1^54. 



MEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



15 



land, in the state in which it is first dug — and good 

 crops are the consequence. Other parcels will be 

 benefited by being exposed and frozen, and thus 

 pulverized. Every kind of mud can be advanta- 

 geously deposited in the barn-yard, the barn-cellar 

 and in the pig-pen, and these mingled with an 

 equal quantity of other material — whereby the 

 quantity of manure on the farm will be doubled. 



Of late much is said about the concentrated es- 

 sence of manures, such as the phosphates, guano, 

 poudrette and the advantages to accrue from the 

 analyses of soil, whereby the deficiencies and su- 

 perabundancies, in the constituents of soils, can 

 DC distinctly pointed out. Without doubt, by the 

 aid of chemical science, many improvements may 

 be made. But our farmers generally are not chem- 

 ists, nor may we expect them to be; and however 

 clearly these things may be demonstrated, the 

 greater part of cultivation will still go on, as here- 

 tofore, — especially while the doctors themselves 

 disagree so much in their prescriptions, and the 

 mode of their operation. One will tell you that an 

 ounce 0^ a certain p/tosp/ia^e, applied to a square 

 rod of land, is sufficient to ensure a full crop of 

 wheat upon the land ; — and without such applica- 

 tions no wheat can be grown ; and this fact he 

 will assure you, can be made certain, by a careful 

 analysis of the soil. This may be so — but I have 

 little confidence in such prescriptions. I believe 

 it will be found like many of the highly sublima- 

 ted notions relating to certain phosphates, put 

 forth, with much assurance by those who profess 

 to know. 



These pompous assurances bring to mind an an 

 ecdote that occurred many years since, while my 

 grandfather and his neighbor Marble were trav 

 elling in the county of Merrimac, N. H., where a 

 farmer was planting his corn, on a pine plain, 

 without any manure. My grandfather said to him, 

 "My friend I how much corn do you expect to get 

 to the acre, in the manner you are cultivating it?" 

 tie replied, "With the blessing of God, we may get 

 ten or fifteen bushels to the acre." His rough 

 companion by his side made answer, "Give me a 

 good shovel-full of dung in the hill, this is the best 

 blessing I want." Now sir, give me a good shovel 

 full of dung properly applied to each hill of corn, 

 and I will value it more with the blessing of God 

 than all the phosphates prepared by all the chem- 

 ists in creation. J. w. p. 



December 15lh, 1853. 



TOO MUCH STOCK. 



We should never keep more stock on our farms 

 than we have the means of keeping well. One 

 animal properly cared for, and liberally tended, 

 is worth more than two poorly kept. It is a 

 strange but common error in rural economy, to 

 appropriate to two, or perhaps three animals, the 

 food which is barely sufficient to sustain one. — 

 This singular error is often adopted by the far- 

 mers of an entire town ; consequently there is lit- 

 tle or no good stock to be found, and the profits 

 resulting from stock-keeping and raising are 

 greatly diminished, while the price of keeping of 

 all kinds is, as a necessary and inevitable result, 

 ruinously high. 



liivery farmer should keep just sufficient stock 



economically to consume the keep his fields pro- 

 duce, and no more. 



He should select the best animals to propagate 

 from, and dispose of the pooriest. "Breeding-in- 

 and-in" should be cautiously avoided, and the 

 greatest care taken to prevent deterioration by 

 the introduction of inferior animals, whether na- 

 tive or foreign. 



CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



This is a capital book— reprinted from the Eng- 

 lish by Danforth, IIawley & Co., of BufiFalo. It 

 has an American Introduction and Notes, by Lewis 

 F. Allen, of Buffalo, N. Y., a gentleman of great 

 agricultural experience, and one of our best wri- 

 ters on the subject. The work describes the pro- 

 cess of draining and reclaiming some of the wet, 

 clay lands in England. This is done in such a 

 lively and attractive style that to read it will afford 

 a treat to the scholar as well as the farmer and 

 the general reader : The American Editor says : 



" The clear, vigorous, racy style in which its 

 thoughts are clothed will attract the man of taste, 

 while the sound and practical truths which are 

 set forth will arrest the attention of all who feel 

 an interest in their several subjects. They describe 

 the process by which the most forbidding surfaces 

 of swamp and bog land, (leaving out the wide fen- 

 lands, like those of Lincoln and Cambridgeshires,) 

 by a moderate outlay of capital, may be turned 

 into productive fields, teaming with agricultural 

 wealth— a labor of the past century, in which the 

 landholders and flirmers of England and Scotland 

 have been engaged, and in the results of which 

 their agricultural products have been quadrupled, 

 their population trebled, and now enjoying more 

 of the comforts and the luxuries of life than at any 

 former period." 

 Below are a few extracts : 



FINISH TUOROL-GHLY WHERE YOU BEGIN. 



" Your experience and mine will differ very 

 much if you do not find more expense, and more 

 regret, left behind invariably by an under-dione 

 than by an over-dona job. 'The first expense is the 

 least' in agriculture— and in every thing else per- 

 haps, with the old exceptions of Law and Matri- 

 mony." 



OPPOSITION TO PROGRESS. 



"No sooner had the persecuting infidelity^ of man 

 (the same in every age) begun to crucify his great 



theory of THE NUTRITION OF PLANTS FROM THE AT- 

 MOSPHERE, than the use of Guano and of inorganic 

 manures began to give it proof. ' Burn a plant, 

 whether it be an Oak-tree or a stalk of Clover,' 

 (for 80 the assertion of the groat Analyst may be 

 briefly epitomized,) ' and the trifling ash jt^ leaves 

 will show you all it ever got from the soil.' But 

 the bulk, the weight, the great mass of its vege- 

 able structure— where is that gone 1 



' Into liic Air : 

 And what xrcmrd corporfa/ hiuli melted 

 Like breath into the wind ! ' 



The weiglit, the bulk, the vegetable mass, of a 

 crop, is simply, its Carbon. Combustion just un- 

 does what GROWTH did : and nothing more. Itre- 

 combincs the Carbon of the plant with the Oxygen 



