—1846.] 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
Lids 
OTATO EPIDEMIC. 
To AGRICULTURISTS, GARDENERS, & OTHERS. 
ARKER’S ENTYKOPROLEON, OR CHE- 
- MICAL COMPOSITION MANURE, for destroying the 
Wireworm, Grub, Mole, Insects, and Vermin inimical to the 
growth of all kinds of grain and vegetable productions, and for 
assisting vegetation. 
and S. B. PARKER in offering their Composition Manure 
to the notice of Farmers, Gardeners, and others interested in 
agricultural pursuits, do so with the perfect confidence that it 
will be found fully to effect all the objects intended, and to be 
a desideratum long and anxiously looked for by all classes of 
ersons for whose benefit it is now offered. This Manure will 
e found most effectually to destroy the fly in Turnips, to pre- 
serve corn and other seeds and grain from insects without in- 
g affecting the seed ; while, at the same time, it mates 
Tially assists and promotes vegetation. It will be found highly 
beneficial in cold and wet corn lands, keeping the young plauts 
warm, and contributing essentially to their growth 
nourishment. On meadow land, also, its beneficial qualities 
will be readily perceived, and it cannot fail to be appreciated 
as arich, cheap. 
z 
5 
a 
and invaluable Manure. 
The extraordinary disease affecting the Potato is now be- 
come an object of serious consideration, not only to the grower, 
but to the consumer ; and any expedient or specific to stop or 
diminish the malady, must be considered of the utmost im- 
portance to the i i ling t| i 
Observations, and opinions of scientific and practical men, no 
satisfactory solution of the origin or cause of the disease has 
been suggested, or any efficacious specific or remedy proposed, 
and the alarming extent of the mischief justifies and requires 
the adoption of any reasonably proposed preventive or miti- 
gant. With this view the proprietors of the Chemical Compo- 
sition Manure, confidently recommend its adoption as a perfect 
specific against the prevailing epidemic. 1e limits of an ad- 
vertisement do not allow the opportunity of giving a scientific 
exposition of the subject, or the reasons for the great efficac; 
of this Manure otherwise the proprietors fiatter themselves 
their explanation would be perfectly satisfactory. It seems to 
be the opinion of many, and particularly of one gentleman, evi- 
dently of great practical experience and observation, and who 
has written a pamphlet on the subject, that the disease origi- 
nates in the leaf, from the appearance of blotches on the 
leaves of those plants where the Potato was found diseased, 
but it is apprehended this opinion rests on most fallible 
grounds, as the blotches may as probably be the effect as the 
origin or cause of the disease. It is submitted, however, that 
the disease, whether the effect of an insect, of fungus, or of 
some peculiar state of the phere, or other undi. bl 
cause, must originate in an effect on the tuber iu the ground, 
and whilst on, or after it attains its mature growth, the proper 
remedy therefore must be applied to the soil, and the destruc- 
tive effect of this manure on all kinds of insects affecting the 
roots and germs of vegetable products, and its stimulative and 
nourishing qualities, seem leave little doubt of its efficacy 
against the Potato epidemic. The proprietors consequently, 
from their own experience, and the 
Observations of other 
HE IMPROVED HYDRAULIC RAM, 
Fixed by Freeman Roz, Fountain Maker, 70, Strand, 
London, can be v 
small stream of 
where a fall of 2 an be 
obtained. The same Ram with- 
out the aid of a Tank or Cis- 
tern arranged to throw a Jet 
r constituting a Foun- 
tain with the head of water be- 
ENGINES FOR DEEP WELLS OF ALL KINDS. DOUCHE 
AND OTHER BATHS. BUILDINGS HEATED BY HOT 
WATER. WATER WHEELS to work Small Pumps, from 151, 
Estimates given for the supply of Towns, &c. 
newly invented PORTABLE VAPOUR BATH, all com- 
plete for 4l. 
UF DINGLE’S HAND DIBBLING MACHINE 
FOR DIBBLING YOUR WHEAT. 
Prices: 
For Dibbling a single row 5 - si £ 
0 0 
0 0 
ye tà 
Ditto Udo P 
For Circulars, Testimonials, &c., apply to 
Visura E. RENDLE and Co., Plymouth. 
The Agricultural Gasetie. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WERE S. 
Tnum*pAv, Nov, 26—Agricul‘ural Imp. Soc. of Ireland. 
Agricul 
LOCAL SOCIETIES.—Gloucester—Shropham and Guiltcross, 
FARMERS? CLUBS, 
Noy, 25—Plympton St. Mary v 36—Richmond:hira 
ew'on 27—Wrenthsm — L'chfeld— 
96—Octery $t,.Mary—Blofield Hadlaigh 
and Walsham 38—Hereford— Northampton 
The meeting of the AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT 
Socrery or InzraNp, referred to in another page, 
has since been held ; the Society has resolved by a 
large majority, to suspend the operation of their 
14th rule, which provides * that no question shall be 
discussed at any of its meetings of a political ten- 
dency, or which shall refer to any matter to be 
brought forward or pending in either of the Houses 
of Parliament ;” and their first step in consequence 
with reference to Government doings in Ireland, 
has been to “ constitute themselves a committee, to 
sit from day to day, to take such measures as may 
appear advisable for obtaining accurate information 
respecting the extent of benefit to be derived from 
the present mode of providing employment, and the 
deficiencies of the same ; to report on such amend- 
ments as full deliberation should indicate to be de- | 
sirable, and respectfully to submit to the considera- | 
tion of the proper authorities from time to time such 
representations as those inquiries may supply, thus | 
embodying the collective experience and observa- 
tion of the Society at large." 
Now, on this point we must express our acqui- 
escence in what Mr. La TovcHr stated. He 
doubted their power to abrogate the fundamental 
principles on which the Society has been constituted, 
and he thought that however important the subjects 
might be which it was proposed to bring before 
them, their discussion there would inevitably lead to 
division. We believe him to be quite right, and 
that that will be the result of this movement. The 
proper business of that Society is the improvement 
of the art of Agriculture ; and with the subject of 
* Famfne-assessments," let its importance be what 
it may, this has nothing to do. There is scope 
enough in the department which does belong to it 
fcr the useful exercise of all its energies; and no 
other matter, however momentous, should have 
been allowed to intrude. 
The considerations which famine brings cannot 
be put away ; nor do we for one moment suggest 
that they should ; but members of the Agricultural 
Improvement Society should attend to them in 
their individual, not in their official capacity ; or if 
it be true that greater effect results from combined 
effort, another Society specially for acting up to 
these considerations should have been constituted. 
In a country where political feelings have the 
strength of passion, it cannot be otherwise than 
dangerous to the stability of a non-political Society 
to admit for discussion subjects the consideration of 
which must of necessity bring these feelings into 
play. 
An interesting discussion took place at the late 
Mretine or THE Lonp N Farmers CLUB: we give 
a report of it in another column, abridged (with cor- 
rections) from that which appeared in the Mark 
Lane Express. 
It is curious to observe the great want of confi- 
dence prevalent among agriculturists, as among the 
professors of all manual arts, in the truth which has 
been so extensively proved, that USE OF MACHINERY 
is always part of the system which employs the 
greatest number of hands. ‘The introduction of 
threshing-machines might be ‘economical,’ but it 
could not be ‘good’—not merely because of its 
work not being so perfect, but because, in a coun- 
try like ours, with so large a labouring population, 
it is necessary to avoid all that lesseus our means 
of employing them.” That was the spirit of much 
that was spoken the other night at the Farmers’ 
Club house.. The motive that was insisted on is 
doubtless good, but it will never lead an intelligent 
man to reject threshing-machines, The way to 
find employment for labourers is to improve agricul- 
ture in all its details. No doubt so far as the pre- 
paration of grain is concerned, the employment of 
machines diminishes labour; but as regards the 
whole art of farming, of which this is but one small 
item, the result is very different. Everything which 
cheapers any of the processes, and therefore the 
products of any business, tends, by increasing the 
demand for those products, to attract capital to 
their manufacture ; and the invariable result of that 
is to give increased scope for the employment of 
labour. 
This is a real chain of cause and effect; and 
worthy of more confidence than it generally receives. 
Our readers will have seen (p. 748) that the 
Council of the English Agricultural Society 
have instructed their Lecturer at the ensuing 
annual meeting in London to confine himself to 
explanations and illustrations of the chemical and 
physical properties of the elementary substances 
referred to in works on Agricultural Chemistry. 
He is to avoid speculation on the methods of 
improving agriculture which may suggest them- 
selves to one acquainted with the sciences of 
Chemistry and Vegetable Physiology ; he is simply 
to use the opportunity given him so as to impart to 
his audience a greater ability than many of them 
may possess for the due understanding and appre- 
ciation of scientific works on Agriculture. 
The object he is to aim at is well worthy of the 
best efforts of any man—the lectures to be deli- 
vered by Dr. Ryan* with a view to its attainment 
will no doubt be highly interesting and useful. If 
the instructions issued for the guidance of that 
gentleman be intended merely to ensure a 
full discussion of the particular points to which, 
on the present occasion, it has been resolved, 
as a matter of special importance, to direct the 
attention of the members, no objection can be 
taken to them. But they are liable to be .under- 
stood, or, we hope, misunderstood, as signifying the 
miud of the Council that the speculations referred 
to are of comparatively small value. We cannot 
* In the theatre of the Polytechnic Institution on the 9th. 
and 10th of December next. 
believe that so wide a departure will ever be made 
from the Society's motto as this would imply, To 
judge thus would be to cut off one of the two great 
sources of agricultural improvement. For this can 
only be looked for in one of two ways, either by ap- 
plying the skill which practice has already conferred, 
or by experimenting in accordance with the known 
laws of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. 
The latter is that to which scientifie men ne- 
cessarily confine themselves; their speculations 
have already in many instances been eminently 
useful; and for agriculturists to think meanly of 
them is not only ungrateful and unjust, but in the 
highest degree impolitic. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH ARTIFICIAL 
MANURES, &e. 
Feriye that agriculturists need rather the spur than 
the rein, in running their course of improvements, it is not 
without some reluctance that I enter upon the details 
of failures and disappoi in submitting theory te 
he test of practice ; but as, in navigation, a chart 
would be of no use unless it laid down the shoals which 
a ship must avoid, so in agriculture the progress of 
knowledge cannot be secured unless the dangers are 
pointed out that await the cultivator, and the difficulties 
which impede his march. Facts will spring up from 
time to time which require explanation, and objections 
which demand an answer ; and they should not be kept 
out of sight or pushed aside, but boldly confronted. 
The evidence on both sides, both for and against any 
particular practice, should be fairly balanced, and since 
two opposite conclusions cannot both be true, inquiry 
should be stimulated to detect the fallacy involved in 
that which we reject, and so we may discover more 
certain rules to insure suecess, Guano is known by 
general experience to be a very active fertilizer of the 
soil, and many would be ready to say, in order to feed 
a greater quantity of stock, why do you not increase 
the productiveness of your meadows by manuring them 
with guano; no doubt it will pay you well? I have 
tried it this year as a top-dressing, but entirely without 
success, as the subjoined experiments will show :— 
Cost of | 
Manure. | 058- 
[Weight of Hay. 
®| Tns. ewt. Is. | s. d. fis d. 
8 
1. Without manure, p. acre. $ 3 64 
13 cwt. of Guano and 3| 
bushels of Charcoal ..| 1 10 100 | 15 9 |6 3 
itO LE iaee ig 9-88. A E 
2. Without manure AE ET 
14 cwt. of Guano and 3 
bushels of Chareoal..| 1 11 48 | 14 51 
3: Without manure........| L 8 64 
lj cwt, of Guano and 3 | 
bushels of Charcoal..| 1 10 53 | 13 6 |511 
Without manure . 1 10 106 
14 cwt. of Guano. il 18 81 | 13 5:5 
5. Without manure . LATAS 
wt. o: ^ 1...9.,58.| 18-6 MEN 
6. Without manure . d 4055 
13 ewt. of Guano. Fee eet rae 109 
7. Without manure ... 2 7 3 | | 
"1b owt. of Guano 
cious. It cannot be said that the soil had reached that 
maximum point of fertility beyond which it cannot be 
stimulated ; neither can it be said that the guano was 
effete and powerless, for portions of three different 
cargoes were tried, and though they were not minutely 
analysed, yet l ascertained that they were not adulte- 
rated with the earths, and that they abounded in am- 
moniaeal salts. I can only conjecture that the car- 
bonate of ammonia, of which it smelt very strongly, 
being volatilised and diffused through the air, was 
carried down by the rains upon the Grass, for which 
it was not intended; and perhaps this conjecture is in 
some degree countenanced by observing the superior 
efficacy of sulphate of ammonia, which is a salt so much 
less volatile than the carbonate, in two instances ; 
indeed out of five there was a trifling loss ; in the first 
not more than 9d., and in the second 5d.; but the 
others gave ample compensation, In the third case the 
gain was 2s. ld. ; in the fourth, 5s. 10d. ; in the fifth, 
6s. lO0d.; but the most remarkable success was that 
obtained by a manure whieh every farmer should pre- 
serve with the greatest care, for it is within his own 
premises, and needs only to be conducted into a tank 
to be constantly ready fer use. 640 gallons of the 
drainings from the cow-house, mixed with 40 Ibs. of 
sulphuric acid, to convert the carbonate of ammonia 
which it contained into the sulphate, the cost being 
4s. 2d., produced an increase of hay to the value of 
12, 6s. 3d. per acre. With respect to corn, my attention 
has been directed this year to ascertain by weight and 
measure the merits of different modes of cultivation, 
and also to the means of obtaining successive crops o 
Wheat, year after year, upon the same ground. First, 
then, upon comparing the produce of three lands, one 
of which was dibbled, the second broadcast, and the 
third drilled, it appeared that the dibbled gave half a 
bushel more than either of the others (36 bshls. 4 galls.), 
