No. 244.] 363 



which has ever been made to us on the subject of farming. It is 

 from Professor Mapes, who is applying all his knowledge with great 

 energy, to the working of a farm near Newark, in Jersey. We do 

 not know of any instance where an able chemist like him has turned 

 his whole attention and personal labor to that great operation. The 

 communication of Prof. Mapes was then read. 



Lyons Farms, near J^ewark, JV. J., July 18, 1848. 



Mr. Wakemax — Dear Sir — By a letter received yesterday from 

 Mr. Chambers, I learn that the committee of the American Institute 

 which visited the farm occupied by me, were anxious that I should 

 write out the description, rationale, &c., what was given them ver- 

 bally when here. 



The top soil is a clayey loam, 10 to 15 inches thick, under^^id by 

 a thin stratum of clay, say 12 inches, under which is decomposed 

 sandstone of the kind known as kellis or hard pan: even the highest 

 point of land was wet and seemed to be perfectly impenetrable to 

 the rain. The farm contains about forty acres, and generally of this 

 character. The part seen by the majority of the committee has been 

 for years considered as nearly unworthy of cultivation by my neigh- 

 bors. The front part now occupied as a vineyard, is underdrained — 

 drains twenty inches wide, 4 feet deep, and laid with open channel, 

 at bottom made by laying two stones as wide apart as the opening 

 will permit, covered with a large stone, and all interstices tilled above 

 with smaller stones, over which is placed shavings made by the cy- 

 press shingle dressers, with the earth on top — drains forty feet apart. 

 The making of these drains in a seven acre lot, and the building of 

 the front terrace on the road used over 500 loads of stones turned up 

 in plowing this lot. 



The whole farm is ploughed thus: Surface plough, Ruggles, 

 Nourse & Mason's Eagle, No. 25, in all cases running two inches 

 deeper than the surface soil, and followed in the bottom of the fur- 

 row by a horse sub-soil plow, running in full to the beam say, 20 

 inches. This sub-soil plow in all cases passing entirely through 

 the clay and mixing the kellis with it, but not intermixing the sub- 

 soil with the surface; it merely lifts what it cuts and lets it fal 



[Assembly, No. 244.] X 



