184 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



A MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER. 



SOILING— VARIOUS OPINIONS.... STRAWBERRY.... A NEW VEGETABLE.... LIQUID MANURE. 



We are aware that there is much question 

 about the expediency of attempting to soil do- 

 mestic animals in this country. The question is 

 I one about wliich, as Sir Roger de Coverly says, 

 much may be said on both sides. What, it is 

 J maintained, renders it unprofitable in most ca- 

 \ ses, is the dearncss of labor. In Llie one case, 

 ■^ the food is to be provided by laborious and ex- 

 4 Bcnsive cultivation, and then to be cut daily and 

 transported to the barn-yard or stable. This is 

 vhat constitutes the objection to soiling, as 

 (.vJBipared with the usual system, under which 

 ti..s same animals depend on natural pasturage, 

 and are themselves the machines for collecting 

 the food, and turning it into milk, or butter, or 

 meat ; ci, if work-animals, they to are thus 

 supported daring their season of labor. 



Mr. Gcvvf:??, widely known as a zealous mer- 

 chant agTicuilurist, of Philadelphia, has practised 

 extensively on the soiling system, as the means 

 of accumnlaCicg great masses of manure, by 

 which bis farrn has been brought into a state of 

 great productiveness from one of great sterility : 

 but there would oeem to be, in his statements, a 

 want of exactness and minute detail, under the 

 heads of Creditor and Debtor, with wliich, in 

 his character as an eminent merchant, ■we have 

 no doubt he is perfectly familiar, and of which he 

 is rigidly observant. This apparent want of arith- 

 metical particularity, as to outlay and income, 

 leaves an opening for suspicion and cavil on the 

 part of those who are ever ready to pick a hole 

 in tlie statement of results achieved by full- 

 handed merchants, when they betake them- 

 selves, for profit or amusement, to practical 

 Agriculture. Such Doctor Doubtys will not, 

 for instance, be slow to surmise that in healing 

 over the galded s-pots upon his farm, as he found 

 it, and causing them to put forth heavy crops, 

 he probably walked over his fields, with the 

 wand of Midas in his hand, waving it here and 

 there, and scattering gold dust, where the poor 

 Farmer has to spread any thing he can scrape 

 together, and water it with the sweat of his 

 brpw. Hence the necessity of being very par- 

 ticular in stating such accounts. The accounts 

 of English agricultural experiments are gener- 

 ally exemplary in this respect. 



As to soiling, we remember to have heard 

 read before the Farmers' Club, a letter from 

 John Travers, Esq., a gentleman of singular 

 quickness of parts,and remarkable for power and 

 habits of analysis, in which he maintained that 

 l388l 



soiling, in this country, even under favorable cir- 

 cumstance.'^!, involved expenses that no ordinary 

 results would remunerate. As ■^\'e before said, 

 much may be said on both sides ; and the ad- 

 vantages of soiling are, in most cases, so deci- 

 ded, especially in its instrumentality in aug- 

 menting the Bank of Manure — the indispensa- 

 ble Bank for the Farmer — that we shall at all 

 times feel bound to suggest whatever may have 

 a tendency to remove the difficulties that stand 

 in tlie W'ay of its more extended practice. One 

 of these difficitlties consists in finding suitable 

 grasses and other green crops, adapted to keep- 

 ing up an abundant, cheap and unbroken supply 

 of the different kinds of food, suitable for ani- 

 mals to be housed or yarded throughout the 

 year. Grasses are to be preferred to roots be- 

 cause their cultivation and gathering requires 

 so much less labor ; but then tlaey can only be 

 availed of from early Spring until, at the far- 

 thest, the early frosts of Autumn. As to the 

 grasses, we have been accustomed to think that 

 in our country, we have relied too exclusively 

 on red clover — and restriction almost exclusive- 

 ly to that, results, we verily believe, from tlie 

 greater ease with which it may be secured, and 

 from that disreputable indolence (the force of 

 habit and defective education) which prevents 

 fanners from thinking, and from breaking 

 a%vay from old prejudices. We have repeated- 

 ly suggested a fair trial of lucerne, and of our or- 

 dinary rye ; and in the last number of the Far- 

 mers' Library, we called attention to a new 

 species of rye, much extolled in England 

 lately for soiling purposes, called there the St. 

 .Johiis-day Rye. It will occur to every reader 

 that tilings may possess great comparative value 

 in England, and thus become subjects of high 

 praise and commendation in English papers be- 

 cause they have nothing better ; and yet these 

 same crops lo.se in this countrv', bj' comparison 

 with others which are of more value, but which 

 are unknown in England. The turnip, for in- 

 stance, which may be said to lie at the bottom 

 of British husbandry, sustaining indirectly her 

 population and her government, is of far less 

 importance in America, both positively and 

 comparatively ; — positively, because of climatic 

 difficulties in the growth of it here, especially 

 North of the Connecticut — and comparative- 

 I ly, because in that sense it comes in com- 

 petition with Indian com, the glory of 

 I American A.griculture and the stafF of Amen- 



