49S 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



and the brilliancy of their blossoms. Yours, 

 /. W. S., Philadelphia, March 16, 1849. 



Discussion on Manures. — We find reported in 

 the Boston Evening; Transcript a highly inte- 

 resting discussion on manures, which took place 

 lately at the legislative agricultural meetings, 

 held at the State House. The remarks of Col. 

 Wilder, who occupied the chair, are so much to 

 the point that we shall <[uote them at length: 



" The president introduced the discussion, by 

 saying that the subject was one paramount in im- 

 portance to any other that concerns the cultivator 

 of the soil. It is the great preliminary movement 

 on which the farmer founds his expectations of a 

 bountiful harvest, the sheet anchor of his hopes. 

 Although he might plough deep and well, yet, 

 witliout some correct knowledge of the substances 

 he uses to fertilize the seed he buries in the earth, 

 Lis success is almost as uncertain as the mari- 

 ner's, who would plough old ocean without chart 

 or compass. 



" A soil of inexhaustible fertility, he said, was 

 an imaginary idea; and although mother earth 

 would yield kindly to the full extent of her ability, 

 yet the time would come, sooner or later, when 

 even the rich prairie lands of the west, would 

 demand a return of the fertilizing elements which 

 have been abstracted by vegetation ; it is a mat- 

 ter, then, of vast importance, to learn how these 

 materials can be procured at the cheapest possible 

 price, and in a form to be applied with the great- 

 est economy. 



" Mr. Wilder proceeded to state that he was 

 no chemist, and made no pretensions to farming, 

 except as it is connected with gardening and the 

 horticultural art. 



" He had made some experiments with ma- 

 nures, some of which he would relate: He did 

 not wish to be understood that he undervalued 

 stable or barn-yard manure, but such as was pur- 

 chased from the stables of the city, by the cord, 

 when deprived of straw or decomposed, was in 

 reality only half or three-fourths of a cord. To 

 obtain a real solid cord of manure, equal in qua- 

 lity, and at less price, had with him been a great 

 desideratum, and he believed he had succeeded, 

 by making a compost of meadow muck, crushed 

 bones, and leached ashes, in the following propor- 

 tions : 



" One cord of meadow muck, having been ex- 

 posed to the action of air and frost at least one 



year, $1 50 



Twelve bushels leached ashes, 1 20 



Six bushels crushed bones, 1 50 



Labor, 30 



Total cost per cord, $4 50 



" The bones and ashes were mixed together 

 while the latter were in a damp state, and when 

 fermentation had taken place, these were incorpo- 

 rated with the meadow muck. In this condition 



the mass should remain until heat is generate3 

 again, when it will be fit for use. 



" He had found this compost equal to any stable 

 manure for root crops, grass land, gardening pur- 

 poses generally, and for fruit trees. For the last 

 two years, he had mixed his stable manure with 

 the compost, and also had added to it one-eighth 

 part in bulk of fine refuse charcoal from the de- 

 pots of venders. This can be purchased at fivQ 

 dollars the cord, delivered, and does not much in- 

 crease the cost above named. 



" Mr. Wilder said, that since Liebig first pro- 

 mulgated his opinion as to the wonderful influence 

 of charcoal in rooting cuttings of plants, and as a 

 component part of soils, experiments have been 

 making verifying its importance. He also in- 

 forms us, that the volatile gas which arises from 

 our stables and manure heaps, and descends in 

 the rain and snow, and which we call ammonia, 

 is the great fertilizer of the earth. To secure 

 this subtile element, Mr. W. had added charcoal 

 to his compost heaps, and as he thought with 

 great advantage. It is very durable if not inde- 

 structible; a substance of great porosit)', and we 

 are told, he said, by chemists, that it will absorb 

 90 per cent, of its bulk of ammonia, but its bene- 

 ficial effects are supposed to arise from its power 

 of retaining this volatile gas, and yielding it up 

 only as it is washed out by rains, or as the vital 

 force of the root searches for food. He did not 

 consider it a fertilizer in itself, but that it was a 

 medium of administering nourishment, having used 

 it with good success for green-house plants for 

 many years. 



" Mr. Wilder said the compost (with the char- 

 coal and stable manure combinefl,) was the best 

 he had ever used as a general manure. On fruit 

 trees, its effects were remarkable. 



" In the spring of 1847, he planted a square in 

 the nursery with imported trees from England, 

 this compost having been spread and ploughed in. 

 These trees were from four to five feet in height, 

 and although it is not usual for trees to make a 

 large growth the first year, they acquired branches 

 of three to four feet, and were so handsome as to 

 command $1 .25 each for a row of fifty trees, with- 

 out any selection. 



" In June last, which is very late to set out 

 trees, he prepared another square on rather poor 

 land, and planted trees just received from Eng- 

 land upon it. The soil had been thrown up to 

 the frost the previous winter, and the compost 

 here was applied in the trenches, near the roots. 

 Mr. Wilder exhibited two shoots, which had 

 grown from those trees since they were set out in 

 June. The shoots were four feet in length, and 

 the wood hard and well ripened. 



"It is stated that on old beds, where charcoal 

 had been burned ten years before, the corn and 

 wheat to this day are uniformly better than on 

 the adjoining lands, being more vigorous, of a 

 darker green colour, and producing larger crops. 

 A farmer remarks, ' I sowed fine charcoal over 



