120 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



close calculating man. He told me that they 

 had hcen annoyed Avith grasshoppers, and that by 

 keeping turkeys a few years, he got rid of them. 

 I have since kept a flock on my farm, and tliink 

 they more than jiay their way, especially where a 

 fixrm is infested with grasshoppers. — Country 

 Gentleman. 



SALINE MATTER IN SOILS. 



One grain of saline matter in every pound of 

 soil measuring one foot in depth, is equal to five 

 hundred pounds per acre. And this amount, in- 

 significant as it appears, in the abstract, is more 

 than is exhausted in forty years, supposing the 

 grain produced upon it is sold off, and the straw 

 and green crops are regularly returned to it in 

 the shapj of manure. In most cases farmers rely 

 too confidently on what they have been tradition- 

 ally taught to regard as the recuperative or self- 

 replenishing power of the soil, a power by wliich 

 it is blindlj' conceived to be capable of re-attain- 

 ing fertility through its own unassisted energies 

 when it has been thoroughly impoverished by 

 long crojiping, and deprived of almost every ele- 

 ment upon which fertility, or the power of pro- 

 duction, depends. Such a caj^acity does not be- 

 long te any soil. 



Suppose the most affluent soil — a garden, for 

 instance — to be cultivated for a series of years 

 without any application of manure. No one can 

 doubt that exhaustion would be the result, and 

 that the exhaustion would be precisely in pro- 

 portion to the amount or bulk of the crop pro- 

 duced. The same principle operates elsewhere. 

 All the elements abstracted from the soil by veg- 

 etables, must be returned to it, or it will be de- 

 teriorated in proportion to the quantity of the 

 elementary substances withdraAvn. 



Let us examine this question somewhat more 

 minutely. Sprexgel, a celebrated chemist, and 

 long at tlic head of the Agricultural School of 

 Prussia, published an exact analysis of two pro- 

 ductive soils ; the first, a fine alluvial soil, 

 overflowed by the ocean, and for sixty years cul- 

 tivated in wheat without manure ; the second, a 

 soil pro ducing excellent crops of clover, beans, 

 rape, potatoes and turnips, wlien manured with 

 gypsum. Of these soils one thousand parts con- 

 tained, after washing, 



No. 1. No. 2. 



Soluble saline matter 18 1 



Fine earthy and organized matter, (clay,). 937 89.3 



Silicioua sand 45 160 



1000 1054 



Now in tlie case of the first,.the alluvial soil, 

 the exhaustion produced by the crop was coun- 

 terbalanced by the alluvial deposits, and conse- 

 quently, so long as its annual or periodical sub- 

 mergence by the water, its fertility would be 

 maintained unimpaired ; in the latter, gypsum 

 supplied the deficiency not made up by the de- 



cay of the roots, straw, and other products of the 

 plants left upon the soil. 



For the New Enc;land Farmer. 



PLANTING TESES. 



Mr. Editor : — I perceive that the committee 

 on agriculture have been instructed to visit the 

 State Farm at Westboro', to inquire as to the 

 uses made of the lands on this farm, and the ex- 

 pediency of making additions thereto. This 

 brings to mind a suggestion made the last year, 

 (see Vol. VI. New England Fanner, p. 309,) in 

 these words : "What more delightful appendage 

 to such an institution, than a flourishing grove of 

 oaks?" Let different modes of rearing be tried, 

 and different varieties be planted, and their vari- 

 ous progress noted and recorded ; and , sixty years 

 hence, when the boys who may have assisted in 

 depositing the acorns shall be of the number who 

 may be entrusted with the care of the institution, 

 they will bless the memory of him who suggested' 

 the experiment. Let ten acres of the laud be 

 thus planted with the English white oak, (ex- 

 perience has shown that this variety advances in 

 size twice as fast as the American white oak,) and 

 there Avill be no liazard in guaranteeing that in 

 thirty years the value of the land will be increased 

 four-fold, and in sixty years ten-fold. What better 

 deposit can be made? And then, think of the 

 enjoyment the boys would experience in hunting 

 squirrels in such a grove ! "A word to the wise 

 is sufficient." Essex. 



January 29, 1855. 



For the New England Farmer. 



NOTE OF THANKS. 

 Messrs. Editors : — I am mucli indebted to you 

 for your montlily paper kindly sent me, some years 

 past, and small tribute pecuniary or agricultural, 

 horticultural, floral or pomological, have you re- 

 ceived at my hands in return. But j^lease accept, 

 in lieu of a more substantial and valuable consid- 

 eration, my very sincere thanks for the New Eng- 

 land Farmer. 



1. I thank you in behalf of plow-boys. I re- 

 member well when I held this oflice, and while 

 pacing by the side of the team over my father's 

 fields, how I longed for something to awake the j 

 mind, and prompt interesting tlioughts, so that m 

 plowman or driver might find pleasant topics for 

 conversation. Alas, for the weary, dreary mo- 

 notony of our work, with nothing on hand worth 

 thinking of or talking of, as to our business of 

 dull, haayj plow-joffging. (a.) You furnish am- 

 ple materials to till up that sad vacuum in the 

 mind of the younger and older field laborer. 

 Great mental stupor must there be, if your arti- 

 cles do not prompt thouglits, inquiries and rea- 

 sonings, in all who arc working the soil, or gath- 

 ering its products, and thus prevent their minds 

 from lying waste, or overgrown with noxious 

 weeds. 



2. I thank you for your influence, adapted to 

 attach farmers' sons to their dignifying employ- 

 ment, upon soil consecrated to freedom. The 

 plow-boy's lash (ever to be used Avisely and mer- 

 cifully) falls not upon the cowering slave, but 

 upon the dull or wayward ox, to prompt him to 

 duty. You labor to inspire an agricultural taste. 



