154 Extracts Jrom the Journals. [Ju^y> 



2. The soil is principally a disintegrated gypseous shale, it 

 being the first stratum below the Onondaga lime, running up to 

 and taking in some sixteen acres of the lime, which is covered 

 with about one foot of soil. This is in the wood lot, and fur- 

 nishes quarries of good stone. There were formerly a few cob- 

 ble stones on the surface, and one very large granite boulder. A 

 small brook running through the farm is bordered by about forty 

 acres of soil that has been deposited by the brook, and is not suited 

 to the production of wheat. In the valley of the brook is found 

 marl and peat, and at the springs that come from the hill sides 

 calcareous tufa. 



3. I consider the best modes of improving the soil of my farm 

 to be deep plowing, application of barnyard manure, free use of 

 sulphate of lime, and frequent plowing in crops of clover. 



4. Unless I am plowing in manure, I plow from six to eight 

 inches deep. Deep plowing upon the gypseous shales, never fails 

 to increase fertility. Full trials jusiiiy my speaking with confi- 

 dence on this point. 



5. I have not used the subsoil plow, as I have no retentive sub- 

 soil on my farm. 



6. I apply my barn-yard manure in large quantities at a time, 

 preferring to at once do all for a field that I can in this way. 

 About 50 loads of thirty bushels each, of half rotted manure to the 

 acre at a dressing. 



My stables are situated on two sides of a square; the manure, 

 as it is taken from the stables, is at once piled in the centre of the 

 yard, as high as a man can pitch it. Sulphate of lime is put on 

 the manure in the stables, and the heap, as soon as fermentation 

 commences, is whitened over with it. My sheep are all fed under 

 cover, and most of their manure is piled under cover in the spring, 

 and rotted. As to keeping manure under cover, my experience 

 has led me to believe, that the best way is to pile it under cover, 

 when it is most convenient to do so, and only then as I am com- 

 pelled to apply water to the heap to rot it, unless it has received 

 the snows and rains out doors. The coating of sulphate of lime 

 will, I believe, prevent loss of gases, and in process of fermenta- 

 tion the heap will settle so close together, that water will not after 

 that enter into it, to any considerable depth, particularly if it was 

 piled high and came up to a sharp point. 



7. My means of collecting and making manure, are the straw, 

 corn stalks, and hay raised on the farm, fed to farm stock, and 

 what is not eaten, trampled under foot, and converted as before 

 described, so much of it as goes through the stables. But large 

 quantities of straw never pass through the stables at all ; stacks 

 are built in the yards, and the straw is from time to time strewed 

 over the ground, where it receives the snows and rains, and is 



