DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. III. 



BOSTON, SATURDAY, NOV. 22, 1851 



NO. 24. 



RAYNOLUS & NOURSE, Paoi>r<iKTOi.s. 

 Office Quincy IJall. 



S. W. COLE, 

 SIMON DROWN 



J 



Editors. 



FRED'K UOLBROOK 

 HENRY F. FRENC 



^5 ) Associate 

 H,5 Editors. 



FALL PLOWING AND MANUPaNG. 



The practice has prevailed with most farmers to 

 be satisfied if they could get their fields plowed and 

 manured in season to receive the seed, without 

 much regard to any particular time, whether it be 

 in the fall, or early or late in the spring. If lands 

 are plowed quite early in the spring, they are fre- 

 quently settled by heavy rains and their own gra- 

 vity, so that by seeding time they are too compact 

 to be easily and pleasantly cultivated. If left until 

 about the time for planting, and the manure is then 

 plowed under, it will not have time to become de- 

 composed so as to impart to the crop its full benefit 

 the same season. Beside, time is more valuable in 

 the spring, when there are but a few days between 

 the cold storms which have continued so late for 

 several years past, and the proper moment for sow- 

 ing and planting. 



For these reasons, and for the most important 

 one of all, that the manure applied in the fall be- 

 comes decomposed through the winter months, and 

 yields to the surrounding soil most or all its fertil- 

 izing elements, we think favorably of applying 

 green manures and turning them under in the fall. 

 Not green crops, as is sometimes dune, but coarse 

 materials mingled with the droppings of the stall, 

 and nnfermented. In this condition it is applied to 

 the ground in its full strength ; and under the 

 ground it goes through the process which prepares 

 it to supply the food which the roots of plants are 

 in search of. Wlien animal or vegetable suljstan- 

 ces containing nitrogen are decomposed, ammonia 

 is always produced, and carbonate of ammonia is 

 found, vvliich is a very volatile salt, and consequent- 

 ly is carried away by the air as fast as it is formed. 

 It makes a great ditTerence, therefore, whether this 

 manure lays upon the surface, or even in heaps, or 

 covered up in the soil where your plants are ex- 

 pected to grow. Experiments sliow that crops 

 growing the same season do not get the full benefit 

 of unputrefied manures, when they are applied in 

 the spring. But place them in nature's crucible in 



the autumn, and she sets her agents to work and 

 prepares them for the first germ of the unfolding 

 seed. 



By applying the manures which have accumula- 

 ted (luring the summer, to the tillage land in the 

 fall, and plowing them in, great losses are prevent- 

 ed h)/ evaporation — losses which have scarcely beea 

 realized, because imperfectly understood. It should 

 be remembered " that there is no part of any de- 

 composing vegetable manure but what is, either in 

 its gaseous or solid state, the natural food of plants; 

 thus the gases emitted by the putrefaction of a 

 dunghill are so much lost to the vegetable matters 

 of the soil, and such an injury should never be sub- 

 mitted to by the cultivator. Hence the value of 

 green manure; for in these cases every portion of 

 the decaying and fermenting fertilizer is gradually 

 absorbed by the roots and leaves of the succeeding 

 crop." There is always more or less loss by eva- 

 poration in composting manures, especially if the 

 heap is placed in the open air. It is generally 

 overhauled two or three times, and the escaping 

 gases during such operations give sufficient olfac- 

 tory evidence that they are taking their flight. — 

 This waste takes place rapidly at first, and in a 

 less degree at all times, from the shrface of the 

 heap during the whole time of its exposure; and 

 when this is extended through several months, the 

 loss must be considerable. Arthur Young says the 

 advantage of using fresh long dung appears very 

 strong. 



These seem to be the opinions entertained by 

 very many of the best practical farmers. In speak- 

 ing of this subject, Mr. C. W. Johnston says, "the 

 controversy which once so keenly existed, as to the 

 state of fermentation in which dung should be used 

 on the land, has now pretty well subsided. There 

 is no doubt but that it cannot be applied more ad- 

 vantageously than in as fresh a state as possible, 

 consistent with the attainment of a tolerably clean 

 husbandry, and the destruction of the seeds of 

 weeds, grubs, &c., which are always more or less 



