•■:'W!'Si^:-r' 



1863. 



THE ILLINOIS f AKMEE. 



295 



that the water did not remain on the surface to 

 produce the former compactness. 



In the fall of 1862, twenty acres more were 

 drained with the mole plough. The cost of the 

 mole drains was but ten cents a rod ; so that if it 

 should be necessary to renew them or to make 

 others, after the lapse of five or six years, the 

 expense will not be fomidable. The fall on most 

 of this land is very slight, in some instances only 

 an inch to the rod ; yet it is suflScient. The drains 

 discharge into a deep gutter, which was made in 

 building a road that runs parallel to the field. 



Reference was made above to the use of manure 

 on the sandy soil. The manure has been obtained 

 from hogs kept on the place, and from the horses 

 here employed. A large quantity of ofiFal comes 

 from the tables of the Tremont House, with which 

 Mr. Gage feeds his hogs. He also buys that of the 

 Briggs House, another large hotel in the city — 

 paying $200 a year for what is obtained at both 

 rouses. He sells seyenty-five fat hogs annually, 

 besides many y«ung pigs. The first hogs were a 

 selection comprising the best to be had in the 

 vicinity. These were crossed with Mr. Wentworth's 

 fine Suffolks, and the offspring again crossed with 

 the same breed. A hundred selected shotes of 

 this grade which are to take the place of the old 

 stock, are such as would be hard to beat for thrifti- 

 ness and good points. 



From what "has been said it will appear that only 

 about thirty acres of Mr. Gage's land has as yet 

 been brought into a fully productive state, twenty 

 acres having been drained last fall. It would 

 therefore be wrong to take any returns yet made 

 as representing the capabilities of the fifty acres. 

 I mHy state, however, that the receipts for the year 

 ending April 1, 1863, amounted to $5, 720; that 

 the receipts from April first, 1863, to July first- 

 three months — were $\,11B- 68. Of this amount 

 1800 were received for strawbeefies from an acre 

 and a half of ground, and the crop is not'all picked. 

 They are sold m the hull at f 4 per bushel. They 

 are chiefly Wilson's seedling, which is said to be 

 the m'ost profitable variety for this section. Cer- 

 tainly the yield here and at several other places in 

 the State where I have seen it, is very great. 



The appearance of all the crops indicates that 

 the aggregate returns from the land this year will 

 considerably exceed those of any former year. 

 Mr. Gage says he will send me, at the close of the 

 year, a detailed statement of the receipts, with 

 some remarks on the relative profits of different 

 crops. The general management of the superin- 

 tendent, Mr. Emery, is highly creditable. He had 

 a long experience in " market gardening " before 

 he left Massachusetts, and in his new field of 

 operations he has evinced judgment and close 

 observation by adapting his plans and practice to 

 the surrounding circumstances. Some points in 

 his management deserve mention. It has been a 

 desideratum to obtain early melons of the canta- 

 loupe family, for which the sandy ridge of land 

 before mentioned is well adapted. But without 

 protection the plants were so much injured by 

 winds that they would not thrive. Mr. Emery has 

 therefore adopted the plan of putting the melons 

 between rows of peas. He peas are planted for 

 an early crop and are stvck with brush. Spaces 

 of five or six feet »re left between the peas, at 

 proper intervals, for the melons, which are trans- 

 planted from' hot beds. The pea-vines together 



with the sticks on which they ran, are allowed to 

 remain after the peas are gathered, and by this 

 means the force of the wind is so broken that the 

 melons grow finely and bear early and abundantly. 



Mr. Emery has been very successful in the cul- 

 ture of celery, which thrives admirably on the 

 black heavy soil after it has been drained. His 

 mode of keeping it through the winter is to pack 

 it in the sandy ridge, before describsd. A furrow 

 six or seven inches deep is first made, along the 

 side of which the celery plants are placed in a 

 single row as closely as they can stand. A little 

 earth is then thrown against them, and another 

 row of celery laid as before. When the crop has 

 thus been secured, a layer of prairie hay is spread 

 over the bed, additional layers being applied as 

 the coldness of the waather requires, just enough 

 being given to prevent the celery from freezing. 

 From this bed it is taken for market, daily, in the 

 finest condition. The system probably would not 

 answer except in a porous soil. 



Mr. Gage's operations must be regarded as of no 

 little importance to the public, furnishing as they 

 do an example of what may be done with soil that 

 has been considered unfit for the purposes to which 

 he devotes it. The great benefits which he has 

 shown may be derived from drainage, and the 

 cheap rate at which the work may be performed, 

 will probably lead to an extensive practice of the 

 system in the immediate neighborhood ©f Chicago, 

 where it is much needed. I. should have mentioned 

 before, that apple, pear and cherry trees which 

 have been set on the drained land, are thriving 

 handsomely. — Rured Mew Yorker. 



Miarket Gardening. 



The following report on Market Gardening is 

 quoted from a discussion at a meeting of the 

 Farmers' Club of Fitchburg, Massachusetts: 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 



Mr. W. G. Wyman gave a few items fron 

 own experience in market gardening, which, he 

 said, had; not been extensive or varied, and yet he 

 presumed some statements of the little he had 

 accomplished, would be as acceptable as anything 

 he could say. He deemed the selection and pre- 

 paration of the soil one of the first requisites of 

 success. Ordinarily he would select a warm dry 

 soil, with a southern exposure, but in his own case 

 he had taken a comparatively cold, tenacious, thin 

 soil, with an eastern exposure, becai»e of the 

 position near his buildings, and had expended 

 more than $100 per acre in removing the stones, 

 underdraining and trenching, thus creating, in 

 connection with the manure applied, a loose mellow 

 soil of the depth of from fifteen to eighteen inches, 

 on a field, which, while it had all the appearances 

 of a smooth and reasonably fertiFe mowing field, 

 had probably never before been worked to the 

 average depth of more than four inches. The 

 immediate effects of bringing so large a quantity 

 of subsoil to the surface at once, he said, are not 

 usually satisfactory. An immense amount of ma- 

 nure should be thoroughly intermixed with the 

 whole loosened soil, and~even then the results will 

 not be so encouraging as afler two or three year's 

 exposure to the frosts of winter and the heats of 

 summer. New subsoil requires long exposure to 



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