14 



TJbll<i iJlliINii,»£iJli J^AnMl^iJtt. 



longer. 7. By means of the giille, plants may be 

 brought with most certainty to the exact degree of 

 luxuriancy which will jield the most abundant pro- 

 duce. 8. The growth of forage plants, particularly 

 of clover and the meadow grasses, is greatly secured 

 by the application of giille, particularly when (as they 

 do in the Black Forest) we add green copperas to the 

 putrefying giille, and the stall-feeding of cattle in sum- 

 mer is made more practicable. 9. In adopting the 

 preparation of giille, less litter will be required. — 

 When cattle are not properly bedded, much of the 

 manure escapes in the form of gas, while by mixing 

 the excrement with a large quantity of water little or 

 none of it is lost: it is consequently evident, that, in 

 the preparation of giille, a greater quantity of ma- 

 nure is gained than in that of common yard-dung; 

 and what is the most important point is, that the 

 gtille has retained a larger 23roportion of that very 

 substance which has the most important influence in 

 the nourishment of plants, namely, ammonia. In fact, 

 all the advantages derived from the preparation of 

 giille are so important, that we cannot but wish com- 

 parative experiments may be made, in order to ascer- 

 tain with more certainty what is the real amount of 

 gain in its adoption. It might, perhaps, be useful also 

 to prepare gillie from horse and sheep dung, as, under 

 the present management of these manures, far more 

 ammonia is lost by evaporation than in the case of 

 cattle-dung." 



Agriculturai, Changes at the West. — Instead of 

 e.ifporting corn to tide-water to the extent which thej' have 

 done for the last four or five 3ears, the farmers of the West 

 are converting their grain into bacon and pork, by wl ich 

 operation they realize important advantages. In 1851, 

 there arrived at tide-water on the Hudson, 6,487,540 bush- 

 els of corn. During the same number of weeks this year, 

 the arrivals have been 2,271,370 bushels — a falling off ( f 

 some sixty per cent. In 1851 the arrivals of bacon at tide- 

 water were 10,3iJ8,900 pounds; and in 1S53 the arrivals 

 have been lit, 330,500 pounds — an increase of nearly 100 

 per cent. The arrivals of pork this year exceeded those 

 of 1851 by more than 100 per cent. These figures are in- 

 strudtive in an agricultural point of view, and evince wis- 

 dom in Western farmers. By converting corn into meat, 

 the husbandman retains on his farm every pound of ma- 

 nure that his coarse grain will produce when fed to swine 

 and fattening cattle, for the benefit of his somewhat im- 

 poverished fields. If he exports corn, oats, peas and other 

 crops as well as his wheat, very little manure can be made, 

 and his land must suffer a rapid deterioration. 



Farmers of Western New York should look closely to 

 this grain and meat question in its bearings on the soil. 

 In 1844 Monroe county produced 453,463 bushels of corn ; 

 in 1840, 761,021 bushels. At this rate of increase, the crop 

 of 1853 exceeds a million of bushels. At the present re- 

 munerating prices for fat hogs, pork-making is profitable, 

 in connection with sound farm economy. Produce a full 

 supply of rich manure, and farming lands will soon be 

 worth $100 per acre all over Western New York. Land 

 must be made very fertile before one can produce grain 

 and meat at the smallest cost to the farmer. Western ag- 

 riculturista begin to understand this, and act accordingly. 

 — Rochester Americzn. 



The above was '.Titten by the editor of the Genesee 

 Farmer, and we copy it to add a few more facts il- 

 lastrative of the important agricultural changes in 

 progress at the AVest. For purposes of State and 

 and county taxes, an annual agi'icultural census is ta- 

 ken m the State of Ohio. The crops of wheat and 

 torn for the years 1850, 1851 and 1852, are stated in 



a tabular form in the Ohio Cultivator for November 

 15, 1853, by which it appears that the crop of wheat 

 in the State in 1850 was 28,769,139 bushels; in 1851 

 it was 25,309,225; in 1852 it was 22,962,774 bushels. 

 This steady decrease in the production of this impor- 

 tant staple is a little remarkable, taken in connection 

 with the fact that the average yield per acre through- 

 out the State has as steadily increased in the mean 

 time. The average in 1850 was 14.1 bushels per 

 acre, when the largest crop ever grown was harvested. 

 The crop of 1849, as shown by the U. S. census wa3 

 only 14,487,351 bushels — having suflered badly from 

 rust, insects and other misfortunes. The yield per 

 acre in 1851 was 15.2 bushels; and in 1852 it was 



17.3 bushels. Why should an increased yield per acre 

 of three and two-tenths bushels in the three years at- 

 tend a falling off of some six miUion bushels in the 

 crop of the State? The aggregate yield in the State 

 was diminished over 20 per cent, while the yield per 

 acre was increased in about the same ratio. These 

 are curious facts, and mean a great deal more than 

 appears on the face of them. If they barely indica- 

 ted the devotion of fewer acres to wheat with 20 per 

 cent, greater j^roduct per acre, we should regard them 

 as auspicious; but a critical study of the returns from 

 each county lead to the conviction that several hun- 

 dred thousand acres (probably millions) in Ohio have 

 seen their best days for the production of this cereal 

 without expensive manuring. Marion county returned 



17.4 bushels per acre in 1850; 13.4 in 1851; and 

 10.4 in 1852. Sandusky averaged 19.2 bushels in 

 1850; 17.8 in 1851; and 14.2 in 1852. Morrow pro- 

 duced an average of 18.7 in 1850; 14.4 in 1851; and 

 6.7 in 1852. Huron returned 20.1 in 1850; 17.6 in 

 1851 ; and 12.9 in 1852. About a third of the coun- 

 ties show a gradual falling off in the yield per acre, 

 when the general average is increased; showing the 

 progressive impoverishment of the soil. 



Ohio is a great agi'icultural State; but can she 

 boast of her great agricultural statesmen? "What are 

 they doing to provide the raw material for making 

 wheat after the present stock in the soil is consumed? 

 Who will say that the increased crops per acre in a 

 majority of counties have not been grown by a cor- 

 responding increased consumption of the elements of 

 the ]3lant furnished by nature rather than by man? 

 Who among the wise men of Ohio keep a true ac- 

 count with her wheat and cornfields, with a view to 

 preserve the balance of Organic Nature? Her farm- 

 ers ought to get very rich now while they export the 

 cream of so many millions of acres of virgin land, 

 and import no manure to compensate the soil. 



If the leading spirits of Ohio would now take the 

 great subject of loss and gain in each cubic yard of 

 the 7,775,000 acres of arable, and 3,662,000 acres of 

 meadow and pasture lands, in the Commonwealth, 

 into serious consideration, it would be easy to form 

 an approximate estimate of the annual abstraction of 

 bone-earth, pota,sh, magnesia and other essential con- 

 stituents of agricultural plants, removed from the soil 

 and not restored to it. When any one can show by 

 sound reasoning, or practical experience, that a cubic 

 yard of earth can part with the incombustible matter 

 which makes the ashes of grain, grass, roots and tu- 

 bers, when burnt, forever, and not exhaust the same, 

 then we will cheerfully admit that such land mav far- , 



