'^^£fiICAN HERD-BOOK- 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry.— Liebio. 



Vol. IX — No. 2.1 



9th mo. (September) 16th, 1844. 



[Whole No. 116. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY J O S I A H T A T tJ M, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 

 PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar p?r year.— Forconditions sec laf t page. 



On the Manuring- and Steeping of 

 Seeds. 



CONXLUDED FRO.H LAST NO. 



Another German pamplilet on this subject 

 has lately appeared froai the pen of a Air. 

 Vietor, an apothecary at Neiderhohn, in 

 Hesse Darmstadt, under tlie title of " The 

 Manuring of Seeds, or a Simple and Cheap 

 Cullivatina of the Soil Inj the Artificial Ma^ 

 mirino of Seeds, Inj which, at the sa^ne lime, 

 the Rust and other Diseases of the Corn 

 Crops are Prevented, practically tried for 

 flte years, and proved on a large scale.'''' 

 By C. L. V'lETOR. This author^ describes 

 his methods, and is so far more worthy of 

 the attention of the practicil man. Before 

 detailing these methods, however, I shall 

 insert a few of his preliminary observations. 



As the principle upon which the manuring 

 of the seeds ought to be preferred to that of 

 the soil, he remarks " that the manure can 

 never be so equally distributed through the 

 soil that the due proportion of food shall be 



Cab.— Vol. IX.— No. 2. ' 



given to each seed or plant; and that, be- 

 sides, before the plant comes to require it, 

 nnich of tiie organic matter of the manure 

 has become decomposed and lost, and that 

 even the inorganic matter is liable to as- 

 sume forms of combination, in which it can 

 with difficulty be made available to the nou- 

 rishment of the growing plant." 



These disadvantages, he says, may be 

 avoided by manuring the seeds themselves 

 which we wish to grow, while, at the same 

 jtime, the following advantages will attend 

 .the adoption of this method : — 

 I " l"?. The same crop may be repeated on 

 jthe same soil, though already exhausted, or 

 jeven-in any usually unfruitful soil. 



"2'^. VVe can manure the seeds with 

 those special substances only which it is not 

 ! likely to hnd in the soil, or of which it has 

 jbeen exhausted by previous crops." 

 i This is an advantage which is possessed 

 jby all saline and mineral manures, and is 

 one of those benefits which will appear 

 ;more clearly and strikingly to the practical 

 I man as he becomes more familiar with the 

 j natural wants of the crops he wishes to 

 Taisc, and with the kind of substances which 

 are present in his soils and in the manures 

 ; — such as farm-yard manure — which he 

 •usually employs in preparing them for the 

 [seed. 



j " 3°. As the rotation of crops is rendered 

 jnecossary chiefly by the abstraction of saline 

 substances from the soil, it may be rendered 

 lunnecessary by adding again these sub- 



(41) 



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