514 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



specting the utility and durability of wooden again, and we i^-now we get more wheat by spread- 

 water pipes, gives to this discovery consid^rablej^ng the manure a month, or six weeks, before 

 interest, and it may be important to note alli^i^^jj^^,, Upon mv suggestion that it was evi- 

 these evidences of the durability ot such artiL- 

 cial water courses. We are informed that the 



corporation of Elmira have adopted wooden aw 

 ter pipes for a system adapted to supply the 

 wants of that village. — Rochester Dem. 



For the New Ensland Farmer. 



SURFACE MANURING. 

 BY JUDGE FRENCn. 



Lincoln is one of the best counties in England. 

 The wheat crop on Lincoln Heath averages near- 

 ly thirty bushels to the acre. This same heath 

 was an open common, a century ago, and so bar- 

 ren and desolate, that a tower was erected in 

 1751, and a light kept burning to guide travel- 

 lers in the night in their uncertain journeys 

 across the waste. The writer visited this land 

 light-house in July, 1857, and passed a week in 

 the county, with some of its best farmers. It is 

 a beautiful, highly cultivated region, now, 

 abounding in the finest sheep and horses, with 

 broad fields of grain carefully drilled, hoed, and 

 weeded by hand ; enclosed with well cut haw- 

 thorn hedges, indicating plainly and surely that 

 the farmer there understands his business, and 

 that it is not, as it is often with us, a matter of luck 

 and chance, whether a good crop repays the cul- 

 ture, but a certainty almost, that the well estab- 

 lished system of the county will afford the ex- 

 pected reward. Their system is that which is 

 there usually called "the four-field system" — 

 sometimes, the four-course or four-shift system ; 

 of turnips the first year, barley, the second, 

 "seeds," i. e., rye-grass and clover, and some- 

 times vetches, the third, and wheat the fourth, 

 and this repeated forever. On the heavy clayj 

 lands a five years' course is adopted, and on the 

 fens an entirely difi'erent system. 



Walking over the fields of "seeds" as this 

 grass is termed, I observed on the land of one 

 of my friends, that fresh manure from the "creme- 

 yard" had already been spread on the surface, 

 and this was before the middle of July, and there 

 it must lie till plowed in, in September. It struck 

 me as a wasteful course, and as injuring the grass 

 for the sheep then grazing upon it, and 1 so said 

 to my friend. He is a man of education, and a 

 practical English farmer, with no other occupa- 

 tion but that of husbandry, and farms for profit, 

 and not for fancy. He gave me his views freely 

 and decidedly. "We understand," said he, "that 

 theory seems to be against us, and that there 

 must be a loss of some of the elements of fertili- 

 ty by evaporation, and that it seems more rea 

 Bonable to plow in the manure as soon as possi- 

 ble, but we have tested it, all of us, again and 



owine. 

 dent tne manure was wasmig, oecause mc ww..-, 

 was then very strong all about us, — "Certainly," 

 he said, "there is some waste, but not so much, 

 perhaps, as many imagine. The odor is from the 

 ammonia, and a very small quantity is quite per- 

 ceptible to the senses. A few shillings worth of 

 ammonia from the shops will furnish all the odor 

 we perceive from an acre." 



Afterwards, I rode from Salisbury to Stone- 

 henge, in a carriage, with five or six farmers 

 from various counties of England, who had acci- 

 dentally met at the Great Agricultural Fair, and 

 stated to them what I had observed in Lincoln- 

 shire. Nearly all of them bore testimony that 

 the same practice of spreading manure some 

 weeks before plowing, for whea^, prevailed in 

 their respective districts, and so far as I could 

 learn by observation, the practice is general in 

 England, though by no means universal. 



The climate of England differs from ours in 

 this, that they have much less hot weather than 

 we. Yet there are many bright warm days, and 

 many days of sunshine, with occasional showers ; 

 and perhaps alternate wettings and dryings fa- 

 vor decomposition, and loss by evaporation, more 

 than steady, burning heat ; and besides, except- 

 ing in the summer months, there is not so 

 marked a difference between the climate of New 

 and Old England. If it be the true policy to ap- 

 ply manure to the surface there, in July and Au- 

 gust, to be plowed in, weeks after, we might 

 think better than heretofore, at least, of top- 

 dressings for grass in autumn in our own coun- 

 try. In Lincolnshire, too, they feed their sheep 

 in hurdles un their turnips, and plow in the ma- 

 nure thus made, with a wheel- plow but two 

 inches deep, to keep it near the top for the bar- 

 ley crop which follows. 



The Mark Lane Express, published in London, 

 has recently given a series of articles upon ma- 

 nures, insisting that the true mode of applying 

 manures is upon the surface. The writer boldly 

 makes such statements as these : 



"Mr. Hudson, of Castleacre, Norfolk, states 

 the fact from his own experience, that the quali- 

 ty of farmyard dung is improved by an exp >sure 

 of months on the surface of the ground ; and that 

 the crops are better from dung that has been ex- 

 posed, than on lands in which the dung has been 

 covered in the usual moist and half-rotted condi- 

 tion. This observation is not quite new, though 

 but little known ; and when mentioned, it has 

 been completely smothered by the overwhelm- 

 ing weight of the established dogma on the use 

 of" farmyard dung. My own experience is able 

 to confirm the statement of Mr. Hudson, during 

 a long and very extensive practice in using farm 

 dung on clay fallows for wheat. * • * * 



