NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



233 



We never liked the long-legged, slab-sided, 

 apron-eared grunters, except for the race course, 

 for the reason that they eat too much food to keep 

 them in decent working order. They might do 

 for a "show" occasionally as fine specimens of a 

 living skeleton, but for porkers give us the short- 

 legged, small-headed, quiet and contented pig, 

 round as an apple and hearty as a buck, with suf- 

 ficient good sense to know when he has eat enough 

 and where to go and lay down to be rubbed or 

 curried; and, withal, as Uncle Ziba used to say, 

 a "hog, with a remarkably good disposition." — 

 Vermont Watchman. 



SCARIFYING THE SOIL. 



Thousands of the failures which take place 

 among merchants, trades-people and mechanics, 

 are occasioned by "making haste" to be rich. 

 They are not content to pursue a plain, practical 

 system which yields them annually a limited but 

 certain profit, in conducting a small business in the 

 best possible manner. They gradually enlarge the 

 circumference of their operations, spread their 

 capital over a large surface where they can find 

 no return, or only in diminished amount, and thus 

 through the very magnitude of their performances, 

 defeat the object in view — that of making more 

 money — lose their labor, sink their capital, become 

 discouraged and disgusted, abuse the business and 

 knock off for another trial in something else! 



We have been led to these remarks and those 

 which follow, by having directed to us several 

 queries in the British North American, published 

 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in relation to scarifying 

 the surface, and making that operation answer the 

 purposes of plowing, and the usual method of til- 

 la o-e, in order to get the land into a suitable condi- 

 tion to produce good crops. An implement called 

 the scarifier, is used to considerable extent in 

 England, instead of the plow, but we are not 

 aware that it has ever been introduced into use in 

 this country. If deep plowing, and even sub-soil- 

 n» are necessary, it is certain that the mere cut- 

 ting and loosening the surface will never answer 

 the purposes of a good deep tillage. 



The farmer is just as apt to run into wrong no- 

 tions as any other class. He wishes to reap large 

 crops in some other way than by the usual process, 

 some short cut to success, whereby much labor 

 may be saved, and still be able to store full gar- 

 ners in the autumn. So he plows shallow and 

 goes over much ground, and manures on the same 

 principle, and under this process he finds his acres 

 constantly grow poorer, and himself becoming dis- 

 gusted with farming as a poor thankless business. 

 The text of our provincial friend is as follows : — 



"We cannot afford either the labor or the ma- 

 nure necessary for plowing." 



There are certain pasture lands, and some of 

 them producing excellent feed, which are altogeth- 

 er too stony for the plow. What is best to be 

 done with such it is difficult to decide. They could 



not be scarified much better than plowed ; and it 

 is next to impossible to bring such pastures into 

 sweet feed by any process short of plowing. But 

 of one thing we have no doubt — and that is that 

 the sod must be broken so that it will eventually 

 become pulverized and the earth beneath loosened, 

 to admit the air and warmth, before good feed can 

 be obtained. It is a practice on burnt lands where 

 there are many stones, to hoe in the rye. The 

 process is somewhat slow, but excellent crops are 

 obtained under it. We think of no method but 

 this to try on your very rocky pasture lands. Take 

 a few square rods and break with the hoe as well 

 as you can, adding a mixture of guano, ashes, 

 plaster and loam, sand, or meadow mud, intimately 

 mingled ; keep an exact account of cost, and judge 

 as nearly as you can of the benefits derived. This 

 will test the matter whether the rocky old pastures 

 can be wrought upon with profit. 



But the difficulty of our friend does not seem to 

 lie any more with the pasture land than with the 

 mowing fields ; and here we have no doubt what- 

 ever as to the best course to be pursued. That 

 course is to increase the manure heap until you 

 have enough to give each acre at least fifteen ox 

 cart loads of good manure, and before applying it 

 to plow the land eight to twelve inches deep, 

 spread the manure and cover it in with the culti- 

 vator or harrow ; sow on twelve quarts of herds' 

 grass, one bushel of red- top, and six or eight 

 pounds of clover seed, to the acre, and you will 

 realize more actual profit from it than you can in 

 any other way. But you reply that you have 

 thirty or forty acres that ought to be plowed this 

 year. Very well — if you have manure for only ten 

 acres, work that well, and let the other thirty go to 

 pasture or any thing else. You will get more 

 profit from the ten than by spending your labor 

 and scattering your manure over any larger por- 

 tion of the whole. 



To attempt to cultivate more than you can 

 manage well, is the same hazardous process that 

 the merchant indulges in when he expands his 

 capital too much. It is the rock upon which thou- 

 sands of merchants, and tens of thousands of farm- 

 ers, split. They attempt too much — and the 

 temptation grows out of owning or holding too 

 much land. Having the land, they suppose they 

 must cultivate it, and are gradually led into the 

 most imprudent and ruinous modes of cultivation. 



Agricultural Geology. — We have received from 

 some unknown hand a small book with the above 

 title. It is made up of seventeen articles or brief 

 essays upon the subject mentioned above. We 

 had read them as they appeared from time to time 

 in the papers, and thought them among the best 

 articles we had seen on the subjects discussed. 

 They are written by Josiah Holbrook, and pub- 

 lished by Fielding Lucas, Jr., Baltimore 



