222 



Poudrette. 



Vol. IX. 



Poudrette. 



To T B. Wakeman, Esq., for the N. Y. 

 Farmers' Club:— 



Dear Sir,— In reply to your circular of 

 tne 1st instant, I send you the following 

 practical facts in relation to concentrated 

 manures— a subject which is now command- 

 ing: very general attention. I have selected 

 these reports from distant parts of the coun- 

 try, that It may be seen that their effects 

 are alike beneficial on different soils, and in 

 somewhat different climates. The first state- 

 ment IS an extract from a letter written by 

 Augustus Shriver, Esq., of Carroll county 

 Md., dated Nov. 22nd, 1844, to the editor of 

 the American Farmer, and is as follows : 



"I received the Poudrette which you or- 

 dered for me too late to apply it to my corn 

 in the hill, which mode of application I am 

 satisfied would be the most advantao-eous; I 

 therefore mixed it with an equal quantity of 

 ashes and a little plaster, and when the corn 

 was cleverly up, applied about a gill to each 

 fiiJl, leaving twelve rows in the field to 

 which I gave the same quantity of ashes 

 and plaster alone, as has heretofore been my 

 custom. The corn all grew finely, and there 

 was no perceptible d^ifference in tliat on 

 which the Poudrette had been applied, until 

 the month of July, when we experienced a 

 very severe drought, lasting about six weeks, 

 when the part dressed with ashes and plas- 

 ter alone, suffered somewhat, and ' fired' a 

 little; but the ballance, on which I put the 

 1 oudrette, held its own admirablv, and did 

 not 'fire' a single blade, and looked flourish- 

 ing, and filled finely. I candidly believe 

 that the Poudrette, though so small a quan- 

 tity, increased the yield at least ten per 

 cent. I am so well pleased with this small 

 experiment, that I will go into it on a large 

 scale next season." 



The next report is from Mr. Floyd How- 

 ell, residing in the county of Onondatra, 

 seventeen miles south of Syracuse, in this 

 fetate; to whom nineteen barrels, or seven- 

 ty-six bushels, were sent late in November, 

 1«4^; upon which a freight of $1 37 per 

 barrel, was charged, which increased its 

 cost to i^2 87 a barrel, on the farm. In re- 

 ply to inquiries made in relation to its ef- 

 fects, the following answer is giveri, viz: 



"We took five acres of wheat stubble, 

 which we supposed would yield, without 

 any manure, from 35 to 40 bushels of corn 

 to the acre; ploughed and harrowed it once, 

 theforepartof May— then marked it in rows 

 about four feet a part, but owing to the cold 

 weather, did not plant until about the 16th 



of the month, when we dropped a handful 

 of Poudrette in each hill, or 14 barrels to 

 the five acres— then planted the corn upon 

 It. After it came up, and before the first 

 hoeing, we put four barrels more upon about 

 one half of the field. The corn was hoed 

 three times, and was ready to harvest a little 

 earlier than our neighbours; but we could 

 not perceive any w?a/er?a/ difference between 

 that part of the field where the four barrels 

 were applied as a top-dressing, and the part 

 where it was applied 07ili/ in the hill. There 

 was no other manure used than the Poudrette, 

 The average yield upon the five acres, was 

 80 bushels to the acre ; but from one acre 

 selected, we gathered 99 bushels and 18 lbs. 

 The freight on the 40 barrels sent by you 

 this year, will not exceed what was paid 

 last year,— $26 on 19 barrels— owing to its 

 having been shipped near the close of navi- 

 gation." 



From tliis it will be seen that, by the use 

 of 18 barrels, or 72 bushels of Poudrette on 

 the five acres, the yield was increased from 

 3.5 or bushels, to 80 bushels per acre, or 

 over 200 bushels on the field. 



Mr. Robert Henry, of Cranberry, N. J., 

 says, under date of Dec. 27th, 1844, that— 



For the last four or five years I have 

 used Poudrette with uniform success on 

 corn, and find it to answer on that crop 

 better than any other manure that I use. 

 The corn, where it is used, is generally of 

 <i better colour, and comes to maturity ear- 

 lier than where other manure is used. My 

 mode of applying it is in the hill; the ground 

 being previously prepared, with about 40 or 

 50 bushels of lime to the acre. This is the 

 only way in which I have used it ; and last 

 season the corn was on a dry soil, and al- 

 though the season was also dry, the crop of 

 corn was good where Poudrette was used. 

 I consider it a cheap and profitable manure." 



Mr. James Hay, of West Chester county, 

 N. Y., made the following statement to me 

 in relation to its application to potatoes. He 

 says : 



" I planted (No. 1.) abo-t one acre of po- 

 tatoes, with Nova Scotia seed, the last of 

 May. The ground was manured with horse 

 manure the fall previous, and the potatoes 

 planted in drills, with coal ashes. The 

 growth was luxuriant, and bid fair to yield 

 a heavy crop, but they were apparently 

 struck with disease or blight about the mid- 

 dle of July, as though there had been a frost, 

 and the vines gradually died. They were 

 dug the latter part of August, and were in 

 size from a shot to a middling sized potatoe; 



