KO. 6. 



THE farmers' cabinet. 



S5 



ment ; by this method large crops have been 

 obtained with a small expense of labor and 

 manure — but some of little faith may object 

 that it is the result of a single experiment; 

 that there may have been something peculiar 

 in the soils or the seasons; that with others 

 it would have been a complete failure, and 

 that most likely the land soon became ex- 

 hausted. But Mr. Phinney has practised and 

 continues lo practice the same kind of hus- 

 bandry with the same success, and with in- 

 creasing confidence. The field on wliich he 

 made the experiment which he has so clearly 

 and satisfactorily detailed, has remained in 

 grass till the present season, and has con- 

 tinued to yield two tons of good hay to the 

 acre, without any top dressing. Other farm- 

 ers have followed the same method on a great 

 diversity of soils, and although a plain field 

 and loamy soil may be be^:t adapted to the 

 purpose, there are none except very wet or 

 very rough and rocky grounds which cannot 

 be greatly improved by it. There Is nothing 

 unreasonable or unphilosophical in this me- 

 thod, and success would seem to follow it as 

 naturally as effect follows cause. [ know 

 that there are many farmers who believe 

 that the good old loay is the best way, but 

 let the most incredulous of these visit the 

 farm of Mr. Phinney, which, but fifteen years 

 ago, produced but nine tons of hay and which 

 now produces seventy; let him go into those 

 well mellowed fields and see the corn waving 

 in its beauty and ripening into a golden har- 

 vest, yelding nearly one hundred bushels to 

 the acre, and potatoes in equal abundance ; 

 let him witness all the improvements of that 

 well managed and thoroughly cultivated farm, 

 (which, in natural advantages, perhaps, does 

 not exceed his own,) and that skeptical farm- 

 er, who went out hesitating and unbelievinc-, 

 will come home with a settled conviction 

 that Mr, Phinney is a farmer of great skill 

 and enterprizo, enlightened by a sound judg- 

 ment: he will cheerfully admit that his 

 method of cultivation is a great improve- 

 ment, and he will apply it to his own farm 

 as far as circumstances will allow. I should 

 not have dwelt so long on this subject, if, 

 from my own observation and the experience 

 of others, I had not been fully satisfied that 

 the adoption of a similar method of husband- 

 ry would be beneficial to our own fields. 



liime for Wheat. 



Wheat, we are told, is improved for seed, 

 by being kept on hand a year, and will then 

 produce a crop without smut, and will not be 

 injured by the fly. Judge Buel, a celebrated 

 agriculturist, residing near Albany, observes, 

 ** I am almost a proselyte to the opinion that 

 the nit is deposited in the down of the ker- 

 nel before the grain is harvested, and that 



the same warmth which causes the seed to 

 vegetate in the earth, hatches the insect 

 there also, f am inclined to favour the hy- 

 pothesis, and not without evidence, that the 

 seed of both the smut and the fly lose their 

 reproductive power during the lapse of a 

 twelve-month. 1 will not venture to say that 

 liming seed is as efficacious against the fly, 

 as it is against smut; but this much I can 

 say, that 1 always lime my seed wheat, and 

 never have it injured by smut or fly, while 

 many fields in my neighborhood are annually 

 divested by the one, or materially injured 

 by the other." 



The Kse of Lime as a Manure forWheat. — 

 The application of lime to whe-'.t culture is 

 one of the mcst important improvements in 

 modern husbandry. It is well know that 

 our lands, were the soil is fit for any kind 

 of arable products, will yield good crops of 

 wheat, when first cleared of their native 

 growth of wood ; but, after having been 

 tilled some years, they generally produce 

 wheat with difficulty, and it is often found 

 impossible to obtain it by any of the common 

 ftiodes of culture. In most parts of Massa- 

 chusetts, and in some parts of New-Hamp- 

 shire and Vermont, the farmers for a long 

 period scarcely ever attempted to raise wheat, 

 and still more rarely succeeded when they 

 did attempt it. Yet wheat was a common 

 and profitable crop in those places in the 

 earliest periods of their settlemet. In pro- 

 cess of time, however, the land became in- 

 capable of producing that precious product, 

 and our farm.ers were compelled to forego its 

 culture, till quite recently it has been suc- 

 cessfully cultivated by means of manuring 

 with lime. 



Similar variations and appearances have 

 likewise been observed in Europe. Wheat 

 countries, by continued tillage, have become 

 almost incapable of yielding wheat. The 

 cause and remedy of this partial barrenness, 

 this incapacity in the soil to produce plants, 

 which it had once brought fortli in abundance, 

 were alike involved in obscurity, till modern 

 discoveries in chemistry threw light on the 

 subject. It has been found that the texture 

 of every soil is deficient, unless it contains a 

 mixture of three kinds of earth, viz. clay, 

 sand, and liinc. ; and that lime in some of its 

 combinations, exists in wheat both in the 

 straw and in the kernel. In some soils, fer- 

 tile in other respects, lime may either have 

 no existence, or be found in very minute 

 portions, and be soon exhausted. If lime be 

 a constituent of wheat, and is not in the soil 

 when we attempt to raise that crop, we must 

 furnish lime by art, or wheat will not grow. 

 Or if native lime exists in the soil in small 

 qnantites, the land may bear wheat till the 

 lime is exhausted, and then become incapable 



