26 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



its solidity and strength, the constructor is 

 building into the centre of the brick work at 

 every stage of twenty-five feet a malleable iron 

 ring 3.^ inches broad, and 7-8 of an inch in 

 thickness. The mortar used is of a peculiar 

 character. The foundation was built with a mix- 

 ture of Irish lime, ironstone, Ardcn lime, and 

 sand, forming a cement impervious to damp. 

 The rest of the shaft is to be built with mortar 

 of a similar description, with the exception of 

 the Arden lime. 



For the New England Farmer. 



CORN" A.GAT]>r— ITS SUPBRIOBITY TO 

 ANIMAL FOOD. 



Mr. Editor: — Your Kennebunk correspond- 

 ent, K., in your number for October 23, takes oc- 

 casion to differ, "respectfully," from some of the 

 views I have, from time to time, presented in 

 your valuable columns ; especially those which 

 are found in an article entitled "Corn versus 

 Beef." With your jiermission I wish to review, 

 as "respectfully" as I can, his apparently honest 

 objections ; and remove, if possible, his difficul- 

 ties. This I do the more freely, as, in his ob- 

 jection and animadversions, he represents a con- 

 siderable proportion of your less scientific but 

 inquiring readers. 



He saj s, "Domestic animals form the basis of 

 all farm improvement." Do they so ? and do 

 they form the basis of all garden improvement 

 too? How was it with the fi'-st two gardeners? 

 How has it been with the Chinese and with the 

 Japanese of several centuries past — concerning 

 the latter of whom the best authorities tell us 

 that while they are, compared with the other 

 Asiatics, a highly cultivated and progressive 

 people, they subsist almost wholly by means of 

 spade husbandry ; not having in the whole em- 

 pire, with its twenty to thirty millions of people, 

 as many domestic animals as .there are in a sin- 

 gle township of modern Sweden ? 



Perhaps he will say, "1 do not see the neces- 

 sity of going back to the days of Adam, nor to 

 the opposite side of the globe ; let us have facts 

 r-earur our own times, and at our own firesides." 

 Very waW ; they are ut nand. 



Rev. Samuel Nott, of Wareham, who owns 

 about an acre of land, and who has had it under 

 high cultivation for (1 think) about a quarter of 

 a century, assures me that spading it up well, 

 every year, instead of plowing it at all, with but 

 a very little manure, is found to be the most eco- 

 nomical course ; and Mrs. N., who is no careless 

 observer, concurs in his opinion. Are domestic 

 animals so very indispensable hcrt; ':■ 



Mr. Abijah Johnson, of Auburndale, finds sub- 

 soiling his old, worn-out lands, the basis of farm 

 improvement. He does not v/holly exclude ma- 

 nuring, but he relies chiefly, so far as he relies 

 on them at all, on such manures as are made 

 without domestic animals ; as soapsuds, the con- 

 tents of the chamber, &c. &c. 



I have myself cultivated one acre or so of land 

 these twenty years, and with as much success, to 

 say the least, as the average of my neighbors. 

 My grounds have been constantly improving. 

 Yet I never kept a domestic animal in my life, 

 save, occasionally, a cat and a very few kens ; 

 nor have I Ijought much manure. Indeed, what I 



have bought has been pond-mud, night-soil, lime 

 and leached ashes. I have never bought a pound 

 of any other, except once, a little guano. 



Sometimes, indeed, I have found that certain 

 ingredients of the soil which seemed needful to 

 certain crops, were wanting ; but by little atten- 

 tion to the discoveries of chemistry, I have sup- 

 plied them without the aid of domestic animals. 

 And so far am I from believing domestic animal 

 manures form the basis of all farm improvement, 

 that I do not believe they ever form its basis. 

 At most, they are to the soil, what condiments 

 are to our food ; or rather to the stoxnach and to 

 digestion. Though I might not wholly exclude 

 them, I never would place much permanent re- 

 liance upon them. How very evanescent, for 

 example, guano ! 



And if further proof were needful to show your 

 correspondent his mistake, I have but to refer 

 him to frequent articles in your columns — and 

 that, not from yisionary, but highly practical 

 men ; such, for example, as that from Mr. French, 

 on the first page of your number, October 30. 



Your correspondent next tells us "cattle that 

 are stall-fed are only finished off on corn after 

 they have attained their full size on grass and 

 hay." Grant it; but whence comes the grass and 

 hay ; except from land that might, at least, to a 

 very large extent, produce corn, or rye, or pota- 

 toes, or fruit, just as well as "grass and hay ?" 



"The s_tme is true," he adds, "with regard to 

 pork, it being raised, chiefly, on the products of 

 the dairy, and refuse articles of the orchard and 

 farm, until fattening time." Now, I have seen a 

 hog, within a few days, that, on being killed, 

 weighed 400 pounds, whose owner never had any 

 dairy to furnish his food. It is, however, true, 

 that he was the scavenger of the family ; and 

 that they have a diseased dainty as their reward 

 — unless, indeed, they should conclude to sell 

 him to the city people, or exchange him for other 

 and better articles of human sustenance. 



If the various considerations which your cor- 

 respondent has presented loere sufficient to in- 

 duce me to change my "figures," the change 

 would by no means be favorable to the views of 

 my opponents in opinion. The owner of the hog 

 weighing 400 pounds, says he cost him over S30. 

 Now, .$30 laid out in farinaceous substances,which 

 are miich richer in that which nourishes the 

 ])ody, and quite rich enough in carbon for cora- 

 bus-tion in the lungs, would give us some 1800 

 pounds of the one, to 400 of the other. This is 

 not, indeed, quite ten to one in figures ; but at 

 least ten to one in reality ; since pork, in res- 

 pect of bodily nutrition, is apt to remind one of 

 the Irishman who said his fiddle had music 

 enough in it, but he could not get it out. My 

 brother, who raises some five or six hundred 

 pounds of pork, yearly, for family use, told me, 

 the other day. that his hogs cost him enough to 

 support (so far as mere food was concerned,) his 

 whole family of six or seven persons. 



No living man, in the temperate regions, can 

 get much nutriment out of fat pork ; and they 

 who, by aid of powdered fern roots or bark inter- 

 mingled therewith, joined to the force of long 

 habit, get a little nutriment out of fat, in high 

 latitudes, gain but a meagre apd nnserable sup- 

 port. It is the testimony of Sir John Richard- 

 son and other British polar navigators, that Indi- 



