THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



55 



the crop, instead of being evaporated into tlie at- 

 mospherK." But the sourest, coldest, most un- 

 profitable field upon our rocky grounds is not so 

 barren tliat it may not be reinstated and reinvigo- 

 rated. Let the labor now annually bestowed on 

 several acres be applied to a single acre on the 

 renovating process : let the manure spread over a 

 large surliice be put upon one-half or one-fourth 

 the usual extent of ground. If the field be cov- 

 ered with small rocks and the soil is of that heavy 

 kind that retains the wtt near the surface, labor 

 may be well applied in making covered drains at 

 convenient distances, disposing of the surplus 

 rocks to a useful purpose. In aid of stimulating 

 manures upon such ground will come deep 

 ploughing. Labor and expense upon such land 

 will soon repay itself; and the benefit will long 

 abide. If the worn out field shall be a light soil, 

 heavy manuring ploughed under — the application 

 of leached ashes and gypsum or plaister of Pa- 

 ris — a frequent rotation or change of crop from 

 Indian corn to rye oi- oats, and liom oats to hay 

 and pasture — will soon bring the production up to 

 a point beyond its hist fertility. On the light pine 

 plain soil upon Rlerrimack river, by extra cultiva- 

 tion, the production of fields that formerly yield- 

 ed eight or ten bushels of rye to the acre after a 

 resting of the ground three or four years, has 

 been raised to twentj'-five and thirty bushels the 

 acre succeeding a growth of corn in the previous 

 year. The notion that the whole value of ma- 

 nure is not obtained on light lands — that the 

 strength sinks in the earth where there is no pan 

 to retain it, is generally a mistake. The under 

 soil must be very porous to convey down the 

 strength of manure: it is much more likely, if 

 exposed upon the surface, to fly oflT in volatile 

 particles in the air. 



METHOD OF IMPEOVI.VG THE FARM. 



There is a difficulty in rocky hard faced grass 

 ground that is not easily obviated. If the rocks 

 are so numerous as to prevent the use of the 

 plough, such land had better be turned into pas- 

 ture than continued as mowing land, except ma- 

 nure can be advantageously applied to the surface. 

 Land having the advantage of flowing or the 

 wash from barn yards, buildings or from roads, 

 will continue for successive years to tui-n out large 

 crops of hay : the more such land can be cleared 

 of rocks, stumps and hassocks, the better. If 

 permanent fertility can be kept up, the plough 

 had better never touch this ground. In feasible 

 land the more sure way of obtaining great crops 

 of hay is the rotation of crops, beginning with 

 thorough manuring, deep ploughing, and planting 

 with corn or potatoes, succeeded by a crop of 

 small grain : that crop followed with grass, and 

 terminating in two or three years pasture. A 

 farm of one hundred acres divided into five oi 

 ten fields and cultivated in this way, could be 

 made to yield, with much less labor and expense, 

 a greater amount of produce than is generally 

 obtained from the fai-m of five hundred acres. A 

 little farm of twenty and even ten acres may be 

 made to produce a greater amount and much 

 gi-eater profit than the common farms of a hun- 

 dred acres. This is not mere assertion — it is 

 demonstration. We need not travel beyond the 

 limits of New England to show that there are 

 single acres which turn out, with less labor and 

 expense, a greater araoimt of vegetable crops, 

 than ten times as many acres in other positions. 



ADVANTAGES OF ROTATION. 



The benefit of the improved high cultivation is 

 not confined to the crop of the present year. 

 With the gratification of the present profit comes 

 the pleasure of anticipating the better croj) in 

 succeeding years: the capacity of the land goes 

 up to its highest point ; it is always at the' point 

 which is best adapted to that crop of the rotation 

 which is annually taken fi-ora it; and each return 

 to the corameuceinent of the course finds the 

 land no worse and generally better than at the 

 connnencement of the previous course. 



Fertility of the soil is the great secret of the 

 process. Fertility is facilitated not more by the 

 amount of stimulant applied to the ground than 

 by the jiarticidar treatment of the ground itself. 

 The right stimulant should be applied in the right 

 manner : the right depth and width of the fur- 

 row — the right kind and application of the 

 the right times of hoeing, and the right method 

 of harvesting — are all matters depending upon 

 the skill and judgment of the farmer bimsclC 



PROBABLE AND CERTAIN USES OF LI3IE. 



There are various methods of manuring land 

 that have not usually been resorted to in the com- 

 mon farming operations. In some parts of the 

 country mineral manures have been used to great 

 advantage. I do not feel competent to inform 

 you how and when these may be best applied. 

 In the State of Pennsylvania an extensive use has 

 been made of lime, by which production has 

 1 greatly increased. It is common there for 

 •ge farmer lo have a lime kiln upon his prem- 

 ises, where many hundred bushels of lime are 

 annually made expressly for the purpose of being 

 applied to all parts of his farm and to every kind 

 of crop. The soil where this lime is applied is 

 diflferent from our soil, as our own soil ia unlike 

 in difl'erent places ; and I am entirely unable to 

 say from my own experience on what kinds of 

 own soil lime may be best applied. 1 cannot 

 doubt that it will be profitably used when mixed 

 with almost any vegetable matter, as peat or sur- 

 face sods in their crude state : it will certainly 

 serve to facilitate decomposition and bring into 

 speedy action all that is valuable in such sub- 

 stances. 



MARL. 



There are vast beds of marl in various parts of 

 the country, much of which has never yet been 

 explored, that are destined to be of great value as 

 mineral manure : of its several component parts 

 lime is said to be that quality in marl which con 

 stitutes its principal value as a manure. 



PLASTER OF PARIS. 



Col. Taylor says, " Gj^psum, the prince of ma- 

 nures, whatever may be its temporary eflTect, will 

 have no lasting influence in fertilizing a farm un 

 less it is associated with other means." It is said 

 that the production of the county of Dutchess in 

 New York has been doubled during the last ten 

 years by the use of gypsum. This article aboinids 

 in various parts of the United States, but the best 

 and purest — indeed all that is used from the 

 board of New England — is brought from the 

 British provinces of Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 

 wick. It is reported to be inoperative on ground 

 near the salt water; and the general opinion is 

 that it has little or no effect on the heavy pan soils 

 peculiar to the highlands of Massachusetts and 

 New Hampshire. It has a fine eflect on much of 

 the land in Vermont. 1 have known production 

 to be greatly benefitted by the application of plas- 

 ter on the pine plain soils upon Merrimack river 

 White pine lands underlaid with clay have deri 

 ved great advantage from gypsum. 



DEEP PLOCGHING. BRUSH WOOD FOR MANURE. 



Col. Taylor says — " deep ploughing, by turning 

 under a good coat of dry vegetable matter, cre- 

 ates a covered drain, and thus vastlj' obstructs the 

 ibrmation of gullies in hilly lands." Again he 

 says — " for manure I have used all kinds of brush 

 wood, but chiefly pine and cedar. A confidence 

 in this mode of manuring has induced me this 

 year to cut down a thicket on the broken ground 

 of a creek around a level field, and to apply the 

 brush to the finrows of the weakest parts. Ail 

 wood of above two inches in diameter was used 

 as fuel. The residue bestowed a handsome dress- 

 ing, on double the surface it grew on. The land 

 it came from was not capable of cultivation, and 

 the growth was lean. Being enclosed, it will 

 rapidly grow up thicker, and aflbrd periodical 

 cuttings for the same purposes. The wood pays 

 for the labor and the manure necessarily disenga- 

 ged from the fuel wood, is an additional donation 

 from such lands (in which we unfortunately 

 abound) capable of extending our means for ma- 

 nuring very considerably, and of conveniently 

 improving fields inconveniently situated tor fold- 

 ing or farm pens." 



WORN OUT PASTURES — HOW RENOVATF.D. 



Tlie idea of seeking for the materi.il of reno- 

 vating the land in the remnants of the forest oth 

 erwise useless, although novel, will not at llie 

 first blush appear irrational. All vcgetalile sub- 

 stances are valuable as manure. It has nccm-red 

 to me that the sufferance of a natural growth ot 

 wood is the most practicable mode of renovating 

 those pasture groimds which have been worn out 

 with long use, and which are loo stony for culti- 

 vation with the plough. Much of the land ujjoi 

 our rocky mountains is natural to the sugar ma 



the same time a giowtb of valuable wood of oth- 

 er vai-ieties of u-ees will arrive at niaturity. I 

 know a beautiful white pine growth worth in it-. 

 self a hundred dollars to the acre where Indian 

 corn hills of not over thirty years standing exist. 

 But if the growth is not regarded for wood and 

 timber, ten years will sufiice to produce enough 

 when cut down to burn over the ground, to con- 

 sume with the wood the old moss and other ele- 

 ments of barrenness until converted by fire uito 

 the means of fertility, so that after taking from 

 the land a crop of rye or wheat, the white honey 

 suckle and other luxuriant growth of grass feed 

 will appear in all its original freshness. 



I pass our rough and rocky groimds and even 

 our undrained swamps where the best of the 

 wood and timber have been taken off, leaving a 

 growth of apparently useless bushes and rem- 

 nants, with far different feelings from what I for- 

 merly entertained. I do not even consider those 

 pastures which have been thrown open to the 

 highway because they no longer produce food 

 for cattle, and where the wild fern, the alder and 

 the dog-wood spring up to shut out the other 

 growth, as entirely abandoned to desolation. 

 There are hundreds and thousands of acres in 

 this State which have stood in this position for 

 many years; and the highest estimate that has 

 ever been placed upon this land has been equal at 

 all times to an investment at an annual income 

 of twelve per cent. There are men living near 

 the bapks of Merrimack river with property esti- 

 mated at from thirty to one hundred thousand 

 dollars each, the greater portion of whose gain 

 has been the rise in value of apparently waste 

 lands after the timber has been cut off. 



Col. Taylor said thirty years ago — " A remedy 

 must be found for the decreasing fertility of a 

 great portion of the United States, which, if not 

 arrested, must terminate in want, famine, or de- 

 population." " Renewal must follow closely on 

 the heels of decay, either to maintain fertility or 

 avoid oppression." 



BAD WAYS MUST BE MENDED. 



In some parts of the United States — in the At- 

 lantic coast of several of the Southern States, 

 whole regions of country have become depopula- 

 ted in consequence of ihe want of capacity of 

 the land to produce. Families in some instances 

 have run out with the land, and the sins of the 

 fiuhers have been visited upon the children. In 

 other cases, the population has removed to the 

 new States, where the same operation is going on 

 as upon the worn out lands. 



In New England there has been but too great 

 an abandonment of those habitations in which 

 the settlers at first found plenty and contentment. 

 There are in various directions but too many spa- 

 cious dwellings going into decay: the broken 

 panes of glass find a substitute in half a shingle, 

 a worn out hat or a bundle of rags : the gates of 

 the barns are torn from the hinges — the roofs of 

 sheds are falling in. Briers and thorns grow about 

 the decayed fences. Comfort and thrift seem to 

 have abandoned their wonted residence. All this 

 may be mended, and it must be mended ; or some 

 of the brightest portions of our country must be 

 forever blasted. 



IMPROVED AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 



Another necessity of Agriculture mentioned by 

 the Virginia veteran farmer is the Tools necessa- 

 ry for the farmer's occupation. Forty years ago 

 the farmer's implements were even more imper- 

 fect than they now are. Col. Taylor says that one 

 of Freeborn's cast iron ploughs, invented about 

 twenty yeaj-s ago, saved one-half the labor neces- 

 sary to do the same work. This immense saving 

 he stated to result in some measure from the su- 

 perior facility with which that plough worked, but 

 chiefly from "the superior effect of the work itself, 

 which renders the customary repetitions not only 

 superfluous but pernicious. 



PROUTY AND MEARs' PLOUGH. 



Much advantage is undoubtedly derived from 

 the various improved agricultural implements of 

 the present day. The plough stands at the head 

 of these instruments — its improvement has been 

 much advanced by recent invention. The Prouty 

 and Moars plough is as near advance to perfection 

 aw the present niode of construction will admit : 

 other ploughs may come near to it by adopting* 

 the same princiiiie — none, it is believed, will ex- 



ple: on such land maple orchards may be reared I eel it. In a clear field this plough will run bet- 

 in the sjincp of (wentv-fivc and thirtv venrs. In I ter without a liold«r than the old fashioned 



