NO. 5. 



THE farmers' cabinet. 



69 



and strong, especially when seeds are sown 

 which need inucli nourishment, or will make 

 good return for it. 



There are fonr things chiefly to he regard- 

 ed in dressing ; the suitahleness of the dress- 

 ing to the sdii, and to the crop; and the 

 manner and the seasons of applying it. 



To light, warm, or sandy soils, the coldest 

 manure should be applied ; such as the dung 

 . of hogs, cows, oxen, 6cc. Dung that is much 

 mixed with straw does best in such a soil, 

 and the straw soon rots and become food 

 for plants. Cold and stiff soils should be 

 dressed with the hottest and driest manures, 

 as the dung of horses, sheep and fowls. Wet 

 soils should have manures that have the 

 greatest power of absorbing moisture. — 

 Lime, where it is cheap and plenty, may be 

 used with great advantage ; ashes, coals, and 

 saw dust are also proper. 



Some kinds of dressing should be well 

 mixed with the soil, by the plough and har- 

 row ; especially such as are apt to lose their 

 strength, by being exposed to the air. Of this 

 sort are dungs in general, and some other 

 manures. Dung is to be ploughed in with 

 a light furrow. Composts, which consist 

 of dung, earth and other substances, need 

 only to be harrowed. If dressings are laid 

 too deep, as under deep furrows, they will 

 be in a manner lost; the roots of most kinds 

 of annual plants will scarcely reach them ; 

 and, before the next ploughing, the strength 

 of them will be sunk still deeper into the 

 earth. 



There are other manures which should be 

 used only as top dressings. Their exposure 

 to the air takes away little or none of their 

 virtue, being of an alkaline nature, such as 

 ashes, lime, and the like. They are speedily 

 settled into the soil by rains and melting 

 snows, and alTord a more kindly nourishment 

 to the roots of grass and grain, than if they 

 were buried in the soil. Beingf laid lower 

 than the surface, their strength would be 

 more apt to be carried lower than the roots 

 of plants commonly reach. 



Some dressings are thought to be more 

 successfully applied some time before sow- 

 ing. Such a one lime is said to be, as being 

 apt to burn, or too much heat the seed. But 

 this, I think, can be orly when it is laid on 

 unslacked, and in large quantities. 



Other dressings answer best at the time 

 of sowinjT. This is the case as to most 

 kinds of dung that are used, and the several 

 other manures. 



But those manures which exert all their 

 strength suddenly, are allowed to be the 

 best, used only as top dressings, after the 

 plants are up, such as soot, ashes, certain 

 warm composts, and malt dust. If they are 

 laid on winter grain in autumn, there will he 



danger of their causing too rapid a growth : 

 In consequence of which, the grain will be 

 afterwards stinted, and languish, unless an- 

 other and lartrer drossinjj be jjiven it in the 

 following spring, or summer. It is probably 

 best to apply these dressings just before the 

 time when the plants will need the greatest 

 supply of vegetable nourishment, which is 

 when their growth is most rapid, or near the 

 time when the ears are shooting out. 



How to troat a Farm in sandy 

 soil. 



My farm is situated on an extensive plain 

 that was once covered pretty generally with 

 small pine timber. The soil is sand, occa- 

 sionally gravel, and more or less mixed with 

 loam. It consists of two hundred acres, of 

 which thirty acres are in wood, twenty in 

 meadow, and ten acres of waste, leaving for 

 cultivation about one hundred and forty acres 

 of arable, or land used for the plough, which 

 is divided into seven lots, of twenty acres 

 leach. One of these is planted in corn, on 

 clover sod. The corn is large twelve rowed 

 early yellow, and my usual produce is about 

 fifty bushels per acre. My mode of cultiva- 

 tion is, that after the lot has lain out one 

 year in clover, to plough it the last of April 

 or first of May, about six inches deep : then 

 furrow both ways with a light corn plough; 

 the first times across the furrows about two 

 feet nine inches apart, the next about three 

 feet. I plant immediately after furrowing. 

 As soon as the corn is up the length of the 

 finger, I harrow it with a large heavy harrow 

 lengthwise with the furrow, as the ground 

 was originally ploughed, and take two rows 

 at a time. Two men or boys follow the 

 harrow with aprons, out of which they plas- 

 ter the corn, and also raise any plants which 

 may have been thrown down by the harrow 

 passing over them. In a week after, I plough 

 once between the rows as they are planted 

 the narrowest way; the men follow with the 

 hoe, and they will finish twenty acres in ten 

 days. In about a fortnight more I plough it 

 the widest way of planting, twice between 

 the rows and throw the ground towards the 

 plant. I cut the stalk above the ear as soon 

 as the kernel in the ear is hard, and secure 

 the stalks in shocks. We husk the corn on 

 the hill, and two men will gather one hundred 

 bushels of ears in a day. The lot which was 

 in corn, I put down the succeeding year to 

 oats, and it commonly produces about forty 

 bushels per acre. This lot I seed down with 

 western clover seed, eight quarts per acre. 

 Two lots are in wheat which were likewise 

 the year previous in clover seed. The ono is 

 ])loughed the first of August, and again just 

 previous to sowing in October; the other but 

 once, the last of August or first of P^toliprj 



