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In Todd't- Young Farmer's Manual, I find the fol- 

 lowing statement : " James M. Garnet, a Virginia 

 former, an excellent writer on agriculture, says : " I 

 began penning my cattle late in the Spring, and con- 

 tinued it until frost, in pens of the same size, moved 

 at regular intervals of time, and containing the same 

 number of cattle during the whole period. These 

 pens were alternately plowed and left unplowed until 

 the following Spring, when all were planted in corn, 

 immediately followed by wheat. The superiority of 

 both crops on all the pens which had remained 

 unplowed for so many months after the cattle had 

 manured them, was just as distinctly marked as if 

 the dividing fences had continued standing, it was 

 too plain even to admit of the slightest doubt. 



A near neighbor, a young farmer, had made the 

 same experiment on somewhat different soil the year 

 before, but with results precisely the same. Similar 

 trials I have made and seen made by others with dry 

 straw alternately plowed in as soon as spread, and 

 left on the surface until the next Spring. In every 

 case the last method proved best, as far as the follow- 

 ing crop would prove it. 



The same experiment has been made by myself 

 and others of my acquaintance, with manure from 

 the horse stables and winter farm pens, consisting of 

 much unrotted corn offal, and without a solitary ex- 

 ception, either seen by me or heard of, the surface 

 application, after the corn was planted, produced 

 most manifestly the best crop. 



Upon these numerous concurrent and undeniable 

 facts my opinion has been founded, that it is best to 

 manure on the surface oj the land" 



