138 Thaer's Principles of Agriculture — Vegetable Manures. Vol. X. 



soil becomes more fertile with the decompo- 

 sition of its own products. 



The use of many of the vegetable ma- 

 nures so common in Europe, prevails to a 

 very small extent in this country. The 

 sweepings of the kitchen, soot, chips, rotten 

 saw-dust, tanners' spent bark, and other 

 matters that necessity forces the heavily 

 taxed European to employ, are as a general 

 rule, contemptuously thrown aside by the 

 extravagant American. The facility of get- 

 ting something to eat, renders him in com- 

 parison with the European cultivator, profuse 

 and neglectful of nice cultivation. With 

 the exception of our market gardeners in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of large towns, 

 there is very little economy in the use of 

 manures or the management of land. They, 

 however, or the best and more intelligent 

 among them, make use of every thing that 

 can increase their crops. Competition is 

 too sharp among them to admit of apathy; 

 the periodical returns of rent day, will make 

 them look to their carrots and . cabbages. 

 And from some inquiries that we made a 

 few years ago, among the more considerable 

 of them, we found that they did make use of 

 every manure that could be had. The re- 

 fuse from breweries, sugar refineries, and 

 starch factories, night soil, charcoal, coal 

 dust, street sweepings, tan, and other things, 

 were all applied to the great end of uphold- 

 ing the vegetable character of Philadelphia. 

 Farmers despise this form of cultivating the 

 earth, and of course neglect the means by 

 which it is effected. They seem to prefer 

 much complaining and small profits, to 

 condescending to be nice, and particular, 

 and economical in the management of their 

 estates. Farming is no doubt what may be 

 called a poor business, but it is not wise to 

 make it worse than it ought to be, by a ne- 

 glect of what may seem, taken singly, as 

 trifles, but which in the aggregate and in 

 their results, are of very great importance. 

 Luck may make more money for a man in 

 one day, than the whole amount of the pro- 

 fits of his farm during a life time. A specu- 

 lator in stocks or real estate, may realize in 

 one day, more than two hundred years of 

 hard work will give the most honest and 

 most laborious farmer; the president or 

 cashier of a banking institution may plun- 

 der the property, with whose care he is en- 

 trusted, beggar his thousands, break more 

 hearts, and desolate more firesides, than any 

 conqueror that ever scourged the earth, then 

 review the wretchedness he has made by his 

 villainy, and live in luxury on the spoils. 

 But these are exceptions in the usual course 

 of affairs. Farmers have no reason to de- 

 sire to imitate or to envy these instances of 



accidental good fortune or rich rascality. 

 With this slight deviation into the domain of 

 morals, we will return to that of manures. 

 Among the many other substances that lie 

 at the farmer's hand, and which are em- 

 ployed in Europe, are the haulm of peas, 

 beans, and potatoes, mixed when in a green 

 state, with dung, and sea weeds, and pond 

 weeds. Of the first, we know of no se- 

 parate use, in this country. Of sea weeds, 

 we have known one instance where land, on 

 which we could feel, to its full, the curse of 

 Adam, and on which no one but the most auda- 

 cious and energetic Yankee could have made 

 a potatoe grow, was brought to a degree of 

 very considerable fertility. Of course, this 

 land was near the sea-shore, and like much 

 of the soil on the iron-bound shores of New 

 England, where our pilgrim fathers very 

 unwisely landed, was composed principally 

 of stones and pine trees. The mud from 

 the bottom of rivers, ponds, and places 

 where stagnant water has remained for any 

 length of time, and tlie scourings of old 

 ditches, are matters, according to Mr. Thaer, 

 which should be included among vegetable 

 manures. The value of this mud as a ma- 

 nure, he rates very high, but it must not be 

 applied unless perfectly dry, and where it 

 contains much vegetable matter, it should 

 be thrown into heaps until this is decom- 

 posed — the process of decomposition may be 

 hastened by lime or fresh horse dung mixed 

 with the mud. Where there is acidity this 

 must be neutralized by animal manures, al- 

 kalies, or alkaline substances. In Dana's 

 Muck Manual may be found statements 

 commending the use of this material, and 

 some experiments that bear out these state- 

 ments, showing its strong action and the 

 high degree of fertility it is capable of pro- 

 ducing, even on the thin sandy soils of New 

 England. A. L. E. 



A Large Apple Tree. — The York Re- 

 publican says, "Our friend, Hugh O'Hail, 

 Esq., of Carroll township, has furnished us 

 with the following dimensions of an apple 

 tree which stands on his land, and which 

 has been much admired for its extraordinary 

 size and fine bearing. About eighteen inches 

 from the ground it measures twelve feet six 

 inches in circumference — about five feet 

 above the surface, eleven feet eight inches. 

 At the height of seven or eight feet it di- 

 vides or separates into six branches, one of 

 which extends from the central trunk thirty- 

 five feet — two, thirty-three feet, and the 

 others nearly as far. Its greatest height is 

 about fifty-seven and a half feet, and it has 

 frequently borne from sixty to eighty bush- 

 els of apples a season by computation. 



