THE GENESEE FARMER. 



51 



'■'■Fuherizing Heavy Clay Soils''' is best and most 

 effectually done by underdraining . Ask Johx 

 JoirxsTON if this is not the case. 



'•'■The Management of Permanent Grass Land'''' 

 onght to be studied by our farmers. We plow too 

 mveh ! By fall manuring we may keep up the pro- 

 ductiveness of a meadow for rnany years, and the 

 hay will continue to improve in quality. So, also, 

 of pastures. Plaster should be used more freely. 

 It is not right, either in morals or agriculture, to 

 always take and never give — we must carry out 

 *'the doctrine of compensations." 



'■^ Stone Fences,'''' neatly built and well kept up, 

 give a flnithul look to the farm — a look which no 

 other fence can give as well. Let those who have 

 the material put them up, by all means. I have 

 hardly stone enough to put under the corners of 

 my fences. 



'■'■The Cultivation of Standard Pears''' is no doubt 

 profitable; but the buyers who will pay "from $10 

 to $20 per bbl." are not often found in this vicinity. 

 We sold ours for $2.50 per bbl., and could find only 

 one buyer at that, and he from a western city, 



'■'■Farmers'' Wives and Daughters'" are truly wel- 

 come contributors to the Farmer, and "M. C. L." 

 is right in urging them to do their part in fiUmg its 

 pages. 



'•'•Blight on Carrots.'''' "Who can tell Mr. Steele 

 and myself what ailed our carrots ? Mine looked 

 well until August ; then the tops began to die, and 

 the growth was stunted and imperfect. Late in 

 the fall they seemed to start again more vigorously, 

 but the crop must be counted a faUm-e. Soil, sandy 

 loam. 



Niagara Co., N. T., Jan'y, 1S58. 



NOTES FOR THE MONTH.— BY S, W. 



The Philosophy of Ma^tres, — Although nitro- 

 gen is the most valuable component in manure and 

 the most liable to waste when by heat and moisture 

 it is formed into the volatile carbonate of ammonia, 

 yet experiment proves that a soil treated with con- 

 centrated manures rich in ammonia and phosphoric 

 arid, can not bear a continued succession of good 

 crops without the aid of vegetable or carbonaceous 

 matter, which not only supplies nitrogen, but pot- 

 ash, and keeps up that mechanical action and atmos- 

 pliere of carbonic acid in the soU so necessary to a 

 perfect vegetation. 



Com. Jones, of the U, S. navy, a student of the 

 vegetable creation and a close observer of that 

 foreign agriculture which so often came under his 

 notice during his oflicial peregrinations, has told us 

 that in Peru, where guano once produced great 

 crops, it is now no longer used as a fertilizer. We 

 are also told that on the light soils of Eastern 

 Virginia and Maryland, where Peruvian guano had 

 been used for many years with such great results 

 that the saying became proverbial, "no guano no 

 wheat," now even the increased application of 

 guano to the soil there can not prevent a yearly 

 decrease in the cereal crop. But all this experience 

 does not invalidate the great value of guano rich in 

 ammonia, phosphoric acid, soda, &c. It only shows 

 that if guano and other concentrated fertilizers ena- 

 ble the soil to produce large crops, the effect must 

 be that such crops exhaust the soil of its carbon 

 and the plant-food contained in its debris, which 



the concentrated manure ftiils to supply. Hence 

 the importance of mixing guano with swamp muck 

 or those manures which contain vegetable matter, 

 Avhen it is applied to a soil in which the vegetable 

 humus is exhausted. Had those light Virginia soils, 

 instead of being run with wheat and manured with 

 guano alone, been treated now and then to a green 

 crop, of clover or buckwheat, or even winter rye, 

 plowed in when in bloom, there can be no doubt 

 that the next wheat crop would have been much 

 increased by the amendment.* 



The Application of Peruvian Guano to the 

 Soil. — Our amateur farmer, Jos. Weight, sowed a 

 large heap of finely pulverized Peruvian guano od 

 his well-prepared tobacco field, last spring. A light 

 warm shower followed the sowing. The next jlay, 

 when he went to set out the plants, he was as- 

 tounded at the strong scent of the carbonate of 

 ammonia now going off to the atmosphere. Of 

 course, the guanoed portion of the field gave no 

 sign afterward of extra vegetation, Mr, W, said 

 that his head was so full of horses at that time, that 

 he entirely forgot the directions to mix the guano 

 with plaster or dry muck, and to harrow it under 

 as fast as it was sown. But he is so much of a 

 practical chemist that he has learned from his blun- 

 der to have greater faith in the fertilizing power of 

 the guano. 



Special Manures. — Methinks it is not advisable 

 for those farmers who are blessed with farms on 

 the alluvial hUls and dales of Western New York 

 to pay much money for special manures. Better 

 employ the same capital in making and saving ma- 

 nure on the farm, by the employment of all their 

 straw and every other vegetable refuse in their 

 manure laboratories, the hog-pens and the stables. 

 Yet, on the detritus formations at the east, where 

 swamp muck is plenty, and straw and other refuse 

 scarce, not only Peruvian guano but made fertilizers 

 may be employed at a profit by every farmer. — 

 Several correspondents of the New England Farmer 

 bear a somewhat astounding testimony of the virtue 

 of Gould's muriate of lime, but in my opinion their 

 experiments are not invalidated by the adverse tes- 

 timony of D. W. Latheop, who avers that his Mar- 

 rowfat peas treated with Gould's mm-iate failed to 

 grow over a foot high ; his soil was certainly too 

 far gone up to be helped by a single application of 

 a concentrated manure. But that winch is still 

 more astonishing, is the fact that his experiment 

 was made in his garden. Who ever heard of a 

 garden that would not grow bush peas a foot high, 

 even without manure ? t 



Privet Hedge. — In snowy New Hampshire, the 

 privet hedge, it is said, makes a beautiful fence at a 



* Peas are often used for this purpose in Tirginia, and with 

 excellent results. eds. 



t According to the analysis of Prof. S. W. Joirssox, Gould's 

 Muriate of Lime is " inferior to leafbed ashes."' It is an easy 

 matter to get any quantity of testimonials to the value of tho 

 most worthless mrnure. Farmers do not know how to experi- 

 ment with manures. Some of the best practical farmers of Eng- 

 land gave their testimony in favor of the so-called '• Economical 

 Manure,"' and yet analysis declared it comparatively worthless, 

 and the general verdict of farmers subsequently agreed w itli tlu3 

 chemist. We apprehead it will be so with the Muriate of Lime. 

 We regard it as a weU-established fact that a good chemical 

 analysis will determine the value of a manure with unerring 

 certainty. • edb. 



