THE GEKESEE FARMER. 



115 



to the preseat day, this muck, from the luxuriant 

 veiretation it naturally produces when relieved of 

 stagnant water, is evidently rich in the food of 

 plants; and owing to this, and to its power of 

 jibsorbing and retaining atmospheric ammonia, 

 which the lighter soils of our oak openings proba- 

 bly possess only to a very limited extent, I con- 

 si' it-red that if it was applied even alone on these soils 

 It mast prove beneficial. 



A neighbor, who happened to be something of a 

 jtoliticiau as well as a tarmer, had one of these 

 "public documents" sent to him, (with Senator 

 "Wideawake's compliments, of course,) and his son 

 •wisely resolved to put this notion respecting ' the 

 utility of muck to the test of experiment. He 

 accordingly hauled two or three loads, and spread 

 it on a certain spot on a sandy field. The field was 

 eiibsequently sown to clover, and, the following 

 : summer proving dr}', efl:ects similar to those wit- 

 nessed by Mr. Johnson on the farm of Mr. Poxd, 

 were produced. The clover was mostly burned up ; 

 here and there might be seen a miserable plant 

 struggling for existence; while on the spot where 

 the muck was spread, — thanks to its moisture- 

 imbibing rather than its ammonia-absorbing nature 

 — the clover was growing luxuriantly. The old 

 gentleman, considering this a usetiil practical lesson, 

 took several of his neighbors to see the result, and 

 itold them truly that their marshes, which some of 

 jtliem were disposed to grumble so much about, 

 were in reality, if proper advantage was taken of 

 ±eiii, the most valuable«part of their farms. 



Another neighbor, who cut a ditch through some 

 jottoni land, hauled the muck thrown out on to a 

 ;andy field, and the corn produced by that field 

 he year after was allowed to be the best in the 

 leighborhood. 



On the main road to our chief trading-place, — 

 ^ortage City — I noticed that a heavy dressing of 

 narsli muck had been applied to several acres of a 

 auJy field last fall, so that soon, like writing with 

 ypsum on clover, they who run may read. 



1 am anxious, however, that fiirmers generally 

 liruughout the United States may have an oppor- 

 unity of reading again and again, by their firesides 

 ad at their leisure, this report in its entirety, and 

 bus become thoroughly convinced, by the reasons 

 clearly set forth by Prof. Johnson, of the 

 iiiuense value of these muck deposits. And, with 

 hat object in view, I desire to suggest — and this is 

 he main object of my writing — whether it would 

 i)t be well to publish the report by itself, in a 

 heap form, and then when published, to let it be 

 :nown through the medium of the advertising 

 olmnns of all farm journals, that such a work has 

 leeii prepared for the farmer's use and instruction, 

 ".here it may be had, and at what price? 



I find no mention in your extracts, whether, in 

 lie numerous samples of peat and muck sent to 

 ^rof. Johnson, any were found on examination to 

 ;ontain salts of iron injurious to vegetation. I 

 'lave noticed an ochrey deposit in summer where 

 vater flows to my marsh from the upland, and 

 mmistakeable signs of the presence of iron in muck 

 have dug and used; but, from the results pro- 

 luced, it must be in some harmless state of com- 

 liuation. 



In your interesting memoir of Mr. Bates, it is 

 aid he thrice applied composts of peat and yard 



manure to his land, and that the first proved 

 beneficial, the last injurious; the successive crops 

 of turnips, barley and clover being comparative 

 failures; but when a heavy dressing of lime was 

 applied to the land, tlie succeeding o*at crop proved 

 a very great one, and the field afterward continued 

 very productive. Lessons in chemistry received at 

 Edinburgh taught Mr. Bates that the peat contained 

 a large proportion of the oxide of iron, which 

 destroyed the stable manure and did the harm, and 

 that lime converted this into a beneficial manure. 



Is this correctly stated? There are two oxides 

 of iron usually met with in soils. The first, or 

 protoxide, is considered injurious to plants, and 

 often exists in peat bogs in Great Britain; but 

 chemists tell us that this^alt rapidly absorbs oxygen 

 when exposed to air, and thus becomes converted 

 into the second, or peroxide, which is held to be 

 harmless, or even beneficial; for it is said to have 

 the power, in common with clay and decayed 

 vegetable matter, of absorbing ammonia, and re- 

 tainingi it] for] the use of plants. There are very 

 few more naturally fertile arable soils than those 

 formed by the disintegration and decay of the new 

 red sandstones, and their red color is considered to 

 be owing to the presence of iron. Of soils remark- 

 able for their fertility analyzed by Sprengel and 

 quoted by Liebig, one which had produced beautiful 

 crops for 160 years, without being manured or 

 allowed to lie fallow, contained 6.5 per cent, of 

 peroxide of iron, and the surface soil of a field in 

 Belgium, distinguished for its fertility, afforded 8.31 

 per cent, of peroxide and protoxide of iron. Besides 

 these, there is another salt, — the sulphate of iron — 

 the green vitrol of commerce — which exercises a 

 decidedly poisonous influence on plants. This is 

 frequently met with in British peat bogs; and lime 

 effectually neutralizes this salt and deprives it of 

 its injurious action. 



It sometimes occurs in soils other than peat. 

 Sprengel mentions a case where sainfoin and 

 lucerne could not be grown successfully beyond 

 two or three years, and the subsoil was found to 

 contain upwards of one per cent, of sulphate of 

 iron, which was the cause of these deep-rooted 

 plants perishing. While in Edinburgh, a friend 

 in Lancashire sent me a sample of soil from a part 

 of his garden where nothing could be persuaded to 

 grow satisfactorily, and peas, when sown in it, 

 perished without vegetating. This soil was so 

 largely saturated with sulphate of iron that its 

 presence was sufficiently obvious to the sense of 

 smell immediately the box containing the soil was 

 opened. Now lime is known to have a very bene- 

 ficial eflfect, if mixed with peat, or applied to soils 

 containing sulphate of iron. Lime decomposes this 

 salt. The sulphuric acid combines with the lime, 

 forming sulphate of lime, or gypsum, which is 

 useful to many plants, and protoxide of iron remains, 

 which, by exposure to air as above stated, rapidly 

 absorbs another equivalent of oxygen, and is chang- 

 ed into the harmless peroxide. jno. townley. 



MowndsvUle, Wis, 



It is now a welll etsablished fact that the orchard 

 is the most profitable part of the farm, if due care 

 is taken in the selection and planting of the trees, 

 and they are afterward properly primed and cul- 

 tivated. 



