170 



NEW ENGT.AND FARMER. 



April 



men who make the rait^inft of flower and vegeta- 

 ble seeds a specialty ; in the last nuinhcr of the 

 Fakmeu I notice nine different advertisements of 

 flower and ve.icetalile seeds alone, without a single 

 intimation wla^re farmers can get a pound of fowl 

 meadow, red top or orchard grass. 



Cabot, Vt., Feb. 13, lull. A. M. Foster. 



Remahks. — Most farmers lind it important to 

 sow some gi-ain crop with grass seed in the spring, 

 to prevent weeds getting possession of the land, if 

 bj- dronght, or any other cause, the grass seed 

 should fail to come. Moist landsnnay be seeded to 

 grass in August or September, and unless the soil 

 becomes very dry, the seed will come readily and 

 grow well. 



The quantity of seed usually applied by good 

 fanners in this region is one bushel of red top, and 

 one peck of herds-grass seed per acre, and in the 

 following spring, early in April, eight to twelve 

 pounds of clover seed per acre. Some farmers 

 sow only half a bushel of red top, and six quarts 

 of herds-gi-ass, but a long experience convinces us 

 that it is poor economy to seed lightly. 



"Wheat is an excellent crop to "seed down" with. 

 Barley is next. A heavy crop of oats shuts out 

 the sun too much. The young grass is very ten- 

 der, and when the oats are cut, if there is a hot 

 sun and dry surface, the gi-ass is frequently killed. 



"VVe hope your hint to dealers in grass seed will 

 prompt them to send in their advertisements of 

 grass seed immediately. They would, undoubt- 

 edly, find their account in so doing. 



THE USE OF SALT. 



In your issue of the llth inst., in a communica- 

 tion under the head of preparing food for stock, 

 mention is made of a certain physician, who has 

 kept swine aiid horses witli good success for nnmy 

 years without the use of salt. I have occasionally 

 seen in the Faumer and other papers sometliing 

 similar to tlie above. . Having had some experience 

 in the disuse of salt, I wish to add my testimony 

 to what has be n written on the subject. 



For tile last thirty years I have fed almost no 

 salt at all to my catVle and horses, (not a quart in 

 the wliolc time,)" and have never had a sick animal, 

 while my neighliors who have fed salt frequently 

 to their cattle, have nearly or quite all lost more 

 or less by disease. This fact shows to me, not 

 merely tliat cattle and horses am do without salt 

 without injury, but that they can do better without 

 it than witli it. 



I would add that I have avoided the use of salt 

 in my own diet for several years, and the result 

 lias been highly favoralde to my health. 



If the dietetic use of salt is an injury instead of 

 a necessity, as many would have us believe, the 

 best interests of huniaiiity requires that it should 

 be known. If the words of a distinguished pliysi- 

 ologist are true, it is important that they shouUl lie 

 known and heeded. He says, in closing his re- 

 marks on the dietetic use of salt : — 



"From my own extended and careful obsen-a- 

 tions, during the last eight years, I have been 

 strongly ])ressed to the conclusion that the dietetic 

 use of salt is largely eoneerned in the i)roduction 

 of cancers and other glandulous diseases of the 

 human system, and lam entirely certain that it 

 exceedingly aggravates many chronic diseases, and 

 have little doubt that it increases the liability of 

 the body to diseases of eveiy kind, that it is di- 



rectly conducive to scrofulous, pulmonary and 

 cutaneous alfections, and disorders of the mucous 

 membrane; in short, there is every reason to be- 

 lieve that it not only serves to predispose the hu- 

 mnn body to every form of disease, lait also serves 

 to aggravate every species of disease when actually 

 induced, and that it serves t) hasten jnemature old 

 age by rendering the solids di"y, rigiil ami inelas- 

 tic." IJ. Bills. 

 Mendon, Mass., Feb., 15, 1S71. 



DOES IT PAY TO RAISE CORN ? 



I will give my experience the ])ast season on 

 aliout two and one-quarter acres of ground. The 

 account stands thus : — 

 Cost of cultivatiiii; and liarvosting . . . $70 00 



]5nrn yjiril manure 25 00 



riiosphate applied in hill 16 00 



$H1 00 



Credit by 110 bushels corn $1IU00 



" 6 loads stalks 40 00 



$150 00 



Leaving a balance of .'$'39, for the use of the land ; 

 or pcrhajjs it should be ^on, for I consider that the 

 phosphate I used was worse than thrown away, in 

 consequence of the drought. 1 jilaccd it direct]}- 

 n contact with the corn when ])lanting; and the 

 result was I had to replant my field." I applied 

 fifty loads of manure to the field, but consider that 

 the corn ci-op is justly chargalde to but one-half of 

 the manure. It is doul)tful if it should Ite charged 

 with even this much, for I think it furnished veiy 

 little food to the growing crop in conscfiuenee of 

 the drought. 



The result of my experience has led me to be- 

 lieve that it will pay to i-aise corn in this vicinity; 

 hut it is an open question with me whether a dairy- 

 man can aiFord to i-aise corn, or in fact, whether 

 any Eastern farmer can. Some dairymen in our 

 vicinity have abandoned it, and use their manure 

 as a top dressing on their meadows. By so doing 

 they have largely incrcas'ed their yield of hay and 

 at the same time impi'ovcd their land, at a much 

 less cost of labor. I should like some one M'ho 

 has tried the use of manure as a top dressing to 

 give the result of their experience. 



James C. johnson 



Monroe, Conn., Feb. 21, 1811. 



HOW MAXIRE IS LOST. 



Your correspondent "C," Wilmington, Vt., has 

 an article in the Monthly Faumeu, January, 1871, 

 page 55, hi which he says some things that are cor- 

 rect and some things which I think are not correct. 



After speaking of the opinion that olitained a few 

 years ago as to the application of manure, and the 

 change of opinion which he says has taken place 

 on that subject, lie asks the question, "When ma- 

 nure leaves the soil, does it go u]) or down ? ' I 

 answer, it goes both ways. Manure is a great trav- 

 eller, and its great thoroughfare is that thin trans- 

 parent fluid which surrounds the earth. 



Now to illustrate, suppose C.'s 100 pcumds of su- 

 gar to be placed in a hot fire and burned, does the 

 sugar then go up ? Yes, except a small item oi 

 aslies. The rotting or decay of vegetal)le and ani- 

 mal substances is a slow process of burning. The 

 principle in each case is the same and the result is 

 the same. Hence we have instances where a STib- 

 staiice passes from one state to the other, called 

 sixjutaneous combustion. 



All vegetable and animal substances when com- 

 ing in contact with air and moisture in a warm cli- 

 mate are subject to decay. This ])roiess separates 

 them into their elements. They become again in- 

 corporated either with earth, air or water. What 

 goes into the air is for the general benefit of grow- 

 ing plants. What is retained in the soil becomes 

 local, and of course benefits the individual. 



