THOUGHTS FOB FARMERS— NOTES BY S. "W. 



303 



CHAKGES IN FARMING -THOUGHTS FOE FABMEES. 



The general advance in the price of agricultural 

 products, the facilities afl'urded for sliipping pro- 

 duce to market by railroads in almost every corner 

 of our country, make important changes necessary 

 in the character of our fiirraing. With wheat at 

 five or six shillings a bushel, and twenty miles to 

 draw it over a bad road to market, the farmer 

 can not afford to buy guano to increase his crops ; 

 nor can he afford to employ much expensive labor, 

 even though he thereby secures a large yield. 

 He can, however, afford to keep his land in 

 good condition by a proper rotation of crops, and a 

 judicious and inexpensive system of manuring; for 

 when produce is so cheap, raising cattle is generally 

 profitable. 



When corn, oats, and potatoes, range from one 

 to two shillings per bushel, and hay three or four 

 dollars a ton, it will not pay to expend much labor 

 in hoeing root crops, or in purchasing superphos- 

 phate for the turnip. 



But when wheat is worth from twelve to twenty 

 shillings, farming becomes an entirely different 

 matter. The great object tlien is to increase the 

 crop, and it will pay to do so. It will pay to hoe 

 and weed, and to manure with guano, if a cheaper 

 home-made manure can not be obtained in quanti- 

 ties sutHcient to insure a full crop. Then, with 

 corn, and potatoes, and oats, ranging from four to 

 eight shilliugs a bushel, and hay at from ten to 

 twenty dollars a ton, it will not only pay the farmer 

 well to exert himself to raise largely of these crops, 

 but it will pay him to raise other crops for liis own 

 consumption, and thus be enabled to dispose of 

 those that bring a high price. An acre of car- 

 rots for horses, parsnips for the pigs, some beets, 

 and turnips, and miUet, all of wliich can be raised 

 in immense quantities on a small piece of land, 

 will enable the farmer to dispose of most of hi.-; 

 corn, oats, and hay, and yet leave his stock in full 

 as good condition. 



We designed in this article only to give a few 

 hints to the thinking farmer, who will thus, we 

 lope, be enabled to see the neces.sity of keeping 

 ip with the times, and making such changes and 

 mprovemeuts as changing circumstances may 

 iemand. 



How TO Preserve Masure. — Put it in heaps, and 

 fover it with earth one foot deep. Never leave ma- 

 inre in the barnyard; put it all, year by year, on 

 four land. 



NOTES BY S. W. 



It is refreshing to see that old pioneer in agricul- 

 tural progress, the Genksee Farmer, now under new 

 direction, in the field in all the panoply and renewed 

 experience of the veteran soldier. 



A review of the theories and experiments of J. B. 

 La WES and Jl'stus Vo.n Liebio, contained in the Au- 

 gust and September numbers of the Farmer, is one 

 of the best discriminating, analytical, and masterly 

 criticisms, perhaps, that has yet appeared on this side 

 the Atlantic in our agricultural .literature. It is the 

 more valuable to the practical farmer, as it recites 

 and explains, in part, the results of seven years' farm 

 experiments, made by Mr. Lawes at Bothamsted, 

 Bng. ; experiments conducted in the most thorough 

 manner, by the aid of varied manuring and perfect 

 culture; and what is better, with the sole object of 

 ascertaining the truth as taught in nature's economy, 

 rather than to confirm a cherished theory, precon- 

 ceived in that pride of science which is too often the 

 besetting weakness of the learned, and as often " fool- 

 ishness" to the farmer, and a "stumbling block" to 

 the neophyte in the study of agi'icultural chemistry. 



I feel that no man who loves truth for its own sake, 

 can rise from a careful perusul of this criticism, with- 

 out feeling that the great master of organic chem- 

 istry, Baron Liebio, in his late effort to appropriate 

 the results of the Rothamsted experiments to sanc- 

 tion his own long cherished " mineral theory," has 

 strangely garbled the spirit and argument of Mr. 

 Lawes' published report of his long continued farm 

 experiments. 



As the reviewer justly remarks, "Mr. Lawes' 

 experiments point to no revolution in our present 

 system of culture — and on this account will be leas 

 acceptable to all ultra reformers — but it explains 

 the rationale of the most approved systems of the 

 rotation of crops, and general farm management, — 

 confirms what practical farmers have previously but 

 indisfiuctly perceived, and urges them to carry out 

 still further, and by more economical methods, a sys- 

 tem of improved culture they have already com- 

 menced." 



I confess that the " mineral theory " as first present- 

 ed in Liebig's most animated and truly rhetoricsJ 

 style, once carried with it to my mind much plausi- 

 bility; but all subsequent observation and experi- 

 ment have more and more confirmed me in the belief 

 that a soil is much more productive when treated with 

 a carbonaceous manure, rich in nitrogen; first, for 

 the ammonia it is to afford, then not less for its me- 

 chanical amendment to the soil, by which it may 



