THE FARMER'S MAGAZLNE. 



219 



their giowtli. Who has not felt, for example, the in- 

 toxicating aroma of peas, beans, and clover in flower? 

 — the fragrance of the meadow during hay-making ? — 

 the pungent smell of turnips when growing rapidly? — 

 and that of a field of barley behind the reapers or reaping 

 machiae in harvest ? These, although prominent ex- 

 amples, are only a few of what experience is familiar 

 with, and which might readily be quoted for the sake of 

 illustration. 



Our next topic is cultivation. How does it aflfect the 

 influence of the atmosphere upon the soil and its produce ? 



With regard to the soil, it is only when accompanied 

 with a sufficiency of moisture that the atmosphere can 

 enrich it. If divested of water, the scorching effects of 

 a summer's sun would render our fields as barren as the 

 deserts of Arabia ; but with the requisite supply of this 

 invaluable fertilizer, the rays of the sun are powerful 

 auxiliaries to the enriching of them. To " keep in the 

 sap" and "out the drought," and yet admit the free 

 circulation of the atmosphere, has long been acknow- 

 ledged one of the cardinal points in good farming. 



Deep culture and drainage, again, by increasing the 

 capacity of the soil for holding air, add greatly to the 

 means of enriching it. Probably more of the success of the 

 Lois-Weedon system depends upon this, than to the 

 mere fallowing of the "intervals" between the 

 beds of wheat or other kinds of crop ; so that 

 the question may yet be raised whether equally deep 

 culture, with proper attention to seeding the ground 

 uniformly, may not produce equally beneficial results. 

 But be this as it may, the chemical effect of air and 

 water in a greater depth of soil is manifest from what 

 has already been said ; for the decomposition of the soil, 

 air, and water (and hence the formation of soluble 

 matter and ammonia) will be directly as this depth — 

 twice the depth of ordinary cultivation by the plough 

 producing twice the quantity of fertilizing matter, while 

 from the greater depth there will be less escape or waste 

 of volatile substances. 



The free circulation of air, again, access of light, and 

 rays of the sun, among growing crops, are questions of 

 equal importance. In this respect wide drilling is 

 highly advantageous, while intervals may produceamore 

 healthy and free circulation. But much of this will de- 

 pend upon special circumstances ; for clean flinty straw 

 on the wide-drill system may admit of a freer circula- 

 tion than coarse flaggy straw deficient of silica with wide 

 intervals. 



Many exceptions may no doubt be taken to the 

 wholesale manufacture of ammonia, as advocated, from 

 the nitrogen set free in the decomposition of air, uniting 

 with the hydrogen of water when undergoing a similar 

 process ; but granting them to be true, the practical 

 question in the field is obviously to reduce exceptions of 

 this kind to the common rule. This may be done in various 

 ways — as by draining J deepening the soil ; adding clay, 

 calcareous, and vegetable matter to sandy lands, to re- 

 tain moisture and produce decomposition; sand, vege- 

 table, and calcareous matter to clay lands, to promote 

 the free circulation of the atmosphere, and its decom- 

 position along with that of water; in short, anything 

 which will promote the decomposition of air and water 

 in the soil, so that the nitrogen and hydrogen set free 

 shall be united so as to form ammonia. We see no 

 other way of accounting for the extraordinary fertility 

 produced by improvements of the above kind, than by 

 working up the nitrogen and hydrogen set free in the 

 process of decomposition into ammonia, or some of its 

 compounds, as food for plants. The decomposition of 

 farmyard manure ia the soil, and e^en clean straw in 

 clay lands, obviously works up the nitrogen of the at- 

 mosphere and hydrogen of water into matter more ferti- 

 lizing than their own constituent elements will satisfacto- 

 rily account for. The advocates of exclusive liquid 

 manuring overlook the economy of decomposing vegeta- 

 ble matter in the soil, and the additional supply of am- 

 monia derived from this source by means of the nitro- 

 gen and hydrogen liberated in the process. 



THE GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE THRASHING MACHINE. 



" Portable thrashing machines," wrote Loudon 

 twenty-five years ago, " are very common in Suffolk ; 

 it beintr not unusual for an industrious labourer, who 

 may have saved thirty or forty pounds, to own one 

 worked by three or four horses. Reaping-machines 

 and steam ploughins-machines will probably in a few 

 years be owned and let out for hire in a similar man- 

 ner." After more than " a few years," reapers and 

 steam-ploughs have not yet attained a similar position 

 with itinerant thrashing-machines, although rapidly 

 coming into extensive adoption by large farmers. How- 

 ever, thrashing-machines themselves have taken a 

 form that our author never anticipated : the portable 

 steam-engme, and that marvellously compact piece of 

 mechanism, the combined thrashing, shaking, win- 

 nowing, and finishing-dressing " drum," "barn- works" 

 or "mill," having completely raised the character of 

 agricultural machinery, and as a necessary consequence 

 multiplied mechanical knowledge among farmers and 

 their workmen. Directly it was proved that steam 

 power could be advantageously conveyed from farm to 

 farm, not only a higher velocity of the drum, and a 

 gi-eater amount of work in a given time was achieved, 

 but the operations of straw-shaking and winnowing, 

 previously confined almost entirely to thrashing ma- 

 chinery erected in buihJings, were now added to the 

 portable machines. As far as mere knocking out of 

 the grain is concerned, we have now comparatively 



little to wish for, and may expect only slight improve- 

 mentsin augmenting the quantity done, economising 

 the motive-power, avoiding splitting, and accommo- 

 dating the beaters and concave to all conditions of 

 " stuff." In the apparatus for separating the corn, 

 chaflT, and straw, considerable advances may yet be 

 made; and as next July will try what our inventors 

 and manufacturers can do for us in this department, it 

 may be well for farmers to devote some consideration 

 to it beforehand. 



One of the earliest ideas in connexion with thrashing 

 by machinery was that theseparation of corn, chaff, and 

 straw, should be effected, as well as mere shelling out 

 the grain from the ear. Thus Michael Sterling, more 

 than a hundred years ago, applied the principle of 

 fiax-hulling to beat out corn, in a machine consisting 

 of a vertical shaft carrying arms or blades revolving in 

 a cylinder— the corn being fed in at top, and the straw 

 and gi'aiu separated by riddles and fanners under- 

 neath. This was thirty years before the invention 

 of the drum and beaters by Meikle. In 1789, three 

 years after Meikle's first machine was constructed, 

 with a drum of four scutch-beaters and a pair of 

 feed-rollers, the first machine having a circular rake 

 attached for shaking the straw, and fanners below for 

 cleansing the grain, was erected in Northumberland. 

 In 179o, WigfuU, of Lynn, in Norfolk, patented a ma- 

 chine in which the corn falling from the drum was 



