1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



163 



The application of liquid manure he thought might 

 be of great advantage in a very diluted state. He 

 withed farmers could agree as to the manner of ap- 

 plying manure in the best way, when that way is 

 discovered ; and it was important to experiment, 

 and record and compare experiments in order to 

 arrive at the desired result, which was of more im- 

 portance to them than the commerce of the State. 



The Chairman repeated that his own experience 

 satisfied him that unfermented manure upon a 

 dry sandy soil was not of much value, even if it 

 was not entirely lost. He would certainly never 

 apply raw manure to such a soil in the spring, 

 though it might do better in the autumn. 



Mr. French stated that in the application of 

 guano he had found it necessary to have it pulver- 

 ized and spread when there is no mnd blowing, 

 and better still if rain is falling. He thought it 

 better to put the manure into the soil at a proper 

 depth, than to compost it, as the labor and expense 

 of composting is thus saved. 



Mr. Fay was disposed to be modest in disputing 

 the experience of the Chairman as to the effect 

 of long manures on a sandy soil, but he still 

 considered it well to cart out such manure in 

 the fall and to plow it in, and he was confirmed 

 in his opinion by the view of Mr. French. What- 

 ever manure might be put upon a sandy soil, and 

 plowed in, would be retained until it was taken up 

 by plants. There might be a good reason for the 

 failure of Mr. French to obtain any benefit from 

 the manure which he applied to his piece of six 

 rods in width, in the fact, that the land was suffi- 

 ciently rich without any manure, or, that by the ap- 

 pUcation of the general coating which was spread 

 equally over the whole, it had become so. 



Mr. CooLEY, of Conway, gave the result of his 

 experience in the appHcation of long manure to a 

 sandy soil. His farm was upon a river bottom, hav- 

 ing a sandy loam of two feet in depth upon a sub- 

 stratum of gravel. When he went upon the farm, 

 much of it was so poor that it would produce scarce- 

 ly anything, not half a ton of hay to the aci-e. For 

 the purpose of fair experiment he plowed up a hun- 

 dred rods, and got from it without manure three 

 bushels of buckwheat. The next spring he put on 

 eight loads of long manure and planted to potatoes 

 and hoed twice, getting for a crop forty bushels. The 

 next year nine loads of long manure were applied, 

 and potatoes again planted, and the crop was eighty 

 bushels. The third year ten loads of manure were 

 used, and one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes 

 were hars'ested. 



His practice with regard to his com land was to 

 put twenty-five loads of long manure to the acre, 

 and plow it in, about eight inches deep, and then 

 from ten to twelve loads more to the acre are put 

 in the hill, and from seventy to eighty bushels of 

 corn are obtained uniformly. He would not plow I 

 deeper than eight inches. 



Mr. M. M. FiSKE added his testimony to the 

 value of liquid manures. He did not believe in 

 composting. The expense might be saved by put- 

 ting the manure upon the land and plowing it in, 

 and equally good results might be obtained. He 

 had never seen any good results from the use of 

 lime, but he knew that long manures, plowed into 

 a gravelly soil, were beneficial. The great want of 

 New England soil was the application of vegetable 

 matter as a fertihzer. 



Mr. Frederic Emerson, of Boston, thought 

 that lime was valuable upon soils that were moist, 

 and where there was iron in some form, in connec- 

 tion with an acid condition of the water. He thought 

 farmers needed to know the results of the applica- 

 tion of particular crops, and he gave his own ex- 

 perience in a single instance. He cultivated a small 

 piece of land which had once been a garden, and 

 was consequently rather fertile, with beets and car- 

 rots. Both the beets and carrots were sown in 

 drills about two feet apart, and nearly at the same 

 time, the beets occupying half of the land and the 

 carrots the other. No manure was put upon the 

 piece with the exception of the adjacent rows of 

 beets and carrots — one of each, — which were two 

 feet from each other. " To these an equal quantity 

 [the exact quantity not specified] of superphosphate 

 of lime was applied, being put into the drills when 

 the seed was sown. The yield upon the whol e piece 

 was fair, of each crop ; but the adjacent rows told 

 something m the experiment. The rows of carrots 

 which had the superphosphates of lime applied, pro- 

 duced one-third less than any other ; and the row 

 of beets, treated the same way produced one-third 

 more than any other row, thus showing that super- 

 phosphate of lime is good for beets, but bad for car- 

 rots. 



The subject for discussion at the next meeting is 

 "Agricultural Education," and a lecture on this topic 

 will be given by G. E. Waring, Jr., of New York 

 State. 



[We believe that seven farmers out of ten in the 

 States, may save more than the cost of this paper 

 for one year, by the careful perusal of the above 

 remarks on the application of manures. We be- 

 lieve the doctrine sound, and now certainly sus- 

 tained by high authority, that the sooner manures 

 are appHed to the soil and plowed under, the more 

 valuable they are. In winter we compost because 

 we cannot plow under.] 



Coining by Air Power. — All the gold and sil- 

 ver coins of England are struck by atmospheric 

 pressure, or in other words, the au- we breathe coins 

 money. By a complicated arrangement of pneu- 

 matic valves, levers, springs, and other mechanical 

 apphances, the air is made to exert its vast weight 

 in rapid alternations upon a series of pistons, which, 

 again connected with the coining presses, carry 

 down the dies upon the pieces of metal to be coined 

 with unerring precision and force. 



