1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



B59 



Not so our farmers generally. They have little 

 intercourse with each other; they have no access 

 to agricultural hook?, and many are loo old or too 

 prejudiced to seek lor or receive iiilbrmalion. The 

 consequence is, that \vc are making slow progress 

 in agriculuira! improvement, while agriculture is 

 being made to double, treble and quadruple its 

 products upon the old coniinent. Youth is the 

 appointed time, and the only time that can be re- 

 lied on, lor implanting the knowledge and the 

 principles which should guide and govern in the 

 business of manhood — and of laying the founda- 

 tion (or good citizens and intelligent, prosperous 

 farmers. 



From the Maine Farmer. 

 TO PREVENT DOGS SUCKING EGGS. 



It sometimes happens that the sometimes useful, 

 and sometimes useless animal called a dog, finds 

 out eggs are very good eating, and takes the li- 

 berty to "lay his jaws" to every one that he meets 

 with — taking, also, like some other servants, with 

 not quite so many legs — the meat to himself^ and 

 leaving the shell to his master. 



A friend of ours once had a '-Bose," which he 

 was very found of, and which was in most re- 

 spects, a very sedate, worthy sort of a dog, but he 

 had the trick of sucking every egg he could find. 



Having heard that a dose or two of tartar 

 emetic would make him sick of that business, 

 he accordingly tappe-l one end of an egg, put in 

 a lot of the tartar emetic, and laid it down in his 

 dogship's path, who ibrthwith helped himself to 

 its contents, without ceremony. He was then kept 

 without water, and occasionally, from tims to time, 

 supplied with a medicated egg, till JBose began 

 to find that the very sight of them was a signal 

 for a fit of sickness, and wisely resolved to quit 

 the business, which resolve he kept, as a good and 

 faithful dog should. If you have a "good for nothing 

 dog,"and he sucks eggs, shoot him. If you have 

 a good dog and he sucks eggs — doctor \\im. 



MANURING IN SOUTH CAROLINA. MARSH 

 GRASS, MARSH MUD, AND LEAF-LITTERED 

 COW^-PENS. 



Extract from the Mdress of Joseph E. Jenkins, 

 to the Agricultural Society of St. John^s. 



All animal, vegetable, and many mineral sub- 

 stances, may be converted into manure. With 

 the two first we are most conversant; the last has 

 not yet sufficiently occupied our attention, with 

 perhaps the exception of salt, which, as a com- 

 ponent part of the marsh mud, has been long 

 and successfully used. Some of our members 

 have, within a year or two, used it in its raw 

 state, but the results have not yet been sufficient- 

 ly satisfactory, nor the trial sufficiently extended, 

 that we should at present dwell upon them. On 

 those gentlemen, we may with confidence rely for 

 statements at the proper time. The manure most 

 commonly in use amongst us, is vegetable, decom- 

 posed in our cow-pens, where leaves of trees (prin- 

 cipally of the pine) are dunged upon and tram- 

 pled by the cattle. It is the common usao-e of 



this section of country, to lay fjy, or more proper- 

 ly s[)eaking, leave off working the growing crop 

 at or about the tenth day of the jircsent month, 

 (.luly), after that period, it is considered by some 

 of our l)est planters as rather hazardous to meddle 

 with, as any new excitement, fiy stirring the carlh 

 around the root of the plant, which would cause 

 a new growth, would at the same time cause a 

 disastrous falling of the young Ihiit or capsules. 

 We may consider it, therefore, as a pretty general 

 rule, growing out of experience, (that best of 

 teachers,) at this period as most advantageous to 

 go to something else, and that something else is 

 the collection of manure. We are bountifully 

 supplied with all the requisites ; the leaves of the 

 pine appear to be prolific for the especial purpose 

 of furnishing us with an excellent substance for 

 our use. The borders of our rivers, which are 

 numerous, intersecting our islands in every direc- 

 tion, abound in a highly nutritious marsh grass, 

 of easy access, of a tender stalk, very convertible 

 into muck manure. A few months' trampling, ei- 

 ther in the cow-pen or stable, renders it a mass 

 the most powerfully stimulative of any manure 

 with which we are conversant, so much so indeed, 

 as to have induced the belief, that its exhibition 

 upon what is called table lands of a dark loam, 

 has a tendency to cause the cotton plant to over- 

 grow ; and on lands impregnated with whatever 

 substance it is that causes blue, to fall more cer- 

 tainly, and to run into vines. In this state, its 

 product is beffgarlv indeed. I have seen portions 

 of cotton fields, whose product was not a solitary 

 pod. 



Marsh mud is our next important material. 

 This substance is abundant to superfluity, and the 

 experience of every planter on this Island, with 

 the exception of one or two, has sustained it as 

 highly advantageous and profitable. Its tendency 

 is to render loose lands more tenacious — to restore 

 the original stamina to Avorn out or exhausted 

 soik, causing thereon the stalks to hold the fruit, 

 as in its virgin or original stale, but it has been 

 doubted whether it has a direct action in producing 

 luxuriance of vegetation. This is a matter of lit- 

 tle importance, and I shall not stop to consider it. 

 There is a remedy, if it is so, which the very nature 

 of the location points out emphatically to our 

 view — this is simply a combination of the marsh 

 grass with it. To effect this, two years ago I 

 commenced the following process — eight fellows 

 were furnished with scythes to mow down the 

 marsh [grass;] eight more placed in boats and 

 flats, to gather up and convey it to a place of de- 

 posit at the margin of the river. They thus con- 

 veyed each day sixteen cords, or a cord a piece 

 for each hand employed. Day by day we did 

 this, from Monday morning to Friday night, de- 

 positing along the maryin of ihe river, within the 

 reach of the high tide, consecutively, each day's 

 cutting. On Saturday, at low water, all hands 

 upon the plantation, both these and others, let 

 their employment be what it may, were called, 

 and with hand-barrows, covered the whole surface 

 of the marsh with mud, from one to one and a-half 

 foot thick. The weight of the mud compressed, 

 and held firmly in its position, the marsh under it 

 — the tide at high water passed through the com- 

 pressed marsh, hastening wonderfully the process 

 of decomposition, and at the time when it was 

 taken up in the spring to be conveyed upon the 



