134 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



LSeptembef, 



as we are lured by the fine lithographs he 

 shows us, we would plant more and buy less 

 of him. 



We have a number of good nurseries in the 

 county where you can get healty, thrifty stock, 

 and when your farm is stocked, unite witli 

 your neighbors and plant fruit trees along the 

 roadside, and many a poor child whose parents 

 are too poor to own land, would rise up and 

 call you blessed. In conclusion, let me again 

 say plant. Plant fruit trees, plant shade trees, 

 jilant forest trees ; only plant ! We are de- 

 stroying our trees too rapidly. — Ruralist, 

 Creswell, Se2Jt. ith, 1878. 



PARIS LETTER. 



The English Agricultural Annex — Steam Plow- 

 ing in Southern Russ'a and in Hungary — 

 The French and the American Agri- 

 cultural Exhibits, Etc., Etc. 



Paris, August 20th, 1878. 

 There is no reason why our own success 

 or excellence in the manufacture of agi'icul- 

 tural machinery should blind us to the splen- 

 did achievements of other countries in this 

 department ; and after a few hours study of 

 the English annex one cannot help being im- 

 pressed by the great progress made by the 

 mother country in the invention and perfec- 

 tion of ponderous agricultural machines. The 

 application of steam to agriculture is of com- 

 paratively recent introduction, and, indeed, 

 may be said to date from scarcely thu'ty years 

 ago ; but the idea is old, and many clear- 

 sighted men seem to have long foreseen its 

 final adoption. The reasons of the tardy 

 application of steam to a branch of industry 

 in which it has proved so effective, and, in 

 fact, the relatively recent leap, so to speak, 

 whicli all agricultural machinery made about 

 the time steam plowing came into fashion, is 

 probably to be sought net so much in the 

 character of the machinery itself, as in a 

 change of the social condition of the countries 

 in which a demand for high class machinery 

 has arisen. AVhen labor is cheap and tlie cul- 

 tivation of the soil is what writers call " in- 

 tensive " rather than "extensive," the out- 

 lay of capital for new inventions is out of the 

 question, owing to the low price of grain. 

 But in the last few years there have been, so 

 to speak, great revolutions in the labor of cer- 

 tain parts of Europe. In Southern Kussia, 

 for instance, the demand for agricultiu'al ma- 

 chinery has arisen chiefly from the emancipa- 

 tion of the serfs, a revolution which has 

 resulted in a state of things similar, it seems, 

 to that of Ireland. The peasant is satisfied to 

 live on the little property that has fallen to 

 his share, and has left the great proprietors in 

 the difficult position of having much land and 

 a great demand for its products, but no labor- 

 ers. In Hungary there is also a demand for 

 steam-driven plows. In France and parts of 

 Germany the soil is so divided up into minute 

 farms that want of capital prevents the pur- 

 chase of expensive implements by individual 

 holders. England, notwithstanding the fact 

 that she has an advanced system of working 

 the land, is not an agricultural country, and is 

 becoming every year less of a grain growing 

 one ; but her implements have done much to 

 revolutionize the methods in other countries, 

 and at this exhibition they take in some re- 

 spects the first position. It seems as if Eng- 

 land, having satisfied her own wants, has 

 turned her inventive faculty chiefly to those 

 of the foreigner. Nearly every exhibitor in 

 the Britisli agricultural annex has this or that 

 apparatus adapted to the special requirements 

 of one country or another, and a visit to this 

 annex, with the aid at different stands of tlie 

 representatives of the firms exhibiting, is, I 

 need scarcely add, very interesting. Some of 

 these gentlemen have spent years in the coun- 

 tries for which their several machines are 

 made, and their explanations are, in many 

 cases, a fresh page in the history of husbandry. 

 This is indeed a feature of the department in 

 question, and added to the imiform courtesy 

 with which every inquiry is at once replied to 



by all, from the chief to the porter, much con- 

 trasts with the state of things in the French 

 branch, where it is rare to find the person in 

 charge of the machine, and who, wlien he is 

 found, is in a fitter state to receive informa- 

 tion than to impart it. The French have a 

 large collection of portable engines, threshing 

 machines and other implements, but I re- 

 marked nothing new in their construction. I 

 remarked also that English portable engines, 

 even with the duty and transportation paid, 

 can compete with those exhibited by France, 

 while I need not add that in point of work- 

 mansliip the French engines cannot put for- 

 ward a claim to perfection. Everything in 

 the French branch is painted, 'ready for use, 

 while the English exhibitors have purposely 

 left their steel work free for examination. 



A much more interesting display than the 

 French, though much smaller, is that of the 

 United States. Here are shown mowers, reap- 

 ers,and slicaf-bindingreapers,f or which several 

 American firms are well known on both sides 

 of the Atlantic. What strikes one chiefly is the 

 lightness and handiness of everything they 

 and, I must add, the Canadian manufacturers 

 show,and also the cheapness of their machines. 

 Ko doubt but that American ingenuity lias 

 had an eflect to awaken English manufactur- 

 ers, and many a pretty little contrivance and 

 sometimes a big one, proves that the English 

 have something besides a market for their 

 productions. Americans have done every- 

 thing in tlieir power to make an impression 

 upon the visitor to their agricultural section ; 

 valuable metal and carving have not been 

 spared to give brilliance to the machines on 

 their stands, and I heard the ironical remark 

 that glass cases should have been placed over 

 some of them. The American display is, how- 

 ever, very attractive for other reasons than 

 this, and having with characteristic ingenuity 

 set all the knives and rakes of their reapers 

 and mowers in motion, they have avoided the 

 solemn silence of the English and French 

 agricultural annexes. And this is really not 

 unimportant, for many are attracted to the 

 American shed by the mere novelty of motion 

 in agricultural machinery. — C. A. S. 



LIME AS A FERTILIZER.* 



Mr. Chairman : Since we live in an age of 

 free speech and a free press, allow me to differ 

 in opinion from others in regard to the use of 

 lime as a fertilizer, some of whom are mem- 

 bers of this society.- Men have been perse- 

 cuted, scorned, and have even lost their lives 

 in defense of theories which they have ad- 

 vanced, which have subsequently been adopted 

 as the accepted trutlis or dogmas of the age. 

 Firstly, I ask, does lime benefit our soil to that 

 extent as to assure us that it will pay all the 

 expenses connected with it ? In my opinion, 

 it does not pay in a number of cases as a 

 fertilizer. I admit it may benefit the top soil 

 more or less when put on sod as a top dress- 

 ing, to be left in grass for several years, when 

 the right kind of lime is used. There is some- 

 thing in lime which is not yet understood 

 even by men of experience. I have seen lime 

 that would slake very quick, and become as 

 light as wheat flour — so light that a strong 

 wind would blow it all away, or a heavy rain 

 would bake it as hard as mortar in a wall. 

 Again, I have seen lime that would slake 

 very slow, and then only crumble into small 

 particles, and never dissolve thoroughly. 



The cause of these different effects may be 

 in the quality of the stone ; or it may be 

 "burned too much," as the saying is. In my 

 opinion lime does the most ser^dce, if any, 

 when it is hauled in large heaps, to dis- 

 solve like plaster of Paris ; then spread evenly 

 over a field to be left in grass. I admit that 

 there is a vast difference in the quality of lime- 

 stone. I have visited the extensive qharries 

 of Lefcver & Hess, at Quarryville, in this 

 county, and I believe that their stone will 

 make a lime that will benefit laud more than 



•Read before the Lancaster County Agricultural and 

 Horticultural Society, Sept. 2, 1878, by L. 8, Keist, 



the limestone in the district where I was 

 raised. I noticed that much of their lime had 

 a grayish color and was partly slaked in the 

 kilns, appearing like rich ashes. I will here 

 remark that I was raised a lime-burner. My 

 father, at one time, went by the name of 

 "lime-burner," to distinguish him from 

 another man of the same name in the neigh- 

 borhood. I helped to measure hundreds of 

 bushels of lime when a boy. We burnt it with 

 wood, and paid from $.3.00 to $3.50 per cord 

 for wood, when we had none of our own, and 

 sold the lime for 2.5 cents per bushel, delivered 

 in Lancaster, and to book-farmers, like John 



Passmore, the first Mayor of Lancaster city 



materially the greatest man the city ever had, 

 weighing over 450 pounds. 



We also delivered lime to George B. Porter, 

 then one of the leading members of the Lan- 

 caster Bar — a brother of David Rittenhouse 

 Porter — and afterwards Territorial Governor 

 of Michigan. They were both book farmers, 

 and some of the first men that limed their 

 lands. One day, with my father, we walked 

 over a cloverfield, when he remarked, "See, 

 now, this part of the field I limed once." I 

 could not see the difference, and up to this 

 day I cannot recall to my "mind's eye" that 

 there was any appreciable difference between 

 what was limed and was not. It only faintly 

 seems to me sometimes that the grass looked 

 a little more green than at other times. Well, 

 years passed on and the field was transfeiTed 

 to the possession of another person. In the 

 month of December one day I happened to 

 pass the same field, and saw about 150 head 

 of sheep feeding in it. The owner of it was 

 also stall-feeding some twenty head of cattle. 

 In April of the following year I passed along 

 again, and saw a huge stack of lime burning 

 in the same field. Sure enough, after the 

 field was heavily manured, you could perceive 

 the effects very plainly. As a rule, it will be 

 said that lime and manure must be used to- 

 gether to bring out the benefits of the lime, 

 but that assumption seems to involve the 

 benefits of lime in greater doubt. It is a 

 question with me whether lime will pay at 

 best. Would not the farmer be better off if 

 he were to save the money he spends for lime, 

 and labor, and coal, and put the money on 

 interest ; keep less stock during the summer 

 season, and plow his clover under as a fer- 

 tilizer, or resort to soiling ? It is evident that 

 lime has been of no manner of use in some 

 soils, where from 50 to 200 bushels per acre 

 have been applied. Mr. Carter, our efficient 

 manager of the West Grove Experimental 

 Farm, also admits that lime no longer bene- 

 fits his land. Prof. Heiges also illustrated 

 that lime is not so valuable as is supposed, 

 and it is questionable with me whether farmers 

 would not be as well or better oft' without 

 the use of lime at all. It is said that the 

 Romans used lime centuries ago, till they 

 ruined their land, when they returned again 

 to farm yard manure, the cheapest and best 

 of fertilizers. 



Tlie day will come when lime will not be 

 known as a fertilizer. Lime has been so ex- 

 tensively used on our lands that it has made 

 the surface soil so loose and light that it causes 

 vegetation to wither or wilt prematurely — so 

 loose and light that at a copious shower of 

 rain the surface soil has been entirely washed 

 away, and many farmers were considerably 

 damaged last year. The spirit of young 

 America is becoming too eager to make the 

 soil produce cereals four or five years in suc- 

 cession, giving rains an opportunity to wash 

 four years, out of fields that formerly were 

 left two or three years in grass, when there 

 was only a chance to disturb the soil twice in 

 five years. So it is that we have come to pay 

 our own penalty for our own imprudence. 

 Because we have been doing certain things in 

 certain ways, for a long series of years, is no 

 reason at all that we should continue to do 

 them so when a better way is known ; nor 

 should we abandon old things and old ways 

 for "light and transient causes," merely 

 tecaiwe they are old ; but "prove all things, 

 and hold fast that which is good," 



