168 



Sl)c iTarmcr'g itTontljln iMsitov. 



ty. Under-draining, subsoiling after draining, 

 irrigation or flashing water over the ground, are 

 three most potent human aids to the greater pro- 

 duction of the eartl). I have not lime, if I pos- 

 sessed the knowledge, to present all the particu- 

 lars in which different soils should he treated in 

 the application of the great agents which the 

 God of Nature has so generously supplied for 

 the good of his creatures, graciously disposing 

 the face of our mother earth for their reception. 

 Nature herself, when her operations are accu- 

 rately and critically observed, will always bo our 

 best teacher: Nature renovates and restores 

 what man dilapidates and destroys. 



CONCORD, N. H., NOVEMBER 30, 1847. 



which had been longest in possession— a part 

 of which making the depot, has been filled in 

 and covered to the depth of more than n dozen 

 feet, as the foundotion for depot trucks and huild- 

 ing.s— our mowing ground, to the extent of about 

 ten tons, would have been lessened. This loss 

 was made up by five acres of new ground laid 

 down the previous year. The e,xperiinent on 

 these five acres of subsoiling four years ago first 

 settled upon us the eonviclinn of the value of the 

 subsoil plough on all well drained lands, whether 

 naturally dry or wet, hard pan or oi)eii sand and 

 gravel, of tenacious clay or marl or more open 

 sand and gravel drift. For the last two years 

 all oiu' newly broken ground has been subsoiled 

 by one team directly following after the other. — 



even better. The drought arrested that steady 

 growth of the young potato, which was necess- 

 ary to its full size and more perfect maturity. — 

 The potatoes are good for cooUini:, but they are 

 not as large and as mealy as their pirfect growth 

 might have made them. NeviMllieless there is 

 no symptom of rot in all this ten acre product 

 that we have yet seen. We altribnie the suc- 

 cess of this field entirely to early planting and 

 to the action of the compost, guano and plaster 

 upon the minerals of the deepened soil, all con- 

 tributing to their better vegetable growth. 



Two acres of potatoes were planted late in 

 May of several kinds, ujion land subsoiletl and 

 not subsoiled. Of these, a single barrel of Wes- 

 tern reds producing forty-five bushels, nearly es- 



The first fruit of hay from subsoiling, followed cape the rot — another of long reds escaped much 



$960,00 



560,00 



180,00 



40,00 



1.50,00 



30,00 



135,00 



2,50 



7,20 



40,00 



60,00 



10,00 



Some Conversation about a Premium Farm 

 which at first was no Farm. 



As the farm of the editor of the Visitor has 

 taken biin with surprise as being, inthejudg- 

 -ment of some half a dozen of the best jiractical 

 farmers of the county, the best offered for pre- 

 mium the present year, we will just give an esti- 

 mate of the crops and the value of them, if now 

 disposed of at the cash prices. We take them 

 from the growing of the opening spring: 



80 tons of hay, average worth $12, 

 1400 bushels Potatoes at 40 cents, 

 450 bushels oats at 40 cents, 



8 tons oat straw at $5, 

 150 bushels rye, $1, 



4 tons rye straw at $5, 

 150 bushels Indian corn at 90 cents, 



2 bush, beans in corn, $1,25, 



5 loa<l3 pumi)kins in do., §1,50, 

 8 tons corn bulls $5,00, 

 2 tons marrow squashes, 14 cent, 



Beets, carrots, cucumbers, onions, &c. 



from kitchen garden, say 



8 barrels apples, from grafts 4 years old, 10,00 

 50 bushels do., common, worth 25 cents, 12,.50 

 Pasturage of ten cows through the summer 



and in fall feed, at $8, 80,00 



Pasturage anil keeping 4 oxen, same time 



at $10, 



Do. 4 yearlings and calves at $1,50, 



Do. 5 cosset sheep at $1,00, 



Do. 25 sheep, two months, at 50 cents, 



50 cords wood at 2,50, (25 sold,) 

 1000 chestnut rails at 5 cents, 

 200 chestnut posts at 5 cents, 

 200 full cartloails of muck for next year's 

 manure, worth 50 cents, 100,00 



$2619,00 

 The wood and rails, and l>osts being taken 

 from land as yet unimproved, may be taken as 

 an exception-, but of tho remainder of the pro- 

 ductions, we take to ourselves llie credit of having 

 produced all where at the utmost, when the land 

 came into our possession twelve years ago,— and 

 it is land in and near the village of the capital, 

 and in one of the largest farming towns of the 

 Uranile Slate— there was not produced on the 

 whole ground to tlia value of ten tons of tho 

 poorest hay. The whole income of all the lots 

 now in our possession was not then worth one 

 hundred dollars a year. 



Having sold to the corporation of the North- 

 ern railroad five of our best acres of hay ground 



40,00 

 3,00 

 5,00 



12,50 

 125,00 



10,00 



50,00 



by three years of a generous application of com- 

 post manure composed mainly of muck and turf 

 with a sprinkling of lime and ashes, was an in- 

 crease of the crop from less than three tons, to 

 more than fifteen tons, with the prospect in the 

 next three years that the crop cannot be less than 

 two tons to the acre, accompanied by a second 

 growth, worth at least the price of cutting, cure- 

 ing and housing the hay in dry weather. 



If any body has exceeded this year our potato 

 crop, take it on all accounts, within the county 

 limits, we hope to be able hereafter to communi- 

 cate the fact to the public. We claim nothing 

 for the two hundred bushels of the crop last plant- 

 ed, as they were altogether unfit to be mixed with 

 the twelve hundred raised on the isolated pine 

 plain lot, near the Bow" line in a srjuare of ten 

 acres, which cost us five years ago, one hundred 

 dollars, and for which we would now refuse sev- 

 en hundred and fifty dollars, without having ex- 

 peniled n dollar since upon the ground that the 

 crop of the year did not pay for. This crop of 

 potatoes, instead of forty cents, hasacliially been 

 worth to us, and will be (over four hundred bush- 

 els large and small remaining to us,) worth fifty 

 cents, independent of the price of transport to 

 market, making the largo potatoes worth $600, 

 and 150 bushels of small ones, .$50 addition, 

 - The amount, with this potato field for the last 

 year's crop, would be as follows : 

 Shrface and subsoil ploughing last fall, 



at $4 per acre, $40,00 



100 loads compost manure, at 50 cents for 

 material, and 50 cents for transport, 100,00 

 600 lbs. guano, at 24 cents, 15,00 



1000 liis. ground plaster, at 4 a cent, .5,00 



S(ireading manure, harrowing, and plant- 

 ing. 



100 bush, seed potatoes, at 50 cents, 

 Hoeing ground only once, 

 Digging, sorting, and carting, at 10 cents 

 (ler bush, for the large potatoes, 



30,00 

 50,00 

 22,50 



120,00 



382,50 

 From this deduct tho value of subsoiling, 

 (20) and of half of the compost for future 

 crops, (50) 70,00 



312,50 

 From .$6,50 take $312,50, leaves .4;:i38,.50, as 

 ibc net profit in a crop of ten acres of potatoes 

 raised upon pine plain soil. As remarked in 

 another place, a severe local drought existing 

 about the first of July, arrested the growing po- 

 mtoes at a most critical time, and probably les- 

 sened the growth from ono fourlli to one third. 

 Had the same genial showers visited this field 

 that fell upon Lowell, and the country south-east 

 at that time, wo hesitate not to say that our 

 boast of a good crop of potatoes might now he 



like them : a sample of beautilul potatoes, sent 

 us by Gov. Page from Haverhill, oval and smooth, 

 and nearly black on the outside skin, but white 

 in the interior when boiled, was neiuly half rot- 

 ten in the product. Worse than these were the 

 white smooth New York potato, and the old la- 

 dy fingers. The worst rot of all was in the rich 

 garden, where the early whites planted late in 

 May (the kind most successftd and freest from rot 

 in the pine plain field) were so much a mass 

 of rotten pulp as not to be worth the digging. 



The cost of digging — we gave the unparalled 

 price of $1 a day, for the short day digging, 

 where we used to hire for seventy-five cents — 

 ten cents a bushel, was too much. The full 

 growth of potatoes would give us fifieen instead 

 of ten bushels as the full days work. Some tail 

 raisers of potatoes talk of digging forty and fif- 

 ty bushels of potatoes between day-light and 

 dark : if we had been so fortunate as to have 

 inade our sons good working farmers, we have 

 never yet learned how to raise such potatoes for 

 them to dig, 



Our crop of oats, which we have called 500, 

 but which we set down before they are thresh- 

 ed at half a hundred bushels less, was grown 

 on seven acres of land prei>ared by three years 

 planting and composting — subsoiled in its nliolo 

 extent two years ago. The straw of these oats 

 gained a stamina from the previous preparation 

 of the g' ounil — the action of the mineral as well 

 as vegetable manures— such as we have seen in 

 no other field. The oats were well filled. The 

 work of reaping and binding these oats (greater 

 than all the other expense of cullivation, includ- 

 ing ten bushels of seed sown upon the seven 

 acres,) cost full thirty days labor, at an average 

 of $1,17 per day : they might have been mow- 

 ed and hayed for half that expense. The 

 difference, however, will be made up in the 

 greater worth of the straw, and the more easy 

 threshing: the cost of this is to be one bushel in 

 every ten. 



Ploughing and harrowing ground, $1,5, — seed, 

 $5— reaping, stooking, and getting into barn, 

 $39— threshing, every tenth bushel, §18— total 

 $77. tiaiii $103. We under estimate these, as 

 the oats are worth 50 instead of 40 cents. Ten 

 dollars worth of clover anil herd.'grass seed on 

 this ground, beaulifiilly set and growing, goes to 

 the benefit of another year. 



Our rye crop taken from fifteen acres of pine 

 plain ground naturally not inferior to that of tho 

 ten acres of potatoes, might and would have 

 been double the quantity, had ibo ground been 

 subsoiled and the seed perhaps ploughed in in- 

 ^tl'ad of being harrowed. Ten acres of the 

 sixteen was prepared by a simple slight plowing: 

 the rye sown in early Seplcndier, came oiilof ihe 



