116 



®l)c iTarmcr's itlontl)lB lUsitor. 



of the fields, and iliey do not render a heavy soil 

 more accessible to air and moisture. For such 

 fields, the porous stable manure will always have 

 its great value; it can he given together with the 

 artificial manure. 



All manure which is to he used during next 

 winter contains a quantity of ammonia corres- 

 ponding with the amount of nitrogen in the grain 

 crops which are to be grown. Experiments, in 

 which I am at present engaged, will show wheth- 

 er in future times the costs of this njanure can 

 be greatly lessened by excluding half or llie 

 whole amount of ammonia.f I believe that this 

 can be accomplished for many plants, as for clo- 

 ver and all very foliaceous vegetables, and for 

 jjcas and beans; but my trials are not so liu- ad- 

 vanced as to prove the fact with certainly. 



Gkssen Universily, 1845. 



t Dr. Krncker, in his laboratory, has determined in the 

 course of llm last term, the ammonia present in inoist 

 80IJ8 of great varied physical properties. The results are 

 Btill unpublished ; but he remarked to me one day that if 

 the ammonia per cent.ige of the soil then in band, be es- 

 timated as constant through a depth of one foot, the am- 

 monia in an acre was about 8.000 pounds ! 



ilven in sand destitute of soluble mineral salts, and 

 nearly so of organic matter he found a per centage that 

 was startling. Indeed the sum of his results is that the 

 ammonia is in nearer relation to the moisture than to any 

 thing esle. 



I found ammonia in the glaciers that come down heights 

 of 14,000 feet above the level of the sea — from near the 

 summit of Mt. Blanc. Even at that height the ammonia 

 is still in quantity that may be weighed. Every rain and 

 Bnow storm brings this ingredient to the earth. Every 

 Boil that can retain its moisture will also retain the am- 

 monia that descended with it. Hence one cause of su- 

 periority of a soil containing much decayed vegetable 

 matter or much humus. It enables it to hold moisture, 

 as well as furnish a source of carbonic acid. A rod di|)- 

 ped in muriatic acid .ind held near the surface of a hand- 

 iul of moist soil will cause white fumes to rise, occasion- 

 ed by the combination of the ammonia with the muriatic 

 acid. A gentle breath directed along the surface of the 

 earth experimented with, will render the fumes more ap- 

 parent. E. JM. H. 



From Fessenden's Complete Farmer. ' 



Rye. 



The farmer who has it in hispower »o drivehis 

 business, instead of being driven by it, will do 

 well to sovv his winter rye sometime between the 

 middle of August and the middle of September. 

 If it be sowed so early it will be less apt to win- 

 ter-kill, will require less seed, the growth will 

 be stouter, and the produce greater, other things 

 being equal, than if the sowing was deferred till 

 late in autumn. 



Some foreign writers on agriculture assure us 

 that winter rye and sjiring rye are of the same 

 Fpecies ; and the Farmer's Assislant says "there 

 is lint one kind of rye ; hut this may be made 

 winter rye or spring rye, by gradually liabitiiatiMg 

 it to different times of sowing. Take winter 

 rye, for instance, and sow it later and later each 

 fall, and it may at lencth he sown in the spring, 

 and become spritig rye. On the contrary, sow 

 spring rye very lale in the fall at first, and jou 

 may gradually sow it earlier each year, until it 

 may be sown in May, and used the first seu.-'on 

 for pasture or mowing, and then grown to per- 

 fection the second year." The same opinion is 

 likewise expressed iu Deane's New England 

 Farmer. 



Rye is capable of being cnllivaled on most 

 kinds of land, but the light sandy soils, vvlii.re 

 wheat will not thrive, are the sorts of soil on 

 which ii will, generally speaking, be found most 

 profilable lo raise; this kind of produce. Sir John 

 Sinclair observes lliat "ibis species of grain is 

 not so extensively cultivated in Scotland as it 

 ought 10 be; (for weighty crops of it might be 

 raised on soils of the most porous and arid na- 

 ture, and upon almost pure sand along the sea- 

 shore;) and llie winter sort, without which llic 

 people living on the coasts of the Baltic could 

 hardly be subsisted, is almo.°t unknown. A cor- 

 respondent iiilornis me that he has had thirty-five 

 bushels of rye [ler English acre on hind that 

 would not have produced twenty bushels of oats. 

 Indeed, oats, sown along side oi" the rye, upon 

 the same field, and on land as nearly as could he 

 judged of the same quality, were scarcely worth 

 the expense of reaping. On moorish land, rye 

 has been found a more certain crop than oats. 

 Mr. George Culley remarks that rye, like oats, 

 will answer in crude soils without lime, or cal- 

 careous iiionures, which renders that crop pecu- 



liarly calculated for waste lands when first 

 brought into cultivation." 



Lands which will piodiice tolerable crops of 

 wheat bad better be cultivated iuv the purpose of 

 raisiiii: wheat than rye. And, if we may believe 

 what English writers tell us relative to this sub- 

 ject, the use of lime for manure will often so far 

 change the nature of a poor soil proper only for 

 rye, that wheat may be made its subslitiile. Mr. 

 Marshall, in his Rural Economy of Yorkshire, 

 says, "Before the use of lime was prevalent, 

 much rye was grown on the lighter lands upon 

 the margin of the Vale, and in the Moorlands 

 scarcely any other crops than rye and oats were 

 attempted. Now, rye is piincijially confined lo 

 the Moorland dales; and even there the allei~a- 

 tion of soils by lime has been such that wheat 

 has become the more prevalent crop. 



" Nevertheless on light, sandy soils, rye is gen- 

 erally more jirofilalile than wheat, and the bread 

 which is made fioni a mixture of the two grains 

 is here esteemed more wholesome to people in 

 general than that which is made from wheat 

 alone." 



When rye is sown upon light land it ripens 

 much earlier than on a cold stiff ground, and it 

 is said by some writers that by coiitiniiing to sow 

 on such a soil for two or three year.s, it will be 

 forwarded so much as to ripen a month earlier 

 than that which has been raised upon strong 

 cold ground. For this reason, ihose who .sow 

 their rye lale will do well to provide themselves 

 wilh this early seed. 



Dr. Elliot informs, that if rye be sowed suc- 

 cessively every year upon the same land, both 

 the crop and the land will be greatly improved, 

 insomuch that some grounds, which vvould j ii-ld 

 but five bushels lo the acre at first, h;ive in time 

 produced a crop of fifteen bushels, uilliout the 

 charge of manure ; and Dr. Deaiie observed that 

 he " had known the .-iame spot produce twenty 

 crops of this grain in succession, excepting that 

 it was planted wilh Indian corn once or twice, 

 to subdue the weeds, and that the crops yearly 

 increased instead of diminishing." But this, it 

 is said, will not be the case, unless the .soil is 

 naturally of a good quality, and the slubble be 

 completely Inriied under immediately after reap- 

 ing. If the ground is suffered to remain alter 

 harvest withont being ploughed till the stubble 

 is dried and shrivelled so that it possesses but 

 little substance, and the seeds of weeds have had 

 time to ri|ieu, the crops of grain in each suc- 

 ceeding year will be diiniiiislied, and the weeds 

 will take an almost exclusive jiossession of the 

 soil. 



The Farmer's Assistant is opposed to the 

 raising of successive crops of rye, unless as much 

 as twenty-five bushels of this grain can be year- 

 ly had Irom the acre; as such an annual product 

 vvonhl probably afford a clear profit to the acre 

 of half that mimher of bushels ; and such a 

 profit, he observes, iu some of the lighter and in 

 some of the harder kinds o( soil is not to be de- 

 spised. The same writer recommends sowing 

 winter rye and spring rye alternately, in order 

 that the ground miglif, every other year, be en- 

 riched by the applicaliou of gypsum. "The 

 growing crop of rye" he says, "receives no ben- 

 efit from the application of this manure; but it 

 <)uickly covers the trroimd with a fine swaiil of 

 v^ Idle clover ; and as soon as the ground is ihns 

 swarded, it is iu good condition for hearing any 

 croiu Let the gypsum, tliereli)re, he sown iu the 

 spring, on the growing crop of winter lye, and 

 by the middle of OcUdier llillowiug the ground 

 will be covered with white clover; nun this 

 sward over in the hitler end of the liill, and in 

 the M|uing sow a crop of spring rye; and, as 

 soon as this is taken off, iiirn the ground over 

 again for a crop of winter rye ; and in the spring 

 repeat the process of manuring with gypsum, as 

 befiire, for a crop of spring rye; and thus pro- 

 ceed with these crops alternately." 



Some sow their winter rye at the last hoeing 

 of Indian corn, and hoe it in ; and this I)i. Deaiie 

 observed was a good practice w hen it is sow n on 

 flat laiul, or on a rich or heavy soil, where grain 

 is apt to sufli'r by the frost tif winli'r; lor the 

 plants of rye will he mostly on the corn bills, 

 and so escape injury fioni frost; at least Ihey 

 will most commonly escape, or so many of llieni 

 as are necessary to give a good crop. The plaiils 

 ■hat are killed will he tliOKO in (he low spaces 

 bstwixt the hills. 



Rye is not only a proper crop on land which 

 is too poor to produce a good crop of wheat, but 

 it should be sown on a soil w Inch is l-ery rich, in 

 preference lo wheat, because it is less apt to 

 grow so rank as lo lodge or blast than wheat. It 

 is a very suitable crop fiir drained bogs. In the 

 first volume of Conimimicalions to the British 

 Board of Agriculture, page 341, in speaking of 

 the culture of rye in Russia, it is observed that 

 the produce from boggy lands drained and sow- 

 ed with rye is upwards of forty bushels to one 

 sowed ; and they generally use a much smaller 

 quantity of seed in sowing such lands. Another 

 proof that rye will bear very plentiful manuring 

 may be adduced from a case reported by Mr. 

 L'Elommedieu, of New York, who observed, in 

 substance, that a neighbor of his maiuirerl twen- 

 ty square rods of poor, gravelly, dry soil with 

 four thousand Menhaden t\>\\, and sowed it with 

 rye, at the rate of about one bushel to the acre. 

 In the spring it was twice successively "aten off, 

 close to the ground, by sheep breaking in, after 

 it had acquired a height of nine inches the first 

 lime, and six inches the latter. The.se cropping?, 

 however, only served to make it grow thicker 

 and stronger than before; and when harvested 

 it |iroduced sixteen bushels, or at the rate of one 

 buudred ami twenty-eight bushels lo the acre; 

 giving to the owner, according to the calculation 

 of Mr. L'Ilommedieu,at the rate of eight-five dol- 

 lars to the acre of clear profit.* 



Ill the Memoirs of the New York Board of 

 Agricnlti're, vol. i. page 82, it is said, "Rye should 

 be sowed Ihe last week in August, or the first 

 week iu Siptember, at the rate of about thirty- 

 six quarts per acre ; some say forty-eight quarts. 

 But if it is not sowed at that time, it ought lo be 

 delayed until lale iu November, so that it may 

 not come up until spring. A. Worthingion had 

 a good cro|i, which he sowed in a .lanuary snow 

 storm. Rje raised on upland makes much bet- 

 ter flour than that which is raised on low or 

 damp land." 



Rye may be sown in autumn to great advan- 

 tage for green foildcr for cattle and sheep, par- 

 ticularly the latter, in the spring. Ewes and 

 lambs will derive much benefit from it, at a lime 

 when little or no other green feed can be procu- 

 red. When it is meant lor this purpose it should 

 not only be sowed early in autumn, but should 

 be sowed thicker than when it is iniended to 

 stand for a crop of seetl. Some say that it may 

 well be mowed for hay two or three limes in the 

 coiu-.-^e of the summer; and this piece of hns- 

 handry is recommendtd for farmers whose lands 

 are mostly dry or unsniiahle for grass. 



The quantity of seed to be sown on an acre 

 should vary according lo the soil, the time of 

 sowing, and ihe [lurposes for which it is intend- 

 ed. If it be sowed in Ihe latter part of August, 

 or beginning of Septendier, and is iniended lo 

 remain for a seed crop, ihe quantity should vary 

 from thirty-two to forty-eight quarts, according 

 lo the goodness of soil. Later sowing requires 

 more seed, and in some cases two bushels lo nn 

 acre will not be too great a quantity. Batmis- 

 ter's Hiisliaudry says, " When this grain is sown 

 fiir sheep t'ccii, it is proper to allow three bush- 

 els to Ihe acre, for where Ihe blade, haulm, or 

 stalks form the primary object, a much larger 

 proportion of seed is requisite than when the 

 crop is meant for harvesiing." 



* Trnnsartions of the New York Aprtculturnl Society, part 

 3, pp. 35, 30. Thij" accdunl may st'cni incredible, but Mr, 

 l.Mloimnpdieu declared tliut it was aUesled Iu by many credt- 

 Ijle witnesses. 



I'Vnin Fessendi'ii's t'lunplfle Faniu-r. 

 Cultivation and Curing of Hops. 



The litllowing was written by William Blnn- 

 chard, Jnn. I'.sq., and first published in the New 

 England Farmer, several years ago: 



The hop is a native plant. It is found growing 

 spontaneously on the banks and intervals of ma- 

 ny of our large rivers. There are several dis- 

 tinct s|n lies, all beaiinc a near iiliiiiity lo each 

 other ; (I have noticed five.) At present they 

 are cultivated togetler, promiscuously ; no pre- 

 ference having been given lo any parliciilar one 

 of llieni by the brewer. Bui 1 am <d" the opin- 

 ion ihat there is an es.senlial dillircnce in Ibeir 

 iiualilics; that one may be the best for pale ale, 

 another for strong beer, and a third lor porter;-— 

 and I presume, ere long, pjiriicular attention will 

 be paid to ascertain their ililllrent quulities. 



