^^^ ^mmmf^mmm 



z 



^^ERlCAN HERD-BOOli- 



D E VO TED TO 



AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Liebio. 



Vol. X.— Xo. 5.] 



12th mo. (December) 15th, 1845. 



[Whole No. 131. 



PPBLISIIED MONTHLY, 



BY J O S I A H T A T U M, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Thaer's Principles of Agriculturc--yese- 

 table Manures. 



These may be ranked under the head of 

 negative manures — they do not stimulate, 

 but quietly return to the soil what it has 

 lost by previous exhaustion. They are in 

 no way as active as animal manures, but by 

 acting on the principle of slow, but sure — 

 gradually, but durably, restore all that a soil 

 has lost by bad cultivation, or from being 

 overworked; their decomposition may be 

 hastened by lime, an alkali, or by animal 

 manures. The loss of humus, or mould, is 

 hence certainly, — though it may be more 

 slowly — retrieved by vegetable manures, on 

 letting the land remain in a state of repose, 

 than by any other form of fertilizing. Those 

 scourges of agriculture — weeds — in this way 

 become most excellent fertilizers. If cut 

 before they go to seed, or when in flower, 

 and allowed to decompose, they restore, in- 

 stead of removing, a portion of fertility — 



Cah.— Vol. X.— No. 5. 



nature thus contrives to compensate the 

 farmer for the injury she menaced, in spread- 

 ing over his fields those marked indications 

 of his indolence and inefficiency. The 

 ploughing in of green crops has, on the 

 same principle, been found a most valuable 

 mode of returning a soil to a fertile condi- 

 tion, and it is singular that a plan so mani- 

 festly correct, has not been more generally 

 adopted. A few farmers in the county of 

 Chester, either from the example of others 

 or the suggestion of their own judgments, 

 have gone back to the principle so long 

 acted on in England, that one grain crop 

 should not follow another, and have under- 

 taken to follow oats with clover, instead of 

 wheat; the clover being ploughed in, renews 

 the strength of the land, and gives back to 

 to it some portion of that which was re- 

 moved by the preceding crops. This sys- 

 tem of ploughing in, or pasturing plants, in- 

 tended as a manure, is very ancient. It was 

 jused by the Romans, and is kept up by the 

 Italians. The practice of sowing the lupin, 

 which one may find commended by Colum- 

 ,ella, and turning it into the ground, is still 

 employed in Italy. In this country we have 

 oats, Indian corn, and clover, for the same 

 ; purpose. One of the most beautiful exam- 

 ples of the enriching effects of vegetable 

 decomposition may be seen on an old sod, 

 jwhich has not perhaps been touched by a 

 plough for thirty or forty years. The effect 

 is very difterent from that usually wrought 

 iby time: it looks greener with age, as the 

 1 (137) 



