£l)c farmer's ittontljlij llisitov. 



85 



other lois which we viewed, would be the deep- 

 er or subsoil ploughing, for which the hard, 

 dry ami heretofore considered sterile worn om 

 lands about Washington are peculiarly adapted. 

 There is a strength in that red clay formation 

 thai needs oidy to be brought into action to 



yield the must certain crops: these may he de 



to increase here annually instead of being di- 

 minished. The improved appearance abont the 

 oity already growing fiom the examples of Gen. 

 Handerson and oilier pioneers is becoming each 

 year more manifest. 



There cannot any where perhaps be found 

 mure beautiful grounds than those enclosed and 

 fronting the east and west end of the capilol and 

 i In' north and south fronts of the President's 

 house. Many kinds of trees and shrubbery lie 

 along the margin of the iron fences: in these 

 hundreds of birds carol and build their nests.— 

 The primrose and the daisy, the lady's delight. 

 the crocus and ihe hyacinth, laid off in squares, 

 diamonds and circles, contrast with the platted 

 green foliage and bloom in which they arc im- 

 bedded. Every Wednesday in the ground front- 

 ing the President's, and Saturday in that of the 

 capitol, when the spring has fully opened the 

 green buds and early flowers of the year, the ex- 

 cellent hand of music from the navy yard of the 

 afternoon discourses heart-stirring music, includ- 

 ing the patriotic airs of the French Marseillaise, 

 the American star-spangled Banner, not forget- 

 ting the always-welcome 



" Father and 1 went down to camp," 

 of the revolutionary Yankee-doodle. Men and 

 madams, the dignitary and the foreign minister 

 with wives and daughters in gay attire— rich and 

 poor, high and low, great and small— mingle to- 

 gether with light hearts and gay faces on 

 these occasions. There are indeed many things 

 at Washington in striking contrast to what thai 

 city was thirty and forty years ago. From early 

 May till late November her markets abound with 

 the best fruits of the earth. Most magnificent 

 strawberries, sweet and liicions to the taste- 

 quarts and quarts of Hovey's seedlings of the 

 size of the largest plum— were daily in the last 

 month upon the tables al Washington. Through 

 the winter the oysters are there better than we 

 have ever found" them elsewhere. Providence 

 seems to have smiled upon the indolence of the 

 people there in the abundance of these and other 

 living food found in the hays and rivers. The 

 splendid canvas-back flavored with the root 

 which it finds In the shallow waters congregates 

 in thousands to be killed in hundreds by the dis- 

 charge sometimes of a single blunderbuss : these 

 in the. season are rare feed for the good liver.— 

 The talk of removing the seat of government 

 from Washington will become less as the temper 

 and disposition of politieans grows better and 

 the introduction of increased business in trade and 

 in the scientific and mechanical professions, les- 

 sens the sharper appetites of office-seekers.— 

 More ready and easy modes of travelling a great 

 distance in a short time— a desire to be always 

 near the waters of the Atlantic— will perhaps 

 many years after the West shall bear off the 

 palm in wea'th and numbers prevent any serious 

 effectual attempt to remove our seat of govern- 

 ment westward of the Allegany mountains. 



The superintendent of the Concord railroad, 

 with his salary raised from 1000 to 1 '200 and up 

 to 2000 dollars- a year, must have his business 

 and personal cares increase on him in proportion 

 to his pay, or else he must suppose that we 

 have patience for all sorts of encroachments 

 where the road passes through our premises al- 

 most as great as Job had under his afflictions. 

 The least favor has never been personally grant- 

 ed for all llie service we have personally done 

 for this road: never in our lives or that of our 

 family did we or they have a free ticket to Bos- 

 ton—not one dollar did wc ever receive for all 

 the juuineys made and ihe expenses incurred 

 while acting as a director and president of that 

 corporation. We readily yielded all personal 

 benefits to ihe convenience and interest of the 

 superintendent after we had lifted the wheel to 

 the start ill building this road, and incurred 

 all the obloquy that could be heaped on our de- 

 voted heads ill the day when railroads were un- 

 popular. We had supposed the law would pro- 

 tect us; but the superintendent, under the idea 

 that we are possessed of abundance of "charity 

 which sufferetll long and is kind," neither gives 

 us the fences and gates along our premises near 

 the village, which the law requires for our pro- 

 tection, and which he has been careful to give to 

 olliers, nor contents himself with confining his 

 encroachments to the five rods of land which 

 the corporation has taken for the road: no gale 

 is erected by the corporation lo protect our mea- 

 dows in the passway freely used by those who 

 choose to travel over them in all directions either 

 on foot or with teams. Five rods are not suffi- 

 cient for the operators in the new tracks: rocks 

 and rails and posts and everything else in the 

 way, are thrown upon and into the high grass at 

 any distance, Ihe season just approaching when 

 ihe crops might be gathered. Cattle let upon 

 ihe road pass over the meadows with impunity : 

 where paths through the thick grass do not seem 

 to be sufficient, new ones are trodden through, 

 and these paths are made in all directions where 

 the intruders cannot have the least pretence of 

 business for passing over the lands. The super- 

 intendent is a pious n an as well as a patriot : in 

 his neighbor's absence has be practised the 

 christian rule of doing lo his neighbor what he 

 would have his neighbor do to him ? 



Rockheatb, England, by Slracey, on 500 acres, 

 proved this. That farm bad been condemned as 

 worn-out; some said, you may perhaps, plant a 

 Ion .-I on it. It bad always been ploughed some 

 five inches deep. Mr. Stracey let pails of it to 

 cotlagers, who dug two spits deep in it, and 

 without manure, got good crops ihe first year. 

 When Slracey saw this, he had the farm plough- 

 ed and subsoiled, eighteen inches deep, and 

 without any manure be got twenty-six bushels of 

 wheat per acre ihe first year. The next year be 

 manured partly and got thirty-six bushels of 

 wheat, of" the weight of sixty-four pounds the 

 bushel. In ploughing, straight furrows are im- 

 portant 



Mr. Meigs related a fact that an Englishman 

 some years since, bought a worn-out farm in 

 New England— so sterile that it would scarcely 

 hear a mullen stalk. Buildings and fences long 

 deserted and in ruins. He repaired the latter, 

 anil with a powerful team of catlle and a huge 

 plough, be began in the spring to plough his 

 barren purchase. He continued this ploughing, 

 first one way and then across, all summer long. 

 He then sowed wheat, and next year reaped 

 thirty bushels per acre, without manure. — South- 

 ern Cultivator. 



How to stop a Paper.— First see that you 

 have paid for it up lo the lime you wish it to 

 slop; then write your name and post-office ad- 

 dress on one of the papers, with ihe word dis- 

 continue, and mail it to the publisher. 



Ploughing. 



On no point, perhaps, in ihe whole range of 

 agricultural pursuits are planters and farmers in 

 the South so much at limit as in their mode of 

 ploughing. As Dr. Underwood very correctly 

 staled al t lie January meeting of the New York 

 Farmers' Club, our common ploughing is wrong 

 — too shallow. It rather invites the roots of our 

 crops to come up than to go down. In our hot 

 climate we can hardly get the roots down too 

 low. The surface soil" is generally dark, or even 

 black, while ihe subsoil is light color. Plough 

 this yellow subsoil up and the black soil down, 

 and "you will soon find that these colors have 

 changed places, the yellow dirt becomes black anil 

 the elements of the black below haw; worked up 

 to the surface to do it. Siihsoiling is but an- 

 other name for deep ploughing. In ploughing 

 sod, it should be turned over flat, except ill cold 

 wet lands. 



Pulverizing the soils, remarked Judge Van 

 Wjck on the same occasion, is the great object, 

 so "as to admit the roots of plants to extend their 

 search after proper food. Sulisoiling breaks up 

 a new earth— the English do not at first bring 

 their subsoil up to the surface of ihe land, 

 further: 



Lands well ploughed and subsoiled have been 

 found to produce line crops without manure for 

 a time. The interesting experiment tried at 



Our old friend Whitney.whose name we used to 

 mention in the Visitor seven and eight years since, 

 remains a gardner upon our premises-: he has 

 had for sale splendid lettuce, raised in the open air, 

 from the 27th April up to this time. He has on 

 this 25th of June, at this northern point of ex- 

 treme culd, summer squashes of nearly the size 

 of a saucer: his beets and onions are quite for- 

 ward, although his ground is of too heavy rich- 

 ness to throw out quick vegetation. So rich is 

 his garden, that he has heretofore lost whole 

 rows of early cabbage by their becoming stump- 

 footed. In this matter he has shewed us during 

 one of the last davs of June, a very interesting 

 experiment: be has trenched and thrown up ihe 

 subsoil in ridges, and upon the top of them 

 transplanted cabbages, which at this time show a 

 green richness of unusual vigor — a richness of 

 verdure quite as great as if stimulated by the 

 better manures. Before the alley or ditch was 

 dug from which the subsoil is taken, the ground 

 was black and heavy : the subsoil is streaks of 

 coarse sand alternating with clayey marl upon a 

 rocky formation : exposure to ihe atmosphere 

 darkens the mixture in proportion to the length 

 of time since the removal from ils bed. From 

 our own experience we are able to say that the 

 entire subsoil of which the ridge of Mr. Whit- 

 ney's garden is a part, stirred and brought upon 

 the surface, is rich in the production of grass, 

 potatoes and most of the esculent crops. 



On the matter of deep ploughing, we are glad 

 to find many intelligent men agreeing with us in 

 opinion. In the course of ihe last month we 

 have held many hours of interesting conversa- 

 tion with Guv. John H. Steele, who since his re- 

 tirement from bis factory and bis tour in public 

 life as Chief Magistrate of the State has, con 

 amore, entered upon the business of farm im- 

 provement. In the last three years at Peterbo- 

 rough he has made bis experiments of deep 

 ploughing on some of the most rocky, forbidding 

 ground near his village. Three years ago, in the 

 preparation of stony ground, apparently without 

 the elements of vegetable fruitfulness, he ex- 

 tracted many tons of rocks: taking a plough of 

 the strongest dimensions and an ample team ot 

 oxen, he perforated this ground to the depth of 

 twelve and fifteen inches, bringing up rocks 

 large and small of any size up to half a ton. 

 Harrowing and pulverizing this soil, he mixed in 

 an ample coating of some thirty full loads of 

 manure: he planted with Indian corn, which 

 vielded at the rate of about fifty bushels to the 



