1861. 



NEAV ENGLAND FARMER. 



135 



being slaughtered at home or sent to Worcester 

 and the adjacent towns, still, the Brighton market 

 controls the price, and we look to the weekly sales 

 there, anxiously, to enable us to fix the honest 

 value of our cattle at home. Yes, we bid you 

 good speed in giving us more extended and val- 

 uable accounts of the markets hereafter. I am 

 glad the Farmer takes the lead in this reform. 

 Princeton, Jan. 25, 1861. J. T. Everett. 



Remarks. — It is our desire to give the best 

 report of the cattle market in our power, and we 

 shall spare no proper efforts to do so. Friend 

 Everett will please accept our thanks for his 

 appreciation of them. 



AFRICAN" EXPLORATION— COTTON. 



Mr. Petherick, British Consul in the Soudan, 

 ■who is about to proceed to Africa to explore the 

 source of the Nile, recently delivered an address 

 to the merchants of Liverpool. Consul Petherick 

 has been fifteen years a resident of the interior of 

 Africa ; and, under the auspices of the Royal Ge- 

 ographical Society, he is about to commence an 

 expedition from his residence at Khartum in the 

 hope of meeting and assisting Captain Speke, who 

 is starting from Lake Nayanza to explore the yet 

 unknown district lying between there and Kon- 

 dokoro, and where he hopes to be able to trace the 

 source of the Nile. Mr. Petherick believes that 

 the equatorial region of Africa is drained by a 

 large tributary of the Congo, or some one or oth- 

 er of the large streams that discharge themselves 

 into the South Atlantic Ocean, and the result of 

 establishing the existence of such a stream, he 

 thus comments upon : 



"It is to this large and navigable river, in the 

 most central point of Africa, that I look forward 

 to establishing the first fruits of geographical dis- 

 covery in connection with British commerce. If 

 a channel, such as described, should be proved to 

 lead from the seaboard into the very heart of 

 Central Africa, the whole produce of the country, 

 in addition to ivory, such as oils, seeds, hides, 

 indigo, cotton, gums, India rubber, may be ob- 

 tained in exchange for our manufacturers. In 

 addition to India rubber, I have also discovered 

 cochineal ; and with regard to cotton, they would 

 observe that Dr. Livingstone stated that in 

 his quarter of Africa, he found indigenous cotton 

 growing in the country, without cultivation on 

 the part of the people ; they found that the mis- 

 sionaries in Abeokuta, going up the valley of the 

 Niger, observed the same thing, and Mr. Pether- 

 ick, going up the White Nile from the northward, 

 found the people there growing and manufactur- 

 ing cotton ; and on the gold coast, very large 

 communities of people were engaged in tlae pro- 

 duction of this article. In the quarter which he 

 had visited, he ventured to say that cotton was 

 not only abundant in quantity, but excellent in 

 quality. He found in the country immediately in 

 the interior of Sherboro, that cotton was the great 

 staple article of production ; the people there 

 ■were in the habit of producing and manufacturing 

 it, and the clothes which they manufactured were 

 of precisely the same quality as those which we 

 found, from the accounts of missionaries, up the 

 Niger, and highly valued by the people." 



For the New England Farmer. 

 EXPERIMENTS IN TOP-DRESSING. 



Messrs. Editors : — There is no subject in ag- 

 riculture deserving of more inquiry, and of greater 

 importance to the farming interests, than the 

 knowledge of the best kind of fertilizers to be 

 used for top-dressing grass lands. As yet but lit- 

 tle is actually known by which to arrive at any 

 practical results, for obtaining the largest crop of 

 grass. I have read carefully the remarks and dis- 

 cussions had at the several meetings in the State 

 House on the subject, and as yet am far from the 

 information desired — theories and crude specula- 

 tions will not enlighten me in the case, and it is 

 only actual experiments and comparison of the 

 several kinds of fertilizers in general use, that can 

 aff'ord the valuable information so much wanted 

 by every farmer. When these experiments are 

 made and clearly explained, they will open to us 

 a knowledge of vast importance. For what crop 

 is there of greater value than the hay crop ? — 

 With the present implements now used in hus- 

 bandry, none can be more easily produced, for 

 the means are within the reach of every one, either 

 by owning or hiring the best mowers, tedders, 

 and other machines necessary for the purpose. 



The desire of knowing something more definite 

 and practical on this interesting subject, induced 

 me the last season to institute, in a small way, a 

 series of experiments, in the hope that I might 

 derive some benefit myself and be useful to oth- 

 ers. Accordingly, in April last I selected a field 

 best adapted to the purpose, very uniform in the 

 sward, free from shade and other objections — and 

 staked out five several lots each, measuring 250 

 feet long by 45 feet wide, and top-dressed them 

 with the various fertilizers, as follows : 



No. 1. — 2 cords of manure welt rotted and mixed with 1^ horse 



carts of soil. 

 No. 2. — 12^ bushels leached wood ashes. 

 No. 3. — 2 cords green cow manure, the droppings of only a 



few days before. 

 No. 4. — 80 bushels unleached or dry wood ashes. 

 No. 5. — 255 lbs. Peruvian Guano, mixed with 1^ horse-carts of 



brook-mud. 



The cost or value of the top-dressing, for each 

 lot, was as near ten dollars as possible. The grass 

 was very cai'efully cut, and made the first 

 crop in July, the second in September, and ac- 

 curately weighed, yielding as follows : 



First Crop. Second Crop. Aggregate. 



No. 1, 790 lbs 380 lbs 1170 fts... Compost. 



No. 2, 680 '• 440 " 1120 " ...Leached ashes. 



No. 3, 960 " 640 " 1600 " . ..Green cow manure. 



No. 4, 900 " b^.O " 1450 " ...Dry ashes. 



No. 5, 1300 " 370 " 1670 " ...Peruvian guano. 



4630 lbs. 2330 lbs. 7010 lbs. 



You are aware the early spring was very dry, 

 and quite a drought prevailed during the months 

 of April and May. This, no doubt, retarded veg- 

 etation, and checked, particularly, the fertilizing 

 qualities of the ashes, as they laid in the sward 

 for a length of time, as dry as when first spread. 

 The copious rains, afterwards, produced a won- 

 derful change in thickening up of the grass. The 

 guano dressing, you will observe, produced much 

 the largest quantity on the first crop, although 

 very little more than the green cow manure with 

 the aggregate of both crops. 



The second mowing of the guano lot disap- 

 pointed me, and its short comings on the second 

 crop, almost conclusively proved that it had lost 



