VMl J %m. ilMJVUPIRJin 



124 



®I)C farmer's iHontl)[i) iJisitor. 



they iire destined to becotne iinniciisely rich. In 

 ealinir, they art on tlie piinciple. that to eat litth; 

 and ofien, is heiter tliaii overloading tlie stornacli 

 lit loiif; intervals. And they acconlinjily eat nni- 

 fornily live tini'S each day, viz : at 5A, A. M., — 

 9— lii ; .% P. M., and 7. All of u suilahle a-je, 

 both male and Ibiiiah', arc lequii'ed to lahor at 

 snch business, as cither their taste, penins, or 

 hahit.s tnay require. And whenever from any 

 cause, such as a change of weather, or ihe sud- 

 den ripi'uin;; of a crop, an extra nnuiher of hands 

 are needed, they can brin^ fifty or a hinidred 

 into u field at once, willi any required nntnher of 

 teams, and thus enjoy f^reat advanla^'es iji cidli- 

 vatin^' and securiu? their crops. Uy a rather 

 minute division of lahor, each man or set of 

 men is requiied to do one thin;;, ami order anil 

 system are everv where manifest, and nothing 

 wasted. In a high sense, a place is provided for 

 every thing, and every thing found in its place. 

 In portions of n)achinery for their liiclory and 

 n)ills, and in agricultural implements, they are 

 cautions in adopting our more recent improve- 

 ments, preferring to use those they brought with 

 them from Germany. Slill their clolli and other 

 manufactured articles are made in the l)esi man- 

 ner, ami their farm operations crowned with the 

 highest success. 



Separate barns, spacious and well ventilated, 

 are provided for horses, oxen, cows, yearlings, 

 calves and sheep, so that they are all siiellered in 

 the most cond'ortable manner through the winter, 

 and the apartments for the sheep are thoroughly 

 whitewashed foiu' or five times a year. Thus 

 they promnie heallh and increase the weight and 

 fineness of the fleece. The sheep are divided 

 into parcels, and each is imder the constant at- 

 tendance of a shepherd and his dog during the 

 (lay, in summer, and driven up every night an<l 

 hm'dled ; and the laud thus uianmed by them 

 during the night, is at Ihe proper time sown to 

 turnips. The cattle are also kept in sejjarate 

 classes, and each is under the constant attend- 

 ance every day of ils herdsman, and driven up 

 to their yards at night. And then look at their 

 series of barns, say 150 by 40 feet, standing in a 

 line eight or ten rods apart, and the whole lower 

 part fitted n[) exclusively, one for horses, another 

 for oxen, another fin- cows, another for young 

 cattle, another for calves, ami another for sheep ; 

 jiuolher series standing in another line, and filled, 

 some with hay. others with wheat, others with 

 oats, com, barley, &c. ; and then other ranges 

 of biuldiiigs, enclosing limidreils of swiue ; ami 

 others still, to accuimnodate all the poultry he- 

 longing to the community. 



Every stable for horses and cattle, has tren- 

 ches to carry oft'all the liquid manure iiuo tanks, 

 to he thence conveyed to the growing crops ol' 

 the farm ; and indeed in all iheir harnsaiul yards, 

 the utmost atlentiou is paid to making and pre- 

 serving manme, and their hixuriant crops bear 

 am|)le testimony to its iuqiortance, and the skill 

 with which it is applied. Rven the privies at 

 their houses have their vaults extended some 

 three feet back, and covered by a lid hung on 

 hinges ; and the night soil removed hy long- 

 handled dippers provided for Ihe purpose, is nseil 

 most pleutiiully on their gardens. .And snch 

 splendid heads of brittle leituec, such encum- 

 bers, cahhages, heaas, peas ami corn, as were 

 grown under the stiiuulating edi'Cis of this liipiid 

 excrement, it has srhlom heeii my lot to sec. 



Flora, too, has here her votaries. There are, 

 also, engravers and exquisite painters of plants, 

 fruils and flowers, for whose works orders are 

 constanlly on hand frotn A. J. Dinvning, and 

 Wiley & Piiliiam, and Endicott, of New-York ; 

 Dr. Gray, of IJoslon, &c. 



Altogether, they arc a siiigidar and ititcresling 

 cotniiinnity,aiHl a visit to them being hut a pleas- 

 ant ride fi'om the city, Ciui hardly (iiil to be at- 

 tended «ith both pleasure and profit. Wishing 

 to eidarge their operations, tlu'v have recently 

 purchaM'd a large tract ot' land,( 1,000 acres,) four 

 miles above Cliippewa, in Canada, on the Niaga- 

 ra river, and established there a liruiu'h of Iheir 

 eominunitv. Success to their cfiorls. 



_ II. A. P. 



Cold Bedrooms. 



A person accusiomi d to niiilrcss in a roiuu 

 without a fire, and to seek repose in a cold heil, 

 will not experience Ihe least inconveiiieiu'c, even 

 in ihe scvtrctt weather. The nalinul heal of hi;! 



body will very speedily render him even more 

 comfortably warm than the individual who sleeps 

 in a heated afiartmeut, and in a bed thus artifi- 

 cially warmed, and who will he extremely liable 

 to a sensation of chilliness as soon as the artifi- 

 cial heat is dissipated. But this is not all — the 

 con.stitntion of the former will be rendered more 

 robust, and far less susceptible to Ihe influence 

 of atmospherical vicissitudes than that of the lat- 

 ter. — Journal of Heallh. 



The Southern Cultivator is now a beauti- 

 ful agricullnral newspaper, published once a 

 month at Augusta, Georgia, of the same shape, 

 size, and nearly ihe same quantity of mailer, but 

 at double the price of the Farmer's Mo.ntui.t 

 Visitor ; the Cultivator has lived five years, and, 

 like our own Visitor, has never changed its size 

 and shape. Our fancy leads us always to keep 

 on when we have a thing in a good shape: hav- 

 ing our own way, although younger fancy may 

 have improved the lettering" of our head ami title 

 p.iges, we would never have changed either from 

 the first number printed nine years ago. The 

 Southern Cultivator of July came to us in mourn- 

 ing for the death of ils editor, James Camak, Esq., 

 who died on the 10th of June, at the age of 52 

 years. Should the Visitor outlive its founder, 

 our desire living would he that not a weed should 

 be thrown around it, hut that some better prac- 

 tical and more scientific hand should take the 

 place of onr own, and " breathing freer and 

 easier" than we have done for the last five years, 

 our prayer would be, that the last days of this 

 Journal might bo better than the first. Mr. Ca- 

 mak had for some time been connected with a 

 political press: he conducted the Southern Cul- 

 tivator with zeal and no inconsiderable ability. 

 The August luimber of the Cnliivator annomices 

 that arrangements have been made with Dr. 

 Daniel Lee, of Rochester, N. Y., to supply the 

 place of Mr. Camak. It is well that the prospect 

 of encouragement to an agricultural monthly 

 paper in Georgia is so good, as to induce a man 

 of Dr. Lee's liigh ability to remove his location a 

 distance of one thousand miles, solely with a 

 view to conduct a paper like, oitrs. Dr. L. is fa- 

 vorably knou'ii in Western New-York as the 

 author of several valuable essays on Agriculture 

 and its kindred sciences : be is a ripe scholar as 

 well as a practical agriculturalist. May his an- 

 tii'ipation he realized of making the Southern 

 Cultivator •' the favored medinm through which 

 twejity thousand practical hnshandui'Mi shall 

 teach one another." The fidlosving essay, as the 

 firsl comuiunicated by Dr. Lee to the Cultivator, 

 is elementary to the true philosophy of improv- 

 ing the soil hy mi;;insof Ihe belter cultivation ; it 

 is worthy the attention of those who may be 

 brought to think with us, that the material 

 abounds below where the plouf;;h hii<s i/cl reached, 

 which will restore the soil to its first fertility 

 after long use. 



[Trom Iho Southern Cultivator.] 

 Improvement of .Soils> 



We kiiovv of no subject that better deserves 

 till,' study of the agrieuiiiirist than that of improv- 

 ing the soil. It sliinthl he carefully iiivi,'sii;jali'il 

 with all the assistance that experience and the 

 best lights of modem science can furnish. Fiom 

 personal oliservalion wc have come to regard 

 the skilful ciiltm'c i>i' corn, peas and beans as ad- 

 mirably ada|.ted to this purpose. TIn'y can be 

 grown in a few mouths, and if t\^i\ to sheep ami 

 swifie, giving the stocks and blades lo cows, a 

 good reliiru in wool, nnitton, beef, pork, butler 

 and cheese may be realized, viith a large ainouul 

 of most valuable manure. 



Slime one may nSk, bow fiir crops of corn 

 peas, or bcaiis, are to be raised on a nninrally thin 

 soil, unfortunately roiulered slill poorer h\ inju- 

 dicious cropping ? 



In the absence of all knowledge of Southern 

 agriculture, and of the peculiar composition of 

 ihe lands naturally unproductive, or n)ade so by 

 had hushanilry, our prescription must be vague 

 — fouudeil on general principles, and perhaps 

 an\ thing hut salisliictory. The reader, however, 

 will make due allowance in behalf of his North- 

 ern correspondent, while he considers the fact, 

 thai all the mineral elements taken from the soil 

 in the production of a cro|i, must first be dissolv- 

 ed in water. Tillage greatly favors Ihe solution 

 of those salts of the earth which constitute tlie 

 ash of plants when burnt. 



ISear in mind the circumstances that, so much 

 of the fertilizing ingredients, like the salts of pot- 

 ash, soda, lime and magnesia, as do not enter the 

 roots of plants in cultivated fields, after their so- 

 lution, descend with the water into the subsoil, 

 or are carried by it into creeks, rivers and the 

 ocean. It is because all the streams Ihal run in- 

 to the sea hold various earthy sails in solution, 

 which solar evaporation over the vast surface of 

 the ocean leaves hehiiul, that ils water is so much 

 Salter than its tributaries. A gallon of water 

 taken from a well, a natural s])ring, or a river, 

 and evaporated to dryness, will usually give sev- 

 eral grains of minerals not unlike ihe ash I'f cul- 

 tivated plants. Tillage without cropping will 

 slowly, but certainly, disintegrate and wash out 

 of the surface soil all ils most useful mineral 

 constituents. The writer, who has devoted much 

 time to the analysis of soils and their products, 

 has found those that contain oidy one grain of 

 lime in one hundred thousand, except as an in- 

 soluble silicate. 



Cultivated plants cannot grow and perfect their 

 seeds without a little lime ; and if they could, no 

 animal can possibly restore the daily waste of ils 

 bones on food which is quite devoid of this most 

 im[iorlant mineral. Permit the idea to have ils 

 full weight, that all cultivated crops would ha 

 nHUe valueless to man and his domestic animals, 

 if destitute of bone earth. And as neither a cow, 

 a sheep, a child, nor other biped or quadruped, 

 can possibly know whether grass, corn, peas, or 

 any other plant, does or does not contain the ele- 

 ments of strong, healthy bone, Providence has 

 taken good care of his creatures, hy wisely pre- 

 venting the growth of crops with this latent and 

 serious defect. 



If subsoils did not possess more of the phos- 

 phate of lime (which is found on analysis) than 

 long tilled surlaee soils, so as to permit the roots 

 of starving grain to pi'netrate to the region of 

 alkaline phosphates and gel minerals ciujiigh lo 

 bring Ihe fourth of a good cro)) to maturity, hun- 

 dreds of plantations would be as destitute of all 

 cereal iilants as the great descit of Sahara. 



Naked bones, however, arc not the only things 

 that man and beast must draw from the bounti- 

 ful earth. Most animals are blessed with an or- 

 gan called brain, one of the ingredients of which 

 is sulphur. This well known substance, com- 

 bined chemically w ith the \ ital air called oxygen, 

 Ibrins Sulphuric Acid, or Oil of Vitriol. All ihe 

 salts made by Ihe union of this mineral acid with 

 metals, alkalies ami alkaline earth.-;, are very solu- 

 ble, and liable to bo washed out of surlaee soil, 

 except the sid|)hate of lime, or gypsum; and of 

 this the supply is fiir from being generally abun- 

 dant. Leguminous plants, like peas, beans and 

 clover, and wo will luld com, wheat and potatoes, 

 usually need n:ore available sulphur ihnn the 

 surface soil contains. It is a very simple pro- 

 cess to sc|)arato the gypsum in 100,000 pans of 

 soil ami to weigh it, an account of wiiich, as 

 practised hy ihe best French rhemisis, we will 

 describe in a fiitmc mimher of this journal. 



If Nature uses the same ingredients now to 

 fiiriii a perfect wheal or bean plant llial she did 

 when Joseph was sold into Egy|it, and will 

 diiuhtlcss conliuue one imil'orm jirocess to iho 

 end of lime, in organizing these and all other 

 crops, can we not learu how much of the siihs- 

 taiice of the soil is really cousnmed ami washed 

 away in making 1000 lbs. of any cultivated plant.' 

 Will not |ilowing a liltle deeper and bringing up 

 ahimiua and the alkaline salts, of which that 

 eaiih is so peculiarly retcnlive, at once check 

 the tendcm-y of samly land lo leach, improve its 

 mechanical Icxime, ami add materially to Its 

 must valuable mineral eleincnls ? Those ihat 

 have (liirly tried this system liir improving tlnir 

 lands ill this Sl«lu{New York) have found it cm- 



