150 



&!)c ifarmcr's iltontljln bisitor. 



pour this pickle on the packed beef. The beef 

 ought to have on it a barrel heading or circular 

 piece of wood to fit the size of the pickle tub, so 

 as to just move up and down, and on this piece 

 of wood put a flat, heavy, clean stone, to keep 

 all down snug in pack, and the pickle ought to 

 cover the beef completely, and remain well 

 above the top piece. In pouring the pickle on, 

 do it carefully and steadily, and reject any sedi- 

 ment that may appear at the bottom of the ves- 

 sel in which you have made it. In butchering 

 and handling the meat, attention should be paid, 

 in every part of the process, to perfect neatness 

 and cleanliness. 



The above quantity of pickle is sufficient for 

 five hundred pounds of beef. Boiling the salt 

 and water is the safest, especially if the pickle 

 be made befoie the end of November. 



If the above chapter on picklea enlightens our 

 friend in any degree, and will have the effect of 

 preserving his pickled beef in future, we shall 

 be sati.-fied. 



Perhaps some of our readers can give di- 

 rections for salting and curing beef and pork, 

 much more simple and equally as effectual 

 as those above enumerated ; if so, we should 

 be happy to hear from them on this subject. 



<£l)c bisitor. 



CONCORD, N. H., OCTOBER 31, 1848. 



Essay on Worn-out Lands. 



We have copied into the Visitor the Prize Es- 

 say which received the premium of one hundred 

 dollars from the editor of the American Farmer 

 as the best article on the "Renovation of Worn- 

 out Lands." This essay must be taken by the 

 New England reader with all the allowance of 

 the difference of soil between the middle ami 

 the northern States. 



Our experience is daily teaching us the beau- 

 tiful truth, that our most sterile worn-out lands 

 may be restored with far less trouble and ex- 

 pense than has generally been sup|>osed ; and 

 that our lightest silicious worn-out lands — worn 

 out because they are sooner exhausted than te- 

 nacious clay lands — may be made the most pro- 

 fitable and easy of cultivation. 



Mr. Stabler, in our belief, does not give the 

 fine importance to the deep moving of the soil 

 as the more material point in renovating worn- 

 out lands. It is a lallacy to suppose that deeper 

 moving of the soil requires a greater quantity of 

 manure than superficial ploughing. The higher 

 the stimulant upon light soil where the plough 

 has done little more than skim the surface, in 

 the first appearance of drought under a hot sun, 

 the quicker will be the destruction of the vege- 

 table growth at first" facilitated by the greater 

 power of the manure. The same ground deeper 

 stirred might sustain the blades of corn or grain 

 until the season of maturity for the grain itself. 

 We have seen the grasses drying up where the 

 ground has been shallow ploughed, while along 

 a trench near by or ditch throwing up the sub- 

 soil of the same ground, the burthen of grass 

 was four or six times as large. 



The mineral manures, as ashes, mail, plaster 

 and lime, coming to the aid of the common sta- 

 ble or barn manures, will have the greater effect 

 upon the deeper cultivated soil. Upon almost 

 every kind of land one and all of these mineral 

 manures in a series of years, sooner or later, will 

 have their due operation: if they are not much 

 felt in the first year, they will be sure to work 

 well ill the ground afterwards. 



Lime is not used in the North as freely as it 

 is in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, 

 perhaps, because limestone is not common in 



this part of the country : it would be a low price 

 to obtain water-slaked lime fifty miles from the 

 seaboard of New England for twenty cents the 

 bushel. Lime is used in the middle States by 

 laying it off on the ground in piles and spread- 

 ing it in quantity of many bushels to the acre. 

 We have seen it nowhere used in the northern 

 States in this way. Indeed as yet very little 

 lime as manure seems to be used here at all: it 

 is considered by many to be of little value — by 

 others to be much too expensive to be used as 

 manure. 



The editor of the Visitor is using at this time 

 in the creation of his compost heaps, lime, ashes 

 and salt. Leached ashes cost six cents the bu- 

 shel — unleached ashes (not from the best hard 

 wood) cost ten cents — salt is procured at thirty- 

 three cents the bushel. We are making our 

 manure to be used on subsoiled plains-land next 

 spring from these materials added to crude black 

 muck taken from a rich bed. Twenty loads of 

 this composition to the acre, aided by two hun- 

 dred pounds of guano mixed in a like quantity 

 of ground plaster, sowed over the ground and 

 harrowed in, will be the basis of our preparation 

 for a twenty acre potato field already prepared 

 in this last week of October in more than half 

 of the labor for the next year. This potato 

 field, if planted before the fifteenth of May next, 

 we would warrant free from rot at a premium of 

 two per cent, on the cost of labor and manure 

 and we will warrant further, under the subsoil 

 stirring of the ground to the depth of fifteen 

 inches, that the drought of next summer will not 

 so soon affect this land as it will the shallow 

 ploughed land of our hardpan rocky grounds 

 where corn and potatoes are usually planted. 

 Otir prepared ground is of the lightest pine 

 plain of the upper terrace along the Merrimack 

 river, seventy-five feet above the common inter- 

 vale level. When this land shall have received 

 its first due quantity of compost such as we aie 

 preparing for it in two and three years applica- 

 tion, it may be made sure for a three or four 

 shift rotation forever, with at least as much profit 

 from the amount of labor and extent of manure 

 as any other equal number of acres. Our rota- 

 tion for this land after the first preparatory 

 course would be, the first year Indian corn or 

 potatoes — second, oats, barley or winter rye, in 

 all cases accompanied with the earlier red clover 

 sowed with a bushel of ground plaster to the 

 acre — third and perhaps a fourth year, pasturage 

 or mowing: the same shift to be pursued ad in- 

 finitum. The yield of hay to the acre for the 

 first year will be at least two tons — the plough- 

 ing in either fall or spring of the second growth 

 of clover will almost equal a common coating of 

 manure, so that in the second course much less 

 manure will suffice fur the largest crops than 

 was called for in the first preparation. Two 

 acres of this clover will suffice for the pasturage 

 of the best milch cow through the summer. 



The cost of lime is too great for its application 

 in this part of the country as recommended in 

 Mr. Stabler's essay. It may be, when we come 

 to bring down lime from Orford, Haverhill and 

 Lisbon by railroads running into those towns 

 where the best of limestone is inexhaustible, 

 that lime may be produced here as cheap as it is 

 in Jersey or Maryland : until then we cannot ob- 

 tain it cheap enough to be spread in heaps as a 

 stimulant or for the melioration of the ground. 

 We content ourselves each year with the pur- 

 chase of some twenty-five or thirty casks of 

 Thouiaston lime (the casks lessened in size 



down to little more than two bushels in the stone 

 unslakened) at from $1 10 to $1 25 per cask ii,-' 

 eluding transport. This lime is slakened and 

 placed over successive layers of muck to assist 

 in the work of speedy decomposition at first, aivLj 

 afterwards to do the work which lime is suppo- 

 sed to do in giving stamina to vegetation wheif-i 

 it is absent from the soil, and preventing the 

 operation of blight and rust in various vegeta- 

 bles. The salt laid over an extensive compost" 

 pile last of all the materials, prevents the pile 

 from severe and solid freezing in the winter, and-' 

 afterwards does much the same kind of work in 

 the ground as the lime. Our good salt costs leys 

 than half a cent per lb.: it may come seventy-five, 

 miles from the seaboard at a price still less win n 

 the railroad transport shall be reduced to it 

 minimum price. 



Now, although some of our more careful ami' 

 perhaps more economical neighbors look upoiij 

 us as guilty of waste in mixing good salt and 

 lime with black vegetable mud which we have 

 found in great profusion near our planting 

 grounds; yet after the use of lime, especially 

 more or less for the last eight years, in these 

 moderate quantities, we are quite confident thatt 

 our course has been that in which the best ma- 

 nure for our land is made or procured at the 

 cheapest rale. We are succeeding upon the. 

 lighter pine plain lands by the methods we arci. 

 pursuing even beyond our highest expectations. ' 

 If we live and can pursue the business of farm-,' 

 ing for five years to come with no less zeal an44| 

 enthusiasm than the zeal and enthusiasm of ihe^L 

 last five years, we think we shall demonstrate! 

 beyond question that the farmers of New H.h.i | 

 shire may be as profitably engaged in renovating 

 their poorest lands as by removing a long dis- 

 tance to find richer lands which may be started J 

 in cultivation at little expense. 



The bold Yeomanry of England were the!' 

 fathers generally of whatever is valuable in thew 

 British iuslitutions: the morality of true libert;;lt 

 came to us from Great Britain through the tillers" 

 of the soil. The first settlers of New Engla:id| 

 were generally of the class of common tenant V( 

 farmers — some of them were allied to the onn-J, 

 ers of the soil. A British firmer of the higherl 

 class more than two hundred years ago wrote i\3A- 

 follows: we transcribe from a book printed backJ 

 to the year 1600 in the ancient English black 



letter: a 



t 



"As for my household, I bring them to tl ' 

 order, that they always seine God before tlieirfjl 

 going to worke, and at their coiuming to meales. ..I 

 It is writen of Anthonie the Ermute, that being flj 

 demanded of a certain Philosopher how hell 

 could in the solitarie wilderuesse without an' *| 

 bookes, ocenpie himself in the studie of Divi? f 

 tie : he answered, that the whole world serve fl 

 him for bookes, as a well furnished Library: in ,, 

 which he always read the wonderfull workmant 

 ship of God, which in every place stood befor Jt 

 his eyes. In the like sort haue I my houseiioi'uTJl 

 seruanls well instructed in the chiefe grounds o u 

 true Religion, who having to their vocation andjl 

 innocencie of their life, not carried away wstl T 

 the vaine entisements and pleasures of cittics/jf 

 do behold the Maiestie of God in his wor'ne: 

 and honour the Creatour in his creatures, no I 

 only upon Sundayes, but every day it) the ytere/ 

 where they may also heare the litlle birds am 

 other creatures in their kiudes, setting out tin; 

 glory and Maiestie of God." 



