526 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



devoted to the things that pertain especially to 

 his occupation, and that the time should be appro- 

 priated to a careful examination, comparison and 

 criticism of the articles exhibited for his inspec- 

 tion. The addresses and speeches should be per- 

 tinent to the occasion, and all the exercises al- 

 lowed should also relate directly to an agricultu- 

 ral exhibition. 



Why do not the members of the Corn Ex- 

 change send up a balloon at their annual meet- 

 ing ? Or the Directors of the Suffolk Mills get 

 up a foot-race on quarter-day ? Or the managers of 

 one of the political meetings now so common in- 

 troduce a "Punch and Judy" company to call away 

 the attention of the assembled multitude from the 

 matter in hand ? Any of these Avould be just as 

 consistent as the trotting or racing of horses, 

 foot-races, the display of military or engine com- 

 panies, or balloon ascensions on Cattle Show 

 day. 



One of two things will happen ; the excellent 

 institution which it has cost so much to establish, 

 and which, in many cases, has received the fos- 

 tering care of the State, will dwindle and die 

 away — or the incongruous and inconsistent lep- 

 rous spots that have been fastened upon it must 

 De purged away, — they cannot long work in har- 

 mony. Such irrelevant matters have no claim 

 upon the cause of agriculture, and have no right 

 to embarrass its movements. We trust that in 

 all arrangements for the future, this holiday of 

 the farmer will be free from every extraneous in- 

 fluence. Let the cause stand upon its own mer- 

 its, and not saddle upon it a thousand fooleries 

 and vices which tend to degrade it and destroy 

 its usefulness. 



LIEBIG'S RULE FOB INSURHSTG- THE 

 FERTILITY" OF ANY SOIL. 



There exists a receipt for insuring the fertility 

 of our fields and the permanence of their crops, 

 and which if properly and consistently applied, 

 will prove more remunerative than all the ex- 

 pedients that have ever before been resorted to by 

 agriculturists. It consists in the following rule : 



Every farmer who takes a sack of corn or a 

 hundred weight of rape, turnips, potatoes, &c., to 

 the town, ought, like the Chinese coolie, to carry 

 back with him from the town an equal (or, if pos- 

 sible, a larger,) quantity of the mineral constitu- 

 ents of the produce sold, and restore them to the 

 fiold from which they have been taken. He should 

 not despise the peel of a potato, nor a straw, but 

 always bear in mind that that peel may be want- 

 ing to form one of his potatoes, that straw to 

 form one of his ears of corn. The cost of carry- 

 ing these matters to his fields is trifling, and the 

 investment is as safe as a savings bank, and 

 highly productive withal. The fertile area of his 

 field will, in the course of ten years, be as it were 

 doubled. He will produce more corn, more flesh, 

 and more cheese, without having, on that account, 

 to bestow greater labor and time upon the culti- 



vation of his land ; he will be less anxious about 

 his fields, and need no longer keep his mind con- 

 stantly on the stretch for some new, unknown, 

 and imaginary expedient to preserve their fertil- 

 ity in some other way. 



All the proprietors of the soil in every great 

 country, (adds Liebig,) ought to form a society 

 for the establishment of reservoirs, where the ex- 

 creta of men and animals might be collected, 

 and converted into a portable form. Bones, soot, 

 ashes, leached and unleached, the blood of ani- 

 mals, and offal and refuse of all kinds, ought to 

 be collected together in these establishments, and 

 prepared for transport by the society's own offi- 

 cials. 



To render the execution of a plan of this kind 

 possible, government and the police authorities 

 should take measures to insure the proper con- 

 struction of latrines and sewers in towns, to guard 

 against the waste of night soil, &c. This must, of 

 course, be a preliminary arrangement ; but when 

 once made, an annual subscription of half-a-florin 

 from every farmer in the land will suffice to call 

 into existence establishments of this kind in every 

 town, and there can be no doubt that these estab- 

 lishments would speedily become self-supporting, 

 if every agriculturist would only make up his 

 mind to act strictly upon the advice here given. — 

 Liebirfs Lectures. 



For the New Ibtsland Farmer. 



PLOWIWG OF CORNFIELDS— FALL OF 

 RAIN. 



A writer in the Scientijic American from Ken- 

 tucky says, "It is a curious fact that the Yankees, 

 with all their ingenuity, have never learned to 

 plow a straight furrow, while every negro in the 

 South will lay off a field, however large, without 

 a bend of a foot in a single row. The furrows 

 are not only straight, but parallel, the last one in 

 a field in a quarter of a mile square always com- 

 ing out parallel with the fence. A Virginia far- 

 mer sixty years of age told me that he never had 

 a short row of corn in his corn-field in his life. 

 In the new States where you see crooked rows 

 you may know you are among people from New 

 England, New York and Ohio, and when the rows 

 are straight you will find that it is a settlement of 

 Southerners." 



The above is a good specimen of what some 

 writers can say upon improved ploAving and agri- 

 culture in general, when they really set about it. 

 We have not been aware before this that there 

 was such a difference between our northern far- 

 mers and their Southern neighbors on plowing 

 straight or crooked furrows, and by negroes, espe- 

 cially. But this writer goes on to say, in sub- 

 stance, that he has never yet known a Yankee 

 farmer that had learned to plow a straight furrow. 

 To which I add that I have known several Yan- 

 kee farmers that learned that art several years 

 ago, and they have not forgotten it to this day, 

 I am aware that, with all our great plows and im- 

 plements of improved farming, too many crook- 

 ed furrows are yet seen in our plowed lands. 

 And if the Southern planters and their negroes 

 can learn us, northern farmers, to lay out straight 

 lands and then to plow even and straight furrows, 

 why, then, this is just what we want. This re- 



