of any kind, will yield a great amount of the best of manure, which, if it is properly saved and returned to the soil which produced the peas, will return an ample compensation for all the elements of fertility which were taken up in the production of the crop. In one case, peas would exhaust the soil; and in the other they would improve its fertility, when they are raised in rotation with other crops, and none of the manure of the farm wasted. S. EDWARDS TODD. [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] CHEAP FENCING---SOD FENCES. If farmers should estimate the actual expenses of keeping their lands thoroughly fenced, they would be astonished at the annual outlays to effect this object. With many the business is so carelessly and hastily done, that continued repairs or loss by damage to crops from wandering and mischievous cattle, that it actually costs them more than it would have done to have formed safe and durable enclosures in the commencement. In short, expensive as good fences may be in the outset, they are the only economical ones that can be made. Hence, heavy wall, where permanence is required, and where the material is at hand, is entitled to the first place in the economy of fencing. Next the rail fence has its advocates. There was a time when its cheapness entitled it to credit-when rail timber was cheap. We have seen rail fences so thoroughly made that they stood from twenty to twenty-five years. In such cases, however, the timber was good, and great care taken. in laying and staking. But in the older sections of the country, rail timber is becoming scarce. The price of good chestnut rails has advanced one-half in twenty years. The eagernes for more cleared land, has removed most of the timber, and the introduction of chestnut, from the beauty of its grain, to finer uses in manufacture, promises to prevent its use much longer for rails or firewood. Something else must be used for fences. Where stone can be obtained, they will probably be more generally used. When we commenced we had in our mind the turf fence, which is becoming somewhat common in this vicinity. It is admirably adapted to line fences and along the highways, especially in low lands, where it fences and drains. The manner of construction is, to mark the width of the fence at the bottom, which, of course, is determined by the height to which the fence is to be carried; then the turf is handsomely cut on either side, and laid up in a line with the grass side out. The space between the two line of turf or inside of the fence, is filled in with earth from beneath the turf, or small stones, or in fact any thing sufficiently compact to make a solid bank. Then another tier of turf is cut and laid upon the former one, and so on until the fence is completed, with a fine slope from the bottom upward. The cost of such a fence, four feet high from the surface or five and a half feet from the bottom of the ditch, has been seventy-five cents a rod; and taking the ditch and embankment, it is ample protection against any animal. These fences can be made at any time except when the ground is frozen, but are better made as early as June or July, so that the earth may become well settled, and the sides well sodded, before the fall rains come on or the frosts of winter set in. The appearance of the fence when it has stood a short time is very fine, being a breastwork of verdure, while it actually takes no more land than an ordinary wall, for there is feed all over its surface. So far it promises durability simply from the protection the turf affords, but it would probably be benefitted by setting plants disposed to make much root on the top of the embankment. Another style of fence, cousin to the above we suppose, has been somewhat adopted-is first to set posts at proper distances for fence posts; a ditch is then dug on one side, and turf foundation carried up, over which the fence is finished, with two or three narrow boards, the number being determined by the depth of the ditch and height of the embankment. This fence is cheaper than one of all boards, and has the further claims that sheep or swine cannot crawl under it, and that the ditch subserves the purpose of drainage. At present these two kinds of fence promise cheapness and durability. What the future may reveal concerning the latter, however, time must determine. Either of these are more pleasant to the eye than ragged walls or the old fashioned zigzag rail fences. Richmond, Mass., Nov., 1861. WILLIAM BACON. [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] A CHAPTER ON TOBACCO. EDS. CO. GENT.-As the old song has it, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," and a vile weed it is too; nevertheless, men and women, and even children, will in one form or another make use of it. Millions of people daily chew, smoke, or snuff it, and they will continue so to do as long as water runs and tobacco is grown, and it is a nearly useless task to argue and reason with them of the expense of it, or of its deleterious effect upon the human system, or of the filthiness of the habit. In despite of all these, chew, smoke, and snuff they will, whether tobacco is ten cents or fifty or more cents a pound, or cigars are two for a cent or ten cents for one cigar. It makes but little difference-indulge in the luxury they will. In these matters this is yet a free country, and every one has the privilege of doing as he or she pleases-providing they do right, and enact no wrong in their doing. And it does not well become me, an habitual user of the weed of forty years standing, "to get up in meeting" and declare the use of tobacco wrong. No man is obliged to bear testimony against himself. The truth is, mankind are as the poet Burns said, “ an unco squad," having many evil propensities, and unfortunately too many of us are prone to gratify them. Therefore we must take human nature as it is, and men and women as they are, and a portion of them will use tobacco, despite all the scolding and lecturing of a whole army of self-styled reformers and anti-tobacco societies, to say nothing of the expense-which, by the way, is no trifling sum with thousands, both of the rich and the poor. the low price tobacco has been selling for years past, it has cost many a stingy farmer from $5 to $15 per year for tobacco for his and his family's use. If his town or county should assess upon him such an additional tax for educational or other public purposes, we should probably soon hear him talking loudly about the right of secession. At Tobacco has risen very much in price during the past six months, and if this deplorable war continues for some two, three or more years, as some persons predict, it will reach a higher figure per pound than the most inveterate chewer or smoker ever dreamed of, unless a large portion of the farmers of the free States go into its culture-if not largely, they should raise enough for home use. The plant can be successfully and profitably grown in all the "Free States," as was the almost universal practice among the farmers here in central New-Hampshire, half a century ago. I have recently inquired of several of our "oldest inhabitants," in reference to its culture, curing, &c., and find they were precisely as now practiced in Connecticut and other sections where grown upon a large scale. The past season I grew a few splendid plants. For smoking, this "home grown" is tip-top, and for chewing I get the "natural leaf," pure and undefiled, and uncontaminated with the sweat and tears of the negro slave, or of copperas, licquorice, bacon rinds, and other filthy stuff, as is the case with some of the manufactured tobacco from "Dixie land." Self-interest and a just pride of independence should prompt farmers, as far as possible, to raise every necessary farm product for family use-tobacco included, if needed. But some will say, tobacco is wholly unnecessary, and that the culture of it is immoral; all that may be bones, and I think this combination of them is both cheap and useful. JAMES S. GRENNELL, Greenfield, Mass., Nov. 17. 1861. [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] Two Words about Raising Potatoes. Sometime this year I saw in the Co. GENT., the advice true. By the same rule it might be objected to the raising of corn and rye, because from them they distil whiskey. So of hops and barley-because they are converted into lager beer-grapes, or its juice into brandy. Some one has said that man was a bundle of habits, and such is the force of one of these habits, that some persons, if they cannot purchase tobacco, will beg it-if they cannot beg it, will steal it if they can. I hold that it is better to grow it than to obtain it by either of the above named of a subscriber not to plant potatoes on the same ground means. Therefore I go in for raising the weed, and advise others, if they can't get along without it, to do likewise. Any one that can raise good cabbages, can raise tobacco. Those that wish to go into its culture on a large scale, will find ample directions in the N. Y. State Agricultural Transactions, 1859, with well executed plates illustrating the various processes, from the seedling plant, till the crop is ready for market, by the Hon. GEO. GEDThe COUNTRY GENTLEMAN will confer a great favor on many of its readers by republishing the whole essay, with the plates-say about the 20th of next March. DES. [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.j PREPARATION OF BONES FOR USE. EDS. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN-In your paper of Nov. 14, you ask for a practical and inexpensive method of preparing bones for use. I will give you my way, which is so simple that, although I have practiced it for years, I should not have thought of parading it in your columns, but for your inquiry, and also because our friend HOWARD of the Cultivator, who notices and remembers everything practical and useful, commended it in his last week's paper. I set an old cask with one head in some convenient spot back of the house, in the spring, and of the bones which have accumulated through the winter, I throw in enough to cover the bottom; then enough of unleached ashes thoroughly to cover them; then another layer of bones, then ashes, and so in alternate layers until the cask is full. On top is placed a sufficient covering of ashes, loam or charcoal dust, to prevent the escape of any gas. I usually wet down the ashes as I proceed, and leave the cask exposed to the weather, that they may be kept damp. By the next spring, when I wish to use them, the bones are thoroughly digested and in a fit condition to use. By this management I preserve all the material of the bones, and it stands to reason that they must be more valuable than those from which the animal matter has been extracted by the soap boilers, and which are then burnt for the sugar refineries, and then made into superphosphate. I usually take the mixed bones and ashes, and compost with well rotted manure, a liberal sprinkling of plaster, a little guano and salt, and a load of sweepings from the blacksmith shop, of iron scales, charcoal dust, horse hoof parings and the manure made there. This I apply to trees, especially pears. The growth caused by this is astonishing; as you perceive, this compost contains all the requirements, both for growth and fruit, better than any purchased superphosphate, for it has the potash so essential to the pear, and the iron, which is very important. I also prepared my grape border with this. two consecutive seasons. This may be prudent in some cases, but the opposite course has been successful with me. I planted last spring, potatoes on the same ground for the fourth time, year after year, and without manure of any kind, and they grow better and larger. This year I tried the California potato-one weighed 2 pounds and 10 ounces, and the greatest number between one and two pounds. The soil is a part clay, the balance a mixture of clay and black loam. We call the California potato a most excellent kind for the table and for feeding-very productive and free from disease, and far superior to the Prince Albert so much praised. Dane Co., Wisconsin. B. JAIN. [For the Cultivator and Country Gentleman.] PREPARATION OF NIGHT-SOIL. EDS. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN-In reply to your correspondent from Cannelton, Ind., in your paper of the 7th Nov., I beg to enclose an extract from a pamphlet lately published by a clergyman in England, entitled National Health and Wealth," by Rev. Henry Moule: "The great agent in this mode is dried surface earth, the extent of the capabilities of which, both for absorption and for deodorizing offensive matters, I accidentally noticed about seven months ago, and the truth and correctness of which observation has been proved by daily experience. "Under a strong impression of the evils occasioned or likely to be occasioned, by the vault or cess-pool on my premises, and feeling it to be a nuisance to my next neighsince I have had everything that would otherwise have bor as well as to myself, I filled it up with earth, and ever gone into it, received and removed in buckets. And even this mode of removal, though offensive in idea, has proved far less so in reality, than even a very small portion of the evils it is intended to remedy. At first the contents of these buckets were buried in trenches about a foot deep in my garden; but on the accidental discovery that in three or four weeks after being thus deposited, not a trace of this matter could be discovered, I had a shed erected, the earth beneath sifted, and with a portion of this the contents of the buckets were every morning mixed, as a man would roughly mix mortar. The whole operation of removing and mixing does not occupy a boy more than a quarter of an hour. Within ten minutes after its completion, neither the eye nor the nose can perceive anything offensive. This was the first observation I made. The next was this-that when all the earth which did not exceed three cart loads, had been thus employed, that which had been first used, was sufficiently dried to be used for the same purpose again; and it absorbed and deodorized the offensive matter as readily as at the first time; and so singu larly does this capability continue, that a portion of it has been used for a fifth time for the same purpose; and thus all that offensive matter, which otherwise would have been wasted in the vault, a nuisance to my house and the neighborhood, and a source, it may be, of sickness and disease, was converted into a mass of valuable manure, perfectly inoffensive both to the eye and nose. I not only use the bones saved from our own family, but buy a good many, paying Irish and German boys for "I have the same day submitted some to strong fire collecting, about half a cent per pound, which is the mar-heat, and that which unmixed with earth, would under ket price obtained by the cutlery works for their refuse such heat have been intolerable, in this mixed state emitbones. ted no offensive smell whatever." T. E. C. THE EXHAUSTION OF SOILS. amounts of the above constituents, assumed to be soluble in dilute hydrochloric acid, would probably be available for plants long before the expiration of the periods menfurther stores eventually available within a greater or a tioned, whilst in a large proportion, there would still be less depth from the surface." "But the exhaustion of mineral constituents by the sale of corn and meat alone was, in reality, not so great in the In visiting the Experimental Farm of J. B. LAWES, Esq., at Rothamsted, in 1859, Mr. L. pointed out to us land upon which wheat had been grown for the past eighteen years consecutively, in plots, without manure, manured with farm-yard manure, and manured with several other substances. These experiments were referred to by him in a paper presented at a late meeting of the British As-ordinary practice of this country, as has been assumed for sociation. Tables were presented showing the amounts of the purpose of the above illustrations. Where there was the different mineral constituents taken off in the crop no purchase of cattle food, or of artificial or town mafrom the respective plots. The variations in the compo- be much less than were taken in Dr. Gilbert's and Mr. nures, the sales of corn and meat would, on the average, sition of the ash of both grain and straw, dependent on Lawes' estimates; and where such materials were purvariations of season, and consequent character of develop-chased with any degree of judgment in the selection, there ment and maturity, had been first pointed out-the gene- would always be much more phosphoric acid (otherwise ral result being that, with an unfavorable season, there the most easily exhausted constituent,) so brought upon was a slight, though appreciable decrease in the percentage of lime and potash, and increase in that of magnesia; and again, an increase in the percentage of phosphoric acid and of silica, and, especially in the case of the straw ash, a decrease in that of sulphuric acid. The published summary of the paper referred to, goes on to state that when ammoniacal salts were used alone, year after year, on the same land, the composition of the ash of both grain and straw showed an appreciable decline in the amount of phosphoric acid, and that of the straw a considerable reduction in the percentage of silica; the amount of mineral constituents in the crop of a given area of land was very much increased; much more so than when a liberal supply of mineral constituents alone was used. But in neither of these cases was there anything like the amount of mineral constituents obtained in the crop that there was when the ammoniacal salts and mineral manures were used together, or when farm-yard manure was employed. The deficiency alluded to in silica and in phosphoric acid, and a deficiency also apparent, but not so great, in potash and magnesia, were not surprising, however, when it is considered that in these experiments, in which both corn and straw were annually removed, without the usual periodical return of farm-yard manure, there had been annually taken from the land, by the use of ammoniacal salts, about five times as much potash, about twice as much phosphoric acid, and about twentyfive times as much silica as would be removed under a system of ordinary rotation with home manuring and selling only corn and meat; "in fact, in sixteen years there had been taken from the land as much potash as would require eighty-two years, as much phosphoric acid as would require thirty-two years, and as much silica as would require four hundered years of such ordinary practice to remove." Notwithstanding this extraordinary consumption of these mineral materials,-a consumption which had been cousiderably exceeded for fifteen years past on the farm of Mr. Smith of Lois Weedon, the crops on the latter farm are not yet failing; and it was calculated that upon a soil of one foot in depth, "with the ordinary rotation, with home manuring, and the selling of only corn and meat," it would require "about 1000 years to exhaust as much phosphoric acid, about 2000 years to exhaust as much potash, and about 6000 years to exhaust as much silica, as, according to the average results of forty-two analyses relating to fourteen soils of very various descriptions, had been found to be soluble in dilute hydrochloric acid. Many soils had, doubtless, a composition inferior to that here supposed. In a large proportion, however, the the land, than would be obtained from it in the increase of produce yielded; in fact, under such conditions, in many soils, potash was more likely to become deficient. Again, by no means the whole of the mineral consttiuents sent from the farm in the form of corn and meat, will reach the sewers of our towns, and thence our rivers; a not insome form. In addition to which, imported corn, meat, considerable portion finding its way back to the land in and other materials, will contribute something to the restoration of our own cultivated land. It is at the same time certain that so much of the refuse matters of our towns as becomes diluted with water in the degrees recognized under the present sewage system, will be applicable as manure on the large scale, only to succulent crops, and especially to grass land; and so far as this is the case, they will of course, not directly contribute to the restoration to the land under tillage of the mineral constituents sent from it in its produce of corn and meat. When other descriptions of produce than corn and meat, such as roots, made by the return to the land of stable or town manures hay or straw, are largely sold, compensation is generally of some kind. If this be not done, the loss of mineral constituents may, indeed, be very considerable." These facts were presented (and enlarged upon more fully than our present limits will permit us to go,) mainly with the view of controverting LIEBIG's recent positionwhich implies, if we understand it correctly, that what is known as good farming at the present day, is totally inadequate to prevent the exhaustion of our soils. We have always claimed, and the very careful arguments of Mr. LAWES and Dr. GILBERT go to show, most conclusively, that with the careful economy of farm manures, the proper deepening of the soil, the well arranged rotation of the crops, the farmer will be enabled to sell both grain and meat without risking at all the impoverishment of his land. If these sales of grain and meat pass beyond a certain limit-and then only-the purchase of artificial fertilizers becomes necessary. The inference drawn by Dr. Gilbert and Mr. Lawes as regards the English farmer, was, that while the importance of applying to agricultural purposes as much as possible of the valuable manuring matters of our towns must be insisted on, at the same time they believed that modern practice does not tend to exhaustion in anything like the degree that Liebig and others have supposed. And so for the American farmer, we may lay it down as a general rule, that he must first exhaust his means of economizing and manufacturing the manures of the farm and barns and household, before he need think of buying fertilizers to any very great extent; and we may add our belief, not only that "the exhaustion of soils" will then become to him an altogether inexplicable phrase, but also that the improvement of soils will be a process which he can watch with annually increasing gratification and profit. STUMP MACHINE. A correspondent in the Nov. No. of THE CULTIVATOR, inquires for a good stump machine. We have one now in operation, which acts satisfactorily. I will enclose the maker's advertisement. Fig. 1. A. F. This stump machine is manufactured by John Thomas of Hamilton, C. W., and costs from $30 to $150, according to size-we should question if any but the largest would be strong enough for all cases. It is not new, as supposed—we have seen one similar nearly twenty years ago; the accompanying, which we copy from the COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Vol. X, p. 139, is essentially the same. The figure nearly explains itself, the chain at the lower end of the screw being attached to the stump as shown in Fig. 2. Every Fig. 2. part must be strong-the number of the COUNTRY GENTLEMAN referred to gives the dimensions of all the parts. THE OSIER FOR BANDS. Every farmer should have a small plantation of the osier for making bands for binding cornstalks, threshed straw, &c. Rye straw has been extensively used for this purpose, where it is raised and can be procured—but our opinion is that a square rod of the best osier (Salix purpurea,) is worth nearly an acre of rye. It is also more easily managed, for what a man would carry of the osier in his arms, would bind as much straw or stalks as half a wagon load of rye straw. A great deal of time, as every farmer knows, is wasted in trying to pitch with a fork, cornstalks which have been broken from badly bound bundles. Willow bands, properly put on, would save all this trouble. During the past very wet autumn, we were compelled to draw into the barn much of the corn crop before husking. It was very easily accomplished by first binding each shock firmly together with osiers, making large bundles, easily handled. When some ingenious inventor shall construct a machine for binding wheat after the reaping machine, by using the shoots of the willow for bands, binding machines may become common. The Salix purpurea may be obtained of many nurserymen, in the form of cuttings, and each cutting a foot long, and two or three years old, or even younger, will soon make a tree, if set in rich mellow ground, upland or otherwise, provided the soil is well cultivated before setting out and for a few years afterwards. Too much company is worse than none. LOSS FROM WEEDS. Very few of our farmers seem to be aware of the great loss they sustain annually, from the growth of weeds of one kind or another, with which quite too many of our farms are overrun. The late Sir JOHN SINCLAIR made some experiments on this subject, the results of which we annex, and which are worthy the consideration of all cultivators who have failed themselves to discover to how great an extent their crops are lessened by weeds: "1. Seven acres of light gravelly land were fallowed, and sown broadcast; one acre was measured off, and not weed was pulled out of it; the other six were carefully weeded. The unweeded acre produced eighteen bushels; the six weeded acres 135 bushels, or 221 per acre, which is 4 bushels, or one-fourth more produce in favor of weeding. 2. A six-acre field was sown with barley, in fine tilth and well manured. The weeding, owing to a great abundance of charlock, cost 12s. per acre. The produce of an unweeded acre was only 13 bushels; of the weeded, 28. Difference in favor of the weeding, 15 bushels per acre, besides the land being so much cleaner for succeeding crops. 3. Six acres sown with oats; one acre plowed but once, and unmanured, produced only 17 bushels. Another six acres, plowed three times, manured, This experiment and weeded, produced 37 bushels. proves that oats require good management, and will pay for it as well as other crops. Ten bushels of the increased produce may be fairly attributed to the weeding, and the other ten to the manure." [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] Large Corn Crop in New-Jersey. MESSRS. EDITORS-Mr. David Padgett of this county, has just had a remarkable yield of corn, and if it has ever been surpassed in this part of the country I should like to hear of it. He planted three acres of corn upon a clover sward. The ground had been recently marled-top-dressed with good manure in the fall-measured the ground carefully, and from an acre obtained one hundred and seven bushels and one peck of shelled corn. From the other two acres one hundred and eighty bushels, or ninety bushels per acre. Mr. P. is one of our most intelligent and industrious farmers, and this statement, as I received it from himself, may be relied upon. Who will now say corn cannot be raised in South Jersey? We have had one hundred and four bushels of corn raised in this neighborhood before, but this last surpasses anything of the kind ever known here. Deerfield, N. J.. Nov.. 1861. S. G. CATTELL. [For the Country Gentleman and Cultivator.] Experiment with Potatoes. EDS. Co. GENT.-I herewith send you a statement of my success in cultivating ten sorts of potatoes the present season. They were planted on an inverted clover sod, 3 by 3 feet, and hand hoed once. About a teaspoonful of plaster was dropped into each hill when they were planted. Soil, a heavy clay, very wet the latter part of the season. The first eight sorts are seedlings originated by Rev. C. E. Goodrich of Utica, N. Y. Amazon. Cuzco,... Callao... Names. Central City, Pinkeye Rustycoat... Prince Albert, Amount Planted, bushel, 1 bushel and 4 quarts, 1⁄2 bushel, bushel. 20 quarts, 28 quarts. 1 bushel.. bushel,. 3 bushels.. Yield. Clinton 5 bushels-not worth digging on account of the rot. All the old varieties cultivated in this section have rotted badly. P SUTTON. Luzerne Co., Pa., Nov. 11, 1861. GAS LIME AND ASHES. The quite frequent inquiries received as to the use of GAS LIME, renders any trial of it in some degree interesting, although the benefit of its application apparently depends very greatly upon circumstances of soil and location, which it is not easy to calculate upon without actual experiment. Judge STRONG recently mentioned to the writer an instance of its successful employment upon his farm in Suffolk Co., on the northern shore of Long Island. The Gas Lime was purchased in a considerable quantity at a cost of five cents per bushel; as it lay in the heap and was scattered from it by the wind, the grass around seemed to derive no benefit whatever from the sprinkling, although the casual scatterings from an ash heap under similar circumstances always show a marked effect. Hence little good was expected. This was several years ago. The Lime was spread at the rate of a hundred bushels per acre on seeding down with wheat, timothy being sown in fall and clover in the spring. The wheat crop harvest showed no apparent result from the Gas Lime, but the first crop of grass was a remarkably good one, and for five successive seasons two tons of hay per acre were cut in the field, when, without the effect exerted by the Lime, a ton and a-half or thereabouts would have been anticipated as the average of three years, when the land would have to be broken up, thus giving only three average crops instead of five good ones. So much for the action of the Gas Lime upon the Grass. The soil, it should be added, is a strong loam. The field was an orchard, which was thus seeded down in part because the trees had never really seemed to be doing very well. That part of the field dressed with the Gas Lime, had been about fourteen years in apple trees; they at once began to grow more vigorously, presenting a striking contrast to their neighbors where the Gas Lime was not applied, and the third or fourth year after the dressing yielded for the first time a good crop of fruit. This present season is the third year that they have been in good bearing; and, owing partially to a careful pruning of branches which had become too thick and numerous, the crop of 1861 was superior to either of the two which preceded it. This year's apple crop alone would perhaps have covered the whole outlay originally involved. So much for Gas Lime, in the present case, as an application for apple trees. A successful trial on Grass Land had also been made with coal ashes, which were sprinkled under the trees on the lawn in Spring. The ground had previously been very thinly covered or almost bare; but the coal ashes, which were spread on at the rate of about a bushel per square rod, brought in a thick and thrifty growth of clover, and the cut of grass was much heavier than where no ashes had been put. Judge STRONG was of the opinion that the effect would have been still more beneficial if the ashes had been put on in Autumn instead of Spring. Wood ashes are largely used as a fertilizer on the farms of Long Island; and, as an illustration of their lasting effect, it was mentioned that it had been common in seeding down a field to apply yard manure as far as it would go, leaving perhaps one-half to receive ashes in its stead. The field lies three years in grass, and is then broken up for corn, manured in the hill; but Judge STRONG thought that the corn crop produced upon the part of the field where ashes had been put on was invariably more thrifty to the eye from its first start, and yielded perhaps onethird more heavily than the part of the field to which barnyard manure only had been applied. It has lately been found the better practice to apply the ashes and manure "half-and-half" upon the same surface in place of the foregoing practice. The application of the leached ashes was at the rate of about a hundred bushels per acre, and of the manure twenty-five loads of say 30 bushels per load. Long Island farmers (at least in this vicinity) always make Indian corn the first crop after breaking up-the average production of a good farm being perhaps sixty bushels of ears per acre, with a hundred as an occasional good yield. The second crop is oats, of which 40 bushels is considered a fair return, generally without manure; after which a more or less liberal application of ashes, yard manure, &c., takes place, and the land is seeded down with a crop of winter grain, to remain three years in meadow. This part of the Island probably produces scarcely as much wheat as its inhabitants consume, and the Indian corn is mostly fed out upon the farms. Hay is an important crop for sale, and considerable quantities of fertilizers are annually purchased, as will be seen from the above outline, by all who take much pains or pride in their pursuit. Thrashing Machines---Clover-Hullers. I wish to get a two-horse power thrashing machine and kinds, would like some of your correspondents to inform clover huller, and being unacquainted with the numerous me by letter, which is best, most durable, and easiest for horses-and especially adapted to cleaning grass seed. I raised this year 125 bushels of timothy seed, and I estimate lost 15 to 20 bushels for want of a suitable machine to remove straw and chaff. What are the advantages of an overshot thresher? Can one be procured in Chicago, as good and cheap as in New-York? What is the pricealso price of a wood-sawing machine? How much wheat will such a thrashing machine thrash in a day, and how many hands will be needed. A. F. West Liberty, Iowa. Probably Wilbur, Emery & Co. of Chicago could furnish all these machines, of good construction, and at reasonable rates. The price of a good clover-huller is about one hundred dollars. The price of a good two-horse endless chain power, with all parts complete, is about $120; a thrashing machine and cleaner about as much more; or a thrasher and simple separator of straw, about $40 or $50. Such a machine, driven by two horses requires about four hands in all, and will thrash some 100 or 150 bushels of wheat in a day-but varying with the size and weight of the horses, facilities for pitching, number of hours run, and the good order the machine may be kept in. The overshot thresher delivers the straw and grain at a more convenient height for the cleaner or separator. A woodsawing machine varies in price with the size of the saw, but a good one may be had for 35 or 40 dollars. Will some of our correspondents who have had careful experience furnish the other information asked foralthough it may be asking too much for any one to decide which is the best machine, until he has tried them all. Our correspondent can hardly expect them to write private letters and pay postage, to give him the desired information, unless they may be interested readers, whose statements he might think were not impartial. SORGHUM MOLASSES.-In these times of embargo and non-intercourse with our southern brothers, it is found very convenient for each farmer to get 25 or 50 gallons Sorghum Molasses from a very small patch of ground, by hauling his cane to a mill near by, and getting it made on shares. The first year the cane was introduced among us, I bantered a neighbor to go in with me for a small bag of the new and untried seed. We were neither of us willing to venture $1, but we went 50 cents each, and I raised 23 gallons of most excellent molasses from a trißing amount of ground, and that too with a clumsy contrivance of a wooden mill which wasted about one-third of the juice. I know of a man who has two acres of cane this fall, and when I last saw him he expected to lose all, on account of the mill that he had depended on having been sold and moved away. Why cannot some cheap and simple mill be invented, so that every farmer could make his own molasses? I think if I was a worker in iron, I could contrive such a one myself. Switzerland Co., Ind., Nov. 13. R. |