PUBLISHED BY GEO. C. BARRETT, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Wareh6use.)— T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL. XII. 



B.OSTOX, WKONESDAT EVEXING, APRIL 9, 1834. 



NO. 39. 



ADDRESS OF J. BUEL, PRESIDENT OF THE 

 N. V. STATE AGRICULTURAL, SOCIETY, 



Delivered at the Annual Meeting, Feb. 12, 1834. 



Wk have associated, gentlemen, to increase the 

 pleasures and profits of rural labor — to enlarge 

 tli« sphere of useful knowledge — and by concen- 

 trating our energies, to give to them greater effeci 

 in advancing the public good. In no country docs 

 the agricultural bear so great a proportion to tin- 

 whole population as in this. In England one-third 

 of the inhabitants only are employed in husbandry; 

 in France two-thirds; in Italy a liitle more than 

 three-fourths* — while in the United States the 

 agricultural portion probably exceeds five-sixths. 

 And in no country does the agricultural population 

 exercise -such a controlling political power, con- 

 tribute so much to the wealth, or tend so strongly 

 to give an impress to the character of a nation, as in 

 the United States. Hence it may be truly said of us, 

 that our agriculture is our nursing mother, which 

 nurtures, and gives growth, and wealth, and char- 

 acter to our country. It may he regarded as the 

 great wheel which moves all the machinery of 

 society, and that whatever gives to this a new im- 

 pulse or energy, communicates a corresponding 

 impetus to the thousand minor wheels of interest 

 which it propels and regulates. Knowing no 

 party, and confined to no sect, its benefits and its 

 blessings, like the dews of Heaven, fall upon all. 

 Identified then, as agriculture is, wilh the interests 

 of every department in society, it becomes our 

 profession, in particular, to endeavor to enlighten 

 its labors, to remedy its defects, and to accelerate 

 its improvement. 



Of the multitude of objects which present them- 

 selves as worthy of our consideration, I can only 

 embrace a few of the most prominent ones in the 

 subject matter of this address. 1 shall particularly 

 invite your attention to 



The economy and application of manures; 



The improvement of farm implements and ma- 

 chines ; 



The advantages of draining ; 



The detects which exist ill the present mode of 

 managing our hop and barley crops; 



The division of labor ; 



The introduction of new articles of culture ; ami 



To some illustration of the comparative profits 

 of good and bad husbandry. 



Manures. — If we consider that all animal and 

 vegetable substances are susceptible of being con- 

 verted into manure, or food for farm crops, and 

 reflect upon the great quantity of these which are 

 wasted upon a farm ; and if we add to these con- 

 siderations the fact, now well established by chem- 

 ical experiment, that yard dung loses a large por- 

 tion of its fertilizing properties, in the gases which 

 escape, where fermentation is suffered to exhaust 

 its powers upon it in a mass, we may be able to 

 appreciate, in some measure, the gnat defects 

 which exist in our general management of this all 

 important material. Manures are a principal 

 source of fertility. They are to our crops what 

 hay and forage are to our cattle — the food which 

 is to nourish and perfect their growth. Continual 

 cropping, without manure, as certainly exhausts 



Babbage on the Economy of Machinery. 



land of its fertility, as constant draining from a 

 cistern that is never replenished exhausts the water 

 which it contains. The practice of some, who dis- 

 regarding one of the soundest rules of farming, 



i tiiiue to crop without manuring, till the soil 



will no longer yield a return to pay for the labor, 

 is upon a par with that of the man who undertook 

 to teach his horse to live without food : just as the 

 experiment was about to succeed, the horse died. 

 A considerable portion of the lands in Virginia and 

 \l.ir\ land, which was originally fertile, have in this 

 way been injudiciously exhausted, and thrown into 

 corhmons as not worth enclosing. I lately receiv- 

 ed a letter from a young gentleman in the former 

 state, soliciting my advice as to the means best 

 adapted to restore fertility to two worn out farms 

 which had recently come into his possession, and 

 which, he stated, would no longer produce clover. 

 It is much easier to prevent sterility than to cure 

 it, on the same principle that it is easier to keep a 

 cow in flesh when she is so, than to restore her to 

 flesh after she has become wretchedly lean. In 

 some soils, to which nature has been uncomrnonly 



hi tiful in imparting the means of fertility, as in 



many of our river alluvions, the deterioration is 

 slow and imperceptible ; yet it nevertheless goes 

 on even there. But in ordinary, and particularly 

 in the lighter soils, the profits of husbandry depend, 

 in an eminent degree, upon the faithful application 

 of all the manure which a farm can be made to 

 produce. 



In regard to the question, in what condition are 

 manures most economically applied, I am sensible 

 that a difference of opinion exists, many contend- 

 ing, even on philosophical grounds, that it is most 

 wise to apply them after they have undergone fer- 

 mentation. If the question was merely whether a 

 load of fermented or unfermented dung is of the 

 greatest intrinsic value, in ordinary cases the former 

 would be entitled to the preference, because it con- 

 tains the greatest quantity of vegetable food. But 

 the correct way to state the question would be 

 this: WilljSue loads of rotted manure impart greater 

 fertility than ten loads that are unrotted ? The 

 numbers ought rather to be five and fifteen — for 1 

 think common dung suffers a diminution of two- 

 thlnls, instead of one-half, in volume, by a thorough 

 process of rotting.* It will assist in determining 

 the question if we ascertain what the manure parts 

 wiih during fermentation, for it evidently loses 

 much in weight as well as in bulk, and whether 

 this lost matter would, if buried in the soil, have 

 afforded food to the crop. For if it possessed no 

 fertilizing property, 'he sooner it is got rid of the 

 better, and we save the expense of transporting it 

 to the field. But if it really consists of prepared 

 or digested food, fitted for the organs and wants 

 of plants, it is truly improvident to have it wasted 

 and lost for all useful purposes. The latter is 

 really the case.f The matter which escapes in fer- 



* During ilie violent fermentation which is necessary u>r re- 

 ducing farm-yard manure to the slate in which a is ca led shoi ' 

 muck, not only a large quantity of fluid, but of gaseous mailer, 

 is lo-l ; so much so ilia I liie clung is reduced one-half or Iwo- 

 ilnnls in weight, and Ihe principal elastic matter disengaged is 

 carbonic acid, wilh some ammonia; and both these, il retained 

 by the moisture in the soil, as has been slated before, are capa- 

 ble ol becoming a useful nourishment lor plants. — Vary. 



t As soon as iliino- begins to decompose, or rpt, it throws oil" 

 its volatile parts, which are the mosl valuable and most efficient. 



mentation is vegetable matter in a gaseous form, 



lined by natural process, like chyle in the animal 

 stomach, to enter into and become a constituent in 

 a new generation of plants. It is principally car- 

 bonic acid gas, the aliment of vegetables and ihe 

 true staff of vegetable life. It has been vegetable 

 matter, and will become vegetable matter again 

 when brought into contact with the mouths or 

 roots of plants. Without resorting to chemical 

 proofs or authorities to prove this, I will suggest a 

 iiioile by which the matter can he satisfactorily set- 

 tled. Let any farmer, in the spring, before yard 

 manure' ferments, put twenty-five loads in a pile 

 to rot, and take another twenty-five loads to the 

 field where he intends to plant his corn, spread it 

 upon one acre, plough it well under, harrow the 

 ground, and plant his seed. Let him plant another 

 acre of corn alongside this, without manure. As 

 soon as the corn is harvested, carry on and spread 

 the twenty-five loads of prepared or rotted manure 

 left in the yard, or what remains of it, upon the 

 acre not manured for corn, and sow both pieces to 

 wheat. Unless my observation and practice have 

 deceived me, he will find the result of the experi- 

 ment to be this : the acre dressed with long ma- 

 nure will yield the most wheat, because the manure 

 has been less exhausted in the process of summer 

 rotting, and for the reason, that in cultivating the 

 corn, it has become better incorporated with the 

 soil — and it will, besides, have yielded some twenty 

 or thirty more bushels of corn, in consequence of the 

 e;ases upon * ,'nr'' the crop here fed and thrived, but 

 which in the yard were dissipated by the winds 

 and lost. 



Plants, like animals, require different modifica- 

 tions of food. In general, the plants which af- 

 ford large stocks or roots, as corn, potatoes, tur- 

 nips and clover, thrive best from the gases which 

 are given off from dung in-the process of fermen- 

 tation — while those exclusively cultivated for their 

 seeds, as wheat, barley, &c. are often prejudiced 

 by these volatile parts, which cause a rank growth 

 ol straw without improving the seed. Hence the 

 first mentioned crops may be fed on long manure 

 without lessening its value for the second class, 

 provided they immediately follow, and hence un- 

 fermented manures are most economically applied 

 to hoed crops. 



Different rules should govern in the application 

 of fermented and unfermented manures. The lat- 

 ter should be buried at the bottom of the furrow 

 with the plough, the former only superficially with 

 the harrow. The reasons are these — unfermented 

 dung operates mechanically while undergoing fer- 

 mentation, in rendering the recumbent soil porous 

 and pervious to heat and air, the great agents of 

 decomposition and nutrition, and the gaseous or 

 volatile parts being specifically lighter than atmos- 

 pheric air, ascend,' and supply the wants of the 



Dung which has fermented sons to become a mere suit cohe- 

 ive mass, has generally lost from one-third to one-half of its 

 most es< ail constituent elements. It evidently should be ap- 

 plied as soon as rermeiitatii n begins, dial il may exert its lull 

 action upon the plant, and lose none of its nutritive powers.— 

 Oca i/. 



* A friend made ihis experiment : He trenched a quarter of 

 his garden, and deposited a layer of dry strata, ibree inches 

 thick, one foot below the surface, as Ihe only manure, and 

 planted it with water-melons. The crop he said was ihe finest 

 lie ever grew. On examining the straw in auiumn, he found it 

 was completely rotted, and reduced lo the condition of short 



