Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. 



fixture is the nursing mother of the Arts. I Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of 

 >hon. | the State. — Sully. 



ILLIAMS, Editor. 



AUGUST & WILLIAMS, Prop'rs. 



Till. 



RICHMOND, VA., DECEMBER,' 1858. 



NO. 12. 



li . ih.-. Transactions of the Virginia State Ag- 

 ' ., t riculiural Society .] 



rite Economy of Farm-made Putrescent 

 Manures— In reference to their Prepar- 

 ation, Preservation, and best Applica- 

 tion. 



BY EDMUND RUFFIN, ESQ. 

 [Concluded from page 649.]^ 

 Top-dressing icitli straw and corn-stalks. 



There is another mode of top-dressing clover 

 or pasture land, with dry wheat straw, which 

 is an excellent and economical application, 

 whenever the quantity of straw is greater 

 than needed for food or litter, as is generally 

 the case on all good wheat farms. When the 

 threshing machine is in operation, and the 

 carts are bringing in wheat from the field for 

 its supply, it requires much labor to remove 

 and to stack the threshed straw, as well, as to 

 supply the sheaves for threshing. When the 

 rick has been built so high, that the labor of 

 bringing straw upon it is the heaviest, then it 

 will be even less labor to send the straw back 

 to the field, in return loads, not full enough to 

 require much trouble to be put into the carts. 

 The loads should be dropped on the poorer 

 parts of the held upon which the wheat grew, 

 and which I suppose to be set with clover, 

 sown the same year. The hands, kept in the 

 field to load the carts with wheat, may have 

 enough spare time to spread the heaosof straw. 

 45 



But if not, the spreading should be done soon, 

 and evenly and thinly enough, not to smother 

 any of the young clover. The improvement 

 will be manifest before winter. And if a spot 

 so covered was an old gall, with scarcely any 

 soil left, and of course very poor, the clover 

 thereon will show to the line of the covering a 

 decided superiority over the better though still 

 poor land surrounding. Before August of the 

 next succeeding year, the straw will be so well 

 rotted under the shade of the covering clover, 

 that it will offer not the least obstruction to 

 the plough, in breaking up the land for wheat.* 

 Straw, taken from the ricks, may be carried 

 out and spread as manure at any time of 

 winter, and in such times of extreme wetness 

 of the earth, or hard freezing, when more pro- 

 fitable work of teams cannot be done. The 

 loads being necessarily light, may be drawn 

 when the earth would be too soft for full loads. 

 Straw should be spread very thin and evenly, 

 or it will smother or check the growth of clover 

 beneath: and if much too thick, will kill all 

 vegetation, and also offer obstruction to the 

 plough even a year later. By very thin and 

 even covering, all these evils 'are avoided, and 

 according to my views, all the strength or 

 richness of the straw as a fertilizer, whatever 



* The last preceding section, headed "The ap- 

 plication and action of putrescent manures," be- 

 ginning on page 17, and the above commencing 

 paragraph only of the next section, (to the mark 

 of reference to this note.) nearly as they here ap- 

 pear, were before published in 1844. E. R. 



