292 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 5 



interfere with the cradle in cutting the wheat. 

 —Soon after harvest, the clover on the said land 

 flowered, and a heavy swath might have been 

 mown on it in Seplemher iollowing. The adja- 

 cent pans of the field, with the same soil and cul- 

 liire, exhibited a sickly contrast. In the autumn 

 of 1833, the clover on said land was trodden down 

 by stock, returning manure to the soil, and by 

 that means the plaster indirectly prepared the 

 ground for a sure crop of wheat. This one sin- 

 gle and simple fact serves to overthrow the theory 

 that plaster must be sown on the plants, to be ab- 

 sorbed through the pores of the leaves— attract 

 moisture fiom the atmosphere, &c. This moot- 

 ed point 1 consider settled, and the soil and roots 

 made the laboratory instead of the leaves and the 

 atmosphere. 



Although my agricultural career has been only 

 short, yet the great object, improvement, has been 

 ardently and zealously pursued — sufiiciently. in- 

 deed, to create a most utter and implacable abhor- 

 rence against all vague and unfounded theory, 

 which is the bane of the agricultural press. The 

 mere conjecture of a writer, if in error, will do 

 no harm ; but 'tis the positive declaratory asser- 

 tions, where wrong, that do mischief, inasmuch as 

 many believe and adopt what they read. 



Quere. Why is it that lime and plaster act 

 much more efficiently when both are applied to 

 the soil, since the base of both is lime? 



"VVm. Pcnn Ktnser. 



Pequea, Lan. Co. , Pa., jlpril 15, 1S3S. 



tSE OF LIME IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



One of the shakers recently told me, they had 

 been in the habit of buying: the best of Thomas- 

 ton Lime, which with transportations cost them 

 at least $3 a cask ; of breaking and slaking it, 

 and mixing it with mud collected from bog-holes 

 or turfs fro'mthe sides of the highways, in propor- 

 tion of four or five casks to a hundred common 

 ox loads; and after due llirnientation and mixture, 

 they have found this composition not less valuable 

 than an equal quantity of the best of stable ma- 

 nure. If the above remarks are correct, and no 

 doubt they are, as I find them corroborated by va- 

 rious writers on this subject, it is an easy and 

 cheap method of obtaining manure and well 

 adapted for top-dressing. 



The Hon. John Wells of Boston, who has 

 made several experiments with lime in the prepa- 

 ration of compost manure for a top-di-essing, re- 

 commends that it be prepared by first placing a 

 layer of mud or loam, as the case may be, then a 

 layer of unslaked lime, and so continue until the 

 materials are used up; and in twelve or fourteen 

 days, shovel it over and it will be fit for use. From 

 what I am able to gather lioni this gentleman's 

 experiments, he made use of lime in proportion, 

 of about one cask of Thomaston lime, to five 

 loads of loam or mud, and that he annually, for 

 more than twenty years made use of lime, 'for 

 agricultural purposes to the extent of more than 

 one hundred casks.' He further says: — 'To my 

 surprise i lound the effect produced to be equal to 

 what is usual from common compost manure!' 

 Lime as a top-dressing on a wheat crop is un- 

 doubtedly valuable on many kinds of soil, espe- 



cially where there is a deficiency of calcareous 

 matter. 



Benj. Cutter, esq., informs me that he has 

 made use of lime at the rale of twenty bushels or 

 more to the acre, as a top-dressing, by sowing it 

 on in a fine pulverized slate, when the wheat 

 was a iew inches high, and considered himself 

 well remunerated in the wheat crop. The Hon. 

 Levi Fisk, observed to me, that he used two 

 tierces of Thomaston lime last spring by sowing 

 it on nearly two acres of wheat, leaving a small 

 piece in the same field unsown, and is confident 

 he realized twenty-five per cent, more wheat in 

 consequence of the lime. The above and other 

 similar experiment.', are conclusive evidence in 

 my mind, of the importance and value of lime as 

 a manure. — ConanVs Cheshire j^ddress. 



THE COLLEGES OF VIRGINIA CONSIDERED 

 AS WORKS OF "internal IMPROVEMENT." 

 WILLIAM ANU MARY COLLEGE. 



The colleges and schools ol a country are among 

 the most important and valuable mean.^, as well as re- 

 sults, of its general improvement. Nor is the im- 

 provement thus reached merely intellectual and moral. 

 The physical improvement of the country, the en- 

 riching of its lands, the increase of its agricultural 

 products, and the amount of pecuniary profit to the 

 cultivators, all are essentially aided by providing, and 

 properly using the facilities for education afforded by 

 schools and colleges ; though the design and direct 

 operation of these institutions should be confined ex- 

 clusively to literary and scientific instruction, and 

 without any view to the physical or economical 

 improvement of the country. And the effects so 

 produced, in their turn become causes ; and help, in 

 an important degree, to sustain literary and scien- 

 tific institutions. In strict accordance with these 

 views are found the practical results, wherever 

 they have been permitted to be produced by the 

 action of causes continued sufiiciently long, and 

 with sufficient intensity. In the country which sur- 

 rounds and sustains Hampden-Sidney College, there is 

 found a population, whose intellectual and moral 

 worth, economical and industrious habits, and whose 

 marked success as farmers and men of business, prove 

 beyond doubt or cavil, the great profits, individual and 

 pecuniary as well as general and national, which the 

 people have derived from their liberal and long-con- 

 tinued support of that college. We are less acquaint- 

 ed with Washington College ; but have been inform- 

 ed, and believe, that similar and equal effects have 

 there been produced by the operation of similar causes. 

 Randolph-Macon College is yet too young an institu- 

 tion to have given such manifest evidences of its value 

 as a work of "internal improvement;" but it is 

 doubtless annually producing these valuable results; 

 and requires only as much time, with equal good man- 

 agement, to exhibit as strong evidences of value. 



This manner of viewing the subject will prevent 

 any objection to the propriety of treating of our col- 

 leges in this journal, of which the second object is to 

 sustain and aid all public works for the improvement of 



