280 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



plains of sorrel is not a good farmer — is not thoroiigh ; liis tools are liung- 

 ling and cut of order, and he is never ready to begin work when he ought 

 to be. Consequently, weeds grow and go to seed, and tlie winds scatter 

 them, and he becomes a curse to the neigliborliood. Manuring is the start- 

 ing-post of all good farming, then thorough culture, and success is certain. 

 Keep traveling threshing machines off (he premiees, and you are pretty 

 safe from sorrel, dock, red-root, and all annoyances of the sU)thful farmer." 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter.— I think that this writer must be in error in re- 

 gard to man;ire being an antidote to sorrel. Some of the best manured 

 farms in my neighborhood are just as much infested with sorrel as those 

 ■which are never manured, and as for traveling threshing machines, they 

 are unknown. It is regarded as a fact by all farmers near the sea-coast 

 that all liclds manured with fisli arc infested with sorrel. The only manure 

 that I know of that will prevent it is lime used freely. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I believe salt equally efiHcacious. I believe the 

 salt and lime mixture would be still more valuable. This is made by 

 slaking lime with water saturated with salt. The lime should then be ex- 

 posed to the atmosphere until the surface of the heap becomes a light, dry 

 powder, wliicli may be applied to the soil, to muck or manure, to assist its 

 decomposition. 



Cultivating Prairies without Fences. 



Mr. Daniel F. Rogers, Watham, La Salle county'-, Illinois. — I wish the 

 Club would continue to keep it before the people and the people before the 

 Clul), thiit farm fences are one remnant of J)arbarism, and a man who runs 

 his cattle, hogs, or other stock upon the highways or commons without 

 herdsmen, is another. I have no faith in legislating reforms, but the press 

 and other agencies that can reach the ear and intluence the action of public 

 sentiment, are the tools to work with. The peri(jdical minutes of the Club 

 are more Avelcomc and are read with a deeper interest than any farming 

 paper in the land, and their enormous circulation givesthem a power second 

 to none. Through their means we hope t,o some day rid this praiuie of tlie 

 two nuisances mentioned, peculiarly troublesome here where lumber is so 

 high and farm labor so scarce and at j)resent so worthless. 



It costs to-day $5,000 to surround and cross-fence into 80 acre lots a 

 Section (640 acres) of land, saying nothing about dividing into lots for 

 pasturing, &c., enough to build a good, yes, a fine house and baru upon 

 every quarter, and nine-tenths of this expense of fencing is a useless waste 

 of lumber and time', as far as the owner is concerned: only if he don't build 

 this barrier — this Chinese wall — his Tartar neighbors will turn their cattle 

 and hogs upon him, and eat up his crops, trample his meadows, rub down 

 his fruit trees, and howl at his frontdoor for the little he may have inside 

 the house. And this in a country to which we are proudly inviting those 

 who arc seeking homes — cheap homes — to come, and find peace and plenty. 

 Some counties in the State have, by commiui consent, adopted the rule of 

 uo fences — no law about it, except that sternest of laws — public opinion. 

 Livingston county is just now the poor man's paradise; for .though he may 

 be fifty miles from wood, coal, stone, lumber, lime, tree, bush, or stream of 

 water, and have to burn rosin wood for fuel, he can ride all day of a sum- 



