FARMERS' REGISTER. 



725 



such ridges at its last cultivation, the large plough 

 cuts a furrow on tlie ridge on each side of" its sum- 

 mit, making the sod it turns up to meet thereon, 

 and leaving under that sod all the earth it can co- 

 ver, unbroken ; these two furrows will leave the 

 old water furrow between them, or an equivalent 

 epace, which the described trowel-hoe-plough, 

 with its two large mould boards, will break up, 

 throwing the sod on each side. Both these 

 ploughs should be drawn by four horses, leaving 

 the furrow made by the trowel-hoe uncommonly 

 deep and wide. !n this state the ground lies 

 through the winter. Its vegetable cover is buried 

 so as to escape some loss by evaporation, the un- 

 broken space is so mellowed by the cover of the 

 eod, as to become soft and friable by the spring, 

 and the bottom of the large open furrow, com- 

 monly a dead clay, is invigorated by a winter's 

 exposure to the atmosphere. 



The manure ought to be devoted to Indian corn, 

 because a crop of great value is thereby gained, 

 whilst it is going through the process, supposed 

 in England to be necessary to reduce it to vege- 

 table (bod. Complete putrefaction is there consi- 

 dered as necessary, for this end. Whereas, by 

 planting Indian corn, as soon as the unrotted ma- 

 nure of the farm-pen is carried out and ploughed 

 in, its growth is greatly nourished and finally per- 

 fected, by the time the putrefaction is completed. 

 It catches the evaporation produced by the mode- 

 rate fermentation of the rotting vegetable matter 

 of which the manure is compounded, and exactly 

 that portion of manure which is lost, by the cus- 

 tom of rotting it before it is used, becomes the pa- 

 rent of a great crop. By the fall the manure is 

 reduced to a fit pabulum for wheat, and even more 

 of it is saved for this end, mingled in the earth, 

 and subject to a moderate lermenlaiioti, than if ii 

 had been retained in hot dunghills through the 

 summer, exposed to a violent eliervescence, and 

 then exclusively devoted to this crop upon a naked 

 fallow. The area manured would not be at most 

 above half the extent, and the degree of enrich- 

 ment nearly the same. 



Indian corn thrives better with unrotted ma- 

 nure, than any other crop, and is precisely the 

 crop, and almost the solitary one, ready to asso- 

 ciate with coarse litter, the first growing weather 

 which occurs after it is applied. Potatoes and to- 

 bacco may possibly possess the same quality. 

 The former certainly associates well with coarse 

 manure, but neither are profitable as a cro(); one 

 is not adapted to the climate favorable to Indian 

 corn, and the other is not admissible into any good 

 eystem of agriculture. 



Manure from the litter of a farm, ought to be 

 chiefly made in the cool portion of the year, to 

 avoid the enormous loss produced by a combina- 

 tion of heat, moisture and vegetable matter. If a 

 considerable portion of this litter is reserved for 

 the summer's use, a considerable loss is unavoida- 

 ble. A small part of it only may be kept for the 

 stable, more for the sake of the horses than for 

 the object of manure. It is better for that object 

 to exhaust the litter in the winter season, than to 

 reverse any of it for summer, if the opinions that 

 vegetables extract manure from the atmosphere, 

 and that manures are gradually evaporated back 

 to their origin, be true; because litter is exposed 

 to a far greater loss from evaporation, by a com- 

 mixture with mnist dung in summer, "than if it 

 Vol. VIII.-92 



Iiad been spread on the farm-yards in winter, and 

 ploughed into the earth in spring, before any con- 

 siderable fermentation occurs. Hence, as the 

 dung of animals constitutes but a small portion of 

 the manure which ought to be raised on a well 

 managed (arm, it would be a loss to sacrifice a 

 considerable mass of vegetable manure, (or this 

 object of inferior value. The American custom 

 of penning cattle during the night in the summer 

 season, properly attended to, is therefore a far 

 more thrifty one, for the object of manuring, than 

 the English custom of mingling moist dung and 

 vegetable litter during that season. By ours, both 

 these kinds of manure escape much of the loss 

 from evaporation ; by theirs, this loss is increased 

 as to both, by an excessive effervescence. 



Yet the dung of animals during the summer 

 season is an item of great moment for enriching 

 lands, if it is saved without subtracting (rom the 

 more valuable item of the winter's farm yards. 

 The most beneficial mode of its application with- 

 in the scope of my observation is penning cattle 

 and sheep, graduating the size of these pens by 

 observation, until the designed quantity of manure 

 shall be deposited within two weeks at most, and 

 ploughing it in on the day the pen is removed in- 

 variably. The loss from evaporation is so great 

 that a pen ought never to remain above two 

 weeks. I have (requently seen cow pens conti- 

 nued in one spot, until the daily loss balanced the 

 daily accession of manure; and the richness of 

 the land with these daily accessions, became sta- 

 tionary. By a regular course of removing these 

 pens, and immediately ploughing in the manure^ 

 the farmer will be agreeably surprised to find, that 

 the improved area will infinitely exceed his hopes ; 

 for his ground will be equally enriched by far less 

 dung, on account of these precautions against 

 evaporation, and the cattle will, of course, go over 

 a far greater space. 



The land thus manured by the tenth of August, 

 may be sown in turnips, at one pint of seed to an 

 acre, broad-cast. After that period, the pens 

 which had stood frotn fourteen down to ten daya 

 ((or the time should be diminished as the cattle 

 fatten) should be removed every seven days, be- 

 cause no draft will be made from the land by a 

 turnip crop, the quantity of the mar>ure is increas- 

 ed, the evaporation is diminished by the length of 

 the nights, and the cattle have improved in plight. 



One hundred head of small and ordinary cattle, 

 of the ages common when raised on the farm, and 

 as many sheep, will in this way manure eighteen 

 acres annually, sufliciently to produce fine crops of 

 Indian corn and wheat, and a good growth ol^ red 

 clover after them, with the aid of gypsum; and 

 the clover when preserved by the system of in- 

 closing, will by two year's crops, left to fall on the 

 land, restore it to the plough, richer than the ma- 

 nuring made it. About eight o( these acres will 

 also have yielded a crop of turnips, good or bad, 

 according to the season and the soil. 



But horses cannot be comprised in this mode of 

 management, because of the inadequacy of their 

 nature to its exposures and hardships. Whatever 

 they are fed on, (lirniehes some litter, some must 

 be saved to help it out, the manure they make iir 

 the summer should be used as late as possible ire 

 the spring, and as early as possible in the fall^ 

 and the litter saved should only be contem-' 

 plated to last, uniil a new supply from the cTSf 



