42 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



that will tell wherever applied and on whatever 

 crop. 



If you can raise good clover, you may be sure 

 of raising good crops of everything else, — if the 

 clover is retained on the farm. Try a little super- 

 phosphate on clover, say 200 lbs. per acre. It may 

 pay. Plaster certainly will pay. Sow it as early 

 as possiMe this spring. If you have any well rot- 

 ted manur«, apply it as a top-dressing on your 

 clover. Let it go as far as it •will. What you do, 

 do well. Don't try to make it go over too much 

 laud. Apply plaster, say 100 lbs. per acre, on all 

 the clover you have on the farm, and let it lie in 

 pasture or mow it. Do not plow too much land. 

 This is the great error of American agriculture. 

 Sow only as much land to wheat, barley, oats, etc., 

 as you can prepare in the best manner. One acre 

 of good wheat will afford more profit than three 

 acres of poor wheat. Don't be in too great a 

 hurry to get good crops. Renovating an impover- 

 ished soil is slow work. It takes time, but it can 

 be accomplished. 



If any of the land needs underdrainmg, as it pro- 

 bably does, this operation must be one of the first 

 things attended to. Everything else will fail if this 

 is neglected. Do not think because your land is 

 saudy and rolling, that therefore it is necessarily 

 dry. Such land often needs underdraining. Mr. 

 Swan, in underdraining his fine farm near Geneva, 

 found that the highest portions of the farm, right 

 on top of the ridges, were much wetter and needed 

 more underdraining than the lower portions. This 

 is frequently the case. To ascertain whether your 

 land needs draining, dig a few holes three fee| deep 

 in different parts of the farm, and if water remains 

 in them you must underdrain. 



If you have any low, swampy places cut a ditch 

 through them and underdrain as thouroughly as 

 you can. Such soil, when well drained, often 

 proves to be the mo9t productive land on the farm, 

 and the large crops which can be obtained from 

 them will enable you to make manure for the up- 

 land portions of the farm. Boussingault, the 

 celebrated French chemico-agriculturist, thinks 

 that good meadows on such land are the manure 

 mines of the farmer. 



To sum up. Underdrain. Cultivate the land 

 thoroughly, and thus develope its latent resources. 

 Get all the muck and other vegetable matter you 

 can from the swamps. Bring into cultivation all 

 the low, rich land you have on the farm. Plaster 

 your clover and raise as much of it as possible, and 

 feed it out to stock. Or, if this will not pay, plow 



it under. Raise all the peas and turnips you can T 

 and feed them out on the farm. Be very careful 

 to save all the manure. Let none of it run away 

 or evaporate. There is not much danger of the 

 latter if you have plenty of straw or muck, and if 

 you spout your buildings there need not be much 

 liquid lost. Sell nothing off the farm except wheat, 

 — and, while the price is so high, beans — wool, pork,, 

 mutton and beef. Cultivate in the best way, make 

 all the manure you can and your farm will in a 

 few years be in a high condition. 



VEGETABLE SOUP FOB PIGS. 



Many plans have been adopted in England to 

 promote the economical feeding or grazing of 

 store-pigs. The great barrier has been the expense. 

 It has been highly recommended, and in many casts 

 tried extensively, to keep store-pigs on a kind of 

 vegetable soup throughout the summer. The plan 

 followed is to collect any refuse vegetation, includ- 

 ing weeds of all sorts; to boil them a short time to 

 extract their virtues, and then mix into the liquid 

 a very small quantity of meal or shorts, and give 

 this, as required, to the pigs in an open yard or 

 paddock. They will thrive very well upon it, but 

 the collection and boiling for a large number is 

 tiresome and expensive. Another and better plan 

 is to reserve as much of the mangel-wurzel crop aa 

 can be well spared, and give a few every day in 

 addition to the day's grazing. Another is to pro- 

 vide a supply of the artificial grasses, which are 

 mown and carried to them daily ; lucerne, broad 

 clover, and sainfoin are good food for them ; but 

 tares and pasture-grasses are too succulent, and 

 require a little correction in the form of pea or 

 bean-meal porridge; indeed, this is always desira- 

 ble under vegetable diet of this character. An- 

 other plan, recommended in Mokton's " Cyclope- 

 dia of Agriculture," is to have plantations of Jeru- 

 salem artichoke, chicory, comfrey, rhubarb, as 

 also large supplies of .cabbage, coleseed, mustard, 

 lettuce, and the like. These plants produce a large 

 quantity of green food, most of which are well 

 relished by the pig. Jerusalem artichokes and 

 rough comfrey grow very fast in early spring and 

 yield much weight of herbage. Chicory and rhu- 

 barb yield surprisingly, as do also cole-seed, mus- 

 tard, and lettuce. Cabbage requires more atten- 

 tion and culture, but it becomes the more stable 

 food. These, if cultivated extensively, and given 

 in conjunction with meal-porridge, will provide, it 

 is said, acceptable and nutritious food for any num- 

 ber of pigs, and at a season of the year when most 

 needed. 



