I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



559 



M h That, whether the produce of hay 

 be considerably increased by means of 

 farm-yard manure alone, farm -yard manure 

 and ammoniacal salts, or artificial mixtures | 

 of suitable mineral manure and ammoniacal 

 salts, the proportion of the whole which 

 will be graminaceous will be very much in- 

 creased. 



" 2. That the produce will be by far the 

 most graminaceous when the ' artificial mix- 

 tures' are employed. In fact, when the in- 

 crease of hay is obtained by artificial ma- 

 nures containing both the necessary mineral 

 constituents and ammoniacal salts — and it 

 is then greater than under any of the other 

 conditions — both the leguminous and the 

 weedy herbage are nearly excluded, and the 

 produce is then, therefore, almost wholly 

 graminaceous. 



" 3. That the graminaceous produce it- 

 self, when grown by farm-yard manure, is 

 less complex in character than that grown 

 without manure ; whilst that grown by the 

 most active artificial manures, is less com- 

 plex still. 



" 4. That, up to an equal period of the j 

 season, the graminaceous produce, grown 

 by the active artificial manures, will be in 

 larger proportion in flowering and seeding 

 ytem, than that grown without manure; and 

 that the produce grown by farm-yard ma- 

 nure will be in still larger proportion in 

 that condition." 



Such are only a few of the important 

 practical questions relating to artificial dress- 

 ings which will well repay the most patient 

 and repeated examination. It is needless 

 to remind the skilled agriculturists who 

 read this widely circulating magazine, of 

 the increasing value of every improvement 

 in the growth of food for stock. As there 

 is yet time in many places during the sea- 

 son to try the effect of late top-dressings, I 

 would earnestly commend such trials. There 

 is no need, I again repeat, to risk either 

 much time or money in this search after 

 knowledge and power — a very small plot of 

 grass will tell the effect, make the same re- 

 sponse to such an inquiry as the adjoining 

 broad acres. Nature is indeed ever ready 

 to respond to questions of all sizes. These 

 dressings of small experimental plots it 

 would be well to carry on till after the time 

 of the removal of the first crop of grass. 

 We all know how possible it is for the land 



to produce in the same season three or four 

 crops of grass of even increasing weight * 

 this is regularly and extensively accomplish- 

 ed in certain favoured localities by the 

 owners of sewage-irrigated meads, both in 

 Scotland, the southern water meads ot Eng- 

 land, and on the continent ; and it is yet 

 to be determined to what extent the pas- 

 tures of our island may be increased in 

 their produce by the use of more copious 

 and often er-repeated dressings than those 

 we have hitherto applied. 



Horace Greeleys's Endorsement of the 

 Agricultural Press— How Government 

 Clogs its Wheels instead of Aiding it. 



There are at present some fifty or sixty pe- 

 riodicals published in our country devoted to 

 Farming — as many, I presume, as in all the 

 world beside. They have been built up at 

 great expense of talent, labour, and money ; 

 for when Col. Skinner started the first of them 

 at Baltimore, some forty or fifty years ago, 

 the idea of teaching farmers anything in that 

 way was hooted by them as ridiculous, and 

 he found it hardly possible to give his early 

 numbers away. Hundreds of thousands of 

 dollars have been spent on these publications ; 

 and they are this day, in my judgment, doing 

 more to promote the true growth of the 

 country, and the- substantial, and enduring 

 welfare of our people, than Congress, the 

 Army and the Navy, for the support of which 

 they are taxed some forty millions per annum. 

 Their publishers are asking nothing of the 

 Government, wishing nothing but the common 

 rights "of American citizens. Yet Congress 

 pays annually for gathering and compiling 

 the material for a publication necessarily ri- 

 val to theirs, of which the House has just 

 ordered 300,000 copies, and the Senate, I be- 

 lieve, 50,000 — all to be printed, bound, envel- 

 oped, and conveyed to the recipients in every 

 part of the country at public cost — that is, 

 at their cost and mine — and thus distributed 

 in most unfair competition with the Agricultu- 

 ral journals, and to enable penurious and easy- 

 going farmers to say, "Oh, 1 don't want to 

 take one of these — I get a Patent-Office Re- 

 port from our member of Congress every year, 

 and that will do for my boys to chew upon till 

 another comes around !" Thus Congress is 

 doing its worst to undermine and destroy the 

 Agricultural Press, by a policy which you 

 heartily support — which, I grieve to say, has 

 been practically supported by a majority of 

 the Republicans in both Houses throughout 

 the late Session, while opposed by a majority 

 of the Democrats. I am very glad of any 

 chance to do honour to my political oppo- 

 nents ; and I must say that, on this qnestion 

 of abolishing the Franking Privilege, they 



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