1136 APPENDIX A. 



saline manures, but a part of the • ingredients only is thus supplied 

 to vegetables ; and without the addition of the others, the soil will 

 sooner or later become exhausted. 



Value of Liquid Manures. — The urine voided from a single 

 cow is considered in Flanders, where agricultural practice has 

 reached a high state of advancement, to be worth $10 per year. It 

 furnishes nine hundred pounds of solid matter, and, at the price of 

 $50 per ton, for which guano is frequently sold, the urine of a cow 

 for one year is worth $20. And yet economical farmers will waste 

 urine and buy guano ! The urine of a cow for a year will manure 

 one and a quarter acres of land, and is more valuable than its dung, 

 in the ratio by bulk of seven to six, and in real value as two to one. 

 How important, then, that every particle of it be carefully hus- 

 banded for the crops. 



Plowing.— -The time, the depth, and the manner of plowing 

 must depend on the crops to be raised, the fertility and character of 

 the soil, and other circumstances. 



Plowing Clay Lands. — Whenever practicable, these should be 

 plowed in the fall for planting and sowing the ensuing spring. The 

 tenacity of the soil may thus be temporarily broken up by the win- 

 ter frosts, its particles more thoroughly separated, and the whole 

 mass reduced to a finer tilth than can possibly be effected in any 

 other manner. 



The furrows of clay soils should be turned over so as to lap on 

 to the preceding, and lie at an angle of 45° ; and for this purpose the 

 depth of the furrow slice should be about two-thirds its widths 

 Thus a furrow six inches deep should be about nine inches wide, 

 or if eight inches deep, it should be twelve inches wide. This will 

 allow of the furrows lying regularly and evenly, and in the proper 

 position for the drainage of the soil, the free circulation of air, and 

 the most efficient action of frosts, which in this way have access to 

 every side of them. Land thus thrown up is found to be finely pul- 

 verized after the frosts leave it, and it is comparatively dry and 

 ready for use some time earlier than such as is not plowed till 

 spring. For sowing, land plowed in this manner requires no addi- 

 tional plowing, but it is better fitted for the reception of seed than 

 it can be by any further operation, unless by a slight harrowing if 

 too rough. The different kinds of grain or peas may be dibbled in, 

 or sown directly upon the surface and covered by the harrow ; and, 

 if sown very early, grass and clover seeds require no covering, but 

 find their best position in the slight depressions which are every- 



