No. So. J 439 



as 300 bushels to the acre, would have injured the land — it being a 

 sandy loam ; the grass seed grew finely, and has yielded since, three 

 tons of hay per acre. 



In 1843,1 sowed thirty acres with prepared wheat, and top dressed 

 it with charcoal dust. It grew rapidly, and was not attacked by 

 rust, mildew, or blight, when fields near it were almost destroyed — a 

 small portion of the lot which had received by accident a large sup- 

 ply of charcoal dust, produced at the rate of seventy eight and three- 

 quarter bushels to the acre. I cut it when the straw presented a yel- 

 lowish appearance, four inches above the ground. At that stage of 

 its growth, a milky substance could be expressed readily from the 

 kernels, by gentle pressure of the forefinger and thumb. It was al- 

 lowed to remain three days on the field, when it was carried to the 

 barn, and threshed out immediately. It weighed sixty-four pounds 

 to the bushel, and sold for twelve and a half cents above the maiket 

 price by weight. A few acres were left standing, and cut three weeks 

 after, when the farmers in the neighborhood harvested their wheat. 

 The grain was small, shrivelled, and weighed fifty-six pounds per 

 bushel. The straw had lost its nutritious substances, was much light- 

 er than that cut earlier, and consequently less valuable. 1 believe 

 after the stem turns yellow near the ground, there being no connec- 

 tion between the root and tassel, the kernel wastes daily. By early cut- 

 ting you preserve to the straw nearly ail its saccharine matter, and thus 

 render it almost as valuable for fodder as hay. If the straw could be re- 

 turned immediately to the field, and plowed under, it would, in my 

 opinion, be a more valuable manure, than if converted into excrement, 

 by passing through the animals, for this reason : By the analysis of 

 Sprengel, it contains potash, soda, lime, magnesia, alumina with a 

 trace of iron, silica, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and chlorine : 

 in passing through the animal, it assists to form the whole animal 

 economy — and, as manure, is devoid of a large portion of all the sub- 

 stances named. The grain contains precisely the same substances, 

 in different quantities. To prove this, I sowed some wheat on a pane 

 of glass, and covered it with straw, not allowing any earth to come 

 in contact with it. It grew as well as if it had been sown in earth, 

 but was unfortunately destroyed by accident before it came to matu- 

 rity. In France the experiment succeeded fully. 



In 1844, on the 9th of October, I cleared the tops from a potatoe 

 field, burnt them, and returned the ashes with a view of sowing wheat. 

 The seed was then prepared thus : soaked four hours in brine that 

 would buoy up an egg — scalded with boiling hot salt water — mixed 

 with pearlash — passed through a seive — distributed thinly over the 

 barn floor, and a dry composition sifted on it composed of the follow- 

 ing substances : Oyster-shell lime, charcoal dust, oleaginous char- 

 coal dust, ashes, Jersey blue sand, brown sugar, salt, Peruvian guano, 

 silicate of potash, nitrate of soda, and sulphate of ammonia. The sun 

 was permitted to shine for half an hour upon it, when the particles 

 became as it were chrystalized upon the grain ; in this state it was 

 sown at the rate of two and a half bushels to the acre, directly on the 



