No. 11. Mode of Applying Manure. — Sugar- Beet for Stod: 



341 



Best Mode of Applying: Manure. 



At a late meeting of farmers and gardeners 

 at Framington, this interesting subject was 

 fully discussed. Major Wiieeler was of opin- 

 ion that none of the virtues of manure were 

 ever lost by deeply burying them in the soil, 

 for if less advantage were derived the pre- 

 sent year, more would be the result the next: 

 he had buried manure two feet deep in his 

 garden, and even then his crops found it, 

 having always noticed that the deeper and 

 more intimately mixed with the soil is the 

 manure, the more able the plants to resist the 

 efl'ects of drought. He did not believe that 

 any valuable portion of the manure v^ashed 

 down out of the reach of the roots of plants; 

 he thought they would always extend as low 

 as the manures applied were found. 



Mr. N. Stone tiiought he had seen several 

 instances where the manures had been placed 

 too deep, and mentioned several cases where 

 a heavy coat had been turned deep, and but 

 little benefit had been found from it at har- 

 vest, either in that or the following year. 



Dr. Dean observed, that as all manures 

 must assume either a liquid or a gaseous form 

 before they could become food for plants, he 

 thought it probable that we lost a valuable 

 portion of them, in consequence of their leach- 

 ing down far below the reach of plants when 

 we buried them deep in the soil : he did not 

 see why the liquid matter should not descend 

 with as much facility as water, and he feared 

 that it often sunk so low as to be of no use to 

 the cultivator. He fully agreed with those 

 who conceive that we derive the greatest 

 benefit from our manures when we take the 

 trouble to form compost heaps, and mingle 

 extraneous matter with the manure from the 

 Btables; that in such case we can lay them 

 nearer the surface; that gases would always 

 rise from them, and be lost, when there were 

 not plants on the ground to absorb them. He 

 therefore preferred to make use of compost ma- 

 nure, and to bury those but slightly in the soil. 

 Major Wheeler could not conceive how 

 any valuable portion of manures could bo lost 

 by being buried deeply ; he thought, if they 

 were so buried as to prevent evaporation, they 

 might be kept a long time ; and if they did not 

 operate so powerfully during the first season, 

 we must, eventually, obtain the full benefit, 

 for they could not be lost. He said an ex- 

 periment had been made of leaching a quan- 

 tity of manure through a body of sandy loam 

 soil, placed in a barrel, the bed of manure 

 being one or two inches thick above the loam, 

 and the body of the loam being one or two 

 feet in depth, and the water which drained 

 through this mass issued out pure and sweet. 

 In this case, all the salts valuable for vegeta- 

 tion must have separated from the water, and 

 have lodged in the loam. 



Dr. Dean replied, we must be cautious of 

 being led astray by mere theory, and remind- 

 ed his hearers of a dispute between Judge 

 Buel and J. I. Fessenden ; the latter contend- 

 ing that plants draw all their nourishment 

 from the atmosphere, while the former thought 

 they must receive so?«e food from the soil. 

 He argued, he had known large quantities of 

 manure spread on a field and turned in deep 

 with a plough, and neitlier the first nor the 

 after crops v»'ere answerable to the quantity 

 of manure so applied ; but better harvests had 

 been obtained on the same field with far less 

 manure, when applied more near the surface. 

 He had bought a field a few years ago, the 

 soil of which was a sandy loam; by constant 

 cropping it had become so exhausted, that 

 I ho vegetable growth upon it was very light. 

 Upon this land he had carted not less than 

 one hundred loads per acre of peat muck, 

 v.'hich he found near this field, but first put 

 in heaps and mixed stable manure with it; 

 and after fermentation had taken place, he 

 applied this compost near the surface, cover- 

 ing it only as much as a harrow or cultivator 

 would do it; and he now obtains excellent 

 crops, and thinks he has, in some degree, al- 

 tered the nature of the soil and bettered it 

 permanently, more than it could have been 

 done, had he applied nothing but stable or 

 barn manure: his crops have ever been bet- 

 ter, even on light soils, when he but slightly 

 covers his manures. 



Sugar-Beet for Stock. 



Dr. W. S. Morton, in an address before 

 the Cumberland Agricultural Society, recom- 

 mends strongly the culture of the sugar-beet. 

 He says: 



" I can most confidently recommend the 

 beet, for I have cultivated it for some 7 or 8 

 years, and have never experienced a failure; 

 my best crops being produced in the driest 

 years. I believe that six or eight times as 

 much food for cows, sheep or hogs, may be 

 produced from the same quantity of land in 

 this crop, as in any other that I have ever 

 tried : their product is prodigious on the rich- 

 est land, and they are worth cultivating on 

 that of medium quality. If the introduction 

 of turnip husbandry into England is consider- 

 ed there the greatest era in their agricultural 

 history, we may well be thankful that a root, 

 much richer and more productive, is found so 

 well adapted to our more arid country. There 

 are, however, two things specially to be al- 

 luded to in its culture; the soil should have a 

 cool substratum, and the land should receive 

 a thorough fall ploughing to destroy insects. 

 I lost three-fourths of my first sowmg the last 

 season from neglecting to plough in the fall." 



