FARMERS' REGISTER— MANURING— THRASHING MACHINES. 



655 



MANURING. 



Extract from the American Farmer. 



I have heard many farmers say, that they had 

 used lime as a manure without deriving any bene- 

 fit from it, and I have no doubt of the correctness 

 of their statements. 1 have used lime without be- 

 ing able to discover that it had any etfect what- 

 ever ; but the reason was, the soil did not lack 

 that all important constituent, had no qualities up- 

 on which its chemical action could be beneiicial, 

 and was destitute of vegetable matter ; but upon 

 the very same earth, when subsequently manured 

 as I have already stated, with bottom earth and 

 lime, I found each load of nearly or quite as much 

 value as would have been a load from the stable. 

 I have used the same bottom eartli without lime, 

 but it was inactive, indeed worthless — I would not 

 haul it for it. It is the marriage of the two, that 

 makes them prolific. Marry lime to vegetable 

 earth or vegetable matter (let the match be equal, 

 of course I do not mean in quantity) on any soil, 

 and the union will be followed, within less than 

 nine months too, by a vigorous and healthy off- 

 spring. I have been careful in giving one bushel 

 of shell lime to each wain-load of swamp mud or 

 bottom earth; but I think the dose hardly large 

 enough, for I notice that those spots in my fields 

 Avhich have robbed their neighbors of a portion of 

 the lime that belong to them, send up uniforndy a 

 more vigorous growth. I prefer slicll to stone 

 lime, because the same amount of strength, covers 

 so much more surface. This remark, reminds me 

 of a fact which seems somewhat inconsistent with 

 the opinion expressed at the beginning of this para- 

 graph. In the spring of 1827, upon as poor a 

 piece of clay as ever heard the squealing of a kill- 

 deer, indeed it had no soil at all, a cask of stone 

 lime bursted, and a good deal of it was scattered 

 about the spot and permitted to remain there — the 

 next spring, hearty red clover came up "of its own 

 head," and occupied the place. 



One of my neighbors (but a more industrious 

 man, and a nmch neater fiu-mer than I am) has, I 

 am satisfied, within the last ciglit years (loul)led 

 his crops by the use of lime. He has the lime 

 spread upon his ditchbanks and grubbed in; after 

 it has remained there a few months, the compost 

 is carted upon his fields. A skilful calculator re- 

 marked to me some time since, that the effect up- 

 on Mr. D 's last cropof corn,of the lime here- 

 tofore applied to the field, would repay him all the 

 money he had expended (many hundred dollars I 

 know) to procure the article for his whole farm. 

 He uses shell lime exclusively. 



A friend of mine, who I hope is now better em- 

 ployed, who was a man of general science and a 

 practical and scientific farmer, exerted himself for 

 thirty years to improve a poor sandy farm. By the 

 method of manuring whicii I am about to mention 

 he effected more for it in the five years wiiich pre- 

 ceded his death, than had been accomplished in tiie 

 other five and twenty. From the shore of a salt- 

 water sound to which the farm was contiguous, he 

 littered his farm-yard with sea ware. In the fall 

 he laid off with a plough, the field which iie intend- 

 ed for the next year's cropof corn, intrenches se- 

 ven feet apart, twelve inches in width and six in 

 depth. The plough traverseil the same furrow un- 

 til the trench was sufficiently wide and deep — its 

 sides were made by the bar of the plough. Those 



trenches were then filled with sea ware from the 

 farm yard, and slal)!e manure ; the latter placed 

 in the bottom of the lrench,and making from a 

 tenth to a sixteenth part of the (ond)ination : the 

 trenches were then covered w ith the ])lough, and 

 upon the ridges thus formed, the crop of corn was 

 drilled the succeeding spring. After the laying 

 by of the corn crop, the fichl had a year of rest, 

 after which the intervals between the corn rows 

 were treated and used as the rows had been. The 

 advantages of that manner of manuring are man- 

 ifest. Almost all flie fertilizing properties of the 

 manure which cscajjed whilst becoming decom- 

 posed, fed the crop — the bed of the manure was 

 not broken open, nor was it exposed to evapora- 

 tion, until the soil had become "seized in its de- 

 mesne as of fee" of all its treasures, save those 

 which had already produced food fiir man and 

 beast — a few manurings in that way, will make a 

 very poor field of any susceptibility rich. 



STEAM THRASHING MACHINES. 



From the Fifeshire Journal. 

 Steam thrashing machines are continually ob- 

 taining more fiivor among agriculturists, and when 

 the greater convenience and increased cheapness 

 of such an assistant on a farm are taken into con- 

 sideration, the prefiirence given it over the mills 

 now in use \vill not lie a matter of wonder. A 

 machine of four horse pov.'er will thrash aliout 60 

 bolls (210 bushels,) in a day, supposing the crop 

 to turn out moderately well, and the consumption 

 of fuel for this work is at the utmost 8 loads of 

 small coal, at 7d. each, amounting to 4s. 8d. ; the 

 driving, if very distant, may take a pair of horses 

 one day, which call 4s. more; the wliole expendi- 

 ture for the power of the machine Avould thus 

 amount to 8s. 8d., taking it under the most unfa- 

 vorable circumstances. A mill of the same power 

 (worked by tv»o pair of horses) will only thrash 

 30 bolls, if the cattle are not overdriven, and as the 

 keep of each pair cannot be reckoned at less than 

 4s. })er day, there will thus be nearly the -same ex- 

 pense for power, with only half the quantity of 

 work. But this is not the whole advantage of 

 steam, for it is well known among farmers, that 

 the heavy incessant drag of the thrashing mill is 

 most injurious to horses, and causes more wear and 

 tear in their constitutions tiian any other portion 

 of their labor. If the usual contrivance is em- 

 ployed to make them all draw equally, a horse of 

 less stamina than th'e rest soon suffers by it ; and' 

 if they are allo^ved to pull, each in its own fixture, 

 some of the spirited cattle do all the work, and are 

 hurt by it. Nor is the convenience less in another 

 ])oint of view, f()r it often happens that a farmer 

 finds it desiraide to sell, when he can very ill spare 

 his horses for tiu'ashing, and is thus obliged either 

 to lose the opportunity of making a good liargain, 

 or to let some pai't oi the work of a hurried season 

 stand back to set the thrashing mill in motion. 

 Farmers, who have had ex[)erience for some time 

 of the steam engine, say that the}' could not, be- 

 fbreiumd, have imagined the convenience it affords 

 them; on a farm of f()ur pair of horses, an engine 

 of the power we have mentioned, enables the far- 

 mer to do witli three, and the remaining beasts, 

 being no longer pulled asunder and exhausted by 

 the heavy toil of the mill, are in better condition 

 than before. Large machines^ however, are no 



