136 



®ljc jFcmncr's ittonthhi tHsitor. 



forms It, . 'line a gas mid ascend ii to 

 'he air; or it may become a liquid and descend 

 into the earth. 



Manures may he combined with substances 

 which will prevent the escape of ammonia; 

 such as charcoal, or charcoal-dust from coal-pits, 

 peal, muck, soil, and vegetable or carbonaceous 

 substances generally, If the process of fermen- 

 tation is properly regulated, and the manure is 

 combined with articles which will absorb the 

 gases as they are disengaged, there will be no 

 waste. It may he considered, a rule, that when- 

 ever smell is emitted by manures, some of their 

 valuable properties are being dissipated ; hence 

 their odors should not be wasted "on the desert 

 air;" they should he saved and converted into 

 vegetable substances, in which condition they 

 are not only more agreeable to the olfactories, 

 hut become substantial elements of animal nu- 

 trition. 



As to the sinking of manures, there is positive 

 evidence of the fact. We have ill many instan- 

 ces seen its effects to ihe depih of several feet. 

 On the farm of Air. Prentiss, near this cily, it 

 was lately noticed, in digging a cellar near where 

 a compost heap had laid, that the earth, to the 

 depth of three feet from the surface, though it 

 was of quite a compact and clayey nature, was 

 so impregnated with the qualities of the manure 

 that they were plainly perceptible. And the ef- 

 fects of manure are always traceable to a greater 

 or less depth, in proportion to the porousness of 

 the soil and ihe quantity of manure applied. It 

 is Liebig's opinion that the soluble parts of ma- 

 nures, " phosphates, and other salts with alkaline 

 bases," are drawn off, and wasted to a great ex- 

 tent by percolation. 



The depth to which manures should be buried is 

 another subject, which, in connection with the 

 question, whether they rise or fall, has been 

 much discussed ; and some, who believe that 

 manures always ascend, have arrived at (he con- 

 clusion that they should be placed from "a loot 

 to eighteen inches" under ground. 



We do not suppose it is practicable to lay 

 down any fixed rule in regard to the covering of 

 manures. Some general principles, however, 

 may form a guide. It is evident that manures 

 can only afford nutriment to plants when thev 

 are in a soluble condition. In their application, 

 therefore, the causes which produce solution and 

 decomposition should be regarded. These causes 

 are, principally, heat, air nod moisture.; though 

 in the elimination ami assimilation of .food by 

 plaits, light and electricity are evidently power- 

 ful agents. Alost of these principles act wtilh 

 the greatest force near the surface. 



In some cases, as in dressing grass .hinds, use 

 would spread manures on the lop of the ground. 

 But in such cases, we would use a -welUrolted 

 cumpost, in which ihe animal manures had been 

 combined with such substances as would absorb 

 the matters that during fermentation might pass 

 off. The reason why wo would prefer, for such 

 a purpose, manure that had passed through the 

 first slaves of decomposition in the manner men- 

 tioned, is, that it would be more readily soluble, 

 than in a fresher stale, and would be immediate- 

 ly available to the crop ; while at the same lime 

 its fertilizing principles would be so far com- 

 bined and fixed, as not to bo liable to waste. 



But the | rtictice of leaving manures entirely ot] 

 the surface, is not, in many cases, the most judi- 

 cious, for the following reasons: 



1. If it is applied in an unfennented state, uu- 

 combined with absorbent substances, some of its 

 valuable properties might be lost during decom- 

 position. 



2. With hoed crops, fresh or fibrous manures, 

 on the surface of the ground, would be an ob- 

 stacle, (more or less according to the quantity,) 

 to cultivation. 



3. Manures of any kind, or in any stale, when 

 left on the surface, might, from being kept too 

 dry, fill to benefit the crop for which they were 

 intended. Let it be recollected that they are 

 only available to plants when in a soluble stale; 

 and to be made soluble, they must be kept moist. 

 We would therefore coyer manures to such 

 a degree as would secure the advantages 

 and avoid the objections here indicated, and no 

 more.. 



On tenacious soils, a mechanical effect is sought 

 to be produced by manures ; that is, a greater 



friability of the soil, i las purpose is best ac- 

 complished by ploughing in strawy or fibrous 

 manures in a fresh or unfermented state. This 

 is obviously, however, quite a different thing 

 from the application of manures to feed a crop. — 

 Albany Cultivator. 



With the general ideas of the foregoing article, 

 written as presumed by our friend Sanford How- 

 ard of the Cultivator, we fully agree: they are 

 the results of the best practical experience in 

 the application of manures. But we altogether 

 repudiate the idea of the "sinking of manures" 

 into the earth to any considerable extent in the 

 most porous ground: our own experience on 

 the lightest and least tenacious soil, on land con- 

 sisting of ninety-five parts in a hundred of pure 

 sand, has demonstrated that none or very little 

 of the strength or ammonia upon such soil pass- 

 es downward. The fact at first came to our 

 knowledge some six or seven years ago when 

 the present location of ihe Concord railroad de- 

 pot was made from the lowering a hill of light 

 sandy soil several feel w here there bad been a 

 cultivated field for perhaps more than a hundred 

 years, in which a black mould was formed to the 

 depth only of some five or six inches, the lowest 

 point 10 which the plough had reached ; and be- 

 low that there was not the slightest appearance 

 of any admixture of the manures many times 

 applied to that land. The sand was as pure as 

 if it bad been never overlaid with any thing hut 

 an unstirred turf. Moreover, we have demon- 

 stration that manures do not leach downwards 

 on light lauds in the crops this year produced 

 upon as many as fifteen acres of land planted 

 with corn and potatoes. The drought oil this 

 land, subsoiled to the depth of twelve to sixteen 

 inches, this summer has not bad the slightest ap- 

 parent effect in retarding ihe growth of these 

 crops: the manures used upon them, consisting 

 first of compost made up mainly by muck and 

 turf-sods with a portion of barn-yard gatherings 

 tempered with lime and leached and unleached 

 ashes, spread first at the rate of twenty to thirty 

 loads to the acre and harrowed in, and after- 

 wards the sowing of equal parts of guano and 

 ground plaster and again harrowed— have bad 

 as great effect as vwe have ever known manures 

 on the most tenacious soil. Beautiful ami fine 

 has been the growth of potatoes and corn upon 

 this land: the average crop of potatoes will be 

 about one bundled and fifty bushels to the acre 

 with no appearance of rot. Six acres of Indian 

 com planted on the first day of June— corn id' 

 thejarger Dntton size— have grown and ripened 

 so as to be out of the way of injury by frost be- 

 fore the frosty night of the moon's eclipse about 

 the middle of September: on the 20th of the 

 month, fully ripe ears of corn, filled to their tips 

 with kernels, were taken from this pine plain 

 field. We might appeal to Gov. Steele and 

 others who have been over portions of these 

 fields for evidence of the fact that the manures 

 were doing their best work upon this subsoiled 

 land — that there was no visible effect upon the 

 growth by the leaching or falling downwards 

 even of the ashes and lime which would he of 

 all others the most likely to fall into the earth 

 below the reach of the roots of any grow in" 

 crop. The truth is in relation to the application 

 of manures, that the sun has a much greater im- 

 mediate effect upon sandy soils, and that upon 

 these the ammonia is sooner carried into ihe air, 

 than from tenacious clayey soils. If there is the 

 light admixture with the soil without losing any- 

 more by leaching or sinking down, we have the 

 greater direct benefit from manures on light 



sandy land than we have from manures on heavy- 

 clay land. The mistake as to any supposed ef- 

 fect of manures two or three feet below where 

 they have laid arises from the circumstance, as 

 yet not extensively realized, that all subsoil to that 

 depth and below it, after due action of the atmos- 

 phere, becomes more fertile than the surface mould 

 for any considerable length of time cultivated. 



Modern Science. 



Mow astonishing are the results of modern 

 mechanical science. The commerce across the 

 deserts of Arabia, once so great and extensive, 

 has been destroyed by the Mariner's compass, 

 and Tyre and Sidon have fallen from their an- 

 cient commercial greatness. The steam engine 

 has struck down the trade of the caravan, and 

 the steamboat rides bravely on the waters of the 

 Nile, proclaiming to the inhabitants of the Delta 

 the powers and genius of a people belonging to 

 a country which was unknown to Nero. Our 

 leviathans of the new world proclaim to the in- 

 habitants of the old, the powers and civilization 

 of the fabled Atalantus, and Asia, the cradle of 

 the human race, is now receiving lessons of free- 

 dom and knowledge from the land of the setting 

 sun. American citizens are highly honored in 

 the city of Constantinople, and are selected by 

 the Sultan as teachers of science. There is a 

 bright path laid out for our country: that of car- 

 rying freedom, science and knowledge to the 

 ends of the earth. May we not neglect to head 

 in this path of true glory. The eyes of the 

 whole woild are now fixed intensely on Ameri- 

 ca, and according as we act, right or wrong, so 

 do we exert an influence upon other nations for 

 good or evil. Nations should be exemplary in 

 their characters, as individuals; but we hold it 

 to be the greatest glory of any nation to he great 

 in knowledge and virtue.— Farmer and Mechanic. 



For the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 

 Labor. 

 "Six days shall thou labor, and do all thy 

 work," lint "remember the Sabbath day to keep 

 it holy." We all consider it wrong to work on 

 the Sabbath. And why ? Because the Almighty 

 has commanded us to do no work on that day. 

 But is not the command lo work six days just as 

 binding as the command to cease from work on 

 the Sabbath ? Certainly it is, and God meant it 

 should be obeyed, for be has affixed - rewards and 

 penalties thereto, which we shall enjoy or suf- 

 fer, according as we obey or disobey. We eve- 

 ry day witness some of ihe effects of the ob- 

 servance, as well as of the nonobservance of this 

 law. Observe the slothful man who rises late, 

 and does nothing but eat, and lounge about from 

 morning till night. Consumption, gout, dyspep- 

 sia and many oilier diseases, both bodily and 

 mental, are making vast ravages upon his frame. 

 But turn to the farmer, the mechanic, or to any 

 one who earns his bread by the sweat of his 

 brow, as God has commanded us lo do, and you 

 do not behold one laboring under the many dis- 

 eases with which the slothful and idle are afflic- 

 ted. But you behold one who rises with the 

 lark, eais his meals with a keen appetile, and 

 goes to his work. Disease is lo him a thing un- 

 known. The laborer alone knows in what con- 

 si-ls Hue happiness. Disease is the attendant of 

 idleness, health the ever-faithful companion of 

 action, is it not surprising that many of the in- 

 habitants of our cities bring up their children in 

 Ihe way in which they do? The city, at best, is 

 a poor place for youths, hut ii would he much 

 belter, were they required to work more. But 

 the children are not the only sufferers, for their 

 parents will have to share their sufferings, for 

 not learning them to work while young. As the 

 young have nothing about which to employ 

 themselves, there is a void left which they will 



