INDIANA  FARMER.
VOL. II.]
Devoted lo Agriculture, Horticulture, Mechanics and the Useful Arts.
IHO, 15
w.5.™i«STT,j **'"'■ I        RICHMOND. IND., APRIL 1,1853.
11« 11 o vr a r As Co.,
Fubmbhcrs.
(Jommumcations for tlje iixrmer.
For the Indiana Farmer.
Mr. Editor: You may insert the following
in the columns of your excellent agricultural
journal, if you think it worthy of a place, otherwise you may throw it aside, without offending
the writer in the least."
In the autumn of 1351 I came to the State of
Indiana, from a farming district of New York.
I had never before visited a great corn-growing
country, and accordingly upon entering the
wide-spread prairies of Indiana, I was delighted
and astonished to behold such extensive fields
of golden corn, ready for the harvest; but I was
much more astonished and exceedingly pained
to see how excessively wasteful the fanners
were of the precious seed, after having taken
so much pains to raise it, and after having been
blessed with a bountiful crop.
As I passed along the road, and beheld it literally strewed with the beautiful grain, and saw
it running in streams from the wagons of the
farmers as they were journeying with it to market, and there left to be trodden in the mud and
lost, I could hardly refrain from stopping to gather it up, so unnatural did it seem thus to have
the products of human labor lost, when it is so
much needed for supporting and rendering happy the millions of the human family who are
starving both for physical and intellectual—yea,
and for moral food.
As I proceeded onward, I beheld other sights
equally painful to witness. Here was a row of
corn pens, where the corn had lain a whole
year, exposed to the weather, without shelter,
and hundreds of bushels nearly or quite ruined
by the alternate action of the storms and the
atmosphere.
Further on were other pens bearing the un-
mistakeable evidence of other depredaiors actively engaged in destroying the hard-earned
products of the careless farmer. And these destroyers of human labor I found to be rats, by
which the corn in some of the pens was half
destroyed; in others less, perhaps, and the remainder left in such a miserable, dirty condition as scarcely to be fit for anything but the
rats or hogs.
Again, I observed a miserable deficiency and
even much absolute wsste in harvesting the
corn, by hurrying over it, and leaving here an
ear and there an ear, and now throwing an ear
over the wagon, and then another, and never
stopping to pick it up, but leaving it there to be
trodden in the mud and lost.
From observations that I have made, I fear
not to assert that had I all the corn that has
been lost in the road in Tippecanoe county, in
one year, while hauling it to market, 1 should
have more corn than has been  raised in one
year on any one farm in said county, even tho'
it should consist of a thousand acres.
Now, in the light of these facts, I would like
to propound a few questions, to be answered by
the intelligent farmer who may see here set
forth some of the ways in which his own corn
is needlessly wasted; for though many of them
seem to be so utterly regardless of their own
best interests, yet they are not devoid of intelligence or incapable of seeing the truth when it
is presented. In the first place, then, if it is
profitable to have your wagon-bed sufficiently
tight to save part of your corn, while hauling it
to market, why is it not profitable to have it so
as to save the whole, since the bushel or the
half-bushel, as the case may be, which is lost,
would have been worth just as much as any
other bushel or half-bushel of your load?
If it is profitable to put your corn up in pens
in order to save it, why is it not profitable to put
it up in cribs so well constructed as to render it
perfectly secure both from the depredations of
the rats, and the effects of an exposure to the
weather?
And, again, if in gathering it is profitable to
husk and save one ear, why is it not profitable
to do the same by its next neighbor? And,
lastly, in general, if it is worth raising, why is
it not worth while to save it?
Now, farmers, after carefully considering and
answering the foregoing questions, please consider how many of the necessaries, comforts and
even luxuries of life might annually be purchased with the wasted corn, were it carefully
saved, and then resolve in future to carefully
save it, and apply at least four bushels of it to
the support of the Indiana Farmer, which last,
if carefully read, will cause you to increase in
knowledge, wisdom and wealth.
Yours, &c.,.
J. Q. Cowee.
For the Indiana Farmer.
Red Hall, near Jacksonburg,)
March 10, 1853.    j
Messrs. Editors: After another great politi-'
cal excitement is somewhat subsided; and people are beginning to return to more quiet topics
of conversation, allow one of the regular readers of the Farmer, though young in years, and
not in the habit of writing for the public, to at
least try and offer my thanks and gratitude for
the benefit I have already received from the
Farmer since I have become one of its readers,
which is not long.
By the. way, I will inform you that I am a
Virginian, and a few years ago emigrated to this
State. Of course, rugged mountains, steep
hills, plenty of stone and gravel; rich and poor
soil; pine, oak and a host of other timber; good
and bad buildings; improved and careless farm-