their principles, and he is not up to his work unless he can tell whether his tools are well or ill made, and can see the cause of any defect in their workings. If, by a little here and there a man can save the labor of one horse on a farm, it is a great thing. The multitudes of machines which are rising like meteors round us, should, in this branch of science, at all events, unteach us the foolish vanity of supposing our present practices to be the best possible. In the West Indies they are no doubt as well convinced of the excellence of their agriculture as we are, and they have not generally introduced either the plough or the wheel-barrow! My authority for this is the writer of a lively sketch of their manners and customs, entitled "Marly, or a Planter's Life in the West Indies." He says, "after a week or five days of this kind of labor, very distressing to the people, few acres indeed were gone over, although there were rather more than 100 negroes employed, one day with another, digging only these holes in the ground. Had the ground been previously tilled with the plough, an amazingly greater quantity of these holes could have been made in one day than it was possible for the people to effect in three or four in the manner in which they worked."-"To carry the manure to the required spot was the task of the negresses, and the weak negroes, who, with some little help at the manure-heaps, had to fill their baskets and then carry them on their heads at a pretty smart pace, and empty them into the holes. This employment of bearing the manure none of the carriers at all relished, but the stimulus of the whip, and the daily encouragement of a dram of rum, effected wonders. Had the people been furnished with wheel-barrows, they could have performed their tasks with ease.' pose the cost, and adding them together, how is a man to tell within 5s, what his acre of oats cost him? He may know that his acre cost him about £5 or £6, but in this very about lies the essence of the mischief. About £5 or £6; now if the selling price were £5 10s., the former supposition would give a profit, and the latter a loss, of £20 a-year; and thus any man may, and multitudes do, continue to the end of their lives carrying on branches of business by which they lose money unconsciously. The same observations apply to manures brought on the farm. Price, carriage, labor, &c. all reckoned, bone-dust may be 5s. an acre dearer or cheaper than stable-dung-but without counting up the cost of each item that forms the price, a man may be ignorant of this difference, and so may lose 5s. an acre. It is by a few shillings gained here and saved there, that a farmer makes his profit. It is no exaggerated estimate to suppose that these petty items may often make a difference of 10 per cent. at the year's end, and that so, one man may make a living on the same farm where another would fail. A knowledge of these details, therefore, is useful, and is to be acquired by a system of accounts. Nearly allied to, if not identical with, accounts, is a facility at all the common operations of arithmetic, and the storing in the mind of certain arithmetical results, which may serve as the basis of future calculations. The multiplication table is a familiar example of the vast importance of this prepared and portable knowledge. The commonest operations of arithmetic could scarcely be carried on without the intuitive readiness with which the produce of any two of the numbers under twelve have been made to occur to the mind; but the principle is capable of an application much wider than it has received. The proportions existing between the numerical parts into which the year, the acre, the pound sterling, and the ton weight are divided, might be impressed on the mind, and, as it were, burnt in by continual repetition; as, for example, the weight of an Accounts. In a business embracing so many acre of turnips is a fact which it is desirable to particulars as farming, it is essential to be able to know, and which is ascertained in five minutes, if distinguish the profit and loss upon each. No- we bear in mind that, for every pound on the thing is more easy or more common than for a square yard, there are 2 tons 3 cwt. 14 lbs. on the man who keeps no accounts, to continue for a acre; and we should in a similar manner be able to series of years to lose money upon some particular tell without effort, what breadth of turnips would department without knowing it, or, which is almost keep a sheep or a cow for a year. The number of as bad, to employ his time and capital in less profi- inches in a square or cubic yard, and cf yards in table speculation, when he might have applied an acre, the number of pounds in a ton, and the them to such as were more so. A farmer grows proportion existing between the days in the year many sorts of crop, and keeps several species of an- and the common subdivisions of our measures of imals-breeding some and buying others, and uses weight, capacity, superficies, and value, suggest many kinds of manure. Assuming that he has a themselves as instances. A number of these general profit of 10 per cent. at the year's end, how facts and relations being well impressed on the is he to tell whether all the branches of his business recollection of boys at school, they would come have contributed rateably to this result-how, I say, in after life to the calculations necessary to estabis be to tell this without accounts? The cost of lish knowledge instead of guesses respecting the one acre of corn, for example, is by no means self-affairs of their farms, so well prepared as to make evident; it is "compounded of many simples, extract-that occur intuitively and without labor, which men, ed from many objects,"-rent, tithe, taxes, seed, not so prepared, could only come at with much laand tillage-horses' keep and man's keep-rates bor, or perhaps not at all. There is scarcely any thing for the poor, the church, and the highways-and easier than the use of logarithms, but we are cerso with every other crop. Suppose now, that, in tainly not all qualified to have invented them. the case of oats, all the items of expenditure accurately set down shall amount to £5 15s. an acre, and that the crop shall sell for £5 10s. Upon 40 acres here would be a loss of £10 a-year; but without setting down the several items which com It need not be inferred from this, that I suppose our practice to be as faulty as theirs. It is adduced for no other purpose than to rouse people from the lethargic dream in which we are all too apt to indulge, that the established practice is the ne plus ultra of perfection. There still remain other sciences from which instances as pregnant might be drawn. Vegetable Phsiology, Meteorology, Geology, Hydrostatics; but it is not by the endless multiplication of instances that attention can be enchained or convic tion adduced, but a sample is intended and not a catalogue. A nosegay may give some idea of the riches of the parterre, and has the advantage of being more portable. "being without experience in the culture of this root." "And in another place he says, "I hear his Grace the Duke of Bedford has from 20 to 30 acres of the Ruta Baga at Woburn." Now, if But besides enriching the mind with a store of this crop had made its way no faster than potatoes, knowledge positively and actively useful, a course it would not have been heard of over a quarter of of education such as I have suggested, would, by the kingdom yet, and there are many farms to the inculcation of sound principles, defend the whose improved system of husbandry they are esmind from the inroads of many senseless preju-sential. It is stated in the History of the Royal dices; for ignorant men are, as has been before Society, that the value of sea-shells as a manure hinted, the most inveterate theorists. They will had been known in Cornwall at least as early as never be satisfied without assigning some cause 1675, and the process followed had been published for the phenomena which they see, and that as- in the Transactions of the Royal Society; and yet, signed cause is often not only false, but absurd; in 1744, the use of them was so little understood and, as the remedies resorted to are naturally cor- in Suffolk, that a farmer who found it out by accirespondent with the supposed cause of a disease, dent, soon realized a fortune by the discovery. the latter is likely to remain undisturbed, and a new disease to be introduced by the operation of the intended remedy. Apple trees have been cut down, from its having been unjustly supposed that they bred certain insects which did mischief to the corn. Kirby and Spence give an instance of a meadow in which the grass was eaten up by grubs; the rooks were busy in digging for these grubs, of which they happened to be fond, but the owner thought it was the rooks that eat the grass, and he therefore shot them. It is not stated whether he also killed his cat to preserve his cheese from the mice. Bradley, an agriculturist famous in his day, accounted for the blight in the following original manner:-He supposed it to be occasioned by insects which came from Nova Zembla, "where the cold is intense enough to give life to these small creatures." The late Mr. Bakewell theorized himself into thinking, that dung should be dried into the fineness of a pinch of snuff,-"an opinion," says the author of the new Farmers' Calendar, "which I have ever thought absurd and unprofitable in the extreme," and I believe most people will think so too; but even the author of that Calendar is guilty of the following heresy:-He says, at page 158, "it would be wonderful did we not know of the constant recurrence of such contrarieties in agricultural practice, that lime has been often found both of the utmost advantage and perfectly noxious by different cultivators, on soils of a perfectly similar nature," which I think "may hardly be, Master Shallow." A scientific education would, moreover, remove the great gulf which appears to separate every part of the country from every other part; things may be known and done for ages in one place, without their being heard of in another not a hundred miles off. Potatoes were brought into Ireland about 1610, and did not arrive in Cantire, which is a very sandy soil, and where they have since succeeded so well, in less than a century and a half. They had reached Lancashire forty years before they were much planted about London, and then considered as rarities, without any conception of the utility that might arise from bringing them into common use. The cultivation of the turnip was introduced about 1670, but at first it seems to have been overlooked and even neglected for many years, and then again proposed, recommended, and explained with better success. To put the argument into a different form, let us advert to the introduction of Swedish turnips. Less than 35 years ago, the author of the new Farmers Calendar was obliged to quote an account of them from the Nottinghamshire report, But of proofs and instances jam satis. Enough has been said to convince those who are willing to give a peaceable reception to truth,-and this paper is addressed to them only,-and to them I say that we have in this scheme a matter of high import to the nation at large. The universal complaint seems to be, that the people are growing too numerous for the land. No parish but either has, or fears to have, a redundant population;--men, able and willing to work, subsisting unprofitably and uncomfortably upon the poor rates, this superfluity displaying its effect in diminishing the rate of wages; that, again, followed by distress, and distress by riot and insubordination, and the evil increasing so fast, that it was lately stated by the chairman at the Quarter-Sessions in one of the towns in the south of England, as the result of his calculation, that if things continued to go on for five and twenty years longer as they had done for the five and twenty years past, the poor rates would swallow up the whole rent of the land, so that it would not be worth a shilling to the proprietor. Now, though I do not "go the whole hog's with the noble chairman, I think it cannot be denied that there is something strange in the present position of the country, in the increase of the people, rapid beyond all former example, and in the more rapid increase of the poor rates. It is an indisputable fact, that the money raised for the relief of the poor increased six-fold in the reign of George III, while the population only doubled; but over-population is relative, and not absolute. It is not to the superficies, but to the consumable produce, of the land that the people are disproportioned. If we can augment its fertility by one-tenth, we in effect add one-tenth to its measurement, and do as much good as if we could recover another Yorkshire from the German Ocean. Supposing the quantity of corn grown could be indefinitely increased, the number of people could never become inconvenient, even though it should increase ten-fold, but manifestly much the contrary. An hundred millions of people would bear with ease the burdens which crush us to the earth. If we can improve the cultivation so fast as to keep ahead of the population, we shall do good beyond the hopes of the sanguine, or the wishes of the benevolent; but if only so fast as to prevent the disproportion from getting greater, we shall intercept an incalculable mass of misery. Every class of society is interested in this question. The farmer in the first instance, then the laborer, who would find more employment, in proportion as the farmer had more profit of his labor,-the manufacturer would have cheaper food and more cus tomers, the exporter would enlarge his commerce, and require more ships; but the chief, the greatest, the most lasting benefit would accrue to the land-owner. Instead of ten acres with poor rates, he would have, as it were, fifteen without. The country gentlemen are those on whom it is most incumbent to put this scheme into execution; and it could appeal to no fitter patrons. There never was a time in which there existed among them so much intelligence and public spirit as at this day; but hitherto those qualities have wanted direction and concert. It has already been hinted, that the instruction here proposed could be given only at schools. Grown men scarcely ever have resolution enough to carry them through the fatigue of studying fresh sciences. Either distinct schools might be established, or the existing schools might be modified. An intelligent farmer, who is already in the habit of taking pupils, might be provided with a scientific tutor. In the morning, the boys might employ themselves, as they do now, in personally observing and assisting in the affairs of the farm; and in the evening they would receive from their tutor instruction in chemistry, botany, the structure and diseases of cattle, the knowledge of insects and of the weather, natural philosophy and bookkeeping. I suppose a couple of years well employed would be sufficient to give a young man a competent knowledge of these matters. A difficulty might present itself in the first instance, in finding tutors properly qualified; but that would be at the beginning only, for the pupils of this year would be the tutors of the next, and so a perpetual succession would be provided. People are shy of new things; but a father in choosing a school for his son would naturally say, (if the charge was not increased,) whether these things be of any use or not, we shall get them for nothing; the boys will receive the usual instruction and this besides, be it worth little or much; and, therefore, by all means let us have it. cheap form, monthly digests of whatever useful matter they might contain. But, principally, to establish throughout the kingdom schools for the instruction of farmers' sons in the elements of the Physical Sciences. IMPROVED SYSTEM OF BEE MANAGEMENT. There is no branch of rural economy connected with more agreeable associations than that of bee management. The proverbially industrious habits of the insect, and its extreme ingenuity in the construction of its domicil, and the deposition of its treasures, are such as to excite the admiration of the most unobservant. The common necessity of destroying the stock, in order to obtain the produce of their labors, has been always matter of regret. Many plans have been hitherto devised for the purpose of obtaining the honey without the destruction of the bees, but they have only been attended with partial success. The object has, however, been fatterly and more perfectly attained by Mr. Nutt. a practical apiarian of Lincolnshire, whose system of management has given this branch of rural economy an inportance and value of which it was not before considered susceptible, both in the greater productiveness of the bees, and the much superior quality of the honey. The first part of Mr. Nutt's plan of operation is to leave the hive, into which the stock is introduced, untouched. When it is filled with honey (the contents of which are to be reserved for the use of the bees,) the capacity of the hive is increased, by the addition of another box to the side, communicating with the hive by apertures, which give free admission to the bees in all parts of the box. The next important object in Mr. Nutt's system is to ensure a regulated and uniform temperature in this portion of the hive, without diminishing the temperature of that which contains the stock. The only means by which there is any hope of The ventilation necessary for this purpose is efaccomplishing these purposes is, the formation of fected by the means of a perforated tin tube, exa comprehensive Agricultural Society; and it is a tending down to a considerable distance from the little surprising, that amongst the innumerable so- top into the hive, and connected with an aperture cieties now existing in London, there is none spe- at the bottom, which may be partly or wholly cially dedicated to the improvement of agriculture. closed by a tin slide, thus modifying the circulaThere are many provincial farming societies, pro- tion of the air and consequent degree of temperabably all useful more or less; but there are impor- ture. The temperature of this side box, which is tant purposes which they are not qualified to ef- indicated by a thermometer introduced into the fect. Therefore, I propose the formation of a tube, ought to be 70°, which is the natural central society, to be established in London, for temperature of the working hive; but, in that the improvement of the agriculture of the king-which contains the stock, a temperature of 90° is dom, which might be called the "British Society of Agriculture," with the following objects:To provide a suitable building, or rooms, for holding a library, museum, &c. To hold meetings once a fortnight, at certain seasons of the year. To procure from the most eminent scientific men of the day, lectures on the application of the various sciences to agriculture, which might afterwards be printed. To correspond with foreign societies, and to form a centre of communication for those established in this country. To take in all the periodical and other scientific works applicable to agriculture, published in any part of the world, and to print and circulate, in a necessary, as well for the incubation of the queen bee, as the maturity of the young. The parent hive is, then, as well the residence of the queen bee as the nursery of the young, whilst the side boxes are but additional storehouses for the reception of the superfluous honey, which may be taken away without impoverishing the stock, or robbing them of their winter sustenance. When the thermometer placed in the side box rapidly rises to 90° or 100°, the necessity of again providing the bees with fresh room is indicated; and this is effected by establishing another box on the opposite side of the hive. The bees, finding an increase of room, will readily recommence their labors in this new apartment. Then follows, in Mr. Nutt's system, the operation of separating the bees from this second hive. 1. 2. For the best thorough bred Stallion, over four years of age, This is effected by the ventilator, by which the in- | the members who shall be the actual owners of the ternal temperature of the hive may be reduced to animals, the producers or manufacturers of the that of the external atmosphere; and when, on the other articles, that is to sayapproach of night, the bees, recoiling from the cool air, go back into the middle box, the connexion between the two may be closed, and the full hive withdrawn, without the imprisonment or destruction of a single laborer. The same arrangements are to be again renewed, as the bees continue their successful labors. In this system no provision is made for swarining, which cannot occur under this arrangement, the emigration of a part of the stock being only occasioned by a want of room in which the bees may pursue their labors. $10 For the best thorough bred brood Mare, 10 3. For the best Stallion, other than thorough 5 4. For the best brood Mare, other than thorough bred over four years old, 5 5. For the best thorough bred Colt, under two years old, 5 For the best thorough bred Filly, under 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. The honey furnished under this system of management is found to be far superior both in quality and quantity to that obtained under any other arrangement. The honey and wax are as white as refined rugar. This superiority in quality it owes as well to the modified temperature at which the bees secrete their products, as to its total exemption from all extraneous animal and vegetable matters, and, in particular, from the pollen or beebread, which is taken in considerable quantities into the stock-hive for the support of the young. This superiority of the honey is only equalled by 13. the quantity of the supply: the usual annual supply from one stock is about one hundred-weight of honey; whilst, in the course of one season, Mr. 14. Nutt has procured the large quantity of 296 lbs. This increase in quantity is owing to the excellent disposition of the arrangements, by which the in- 15. dustrious efforts of the bees are never retarded, nor their strength weakened at the time when the fruits and flowers most abound from which their 16. treasures are obtained. AMHERST AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. two years old, For the best Colt, other than thorough bred over two years old, For the best Filly, other than thorough bred under two years old, 5. For the best Jack Ass, over four years old, For the best Jinney, over two years old, For the best Mule, over two years old, For the best full blooded improved Durham short horned Bull, over three years old, For the best full blooded improved Durham short horned Cow, over three years old, For the best full blooded improved Durham short horned Bull, under two years old, For the best full blooded improved Durham short horned Cow, under two years old, For the best half blooded improved Durham short horned Bull, under two years old, 17. For the best half blooded improved Durham short horned Cow, under two years old, 5 5 5 5 5 At a regular quarterly meeting of the Agricultural Society of Amherst County, Va. held at the court house of the said county, on Monday the 4th day of August, 1834. 18. For the best Bull, of any other breed over three years old, 3 19. A quorum for business appearing, but the President not being present, John J. Ambler, the first Vice President, took the Chair, and called the Society to order. 20. 21. For the best Bull, of any other breed, 3 3 3 In consequence of the recent organization of the Society, the several Vice Presidents were excused for not making reports to this meeting of the state of agriculture and the growing crops in their respective hundreds, and John J. Ambler, the 1st Vice President, in lieu of such report, presented and asked the attention of the Society to a report of the committee of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, on Farms, made to the Society at their Show and Fair the 1st October 1828, and on motion, Resolved, that the Secretary do procure to be printed for the use of the Society two hundred copies of the said report. On motion, ordered that the Secretary procure a copy of Ruffin's Farmers' Register, commencing with the beginning of the work, and continuing with its publication in future, and that he cause the same to be bound in volumes, to be kept by him for the use of the Society. The Society proceeded to fix the subjects and premiums to be awarded at their next meeting the first Monday in November next, whereupon it was agreed that the premiums following be offerd to VOL. II.-24 22. For the best grass fed Bullock, 10 23. For the best yoke of work Oxen, 24. For the best Ram, of any breed, 25. For the best Ewe, of any breed, 2 26. 27. 28. For the best thorough bred Boar, of the 5 5 5 29. For the best do do of the Mackey breed do do, 5 30. For the best Boar, of any other breed over two years old, 5 31. For the best Sow, of any other breed over two years old, 3 32. For the best Shoat, of any breed six months or under six months old, 3 33. 5 22 done before the Society at Amherst Court House, with a plough drawn by not less than two horses or one yoke of oxen, on the first day of the November meeting next, 37. For the best piece of five yards or over five yards of negro clothing of household manufacture, fabricated of wool and cotton, $20 2.50 38. For the best piece of five yards or over 40. For the best piece of five yards or over of 41. For the best piece of five yards or over of domestic Carpeting, of like manufac ture, 42. For the best specimen of any other household manufacture, wholly of cotton, wool or silk, or of any of them, 2 2.50 2.50 5 It is hereby declared by the Society that whenever the term thorough bred is used in their specifications, it shall be construed to mean that the animal has at least eight pure crosses of the particular breed. The Society next proceeded to fix other subjects for premiums for the next year, the premiums and the regulations under which they shall be awarded, to be hereafter regulated, of which due notice will be given, that is to say: 1. For the best cultivated farm, not less than -acres the property of a member. 2. For the second acres the same. 3. For the third best the same. best do do do do acres 4. To the overseer (if any) of the above farms over and above the premiums which may be awarded to the owner or employer. 5. For the greatest products of four contiguous acres of high land in wheat. 6. For the greatest products of four contiguous acres of high land in corn. 7. For the greatest product of four contiguous acres of high land in clover hay, the hay to be weighed at least one month after being cut, and the land to be measured in every instance by the chain, under regulations hereafter to be ordered by the board of agriculture. 8. For the greatest product of one acre of high 9. To the grower of the hogshead of tobacco, owner. Ordered that the contributions for membership for the present year be paid to the treasurer on or before the 3d Monday of the present month. On motion, Resolved, that the Editors of the Lynchburg Virginian and of the Farmers' Register be requested to publish these proceedings in their respective papers. The Society then adjourned till the first Monday in November next. JOHN J. AMBLER, President, pro tem. Robert Tinsley, Secretary. COLIC IN HORSES. For the Farmers' Register. It is a source of consolation to sensitive minds to reflect that the diseases of the brute creation are few and simple in their nature: but at the same time it is mortifying to know they are not considered sufficiently important to require the attention of men of science and ability. Too little attention is generally devoted to a proper acquaintance with these diseases, when their treatment properly belongs to every husbandman. If each farmer having a knowledge of an approved remedy for any disease were to communicate it, the information would become as extensive as the Register is circulated-nor would I consider it too heavy a tax upon its columns. These truths being impressed upon my mind, I am disposed to follow the humble manner of some of your correspondents, and give a recipe I have always found singularly efficacious for colic in horses. The causes of this disease are numerous-bad food, hard rides, constipated bowels, sudden transitions from heat to cold and the reverse, bots, and even customary food when the system is previously weakened by fatigue and overaction. To cure the disease produced from any of the foregoing causes I generally administer an ounce of laudanum in a little water, which has invariably succeeded with me-but candor compels me to acknowledge my veterinary practice is not extensive: but I have used the above recipe successfully after the ineffectual administration of a variety of other remedies, which entitles it to farther trial. Its mode of operation may be explained upon philosophical principles. The various causes of the disease generally destroy the equilibrium of circulation and excitability. The blood flows from the surface of the body towards the point of diseased or weakened action, and congestion ensues in some part of the alimentary canal. So long as this congestion exists, so long must nervous irritation and spasmodic action, and consequently the suffering of the animal continue. But restore this altered circulation and derangement, and ease follows; a healthy and natural condition of the system immediately supervenes. Now no remedy promises so far to fulfil these healthy indications as laudanum. It is a powerful anti-irritant and diffusible stimulant, as well as anti-spasmodic. The irritation being relieved by any remedy, the spasm relaxed, and a cure follows as surely as light drives away darkness. No danger need be apprehended from its early administration, but if fever and inflammation were to exist it would be certainly forbidden. This condition of the system requires bleeding, purging, and clystering-and frequently a use of cold water on the surface. Prince George. R. H. |