74 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



lieve drilling, in conjunction with InuTowiiisi', will be 

 much hetler thun sowing liroadcast. Garkkti's- 

 Horse Hue (a cut of whicli we gave in our iat-r. vol 

 uiue) is used to a cons^iderable extent in England foi 

 lioeii^,- wheat. It will get over ten acres a day, on 

 level fields the t'lom stones. Hand homing in FCng- 

 iai d costs IVoin 75 cents to $^ per acre, according lo 

 the nature of the l«>^d. the hoe used, &o 'I'he Dutch, 

 or t^cufile hoe, is much the most expeditious and eflvc- 

 tive inij'lenient, when the land is nor too hai'd or fmil. 



S;)WiN(} Fi.ASTEK — It will expedite spring work to 

 fov plaster be ore the busy season of plowing and 

 fowing commence.-. Son e farmers in VVeslern Ncm' 

 ■^ or.i are in the habit of sowing plaster on their wiu- 

 t r wheat, for tie benefit it has on the _\oung clover. 

 The plaster, however, has a tendency, it i.-s said, to re- 

 tard the rij e iirg of the wheat, and the practice, 

 tberefore, cannot be recoHimended iu districts affected 

 with the wheiit midge. Where plaster can l)e ob- 

 tained for !e.-s than 1^5 per ton, a bushel per acre may 

 usually be ?own with much benefit on all the clover 

 la id An easy and expeditious way of sowing plas- 

 ter, is to take a one horse wagon, and place a half 

 birrel or v ash-tub at the hind end; into this put the 

 plaster. The sower seats himself on a board laid 

 across the box, with his back to the horse. A boy 

 drives the horse at a moderate pace, and the man 

 8'Uters the plaster from sixteen to twenty feet in 

 br -id h. 



Plowing — It is desirable to plow as early as pos- 

 sbie, I'Ul it is a great mistake to commence before 

 t le sod is iu good working condition. Luud plov.-en 

 wh le wet can never be got into fine tilth. For win- 

 ter wheat this is not of such great importance, as the 

 fr( sts of winter mellow the gr((und, and winter wheat 

 requires a somewhat rough "pasture;' but for the 

 growth of maximum spring crops, it is absoluttly es- 

 Benti,>il to have the land thoroughly pulverized and 

 indlow. On this account, the piucti'-e of flopping 

 over wide furrows is poor economy. Better plow an 

 acre a day, in a thorough mtuiuer, seven inches deep 

 and ten inches wide, than three acres iu the balking 

 way adopted by some farmers. It is next to impos- 

 eibie to make a good seed bed on laud plowed|in this 

 manner. 



Fences. — If any new fence is to be made, it should 

 be atttncied to this month, and the old fences should 

 be examined and repaired. This work should not be 

 delayed. 



Fuel for Summer. — If not already done, saw up 

 and store away iu the wood-shed a siifucieut quantity 

 of fuel to last at least through the summer. Black- 

 a.^'h, bassvrood, elm, &c., split up fine and well sea- 

 soned, may be used in summer; reserve the hard wood 

 for winter. 



FEATIDS IN ARriFICIAL MANURES. 



Prof. S. W. Joiixsox, of Yale College, recently 

 delivered a lecture on "Frauds in Mauuie," before 

 the ijoui ecticut State Agricultural Society, from 

 which we make a few extracts, as given in the Home- 

 stead: * 



" The concUision being arrived at, that our farmers 

 do, and will coi tinue to use artiticial fertilizert;, the 

 leutartr upiroaclK d the question, 'Can we command 

 thy bUjiplics we need without danger of frr.ud?' In 

 answer, h« replied, ' The fai-mer is entirely at tlie 

 jpercj of tliQ manufacturer, or dealer. The tempta- 



tions to dishonesty are very strong on the one hand, 

 and on the other the ignorant blunders of tlie nianu- 

 i'acturer make abundant phice for the farmer's money 

 to leak away.' 



"A fraud is selling to the farmer an adidterated or 

 damaged fertilizer of established name, or imposing 

 upon liini worthless or inferior fertilizers under names 

 Calculated to deceive, and at esorLitant prices'.' The 

 points being granted, that where there is a clauice 

 tiiere will be m«n found to deceive, and that where 

 accurate knowledge is not necessary in a business, it 

 will not be employed, Mr. Johnson proceeded to state 

 the extent to wliich the manufacture and sale of fraud- 

 ulent manures had been carried in England, France, 

 and Germany, especially in the first named country. 

 W ' cannot do ju.stice to these extracts without giving 

 them entire; they showed, liowever, a depth and in- 

 genuity of villainy hardly conceivable witliont a 

 know edge of the facts. As we Yankees are not ajit to 

 acknowledge our inferiority to the English in anything 

 we shuU jirobably not have to wait long before a dc- 

 velopeme .t of American ingenuity in this line will 

 show our equality, even sujiposing that proof of no 

 such frauds can now be shown. He said, ' The readers 

 of the agricultural papers know the liistory of the 

 Cliilian guano fraud, wliich Joseph Harris, Esq., now 

 of the Geyiesce Farmer, detected and traced to its source 

 with so much fearlessness and ability. The rtsult of 

 my own numerous analyses of manures, which have 

 been jmblished in the Homestead, during 18;)t), show 

 undeniably that there are yet among us men who tbiiik 

 the farmer fair g .me for their plucking; and if any are 

 disposed to excuse dealers generally from intention to 

 defraud, the matter becomes perfectly plain, when 

 certain of these who have never denied tlie accuracy 

 of these results, thus virtually admitting their justness, 

 covertly try to intimidate agricultural editors from 

 coiiyiug them.' 



" In England there are large manufactories of a sub- 

 stance called the ' The Artiol',' which under this jiame 

 is sold to dealers, wherewith to adulterate guano. — ■ 

 And besides, guano is adulterated in many other waj-s. 

 Mr. Ncsbit estimates the lowest sum of which the 

 English farmer is defrauded in guano alone at .£100,- 

 000 per annum. 



" Manufacturers get their wares analysed and the 

 chemists state their analyses in such a tray as to mishnd the 

 bv-vev, ^ ^^ ^ ^^^^^^^^^ 



" Not only is it impossible often, to judge by analyses 

 as they are stated, but a sample of a tertilizer sent to 

 the chemist, the analysis of which, arranged so as to 

 favor the dealer as nuicli as possible, is published, may 

 be a very difterent substance from that sent to market, 



" The manufacture of manures has but just com- 

 menced; companies are forming all over the country. 

 In Boston, New York and Philadelphia, companies 

 have been recently formed with capitals of $100,000 

 each, for the conversion of slaughter-house refuse, 

 blood, etc., into manure. The speaker went on to say 

 and to show, that it is for the farmers by a united eliort 

 now to dictate to the traders, least by the creejiing in, 

 of a multitude of ' tricks of the trade,' the matter gets 

 beyond their control. We should say, ' we know 

 what we want, and you must fullill your promises — 

 we will be huniLugged neither by names or by prices 

 —good goods at fair prices we want, and these only 

 will we have.' This stand we may now take, by hav- 

 ing such manures as are in market extensively ana- 

 lyzed. He went on to show how these samples should 

 be taken from diffe rent lots sold to farmers, and at dif- 

 ferent tiuK s to test the uniformity of mauutactnre, 

 etc. Chemical Analysis is a much surer test than the 

 application on the lield for reasons already specified, 



