354 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



MAY 8, 184<: 



For ilie N. E. Farmer. 



THRIFTV AND UNTHRIFTY FARMING. 



Friend Breck — I recently made an exxureion of 

 Bonie distance in the country, and tarried lor a 

 short time in a farminjr comnuinity, where the first 

 eighteen or twenty years of my early dnys were 

 spent. .Many years liave elapsed since, and other 

 pursuits have engrossed my tune and attention. 

 Yet, often my mind reverts to the scenes of youth, 

 and memory rolls bacli the recollections of other 

 (lays, when, in common with all the rural commu- 

 nity 'in winch I resided, I felt all the joyous hope 

 of seed-time, entered with zeal into all the labors 

 and excitement of haymaking and harvest, and 

 shared in all the frolic and pleeof husking parties; 

 and in all the thoughtlessness and buoyancy of 

 youth, looked forward for thanksgiving, as the best 

 of all the days in the year. 



In visiting the place after an absence of sonic 

 twenty or more years, I found many striking chang- 

 es had taken place ; many an honest, brawny 

 limbed farmer, then lord of his broad acres, now 

 occupied but his six feet liy two, in the " auld kirk 

 vard ;" and others that were then in the vigor of 

 manhood, and had been spared, were bowed down 

 with age, and their thick locks had been plucked 

 by the fingers of time, or silvered o'er by the frosts 

 of 70 or SO winters. Many of my schoolmates 

 who were then wild' and reckless youths, with 

 whom I had an hundred times tried the " tug of 

 war" at long hold and side hug, were now staid and 

 steady farmers— heads of families, engaged in all 

 the business scenes of life. And of the bright 

 eyed, flaxen-haired lassses, many were transformed 

 to sober and careful housewives and'mothers, — and 

 others were quietly sleeping the slumber that 

 knows no awakening — most of whom had been 

 carried off in all the bloom of youth and early 

 womanhood, by that scourge of New England — con- 

 gumption. 



But as the whole country was coven-d with 

 snow, I could not make much of an agricultural 

 survey, but upon inquiry, I learned that many farms 

 had from bad management and culture very much 

 deterioated, and greatly lessened in value ; others 

 had held on the even temir of their way, and win- 

 tered about the same number of cattle they did for- 

 merly, and some few in the hands of enterprising, 

 intelligent farmers, were advancing with a sure 

 and steady pace, th.-U would yearly add to their 

 value, and to the wealth of their owriers. 



There had been several causes in operation to 

 exhaust the first named class of farms — such ss 

 plowing the lands in the autumn, where much oi 

 the finer portion of the soil was blown otf by the 

 winds, and washed by the rains and melting snows, 

 and suffering their cattle to roam over their mow- 

 ing fields, both fall and spring, with a reckless 

 waste of itieir manure. 



In conversation with one- of those farmers (a 

 Mr G.,) whose farms liad run backwards, I suggest- 

 ed to tiim the idea of collecting the leave* and de- 

 cayin, vegetable matter from a piece of woodland 

 near bv. '' Why," says he, " I haint much opinion 

 of this v gelabie inatt>'r — 'l is sour stufl' — only 

 give me duog enough from the hovel windows, and 

 I can raise as good crops as Mr I. dues, wi;h all 

 his swamp muck, lime, compost, and boidifarming." 

 I inquired if he took an agricultural pnper. "No," 

 gaid he — " I did take one several year.s ago, and 

 that had so much to tell about a new kind of pota- 

 to that they sold for twentyfive cents a pound, and 



after all, it warnt no better than the long reds ; and 

 about tree corn and mulberry trees; and a good 

 many farmers got hit, by believing their great sto- 

 ries, that I got sick of, and stopped it, and would 

 not now take the gift of one." 



I afterwards called upon Mr I., the " book far- 

 mer," as Mr G. sneeringly called him, and found 

 him a middle-aged, intelligent farmer, who was 

 quietly improving his farm by every means within 

 his reach, f was so much interested in his man- 

 agement, that I thought I would attempt to commu- 

 nicate an account of it to the public, through the 

 coiomns of your useful journal, with the hope that 

 other farmers might be benefited by his example. 

 Upon looking into his barn, I found his hovel 

 floors were water-tight, and sloping toward the 

 back side. In the rear of the cattle, >vas a kind 

 of trough, of the width of 13 or 15 inches, made 

 by sinking one of the floor plank two inches ; this 

 was also water-tight : the droppings from the cat- 

 tle mostly fell into the trough, and by giving his 

 cuttle a good bedding of litter every night, they 

 were kept comfortable, and nearly as clean as 

 when at pasture. He had the past winter used 

 several loads of sawdust from a shingle mill, and 

 leather shavings from the currier's, for the purpose 

 of bedding, and soaking up the urine. 'the 

 hovels were daily cleared out by wheeling the ma- 

 nure and litter into the centre of the yard, (which 

 is dishing,) and piling it up in a snug heap. His 

 barn is so situated he cannot dig a cellar under it, 

 but intends the coming season to build a shed for 

 the purpose of keeping his manure under cover in 

 future. The floors of his horse stable are tight: 

 every day it is cleared, and the manure and litter 

 IS spread under a shed, and by being trodden by 

 his stock, it does not heat and fire-fang, as is too 

 often the case. Most of his winter manure will 

 be mixed with swamp mud, to compost through the 

 summer. I inquired respecting a heap near his 

 barn : he said there were two cartloads of lime 

 mortar, that he bought for a trifle of a man who 

 had taken down a large house: it was mixed with 

 about four loads of brake-root turf, about 18 

 months ago ; it had been left this length of time 

 for the purpose of having the plaster come to pieces, 

 I and rotting the turf. Last fall it w'as shovelled 

 over, and two lime casks of fleshings, procured at 

 i the tanner's, mixed with it. He thought while 

 'this animal matter was decomposing there W(mld 

 ' be a large amount of nitrogen generated, and give 

 him a large amount of nitrate of lime by spring, 

 ! when it would be again shovelled over, and 35 

 bushels of t'ood ashes mixed, and then applied to 

 an acre and half of ground, upon which he should 

 sow wheat : I think he said the compost was to be 

 put on after the ground was plowed, and to be har- 

 rowed in with the wfieat. The ashes he had pur- 

 : chased at ten cents per bushel. 

 I He had a cartload of 'he waste wool, or flying, 

 i from the wool carder's : this was to be boiled for 

 a short time in lye, to cleanse the oil and grease, 

 and fo render tlie wool more decomposible. By 

 way of experiment, a part of it would be used to 

 manure some of his corn and potatoes in the hill, 

 the rest would be mixed in the compost heap, to 

 remain a year or so. He also had a large quantity 

 of old ivoollen rags, that he bought of a store- 

 keeper for a trifle — having, he said, read in some 

 book that 100 lbs. of woollen rags contained as 

 much nitrogen as 3000 lbs. of cow manure. Some 

 of these rags were to be chopped up and steeped in 

 urine for a few days, then to be partially dried and 



sprinkled with gypsum, and used as manure in 

 corn and potato fulls ; the other part would, like 

 waste wool, be composted. He had a numbei 

 casks of flishings that were obtained at the I 

 ners, which would be mixed with vegetable mo 

 soon as the snow was off, and he could obtain 

 he also has the hair, lime, and piths of horns fr 

 the tan-yard ; the bones are broken up by the ht 

 mor and mixed with manure and plowed in; tl 

 will slowly decompose, and supply phosphate 

 lime to his land : he had about two barrels of 

 settlings of salts from the pearlash factory — si 

 lar, he thought, to the material known as glass f 

 tory manure ; an account of its use and valui 

 given in Mr Colman's Fourth Report, pages 31< 

 by a Mr Jarvis. There were a tew inches of 

 upon the top of the salts in the barrels, so stn 

 as to float an egg with nearly one-half its surf| 

 above the lye. This, he assured me, accordin| 

 Mr Jarvis' statement, would convert 10 or 15 lo 

 of loam or muck into J. compost equal to the s£ 

 amount of good stable manure. All these m: 

 rials, sawdust; wool fleshings, hair, lime, pithi 

 horns, and salts from the potash, he had for ren- 

 ing, as thoy were considered a nuisame, am 

 no value by the manufacturers or owners, 

 droppings of the fowls are occasionally sera 

 from the boards over which the hens roosted, 

 put in old casks : in the spring it will be moist 

 ed with urine and ground to pieces with a I 

 and mixed with plaster of Paris, to be afipliei 

 grass land, or put about the corn and potato li 

 at the first or second hoeing ; — he styles it " Y 

 kec guano." He has a strong tight box under 

 back house, in which is frequently thrown gyps 

 or charcoal dust obtained from the coal-pen of 

 village blacksmith : it absorbs the smell, and o 

 in a week or two, the contents of the box 

 mixed with dry peat or sawdust, or some other 

 terial, to absorb the liquid part, and put into 

 tii'ht barrels. This is home-manufactured f 

 drette. His hog-yard, of good size, has been i 

 to the depth of 18 inches, and a good plank fl 

 over the whole, which makes it easy shovell 

 out the manure. The suds from the wash are c 

 veyed to it by a epout, which with the manuri 

 his hogs, mixed with the loain, muck, and ol 

 materials, makes many loads of valuable mam 

 He has tried many experiments that he has E 

 recommended in the agricultural bonks and pap 

 that he has read ; says, after he became " one . 

 twenty," he did not feel obliged in all thingi 

 follow in the " footsteps of his worthy predec 

 sor," his father, and sometimes pursued a r 

 truck, and went upon his own hook. He inte 

 getting a small quantity of guano and gro' 

 bones the coming spring, for the purpose of lest 

 them by the side of oiher manures. Several 

 the kinds he has not yet tried, but from his 

 marks, I feel satis.fied he will find them all val 

 ble helps for increasing his crops, and from the 

 ture of some of them, valuable and permanent 

 provers of his soils. 



If you think any thing I have written, is wc 

 publishing, it is at your service. 



Salem, ,'ipi-i! \8ii- 



Rvery gate-post on the farm should have an ■ 

 gur hole bored in it, to be filled with grease ( 

 plugged up, to grease the latches and hing 

 Want of grease is often observed, but from 

 having it at hand, it is generally never applied. 

 Sctedtd. 



