344 



Renovation of Worn-out Land. 



Vol. XI. 



and I would not thank any man to insure 

 me two tons per acre. Now for the figures: 



Debit. 

 2,600 bushels of ashes, $260 00 



50 wagon loads of manure on gul- 

 lied places, 50 00 

 400 pounds of guano, 8 00 

 58| bushels of seed oats— 40, 23 40 

 65 bushels of clover seed, 32 50 

 Ploughing, seeding, harvesting:, &c., 100 00 



$473 90 



Credit. 

 1,217 bushels oats — 40 cts., worth 



now in market 48 cts., §=486 80 



Pasture last fall for my milch cows, 00 00 

 Straw in abundance — an offset for thresh- 

 ing, &c. 



Mr. Editor, what is this land worth now — 

 the improvements of which cost nothing, — 

 more than it was when it would produce but 

 five bushels of poor corn per acre? Why, 

 if there was nothing to go to the credit side 

 of the account but the improvement alone, 

 it would in my estimation be cheap — dirt 

 cheap. This field, with judicious cultiva- 

 tion, is now permanently improved, as I can 

 show by many years experience in the same 

 kind of treatment. 



I am frequently asked, "how do you bring 

 up those old worn out lands so quickly f 

 The answer is found in the above example. 



I have tried guano, and almost every kind 

 of manure, in almost every way, and have 

 always found them to pay well, when I put 

 enough on — stable manure, leached ashes 

 and guano — pretty much in value as I have 

 named them. 



Will the improvement of these worn out 

 lands pay? is a question I am frequently 

 asked. I have every reason to believe they 

 will. I commenced the improvement of the 

 place I now live on in the year 1839. At 

 that time I had not pasture sufficient for one 

 poorcovv,and have followed it up ever since, 

 giving it just as much of my individual at- 

 tention as could be spared without injury to 

 my other more legitimate business, and in 

 fact just as much as was necessary to re- 

 lieve the mind from the harrassments of a 

 more perplexing occupation. The result is, 

 that instead o? not having one spear of green 

 grass to refresh the eye, or tickle the palate 

 of the poor old cow, or one single oasis in 

 this desert of old fields, to resort to in the 

 hot summer months, I have now hundreds of 

 acres of the improved grasses, and have cut 

 during the past year hay enough to keep, 

 and keep well, 70 head of horned cattle, 35 

 head of mules and horses, besides sundry 

 eheep, hogs, &c., &c., the mules and horses 



being stabled during the year. Night be- 

 fore the last, when my house was shook to 

 the very foundation by the raging elements 

 without, I sat by a cheerful fire and listened 

 to the peltings of the pitiless storm of snow 

 and rain against the windows — it was a 

 cheerful reflection, that out of all my stock 

 there was not one, even to the sucking calf 

 and pet lamb, but was sheltered from its 

 fury, in warm and comfortable stables, and j 

 were ruminating upon beds of clean straw. 1 



I sat down upon the spur of the moment ^ 

 to write you a short letter, partly to answer 

 sundry communications on the subject of 

 farming, which I really could not devote 

 the time to reply to in detail, and partly 

 from a sense of duty, that every man owes 

 to the community in which he lives, to give 

 the result of his experience, and let the 

 community separate the wheat from the 

 chaff by their own good judgment. 



I am fearful the perusal of this will be 

 found tedious. Should it be otherwise, hav- 

 ing cleared away the brush, and started the 

 plough, I may, at some leisure moment, give 

 you some further pickings from my memo- 

 randa of experiments, and perhaps a descrip- 

 tion of some of my stock of Devons and 

 Durhams, of which I have a fair specimen 

 of the purest blood in this country. 



Let all new beginners keep in view the 

 following axioms in farming: Drain your 

 lands well ; plough deep and at the proper 

 time; pulverize the soil well by repeated 

 ploughing, harrowing and rolling; put on 

 plenty of manure, no matter what it be, — 

 everything in that shape you can scrape up, 

 buy, borrow, or beg; don't spare the seed, 

 and be prodigal in grass seeds; be careful 

 and ascertain, by observation, the proper 

 time and proper manner of putting them 

 on the ground, — for one is as important as 

 the other. 



The question may be asked, what I do 

 with so many mules, horses and horned cat- 

 tle? They all produce something. The 

 mules are employed in hauling wood, &c., 

 to a population of about 2000 souls here and 

 hereabouts, and in hauling for the factories 

 and shops, and work on the farm. The 

 horses, with the exception of a few for pri- 

 vate use, belong to persons connected with 

 the works, and supplied from my loft. The 

 horned cattle supply, in part, the cities of 

 Baltimore and Washington with pure fresh 

 milk, sent both ways from my dairy, daily, 

 via rail-road. 



Horace Capron. 



Oil Cake is the compressed husks of lin- 

 seed, after the oil has been expressed from it. 



