368 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 5 



mode that may be preferred— and let it be ex- 

 tended to any other particulars, and prices be af- 

 fixed, if the precision of arithmetic and ol known 

 qantities be desired— and we have no question but 

 that the results will always show less outlay, and 

 more profit in the United States, and more espe- 

 cially in Virginia, than any where in the silk re- 

 gion of western Europe.* 



EXPKRIMENTS ON MANURES, &C. 



From the rransaction3 of tlie Essex (Mass.) Agricultural 

 Society. 



The Committee Report: That they consider 

 the subject of the making and application oi ma- 

 nures, one of the greatest importance to the agri- 

 cullur'al interests. Manure and labor are to the 

 lirirmer, what capital and credit are to the mer- 

 chant. With them well applied, the one will add 

 barn to barn, the other store house to store house, 

 till there shall be no room to contain their several 

 wealth; without them, they must soon suspend 

 operations, and their larms and their ships pass 

 into the hands of more skiliiil and industrious 

 owners. 



r.Iany farmers think they cannot afiord to pur- 

 chase manure, and the price docs seem dispropor- 

 tioned to the immediate profits; but no flirmer 

 will say that he cannot afford to make the most 

 of what he has. and lo apply it to the best advan- 

 tage. Many take an honest pride in being able 

 to'say, I have raised so many hundred bushels of 

 corn, or so many tons of hay ; now to be able to 

 say I have made five hundred loads of manure, is 

 just as much a matter of boasting, for manure 

 will make corn, and hay, and other valuable pro- 

 ducts, if it be only juiiiciously applied. Put in 

 the seed and the manure, and the grateful soil will 

 make you a liberal return, ll is held to be true 

 by experienced liirmers, that he who doubles the 

 expense of labor and manure, will increase his 

 profits and products in nearly a Ibur-lold propor- 

 tion. In other words, the man who spends half 

 his time upon his farm, and skims over one hun- 

 dred acres of land and gleans from it fifty bushels 

 of corn and twenty tons of hay, if he should de- 

 vote Ws whole energies to his farm, and improve 

 his means of making manure, might raise nearly 



* The above estimate rests on the supposition that the 

 163 trees average 50 sirifrle-bud cuttings, of which 30 

 live and produce trees of like average size. Then 316 X 

 30=9480-f316 (from roots)=9796 trees grown the 

 first year. If planted at 6 feet distance both ways, or 

 1210 to the acre, ihere would be stilt wanting 15404 

 trees to fill the 20 acres. These would be supplied the 

 second spring by the productive buds of only 514 of 

 the youngest trees of first year's growth ; leaving the 

 tops of the remaining 14S90 trees, as well asthoseof all 

 the after and rapidly increasing crops, to be put to any 

 use desired; whether it be merely to stand, for the pur- 

 pose of furnishing the most abundant and earliest pos- 

 sible supply of food for silk-worms from the 20 acres — 

 or to make additional plantings, for feeding worms, 

 or for feeding cattle, to any extent whatever, The 

 chance for selling trees is put aside, and no regard 

 paid to it in this calculation of profit. 



two hundred bushels of corn and eighty tons of 

 hav. 



Some have, in their natural situation and prox- 

 imity to the sea-board, greater ficilities for ma- 

 king and obtaining manure; but every substance 

 of animal and vegetable matter can be mixed 

 with the soil in such a manner as to increase the 

 fertility of the earth ; and even the different soils 

 may be mingled so as to produce the same efiect. 



The quantity of manure a farmer uses, is a 

 pretty liiir criterion by which to judge his charac- 

 ter. In Plymouth county, where a premium is 

 rewarded to the man who makes the greatest 

 number of loads, a most worthy and truly respec- 

 table farmer, the last year, reached the very envi- 

 able eminence of seven hundred and ninety-eight 

 loads; the lowest competitor claimed for three 

 hundred and fifty loads, and his must be allowed 

 to be an improving character. William Clark, jr. 

 of Norihamption, in his statement to the Hamp- 

 shire, Franklin and Hampden Agricultural Socie- 

 ty, represents that he keeps an average stock of 

 eight swine, three horses, and eight oxen and 

 cows ; from this stock, with the skilful use of all 

 his advantages, which are not superior to those of 

 many of ou'r farmers, he made from June 1837 to 

 June 1838. nine hundred and twenty loads, an 

 honorable monument to his intelligence and indus- 

 try, which compensates in utility and solid value 

 (or what it may want in taste and splendor. Mr. 

 Clark used for compost, three hundred loads of 

 sods and soil and two hundred and forty-seven 

 loads of swamp muck. His yards were supp'ied 

 with corn-stalks and refuse hay during the winter, 

 and brakes and weeds in the summer, and cleared 

 out twice during the year. It might be supposed 

 that manure so made could possess but little of 

 the quickening and strengthening principles; but 

 those who have visited his farm and seen his 

 fields burdened with their heavy crops, are satis- 

 fied that Mr. Clark knows how to make manure 

 and to apply it, and that his fields acknowledge 

 their obligation and pay their due return. Mr. 

 Clark, from such manure, has raised more than 

 one thousand bushels of corn in a j'ear. 



The committee award to Daniel Putnam, of 

 Danvers, for the satisfactory experiment and the 

 full and explicit statement made by him, a pre- 

 mium of twenty dollars. 



They recommend that Mr. Putnam's statement 

 and the letter addressed by Joseph How, Esq. of 

 Methuen, to the committee, be published. 

 For the Committee, 



Daniel P. King. 

 Topsfield, Dec. 25, 1838. 



Daniel Putnam''s Statement. 



To the Committee of the Essex Agricultural So- ) 

 ciety, on Experiments on Manures: ) 



Gentlcmeii— The following account of experi- 

 ments in the use of unleached toood-ashas as ma- 

 nure, is submitted, that you may make any use ol 

 it which in your judgment will render it servicea- 

 ble to the farmers of the country. In the letter part 

 of August, 1837, I broke up about one acre of low 

 land (Too low and wet to till with ease,) whicfi 

 had become so much bound out that it yielded not 

 more than 14 or 15 cwt. of hay, and that little was 



