NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



389 



2G horse power, hurried it back as fast as a man 

 could fairly walk to conduct the plow. After 

 several "bouts," a subsoil plow was attached to 

 a gage of nine and afterwards twelve inches. 

 This additional burden, which the horses could not 

 possibly have drawn, evidently steadied and im- 

 proved the motion, and left the work in a most 

 satisfactory manner. Harrows were afterwards 

 appended with an equally pleasing result. The 

 plowing took place across old land, which showed 

 in some places considerable dips. Two engines 

 placed parallel at each end of the field would, with- 

 out difliculty, with only a double plow, complete 

 four acres of land in ten hours, and, if required, 

 subsoil it too. The relative expense of plowing 

 24 acres of land is given as follows; by horse £9 

 12s, by steam £6 16s. By steam power the 

 twenty-four acres would be completed in a week. 

 It would require at least ten horses to plow it in 

 the same period. 



VALUE OF PHOSPHORIC ACID IN 

 AGRICULTURE. 



BY DR. C. T. JACKSOxV, BOSTON. 



The importance of phosphoric acid, as an ingre- 

 dient of soils, is not sufficiently appreciated by 

 practical agriculturists. They do not seem to be 

 aware of the fact that this acid is essential to the 

 healthy growth of all plants, and that its presence 

 in food is absolutely necessary to render it capable 

 of sustaining animal life. 



It does not exist in the soil in a free or uncom- 

 bined state, nor is it so found in either plants or 

 animals, but it is always combined with the earths 

 and alkalies, in all three of these kingdoms. 



In the soil, the comparatively insoluble salts of 

 phosphoric acid are found, and it is evident that 

 they are the only ones that would be retained ; 

 for water would dissolve the soluble salts, and soon 

 transport them into that great reservoir of all solu- 

 ble salts of the earth — the sea, from whence they 

 would not return, since they are not in any degree 

 volatile. 



The wisdom of this law of nature in making the 

 most precious saline manure a fixed and difficult 

 soluble salt, is at once obvious ; for it is thus kept 

 always ready in the soil for the plants to act upon 

 according to their need. 



By their action, little by little the earthy phos- 

 phates are dissolved, taken into the circulatory 

 vessels of plants, and, by the most curious laws, 

 undergo changes of composition — exchanges of 

 bases and acids taking place with the other saline 

 matters absorbed from the soil. Thus we find 

 phosphate of lime is partly changed into phosphates 

 of potash; and soda, another acid, taking posses- 

 sion of the lime, while it yields up its alkali, with 

 which it was formerly combined, to the phosphoric 

 acid, and new salts are produced, in such propor- 

 tions as the plants need, and adequate to the wants 

 of animals feeding upon them. It is a curious law, 

 also, that when the fruit or seed form, the phos- 

 phates mostly leave the stem and go into them, so 

 as to become concentrated where they are most 

 needed for food. If we cut the plants down before 

 the seeds form, we have all the phosphates the 

 plants contain, diffused throughout them, and if we 

 allow the seed to ripen, the phosphates, as before 

 observed, will be found mostly in the seed. We 

 find them in the shape of phosphate of potash, 



phosphate of soda, phosphate of magnesia, and 

 phosphate of lime, and probably, also, phosphate of 

 ammonia. 



Now, all these salts are essential to tlie growth 

 and sustenance of animals, and without them grain 

 would cease to be sufficient food. 



When the farmer raises crops for sale, and re- 

 moves his grain and grasses from the soil, he sells 

 A PORTION OF HIS SOIL ; and if he docs noL rcnciv in 

 some way, the saline matters taken away in his ci'ops, 

 he invariably impoverishes his soil. The work of 

 exhaustion is now going on to a most alarming ex- 

 tent, and prolific wheat lands are to be searched 

 for farther and farther westward as the operation 

 proceeds. 



Every one knows the superiority of wheat grown 

 on newly cultivated lands, and most farmers are 

 aware of the fact that soils become exhausted of 

 something, they know not what, but of something 

 essential to the most favorable production of grain. 

 — Western Agriculturist. 



THE PROPER TIME FOR PRUNING. 



A correspondent makes some inquiries relative 

 to the proper time for pruning apple trees, and re- 

 marks it has been the general practice to prune in 

 the spring. Very small limbs may be safely cut 

 off at any season whenever it is convenient; and 

 when the trees have proper care and attention, it 

 will seldom be necessary to remove any large 

 limbs. But there are many trees which have been 

 badly neglected, and large decaying and profitless 

 limbs should now be removed from them ; and 

 where this is necessary, the fall is a more suitable 

 time than the spring, for the reason that the 

 wounds made in autumn will remain dry and 

 sound for years, and until the bark closes over them, 

 while wounds made in spring turn black and de- 

 cay, leaving holes which frequently ruin the tree. 

 Mr. Cole, the author of the American Fruit Book, 

 prefers October, November, or even December, to 

 the spring, which he says is the worst season. — 

 "Thirty-two years ago, in September," he re- 

 marks, " we cut a very large branch from an apple 

 tree, on account of injury by a gale. The tree 

 was old, and it has never healed over; but it is 

 now sound, and almost as hard as horn, and the 

 tree perfectly sound around it. A few years be- 

 fore and after, large limbs were cut from the same 

 tree in spring ; and where they were cut off the 

 tree has rotted, so that a quart measure may be 

 put into the cavity. — Maine Farmer. 



PLOWING. 



The Amherst (N. H.) Cabinet, recently pub- 

 lished the Report of the committee on plowing, 

 which was made to the Hillsborough County Ag- 

 ricultural Society in that State. It may be found 

 profitable to compare the opinions of individuals 

 from various, and widely extended districts; we 

 therefore give some extracts from the report of the 

 committee mentioned above. 



"In the first place, in breaking up most kinds 

 of sward land, a depth of at least eight inches, in 

 our opinion, is necessary to the successful cultiva- 

 tion of the soil. The oid-fashioned mode of mere- 

 ly skimming the surface, and half doing that only, 

 finds no advocate in your committee. We are not 



