1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



27 



upon quantity, in the preparation or making of 

 manure. They oifer premiums to those who will 

 make the most manure according to the amount 

 of stock kept. They are continually crying '-Head 

 is pin." Now any fool can pile stufF together to 

 make a heap ; yet his heap of manure may be no 

 more suited to supply the wants of the soil than 

 a saw-dust pudding would be to meet the crav- 

 inofs of an empty stomach. There is something 

 besides quantity to be considered, in making 

 large heaps of compost. Bulky manures, large 

 masses of old vegetaljle matter arc as necessary 

 to the soil as a head is to the pin. Without 

 them the soil will certainly remain in as bad con 

 dition as any old maid in this wide world. You 

 may dress it, and sigh over it; but it will bring 

 fyrth nothing but grief and sadness. It will be 

 barren. It must be married, that is, cultivated 

 according to the natural laws of vegetable want, 

 before it can be in any other condition than that 

 of barrenness. The carbonaceous matter necessa- 

 ry to the maturity of a plant, and especially of a 

 plant bearing seed, will not all be supplied from 

 the air during the short life of the plant. Plants 

 draw carbon from the atmosphere, but not in suffi- 

 cient quantity to meet the wants of any thing 

 more than dwarfs in vegetable life. More than 

 ninety-eight pounds in every hundred pounds of 

 wheat.or rye grain belonged originally to water 

 and air. These are driven off into the air by the 

 process of burning. This is the pin-head to agri- 

 culture. An omission at this point, in our agri- 

 culture, will certainly prove unfortunate for us. 

 But we may have ever so much old vegetable or 

 carbonaceous matter in the soil, and not in the 

 state it should be in to feed plants, or where the 

 soil lacks the mineral or earthy ingredients of 

 plants, and we may cry out pin-head is pin, as 

 much ae we will, we shall find that the crop fails 

 of coming to maturity. 



There is another set of men connected with ag- 

 ricultural papers and books who are continually 

 crying, "Point 18 pin." They are from week to 

 week making exhibition of the tables which chem- 

 ists have prepared to show what the little end of 

 vegetation is made of. That is, they give an an- 

 alysis of the ashes of plants, and discourse untir- 

 ingly upon the importance of supplying these sub- 

 stances, which are the elements of plants. Tru- 

 ly, the point of a pin is very necessary to the per- 

 fection of the pin ; but these men may stand and 

 cry, "Point is pin. Point is pin," as long as they 

 please, in agricultural matters, and when I take 

 off my hat to make a bow to them, on the high 

 road of agricultural progress, they may expect 

 it to be done in the style a Quaker would do it. 

 The fact is, after all, that the chemical compo- 

 sition of the inorganic or earthly matter of vege- 

 tables and plants is only the little end of the 

 greatest of all matters to a dependent world. It 



The intelligent general management of a farm 

 is, unquestionably, the most important of all 

 things about farming. There are a class of far- 

 mers, however, who entirely abuse this idea, and 

 contend that this is the whole matter. They de- 

 spise all ideas of improvement, and all helps from 

 abroad. We hear them incessantly crying, "Bar 

 is pin." They care not for pin-head orpin-point. 

 They want neither green crops nor meadow muck, 

 neither guano nor any thing else. 



So important is this matter, that I say without 

 hesitation that I have no disposition to be satis- 

 fied with books or papers, on agriculture, which 

 are not edited by men who are practical farmers. 

 Others may tell us many good things, but they 

 give us so many bad lessons at the same time, 

 that they cannot be relied upon. Hence the 

 strong objection's to " Book farming." We want 

 a pin to have a good head, a good point, and a 

 well formed and polished bar. We want full 

 views in agriculture, also. a. g. c. 



Mason, N. H. 



AGRICULTURE IN VIRGINIA. 



The Editor of the Boston Journal not only loves 

 the garden, and knows how to procure some of 

 the finest fruits and flowers that are produced in 

 this vicinity, but knows how, also, to benefit his 

 readers by laying before them, in his daily /ourno?, 

 many it 3ms of interest in relation to agriculture 

 and horticulture. From his paper we copy the 

 following account of the progress of Agriculture 

 in the Old Dominion : — 



Agriculture in Virginia. — A State Agricul- 

 tural Fair was recently held in Virginia, which 

 appears by tlie published reports to have been 

 the largest, most enthusiastic, and most interes- 

 ting gathering of the kind ever held in this coun- 

 try, and one which promises to be of immense im- 

 portance in advancing the interests of agricul- 

 turists in that State. We have had some brief 

 accounts of this fair. It commenced on the 1st 

 of November, when, however, only the oflicers 

 and members of the Society were admitted with- 

 in the enclosure. On the 2d, the gates were 

 thrown open, and not less than twenty thousand 

 of the best population of the State were admit- 

 ted. Everybody was not merely gratified, but as- 

 tonished, as well at the immense concourse as at . 

 the extraordinary display of the agricultural and 

 mechanical resources of the State. The annual 

 address was delivered by John R. Edmunds. On 

 the 3d, there was a plowing match, at which 

 Madame Sontag, the vocalist, gave $100 as a 

 premium to the successful plow. Half the premi- 

 um was given to the colored plowman, (a slave,) 



and half to the owner of the plow and team. On 

 fs to me a settled and certain fact that there are 'the 4th, the exhibition was brought to a close by 

 ninety-nine failures in crops from other causes the award of premiums, and these were by no 



about which little or nothing is said by the class 

 of teachers referred to, where one such failure can 

 be attributed to a lack of the requisite inorganic 



means few nor small, and the valedictory address 

 was pronounced by Ex- President Tyler. 



But the most enthusiastic portion of the per- 



elements of plants. In the use of guano, super- jformance was exhibited in the nightly meetings 



phosphate, plastei^ salt, and lime, without sup- 

 plying the soil with carbonaceous matter, men 

 are imitalring the sharp pleader, crying "Point is 

 pin." Now all these are very valuable, and chem- 

 ical analysis also ; but we have had enough of ma- 

 king everything out of the little end of a thing. 



of the Agricultural Society during the week, at 

 Metrop.jlitan Hall. Of this the National Intelli- 

 gencer says : 



"On the second night a proposition was intro- 

 duced by Lewis E. Harvie, Esq., of Amelia, to 



