DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ALL ITS VARIOUS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



Honor waits, o'er all the earth, The art that calls her harvests forth.— Bryant. 



VOL. I. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1849, 



FO. 5. 



S. W. COLE, Editor. 



QUINCY HALL, BOSTON. 



J. NOURSE, Pkopiiietou. 



MANURES. 



[Continued from p. 55.1 



At the agi-icultural meeting, January 30, the dis- 

 cussion on manures was continiiecl. Hon. M. P. 

 Wilder in the chair, who read the statements of Mr. 

 Colman, showing that largo crops of wheat, to the 

 amount of sixty, eighty, and even ninety bushels 

 had been raised in England to the acre, showing the 

 possibility of Mr. Pell's raising eighty bushels to the 

 acre, as he had stated on a previous evening. He 

 also showed the valuable effects of charcoal on wheat 

 in experiments made in Ohio, the land to which fifty 

 bushels of charcoal dust was applied yielding twenty- 

 IPs-e bushels to the acre, while that not dressed pro- 

 duced only five bushels to the acre. 



Hon. Mr. French, of Braintree, said, that, farm it 

 as we may, manure is essential to good crops. Before 

 the improved ploughs of Howard, of Prouty & ilears, 

 and the milJ.ions which the AVorcester concern 

 throw broadcast over the world, were introduced, a 

 celebrated Roman Avas asked what was most impor- 

 tant to, good farming, and he answered, thorough 

 ploughing ; and in answer to the inquiry, what was 

 the next essential, he replied, manure. 



Mr. F. said, his mode of making manure was to 

 cart muck to the upland, after his meadow had be- 

 come frozen, and expose it to air aud frost, and then 

 use it in his farm-yard, barn cellar, and hog-pens. 

 This is worked over in AA'inter, and again the first of 

 May. The muck absorbs the liquid manure, and the 

 whole mass makes excellent manure. He found 

 from experiments that muck applied to the soil with- 

 out preparation, produced only a ci'op of sorrel. He 

 thought the mixing of lime with animal maniu-e was 

 an injurious practice. He had not been successful 

 in his experiments with guano. Perhaps the apjili- 

 cation is not well understood. He made a compost 

 of thirty cords of meadow muck, four thousand gal- 

 Ions of urine, half a ton of guano, one hundred 

 bushels of ashes, and one hundred bushels of crushed 

 bones, and he was well satisfied with the result. 



Mr. Teschemacher spoke of the great storehouses 

 of manure and valuable absorbents, such as clay 

 and chai'coal, Avhich retain for the use of plants 



ammonia, and other useful properties. He said that 

 ui'ine was one of the most important manures, as it 

 contained phosphates and ammonia. 



Cheever Newhall, Esq., of Dorchester, said, that it 

 was a bad practice to allow rains upon manure, as 

 they washed away its fertilizing properties. He 

 made his compost under cover, in the barn cellar, 

 which prevented any waste from rains, or from dry- 

 ing winds and hot sun. He mixed crushed bones 

 and ashes together, and in a few days they became 

 a jelly. He added these to meadow mud, and made 

 an excellent manure for top dressing grass lands, 

 far cheaper than animal manures. 



Mr. Bartlett, of the Cultivator, said, that he mixed 

 wet ashes and bones together ; the ammonia was 

 driven off, and he thought that he had spoiled liis 

 manure, but it produced good turnips. 



Mr. Cole, of the New England Farmer, said, that 

 the great object of the farmer should be to save 

 animal manvu-es, half of which were now Avasted. 

 The liquid manure absorbed in loam, peat, or muck, 

 is worth as much as the solid manure. There is 

 great economy in using dry loam, oue ton of which 

 will absorb as much liijuid as four tons of moist 

 loam. As an absorbent, he preferred plaster to char- 

 coal, as plaster contains nutriment for plants. We 

 need more definite experiments. A\T:ien we use 

 many ingredients in compost, we cannot tell what is 

 useful, or what may be injurious. 



Hon. Mr. Brooks, of Princeton, said, that farmers 

 had not money to buy manure, nor did thej' need it ; 

 every farmer had on his farm the means of enriching 

 it. By using mud, peat, loam, &c., to save the 

 urine, his manure would increase ; that would in- 

 crease his crops, and his crops would increase his 

 stock, and that his manure, and all go on increasing 

 each other, until he may make his lands too rich for 

 crops of a good quality. Burned clay or soil gener- 

 ally is an excellent absorbent. 



On the evening of February 7, the discussion was 

 continued. Hon. M. P. Wilder in the chair. He 

 made a few remarks on the importance of saving 

 manure from waste by using plaster, charcoal, car- 

 bonized clay, and other absorbents. 



Mr. Teschemacher said, that on the first applica- 



