76 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1824. 



jFarmri's Ctalrntjar. 



Manire. You will be so good as to continue 

 to be very attentive to making and making the 

 most of every kind of substance which c:\n be 

 beneficially converted into manure. Indeed, 

 manure is the life, soul, essence, and quintes- 

 sence of profitable farming. A farmer without 

 manure, is like a merchant without goods, cash, 

 or credit, — a mechanic without stock or tool?, — 

 or a student without books. 



Among other materials for manure, we would 

 solicit the attention of cultivators to a vpgetable 

 called Fern, or Brake (Polypodium). Tliis plant 

 will nearly or quite support your store pigs ; 

 and if you can easily command more than they 

 can consume, or manage to advantage, it may 

 be put into your compost beds, or small stacks 

 to be covered with earth and a little quick lime, 

 to hasten their decay. Dr Denne observed that 

 "Brakes are so full of salts, that they should be 

 cut green, and laid in our barn-yards to putrify 

 and mix with the dung. Perhaps there is scarce- 

 ly any better method of increasing manure." 



" Fern, cut while the sap is in it, and left to 

 rot on the ground, is a very great improver of 

 land; for, if burnt when so cut, its ashes will 

 yield double the quantity of sails that any other 

 vegetable can do. In several places in the north 

 ])art of Europe, the inhabitants mow it green, 

 and burning it to ashes, make those ashes up 

 into ball.s, with a little water, which they dry in 

 the sun, and make use of them in washing their 

 linen. — Dictionary of Arts. 



In the Fariuer^s Calendar, you may read, under 

 September, — "Now is the proper time to cut 

 fern, called in some places brakes. This is most 



the tops of potatoes to lie on the top of the 

 ground to wither and bleach, till the sun and air 

 have robbed them of their fertilizing qualities, 

 and rendered them dry, insipid, and of but little 

 more value than the same quantity of moonshine. 



Aquatic weeds, such as grow on the borders ol 

 rivers, ponds, &c. may sometimes jiay well for 

 collection. These should be gathered in heaps 

 on the higher ground and covered with earth, 

 or with turfs, the earth side downwards. Care 

 should be taken in rotting all sorts of green 

 vegetable substances for manure, lest they be- 

 come so much heated by fermentation as to lose 

 their virtues ; and by being scorched, or (as 

 they express it in England) '■'■Jire-fanged" ren- 

 dered of little use. The safest and best way is 

 to make green weeds into compost, by mixing 

 and covering them with earth, to absorb and 

 retain the eflluvia or gas which they emit dur- 

 ing decomposition. It may be well, when con- 

 venient, to spread green vegetables, particular- 

 ly sea-weeds, upon the surface of the soil, and 

 plough them in. 



The following observations respecting mixing 

 earth with dung and other vegetable substances, 

 are from a pamphlet printed by the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural Society, in 1807. 



" The practice of mixing earth with dung 

 requires to be managed with a delicate hand, 

 especially in forming a dnng-hill with materials 

 that have not Iieen previously subjected to fer- 

 mentation. The niisciiief arising from drivina^ 

 carts upon dung-hills, by pressing and consolid- 

 ating the mass, greatly retards, and, in some 

 instances, almost entirely prevents fermentation. 

 The same injury is done by mixing any consid- 

 erable quantity of soil with dung in an unfer- 

 mented state, which by pressing the straw and 

 other matters into a small s|>ace, so efiectually 

 excludes the air, that the dung, at the distance 

 of several mr.nlhs, will be found in a stale little 

 dilTercnt from what it was when i)ut into the 

 heap ; nftcr all, when it is, in common language, 

 said to be rotten, it is found, upon (juamination, 



over the whole, and a covering of the kind men- 

 lioned laid above it, a considerable addition may- 

 be made to the quantity of the manure on every 

 farm yearly, not only without risk, but with very 

 great advantage." 



profitable work, and should never be neglected. 



Carry it into your farm-yard, and build large 



stacks of it for cuttinfir d<i« n iliroucrh the winter. 



as fast as the entile will tread it into dung ; also to be onlv decayed, and the produce, instead ot 



fnr littering the slablos, ox-houses, cow-houses, abounding with rich mucilaginous substances, 



hog-sties, &LC. By having great plenty of il, you 



will be able to raise immense quantities of dung, 



which is the foundation of all good husbandry ; 



nnd it is well known that no vegetable yields 



.«uch a quantity of salts as fern; from which we 



are apt to conclude, that it is best adapted to 



the m;;king of manure." 



An English writer on Agricnlluro savs, — " 1 

 cart fern or brakes for manure thiee miles, and 

 for cutting pay five shillings a wagon load." 



Potaloc tops are nti doubt valuable for manure, 

 nnd should as soon as pulled be piled in heaps, 

 either in the barn yard cnm|)ost bed, or some 

 other suitable place, and mixed with earth or 

 at least a quantity of earth thrown over each 

 lieap. But the practice ol most farmers, so far 

 as our observation has extended, is to permit 



which alt well fermented dung does, is found to 

 consist almost entirely of vegetalde earth. — 

 There is, however, a mode of ap|)lying earlh to 

 dung hills, that is not only safe, but highly ben- 

 eficial, ll consists in covering the whole suilare 

 of the dung hill lightly, either with common 

 earth, or broken peat, every time the stables or 

 I'old yard Ave emptied; a covering ol ihat kind, 

 not being heavy enough to press materially on 

 lliR mass, does not retard the feimenlalion, and 

 has the great additional advantage of preventing 

 the liss daily sustained about most farms by e- 

 vapor.Ttion, and the dissipation of the greatest 

 part of the valuable i;asses generated during the 

 process of fermentation, all of which are en- 

 tangled and retained by the earth ; which by 

 that means not only acquires high fertilizing 

 powers, but renders the dung more valuable. — 

 When a proper system is followed of carrying 

 out the manure from the stables and yr.rd to the 

 dung hill say once a-month, if spie.^J equally 



Crrucrrtl KntrllfQcncr. 



Civil War in Spain — Arrivals at New Yorli & Pliil- 

 adelphia from Spain bring accounts down to August 15. 

 By these it appears that the Spanish Constitutionalists 

 are as;ain rallying their forces in opposition to the es- 

 tablished despotism of that unhappy country. They 

 have taken possession of TarilTa. A Spanish & French 

 army was in the rear, and two French frigates were 

 lying off and on. It was reported that a body of 300 

 caialry, sent against Tariffa, had joined the Constitu- 

 tionalists, and that in several other parts of Spain, the 

 people had taken up arms against the King, and it was 

 expected that the revolt would be gener.al throughout 

 the country in a short time. It is also stated that Ta- 

 rifla was attackod on the 8th and 9lh of August, by the 

 Royalists, but they were repulsed with considerable 

 loss, and the French commander killed. 



Greeks. — By the last accounts, it appears that Ispar- 

 ra had fallen into the hands of the Turks. This event 

 is attributed to treachery. 



COM.MUNIC.\TION WITH THE PACIFIC. 



Lewis .A. Tariscon, Esq. of Kentucky, has addres- 

 sed a circular to the public, on the subject of estab- 

 lishins a waggon road from the head waters of the 

 Missouri, over the Rocky Mountains, to those of the 

 Columbia River. One hundred miles only of road 

 would be required. A line of steam boats should 

 ply on the respective rivers, and militan.' and naval 

 establishments should be formed on the bay of the 

 Columbia. The advanta^fs to be derived from the 

 execution of this plan are set forth under twenty 

 distinct heads, among which are the following: — 

 "That it would secure the whole of the fur trade 

 within the limits of the United States — open a mar- 

 ket for merchandize and manufactures in the west — . 

 e.xtend our frontier settlements — extinguish the intlu- 

 fiice of foreign nations over the Indians, and prevent; 

 future wars — protect our commerce on the Pacific 

 orran — prohibit the European powers from planting 

 colonies on the western shores of America — lead to 

 another El Dorado in Spanish America, whence the 

 United States might derive silver and gold in abun- 

 dance, for driving a lucrative trade to the east, and 

 'for supplying our own country with specie — and to 

 save the expenses and risks of voyages round Cape 

 Horn, and the Cape of Good Hope." This project 

 has been before agitated by judicious men, and is by 

 many considered feasible. — Carlisle Jldt. 



ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION. 



A late London publication gives the following : 

 TJatchiv'^ Chickens by .Steam is no joke : 1 have seers 

 it done, and it is doing in a room over Mr. BuUock^s 

 Mexican Exhibition. There are hundreds of eggs, 

 not only of hens, ducks, and other domestic poultry, 

 but of emus and other strange birds in the commoa 

 course of incubation. The apparatus is very simple. 

 The eggs are deposited In trays on straw, and kept at 

 a temperature of about 101, the natural teMi|ierature 

 being about 104. In three weeks, the usual period 

 for hens, the chickens burst the shell, and seem as 

 healthy and lively as when produced by the commoa 

 process. Otiier birds and Ibwis foilow the same rule 

 as to time. But the most extraordinary part of this 

 exliibition is an invention to show or demonstrate the 

 whole progress of Hatching from day to day, from 

 developement and ejection of the animal. — This con- 

 sists of a series of twenty-one illuminated vessels, in 

 each of which an cg^ is exposed, opened, from the 

 first to the twenty-first day, and viewed through a. 

 glass. Thus the entire operation and secret of nature 

 is rendered palpable to the sense. 



