Vol. 6. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



51 



winter, the great quantity of cold water necessary to 

 macerate the food when eaten (hy and uncut, where- 

 by the whole system is chilled and paralyzed, until the 

 animal heat is again renewed, at a great expense of 

 nutriment and muscular exertion ; for remember, that 

 warmth and protection from coll are as important ad- 

 juncts to sustenance, as food ; for it is a well-settled 

 fact, that animals exposed to severe cold expend 

 their food to keep up animal heat, when, if protect- 

 ed, it would produce fat and flesh. 



An animal stabled and littered, with its food cut 

 an 1 moistened, will consume one-third less, and re- 

 main in better order, than when exposed in open 

 j'ards, and drenching th'^mselves with ice-cold wa- 

 ter, and exposed to the blasts and storms of winter. 



L. 



" RURAL ECONOMY, in Us Relation ivith Chem- 



istri/, Physics, and J\j.'ieorolos^>/ ; or, Cheinislrj/ 



applied to JlffricuUure. By J. B. Boussingault, 



Member of the lastUuie. of France, etc." 



Messrs. Appleton & Co., 200, Broadway, N. Y., 



have conferred a great b' nefit on the agricnltura! 



interest of the United States, by re-publishing a 



London English edition of this work, which is from 



the pen of one of the be^;t cheni'st.^ of the ag-e. 



The translation is maiti by a practical agricultu- 

 rist, who has ad ied to the text many valuable 

 noto.^. 



Unlika most other authors who have written on 

 agi'icuitnral chemistry and physi'.logy, Mors. B. is 

 a practical farmer of hrg^ experipnce, and all his 

 deducti ns in the lahorotiry hiv~ bnen submitted to 

 the rigid test of practical results in the field, on a 

 large scale. It contains more practical experience 

 in farming operations, and more accurate scientific 

 analyses, than can be found in any other work on the 

 subject of rural economy. 



To BoussiNGAULT and Dumas are we indebted for 

 more valuable discoveries in analytical chemistry, 

 as applied to vegetable and animal sibstances, than 

 to any other, if not to all other living chemists. 

 Leibig was a pupil of theirs before he opened his re. 

 nowned school at Geisen ; and M. Dumns, in his 

 ^•B-larce of Organic Natun'," complains that M. L. 

 only anticipated his instructors in publishing to the 

 world, as his own, discoveries the honors of which 

 were due to himself and his illustrious associate, 

 the author of the work before us. 



Of the claim of M.M. Dumas and Boussingault to 

 the honor of priority in discovery, as compared with 

 Leibig, we know nothing. 



Over 100,000 copies of Leibig's works have been 

 sold in the United States. May the work of the 

 Frenchman have a sale equal to that of the German. 

 —Price il.50^ 



Agricultural Lecturer. — We are pleased to 

 inform the public, that the Executive Committee of 

 the New York State Agricultural Society have made 

 an arrangement with the Corresponding Secretary, 

 Dr. D. Lee, [editor of the Genesee Farmer,] to 

 make a tour through various portions of the state, 

 for the purpose of collecting useful information, and 

 giving occasional lectures on agricultural subjects. 

 We have no doubt his visits will be received by the 

 farmers with warm approbation, and that due notice 

 only will be required to insure the attendance of 

 large audiences to hear his lectures. Dr. Lee is at 

 present a member of the Assembly ; and, during the 

 session, may be addressed here on any matters per- 

 taining to his proposed tour. — Cultivator, 



For the Goneseo Farmer. 



OBJECTIONS TO EOOK-F ARMING, 

 Jls detailed in a Letter from an intelligent, hard- 

 working, practical Farmer in Oneida Co., with a, 

 Corresponding Reply to each Objection. 

 "Old Stafflet, with his 1500 bushels of wheai, a 

 year, at an expense of ^100, outshines Dana or 

 Liebig." 



Reply. — The same farm on which Stafflet raised 

 1500 bushels of wheat, or 40 bushels to the acre, 

 does not now produce, on the average, 12 bushels 

 to the acre, notwithstanding a perfect system of al- 

 ternating with a clover crop as manure, has been 

 constantly pursued. 



'"It will not do to spend more money manuring 

 than the crop will come to; when the Seneca coun- 

 ty lands are worn out, go we.it and buy more.-™ 

 What fai-mer wastes a load of manure? 1 have giv- 

 en the straw of 18 acres, this winter, for -25 loads 

 of manure. You say, keep stock to wn-k up the 

 straw into manure: 3 year oli's bring but Sj^lo; this 

 don't pay ii&2 a ton for the h-iv they eat. It costs 

 ^] I the ton to make hay with hired hol;>." 



Ri^PLY. — -It is the province of book-farming to 

 teach the tro.e ocr>nomy of manuring — to save all 

 astless or mal-anplic^tion, ay initiating tho farmer 

 into a knowledge of the comp, siiion and action of 

 manures, both organic and inorganic: as also the 

 •■>:;mT>osition and action of bl'ints. I havn read ol a 

 farmer who a; plied (o a loo-^e granitic soil, 100 loads 

 of gv.-amp m-ick to the acre: who can doubt but that, 

 at least, half his labor miyfht hav'^ b'^en spared, had 

 a little lime ashes, fcc, been api;lied to the swamp 

 muck, with some fresh dung superadded, an i only 

 fifty loads applied to the acre. All the time a farm- 

 er spends m manuring a loose soil v/ith stable ma- 

 nure, that has lost its nitrogen, and nearly all its 

 carbon, by exposure to sun and rain, he is chopping 

 wood with a very dull axe; ten to one his soil has 

 already in it, quite enough dead vegetable matter, 

 called by chemists * insoluble humus.' Had this far- 

 mer covered up his manure and converted it into 

 compost, with swamp muck, ashes, charcoal, plas- 

 t.?r, k.c., th'is saving "11 the salts in the manure, and 

 also the salts generated from the atmosphere in the 

 progress of fermentation, who doubts but that one 

 load of such compost, would be worth four loads of 

 the exhausted stable manure. 



As to stock, I say keep no more of it than is ne- 

 cessary to make your straw into manure. I thought 

 that a horse made at least twice as much manure as 

 a cow, until I stabled a cow; I now find that the 

 latter makes as much manure as the former. In 

 New England, a hog often pays for his keeping by 

 the manure he makes. It is not fair, then, to say 

 that stock leave nothing to the farmer, but the mon- 

 ey he receives from the drover. 

 " " I plowed under eight acres of straw on half an 

 acre of land: it was not worth two loads of manure 

 on my gravelly loam." 



Reply. — So much the more need fiave you of a 

 little stock to work up your straw into manure.— 

 Your land is still rich in vegetable matter: part of 

 which might be made soluble food for plant.?, by the 

 application of a compost rich in lirae and alkaline 

 salts. Stable manure is rich in these salts; but 

 they are exposed to much waste when applied direct- 

 ly to a loose, gravcUv loam: and when the spirit 

 has gone to the'atmosphere, the mere vegetable re- 

 mains are of no more account, than the same weight 

 in that straw of which you speak so disparagingly. 



