196 



NEW E N G L A N D FARMER 



DEC. S3, !f!40. 



POUDRETTE. 



Nkw York, Dec. 14, 1840. 

 To the Editor of ihe New EnErlnnd Fanner : 



Sir: — Will you iillow me tite privilege of layintf 

 ■before tlie agricnlUiral cornniiiiiity thi? following- 

 letter in relation to a subject which at this time is 

 exciting considerahle interest ainons the famiers 

 of this vicinity. The writer hesitates to put his 

 name to it, because (as he says) ho is "too yonns 

 a farmer to appear in print." Allow- me to say 

 that his statements are to be reliinl on, even if he 

 is a young farmer, as he has been too lor.tr a mer- 

 chant of high standing in this city, now retired 

 from business, to iriislead others, and especially 

 those who cultivate the soil. 

 Respectfully, vours, 



D. K. MINOR. 



To D. K. Minor— Sir— The enclosed notes of 

 the effect of poudiette on various crops are at your 

 service, if you can make them useful without my 

 name, for I am too young a farmer to appear in 

 print. 



I hope you iTiay find sufficient encouragement 

 to enable you to increase your business, and that 

 it may become morn profitable to you than I fear 



it has been. 



Yours, &c., J. H. 



Pelhamdak, IVeMiesUr co., Dec. 9, 1840. 



As I promised to give you the result of my ex- 

 periments the past season with poudrette as a lua- 

 nure for various crops, I now have to say that I 

 consider it superior lo any manure that I have ever 



used. 



On potatoes — the seed and soil the same — those 

 manured with poudrette in the drill came uj) four 

 days earlier than those manured with the best sta- 

 ble manure, and kept, during their whole growth, 

 before them ; and when dug, they yielded larger 

 tubers ; but as the two parcels were not accurately 

 measured, (some having been us^d early) I cannot 

 say how much difference there was in their pro- 

 duct; but I know those manured with juiudrette 

 were the largest bulk. 



For corn, I think no other manure can come in 

 competition with it. I planted, Ian season, on 

 sward turned over, (being first manured with com- 

 mon yard dung,) the ground rolled very flat and 



harrowed no plough used afterwards — the rows 



beino- marked by an ox chain drawn on the ground ; 

 the c'orn dropt, and half a gill of poudrette inmie- 

 diately put on the corn, and lightly covered with 

 the hoe. This was done from 2,5th to 28th of 

 May, as the weather permitted — more than a fort- 

 night after my neighbors had planted. 



^I was told by many who saw the manner and 

 time of planting, that I should have no crop, but 

 in three weeks my corn was farther advanced than 

 any near nie, and it continued of the finest color, 

 and was the best filled of any 1 saw through the 

 season. It was cut up and removed from the field 

 on the first of September ; and when husked, turn- 

 ed out less soft corn than I ever had, in proportion 

 to the quantity of good corn. I can attribute this 

 quick and good growth to nothing but the p.uidrctte 



as the land was not well tilled ; the corn having 



had only one good hoeing after it came up, and 

 the cultivator was run through it but twice. 



As a top dressing for grass, I can speak in the 

 hio^hest terms of poudrette. Being anxious to have 

 some parts of a new garden soon in sward, I put 

 some loam, gravel and pent earth on a piece of 



swamp ground filled in with stones and rubbish 

 from the walk.-f, and sowed grass seed in October. 

 1 could see the grass fairly up before the snow cov- 

 ered it in December ; but in March, scarcely any 

 appearance of grass or roots was visible I had the 

 ground raked over and some poudrette spread 

 lightly over it, and about half the usual quantity 

 of clover seed ."iowed on it, and the fffect was truly 

 ast' nishing, for in .lune it was cut, again in Au- 

 gust, and some feed on it in October ; and until 

 the snow of the .5th instant it remained beautifully 

 green. A small space, where a shovelfuU was ac- 

 cidentally spilled and not well gathered up, grew 

 so luxuriantly that it could be at once perceived 

 on entering the garden. 



For turnips, 1 know poudrette to be almost a 

 certain guard against the fly. Mine this year are 

 as fine as were ever raised in the county, and al- 

 though sowed from 1,5th July to 1st of September, 

 (the Tatter after a crop of potatoc- ;) they have fully 

 matured, and no appearance of injury by the lly 

 from the time of sowing. I put the poudrette in 

 the drill, after the turnip seed, and it took but a 

 very small quantity, say so as to look like a train 

 of gunpowder. 



For cucumbers, melons, &c., I think poudrette 

 mixed with peat earth the best manure that I have 

 tried. I raised very fine watermelons on sand 

 with this compost the past season. 

 Dec.'J, 1840. 



Mr Editor — May I add, sir, that the writer of 

 the foregoing letter has used poudrette prepared 

 by the "New York Poudrette Company," three 

 successive seasons, at the rate of 100 bushels a 

 year, experimentally in various ways, and that the 

 bushd is estimated as equal to a citi/ cartload of 

 street manure. He receives one hundred bushels 

 annually, as the dividend on one share in the com- 

 pany which cost one hundred dollars, and he usu- 

 ally carries it home, 14 miles, at four or five loads, 

 in a light pleasure wagon. 



Yours, truly, D. K. M. 



PRESERVATION OF APFM'.S. 

 Many who attended the late exhibition of the 

 New Haven County Agricultural Society, saw and 

 admired the apples of the growth of the year 1839, 

 which were iiresented to the Society by Mr Augus- 

 tus Foote, of Branfird ; and the readers of this 

 paper will recollect that we called on Mr Foote, at 

 the instance of a correspondent, for information 

 that might enable others to preserve apples for an 

 equal length of time. Mr Foote was in town the 

 other day, and responded to our call, liy calling on 

 us. He states that his apples were kept through 

 the year, without any extraordinary laborer pains 

 on his part. He puts them in an uncovered bin in 

 his cellar, which is made secure from frost. In the 

 spring, instead of opening his cellar and admitting 

 the fresh air, as is usually the case, he keeps it 

 closed tight as in winter. 'Ihe consequence is 

 that his apples keep sound through the summer. — 

 The apples which .attracted attention at our exhibi- 

 tion, were of a variety which Mr Foote calls "Ev- 

 erlastings," but he thinks apples might generally 

 be preserved in good condition through the sum- 

 mer, if kept in a tight cellar. The admission of 

 fresh air in the spring, according to his theory, cau- 

 ses their speedy decay. — Furmcr's Guz. 



From tlie Westeru Farmer and Gardener. 



LARGE AND SMALL FARMS. 



Sir : — I wish my brother farmers would think 

 very seriously on the advantages to be derived from 

 the system of cultivating no more land than can be 

 well manured. The dessire for more land has 

 been the ruin of thousands, who would at this time 

 have been well off, if ihcir friends had deprived 

 them of one half the number of acres they at one 

 time possessed; while the extra labor and anxiety 

 consequent upon a business so spread abroad, aro 

 all that many have ever gained, and all that they 

 had a right to expect to obtain. And it would ap- 

 pear to be a fatality to which persons of this sort 

 are subject, or they would surely be able to see the 

 nose in the middle of their face — for one is not 

 more plain than the other. If ten acres of land 

 can be made to yield as much as one hundred, 

 merely by concentrating upon it the niean.^ of im- 

 provement, the labor and c.ire necessary for the- 

 cultivation of the one hundred acres, the result 

 must be profit of mind, body and substance, abso- 

 lutely astonishing. Now only for a moment calcu. 

 late the difference in labor, in hauling the manure 

 over one hundred acres instead of ten, and after 

 that the spreading it abroad! Then comes ten 

 times the ploughing, harrowing, sowing with tea 

 times the quantity of seed, hoeing, harrowing, mow. 

 ing or reaping, and binding and raking over one 

 hundred acres instead of ten, and extra carrying 

 crops ; and after all this, ten times the rent to pay : 

 I declare it appears to be a species of insanity, 

 this desire for more land. 



I have lately seen a farm n-here all these evils 

 arc embodied— of excellent natural fertility, fields 

 large, and lying on an easy declivity, with every 

 facility for permanent improvement; marl of the 

 richest quality in the middle of the estate, and 

 withinthree feet of the surface. Now, if the owner 

 of this fine farm of about two hundred acres, would 

 confine his labors to ten acres of the land r.djoining 

 his house, and give all the rest to the stock upon 

 his farm, only n.owing the weeds to prevent them 

 from seeding his and his neighbor's land, I believe 

 he would then make a profit, while at present he 

 must make a loss. 



I was told yesterday of a farmer who cultivated 

 one acre of land, adjoining a field of thirty acres; 

 both were planted with rye — and at harvest a bet 

 was made that the yield of the one acre was equal , 

 to that of the thirty acres; this was, however lost, | 

 for the crop of the thirty acres measured exactly , 

 three quarters of a bushel more than the one acre; | 

 these fields I have seen this day ; and I have also 

 seen another field, where the owner off-jred to dis. 

 pose of the crop of rye for a dollar an acre, but 

 could get no purchaser at that price ! 



Now, is it not much better to double ihe crop 

 than to double the number of acres ? But I have 

 land lying before me, which would yield five bun-! 

 dred per cent, more than it now does, bv extra 

 manaocment. AN OLD FARMER. 



The importation of silk into this country in 1839 

 amounted to nearly 23,000,000 dollars. 



Hard Times. — It is our excessive imports tha 

 brings hard tunes. All the Presidents that were 

 ever born, and all the gold and silver dug from ou, 

 earth, or imported, or all the banks ever mailo 

 could not make a country prosperous, while tin 

 imports are so much greater than the exports a 

 they are in the United States. Light among.-l ul 

 parties is needed, and light alone will produce re 

 form. — JIgrtcidturist. | 



