52 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



For the New England Farmer. 



"WHAT BUILDINGS ARE KTECESSARY FOR 

 A FARM OP ONE HUNDRED ACRES ? 



This is a standing question with the farmers of 

 the country, and with your permission, I will give 

 an outline ])lau of Avliat I consider an appropriate 

 block of buildings, with some notes upon the man- 

 ufacture of manure for the cultivation of one hun- 

 dred acres, and the restoration of an exhausted 

 soil, to a state of primitive fertility. 



The size and style of the house should corres- 

 pond to the size of his family, and the taste of the 

 farmer. Whether it be built high or low, I would 

 so arrange the house as to bring the living-room 

 to front the south and east, to secure the delight- 

 ful influence of the sun in the room in the short 

 days of winter ; it promotes happy influences in 

 the family, and cheers up the little birds and flow- 

 ers, of which no house should be void. To ex- 

 tend this influence, I would build a bay window 

 upon the south side of the room for the cultiva- 

 tion of flowers inside, with climbing roses upon 

 the outside ; say the Queen of Prairies on one side, 

 and the Baltimore Belle upon the other ; trained 

 upon a neat little trellis to the roof, so as not to 

 obscure the windows. This arrangement would 

 unite pleasure and beauty to labor, one of the 

 great ends of rural life, and which can only be 

 attained by the union of these happy associations. 

 It is folly to select the pleasantest room in the 

 house to decorate and cultivate flowers in for your 

 friends and neighbors when they call to see you, 

 and consign the family to an obscure apartment 

 as a necessity. Should you construct an ell to 

 connect the house with the barn, be sure to not 

 disarrange the above. 



The barn should be 44 by 70, 18 feet posts, with 

 a good cellar under the whole, for the manufacture 

 of manure. For the latter purpose, haul together 

 near the leanto door, a large heap of leaf mould 

 from the forest, muck from the svv^amp, (keep a 

 sufficient supply dug two years in advance.) leaves, 

 straw, brakes, and other vegetable material for the 

 filling of the trench behind the cows daily. In 

 this trench commences the great work of redeem- 

 ing an exhausted soil back to a state of normal 

 fertility. In a barn of this size, we have a bay 

 upon one side, the entire length, 14 feet wide ; a 

 driveway, 12 ; IJ for crib in front of cows ; lean- 

 to floor under cows, o^, running back to the trench, 

 with a descent of ,2 inches, to carry off" liquid 

 manures into the trench ; 5 for trench and walk 

 behind the cows, and a space 6 feet wide, to be 

 partitioned off" into pens for calves, and hospitals 

 for cows at calving. The trench should be 20 

 , inches wide, and 5 deep, level, and running the 

 entire length of the leanto. Cows may be tied 

 by stanchions, or with straps and chains ; I prefer 

 the latter, as it gives them more opportunity to 

 rest. Reserve at one end of the leanto as much 

 room as is necessary for stables for horses — de- 

 pending upon the number used or Avanted upon 

 the farm. Hogs should be kept upon the manure 

 in the cellar, to prevent fire-fang, or heating by 

 rapid decomposition. Several weeks before slaugh- 

 tering for pork, the hogs should bs removed to 

 small, clean pens, as they will take on fat more 

 readily than when left to roam at large, and work 

 in the jpanure. 



Every practical, observing tiller of the soil, well 



understands that no guano, superphosphate, or 

 other nitrogenous, or highly concentrated manures, 

 can restore to the soil the lost carbon, which has 

 supplied a succession of crops with the essential 

 materials which enter into the 14 elements of grain, 

 fruit and gi-ass. The true principle of agricultu- 

 ral science introduces another system, natural, 

 plain, and altogether dissimilar. The forest must 

 give up her store of carbon, (and she manufac- 

 tures a large surplus annually,) so nicely elabor- 

 ated by nature's laws as to fix its ammonia, and 

 yet fitted for a powerful absorbent of liquid 

 manures, with power to resist decomposition until 

 brought in contact with the roots of plants. The 

 swamps must yield up their store of vegetable 

 wealth, the rich inorganic materials of surround- 

 ing hills and forests, to re-unite with the mineral 

 salts too firmly fixed in the soil to be washed away 

 by the annual rains. The organic laws of the 

 universe established by the Creator, for the gov- 

 ernment of all the changes and formal conditions 

 of properties of matter, Avhether in a crude min- 

 eral, organized or detached condition, are as uni- 

 form and Tuierring as the physical laws that gov- 

 ern the rising and setting of the sun. As the de- 

 mand for carbon to form fat, muscle, cellular tis- 

 sue, bone, brain, hair, and other portions of the 

 human body, and at the same time keep up an an- 

 imal heat of 98° night and day, is very great, we 

 readily see why starch is so abundant in all plants 

 used as food for man or beast. Starch contains 

 a large amount of carbon, and the forests and 

 swamps of the old States are holding the great 

 bulk of carbon in store, to-day. We must in- 

 crease the productiveness of rural labor by intro- 

 ducing into the present mode of farming more 

 system in the science of vegetable physiology. 



Every one knows that new land, land never sub- 

 jected to cultivation, will produce, in abundance, 

 all the cro])s which that country or district is sus- 

 ceptible of producing. Hence we are advised 

 that the forests and swamps of any hilly country 

 hold its vegetable wealth. Science now comes 

 to our aid, and teaches us how to change a cold 

 subsoil, into a warm, pliable, productive, surface 

 soil. Practical experience has taught us that a 

 good soil which produces 100 ])ounds of ripe wheat 

 plants, loses but 15 pounds of its weight and sub- 

 stance by the operation, 85 pounds coming from 

 the atmosphere. Science reveals to us why it is 

 that in combustion, respiration and decomposition, 

 an immense amount of organized matter is dis- 

 sipated through the air — infused into the plants 

 by atmospheric pressure, or gathered up by the 

 falling dews, rains and snows, returned to the 

 earth and the roots of ])lants, and thence by ca- 

 pillary attraction drawn into the kernel and elabo- 

 rated as food for man and beast. It also gives 

 the agriculturist poAver over heat, light, electrici- 

 ty, (positive and negative,) chemical action, air, 

 earth and water, and enables him to grapple with 

 repulsive elements — cold, subsoil water (corrected 

 by drainage,) malaria, and other negative influen- 

 ces which have baffled the unskilfvd farmer for 

 years past. Now that the soil, in the old States, 

 has lost its natural productiveness, a thorough 

 knowledge of vegetable science is indisputably 

 necessary to enable the tiller of the soil to com- 

 pete with those who till the rich fields of the vir- 

 gin West. 



A short time since a cargo of guano arrived in 



