378 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



Aug. 



reports are ahead of us in exaggeration, or we 

 are behind them in agricultural science. 



Forest leaves are another great auxiliary to 

 the manure heap, and consequently to "mak- 

 ing the most money from the farm." Every 

 acre of forest leaves, where the rotten mould 

 is three or four inches deep is sufScient to ma- 

 nure an acre in the field, equal, in my opin- 

 ion, once every five years, to twenty loads of 

 barn yard manure. It contains two out of the 

 four bases required for plant food, viz. : pot- 

 ash and nitre ; also a large amount of vegeta- 

 ble matter. I have heard of a man who lost 

 all of his large farm but twenty acres, inher- 

 ited from his father, by dissipation, and who, 

 on concluding to reform, having no manure 

 nor stock, collected from a few acres of pine 

 growth the leaves and mould which he spread 

 and ploughed in to his worn out acres. By 

 this means alone he brought his land up to a 

 high state of fertility, so that it produced more 

 than the whole farm formerly did. 

 Application of Manure. 



The subject of the application of manure is 

 next to be considered. If I collect all the 

 materials for a splendid house and fail in ar- 

 chitectural skill in building, I become a deris- 

 ion and reproach to the passer by. If Solo- 

 mon in all his glory, after he had gathered the 

 gold and silver for his great temple, had 

 failed to employ the cunning workmen of the 

 King of Tyre, he would have become the 

 laughing stock for surrounding nations. So 

 if manure is misapplied, your labor is lost, and 

 proper results are not obtained. 



I think manure should be harrowed in on 

 wet land and ploughed in on dry land. Then, 

 in the first case, it will not be leached and go 

 down below the reach of plant roots, nor in 

 the other case, be too high and dry above 

 them, and its strength evaporated in the air, 

 as it was with me on a piece of corn, in 1863. 

 This was broken up ten inches deep, the fall 

 before. Eighfy loads of compost and barn 

 3'ard manure were harrowed in on the furrow. 

 It was planted with 13,000 hills of corn, which 

 started well, but soon dwindled and proved 

 not worth harvesting. Last year I made a 

 failure on the other extreme. On less than 

 half an acre of tough barn grass sward, I 

 spread fourteen loads of barn yard manure, 

 and ploughed under and planted with corn, 

 the roots of which could not penetrate down- 

 wards in season to reach the manure, and poor 

 corn was again the result. 



Low land should be ploughed, where practi- 

 cable, even if you have to use a steel plough, 

 and be laid up in beds of about twenty fur- 

 rows each, leaving a dead furrow between for 

 water to run oil, and a compost of sand, rather 

 than muck, applied to the surface, soaked with 

 cattle urine from tbe barn yard or under the 

 stable floors, and sowed down to herdsgrass. 

 Treated in this way it will bear heavy burdens 

 of grass for a long series of years, the pro- 



ceeds of which, in the shape of barn yard ma- 

 nure, can be carried on to the high ground 

 where it is so often needed. 

 Flowage. 

 Next in order comes the subject of flowage 

 or irrigation ; not that method by which wa- 

 ter is conducted along the brows of hills in 

 ditches at great expense. I once knew a 

 young man in Gilmanton, who inherited a 

 thousand acres of land and thousands of dol- 

 lars at interest, yet came near bankruptcy by 

 digging ditches miles in extent, to irrigate his 

 fields in this way. I refer to the winter flow- 

 age of natural meadows through which a 

 stream of water runs. Only a short dam is 

 needed near the outlet to effect the purpose, 

 with a bulk- head by which the water can be 

 let on or off, and its depth regulated. Land 

 thus flowed would be enriched by an annual 

 deposit of fertilizing matter. Millions of 

 tons of hay might be added to the crops in 

 the New England States by this method. 

 This principle was also well understood by 

 the nations of antiquity. The flat fields of 

 old Egypt were fertilized by the annual over- 

 flow of Father Nile, while her once produc- 

 tive lands, lying above the reach of the en-' 

 riching waters, became a desert of shifting 

 sands. Ancient Rome, too, has remains of 

 vast works which show that the value of water 

 was well understood by the farmers of old. 

 Virgil, in Georgic 1st, says : — 



"Lo I on yon brow, whonce bubbling springs arise, 

 The peasant bending o'er the expinte below 

 Dir(c;8 the channel el waters where to flow, 

 Down the smooth rocks melodious murmurings glide, 

 And a new verdure gleams beneath the tide," 



Isaiah testifies to the same sentiment, "As 

 the rain and the snow that cometh down from 

 heaven, returneth not thither again, but wa- 

 tereth the earth and causeth it to bud and 

 blossom, and bring forth seed to the sower 

 and bread to the reaper," &c. Snow water, 

 according to Dana, contains 25 per cent, of 

 ammonia. 



[A member, Mr. T. Dow, here remarked, 

 that he "had tried it, and made a fine skating 

 pond of his field for the boys, and that his 

 crop of grass was increased four-fold, but it 

 was nothing but swamp grass ; every particle 

 of English grass was killed out. English 

 grass will not grow where the roots do not 

 freeze in winter."] 



I admit the truth of the statement. Put 

 down your gate, then, in the spring as the 

 .'^now begins to go off, and flow your land for 

 two or three weeks and you will get the full 

 benefit of the water and loose no English grass. 

 Stock. 



Next, what kind of stock shall we keep to 

 make the most money ? Since the war yearl- 

 ings and two-year-olds have nearly doubled 

 the farmer's money in one year ; cows come 

 next in profit, ofcen times doubbng the price 

 from fall to spring. As to breeds, I think ex- 

 perience teaches us that the native is best 



