64 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



came to Brookline I purchased a gravel hill that 

 produced neither grass nor weeds ; I put on mud 

 all over it and plowed it in about a foot deep, and 

 then cross-plowed it, and put on manure, about 

 two cords to an acre, and plowed it again, and 

 then harrovv'ed it, and then planted it with corn 

 and potatoes and obtained good crops, more than 

 enough to pay all the expense and trouble, and 

 laid it down to grass, and have had a good crop 

 of hay every year since. It does not dry up, as it 

 formerly did ; the deep plowing prevented that 

 trouble. Fifteen years since it was broken up, 

 and it produces good crops now. It does not get 

 heavy and cold as land does where muck has not 

 been plowed in ; the value of muck is much great- 

 er in gravelly or sandy land, than it is on clayey 

 land. Sand and gravel are worth more than 

 manure on clayey ground and meadows, espe- 

 cially if it is intended to cultivate cranberries. 

 S. A. Shurtleff. 

 Spring Orove, Dec, 1858. 



For the New England Farmer. 



CLIMATE AND SOIL OP OBLEANS 

 COUNTY, VT. 



Mr. Brown : — Though you have a considera- 

 ble number of readers in this (Orleans county, 

 Vt.,) I perceivi there are not a large number of 

 writers for your pages. Having resided in this 

 county nearly twenty years, and having, during 

 that period, been several years engaged in the 

 geological survey of the State, I have had a bet- 

 ter opportunity to compare the soil in this with 

 other portions of New England, and especially, 

 other portions of Vermont, than, perhaps, any 

 other person. I think it is of some importance, 

 that the readers of the Farmer should be made 

 acquainted with some facts in regard to our cli- 

 mate and soil, of which many are probably igno- 

 rant. 



This entire county lies north of forty-four 

 degrees of latitude, but we are not, on that ac- 

 count, so "buried up in snow" as the citizens 

 of Massachusetts and southern New England 

 might suppose. It is, indeed, a very rare thing, 

 that we are incommoded with snow or drifts, so 

 as to impede travel or prevent business during 

 any part of the winter. Frosts have been later, 

 usually, in autumn than they have in Worcester 

 county. . You mention frost that injured cran- 

 berries, &c., last fall, a month earlier, near Bos- 

 ton, than we had in this county. Tomatoes were 

 green in my garden, both last year and the year: 

 before, till about the first of October. This isi 

 not uncommon. 



The soil of a large portion of Orleans and' 

 Caledonia counties is made by the decomposition 

 of the calcareous mica slates which constitute 

 the rock in place. These slates are an inter- 1 

 stratification of clay-slate, lime-slate and horn- 

 blend. The rock is very friable, and decomposes 

 so rapidly that there is a good deep soil now, 

 where the ledges appeared on the surface twenty 

 years ago. The lime, clay, silex and mica are so 

 well mixed that they furnish in great abundance 

 the elements required by vegetation, especially 

 wheat, barley, grass, corn and oats. Should the 

 soil ever deteriorate, we have immense quanti- 

 ties of the richest variety sphagnous muck, much 

 of which lies above shell marl, in the beds of an- 



cient ponds and beaver meadows. This marl, 

 when converted to lime and mixed with the muck, 

 makes a manure worth from fifteen to twenty 

 per cent, more than cow-dung. I have taken 

 pains to survey most of the muck-beds in one 

 town, and ascertained that there were more than 

 730 cords for every acre of land in the town. 

 Many other towns are equally well supplied. 

 This will, in future ages, therefore, be a rich 

 farming territory, when the "German Flats" and 

 Western prairies have become impoverished. 

 There are found few resources for supplying what 

 is transported from those regions by the export 

 of wheat, beef, pork, &c. There is a f'onstant 

 drain of the richest elements of the soil, which 

 in time must produce the same effect now ex- 

 perienced in Virginia and some portions of New 

 England. In this portion of Vermont are re- 

 sources adequate to prevent any impoverishing 

 of the soil for scores of centuries. 



If you foot up the number of cattle and sheep 

 from Vermont, taken to Brighton and Cambridge, 

 as reported in the Farmer, for a year, you will 

 find that the little State of Vermont furnishes 

 more at those markets than all the rest of New 

 England. This, to many, has been surprising. 

 The question is often asked, "How is this possi- 

 ble ?" Perhaps a few facts obtained from the 

 president of the County Agricultural Society, a 

 few years since, may aid in answering that ques- 

 tion, and also show the productiveness of our 

 soil. 



"I have in grass thirty-five acres, from which 

 I wintered last winter four large oxen, ten cows 

 and ten two-year olds, two horses, three colts, one, 

 two and three year olds and twelve sheep, and 

 sold two or three tons of hay. I raised 300 

 bushels of oats, 125 bushels of corn and eigh- 

 teen bushels of wheat." The stock was fully 

 equal to forty cows ! The amount of straw, Sec, 

 fed out, was only what is common on a farm of 

 100 acres. S. R. Hall. 



Brownington, Vt., 1859. 



For the New England Farmer. 



APPLICATION OF MANUKE. 



Mr. Editor: — In the first place, should not 

 every farmer consider what the crop is to which 

 he can apply his manure to the best profit, wheth- 

 er it will be to increase his hay, or corn, or the 

 small grains. If his farm is one better adapted 

 to hay than grain, that is, if he has a large pro- 

 portion of low land or swale hay, then it would 

 seem best for him to apply his manure for rais- 

 ing grain ; but if otherwise, he should have a 

 greater proportion of upland hay, which needs 

 the manure to keep that crop good, then it ap- 

 pears that here is the crop needing the most stim- 

 ulant. Now let us consider what per cent, each 

 crop gets, in the common way of applying our 

 manures. If we spread and plow in all our ma- 

 nure for the first crop, say for corn, which is gen- 

 erally allowed to take fifty per cent, the first year, 

 and then sow down to grain and grass the sec- 

 ond year, which is allowed to take twen*y-five 

 per cent, of the remainder of the strength of the 

 manure, — then we have only twenty-five per 

 cent, left of all our manures for the succeeding 

 grass crops, which, if there be four of those 



