114 



THE AftRTflTJLTIJRAL GAZETTE 



[JUNB 1% 



J&cbtetoS 



Emarj on Bam! 77'%*, bj 

 i. ftUo Wakefield Farmers 



>ttomley. Printed 

 C. Hicks, Market 



Place, Waiefield. 

 The Wakefield Farmers' Club adopts the useful plan 

 of publishing, for circulation in their district, the papers 

 read before them at their monthly meetings Ihe 

 following are extracts from the tract just issued with 

 the above title, which contains the substance of a paper 

 on Hand Tillage, read on March 30, by Mr. Bottomley. 

 Li should be stated that in Yorkshire the term hand 

 tillage is synonymous with artificial manures. 



He said if ever there was a time more than another 

 when hand tillage should be more in requisition, it was 

 the present moment. At one time the low prices for 

 their produce might well discourage them from the use 

 of hand tillage ; but now, when the markets and the 

 corn exchange were fructified by gold dust, they would 

 be readily induced to do everything they cculd to raise 

 larger crops, because the remunerative prices would 

 well justify the outlay. We were now at the commence- 

 ment of a war, and how long it might last no one knew ; 

 but considering the Riianension of f 



pension 



nothing but his own hand tillage, produced ophuojn 

 premises. Some of these Oats were , feet h gl. in he 

 straw. He l.ad been one of the judges at the Hud- 

 dersfield agricultural show, and had there sold some of 

 those Oats at 21. per quarter ; and he believed it was m 

 every man's power in that room to grow as good 

 whether he farmed 50 acres or 500. He understood 

 from Mr. Johnson, who had been cutting timber, 

 that he had been using charcoal made from its 

 refuse branches, and had better crops than his neigh- 

 bours in consequence. The first thing, in making hw 

 hand tillage, was to obtain carbon, after which the other 

 ingredients might be mixed with it. If any gentleman 

 present would come over to his place he should be 

 happy to show it them in process of making for appli- 

 cation to Barley, Mangold Wurzel, Swedes, and other 

 crops, and they would then see the manner in which 

 he had built up the straw as well as the top of those 

 Oats 



' .Cooper agreed with Mr. Bottomley'* views. lie could 

 himself recommend every one to read 'Talpa' ['Chronicles 

 of a Clay Farm,' from which Mr. Bottomley had quoted], a 

 book he had perused several times, and should again .-- 

 Mr. Bottomley said, 'Talpa' was something like Sam b lick. 

 It walked into the farmers and their old prejudices in 

 eood style, and every farmer ought to read «•"-«£ 

 Charlesworth did not think such Oats as those shown by 



There was one 



'*ardfa* 



originally printed in the Nottingha vwmmr 



give the following extract as a specimen of the wtW 

 style. It relates to the policy of bare fallows :— 



" In bringing stiff clays into cultivation, a naked fkik% 

 once in eight years, or even less, may be adv*^. 

 but when once the soil has been brought into rnl 

 heart, a naked fallow is the worst possible mo4e tf 

 agriculture, provided the land can be kept clean vuho* 

 it. A naked fallow ought, therefore, to be looked 

 as a necessary evil, and should be borne with 

 and then only upon heavy clays. 



** 





iT ^M Fbdho^f English farmers to endeavour ^Bottomley «£ be ^^^J^ in M ^ d 



L — M - ™" would give 10?. to know what would produce it regularly. He 



had seen it in other grain, but never before last year. He meant 



themselves to produce as much corn as possible. 



Oats, of which he exhibited samples here to day, were 



produced by a manure he had himself made on his 



•mail farm of 50 acres. [These were remarkably fine 



specimens of Oats, upwards of 6 feet in the stalk, with 



corresponding grains.] His method of making this 



hand tillage was this :— He burned everything in the 



shape of refuse, as cuttings of hedges, dry leaves, &c. t 



on his premises, into wood ashes, smouldering them in 



the fire so as to save as much carbon as he could. He 



then mixed with it horse and cow stale, soap suds, and 



soot, the ammonia from which would, as they all knew, 



be absorbed by the charcoal. To this he subsequently 



added salt, and after that gypsum, and found with the 



last ingredient he had no disagreeable smell from it. 



Thiswashisown hand tillage which he used to every 



species of crop— Wheat, Oats, Barley, Turnips, &c. 



The last year he had got half a ton of Mr. Simpson's 



mtro-phosphate to mix with this. As it happened he 



was from home at the time it arrived, and his man 



instead of mixing it with other manure, went and shot 



it down, and began to spread it out the same as ordinary 



manure, which would have been rather an expensive 



process. Fortunately he arrived in time to prevent it 



being thus spread, and had it scraped together again. 



Wherever any of it had stood, however, it had left 



traces, and he believed every barrow mark might be 



known by the beautiful green Grass which had sprung 



up upon it. He was now mixing Simpson's manure 



with his own tillage, finding that the latter wanted 



phosphate. He used it for everything — grain, Mangold 



Wurzel, and Turnips, and had put in no guano for some 



years. When he found that his crops were as good as 



his neighbours', and that he only used this tillage, he 



did think there was some good in it ; and it was much 



cheaper than either buying phosphate or bones. He 



bad a similar crop of Oats to those he now exhibited 



on his farm, grown previous to using Simpson's manure, 



and which were so strong in the straw that they had 



cot been beaten down by a heavy thunderstorm. He 



would now quote from Dr. Lindley in the Gardeners' 



Chronicle. 



u Nothing must he allowed to run away in the form of a fluid, 

 or to fly away in the disguise of a smell. Mark out a piece of 

 ground on which the dunghill is to be made — on a good slope, if 

 possible, and close by a pond. Cut a gutter all round, and puddle 

 tt with clay, so as to make it water-tight. Then at the lowest 

 part, outside the place where the dunghill is to lie, dig a sink- 

 hole 18 or 20 inches deep ; let this he well puddled and connected 

 with the gutter already spoken of. Things being thus prepared, 

 throw down a layer of manuring substances about a foot deep; 

 tread them well down and scatter some fixer over it ; finally, water 

 it well. In this manner go on with layer after layer, till the heap 

 is the desired height. During the operation of making the heap 

 some water will have drained away ; in that case it will have 

 run into the gutter and been collected in the sink-hole. Sciippet 

 t he water out as the work proceeds, and throw it back on the 

 dunghill. If the hole is not large enough, another must be made 

 near it; none of the drainings must on any account be lost. It 

 should have, at least once a week for a month, a good quantity of 

 fluid thrown upon it. Pot boilings and soap-suds are much 

 better than common water; but urine is preferable to both. By 

 these contrivances nothing is allowed to leak, and the dunghill 

 * becomes a soft mass, holding fast all which belongs to it except 

 what flies away. To catch the latter is the purpose of the fixer. 

 There are many fixers — oil of vitriol, green vitriol, blue vitriol, 

 salt and lime (not either Halt or lime by themselves on any 

 account), gypsum, &c, may be used ; but some of them at all 

 times, and in some cases all of them, have the fault of costing 

 money. A substitute which costs nothing except labour is, 

 therefore, to be sought for. Such exists in cinder siftings, char- 

 foal dust, good black earth, peat or bog mould, rotten sawdust, 

 leaf mould, black mud from ponds, bottoms of wood stacks, brick 

 dust, burnt clav. &c. Some or all of these may be had in most 

 piacasJ 



Mr. Bottomley then went on to say that he had had 

 no practical experience in farming till he had come into 

 that neighbourhood, and had had therefore nothing to 

 unlearn, which was so often more difficult than to learn. 

 He was ready to examine every new invention in agri- 

 culture which he might hear of; and though he was 

 not prepared exactly to believe in all those theories of 

 which they bad heard, yet he thought theory and prac- 

 tice working together was a very excellent thing. He 

 should particularly recommend to his vounger friends 

 the study of Johnston's « Catechism of Agricultural 

 Chemistry and Geology." In that work they would find, 

 among the rest, much useful information on the subject 

 of manures, and of their application to different kinds of 

 crops. In reference to the sample of Oats he exhibited, 

 this sample had been grown on Wheat stubble, with 



the fine glossy matter on the straw, which he had never seen 

 during the 40 or 50 years he had been connected with farming 

 till last year, and should like to know what would produce it. 

 Mr. Bottomley said, his impression was it was the salt pro- 

 duced it. Mr. Charlesworth : No ; it was the season. They 

 wanted something to produce this gloss every year. In 

 Scotland it was said this gloss arose from the use of sea weed. • 

 Mr. Bottomley remarked that there was saline matter which 

 confirmed his opinion. Mr. Nicholson said that he farmed rather 

 largely, and he thought his tillage bill, amounting to some i 60W 

 a year. Was a large sum to take out of a Wheat crop. He should 

 like to know what would be the position of Mr. Bottomley, if 

 his farm cost him a proportionate sum in manure. It was cer- 

 tain that artificial manures of a saline nature greatly improved 

 crops. Last year, had used Mr. Simpson's manure for corn crops, 

 and had found them much improved by it. Some of his neigh- 

 bours used some of it for top dressing with the same results, 

 their crops being much better where that manure was employed. 

 He had understood Mr. Bottomley to say that chalk land did not 

 require chalk as a manure, hut in Lincolnshire chalk lands were 

 found to derive much benefit by the use of seven or eight tons per 

 acre. Mr. Brakenridge said, in Mr. Bottomley 's description of his 

 process of making his tillage, and mixing the ingredients 

 together, he thought that in some respects they were mixed too 

 late. Gypsum, burnt clay, and sulphuric acid, were all fixers of 

 ammonia, and might be all used with more or less advantage to 

 that end. He had no doubt that the use of nitro-phosphate had a 

 good deal to do in producing the strength and glossiness of straw 

 displayed by the sample of Oats before them. Thought the 

 application of lime to land deficient in that material would produce 

 great effect, though there was no kind of land but would be bene- 

 fited by such application, There were not many soils but what 

 had much silica in them, and the application of lime was the 

 best means of dissolving it. He concurred in Mr. Bottomley's 

 recommendation to the agricultural interest, relative to the appli- 

 cation of scientific knowledge in their pursuits, and had himself 

 derived much benefit from it. The Secretary said he was sure 

 that an immense amount of good tillage might be made by every 

 man on his own farm, though he would not go to the length of 

 thinking every farm might be made absolutely self-supporting. 

 Still it was for every farmer to take care of every morsel of clip- 

 ping and other refuse, since there was no portion of such rubbish 

 which might not be converted into hand tillage. If they made 

 the best of the tillage they themselves produced, they would not 

 want so much of Mr. Simpson" s nitro-phosphate. It required 

 no great amount of intellect to do this, but just a little 

 common sense. Farmers were never accused of thinking too 

 much j but if they would think a little more on these 

 matters they would be all the better for it. The Chairman 

 said the meaning of the term, strictly speaking, was some- 

 thing which could be distributed in small quantities by 

 hand, not brought by a cart load, but in smaller quantities— such 

 as could be carried up a hill for instance, and would combine the 

 essence of farm-yard manure with saline ingredients. After 

 noticing the relative qualities of the carbonaceous, gaseous, and 

 inorganic matters contained in ordinary manure, he remarked 

 upon the subject of the application of lime to limestone lands, 

 which had been a subject of controversy in the course of the dis- 

 cussion, that it was proved by analysis that many soils had lime 

 below the surface, but none on it. Such being the case, it might 

 be highly serviceable, in an agricultural point of view, to apply 

 lime m such instances, since there might possibly be none within 

 that depth of soil to which the roots penetrate. When lime was 

 put to land it was generally used in a quick or caustic state. 

 The advantage was that the caustic alkalies of the lime dissolved 

 the silica. He thought the caustic alkali of the lime, while it 

 dissolved the silica, would contribute in part to the glossiness of 

 the outside straw, which had been noticed by Mr. Charlesworth. 

 Another effect of lime was to make the silica soluble. It was 

 most used either in a powder or a solid stale, but must be made 

 liquid to produce the best results. He thought, when so used, 

 that the watery part in the process of evaporation left some of 

 the solid part upon the straw, producing the gloss before men- 

 tioned, while it was further proved that the use of lime made the 

 straw stand up better. As a proof that one effect of lime would 

 make the straw stand up, he had used on a part of a field common 

 fold manure, and on another part quick lime, and found that in 

 a heavy storm the first part was laid, while the remainder stood 

 up. He had no doubt the same beneficial effect would be pro- 

 duced on the grain as on the straw. The next point he would 

 refer to was the use of salt as a tillage, one of the good results of 

 which was that it protected the crop from the ravages of the 

 grub. He had a field of 15 acres of Clover lea, on 5 acres of 

 which he put salt, on 5 more lime, and the remainder nothing. 

 He lound that the lime answered best, the salt next, while the 

 grub took rhe other live. Mr. Bottomley had been asked by Mr. 

 Scarth what were the proportions for mixing his tillage. He took 

 1 ten of gypsum, 1 ton of salt, and soot ad libitum to the ashes. 

 The expense of 10 loads of ashes he did not consider r.ny thing, 

 because he should have to dispose of it in some way under any 

 circumstances." 



as 



what are the principal means by which fallowing a^. 



be superseded ? This may be accomplished by deep 



drainage and deep cultivation, by liming, by the sot. 



ing of clays, or, where the land is perfectly dean, by * 



green fallow crop. Thorough draining will rid the soiloi ail 



aquatic weeds, and render it more porous, consequent 



more accessible to the influences of the atmosphm. 



Lime will be instrumental in dissolving the al_ 



earths and silicates. The silicates of alumina, <fca, con- 



tained in clays, might be digested in an acid (such as 



oil of vitriol mixed with a little water) for serermJ 



weeks, without producing any appreciable results ; but 



after these earths have been mixed with lime, and then 



digested in an acid solution, they will assume the «»• 



sistence of a thick and ^ transparent jelly, which a 



owing to the silica being dissolved ; the same procesi it 



carried on, but only in a much slower degree t 



carbonic acid of the atmosphere, which gradually pre. 



pares these mineral constituents of the soil for their 



reception by the spongioles of plants. The Luraisf 



of clays not only brings the land into a better state of 



division, but the process of burning renders the alkaline 



silicates more easily acted upon by the air, redodsj 



them more rapidly into a soluble condition, and fittiig 



them for supplying to plants the necessary constituent! 



of their growth. It must be borne in mind that all 



soils ought to be accessible to the action of air-oxygem 



and carbonic acid— so as to favour the development of 



Stiff clays are wanting in 



the roots of plants. 



properties, but this may be communicated to them by i 

 partial calcination. With regard to root crops, thes? 

 may always be adopted where the land is in good 

 and fit for their reception, for during the growth rf 

 these fallow crops, by frequent hoeing and looseuv thf 

 soil, pretty nearly the same results may be obtained « 

 by allowing the land to lie idle ; besides, the quantity of 

 vegetable matter in the soil is considerably increases fey 

 green cropping, thereby leaving it in a far better con- 

 dition for the production of the subsequent grain crop. 

 It is true that the green crops oppose, to a , cerum ex- 

 tent, so complete a decomposition of the soil as when i 

 naked fallow is used ; but this deficiency may easdy be 

 supplied by artificial means, and the advantages of W 

 increased supply of vegetable food in the shape • 

 manure, of the stems and leaves of the plants an £ 

 fibres of their roots, will more than W^^ 

 proportionate decrease of inorganic matter M wow 

 have been brought into action by the Bake d ^ Vj^ 

 result may readily be obtained by a slight dres^a 

 lime. Thus you will perceive that there are •.*** 

 means which may be adopted, either smgly or 

 tively, as the case may be, for doing ; a* . -* 

 practice of fallowing in the ^^JJSS 

 which will tend not only to a more su ^ f ^ 

 tion of the soil, but at the same time will add con— 

 ably to the profits of the farmer. 





Miscellaneous. 



Depth of Covering of Seed W^ 1 ** £S **« 

 that I might discover a cause for te™*^^** 

 of Wheat by examining the roots, I took uyr m 

 drill, some 50 plants or more ; I iom ^^i * 

 the larger the tube between the seminal joo* . 



the 9 



bee. 



corronal ones, always about an inch ^belo* 

 the fewer were the tillered stems ; thisjea 



the 



iscs 



sowed at seven aepww ««<~ & ' , -^ an i»"7 



the least possible covering, the *^*\*^ {„*»«* 

 covering, and increasing the co vering by ^ f : 



of those covered wi 



caaiet 



of the successive ones. Of N ^/. *Xs?two 



ith 2 , 3? and 5 mch^ ^ 



came up <W IJL^ 



. 1 nose nioav »s«»v — - ~ ~ * stronger, W" 1 "^ 1 

 e to three or ^r^m^fH Sep** 

 more freely. And again 



up 



one 



sowed five rows of 12 grains each 



11 came up. p**" "^ 



■ 



No.l. Lightly covered, 



2. With 1 inch covering, 11 came 



3. With 2 inches B " 



4. With 3 inches 



5. With 4 inches 



IT 



V 



11 



6 

 6 





it 

 n 



n 



ff has been HgW» 



andl** 



not remarked'the Wheat foww;^^ I* ** 



A^r^rto the p>h* ^ 



Wheat, of small expe 



tot* 



Letters to tlie Farmers of Nottinghamshire on the Chemistry 

 of Manures. By Samuel Parr. R. Theobald, Pater- 

 noster Row. 



Some of these letters have already appeared in our 

 columns. The whole are collected together here in the 

 form of a little pamphlet, which deserves perusal for 

 the simple and generally satisfactory treatment which 

 it gives to such subjects as theory of manures, liquid 

 manure, farmyard manures, bones and superphosphates, 

 euano. lime, evnsum. fallows, &c. The letters were 



have 



the plante at' this peViod of their ^"^ ce*» 

 very material consequence , i 

 1 believe that Barley and 0»« 

 better than Wheat. 



appear favourable to light , cow 

 Wheat sown under the pl° u f"' enl 



bear a "' 



cownDft* t&td \* 



r,:ches7whVch "has ^J^J^/f^ 

 found to diminish the t.llenng prng^ u » jj^a 

 we may avail ourselves of U, ^ a*^ 



advisable in la* sowings, to c 



