106 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



seems, the sap is inspissoted by the sudden heat, so 

 as to fill, or mostly to fill up the interstices, and 

 beiufr so fixed and hardened, it excUulea the water ; 

 and the sap thus cured or cooked, is prevented from 

 fermenting, and thus rotting the inside ot the 

 wood, and from flvinor off in vapour. 



A pair of cart wheels, soon as made, were thick- 

 ly covered with tar, and set up, resting against the 

 Bide of a house for a year or two- when put to use 

 the fellows broke, and showed a sound externnl 

 surface, all tlie rest being a dark, rotten, coarse 

 powder Here the uns>-asoned wood, being coated 

 over, so as to obstruct the sap from evaporating, it 

 fermented, it is presumed, and rotted the inside of 

 the solid parts of the timber; the shell, or outside 

 having lieen dried and seasoned, and lost its sap be- 

 fore the tar was applied, remained sound. 



I remember once sleeping in a room of a one 

 story house lately built by Dr. Warfield, of Elk- 

 ridge, Maryland ; in the morning T could not but 

 admire the wainscot and ceiling ot the room, which 

 were of poplar boards, in which ti\e joints could 

 not easily be discovered; the work was not paint- 

 ed, and i supposed the boards must have been sea- 

 soning for many years in a tobacco house. The 

 doctor pointed to two lengthy pits on the side of a 

 hill, and said, the trees were fell.d and cut into 

 logs, which were immediately hauled (o the pits, 

 nvTr one of which a log at a time was sawed into 

 boards, and immediately, while full of sap, a fire 

 was made and kept burning under them, until the 

 Vo-"d3 were perfectly cured ; some of the wainscot 

 1 .:i r put up with these boards, within two weeks 

 'laving been in the growing tree ; the pits 

 .lUernatcly employed in sawing the logs and 

 i. . _; 'he stocks. 



■.■.."commending to a ship carpenter the trimming 

 i:^,. '.IT roughly in the woods, and thus seasoning 

 t;i' iiieces by fire, he objected, becau.se it would 

 iriiderthe timber hard to cut and work— perhaps 

 i .0, some might think it would render the timber 

 I'l-i durable ; it may, however, some day be thought 

 j:,-nper to contract for its being so seasoned, espe- 

 cially for national ships."— i?ord/cy. 



P. S. From the above, we learn the necessity of 

 dissipating, thoroughly, by the action of fire, or 

 some other means, every portion of the sap, before 

 covering the wood with any body, that would pre- 

 vent the evaporation of such, should any be left re- 

 mainino- — a consideration of the utmost importance, 



J. R. 



properties which almost all kinds of our grain, and 

 even the grass requires. Ily that means we fail in 

 our crops; but where we plough deep, we turn up 

 tour or five inches of earth, which has never been 

 brought into action by the influence of the sun 

 and air. This has never been exhausted of the 

 lime properties, and never will be till we stir it up 

 so that the sun can act upon it, and slack it, that it 

 may become food for plants. 



A lump of lime kept air tight will not slack ; 

 just so with the lime properties in the earth. It 

 must be stirred so that the air and sun can have 

 their proper influence. 



I have no doubt but many a field has become al- 

 most barren by shallow ploughing. You will per- 

 ceive a> once that by ploughing deep and cross- 

 ploughing three times on the top of the sod the 

 loam and^ubsoil will become mixed so thoroughly 

 that in the room of four or five inches of loam for 

 the roots of our grain and grass we have from 

 eleven to fifteen inches, just in proportion to the 

 depth we plough. This will stand dry or wet bet- 

 ter than four or five inches, for your corn roots will 

 go down as far as we plough and no farther. 



Some say that liglit land will leach the manure, 

 but 1 think in that they are mistaken. We know 

 that light I'nd is first to feel the benefit of the ma- 

 nure, and flourishes well in the fore part of the 

 season, and then comes to a stand ; but it is not be 

 caust the manure has gone down — it is because it 

 has evaporated and the heat of the sun has caused 

 the evaporation ; the greater the heat the greater 

 the evaporation. By putting our manure in shal- 

 low in dry warm land, the sun and air act upon it 

 so powerfully, that it draws up the strength of the 

 manure faster than the plant can receive it, and it 

 evaporates and goes off. Whereas if the manure 

 wa- put in deep in light land it would he more 

 moderate in its evaporat'on, and the plant would 

 receive the whole benefit, the same as it does in 

 deep soil where the sun does not act with so much 

 influence. Therefore I say put your manjre in 

 deep in your light lands so that th" sun will not 

 draw it out and waste it before the plant gets Urge 

 enough to suck up the strength of it as nature re- 

 quires. 



Too smnll Teams. 



1840. 



For the Farmer's Montlil)- Visitor. 

 Piscalaquug Village, June \Z. 

 Preparation of sward land. 



Mr. Editor — \s every one should do a little for 

 the prosperity of the agricultural interest, 1 would 

 just give your readers what little experience I 

 haveliad, and what I believe the best method for 

 preparing sward land for a crop of corn and for all 

 succeeding crops. First, say in August or before 

 the lOlh of September, I plough my sward land 

 about eleven inches deep, and lay the furrow as flat 

 as possible. I let it lay till it becomes dry— then [ 

 harrow, and any time before the ground freezes 1 

 cross plough on the top of the sod. In the follow- 

 ing spring as soon as the frost is out, if the ground 

 is not too^wet, I again cross plough, still keeping 

 above the sod. I let it lay till just before I cart 

 out manure ; harrow once; lay out and spread on 

 my manure and then plough the manure in, still 

 keeping above the sod. I sometimes smooth it 

 with the harrow before furrowing. In this way 

 all the subsoil that I turn up by deep ploughing 

 becomes thoroughly mixed, and the ground is quite 

 mellow to receive' the young fibres of roots, and 

 gives the corn a quick start. 



I hoe one year and then lay down to grass with oats 

 or wheat. 1 sow two bushels of oats or wheat to 

 the acre. Sowing thin gives our grass seed tlie 

 better chance to take root and grow, and it does 

 not exhaust the ground so much as three busliels 

 to the acre. In that way we get the more hay, 

 which is the most profitable crop ; and by hoeing 

 one year only we can go over our ground oftener, 

 so it would not be so likely to get bound out. In 

 this way I have generally raised good crops — about 

 fifty bushels of corn or about three hundred bush- 

 els of potatoes to the acre. 



I do not hold to straining my land with corn or 

 other grain, but prepare it for as large crops of grass 

 as I possibly can. 



I say plough eleven inches; that is about tlie 

 depth I have ploughed ; but 1 behieve that twelvc- 

 or fifteen inches would be better, if your plough 

 is sufficient to turn the furrow flat. The reason I 

 give is, that by siiallow ploughing we and our 

 lorefatheys have worked over three or tour inclies 

 of the surface till we have drawn out all the living 



But we lack in one thing: we try to get along 

 with too small a team. We will try to make the 

 old mare and steers do this year, and sell the oxen; 

 but if our team is light we must plough light, and 

 we have so much to do that we have not time e- 

 nough to cross plough. We must harrow and let 

 it go this year till the steers get large ; and so we 

 cheat ourselves. Perhaps next year we can sell 

 t'>e old mare and make the colt do; but this wont 

 do; we must keep team enough by changing with 

 our neighbors to do all the ploughing that is neces- 

 sary, and do it well ; and that is all that is wanted 

 on the farm. But be sure to go with a strong team 

 when vou turn up your sward land: put on 

 on an extra yoke and make then travel quick, and 

 it will lay the furrow much better if your land is 

 tolerable smooth, besides you can do more in a 

 day. 



The way to make manure. 



Tlie true principle of farming is to consume all 

 our ffrain, hay, roots, &c. on our farms. One sho- 

 vel full of manure made from grain is worth three 

 made from hav or straw. Besides by feeding out 

 all oar hnv and grain, we have mor*: manure and 

 better ; and our oxen and cows are better by giving 

 them a little grain for our own use ; and certainly 

 they will sell for more if we want to sell them. 

 So let us sell beef and pork and consume our hay 

 and grain on our firms, till we get them in a high 

 stato of cultivation. A cow that comes out in 

 high order in the spring is worth two that is very 

 lean ; for the cow in high order when you turn her 

 out to grass will give a largt* mess of milk, becau.se 

 she does not require so mucii food to be converted 

 to flesh ; and Hie first part of the season is always 

 best fir making butter. But when tlie lean cow 

 is turned out she requires a large share of 'he food 

 she eats to bring her into a good state of flesli so 

 as she m.'iy give her common mess of milk, which 

 will take generally till your pastures begin to fail 

 a little. 



Let us look at the difference. We will suppose 

 the cow in high order that has had one quart of 

 meal per day, to give eight quarts of milk per day. 

 The lean one gives six quarts ; which will make 

 two quarts per day in favor of the former. Twen- 

 ty weeks will make 38!1 quarts difference : this al 

 four cents per quart would be $1" ,20. The same 

 cow in high order will always bring more than she 

 would if lean. 



If we raise an overplus of root* or grain, let us 

 put it into beef or pork, so we may save tlia best 



of manure, and makfl two spires of grass grow 

 where but one grows now. 



And there is the article of straw ; I use all my 

 straw generally in bedding my cattle and hogs. I 

 also prefer a good bed of straw for my horse, was 

 I to put lip with you, rather than one quart of oats. 

 Whilst your horse is standing, if he has any thing 

 before liim he will be eating; and he never will 

 lay lono- on a hard floor : but give him a good bed 

 of straw, and he will lav ilown and lay and rest as 

 long as he lies easy. But when the horse lays 

 down on the hard floor he becomes uneasy, and will 

 soon rise up and go to eating, forcing the food 

 through his stomach so as to give his food no time 

 to digest ; and it passes off without doing him any 

 good. But give him a cood bed, and he will cat 

 fess hay and the straw will take up all the urine, 

 which makes a fine addition to our manure. Just 

 so with our cows and oxen : give them bed enough 

 to take up all the urine, and it will be worth more 

 to your farm than to cart it six or seven miles and 

 get your four or five dollars per ton. 



Oxen better than horses. 



But I think we are in the habit of keeping too 

 many horses on our farms instead of oxen. Hor- 

 ses require better keeping than oxen ; it costs more 

 for their harnesses than it does for oxen ; they are 

 more liable to disease than oxen : they are not so 

 good to break roads or go through miry places, as 

 oxen, and when old are not so valuable as oxen. 

 If we do our work with oxen, we have oxen to 

 feed upon our grain and roots and make our beef; 

 and that will add to our manure. Horses make a 

 quicker team than oxen ; but if we would load our 

 steers light, and always use them to walk quick, 

 they would not be much behind the Iiorse team. 

 I once saw a pair of oxen on a team behind two 

 spans of horses, that walked to Boston and back in 

 company with a six horse team, and it did not ap- 

 pear to weary them any more than it did the hor- 

 ses. I have a pair of cattle six years old that will 

 plough their two acres per day. I have, used them 

 to walk with a horse before them, and I don't allow 

 myself to load heavy. I tliink it is the heavy load- 

 ing that makes our oxen slow. When I plough 

 any time with my oxen, if they are inclined to 

 slacken their pace, I hitch on a horse for half a 

 day, and we wont have occasion to bring the yoke 

 up to their horns but a few times before they will 

 walk as fast as I want to walk myself. 



Another thing will most assuredly make oxen 

 slow : make your one yoke ulough all day when it 

 is hard enough for two yokes. I would recom- 

 mend to h ive" a strong team and light loads, and 

 you will always have fast walking oxen. 



After I harvest my corn if my land is heavy, I 

 plough in the fall, turning up the old sod : let it 

 lay till the spring; plough twice and more if you 

 can, harrow once, sow the grain and harrow suffi- 

 cient to cover the seed and manure ; brush after- 

 wards to smooth the ground for mowing. 



Small corn best. 



I have tried difl"erent kinds of corn, but T think 

 I receive as much profit from an acre of land in 

 five years from the spring after I break up my 

 sward land to plant the Canada corn as from a lar- 

 ger size. What I lack in corn I get in grass. The 

 stalks are so small they do not take the strength 

 out of the ground : there is no large butt to sour 

 and mould the husk. Upon the whole there is but 

 very little waste. The cob is so small that it will 

 not" retain much moisture ; and we have good sweet 

 bread. Hut the larger kinds of corn have large 

 stalks, dilfieult to cure ; the butts are larger and 

 retain so much mois'.ure that they generally rnould; 

 or at any rate you will find them stripped of their 

 leaves and the butts left in the crib before the cat- 

 tle. And then the cob isjarger, and if it does not 

 get properly dry in the field it will retain the mois- 

 Ture so long that the corn cannot be so sweet for 

 bread as tlie smaller kind. 



On hoeing corn the more hills you make the 

 more hallows ; and if we do not disturb the roots 

 by jilouirhing and hilling our corn, there is a dis- 

 advantage in it when it rains. The water t-ikea 

 the lowest places and tliere remains till it is all ab- 

 sorbed or evaporated, and this leaves a kind of 

 scum on the ground tliat keeps the moisture from 

 penetrating into the ground. So the ground would 

 be more likely to suffer with the drought than it 

 would upon a more even surface. When the 

 ground becomes crusty it will not drink up the 

 dews as it will when it is kept loose with the hoe 

 or the cultivator. Tlie sun will draw the moisture 

 up through this crust, but the earth cannot draw 

 the moisture from the atmosphere. This crust pre- 

 vents tlie moisture from penetrating the ground, 

 but will not prevent it from being drawn up in case 

 of a drought. Then the more level the surface 



