1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



265 



WOOD LAND. 



Fifteen acres of wood and tiiul)er land will 

 furnish a farmer his ordinary timber and wood for 

 two fires. Ten cords of wood will sxffice for any 

 man to keep two fires the year round provided he 

 has tight I'ooms and good stoves. We have kept 

 two fires since the first of November in two large 

 rooms, and have not yet burnt three cords of 

 wood, and we can assure you tliat we like a good 

 comforta1)le fire. Tlic farmer should commence 

 on one side of his lot, and cut the wood clean as 

 he goes. In this manner the young shoots come 

 up alike as they receive the sun alike. Now say 

 there are thirty cords of wood to an acre, if he 

 cuts ten cords of wood a year, it will take him 

 three years to cut off the wood of a single acre — 

 and it will take him forty-five years to cut the 

 wood off from his lot of fifteen acres. At the end 

 of forty- five years, he may go back to the first 

 acre he cut, and cut tliirty cords to the acre. 

 On our ordinary up la\id, wood will grow to thir- 

 ty cords to the acre in thirty -years. 



Thirty-four years since, we recollect of assist- 

 ing in clearing fourteen acres of Avood-land, and 

 getting the same into winter rye. After the crop 

 of winter rya was taken , it was pastured for a 

 year or two, and then suffered to ^row up. The 

 growth was white oak, red oak, yellow oak, chest- 

 nut and maple. Seven years since that same rye 

 field was cut over, and there was not a single 

 acre of it but produced thirty cords to the acre ! 

 And this in twenty-seven years ! 



ANSWER TO aUEEY LAST WEEK. 



Prof. Nash, editor of "TAe Farmer,'''' pub- 

 lished at Amherst, will please accept our thanks 

 for his kind and prompt reply to questions pro- 

 pounded to him in our last paper. Ills opinions 

 are much as we expected to find them, and are 

 worthy of cai'eful consideration. 



Amherst, April 25, 1855. 

 Editor N. E. Farmer : — Dear Sir, — I have been 

 compelled to a hasty, and, to myself, unsatisfac- 

 tory answer to your question ; and, as I shall not 

 issue another namber under a month, 1 have no 

 objection to your publishing, if you choose, the 

 following, a?' an illustration of an idea, (perhaps 

 it is but an idea,) whicli I entertain; — that land 

 is long benefited by the addition of heavy com- 

 posts, wliile it must soon feel the exhausting ef- 

 fect of crops grown by homoeopathic doses of any 

 thing. Three hundred pounds to an acre is less 

 than three ounces to a ton of soil. If you take 

 off crop after crop, and put on only three ounces 

 to the ton of soil, where will be the soluble sili- 

 ca, the potash, the soda, the lime, the magnesia, 

 tiie chlorine? all of which are removed in the 

 crops ; all are essential to the growth of plants ; 

 and next to none are returned in three ounces of 

 manure. Yours truly, J. A. Nasu. 



A REPORT. 



The past five years, we have cultivated two ad- 

 jacent acres, similar in quality, an ordinary loam, 

 as follows ;— 185G to corn, 1857 to oats, is58 to 

 clover, 1850 to clover again, and 18G() to corn. 



One acre has been dressed each year with 300 



pounds of Peruvian guano, costing on the ground 

 $9,00. The other has been dressed with four loads 

 of manure, composted with ten loads of muck, 

 five busliels of oyster-shell lime, and two bushels 

 of plaster ; the lime and plaster put with the 

 muck in the fall, and the manure added in the 

 spring. The cost of the latter dressing has been 

 a trifle more than that of the former ; but, as the 

 labor has been done at times when our teams 

 could not well )je employed otherwise, we could 

 about as readily furnish the compost as pay cash 

 for the guano. 



RESULTS. 



On Guanoed. On Mucked. 



1856. Corn and straw, worth $50 $40 



1857. Oats and straw 30 30 



1858. Clovtr, hay and feud 30 35 



1859. " " " 25 40 



1860. Corn and straw 30 60 



$165 $205 



James & Jameson. 

 Jamcsville, Oct. 20, 1860. 



ANOTHER REPORT. 



Since 1860 we have cultivated the same acres 

 mentioned in our report of that year, dressing 

 each acre, in 1861, with ten loads of barn ma- 

 nure composted with ten of muck, in 1862 the 

 same, in 1865 with 30 loads, half manure and 

 half muck, no dressing the intervening years. 



RESULTS. 



On Guanoed. On Mucked. 



1861. Corn and stover, worth $40 $70 



1862. Oats and straw 35 40 



1863. Clover hay and seed 35 40 



1864. " " " 30 40 



1805. Corn and stover 60 70 



Add former results. 



200 

 .165 



260 

 205 



465 



Difference $100, and the guanoed land not yet 

 fully restored. James & Jameson. 



Jamesville, Oct. 20, 1865. 



SALT FOR ANIMALS. 



Professor Simonds, Veterinary Inspector to the 

 Royal Agricultural Society, observes, in relation 

 to the action of salt on the animal economy, that 

 "it is exceedingly beneficial in moderate quanti- 

 ties, but prejudicial in large ones. He thought 

 horses might take with advantage from an ounce 

 and a half to two ounces of salt, daily ; but that 

 an excess of it would render animals weak, debil- 

 itated, and unfit for exertion. Similar facts were 

 applicable also to oxen, w^hich accumulated flesh 

 faster by the judicious use of salt, than without 

 it. He cited Arthur Young and Sir John Sin- 

 clair, to show that salt had a tendency to prevent 

 the rot in sheep. Prof. S. added, as his own 

 opinion, that salt, by its action on the liver, and 

 the supply of soda it yielded to the bile, led to a 

 greater amount of nutriment being derived from 

 the food. The substance, he said, was also well 

 known as a vermifuge, destroying many kinds of 

 worms in the intestines of animals, and conferring 

 a healthy tone of action wliich prevented their 

 re-occurrence. Several membex-s of the R. A. 

 Society, as Col. Challoncr and ]\Ir. Fisher Ilobbs, 

 stated that their experience led them to agree 

 with Professor Simonds in regard to the value of 

 salt for animals. 



