ON TURNING IN CROPS AS A MANURE. 73 



?>r twenty years, nearly every season turned in crops upon fields of 

 different sizes and different soils, mostly however of a loose and sandj^ 

 character, and with a result which encourages him still to continue 

 the practice. For about ten years he kept his garden, containing a 

 quarter of an acre, by this method in a rich and productive state, 

 with the addition of about a cord and a half of manure yearly. lie 

 had the weeds covered over at hoeing when this could be done, but 

 when this was inconvenient, they were carried with the small trim- 

 mings of the trees, grape and other vines, the foliage of vegetables 

 and other things of like character, to a place devoted to that use, 

 put into a pile and earth thrown over them, where they were suffered 

 to remain till they were suitable for use, Avhich was after the harvest in 

 autumn, or the ensuing spring. During this period, two crops were 

 taken from most of the garden ; and what most gardeners will know 

 how to appreciate, the soil, while it grew more productive, still re- 

 tained in degree the freshness of virgin earth, and gave to the vege- 

 tables that peculiar freshness and lively taste admired by all, but not 

 always attainable from lands long cultivated. 



He has also brought a field of one acre or more into a productive 



ing lands to rest after a aeries of cropping, as was once deemed necessary in England 

 and in this country, has been done away by every enlightened agriculturist in both.— 

 Gen. Farmer. 



I think these green crops improved the land as much as a good dressing of manure, 

 and the comparative expense I estimate at less than one fourth as much to enrich my 

 land with green crops, as it would with manure. — William Buckminster. 



We should suppose this season to be a very favorable one for ploughing in green 

 crops. Old and worn-out lands, that usually produce but little grass, are more richly 

 covered. Let this be ploughed in, and it will abundantly reward the fanner another 

 season, when it will be more wanted. — N. Y. Farmer, 1828. 



I had a trench opened of sufficient length to receive six sets of potatoes; under three 

 of these sets I placed green cabbage leaves, but the other three had nothing but the 

 soil. When the crop was dug, the plants over the cabbage leaves yielded about double 

 the produce of the others. — J. D. Parks, Dartwood Nursery, 1834. 



When the corn was about breast high he ploughed it under, affixing a chain to the 

 whiffletreea to break down the stalks. At the usual time he sowed Timothy seed, and 

 obtained a greater crop of grass than he ever got after clover, buckwheat or other green 

 crops. — Culti vator. 



At the close of June, 1838, while the sorrel was in blossom, I ploughed it in imme- 

 diately after a heavy rain, and sowed upon the furrow one bushel of buckwheat per 

 acre. On the 6th and 7th of Augxist, immediately after a rain and while the buckwheat 

 was in blossom, that was also ploughed in. On the 13th of September, it was sown 

 with winter rye. The present season, the striking difference between this rye and that 



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