152 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 3 



straight lines as may suit the cultivators' fancy, 

 this "done coulter the land well, clean the com 

 with the hoe as soon as it is large enough, passing 

 the cultivator as many as three times in a row five 

 or five and a half leet wide; this keeps the land 

 light and fi-ee to the roots of the grovving plants, 

 and saves the evaporation of the volatile fertility 

 of the earth; in this way a single horse will well 

 cultivate as much land as will make 100 barrels of 

 corn. For fallow, lime your land in the same 

 manner, and turn it well in May and June, and 

 harrow it down close. Afteryour wheat is thrash- 

 ed and delivered, throw your land in the desired 

 shape, and keep it clean until seeding time. My 

 lile for it, there will be no mistakes; nature never 

 makes any; it is the lazy man who mistakes, and 

 ■finally cheats himself. I now have a most beau- 

 tiful field ot 100 acres thus prepared, and I am de- 

 ceived if it be not equal to two crops of clover 

 lay. Let me be understood fully; I take it as 

 granted that every farmer, or every man pretend- 

 ing to be a farmer, makes and applies all the ma- 

 nure he can, his farm affords him a great mass of 

 material, and if he will add to this all the rich 

 earth he can collect, mixing the same with lime, 

 1 doubt not he will soon begin to doubt whether 

 he is upon his own miserable tattered estate. I 

 seed my land in clover in February. 1 think, sir, 

 if 1 could take you over my fields, you would 

 agree that I was in a fair way to carry out my 

 premises. Court-houses, jails, and penitentiaries, 

 you would see in imagination going into dilapida- 

 tion, and the very church superseded in half of its 

 moral labors. For why denounce vices that have 

 ceased to exist? Who would practice "coward 

 deceit and ruffian violence," if not urged on by 

 want and envy? From Canada to Mexico we have 

 but one cry, and that is, "stand by your party." 

 If, sir, our fields were covered with abundance, 

 who would dare to raise that cry? Who would 

 dare to raise any cry unfriendly to our beloved 

 country? Where would the wretch hide himself 

 who would dare to declare that "to the victors be- 

 long the spoils?" I am no politician, sir, but I 

 stand by my country, and her would I have cover- 

 ed with abundance. 



Before I close this, let me say a few words about 

 manure. It is the bread and meat and tlie money- 

 power of the farmer; without it, he is a poor 

 fellow. Let him therefore keep in mind that as it 

 is his only active capital, his dividends of profits 

 must depend upon it. Let him iherelbre at all op- 

 portunities cover his farm-yard with rich earth, 

 and over that apply a good coat of lime; upon 

 this pen his cattle, and so go on through the year, 

 and the quantity he will make will surprise him. 

 If possible let him apply it as surfijce dressing 

 upon grain or grass; but apply it as he may, it is 

 productive power. Let his motto be "my duty to 

 Mother Earth," and my life lor it, dear old Virginia 

 is once more great, patriotic, abundant and happy. 

 Let me say to you, Mr. Editor, that you have no 

 cause to despair; you are acting upon that great 

 and absorbing principle in man, self-love, and you 

 cannot fail. 



I bid you farewell, in the name of dear old 

 Mother Earth, whose kindness is only limited by 

 our own acts. 



Lime. 



Fairfax County, 6th May, 1S38. 



Extract from tlic Uritisli Farmers' Magazim; for April, 1838. 

 RELATION OF SOILS TO MANURES. 



There is an essential diflference between sands 

 and sandy loams; the former are greedy of ma- 

 nure, and being almost purely silicious, they de- 

 compose it rapidly, and relapse into their original 

 poverty; but loams, though composed of little 

 more than one-tenth of fine aluminous and creta- 

 ceous matter, with nine-tenths of silex tinted by 

 oxyd of iron, retain and fix manures; they are 

 puiverizable, reducible to ash fineness, yet cannot 

 he deprived of manure otherwise than by the at- 

 tractive energy of a vegetable crop. Thus, to 

 borrow the excellent description given of a na- 

 turally good and rich soil, by an American agricul- 

 tural chemist: — "After being exhausted by culti- 

 vation they will recover their productive power by 

 merely being left to rest lor a sufficient time, and 

 receiving the manure made by nature of the 

 weeds and other plants, that grow and die upon 

 the land. * * * The better a soil was at first, 

 the sooner it will recover by these means, or by arti- 

 ficial manuring." 



There is one fact which cannot be too strongly 

 impressed upon the purchasers or renters of arable 

 and pasture land, it is this: — that, be the natural 

 quality of the staple what it may, it remains per- 

 manently the same! Poor, beggarly land may be 

 glutted with manure, but that is evanescent: the 

 more hungry the native earth, the more speedily 

 will it become exhausted. By parity of reason, it 

 may be shown, that rich land may be deprived of 

 its decomposable manures, and by a wretched 

 parsimonious management can be prevented from 

 exerting its decomposing powers, — that is, it may 

 be rendered inert and idle, but its native inherent 

 worth can never be depreciated, and hence he 

 who purchases good and sound land, embarks his 

 property on a venture which must be prosperous, 

 if he act upon the principles of a liberal philoso- 

 phy, which will leach him that the deconipositwn 

 of putrescent manures in soil is brought about by 

 a mutual energy exerted between the vital princi- 

 ple of the roots, and the staple iin decomposable na- 

 tive earths. This energy is not remote from that 

 of the galvanic battery; and when we become 

 more conversant with the powers of electricity and 

 magnetism, we shall feel ourselves proportionally 

 enlightened upon the points, now involved in mys- 

 tery, connected with the laboration of vegetable 

 aliment. My own mind is satisfied thereon; but, 

 in the absence of incontrovertible evidence, we 

 must wait the progress of further discoveries. 



From tlie British Farmers' Magazine. 

 USE OF FISH MANURE IN ENGLAND. 



The fish which are usually employed as ma- 

 nures, arc, 1st, sprats; 2dly, pilchards; 3dly, her- 

 rings; 4thly, sticklebacks; 5thly, whale blubber. 

 Tfiese are very rich fertilizers; the fleshy or mus- 

 cular portions abounding in oil. The scales are 

 composed of coagulated albumen and phosphate 

 of lime; the bones are full of oil, and their solid 

 portion is composed of phosi)hate of lime and 

 carbonate of lime, in different proportions. 



