298 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



took no account of, but accurately measured the 

 produce of the two last years, and the yield was 

 the same in both cases, namely : four quarters and 

 two bushels. An English " quarter" we believe, 

 is eight bushels, the yield therefore, was thirty-four 

 bushels ! ! certainly, a great yield for an acre. 

 This yield be attributes to ll lhut unsown, well 

 tilled interval of three feet, beliceen each tier of rows." 



The writer then goes on to state that, being so 

 well satisfied with this mode of culture, he took a 

 four acre field that had been pretty well exhausted, 

 and littered it in 1850-51, in the same way. The 

 wheat was sown in October. The whole cost of 

 culture, including interest and taxes, w T as $73.62|-. 

 He Obtained in 1855, from this October sowing, 

 twenty quarters and a half of clear wheat — allow- 

 ing eight bushels for a quarter, is 164 bushels, or 

 over thirty bushels to the acre ! He estimates the 

 wheat worth $209.25, and the straw worth $80— 

 being eight tons at $10 (English price) per ton. 

 This left a total profit of $185.75 on the operation 

 — a pretty good job, there being, as he states, one 

 moiety of each of these four acres 'in' wheat, and 

 the other moiety fallow — the land exhausted — no 

 manure — little more than a peck of seed to the 

 half-acre — and yet the yield of 164 bushels or 

 over forty bushels to the acre; and for the en- 

 couragement of others, he adds : there was noth- 

 ing whatever in these operations which were so 

 successful here, to prevent their application to any 

 extent elsewhere. 



These things are worth thinking over, and the 

 principles worth examining into. There is one 

 obstacle, however, in our way, which will hinder 

 our following, in this country, his advice and ex- 

 ample, and that is, the difficulty of getting men 

 at reasonable prices, to spade up and till the inter- 

 vals as he did. How far the new "digger" will 

 act as substitute for this, remains to be seen. We 

 sent to England to obtain this pamphlet, where it 

 h ad gone through thirteen editions. We may refer 

 to it again at some convenient time. 



SALT AND GUANO. 

 The following article, from the Mark Lane Ex- 

 press, contains some facts which should be under- 

 stood. Large quantities of salt, similar to that 

 named below, may be purchased from tanners, re- 

 packers of pork in the city of New York, and else- 

 where. 



Some experiments, lately reported upon the ac- 

 tion of common salt when mixed with guano are 

 instructive as well as suggestive of further exami- 

 i ations. It is well known that guano, when used 

 as top dressing, is best applied in rainy weather, 

 and that its ammonia is rapidly dissipated by'expo- 

 sure to the sun and winds. Again, in top-dressing 

 cereals with either cubic petre or guano, it has been 

 found advantageous to mix the guano with a certain 

 proportion of common salt, the salt being found to 

 preserve that hardness of the straw which guano 

 has a considerable tendency to weaken. 



To ascertain the extent to which the exposure of 

 guano in a dry atmosphere diminishes the amount 

 of its ammonia, and the effect produced in fixing 

 that ammonia by an. addition to it of half its 

 weight of common salt, was the object of M. Bar- 

 ral, the editor of the Journal d'Agricnlture Pra- 

 tique, in some experiments which are reported in 

 the 'last number of the Edinburg Qaurterly Jour- 

 nal of Agriculture. We need only describe in his 

 words one trial, %here he observes: 



"We left in the open air, in plates, during 15 



days, equal weights of the pure guano, and the 

 guano previously mixed with salt. At the end of 

 .that time we examined anew the amount of nitro- 

 gen, and found that the pure guano had lost 11.6 

 per cent, of its nitrogen, while that mixed with 

 salt had lost only 5 per cent." 



These experiments furnished us with more than 

 one valuable suggestion; they not only show the 

 importance of using common salt in conjunction 

 with ammoniacle manures, but they clearly prove 

 the importance of protecting these from the action 

 of the atmosphere. It should never be forgotten, 

 in fact, by any of us, that when we smell very 

 strongly any manure, there copious emanations 

 are going on deteriorating the value of the 

 fertilizer; a loss that, either by the use of some 

 chemical fixer, or of nature's own unfailing 

 fixer, the soil, might have been very commonly 

 prevented. 



The quality of the common salt used is of some 

 importance; the kind which we have always pre- 

 ferred is the oil-stained fishery salt, chiefly ob- 

 tained from the Cornish pilchard fisheries. The 

 fishermen of that magnificent coasts pile up in 

 their store-room th^se fish in large banks — first a 

 layer of salt, then a layer of pilchards, then salt, 

 then fish, till a heap is formed several feet high. 

 As these are a very oily fish, the oil soon begins to 

 drain from them through the salt, and reaching 

 the paved floor on which the pile is resting, is con- 

 ducted by channels formed in the pavement, into 

 little cisterns. The oil (which is very valuable 

 for certain manufacturing purposes) turns the salt- 

 of a yellow color; and its mixture, added to a 

 proportion of other fishey matter, rather adds to 

 the value of the salt as a manure. 



Barley. — The Rochester "Democrat" says: — 

 "There has within a few days been an unusual 

 movement in Barley, a demand having arisen for 

 the article in Philadelphia, and agents sent into 

 the State to malve*purchases. They have in in any 

 cases bought up the crops on the ground, paying 

 farmers what the latter regarded as a fair price.— 

 In view of the doubt respecting the ultimate en- 

 forcement of the Maine law.malsters in this region 

 have not been anxious to buy, and have no doubt 

 kept out of the market from a determination to 

 show the farmers that the effect of the prohibitory 

 liquor law would be to depreciate this description 

 of grain, and thus influence their votes at the next 

 election. But while the Brewers here have stood 

 aloof, the crop has bden taken by foreign buyers, 

 who visited the farmers at their homes, and enga- 

 ged the grain in anticipation of the harvest. Now * 

 that the demand for the local trade has arisen, pri- 

 ces have gone «p rapidly, and those who have dis- 

 posed of their stocks are dissatisfied. Barley has 

 been selling for nine shillings lately, and the coun- 

 try buyers, it is said, pay even more. Our masters 

 are unwilling to quote even at nine. We noticed 

 sometime since that an agent had been engaged by 

 Philadelphia houses to buy barley and other pro- 

 duce for which the Catawissa P*ailroad had opened 

 a new market to our producers. It is evident from 

 the course which ha's been taken that the competi- 

 tion is to be immediately felt in this region. 



Wheat from Memphis. — The Memphis (Tenn.) 

 Whig says that Shipments 1 of wheat were made- 

 from that port on the 5th instant, destined both for 

 New York and Liverpool. This is something new 

 in the course of trade, as the like was never known 

 before the present season.. 



