THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



55. 



tatoes ; and this gain Is pL-rhaps increased too, three 

 and four fold in as many succeeding years. At 

 least one third tlie labor on a given quantity of pro- 

 duce is alsq saved by the higher tillage and manur- 

 ing. 



The profits of farming would be immensely in- 

 creased by a change of practice. It is our belief 

 that the quantity of manure and dressing applied 

 to one half the quantity of land annually planted 

 with Indian corn in the four New England States 

 would turn out in the same season a greater crop of 

 corn than all that is raised within our borders. Let 

 this be done with the same labor bestowed on the 

 larirer territory ; and most of the farmers would be 

 ereat trainers beyond this year's calculation. The 

 lightest soil fir at least three successive years with- 

 out any application of manure will produce a cor- 

 respondent increased crop each year; and heavy 

 soils from fonr to eight years. 



The farmers upon the Merrimack intervales may 

 see an example in the town of Concord. That part 

 of the intervale nearest our village has an upper 

 mould mi.\ed with cold and heavy clay. Through 

 a portion of this flows the water of two brooks cross- 

 ing the main street, a part of which in the wetsea- 

 son and after each successive rain is left standing 

 upon the ground, and turns the natural growth of 

 hay into sour grass. Within the last six or eight 

 years a portion of this land owned by Gen. Low 

 and Col Grover has been improved by tlie applica- 

 tion, say at the rate of forty loads of stable manure 

 to the acre, and a proportion of sand and gravel 

 carted to the lowest parts; and this land, after the 

 first crop of corn or potatoes laid down to grass, 

 has produced for several successive years, never 

 less than three tons and, frequently as high as four 

 tons of excellent English hay, herdsgrass and clo- 

 ver, to the acre. This hay has never been worth 

 less than twelve dollars the ton ; and in some sea- 

 sons hay of no better quality lias sold at sixteen 

 and twenty dollars the ton. 



Adjacent to these two improved ^pots are sever- 

 al fields of precisely the same kind of intervale 

 land that have not yielded for many years and will 

 notnow yield mure than half a ton of hay to the a- 

 crc. This cold intervale land is valued only at for- 

 ty and fifty dollars the acre — it will not pay for the 

 use of that price cither as hay or pasturage, because 

 Haifa ton of this inferior hay is worth nut over five 

 dollars, barely paying for the labor and the taxes, 

 witnout a dollar of income. 



Now if an acre of this cold land producing half 

 a ton of poor hay in \U natural state is worth fifty 

 dollars, what must be the value of an improved a- 

 cre that will produce three tons of the best Eng- 

 lish hay? Tlie small piece of land belonging to 

 Gen Low, being nearer to our former premises, 

 has been more particularly under our observation. 

 Ever since the year 1832, that piece of ground, 

 without ploughing, and perhaps but with once a 

 liirht spreading of manure over it after it was laid 

 down to grass, has averaged more than four tons to 

 the acre in a year at a single mowing. Nothing flse, 

 since the first application of manure, has been done 

 to it than to take otV the crop. The great crop, we 

 must believe, is derived not from the strength of 

 the manure alone : the cold clayey soil, drained of 

 its redundant water and stimulated by the manure, 

 turns out the increased crop principally from its 

 ov.-n strength. All the draining of this piece of 

 land has been simply the opening of a furrow diich 

 on either side leading to tlie main ditch through 

 which the cnld brook passes across it. 



Let us make some calculation of the expense of 

 improving an acre of ground so that the value of 

 its crop may for eight years be increased ten fold, 

 and compare the gains in the two cases. 



The value of an acre of land in its unimproved 

 state is $50 : annual interest at six per cent. $3 — 

 taxes say 50 cents, labor in takin^-; care of fences 

 and getting oft" crop $3 — making $6 50. The crop 

 of hay, half a ton, wor'h not over $5 and the fiiU 

 feed 50 cents, $5 50, will leave the farmer minus, 

 who hires both money and labor, one dollar for his 

 year's crop. 



On the other hand, what will be the gain from 

 improving the same land ? To its first price let 

 there be added manure that shall cost $50 and ex- 

 tra labor equal to $25 ; and let the manure and la- 

 bor of the first year be distributed in a term of six 

 years in each of which it will be of equal value : 

 say interest on original cost of land $3; taxes, 

 doubled in consequence of improvement, $1 ; labor 

 in takin<r care of fences and getting off crop, in- 

 creased in consequence of additionaJ quantity, $5; 

 proportionate share of expense for first year's im- 

 provement, $12 50 ; whole expense for a year ,'$21. 

 With the first year's expenditure the acre \Vill be 

 made to produce 400 bushels potatoes, worth $100 

 — seoood year 75 bushels oats §37 50; and during 



the four last years .Tn average crop of three tons of 

 hay, worth $36. The smallest profits would make 

 the laud in its crude state worth over three hun- 

 dred dollars the acre. 



Looking at both sides of the calculation, the far- 

 mer may see why it is there isground of complaint 

 in many of our towns that farms will not pay three 

 per cent, profit on their estimated value. A change 

 for the better is in the power of almost every man 

 who owns an acre of land : generally it may beset 

 down as a rule, that the greater the outlay juui- 

 ciously applied, the more sure and larger in a- 

 mounlwiU be the profits. 



The consequences of introducing a .system of 

 high improvement of cultivated soil will be most 

 salutary. Very soon many farmers will become 

 convinced that they do not want half as much land 

 as they own ; and tint they may safely dispose of 

 one half to raise the means of improving the other 

 half, thereby doubling the profits from tlieir land 

 by increasing the production many fold; or if they 

 have capital to make the improvements without 

 selling, they can increase the production by put- 

 ting more labor and expense on a less number of a- 

 cres, turning the redundant land into more exten- 

 sive summer pastures, or growing it into wood for 

 fuel and timber. At the same time the production 

 increases, population will increase, and the aggre- 

 gate wealtli will be increased. 



There can be no mistake as to the true policy of 

 the farmer. Land in any part of New England 

 may be m:ide to produce an^ increase greater than 

 the value of three tons of hay, 60 bushels of oats or 

 50 bushels of corn to the acre. Look at the amount of 

 produce taken from tliirty acres of land under the 

 direction, if we do not mistake, of a New Hamp- 

 shire farmer, upon the premises attached to the 

 Iloute of [ndustry at South Boston — a product e- 

 qual to $176 an acre. We take tlie statement from 

 under the hand of the man wo carried on this land 

 last year as it is published in the Yankee Farmer of 

 Saturday, April 11, ld40. 



Amount of Produce, &c, upon the House of Indus- 

 try Farm, South Boston, for the year 1830, 

 111-2 tons of hay $16 per ton 184 00 



3 1-2 " BarleyStraw, 50 percwt, 35 00 

 148 1-2 bush. Barley, 90 per bushel 

 17 tons Mangel Wurtzel, $8 per ton 

 10872 lbs, of Squash, part Ic. part 3-4 per lb 

 1072 bush. Potatoes, 35 per bushel 



cool, apply it to the parts that arc swollen, two or 

 three t:mes a day, until the udder and teats are per- 

 fectly soft and free from kernels. It has been tri- 

 ed with great success in our vicinity, 



A FARMER. 

 East Windsor, Ct,, Jan, 15, 1839. 



Jllhany Cultivator. 



350 " Ruta Ba'ra20 

 1125 " English Turnips, 12 cents 

 230 '' Blood Beet, .50 cents 

 150 " Sugar Beet, 23 

 233 " Carrots, 30 cents 

 546 " Onions, 75 cents 

 5 " Quinces, .$4 

 5837 Cabbage heads, 3 cents 



12 tons green fodder, ."$6 per ton 

 Vegetables used in.the family before har- 

 vest time 

 43 jiigssold at various prices, amt, 

 3700 eallons milk, 231-2cts, per gallon 

 20 Hogs killed, wt. 7924 lbs. 7 cts, 

 4 Calves, $6 each 

 Garden Seeds sold 



'* " on hand 

 Vegetables sold by T. Seward 

 " " Paine & Noble 



!};5237 91 

 The farm contains about 30 acres of mowing and 

 tillage including the garden, 



Tlie largest crop upon one piece of ground as fol- 

 lows : 



8125 lbs, Canada Squashes, 

 75 bushels green Pens, 

 2 " of Seed Peas, 

 20O bushels of English Turnips, on one acre and 

 ten rods of land, 



DANIEL CHANDLER. 



The land on which the above produce was raised 

 is situated on what was formerlyDorchester Heights 

 — the ground talten possession of by the Yankee 

 Boys when the British mercenaries were driven 

 from Boston, It was as hard, poor and sterile land 

 as can be well conceived ; just such land a.i was 

 much of that which by artificial means has been 

 made the most valuable and productive of any land 

 in the country. 



Sore Teats i.i Cows. Messrs, Editors,— As 

 many of our farmers sufrer severely annually, by 



swollen udd'.'rs and teals in their milch cows, the 

 following is a cheap, simple and most sure remedy. 

 Take the bark oftlie root of the shrub commonly 

 called bitter-sweet, wash and simmer it with a 

 quantity of lard, until it is very yoUow, find when 



From tlic British Cliiarterly Journ-il of Agriculture 

 Sub-soil Ploughing. 



On the Dcanston frequent Drain Sijstem^ as distin- 

 truistied from and compared with the Farroic- 

 Drainin^ and Deep-Ploughing of the Midland 

 Counties of England. In a Letter to the Editor. 

 By the Riirht Hon, Sir James Graham, Bart., 

 M, P,, F. R, S., &c. Read Feb, 20, 1839, 

 A recent inquiry addressed to me by Lord Spen- 

 cer relative to the *'Deanslon frequent Drain Sys- 

 tem," induces me to believe that 1 may render 

 some service to agriculture, if I am so fortunate as 

 to direct the attention of your readers to this im- 

 portant subject at this jiarticular time. 



The great object of our quarterly publication is, 

 as I conceive, the establishment of an autheniic 

 record of practical experiments ; and by multiply- 

 ing facts and proofs of this description agriculture 

 will be treated as a science, and will advance, and 

 the Transactions of our Society will become the de- 

 pository of useful information, veried by the name 

 and the address of our several correspondent-^. 



.Mr. Smith, of Deanston, 'n the county of Perth, 

 was examined as a witness before the Agricultural 

 Committee in 1S36, He gave a detailed account 

 of his system of draining, which very much re- 

 sembled the furrow-draining of the midland coun- 

 ties of England, except that at Deanston, stone be- ' 

 ing on the ground, the drains are made with stones 

 and not with tiles ; and at Deanston the cover of 

 the drain is 22 inches below the surface ; whereas 

 in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire the top of 

 the tile in the furrsjw is not so deeply laid, Mr, 

 Smith, when his land is effectually drained, lays it 

 down without a furrow ; in the midland counties 

 the t'urrow is carefully preserved, 



Mr, Smith, after draining, for the first rotation 

 at least, dies not brln.g to the surface any of the 

 sub-soil; but by a plough of his own invention, 

 which follows a common plough turning up the 

 surface, he penetrates the sub-soil to the depth of 

 20 inches, and breaks and pulverizes the lower crust 

 without bringingit tohe top, Thissub-soil plough, 

 such as Mr, Smith has used, is a heavy implement, 

 requiring the draught of four, six, or eight horses, 

 according to the tenacity and strength of the sub- 

 stratum. 



Mr. Smith contends that the sub-soil, by being 

 moved, becomes p;'rvious both to air and moisture; 

 and the efficacy oftlie drains is thus perfected and 

 perpetuated ; and that the character of the sub-soil 

 itself, when relieved from superfluous moisture, 

 and open to atmospheric influence, is entirely 

 chano-ed ; that it becomes mellow and friable ; and 

 after one rotation, or a lapse of five years, that it 

 may be brought to the top, by deep ploughing, with 

 safety and propriety, and be mi.xed with the sur- 

 face-soil to great advantage. 



In the midland counties of England, deep 

 plouirhiug after furrow-draining has been the con- 

 stant practice; but the use of six horses in a sub-' 

 soil plough is a novelty in Scotland, In England 

 a portion of the sub-soil is raised at once to the top; 

 at Deanston the sub soil, though broken, is not so 

 raised ; and here the important question arises, — 

 When land is efiectually undrained, which is the 

 right treatment of the sub-soil ? Will you bring a 

 portion of it immediately to the surface by deep 

 ploughing, or will you, with Mr, Smith, delay this 

 operation for some years, until the sub-soil shall 

 have been mellowed, after having been broken and 

 penetrated by the atmosphere,' 



The advantages of the wide circulation of agri- 

 cultural knowledge of the multiplication of experi- 

 ments, and of the interchange both of theory and 

 practice between Scotland and England, will here 

 develope themselves in the clearest light. Fur- 

 row-draining and deep ploughing have been prac- 

 tised in Enoland for half a century ; yet the intro- 

 duction of an analogous system into Scotland is re- 

 trarded almost as. a discovery. But in Scotland it- 

 self the greatest difference of opinion prevails on 

 the question of turning up or only moving the sub- 

 soil after draining. Some of the greatest authori- 

 ties in East Lolhain differ from Mr, Smith, and 

 lean to the English practice. In the first furrow 

 for irreen crop after draining, by "two ploughs fol- 

 lowing each other, which is equivalent to trench- 

 ploughing, they go down to the depth of 12 or 14 

 inches, and bring up a certain quantity of virgin 

 soil. 



