THE FARMERS' CABINET; 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



Vol. m.-No. 7.1 



February 15, 1S39. 



lAVhole No. 49. 



For tho Farmers' Cabinet. 

 LillBC. 



]\Ir. Editor, — Your Cabinet, wliich is even 

 now I believe the best publication on farming 

 in this country, might be rendered more gene- 

 rally useful, I am sure, if your correspondents 

 (who are numerous and able) would always 

 state the grounds on which they form their 

 opinions. Advice, unsupported by example, is 

 seldom followed ; nor is the fact that the per- 

 sons who give it most frequently use fictitious 

 names, any incentive to its adoption, especially 

 as tiie statements and conclusions made by 

 them, however true, often appear ridiculous 

 and absurd. If your contributors would all 

 substantiate their statements (by a relation) 

 as I have intimated before, of the facts and 

 experiments on which they are founded, and 

 give too their names and residences, so that 

 people may know on whom they depend, a very 

 great stumbling block to tlie usefulness of 

 your paper would be removed. 



These reflections were produced by the sin- 

 gular circumstance, that although the Farm- 

 ers' Cabinet abounds with testimony in favor 

 of using lime, yet in this vicinity there are 

 very few indeed who have been prevailed upon 

 by it to give this invaluable manure a trial. 



Now, Mr. Editor, if you think the following 

 extract from my Journal (free at least from 

 the above objection) will have any tendency 

 to arouse the people of this section of coun- 

 try to their own interest, you are requested to 

 give it a place in your periodical. 



In the spring of 1835, I planted afield con- 

 taining twenty-five acres of land in corn; this 

 field was a light and sandy soil, and had been 

 in corn, oats, and pasture, without any ad- 

 mixture of clover, or manure, successively 

 for a number of years; four hundred and sev- 

 enty-five bushels of corn was received fi-om this 

 ■ Cab.— Vol. III.— No 7. 201 



field this season, which was considered an un- 

 common large crop; the following spring this 

 field was sown in oats, which at harvest was in 

 .-omo places .scarcely worth cutting; the Ibllow- 

 ing fall it was sown in wheat, and in the spring 

 following I sowed it in clover; the result of the 

 wlieat crop was, that I did not receive a? much 

 as was sown, and thinking the clover not 

 worth keeping for the scythe, it was pastured 

 until fiill. 



Profiting by former experience, T now de- 

 termined to apply lime to this field ; accord- 

 ingly in the spring (1838) I had it well 

 ploughed, and 800 bushels of stone lime care- 

 fully spread upon twenty acres of the same. 

 It was then harrowed well until in good order, 

 after which it was struck out lightly four feet 

 square for planting com, which was done from 

 the first to the fifth of May, (My reasons , 

 for adopting the above method was that the 

 land being poor, and having, the fall pre- 

 vious to liming, been manured, I thought, by 

 flushing it in the spring, and spreading the 

 lime on top and harrowing well would be the 

 best plan to produce a good crop of corn, na 

 well as to improve the land speedily; and I 

 would observe that the corn was not cultivated 

 so much as I wishied, owing to a storm which 

 knocked it about so as to render it impossible to 

 continue cultivating it.) I was careful in leav- 

 ing but two stalks in each hill. Tlie corn on 

 the twenty acres wliich had been limed suffered 

 but little if any, from the severe drought which 

 took place this season, but the corn on tha 

 five acres having no lime on suffered very 

 much. The corn was cut up and shocked in 

 the month of September, and husked out and 

 measured in November. The corn was very 

 dry and good. The result of this crop was 

 743 bushels from the twenty acres which were 

 limed, manured, &c. and 80 bushels from the 



