466 



to be found in the fanner's want of skill, and inquire how this skill may 

 be improved. 



Examine the present mode of cultivation in the wheat- growing States. 

 Finding a Held in clover, it is plowed in the fall or in the spring, and 

 planted with corn. The corn having been taken off, it is i)lowed again 

 the next spring and sown with oats, and upon this oats-stubble all the 

 manure of the barn-yard is put. It is then plowed under, and the tield 

 sown with wheat; and when this crop is taken off it is either sown again 

 with wheat, " stnbbled in," as it is called, or it is sown with timothy in 

 the fall, clover in the spring, and again is laid down to grass, remains 

 two years, and then goes through the same rotation. This is the ordi- 

 nary process of cultivation throughout all the Middle States, and it is 

 by this process that our wheat crops have diminished at least one-third 

 in the last twenty-live years, while there is not the same diminution in 

 any of the other crops which make up the M'hole course. The products 

 of corn, oats, and grass are as large if not larger than they ever were. 

 The marked failure is in the wheat crop. It is visited by fly, midge, 

 rust, mildew, or it grows into straw without a corresponding produc- 

 tion of grain. An experiment made upon my farm, and running through 

 a period of ten years, induces me to say that the failure of the wheat crop is 

 occasioned, in a great measure, by the improper use of barn-yard manure. 

 Wheat is a delicate plant, both in its organic structure and the food it 

 consumes, and yet we apply, in aid of its germination and growth, the 

 gross, raw product of the barn-yard, filled with embryos of worms, bugs, 

 midges, and beetles, giving a nauseous dose to the first germ of the 

 wheat, and furnishing an unfit food throughout the whole life of the 

 plant. Add to this the vermin which the contents of the barn-yard have 

 t3rought upon the field, and then we may account for the midge, Hessian 

 fly, mildew, rust, and all other evils which we have been accustomed to 

 deplore when harvest comes. 



1 trust I may not be understood as depreciating the use of barn-yard 

 manure; so far from this, I am convinced that human skill has never 

 been able to concoct a combination of plant food so excellent as that 

 which comes from the stable, when properly used. But the proper use 

 of it is upon corn ground. After the grass has been cut and made into 

 hay the second year, and when the taji-roots of the clover have attained 

 the size which makes them valuable as renovators of the soil, let the 

 grass grow up for a few weeks ; then haul all available barn-yard manure 

 upon it, and scatter it over the ground; and as late in the fall as the 

 season will allow plow it under deeply. Corn is a voracious plant, and 

 will consume any food, however gross. Its roots are all-reaching and far- 

 reaching; they will find the manure readily, and the crop will tell the 

 story of its value. When the corn is taken off, and during the next 

 winter, let the corn stubble be broken close to the ground, raked off, 

 and burned, or, what is better, hauled to the barn-yard, and in the 

 spring as soon as the ground is dry enough harrow with a sharp and heavy 

 harrow until the surface is smooth ; sow oats without plowing, and 

 roll after sowing. The manure is yet undisturbed, and not likely to 

 make the oats so rank as to cause them to lodge. Oats will grow better 

 and be more productive without plowing than with it. As soon as the 

 oats are off', let the stubble be plowed in as deeply as possible, by which 

 the manure, covered before corn-planting, will be thrown to the top, and 

 the scattered oats will have an opportunity to vegetate ; then stir the 

 ground again with the plow, thus destroying the growing oats, and 

 thoroughly mixing the earth and upturned manure, which, by the lapse 

 of time, has undergone a thorough decomposition and combined with the 



