1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



35 



■whereas a potato diet required meat or some other 'as good a farmer as we have supposed, he will dress 

 substantial nutriment. The French and Germans ^^'~ '-" -^^ --'• '— *''"" "'"^' "- ^"" "--'^'' ^^^ 

 use apples extensively, as do the inhabitants of all 

 European nations. The laborers depend upon them 

 as an article of food, and frequently make a dinner 

 of sliced apples and bread. There is no fruit cook- 

 ed in as many different ways in our country as the 



apple, nor is there any fruit whose value as an arti- 

 cle of nutriment, is as great, and so little appreciat- 

 ed. 



For the New England Fanner. 



SPECIAL MANURES. 



A^Tiat scientific agriculture will ultimately do for 

 farmers, time will show ; what it has done, may be 

 seen on the farms of many of the most inveterate 

 opponents of the improved agricultural movement. 



Let any one consider the amount of meadow 

 mud, muck and similar material daily used on New 

 England farms, and he will find that the manurial 



this land with not less than eight or ten cords per 

 acre, to be renewed yearly, or less often, as his ex- 

 perience may deem best. 



Let us now ascertain the benefit this compost 

 thus made will do his meadow land. We know, 

 to a moral certainty, it will give him the next sum- 

 mer from two to three tons of hay to the acre, 

 while the same land not manured will only give a 

 ton ; no one doubls the wisdom of his getting the 

 largest possible return from his acre, consistent with 

 an economical outlay, and he tells us that the haul- 

 ing and mixing of this compost has been done at 

 odd jobs, and really cost but little ; the question of 

 cost we will reserve for the present, and inquire 

 what has been the scientific result of his labor. 



Peat meadow (i. e. reclaimed meadow,) is com- 

 posed of peat which has been drained of its super- 

 fluous water and top dressed with more or less grav- 

 el. The water, scientifically, flooded the peat, kept 

 out the air, which by means of its oxygen would 



resources of farmers have been more than doubled ; j have aff"ected the mineral matters in the mud, and 



even those persons who leave their manure to be 

 dried by the sun and washed by the rain, now be- 

 lieve they decidedly gain by such admixtures. — 

 Thousands, whilst they studiously condemn all ag 

 ricultural newspapers, lectures and books, mix the 



would have so acted upon them chemically as to 

 make them (technically) sweet, and capable of con- 

 tributing towards a healthy vegetation ; the gravel 

 served to give greater strength and consistency to 

 the mud, and increased the drainage, by the admix- 



deposites from'pSnd and road-side, with the cattle ture of its stones and larger particles, and also fur- 

 droppings, because neighbor A or B, who do derive ! nished some lime, potash and silica and other m- 



information from such sources, does so and is ben 

 efited. 



But even this simple operation is not fully under- 

 stood in its scientific bearings. I will not enter in- 

 to the detailed analyses of peat and pond mud ; it 

 is enough to know that it is largely composed of 

 water and carbonaceous matter, and some valuable 

 salts (mineral mattei-) in a crude state. That so 

 long as it is submerged in water, no change can 

 take place in its constituent parts which will set free 

 the harmless and valuable portions, and render in- 

 noxious the hurtful. 



We will suppose we have the mud dug, and treat 

 of the best method of using it, and some of the re- 

 sults. When first dug it is as soft as cheese, and 

 full of water ; to remove it then to the barn-yard 



gredients to the active carbonic acid of the peat it- 

 self. Now what is the peat ? 



It is a body composed of about 85 per cent, of 

 water, 14 per cent, of carbonic acid and ammonia, 

 and 1 per cent, of lime, potash, &c., the water and 

 carbonic acid being, as we see, in excess, the lime, 

 &c., small, the ammonia and phosphate of lime very 

 small in amount. The gravel will afford a large 

 amount of silica, a small portion of lime, differing 

 in that respect according to the locality of the grav- 

 el, and little or no ammonia or phosphate of lime. 

 Now without entering into the discussion whether 

 ammonia or phosphate of Hme is the more impor- 

 tant agent in vegetable growth, let us assume they 

 are both necessary, because both have been found, 

 in all carefully tried experiments, to conduce to the 



necessitates the removal of a large quantity of wa-[ development of vegetation; if we examine anum- 

 ter ; do we need this water ? No — because we ber of analyses of plants, we shall find that in all 

 wanted the peat to be sponge-like to absorb the ' cases water and carbonic acid are the largest con- 

 surplus water of the manure, which it cannot do if tributors to their structure, and these we have to 



already saturated. 



A winter's frost or summer's sun settles that, 

 breaks it, expands it, and leaves it light and dry ; 

 now put it at the bottom of the manure heap, and 

 wc have an absorbent that will not only take up the 

 refuse water, but will hold it till wanted. Postpon- 

 ing the consideration of the chemical components 

 of the peat, now saturated, let us consider how 

 most farmers \till use the pile of compost accumu- 



an inexhaustible amount in the peat ; but we no 

 less surely find that these two agents, alone.can 

 never produce a vegetation able to sustain animal 

 Ufe. 



Ha\ing this starting point, we see that by the 

 same analyses, plants in the aggregate take a very 

 large amount of various mineral matters from the 

 earth ; a ton of hay, for instance — 280 lbs. of water, 

 1600 carbonaceous matter, 21 1-10 lbs. Ume, 26 



lated during the year ; the' compost made of horse, jibs, potash, 32 7-10 lbs. ammonia and phosphate 

 cow and pig foeces, perhaps some night soil, and the j of lime ; and by comparing these amounts \vitn the 

 before mentioned peat. In a section of country contents of an acre of peat, we see that a few years 

 like this, each farm will have some upland, and; would exhaust the peat, even if we could squeeze 

 some reclaimed meadow, all or a part of which will | all out of it which it contains, an impossible pro- 

 be in grass ; the so-called good farmer, during the ! cess, therefore we feel the necessity of suppljing 

 frozen weather, Avill haul out his manure and leave these ingredients to the meadow land to ensure a 

 it in piles on his grass land, ready to be spread in large crop of hay; and inasmuch as the farmer gets 

 the spring as a top-dressing. He knows that so the large amount of hay year after year, it is evi- 



piled and spread, it will lose some of its value by 

 evaporation, but he knows such work can be prop- 

 erly done at no other time, from the tender state of 

 the ground, and too great hurry of work. If he is 



dent to superficial reasoning that he must have sup- 

 plied these mineral matters ; he would seem then 

 to have acted scientifically — has he ? No, because 

 though he may have supplied the ingredients in 



