78 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[Ma,, 



Isaac Bradley thought this was not the way to ap- 

 ply this manure ; that by lyiuR on the surface there 

 was a possibility of evaporation and wastage. He 

 believed the proper way was to plough it down. Sev- 

 eral other members thought it would not pay. 



E. H. Haines spoke of an experiment he made by 

 sowing about 400 pounds of rock across alternate 

 strips of clover and timothy ; it made little show on 

 the timothy, but increased the clover fully one-half, 

 and also made quite an increase the following year. 

 Lizzie Wood asked if it is necessary to put lime in 

 ashes to make soap. 



Rachel Gibson said she has made good soap either 

 way, but lime increases the quantity of soap. 



Lydia Reynolds thinks lime is of great advantage 

 to make ashes stronger. 



Mrs. Nesbit always heretofore used lime, but in 

 tends to make her soap without lime this year and 

 will report her success at a future meeting. 



Clarinda Richards said that a manufacture*- of 

 soap told a friend of her's that in making soap there 

 never was enough of lime used; he used one-third 

 of the quantity of ashes ; she never used this quan- 

 tity herself, but about one-half bushel of lime to a 

 barrel of ashes. 



E.H.Haines asked what he should plant on a 

 piece of stock ground he wanted to lay over and 

 plant in corn next spring. It was suggested that he 

 plant in rye and pasture this fall and early spring. 



Vincent Reynolds spoke of ploughing down green 

 manure. He planted tnree plots ; one in corn, one 

 in beans, and a third in Hungarian and all were 

 ploughed down for wheat. He gave a small dressing 

 of manure on the spread over the ploughed ground. 

 Where the corn was the wheat was greatly the best, 

 the bean plot next and the Hungarian last. He 

 could plainly see the green corn plot the second year 

 in the increase in grass. 



The club then adjourned for dinner. After a 

 pleasant walk over a part of the host's farm, and 

 seeing his stock, crops and buildings, the club re- 

 assembled. 



Afternoon Session. 

 The minutes of the meeting last held were then 

 read, and the usual criticisms on farm management 

 called for. There were several improvements noticed, 

 a new ice house and some whitewashing done. One 

 member said the herd of cows looked Jaetter than he 

 ever saw them, and that the host was getting a very 

 tine herd of cows. 



Wm. King read an article from the Lancaster 

 Gazette, (published fn 1826,) on RailroBds and 

 Canals. 



Rebecca King read a temperance selection. 

 Lizzie Wood read " A Story of Science." 

 A committee, E. H. Haines, Marchell Nesbit and 

 Day Wood, was appointed to make arrangements for 

 holding a joint public sale of stock to be held at 

 Penn Hill, some time in June, giving all members as 

 well as outsiders opportunity of disposing of any 

 surplus cows, hogs, sheep and horses. It was de- 

 cided to advertise in several papers, and have large 

 bills printed. All communications relating to this 

 are to be addressed to E. H. Haines, Pleasant Grove. 

 Club then adjourned to meet at C. C. Kauffman's, 

 the usual time in June. 



plant foods, or, in other words, it ripens it. At first 

 thought it would seem that under all circumstances 

 it would be best to thus prepare manure for plant 

 food, but on a careful investigation it will be found 

 that to offset the advantages there are two ways to 

 loose; first, the labor of composting; second, the 

 loss of the action of the escaped gases on the ele- 

 ments of the soil. Every careful observer has noticed 

 the changed condition of the soil to which has been 

 applied green manure. In the process of decomposi- 

 tion the soil is filled with gases which seem to have 

 the power to lighten it up and make it in a better 

 condition for plant growth. It is believed by some 

 that somehow these gases in connection with the 

 soil, change the pure nitrogen of the air into a con- 

 dition to render it available for plant food. Whether 

 or not this is so is a question yet to be settled. But 

 one thing is evident, which is, when green manure 

 is applied to the soil and well mixed with it, when it 

 gets into an active state of decomposition, the crops 

 grow [very rapid. When it is desired that plants 

 should feel the immediate effects of manure, it should 

 be well rotted, but not mixed with other materials, 

 except just enough to keep it from burning. It is as 

 a rule a waste of labor to compost manure with an 

 equal bulk of loam or muck ; better compost it di- 

 rectly with the soil and thus save labor. He who is 

 composting his manures adds more to it than 

 enough to keep it from burning, and the gases from 

 escaping, does not occupy his time to the best 

 advantage. 



Soiling. 



This subject is still claiming attention, and near 



HORT2CL. uTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



Composition Manures. 

 Will it pay to compost manures? is a question 

 which is often asked and frequently discussed at 

 farmers' meetings, but iiever settled by definite 

 answers or conclusive arguments. Why? Because 

 for some purposes it will pay, and for others it will 

 not pay. For growing field corn or potatoes it will 

 not pay to compost all of the manure, but, as a rule, 

 it will pay to compost enough of it to put a small 

 quantity in each hill to start the young corn or 

 potatoes. For garden crops it will pay to compost a 

 larger proportion of it than for field crops. The 

 composting of manure simply advances it toward 



cities where land is dear, or on small farms that are 

 nearly all suitable to plow, there are many points in 

 its favor. It seems to be the nearest approach to 

 high farming of any system yet presented. It pu's 

 the manure back in the soil where the food came 

 from ; while under tlie present system cows run in 

 pastures and are driven in at night, and most of the 

 manure that is not dropped in the highway is put on 

 the tillage land, and the pastures are growing 

 poorer. If New England plowing is ever reduced to 

 anything like system, we shall probably see cows, at 

 least, fed by soiling, and the rough, hillside pas- 

 tures with sheep and colts. L. B. Arnold, in the 

 American Cultivator, closes a thoughtful article with 

 these remarks, which are peculiarly adapted 

 to Eastern farming : " Granting, however, that the 

 cost of soiling and grazing are equal, soiling, even 

 then, will reduce the cost of milk, because it pro 

 duces so much more milk from the same outlay. By 

 reason of better milk-producing food, and a constant 

 and full supply, independent of the fluctuations in 

 the weather, soiling, even though practiced the 

 middle half of the season only, will produce 50 per 

 cent, more milk than grazing, the expenses of keep 

 ing being the same. Grazing may do well enough 

 in the West where land can be had almost for the 

 asking, and it answers in the East during spring 

 and fall, but eastern dairymen cannot afford to graze 

 during the parching season of midsummer. It is too 

 uncertain in its character, and results in finally pro- 

 ducing a minimum of milk at a maximum of 

 cost." 



Henry Stewart says : "It is the labor always that 

 produces, and if the work of one man at §1 per day 

 will care for and feed thirty or fifty cows with cut 

 green fodder in a barn, and these cattle will make 

 manure enough to produce fodder to feed one head 

 to the acre, then it is easily seen that this small 

 expense will strike a very favorable balance between 

 the cost of feeding one cow upon an acre costing |100 

 and one cow upon five acres costing the same. It is 

 not the area of land cultivated that makes the 

 profit, but the weight of the produce from each acre. 

 Many a farmer is poorer with 500 acres of land than 

 another with 100. A farmer who keeps twenty cows 

 on 100 acres is poorer than one who feeds as many 

 as twenty acres, and he makes actually less yearly 

 income than many a market gardener who culti- 

 vates on five acres and employs five men to the 

 acre.'" 



Root-Habit of the Strawberry. 

 According to one of his latest bulletins from the 

 State Experiment Station, at Geneva, Director Stur- 

 tevant, on August 13 of last year, washed out a 

 strawberry plant of the Triomph de Grand variety, 

 with the following result : 



" The roots extended nearly vertically downward 

 to the depth of twenty-two inches. The horizontal 

 roots were few and short, the longest being traceable 

 but six inches. Nearly all the fibrous roots were 

 found directly beneath the plant. The new roots 

 appeared growing out about an inch above the old 

 ones, and the longest of these had attained at this 

 time a length of six inches. They were white and 

 tipped at the extremities with a thickened point." 



The teaching of this one observation is that since 

 the roots go deep the bed should be prepared by pre- 

 vious culture and thorough fertilization to a consid- 

 erable depth ; that, since the roots cover an area 

 scarcely larger than the leaves, the plant may be set 

 close, provided the soil is rich enough to properly 

 sustain all, and that, since the roots run so nearly 

 vertical, there is littte danger of deep cultivation of 

 the ground between the rows, even after the plants 

 have reached full size. And this added point or two 

 we give in the director's own words : 



" The fact that the new roots grow out above the 

 old ones each year explains why strawberry plants 

 appear to elevate themselves upward as they be- 

 come old, and suggests the importance of drawing 

 earth toward them after the bearing season. The 

 formation of the new root above the old ones as well 

 suggests the advisability of surface manuring after 

 the crop is harvested, for these latter roots occupy 

 the upper portions of the soil. Our observations 

 also suggest the advisability of applying the manure 

 or fertiliser close to the plant, as thus being more ef- 

 fective than when placed simply between the rows." 

 Dr. Sturtevant suggests it as an interesting subject 

 of inquiry "whether the varieties within an agricul- 

 tural species have as distinct habits in their root for- 

 mation within the soil as they display in their visible 

 formation out of it," and incidentally mentions that 

 a cauliflower had, August 13, roots which were 

 traced to a depth of two and a half to three feet, and 

 horizontally about two and a-half feet, and the 

 "flbrons roots were less numerous in the upper than 

 the lower layers of soil." Hence for this crop the 

 soil should be rich low down, as well as at the sur- 

 face, for the special use of the plants when young.— 

 New York Tribune. 



Pruning the Grape Vine. 



Mr. W. W. Meech, Vineland, N. J., writes : Grape 

 vines that have come to bearing age, may be pruned 

 in such a manner at to be very certain of the results. 

 By examining the vines while they are growing, one 

 can very readily see from which bud of the previous 

 year's growth, have produced the branches that are 

 producing the crop of the current year. This will 

 serve as a guide to to the pruming for the next crop, 

 and so on from year to year. Shoots from canes 

 older than the last year, very seldom produce any- 

 thing but wood, but that wood is all right for a crop 

 the next year. The shoots from the axillary buds, 

 where the new and old wood come together, will 

 hardly ever produce any grapes. The first bud be 

 yond the axil will be found to yield fruit, but the 

 clusters from the next bud, and for several farther 

 on, will generally bear the shoulder branches of the 

 crop. I have found in my experience that six buds 

 on a strong cane, so selected, will generally yield 

 three fine clusters each ; and occasionally tour. Up 

 to the capacity of the vine, we may look for this 

 number of clusters from the buds of very strong and 

 vigorous canes of the last year's growth. Hence, 

 according to the number of perl'ect clusters we esti 

 mate the vine capable of producing, we can readily 

 select those giving the best promise, and cut all the 

 others off. The plan of pruning greatly reduces the 

 labor as compared with the old method of leaving 

 spurs of c 

 little 1 



i buds all over the vine, and gives 

 vood and many grapes.— American Agriculturist. 



