1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



309 



always. There can be no controversy con- 

 cerning the propriety of draining in such in- 

 stance. 



A soil liable to injury from the slightest ac- 

 cession of drought is semi-effete ; thorough 

 drainage will improve it, profitably. And 

 this is the point where my good friend Royal 

 Smith's imputed controversy with me begins. 

 There are very few light, arable soils, un- 

 draincd, into which any farmer would be wil- 

 ling — even had he the power — to run a furrow 

 of twelve inches in depth. By doing so he 

 would cover up the active soil, and bring to 

 the surface a barren subsoil that would in no 

 way favor the chances of a good crop. Even 

 should his seed survive and grow, it would do 

 so under the most unfavorable condition ; for 

 it could not send its roots lower than the orig- 

 inal depth of the furrow, where they would 

 be drowned or starved according as the 

 weather might be wet or dry. Cereals will 

 penetrate the soil thirty inches in search of 

 food and water where nature supplies them 

 with the means. They have been known — as 

 I have already said — to go down, perpendic- 

 ularly, double that distance. And is it not 

 the duty of the farmer to supply all those con- 

 ditions to his crops that their healthy nature 

 demands ? 



1 am old enough to remember the advent of 

 modern draining, and have heard the same 

 objection implied by your able correspondent 

 asserted with a positiveness utterly foreign to 

 Mr. Smith's nature ; but I Avas permitted to 

 see many, very many, confutations of the the- 

 ory — that dry land needed no draining — in the 

 pleasing shapes of largely increased crops ; in 

 one particular instance mentioned in my old 

 note-book, of one-third the second year after 

 the drains had been made. 



Had I present time, and you, Mr. Editor, 

 room to spare, I could demonstrate, satisfac- 

 torily, I believe, the fact that dry lands, for 

 crop cultivation, demand draining, and that 

 the profit would pay for more than the labor 

 and outlay. But these proofs are designed to 

 constitute part of the details of a series of 

 papers, I intend hereafter to inflict upon your 

 good nature and suffrage. 



But let me mention a very extreme instance 

 of experiment, which I will refer to my friend, 

 Mr. Smith's consideration as being somewhat 

 illustrative of the power and etfect of drain- 

 age. Forty years ago, Avhen my farming was 

 not done at the fireside, and when draining 

 was in its modern infancy, and infested with 

 any number of the crudest theories in its fa- 

 vor and in its opposition, a gentleman who was 

 land steward to the Duke of Portland, on one 

 of his estates in Ayrshire, Scotland, and a 

 great enthusiast on the thorough draining side 

 of the question, took it into his head to level 

 and drain a sandy spot about three-quarters 

 of an acre in extent, on the verge of a rabbit 

 warren. There was hardly a sign of vegeta- 

 tion on the lot ; only here and there a spear 



of some kind of sea-grass rose like a bayonet 

 point, and was almost as sharp. The spot . 

 was fenced in to keep the sand from blowing 

 over it, and parallel trenches, five feet deep, 

 were dug and filled up two feet or more with 

 brush wood. This was in the fall. Next 

 spring the lot was harrowed and sown down 

 with rape. This gave but a very feeble crop, 

 which was ploughed in and vetches soAvn. 

 This crop made also a very slim show, and 

 was ploughed down in the late fall. The 

 same processes were followed the second year, 

 and the third the lot was laid down to rye and 

 grass. Ten years after it was drained, being 

 in the neighborhood, I thought of the experi- 

 ment and visited the spot. It was at that 

 time used as a bowling green ; and as it had 

 been much trodden upon, and partially mowed, 

 I could form no ade(juate idea of its fertility. 

 But one of the laborers took out sods from 

 the surface at five different points, which 

 showed an active soil varying from five to 

 eight inches ! It never had been manured or 

 cultivated only as I have described. The gen- 

 tleman who made the experiment told me that 

 for r)-e and carrot cultivation the many thou- 

 sand acres of barren sand along the coast, on 

 which it lay could be profitably improved in 

 the same way ; and that in our opinion, there 

 was no kind of land, situated so that it could 

 be cultivated, that could not be profitably im- 

 proved by drainage. I believed him then — 

 and I do so now. A Fireside Farmer. 



MAKING MANURE OF MUCK. 

 A farmer in New Jersey sent a letter to J. 

 Harris, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y. asking how 

 to use muck to the best advantage, when to 

 dig it, and what minerals, »&c., to mix with it 

 to remove the sourness and make it good ma- 

 nure, and enclosed $10 to pay for a reply. 

 As Mr. H. is an editor, he returns the money, 

 and prints the following reply, which for aught 

 we know is just as valuable to the, inquirer, 

 and to thousands of other readers, as it would 

 have been if each one had received written di- 

 rections, and paid his ten dollars for the ad- 

 vice. After admitting that he had not used as 

 much muck in the past as he intends to in the 

 future, he says in the American Agriculturist : 



"An average sample of air dried peat con- 

 tains more than twice as much nitrogen as 

 stable manure ; and there can be no doubt of 

 its value. The trouble is, that the plant food 

 it contains is in a comparatively insoluble con- 

 dition. It is 'sour,' but merely neutralizing 

 the acids is not enough. The aim should be 

 to decompose it by fermentation. Anything . 

 that will accomplish this will render the plant- 

 food available. The first thing is to get rid 

 of the water. Throw up the muck in June or 



