306 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



APRIL 9, 1834. 



young roots. The newt ploughing turns tliu resi- 

 due of the dung to the surface, when it benefits on 

 a different principle ; for fermented munures con- 

 sist of ponderable substances, which have a ten- 

 dency only to descend. 



Manures possess a high value iii all good farm- 

 ing districts, where the natural fertility of the soil 

 has been impaired by culture. ]n most of our 

 large towns it is bought np at one to two dollars a 

 cord, and transported 10 or 20 miles by land car- 

 riage, and much farther by water. So essi mia! is it 

 considered in Europe to profitable husbandly, thai 

 every material which imparts fertility is sedulously 

 economised, and applied to the soil. Among other 

 things, ship loads of bones are annually brought 

 from the continent into Great Britain and ground 

 for manure. Bone dust is in such high demand 

 in Scotch husbandry, that its price has advanced 

 to 3*. 6d. sterling per bushel. 



We possess no certain data to ascertain the sav- 

 ing which may be introduced into this branch of 

 farm economy ; yet it" we put down the number of 

 farms in the State at one-tenth of our population, 

 or 200,000, and estimate that an average increase 

 of five loads upon each farm might annually be 

 made, it will give US a total of one million loads, 

 which, at the very modi-rate price of 2-5 cents, 

 would amount to $250,000 per annum. 



Farm implements. — We must all have noticed 

 the great improvements which a few years have 

 made in the mechanic and manufacturing arts. 

 Scarcely a process is managed as it was twenty 

 v ears ago. Scarcely an old machine but has un- 

 dergone improvements, or given place to a better 

 model. Manufacturing operations have been sim- 

 plified and abridged, and human labor lias been 

 reduced to a comparative cypher, by l'ie substitu- 

 tion of machinery and the power of steam. The 

 effect has been a great reduction in the price of 

 manufactured commodities, and an increase in their 

 consumption. We are assured that during the 

 twelve years which elapsed between 1818 and 

 1830, Sheffield wares — hardware and cutlery — 

 experienced an average reduction in price of sixty 

 per cent, varying upon dill-rent articles from 40 

 to 85 percent.* Cotton goods, books, and various 

 other fabrics, have undergone a reduction no less 

 remarkable within our time. These beneficial 

 changes have resulted in a great measure from the 

 aid which science has either itself imparted, or 

 which it has elicited from mechanic skill — for a 

 useful invention often awakens latent genius, and 

 calls forth successful competition, even in the un- 

 learned. No sooner is an improvement in the 

 manufacturing arts announced, than it is adopted 

 whenever it can be rendered beneficial — such is 

 the facility of intercourse — such the desire — the 

 necessity — there, of profiting from every discovery 

 which benefits their art. The farmer is less able 

 «hd less willing to keep pace with the march ol 

 intellect. He has few opportunities of becoming 

 acquainted with tin- improvements of others, ex 

 cept by siow degrees ; and he is so liable to be 

 taken in by the catch-penny productions of tin- 

 day, and is withal so distrustful of new experi- 

 ments, that he will hardly venture to buy new im- 

 plements and machines, nor to adopt new prac- 

 tices, however beneficial they might prove on trial. 



jnuek. He was satisfied thai hismelonshad been .highly bene- 

 fitted by the slwiw while undergoing fermentation, and that liad 

 the - i » lolled i,t the yar I. the volaiil i portion of the manure 

 vyoukl have been wholl) lost. 



* Babuagc on the Economy of Machinery. 



Mr. Coke tells us that his examples in farming, (and 

 few men ever gave better,) only enlarged the circle 

 of their influence about a mile in a year. Hence. 

 as regards this branch of improvement, we have 

 much to do ere we can overtake the spirit of the 

 age, as exemplified in our sister arts. 



Many of our farm implements have undergone 

 improvement; yet there are others which have 

 been either hut partially introduced, or are'hardly 

 known, that tire calculated to abridge labor and to 

 increase the profits of the farm. There exists a 

 great disparity in the quality of implements. In 

 ploughs, for instance, there is a difference which 

 eludes superficial observation, particularly in re- 

 gard to the force required to propel them, that is 

 worth regarding. I have seen this difference in 

 what have been termed good ploughs, amount to 

 nearly fifty per cent, or one-half. The perfection 

 of our implements is intimately connected with a 

 correct application of mechanical science, a branch 

 id' knowledge hitherto too little cultivated among 

 us. Messrs. Many & Ward, the enterprising pro- 

 prii tors of ;m iron foundry in this city, have as- 

 sured me that there are more than two hundred 

 patterns of ploughs now in use in this State. Of 

 this number some may he very good, but many 

 must be comparatively had. But what individual 

 is able to decide upon their relative merits, or even 

 to become acquainted with the different sorts? It 

 would he rendering an important service to the 

 State at large, and especially to the farming inter- 

 ests, if a competent hoard was appointed, com- 

 prising men id' practical and scientific knowledge, 

 to test thoroughly, by examination and perfectly 

 satisfactory trial, not only the ploughs but the 

 other implements of husbandry now in use, or 

 which may be hereafter invented, and to publish 

 the result of their examination, and certify their 

 intrinsic and relative merits. Such board might 

 meet once or twice in a year, and no inventor or 

 vender who had confidence in the goodness of his 

 machine would fail to repair to the place of trial. 

 This would tend to call into action mechanical 

 science and skill, in the confidence of receiving a 

 just reward ; the public would confide in the trial 

 ami opinions of the boardj good implements would 

 be extensively introduced and bad ones would he 

 discarded.* The expense of the examination would 

 hear no proportion to the public benefit. 



Draiiiing. — Few expenditures in husbandry are 

 calculated to make better returns than those made 

 in draining, a branch of labor which has a very 

 limited practice among us, and of which we have 

 yet much to learn. Many of our best lands are 

 permitted to remain in a comparative unproduc- 

 tive state, on account of the water which reposes 

 on the surface or saturates the subsoil. To render 

 these lands productive even for arable purposes, 

 it is only necessary, by well constructed and suffi- 

 cient drains, to collect and carry off the surplus 

 water which falls upon the surface or rises from 

 springs below. The rationale of draining is brief- 

 ly this: Air and heat are essential agents in pre- 

 paring the food of plants which is deposited in tin- 

 soil, and they are also necessary for the healthful 

 developement of most of the cultivated varieties. 

 These agents are in a measure excluded from the 

 soil by the water. The temperature of a soil ha- 

 bitually saturated with spring water from beneath 

 the surface, seldom exceeds 55 or 60 degrees at 

 midsummer. Hence the grains and grasses, which 

 require a beat of SO or 90 degrees to bring them 

 to a high slate of excellence, can never thrive in the 



these cold situations, where they find netiher 

 warmth nor the food suited to their habits. But 

 drain these soils and they become light and porous, 

 pervious to solar and atmospheric influence, the 

 process of vegetable decomposition is accelerated, 

 and a high state of fertility is developed. 



One of the modern improvements in draining, 

 which tends very much to give permanency to the 

 work, is to dig the trench with a spade adapted 

 to tin- purpose, with a wedge shaped bottom, say 

 three inches at the bottom and five inches at the 

 upper surface of the lower cut, and to till this part 

 with broken stone. The trench is dug two feet 

 deep before this cut. is made, and the wedge shap- 

 ed bottom cleaned with a scraper fitted for the 

 purpose. By concentrating the water it acquires 

 force, and keeps the passage open. -And if bro- 

 ken stone is employed not exceeding three inches 

 in diameter, it affords no harbor for ground mice 

 or moles, which otherwise get in and open passa- 

 ges to the surface, through which water and earth 

 are apt to enter and choke up the drain. Drains 

 of this description are very efficient and economi- 

 cal to keep the bed of a road dry, placed either at 

 its sides or in the centre, having a tall to carry off 

 the water. A cubic yard of stone will lay" about 

 120 feet of under drain of the dimensions above 

 given, and S inches deep. The breaking of the 

 stone will cost three or four shillings the cubic 

 yard. 



The acknowledged utility of irrigation, or of 

 spreading occasionally, the water from streams or 

 the highways over lands, has led to a misappre- 

 hension with many of the principles of draining. 

 Irrigation is employed to furnish water to soils, 

 generally slopes where it is deficient, and from 

 whence it speedily passes off, or to cover grounds 

 in winter to exclude severe frost. The water thus 

 employed is nearly of the warmth of the atmos- 

 phere, and is generally charged with fertilizing 

 properties. Draining is employed upon flat surfa- 

 ces, or upon slopes abounding in springs, where 

 there is an excess of water, and of a temperature 

 which materially chills anil deadens the soil. Ir- 

 rigation supplies water where there is a deficien- 

 cy — draining carries it off where there is an ex- 

 cess. Both are intended by opposite modes to 

 produce the same result — a suitable degree of mois- 

 ture for the wants of the crop. 



We have illustrations in abundance of the ad- 

 vantages of draining ; and so apparent have been 

 its benefits, in districts where it has had a fair trial, 

 that a knowledge of the science, for a science it 

 may be called, is considered an important branch 

 of agricultural knowledge. Upon one estate in 

 Scotland, where the farmers are generally tenants, 

 sixty five miles of under drains have been made 

 within a feu \ i ars, at the joint expense of the land- 

 lord and tenant. The benefits of this expenditure 

 have been — to the landlord an additional 5s. per 

 acre upon his annual rental — and to the tenants a 

 more than corresponding advantage in the increase 

 of their crops. A gentlemen who deservedly ranks 

 high in this society, and has been a pioneer in 

 this branch of improvement, has assured me, in 

 answer to my inquiries, that he has applied under' 

 draining to twenty different fields, to the extent of 

 more than two thousand rods, at the average cost 

 of fifty cents per rod ; and that he has been fully 

 remunerated for the outlay in every instance, in 

 the increased products of three years. In some 

 eases, he adds, where the hinds piodnced coarse 

 grass of little value, and where tillage was out of the 



