THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



455 



pope at the expense of plou^liinff and sowing, and 

 which would enable iheni to mow these tor tlieir 

 cattle, and thus obtain iVorn tliein an addition to 

 their cattle keep, instead of rohbinir them ol so 

 many acres of fodder ? 'I'liere is npoti record 

 an account of an experiment on jTrowing po- 

 tatoes, when it was Ibund that a Rinyle cab- 

 bajre-leaf laid on every set of (he potatoes 

 while planting, produced as large a crop as 

 was taken from the rows dressed with stable 

 manure. Then what would he the result of 

 a thick covering of water-lilies, reeds, or the 

 rushes and weeds from our boggy bottoms 7 

 I am at present a slave in a dry-goods store 

 in Market street, but shall be free in the spring, 

 when I will ascertain if agricuHure will not pay 

 \'or capital expended, as well as trade. J. D. 

 Philadelphia, June 20, 1841. 



ON TOP-DRESSING. 



From tlie Farmors' Cabinet. 



Mr. Editor, — When I first read the arti- 

 cle at page 84 of the present volume of the 

 Cabinet, on top dressing, I thouLfhi, indeed, 

 that it was all thtori, as my friend and neigh- 

 bor Parnell calls it, and was astonished that 

 any one could advocate a iJoctrine so foreign 

 to all our past experience, and in the very teeth of 

 every work on asrricullure, all of which inculcate 

 the absolute necessity of keeping our dunghills 

 covered with earth, to prevent the escape of the 

 gases, and the loss of about one-half the value ol 

 the manure ; and upon spreading, to turn it in 

 immediately, ((3r the same best of all reasons; 

 and, as I say, I did heartily despise the notion of 

 top-dressinii, much as your correspondent A. had 

 to say ir^ its behalf. This was in the autumn 

 of last year, and up to February of the pre- 

 sent spring, I had not changed one jot of my 

 opinion or lost an atom of my prejudice ; but, 

 turning again by chance to the article, as I 

 sat by the fire-side one cold and comfortless 

 evening, when I had leisure to examine and 

 reflect upon what he had advanced five 

 months before, a thought struck me, that I 

 could try lor myself the truth or error of the 

 scheme, and that I ought to do so, for the 

 benefit of those who had it not in their power 

 to make the experiment so easily as I could ; 

 and I therefore came to the resolution to give 

 the thing a fair trial and report upon it in the 

 Cabinet, which I am now prepared to do. 



In the upper part of one of my fields I 

 have a gravelly bank with scarcely two inches 

 of mould upon it ; there the crop, of whatever 

 kind, had always been poor, even after the 

 most careful cultivation — the hungry subsoil 

 permitting whatever dressing was buried in 

 it, quickly to pass away : I therefore ploughed 

 it as deep as I was able, and immediately 

 sowed upon it a portion of oats ; 1 planted 

 Lima beans on another portion as also some 

 of the emur, mentioned in the late pages of 

 the Cabinet, and immediately covered the 

 surface with the sweepings of the streets, to 

 the thickness of an inch or an inch and a 

 half^ and "said nothing to nobody," as 1 was 

 fearful my neighbors would have enjoyed a 



lauch at my expense, had they seen me ex- 

 pose a coat ol manure " to be dissipated by 

 the winds of heaven,'" &c. This was late in 

 the nionih of April, and on this, the 20ih day 

 of June, I find upon this hitherto worthless 

 portion of my land, crops that fiir surpass any 

 that I have ever grown on land of ten times 

 its value, and which have borne the late 

 drought without flinching in the least. On 

 turning up the dung, 1 find the earth under- 

 neath always moist — it seems to operate as a 

 sponge, to hold the evaporation which rises 

 from the subsoil, and to prevent its escape ; 

 and the weeds which were indigenous to the 

 soil, appear not to have vegetated, but are 

 kept in abeyance by the heavy crops with 

 which the ground is covered. 1 need not say 

 that I visit very often my experimental plot, 

 and am more and more convinced of the su- 

 perior value of top-dressing, on such soils at 

 least, and am free to confess that my mind is 

 now open to conviction. On the most care- 

 ful examination, I cannot perceive that the 

 coat of manure is at all lessened in bulk by 

 either the rains or exposure ; but 1 can per- 

 ceive that a shower, which carries the water 

 impregnated with the dung to the roots of 

 the plants, causes them to start away in a 

 most remarkable manner — indeed the imme- 

 diate eflect is surprising. I am, therefore, so 

 far as the present experiment has taught me, 

 convinced of the great advantage of top-dress- 

 ing: will others try it ? I am preparing to sow 

 tieet after rye, and shall cover the rows where 

 the seeds are sown, with well-rotted street manure 

 as a top-dressing, instead of burying, it in the 

 rows, as heretofore directed, and have no fear of 

 obtaining a good crop. John Kinson. 



cows, UEFORE AND AFTER CALVING. 



From the New England Farmer. 

 My father's practice until last autumn 

 was to feed his cows for a short lime before 

 calving higher than they had previously been 

 fed in order to have their bags well filled at 

 the time of calving, when it was his practice 

 also to give them warm water thickened with 

 meal. The consequence was, this extra feed- 

 ing caused the udder to fill too soon, and the 

 milk continuing to press in, produced inflam- 

 mation, and the cows were much troubled 

 with hard and swollen bags. Observing this 

 I last spring requested my father to try an 

 experiment on a cow that the year before 

 had given us much trouble, by reducing the 

 quality of her food, instead of increasing it, 

 and the result was, she calved before her bag 

 was full. At first she gave but little milk, 

 but in a short time her milk increased, and 

 the udder remained soft and pliant. We have 

 had no trouble on this score since, except 

 with a heifer which calved about the first of 

 July, when the grass was abundant ; and this 

 would probably have been prevented, had she 

 been ted at the barn for eight or ten days with 

 hay before calving, and she would then have 

 been saved much pain, and we much trouble. 



