(say $11.25) per head. They then receive another six months' pasturage, and are marketed about October or during autumn, when they would bring 50s., thus affording 58. profit besides the wool (which was 128.) sheared in the spring, or a total profit of 17s. (say $4.25) per head.

season.

The story of cattle feeding was not so fine a one. If a beast is put up the first week in November and fed for 6 months, he sometimes consumes during this time as much as half a ton of oil-cake, at a cost of £5. As a general rule, however, Mr. C. wanted a ton of cake to last three beasts during the feeding season, and sometimes the sale of the animal would net 20 to 30 shillings, above its cost and the cost of the cake it had eaten. But as a general rule with cattle that are bought in, feeding no more than pays for the oil-cake, in money-return; for his interest, his labor, and his fodder, the farmer has to seek returns in the manure that is made. Mr. C. generally raises 8 to 10 calves. In feeding the cattle, he gives oil-cake in morning, followlowed by oat straw for fodder; then bean straw at noon, and wheat straw for night and bedding.

The pigs of this part of Lincolnshire will weigh "30 to 40 or even 50 stone," when killed; the stone is 14 lbs.

Draining, Rotation and Crops.

All or very nearly all of Mr. Chapman's land is drained with two inch pipe tile, no collars used, costing 188., (say $4.50) per 1,000, drains 33 feet apart, and from 3 to 5 feet deep. The general depth, however, is three feet and a half, and the cost of draining is from £2 10s. to £3 per acre-the soil being a silty mold or clay, easily dug, while on the wolds, where it is often stony or a greater depth necessary, the cost is considerably greater. The price paid for digging is from 18. to 1s. 2d. per chain of 22 yards, so that the cost per acre for labor alone may be rated at 18 or 20 shillings on the fens, while 3s. 6d. per chain would perhaps no more than cover the labor of digging on the wolds. The drains here on the fens are made to operate well sometimes almost on a level; for instance, in one field there was only a fall of three inches for a length of b chains, less than one inch to a hundred feet.

The system of farming on the wolds is quite commonly the ordinary Norfolk or four course rotation. But on the fens this is generally varied in one way or another. Mr. C.'s general practice he described to me thus:

1. Wheat with seeds sown about May.

"better management," including particularly more manure and better drainage.

Manuring--Hoeing the Wheat--Labor, &c. The manure bere is principally applied to the turnip crop, and, as far as it will go afterwards, upon the wheat ground, if not already too strong. About 15 tons per acre of good farm-yard dung is the dose he means to employ every other year. The breeding ewes eat the stubbles off as closely as possible, and the manure is carted out-say about the middle of February. On a meadow of six acres and a half, we saw a stack of hay probably weighing 14 or 15 tons.

The following statement will show, nearly, the disposi of Mr. Chapman's farm last year:

In wheat, In oats,

34

12

50 acres. In permanent grass... 40 acres. In peas,: In turnips, cabbages, mangolds and rape, 25 acres. And the remainder in grass and clover "seeds." The wheat fields are sometimes hoed in spring, and the seeds sown and harrowed in; sometimes the seeds are drilled crosswise with the drills of wheat, which was thought the better way, and is more in use on the wolds. Clover is cut when well in bloom. It is not customary to salt the hay in curing. It is still more common, I understood, to hoe the wheat on the wolds than on the fen, the cost of the process being about 2s. 3d. per acre, and, subsequently, at about the time of earing, women and boys go through the field to pull the worst weeds-the cost of this second weeding varying according to the time it occupies.

The labor employed on this farm is generally that of four or five men, up to ten in the busy time, at 2s. (say 50 cents) a day; some "confined" men get 10s. a week, with house rent and a certain quantity of bacon, or it may be a quarter of wheat-equivalent altogether to 15s. or 168. per week. The rent paid here for laborers' cottages is from £4 to £5 per annum. Noticing a cottage just completed, with three bed-rooms up stairs, and an out-house, all of brick, I asked a rough estimate of its cost; it had been built for about £90. Mr. C. was then re-draining a field with pipe, which had been drained with brush about 15 years ago. The threshing is here done to a great extent by a portable engine going from farm to farm for the purpose. The

to lie all winter-then in spring, sowing

3. Beans, peas or oats.

4. A Wheat crop, and fallow after harvest-the next year putting in

5. Turnips-followed by wheat again as above.

Or else, in some cases, 3, beans or peas; 4, oats; 5, wheat, and, 6, turnips-making the course another year longer. The rape crop is one often alternated with turnips in this district—that is, every alternate time that a field comes round for turnips, rape is substituted. Sown about the middle of June, it is ready to begin to feed in October, and may be taken off the ground in time for wheat in November, by putting say 250 sheep on a ten acre lotwhich would be just in season to provide for them, while it is desirable to allow a respite to the pastures. An acre of rape, I was told, "won't go as far as an acre of turnips, bat it seems to feed the sheep faster."

power engine and thrasher, with two men and coals found. The grain was thus made ready for marketing, except one dressing; or a machine may be had at a little higher price, perhaps 288. per day, to do the whole operation, including bagging and weighing. Forty to fifty quarters, (320 to 400 bushels,) is considered a fair day's work, taking 8 men and 4 boys to work to advantage, and burning one-third to one-half a ton of coals, at a cost there of 12s. to 14s. per ton.

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

which I found that so much could be learnt in Lincolnshire, that in going I only satisfied myself by mentally forming a determination—destined not to be accomplished -to return to the county again before finally setting out for home.

In the system of practice above outlined, there is a considerable similarity with the ways of farming already described in other localities. The same general objects are kept in view, and much the same agencies employed in reaching them. I have ventured to state the facts I collected in each case, however, even at the risk of repetition as to their general tenor; the details every where vary, more or less, and if there are coincidences which may possibly become tedious, they are all of a kind to impress an American farmer with the importance there universally accorded to careful culture, abundant manuring, thorough underdraining, improved live stock, judicious rotations, and better "management" throughout the whole round of the farmer's duties. It has been justly remarked that the principles that underlie the successful practice of Agriculture are the same everywhere; and it may be added that they are few and simple in themselves, however numerous and intricate may be the modifications they assume in different localities. The application of these principles is universally prominent in farming that is pecuniarily profitable, with only rare and occasional exceptions, and, unless the reader could trace the action of these principles, accompanied by the commentary of their results, more or less distinctly in every step of our progress among the farmers of Great Britain, we should certainly fail in accomplishing the chief end of the journey.

us.

Mr. Chapman kindly brought me into Boston-a pleasant drive, with much that was interesting to see and discuss in the fields and water courses along which it carried On reaching this ancient and notable city, the reader may not care to share in our twilight stroll-to go with us to the evening service at Boston chapel, where we may see the memorial to COTTON MATHER, toward which our American Boston lent its fraternal contributions, or to visit the old church of St. Botolph, with its tower, discernible, it is said, by the sailor forty miles away, and the inscriptions that mark the last homes of the Boston fathers who slumber under the shadow of its walls. He might mind it less, indeed, to be invited with us to a seat in the company room at the Peacock Inn, before one of the juiciest chops, of which the savor still haunts a memory fully appreciative of the merits of English mutton-chops calculated, too, to convey a better idea of the Lincolnshire style of sheep, at least when eaten with a Lincolnshire appetite, than several pages of Martin, Spooner or Youatt.

-Suffice it to say, that the next morning I took the train from Boston to Sleaford, westward far enough to bring me among the farmers of Lincoln Heath. Here let me for the present pause.

Two-HORSE IMPLEMENTS FOR CORN CULTURE.-The Prairie Farmer has a letter on this subject advising farmers to throw aside all their one-horse cultivators, harrows, plows, etc., and procure those which will work two rows at a time, to be drawn by two horses. Some such have already been introduced, and work well on soils rather mellow and free from sods and loose stone. One man can do double work by this means, and take care of twice the number of acres that he can with one-horse implements.

Conger's Sale-Prices and Purchasers-Springside and Mr. Bement's Pets in the Poultry Yard-Thorndale and the Druid's Sketches-The Herd and the Buildings-The Farming and Live Stock of Dutchess County-Pleuro-Pneumonia and the Crops.

THORNEDALE, Friday Evening, June 29. As the "platform" of the COUNTRY GENTLEMAN is a tolerably wide one, with a "plank" for the City as well as broad space for the practical and the beautiful of the Country, perhaps I may be permitted to open a very miscellaneous and hurried letter with a pleasant drive three days ago, in the new "Central Park" of Manhattan Island.

The idea that the northern side of the New-York CityHall "would only be seen by persons living in the suburbs," has by degrees been abandoned even by the most stubborn of the Knickerbockers of the last generation. The progress of the place in less than ten years, indeed, both in actual growth and in public spirit, is illustrated by the anticipations of a Park foreshadowed from Albany through the medium of the Horticulturist, in 1851, as compared with the realization of DOWNING's arguments now going forward. Mayor Kingsland hazarded the recommendation of a hundred and sixty acres of land; Downing daringly called for five hundred; the city has taken more than eight. Twenty streets higher it has gone to find it, than the location mentioned then; five and a half times the sum estimated then, has been paid for the soil; partially completed as it only is at the present time, the thousands are already making it a place of resort and recreation. The winter exercises of the skating pond are finding a counterpart in the shaded walks and "blossoming gardens" of June; and Downing's "lovely lakes," his " whispering trees " and "broad reaches of pleasure ground," are at last shaping themselves one after another to the view, under the impulse of two or three thousand active laborers.

It was a good fortune that threw me in the way of making my visit at the Central Park in the company of friends whose words of criticism and approval as we passed along bore the weight of practical experience perhaps unequalled, and of extended observation both in this and other countries. If I have not time to touch at all upon “the many beauties and utilities" that must grow out of the undertaking, nor yet to allude at length to the measure of far been conducted, it would at least be thankless in no judgment, good or bad, with which its details have thus way to refer to the general merits of the plan, the substantial and thorough manner in which the work is done, and the administrative ability displayed by Mr. OLMSTED, the Architect in Chief. Of the busy board of draughtsmen, by whose designs and plans the out-door labor is regulated and determined from the offices on Mount St. Vincent; of the Bluff across McGowan's pass, commanding the High Bridge in a setting of verdant scenery, and the bosom of East River, slumbering beyond; of the nurseries around as we descend, and the drains opening into the gorge beneath; of the drive along the grand reservoir from which the thirsty city is to receive its streams of Croton; of Bell Tower Rock tunnelled by an avenue of transverse traffic; of the lake with its two remaining Hamburgh swans, and the iron bridge, in the arch and design of which more than the usual quota of grace and adaptedness has been reached; of the pathways and heights that render the "Ramble" so interesting and attractive, and the effective rustic work of its two summer-houses; of the terrace, the shrubbery and

the flower-beds of brilliant color-of all that was embraced in our two or three hours' stay, I can scarcely venture an enumeration-this, and much more, we saw under the polite guidance of Mr. OLMSTED and Captain RENWICK, for whose courtesies our acknowledgments are justly due.

And then succeeded a drive over the well-cared-for roads of this part of Dutchess, to the scene of the present writing, where I have been looking at the Short-Horns, the South Downs, and the swine of Essex birth. Of none of them am I proposing to inflict upon the inappreciative

The attendance was complimentary, probably numbering not far short of a hundred. Among those assembled whom we were glad to take by the hand, were Messrs. E. G. Faile, Lewis B. Brown, John Jay, L. G. Morris, J. L. Morris, James Brodie, Henry S. Olcott, S. Campbell, Henry Wood, Seneca Daniels, and many more, not to mention less particularly Thomas Galbraith, who keeps watch and ward so carefully over the Thorndale herd. The usual lunch being eaten, the auctioneer, Mr. LEEDS of New-York,

commenced his task soon after two o'clock.

As the sale had been announced without reserve, all the animals offered, or nearly all, were disposed of-but at prices very low, from the character of their descent and individual merits, as well perhaps as because the terror of the Massachusetts cattle disease had not begun to abate in season to allow of purchasers remodeling their arrangements for the summer. Now that Mr. CONGER has dis

posed of the surplus from his herds, he will go to work with renewed opportunities for successful exertion, and when the public are invited to a second sale at Waldberg, they will at least have the guarantee of the present one, that he will fully and honorably live up to every tittle of whatever announcement may be previously made. The best prices, rather, at this time, were those obtained by the Ayrshires; the Short-Horns and Devons brought little more than fair rates for milch cows or other practieal purposes; a stallion and two mares went quite low, and some lots of Berkshire and Suffolk swine scarcely better in proportion. The total of all sales was in the vicinity of $3,000. Mr. Daniels of Saratoga county was the largest purchaser, and bought, it was stated, with a view to carrying a herd overland to the Pacific side early another spring. Among other purchasers were Messrs. John Jay, D. L. Seymour, Henry Wood, E. C. Armstrong, A. R. Frothingham, A. Davidson, F. G. Frazier, F. W. Noble, Mr. Jolliffe, and, of the pigs, Col. Morris and Mr. Bathgate.

Yesterday morning we called at Springside, when at Poughkeepsie on our way here. Mr. VASSAR'S grounds are as beautifully kept as ever, and our correspondent, Mr. BEMENT, as thoroughly engaged among the curiosities and rarities of the Poultry yard. The Fawns of tender age, with their spotted hides, and the parental Deer; the talking Cuckatoo; the Gazelle from Malta, with the roguish grace of its kind; the brilliant Wood Duck, a domesticated Currassow, and the Sand Crane with his hoarse voice, are among the aristocrats of the place, not to descend to such as fancy Rabbits and Dominique bantams.

better proved its own advertisement. The full accounts of the English herds, in the Farmer's Magazine of London, have brought us from the pen of the DRUID, more than one allusion to the strife for the "Duchesses" at the Tortworth sale; but under Mr. Strafford's revision, their author should not have ascribed to "an American company" what was due alone to the enterprise of an individual. A pleasant style, mingiing the language of the sportsman with the odd epithets of the herd, dotting out a landscape or a farm by apt recurrence to familiar names,—by no means too exacting as a judge, but more ready to sketch kindly than cruelly-a fault or two is surely pardonable in the genial writings of Mr. DIXON, and I can wish him no better luck than sometime to be sharpening his pencil and his wits under the guidance of THOMAS, in the farmstead at Thorndale.

By comparing the herd of Short-Horns at present here, which numbers as usual nearly seventy, with the catalogue of last years' issue, we have a twelvemonth's farther witness of what our friend can accomplish with the best of English blood on American soil. Just a score of young things are to be chronicled as coming on, to replace the sales of 1859 and the sad loss by lightning of imported Maria Louisa and 1st Duchess of Thorndale. Grand Turk of Bolden's breeding and 2d Grand Duke from Tortworth Court, are finding their successors in the Thorndale Dukes, and Lalla Rookh with all her propensities to flesh was not last December, which promises to do justice to his descent too hearty to leave a young roan in the breeding boxes on either side. During the four years since I had had the opportunity of visiting Mr. Thorne, (see Co. GENT., June 5, 1856,) the buildings have been "straightened out" and many improvements introduced, and now in completesimilar establishment I have seen on either side the water. ness and convenience, they compare favorably with any Indeed, there is much that might be advantageously noted tails of interest in the general farming of Dutchess, which down for practical imitation, as there are also many dehereafter I may be able to present more fully and satis factorily than in the present haste.

of many other of our older districts. It is a story of The story of Dutchess farming, however, is nearly that wheat culture nearly abandoned on a scale of much extent; of the feeding of more cattle and sheep, and, along the tion of milk for the New-Yorkers; of improvement slowrailway lines of the Hudson and Harlem, of the produely gaining ground among a class of cultivators not too poor to have lost often their thousands in Western speculation,-whither, also, and to the cities, has too often ebbed the tide of younger blood, leaving age in the enjoyment of competence it is true, but lacking the enterprise and energy that are found when younger muscle holds the plow and gathers in the harvest. Improvement particularly in better tillage; improvement more slow in greater manuring and the growth of root crops; while, here and there, we find a farmer who is breeding up his stock to higher grades, cautiously buying a few pure breds, or depending upon a Short-Horn or Devon bull to work out the amelioration of its descendants. Such men as A. M. Underhill and Elihu Griffen of Clinton, R. G. Coffin and