NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



71 



which are good, but ought to be scientifically applied. 

 Ashes will cause moss upon low lands ; bone dust is 

 very good, but costs me more than I can make it 

 worth. 



SOOT AS A MANURE. 



We copy from the journal of the English Hoyal 

 Agricultural Society, giving an account of the mode 

 of cultivation and use of soot, by Mr. Dimmery. 



"'The general price is sixpence per bushel; the 

 quantity used on the farm is upwards of throe thou- 

 sand bushels a year, one half of which is applied to 

 the potato, and the other to the wheat crop.' A 

 large flock of sheep gives ' tail-dress,' preparatory 

 to turnips, which follow the wheat, and intervene 

 between it and the potatoes. It is not the present 

 object to enter into any further detail of the particu- 

 lar routine, but merely to make use of the preceding 

 quotation as a prelude to the question of soot as a 

 manure. ' We have not,' says Mr. Morton, ' been 

 able to obtain from Mr. Dimmery any idea of how 

 soot acts in producing such effects, as it evidently 

 does both on the potato and wheat crop ; the effect 

 of it is particularly evident on the wheat, for however 

 sickly it looks in the spring, its color and the vigor 

 of its growth is changed in a few days after it has 

 been applied.' Whatever may be thought of the 

 limited and special applicability of soot, yet where 

 it docs suit, and is proved by continuous facts to be 

 csninently useful, even when applied in quantity so 

 small as twenty-five bushels to the acre, in such 

 places it is, to all available intents and purposes, the 

 very compound itself which comprises the essentials 

 of the vavmted, mystified preparation of carbon, 

 that now bores the imagination. Soot is the purest 

 carbonized product of mineral coal ; it contains oily 

 and volatilized resinous matters, and, above all, a 

 fixed neutral salt of ammonia, which is perfectly 

 soluble in watery menstrua, but retentive of its am- 

 monia till a more powerful alkali displace it ; then, 

 as by mixture with lime, potass or soda, the volatile 

 ammonia is liberated, and revealed by its pungent 

 odor. Without asserting what may or may not be 

 the components of any nostrum, we unhesitatingly 

 offer a strong opinion of the efhcacj' of soot — an 

 efficacy not to be rivalled or surpassed by any known 

 prepax'ation whose chief component is free carbon." 



EDUCATED LABOR. 



It is a very common remark, that, if we want to 

 have any thing done correctly, we must attend to 

 it ourselves. This arises, in the first place, no doubt, 

 from the greater interest we have in the business, 

 and in the next place, from our irnderstanding best 

 what needs to be done. Hardly any man has had 

 charge of work, where a niimbcr of hands were em- 

 ployed, without being more or less hindered, as well 

 as vexed, oftentimes by ignorance and awkwardness, 

 to say nothing of carelessness, on the part of some of 

 his hands. Some men seem to have no kind of 

 thought as to luhat needs to be done in a given case ; 

 or, if that is told them, they are as much at a loss to 

 know hoio it is to be done. They must be told what 

 and how they shall do, and must be expected to 

 exercise only physical strength, which is thus re- 

 duced to nothing better than mere brute force. For 

 the ox can draw the plough or the cart as he is di- 

 rected. Such men can work well for A or B, or any 

 body that will find them a head, but they can never 

 work for themselves. Of this class are necessarily 

 most of our Irish and Canadian laborers. This is 

 'practically understood, and the price of their labor 

 is graded accordingly. The six or eight dollars per 



month, which is all they can earn, is all that mere 

 lifting or carrying is worth. It is the price of unedu- 

 cated labor. 



In tlie same field, perhaps, with the man that earns 

 his six dollars per month, is another that earns and 

 receives his fifteen dollars ; another who can earn 

 twelve dollars ; and still another, we will suppose, 

 who earns ten dollars. The difference of price is 

 made, not from a regard to their power of body, not 

 from their age, but for the difference of skill and 

 ability to turn off work. One of them can only do 

 as he is told ; two of them need some direction, but 

 are tolerable hands. The first is able, in the absence 

 of his emjiloyer, to take the management of affairs, 

 plan out the work, assign to each his place, and, 

 with all his care and supervision of the rest, still 

 does more than either of them. He receives fifteen 

 dollars per month. That is the price he receives for 

 educated labor. 



The education of the laborer is not wholly derived 

 fr'onr books. At first sight it might seem not to de- 

 pend on them at all. Sometimes a man without 

 books may become a skilful workman ; but his educa- 

 tion goes on in a different way. He is thrown in 

 contact with men that understand their business, he 

 sees how work is done, and, by practice, he may at 

 length be enabled to work with readiness himself. 

 Observation, attention, have educated him. But to 

 become a really skilful man he must become a think- 

 ing man. He must be able in the outset to place 

 distinctly before his mir.d just what he wishes to do; 

 he must then look carefully at the means to be used 

 to do it ; he must be able to select the best, without 

 trying each different way first ; and then he is ready 

 to work. Nor must he be obliged to spend much 

 time in planning his work. It is obvious that such 

 a habit of thinking is best formed, in f;\ct it can 

 hardly be formed at all, except by the aid of books, 

 and the education of the school-room. K the habit 

 of thinking is only really possessed, the application to 

 business is very easy, as every one knows who has 

 had occasion to direct or to witness the work of two 

 men, the one a thinker, the other a man of mere 

 physical strength. 



Any act of physical labor can, as we have seen, be 

 reduced to three elements : first, the determining of 

 what must be done, including the planning of the 

 same ; secondly, determining the way to exercise 

 the requisite physical strength ; and thirdly, applying 

 the strength. The last all men possess sufficiently 

 in a state of nature. The second depends mainly on 

 practice, with some care and attention. The first, 

 and most important, without Avhich the others are 

 comparatively nothing, — for they cannot be exer- 

 cised, or, if exercised, can only be so at random, — is 

 the result of education. 



Hence arises the necessity of education to every 

 department of labor, that labor may be rightly di- 

 rected, so as to yield the greatest product at the least 

 expense. The jn-inciple illustrated in the case above 

 supposed of the foiu- laborers, is being acted out, for 

 better or for worse, on every farm and in every 

 workshop in the state. Men are earning their sLx 

 and eight, or their fifteen and twenty dollars per 

 month, or more, according as that labor is educated 

 or uneducated. 



The improvement in the arts and in agriculture, 

 and the competition which the business of Vermont 

 must now meet, are making it absolutely necessary to 

 them, as they value their success or even existence, 

 no longer to rest satisfied with any thing short of 

 rightly educated labor. — But of this more at another 

 time. — Vermont State Agriculturist. 



There are three principal elements of productive 

 farming : — Labor — Ca2->ital — Intellifjence. 



