288 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



bring up a run-down farm, one that any nnan can use, is by green 

 manuring. Suppose your farm is too poor for clover, and grass 

 makes only a feeble growth; put on it a manurial crop that will 

 grow, such as rye or buckwheat, turn this under with your plow, 

 and you can raise something better; keep feeding your soil with 

 everything your shovel and team can command — anything that 

 will bring a green mantle over your fields. Soon you can set the 

 clover pump to work, pumping up to the surface the inexhaustible 

 resources of your subsoil. If an animal dies, don't stop to be- 

 wail your luck, and exclaim "everything goes to the dogs on my 

 farm ! " don't send it to the dogs at all, but compost with muck or 

 soil, and thus secure a most valuable fertilizer. Sampson per- 

 formed a wonder by taking honey from the dead carcass of a lion; 

 outdo that wonder by extracting corn from the dead carcass of your 

 cow. Pick up all the bones you can find, put them under cover 

 and mix with them two or three times their bulk of ashes, moisten 

 them with enough water so that the ashes will act on the bones, 

 stir them over once a week, and in a few months you will find the 

 bones so tender that you can cut and crush them with your shovel; 

 beat the whole into a powdery mass, and you will have a manure 

 better than the average of the superphosphates which you feel too 

 poor to buy ; give a handful of this to each hill of corn, and see 

 how it will wave its banner of green, and pour into your basket 

 the golden ears of corn. 



But in bringing your soil into good condition do not neglect 

 green manuring; let every wind that blows over your fields bring 

 them a blessing in the shape of atmospheric plant food; do all 

 these things patiently, and hopeful, without urging your soil be- 

 yond what it can do, and you will yet out of the fullness of a 

 grateful heart exclaim, Bless God for the farm. 



An intelligent gentleman of New England birth, after many 

 years residence amid the fat prairies of the West, returned to the 

 scenes of his early life, sat again beneath the parental roof. The 

 scenes of his boyhood passed before him like a panorama; dilapi- 

 dated house, innocent of paint, and devoid of comfort; the tot- 

 tering chimney, and the paneless windows; the crumbhng walls 

 and decaying sills, all of which combined to form a cheerless and 

 unattractive home, had been transformed into a residence of rural 

 beauty; the old hovels had given way to barns combining comfort; 

 the rude fence of half rotted rails which separated the hapless and 

 hopeless tenement from the highway was superseded by a hand- 



