No. 3. 



"Sandy Point," No. 2. 



79 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 « Sandy Point," No. 2. 



In the August Number of your paper, I 

 hastily swept over a couple of letters from 

 A. Nicol, in which he gives quite an inte- 

 resting account of the agricultural opera 

 tions, on a considerable estate at " Sandy 

 Point," Virginia. In this article, with the 

 editors' permission, I mean in much the same 

 way, to note some of the statements made 

 by the same gentleman in subsequent letters, 

 found in the Farmers' Register. 



Under date of "July 10th, 1841," he 

 speaks favourably of clover, having been for 

 the last ten years " extensively and success 

 fully cultivated, and returned to the soil as 

 a manuring:" and says, that "considerable 

 attention has been paid to the collection of 

 putrescent manures;" but owing to the mode 

 of application, the results have been but lit 

 tie satisfactory. The manure made in the 

 winter, consisting chiefly of " entire corn 

 stalks," straw, &c, was applied in the spring 

 to the corn crop, which appears to have been 

 very little benefited by it; — and moreover, 

 from its coarse texture, it formed a seriou 

 impediment in the after cultivation of the 

 corn. The following wheat crop, it is said, 

 derived as little benefit from this dry and 

 unprepared material, as did the corn. And 

 the writer thinks a more judicious applica 

 tion of manure, in this condition, — if manure 

 it may be called, — can hardly be made, than 

 by spreading it early over the clover grounds. 

 He thinks, as all others do, who give them- 

 selves time to think on the subject, that the 

 mode we sometimes see practised, of piling 

 up manure, subjected to the influence of the 

 hot summer's sun and drying winds, is only 

 calculated to destroy its value. It becomes 

 mouldy, dry, and without strength. Where 

 manure, by the way, is kept through the 

 summer, if it cannot be put under shelter, it 

 should either be well covered with earth, or 

 straw, as it lays in the yard — or heaped up 

 with ditch banks, muck from ponds, earth 

 from along the fences, &c. &c, well mixed 

 in with it. This would prevent its strength 

 being wasted by too much fermentation. 

 What a privilege many of our farmers in 

 Jersey, Delaware, &c, who are adjacent to 

 the marl regions, might avail themselves of, 

 by mixing with their manure, this invalu- 

 able article ! 



In 1840, more than 4,400 cart loads of 

 manure were hauled from the yards — much 

 of it, having been as above mentioned, piled 

 up, was found mouldy and dry, and was of 

 course, but little beneficial to corn or wheat. 

 Better than 3,000 loads of the unrotted and 

 recent manure were put on clover grounds 



that were intended either for wheat fallow 

 in the fall, or to be ploughed under for corn 

 in 1841. Previously to 1831, very little lime 

 had been used on the estate ; but from that 

 period to the beginning of 1840, about 3,000 

 hogsheads of shells were used, covering up- 

 wards of 500 acres, at a rate, varying from 

 90 to 120 bushels per acre. It appears 

 mostly to have been used on the grounds 

 planted with corn, and the results, as men- 

 tioned in my first communication, were de- 

 cidedly beneficial — doubling the corn crop, 

 and trebling those of wheat and clover. 

 Marl, too, brought from the opposite side of 

 the river, in Surry county, was experimented 

 on, with flattering promises of advantage. 

 In 1840, large purchases of calcareous mat- 

 ter were made. More than 2,000 hogsheads 

 of oyster shells, costing from 75 to 90 cents 

 each ; and 4,000 bushels of marl, from Surry, 

 at 4 cents, were contracted for, though only 

 one half the marl was delivered that year. 

 The lime and marl delivered in 1840, cost 

 two thousand three hundred and eleven 

 dollars and forty cents; — about 130 bushels 

 of the marl were put to the acre. This ap- 

 pears but a slight dressing, but it is highly 

 impregnated with lime, and will, in all pro- 

 bability, supercede the use of this latter ar- 

 ticle. The shell lime is very expensive, 

 compared with marl, which is of easy ac- 

 cess, and may be obtained for three cents 

 per bushel. 



In a letter dated October 3d, 1841, the 

 writer proceeds to give a few memoranda, 

 connected with the wheat crop sown in the 

 preceding autumn, and which had then but 

 recently been threshed. Upwards of 400 

 acres of clover and weed fallow, were 

 ploughed and well harrowed between the 

 24th of July and the 20th of September. 

 Thirty-six acres of oat fallow, in addition to 

 the above, were also prepared for the recep- 

 tion of seed for this important crop. The 

 dry weather and hope of rain, delayed the 

 sowing operations some days. These, how- 

 ever, were commenced on " corn ground," 

 the 10th of October, and all was completed 

 on the 9th of November. It would have 

 been a gratification to know how many 

 acres of " corn ground," were sown ; but 

 this we are not told. Nevertheless, we 

 learn, that on the clover and weed fallow, 

 were sown 380 bushels of " mountain purple 

 straw" wheat, and 315 bushels of " white 

 turkey." On the oat fallow, were sown 34 

 bushels of the purple straw wheat, and 42 

 bushels of white turkey. On the corn 

 ground, 192 bushels of purple, and 281 bush- 

 els of white turkey were sown : the whole 

 quantity sown then, was 1,244 bushels. All 

 this seed was previously washed, the light 



