to the farmer, since it offers to himself and family a most delicious luxury, healthful and nutritious, and at a very trifling cost.

TOBACCO.

A noticeable feature in the doings of the year just past is the attempt by our farmers to grow the tobacco plant. Tobacco has been grown only occasionally, and in very small parcels, in the county, until the year 1863, when a trial was made by a considerable number of persons, in patches varying in size from a few plants, in the garden to an acre or more in extent. It appears that tobacco is adapted to our soil and climate and can be grown here successfully; all that is needed being the necessary infor mation as to its culture and manner of curing. We know of some very good patches of tobacco that were very much injured and rendered almost worthless for the market, from a want of the proper knowledge of topping, harvesting and curing. A friend who has for many years been an extensive dealer in tobacco, and who has lived during a large share of his life among those who have successfully grown and cultivated the plant as a business, has given me a few points in regard to the management of the plant, which, perhaps, will not be out of place here for the benefit of those members of the club who are unacquainted with tobacco culture, and who may desire to give it a trial.

The tobacco grown in the northern States is used for making cigars, and for the most part, the outside wrappers of cigars, the fillers of which are the imported tobacco. None but good leaves can be used for this purpose, the torn or injured leaves are employed as fillers on a cheaper grade of cigars. What is wanted is a fine quality of wrappers, a good sized broad leaf with small veins, thin soft and silky as can be grown. The kind grown for this purpose is the seed leaf tobacco, and particular care should be had to get none but the most approved variety, as many varieties do not answer the purpose as well, and the crop would not be a salable article. It would be advisable to get seed from some reliable person in western New York or Connecticut, where the plant is cultivated, than to sow that of which you know nothing about.

The seed is mixed with Indian meal or sand in the proportion of a tablespoonful of seed to a quart of sand, and sown in beds having a southerly aspect, as soon as the frost is out of the ground. A tablespoonful of seed is enough for the planting of an acre of tobacco. The meal or sand, is used for the purpose of sowing the seed more evenly in the bed where the plants are to be raised. The bed should be rounded off so that water will not stand on it, and pressed down firm by going over with a plank, treading on it with the feet. Tobacco will not grow on wet land, or on land where water accumulates and stands after a rain. Tobacco is often destroyed by water about the roots only for a few hours. Upland soil that will produce good corn or wheat gives the best tobacco; it should be highly manured and well cultivated. The plant should not be tried on green sward, but on old land, where at least one year's cultivation of some crop has been had. The setting of the plant commences about the first week in June, and should be done on a damp day, care being taken that the roots extend their whole length in the hole and the earth pressed about them.

The plants are set 2 feet by 3 feet 4 inches. A cultivator may be used for cultivating, and the weeding and hoeing or cultivation of the crop is similar to that of corn. The object of having the plants as near together as they will grow and yet attain good size is to insure a thin leaf. When the plants grow large and rank the texture of the leaf will be thick and coarse and they are less valuable. About the time of the second hoeing the tobacco worm makes its appearance and must be taken from the plant and killed, or it will destroy the tobacco; it will be found generally on the under side of the leaf. Before the flowering of the plant and when the buds fully make their appearance, topping, or the breaking off of the upper portion of the plant must be attended to. There is generally more danger of topping too high than too low, and some judgment and experience is here necessary; the usual rule for low topping is to take off four leaves from the bud stalk. About a week after topping, the suckers that grow out between the leaf stalk and main stalk must be broken off or they will injure the leaf.

The harvesting is to be effected before there is any likelihood of the plants being touched by an early frost, as frost renders the crop worthless. The crop in central New York is generally harvested during the first days of September, say ten to fifteen days after topping. The plant is cut with a hatchet, just below the lower leaves; is left long enough on the ground to wilt the leaves, when it is taken into the building and hung upon poles; care being taken not to break or tear the leaves; air should be allowed to enter the building through doors or windows during dry weather, and should be excluded during damp or windy weather.

After the tobacco is sufficiently cured, which generally takes place about the first of December, the assorting and stripping will be next in order. It is now taken from the poles and the best or more perfect leaves stripped off and tied in hands or parcels, by binding a leaf about the butts of a small handful of leaves. This class of leaves will constitute the first quality, the torn and broken leaves treated in the same manner the second quality. The hands of tobacco are packed in a stack, the butts out and tips lapping over each other, until sufficient quantity is had for boxing. The boxes are 2 ft. 4 inches, by 3 ft. 6 inches. When the assorting, stripping, and boxing of the leaf are to be attended to, advantage must be taken of the weather, or when the leaf is soft and pliable, and not liable. to be broken or injured. Some experience is here necessary, and it would be well for persons inexperienced in the business, to employ some person well acquainted with the process, otherwise the tobacco may be injured while undergoing the operation of sweating.

We have alluded to some of the main features connected with the management of tobacco, for the purpose of showing our farmers the necessity. of obtaining the proper knowledge as to cultivation, and what is wanted in the market, so that no one may enter upon the growing of this plant at hap-hazard, and thereby make a failure and the loss of his crop. Tobacco is a gross feeder of manures, but on fair land with fair cultivation will produce an average of one ton per acre of saleable tobacco.

We have been induced to give this subject some consideration at this

time, because there is a desire on the part of many dairymen to enter upon the cultivation of the plant, and we are inclined to believe, after consultation with experienced tobacco growers, and obtaining needful information as to the culture and management of the crop, that the growing of tobacco, in connection with dairy farming, can be made a source of profit.

If it is a fact, (and the success in growing the crop in the county, the past year, seems to prove it,) that the plant is adapted to our soil and climate, then we think there can be no mistake as to the correctness of the statement. The culture, harvesting and after management of the crop, come at a time when the general farmwork is least pressing, and the necessary farm hands can be employed here to good advantage. The most of our farmers have an acre or two, just about their barns, which is suitable for tobacco; the manures, lying exposed to the summer rains and sun, could, in a short time, be hauled on the grounds. Vacant stables, barn floors and buildings, not in use during the fall, could be used, often, for the curing of one or two acres of the plant. And, finally, the snug little sum of from $300 to $500, per acre, which a well managed crop is worth, are inducements not to be disregarded. The crop, we think, by all odds, is to be preferred to hops, which demand a considerable outlay of capital and a vast deal of labor. Let it be understood, that we do not counsel so large a culture of the plant as to absorb all the manures or the farm; but rather small patches, of an acre or two, where may be placed the last scrapings of the barn-yard, which, in most instances, go to waste.

One word, in this connection, with reference to hops. Hops have, for several years, been grown in the county, not largely, but generally with success. There are but few hop-yards north of the Mohawk river, the principal part being south of that stream. The present season has been very unfavorable to the crop, the rains and heavy winds doing much damage; but much the greater injury was caused by the fly, or hop-bug, which made such ravages on the crop that there was, probably, not produced a single bale of strictly prime hops in the county.

RABID DOGS.

During the fall just past, there was considerable excitement, in various parts of the county, from an unusual number of rabid dogs that were running at large and doing damage among the herds. The most considerable loss as yet sustained, by any one individual, is that of Mr. Nathan Arnold, in the town of Fairfield, who has had eleven cows die of hydrophobia. Others have lost a less number, and it is apprehended by some that more animals will be taken down with the disease. Valuable horses and one or two persons are reported to have been bitten. In some localities a general slaughter of the dogs was had.

Most of the animals lost showed their first signs of madness between the 9th and 21st day after being bitten, and presented a curious but melancholy study to those unacquainted with the phases of this most appalling disease. Some of the animals, soon after attacked, seemed to be deprived of strength, and kept up a mournful bellowing, while others, with fiery and starting eye-balls, plunged fiercely about, seeking to destroy everything within reach.

We are informed that a rather venturesome individual entered the yard where a few of these animals were confined, for the purpose of testing more fully the character of the disease. He was immediately singled out by one of the animals, which came roaring and plunging after him in a paroxysm of rage, and unable to escape by the fence, he barely eluded being torn and trampled to death by springing into a tree; the animal threw herself against the tree, raising up on her hind legs, and dashing her head against the branches, while with foaming mouth and glaring eyeballs, and unearthly bellowings, she stripped off the bark and splintered the body of the tree. A well-directed rifle ball put an end to this struggle, and relieved the experimental philosopher, seeking after the mysteries of hydrophobia, from his unenviable position, and he escaped unharmed from the yard. We hear of no efforts having been made to save the animals, by treating the parts bitten with the actual cautery, or with lunar caustic, as recommended by Youatt. This, doubtless, might have been done, in many instances, to the prevention of the disease, when the animals were seen to be bitten, and by dogs suspected, or known to be mad.

THOROUGH-BRED CATTLE.

The stock of thorough-breds is very limited in the county. Grades of Short-horns and Devons are pretty generally sprinkled among the native cows, and in fair proportion among the herds; but there are few thoroughbred animals, of either sex, of any particular breed. The Devon blood is not esteemed here for the cheese dairy, while some of the Short-Horn grades are preferred, in many respects, to the natives. The old native cows, it may be remarked, have been improved by the system of breeding from the best milkers for more than forty years; and there are many cows, and particular herds, of this breed, of great milking capacity, rarely surpassed by those of any stock. They fail, however, to be reliable as breeders, and dairymen are becoming more and more impressed with the idea that it is better to raise, than to buy, cows for the dairy.

For reliability in breeding, thorough-breds must be resorted to; and the question of breeds is now claiming attention. The Devons have been tried and found wanting. The Short-Horns are inclined to run to beef, rather than milk, and our most intelligent dairymen are looking to the Ayrshire as the great desideratum for the dairy. Some of the Ayrshire grades have been introduced into the northern part of the county, and have met the expectations of dairymen in that section; and some of our more enterprising men, who are interested in the welfare and prosperity of the county, have commenced the introduction of thorough-bred Ayrshires of known pure stock. Of recent purchases of this character, we might mention those of Mr. Pomeroy, of Mohawk, from the herd of Mr. Hungerford, and from that of Mr. Brodie; while at this place, Little Falls, Hon. W. I. Skinner brings two splendid animals, male and female, from the herd of A. B. Conger. Of the latter purchase the editors of the Country Gentleman thus speak:

"The Ayrshires, purchased by Hon. W. I. Skinner, from the herd of Mr. Conger, were the two year old bull 'Norval,' got by imported Eric, out of imported Norma, and very beautifully shaped and marked; and the LAG. TRANS.]

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heifer Ayr Lassie,' by Mr. C.'s prize bull Marmion 2d, out of imported Ayrshire Lass-a heifer, we are assured, of great promise, both as a milker and as a prize taker in prospective."

We are informed that the Alderneys are shortly to be introduced here also; and from these beginnings it is believed that others will be induced to follow the lead, and immense benefit result to the dairy interest of the county.

ANNUAL FAIR.

The annual fair of the club took place on the fair grounds of the society, September 22d, 23d and 24th, and was largely attended, and proved much more successful than was anticipated, notwithstanding the unfavorable weather of the first day.

There were more entries made than at the fair of the previous year. The display of fruit was superb, especially of apples, pears, grapes and plums of choicest variety, as well as beanty and perfection of their kinds, while the vegetable department showed long rows of esculents, almost of every approved variety grown in this latitude. There was a good show of flowers, and what was somewhat rare at exhibitions of this character, several specimens of the China tea plant, growing in boxes, were exhibited. These last were shown by Mr. M. L. Saunders, who claims to have successfully grown the plant in the town of Little Falls, curing the leaves into tea of good flavor, and at a trifling cost.

The shows of oil paintings, of photographs, of needle and fancy work, and of curiosities, were all commendable.

The large case of gold, silver and copper coins, exhibited by Mr. Levi Fralick, justly merited the attention which it attracted, since it was a rare collection, and was very full and perfect as to American coinage.

There were some good specimens in the departments of cattle, sheep and swine; but the exhibition was extremely deficient in agricultural implements. The dairy department was fairly represented, though perhaps not so largely as was to be expected, from the extensive dairy interest in this locality.

We do not propose to particularize any further than to show that the exhibition was a creditable one, and, we may add, was conducted and carried through with that perfection of order and arrangement for which the Fairs of the Club are noted, and which has drawn from visitors and strangers encomiums, as a model, in this respect, for other societies to copy. The receipts from the Fair were between $500 and $600. When it is taken into account that no entries were charged for articles on exhibition, but that this sum was mostly taken at the gates, at a mere trifle for admission,— that the weather, immediately previous to the Fair, had been wet, and on the first day was lowery and unfavorable,-that the County Society had determined to have their show on two of our days,-when all these points are borne in mind, it will be seen of what strength and vitality the Club is possessed.

On the last day of the Fair the Annual Address was delivered by H. Link, Esq., to a large audience in attendance, and was received with marked favor. This address, by resolution of the Club, was published, and will be found among the papers accompanying this Report.