1838.] 



FARMERS' R E G I S T E R 



hill; and if the penson was tolerably {jood, have 

 luinily ever faileil to make a jrood crop of both 

 wheat and corn, from land that was very thin be- 

 fore the application of the lime and niannre. A 

 part of the field that I liad in cultivation on my 

 farm in Ihirs comity, in the year 1833, was land 

 that, on accomit of its barreimes<, had not been in 

 tiiltivjiiion for 8 or 10 years beli)re, and when it 

 was ploairlved, it was .covet-ed with poverty irrass. 

 This piece of land, I treated in the followiilof man^ 

 ner, viz.: In the sprinir, I had the manure, that 

 was made in the farm-yard through the winter, 

 carried out on it, and after having it put in the 

 furrow, and the ground listed and ploughed out, 

 {which was done as soon as the manure was 

 spread,") and the corn had been planted, I had a 

 shovel full of lime spread on the ridire from corn- 

 hill to corn-hill. Shortly afier, I used the large 

 drag harrow, which appeared to mix the lime pret- 

 ty well with the earth. In consequence of the 

 heavy rains that we had in the months of May 

 and June, and it being rather low stilf land, 1 was 

 unable to give the corn the usual cultivation, and 

 made little or none li-om it. In the fall of the year, 

 it was seeded in wheat, and the spring following, 

 clover was seeded on it. This piece of ground 

 yielded me from 18 to 10 bushels of wheat to the 

 acre, each bushel weighinfj 60 lbs.; and when the 

 wheat was cut, the clover, that had been seeded in 

 the spring, waf: about a fiot high, as thick as I 

 could have desired it. and the greater part in blos- 

 som. This fine growth of wheat and clover, 1 at- 

 tribute in a great measure to the lime, for I have 

 frequentlj' tried the same kind of manure without 

 the lime, and have never discovered much benefit 

 from if. On my farm in Queen Ann's couniv, 

 which is rather a liirhl soil,. I have been using the 

 shell lime ever since the year 1822, and have ije- 

 iierally applied it in the spring, after the <rround 

 has been ploughed, and it has always acted very, 

 finely. In the year 1828, I limed a piece of land, 

 in one oft he fields on this li\rm, which was cover- 

 ed with sorrel and poverty-grass. It did not ap- 

 pear to have any efij^ct upon the corn crop, but the 

 effect was very visible upon the wheat, which fol- 

 lowed the corn; and after the wheat was taken off" 

 a fine growth of wliile clover come up in the place 

 of the poverty-irrass and sorrel, and ever since 

 if has been producing fine crops, without the aid of 

 any other manure. I am decidedly of the opinion, 

 that It is better to apply the lime afier the ground 

 is broken up; for in this way, j'oii keep it near the 

 surface, and it also becomes more immediately and 

 better incorporated with the earth; both of which, 

 I think, are very desirable. The farmers are be- 

 coming sensible of the great importance of lime, 

 and are very generally g:^tting into the use of it. 

 Geo. S. Holly day. 



From the Modico-Cliirurgical Review. 

 THE RAIL ROAD STEAMER. 



By James Johnston, M. D- 



Were any of the ancients to rise from their 

 tombs, and to behold a steam-ship, full of passen- 

 gers, darting up the Thames, or a train of car- 

 nages, with a tliousand people, flying alon? a rail 

 road at the rate of 30 miles an houV, they would 

 be very apt to doubt the fact of their revisit to the 



same planet they had left — since a thousand years 

 in the grave may probably seem no longer than a 

 short siesta aller dinner. 'l"hcir surprise would 

 not be much lessened by the sight of a column of 

 brilliant Hume springing up from the middle of a 

 street, or issuing from ten thousand metallic tubes, 

 and turninir the darkness of night into the glare of 

 day! If, while gazing at these phenomena, they 

 saw a man, or even a monkey, descend from the 

 clouds, suspended as the pendulum of a huge um- 

 brella, they would no longer doul)t that they had 

 got into ''another, if not a better world," than that 

 of their birth and death! 



But to return to the rai/ roarf sfcflmcr. Without 

 rudder or rein; without tug or tow-rope; without 

 chart or compass; without impulse from man, 

 or traction f"rom beast — this maximum of power in 

 minimum of space — this magic automaton, darts 

 forward, on iron pinion, like an arrow fi'om a bow, 

 along its destined course. Devised by science, 

 but devoted to industry; harmless as the dove, if 

 unopposed; but flital as the thunderbolt, if ob- 

 structed in its career; this astonishing ofi'spring of 

 human invention; this (jiant in strength, though 

 a dwarf in stature, drags along, and apparently 

 without effort, whole cargoes of commerce; mer- 

 chants and their merchandize, artizans and their 

 arts, travellers and their traffic, tourists and their 

 tours (some of them heavy enough) — in short, 

 every thing that can be chained to the tail of this 

 herculean velocipede! 



The steam-carriage nearly annihilates distance 

 between the inhabitants of a state, and thereby 

 converts, as it were, a whole country into a city, 

 securing all the good eHects of combination and 

 concentration, without the detrimental consequen- 

 ces of a crowded population. By the rail road, 

 Liverpool, Manchester, Birminffham, and the Me- 

 tropolis, are constituted contiguous cities, while 

 wide and lerfile tracts of country intervene! Thus 

 steam mulli|)lies the products of" human labor, by 

 increasinir their sale and diminishing their price. 

 It will enable us to convert millions of acres from 

 pasturage into cornfields, and consequenliy the 

 provender of horses into (bod for man. 



The whole transit of a rail road steamer is a 

 series of miracles, which, in former days, would 

 have been attributed to angels or demons. At 

 starting, the raicjhty automaton suddenly sup- 

 presses his torrent of liissing steam, and belches 

 forth a deep and hollow cough, which is reiferated 

 at shorter and shorter periods, like a hiiffe animal 

 panting for breath, as the engine, with its train, 

 labors up the ascent from Euston square. These 

 belchiniis more nearly resemble the pantings of a 

 lion or tiger than any other sound that I know of. 

 With the slow motion, on any considerable ascent, 

 the breathing of the animated machine appears io 

 become more laborious, and the explosions more 

 distinct, till at length the animal seems exhausted, 

 and groans, as it were, under the tremendous 

 effort. But the engine, having mastered the dif- 

 ficulty, acquires velocity before it plunges into the 

 dark abyss of the tunnel under Primrose-hill. 

 There the peal of thunder; the pudden immersion 

 in Cimmerian darkness; the cia.'sh of reverberated 

 sounds in confined space; the atmospheric chill 

 that rushes over the frame; all combine' to induce 

 n momentary shudder at the thocioht of somo nos- 

 sibfe collipon or catastrophe iath.is subterrane;.m 

 transit, which is increased rather tbrin diminished 



