102 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



obliged to keep them a year before realizing any 

 profit from them. Maine can compete with Ver- 

 mont in her valuable English sheep, and, take the 

 mutton and wool together, will leave her in the 

 rear. 



The underdraining theory was all the rage with 

 farmers a few years since, and agricultural lectur- 

 ers, not content with the fact patent to any dis- 

 criminating farmer, that some lands well paid the 

 expense of underdraining, such as wet and boggy 

 lands where nothing but wild and comparatively 

 worthless grasses grew, went to the extreme, and 

 advocated that all lands should be drained, or 

 that any land, bowever dry, would retain the 

 moisture longer if drained, — hence be more pro- 

 lific, and more than repay the expense of draining. 

 Even the clear-headed Mr. Horace Greeley, advo- 

 cated in his agricultural addresses through the 

 country, that if any land was worth cultivating it 

 would pay back enough more to cover the ex- 

 pense of draining. He run draining theory so 

 much, so long, and so thoroughly underground, 

 as to set everybody to digging rifle pits even to 

 the top of the highest sand hills, in this section 

 of the country, as my neighbor over the way to 

 his sorrow, or his sorrowful pocket will testify. 

 There are miles of this folly perpetrated in sight 

 of my door, and you cannot tell by the crops 

 which part of ihe field can claim this distinguished 

 honor — the honor of being Greeleyized. Because 

 some lands are benefited by draining, it is no proof 

 that all land may be so improved. 



Some farmers reason like the celebrated Doctor 

 Esculapius. The doctor visited one of his pa- 

 tients, a blacksmith, and found him convalescent 

 and lunching on codfish. The doctor immediate- 

 ly noted in his book, "Codfish good for blacksmith." 

 He was subsequently called to prescribe for a shoe- 

 iuaker, and of course ordered him to eat nothing 

 but codfish. The sequel was that the poor shoe- 

 maker died under the codfish regimen. The doc- 

 tor enters in his notebook, "Codfish good for 

 blacksmith, but death to a shoemakei\" Now I rec- 

 ommend the unfortunate man above to enter in 

 his sheep book, in large capitals, "Merino wool 

 good for the broadcloth maker, but death to mutton 

 chops." And so, Mr. Editor, the farmers at large 

 read the agricultural papers, and the moment they 

 find something recommended by somebody that 

 never, perhaps, had a hill of potatoes, or planted 

 a hill of corn in their lives, immediately proceed 

 to put the hint into practice, because they find it 

 ill their papers, and find too late to save their 

 pockets, that theory and practice do not always 

 agree. 



My neighbor went to great expense to set out 

 an orchard of grafted apple trees, and was anxious 

 that they should have the benefit of all the scien- 

 tific help he could find in the papers brought to 

 hear on his promising fruit trees. He reads in 

 the papers that, to promote their growth and to 

 kill all noxious parasites, it is recommended to 

 wash I hem in alkali. So he procure* ashes from 

 elm and maple wood, and makes the strongest 

 decoction of alkali he could make, and gives the 

 trunks, the limbs and the leaves a generous bap- 

 tism, when, presto ! mirabile dictu! the next day 

 found his precious fruit trees — the leaves burnt, 

 the trunks drying up — his orchard destroyed, that 

 cost so much money and careful planting. Killed. 

 Horticultural quackrey had done its perfect work. 



My other neighbor is ripe for all the patent 

 rights' pedlers that swarm along the road, prom- 

 ising to annihilate muscular labor and usher in 

 the Millennium. He comes to me all converted to 

 the belief that the "Atmospheric Churn" is to su- 

 persede all other churns, and not content to buy 

 one and prove it, or rather to prove one and then 

 buy it, but must needs buy the right for all the 

 adjoining towns. His fortune is made in the per- 

 spective ; "for, see," said he, "the water is all on 

 foam ; the churn worked admirably when churn- 

 ing water, (the pedler was careful to use water in- 

 stead of cream to test its merits,) it is logical to 

 suppose that it will make the cream foam with 

 equal beauty." "But," said I, "perhaps it won't." 

 I failed to reconvert him until the duped man 

 had parted with his money and he had manufac- 

 tured a dozen or more Atmospheric Churns that 

 were useful only to churn water. 



My other neighbor had been very prosperous 

 in bee culture, but the indefatigable, omnipresent 

 patent right pedler found him out, too, and con- 

 verted him to believe that he was behind the 

 age — that honey might be abstracted ad infinitum 

 with his patent bee hive. The patent right theo- 

 ry could divide the compartments and subdivide 

 these by boxes, so as to remove the old comb at 

 will, and hence give the bees the advantage of al- 

 ways living in a new house, providing they could 

 build a new one as often as they were robbed of 

 the old one ! This was a charming theory, pro- 

 vided the bees were satisfied that they were able 

 to build up as fast as you could tear down. The 

 sequel was, that at the end of the second year the 

 bees were non est, only empty boxes remained. 

 A subdivision with a vengeance. The bees froze 

 to death for want of a parlor large enough to hold 

 the family ! 



I promised you a year ago I would try the top- 

 dressing theory, and advise you of the result. I 

 think more might be learned from publishing in 

 your paper experimental failures, than doubtful 

 experimental successes. I have no mammoth 

 pumpkins, big squashes, or huge pigs for you to 

 chronicle, but I have simply thrown away the use 

 (certainly for one year) of the dressing obtained 

 from feeding out thirty tons of English hay. You 

 advised me about one year ago to compost this 

 dressing with muck or loam, and spread it on my 

 grass ground broadcast, as early as possible after 

 the snow left. I did compost this dressing with 

 sandy loam, used to bank up my house the pre- 

 vious winder. This dressing was mostly from the 

 sheep yard, and, therefore, very fine and easily 

 composted. It proved like the Doctor Esculapius 

 theory, good for moist land, or any land in a wet 

 season, but death to the dressing in a dry season. 

 My dressing of a hundred sheep and half-dozen 

 head of neat cattle, I consider more than half 

 wasted. It was spread on high, sandy loam grass 

 land. The winds in May dried up the moisture 

 of the dressing quickly, little rain falling before 

 the grass was to cut. No perceptible difference 

 could be seen in that part of the field where the 

 land was topdressed, other than where it was not 

 so dfessed. What may be seen another season 

 remains to be developed. But the experiment 

 was a failure last year; and I think that more 

 than one-half of the virtue of the dressing must 

 have evaporated, and so will be a total loss. And 

 this experiment teaches me that it is not good 



