VOL. XV. KO. 53. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL . 



411 



Advantages of well cdl'Jivatfd farms. — 

 Tlie lust season, tlioso who tilled liiml nntler a 

 hi?li state of cultivation, were well lerniineiate I 

 for labor expcjnded, while those who tilled worn 

 out farms, scare ly raised the amount of bread 

 stuff exjiended during the summer. It is time 

 that more attention was paid to increasing the 

 fi rtility of the soil, and wc are glad to see that the 

 Hampshire Franklin and Hampden Society have 

 offered a premium of $15 on the greatest quanti- 

 ty of good manure, that shall he made from the 

 first day of Jime, 1837, to June 1st, 1838. A writ- 

 ten description of the making will be requireil, 

 and an opinion of the bi'st and least expensive 

 mode ot increasing the same, regard being had to 

 the number and kind ofaiiinials kept in the yard, 

 stables, and pens. 



We find a few (and too few) of our farmers 

 awake^o the subject, and they have resolved to 

 till less land, believing that they can get larger 

 crops ; at any rate they are satisfied that a crop 

 will be more sme on good land than on poor. A 

 gentleman in this vicinity told us ihe other day, 

 that he bad commenced improving his farm in 

 earnest. He had raised the value of his farm, and 

 greatly increased the produce by ditching. Me 

 has a spout at bis back door into which his soap 

 suds &c. are poured, and carried under ground 

 to a pen or yard a few rods from the house. This 

 pen is so conslrncre i that he can drive through it 

 with u cart, and here he deposites turf, uuick, 

 damaged hay and straw, with a good yard of pork- 

 ers manufacture into first rate manure. In this 

 way be has doubled the produce of his farm. 

 Much has been done toward improving land by a 

 rotation of crops. 



The celebrated naturalist Mirbel has lately giv- 

 en the following expl tnations of the phenomena 

 that render the rotation of crops advisable. 

 " I'lants require other elements for their support, 

 besides the elements of assimilalion, and cannot 

 thrive without them. For iistance there is silex 

 iu the cane, ami there is lime in certain plants, 

 (say wheat,) whose Oraauization could not be 

 completed without it. The qmmtity of any such 

 foreign ingredient in a plant is generally small ; 

 still the necessity for it may be presinned as ab- 

 solute. Platits cannot be constituted utiless all 

 the materials they require be furni>ibed to them; 

 and indeed the sauie observation will apply to an- 

 imals ; deprive a ben of lime, her eggs will have 

 no shell ; deprive earth of its salts, such as form 

 potash, soda, or in combination with minerals, 

 lime, gypsum, &c. and you destroy its [iroductive 

 power. The smallest quantity of gyi sum will 

 have a remarkable etfi ct on clover ; and the ef- 

 fects of the other coud)iu)ilions are scarcely less 

 visible on other varieties of plants. But the f(U-- 

 mation of the.>ie salts, or nuiterials, exciting and 

 sustaining the growth of plants, when spontane- 

 ous, is slow, and the ^result of reg-idur chemii'al 

 changes which have been at work for centuries ; 

 and when the natural and limited supply i-< ex- 

 hausted as it soon must be, if (be successive crops 

 of the same kind are forced upon the soil, the 

 plant will look yellow and shabby, eacn year ren- 

 ders it more worthless, uiuil finally not enough 

 will grow to repay cultivation. Let the crop per- 

 ish where it grew, the earth will re-as. inne the 

 minerals aiuJ salts extracted from it during siu-h 

 growth, and the same plants will flourish indefi- 

 nitely." Korthampton Far. 



. — The 



Importance of destroying weeds 

 abnuilance in which weeds are seen in some fields, 

 show conclusively that hut little of the mischief 

 cause<i by them is understood. Weeds are in- 

 jurious to the land and to the crop in almost ev- 

 e y possible way that they can be. In the first 

 place they exhaust the soil to siqiport their own 

 useless growth, and abstract that nourishment 

 from it, whii'h ought to go exclusively to support 

 the crop. Secondly, they crowd upon other 

 plants above ground, prevent them from branch- 

 ing out at their roots, and deprive them of a free 

 circulation of air necessary for their health and 

 vigor, so that they shoot up only single, weak, 

 sickly stalks, incapable of producing a valuabl • 

 crop. Thirdly, they throw off from the soil 

 through their leaves into the air, an almost in- 

 credible quantity of moisture, and speedily reduci 

 the ground to so dry a slate, as to be fit for weeds 

 only to grow in. So enormous is the quantity 

 thrown off by some plants, that it actually exceeds 

 more than twice their own weight in a single ilay. 

 A bunch of grass, i)laced, during a very <lry sea- 

 son, under a large vessel, sent off moisture iii^two 

 minutes so as to> cover the vessel with drops, 

 which run down its sides. Dr Watson, who first 

 performed this experiment, was led to conclude 

 from its results that an acre of grass exhales more 

 than thirty hogsheads a day. Plants are iu fact 

 but chaiincds through which moisture is conveyed 

 up from the soil to be dissipated in the air 

 Hence, the absurdity of the opinion, that weeds 

 will prevent the ground becoming dry by shading 

 it. Let any one in dry weather examine a piece 

 of perfectly bare .-oil, a few inches below the sur- 

 face, and compare its degree of moisture with that 

 of soil at an equal deptii, near the roots of a thick 

 growth of weeds, and ho will find the ditTerence 

 astonishing. 



Now, of what use is it to attempt raising crops 

 if they are to be wasted by a growth of weeds? 

 Of what use is it to buy land, and plough it, ami 

 prepare it, and put in the crops, if after all, 

 these crops are suffered to be eaten up by such 

 intruders. If a drove of cattle shouhl break into 

 a field, no one would think of resting a moment 

 t II they were driven out, and yet many How my- 

 riads of noxious weeds to overspread theii lands, 

 often doing threefold more n)!schief, with scarce- 

 ly an effort to check their progress. And this is 

 not only permitted in cidtivated fields, but ill 

 meadows and pastures, which are sometimes lit- 

 erally covered with Canada thistle, St John's 

 wort, and many others, to the total exclusion of 

 every thing else from the soil. — Gen. Far. 



all the dread magnificence of heaven," are so 

 many sublime incentives to ad(u-ation and grati- 



tude. 



The season of the year has now arrived when 

 the busy operations of husbandry are going on. 



" When first youag zephyr mells the mountain snow, 

 And spring unbinds the mellowing mould below, 

 Press the deep plough, anil urge the groaning team, 

 Where the worn shares, in opi'ning farrows gleain." 



It ia now the patient earth enduies the rake and 

 the harrow ; and in return fiir the deep wounds 

 inflicted on her broad and furrowed visage, prom- 

 ises an ample remuneration in those precious 

 fruits that coustilute the life of man and beast. It 

 is now that the haird of imlustry deposites among 

 the clods the dry and withered seeds, which would 

 reinain as unproductive as the salt sown by Ulys- 

 ses on the sea shoi-e, but for the kindly blessings 

 of Heaven. 



The true secret of Agriculture, as Cato has long 

 since taught us, is to ''feed wtll." The nei^lect 

 of this rule will be fatal to all success in this mat- 

 ter-, will bring disappointments instead of harvests, 

 and poverty instead of abitndance. It will be 

 fouuil universally, that hushatrdry may be pro- 

 nounced good or bad accor'ding to the observance 

 or disregai-d of this rule. Let the faithful beasts 

 of bur-den be corrsigned to leanness, let lire low- 

 in" herds pine away for want of suffici;rit pastur- 

 age, let all the cr-eature's for man's use be left in 

 iireagre, ill-fed forms, aud no great penetration 

 will be requisite to porti-ay tire chara(!ler of such 

 husbandry. Hut reverse the piclure,and the most 

 captious arrd fastidious taste woirld adrrrit the merit 

 of the mauagemcrrt that coirld so bless and beauti- 

 fy the beasts of the field. — Ibid. 



Agriculture. — To soliirt his mother earth for 

 life's sustenance by the wholesome prot ess of til- 

 lage, has ever been the most natural and honor-a- 

 hle occupation of man. The gr-eat Creator has 

 designated the earth, not only as the common re- 

 ceptacle of ithe mouldering borres and ih'cayed 

 forms of Irumarr kind, but also as their coinuon 

 soui-ce of aiiment and sup; ort whilst ihe vital cur-- 

 rent continires to flow. Anil, as the pur-suit of 

 agricu:tirre is the rrrost universal aird natur-il eiri- 

 nt of oirr race, so it is tl 



Farmers look here. — A sensible writer in the 

 Bangor Mechanic and Farmer, in corrrpiling arrd 

 examiiring the sirbject of the culture of Wheal, 

 savs, lliat " wheat coirntries by contimred cirltiva- 

 tion becomes almost incapable of yielding wheat. 

 It has been found tiiat every soil is defective un- 

 less tirer-e is a mixtirre of three kinds of earth, to 

 wit: clay, sand and time; and that lime in sonre 

 of its combinations exists in wheat both in the 

 kerirel arrd straw. Jn some soils fertile in other 

 respects, lime may linve iro existence, or found in 

 minute portion-! and be soon exhausted. Ifliiire 

 he a necessar)' coirstituetrt of wheat, and ia not 

 in the soil viirpre we attempt to raist; it, it must 

 be supplied by ijrt or wheat wril not gr-ow — oi- if 

 native lime exkts in the soil in very srrrall quanti- 

 ties, the laud rni.i^ bear wheat uirtil the linre isi 

 exhairsted, and thea tx^pine incapable of pro<luc, 

 urg that plant until a fresh sirppl;^ of] lijne, nrarl, 

 or pulverized bones, or some olhi;;;. Qjilcareous 

 substance is suppli-d." With a firll kuo\yle(lge 

 of all tbotie cit-cumstarrces, it can be easily fore- 

 oeen when an otherwise (oler'ably ri,i-h, soil be- 

 conres worn out, ami at la-t incapable ()f pr-oduo, 

 ing more Ihau halfacvop of wheat. It (S a sub- 

 ject we hope the lari:ier-s will Sake urrdev deep 

 eonsideralion.-^L«)(cas<«r Express. 



ploymer 



so it IS the most rrch in 

 moral fruits; and more than any other avocation, 

 leads to a desir-able inirocence and slrrqdicity ot 

 life. Its i-ural scerrery, ' the ] omp of groves, the 

 ;arniiur-e of fields, all that the gerrial r-ay of uiorrr. 



LrGiiTNiNp. — It should be moi-e gpnei-ally 

 known that in many cases pci'S. ris svho have been 

 str-uck deiid, apparently, by lightning, may be 1-e- 

 stored by pouring cold water freely over iheiii,— 



Fug gilds, all that echoes to the song of even, arrd j .-V. H. Tel. 



