When If it kills out the first season, it is more of the potato, and was most anxious to see it probably due to the influence of excessive summer heat than to the extreme cold. Sow it, in that case, early in the fall, say about the first of September, and sow with plaster, a half bushel or so to the acre. It will thus take root and get such a start, by the following summer, as to be a protection to itself against the summer sun. If sown with some grain crop, all the better; each will help the other. in general use, hit upon the following ingen- The Wild Oat Again. The ED. FARMER:-In compliance with your suggestion in the December No. of the FARMER, I will attempt to furnish you with more information in relation to the Wild Oat, so Here is a point: clover must have a good supply of lime, and therefore usually succeeds best on those soils which are denominated calcareous. Some soils may already contain enough of it; but even then the plaster will do no harm. The following is a good method of sowing clover seed with plaster: Moisten the seed and thoroughly mix it with dampen-termed. ed plaster. Sow in the proportion of seven or eight pounds of clover and half a bushel of gypsum to the acre. If you have clover already started, dampen the plaster and sow it on broadcast alone in the spring. We have seen better clover in Wisconsin than anywhere else in the world, and we are confident that most of the failures are more justly attributable to a lack of sound judgment and persevering effort on the part of the farmer than to anything in the climate. We would never sow a field of wheat, without adding a few pounds of clover seed. If you design to follow with corn, you will have the advantage of good fall feed and a cleansed and otherwise greatly improved soil. Forbidden Fruit-Introduction of Potatoes into I cannot, at this season of the year, furnish anything more than a sample of the seed, but I would remark that when it is growing, it has every appearance of the common oat. It did not attract much attention until two har vests since. Since then it has overrun whole fields, and ruined the crops. The articles in the FARMER on the subject have awakened a great deal of discussion and inquiry, and farmers are anxiously looking for some remedy. I have been shown a bin of one hundred bushels (from which the sample presented was taken), grown on a beautiful field of forty acres of prairie, on which When it is underclean wheat was sown. stood that the greater part shelled and fell to the ground, this circumstance will furnish some idea of its injurious consequences. It will be a great favor if some one will M. Noel, a French agriculturist, speaking point out its origin and a means of eradicatof the introduction of the potato into France, says:-"This vegetable was viewed by the ing it from the soil. Farmers here are anxpeople with extreme disfavor when first intro-iously looking to the FARMER for some induced, and many expedients were adopted to induce them to use it, but without success. In vain did Louis XVI wear its flower in his buttonhole, and in vain were samples of the tubers distributed among the farmers; they. gave them to their pigs, but would not use them themselves. At length, Parmentier, the chemist, who well knew the nutritive qualities WEELAUNEE, Dec. 23, 1863. formation on the subject. Professor Lapham has written me on the subject. I shall furnish him a sample of the grain, and all the information on the subject I can. A. PICKETT. Borghum-Experiences and Prospects. MR. EDITOR:-Just as I expected-Sorghum has become, or, at least, is fast becoming, one of the "chief absorbent topics" among the agriculturists of the Northwest. I thought it proper to let you and the readers of the FARMER know that we have been doing a little during the past season, in the way of raising and manufacturing sugar cane; also that we intend to do still more the coming season, if all is well; for the people in this vicinity are awakening to see the necessity and profit of growing this valuable crop. Although it has been a very unfavorable season for cane raising, still it has paid very well here; crops yielding from eighty to one hundred and fifty gallons per acre. There have been six or seven mills in operation within five miles of this place, each one having all the work to do that it was capable of performing, for the term of four or five weeks; and this is only a beginning of what will be done in the future, if the seasons prove tolerably favorable. Good Chance for Sugar Making in the Pineries. EDITOR FARMER:-Much being said in the agricultural papers concerning the high price of sugar, and the practicability of procuring a supply from the Sugar Beet, I wish to speak to the farmers of Wisconsin, through the FARMER, in reference to the vast amount of Maple in our State, and the facility of procuring sugar from the same. Most people have the opinion that the pine regions are a vast extent of sand, producing only pine, sweet fern, and wintergreen-a very erroneous opinion. The pine grows mostly in belts along the streams, from a half a mile to two and a half miles wide, according to the width of the stream. Between these belts is hard wood timber, with a great abundance of sugar maple, from which large quantities of the best of sugar can be manufactured with less expense than it can be procured from other sources. Said lands belong chiefly to speculators, except what is occupied by settlers, and they are quite numerous. As tapping the maple with a bit or augur does them no damage, no The African cane has been the most profit- speculator would refuse to let them be tapped, able the past season, on account of its being by having the taxes paid, or by having his two or three weeks earlier than the Chinese. | family supplied with a few pounds of sugar. I prefer the Sorghum to the Imphee, when On Maple Creek, and so on from twelve to both are ripe. I think the flavor is better.-twenty miles north of New London, five thouBut the Imphee is more sure to ripen, conse-sand good-sized maples can be tapped on one quently it is the safer kind to plant in this quarter section, mostly clear of underbrush latitude, as a rule. I have manufactured for myself and others a good article of syrup to the amount of 1,350 gallons. I was at work at it just one month. I used one of Skinner's Mendota mills-the same that I used last season. I used Brainard's evaporator for defecating, and the common Russia iron pan for finishing. Should I do anything at this business another season, I shall do what I do on a larger scale, and, consequently, more expeditiously. I wish to say here, that I think I could put cane enough through my mill daily to make from 80 to 100 gallons of syrup. PALMYRA, Dec. 14, 1863. O. P. Dow. and fallen trees. Many farmers in Wisconsin are not so much engaged in the winter season but that they can form companies, go on to the ground in February, with boiling apparatus and a small capital, build a cheap boiling-house, with cooking and sleeping apartments, make troughs of sapling pines, and spiles or spouts of most any free splitting timber, and have all arranged by the 20th of said month. By improving all the sugar weather until the buds start, when it will be too late to proceed further, except to make a few gallons of syrup, as sugar will not grain after the spring is so far advanced as to start the buds-from 1,000 to 20,000 lbs. of the best of sweetning can be procured, according to the size of the nature of man. The farm is no mere field for company. The facilities for bringing it away are first rate. Steamboats run, as soon as navigation is open, to Shawano, stopping at New London and other points on the Big Wolf. Scows and flatboats can be poled down the Little Wolf and Embarras to Oshkosh, and the sugar may thence be taken on by rail. Vast agricultural wealth lies hidden in those northern forests, as reported by Messrs. Reed and Hammond, Commissioners to select the lands donated by Congress to aid in the endowment of an Agricultural College. Not only in producing sugar, but the time is not far distant when quantities of farm produce will be carried down those northern streams that will astonish all prairiedom. Thousands of dollars ean be saved to Wisconsin, every year, by a little exertion on the part of its inhabitants in producing sugar alone. METOMEN, Dec. 14, 1863. E. REYNOLDS. How is a Man to Learn Farming? Just as he would acquire any other art or profession by serving an apprenticeship to it. If agricultural education be not practical, neither is it profitable. Of course we do not call it useless-no addition to mental wealth is ever altogether useless-but it stops short of the point where, in ordinary language, it can be turned to use. What do young men go to Colleges of Agriculture for? It is that they may learn how to make a livelihood and income by farming. But if the education they receive be not practical, it will not enable them to reach this end. The student of agriculture may have acqiured a knowledge of the general principles involved in his profession, but, until he has learned the art, his knowledge cannot guide aright. And a graduate who has not added practical knowledge to his science, will only bring his diploma to contempt. These, it may be said, are mere assertion; but examples in abundance of the inefficiency of mere general and scientific knowledge can be cited in illustration of their accuracy. dull routine; it is the platform on which the best minds of the day are successfully employing their highest energies. We must not, however, forget that agriculture is a routine each is to be performed, he is not an agriculof operations; and unless a man knows how turist. Instruction in the details of farm practice is thus an essential part of agricultural education; and unless our agricultural colleges take jealous and especial care of this, the agricultural degree which they confer upon their finished students will prove, agriculturally, worthless.-London Gardener's Chron. The above is the language of sound practical common sense-the very best kind of sense that we know anything about. Mere science, of itself, without ample illustration of its be valueless, would, nevertheless, be of comapplicability in practice, while it would not paratively little worth to the student of Agriculture. And, therefore, it is that we insist upon the importance to our proposed Agricultural College of a varied, well-stocked, and thoroughly managed Farm, Model and Experimental. The Mania for Live Fences-Good that may Come of it. "The taste for live fences and ornamental hedges has rapidly developed in the West during the past dozen years. The cost of fencing with rails or boards caused by the scarcity of fencing timber and the high price of lumber and its high rates of transportation to the interior, has made the fence question one of serious interest to Western farmers. Wire, tried with considerabie success and satisfaction in some localities, has so advanced in price that it is almost beyond reach-certainly beyond economic reach. All these things combined have made the subject of Live Fences one of great interest. Their beauty and durability have recommended them to general use. Hence the growing favor with which the Osage Orange has of late and Southern Illinois, and in similar latitudes years been received throughout all Central in other prairie States. Hence the grand rush into willow planting, the past two years, further north.-Prairie Farmer. Just so, neighbor. And is it not likely that No one is less likely than the present writer to contend for a regard to agriculture great good is to come to the Prairie States out exclusively as a money-making routine of of this "grand rush into willow planting?" operations. Let us admit it cordially and We think so; for, although the much lauded gratefully as "the art of all the sciences," affording, in its intelligent prosecution, scope Grey Willow may prove a partial failure, still for the exercise and enjoyment of the whole it will probably be allowed to grow for the partial advantage of something that will turn the wind to some extent, and at the same time add a most beautiful feature to the now bald and monotonous landscape. It will be worth a great deal for just that alone. And then when the farmers see how much of value and beauty has been added to their farms at so trifling an expense, we may expect them to make groves and division lines of yet more valuable trees. In most parts of the Old World, Forestry is esteemed an important branch of husbandry, and is taught with great care in all the agricultural schools. American farmers have likewise given much attention to forests, but it has been chiefly in the way of cutting them down without mercy, and, we may safely say, with a senseless vandalism that ought to disgrace,as really as it has punished, us and our posterity. Short Chapters on Practical Affairs. NO. III. ROTATION OF CROPS. supply the requisite lime or phosphorus will have been to far decomposed as to again make possible the profitable grewing of wheat. All this, we say, is, doubtless, well understocd by a majority of intelligent farmers; and yet how very few in number are they who, to any extent whatever, practice upon this principle. We are acquainted with lands, even in this young State, upon which nothing but wheat has been grown for the past twenty years! Wheat was, at first, about the only crop that was marketable, and will always command ready cash at some price, and, therefore, they have kept on, regardless of the undeniable fact, that to-day they produce several bushels less to the acre than when they commenced. It is natural enough that farmers who have never governed their course by the established principles of science, should begin this unreasonable practice of exclusively growing a crop for which there was an immediate and unfailing demand, inasmuch as the soil of a new country is popularly considered as next to inexhaustible. But then, why continue it for years after there is undeniable evidence of its absurdity? In those countries where agriculture has made its highest practical attainments, it is a rule never to grow two successive. crops of wheat, or other small-grain cereals, on the same piece of land. We take it for granted that most farmers fully understand that all the various crops grown differ from each other in the amount of certain constituents which they contain-as, for example, of lime, potash, soda, &c.—and that the proportion of these same constituents varies for different soils. This granted, the conclusion is inevitable, and philosophic, that certain crops will, faster than others, consume No rule of rotation can be laid down that the available amounts of this or that constit- will be adapted to all circumstances, for it uent in the soil, and on that account be more must depend, to some extent, upon differences or less profitably grown on a given tract of of soil, as well as upon the nature of the marland. And this is the foundation of the rota-ket demand; but then the modifications are tion of crops. For, after any particular crop, so easily made by any farmer of good judgas wheat, for instance, has exhausted so much of a certain available constituent, such as lime, or phosphorous, and yet possesses in abundance the elements especially required by some other crop, it is simply the dictate of common sense to stop growing the first, and, for a time, cultivate the other. This would give a better return for labor, for the present, and after a while, by the action of water, air, heat and cold, the minerals in the soil which ment and common intelligence that no one need be at loss as to the general course. A system practiced with good results in some parts of this country is what is called the five-shift rotation. The farm is divided into five fields, and the rotation commences with Indian corn, which is followed, in regular succession, by oats, wheat and clover. The corn and oats are of a nature to cleanse the soil, and very properly, therefore, precede. As soon as the oat crop is harvested the ground provements had been made within a few years. He knew of a pasture which ten years ago was valued at $10 per acre, but by cutting the brush, and sowing plaster and ashes, it is now valued at $40 per acre. Another pasture has ten bushels of ashes, eight bushels hen mabeen greatly improved by the application of nure, and seven hundred pounds of plaster, thoroughly mixed, and sowed in May, on 14 follow-number of cows it would before this method acres, and the pasture would keep twice the was adopted. It seemed to be the general opinion that plaster was the principal renovator, but some thought the beneficial effects of plaster depended very much upon the soil. One member had applied it to light, stony soil fects were lasting. with but little benefit, but on clay soil its efOne stated an instance of plaster being sown on a clay side-hill, and the effect was perceptible at quite a distance for several years. If it is desired to grow other crops, such as rye, barley, turnips, &c., it is simply necessary to have a larger number of fields, and to take care that the green crops be thrown in between the more exhaustive grain crops. Turnips and other root crops have the effect to shade the soil with their broad leaves, to pierce and more thoroughly open it by means of their long tap-roots, and in other respects tend to the improvement of the land. For these reasons, and because they are rather essential as food for stock, it is to be regretted that they do not oftener find a place in the rotation systems of the few farmers in this country who are wisely aiming to conduct their farming operations on sound principles. Rotation is also important for other reasons than the one above urged: it helps to rid the soil of insects which very naturally come to abound in a soil devoted to the same crop for successive years, and it insures to the farmer that variety of crops which is his only sure guaranty against those disastrous losses which sometimes fall upon those who foolishly stake their all upon a single crop. Much more might with propriety be said on this very important subject, but we trust that all, who have been induced to reflect on it appreciate the reasons urged, and will begin, the coming season, to shape their farming plans in practical conformity therewith. Management of Pastures. At a late meeting of the Wapping (Mass.) Farmers' Club, the neglect of home pastures was the subject of discussion. One thought no branch of farming was neglected so much as pasturing, and no part of the farm would produce greater profit. Farmers began to realize the importance of this, and great im Close Stables-How to Ventilate. We have been scolding a certain class of farmers pretty soundly for leaving their poor helpless animals exposed, without the least protection-not even a straw-covered shed, and that, too, when they are annually burning their straw to get rid of it-to the fierce storms of this northern clime. We cannot say with what, or whether, indeed, with any effect. But there stands our record; and when the Good Shepherd comes to the final gathering of all the creatures he hath made into the great fold of unfailing happiness, if any of these barbarians should find themselves "left out in the cold," while their wretched and long abused sheep, cattle, horses, asses, and swine are cleverly brought in, it will not be our fault! But, then, it is quite possible to err on the opposite side. All animals live by breathing; and to breathe well, and economically, and a good while, it is recessary to have as pure air as possible. A close stable for a horse or cow is no better for it than a tight, unventilated bedroom for you. See to it, that, while your stabled animals are made sufficiently warm, they be not left to suffer for want of a supply of pure air. Again, it is important that the required |