FARMERS' REGISTER. 



305 



subject his theories to the test of experiment the 

 present season. Accordingly I directed a quan- 

 tity of black peat mnd, procured by ditching liir 

 the purpose of draining and reclaiming an alder 

 swamp, a part of which I haci some years since 

 brought into a stale hitrhly productive of the cul- 

 tivated grasses, to be thrown into heaps. Diiritiii 

 the winter I also had collided in Salem, 2S2 tmsh- 

 eis of unleached wnod-ashes, at the cost of 12^ 

 cents per bushei. These were sent up to my liirm, 

 a part to be spread on mv black soil grass lands, 

 and a part to be mixed witii mud for my tillage 

 land. Two hundred bushels of these were spread 

 on about six acres ol' such grass land while it was 

 ■covered with ice, and frozen hard enough to be 

 carted over without cuttinir it into ruts. These 

 lauds produced from one to two tons of good mer- 

 chantable hay to the acre, nearly double the crop 

 produced by the same lands last year. And one 

 iact induces me to think, that being spread on the 

 ice, as above mentioned, a portion of these ashes 

 was washed away by the spring freshet. The 

 Jact from whirh I inter this is, that a run below, 

 over which the water coming fi-om the meadow, 

 on which the largest part of these ashes were 

 spread, flows, produced more than double the quan- 

 tity of hay, and that of a very superior quality to 

 what had been ever known to grow on the same 

 land beibrc. 



Seventy bushels of these ashes, together with a 

 quantity not exceeding thirty bushels of mixed coal 

 and wood ashes made by my kitchen and parlor 

 fires were mixed with my barn manure, derived 

 irom one horse kept in stal)ie the whole year, one 

 other horse kept in stable during the winter months, 

 one cow kept through the winter, and one pair of 

 oxen employed almost daily on the road and in the 

 woods, hut fed in the barn one hundred days. 

 This manure was never measured, but knowing 

 how it was made, by the droppings and litter or 

 bedding of these cattle, farmers can estimate the 

 quantity with a good degree of correctness. These 

 ashes and this manure were mixed with a suffi- 

 cient quantity of the mud above mentioned by 

 forking it over three times, to manure three acres 

 of corn and potatoes, in hills four (eet by about 

 three feet apart, givintr a good shovel full to the 

 hill. More than two-thirds of this was o-rass land, 

 which produced last year about half a ton of hay 

 to the acre, broken up by the plough in April. 

 The remainder was cropped last year without be- 

 int: well manured, with corn and potatoes. Gen- 

 tlemen, you have seen the crop growing and ma- 

 tured, and 1 leave it to you to say whether or not 

 the crop on this land would have been better had 

 it been dressed with an equal quantity of pure, 

 well rotted barn manure. For my own part I be- 

 heve it would not, but that this experiment proves 

 that peat mud, thus manaired, is equal, if not su- 

 perior, to the same quantity of any other substance 

 in common use as a manure among us ; which, if 

 it be a fact, is a fact of immense value to the farm- 

 ers of New England. By the knowledire and use 

 of it, our comparatively barren soils may be made 

 to equal or excel in productiveness the virgin prai- 

 ries ot the west. There were many hills in wliich 

 ihe corn first planted was destroyed by worms. 

 A part of these were supplied with the small Ca- 

 nada corn, a part with beans. The whole was 

 several times cut down by frost. The produce 

 was ihree hundred bushels of ears of eound corn, 

 Vol. Vm-39 



two tons of pumpkins and squashes, and some 

 potatoes and beans. Dr. Dana, in liis letter to 

 Mr. Colman, dated Lowell, March 6, 1839, sug- 

 L'Hsts the trial ol' a solution of geine as a manure. 

 His directions l()r preparing it are as lullows : 

 '• Boil one hiiridrt'd pounds ol dry pulverized peat 

 wiih two and a hall pounds of white ash. (an ar- 

 ticle im[)orted from England,) cuntaininii 36 lo 55 

 [)er cent, of pure soda, or its equivHlem in pearl- 

 ash or poiash, in a potash kettle, with 130 gallons 

 of water; boil fl)r a lew hours, let it settle, and dip 

 off the clear liquor lor use. Add ihe same quan- 

 tity of alkali and water, boil and dip oil as belijre. 

 The dark colored brown solulioti contains about 

 half an ounce per irallon of vegetable matter. It 

 is to be applied by watering grain ci^ops, grass 

 lands, or any other way the larnier's quick wit will 

 point out." 



In the month of June I prepared a solution of 

 geine, obtained not by boilino;, but by steeping the 

 mud as taken (i-om the meadow, in a weak lie in 

 tubs. I did not weigh the materials, being careful 

 only to use more mud than the potash would 

 render soluble. The portion was something like 

 this: peat 100 lbs., potash 1 lb., water 50 gal- 

 lons ; stirred occasionally (or about a week, when 

 the dark brown solution, described by Dr. Dana, 

 was dipped off and applied to some rows of corn, 

 a portion of a piece of starved barley, and a bed 

 of onions sown on land not well prepared for that 

 crop. The corn was a portion of a piece manured 

 as above mentioned. On this the benefil was not 

 so obvious. The crop of barley on the portion 

 watered was more than double the quantity both^ 

 in straw and grain to that on other portions of 

 the field, the soil and treatment of which was 

 otherwise precisely similar. 



The bed of onions which had been prepared by 

 dressing it with a mixture of mud and ashes pre- 

 vious to the sowing of the seed, tiut which had not 

 by harrowing been so completely pulverized, 

 mixed and kneaded with the soil as the cultivators 

 of this crop deem essential to success, consisted of 

 three and a half square rods. The onions came 

 up well, were well weeded, and about two bushels 

 of horse manure spread between the rows. In 

 June, four rows were first watered with the solu- 

 tion of geine above described. In ten days the 

 onions in these rows were nearly double the size 

 of the others. All but six rows of the remainder 

 were then watered. The growth of these soon 

 outstripped the nnwatered remainder. 



Mr. Henry Gould, who manages my farm on 

 shares, and who conducted all the foregoing expe- 

 riments, without thinking of the importance of 

 leaving at least one row unvvatered. that we 

 miirht better ascertain the true effect of this 

 manasenient, seeing the benefit to the parts thus 

 watered, in about a week after treated the remain- 

 der in the same manner. Tf.e ends of some of 

 the rows, however, which did not receive the wa- 

 tering, produced only very small onions, such as 

 are usually tiirown away as woithless by cultiva- 

 tors of this crop. This' Iact leads me to believe 

 that if the onions had not been watered with the 

 solution of geine, not a single bushel ol a good 

 size would have been produced on tlie whole 

 piece. At any late, ii was peal or geine, rendered 

 soluble by alkali, that produced tliis large crop. 



The crop proved greater than our most sanguine 

 expectations. The onions were measured in the 



