AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



9 



PUnMSHED BY JOSEPH BRECK &. CO., NO. 52 NOIITH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural 



EHOUSE.) 



vol. ynn.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9, 1839. 



>:• 



[NO. 13. 



AGRICULTURAL. 



From the Cultivator. ] 



NOTES ON NEW JERSEY FARMING. 

 A recent visit to Ne«' Jersey lias enabled us to : 

 sec more of its husbandry tliiin we have before wit- : 

 nessed in passing across the State by the ordinary , 

 routes of travel, and to judge better of its capacities 

 for agricultural improvement. The few remarks , 

 which we have to offer, arc the result of incidental | 

 observations which we were enabled to make on 

 our passage from Newark to Trenton, and from Bnr- 

 linn'ton, through Bnrdentown, Ilaightstown, Free- 

 hold, Shrewsbury and Middletown to Kejport on 

 Amboy Bay. 



New Jersey is very advantageously situated for 

 marketing the products of her soil. Surrounded, 

 except on her northern border, by navigable waters, 

 with several beatable streams coming from the in- 

 terior, and two canals and two railroads extending 

 from her eastern to her western border, the agri- 

 cultural productions of the State may be sent to 

 either New York or Philadelphia in a few hou.-s, 

 and converted into money ; and a great many farm 

 productions which are perishable, or which would 

 not bear tlie expense of ordinary inland transpoila- 

 tion, are thus rendered sources of immediate niul 

 substantial profit. Thus, for instance, the fruits 

 and garden productions of the valley of the Dela- 

 ware, where the .season is earlier than on the ,\t- 

 lantic border, are sent off in the afternoon by tiie 

 railroad, and are in the New York market the next 

 morning before sunrise, in excellent condition. We 

 returned, a part of the vooto, m wlial is tev.iic^ ili. 

 truck train, which, before it reached Ilaightstown, 

 or the li.ilf-way station, consisted of eighteen cars, 

 filled principally with melons, peaches, and other 

 garden truck. The facilities for transporting lime, 

 marl, manure, &c., are equally advantageous. 



The soil of those parts of New Jersey through 

 which we passed, is mostly sandy, frequently with 

 a tenacious subsoil. The surface in the interior is 

 gently undulating, but more so near the eastern 

 and western borders ; while a ridge, extending from 

 southwest to northeast, may in some parts be called 

 hilly. Many of the lands are con-sequently too 

 much saturated with water in the spring, and in wet 

 summers, for profitable husbandry. When laid 

 dry, these lands are wonderfully improved by the 

 Application of lime or marl, aided by ordinary ma- 

 nures. We were shown a farm of this character, 

 which the present owner purchased a few years 

 since at seven dollars ai) acre, and which he had 

 since drained, marled, &c., and which was now 

 considered worth iSlS.i an acre. We examined the 

 crops on another farm, and they were fine, which 

 a short time since was purchased for about the 

 same price, and which is now estimited to be worth 

 $100 an acre. It may be still much improved by 

 nnderdrains and a further application of fertilizing 

 materials. 



The defects in New Jersey farming seem to 

 have been the same as have too generally prevailed 



in all the Atlantic States— a system of continued, 

 cropping, without regard to draining, manuring, or 

 alternating crops. The fact seems to have been 

 but little known, or little regarded in olden time, 

 that plants, like animals, feed and fatten — not upon 

 mere earths — but upon the organic matters in the 

 soil and that every crop taken from a field dimin- 

 ishes its fertility. Another fault in New Jersey, as 

 well OS in American farming generally, has been, 

 spreading the farming capital and farm labor over 

 too broad a surface — in cultivating one hundred 

 acres poorly, instead of cultivating ten, twenty or 

 thirty acres well — the returns and profits of the 

 latter generally exceeding those of the former, of 

 which New Jersey herself exhibits many notable 

 and highly commendable examples. Draining is 

 essential, in many places, to the healthy growth of 

 clover, in which New Jersey farming seems very 

 deficient; and indeed all grass seed are too much 

 neglected. We saw several fields which had been 

 crept with corn and rye, and turned into pasture 

 without grass seeds. We suspect that another de 

 feet in New Jersey husbandry is, the small number 

 of neat cattle which are reared and fattened. In 

 this matter, the Jersey farmers might learn a useful 

 lesson from the neighboring counties of Pennsylva- 

 nia, where lean cattle are purchased in autumn and 

 fattened upon roots and coarse grain, for the great 

 markets. They leave upon the farm the elements 

 of fertility to the soil. If the products of the farm 

 are consumed upon it, that is, the hay, straw and 

 roots, and the dung carefully husbanded and ap- 

 plied, the fertility and profits of the farm will cer- 

 tainly, under a suitable alternation of crops, pro- 

 (/ressivoly increase. But if these products are all 

 carried off, and nothing returned, sterility will cer- 

 tainly ensue. Dung feeds crops, crops feed and 

 fatten cattle, and cattle manufacture dung. We 

 have another example to offer to our Jersey friends, 

 of the facilities of enriching theirlands. We called 

 upon a gentleman upon the confines of their State, 

 W. A. Seeley, Esq., of Staten Island, who, has a 

 farm of 200 acres, which he has brought into an 

 excellent condition from in..ijjipoverislied state. 

 His crops were all well inatiured and fine, and he 

 showed -us piles of surplus manure, estimated to 

 contain 2500 loads, composed of yard dung, peat 

 earth, peat ashes, sea-weed and fish, all furnished 

 by his own farm and his own shores. Such is the 

 effecl of capital and skill judiciously applied. We 

 will not say we saw the best corn growing upon 

 these grounds — but we think we saw as good as we 

 saw any where in Now Jersey. '! he Jersey and 

 Dutton corn were growing side by side ; and we 

 are promised a statement of their relative products. 

 The means of lertilising the lands of New Jersey 

 are abundant, the facilities of procuring them great, 

 and a disposition to employ tliem rapidly extending. 

 We saw near the beatable waters great quantities 

 of lime, marl, green sand, oyster shells, ashes and 

 manure, and in many places marl pits which had 

 been extensively excavated, and were told that the 

 use of all these fertilising materials was sensibly 

 increasing. 



The Morus MuUicaulis is at present the staple 



product of New Jersey, particularly ab^ut the cities 

 and villages. On asking a grower ncjju; Burlington, 

 what portion of the land in that vicinitjj^^ttjpro- 

 priated to the growth of this plant, he replied, be- 

 tween a third and a quarter. Many gentlemen 

 have made fortunes by the sale of the trees and 

 buds, and many, very many, urped to malj^ fortunes 

 ill a like way. and some by feeding worms. We 

 sawseverare.vt'iisive cocooneries, but principally 

 at present r-ijpiopriated to the production of eggs, 

 which have borne a very high price. Lai}d*"Fiave 

 let for .$50 an acre, for raising the multicaulis. — 

 There are onsiderable failures in the crop, owing 

 to the unfavorable spring, the plants having gener- 

 ally been grown from single buds. Actual sales 

 have been made at 15, 20, and 25 cents. We 

 heard of none being sold higher. The plants are 

 from one to five feet high. In Virginia and Mary- 

 land, sales are said to have been made at 34, 50 

 and 100 cents. We saw at Haightstown, many of 

 the multicaulis graaed, at the ground, upon the 

 white mulberry. ' Their growth had been surprising. 

 We measured some on the grounds of Mr Coward, 

 which had grown, during the season 8 feet 4 inches, 

 e is principally brougl^t from Pennsylvania, 

 .old at 10 and 12 cents per bushel, slaked. It 

 , plied, in rather an effete state, at the rate of 

 56\o 100 bushels an acre, the poorer land receiv- 

 ing the umaller, and the richer land the larger dress- 

 ing. It is generally mixed with arable lands by 

 the harrow." Its benefits are palpable ; and the 

 increase of the first crop often pays the outlay. 



Marl, which includes green sand as well as shell 

 marl, abounds in Monmouth county. That procur- 

 oJ froi>' the southern border of the county is deemed 

 best, '."b expense of d.essing an acre at Shrews- 

 bury, with a charge of twelve miles of land carriage, 

 is from 15 to $20. Inferior qualities are procured 

 there cheaper, though a greater dressing of these is 

 required. It amply repays charges in the first 

 crops, and permanently improves the land. 



Among other fertilising materials, we saw barilla 

 ashes, and the fleshings, hair and tan from morocco 

 factories, and great quantities of sea-weed, collect- 

 ed on the beacli, and afterwards spread in the hog 

 and cattle yards. Seaweed forms an important 

 item of manure on the seaboard. We should be 

 pleased to receive a communication from some gen- 

 tleman familiar with the subject, as to the best 

 mode of preparing it and applying it to the soil. 



Peaches are a profitable article of culture in the 

 country through which we travelled. The fruit is 

 convertible into money in twentyfour hours after it 

 is gathered. The profits would be far greater if 

 melns could he adopted to prevent the early decay 

 of the trees. The average continuance of a peach 

 orchard is from six to eight years ; and four crops 

 of fruit are considered a liberal return. The dis- 

 ease which destroys the trees is termed the yellows. 

 Would it not be commendable in the New Jersey 

 State Agricultural Society, which has just been or- 

 ganized,"or even in the legislature of that State, to 

 offer a bounty for the discovery of a cure or pre- 

 ventive of this disease ? It is preferred by the 

 peach growers to leave the trees without pruning, 



