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Itome-3lade vs. Cominerrlnl Man-i'^^ — A correspondent of the Nvr. 

 Eofjliiiil Homes/ead writes: The great body of common farmers will nerer 

 protitably develop their agricultural resources or to any great extent increase 

 the fertiliry of their farms until they keep or fatten more cattle and sheep. 

 And the way to keep more stock is, to keep it without more ado -just as oar 

 « ise financier remarked that the way to resume specie payments was to re- 

 rsame. 



Notwithstanding the legislation for the protection of the honest manufac- 

 turer as well as the purchaser, the common farmer feels that in buying 

 many varieties of commercial manures he is not master of the situation. 

 This is why I advise farmers to keep stock or make their fertilizers upon 

 their own farms as much as possible^to buy animal food rather than plant 

 food. For homed cattle as a rule, buy firm cotton-seed meal, com meal, 

 fodder com or com fodder and swale hay. In purchasing food for other 

 kinds of stock, we must be guided by their varied conditions, always feed- 

 ing such kinds and quantities as will be kindly relished and thoroughly di- 

 gested. 



For several years I have bought twenty-five cords of stable manure an- 

 nually. A large proportion comes from Boston and costs me eight dollars 

 per cord delivered on my farm. Yet I consider it as cheap as any fertilizer 

 in the market. In a cord of good manure free fi^m foreign substances, we 

 get the results of about two tons of hay together with the grain fed, less the 

 animal waste or growth. K judiciously apphed, the ground that receive* 

 the manure will in a number of years yield its full equivalent with interest. 

 If plant food is to be bought, buy first good stable manure, fine ground bone, 

 good hard wood ashes, and muriate of potash. When the honest manufac- 

 turer will sell these elements compounded as cheaply as the farmer can 

 purchase and compound tiiem himself^ it may do to buy still more largely 

 of commercial or chemical fertilizers. And in their application we must no 

 longer work blindly. 



tr«e of Plaster and Ashe^. — Henry Ives, one of the best farmers in far- 

 famed Western New York, writes thus sensibly to the Tribune: "To use 

 plaster on any of our growing crops requires so shght a cast and so oftea 

 proves beneficial, that one can hardly afford to neglect its apphcation, al- 

 though occasionally no perceptible advantage is derived from it, and, at 

 best, we scarcely look for benefit except for tlie one season and the one crop. 

 But in using ashes we are more sure of benefit, and its good effects are so 

 lasting that after one hberal application, say of from 50 to 100 bushels per 

 acre (though if leached ashes are used one could safely apply three to six 

 times this quantity), the effect will show for five, ten, or even fifteen years, 

 by increasing fertility. When applying plaster to com, or plaster and g^ano, 

 phosphate or hen manure, or even with a small quantity of ashes (in all 

 cases from 100 to 200 weight to the acre is enough of the plaster), the in- 

 gredients should be prepared and well mixed on the bam floor, loaded into 

 an open wagon, so as to have it along convenient to the work, and almost 

 any time in the early growth of the com apply a small handful to each hill, 

 not as some do, by throwing it carelessly in a compact heap near to the hill, 

 but as it is thrown sift through the fingers, giving it an even distribution all 

 about the hill. But after the com is a little more advanced I believe it 

 would do it more good, and without costing much if any more, to use two or 

 three times as much of the fertilizing mixture, sowing it broadcast over th» 

 field. If, instead, the farmer cotild apply 60 or 80 buehels of ashes to th« 



