138 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



AGRICULTURAL PAPERS. 



The following extract from the report of Mr. 

 J. G. Chadsey, of Wickford, E.. I., to the standing 

 committee of the Society for the Encouragement of 

 Domestic Industry, shows the opinion of a successful 

 applicant for a premium on vegetable crops, whom 

 the committee highly commend for his intelligence 

 and correct views. 



I will mention one other mistake that many farm- 

 ers have fallen into, and some still adhere to it ; and 

 that is, an unwillingness to iiitbrm themselves in the 

 duties of their calling by reading agricultural publi- 

 cations. New improvements are constantly taking 

 place, and an abundance of light, on the subject of 

 agriculture, is flowing from the press in every direc- 

 tion, and at so cheap a rate that every farmer who 

 can read may enjoy its benefits. A man who culti- 

 vates two acres of land, will in the course of a year 

 derive more benefit from an agricultural paper than 

 vill pay the cost. This I know from experience. 

 Previous to commencing farming, at the age of three- 

 •scorc, I took an agricultural paper, to aid me in the cul- 

 tivation of some worn-out land, that I could not rent 

 for four per cent. From that little sheet I gleaned 

 much valuable information ; such as the method of 

 composting manure, and the kind best adapted to a 

 particular soil ; the advantage of a rotation of crops ; 

 directions for selecting the best variety of seeds, with 

 the method of cultivating each kind ; and also, fre- 

 quently cautioned not to improve more land than 

 could be well manured and cultivated to advantage ; 

 together with many other suggestions and recom- 

 mendations, drawn from the experience of practical 

 cultivators. But still there is much published that 

 is of no benefit to a common farmer ; but by reject- 

 ing that, and treasuring the good, he will find much 

 to aid him in his business. Had I been deprived of 

 that source of information, derived from agricultural 

 publications, during the few years that I have been 

 engaged in my new calling, and have had no other 

 guide to direct me but the example of my neigh- 

 bors, there is no doubt that I should now be more 

 than a thousand dollars worse off than I am at 

 present ; and all for the sake of saving a dollar or 

 two a year. 



♦ 



MODEL FARM OF NEW JERSEY. 



As the farm of Professor !Mapes is regarded as a 

 pattern, the following account of it, which he has 

 given in the Newark Daily Advertiser, will be read 

 with interest and profit. It shows the advantage of 

 producing a large amount of manure, which may be 

 accomplished by almost every farmer, and mostly 

 with the resources of his own farm. 



I would state that my success may be mainly at- 

 tributed to the use of the subsoil plough and a proper 

 system of manuring. 



The land is a clayey loam, underlaid by clay ten 

 inches thick, on a substratum of decomposed sand- 

 stone, and, until the clay was cut through by the 

 subsoil plough, the surface was too wet to be pro- 

 ductive. 



It may not be uninteresting to your correspondent 

 to know the different methods adopted for the man- 

 ufacture of this manure. The chloride of lime and 

 carbonate of soda is made by slaking three bushels 

 of shell lime, hot from the kiln, with one bushel of 

 common salt dissolved in water. Common salt being 

 composed of chlorine and soda, the lime combines 

 with the chlorine, forming chloride of lime, which, 

 in turn, receives carbonic acid from the atmosphere, 

 and becomes carbonate of soda. This mass should 



be turned over every other day for ten days, at the 

 end of which time it is ready for xise. Four bushels 

 of this mixture, thoroughly diffused through one 

 cord of muck, will decompose it perfectly in ninety 

 days in winter, and in a proportionately less time in 

 summer. 



When this muck cannot readily be procured, any 

 other organic matter will answer the same purpose : 

 pond scrapings, river mud, decayed leaves, or even 

 head lands, with one twentieth its bulk of stable 

 manure, or weeds, will answer well. 



My stables are arranged thus : Under the oxen, 

 cows, &c., the earth is removed to the depth of eigh- 

 teen inches, making a space capable of holding a half 

 cord of muck for each animal. This muck is covered 

 at night with salt hay for bedding, and the liquid 

 manure voided by the cattle is absorbed by the muck, 

 and rapidly decomposes it. This decomposition is 

 assisted by the warmth of the animal while sleeping 

 upon the bedding. The solid manure is removed 

 from the bedding each morning, and, after being 

 mixed with twenty times its bulk of muck, is placed 

 under cover. The nruck, containing the fluid portions 

 of the nianm-e, is removed every four days, and is 

 also placed under cover : after ten days the manure 

 heap is turned over, and wetted with a weak solution 

 of nitrate of soda, after which it is permitted to re- 

 main until sufhciently decomposed for use — thirty 

 days. 



All the weeds of the farm are daily thrown into 

 the hog-i^en, and the hogs are induced to root among 

 them, to obtain which they keep the weeds in con- 

 tinuous motion until decomposed. About once in 

 ten days, the jjen is emptied ; and, after salting the 

 weeds to prevent the possibility of tlieu- again germi- 

 nating, thej'' are mixed with twenty times their bulk 

 of muck, and four bushels to the cord of the salt and 

 lime mixture, and placed under cover, Avhere the 

 mass readily heats, and, after twenty days, is ready 

 for use. 



These manures, with the occasional use of special 

 manures for special crops, selected with reference to 

 their chemical components as compared with the 

 requirements of the plant desired to be raised, consti- 

 tute the manures used. 



The amount of maniu-e I am enabled to make by 

 the above methods, and the assistance of six oxen, 

 three cows, tliiue horses, and twenty hogs, is about 

 fifty half cords per week. 



The subsoil plough is no less important than a 

 sufficiency of manure, and without its assistance no 

 great results can be obtained. 



The capacitj" of soil to perfect vegetables, is pre- 

 cisely in proportion to the quantity of its particles 

 presented to the action of the atmosphere for oxyda- 

 tion ; and not one of the most inconsiderable uses of 

 maniure is to leave space by its decay for the admis- 

 sion of the atmosphere. 



To bring about these conditions, deep ploughing is 

 necessary ; and to avoid bringing subsoil of a sterile 

 quality to the surface, while disintegrating to a great 

 dejith, the subsoil plough must be used. 



My surface plough may be used to turn a furrow 

 of any dearth between four and twenty inches, the 

 depth of action being regulated by the guide-wheel. 

 We always use this plough at one inch greater depth 

 than the thickness of surface soil ; thus, if the sur- 

 face soil be fourteen inches deep, the plough is set 

 fifteen inches. One inch of the subsoil is thus 

 brought to the surface at each ploughing, and, by the 

 action of the sun and atmosphere, is gradually con- 

 verted into loam. 



The subsoil plough follows in the bottom of the 

 furrow left by the surface plough, and is usually set 

 at not less than seventeen inches : this plough is so 

 constructed as to throw up nothing, but merely to 

 disintegrate the soil at this great depth, replacing it 

 where taken from without mixing it with surface soil. 



