No. 144.] 155 



Professor Mapes — Yes, they have been brought from the great- 

 est depths, and yet possessing vitality. 



Mr. Meigs — Yes, but unless they are within less than one foot 

 of the surface they cannot grow. 



Professor Waring observed, that great improvements are already 

 made in our cultivators, and still further are expected to be made. 

 I beg to call attention to the subject of the excrementitious mat- 

 ter thrown off by plants; for instance, if you plant turnips upon 

 land infested with witch grass, the excrementitious matter of the 

 turnip will kill the grass, &c. 



Judge Van Wyck — The destruction, or avoiding the growth of 

 weeds on a farm, especially the most noxious ones, is certainly 

 very desirable. One way, and a good one, is to avoid sowing 

 them as much as we can, either through the grain we sow, or the 

 manure we spread upon the land. The first may be effected by 

 clean seed, the last by proper management of the manure heap, 

 according to Professor Mapes' plan, decomposing and rotting the 

 seeds, and improving the manure also. Let us manage though 

 as we will we cannot get rid of them entirely, and some good far- 

 mers and gardeners that I know have often told me that by w^ork- 

 ing them into the soil, by plowing, hoeing and spading, grass and 

 weeds of almost all kinds well covered will make sometimes the 

 best manure. This, too, on the spot where they are wanted, with- 

 out the labor of carriage and spreading. I wish to say a word or 

 two on the first branch of our subject— farm fencing. The plan 

 of throwing aside all fencing as a great and unnecessary expense 

 I do not think will suit our country generally, at any rate not for 

 a long time to come, and perhaps never. Cases of it may exist 

 in different sections of our wide-spread land, but they do not, nor 

 will they increase to any extent. Come to inquire also into some 

 of these cases, we almost always find some circumstances pecu- 

 liar to the farm and neighborhood where they exist, and which 

 may be said to have been so strong as to have compelled their 

 adoption. To the South and West we know, or have heard, of a 

 few plantations that have discarded fencing, the reasons for it ap- 

 pear to have been their great size, from one to four or five thou- 



