36 NEW-YORK PROPOSED AGRICU. TURAL COLLEGE. of streets, sinks, gutters-in fact, every manure that can be got on to land, is valuable. Occasional pasturing, too, for a full season, is highly advantageous to mowing grounds. Grass is sometimes thrown out by frost, and stands in tussocks, apart, leaving open spaces of ground between. The tread of cattle or sheep compacts the soil, and nipping the young grass spreads the roots, and prevents their exhaustion, by ripening the stalk and maturing the seed; and every grazier or dairyman, will attest the superior value of old pastures, in giving flesh to stock, and quality to butter and cheese; and to the superior excellence of the hay from old meadows, (when in good condition,) for the consumption of all kinds of cattle, horses, or sheep. This superiority arises from its fineness, and its richness; induced by its numerous roots, and multiplied leaves, branches, and stems. And so long as we have numerous instances of meadows which have remained unbroken for a period much beyond the life of man, it may be well to exhaust all other plans of restoration, before a good bottom is broken up, for the only reason that it is run out, hide bound, or mossy. My own best pastures have never been plowed, and are yearly growing better; and the same remark will apply to a part of my meadows. LEWIS F. Allen. Black Rock, N. Y., January, 1850. NEW-YORK PROPOSED AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. WE have received the report of the commissioners appointed to mature and report a plan for an Agricultural College and Experimental Farm. With many of the features of this report, we agree. We wish to see a beginning made in the great business of educating the farmer for his profession. We will approve of the undertaking, in almost any shape it will be likely to assume, because it is an undertaking. At the same time, we think the plan should be one most likely to lead at once to beneficial, practical, and even popular results. A failure in the first attempt within the United States, to establish an agricultural college, would throw a slur upon agricultural education, which might require another half century to overcome. We ask, then, in this proposed institution, for a well-considered, judicious, and efficient organisation. No petty plans nor petty appropriations are worthy this great design. A grant of $200,000 of six-per-cent. state stocks, is the least sum that should be asked, the income of which should be annually applied for the current expenses of the college, while $50,000 additional should be expended in a farm of moderate size, amply provided with appropriate and economical buildings, (after such models as the young farmers can hope to build for themselves, from their own future earnings,) chemical, and other apparatus, a well-selected and extensive library, (containing numerous duplicates of all the best agricultural periodicals and standard works,) extensive specimen collections of such soils, minerals, insects, anatomical and surgical preparations of improved domestic animals, as will tend to elucidate the whole subject of the farmer's and breeder's business, and compel them to understand it. Every insect and worm, either beneficial or injurious to vegetation, should be shown, in every stage of their existence. And there should be accurate and extensive plates, more fully illustrative of form, color, and appearance, coupled with reliable and readable works on the subject, so that a graduate should have the stolidity of a beast himself, who should fail to understand and appreciate the difference between a scrub, or dunghill, and a well-bred, useful animal. Different varieties of wool should be shown, and their exact character, merits, and value decided; and this information should be a living, progressive thing, not made up for once and abandoned, or rather embalmed for perpetual preservation or slow decay; but the spirit displayed in its commencement, should be ever ready to incorporate the advancements and improvements of the day. The plan suggested by the commissioners, of extending to a limited few a favored position in the college, we do not approve. Let admission, on equal terms, be granted both to old and young. Let this fountain of knowledge be provided for all, and so provided, that it will attract all, whose circumstances will admit of attendance. Then let all come and be filled with practical, reliable information, and a full and confiding belief in there being something to learn, beyond what has been taught them on their old home lot, or in their father's cowyard. We can readily conceive of a college so appointed and managed, that the only trouble would be, to repress the zeal and ambition to enter it; not the dull, inanimate, namby-pamby, still-born affair, that would excite the derision of the ignorant, and the pity of the enlightened. Many of our farmers can hardly forgive the application of any scientific principles to their occupation. With how much less favor would they view an attempt to make science, and intelligible, well-established principles, its basis? A slight mistake would jostle the whole fabric about our cars; and no one would be so ready to lend a helping hand to such a conclusion, as those for whose benefit it was especially designed. We regret to be forced to this assertion; but it is, nevertheless, most lamentably It should be so attractive, and so manifestly true. We would not, of course, be understood as including a single one of our agricultural readers among this number, as the very fact of perusing such works, is prima-facie evidence of their readiness to be enlightened. But after deducting the 15,000 or 20,000 of such there may possibly be within this state, there are enough jeft among the remaining 200,000 to prove our assertion. utilitarian and practical, that the veriest clodhopper that consults his two-penny almanac for the forthcoming weather, or the moon for planting his seed, should go home to his miserably tilled acres, ashamed of his ignorance and folly, and only ambitious that his sons might receive those benefits from the institution, which this comparatively benighted age had denied him. But to carry out our views, those of the com JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, ETC. missioners would fall far short of the object. "A president, with $2,000, and six professors, with $1,250 each, per annum," would not at all subserve the purpose. We can hardly see the use of any president in such a concern, unless an active, intelligent man, also occupy the professional chair. If eminently fitted for such a post, we would willingly give him not only $2,000 a-year, but whatever additional sum might be necessary to secure his services. And not only would we give this to the president, but cheerfully should this be awarded to each of the professors who were equally fitted for the station. And we think the funds would be far more advantageously appropriated to two or three men of the highest genius and attainments, if no more could be found, than to be doled out in paltry sums to mere tyros in the art. There is, at least, one such now temporarily abiding among us, who is eminently fitted for such a chair, and whom the public spirit-nay, the merest spirit of selfishness, rightly considered, should hereafter induce to remain permanently among us. We mean Prof. James F. W. Johnston, of Durham, England, whose ingenious, laborious, and practical teachings, on some of the most important features of agricultural science, have illuminated two hemispheres. To Dr. Leibig, of Geissen, notwithstanding his erratic theories, we would also make an offer of a professorship, in gratitude for the impulse he has given to agricultural and physical science, and the possible good he may yet render to them. And may we be permitted to ask, if the salary of our chief magistrate would be too much to offer to such men? We can find ten thousand men within this state, who deem themselves, and are considered by their admiring friends, fully qualified to exercise the gubernatorial functions; yet, do we know of one within our state, who is just the man for such a station? We object decidedly to the professorships of law and engineering, recommended in the report. These principles are taught in numerous instances elsewhere, and nothing extraneous should be added to such an institution to swell its expenses, but what is purely agricultural. On the other hand, we would give to entomology and the whole subject of the worm, grub, and insect tribes, the fullest attention the subject should occupy. Hundreds of millions are annually received throughout the world, for the products of the silk worm, the honey bee, cochineal, &c.; and more than hundreds of millions are annually lost by the depredations of the cut and wire worm, turnip beetle and slug, the Hessian fly, and wheat worms of various kinds, the cotton louse, slug, and boll worm, the curculio, the orange louse, peach, and other fruit-tree worms, the bee moths, and an endless catalogue of kindred marauders. And who knows how far down the scale of existance these insects descend? and it is yet a mooted point, whether the potato discase, the pear blight, and the yellows in peach trees, are not the effect of some insect enemy, a knowledge of whose existence might lead to their destruction? 87 When we sit down deliberately to estimate some of the probable results of the establishment of an agricultural college, we are amazed with the apathy displayed on this subject, by some of our most enlightened men. If properly organised such an institution would probably, within ten years, annually return to the farmers of the state of New York, at least ten times its actual aggregate cost, and it is more likely it would repay twenty times the amount. Every additional bushel of wheat raised on a farm within the state, would give the sum required to establish the college; and even the additional profits in poultry consequent upon the introduction of improved varieties and their more judicious management, would be sufficient to found a new college every year. In conclusion, we say, whatever is to be done in this matter should be well done. It is a perfectly easy and simple matter, so to endow and arrange a college, as to kill it off in five years. We may thus befool ourselves, but we shall not thereby stultify our sister states. Massachusetts will have an efficient agricultural institution within a short time; and with all our zeal, we much doubt if she will not be ahead of us in this business. Yet we can distance her if we choose. We have the present vantage ground. Let us have from one quarter to one half a million of dollars to endow and carry it out successfully; and rather than accept a less sum than the least indicated, the money had better be left in the treasury or squandered, as many such sums have been before, by political profligates. We want no sum that shall only ensure disgrace to agricultural science while professing to uphold and disseminate it. If we had one man of sufficient eloquence, and the proper knowledge on this subject, to enforce its claims on the legislature, the amount would be voted by acclamation. Not a member would dare go home to his dinner, and look a leg of mutton or a cabbage head in the face, after witholding from agriculture the paltry sum she now demands, and which she would repay to every one of our citizens, with such bountiful returns in our augmented harvests. 88 PAUL'S DEEP-DRAINING MACHINE, ETC. PAUL'S DEEP-DRAINING MACHINE. they are allowed to roam at large. When cattle are fed in the field, much of the hay is blown away by the wind, and in stormy weather, it is trodden under foot and wasted. Their manure is dropped under the fences, and in other places where it is of little or no value; but when kept in stables, with the addition of muck, sawdust, leaves, or scrapings of the roads, sides of ditches, &c., with which most, if not every farm abounds, the value of the manure, as well as the quantity, can be greatly enhanced. THIS machine, represented by the cuts, fig. 32, a and b, is an English invention, and is just now attracting considerable attention in Great Britain; but what its real merits are, we have not yet been able to ascertain, although we have written repeatedly to our friends abroad for more particular and reliable information regarding it, than we find in the papers. It is said that it can cut a drain 3 to 4 feet deep, at a single operation, and at the rate of 300 feet per hour. Before believing this, however, we should like to see I once heard an intelligent person say, that a some better authority than we find for the asser- friend of his constructed a large reservoir, into tion. It is said, also, that it can be worked by which he conducted the urine from his stables, three or four horses; but it is not reasonable also, the drainings of his yards; and after testto suppose it can cut a three or four-foot draining the merits of the liquid manure thus obtained, with so little power. The cut shows the different he was fully satisfied that one hogshead of such parts of the machine so plainly, that they need liquid was worth several cords of barnyard no explanation. In addition to cutting drains, this machine is used for the purpose of subsoiling, and bringing the subsoil to the surface, as a top-dressing for the land. HOUSING CATTLE-SAVING MANURE. manure. My own experience fully confirms the above declaration. I would strongly urge upon my brother farmers, the great importance of erecting good stables and sheds for their cattle. It is certainly some comfort to a person of humane feelings, when he sits by a good, warm fire, enjoying the smiles and agreeable conver CATTLE should be kept in good, warm stables, sation of his better half, if he is so fortunate as with an abundance of clean, dry straw for them to have one, when the howling tempest is raging to lic down upon. Do not forget to give them without, or the keen, searching wind of a winplenty of good hay; and if you add a few oats, ter's evening is whistling around the house, and or roots, to their daily allowance, they will thank seeking admission at every nook and corner, to you for it, and return you principal and interest, think that his cattle are all in good, comfortable in fourfold proportion. Few farmers are aware stables, and not exposed to the benumbing of the great loss they annually sustain, by influence of the cold storm that, perchance, is allowing their cattle to shift for themselves as raging without. best they can, in cold, stormy weather. I know from experience, that they will keep on much less feed, when provided with good, warm stables, than when exposed to the peltings of the merciless storms of our cold, northern climate. When cattle are kept in stables, their manure can be stored under cover, or in the yards, in such quantities as will prevent loss by drying and evaporation, which always takes place when A WESTCHESTER-COUNTY FARMER. INSTRUMENT FOR MAKING POST HOLES.-A tool to dig post holes in stony land, where the post auger cannot be used, is made of one-and-ahalf-inch iron rod, about six feet long, with a knob on the upper end, and the lower end made into a chisel, with a steel edge, five or six inches STEAM PLOWING. rising from the a plowing, the furrow rising plowshare, or point, presses the heavy mass behind it, up the inclined plane of the moldboard, and twists it over, to give it the inverted position which good plowing always requires. To do this, the furrow slice has to be pressed together or compacted by all the pressure necessary to lift and turn the earth, although in light WHAT is doing by the ingenious farmers and and porous soils no prejudicial effects follow. mechanics of this country, towards applying But in adhesive lands the result is different. In steam power to pulverising the earth? That using steam where the amount of power this has not been done elsewhere, is no valid required would be of little consequence, all this reason why the attempt should not be made here, would be remedied by lifting the soil, and even and persisted in till accomplished; and that so much of the subsoil as night be judicious to this will yet be the result, we conceive to be raise, with a wheel acting as a moldboard; and a foregone conclusion. If steam can be applied in combination with one or more additional ones, to the making, finishing, and even sticking of the earth would be effectually broken up and pins; and to the various manipulatory opera- blended in any manner desired. Many other tions of hand-carding, spinning, and weaving advantages would be thus secured, which we of wool, cotton, flax, and silk, even to the suc- cannot now specify. We have no doubt, the PAUL'S DEEP-DRAINING MACHINE. FIG. 32. b. cessful imitation of the salivary smoothing of more perfect tillage which steam plowing would enable farmers to apply to their land, would augment many of their crops, two or three fold. VALUABLE IMPORTATION OF RARE STOCK. Doctor G. B. Davis, of Charleston, S. C., who went harrowing and cultivating, we have no idea that out to Turkey, a few years ago, as cotton the steam plow can be ever used with advan-planter to the Sultan, has brought back some tage. But for heavy clay lands, and other fer-valuable domestic animals, to wit: tile soils that require breaking up to remote depths, to insure the largest crops, we think steam is destined, ere long, to lend its potent aid. Unquestionably, the most perfect tillage is trench spading; next to this is thorough surface and deep subsoil plowing, superadded. The first is hopelessly beyond reach of American farmers; and the last is too expensive to commend itself to general acceptance. 12 White Cashmere goats, 2 Brahmin or Nagore cattle, male and female, 4 Aylesbury ducks. In the application of steam to plowing, more The Cashmere goats shear from four to six scientific principles, and a more effectual practice in the pulverisation of the earth can be pounds of long, fine, white wool. The Thibet applied than is possible with the plow, owing goats have a coat of fur, which is combed out to the great amount of power necessary to from the long, dark-blue hair, to the amount The Cashmere wool is carry out this system successfully. We have of 16 to 24 ounces a-year, which is worth near no time to illustrate nor dwell upon this point, a dollar an ounce. but content ourselves with pointing out a single worth about half as much. The Nagore bull, bred to common cattle, will will soon be proved, by the result of tea nuts give a product like those brought home by Lieut. planted in October. The fact that the tea plant Lynch. The water oxen are so called, from buds and blossoms at the same time of the year their fondness of going into that element. They in this climate, as it does in Asia, is in favor of are queer-looking brutes, but said to be invalu- an identity of time in planting. At the same able for work in hot climates. PORTABLE STEAM ENGINE.-FIG. 33. all suited; but where large operations are car-| ried on, they may occupy a place among farming implements, with as much propriety as the plow. TEA NUTS. THE following letter, from Dr. Junius Smith, now residing in South Carolina, to the editors of the New-York Journal of Commerce, will be interesting to agriculturists, as well as to tea drinkers: The small quantity of tea nuts planted in December, 1848, failed to germinate, though fine, healthy nuts. Considering that they have no covering, or protection, whatever, after planting, in consequence of my absence in New York, and a severe frosty winter to encounter, it would not be expected that they would vegetate. Whether the same season of the year adapted to the planting of the tea nut in China, Java, and India, will be equally favorable in this country, The evidently misled by calling it tea seed. It was not to be expected that people residing in the interior of Asia, unaccustomed to packing tea nuts and plants for foreign countries, and with no other guide but mere guess work, should make a successful shipment. The consequence of this want of experience, was an almost total failure of my last importation. It was a great, though an expensive point gained, to know, with absolute certainty, what modes of packing will not answer. Plants and nuts, now on their passage home, were packed according to my instructions; and if they fail, so far as the manner of packing is concerned, the error, as well as the loss, will be my own. Golden-Grove Tea Plantation, Greenville, J. C., Jan. 22, 1950. JUNIUS SMITH. |