186 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



^ov. ar, 1839. 



AND HORTICULTURAL RKGISTER. 



Boston, Wednesday, November 27, 1839. 



MATERIALS FOR MANURE. 



It seems nlinos: a work of supererogation to call the 

 attention bt" f^irmers to a subject which we have so often 

 and strongly urged upon tlietn, as tliat of increasing 

 their manure heap by the collection of every material 

 to which they can have access. But we shall continue 

 to do it on every occasion w lien we are likely to get a 

 hearing. A continual dropping will wear away a stone ; 

 and possibly we may make impression at last upon some 

 minds that are perhaps a little softer than granite. 



Until the snow comes and the frost completely locks 

 up the ground, materials may be found in all directions 

 and on every farm, which win amply repay me labor ol 

 collection ; and labor at this season can be more easily 

 obtained than in many other cases. We are continual- 

 ly struck with this fact in uur tours through the coun- 

 try ; and do not admit that our farmers ought to bo sat- 

 isfied until they areas frugal and saving and parsimoni- 

 ous as the Chinese. 



By way of illustration we will try to recollect a few 

 things which met our observation recently, we shall not 

 say where, on what road or in what neighborhood, lest 

 we might sour the milk of some of our good friends. 



We passed in the first place a grove or forest with 

 the ground covered with fallen leaves and rotten wood. 

 Why might not these have been collected and being de- 

 posited under cover, furnish a fine mass of excellent lit- 

 ter for the cow and the horse st.tbles, and the sheep 

 yards through the winter, from which after being sur- 

 charged with the liquids from the barn, they may be ap- 

 plied to the cultivated lands with no small advantage? 

 These woods wen; at the border of an e-xtensive pasture,' 

 covered with brakes, and sweet fern and bushes; why 

 should not all these be rut down and conveyed to the 

 manure yard, where they would soon decay and go in- 

 to the general receptacle. At one corner of the pasture 

 there we found a bog hole full of deep black mud, and 

 the borders of which had been enriehcd for a long lime 

 by the droppings of the cattle who had been accustomed 

 to resort there for water. Here, said we to ourselve.s, 

 at once is an abundant resource, a mine of wealth which 

 cannot be exhausted for years, but which the farmer 

 had hardly dreampt of. .'Vs we returned to the road we 

 passed the teinains of the carcase of a dead horse and 

 the bones of two or three sheep which had died of ne- 

 glect and starvation the preceding winter. There they 

 lay bleached by the rains and winds. Why should they 

 not now be collected, broken by a sledge hammer and 

 used upon the land ; or rather why should they not 

 at first, immediately after death, have been covered! so 

 as to avoid poisoning the air with their offensive odors ; 

 and so that ammoniacal gases minht have been collect- 

 ed in the soil and thus be saved for the aid of vegeta- 

 tion ; and indeed so that th« whole mass might be re- 

 duced to a condition, in which it would furnish a most 

 enriching manure. In its present condition It was worth 

 nothing. Near the bars at the road side, there was the 

 site of an old house, with the cellar walls remaining, 

 part of the chimney standing, and piles of lubbish, mor- 

 tar, burnt clay, ashes, chips and innumeiable unmen- 

 tionables, the undisturbed accumulations of years, the 

 growth of the thistles, and hemlock and thorn apple, 

 and barn grass upon which demonstrated the richness 

 which was underneath. Why was all this neglected ; 

 and why was this monument of slovenliness and slug- 

 gardliness suffered to remain there year after year, an 



offence to every decent tiavtller and an ine.icufable dis- 

 grace to its owner, who was probably too much in a 

 hurry to get to the shop or the tavern when he went 

 from home, to find time to remove it; and when he re- 

 turned was not generally in a condition to see w hether it 

 was there or not. 



Wu had not gone far, when we met the whole troop 

 of bristled and long-snouted quadrupeds of this capilal 

 farmer in full chase in the road, running almost as vio- 

 letitly as n herd ofold ; mother, grandpapa, and as many 

 young cues as stood round the stake of the great Eng- 

 lish martyr at Smithfield. Here they were, lean and 

 ravenous as wolves. As for any thought of yarding 

 them, littering them, and making each of them pay reg- 

 ularly for his board by the manure which he would make 

 and compound — this was a sort of book fanning,' which 

 this skilful gentleman utterly disdained. As we came 

 near the house, here was a pile of chips, which had nev- 

 •-Irefrr '•.■rr>.tfl .t. «'■ f'x;_:gh l.hnr;:ugl.!y n.lU-.n at 'oottoni, 

 and though at least ten loads of fine manure might have 

 been taken from under them. The front yard too was 

 ornamented with the droppings of the cows, who were 

 accustomed to come almost into the entry of the house 

 to be milked and to lay in the road at night, because it 

 was rather too much trouble to yard them at ihe barn, 

 as the bars had not only to be taken down but put up 

 again twice a day. In passing round the corner of the 

 house we came near going over shoes in the drainings 

 of the sink, which was pouring out of the house by a 

 short spfiut directly under the end window, and there 

 they furnished a jierfurae without charge, excepting 

 now and then a gentle touch of typhus fever, to the in- 

 mates; no doubt to those to whom use had rendered 

 them familiar, quite as agreeable as a cologne bottle. 

 Here too in unmeasured profusion lay bones and rags 

 and old hats and chippings of leather and woollen rags 

 and feathers, furnishing a perfect regale to the eye by 

 a sort of charming Mosaic variety. We are not will- 

 ing, however, to quit the premises of this capital far- 

 mer without mentioning an admirable contrivance for 

 cleanliness, for which we should advise him at once to 

 secure a patent right, if it were at all an original inven- 

 tion- He had a pig-stye in which he in the autumn 

 shut up his swine to be failed after his fashion ; and a 

 necessary^ which for picturesque effect no doubt, was 

 formed with open boards put in like the slats of a ve- 

 randah, and for modesty's sake had a door, which was 

 never confined by hinges but was made to be placed 

 and replaced by lifting, and secured in the inside by a 

 billet of wood of the size of a city back-log, and the 

 place appeared to bo frequented by persons resembling 

 Hogarth's Scotchman, who, poor fellow, supposed the 

 hole« were made to put his legs down ; but the perfec- 

 tion of the whole arrangement consisted in having both 

 these places fixed directly over a running stream of vs-a- 

 ter, where all impurity was at once carried off and the 

 most delicate nerves could not be offended. 



Now such is a picture of the carefulness, economy, 

 and good management in respect to the saving and accu- 

 mulation of materials for enriching their land, we had 

 almost said of one half the farmers of Massachusetts. — 

 We will not, however, undertake to determine the 

 proportion; but only say, lot those whom the coat fits 

 put it on. H. C. 



SPECULATIOt\. 

 This word has become absolutely odious to almost all 

 the sober and reflecting part of the community, and can- 

 not sound very melodiously in the ears of many, who 

 can lay no claims to being either sober or reflecting. It 

 is no better in general than arrant gambling; and its 

 tendency is to disturb all the common pursuits of fair 



trade, and stop the operations ofwholesi.me industry. 

 A man who lives by speculation entirely, is in gene- 

 ral living upon the necessities or weaknesses or igno- 

 rance or follies or vices of other men. This is a poor 

 trade ; and such men are commonly the curse of the 

 community. A man buys a piece of land to-day and 

 sells it to-inorrovv f t twice as much as he gave. The 

 next purchaser gets an advance upon it, and so it passes 

 on through successive hands, without any improvement 

 of any description whatever being made in it. Now 

 who is benefited by such an operation ? The commu- 

 nity is not, most certainly. 



A man buys into some public stock. He to-morrow 

 sells his shares to another man at an advance; and eo 

 it goes on, passing through various hands without any 

 change whatever in tlie property disposed of. Now 

 who is benefited by this operation.' Certainly not the 

 community, for not a r.eiit of intrinsic value is added to 

 the pi&pti'ij . ^w viml;!. Is cri-ated ; and no increased 

 value is iriven to the property in question by the opera- 

 tion, let the tran.«fer ofthe properly pass through over 

 so many hands. But there is a serious injury to the 

 community by all such operations. They excite ex- 

 travagant expectations. They induce men to desert 

 their farms and their trades, that by some chance adven- 

 ture they may get rich without the slow processes of 

 frugality nnd labor. Successful speculations of this na- 

 ture too olti'U ruin the operator himself, either by indu- 

 cing him to hazard v\iiry thing in a single cast of the 

 die, or hurrying him on in his miscalled prosperity into 

 deejier kinds of gambling, and too ofim impelling him 

 into courses of extravagance, luxury, dis.sipation and 

 profligacy, absolutely ruinous and dreadfully fatal. 



II. C. 



THRESHING MACHINE. 



We have seen a Threshing Machine of an improved 

 construction, designed to be driven by two men, which 

 it is slated will thresh and clean at the same operation, 

 from fifty to seventyfive bushels of grain per day. It is 

 the invention of a Mr Davenport, of Mount Vernon, 

 N. H. lis construction is simple, and it is easily trans- 

 ported in a one horse wagon. We have not seen it in 

 operation ; hut fiom inspectioii there is every reason to 

 believe that it will fulfil its promise. The grain issepa- 

 rated from the straw, the straw carried to a convenient 

 distance fjom the machine, and the grain passes imme- 

 diately upon the riddles and comes out clean at the bot- 

 tom. It is easily placed and worked on a barn floor. 

 Its price is sixtyfive dollars, and we believe it can be af- 

 forded at least fifteen dollars cheaper than that. It is 

 said to have been in operation a year, and is likely to 

 prove of great value to the farmer. H. C. 



SILK REEL. 



A silt reel of a simple and beautiful construction, has 

 been made by Ur Deane, of Greenfield, Mass., which at 

 least answers the purpose perfectly well, and we know 

 no higher praise that Can be asked for iu It can be 

 made for six or eight dollars, and will not be encumber- 

 ed with a patent right. We shall in a few days have a 

 model of it in Boston for the gratification of the inte- 

 rested and the curious. 



Labor-sa\ ing machines are becoming of great impor- 

 tance to the farmer. While almost every thing else is 

 done by machinery, and chickens are hatched in artifi- 

 cial ovens by hundreds per day, it is necessary that the 

 farmer should avail himself of the mechanical powers 

 ill nature, to assist and further his operations, if he would 

 not fall altogether in the rear of the other useful arts. 

 The agricultural warehouses and plough manufactories 

 in Boston and Worcester, will show that much has al- 



