286 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



MARCH 20, 1833 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 20, 18.33 



FARMER'S WORIC. 



Manure for Grass Land, Top Dressing. It is 

 wrong to attempt to take many crops of hay from 

 any piece of upland without affording it nuinure : 

 and although, as a general rule, it is best to break 

 up, and take arable crops from land when it is 

 manured there are important exceptions to this 

 rule. Mowing land may be too wet, or otherwise 

 unfit for the plough ; and though much manure is 

 wasted, when applied to grass land by its washing 

 away by rains, and giving its fertilizing gases to 

 the atmosphere instead of the plants it was intend- 

 ed to nourish, still there may exist cases in which 

 its apjilication to the surface of grasslands may be 

 advisable. Mowing land in such cases, should, 

 once in two or three years have a top dressing of 

 some manure suitable to the soil. Gypsum or 

 lime well |)ulverized will be well applied to clover 

 growing on a dry soil. "Gypsum" says the Far- 

 mer's Guide" generally benefits all broad leaved 

 plants, such as corn, potatoes, and most of the 

 grasses. It is also good for young fruit trees. 

 On grasses the best time to sow it, is when vegeta- 

 tion starts in the spring, at the rate of one bushel 

 per acre, and the same quantity inmiediately after 

 haying. Plaster has no effect on moist lands, and 

 it has been thought not to be beneficial near the 

 sea, but from some experiments, it appears that its 

 operation depends more on the nature of the soil 

 than its nearness to the sea coast." 



Dr. Deane observed "If the application of top 

 dressings to mowing ground were generally prac- 

 tised, and repeated as it ought to be instead of the 

 general, or rather universal neglect of it, it would 

 put a new face upoii things. A vast plenty of hay, 

 double crops, two cuttings in a year, and much 

 increase of wealth to farmers in general would be 

 the happy consequences." Sir John Sinclair, re- 

 commends top dressing a growing crop, w hen it is 

 suspected that the land is not rich enough to bring 

 a full crop to perfection, and directs that this 

 should be done as early in the spring as the land 

 becomes sufficiently dry to bear the treading of a 

 horse without poaching; and after the manure has 

 been applied, the land should generally be harrow- 

 ed or rolled. Soot, ashes, and other light ma- 

 nures are thus most advantageously disposed of. 



Loudon says "The roots of perennial grasses, 

 whether fibrous or creeping, never strike deep in- 

 to the soil, and thus deriving their nourishment 

 chiefly from the surface, top dressings of well rot- 

 ted manure, repeated on the same field fur centu- 

 ries, form at last a thin black stratum among the 

 roots of the grass, which produces the most luxu- 

 riant crops." 



Most agricultural writers as before intimated 

 condemn the use of barn yard, stable or putrescent 

 flmnure on grass land, because it is apt to be wash- 



ed away, or to become dried matter of little value 

 by exposure to the sun and air. Undoubtedly 

 manure of this kind will, generally, prove more 

 serviceable when ploughed into the ground and 

 used for corn, potatoes, &c. but in many cases it 

 is not bad husbandry to use the strongest sorts of 

 dung as top dressings for grasses. An English 

 agricultural writer, whose works ai-e well esteem- 

 ed says "There is scarcely any sort of manure 

 that will not be useful when laid on the surface of 

 grass grounds; but, in general, those of the more 

 rich dung kinds are most suitable for the older 

 sort of sward lands ; and dung, in composition with 

 fresh vegetable and earthy substances, is more 

 useful to the new leys, or grass lands. In Jlid- 

 dleseX it is the practice of the best farmers to pre-- 

 fer the richest dung they can procure, and seldom 

 to mix it with any sort of earthy material, as they 

 find it to answer best in regard to the quantity of 

 produce, which is the principal object in view ; 

 the cultivators depending chiefly for the sale of 

 their hay on the London markets. It is the prac- 

 tice to turn over the dung that is brought from 

 London in a tolerable state of rottenness, so as to 

 be in a middling state of fineness, when put upon 

 the land. It is necessary, however, that it should 

 be in a more rotten and reduced state when used 

 in the spring than when the autumn is chosen fi)r 

 its application." — Dickson's Practical Agriculture. 



With regard to the season at which manure 

 should be applied to mowing gi'ound, a great dif- 

 ference of opinion prevails among farmers both in 

 Europe and America. Loudon says, " In the 

 County of Middlesex, where almost all the grass 

 lands are preserved for hay, the manure is invari- 

 ably laid on in October, while the land is suffi- 

 ciently dry to bear the driving of loaded carls, and 

 when the heat of the day is so moderated as not 

 to exhale the volatile parts of the mass. Others 

 prefer ajiplyiug it immediately after hay time from 

 about the middle of Jidy to the ciul of August, 

 which is said to be the "good old time," and if 

 that season he inconvenient, at any time from the 

 beginning of February to the beginning of April. 



TIte Farmer's Manual directs to dress [iu March] 

 with stable compost, hog-pen, or such other well 

 rotted manure as you have, such grass grounds as 

 you have neglected in autumn ; three loads now 

 may be equal to two then ; but it is best to secure 

 a good crop even now. Your winter grain should 

 now be dressed with plaster, if it was neglected at 

 seed time ; your mowing grounds, which are on a 

 di-y soil will pay you well for a bushel or two of 

 plaster, or a few bushels of lime or leached ashes to 

 the acre. A mixture of lime and ashes, plaster and 

 ashes, or of all those ingredients has also been re- 

 commended. 



Previous to manuring your grass land it will he 

 well to harrow or scarify it. Rolling has been 

 recommended to smooth and consolidate the sur- 

 face of grass ground, prevent the formation of ant- 



hillsandrcudertheeftectsofdroughtless pernicious. 

 But scarifying or tearing the surface with a harrow 

 is better, as it opens the ground to admit manure 

 to the roots of the grass ; and thus the force of the 

 objections to the application of putrescent manure 

 on grass ground is in some degree obviated. After 

 this process it is often advisable to sow grass seeds 

 to preduce a new set of plants and supersede the 

 necessity of breaking up the soil to prevent its be- 

 ing " bound out," as the phrase is. 



ITKMS OF 11VTEI,L,IGEI«CE. 



Latest from Europe. — An arrival at N. York brinn-s 

 London dates from Jan. 23d and Liverpool from Jan. x.'4. 



O'Connclls National Council met at Dublin Jan. 17lh, 

 and among other resolutions discussed was the following, 

 viz. " That it is essential to the people of England that 

 the system of tythes in that country should be extin- 

 guished, not in name only but in substance and reality." 



On the -.ilst Jan. e.xtensive powder mills e.xplodcd at 

 Dartmoutli, in Kent. The damage done for miles was 

 immense ; and in many instances, particularly in the 

 neighborhood, in a number bf houses not a whole pane 

 of glass is left. Seven bodies had been found, but it was 

 impossible to say how many lives were lost at the time 

 the news was published. 



Ireland continues in a dreadful state. Combinations 

 to oppose the laws, midnight marches and meetings, 

 wounding cows, horses and sheep, as well as the inmates . 

 of houses, are the order of the day and the business of 

 the night. 



** In the County of Kilkenny the list of outrages con- 

 tinues undiminished, either by the presence of increased 

 constabulary force or the approach of cavalry. Details 

 of .attacks on 10 houses are given between the 7th and 

 13th inclusive in various parts of tlic country. In these 

 visits tiie White feet severely beat and wounded three of 

 the inmates, houghed two cows and a horse, and burned 

 some stacks of wheat and out offiees," &c. &c. 



It is reported that Ibrahim Pacha has gained another 

 and recent victory over the Turkish army. 



Ilriiortoftlie Minoritij of llie CoinmitUe on Manufactures. 

 A late National Intelhgcncer contains Mr. Adams' mi- 

 nority report on those parts of the President's message 

 which related to domestic manul'actures. It is a very 

 long as well as able paper, occupying three pages of the 

 National Intelligencer. An analysis and extracts from 

 this document are given in the Boston Courier. 



The following is from a Liverpool paper of Feb. 4 : — 

 Rumors have been prevalent, thai Ibe Government are ma- 

 luring a plan for the abolition of slavery in our colonial pos- 

 sessions. Whatever truth there may be in the rumors to 

 which we have alluded, it has long been evident to every man 

 of ordinary observation, that '* llic fulness of time" has arrived 

 when the delusion of gradual must ^ive place to the certainty 

 of immediate emancipation, using the word immediate to im- 

 ply, not the instant disenlhralmenl of the slavcs,without looking^ 

 to consequences, but the commencement of a system which 

 shall, in a period to be fixcti, aud therefore limited, terminate 

 ill the total destruction of slavery. Public opinion, not the 

 npiuion of an mireflcctiiig mob, but of the moral, aud religious, 

 ami enlightened people of England, has scathed the monster 

 whose days are numbered, and whose dissolution, at no very 

 remote period, will be hailed with pleasureand delight by 

 every lover of humanity and justice. 



Since the above remarks were written, we have heard that 

 the West India bo^'.v, alarmed at the intentions of Govern- 

 ment, and satisfied that Parliament will insist on the emancipa- 

 tion of the slaves, have expressed their willingness to fail into 

 the views of the abolitionists, on the condition, that they shall 

 be allowed to enjoy their present monopoly of the supply of the 

 English market with the produce of tlie colonies. 



