Clover, to be free from danger to working horses or oxen, ought to be cut and wet with cold water.

There is an increased use of lime, plaster, and guano as fertilizers, and in most cases with good success and profit.

Respectfully, yours,

SIR: In accordance with your request, I will endeavor to give some information to the questions in the Circular sent me some time since.

Wheat. This crop has been on the increase with us for the last few years. Spring wheat is the kind raised, and is generally sown as late as the 1st of June, as late sowing is considered the best preventive for Hessian flies and weevils. Average crop, 15 bushels per acre; price, $1 25. Kinds of grass-seed, 4 pounds clover and bushel Timothy sown with the wheat. Guano is not used with us at all.

Corn is our principal crop on our bottom lands. The ground is manured with from 10 to 15 cords per acre; which is well ploughed in and harrowed, and is then planted with Woodward's planter, generally in drills. Average crop, 50 bushels. Cost of production, from 25 to 30 cents per bushel; usually ground and fed raw. Rows 3 feet and spears

6 inches apart.

a

Oats, Barley, Rye, Peas, and Beans.-Oats, average crop from 30 to 60 bushels. Barley not raised. Rye, from 10 to 15. Peas and beans, from 15 to 20; peas least exhausting, but not used as renovating crop. Clover and Grasses.-Quantity of hay per acre 1 ton. Best fertilizers, clover, and that with Timothy, at the rate of 4 pounds clover and bushel Timothy, is used for laying down meadows. Cost of growing hay, $4 per ton. I have no doubt but clover will give horses the heaves by over feeding when they are not at work.

Dairy Husbandry.-I have been in the business some for the last 10 years, and find that cows without extra feed will average 150 pounds of butter, besides raising their calves. Cost of making butter, 2 per pound. (For description of making, see my letter of last year.) The business has been good for the last year; average price of butter, 20 to 25 cents. Cheese, 9 cents.

Hogs. We consider the Suffolk breed of hogs to be the best, and we think we can improve them by crossing with our natives. The cheapest way of raising pork is to keep just what your milk will feed till fall, and then feed with Indian meal, and you have good sweet pork. My method of curing hams is as follows: To 100 pounds meat, 4 gallons water, 8 pounds common salt, 2 ounces saltpetre, 2 pounds brown sugar, or molasses, if you prefer. In this pickle let them remain till you wish to smoke them, and you will find them equal to any.

Potatoes. We think we can remedy, if not entirely escape, the rot in the potatoes by early planting. Our method for the last 2 or 3 years has been to plant in April, and at the time of planting we use a composition of plaster and ashes-say about 2 parts ashes and I plaster, at the rate of 8

bushels per acre, and we have not been troubled with the rot. We prefer breaking up old pastures for potatoes, and then the next year we are sure to get a good crop of wheat, as potatoes fix the ground in good shape for wheat.

To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

HENRY MERRILL.

RICHMOND, MASS., January 12, 1853. SIR: Your Circular, making inquiries on agricultural progress, was duly received. As times and seasons have very much to do with the labors and products of the farm, you will permit me to say, in the outset, that the winter of 1851-'52 was one of very severe and uniform coldness. From November to March, we had scarcely the semblance of a thawy day. The snows which fell early in the season were the last to acknowledge the power of warmth, and to dissolve under its influence. The quantity of snow that fell during the winter was not so great as we often have; yet it remained unusually even, so that bare grounds and huge drifts were alike unknown. Winter but slightly relaxed its hold until nearly April; and the middle of that month, snow was full plenty enough for January. About the 20th of April, cold, heavy, northeast rains set in, which wasted the snow in the valleys, and on hills of moderate elevation, and removed the frost from the earth; but the ground, as must needs be after such rains, was cold, exceedingly wet, and in no condition for the plough or the harrow. The rainy season continued until about the 8th of May, when a drought-the long continued, wide-spread drought of 1852-set in, and continued, with but few slight showers, until the last of October.

During the continuance of this drought there were many atmospheric phenomena worthy of notice. It was not unusual-indeed, it was sometimes an every day occurrence-to see huge black clouds, bellowing thunder in fierce tones, and shooting lightning in frightful streaks, arising in the west and moving towards the zenith, promising to water the earth and give joy to all who feed upon bounties; but they most usually parted before coming in showering distance, and marched off, perhaps, after dispensing a few drops, to dissolve in thin air or water other lands or seas. So it must be seen that the earth became very dry, so that you might dig in common loamy soils two feet and find no more indications of moisture than at the surface; so, too, the lowlands. Swamps were dry; for all but the most enduring springs refused to let out their liquid treasures, and the streams ceased to flow. Yet the drought was not entirely uniform in the strength of its ravages. Some localities received more rain than. others, and these were in the neighborhood of the highest mountains, and where they are huddled together most closely. After such a drought as we experienced the last year, it cannot be supposed that crops were so abundant, as though rains had been mingled with sunshine. The hay crop was probably diminished from one fourth to one-third. The falling off was most visibly seen in old stocked and very recent stocked meadows. Those coming into mowing from the previous year's seeding-down were light; those in the second and third year from stocking were middling; and the quantity diminished as you went back

of the third year. Low lands gave a fair crop, and of improved quality. In so dry and pleasant a season, it will readily be supposed the hay was secured in fine order. This fact, with its superior quality, caused it to spend well, and heavy horses are much less common this winter than usual. Owing to the lateness of spring, but little ploughing was don e until quite the last of April, and on many farms not until May. Fortunately it was so; for in consequence of this delay, most of the sown crops were not got in until the heaviest rains were past, and the earth was left in a lighter, more pliable condition, which enabled it the better to withstand the drought.

The oat crop was fair, from the perfect manner in which it was secured. The straw will do much towards lengthening out fodder. The current price of oats is fifty cents per bushel. Winter grain was well started before the dry season came on; consequently the crop suf fered less than many others; an increased quantity was on the ground, mostly of rye.

The corn crop, in consequence of the lateness of the spring, and the dry weather that followed, was for a while considered a failure; it came forward, however, and did remarkably well, unless it were in particular localities, where the effects of the season were too severe for it. The fodder saved with care from corn-fields has helped much in this time of scarcity.

Wheat.-Less and less of it is sown each year. When oats are worth fifty cents a bushel, and corn seventy-five cents, and superfine flour can be bought for five and six dollars a barrel, a general opinion prevails that it is cheaper to raise the former and buy the latter than to run the risk of an uncertain wheat crop. Present profits may induce to this course; but taking the drainage of land resulting from the system into consideration, it looks like questionable economy.

Buckwheat was sown in as liberal quantities as usual, and paid wellbeing a full average crop. Its fine effects in cleansing land from weeds, by its great shady tops, and the pulverizing influence of its roots in the soil, are enough to recommend its culture on many lands, if there was no other consideration.

A farmer of my acquaintance recently bought a field so densely covered with hard hack, (potentilla,) that it looked like a barren waste. It was bought cheap, of course, for, with the incumbrance, it was worth but little. Early in the spring he commenced ploughing it with a stout team, which tore out the bushes, which, when properly dried, were burnt, and the ground sown to buckwheat. The avails of the crop more than paid for the labor, and he expects the next crop will more than pay for the land thus giving him a good field at a cheap rate, besides beautifying and making productive one of the waste places of the earth. In two years more he will have a beautiful, clean sward, where, a year ago, the eye could only rest with pain. This is not a solitary instance; we have many such, where fields are being reclaimed and subdued to the production of less hardy crops by the influence of buckwheat.

The potato crop has, finally, once more, nearly survived the blight, rot, or whatever it may be called. We have heard very little complaint of rotten potatoes this year. The yield has been fair compared with it in olden time. The flavor of potatoes is excellent and healthful. Whether this fact goes, in any way, to show the disease to arise from fluctua

tions in the atmosphere, aided by predisposing causes in soil and cultivation, which may be traced to atmospheric influence, we leave it for others to decide, without venturing an opinion, which might only call out from some theorist the exclamation that we knew nothing about it.

Sowed corn is coming into favor for the fodder it produces. The sward on a piece of run-out meadow is inverted, a coat of manure spread on, and a thorough harrowing is given. The crop is highly remunerative, and leaves the ground in a clean, light, good condition for a future crop. Care must be used in saving the fodder, which, if well cured, is valua ble for any stock, but is excellent for milch cows.

Fruit.-The attention to fruit-growing is increasing every year, as the adaptation of our soil and climate to the object is being developed. These have received a powerful influence through the exhibitions at horticultural meetings, where the facts have come out that Berkshire is admirably adapted to growing apples, pears, and cherries in any quantity, and peaches, plums, and grapes in comfortable supplies. The appearance of the black warts on plum-trees, for the last season, in immense quantities, may, perhaps, throw a damper on the cultivation of that fruit. There are, however, some choice varieties which have not yet been affected by it, and it may be they will escape.

In consequence of the light crop of fodder there was a great reduction of stock in the fall. Though some lots were sold cheap, yet, as a whole, the farmer has but little cause of complaint of prices. Fat cattle and sheep, though lower than a year ago, were in fair demand, and sold quick, and prices are advancing.

On the whole, taking all things into consideration, the farmer has but little, if any, cause to regret what may seem to have been the unfavorable character of the season. If the earth has not given her usual abundance, she has enjoyed a rest from which she will arise to brighter and more abundant harvests. The deep drought has operated on her soil to give it richness; and the leanness which has come over her has invited the farmer to consider in what way similar evils-if they are evils-can best be averted. And, first, he may learn that deep and thorough tillage are among the best preventives of loss from lack of rain. The deeper the soil, and the finer it is pulverized, the more readily and efficiently it will imbibe moisture from the earth beneath, and from the atmosphere, which is often humid when the clouds give no rain. Equal benefits result from lands so tilled in times of heavy rains. It is a known fact that deep soils soonest relieve themselves of superfluous moisture; hence we may conclude that they are best for preserving a uniform degree of humidity. Can it be wondered, then, that the advantages of deep ploughing or of subsoiling are yearly gaining more favor wherever their benefits have been tested?

Another specific remedy for drought, as we have seen fully illustrated the last season in gardens and with all hoed crops, is frequent stirring the land; keeping it open and loose with the plough or the hoe.

Garden vegetables, corn, and potatoes, dry as the season was, all uniformly, where well cultivated, did well. A friend remarked to me that he, for a long time, watered his garden; yet his productions did not come forward. He at length threw away his water-pot and took his hoe,. and gave it vigorous action, when everything smiled under its influence. Another fact, not a new one, but presented in a more forcible form, de

veloped itself most conclusively, in consequence of the dryness of the season: Lands inclining to moisture should not be ploughed at all immediately after a heavy rain. In consequence of the lateness of the season, farmers did not wait to have the ground get so dry as they would otherwise have done. Such lands, when ploughed again in August, broke up in clods so hard that a wonder would arise how anything had grown from them. It also taught the fallacy of an old established practice of ploughing head-lands first, and allowing the team, when turning at the ends, to trample over them. We saw an instance where, in August, such head-lands were reploughed, and were continuous blocks of earth as hard as bricks. No impression of a heavy harrow could pulverize them; then they remained hard, and worthless, deforming and cumbering the surface. But had the land remained unploughed and left to grass, how much worse would have been the predicament? A thin, sterile soil and meagre crops would have been standing memorials of an abusing system, until a better course suggested a remedy. Head-lands should be the last lands ploughed to leave them in the comfortable and productive condition that good management requires.

Yours, truly,

W. BACON.

MARSHFIELD, MASS., May 19, 1852.

SIR: If I did not misunderstand, you consented, as my friend, to signify to the Hon. Commissioner of Patents, (Mr. Ewbank,) that on receiving a Circular from his office, I would cheerfully endeavor to get together some raw material of this place; and, though, in consequence of the sterility of our soil and secluded locality, it must be barren of incidents, yet, through his Reports, the farmers of distant States have an easy and happy way of interchanging civilities, and of telling each other how they do; and may possibly help a little to consolidate our Union. I hope the cost of publishing these Reports will never be thought an unwise appropriation of public money; but lest I should not live to receive a Circular, I beg leave to trouble you with one thing now-and that is the fertilizing matter which may be concealed in the bottom of our rivers. I know of no river, overflowing its banks with any degree of moderation, which does not make thein more productive; and yet, I suppose, this treasure is not the cause of such overflow. We know that the lands enclosed in the bends of our little rivers, backed up by tide water for a few hours, and then taking their regular course to the sea, are very productive. I should be glad to read the opinions of scientific men on this subject, through the Reports. I have thought an instrument could be made, (which, in consequence of my poverty of language, I must call spoon-bowl pincers,) which, in the hands of an ingenious man, with a gondola, and what I believe is commonly called a derric, might make rapid progress in examination. ISAAC DINGLEY.

To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.