THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



43 



cool weather, the almost phere is often loaded 

 with clouds for many days in succession, evidently 

 the condensed vapor froni tiiose wide spreading 

 waters; and so much of such weather have we 

 in winter, that icicles from our roofs are very rare 

 objects. I doubt, however, if those canopies ex- 

 tend much more than a hundred miles into the 

 country. They are olien dense enough to "spit 

 snow ;" but rarely, though sometimeB, sprinkle in 

 summer. 



Clouds prevent the radiation of heat into the 

 open sky, and tend to equalize the temperature 

 between night and day. Indeed, under such a 

 covering, the night in winter is often as pleasant 

 as the day. By excluding sunshine, clouds also 

 preserve the snow for sleighing, and (or the pro- 

 tection of grass and winter grain, as no heat ra- 

 diates through water in any of its forms. For- 

 merly there were instances of young horses sub- 

 sisting well through the winter on the grass they 

 found under the snow. 



In sleighing lime and cloudy weather, the Ca- 

 yuga lake where unfrozen is pictured on the clouds, 

 dark, and resembling an approaching shower ; 

 yet there it remains through the day. A lurid 

 streak at a lower angle represents the Seneca 

 lake. These appearances are occasioned by the 

 dark waters ruffled by the wind, reflecting less 

 light than the snow. 



Fogs arc extremely rare in this neighborhood. 

 During a residence of more than thirty years, I 

 have never seen that vapor rise I'rom the ground 

 but once. .Sometimes, however, it is driven by 

 the wind from the lake; and sometimes, after a 

 long rain or a thaw, when the air is surcharged 

 with moisture, it is condensed by (he wind fresh- 

 ening up from the westward. But I have alrea- 

 dy extended these sketches beyond my original 

 design. D. T. 



REPORTING EXPERIMENTS WITH ARTIFICIAL 

 MANURES. 



From the British Farmers' Magazine. 



In all our agricultural publications now issuing 

 from the press wesee many accounts ofexperimenis 

 made for ascertaining the value of certain sub- 

 stances recomn>ended as manures either for top- 

 dressing or ploughing in. Some of these accounts 

 are elaborately and no doubt faithfully written ; 

 and sometimes favorable, or, as it may happen, 

 unfavorable. Sometimes, too, we are told of the 

 same material having a contrary effect on land 

 of precisely the same character, especially if situ- 

 ated in distant parts of the kingdom. Now the 

 discrepancies may often arise from ignorance, 

 want of consideration of the peculiar effect or 

 action of the material employed. 



Besides the various substances which have 

 been used for manures from time immemorial, 

 there are others chiefly minerals which are brought 

 into use with various success. The reports of 

 such trials are not always uniform, and defective 

 in so far as the character of the weather or season 

 following the application is omitted to be elated. 

 In my own practices 1 have used soot extensively 

 for top-dressing wheat, and have harrowed and 

 rolled it in ; but if a dry spring and summer fol- 

 lowed the soot was of no service. I have used 



chalk and lime as dressing for light gravelly land ; 

 but ifa wet season succeeded little or no immediate 

 eH'ect was observable. The same result followed 

 the application of salt, on the same description of 

 land under the like circumstances of season. The 

 reason for the non-efficiency of these three last 

 named substances was perfi-cily obvious: all three 

 are ready absorbents of water from the air, and in 

 a dry season are eminently useful to growing 

 crops ; whereas, in a showery time, the crops 

 need no such assistance. 



Saltpetre and nitrate of soda are at present 

 fashionable top-dressing ; and those best acquaint- 

 ed with those substances affirm that they are 

 often injudiciotisly used. On wet tenacious land 

 they never can be so efficacious as on dry sandy 

 or gravelly soils ; nor in wet seasons so much as 

 they certainly must be in dry. If I be not mista- 

 ken in attributing to them such eflects they will 

 always be considered as doubtful fertilizers; be- 

 cause they must be used before it can be ascer- 

 tained, except by conjecture, what sort of season ia 

 to follow. 



Mr. Cuthbert Johnson observes that " the agri- 

 cultural uses of saltpetre have not been examined 

 so carefully or generally as they ought to have 

 been ;" and G. Kimberly, Esq. o( Trotsworth, 

 "regrets that it has been hastily adopted without 

 references in many cases to season, soil, or quan- 

 tity, and as a few fortunate experiments have 

 started into a fashion the use of tl\ose articles, so 

 one or two unseasonable or improper applications 

 have at once condemned them to neglect and 

 oblivion." 



Such reports show decidedly how necessary 

 it ie to know correctly the eflects of those artificial 

 manures ; whether as the food of plants or improv- 

 ers of the staple ; whether as exciters of vegetation 

 or solvents of nutritive matters already in the soil ; 

 and also under what circumstances of weather 

 or season they are most active or altogether 

 neutral. These are questions for the agricultural 

 chemist to prosecute; so that no fijrmer need 

 work on this twilight or be in doubt concerning the 

 direct eflTecls of any manure which comes recom- 

 mended from competent authorities. 



And in all future reports of experiments made 

 with any of those uncommon articles of manure, 

 the reporter should not omit to stale what kind of 

 vyeather has prevailed during the experiments ; 

 for the effects, especially of saline substances, are 

 very much determined by the state of the weather. 



J. Main. 



[Our respected correspondent is right. Much 

 of the success or otherwise of these and many 

 other manures we could name must depend on 

 peculiar circumstances of soil and season. We 

 have heard saltpetre abused one year and highly 

 extolled in the other ; although tried on the same 

 soil, the same description of crop, and by the sarao 

 person.— Ed.] 



HAY SEED AMONG CORN. 



From the New England Farmer. 



We saw an article in one of the southern paper* 



a few weeks since, mentionins that some one, we 



think in the middle states, had sown clover seed 



among his corn ; and the inquiry waf added, 



