^n 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



receive the water that runs from it, and this gives 

 an easy opportunity of moistening the dung-hill 

 frequently, without robbing the soil of iis share ol 

 the stagnant water. And the success of this me- 

 thod of watering his dung-hill suggesied the idea 

 of putrefying small twigs of fir and pine, wiihout 

 using them lor litter ; he lays them in close heaps, 

 pressed down and covered with earth, to prevent 

 evaporation, and pours stagnant water upon them 

 every day, until they are converted into rich mould ! 

 But he does not bound his improvements within 

 the circle of that quantity of manure, which his 

 industry procures from his small number of catile, 

 for he buys every year seven loads of dung from his 

 'neighbors! and these he mixes vviih six tons o( 

 peat ashes; and he finds the effect of these two 

 kinds of manure answerable to his expectations." 

 Now, how strangely will it appear to many of 

 your readers, who witness daily and hourly the 

 waste of thousands of loads of the finest manure, 

 in the washing li'om cattle-yards; the rich soils 

 which might be obtained from river and road- 

 sides ; the cleanings of (lomle ; the openings of 

 pits and quarries; and more ec?pecially, the waste 

 of winter-bedding, in the shape of stubbles from 

 the different crops, which are often lelt standing in 

 the fields knee-<leep, because of the weeds or grass 

 contained in them, which ought to be sacrificed, 

 rather than lose a foot in height of the stubbles and 

 cords of dung in the cattle-yards ! How strange 

 will it appear to such, I say, to hear a man regret- 

 ting that he is deprived, by the want of assistance 

 from his young and helpless family, of making an 

 additional ^jfy loads of compost in tlie course of 

 the year ! and rejoicing in ihe inesti7nable trea- 

 sure contained in the spikes and leaves and bran- 

 ches of his pine trees, which he trains up by can- 

 dle-light in winter evenings, by way o{' recreation. I 

 And after the inestimable treasure wliich he ob- 

 tains from this source of his discovery, to find him j 

 absolutely a purchaser of manure, to the amount , 

 of seven loads per annum, of his neighbors ! If 

 the perusal of the above history will not move us 

 to be up and doing, in the way of collecting the 

 means of improvement contained in the mines of 

 wealth with which, in this country, we are sur- 

 rounded, and in some situations absolutely choked 

 tmi/t— witness our ponds and ditches around many 

 of our cattle-yards— I know not what will ever be 

 sufficient to move us, until we are moved off the 

 stage of life by the rising generation, which seems 

 to be springing up for the purpose of correcting the 

 errors of tlieir fathers, more particularly in this 

 respect than in any other; (or it must be admitted 

 that there is too much truth in the observation, 

 " to the young it is that we are to look for im- 

 provement." Stephen Gibsoiv, 



ERADICATIOX OF WEEDS. 



I'"romthe Farmers' Cabinet. 



Sir, — You have been adding line upon line, and 

 precept upon precept, in the pages of the Caiiinet, 

 on the necessity of keeping crops li-ee from weeds, 

 showing that the land will produce a crop of^ 

 somoAhmg, depending, however, upon the will of 

 the owner what that shall be, whether of thistles, 

 ra£r-wepd, corn or crain ; and I cannot but call 

 rihe attention of mv li>llow-readers to the con^ider- 



a'ion of a subject of the highest importance, but 

 which seems least of all to have obtained the care 

 of the husbandman generally. The truth of the 

 above is strongly exemplified in the present state 

 of the crops of multicaulis, wherever they have 

 been neglected and left to shift lor then)selves, 

 which lias been very much the case in this, the 

 day of their humiliation, throughout the country. 

 All will remember the encomiums which were 

 lavished upon this crop, even so late ae the past 

 season; that they would "flourish any where, 

 and under any circumstances," was a part only of 

 their peculiar properties, but their present appear- 

 ance convinces us that they depend, in a very 

 great measure indeed, for their good looks and 

 abundant foliage, upon good food and superior 

 cultivation, for wherever this has been withheld, 

 their slate is wretched in the extreme. I saw, 

 yesterday, an acre of these trees, which had been 

 planted in the spring, and have never since been 

 cleaned ; the result is, the weeds are taller and 

 stronirer than they, and a thousand times more 

 abundant, with bushels of seeds, ready to shed 

 and sow the land lor seven years to come, while 

 the foliage of the morus, instead of being of that 

 large growth and deep green hue, is email and 

 mean, and the color of a peach tree in the yellows 

 — no longer fit \ov pies or tobacco! 



This is a lesson which ought not to be lost up- 

 on us ; it furnishes a means of calculating tlie 

 value of clean cultivation ; and without such 

 ocular demonstration, lew of us would have ever 

 been able to form an estimate of the vast differ- 

 ence, which really ex'sls. I declare for myself, 

 that I have never before seen the evil of neglected 

 cultivation in the light that 1 now do, nor can I 

 believe that my neighbors understand, even at the 

 present time — with a crop of weeds five feet in 

 height, and of proportionate substance — to what a 

 degree they are robbiny their crops of their proper 

 nutriment ! And if it be true, as has been often 

 said, that a " single root of grass amongst wheat 

 has been (bund to draw a portion of the nourish- 

 ment from six plants of the wheat," it is only to 

 be wondered, that some crops continue to get any 

 at all, when buried beneath a coveting of them a3 

 high, oftentimes, as the fences ! 



Adjoining the field containing the multicaulis 

 trees, and upon exactly the same quality of land, 

 is a large breadth of sugar-beet of remarkable 

 size and most luxuriant growth, but they were 

 planted in rows at a proper distance, and have 

 keen kept perfectly clean ; and while the morus 

 has turned to a crop of weeds, here the crop ia 

 beets, which will give from fifty to sixty tons per 

 acre ! Now, to have converted these into a crop 

 of weeds, it would only have been necessary to 

 permit ihemXo take possession of the soil and keep 

 it, and the end would have been accomplished. 

 As it is. it does one good to calculate the quantity 

 and value of the manure which this crop will yield 

 on being fed the coming winter — tar greater than 

 the whole expense of raising the crop— to say 

 nothing of their value as food for stock durinir 

 that tryinif period ! It is quite unnecessary to add 

 thai the person who owns this crop is not the owner 

 of the morus ; his crops are uniformly large and 

 heavy, because they are kept clean from weeds. _ 



it is calculated, and I believe the estimate is 

 far too low, that a heavy crop of weeds consumes 

 at least one-half the dung that is applied in pre- 



