1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



165 



JVIaryland ha? embarlced millions on the Chosa- 

 peake and Ohio canal. Thf notion of carrying; it 

 i'urther than Cnniherland, I believe, is now aban- 

 doned by the wildest pohemers; and remuneration 

 is promised by the rompanv lo the stale, in the 

 transportation of coal from the Allejrhany monn- 

 tains. Suppose roal mines should be discovered 

 on (he waters of the Chesapeake, I apprehend the 

 fires of the Alletjhany coal would soon go out. 

 The projectors of this great sclieme have started 

 on the hypothesis that no coal is to be found in 

 Maryland but in the Alleghany mountains, and 

 our profound legislature has adopted it. I have 

 never heard that there has ever been any boring 

 for coal in Maryland, excepting by Mr. Richard 

 Caton of Baltimore, who was led by a German to 

 believe there was coal at the head of the Severn, 

 in consequence of a small quantity being found on 

 the shore, which most people thought had floated 

 up the river from a Virginia boat. Mr. Caton is 

 an Englishman, a native, I believe, of Liverpool, 

 and well knows what some of our wise men may 

 hereafter discover, that coal is not confined to the 

 mountain regions. There are many coal-mines in 

 England and Ireland at no great distance from the 

 sea. A remarkable one, at Baristones, was for 

 many years worked with profit under the ocean. 

 The Richmond mines are at no great distance from 

 the tide, and coal is found in the champaign regions 

 of the north. It wouid, perhaps, have been a 

 matter of prudent calculation, before Maryland 

 had embarked her fortunes so deeply in the 

 Chesapeake and Ohio canal company, to have as- 

 certained whether roa! could not be found in more 

 accessible parts of her territory. Americans are 

 said, by some traveller, to be a people of very rea- 

 dy impulse. They seize a scheme with the same 

 aviility that old Mr. Shandy did a theorv, and 

 otien run it to the same excpps. of which full evi- 

 dence may be found in the first annual report of 

 the directors of the Eastern Shore railroad com- 

 pany, to which I invite the attention of all persons 

 who desire a short road to Mexico. 



I find I have sadly ditrress^d from my subject : 

 I will conclude with a very few words to the Fre- 

 deric farmer, I entirely concur with him in his 

 preference of horses to mules and oxen, as beasts 

 of the plough. Perhaps the Conestoffa is to be 

 preferred in the Valley of Virtrinia ; but in our 

 hard loamy lands, where there is no stone, a pair 

 of firie-bloodeil horses will plough more in three 

 days, than a pair of Conestoga in four. His ob- 

 jection to the blooded horse is one of my grounds 

 of preference : I like to see him play and gambol, 

 even at the risk of his neck ; and I prefer him to 

 the Conestoga, as much as I do a light-hearted, 

 mercur'al Virginia yeoman (who, after the labors 

 of the day, sports with his fellows, and indulcres 

 his stray joke, at the risk of a broken head,) to a 

 dull, heavy Dutchman, who eats his supper, 

 smokes his pipe, and iioes to sleep. 



AN RASTKRN SHORE FARMER. 



Queenstoion, Md. May, 1838. 



From (Loudon's) London Gardeners' Magazine. 



jauffret's new manure. 



We have in a precedinnr page (p. 111.*) direct- 

 ed attention to Kimberley's manure, said to be a 



most extraordinary and valuable discovery ; and 

 Itiat of Jaufliet seems to be a parallel discovery 

 of the same kind in France. M. .Jaudret, it ap- 

 pears from '/'y/?«i' den Champs' for December, 

 1S37, died in November last. He was born at 

 Aix, in the neighborhood of Provence, and suc- 

 ceeded to a considerable landed estate there in 

 1798. In its cultivation, fiiulins: a great deficiency 

 of manure, he tried innutnerable schemes to in- 

 crease it, till at last he hit upon a certain liquid, 

 the composition of which remains a secret, except 

 to those who have purchased the patent right; 

 and which, poured upon any description of soil, 

 mixed with organic matter, produces fermenta- 

 tion, and rapid decomposition. The ley (lessive) 

 which is poured over the materials to be convert- 

 ed into manure is said to consist of various ingre- 

 dients, but not to be expensive; two large heaps 

 of materials to be converted into manure not re- 

 quirinff more than may be purchased for about 3s. 

 This manure is said to have been tried in Eng- 

 land by H. Handley, Esq., M. P., and found ef- 

 fective; but by others, it is represented as an im- 

 position on the public. We have applied to 

 sources in France which will enable us, we trust, 

 to state something positive respecting it in our 

 next number. In the mean time, our readers 

 may refer to a pamphlet on the subject, of which 

 we have elsewhere given a title. That pam- 

 phlet, however, does not give the slightest hint as 

 to the ingredients of the ley. — Corid. 



* See Farmers' Register, vol. vi., p. 65. 



treatise on bone manure. 



By Henry Colman, Commissioner for the Agri- 

 cultural Survey of Massachusetts. 



Bones, it is well ascertained, contain in an 

 abundant form the food of plants. They are 

 made up of a large amount of animal substance- 

 mixed with earthy and saline matter; and they 

 abound in what chemists call the phosphate of 

 lime, a substance lound in some measure in all 

 plants, and a powerful means and instrument of 

 vegetable growth. 



Bones have been used as a manure for many 

 years in Enirland. Used in an unbroken state, 

 thev were slow in becoming decomposed; and 

 their effects were not very observable. The next 

 attetnpt was to reduce them by burning ; but be- 

 sides the expense and trouble of doing this, much 

 of the valuable matter contained in them escaped 

 by the operation. Afterwards, mills were invent- 

 ed Inr crushing or grinding them; and since that 

 time th''v have been experimented upon in va- 

 rious soils; and are now sought after by inlelliaent 

 farmers abroad with the nrreatest avidity. There 

 is no reason why they should not be used to as 

 great advantage among us. 



Bones constitute a very efficient manure; a porta- 

 ble manure; and a comparatively cheap manure. 

 Stable manure in Boston and its vicinity costs the 

 farmer in its first purchase, its transportation, and 

 its preparation for the land, not far from five dol- 

 lars a cord. His land may be manured with bone 

 manure, with equal advantage and for a third of 

 the expense of stable manure; and its actual im- 

 provement of the soil will be more permanent. 



In England this manure has been principally 

 used for tTirnips. This is the crop which on their 



