326 



cultivated crops, or a diminished production 

 must follow. This is to be found in leaves, 

 ashes, and in vegetable mould, as well as in the 

 vast deposits of gypsum and limestone of our 

 mountains. 



Kye, buckwheat, corn, or any other green 

 crop, from their powers of fixing, are alike 

 valuable as fertilizers ; so that Nature herse'f 

 may, by judicious management, be made to ad- 

 minister to her own wants by fixing the gases 

 of the air, by searching out the hidden minerals 

 of the soil, and by combining and giving form to 

 the elements of vegetable decay about her, so 

 as to give a new and constantly increasing vigor 

 to her productions. 



It may reasonably be asked, if this be so, 

 how happens it that we behold every where 

 around stunted vegetation, scanty crops, 

 poverty ofr soil, and innumerable gullies and 

 galds? I answer, they are the result of a system 

 not only of the most grinding tillage, extending 

 through a series of years, but of the most reck- 

 less and wasteful disregard as well of the soil 

 itself as the means scattered so profusely around 

 them for enriching it. 



The earlier settlers of our State found it 

 covered with an unbroken primeval forest, rich 

 in the alluvium of a thousand centuries forma- 

 tion ; they transmitted it to ' us covered with 

 pines and broom-sedge — a comparatively low 

 degree of vegetable production — without them- 

 selves being enriched in proportion to the ex- 

 haustion, thereby giving to the branches, rivers, 

 sounds, bays, and to the Atlantic itself, the 

 priceless inheritance due to posterity. It is oui 

 duty, as it is to our interest and honor, to repair 

 these long accumulating injuries and not fly 

 from them. I believe we have the means and 

 the spirit to do it. Had other countries the 

 facilities and incentives we possess, judging 

 from what they have already accomplished, 

 there would be no room to doubt. Are we 

 less enlightened, energetic, and patriotic than; 

 they? j 



The Indians on the coast of South America 

 were found by the earlier Spaniards using fish- 

 offal as a manure ; the Peruvians, for centuries, i 

 have used guano ; and in Italy, from remote 

 antiquity, leguminous plants have been resorted 

 to as fertilizing fallow crop ; and among the 

 inhospitable steppes of the Alps, the hardy 

 Swiss has learned the -art of using liquid 

 manures, so concentrated and rich in azotic 

 compounds, as to push vegetation rapidly to 

 maturity during the short season of their sum- 

 mer, and thereby redeem their country from 

 the frowns of Nature herself, by wisely directed 

 energy and skill. In the more genial provinces 

 of France, extensive and costly establishments 

 are used to manufacture both solid and fluid 

 manures ; and in England, gi»eat expense is in- 

 curred for oil-cake, for the same purpose. So 

 that with all these lights before us, and with 

 every advantage over them of government, soil, 



climate, and taxation, we have but to will suc- 

 cess, and its full horn will crown our labors. 

 Respectfully submitted by 



J. M. HURT. 



[From the papers of the Nottoway Farmer' s Cluh.^ 

 FEEDING HORSES. 



I regret very much that owing to causes which 

 I need not here mention, I failed to make a spe- 

 cial experiment, the result of which I could 

 report to the Club. I will, endeavor, however, 

 to give in place of that the result of my expe- 

 rience as to the best mode of feeding horses 

 and the provender best adapted to their marts. 

 In the course of my farming I have tried seve- 

 ral kinds of provender for horses, such as corn, 

 fodder, oats, shucks, clover and rye. For seve* 

 ral years I dispensed with oats to a great extent, 

 not because I did not consider them good food 

 for horses, but on account of the uncertainty of 

 the crop. I attempted to substitute them by 

 rye, and so productive was the first crop, that I 

 was induced to hope it would prove a valuable 

 crop. But the yield continued to decrease, un- 

 til I gave it up as unsuited to our climate ; and 

 moreover, the provender itself was not as good 

 for the horses as I had hoped it would be. Du- 

 ring my discontinuance of the oat crop, my 

 horses did not keep in as good order, and I do 

 not think were as healthy as when I used oats. 

 Last year I had the good fortune to secure a fine 

 oat crop, and I have had no difficulty in keeping 

 my horses in good order. So marked has been 

 the difference that I am determined hereafter to 

 use extra efforts to raise a good crop of oats. 

 To do this I intend to put my moist and flat 

 lands in oats, and the dryer and higher lands in 

 wheat. 



As to the other kinds of provender, I think 

 well-cured clover hay, can be made to take the 

 place, to a certain extent, of corn-fodder, as I 

 think when properly cured it is equal to it. The 

 great difficulty is in finding time at the proper 

 season of securing it, to attend to it. In order 

 to feed shucks to horses to advantage they 

 should be cut very fine and mixed with meal. 

 To cut them so fine' is a difficult matter and Sin- 

 clair's Straw Cutter is the only one I have found 

 that would answer a good purpose. They may 

 be as nutritious p-s fodder, but being of a tou^ 

 fibrous texture, they are better suited for cud- 

 chewing animals than for horses, and therefore 

 had better be used for them than horses when 

 other provender is plentiful. 



Respectfully submitted 



ICHARD IRBY. 



Large Hogs. — Mr. Butler Hamlin, of Ham. 

 linton, Wayne county. Pa., slaughtered in De 

 ceniber last, two pigs, eight months and ten days 

 old, weighing respectively 339 and 314 pounds. 



