Vol 6. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



73 



you will see which is best adapted to your soil ; and 

 also get half a pound of ruta baga seed per acre, to 

 mix with the beets — it gives a double chance for a 

 regular crop. 



Soak the beet seed in warm soft water, for three 

 or four or even five days, changing the water occa- 

 sionally. When ready to plant, pour off the water 

 as dry as you can : then roll the seed in white plaster 

 or flour, to make it white, so that you can see how 

 you are dropping it. 



Soak the turnip seed in tanners' oil two or three 

 days,to prevent the flies from eating the young plants. 

 Mix the beet and turnip seed together before sowing, 

 as I have stated above, 3 lbs. of one and half a pound 

 of the other per acre : by thus doing, you have two 

 chances for a bountiful crop. And sow as soon in 

 May as the ground and weather will permit. 



March24, 1845. WHEATLAND. 



« N. Y. FARMER & MECHANIC" Criticism on 



S. W's. Essay on Manure. — Indian Corn as a 



Green Crop. 



I have just had the honor to receive through the 

 post-office two numbers of the " New York P^armer 

 and Mechanic." It is a well-printed hebdomedal, on 

 good paper, containing none of those long, common- 

 place talcs, indigenous and exotic, which so general- 

 ly monopolize the columns of those blanket sheets 

 yclept "the cheapest newspapers extant." If the 

 New York Farmer is not, at $2 a year, the lowest- 

 priced weekly in New York, in my humble opinion it 

 gives as much valuable and mteresting matter for 

 $2 a year as any other paper printed there. 



The editor of the agricultural department of this 

 paper, B*, in noticing the extracts from my Essay on 

 Manures, as published in the Genesee Farmer, de- 

 murs to the assertion that " the atmosphere, and not 

 the earth, is the storehouse of the elements of or- 

 ganic life." He first quotes a passage from Liebig, 

 to show that the oxygen of the atmosphere converts 

 the humus in the soil into carbonic acid, which is ta- 

 ken up as food by the roots of plants ; and then 

 makes the unqualified assertion, that the earth is the 

 storehouse, and the atmosphere the digesting agency 

 of vegetable life." 



B* is undoubtedly correct when he says that the 

 earth is the storehouse for manures, and that science 

 is with the farmer who fills it ; but science is also 

 with the farmer who makes up for the paucity of his 

 animal manures, by the use of lime, plaster, ashes, 

 &,c. — substances which have the power to receive 

 and fix carbonic acid and ammonia in the soil, to aid 

 in dissolving the incumbent humus, and then to per- 

 form still another part, by entering into the tissues in 

 some form, to add to the organism of the plant itself. 



If B.'s theory be true, why will a spoonful! of 

 plaster, guano, or crushed bones, applied to a hill of 

 corn, cause it to produce so much more than it v/ould 

 yield without such outward application ? I would 

 ask, if nearly one-half of all vegetable structure is 

 carbon, how is it that some soils produce good crops 

 from year to year, with hardly a trace of soluble ve- 

 getable matter in them ? it is the Avell-settled 

 opinion of Justus Liebig, corroborated by that of 

 Sennibier, Ingenhauss, and others, that the carbon- 

 ic acid of the air, serves for the food of plants, and 

 that its carbon is freely assimilated by them. M. 

 de Saussure was fully aware of the omnipresence of 

 carbonic acid in the atmosphere before he ascertain- 

 ed the fact, by experiment, that it was present in the 

 atmosphere of Mont Blanc, where eternal snows co- 

 ver the earth's surface. 



B* will admit that oxygen gas and water come 

 from the air. We now come to nitrogen, which, 

 with hydrogen, forms ammonia. Liebig, in his or- 

 ganic chemistry, says, " A certain portion of nitro- 

 gen is exported with corn and cattle ; and this ex- 

 portation takes place from year to year without the 

 smallest compensation ; yet after a given number of 

 years, the quantity of nitrogen will bo found to have 

 increased 1 Whence, we may ask, comes this in- 

 crease of nitrogen ? The nitrogen in the excre- 

 ments cannot reproduce itself, and the earth cannot 

 yield it. Plants, and consequently animals, must 

 therefore derive their nitrogen from the atmosphere." 



On a dry prairie near Vincennes, Ind., Indian corn 

 has been grown, without the aid of animal manures, 

 more than 70 years in succession, with very little 

 diminution of crop. This fine soil doubtless pos- 

 sesses all the inorganic matter necessary to form 

 the inorganic structure of the plant grown on it ; 

 but I would ask B*, Whence do the plants obtain 

 the constituents of nitrogen and carbon, if not 

 from the atmosphere ? 



Editor B* claims the character of an unique mas- 

 ter in the science of vegetable nutrition. So far 

 from wishing to dispute his pretensions, I will free- 

 ly acknowledge them, after he has succeeded in his 

 experiment of cutting " three or more growths of 

 corn-stalks, 4 feet high, from one seeding." I have 

 grown here two crops of Indian corn from the same 

 ground in one season ; but from two seedings. In 

 Cuba, green corn stalks (mulsho) is grown for soil- 

 ing mules and cattle ; but when one crop is cut, an- 

 other is sown. The experiment of two cuttings 

 might succeed in favorr.jlc seasons ; but three or 

 more cuttings could riot give " increase to pay the 

 malting." 



If I were growing corn for fodder, I would always 

 sow it in drills, so wade apart that the soil could 

 be worked during the first week of the plants' 

 growth. No crop pays so well for early hoeing 

 as Indian corn. A crop is often lost in this cli- 

 mate by neglecting to hoe it as scon as the plants 

 are up . - S . W. 



ExMUR, OR WHEAT BARLEY. 



Mr. Editor, — At page 49 of the Com. of Patents' 

 excellent report for 1844, I noticed a statement in 

 relation to wheat barley, and infer, from the remarks, 

 that there is some hvnihug about it. 



The kind of barley above-mentioned has been 

 grown in this region, and we once sowed a bushel. 

 It has the appearance of common barley, yields well, 

 and has a clean, handsome kernel. We could not 

 sell it to the brewers ; and not knowing any other 

 disposition to make of it, discontinued raising. It 

 found no favor among our farmers, and the seed 

 may be lost. If, however, I can find any, I will send 

 the Commissioner a sample. But I have great 

 doubts whether it is of any particular use to the 

 farmer. Yours, T. C. PETERS . 



Darien, April 21, 1845. 



The Annual Herd Book. — To accommodate such 

 Sliort-Horn breeders as wish to insert pedigrees of the in- 

 crease of their herds this spring, in the pages of this work, 

 it will be kept open till the first day of July next, by which 

 time it ii to bo hoped that all who wisli to register their 

 cattle will forward their respective pedigrees. The lists 

 are fast coming in, and it will be a source of pleasure 

 to the subscriber to make them as numerous as possible, 

 that the array of American Short-Horns shall at least show 

 some sort of respectability to their friends on the other side 

 of the Atlantic. L. F. Allen. 



Black Rock, N. Y., April, 1845. 



