ON FARMS. 125 



yard by an under-ground passage way, furnishes a dry sleep- 

 ing apartment to the hogs, and the materials for increasing still 

 further the manure heap. 



From the nature of the soil here, it may be doubted wheth- 

 er this manure, strong as it is, produces very permanent effects. 

 Land so light and gravelly, needs a large admixture of clay, to 

 retain the fertilizing properties of the animal manures applied 

 to it. If this can be obtained on the farm, or at a short dis- 

 tance from it, it might be carted on in the fall and winter, and 

 laid out in heaps, so as to be pulverized by the frosts, and then 

 spread and ploughed in, in the spring. Clay is sometimes 

 found on silicious soils a few feet from the surface, and by 

 digging pits at proper intervals, where this is the case, a sup- 

 ply may be had. without much expense for transportation. 



Mr. Page has also employed the pauper labor of the farm to 

 advantage in reclaiming considerable tracts of low meadow 

 lands — portions of which are yet waiting for similar improve- 

 ments, — and in draining run-lands, both by surface ditches and 

 under drains. We noticed one thing in the practice of Mr. 

 Page — and we understand that it is not uncomm.on with the 

 farmers and gardeners of Danvers, which has attracted much 

 attention in England, and which is there claimed as the result 

 of recent scientific investigations, but which has here been 

 practised for years with good effects, — we allude to ploughing 

 in manures in the fall. 



The London Agricultural Gazette says that '' Autumnal 

 manuring, immediately followed and covered hy the jjlough,'\s 

 the most valuable discovery, perhaps, in its results, for which 

 agriculture has been indebted to science." This statement is 

 founded upon the experiments of Professor Way, " who has 

 clearly established the fact that the soil has the peculiar prop- 

 erty of absorbing and appropriating all those elements of ma- 

 nure intermixed with it, which are essential to the growth of 

 plants." Knowing that this subject had been examined by 

 Levi Bartlett, of Warner, N. H., and deeming it one of impor- 

 tance in farm management, we addressed a letter to him re- 

 questing his views and experience respecting it, and we annex 

 his reply, as a highly instructive document. 



