THE GENESEE FARMER. 



79 



in that cnnriiiion to the action of the winter frosts, or 

 pulverized thoronnhly witli the harrow, with a view 

 to have it ready at the earliest moiuetit for spring 

 operations. With what lirile knowled^o of farming 

 I possess, with heavy poil;-', I would prefer tlie former, 

 and with tit^ht soils, the latter mode of treatment. 



In the December number of the Genesee Fanner, 

 Mr. J. C. AoAMS, of Seymour, N. Y., makes some 

 remarks resr.irdinpf plowinjj, which might very profit- 

 ably be taken nutice of by some farmers, although it 

 is a very rare thing in this country to see what he des- 

 cribes. He says, " leave about six furrows wide for 

 a smgle team, and more for a double team." Would 

 Mr. Adams enlighten ns as to the width of his fur- 

 rows, for it is certain, a horse cannot turn on much 

 less than six feet, and then the ploww-ould naturally 

 be three or four feet behind. Also to draw a furrow 

 and return in the same track, appears to me a waste of 

 time and labor. 



\ .The benighted Canadians, when they are about to 

 plow a field, if the headlands are not already marked 

 out, proceed the first thing to mark them out not less 

 than fifteen feet wide, and when the body of the field 

 is finished, plow the headlands in the same manner as 

 any other of the ridges of the field. 



Andrew Wilson. 

 ■Augusta, near Prescott, C. W. 



CULTIYATION OF POTATOES. 



Haul out and spread your manure about the 

 first of April; then take a plow and run a furrov/ 

 about the middle of your patch, from end to end ; 

 drop your potatoes into that furrow, about ten or 

 twelve inches apart, and then turn it over and cover 

 the potatoes with it; then run the plow on each side, 

 throwing the turrows towards each other, and drop 

 potatoes in each furrow, and each furrow covering a 

 row of potatoes, until your ground is all planted ; 

 then cover with pine shats, three or four inches deep, 

 and your work is done until digging time, when you 

 remove the shats before digging. 1 can raise more 

 potatoes per acre by this method than by any other, 

 and with a great deal less labor. The shats keeping 

 the ground moist arid cool, the potatoes flourish and 

 grow during the dry, hot weather of summer. 



Laurel, Delaware. W. 



HBTORY OF MAEL AS A FEKTHIZEE. 



The use of marl as a fertilizer appears to have been 

 known from the earliest ages. It is spoken of by the 

 early Roman authors, but does cot seem to have been 

 used in Italy. Pliny mentions it as having been 

 "found out in Britain and GauL * ^' * It is a 

 certain richness of earth, like the kernels in animal 

 bodies that are increased by fatness." (What does 

 he mean by this ?) M*rl, he says was known to the 

 Greeks, '■ for is there anything," he adds, " that has 

 cot been tried by them? They call the marl-like 

 white clay leucargilloji, which they use in the lands 

 of Megara, hui only where they are moist and cold." 

 But if the Romans had not discovered marl in Italy, 

 they were aware, as Varro and others informs us, of 

 its value in h )sbandry. " When I marched an army," 

 iwys Varro, " to the Rhine, m Transalpine Gaul, I 

 pa.ss:ed through some countries wh "e I .saw the fields 

 manurt'd with white fossil clay." ''hispeems to have 

 been what would now be uv "erstoor! by us as mial_ 

 This mineral manure was used by the ancient inhab. 



itants of England before the time of Pliny A stat- 

 ute, passed in the year 122.') (10 Henry HI,), give* 

 every man leave to sink a marl-pit in his own irround 

 without being fined ; a proof of an early practice ©f 

 improving land by means of marl. There are leases 

 on record, granted in the reigns of Edward I. and H., 

 which compel the tenants to make use of marl. In 

 the first English treatise on hu!-bandrv by Sir A Fitg- 

 herbcrt. entitled The Bank of Ihishandry, A.D. 1523. 

 lime, r.'if//7, and fallowing are strongly recommended ; 

 and in The Book of Snrveyinge, by the same author, 

 and at the same date, lime and marl are mentioned as 

 comm m manures. In a treatise on rural ecoi;omy, 

 written in the reign of Elizabeth, marl is said to have 

 been discovered by Cole, a Frenchman, in the llielft.h 

 century. The histoiian prized it in his day, for he 

 says, '-It will carry barlie, wheat, and pea#continua!ly 

 for twentie years without dung." This clay-marl is 

 described as being of a " blewe collor,sometimes redd," 

 fat and clammy, more adapted for loosedry land than 

 moist, where " ly.,ie rather serveth than this," It wa.si 

 considered much more durable than sand or lime, for 

 the old adage v.'as, " that a man doth sand for hira- 

 felfe, lyme for his sonne, and marl for his grandchilde." 

 Farmers were then mistaken, however, in expecting 

 that it could supersede the use of dung: they .?old 

 their hay and straw, but found that no second marl- 

 ing would restore the quickly exhausted virtue of their 

 land, until it had been repeatedly manured with dung; 

 so that Barnaby Googe, in the middle of the six- 

 teenth century, cites an old saying, that " lime and 

 marl are good for ihe. fathe", but bad for the son." — 

 The Vv-hite chalk-marl used in ^T^orfolk, England, np- 

 pears to have been in u-?e for c( nturies, Irora the size 

 of the oak trees growing in the old marl-pits, while 

 the use of clay-marl seems to be of much later date. 



CoMPosiTiox OF Fat — The fat of animals is amix- 

 ture of several chemical organic compound', which 

 are all distinguished by containing a. very large pro- 

 portion of carbon, united with hydrogen and oxygen, 

 and by the absence of nitrogen and inorganic matters, 

 which occur in almost all other parts of the animal 

 body. 



In the more liquid animal fat elaien, and in the 

 more solid, margarine or stearine preponderates. Train 

 oil, oil of almonds, and rape-oil, consist principally of 

 of elaine; butter, lard, human fat, principally of mar- 

 garine; and stearine, the hardest of the three, is found 

 in larger quantities in siiet than in the softer fata 



The same constituents which are found in the ani- 

 mal fats, exist in the vegetable oils and fatty matters. 

 Thus, both animal and vegetable oils and fats contaia- 

 carbon, iiydrogen, and oxygen only. 



LiMT3 ON Be.vns — Leguminous cropf? of all kinds 

 are greatly benefitted by lime— whether beans, peas, 

 or vetclies, as it not only increWs the bulk of straw, 

 but also greatly improves the quality of the grain. — 

 Peas grown on newly-limed land are excellent boilers 

 — a point worthy the attention of those who grow 

 these for culinary purposes. Some farmers in E'lg- 

 land spread hot-lime over their beans when two or 

 three inchf s above the surfiice. and afterwards woik 

 it into the land by means of the horse or hand hoe. 



Plasthk (j.n'' '-ate of lime) has a greater effect o» 

 leguininou.=« p!:ii;is, shcIi as clover, pe i.«, &c., ha i oa 

 such p'aats as ,»heat, barley, and the common g.aijjfi,. 



