subject, than from intrinsic littleness, that so many stand aloof from bearing their share in the burdens incident to this means of improvement. Yours, respectfully, BENJ. SUMMERS. BUCYRUS, CRAWFORD COUNTY, OHIO, December 29, 1852. SIR: In answer to your Circular, received some time since, I will submit the following: In the culture of wheat there is no manure except barn-yard used in this vicinity, and that, if fresh and applied directly to the wheat, is as often an injury as a benefit; the preferable mode is to apply it to a previous crop. A good sod of clover, Timothy, or blue grass, turned the middle of August, harrowed until well pulverized, sown about the 10th of September, with 14 bushel of seed, is, I think, the surest and cheapest way to raise wheat with us; the favorite varieties at present are the White Blue-stem and Mediterranean. Should suppose the average yield, with good cultivation, to be 20 bushels or over; the last crop was not half a one, owing to injury done by red weevils, the Mediterranean escaping with least injury. Sowing early varieties is thought to be the only way of escaping their ravages. I am inclined to think the yield per acre increasing. The average price for the last year at Sandusky city would be near 72 cents per bushel; and at different points along the Gleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati railroad, a few cents less. Our best farmers seed their wheat in the spring, with clover or a mixture of clover and Timothy seed. The culture of wheat has been rapidly decreasing for several years; stock-raising being more profitable and congenial to the soil. Corn I think our most important grain crop; and when connected with wool-growing or stock-raising, the fodder judiciously saved and fed will more than pay the entire cost of the crop. In a former communication to your office I gave the details, and will not repeat them here; but I have raised a crop that cost less labor per acre the past season, equal in quantity and better in quality, on the same piece of ground; and it is nothing more than any man can do. It is an expensive way of doing business to raise 15 or 20 bushels of corn to the acre. The premium at our county fair was awarded on a crop of 126 bushels per acre, raised without the application of manure, the ground never having been ploughed before; it has been worth 40 cents per bushel the last year. As the culture of wheat declined, wool-growing increased, and this county ranks among the first for quality and quantity; all concede that it is profitable. As far as my experience goes, I would say that it costs equally as much or more to raise coarse wool as fine. Coarse-woolled sheep are not so healthy when kept in flocks of 100 or more, and appear to suffer more from cold rains than fine ones. My calculation is, that it costs about 24 cents per pound to grow wool. From 8 to 10 tons of good hay are sufficient to winter 100 head well. There are probably 50 lambs raised for every 100 ewes annually-rather less, I should think. The culture of fruit is extending rapidly. Apples are produced of rare excellence, with the smallest amount of care. Pears, cherries, and grapes, as far as proved, leave nothing to wish for. I have had the Julienne, Bartlett, Andrell, Leehel, and other pears. Fruit, for several seasons, fairer or finer flavored, have not been produced in the country, East or West. The finer varieties of cherries have failed but little, being of recent introduction, but promise well. The Catawba grape is as sure a crop as are currants, (our most hardy fruit.) The varieties of apples cultivated are numerous; nearly all the varieties that have much reputation in various localities have been tested. Some are suitable for culture here, but the majority are rejected. The Rambo, (late apple,) Sweet Bough, Yellow Harvest, Fall Pippin, Golden Russet, Sweet Putnam Russet, Danvers Winter Sweet, and Phillips's Sweeting, and perhaps a half dozen other varieties, would be worth all the rest. I think that for feed, apples are valuable for working-horses; a half bushel of sweet ripe apples per day, are worth more than that quantity of oats for calves and sheep. In the winter, when confined mostly to dry food, good apples are the very thing they want. An acre of good orchard, taken for 10 years, will make as much pork as two of corn, I am confident. I tried an experiment in seeding with potatoes the past season, on four rows equal in length and quality. No. 1. Planted with large potatoes, produce... 2. Planted with very small potatoes, produce. 75 pounds. 67 do 76 do 70 do All were planted at the same time, and same distance apart. Hoping the day will soon come when agriculture will take the position its importance demands, and wield the influence it is justly entitled to in our glorious Union, I close by subscribing myself yours, respectfully, To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. BENJAMIN SEARL KELLEY'S ISLAND, OHIO, SIR: Your Agricultural Circular for 1852 was duly received. In answer, I send the following observations: Wheat.-Guano is not much, if any, used on our rich Western soils, where manure of most kinds is wasted, or removed from barn-yards, only because it is cheaper than to remove the barn; but more attention must soon be paid to manures. The average yields on old land are less per acre, instead of being better, as they ought to be, under good cultivation. The average yield of old wheat harvested this year in this township, will not exceed 14 bushels per acre-worth, for white varieties, about 80 cents; red, 5 or 6 cents per bushel less. The best remedy for Hessian fly, known is this vicinity, is late sowing. Wheat sown in November is rarely much injured; and I have never known it wholly destroyed by them. The following recipe will always prove a specific for smut: Soak the seed in strong brine or lime-water (at temperature 100° when first put in) 12 or 14 hours; strain off the pickle, and sift on dry slacked lime. It may lie in this condition two or three days, if not sooner wanted for sowing, without injuring the vitality of the seed. The system of rotation that has obtained here has been, two crops of corn and two or three of wheat; then corn, followed by wheat, when the necessity of seeding to grass and clover is seen. The soil is a clay loam. Clover and Grasses.-I have found 6 quarts of Timothy and 2 quarts of clover to be a good proportion and quantity per acre sown on wheat, in March, on light, thawing snow. I have uniformly had a good catch, and hear of no complaint from my neighbors, who do likewise. Corn. For this crop I plough as deep as possible with the furrow plough. Then (on old land) follow in the same furrow with a subsoil plough 3 or 4 inches deeper. Thoroughly pulverize the ground as well as may be; then ridge-i. e. throw two furrows together 4 feet from centre to centre. On this plant the seed, in rows 4 feet apart and about 4 inches deep, leaving the seed a little below the average level of the ground. The deep planting prevents birds from pulling it up, and the ridging prevents water from standing on the seed, and is equally a preventive of injury from drought. The best time for planting here has been from the 10th to the 25th of May. Price in this market (Sandusky City) may be quoted, for 1852, at about 42 cents per bushel. The crop for this year is a light one, not exceeding two thirds of an average yield. I have omitted further details on cultivation, as but little difference prevails with different farmers, unless it may be in hilling when hoeing it; which should never be done-i. e. with the gourd seed variety, which is the only kind that I have much experience in. The best method of feeding it to hogs is to begin early as soon as it is nearly out of the milk-while the weather is warm and favorable for fattening them, so that they may be ready for the butcher as soon as the weather is cold enough for packing. Sheep and wool, like neat cattle, are unprofitable where land is worth. $20 per acre, except to a very limited extent. The Paular or French Merino-those with fleeces that are gummy on the outside-I consider the most profitable, as the fleece is fine, long, and heavy, commanding the highest price in market, and the sheep are the hardiest variety that I am acquainted with. I do not think that land will yield $2 per acre per year net profit to raise sheep; and not so much for neat cattle, unless for fancy stock and prices. Grapes are receiving increased attention in this vicinity. The only obstacle to extensive cultivation seems to be a want of knowledge in the management of them-trimming, training, &c. The Catawba and Isabella are the principal kinds raised. From such information as can be obtained from German and French vine-dressers who come to this country, the grape thrives as well here as in their own countries, and the wine made from them is equal to the foreign article. The fruit finds a ready market here at from $2 to $2 50 per bushel of 45 pounds, and is worth more to make into wine. Two hundred bushels per acre may be considered an average crop, yielding over $100 per acre net profit per annum on a capital of $250. Yours, respectfully, ADDISON KELLEY. FEDERALTON, ATHENS COUNTY, OHIO, SIR: The Circular from the Patent Office of August, 1852, has been received; and in answer to some of the queries therein contained, I make the following observations: Wheat.-No guano is used in the production of this or any other crop; yield, from 10 to 45 bushels per acre-average about 15 bushels; time of seeding, fore part of September; of harvesting, first of July. As we are not troubled with smut, our seed needs no preparation except thorough cleaning. Quantity used per acre from 1 to 1 bushel-the latter quantity is none too much on strong soils. Plough once in August, (if green sward or stubble land) ten inches deep; but a great deal is sown among standing corn the last of August and first of September, and ploughed in with the shovel-plough. This mode produces good crops on bottom lands. I am confident the yield per acre is increasing. We have no regular system of rotation in crops. On our bottom lands, corn succeeds corn forever, or wheat and corn alternately forever, without any sensible diminution in the yield. As to the best remedies for Hessian flies and weevils, perhaps it will not be proper to say I know of any; but I have an opinion, a speculative belief-a mere fancy, perhaps-in support of which, from the nature of the case, it may forever be impossible to array facts, tangible facts, sufficient to convince this fact vs. theory age that it is anything but the veriest whim. However, I will now state what I conceive would be a complete remedy for these mischievous insects, if it could be made available, (of which I have no doubt) and in fact what has always been the chief means of preserving the wheat crops of the whole country from utter destruction by their devastating energies. I have raised wheat on the farin where I now reside for the last forty years, and have never, except one year (about six years ago) been injured by the Hessian fly, nor by the weevil but once, and that was in 1827. This insect, I believe, has never visited this vicinity except at the time alluded to, when its ravages were extensive and terrible. But I hear frequent complaints of the "fly" almost every year. And now for the remedy: This consists in nothing more nor less than the fussy and feathery tribes of the air; and whilst it appears in the distribution of useful employments assigned, by a common Parent and Governor, to every order of animated nature, to the swallow in general, but more par. ticularly to the chimney swallow, is assigned the duty of waging successful and incessant war during the warm season, and until late fall, upon those immense armies of insects which float in the summer breeze, the weevil and "fly "included. These birds, as is generally well known, procure all their food, consisting of insects, upon the wing. After their broods have been reared they partake of but two meals a day, breakfast and supper. In the morning, they range further; in the evening, they procure their food nearer their domicil. When feeding their young they are busy all day. Now, if these birds can be multiplied to any desirable extent on every farm, I submit, whether their being so multipled would not insure our wheat crops against the ravages of all insects? That they can be so multiplied, there is in my mind, at least, no doubt, and with very little expense and trouble. They always build their nests and rear their young in chimneys. Wherever a chimney stands through the summer unused, there you will find a colony of swallows; and if permitted so to stand a number of years, the colony will increase in numbers from year to year, until emigration becomes necessary for want of room. That chimneys made of boards and attached to barns and out-houses, in imitation of real chimneys, at small expense, will attract their proper and natural denizens, is reasonable to suppose; then if the first great prerequisite to the increase of all beings is a place to be; and the next, food sufficient for their support; it follows, of course, that beings so provided for must increase in numbers agreeable to unalterable laws. I can muster but few facts to prop this theory, two of which have already been produced, viz: the swallow takes its food, consisting of insects, upon the wing. I have been but little, if any, troubled with the "fly." One more fact will finish the array. The house I live in has been built twenty seven years; it has two stacks of chimneys, with two flues in each, from the second floor. One of these chimneys, and one flue of the other, is every summer and fall exclusively devoted to the use of the swallows: here they are permitted to breed undisturbed, and all available means are resorted to, to remedy accidents; as, when nest is washed down by a hard shower of rain with its unfledged occupants, it is placed in the crotch of a stick and carefully replaced up the chimney. Thus encouraged and cared for, my colony of swallows has become quite respectable in numbers, amounting to something like one hundred in October last. With such an effective corps of champions, I feel quite secure from the ravages of the Vandal fly. In this connexion it may not be amiss to observe, that whilst affording shelter, protection, and encouragement to one class of birds, the rights and privileges of others are not forgotten; and so far as the influence, jurisdiction, or authority of the writer extends, no bird of any kind is allowed to be killed or injured in any way, or unnecessarily disturbed, excepting always such as prey on poultry or smaller birds. But there is great complaint in some parts of the country of the depredations on cornfields in the spring season, committed by some birds-the black-bird for instance-and no remedy seems to suggest itself to some minds but the destruction of the birds themselves. That is a sure remedy, so far as the individual bird killed is concerned. That a dead bird can pull up no corn, is a clear point; and that it can destroy no more worms, bugs, or other insects, should be equally clear, however much this last and most important fact may be overlooked. This killing of birds for pulling up corn, resembles somewhat the biting of the hand that feeds us. What! kill your most devoted servant; your only efficient laborer in securing your crop from utter destruction; one who has toiled through the whole spring-has followed close upon your heels in every furrow you have turned; and when you have retired for rest and refreshment, still pushes its unremitting labors, crossing and recrossing in every direction the newly-turned furrows-all to clear the soil of those sure harbingers of fate to your crop, the worm? Such conduct would be better designated by any other appellation than one that denoted good economy, sagacity, or self-interest. But how to preserve the crop without killing the birds, seems to be a mooted point with some farmers. Many plans have been tried, and a number have proved successful; but the writer knows of but one that does not compromise the rights of any of the parties concerned, and that is to sow corn broadcast |