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I had a piece of land that would not grow white beans, which, by the addition of fifty 

 cents worth of two simple substances, yielded me at the rate of seventy-eight and three-quarter 

 bushels of wheat, weighing sixty-four pounds to the bushel per acre, a small space being 

 measured of the finest plants. I have grown wheat as an illustration of the applicability of 

 straw as a manure, on a pane of glass by merely covering it with straw ; the straw contained 

 the principles of vegetable life — the substances already named — and the wheat contained the 

 same ; therefore, by applying the straw, as it decomposed, the requisites of growth were 

 yielded to the grain, and it grew beautifully. Therefore it Avas I impressed on the minds of 

 farmers that they might sell the grain but by no means the straw. I am now, and have 

 been all Summer, buying straw of my neighbors, at one cent to two cents a bundle, which is 

 thrown on my cow-yard, as an absorbent, and becomes in six months a rich and most 

 valuable manure ; that which is long and tmdecomposed is used for hoed crops, such as potatoes 

 and com ; the decomposed and well-rotted as a dressing on the surface, mixed with guano, 

 charcoal, ashes, etc. The same principle will apply to all. If you grow rye, return the 

 straw to the field and plough it under ; when rooted, it will grow rye even in ground too 

 poor previously to grow any crop. When digging potatoes, cutting com, etc., the haulm and 

 tops should be returned to tire soil ; it will need no other manure, and will produce the following 

 year the like crops if planted in the same ground. When trimming vines leave the tendrils 

 and leaves at the roots of your vines, and they will require no other attention at your hands. 

 If you would give tO' fruit trees a manure most suitable to them, burn the trimmed limbs and 

 branches and return to the tree the ashes. The crop will be abundant. The reason why 

 the manure of neat cattle is so nutritious to grass lands, is that the cattle are mainly fed 

 on grass and, therefore, you return like to like ; for the same reason horse manure is by far 

 the most valuable on cereal grains,, he being chiefly fed on farinaceous matter. In Weathers- 

 field, the great onion district of Connecticut, they grow onions year after year on the same 

 ground, and for that purpose leave the tops on the beds from whence they take the roots. 

 If in Virginia the tops of the tobacco plant had been left on the soil and little more care been 

 used immense tracts in that State now deserted and barren, would have still yielded profuse 

 crops of that plant and have enriched hundreds. It was never intended that the land should 

 be stripped of all enriching matters, and thus those grasping all are punished. 



For some years I have been engaged in endeavoring to grow crops superior to those 

 grown in my vicinity and, for that purpose, have placed upon my soil composts composed of 



