I replied to him-that such a system of feeding would never do for me, nor for any other farmer whose aim is to make farming a paying business. This esteemed friend scouts at everything which is published on agricultural subjects, and if a friend supplies him with the best of agricultural reading, gratuitously, he will not read it. But mark the difference.

LL

to

He commenced farming on new land, and mine was old, impoverished land. He never believed it will pay make such a fuss about manure," nor to make animals eat all they will in winter, &c. Now, to sum it all up briefly, he complains that, "for some unknown reason," his crops of all kinds" seem to be rather lighter from year to year," while I know that my crops increase every season, and I shall be greatly disappointed, if my fields do not produce more the coming season than they ever did before. S. EDWARDS TODD. Tompkins Co., N. Y.

[For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] DEEP PLOWING.

tent may do; but if, as in this case, the surface is loam, and the subsoil pure cold clay, it is rainous.

Deep plowing and high nanuring produce profitablė results." Which, the plowing or the manaring? Try the manuring, with a depth of plowing suitable to the soilnot plowing up clay or yellow loam and my word for it, it will be found the most profitable..

I know a farmer who is a large and successful grower of Indian corn, (his subsoil is a yellow loam, sarface fat and free from stone,) who insists that five inches is the proper depth to plow for that crop, and no deeper, and he says experience has taught him this. He certainly always raises extra good crops, which after all is the true test of good farming.

J. G. C.

For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.Jo

African Poultry--New Way of Raising Chickens. MESSES. EDITORS-The amusement, delight and instruetion, weekly derived from the well filled pages of my welcome visitor, the COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, and the freedom which each one seems to have to its columns, induece me to offer to add my experience to that of others upon the subject of miss ing poultry--a subject associated, in my mind, with domestić quiet, and at all times fraught with many happy reflections..

My lot consists of two cocks and fifteen pullets, brought from the coast of Africa, in the early part of January, 1859. In color they are dark blue dominiques, with bright yellow legs and bill. In point of beauty I have rarely seen them equalled, and never surpassed. As layers and setters they are as good as any. On or about the 20th of March following their arrival, they commenced laying in a warm, dry, and above all clean house, made entirely of sassafras timber-(upon which, by the by, lice cannot, or at least will not, live.) The stables for my carriage and saddle borses were adjoining, so that an unlimited supply of worms and maggots was at hand, found in the manure. They had access at all times to troughs filled with corn, wheat and barley mixed. Confinement was unknown to them. Their range was over the cotton field and horse pasture of ten acres. Of one thing only were they deprived-their young. These in two or three days after being hatched, or as soon as they were strong enough, were given MESSRS. EDITORS-Almost everything in this country to a capon, for the reason that he can be made not only a betzeems to run into extremes-whether it is fashion or farm-ter nurse, but that he would father or mother, as you please, ing, politics or religion. The disposition of our people any number of chicks of different ages. The hens too, soon tends to be extravagant in all things, if they can get the forget their young and return to laying. One of my eapons means to become so. Some agricultural writers incline in has had following him at the same time as many as a hundred and fifty, no twenty of which were of the same age. the same direction, and would not a more "conservative" fact, while some were large enough to broil, others had left tone in many respects be more conducive to our prosperi- their shells but a few days. The same fellow is now clucking ty? Many of our journals have for a long time rode hard to fifty, and will get as many more as soon as they are hatched. the hobby of deep plowing-" plow deep" has been their motto, no matter what the soil may be-soine recommending from 12 to 14 inches as the proper depth, while our famous "Professor" insists that three feet are little enough, but our farmers are generally cautious, and but few have been deluded into doing a thing that, on many farms, would be perfectly ruinous. I admit that on some soils a small portion of the subsoil plowed up and mixed with the surface soil may be beneficial-particularly if a large quantity of inanure is added at the same time-and on bottom lands no injury can result; but I caution farmers to be careful how they turn up and intermix clay with the surface soil -it may do sometimes, but the contrary is the rule. You say-page 14, current vol. Cultivator-that." deep plowing is most beneficial to stiff clays, and, as a rule, we may plow deep when the subsoil is of the same character as the surface soil." I greatly question the first; the latter

is no doubt true.

In

Now for the result of the year. From 15 hens I raised 1,374 chickens-478 being males-470 of them soon found themselves capons, worth, at six months old, 50 cents each. Of the remaining 896 pullets, 150 wore kept, and the rest disposed of at an average price of 25 cents-making the handsome sum, not counting those kept for my own use, minus $40.00 for food, and $30.00 for attention, of $351.50. Many eggs, of course, not know. The pleasure of watching the growth and progress were used for household purposes-the exact number I do of these birds was worth treble the money. An overseer nttending to the plantation, many hours of leisure were left me to devote to this small but pleasant experiment.

Shall I or not prepare myself to report the result of the coming year?

If a few of your correspondents would like to get them, so as to try them in a more northern climate, it would be a gratification to me to send several pair. In fact, as they are not raised for sale, but for pleasure alone, ten or twenty couples would be most willingly given, with the condition, however, that at the end of the year the results be made public through the Country Gentleman. WM. P. G.

Ridgeland, Washington Co., Miss.

I know a farmer in this town, who had a lot of rich land near the sea, to which he thought too much sea-weed had been applied, and as deep plowing was so much recommended he would try it upon this lot. So he put in his LIVE AND DEAD WEIGHT OF CATTLE.-Eight Ibs. out plow and turned up a few inches of clay-the subsoil was of every 14 lbs., or four-sevenths of the whole live weight a stiff clay. The effect was his land was that season like of sheep and cattle, represents, when the animal is promortar, (as he expressed it;) he got no crop from it that perly fat, the net weight of the fore quarters, exclusive of season of any account, and but little the next, and I am offal-three-fourths of the live weight of pigs, if fat, repre informed it has not since produced as well as before. If sents the weight when dressed; but pigs have frequently the surface and subsoil are the same, as you say is some- been killed of which the offal was only one-fifth their live times the case, turning up the subsoil to a moderate ex-weight and even less.

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merly. With a good supply of well-cured cornstalks and

our cattle through the winter in good order without any recourse to the hay-mow. It is true, however, that it requires more labor to grow the corn than the hay; but it is also true that the increased value of the former will pay well for the greater labor necessary. It is true also, that to get the greatest benefit from feed of this character, the preparation of cutting and steaming is requisite, as well as the grinding of the grain; but stock may be well wintered, with a little more corn, without either of these processes, ma

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We can winter stock most cheaply when supplied with good barns and sheds, with all the means and appliances for their shelter and comfort, and the preparation of their food, and all the conveniences for saving and composting manures; and some attention to these requisites is of prime importance. These subjects have already received considerable attention in this journal, so we will not ex

tend our remarks in this connection.

Farm Improvement III, Keeping Stock. Improvenzent based on More Manure, and hence More Stock-Ora portion of the grain grown upon the same, we can bring rather, Better Kept Stock-The Coarse Grains should be Fed Out not Sold-John Johnston on High Feeding and its Results-Delafield on Reform in the Treatment of our Grass Lands-Seeding Down before Running Down-Top Dressing, etc.-Wintering Stock on Corn-Stalks-Stock Barns Wanted-The Lesson of the Scarcity of Fodder may be a Valuable One. The Improvement of the Farm, as shown in our previous articles, depends to a great extent upon the amount of manure annually applied to the same, and we have already hinted that keeping stock presented the best means of cheaply securing efficient fertilizing material. It is our present purpose to offer a few thoughts on some of the best methods of increasing the forage product of the farm, and thus compassing the end desired-an increased capacity for stock-feeding and hence an increase of manure and greater fertility and productiveness of the soil. We must premise here, however, that an increase of stock is not, as a general thing, as necessary at first as an increase of feed and care. Were cattle and sheep fed higher on the majority of our farms, they would not only The scarcity of winter fodder this season, has done thrive more profitably, but would produce more and bet- much toward inculcating proper ideas of the economy and ter manure, and thus help on the enrichment of the farm, value of fodder, and if well pondered, will enable our farand enable an increased number of animals to be kept on mers to keep more stock at a greater profit than heretothe same. As we have said before, we must feed out our fore. The real value and uses of straw, the policy of cutcoarse grains upon the farm if we would make them pro- ting and steaming coarse fodder, and the benefits of feedductive; it will not answer to starve our stock that we ing grain and roots, will be better understood and appremay have a little more corn, barley, oats, or roots to sell→→ciated than they have been, and better provision will be we starve our land thereby, and reduce our means of makHigh ing good and profitable crops from the same. feeding," says John Johnston, "will make higher manuring, both by making a larger quantity and a much better quality. It pays, thoroughly to feed young cattle and sheep, so that they are worth more at two years than an immense majority of the cattle in this State are worth Manure is the one thing needat four years old. ful, after underdraining, for making profitable farming." But to return to the ways and means of increasing the capacity of our farms for stock keeping. Years ago the late John Delafield, Esq., told the farmers of New-York that a reform must take place in their treatment of mea-lar dows and pastures, before they could breed or fatten cattle and sheep to the greatest advantage. It is equally true at the present day. In "seeding down" we are are often too sparing of grass seed-we delay the process too long, until our fields are too poor to give a "good catch" or product of grass-and we neglect to top-dress with plaster, ashes, etc., even when we know them to be largely beneficial. There must be a reform here. We must have our land in good tillage, and seed down while the field is still in good heart, with plenty of seed; and top-dress in all cases when it has been found to prove beneficial; then By 2100 bushels corn, @ 50c, per bush.... we shall get a full crop of grass for hay or pasture, and our acre of land so treated will bear double the stock, yea, quadruple which our common pastures now feed. And their fertility may be kept up by care in feeding off, neither unseasonably or unmercifully, and occasional applications of manure-fine compost applied early in the fall, and well harrowed, with another sprinkling of grass seeds.

*

We can winter more stock, without increasing the area of our meadows, if we give the latter good treatment, as above indicated, and thus increase their productiveness, by providing liberally of cornstalks as a substitute for hay in feeding cattle. Farmers are turning increased attention to the corn crop, as a means of keeping stock better and more cheaply than by depending on hay as largely as for

made for husbanding every resource of this character and applying it to the best advantage. This will all tend to extend our Farm Improvements-and on the reliable basis of more manure, the advancement must be certain and permanent.

(For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] CORN RAISING IN PENNSYLVANIA. MESSRS. L. TUCKER & SON-The following statement of a crop of corn, raised in this neighborhood last year (1859,) was furnished to me at my request.

The crop was raised on land belonging to Mr. Samuel Isett, and the account kept by Mr. Gifford, his manager, not with the view of having it published, but in their regubusiness operations. I having heard of it, asked a copy of account to send you, so that a voice may be heard from the interior of the old Keystone State. To interest on 38 acres @ $50 per acre @ 6 per c........

taxes on land.....

CORN CROP-DR.

35 days plowing, breaking up ground,.

8 harrowing, preparing ground,.
scoring and planting,.

6

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6 bushels seed corn...

39 days plowing corn,..

39 setting up and weeding corn, (by boys),.

103**

husking corn,.

Hauling corn from field

1 ton plaster and plastering corn,..
Total,.....*

CONTRA.

10 loads fodder @ $3 per load....

Profit on crop..

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$603 20

The corn was all cut off at the ground, and put up in shocks, as we call it--which will account for so much time required in husking.

JAMES M. KINKEAD.
Blair Co., Pa., March 22, 1860.

DUTCHESS CO. AG. SOCIETY.-Officers for the year 1860:
President JAMES HAVILAND, La Grange.

Vice-Presidents-Geo. W. Coffin, Amenia; Wm. W. Haxtun, Beek

Stockholm, East Fishkill; Philip Vanderbilt, Fishkill; Wm. B. Dinsman: Thomas Doty, Clinton; Valentine H. Hallock, Dover; Edmond more, Hyde Park: James Howard, La Grange; B. B. Brothwell, Milan; David Bryant, Northeast; William Akin, Pawling; Anth. Hoffman. Pine Plains; Geo. L. Dennis, Poughkeepsie; Ira Howland, Pleasant Valley; Abram Staats, Red Hook; C. S. Wainwright, Rhinebeck; Alfred Mosher, Stanford; George Duncan, Union Vale; Milton Haui,

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