234 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



FEBRUARY 5, 1S34. 



e<1, should be daily fed. Next to liberal manuring 

 » judicious rotation of crops should he followed up; 

 for nature chooses a variety, and scarcely a crop 

 of any kind, can be cultivated successively, and 

 without intermission on the same land, without a 

 gradual diminution of the produce. The best ad- 

 vantages may be expected likewise from that great 

 discovery in agriculture, the renovating influence 

 of clover, which, being sowed with small grain nnd 

 well plastered, and being afterwards turned under 

 by the plough, will inevitably place the land in a 

 course of improvement. It is questionable with 

 some fanners, whether it is best to plough in the 

 clover, the year after its being sown With the stub- 

 ble of the grain crop; but there is good reason to 

 believe, that it is better to sutler the clover to re- 

 main one year, and to adopt what is commonly 

 called the three shift system; for example, first 

 com ; then small grain with clover, which is to be 

 well plastered ; and then clover to be mowed or fed ; 

 ami this, where the clover can be advantageously 

 pastured with sheep, will secure the gradual im- 

 provement of the land. — There are other amelior- 

 ating crops; and the ploughing in of green crops, 

 in several decisive experiments, has been signally 

 successful ; but no system can be worse than that 

 sometimes practised, and of which examples may 

 be seen in the beautiful meadows of Hatfield, which 

 operate more effectually to set oft' hy way of con- 

 trast, other parts of their fine farming ; I mean 

 the practice of naked fallows, with the hopes that 

 exhausted lands may he recruited by mere rest and 

 weeds. 



The next obstacle to improvement, is the want 

 of manure. This is a serious want. Good crops 

 cannot be obtained without manure, but how to 

 obtain the manure is the difficult question. The 

 first step certainly is the consumption of the pro- 

 duce upon the place. This is pretty generally 

 done; but much of the materials for manure fur- 

 nished by the crops themselves, is most improvi- 

 dently wasted. This is particularly remarkable in 

 regard to the corn crop, where the butts and h'usks 

 instead of being carried into the barn and yards to 

 be there used as food, or converted into manure as 

 litter, are left to perish in the field, returning com- 

 paratively nothing to the earth ; and though browsed 

 by cattle, yet yielding under these circumstances 

 nothing deserving consideration. You will pardon 

 me, if I speak of such a practice as wasteful and 

 slovenly. Every vegetable product on a farm, 

 which can be used advantageously as food, should 

 be so appropriated ; and what will not answer as 

 food, should be carefully collected for the purpose 

 of littering the styes, stables and yards. The great 

 rule should he, to gather up the fragments that 

 nothing be lost. 



In the next place almost every firm furnishes in 

 some bog-hole or reservoir valuable materials for 

 compost manure, which if carefully conveyed to 

 tire styes and yards, to be worked over, and made 

 to absorb the liquids which are there floating, will 

 turn to great advantage. The conveyance of com- 

 mon dirt, other than sufficient for this absorbing 

 purpose, will not pay the labor ot transportation ; 

 for the manure may as well be mixed with it in the 

 field as in the barn yard, and the labor of carting 

 bi; saved. In some parts of the country, as for 

 example, in Bernardstown, where the soil is cold 

 mid hungry, there are extensive depositories of peat 

 mud, which, where properly managed, and made 

 to undergo a fermentation by the intermixture ol 

 horse manure, a process well known to intelligent 



farmers, and by the discovery of which the name 

 of an English nobleman has been immortalised, 

 will yield a valuable manure, precisely suited to 

 the soils among which it is found. 



The agriculture of our country is not yet jn a 

 sufficiently advanced state to pay much attention 

 to the saving of liquid manures; as in the best 

 cultivated countries of Europe, where it is consid- 

 ered as the most useful form of applying all ani- 

 mal manures ; and where every farm is furnished 

 with the means of preserving and of applying this 

 most powerful stimulus to vegetation. Provision 

 \'or the same purposes will presently be made among 

 us, when our fanners feel more sensibly, than they 

 now do, the importance of availing themselves of 

 every source of productiveness and profit within 

 their reach. 



The soiling of animals, that is keeping them in 

 vards or stables through the whole year, where, 

 when attainable, they are fed upon green food daily 

 gathered for'their use, isan abundant source of ma- 

 nure ; and to a certain extent, as in many of our 

 river towns where pasturage is difficult to be pro- 

 cured, might be practised to the great advantage 

 both of the stock ami the owner. Few persons, 

 who have made no experiments and given no at- 

 tention to the subject, have any proper idea, to 

 what advantage and extent, the produce of a sin- 

 gle acre properly cultivated may be applied. 1 

 shall make no apology for speaking with so much 

 directness on so homely a subject as that, which 

 we have now treated. It is nothing hut a silly af- 

 fectation of delicacy, which turns with disdain 

 from any of the wonderful processes of nature bow- 

 ever humble. The most splendid bouquet, which 

 ever poured out its delicious perfumes on the un- 

 sullied bosom of youthful innocence and beauty, is 

 the luxuriant oftspi ingof the manure heap ; and the 

 cultivated, well-disciplined, and devout mind, will 

 contemplate with grateful delight that mysterious 

 operation of divine Providence, that signal display 

 of an unsearchable wisdom and goodness, by which 

 every thing in nature becomes subservient to some 

 valuable end ; and the most offensive substances 

 are converted into objects and forms of beauty, 

 utility, luxury, and delicious indulgence. 



The use of mineral manures, such as lime and 

 gypsum, ought to claim much more attention than 

 it has done. The theory of their operation is still 

 among the numberless secrets of nature, into which 

 human sagacity attempts in vain to penetrate, and 

 before which man's boasted wisdom stands utterly 

 confounded ; but their practical, beneficial, and as- 

 tonishing results are no longer matter of question. 

 Lime, in any quantity in which we might be glad 

 to apply it, is too expensive a manure to be freely 

 used among us ; but no manure can be cheaper 

 than gypsum ; and its effects are very extraordina- 

 ry. Its mode of application is still however, mat- 

 ter of experiment ; and experiments here are great- 

 ly desired. On our alluvial lands its effects are 

 said not to be apparent ; on our hills in some cases 

 most strikingly so. An intelligent fanner on the 

 Hoosac river informed me that they had found the 

 use of it on lands, where the growth was maple, 

 beach &.c. of no avail ; but on [heir pine and oak 

 lands separate from the other only by the river, im- 

 mediate and valuable. To clover it is applied al- 

 ways with great advantage. Every well attested 

 fact in regard to it deserves attention, and ought 

 to be fully and exactly communicated to the agri- 

 cultural public. 



Another means of improving lands, the value of 



which experiment has amply confirmed, is the in- 

 termixture of soils. What is properly called marl, 

 an unctuous and calcareous clay which will effer- 

 vesce on the application of acids, has not been 

 found among us. A valuable deposit of it has been 

 recently discovered in New Jersey, which the far- 

 mers are there applying with great advantage. In 

 our primitive region it is perhaps not to be looked 

 for. liut we have peat, bog mud, sand, and clay 

 in abundance in different parts of the country ; and 

 the application of clay to a sandy, and of sand to a 

 clayey soil, is of obvious utility ; and often of bet- 

 ter and certainly more permanent effects than the 

 most abundant dressings of animal manure. Some 

 of our Deerfield farmers, I am told, have found 

 the application of clay to a certain extent, as a top 

 dressing on their grass grounds of great advantage ; 

 but I am not sufficiently advised on the subject to 

 speak more fully. An intelligent farmer of Plym- 

 outh county,* whose authority I know from per- 

 sonal acquaintance, is to be entirely relied on, has 

 practised with great success and to a considerable 

 extent on this principle of the intermixture of soils; 

 and has rendered his farm, at first quite inferior, 

 one of the most productive in the county. He has 

 given the details of his experience to the public in 

 a dissertation ; for which he was honored will) the 

 premium of the Massachusetts Agricultural Socie- 

 ty ; a dissertation, deserving the attention of every 

 inquisitive farmer. [ To be continued. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



For the Neic England Fanner. 

 CATTLE MARKET. 



I observed in your paper of the 22d of January 

 a notic;, taken from a Vermont paper, that a hotel 

 and yrrds for the accommodation of drovers had 

 In en built, and were just opened in Cambridge. 

 If any thing more is intended, than their accom- 

 modation on their way to the great and ancient 

 cattle market in Brighton, it behoves the public to 

 consider, whether they will be benefited by divid- 

 ing this market, and establishing another so near 

 it. It is obvious that one great cattle market in the 

 vicinity of the city, is a convenience and benefit to 

 the public. It presents to the buyer, at one view, 

 all the articles that are for sale, and gives to the 

 seller the competition of all who wish to purchase, 

 and brings the article to the consumer at the least 

 possible expense. If two markets should be estab- 

 lished, the buyer and seller must submit to the 

 loss of half their market, or he at the expense of 

 trying both, under the disadvantage of not know- 

 ing whether it will he best to buy or sell at the 

 first they visit, or to take the risk of the other. 

 They will often lose their best opportunity in run- 

 ning from one to the other. The cost will be en- 

 hanced to the consumer, without benefit to any 

 party. 



All, it is believed, will agree that one great 

 market in the vicinity of the city is preferable to 

 two small ones; that a second will distract and 

 prejudice both buyer and seller, and in the end 

 the consumer. The question then is, which shall 

 he encouraged ? Shall the one proposed to be es- 

 tablished in Cambridge be adopted, or shall the 

 old one be adhered to ? It will not, we think, be 

 deemed reasonable to abandon this ancient market, 

 unless the new one proposed should offer superior 

 and decided advantages. The cattle market at 

 Bright"* has existed for more than half a century.. 



* The Rev. Morrill Alien, of Pembroke, Mass. 



