724 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



[Oct. 26, 



my servant emptied the brine from a pickled pork tub, 



undiluted, upon the Gross lawn in my garden in the 



autumn. The lawn was originally laid with turf, taken 



from a wet unproductive heath adjoining -Mr. Mechi's 



farm, just now of great celebrity. The consequence was 



the entire destruction of all appearauce of vt -able life 



for the following summer, the pitches looking like 



brown paper. The second summer a -canty show of 



feeble blades of Grass came up. The third year the 



patches were covered with a crowded plant of white 



Clover ! and nothing else; and so vigorous was the growth, 



that I had them mown four or five times. Fifteen years 



have elapsed, the lawn has been regularly mown, and the 



Grasses have now overcome the Clover, but not entirely. 



The heath or waste from which the turf was taken, never 



shows a Clover plant, and probably has not for ages- 1 



wish the lord of the manor would let this waste to Mr. 



Mechi ; I think that gentleman would try to develope its 



productive and hidden mysteries. — Henry Dixon, 



intham. . , 



Stones on Land.— Vrij, sir, may I be allowed to as*, 

 in contradiction to the opinion of some of our would-be- 

 thought farmers here,what utility stones are to the land.- 

 A farmer adjoining me will not allow one to be touched, 

 whereas I have sufficient, which I rake off annually and 

 cart away to supply the roads with. My crops are as 

 good as ever— my friend's mostly weeds ; in fact, his 

 farm seems, to a casual observer, cropped with both 

 weeds and stoaes.— Verax. [In shallow soils they pre- 

 serve the moisture which in diy weather would otherwise 



soon evaporate.] t . 



The Proper Direction of the Traces in Harness — It is 

 universally admitted that the best way of applying the 

 power of horses is by means of shafts or traces, to car- 

 riages. The best position of the traces, or shafts, when 

 a horse is made to exert himself to draw in a carriage, is 

 so well known and understood by those who are daily in 

 the habit of M hanging to," that it needs scarcely be no- 

 ticed. The trace, when a horse leans forward to draw, 

 should become perpendicular to the collar, and parallel 

 to the plane of the road on which he is moving. In 

 moving up a hill, the trace should become parallel to the 

 plane of ascent. When he is standing at ease, the direc- 

 tion of the trace should be a little upwards ; because, 

 when urged to draw, he leans forward, and in doing so, 

 he lowers the forepart of his body, which will tend to 

 bring the trace parallel to the plane when his power is 

 fully applied. If any deviation from the parallel be 

 admitted, it is desirable such deviation should incline 

 upwards rather than downwards. If the direction were 

 downwards below the parallel, the power of the animal 

 would have a tendency to increase the friction, by pulling 

 the wheels into the cavities of the road. After contem- 

 plating on these remarks, the following suggestions pre- 

 sent themselves : — The radius of the fore-wheels should 

 be less than the height from the road to the point of 

 draught on the shoulder of the animal. The shaft or 

 pole should be hung on a level with the centre of the 

 wheel. The least horse, or rather the horse of lowest 

 stature in a team, ought to be selected for the shafts, 

 and he ought not to be so low as to cause them to incline 

 downwards towards the road. In selecting a team, the 

 tallest horse should be placed first, and the others ought 

 to be so placed as to descend regularly down to the sta- 

 ture of the shaft-horse, in order to preserve a continued 

 ascent in the line of traction. If a regular line of ascent 

 be not preserved, as it will not, by placing a low horse 

 between two tall ones, it is not difficult to show that a 

 portion of their power will be lost in acting against one 

 another, and thus render their united effect not so power- 

 ful as it might be by a different and proper arrangement. 

 To individuals acquainted with the elementary principles 

 of Mechanics, these suggestions will appear natural and 

 obvious ; but, in practice, it is known that the temper, 

 age, and steadiness of the animal mostly regulate the 

 situation in which we find him placed in the team ; and 

 therefore deviations from the rule laid down respecting 

 stature will often be necessary, and perhaps desirable. 

 In teams of perfectly well-trained horses, the rule may be 

 adopted with advantage. [From M Elements of Road 

 Engineering, by a Practical Surveyor."]— J. B. 



Cheese. — May I ask of you why is Dutch cheese 

 always inferior in flavour, &c, to our English— has a 

 bad sale always, and is at last driven out ot the market 

 by the American, the flavour and richness of which is 

 so superior ? I fancy the reason to be that their method 

 of soiling their cows in house always, is the main cause 

 of their ill-flavoured cheese and butter. Cut food given 

 to cows never answers so well as the natural pasturing 

 of the animal — so I have found, after several years keep- 

 ing cows. Soiling cattle for the butcher is one thing, 

 and the soiling of cows for their milk is another ; although 

 the animal lives and does well, and is quite healthy — 

 fori have had them 5 years constantly in house. — Delta. 

 Manures. — I perceive in the wholesale prices of 

 manures inserted in the Agricultural Gazette, the first 

 article is alum 12/. per ton. Pray in what manner is 

 this used as a manure, and to which crop ? I have on 

 my farm several lodes or veins of fullers-earth, particu- 

 larly one in a coppice wood, which is very rich and good 

 in appearance ; but on dissolving it, it has too great a 

 proportion of sand or silex I suppose in it, and therefore 

 does not suit the fullers of cloth. Now, if alum be 

 adapted for manure, there being so great a proportion of 

 it in fullers-earth, could not the application of this I have 

 so much of, be of service in agriculture ? If so, pray do 

 me the favour to say how it should be applied, and to 

 which crop.— Delta. [Fuller's earth does not generally 

 contain alum ; see the notice of it in " Jameson's Mine- 

 ralogy."] 



Plantation on Sand-hills. — In an article dated Inver- 

 ness, and apparently contributed by Mr. Anderson, 

 Secretary to the Farmers' Club in that district, an in- 

 teresting account is given of the attempt of R. 

 Grant, Esq., of Kilcorth, to clothe his sind-hills with 

 wood, an/1 it seems in a great measure to have succeeded 

 in spite of many obstacles. One great difficulty is fix- 

 ing the sand, another is the ravages of rabbits, both 

 common to all lands so situated. The best plant to grow 

 is Sea Buckthorn— the botanical name I do not at 

 this moment recollect. It is a native of the North East 

 coast of Britain, and grows plentifully on the sea shore 

 in East Lothian, where many acres of fiue Wheat land 

 in that rich district have been saved from being covered 

 with sand, as may be seen near Lord Wemyss's, at 

 Gosford, from whose liberality no doubt plants can be 

 procured. It may also be propagated by seed, which in 

 some seasons is very plentiful, but being once planted 

 the difficulty is keeping it within bounds, as it spreads 

 itself by runners and off-sets— rabbits will not touch it. 

 The Sea-Buckthorn grows quite high enough to shelter 



young trees, as may be also seen at Gosford. — M. D. P. 

 Magnesia.— In the " Oxford Encyclopaedia," article 

 " Agriculture," I read—' 1 By the application of magne- 

 sian earth to ground producing Sorrel, both the acid 

 (oxalic) will be neutralised, and the oxalate of potash de- 

 composed, by which means the alkali will be disengaged, 

 and put into a situation to act upon and dissolve the 

 inert vegetable matter in the soil. The salt formed by 

 the combination of the magnesian earth with the oxalic 

 acid will, as well as the vegetable matter dissolved by the 

 alkali, be found to promote vegetation in a very high de- 

 gree. By the application of alkaline salts to Sorrel, 

 there results a salt fully neutralised, which also highly pro- 

 motes the growth of more valuable plants and grain." 

 Will you kindly assist me to apply these principles ? 1st, 

 What is this magnesian earth, and how am I to obtain and 

 apply it ? 2d, I hold a field overrun with Sorrel, wh ich I have 

 just ploughed ; am I to harrow out and take off the Sor- 

 rel, or leave it to the operation of the magnesian earth ? 

 It is a Barley stubble, having previously had Wheat. 

 3d, The land is a sharp gravel, which has been exhausted 

 by overcropping without manure, and is therefore very 

 poor. I had thought of chalking the field about 4 acres, 

 but I wish to try magnesia, which is said by the above 

 authority to have a better effect, if you will inform me 

 how to proceed. — Tyro. [Most limestones contain 

 magnesia ; some of those occurring in central England 

 contain it in large quantities. You can use 50 or GO 

 bushels per acre of such limestone, burnt, and in a 

 caustic state ; let it slake under a thickish cover of your 

 soil, and then spread it abroad and plough it under. We 

 do not know how far the views of the writer you quote 

 are correct : he means apparently that the plants should 

 be allowed to live, but this is incompatible with good 

 husbandry. You had better plough it all down together, 



and any potash salts which it contains, if they come in 

 contact with the magnesia, will be decomposed. Manure 



well in spiing, and grow some root-crop. About guano, 



see "Notices to Correspondents. ''] 



Tile-draining. — The following observations were 



made at the Lytham Agricultural Association, by Wilson 



France, Esq., of Rawcliffe-hall. He said that, so far 



had he succeeded in making the pipe-tiles by Clayton's 



machine, that he could sell at 15s. per thousand, and 



might be able afterwards to sell them at 12s. Two men 



and three boys were able to turn out 5490 in one day. 



He now had at work at Rawcliffe one of Mr. Clayton's 



machines, and had made a few thousands with it. The 



length of the tile was 14 inches when burnt, and dried 



about a foot. Mr. Hammond had formerly used ]% inch 



bore, but now used only an inch bore in all parallel 



drains ; and he says that it is the opinion of all the 



farmers who have used them in the Weald of Kent, that 



a bore of an inch is abundautly large. Mr. Langston, of 



Sarsden, near Chipping Norton, in a Report on the num- 



were 15,240. The work was done by two men and 

 three bojs. Taking into account the expense of la- 

 bour and coals, if they would be satisfied with tiles of 

 an inch bore, he would make them at 12s. per thousand. 

 The weight of 1000 1-inch tiles was 1313 lbs. ; that of 

 those lf-ioch in the bore, 1500 lb?. He burnt 22,000 of 

 them in a kiln 12 feet long by 9 feet broad. He had 

 taken 1500 in a one-horse cart ; being of so small a bore, 

 no vermin could injure it ; neither mole nor water-rat 

 could get into it. This was of great importance. — Facile. 



vessels, affecting, of course, first the straw, and then 

 getting into the ear, where it spread itself all over. 

 After passing through the stalk, the smut fixed itself 

 under the root of the flower, which it rendered barren, 

 and as the grain approached perfection, the puff-balls 

 became ripe and burst, showiug black dust of very minute 

 particles, so minute as to require about 1,100,000 of 

 them to lie across a single inch. Such was the smut ; it 

 ascended through the circulation of the plant, fixed itself 

 on the flower before it came forth, and finally took the 

 place of the whole ear, and destroyed completely the 

 grain. Now, how was the smut propagated ? In the 

 first place it was sown along with the seed. Very often 

 it was so minute that thousands of the particles might 

 attach to a grain of Corn, and yet not be visible to the 

 naked eye ; and it would at once be seen how easily 

 these minute particles could be sucked in by the moisture 

 and grow up with the plant. But another way of propa- 

 gating smut was by the soil itself, so that in many cases 

 where no smut was attached to the seed itself, it might 

 yet be produced from being in the soil. Rye was never 

 attacked by it, and Wheat seldom ; Barley was frequently 

 injured ; and Oats most frequently of all. The Grasses 

 in the hay-fields, and in the Corn-fields were also 

 attacked and destroyed. Now, this being the case, they 

 would easily understand how sound seed might be sown 

 and yet smut produced. It was considered by some 

 farmers who studied this question, that it would be im- 

 possible to extirpate the smut from this cause ; but he 

 considered that if all other sources of smut were removed, 

 that cause of it which lay in the soil would not be a very 

 formidable one. Some kinds of Oats were said to be 

 more affected than others. It had been observed in every 

 part of the country where he had been, that new seed 

 was most liable to be attacked, but that the seed sowed 

 the second year was not so much affected. He had seen 

 a field sown with seed purchased in the Dalkeith market, 

 and another field beside it sown with seed of the second 

 year; and the first field was attacked with smut, while 

 the second was free from it. A variety of important 

 questions then came before them, on which information 

 was exceedingly desirable. Had it, for example, been 

 proved that the home seed exhibited less smut than im- 

 ported seed ? How was it that the evil affected so much 

 so important a crop as Oats ? Had the soil anything to 

 do with it? Had the seasons any influence in producing 

 it? Some people held that it prevailed only in dry sea- 

 sons. Then, had the altitude of a place any effect ? or 

 was the evil influenced by drainage ? Had the severity 

 of the winter anything to do with the matter ? Again, 

 did the smut affect the quality of the crops ? It was said 

 in England that the wheaten flour was not injured in 

 quality by it ; were Oats affected in quality or were they 

 not ? Cattle did not like the straw affected with smut ; 

 were they from this to draw the inference that it was 

 obnoxious ? The great evil to the practical farmer arising 

 from smut was, that it destroyed his crop. In some cases 

 this season one stalk in every ten was aftected. lhis 

 was, of course, a matter of great importance to the 

 farmer ; but in addition to that, there arose the question, 

 Was the quality of the grain affected? It was to be 

 observed that before the grain was cut, almost the whole 

 of the smut was blown away ; but still there must be a 

 good deal that inevitably adhered, though not visible. 

 Rye and Wheat were naked grains, and therefore the 

 smut was easily carried away; but in Oats and 

 Barley, which were covered with a sheath, it was not 

 so easily blown off, and some of it necessarily adhered 

 These were all matters on which it was hoped gen 1 

 men present would supply every information j eir 

 power. He now came to the question how smut was to 

 be prevented? They were aware that the ordinary 

 metnod pursued was i make a good selection o ^seed- 

 to take such seed as from experience was found least 

 likelv to be affected. The seed, too, was often washed, 

 and bv that meatus certain portions of the smut were got 

 Suit of. The third mode of prevention was by steeping 

 ?n whidi there were two objects in view, on y one o 

 wh ich it was necessary to consider at c P r ^ ^ 



SS35SH3%gSl 



Sfcocfctiea. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY ASSOCIATION. 



The Highland Agricultural Society's Seed Wheat 

 Competition taking place on Wednesday last week in 

 Glasgow, a number of gentlemen, members of the Agri- 

 cultural Chemistry Association, met at a public break- 

 fast, when the following topics were arranged for discus- 

 sion. — 1st, the Smut in Oats; 2d, Why Seed-corn must 

 be changed ; 3d, Of the Steeping of Seed-corn. Profes- 

 sor Johnston said, by examination through the microscope, 

 the smut was found to be a species of Fungus, and had 

 obtained the name of Urido segeturc. When nearly ripe, 

 if they took a single grain of smut, they found it full of 

 little round puff-balls or sporules, so minute that it re- 

 quired 2800 of them to cover an inch. These minute 

 balls ascended through the plant, and if they looked at 

 a section of a stalk of Barley, they could easily distin- 

 guish where they had come up — the tubes of the stalk 

 were filled with black matter that came up through the 



substances, it was iounu u». -"- "- .,.* butt he 



and that the grain grew better and "ore * W 

 question was, Did the ex inction of the smut a 

 the fact that these solutions killed it or™ t hep 

 made so healthy that the smut could not a^Ut 

 people believed that insects w- Id not atta k - 



till 

 same 



kej grew weak. Was this the M'*"^™^ 

 thing occur with regard to crops r *™ "**" io1kt that 

 he might mention as a result of his own °™'™™{ Ba i. 

 he w.S in Wigtonshire some time a^and that rt ^ 



lindalloch there was a large fie l *f°*%^ e nt ways, 

 several parts, and the seed doc oied in differen ^ 

 some not being doctored at all, other portion » 

 dossed with gu'ano, to., and others steeped in a »»£ 

 sition which he had made up.* On l°° k '"& a ba d 

 field it was found that the gr «n to which nob ,y 

 been done was smutted, that which wasdressea 



♦ The following Table is the composition re 





fessor Johnston :— 

 Phosphate of soda. 



Sulphate of mapnesia. 



Nitrate of potash. 



Common salt. 



Sal ammoniac, or a 



Sulphate of ammonia. 



ferred to by P^ 



ct- 



One pound of each in l ga ^ , 

 water, to steep 30 »bs- oM* tfc 

 the moist seed to be duett 

 gypsum or quick lime. 



