182 



Fallowing. 



Vol. VII. 



be advantageously devoted to this plant, and 

 wherever such places are to be found on a 

 farm, they should unquestionably be selected 

 in preference to artificial or compounded 

 soils. The method of planting, in such loca- 

 tions, is to dig holes in the turf, one or two, 

 or two and a half feet deep and two feet 

 over. Into these holes are placed the sods 

 or compact turfs, containing the roots which 

 are then carefully covered with the soil, and 

 a sprinkling of beach-sand thrown over the 

 hill. The hills should be four feet apart 

 each way, which gives ample scope for the 

 vines to trail or branch out. Plants, cultiva- 

 ted in this manner, come rapidly into bear- 

 ing, after which nothing more is requisite for 

 several years, than merely to give them a 

 slight dressing, occasionally, and to supply 

 new plants where the old ones have decayed, 

 or died out. A plantation, managed in this 

 way, is a most valuable appendage to any 

 farm ; and in this section of the country, 

 where the fruit brings one dollar and fifty 

 cents, and often two dollars per bushel, it 

 would be peculiarly so. The labour of har- 

 vesting the cranberry is very simple, and 

 very expeditiously performed by means of a 

 rake, constructed exclusively for the pur- 

 pose, and with which, in favourable seasons 

 a skillful hand will gather, with ease from 

 fifty to a hundred bushels a day." 



Fallowing. 



Land dries much sooner when stirred than 

 when left untouched : simply harrowing the 

 surface dries the soil rapidly, when the 

 weather is fine; and why is this'! It is, be 

 cause the water and air in the unmoved soil 

 is in a comparative state of rest or balance : 

 and having the same surface exposed to the 

 sun and wind for a long time, they at length 

 saturate the particles of the soil exposed to 

 their influence, and, consequently, at last ex 

 cite little fermentation; when, however, the 

 surface and clods of earth are disturbed by 

 the harrow or plough, every part is freshly 

 exposed to both sun and air ; fermentation is 

 strongly revived, and dryness rapidly ensues 

 A gardener whilst digging, always takes 

 pains to break each spit of earth in pieces, 

 both on the top and bottom of the trench ; 

 knowing from experience, that this extra 

 labour and care will be amply compensated, 

 by the proportioned superior produce of the 

 next crop. When a soil is broken up by the 

 plough and highly pulverized, this essential 

 effect, fermentation, is gained ; which cannot 

 take place without the presence and conse- 

 quent decomposition of air or water, or both; 

 the constant interchange of the air, charged 

 with moisture, ascending and descending 



through the pulverized soil by the influence 

 of the interior fermentation, the day's heat and 

 the night's chill, leaving behind a quantity of 

 moisture sufficient to keep the soil damp, 

 even in the driest seasons. The plough- 

 man's experience satisfies him of this fact, 

 but it is not discoverable in unmoved land, 

 which is generally hard, dry, and full of 

 cracks during the summer months. And 

 when vegetable and animal manures are ap- 

 plied to the soil and buried by the plough, 

 they undergo fermentation, and gases of va- 

 rious natures are evolved; these passing into 

 the finely pulverized earth become arrested 

 in their nascent state by the minute particles 

 of the same, and are there strongly retained, 

 so as to exhibit for a series of years after- 

 wards their presence, by the superior crops 

 that follow. Meat of all kinds is sweetened 

 and made tender by being buried in the earth 

 for a day or two, for the soil commences a 

 digestive process, and imbibes and retains all 

 the putrid effluvium as it generates. Dogs 

 are, by their instinct aware of this, when they 

 bury a bone; otherwise, from the acute smell 

 of their own species in general, their store 

 would be easily discovered, if the least efflu- 

 via escaped during that time, and the trea- 

 sure be robbed ; but such an occurrence is 

 very rare. A portion of soil taken from a 

 cultivated fallow, and compared with an 

 equal quantity from an exhausted soil close 

 adjoining, witli wheat in the ear growing on 

 it, exhibited this difference — the fallowed 

 soil retained moisture longer; and when both 

 were equally dried, the former regained mois- 

 ture from the air quicker than the latter — a 

 most important fact. Again, a thermometer 

 was inserted three inches into a soil cultiva- 

 ted and pulverized a few hours before, and 

 then plunged the same depth into the same 

 soil close by, which had not been recently re- 

 moved ; and the result proved that the fresh 

 mould raised the quicksilver at least two de- 

 grees higher than the unmoved earth. 



The cultivation and pulverization of soils 

 increase their powers of decomposition or 

 fermentation, and this will ever be denoted 

 by the proportioned increase of the growth 

 of plants; likewise, by the more rapid de- 

 cay of vegetable or animal substances con- 

 tained therein ; but vegetables growing in a 

 soil, have the tendency to lower the temper- 

 ature of the same, caused, it is conceived, 

 partly by their shade and partly by their very 

 act of growing, which, by transforming the 

 more solid and liquid manures about their 

 roots into a rarer or gaseous form, occasions 

 the difference, from the consequent consump- 

 tion of a portion of the surrounding heat taken 

 up in a latent form during the rarefaction of 



