No. 1. 



Running Commentaries. 



27 



is no use in magnifying the calling of the 

 husbandman, if it be properly understood and 

 justly appreciated. The reflections here ex- 

 tracted, page 365, from Chowles' oration, are 

 excellent. There is no calling comparable 

 with it, for health and intellectual enjoy- 

 ment, if, with the practice of agriculture, 

 you can only combine a fondness for books. 

 See Skinner's essay on that subject, pub- 

 lished, I believe, in the American Farmer, 

 and in the National Intelligencer. Then 

 comes an important little, labour-saving 

 scrap, teaching how 



To prevent Weeds from Growing in a 

 Nursery, 

 By covering the ground between the rows 

 with spent tanner's bark. I have long be- 

 lieved that farmers on tide-water might save 

 much labour and gather as good crops, by 

 covering their gardens and root crops with 

 sea-ore, and what is called hog-grass, to be 

 gathered in great quantities in the spring. 

 It would keep the ground moist, and keep 

 down grass and weeds. I wish some tide- 

 water farmer, near St. Michaels, an import- 

 ant port of entry and place of ship building, 

 on that great estuary of the Chesapeake, St. 

 Michael's river, would make the experiment 

 on a row of beets, or potatoes, or cabbages, 

 and report the result. The next is rather a 

 greasy subject — one that I would have passed 

 by, had it not been for the remarks of the 

 Editor, whose notes infallibly catch my eye, 

 and are ahoays found worthy of especial at- 

 tention. On the strength of his recommen- 

 dation, I will try 



Lard-Oil. 



The next communication is on " Medi- 

 cated Tar." I should have read it, but 

 seeing the word '■'■oxygen,' 1 '' the English of 

 which I could never remember five minutes, 

 I go on to Cranberries ; but as I would as 

 soon think of eating green Wac&berries which 

 are red when they arc green, and as all such 

 very sour things require more sugar to make 

 them palatable than they are worth, proceed 

 to 



Autumnal Ploughing for Oats. 



This would be passed over, for want of 

 date and place, were it not for its intrinsic 

 importance. The extract, however, given 

 by "John Daley's" correspondent, from a 

 work on husbandry, is evidently from a Bri- 

 tish work; and who, that has not been in 

 England, knows how to make the appropriate 

 allowance for difference of climate? Rea- 

 soning that applies to British agriculture in 

 a great variety of cases, is very often wholly 

 inapplicable to our country, for various rea- 

 sons, and most especially on account of dif- 

 ference in the cost of labour, and climate. 

 Fall ploughing may be commendable in one 



country for a given purpose, and condemna- 

 ble in another. In England, turnips stand 

 out in the field, and sheep are folded and 

 pastured upon them through the winter — 

 hence the great saving of labour, and the 

 immense results attending sheep and turnip 

 husbandry in England, that cannot be real- 

 ized in America. 



As to oat culture, I believe in early sow- 

 ing, and in much thicker sowing than we 

 practice in this country for all grains and 

 grasses. True, the higher manuring in Eng- 

 land renders thick sowing there more eligi- 

 ble than here, yet we generally sow too little 

 to the acre. The heaviness of the straw and 

 its capacity to make stronger manure, and 

 the weight and value of the grain, are in- 

 creased, not by being cut earlier in the sea- 

 son, but earlier in reference to its stage of 

 perfect maturity. The extract from the Eng- 

 lish work on husbandry, speaks of covering 

 the oats by five harrowings. Here, again, 

 you see the difference in the price of labour, 

 and may judge how much more perfect must 

 be the tillage where the farmer can stop to 

 plough up his oat ground in autumn, and then 

 cover them by five harrowings in the spring ! 

 In England two acres of wheat will cost, for 

 mowing 55 cents, binding 44 cents, lifting 

 33, and raking 22 cents, say $1.54 for two 

 acres, or say 77 cents an acre, and these 

 acres probably average 30 bushels — how 

 does that compare with American yield and 

 expense ? 



The next paragraph ought to be printed in 

 large letters and hung up in every farmer's 

 house — right side up. It runs thus : I copy 

 it for the sake of impressing it more indeli- 

 bly on my own mind, though I have been 

 preaching it for 25 years, which is nearly 

 half my life-time. 



" One of the chief Errors of our Hus- 

 bandry is cultivating too much land ; 

 because it is only half done. Half the 

 quantity, with double the work on it, 

 would insure double crops, which would 



BE FOUND MORE PROFITABLE." This may IlOt 



be true to the letter, but the principle is 

 good. 



The next paragraph runs — "We should 

 be sorry to have everybody agree with us, 

 or ourselves agree with everybody else : this 

 would be dull work, and put an effectual stop 

 to all inquiry, consequently to all intellectual 

 progress." This is very true, and argumenta- 

 tion is very agreeable, especially when a man 

 feels as it progresses, that he has got the best 

 of it — that is, when his antagonist is the 

 better informed of the two, and therefore he 

 perceives that the account of loss and gain 

 runs all in his own favour. But how, when 

 you meet, as we sometimes do, with self- 



