I have now, I humbly conceive, shown not only that it is the male parent which is capable of most speedily improving the breed of live stock, connected with agriculture, but that the male is the parent, from motives of sense and sound policy, which we can alone look to for the improvement of our breed of live-stock.

From the Farmers' Cabinet.

ICE-HOUSES.

parison of females, would show the advantage of getting that sex which can give the breeder a hundred of his offspring in a season in place of one. Another advantage is the letting out the males to hire for the season, a thing greatly to be wished the soceity would encourage, and give premiums for. The system is productive of the best consequences, a few of which it may be well to bring before the society; and be it remembered that it is only by the male, for a thousand obvious reasons, that it can be done. When a person has bred or purchased a male, he not only does not like to put him away, although he perhaps has found out that he is not well calculated, either as In your July No. the question is asked, "who to cross or selection, to suit the females he has to will answer to the request of a subscriber to be input him to; but from the partiality which we all formed of the best plan of building ice-houses, the have for our own, it is ten to one but we think an most suitable situation, &c. &c. ?" As my expeanimal, which, in truth, is of no value, to be a rience upon this subject has been considerable, and very fine one; and thus the breeder patters on differs, in some respects, from that communicated with an inferior animal, instead of year by year for the Cabinet in some of the succeeding numselecting such a male for hire as he sees would bers, I beg leave to trouble you with it, though at be best suited to correct the faults of his stock. this late day; and ask the favor of a publication, Look to the good arising in our breed of hor- if you shall believe there is in the premises any ses from this system, which in fact public stal- information conveyed worth the expense of printlions exemplify. Look how the districts in Eng-ing. land, where the practice of letting bulls and rams The first great secret in constructing an iceof by the season exists, have far outstripped the rest house, which will preserve the ice until the sucthe island in the excellence of the stock which they ceeding winter, consists in making it of considerapossess; and let any one say if the benefit result-ble capacity; to contain from 80 to 100 full ox-cart ing from it is not self-evident. If such a thing loads. The next is, that it should be under ground, were to be introduced in Scotland, and I shall hope and in a porous soil. If this last cannot be obtainone day to see it introduced under the patronage ed, the inconvenience may be obviated, where the of the Highland Society, it ought decidedly to be location will admit of it, by a tortuous drain from in the shape of shows or competitions. Then a the bottom, so constructed as to permit the passpirited farmer, or a few neighbors, could join and sage of the water from the dissolving ice without procure a fine animal at an easy rate: then the admitting the introduction of the warm external ignorant pretending judge would be told the truth air; or in a comparatively level situation, by sinking by the verdict passed on his property by the pub- a well in the centre, deep enough to reach a porous lic, who would not spare either his veracity or self-soil; or, if this cannot be reached easily, of capaconceit; comparison would teach all a better taste and judgment; fine animals would be brought from England, and all parts of the country; and rewards, not only of fame, but of emolument, would be conferred on the man who paid the greatest attention to his trade, and consequently brought My ice-house is a pit eighteen feet square, and foward the finest animals. I do not think I can twelve feet deep, walled up with stone as an ordibetter conclude than by quoting the words of Sir nary cellar-the wall eighteen inches thick, and John Sebright, whose ideas on the subject alto- continued one foot above the ground-the roof of gether coincide with my own. "There is, per- shingles, and the ends boarded up with the space haps," says he, "no means by which the breed of of an inch between each board, to admit a free venanimals can be so rapidly and so effectually im-tilation. I fill it in the following manner. When proved, as by its being the particular business of there comes a good snow which drifts a good some breeders to provide MALE animals for the deal, I collect three or four ox-carts and half a dopurpose of letting to hire. No trouble or expense zen hands, and chosing a drift which has blown will be spared by those who expect to derive pro- from a grass-field, the snow is cut with a shovel fit, not from the quantity but from the quality of or spade into blocks of a size to be handled with fathe animals which they breed; the competition cility, loaded into the carts, which are backed up which must always exist between breeders of this to the door of the ice-house and tilted in. The budescription will be a never-failing stimulus to ex-siness of one hand is to remain in the ice-house ertion. The common farmer, who seldom sees and tramp the snow well and evenly down. When any stock but his own or that of his neighbors, the snow is in good condition, that is, when it is generally concludes that his have arrived at the drifted into high banks, and thereby rendered sosummit of perfection. But the breeder, who letslid, the filling is executed with great facility, econofor hire, must frequently submit his own male ani-my and celerity. In the winter of 1837, my icemals to the inspection of the public, and to the house was filled to the comb of the roof in one criticism of his rivals, who will certainly not en-day and a quarter, by seven hands and two oxcourage any prejudices he may entertain of their carts. The drift was within 150 yards of the icesuperiority. Thus each, besides the improvement of his stock, will receive a fair remuneration; and every breeder have the means of selecting the male he thinks best calculated for the females he may happen to possess."

city sufficient to contain eight or ten hogsheads of water, and in both cases walled and not filled up with stone. The bottom of the pit may be so constructed as to have a fall from the whole circumference to this centre.

house. In the winter of 1838 I filled the same house in one day and a half by five hands and three ox-carts. This snow was not drifted. It was the last of March, and the prospect of getting drift

country, might be rendered more generally useful, I am sure, if your correspondents (who are numerous and able,) would always state the grounds on which they form their opinions. Advice, unsupported by example, is seldoin followed; nor is the fact that the persons who give it most frequently use fictitious names, any incentive to its adoption, especially as the statements and conclusions made by them, however true, often appear ridiculous and absurd. If your contributors would all substantiate their statements, (by a relation) as I have intimated before, of the facts and experiments on which they are founded, and give too their names and residences, so that people may know on whom they depend, a very great stumbling block to the usefulness of your paper would be removed.

These reflections were produced by the singular circumstance, that although the Farmers' Cabinet abounds with testimony in favor of using lime, yet in this vicinity there are very few indeed who have been prevailed upon by it to give this invaluable manure a trial.

snow had failed. It was a wet snow. I had it rolled into large balls on one day, and on the next, when the water had pretty well drained out of it, it was put into carts and emptied into the ice-house. In the latter mode when the snow is wet enough to be rolled into balls with facility, the filling is executed with more expedition, and packing very close in the house, it does not dissolve so much as the driven snow. I have filled my ice-house with driven snow so white and clean, as to be used with equal gust in all modes in which ice is used; but when rolled into balls, even on grass-lands, it contracts impurities from the surface, from which it cannot be freed, which render it unfit for some few of the purposes for which ice is used. For the preservation of fresh meat, &c., and for the making of ice-creams, snow is preferable to ice, for an obvious reason; while for almost all other purposes it may be used with almost equal comfort and advantage. Snow is water converted into vapor, exhaled, free from all impurities; and frozen in the clouds, descends to us, and is an appropriate and beautiful, as just emblem of the highest moral purity. Ice is water congealed, with all its impurities, and these are not a few, and what is of more consequence, the most nauseous of them are invisible; at least this is the character of the water from which the ice is obtained, from which most ice-houses are filled. The filling an ice-house with ice, is, to most persons in the country, even when there is a stream In the spring of 1835, I planted a field containconvenient, and a pond even without the expense ing twenty-five acres of land in corn; this field of constructing one, a job so laborious, expensive, was a light and sandy soil, and had been in corn, disagreeable, and unhealthy to those actively en- oats, and pasture, without any admixture of clogaged in its operations, that I have no doubt many ver, or manure, successively for a number of years; are kept from the enjoyment of this wholesome four hundred and seventy-five bushels of corn was (when pure,) and grateful luxury by these consi-received from this field this season, which was derations alone. And why should this be so, since considered an uncommon large crop; the followan ice-house filled with drifted snow, or snow wet ing spring this field was sown in oats, which at enough to be rolled into large balls, and left for harvest was in some places scarcely worth cuttwelve hours to drain before being put into the ice-ting; the following fall it was sown in wheat, and house, affords all the comforts, advantages and luxuries which can be derived from one filled with ice. Add to this, the cost of the former, it does not exceed $10, and may be executed in dry and mild weather, and exposes to no disease; whereas, if filled with ice, the work must be done while the weather is very cold; or if the ice be dissolving, it is not so good, and greatly exposes to disease those who are employed in the operation, and costs four times as much.

Now, Mr. Editor, if you think the following extract from my journal (free at least from the above objection) will have any tendency to arouse the people of this section of country to their own interest, you are requested to give it a place in your periodical.

in the spring following I sowed it in clover; the result of the wheat crop was, that I did not receive as much as was sown, and thinking the clover not worth keeping for the scythe, it was pastured until fall.

Profiting by former experience, I now determined to apply lime to this field; accordingly in the spring (1838,) I had it well ploughed, and 800 bushels of stone-lime carefully spread upon twenty acres of the same. It was then harrowed well My ice-house is walled with stone. I fill it with- until in good order, after which it was struck out out placing any material betweens the wall and the lightly four feet square for planting corn, which snow. As soon as it is filled, and the ice sunken was done from the first to the fifth of May. sufficiently for that purpose, which will be the first (My reasons for adopting the above method, was few days of thawing weather, I cover it well with that the land being poor, and having, the fall prewheat straw, say two or three feet thick, and as it vious to liming, been manured, I thought, by flushbegins to separate from the wall I push the srtawing it in the spring, and spreading the lime on top down as far as it can be got, and occasionally do this during the summer. My ice-house frequently has snow in it when the season comes round for filling it.

ROBERT H. ARCHER.

Churchville, Harford, county, Md.

From the Farmers' Cabinet.

LIME.

Mr. Editor,-Your Cabinet, which is even now, I believe, the best publication on farming in this

and harrowing well would be the best plan to produce a good crop of corn, as well as to improve the land speedily; and I would observe that the corn was not cultivated so much as I wished, owing to a storm which knocked it about so as to render it impossible to continue cultivating it.) I was careful in leaving but two stalks in each hill. The corn on the twenty acrs, which had been limed suffered but little if any, from the severe drought which took place this season, but the corn on the five acres having no lime on, suffered very much. The corn was cut'up and shocked in the month of September, and husked out and measured in November. The corn was very dry

bus.

380

743

and good. The result of this crop was 743 bushels from the twenty acres which were limed, manured, &c. and 80 bushels from the five acres having no lime on, making in the whole 823 bushels of corn. It is the conviction of many farmers, that the corn, crops this season would have been much larger, had not the drought taken place.

Let us now contrast this last crop of corn with the former one, and show the difference as to the land which was limed, manured, &c., and the land which was not, as the soil of this field was alike in quality previous to the above improve

ment.

1835. Produce of twenty acres, 19 bushels per acre, 1838. Do. of 20 do. 37 do. do.

10,299,743

2,590,381

8,327,909

3,367,015

1827

803

6,712,015

1,871,276

1828

7,686,640

1,270,461

7,192,698

956,925

1,061,054

1,186,129

1,337,073

1,332,872

1,036,057

758,900

762,730

1,207,802

Showing a difference between the former and the last crop, from 20 acres, of three hundred and fortythree bushels; and a difference between the former crop from the whole field, and the last crop, of three hundred and twenty-eight bushels.

It will appear then, Mr. Editor, that I have received this season 363 bushels of corn more from twenty acres of this field than the former crop, which was received from the same twenty acres. Or, taking in the five acres which had no lime on, I received an overplus this season of 328 bushels, there being that number of bushels of corn from the field, more than at the former crop.

We will now make some estimate as to the cost of the lime, and I think it costs nothing to those who use it judiciously upon their land. We will take into this estimate the overplus corn from the twenty acres of land which was limed, the overplus of which is 363 bushels.

The Cultivator and Genesee Farmer were prophecying a short time ago, that the cattle fever in the west would soon reach a crisis. Those who are gifted with the spirit of prophecy never $200 00 800 fail to find the facts which verify their predic700 tions; and accordingly, the last number of the Cultivator, in noticing the price of a cow which was lately sold for $2000 in Kentucky, announces, that "this is the climax." The lever, having reached its crisis, according to the opinion of the Cultivator, we wonder that paper had not advised its readers whether the patient would die or get well. Judge Buel is unquestionably an excellent farmer and writer, but clearly he is no doctor; and if he were, he could not feel the pulse of a patient, at his distance, from Kentucky. But if our worthy cotemporary will honor our state by a visit, we promise to accompany him to the farm of every prominent breeder, and he will then be able to study and learn the true pathology of this disease, which at a distance, appears so frightful. We will point him to the glorious blue-grass pastures, and the immense fields of "meal, meadow and manure," abounding in Kentucky; we will show him estimates of the exports of livestock from Kentucky to every quarter of the vast south; we will prove to him the great demand for improved animals of any discription, not only existing in Kentucky, but the whole valley of the Mississippi, and which cannot be met; we will point him to the spirit which is exhibited here of substituting superior for inferior stock, and to the willingness of paying at present a comparatively

By balance remaining on overplus corn,
$57 25
Thus it will appear, that after paying for the
lime, and for carting and spreading it, and allowing
the interest on the money paid, there still remains
a balance from the overplus corn the sum of $57
25, which will amply pay for all extra labor and
expense that the raising of this overplus of corn
may be charged with. If such then is the case,
which is to me as clear as that two and two make
four, how is it that lime "costs too much," which ap-
pears to be the hobby-horse upon which too many
land-holders in our neighborhood ride upon; and
for which reason it is not used upon their lands.
There are few individuals here who have lately
given it a trial, and they have been fully satis-
fied as to the powerful effects of this invaluable
mineral upon their land; and I hope that the time
is not for distant when many of our land-holders
in this neighboorhood will give it a trial. We
shall not then fear but what our section of country
will advanee too in the march of improvement.

R. M. BLACK.
Poncader Hun., N. Castle Co., Del., Dec. 25, 1838.

clusion may be correct, so far as regards the working of a single machine; but we think he has himself furnished evidence, that any required degree of power may be obtained by a combination of small machines. In Silliman's Journal for January, 1839, is a paper on this subject by Dr. Page, in the course of which there is a drawing and description of a machine made by Mr. Davis, of Boston, of which Dr. Page says “As a proof that electro-magnetism is susceptible of useful application where only a small power is wanted, a small engine was made by Mr. Davis in the month of July last, by the aid of which an individual gains filteen dollars per day, by the simple operation of drilling the steel-plates for gas burners. I think this may be considered the first instance in which the mechanical application of electro-magnetism has been turned to profitable account." It appears perfectly evident to us, that a combination of the power of several such machines, like that of several boilers on a single steam-engine, may be made to exert almost any power wanted; whether the expense would be justified in the result, can only be determined when the nature and efficiency of this new agent is better understood. As it is, we must for a time be content with the old fashioned agents, horse, water or steam-power, and patiently wait for other developments and improvements.

up-hill work for six weeks at the beginning; the drought, the grass-hopper and the turnip flea, did their work so effectually that I abandoned the crop in despair; however, when the rains came on, many seeds which had lain in the earth vegetated and grew so luxuriantly as to give the above result, where every one who saw the ground predicted there would not be five bushels; with a fair chance, I firmly believe, my quarter acre would have yielded 250 bushels.

As to the relative value of the rival crops, I cannot say any thing with accuracy farther than that when our stock of beets was exhausted, and we commenced feeding the ruta bagas, although I have not been able to detect any difference in the quantity of milk in the pails, the quantity of butter on the second week of turnip feed was reduced one-third, at which point it still continues; the quality is about the same.

in other places on the road. The machinery of this machine, which we are not able to describe, is contained in a small building about the size of an Irish hut, which is placed on wheels, and can be moved as necessity requires. The scoop, or scraper, (we are ignorant of the proper name of it,) is something like a coal-hod, with one edge sharp, and containing three or four large teeth. A huge bail is attached to the mouth of the scraper, to which is connected a chain that passes over a pully at the extremity of a projecting crane, and communicates with the machinery within the building; the other end of the scraper is united to a beam, or lever, which passes under the crane. The scraper is let down to the bottom of the excavation, the mouth of it sustaining a downward inclination, and is thus drawn up through the gravel by the chain attached to the bail, and filled. It is then swung off by means of the crane, over a gravel car, the bottom removed by a jerk upon a cord, and the contents discharged. Each scraper fills a car full, and every operation occupies about a minute. It is said to excavate as rapidly as 25 men-making a saving of about 20 men. It can be used to advantage, we presume, only in rather light soils.

I have no other facts in possession which will warrant me in giving the beet the preference. The cattle eat the turnips with the same eagerness as the beets, and present the same healthy appearance. The horses and store-hogs I find give preference to the beet, the sheep to the turnip, and all the fault I have to find is with myself for not raising enough to let the above mentioned The Irish view it with a jealous eye, and it is worthies comes in with the cattle for their daily necessary to guard it constantly to prevent their rations of roots. Others have no doubt dipt into destroying it. They are not pleased with so powthis subject more deeply than I have, and are con-erful a competitor. sequently much better qualified from experience and longer observation to arrive at more positive conclusions; will they let us hear from them? MAHLON S. KIRKBRIDEe.

Morrisville, Jan. 15th, 1839.

From the Farmers' Cabinet.

From the Maine Farmer. CARE OF COWS.

Some farmers are particular to have their oxen and horses well tended and well fed, but pay no attention to their cows. This is one of the errors which ought to be corrected. Cows that give

ON THE PREPARATION OF ORCHARD GRASS-milk should have a warm barn, the best hay and

SEED FOR SOWING

a feeding of roots every day, and the extra milk will doubly remunerate the trouble and expense. Orchard grass-seed is always in the hull or And cows that are dry, and expected to calve in chaff, and is very light, not weighing more than the spring, should certainly be carefully tended 12 or 14 lbs. per bushel, and if sown without and warmly housed to keep them in flesh and prebeing first wetted, it is very liable to fail though vent them from contracting any disease which the seed be ever so good. It is recommended to will be likely to affect them after they have calved. spread it out on the floor, and with a watering pot Cattle are as liable to take cold from exposure as to sprinkle it, and then mix it well with a rake, men are, and by paying a little attention to their and then let it lay till the next day, when if ne- comfort you may save them a great deal of suffering, cessary, it may be again sprinkled with water, and and yourself much loss. A great portion of the mixed up well; and before sowing it, mix plaster-accidents which happen to young cows with their of-Paris with it to bring it to a proper state for sowing. The water and plaster will increase the weight, and cause it to settle close to the ground and enable it to take root. This is one of our most valuable and profitable grasses, and every care ought to be taken in sowing it properly, for on this depends the success of the crop. It is generally sown much too thin; two bushels to the acre is preferable to one by just one half. Remember that whatever is worth doing at worth doing well.

all is

R.

From the Hampshire Gazette.
EXCAVATING BY STEAM.

In excavating for the rail-road near Springfield, a machine is made use of, which is operated by steam-power. Similar machines are also used

first calf, are owing to poor keeping, exposure to cold or some accident during the winter, the effect of which is not manifested until after they have dropped the calf. A mess of raw potatoes and a little salt regularly given once or twice a week to cows that will calve early, is very beneficial. It will keep their hide loose and have a tendency to produce a healthy action throughout the whole system.

While on this subject, there is one practice more we will name which is followed by some farmers, that ought to be abandoned. This is the practice of putting the hay over into the crib immediately under their cattle's noses. In this case they necessarily breath on it, and then will not eat it. A board from the bottom of the partition that separates the "tie-up" from the barn floor, should be removed, and the hay placed against the aperture within their reach. By feeding in this