No. 5. 



On Manures. 



145 



Bufficicntly adhesive to retain what is mixed 

 with it, nrinured in moist seasons, will sooner 

 possess iisclf ot'the qualities of the manure than 

 close, adhesive, stubborn soils will if manured 

 in dry seasons. The loose textured soil will 

 permit the qualities of the manure most easily 

 to pervade it, as it is easier to penetrate a soil 

 than a hard body, and the moist condition of 

 the earth will afford attractions on all sides of 

 every particle of the manure to aid in its dif- 

 fijsio'n — the soil then that soonest possesses 

 itself of the qualities of the manure will be 

 soonest ready to impart it. 



By spreading and ploughinsf in your manure 

 as you cart it out into the rield, you certainly 

 cuard ao^ainst the loss of evaporation, be it 

 little or much— and havina^ your manure thus 

 intermixed with your soil, the whole super- 

 lices or rather the top of your field is, for a 

 few inches, in some degree, a bed of compost. 

 Whether the most fertilizing particles of the 

 manure have the greatest tendency to gravi- 

 tate or fly off, I do not pretend to say — but is 

 soon as the manure is mi.xed up with the soil, 

 I conclude that the earth acts as an absorbent 

 and that all the qualities of tlie manure are 

 thus made to be diffused through and to be- 

 come incorporated with the earth with which 

 it is- intermixed. Thoroughly rotted manure 

 being most desirable, will soonest become in- 

 corporated with the earth, and will therefore 

 be soonest ready to act — whether its action 

 will be longest or strongest is yet to be in- 

 quired into. 



Upon two different pieces of land I have 

 for a dozen years past pursued a different 

 course with manures composed of the same 

 materials— taken from the farm yards and 

 Etables. One of these which was the best 

 land of the two, and generally of a lively, 

 loamy soil, I have carried out the farm yard 

 and stable manure after it had been all col- 

 lected together and thrown into a heap for a 

 twelvemonth, by which time it was completely 

 decomposed. On the other piece of land, 

 which is generally a stiff white oak clay, I 

 have always carried out the same manures 

 the spring next succeeding the winter that 

 tliey had been accumulated — and I am de- 

 cidedly of opinion that the latter piece of 

 land has been improved the most, and that 

 the crop (particularly of wheat) has been 

 quite as good notwithstanding the original 

 disparity of the lands. The size of the 

 fields on the two pieces of land are not very 

 unequal, and the quantity of farm yard ma- 

 nure made on each not differing much. On 

 l»th pieces there was a free use of marl dur- 

 ing the time. 



The application of manure on the surface 

 u used here, is to top dress grass and wheat 

 in winter and spring — and on Indian corn af- 

 ter it is up and cleared. In the case of the 



wheat and grass it is completely a top dress- 

 ing — but in the case of the corn, the manure 

 is first exposed on the surface and is turned in 

 the first ploughing that is given to the corn 

 after it is put around the hill. That manure, 

 thus applied, may produce improvement in 

 both the crops of wheat and corn, may be very 

 probable — but whether it improves it most by 

 this mode, or by an earlier intermixture with 

 the earth can only be determined by the dis- 

 tribution of equal quantities of like manure 

 on the same soil, in the same year, on the two 

 different pieces of land. 



I have entertained the opinion that the sun 

 and air exhaled much of the good qualities of 

 farm yard and stable manures, and have there- 

 fore always turned them into the ground as fast 

 as they were carted out, and rolled the ground 

 immediately to prevent a further escape of 

 the volatile particles. Believing too that the 

 decomposition of my half rotted manure had 

 better go on and be perfectly intermixed with 

 the soil of my field, rather than suffer it to 

 take place in its own bulk, T prefer carting it 

 out and ploughing it in in that state, particu- 

 larly as the whole is accomplished by once 

 handling and once carting it. In dull, heavy 

 clay soils, the action of half rotted manure 

 in its progress to complete decomposition 

 seems to dispose the stiff soil to become more 

 easily pulverized. So half rotted manure on 

 soils dry and sandy being apt to bury any crop 

 to which it is applied, I would use well rotted 

 manures alone upon such lands. 



The turning in of green crops for manure, 

 such as clover, buckwheat or Indian corn, to 

 which is now added the cow pea, is by some 

 considered an eligible plan of manuring. I 

 have no knowledge of the effect of turnmg in 

 more than two of these crops, viz: clover and 

 buckwheat, and from these I have seen great, 

 good effects. On soils where plaster of Paris 

 acts certainly and powerfully, nothingcan point 

 out the road to abundance and wealth more di- 

 rectly, or upon less difficult terms than the use 

 of clover, and plaster. But all depends upon 

 doing th ings right. The crop of clover shad es 

 the ground well, and loses, under any circum- 

 stances, much of the foliage from its stock on 

 the ground — it has also a large and long tap 

 root that mellows the stiff earth by penetrat- 

 ing deeply into its bosom, and imparts much 

 vegetable substance to it when it decays. — 

 The time for turning in the clover for manure 

 is the question. My opinion is that turning 

 in clover as s(X)n as it is f;rst in blossom, as is 

 often done, is getting but a moderate portion 

 of the benefit which it might be made to 

 yield if it was suffered to grow and mature 

 completely on the ground. When the clover 

 is quite brown, and the stalk instead of being 

 juicy and full of water become ligorious, the 

 whole growtli imparts strong substantial vego 



