No. 11. 



Renovation of Worn-out Land. 



343 



pearing the most feasible, I made the effort, 

 and I have the satisfaction to say, that as 

 far as the vision extends from my residence, 

 I have succeeded. 



This country with all its faults, has re- 

 deeming qualities. Favoured with Heaven's 

 greatest blessings, universal health and a 

 never-failing supply of the purest spring 

 water — with a soil possessing naturally the 

 elements of fertility, a beautiful rolling sur- 

 face covered with clumps of trees, which for 

 richness and variety of foliage, and beauty 

 of proportions, — for landscape or lawn pur- 

 poses, cannot be surpassed in the world, — it 

 is not indebted to heaven for its forbidden 

 appearance, but to that reckless system of 

 cultivation too generally to be found in most 

 of the Southern States. 



There are two ways, Mr. Editor, of reno- 

 vating these old fields, one I see recommend- 

 ed frequently in your very valuable work — 

 that is, to sow broadcast over the land some 

 five bushels of ashes with a bushel cf plas- 

 ter per acre, to be followed by ploughing in 

 of green crops, &c. Now this may suit 

 with some latitudes, but it won't do here, 

 where a good north-west wind atler a frost 

 in November will sweep into the fence cor- 

 ners every particle of vegetation from the 

 face of these old fields. The labour alone, 

 which would be required in the ploughing 

 and re-ploughing, &c., on this method, would, 

 if hired out by the day to work upon some 

 public work, purchase ashes enough to do in 

 one year what would require five years to 

 accomplish in this slow method. 



Another plan is to go at it Taylor fasldon, 

 and do the thing right up! As an example 

 of this latter plan, I will give you the result 

 of an experiment made last year upon one 

 of these "old fields," and I take this merely 

 because it is now fresh before me, having 

 just finished threshing out the crop grown 

 upon this field, and not because it shows any 

 more favourable results than twenty other 

 experiments of which I have memoranda. 



I purchased last year an addition to my 

 farm, of 3G5 acres of land; on this tract 

 there was one lot which lay in upon the 

 lands I had already improved, in such man- 

 ner as to injure the appearance of the whole. 

 In the spring of 1846, I resolved to make an 

 attack upon this old field, and to satisfy my- 

 self still further of the cost of such im- 

 provement, I had it surveyed and platted by 

 a regular surveyor, and found the contents 

 to be 27 acres — out of which there was 

 taken for a house, lot and road, one acre, 

 leaving 26 acres to be cultivated. This field 

 was tenanted out in the year 1845 to a very 

 worthy man, who cultivated it in corn, and 



I have his word for the product, — and I am 

 sure no person who saw the crop growing 

 will ever thmk of questioning the amount — 

 was 25 bushels of nubbins, or less than five 

 bushels of corn per acre. This, by the way, 

 is about the character of many crops grown 

 in this neighbourhood. 



In March, 1846, as soon as the grounds 

 would do to haul over, I brought out the 

 right arm of my resources, my flying artil- 

 lery, in the way of mule teams, loaded to 

 the muzzle from my manure heap, and made 

 a regular discharge upon my greatest enemy, 

 the washed and gullied side hills. These I 

 peppered thick and strong. I then put in 

 the ploughs, and flushed the whole field up 

 deeply, following in the stiff clay parts 

 with the subsoil plough. I then brought 

 out my other forces, in the shape of leached 

 ashes, — which cost delivered on the ground 

 $10 per hundred bushels — and spread over 

 the whole, manured parts and all, at the 

 rate of 100 bushels per acre, pulverizing the 

 ground and mixing well with the harrow. 

 Sowed two and a quarter bushels of oats 

 per acre, harrowed again — sowed one peck 

 of clean fresh clover seed per acre, and fol- 

 lowed with roller. This was all done in the 

 right way, andi just at the right time. After 

 the oats were well up, I put the finishing 

 stroke to the whole battle, by bringing up 

 my corps de reserve, in the shape of guano. 

 The first moist day, all spots that appeared 

 to have been missed in the spreading of 

 ashes, or appeared weak, I dressed over with 

 about 200 pounds of guano mixed with one 

 bushel plaster per acre, to the amount of 

 about two acres in spots, and spread over the 

 whole field plaster at the rate of one bushel 

 per acre. You will say, perhaps, this is 

 going it rather strong, and requires more 

 capital than can generally be commanded 

 by the most of our farmers. There are very 

 few, however, who have not some half do- 

 zen OF more worthless colts eating their 

 heads off every year, to say nothing about 

 the hogs and horned cattle, which might be 

 disposed of in some way to raise $100, which 

 would improve permanently ten acres of land 

 with leached ashes — or they might borrow 

 $100 for twelve months, with almost a cer- 

 tainty of returning it from the increased 

 product on the first crop, as you shall see by 

 the following result of the above experi- 

 ment. 



I have just finished threshing out and 

 cleaning up 1,217 bu.^hels of first rate oats, 

 grown upon this field of 26^ acres — an ave- 

 rage of 45^ bushels per acre, and no Ches- 

 ter county land ever presented a finer coat 

 of grass. This year it will be cut for hay» 



