No. 5. 



Leached Ashes as a Manure. 



69 



into string's over them, and smootliing- it down 

 liglitly with your finger or thumb, covering 

 the whole perfectly tight, to exclude air and 

 rain, and more especially to prevent the sap 

 from running out. The sap being confined, 

 will force its v;ay to the graft, which will 

 readily receive it. 



iStocks with only one graft will be im- 

 proved by having the corner opposite the 

 graft pared down to about the middle of the 

 graft. It will enable them to heal over soon- 

 er, without leaving defects. 



If the stock splits uneven, cut it a little to 

 fit the graft. If the bark splits from one side 

 of the stock and adheres to the other, cut it 

 down even with the wood, and match the 

 graft to that side only, in case the other is 

 too badly injured. 



The grafts should be examined occasional- 

 ly, and the shoots from the stocks ought not 

 to be suffered to acquire a luxuriant growth, 

 hut gradually thinned out and cut away as 

 the graft acquires growth and strength to 

 take the juices of the stock. 



Let the limbs or stock for grafting be cut 

 off, when convenient, above and near small 

 branches or shoots, to be left at first to draw 

 the sap. 



If the above directions are substantially ad- 

 hered to, few grafts will fail; and a middle 

 sized tree of vigorous growth, may have the 

 top changed, and in a fruit bearing state, in 

 about three years. 



lifiaclied Ashes a§ a ]71uii9irc. 



It appears to us that the attention of farm- 

 ers can scarcely be called too often to the 

 subject of manures, or their varieties and 

 modes of action too fully discussed or illus- 

 trated. Constituting as they do his wealth, 

 and furnishing the only means of raising 

 good crops, or renovating impoverished soils, 

 every substance that can enhance and per- 

 petuate the fertility of his lands should be 

 carefully tried by him, and its value esti- 

 mated accordingly. 



In the western part of this state, and in 

 all new countries, such is the fertility of the 

 soil, and the abundance of native salts and 

 vegetable matter furnished during a long- 

 course of growth and decay, that the first 

 series of cultivators find little use for the 

 manures, and the expedients for ameliorating 

 the soil, which are so necessary in the older 

 cultivated countries. Hence materials, which 

 are considered invaluable for these purposes 

 in the states on the seaboard, or in European 

 countries, are in our new settlements consi- 

 dered a nuisance, and wasted in immense 

 quantities. The gradual decrease which has 

 taken place in the annual production of wheat 

 per acre for several years, on most of our old 



farms, shows, we think, that the native en- 

 ergies of the soil are weakened, and that the 

 course adopted for improving soils in other 

 places must be resorted to by us. 



One of the most prominent articles used as 

 manure in older settled countries, and sought 

 after with an avidity that shows its real value, 

 in ameliorating the soil, is leached ashes, a 

 substance which as yet has scarcely created 

 a thought among us, except it was to devise 

 some easy method of disposing of the quanti- 

 ties so rapidly accumulating around our do- 

 mestic leach-tubs and asheries. Millions of 

 bushelj^ — we might almost say loads — of this 

 valuable material are annually wasted, when 

 the time has arrived, as we think, that it 

 could most profitably be used on our farms. 



There is scarcely a ptocess in tanning, or 

 an article used for substantially improving 

 the soil, for which more decisive testimony 

 can be found, than can be adduced in favor 

 of leached ashes as a manure. Under the 

 head of "Stimulating Manures," Chaptal, in 

 his celebrated work on Agriculture, makes 

 these remarks: "The ashes produced by the 

 combustion of wood in our common domestic 

 fires, give rihO to some very remarkable re- 

 sults. Without being leached, these ashes 

 are much too active ; but atler having been 

 deprived by the action of water of nearly all 

 their salts, and employed in this state under 

 the name oi' buck ashes, they still produce a 

 great effect. The action of the buck ashes 

 is mo.t powerful upon moist lands and mea- 

 dows, in which they not only fiicllitate the 

 growth of useful plants, but if employed for 

 several years they will free the soil from 

 weeds. By the use of them, land constantly 

 drenched with water may be freed from 

 ru«hes, and prepared for yielding clover and 

 other plants of good kinds. Wood ashes po.s- 

 sess the double property of amending a wet 

 and clayey soil, by dividing and drying it, 

 and of promoting vegetation by the salts they 

 contain." 



The Rev. Mr. Colman, in his interesting 

 account of the successful system of farming 

 adopted and pursued by Mr. Stimson of Gal- 

 way, in Saratoga county, thus speaks of the 

 use made of leached ashes on that farm, and 

 the opinion of the owner on their actual value : 

 " Mr. Slimson manures his land only once in 

 six years, excepting the application of plaster 

 to his corn. He allows five loads of barn-yard 

 manure and three of leached ashes to the acre, 

 and this is always spread upon the surface 

 after ploughing for the first crop, and either 

 harrowed or ploughed in by a very light 

 ploughing. * * * jjg deems leached 

 ashes a most valuable manure, and much to 

 be preferred to that which is unleached, 

 which he considers as having at first a ten- 

 dency to force the land, but in the end to im- 



