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THE GEFESEE FARMEK. 



PLOWING UP OLD PASTUKES. 



Mr. Main, in the Edinburgh Quarterly Journal 

 of Agriculture for 1834, writes an interesting arti- 

 cle on this subject, from which we make a few 

 extracts: 



" Struck, when a boy, with delight at the ever- 

 green meadows of Doncaster, and the freshness, in 

 the dead of winter, of the fields near London, I 

 could not, in settling in the north, help contrasting 

 these — with a feeling almost bordering on disgust — 

 with onr whity-brown grass paries of Scotland, 

 wearing, in many places, a pale blue tint till the 

 beginning of June, or putted olf in the newspapers, 

 as affording "a full bite" in the middle of May. I 

 said to myself, "can not industry and exertion pro- 

 duce a change in our grass lands ? Perhaps we can 

 not expect to vie with Doncaster or London, but 

 still something may be done." So doffing the gay 

 soldier's coat, and putting on the hodded grey, I 

 set to work, to try if fine pasture could not be got 

 in Scotland. Long did I toil at top-dressing, — all 

 the never-failing, oft recommended recipes of this 

 compound and that compound, I tried in vaiq, — 

 peat-earth in all the varied shapes of mixture with 

 lime and dung, soot, composts with scrapings of 

 ditches or other matter — all these I tried in various 

 ways. I exhausted the pharmacopeia of agricultu- 

 ral quacks; and soon found out, that without the 

 aid of plow and harrow, nothing could be done — 

 in other words, that the ground must be put in 

 good heart before you can have good grass. 



"Well, that being done, I had fine grass; but it 

 grew bad again ; it was not fine j}erma?ient pasture. 

 I had recourse, once more, to the old system of 

 top-dressing, and of course improved the pasture, 

 but again it fell off. By this time I had before my 

 eyes the palpable fact, that new laid down grass 

 was good, and that, do what I would, old grass 

 could not be made to bring the same rent." 



"It appears to me, that only on certain soils and 

 situations, that pasture can be allowed to remain 

 without great loss; that such situations are flat 

 meadows, or the neighborhood of rivers or streams, 

 rich in alluvial soil, and the natural habitat of the 

 pasture plants, or ia the vicinity of large towns, 

 where manure has been applied till the ground 

 could not bring a grain crop to maturity ; and that 

 on all other situations, recourse must be had to the 

 plow, as soon as a failure in the grass crop takes 

 place; and the breaking up will entirely depend on 

 the quality of the land and manner in which it has 

 been treated, there being no such true unerring 

 guide to the quality of the land, as the length of 

 time it can be profitably left in pasture." 



"In conclusion, I would make a brief recapitula- 

 tion of my sentiments: I maintain that except a 

 few favored spots, as banks of rivers, &c., no ground 

 can, without loss, be left long in pasture : that it 

 appears to me four or five years is, generally speak- 

 ing, the longest period laud should be allowed to 

 lie in grass; that if pasture be the object, at the 

 end of that time, the ground should be broken up 

 and returned to grass again. I maintain thaX with- 

 out grass severely cropped land can not be restored 

 to full fertility; and without cropping., grass can 

 not be made to continue at the maximum point of 

 utility and verdure," ■ 



A KOUGH AND CLODDY SURFACE SOIL FOR WHEAT 



Eds. Genesee FAEiiER: — The exceptions taken 

 in a recent number of the Farmer^ by a " Jersej 

 man," to your very apposite remarks on the subject 

 "a rough surface for wheat," suggested the inquiry 

 " can this criticism come from New Jersey or okl— 

 away near the French coast?" At any rate, hii 

 ideas are behind the times, and his facts of a by- 

 gone period. Even twenty-five years ago, the 'pro- 

 portion of wheat plowed in, in England, was less 

 than either that covered with harrow or depositee 

 by the drill — less than one-third of the average 

 annually sown ; and although I have farmed ant 

 observed in several rich counties in that country, '. 

 never, by any chance, heard the advocacy, or sa'n 

 the practice, of such deep plowing for wheat as foi 

 beans, fallow-roots, &c. In fact, it would not d( 

 to plow up new mold for wheat, any better than t( 

 supply it with raw or green manure ; because it ii 

 neither a large nor coarse feeder, but requires i 

 moderate amount of well-prepared nutriment, mad( 

 ready for assimilation by successive alternations ol 

 mechanical pulverization and atmospheric disinteg 

 ration, which new mold and fresh dung have no 

 been subjected to. A well settled soil, with plenty 

 of mold fit for the use of the crop on its air 

 crumbled surface, and the latter left rough to sup 

 ply 1\ to 2 inches of covering mold, yet still retain 

 ing a somewhat rough surface, till the wheat ii 

 high enough to harrow, is the condition of mok 

 generally that wheat best likes and flourishes in 

 For such irregularities are really necessary on heavj 

 and adhesive land to prevent starving, — making 

 smooth like a slate — the baking and cracking of thti 

 soil, and the choking or mud-logging the np-growingi 

 young plants; beside which a cloddy or corrugatec 

 surface aftbrds much protection when the younj 

 crop is exposed — from the aspect of the field oi 

 other cause — to keen, cold, mold-lifting winds 

 The roots of wheat ramify and extend near th( 

 surface, generally, because the nourishment they re 

 quire and absorb is usually found in the upper-crus 

 of the soil — and this will ordinarily hold true ol 

 the mineral elements as well as the larger propor 

 tion of organic or vegetable remains which this 

 plant uses in its growth ; for, though mineral mat- 

 ter be carried to the roots in solution — probably ir 

 part by the same fluid which floats it up to th( 

 stem as crude sap — it must have been solved and 

 otherwise made fit for use in the surface soil, be- 

 cause further down the temperature would be gen- 

 erally so low as to prevent the necessary chemical 

 changes and combinations that undoubtedly take 

 place in inorganic matter before it is absorbed by 

 the rootlets. Thus it appears probable and consist- 

 ent, that far greater benefit Avill, generally, be de- 

 rived from manurial applications when they are 

 first brought into a condition that will admit of 

 easy and complete pulverization; and then so mixed 

 with the immediate surface mold, as to be fully 

 accessible to the heat' and vapor of the atmosphere 

 during the growth — especially in its early and more 

 rapid stages— of the entire crop. In short, tlie 

 reliable food of the plant is generally prepared by 

 the action of heat in the top-soil, wherefore it 

 should be left with a large surface exposed to the 

 subtle but infallible powers of the atmosphere. 



/. w. o. 



