24 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



througli a liot siimmer, gatliering lieat and mois- 

 ture until it becomes so musty tliat it is good for 

 nothing. Farmers had better pay their three dol- 

 lars for a busliel of saud to sow tliau for sucli 

 seed. 



I have now sold one hundred and forty bushels 

 of herdsgrass seed raised on my farm last sum- 

 mer, all ne«' seed. He that sowetli this seed 

 shall not be like him who laboreth without hope. 

 Pitt's patent horse power and thrashing 



MACHINE, 



Is in this vicinity, which is excellent for thrash- 

 ing herdsgrass. It will thrash and clean grain at 

 the same operation. See page 87 and 142 sec- 

 ond volume of the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 

 Yours respectfully, 



THOMAS BARNARD. 



N. B. 1 had almost forgotten to mention that 

 I did not thrash all my hay for this seed ; I have 

 a little left, enough to winter two horses eight 

 head of cattle and three hundred and fifteen 

 sheep. T. B. 



!)[y One such correspondent as Mr. Barnard 

 is worth a dozen of such as can write a smooth 

 sentence, but are profoundly ignorant of the sub- 

 ject on which they write. The town where he 

 resides is situated upon the sides of the hump- 

 back Cardigan : it is among those rough places 

 ^vhich farmers who fear labor would avoiil ; but 

 the success of his last year's crops of wheat and 

 herdsgrass seed shows that those upon the 

 mountains are our surest farmers. 



Mr. Barnard's sure mode of raising wheat is 

 recommended to our Thetford correspondent 

 and others who are an.xiousto make flour in the 

 Connecticut river valley. 



0^ We want four bushels of Mr. Barnard's 

 herdsgrass seed to sow on ten acres of land we 

 have manured iind prepared to lay down to grass. 

 If he cannot furnish it, will he ask those who 

 can to leave at our publishing ofiicc in Concord 

 that quantity of seed, for which we will pay the 

 accustomed price. — Ed. M. Visitor. 



Mineral Manures. 



The Limestone, Gypsum and Marl found in 

 various sections of the United States, are destined 

 to effect astonishing revolutions in the agricultu- 

 ral products of this country, when the properties 

 of each shall be more definitely and more gener- 

 ally understood. In ascertaining the locations of 

 tlie several mineral manures and their peculiai- 

 value in different parts of the countiy, wc have 

 great confidence that the Geological Surveys, con- 

 ducted by men of science and experience, must 

 be of essential use. In the incipient stages of 

 these examinations very few are able to judge of 

 the value or effect of mineral manures in their 

 own vicinity. We are, however, gradually gain 

 ing facts and results that throw a flood of light 

 on this matter. 



LIME. 



In the State of Pennsylvania there is actual 

 demonstration of the value of lime as a manure 

 upon the soil of that Slate in the lower counties 

 bordering upon the city of Philadelphia. A lime 

 pit and lime kiln, solely for the purpose of fur- 

 nishing that article for manure, are considered i 

 valuable and necessary appendage to a farm. All 

 kinds of crops, as well those cultivated by the 

 plough as those kept in grass for liay or pasture, 

 are greatly increased, frequently doubled and 

 trebled, by the use of hme alone. One method 

 of using it there, is to lay out the pulverized or 

 slaked lime in heaps, and spread it over the sur- 

 face ; another is to mix it before laying it upon the 

 land with peat, mud, vegetable mould and other 

 substances in a compost hisap. 



In most parts of the interior of New England 

 lime becomes, fiom the cost of transport, too ex- 

 pensive an article to be used as a manure in 

 quantities. The common Thomaston casks holds 

 about three bushels ; but of the unslaked burnt 

 lime which it contains, the measurement gener- 

 ally will very little exceed two bushels. This 

 lime is of the purest quality, and when slaked 

 with water will sometimes swell to about three 

 times its original compass, or about six bushels. 

 The price of this lime along the seaboard for the 

 last few yeais has seldom exceeded one dollar 

 the cask ; but, at this place, seventy miles in the 

 interior, although enjoying the benefit of locks 

 and canals and boat navigation, until last year, the 



price of Thomaston lime has been two dollars 

 the cask. Last season the price was reduced to 

 one dollar and fifty cents ; and if we should get 

 the rail road extended from Nashua to this place, 

 we hope next year to see the jirice of Thomas- 

 ton lime reduced to one dollar the cask. At the 

 price of one dollar and fifty cents, the editor of 

 the Visitor last summer made use of seventeen 

 casks in making a compost heap of over one hun- 

 dred stout cartloads of black vegetable mould 

 which had been accumulating for ages in low 

 ground, placing alternately in the large heap a 

 layer of a cask of slaked lime and a layer of the 

 mould. This compost cmild not be conveniently 

 mixed with the manure of the barn yard, be- 

 cause it lay at the distance of more than a mile 

 from our buildings and near where it was to be 

 finally used. Our present intention is to spread 

 it on pine plain land with a clayey subsoil, which 

 was cleared and first sowed with rye one year 

 ago, and which is now thoroughly broken up 

 through the roots and the sods, and intended for 

 a crop of corn and potatoes. Upon this ground 

 we shall ap])ly at the rate of twenty large loads 

 of stable manure and twenty loads ot the lime 

 compost to the acre — intending also to give it an 

 additional spread of leached ashes. We run the 

 risque of this trial in the full confidence that we 

 shall get pay not only for the stable manure and 

 the ashes, but for the lime also. If land that cost 

 when covered by a decent growth of wood five 

 dollars the acre, can be made to produce perma- 

 nently as good successive crops as land which 

 costs one hundred dollars an acre, the benefit of 

 our example will be something — we will gel our 

 pay in the crops as we go along, and wc will add 

 to the capital invested about ten for one. This 

 may be a calculation like that of the milk maid : 

 wekuowthat some of our shrewd neighbors who 

 measure carefully their profits in the value of the 

 first year's crop, and who " count the cost" of 

 every thing before they embark on any underta 

 king, will decide our " imaginary happiness" a; 

 futile as hers! 



From conversation with practical farmers, wi 

 find opinions much divided as to the value of 

 lime as a manure : many are of opinion that it 

 has no valuable effect, except perhaps when 

 small quantity is sown over a growing crop of 

 wheat. Our own opinion is that wiierever lime 

 shall be placed saving in wet undrained meadow 

 lands, its goiid effects will sooner or later be lelt. 



plaster of PARIS. 



From lime W'e turn to the use of Gypsum or 

 Plaster of Paris as a manure. All are of opinion 

 that within the distance of a dozen miles fioni 

 the salt water, plaster has no effect. Tlie fiict 

 seems to be so well established, that we would not 

 recommend the trial of it there. Most farmers 

 on Merrimack river are of the belief that plastei 

 will have very little beneficial effect on our inter- 

 vale grouuds,"especially where the soil is not light 

 We think jilastcr has not been tried as it should 

 be either upon the intervales or upon the com 

 inon rocky uplands. Its efl'ect is undoubtedly 

 sooner visible upon the lighter soils, upon the pine 

 plains, and the gravelly knolls, than upon the 

 lands having a vegetable mould of a cold and 

 damp nature. U])on Connecticut river the lowest 

 and dampest intervales have shown the great ef- 

 fect of plaster spread directly upon the growing 

 grass. 



The counties of New York situated upon the 

 North river, have derived great benefits from the 

 use of the Nova Scotia plaster. All the way up 

 that river plaster in quantities in the rock is seen 

 upon the wharves. Since the land was said to 

 be " plaster sick," great advantages have been de- 

 rived from its use — in many cases the crops have 

 been doiibled. As with lime so with plaster, our 

 opinion is that it will sooner or later favorably af- 

 fect almost every kind of land ; that sown upon 

 the dry pasture and the high mowing ground at 

 the rate of three pecks or a bushel to the acre, it 

 will much increase the feed and the crop ; that, 

 taken in a very dry season upon rich land that 

 has been highly stimulated with vegetable ma- 

 nures, after the cro]) is under way, it will do quite 

 as good service as in any other position. We 

 know that plaster upon the poorest land will 

 sometimes cause a crop of potatoes or beans 

 where it would have utterly failed without it. We 

 hope to see, when the price of transport from Bos- 

 ton to this place shall be reduced from five dol- 



lars to two dollars a ton, a hundred tons of plas- 

 ter brought here and use<l where only one ton has 

 been used ; and it is our belief that lor every ton 

 of plaster brought up, ten additional tons of pro- 

 duce for the maiket may be returned. 



MARL. 



We now come to the consideration of that 

 mineral manure, the effects of which are yet even 

 less understood than either of the two we have 

 named — we mean Marl. That masses of mate- 

 rial below the upper soil lie over our country in 

 various directions, valuable as manure to be mix- 

 ed and incorporated with other materials already 

 upon the surfiice, is to us not a matter of doubt. 

 We believe the undersoil every where to be more 

 valuable than any upper soil from which a suc- 

 cession of crops has been taken. And in various 

 parts of New England, as well upon the moun- 

 tains as in the plains and valleys, there are vast 

 bodies and beds of material that are destined 

 hereafter greatly to contribute to our agricultural 

 products. 



What is usually denominated Marl is not al- 

 waysjhe same material in different positions. 

 For more than twenty years Marl has been used 

 as a manure by individuals in Virginia, among 

 whom is Edmund Riiffin, Esq. the intelligent edi- 

 tor of the Farmers' Register, a monthly periodi- 

 cal of great value. The last number of that 

 work contains evidence under their signature of 

 several gentlemen who have doubled and trebled 

 the iiroduction of their farnw by the use of Marl 

 alone. 



William S. Fontaine, of King William county, 

 testifies that his crop of wheat by marling has 

 been raised from 300 to 700 and 800 bushels— 

 that before marling, his average crop of corn was 

 8 bushels to the acre, and since marling it had in- 

 creased to 20 bushels — that liis average value of 

 annual increased product in grain was equal to 

 seven dollars the acre. He also says " manure is 

 much more effective after marling the land," and 

 that "gypsum, which will not act at all before 

 mairnig, acts effectively after land is marled." 



Tliomas Robinson certifies that upon his farm 

 on Mattapony river he has marled in succeeding 

 years 210 acres — that the increase of product the 

 first year was 25 per cent, and as much more ev- 

 ery succeeding year — that he considers the im- 

 provement made by marl permanent and not to 

 be diminisJied ; that the product of corn had been 

 increased from five to twenty bushels to the acre, 

 and the increased value per year about $8 50 to 

 the acre for marling. 



Thomas Carter, on the Pampalike farm, King 

 William county, has marled upwards of 800 

 acres. He states that the marl has increased the 

 crop of Indian corn full ICO per cent, and that 

 the value of his crops is douliled by its use. 



The marl in Vir;;iiiia \fi distinguished from the 

 article called (Vrecn Sand in other places: it is 

 supposed 10 be derived from an ancient deposite 

 of mineral shells while the country was under 

 water, and \is composition jiartakes much of 

 limestone. Large quantities of this marl upon 

 light land have injiucd rather than benefited the 

 crop inasmuch as the lime has burnt up or dried 

 up vegetation. The editor of the Register and 

 his correspondents are of opinion that a moder- 

 ate quantity, say 200 or 300 bushels to the acre, 

 will do a much greater service than 1000 or 1500 

 bushels. The editor says that specimens of the. 

 yellowish marl analyzed showed 57 per cent, of 

 the carbonate of lime, and the blue marl which 

 lies under the other, contains .58 per cent. For 

 this reason it is dangerous to the crop to spread 

 the marl upon the ground in great quanthies. 



We had supposed -that marl eveiy where was 

 of the same nature, and that its value as a ma-- 

 nure was dei ivcd principally from the lime which 

 it contained. This, however, appears not to be 

 the fact. Robert White, Jr. Esq. an intelligent 

 farmer of Shrewsbury, N. Jersey, whom we had 

 tlie pleasure to meet at the Worcester Cattle 

 Show last October, has sent us Doct. Rogers " Fi- 

 nal Report on the Geology of the State of New 

 Jersey," with the perusal and examination of 

 which, illustrated by an elegant geological map, 

 we have been exceedingly interested. From this 

 report we gather the important fact that the State 

 of New Jersey having been considered one of 

 the poorest agricultural districts of the Union, is 

 likely, at no very distant period, to become one 

 of the richest and most favored. Limestone 



