THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



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-^ZZZwtVARY 6, 1844. 



nuwisLeu m U" 5 * * . , r ,,„ F » e to the Gardeners 



•"^Ibole business of farming natural ly consists 

 nf two branches, the one of which refers to the 

 taction of Vegetables, Wheat, and other Grains 

 CS and ctlfer roots, Clovers, Grasses, &c. ; ami 

 the other of which refers to the conversion of some of 

 the* into animal substances-beef, mutton, bacon, 

 milk, wool, kc. So far from this being merely an 

 ideal division, it is one which, in some parts ot the 

 country, actually exists; so that, in such districts, there 

 are two distinct lines of business connected with the 

 land-that of the farmer, who either sells his green 

 is on the ground, or carries them to his buildings 

 to pose of them there; and that of the dealer, who 

 purchases these crops and brings his sheep and his 

 cattle on the farm to consume thern.^ The principles 

 upon which these two lines of business depend for 

 <beir successful prosecution, are, of course, entirely 

 distinct, and so also, when they are separate, are the 

 qualifications required by those who would engage 

 In them. 



Now, it is with reference to the first only of these 

 two branches of the business of the farmer that 



Agriculture can he said to come in contact with 

 Horticulture— it is in the first part of the business 

 only that the principles upon which successful farming 

 depends are the same as those which should regulate 

 the practice of the gardener; and the fact of a 

 Farmers' Paper being established by the conductors of 

 the Got icr s Chronicle— an Agricultural being thus 

 grafted -by them upon a Horticultural periodical- 

 may be considered as an intimation of their wish to 

 direct the attention of their readers more particularly 

 to the details of the first branch of farming and to the 

 principles upon which those details depend. 



1 he attention of the Agricultural world has, indeed, 

 <*en or many years past, so much-and were it not 



1 ™ ,T IngS i ° f * he last y ear or two > w e might 

 w£h Vp X K US1> ; ely ^ directed t0 questions connected 

 Cto tin f ng f d man »g«nent of live stock, 



2L w ^ h g ^ll Ward - a neW P eri0dical in addition ^ 

 Wh I f ° 0nt T e t0 draw attention to this 



5 an l™Tf- T 0uld be a »«P«fluous and per- 

 howlT 223 «*■** Our readers must Sot, 



our opinion to 

 portant 



■wn of his (rrppn X™ "« """V "* —««« * »c conver- 



t«, wtri EiTJIT m the , r st p rofitab,e ™ nner 



A great deal oHi u Y & oA{siVmtT to aJn.it of this. 

 this subiect hv pf. ' ,00 > hasbe en lately thrown upon 



P«*n« ul *T Llebi «' S «P^«"> of its de- 

 animal phvsioL; , ? f or S anic chemistry and 

 *«* la^we S £ d t0 * e P ractical application of 

 *•* AU S SVT r" vite the a "e"tion of 



im 



*lt could 



branch of far 



^WweresciiPit'ii"" *7 min &g reat good would re- 



** *vS\T 'u ne ? leCt Wkh "«*«»- 

 ^,iu»":.r. n .^"has been hithpwr, ^..i 



^ASbSSi. 1 ! naS been hithert <> treated over 

 for country. 



**** *RS* T Wish t0 Wress upon our 



**«5* from an " e H y SUre ° f - that more S ood 

 !* th e knowled ll E 7° Ur t0 conce "trate, and 

 hv *l qUain ^ce with I ly P° ssesse «. and to diffuse 



rL he *"»«. 5 thi m ° deS ° f P ractice ado P ted 

 fc^ an < 1 C J? C ° Untr y ™<fer 'he various 



^f "ew principK^ an by an y atteni P t t0 e sta- 



Bu l?' , And C wh^° rCe new theorie ^ of A S"- 

 & K,lml a nd lH2 h n ,le ^ are proud to name Drs. 



fc n - D '- C fe Pr ?[ essors Henslow and 

 ft h C men a ^on R Z air ' ^ E. Solly, and other 

 Wu\ e ? n ^°re L f SU P nort 1 ers of our Paper, it 



^ W <* Practical m^^u 111 " We P oint t0 the 



n w]llch graces our columns 



to-day, consisting as it does of many of the most' 

 experienced and successful Farmers in every part 

 of the kingdom, who have given us assurances 

 of their approval and co-operation. And, with 

 them, we invite our agricultural readers to use 

 our columns as the channel for the interchange of 

 opinions on the numerous subjects connected with 

 our common occupation, and through which to 

 publish, for the benefit of all, the results of their 

 agricultural experience. 



It is said that the advantage of a Farmers Club to 

 its members consists in the opportunities which it offers 

 to each, of acquainting himself with the agricultural 

 knowledge and practices of all the others. The point of 

 perfection in the courpe of usefulness on which wp shall 

 endeavour to enter will have been then only attained 

 when all our readers shall have been thoroughly 

 brought to consider themselves as the members of one 

 large° and active Farmers' Club, ourselves occupying 

 the place of the organs of speech and hearing, through 

 which they may communicate with one another. 



To these general observations we have only to add, 

 that the following are the heads under which the 

 matter of the Agricultural Gazette will be arranged :— 



1. Leading articles, which will generally refer to 

 subjects suggested by the time of the year, and the 

 farming operations of the season. 



2. Original Matter, in the form of special 

 papers on Agricultural subjects, such as the cultiva- 

 tion of our most important plants, the management 

 adopted in certain branches of farming— the dairy, 

 for instauce, the weeds of Agriculture, Agricultural 

 Mechanics, the Agricultural history and present con- 

 dition of certain districts, and the various sciences, 

 such as Chemistry, Animal and Vegetable Physiology, 

 Geology, &c, on which the success of the farmer's 

 practice depends. Hers, too, any translations which 

 it may be deemed advisable to make from foreign 

 works on Agriculture will be placed ; and we this 

 day give No. 1 of a series of papers from the chapter 

 on Mineral Manures, in Sprengel's important Work 



on that subject. 



3. Home Correspondence. — This will, we hope, 

 become the most valuable section of the contents of 

 our Paper. The conditions under which farming is 

 carried on in this country are so various, that it is 

 impossible for any one system of Agriculture to be 

 of universal application. An Agricultural periodical, 

 to be generally useful, must therefore contain inform- 

 ation 'derived from sources widely spread over all 

 parts of the kingdom. We have already received 

 promises of contribution to this section of cur Paper 

 from many different quarters ; and we doubt not t mt 

 our readers, seeing its usefulness, will assist in the 

 compilation of this common stock of Agricultural 

 information. We shall, in our next Number, explain 

 more fully our views upon this subject. 



4. Proceedings of the English, Highland, and 

 Irish Agricultural Societies; and of the various 

 County Agricultural Societies, and Farmers' Clubs. 

 We may, however, as well announce at once that we 

 do not propose to report after-dinner speeches, except 

 upon verv special occasions. 



5. Reviews of Agricultural Works. 



6. Miscellaneous notices of events of general 

 Agricultural interest, extracts from works on Farmin 



subjects, <S:c. 



7. Notices to Correspondents ; a department ot 



the Paper which we shall endeavour to make of real 

 use. We engage that Agricultural queries sent to us 

 shall receive the attention of those competent to 



answer them. 



8. Reports of the Markets. — Under this head, 

 will" he given as full a statement as the farmer will 

 in general require for his own guidance ; and it will 

 be obtained from unexceptionable authorities, whose 

 names will, we trust, be eventually attached to the 

 several sections of which it will consist. Mark-lane 

 and Smithfield, the Wool-markets of Yorkshire, the 

 Hay, Potato, Butter and Cheese, Hop, and Manure 

 markets, will be fully reported. # 



So much for the proposed contents of the Agri- 

 cultural Gazette. As to the principles which will 

 guide us in the selection of matter, it will be sufficient 

 to say that all party questions are to he excluded, 

 as well as everything at variance with that courtesy 

 which we all owe to each other. In the execution of 

 our task we have no small satisfaction in being able 

 to rely upon the support of some of the most distin- 

 guished members of the leading Agricultural Soci- 

 eties, of some of the most eminent scientific men 

 who are now turning their attention to Agriculture, 

 and of many of the best practical farmers, Agricul- 

 tural engineers, and Agricultural writers of the 



present day. 





fully in his cabinet, acquainted accurately with the 

 nature of all the agents spread before him, and alive 

 to all the disturbing influences that mav affect his re- 

 suits, he knows that one experiment is as good as 

 a hundred, and a necessity for repeating it may not 

 be felt ; for when natural causes are exactly alike, the 

 same effects must as surely follow them as when 

 figures are dexterously combined by the arithmetician. 

 But the cultivator of the soil is in a wholly different 

 position : he has to deal with materials which, 

 although they are called by the same name, may be 

 really very different in their nature. He knows very 

 little about them ; a thousand circumstances unob- 

 served by his untrained eye may exist to disturb his 

 results, and the consequence is, that all his experi- 

 ments must be varied and repeated till a scries of aver- 

 ages will form a rough but sufficient check, to his con- 

 clusions. We may fairly doubt whether the coarse 

 operations of Gardening and Agriculture will ever 

 bear to be examined in any other way ; and if they 

 would bear it, the new results of new practices will 

 certainly fail of carrying conviction to the minds of 

 the mass of the people, unless supported by evidence 

 accumulated upon evidence/' 



Since the publication of my Letters to the Farmers 

 of Suffolk, I have had an opportunity of conversing 

 with several scientific men on the subject, and they 

 have agreed with me in considering that such a 

 scheme as that which has been suggested, if fairly 

 carried out, would speedily lead to most important 

 results. I have seen, by the local papers, that Mr. 

 Nesbitt has been very effectively inviting some of the 

 Farmers' clubs in Kent to assist in carrying out such a 

 scheme, and he has informed me that several mem- 

 bers of those clubs have expressed their readiness to 

 join in any attempt which may be made. I have re- 

 ceived a similar assurance from the neighbourhood of 

 Saffron Walden. The Rev. E. Sidney has most dili- 

 gently and efficiently been lecturing to the farmers, 

 and others, for some time past, in the neighbourhood 

 of Norwich, on scientific subjects bearing upon Agri- 

 culture ; and, from what he tells me, 1 can feel no 

 doubt that many practical men in that quarter have 

 become capable of fully appreciating, and would bf 

 willing to assist in carrying out, a general system oe 

 experimental co-operation on the very easy and 

 limited scale proposed. No doubt there are certain 

 localities in every county where a similar disposition, 

 would be found to prevail. The real difficulty ap- 

 pears to lie in the properly organising some scheme 

 for the purpose— a difficulty which, the more I think 

 of it, the more I am satisfied is very trifling. I shall 

 hope, as I may, to find time to occupy these pages 

 with a few remarks upon the subject, requesting any 

 of those correspondents who may be disposed to dis- 

 cuss it with me, either to state objections or to 

 throw out suggestions, as they may see cause for 

 doing so; in 'short, freely to examine a question 

 which some persons among the best qualified for 

 judging of its merits consider tcjbe one of real import- 

 ance to the interest of Agriculture. I have promised 

 on this occasion to state the results of an experiment 

 with which I have been favoured by C Bree, Esq., 

 of Stowmarket ; and I hope it may tend to remove 

 the scepticism of certain persons who as yet have 

 acquired no faith in the advantages to be derived from 

 science, and that it will assist in convincing them how 

 possible is it for a chemical proficient, like Liebig, to 

 make suggestions which are likely to lead to import- 

 ant practical results. Liebig had asserted that certain, 

 substances, as sulphuric acid, gypsum, &c, might be 

 serviceably employed in fixing the ammonia which 

 escapes during the putrefaction of animal and vege- 

 table manures. Mr. Brees experiments were directed 

 to the verification of this assertion, so far as regards 

 liquid manure. He filled, during the months of Feb. 

 and March, 1843, three tubs, A B C, with 56 gallons- 

 each of human urine. Into A he poured, at inter- 

 vals, 20 oz. of sulphuric acid ; in B he placed 5 lbs. 

 of burnt and 15 lbs. of unbumt gypsum ; the urine m 

 C was allowed to putrify without anything being 

 done to it. In A, decomposition appeared to be 

 completely arrested ; in B it was protracted, but 

 ultimately appeared to proceed as though no gypsun* 



had been present. 



Six patches of ground were measured out, each 

 containing eight perches, and to these the manures 

 were applied, whilst a seventh patch of 8 T V perches 

 was left unmanured for the purpose of obtaining a 

 comparative experiment. These patches were treated 

 in the following manner previously to the seed being 

 sown : 



In the early part of last year, the Editor of 



the Gardeners 1 Chronicle alluded to a suggestion 

 which had been thrown out on the importance ot 



experimental co-operation among Agriculturists in the Iliat , _ 4 ^..„^ —•----- ^n^l ™.r thp 



Mow-in<* terms ;-" When a philosopher works care- mall w ho mowed the Bailey readily pointed out the 



No. I. 10 gal. of urine and 20 gal. water\frora tub A. 



II. 15 ,. „ and 15 „ f> J (snip, acid > 



III. 10 „ „ and 20 „ „ \ from tub B. 



IV. 15 „ M and 15 ,. „ r (grnwumO 



V. 10 „ „ and 20 „ „ "I from tub C. 

 VI. IS „ „ and 15 „ „ / (nothing.) 



VII. No manure applied. 



Each patch was sown on 6th April with 13J pounds 

 of Barley and Clover. No distinct difference was at 

 first perceivable between the different crops, but the 



...l,« « rt ,r«»,l fK« P.nrlpv readilv Dointed out the 





