No. 2. 



To have good Crops. 



6& 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 To have good Crops. 



In a late number of the American Farmer, 

 I find a letter from G. B. Smith, Esq., to a 

 young' gentleman who made mquiry respect- 

 ing the modus operandi, of a man who was 

 said always to have good crops; and it 

 seemed to me there were a number of good 

 hints in it v/ell worth noticing. It is indeed 

 true, that the great leading principles of 

 agriculture are the same in all situations; 

 but their application under particular cir- 

 cumstances, must be left to the good judg- 

 ment and tact of the operator. Deep plough- 

 ing and subsoiling have become an essen- 

 tial trait in good farming, according to most 

 of the agricultural papers I meet with. As 

 principles, in a good system of farming-, I 

 esteem them highly; but there are soils that 

 offer, in my opinion, exceptions to their adop- 

 tion. Take, for instance, the light, shallow, 

 sandy soils in many parts of Maryland, and 

 so far as my experience and observation ex- 

 tend, we would not only do no good, but 

 positive injury by deep ploughing. In such 

 soils too, I have not observed any benefit 

 from subsoiling. It is doubtless well, never- 

 theless, to deepen, if possible, even such soils 

 as these, but the substratum must be thrown 

 up with great care, and even loosened cau- 

 tiously. 



It is one of the crying evils of our prac- 

 tice, to farm more land than we can improve. 

 When will we be persuaded to believe that 

 it is more advantageous to cultivate ten 

 acres of corn, that will produce five hundred 

 bushels, than twenty-five acres, that will 

 yield only the same quantity. I have lat- 

 terly become entii'ely convinced of the ex- 

 ceedingly mischievous tendency of this trait 

 in our agriculture ; and until it is remedied, 

 we shall certainly not arrive at that point in 

 the cultivation of the soil, which you hold 

 up to view in the new motto, given us in 

 your last number. But I almost forgot my 

 true character of a learner, and am venturing 

 to give advice. Extracts from the letter men- 

 tioned above, I send with this ; please give 

 them a place in your paper, and oblige a 



Beginner. 



Frederic co., Md. 



Farmers are apt to place too much de- 

 pen '>-Mre upon maf^ure, supposing that if 

 they apply that in sufficient quantity, nothing 

 else is requirtd of them. This error is not 

 of course, of equally evil tendency to that 

 of u-ing no manure at all; but I was almost 

 ready to say it was not very much less so. 

 If the soil be not properly prepared for its 

 reception, and if the manure be not properly 



made, preserved, and applied, it will matter 

 little whether the " manure heap" resemble 

 a mountain or a mole-hill. But it cannot be 

 expected that the minute details of all the 

 practice involved in all this, can be given in 

 the space afforded by any periodical. One 

 great point is to cultivate no more land than 

 you can cultivate well, both as to labour and 

 manure. If you have more land and less 

 money and labour, than you can use with 

 full effect, turn a portion of the land into 

 money by .selling it, and apply the proceeds 

 to the improvement of that retained. Thus 

 reduce the size of your farm to the capacity 

 of your efficient forces, — labour and money, 

 — instead of trying to extend your stinted 

 forces over too wide a surface, and thus 

 weakening them and destroying their effi- 

 ciency. The second principle is, to put 

 your soil into good condition, by liming, 

 deep ploughing, manuring, and correcting 

 its proportions of clay and sand when prac- 

 ticable. All land, in my opinion, will be 

 greatly benefited by the application of lime. 

 Some required more, some less, to produce 

 the same results, but all lands require it as 

 a constituent of the soil. You will find lime 

 most active on red lands, but it is useful on 

 all kinds. Deep ploughing is, in my opin- 

 ion, essential to successful farming. If you 

 have a thin soil, by deep ploughing, liming 

 and manuring, you will in a very few years, 

 secure a deep soil. Even though you do 

 turn up a portion of blue clay with your 

 four-horse plough, don't be frightened at the 

 sight of it. It is better to have blue clay 

 mixed in a deep soil, than a hard pan of it 

 under a thin one. But if you find too much 

 clay thus turned up, correct its stiffness by 

 carting sand upon it, and mixing it with the 

 clay. A cart load of sand is often of more 

 value to a soil than the same quantity of 

 manure. Reverse the process, if any por- 

 tion of the land be too sandy — carry clay to 

 it, and thus stiffen it. 



The advantage of deep ploughing is al- 

 most incalculable. It will ultimately make 

 a deep soil, and a deep soil is essential to a 

 good crop in a dry season. The roots of the 

 plants strike deeply into it, instead of spread- 

 ing out horizontally near the surface, as they 

 are compelled to do in a thin soil, and are 

 thus secured from the effects of drought. 

 The rain sinks into a deep soil, and is thus 

 preserved to the uses of the crop; while in 

 a thin soil, it runs off, is soon evaporated, or 

 stands on the surface, doing little good in 

 the former cases, and absolute injury in the 

 latter. I should not only plough deep, but 

 I should follow in the furrow of the four- 

 horse plough, with a good substratum plough, 

 and this with the liming, judicious manuring. 



