THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



645 



kinds have been tried as part ol" the crop, because 

 supposed at the time to be preferable ; but each 

 has been afterwards abandoned, and the mountain 

 purple straw again sown exclusively. Our pre- 

 ference was ibunded on the belief liiattliis kind, 

 on a general average of years, was at least as 

 productive as any, and that the grain was better 

 able to withstand wet weather during harvest, 

 than any white wheat, and perhaps most of the 

 red wheats. Any later wheat would be more 

 liable to be injured by rust ; and any bearded 

 wheat is less manageable or sale in reaping, ehock- 

 ing, and thrashing by machines. The grain is 

 supposed by experienced millers to make the 

 richest and best flour— though of course not so 

 white, and therefore not so high-priced as the 

 flour of the thin-skinned and more tender white 

 wheats. These, our grounds of preference, are 

 stated to invite correction of our judgment, and 

 opposing views from better sources of information. 

 If the writer of a recent communication (signed 

 S. at p. 628,) had been a reader of the earlier vo- 

 lumes of the Farmers' Register, he would have 

 seen many confirmations of his opinion, (though 

 still deemed in his region both novel in practice 

 and heterodox in theory,) of the propriety of 

 applying putrescent manures to the surface. We 

 have for seven or eight years considered the ad- 

 vantage as settled by sufficient experience ; and 

 the rationale or theory as being perfectly satis- 

 factory. And if it be as improving to soil or crop, 

 or even nearly so, to apply manure to the surface 

 as to plough it under, it offers a gain of 50 to 100 

 per cent, in the value of the general manuring 

 operations of a farm, in the greatly increased con- 

 venience. Under the formerly supposed neces- 

 sity for ploughing under manures to prevent their 

 waste, they could be applied but at certain 

 times, and under certain conditions of manure, 

 and of crop. But, if it be permitted to apply to 

 the surface, the application is not only almost 

 always more easy and convenient, but the ma- 

 nure may be laid on v/hen too coarse to be easily 

 ploughed under, or when the state of the land 

 or the crop would not permit ploughing. For 

 cultivated crops, and short or partially rotted ma- 

 nure, we should care very little whether it were 

 ploughed under just before planting, or given as 

 top-dressing very soon after ; and considerations 

 of mere convenience would induce the choice 

 of either mode. But, perhaps the very best ap- 

 plication of coarse manure is on clover, (or other 

 grass) not designed to be grazed, or mown. The 

 manure gives as much and aa early benefit to the 

 clover as it could to any tillage crop ; and the 



increased growth of the clover serves to speedily 

 cover and shade and keep moist the manure, so 

 aa to induce its speedy rotting ; and as fast as 

 it rots, its enriching parts are taken up by the 

 growing crop, and through its increase, the quanti- 

 ty of manure is multiplied for the use of the next 

 grain crop. If pine leaves are laid over wheat 

 after the sowing and harrowing, and before the 

 plants come up, there is not only a slight early be- 

 nefit from this coarse and poor manure, but a valua- 

 ble protection from the winter cold, both to the 

 wheat and the clover seed sown thereon. So far aa 

 this can be done, at so busy a season, it is the best 

 mode of using the rakings of pine land. The- 

 trash might be raked up and left in heaps during 

 the previous autumn and winter, as it rots very 

 slowly in heaps. 



The greater economy of applying the manures 

 to the surface flirniehes the explanation of all 

 that is (rue and beneficial reported in the article 

 at page 643, as a new and wonderful discovery 

 made in France. We have no question that the 

 facts therein stated are much exaggerated, and 

 some of them altogether mistaken, or falsely 

 stated. Of these, are the statement of the growth 

 of wheat on a pane of glass, and without the 

 aid of soil, and that of two inches thickness of wheat 

 straw serving to prevent the growth of all weeds. 

 But, rejecting such exaggerations and false state- 

 ment, there is no doubt of the established truth 

 of the general principle which is there presented 

 as a new discovery ; that is, that a covering of 

 vegetable matter will serve well as manure, and. 

 also (if thick enough) preserve the moisture and. 

 mellowness or tilth of the soil, and smother 

 weeds. Two inches thickness of straw could 

 not however effect any of the latter objects. — Ed. 

 F. R. 



GREEN-SAND OF JAMES RIVEK. 



For llie Farmers' Register. 



I yesterday saw, at Evergreen, a striking proof 

 of the beneficial efi'ect of the application of this 

 manure. About 10 years ago, a strip of land, 

 about 15 or 20 steps wide, running through a por- 

 tion of a field quite unilbrm, there being no per- 

 ceptible difference of soil on either side, was 

 dressed with green-sand at the rate of about 30 

 bushels to the acre. The field had been previ- 

 ously marled, and since the marling never a 

 bushel of putrescent manure has been applied in 

 any shape. The green-sand was applied for ex- 

 periment's sake, and, as well as the proprietor re- 

 members, in the fall succeeding a wheat crop, on 

 the first year's growth of clover. The land has 

 been for several years back cultivated principally 

 in wheat and clover. The clover seed has not 

 been sown for several rotations, this strip is now 



