168 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



November,. 1842. 



Land which has stood for years in quagmire, 

 lliiis (hained and jneparpd, will heconie feasiblf 

 to the plough. On such land I have seen corn 

 and potatoes of the hirgest grovvtli with less 

 manure than is necessary tin- a sinnlar crop upon 

 the best oC iii^lilaiids ; and witli the spreading ol 

 light compost ,i.~ a -tiniulant once in tour or live 

 years, ami lli ihrowinj;- in of the seed ol" clover 

 an<l lii-rds:;rass, these f;romids may be made to 

 yield dnrijij; th<^ lil'e fd' the oUli\st man successive 

 crops of hay tljat, consnined upon the liirm, will 

 continne to furnish manure Icjr those uplands 

 which must inevitably be exiiaiistcil without it. 



tlie hiiihgrounds which separate tlie waters of 

 the rivers ihent are numerous sunken suamps or 

 morasses wliich can be desifjnated mitheras land 

 or water. Some of these, which have been 

 dammed up in former times by the ingemuty of 

 the beaver, and others retalifmg their waters li-om 

 natural ridjjes, may be easily drained. Treateil 

 in the manner I liavi- described, they will become 

 valuable at no very considerable expense. — 

 Swamp meadows and morasses that cnnnot be 

 drained, it is believed, may be brought into use 

 and profit. The wild rice of the South and West, 

 which not only feeds myriads of wild fowl, but 

 is relied on as llie means of sustenance by the 

 Indians, grows in the standing water, and is gath- 

 ered in canoes Irom its surface. The craid>erry 

 grows and flourishes best upon swamps where 

 the water overflows and stands the year round 

 near the surface. Meadows that cannot be drain- 

 ed for common cultivation may be converted in- 

 to cranberry fields. Cranberries are used in all 

 our cities and principal towns as a healthful con- 

 diment : they sell from one to two dollars the 

 bushel. A single acre of swamp has been known 

 to give a crop worth a hundred dollars. 



There is an advantage in raising fruits, especi- 

 ally the better kinds of apples, that ought not to 

 be neglected. Every farmer who has not an 

 orchard already should plant one without a single 

 year's delay. (5ood a|)ples will every where sell. 

 As an article of commerce they may I)ecome of 

 an importance to New England and the North 

 that has not yet been appreciated. No other 

 country produces such apples as ours : like our 

 own winter ice, they find a ready market in all 

 the warmer lafitmlcs. The islands of Britain 

 furnish no ajiples like those of New England ; 

 and the wonderful application of steam supplies 

 the means of rapid tiunsport from the interior of 

 our country to nations thousands of miles at a 

 distance. The management of the orchard I 

 leave to he taught by more [iractical and better 

 informed heads than my own, suggesting by the 

 way that the orch.ird, whether of apples, pears, 

 peaches or other fruits, can he expected to con- 

 tinue its produce without cultivation no better 

 than the corn or potato ground ; and that the 

 farmer who raises sour and worthless fruits 

 should at once be taught himself, or employ some 

 one who knows how,to substitute good fruit with 

 little labor. A good apple tree at one bearing 

 has produced from ten to thirty dollars. The 

 prudent farmer, who has ground suitable for an 

 orchard, will not long neglect it. 



The grazing liirmer will adopt the best means 

 of improving his cidtivated lands. He may have 

 no land natural to hay, and of course be obliged 

 to cultivate that on which he raises the winter 

 sustenance for his cattle. There is a way, 1 am 

 confident in slating, in which every farmer may 

 first increase and afterwards continue to keep up 

 kis crops of English hay ; and the same process 

 will enable him to obtain the largest crops of In- 

 dian corn and all the small grains, potatoes and 

 other vegetables. The better cultivation is con- 

 fined to the smaller space of ground. After 

 ground is broken from the sward no cultivated 

 crop should be taken from it without the appli- 

 cation of manm-e of some kind ; and uo manure 

 should be put upon the ground with a view of 

 stimulating it solely for the crop of the present 

 year. Forty loads of manure upon an acre 

 mixed through the surface soil is a better ap- 

 plication than the same forty loads upon four 

 acres applied to each hilt of corn or potatoes 

 as a stimulant for only this year's crops. In the 

 one case, it gives out the strength of the land 

 without a full equivalent in the crop: in the other 

 case, it gives the largest crop which the ground 

 can produce, and instead of exhausting makes 

 the land better for sncc^'eding ctdtivation. 



A single ample preparation of the ground with 

 manure, in a series of crops, will ansuer for the 

 land I'rom three to eiglit years, according to the 

 nature of the soil. The course should com- 

 mence with breaking up iVoui the sward and ap- 

 (ilying the whole manure in the first crop. 

 Grounds which longest retain the manure and 

 are slower to be slinudated or exhausted may go 

 through the operation of two years manuring — 

 first with a smaller quantity of uufermenlLcl 

 manure on the planting with potatoes, and the 

 second year the more extensive application of 

 finer manures diffused through the whole surliice 

 stirred by successive ploughingsjor lands may be 

 broken up and sowed with oats the first season 

 upon the sward — to be manured for a subsequent 

 crop of Indian corn or potatoes. Afterwards, in 

 holli cases, follows the laying down to grass with 

 a crop of wheat, oats, barley, &c. — mowing the 

 ground one, two or more years — sometimes turn- 

 ing the lot to pasture for a year or more, and af- 

 terwards going over the same system of rotation. 

 i\lr. White, a most enterprising and successful 

 farmer upon Connecticut river in the town of 

 Putney, Vermont, has for several years pursued 

 a system of rotation — manuring and planting 

 corn the first, sowing with oats and clover the 

 second, taking the crop of hay the thiril, and re- 

 turning to the manure and planting of corn the 

 fourth year. He woidd prefer the hay crop a 

 second and even a third year; but he has found 

 the ravages of the cut worm to the corn have 

 been avoided by the single crop of clover. 'Ihree 

 fields of very light soil, manured to the extent of 

 about twenty-five loads to the acre, treated in this 

 manner, Mr. White has found to yield three of 

 the largest crops with only one manuring. On 

 these three fields of twenty-five acres each lie has 

 pursued a most profitable rotation. 



The example of Mr. White is fruitful of in- 

 struction to the owners of light, sandy plain lamls. 

 I am quite sure that crops of corn may he the 

 most easily raised upon this kind of land; and I 

 ihink that a future improved process of culture 

 will teach us that grain, potatoes and hay may 

 come with as much certainly and with as little 

 expense from this ground as.any other. It is not 

 true that the strength of manure leaches from 

 this land : from too shallow ploughing the action 

 f the sun may carry away the virtues of the ma- 

 mire in the surrounding atmosphere. Withjudi- 

 ious cultivation all the goodness of manures may 

 le obtained from the lighter land : the action is 

 qincker, and of cotn-se in any rotation of crops 

 the return must be in a less number of years. — 

 We obtain the value of the manure to an equal 

 ainomit in a shorter space of time. The differ- 

 ence in the expense of ploughing and hoeing, 

 compared with the rocky fields of hard pan, is all 

 in favor of the light soil — two acres of which re- 

 quiring as little labor as one acre of the former 



many old fields. 



It is ascertained beyond all question that gyp- 



m or plaster of Paris is valuable upon almost 

 light lands, whether with or without a hard 

 pan imder the vegetable mould. Wliere the sidi- 

 soil is a flowing sand, if the ground shall be .'stir- 

 red deep with a subsoil plough, so deep will form 

 the bearing soil ; and it will make little difference 



hether there be a substratum of rocks, a hard 

 pan or what is generally termed porous sand 

 eighteen inches below the surface. An admix- 

 ture of clay or clay marl, a generous covering with 

 compost manure into which lime or leached ash- 

 es shall be introduced, will create in all light 

 lands, even in apparently barren sand and gravel, 

 such soils as may always be depended on for 

 crops. Such soil, being much more easily stim- 

 ulated than heavy clay lands, will give the earlier 

 production ; and if it does not last as long from a 

 single effective maniu'ing, it does not require as 

 much manure, and it is worked with far less la- 

 bor. 



I have for the last three years watched a piece 

 of ground .six miles out of Boston which was 

 taken up by a kinsman of mine about eight years 

 ago, and was when he began upon it a barren 

 plain producing on ten acres scarcely sufficient 

 to pasture a cow — an old field on which stunted 

 hard pines had grown in part, and where the 

 cleared part had been ploughed once in four or 

 five years to obtain an annually diminishing crop 

 of rye. Ten acres were all that could be had in 

 the purchase — the widow's thirds of five adjacent 

 ncrep, which coidd not be bought, were hired for 



a series of years at a greater rent than the val- 

 ue of all that had ever been obtained liom it. 

 The lot of laud was at no great elevation abovo 

 the Spy pond in West Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

 anil was boundt-d bv its shore on one side. After 



four Mais> s-Hil .-ultivMion, niv liirnd found 



his I,,imI >n lahi^.lilr lliat hr ,-,,n.-|ii,lr,l l„ make 

 an adduion ah.l 1,11 in a i.nuk uf h:,ir an acre of 

 Ihe pond il.MJl uuh >aiid tn.n, .„, o,l|,uvnt bank. 

 Thi..s was (luuc U> lill up \\w I, Ml.' (.1 Inir.l men 

 when Ihrv luid not iiill iionloMnrnl ni making 



crops. Incredible 

 sistance of two or 

 and the hands of s 

 eluding the childi 



111; the .siiiTi'i-Uuig 

 ecni, uith th- as"- 

 I men in summer 



luully, this genlle- 

 o lliat state of cul- 

 "f a season in cash 

 lollars, or between 

 (>r every cultivated 

 ol' this ground is 



ihis spot in the 

 IS 10; ,111(1 although 



irom tour to live, iiio 

 two or three liundui! 

 acre. A most prolila 

 about two acres of str: 

 one crop in a ycir. 

 midst of llii' si'MTi' dn 

 the land all ,'.njiiiHl it 

 parched and biiiiil up, here the vaiious vegeta- 

 tion, not yet ripened or udien away, was clothed 

 in the verdure of spring. The strawberry bed 

 had not yet quite ilone bearing— it had been |)re- 

 served fiom the effects of drought by salt hay 

 laid in between the rows and drawing and re- 

 taining moisture which was given to the aid of 

 the roots of the adjacent plants. The salt marsh 

 hay was used liir the double purpose of covering 

 the strawberry ridge in winter and assisting in 

 its vegetation in summer, becoming at the close 

 of the season the best material lor the compost 

 heap. 



Two, three and four crops were obtained in a 

 year from this ground. Manure was always 

 ready to he applied to the present crop. The 

 preparation of the ground continued through the 

 whole year. Onions sowed in the fall came out 

 early in the ensuing summer, and aflbrded room 

 for a crop of late potatoes, or beans, or cabbages 

 in the same season. Spinach taken oft' in March 

 was followed by early peas : these gave place to 

 potatoes, and to these succeeded English turnips 

 in the same year. That all four of these crops 

 might have lime to grow, the one would be plant- 

 ed and coming out of the ground while the other 

 was maturing. The ground sheltered by arti- 

 ficial means facing the sun nearest the shore of 

 the pond was taken up in forcing an early growth 

 of various vegetables and plants, as peas and cu- 

 cumbers, squashes, cabbage and tomato plants, 

 &c. At a small expense an apartment with a 

 glass covering to be opened to the air in warm 

 weather was conslructed lor the nsr; of artificial 

 heat. But it was most remarkable to witness the 

 success of vegetation upon that part of the pond 

 shore that had been converted into land : the 

 bottom was the flowing coarse sand of the Spy 

 pond, and the addition was pure yellow Siind of 

 a finer texture from an adjacent bank. With this 

 manures in no greater than usual quantities, was 

 intermingled. The production from the made 

 ground whose basis was almost clear pure sand 

 was as great as it could be in any soil. The pro- 

 prietor considcreil it more safe from the effects 

 of drought, inasmuch ns eighteen to twenty-four 

 inches in depth would carry it to the common 

 level of the pond. 



The astonishing production of this portion of 

 the almost abandoned Alenototny plains of forty 

 years since seemed to be indeed a wonder; but 

 it was a wonder that is already becoming com- 

 mon in that viciidty. Other cultivated fields, 

 from the same kind of land, are now frequent in 

 the neighborhood. At first it seemed there vvas 

 something in the Menotomy pine plains jieculiar 

 to its near vicinage and level with the sea and 

 salt water that would make it an exception to the 

 pine plains more distant from the sea-coast and 

 more elevated ; but observation has since con- 

 vinced me that most of the interior pine lands 

 are even better than the Menotomy plains were 

 in their original state. 



There are pine and scrub-oak barrens about 

 the city of Albany in New Vork, whose sterility 

 is equal to any of those in New Engl.md. About 

 two miles out of the city more than twenty yeara 

 ago the late Judge Biiel commenced a farm upon 

 no more than about sixty acres of these pine bar- 

 rens. My first visit to this spot was about fifteen 





