202 



THE GENE&EE FARMEE. 



terrible pest the wheat midge, and the history of 

 the Bergen wheat should stimulate us to greater 

 activity and hopefulness in our endeavors to dis- 

 cover such a variety. 



The crops of timothy and clover on this farm 

 were very fine. The land is seeded down with 

 wheat — the timothy being sown in the fall and the 

 clover in the spring. When the land is once stocked, 

 it is allowed to remain in meadow as long as it will 

 produce, without top dressing, two tons of clean 

 timothy hay per acre, which it will generally do 

 for five or sis yeai-s. When plowed, it is planted 

 with corn, followed by potatoes, with a second 

 crop of cabbage or turnips. The next year it is 

 also planted with potatoes, and is then sown with 

 wheat and seeded down. Each crop id well ma- 

 nured, except the turnips. 



All the stock on the farm is soiled in the yards 

 during the summer — a practice which aflords a 

 large quantity of excellent manure, and enables the 

 farmer to dispense, in a good degree, with fences. 

 Of course, it does not follow, because soiling is 

 l)rofitable on a farm contiguous to a large city, 

 where labor is cheap (ilr. K. pays his men from $5 

 to $10 per month and board) and produce high, 

 that it would pay where land and produce are 

 cheap and labor dear. 



Sugar beets, carrots, parsnips, and other roots, 

 are extensively gi'own as food for stock. They ai'e 

 all sown in drills, after subsoil plowing, and are 

 lieavily manured in the drLUs, great care being taken 

 to have the manure thoroughly rotted and inti- 

 mately incorporated with the soil. 



The profits of this farm are full fifty dollars per 

 acre ; and Mr. K. says he shall not be satisfied till 

 his hundred, acres net him $10,000 per annum! 



But the excellent system of cultivation so success- 

 fully and profitably adopted on this beautiful farm, 

 is not its only feature ot" interest. W^e have seldom 

 seen, even in England, a more charming country 

 residence. As you approach the place, an Ameri- 

 can Arbor Vit© hedge and an avenue of Ailanthus 

 trees indicate more than ordinary taste. No high 

 wall or exclusive lodge frowns on the weary, dusty 

 traveler. lie finds tlie gate hospitably open wide, 

 ajid enters the admirably laid out and well kept 

 grounds between two noble specimens of that hand- 

 somest of hardy evergreens, the Norway Spruce. 

 Each step along the finely gravelled carriage way 

 reveals some new view of the beautiful lawn hi 

 front of a large and homelike country house, sur- 

 rounded on three sides with a piazza, the pillars 

 of which are encircled with sweet-scented honey- 

 suckles. Let us stop and look at these fine Paulow- 

 nias, shedding their large blue flowei-s in rich pro- 

 fusion on the close mown grass; here is the delicate 

 Persian Lilac, and there the rough but handsome 



Pyrus Japonica ; to the right is the trunk of a dead 

 Maple tree covered with graceful vines, and in that 

 clump of evergreens nestles a cozy arbor. How 

 pleasing to the eye are tl'ese American and Chinese 

 Arbor Vitajs ! how handsome those Austrian and 

 Weymouth Pines ! Delicious is the fragrance shed, 

 by these European Lindens on the ocean air. How 

 handsome and graceful are- these pendulous Ameri- 

 can Elms ! how beautiful those Sycamores, Labur- 

 nums, and Magnolias ! what fine beds of Gerani- 

 ums, Fuchsias, and Verbenas! Who would reside 

 in the city, even in a mansion on Fifth Avenue, when 

 he could retire from the bum of Broadway and the 

 excitement of WaU street to such a scene as this-? 



DO CEEEALS LESTKOY NITEOGEN? 



The leader in the June number of the Farmer 

 leads me to inquire whether the evidence is clear 

 and satisfactory that wheat and other cereals " de- 

 stroy nitrogen, or ammonia? " 



The word destroy is not generally used in this 

 country as it is by the editor of the Farm&Ty 

 although it may be in England. A man may 

 "destroy" a house by setting it on fire; the wheat 

 midge or Hessian fiy may "-destroy" a crop of 

 wheat; but for a barley plant to "destroy" an ele- 

 ment of fertility beyond what it contains, is not 

 less a new use of language than a new idea (a). 

 Prof. Way was, I believe, the first to suggest tliat 

 cereals, whose stems abound in fiint, may obtain 

 the latter as a silicate of ammonia, which being de- 

 compounded, the ammania escapes into the atmos- 

 phere, leaving the silicic acid (tiiut) deposited as a 

 hard and strengthening covering to the culms of 

 cereal grasses. In this way, more ammonia would 

 be taken np from the soil than an analysis of the 

 whole crop would show — that which has passed 

 through plants into the air would be so much clear 

 loss to the ground cultivated. Nitrogen thus dis- 

 posed of, is said to be "destroyed," meaning lost 

 for all agricultural purposes, as a return of the en- 

 tire crop of wheat, corn, barle}', oats, or timothy, 

 to the soil, would fail to restore one-half of tlie 

 nitrogen (ammonia) consumed. 



To my mind, this theory is alike unsound and 

 unsupported by proper facts. Fairly carried out, 

 it makes nature not friendly, but strangely hostile, 

 to the enduring growth of all our bread-forming 

 plants (5) ; for the restoration of the whole plant 

 is wholly inadequate to preserve the normal fruit- 

 fulness of the soil. It must be fertilized with two 

 or three bushels of wheat, in order to produce one ! 

 Such a scheme of agricultural compensation goes 

 far ahead of the ancient Babylonians, who, accord- 

 ing to Herodotus, raised two hundred bushels of 

 corn (wheat) from one of seed ; and of Isaac^ the 

 son of Abraham, who raised a hundred fold for tie 

 seed planted in Palestine ; and of the modern Chi- 

 nese and Belgians, with their night-soil and other 

 concentrated manures (c). As I understand Mr, 

 Lawes' experiments, they prove much less than is 

 assumed. They do not show, except by inference, 

 that all, or even the half of the nitrogen which he 

 applied in nitrates of potjxsh, soda, lime and mag- 

 nesia, and in salts of ammonia, ever ent&red the 



