682 



F A K M E 11 S ' REGIS T £ R 



[No. 10 



anima!, to tuke wlirtl remuineil of llie scanty nat- 

 ural, liut. coarse hiMbaijt': liaviiiir read in variou? 

 books the result of sowinif ' plasjier tuid clover, ii 

 was fjresuineil, that sovvuitf piaster and clover 

 would be tlie (Xtentol the expenr^es required to 

 leruhze tiie li Id.-*, in a Iciv yeaii?; — a Jew experi- 

 nieiils proved liiai the plaster and clover seed 

 were both io^i, as no one i;ouid at any peasdn ol 

 the year, point oui ouf tiekl, or upon what part 

 of any licld iliey had been deposited, unle&s where 

 the bitfrs and nuslies liad been eradicated. 



It should liokvever tiad t)een mentioned, that the 

 sod was generally a cold or heavy clay, some 

 blue, while, iiij;hl iirown, and a liivv spois ol' red 

 clay, loaded witli hard blue stone and rocks, ciiiedy 

 quariz, mixed with iron and copper. Some ol' 

 the experiments were made wi:h plaster, others 

 were made by top-dressing with lime, at the rale 

 ol' twenty-five or thirty bushids per acre: the lime 

 was brought 20 or 25 miles Ironi the kiln, and laid 

 on the fieUi at 25 cents per bushel: it was formed 

 into a bed of about halj' a loot thick, and covered 

 with earth ploughed and thrown over it, before it 

 was slacked, tliat all the phosfihoric principle dis- 

 engaged by the water, might be united with the 

 earth which covered it; a lieavy harrow was af- 

 terwards passed over it, so soon as the shell was 

 reduced to powder; the bed of lime and earth, was 

 liien iVequenlly turned by the plough and harrow, 

 until the whole assumed, the appearance, and 

 smell, of soapers ashes, containing about ten pans 

 of common soil, to one of lime. It was then cart- 

 ed, and spread regularly over the field, and in 

 every instance it gave a return of clover, equal to 

 ten loads of stable manure to the acre. The idea 

 of mixing the lii'iie and earth, was suggested 

 from spreading tlie rei'use mortar of lime and sand 

 gatlieied from about buildings, and laid upon the 

 field, the etfect of which I observed was more 

 immediate ihanany equal quantity of lime: though 

 mixtures of lime and earth, were equally so, — in 

 both cases, the lime was completely pulverized, 

 and the sand and earth, broke up the commu- 

 nication ol' lime with lime, and the succeeding 

 rains carried the lerlilizing principle of the lime, 

 as from a sieve, into the soil where it was spread, — 

 it completely divided the soil, rendering that open 

 and warm which belbre was compact, and loo cold 

 for the roots of the grain to live in. 



The whole eoil which belbre liilt dead under 

 foot, became so elastic that persons of observation 

 by walking over the fielil in the night, disiinclly 

 told how liir the lime and earth compost extended. 

 The color of the soil was likewise ciianged into 

 that of chocolate. 



These efiects presented several ideas, which 

 had not occurred to me before: \]/.. That any 

 thing which would separate the particles of the soil 

 and admit the air, would reiulcr lliese cold and 

 heavy clays, warm and leriile; — that the free in- 

 tercouse of air, would carry oil the acid; to meet 

 this, ploughiiiir in the fall was adopted, and Ibund 

 successful; one half of a field six years aiio was 

 ploughed in the winter, the other half ploughed in 

 the spring; that part which was ploughed in the 

 spring, has never brouglit grain, or crras.-, equal to 

 the other. It should have been observed, that the 

 field had not been plougiied l()r upwards of 20 

 years, and of course a great body of rubbish and 

 roots were ploughed in, afier the brier-hoolc and 

 grubbing- hoe had sinoolhed t!ic fc'Uiiiace. .Spread- 



ing of manure in the autumn, Irom the compost 

 bed, has also been introduced with universal suc- 

 cess', both upon grain and grass fields, the lye or 

 sails, of the ma>iure, being carried into the soil 

 by the rains upou the breaking up ol the frosts 

 wiiich liave in some measure prepared the soil to 

 rectMve it. High agiicuiiural uuihorities,. even 

 bottomed on accuraie observation, are ojiposed to 

 the practice ol s|)reading out manure in autumnj 

 amongst ihese we find ihejuslly celebrated Lord 

 Kaimes, in his 'Gentleman Farmer' a work upon 

 fiisi j)rinci|jles,and deserveiily ofihe highesi author-. 

 iiy. A dejiaiture Irom his judgment is only to be 

 allowed, where Iticts would censure silence; nor 

 should his name have been mentioned, unless to 

 avoid the charge of writing without attending to 

 what has been said on that subject; it is no con- 

 clusive objection that "the strength of the ma- 

 nures will be carried off by winter rains, or ex- 

 hausted by the li"osi:" are not tlie warm showers 

 more so, and are not the exhalations more copi- 

 ous in a warm than in a cold temperature; is the 

 descending of the sap in trees no monitor, as to 

 the season lor spreading out manures, and about 

 the o[)eraiions of nature, lor renewing, and invig- 

 oiaiiiiii, the process of vegetation. 



Jirier bushes, and all vegetable substances have 

 been covered up with earih, rotted and used with 

 the same success, as stable manure, and so far, 

 and so long, as they separate jiarts of the soil and 

 admit the air, they fertilize and change the color 

 of the mould. These experiments tested by fre- 

 quent repeliiion, have laid a Ibundution lor expe- 

 riments less exjjensive, and equally lerlilizing, tor 

 the production of grass, and grain. Ploughing 

 and sowing, for the purpose of producing pasture 

 and accumulation rf vegetable soil, have been adop- 

 ted: lor lliis purpose wheat, rye, Indian corn, 

 (maize,) buckwheat and oats have b^en sown 

 upon fields ploughed, which were incapable of 

 producing any crop; none of those grains, have 

 produced pasture and vegetable soil equally valu- 

 able, to that from the oats; where the others have 

 failed, its roots have pierced, disarmed, and van- 

 quished the inhospitable soil, and rendered it lertile; 

 the winter ploughing is continued, and the oats 

 are thrown in, as early as the season will allow, 

 sometimes even in February, either upon what 

 has been ploughed in autumn, or in the fields 

 which were in corn the preceding fall. In gene- 

 ral they afford early pasture, and when they are 

 reploughed in July and August, and sown again 

 with oals, they furnish excellent pasture from early 

 in September, until late in December, during that 

 season when ail other pasture is generally dried 

 up. The first sowing of oals only gives about 

 two months pasture, but the roots and remaining 

 herbage aflord a manure lor the second sowing, 

 and this always yields ibur months valuable pas- 

 ture, — which no other course known to me will 

 aOord — m September, October, November and 

 December. Considerable attention is required to 

 preserve the young clover, which the field will be 

 able to raise in the second year of the oat pasture: 

 if sown with the oats in the spring, the cattle 

 should never be put in while the ground is loo 

 moist, as they would destroy and tread it into the 

 soil; and sometimes dry seasons are also highly 

 in|urious to tlie clover. When the clover is sown 

 with the second sowing of cats, the same care is 

 re*]uiretl to .prevent ilia being trodden in by the live 



