1851. 



THE GENESEE PARMER. 



155 



a year of agricultural reports prepared by the writer, 

 it insists on keeping tlie light of science out of these 

 books. We are compelled to look to England, France, 

 and Germany, for knowledge that ought to be fostered 

 and developed under our own free institutions ; but 

 so long as Americaji farmers send selfish politicians, 

 instead of statesmen, to their national legislature, 

 there can be no change for the better. The writer 

 has tlirovvn away ten years hard labor and accom- 

 plished next to nothing, from tlie lack of $10,000 

 which the Legislature of his native State might have 

 granted without the least inconvenience. To increase 

 knowledge, as well as to diffuse it, is an object wor- 

 thy of any man's ambition. But there is not one ex- 

 perimental farm in all the New World to bring to 

 light the laws which govern the healthy organization 

 of potatoes, or any other crop grown in America. 

 What Agricultural Society has given the first dollar 

 to aid any gentleman in his critical study of soils ? 

 His time, his apparatus, and his chemicals, all cost 

 money ; but he is expected to work for nothing and 

 find himself. Public Opinion, the seeds of which are 

 now being scattered broadcast over the land, will 

 order things differently in the next generation. In 

 our time, tlie great work of impoverishing the soil 

 will never be less than it is in the year of Grace 1S51. 



"WRETCHED PASTURAGE." 



In volume eleven of the Journal of the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society, we find remarks on " wretched pas- 

 turage," which vividly brings to our recollection 

 many a sterile field, valuable only for starving the 

 animals doomed to subsist .thereon. Judged by its 

 results, one might say that the art of tillage and hus- 

 bandry consists in making one spire of grass grow 

 where three grew before. Our author says : " In 

 Ireland, after an exhausting couise of potatoes and 

 oats, the ground is left out ' to resl^ for several years." 

 While the soil is "resting" the people of the "Green 

 Isle" are expatriated by hundreds of thousands. To 

 cure wretched pasturage, and prevent the constant 

 increase of the like, a better system of agriculture 

 must be universally practiced. Limeing, reseeding 

 and manuring, are the remedies most successfully 

 used in Great Britain. We hope Professor Emmo.ns 

 of Albany will soon bring his recently discovered 

 phosphate of lime (apelite) into market. It is said 

 to contain over 90 per cent of pure phosphate. The 

 New Jersey mineral is equally valuable. We have 

 just analyzed two specimens of gypsum, one from 

 Alabama and the other from Tennessee, and from 

 recently discovered beds ; both of which are equal to 

 Nova Scotia plaster. We have a sample of nearly 

 pure carbonate of potash from Utah, which is from a 

 mineral spring that yields it abundantly. So soon 

 as a railroad shall be built to the Rocky Mountains, 

 potash will be an article of export. In Texas, there 

 is a salt lake, yielding minerals so cheaply that they 

 can be used for agricultural purposes. Should this 

 natural deposite contain considerable potash and 

 magnesia, as well as soda, it will be very valuable to 

 renovate old pastures. If one could procure ashes 

 enough to give all. liis fields a top-dressing, it would 

 improve the herbage immensely ; but ashes are not 

 to be had in any large quantities. Probably the sub- 

 soil is the most available source from wnich to draw 

 the mineral elements of clover, timothy and other 

 grasses, on farms that afford " wretched pasturage." 

 Marl, salt and lime, bone dust, shading the ground 



with straw and forest leaves, which rotting, form 

 manure, are all popular and often efficient remedies. 

 Every farmer who can should save grass seed, and 

 always have a little on hand to apply to places that 

 need it. American pastures and meadows yield on 

 an average, about one-fourth as much fc&d as they 

 ought to produce, take one year with another. We 

 have often thought that a cow's eyes should be at 

 least as big as her belly to see grass enough to fi-11 

 her stomach once a day on farms that we have visited. 



MIXING GYPSUM WITH MANURE. 



In the June number of the American Farmer pub- 

 lished in Baltimore, the Editor devotes over twelve 

 pages to the discussion of the propriety of mixing 

 gypsum with guano and other animal excretions, or 

 manures. A correspondent had condemned the prac- 

 tice on the ground that the strength of guano and 

 the dung of domestic animals, was greatly impaired 

 by the addition of plaster. As may well be supposed, 

 the evidence in favor of mixing gypsum with putres- 

 cent manures is overwhelmingly abundant. Those 

 that use plaster should know that if it be spread over 

 the excrements of horses and cattle in stables having 

 plank floors, the latter will soon give way by the cor- 

 rosion, or rotting of the wood, and a valuable horse 

 may break a leg in breaking through a plank on 

 which he stands. Accidents of this kind have hap- 

 pened. 



Incidentally the Eilitor of the Farmer copies the 

 remark ; " that a plant growing in a glass vessel, 

 will decompose the glass to obtain the potash which 

 enters into its composition." This is an error which 

 has b_^en handed down in our profession some years, 

 from one to another. Glass is often corroded in 

 soils, but not by the roots of plants that may happen 

 to be in contact with it, but by carbonic acid, either 

 from mould or from the atmosphere and rain-water. 

 Glass tumblers used to drink Congress water, so 

 highly charged with carbonic acid at Saratoga, soon 

 part with their clearness and become rough from the 

 chemical action of said acid. The chemical changes 

 that transpire about the roots of the plants, are mainly, 

 if not entirely, independent of their presence. It is 

 true that their pores and cells present unequal facil- 

 ities for dissolved salts to enter into general circula- 

 tion through them — a fact for which no sufficient 

 reason has been found. The growth of a plant, from 

 the first expansion of its germ to full maturity, and 

 the passage of nutritive matter through the walls of 

 minute cells and along continuous canals or tubers, 

 from the extremities of roots to the extremities of 

 leaves, and from the leaves to the roots again, present 

 phenomena which we intend to discuss at some length 

 in future numbers of this. journal. The inside work 

 of plants and animals should be better understood. 



Quantity' of Seed Wheat per acre. — Mr. R. 

 B. Wolfe, near Newport, England, has tried many 

 experiments with different quantities of feed and dif- 

 ferent width of drills, the upshot of the whole is that 

 six.peck? of wheat planted in drills eight inches 

 apart gave the best returns on strong clay lands. — 

 We suspect that the berry of this wheat is something 

 like a third larger than seeds of white wheat gener- 

 ally sown in this country, and consequently six pecks 

 form no more plants than four would of smaller grain. 

 It is important that seed be covered at a uniform depth 

 — a result best attained by the use of a good drill. 



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