THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



269 



borhood of large cities, however, it is a useful crop, 



especially for feeding to milch cows in summer. 

 It can be cut three times a year, yielding a good 

 crop each time, if the soil is sufficiently rich. 



VEa'CH or Tare ( Vieia sativa). — In England this 

 is an exceedingly valuable plant, especially on 

 heavy soils. It can be sown in the fall or in the 

 spring — the latter generally yielding the heaviest 

 crop, though the former is the earliest. Vetches 

 are principally used as a green food for horses. 

 An acre of good vetches, fed in the yard or stable, 

 will keep more horses than six acres of the best 

 pasturage. They succeed best in a wet season, and 

 on tiiis account are not likely to do well in this 

 country, though we have seen them in Canada, and 

 have been informed that they succeed well and are 

 very useful. A good " smothering" crop of vetches, 

 cut before they go 

 to seed, is nearly 

 as good to precede 

 wheat as a sum- 

 mer-fallow. Mor- 

 ton's Cyclopedia of 

 Agriculture says: 

 "Sheep fatten fast- 

 er upon this (green 

 vetches) than on 

 any other herb 

 age, which occa- 

 sions its constant 

 use by ram-breed 

 ers. Horses im- 

 prove more rapidly upon it than on clover or 

 grasses. Horned cattle thrive surprisingly upon 

 this fodder. Cows yield more butter from the tare 

 than from any other provender; and pigs vora- 

 ciously consume and prosper on it without farina- 

 ceous food." We can endorse this opinion from 

 our own experience. 



Mr. Lawes' experiments on vetches, extending 

 over many years, prove that, like peas and beans 

 and clover, vetches are an enriching rather than an 

 impoverishing crop. 



Jonas "Webb's South-downs. — The thirty-fourth 

 animal letting of Jonas Webb's South-down rams 

 took place July 5tli, at Babraham, England. France, 

 Germany and the United States were represented. 

 Sixty rams were let at an average price of about 

 $115. Our esteemed correspondent, J. C. Taylor, 

 of Holmdel, N. J., was the purchaser of the high- 

 est-priced ram, which was knocked down to him 

 for one hundred and twenty guineas ($600). 



NITRATES IN PHOSPHATIC GUANOS. 



The Journal d* Agriculture Practique contains a 

 communication from M. Boussingault in relation 

 to the presence of nitrates in phosphatic guanos. 

 These guanos are found on islands and coasts where 

 heavy rains are frequent, while the Peruvian guano 

 comes from rainless regions. The latter is the 

 dung of birds living on fish, and, as it is deposited 

 in a dry, hot climate, no injurious fermentation 

 takes place — moisture being essential to fermenta- 

 tion. Hence it is that while this guano is so rich 

 in substances which afford ammonia by decompo- 

 sition, very little ready-formed ammonia is found 

 in a good sound Peruvian guano. Let it be mois- 

 tened, however, and fermentation and ti^e forma- 

 tion of ammonia rapidly takes place. If this fer- 

 mentation was allowed to proceed, with sufficient 

 moisture, and in a warm climate, and the fermenting 

 guano was deluged occasionally with water to wash 

 out the soluble matters, we should soon have left 

 very little except the phosphates and other insoluble 

 portions of the guano. 



This is precisely what takes place on those guano 

 islands where the guano is wet with rains. The 

 dung of the birds was originally the same; but in 

 the one case all its goodness has been preserved, 

 while in the other rapid fermentation has taken 

 place, the ammonia has escaped, and the soluble 

 matters have been washed away, and we have little 

 left but the phosphates (bones) and other insoluble 

 matter. 



Boussingault, however, has recently discovered 

 nitric acid in several samples of these phosphatic 

 guanos — formed probably by the decaying nitrogen- 

 ous substances attracting oxygen from the atmos- 

 phere, and he justly observes that in determining 

 tlie value of these manures by analysis it will be 

 necessary to examine for nitric acid — which has 

 not hitherto been done. 



The Potato Rot. — An English chemist, J. Q. 

 RuMBALL, has published a series of articles in the 

 Marlv-Lane Express^ in which he states that the 

 proximate cause of the potato rot is "electricity 

 acting on the moist tubers, enfeebled by many years 

 of too rich cultivation," and that it generally shows 

 itself in the leaves three days after a thunderstorm, 

 although it sometimes occurs in moist, muggv 

 weather. He has made some experiments, on Mr. 

 Lawes' farm at Rothamsted, which seeme<l to 

 verify this opinion. He exposed some tulnsrs in 

 healthy plants, galvanized some and electrified 

 others, and in ever}- case the disease was produced, 

 while the remaining tubers continued sound. 



