234 



Forty feet is, however, the maximum height of tree 

 ferns, so for as my observations go. 



I once cut down and measured carefully a speci- 

 men of Balantium Karstniamnn, No. 57 of my 

 collection of ferns, and found the length of its stem 

 up to the base of the fronds forty feet. 



IMPROVING EXHAUSTED LANDS. 



BY PROFESSOR BOOTH, PIIILA. 



Read before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture. 



A farm of some sixty acres having fallen into my 

 hands in the year 1860, I determined to make it 

 pay an interest on the cost, until some other dis- 

 posal might be made of it in the future. Upon 

 calculating the cost of buying and hauling stable 

 manure from the city or vicinity, (five or ten miles) 

 I found it would be cheaper to buy and haul a so- 

 called super-phosphate. I therefore determined to 

 attempt improving my miserably poor farm by the 

 latter alone, trusting to increasing produce, so as to 

 render it at least independent of the purchased 

 manure. 



The table below will present all the necessary 

 facts in relation to the farm from its briery poverty 

 in 1861 to its plethoric falling down of wheat and 

 clover in the late rains of 1867. It contains about 

 60 acres, of which only 40 have been in cultivation. 

 The gross sales of everything that cou'd be scraped 

 by industry in 1861 was $219 36, showing the pov- 

 erty of the farm. The rotation system, common in 

 our vicinity, was followed, viz. 1 Corn, 2 Oats, 

 potatoes, turnips, etc. 3 Wheat, 4 and 5, or 4 5 6, 

 Clover and Timothy. Of cour,^e we used the little 

 stable manure made at first as judiciously as we 

 could, but two or three cows fed from poor land 

 only covered an acre or so with a delicate gauze 

 of manure. This was subsequently improved, as 

 increased production and of better quality increas- 

 ed our stock, so that in the spring of 1867 the six 

 acres in corn and potatoes covered with manure 

 looked jet black, leaving the ground scarcely 

 visible. 



The starting point of the improvement, its main 

 s:)urce to this moment, is a phosphate of lime. The 

 composition of the phosphate I used was about 20 

 per cent, phosphoric acid, of which 5 and 8 per 

 cent were soluble in water, and 1 and 2 per cent 

 potential ammonia. 



The quantity I aimed to get into the soil has 

 been about half a ton per acre, tiusting to the im- 

 mediate action of the soluble phosphoric acid, and 

 the gradua^ development of the insoluble by culti- 

 vation during many years, designing to add a little 



of the same manure in each subsequent rotation. 

 The best method of using the phosphate, according 

 to my experience, is to harrow in some four hundred 

 or five hundred pounds, sown broadcast upon the 

 land, when plowed for corn, and to put two orthree 

 hundred pounds more in the hills, together with a 

 little wood ash. Then two or three hundred 

 pounds more should go on the root-crop of the 

 next year, and two hundred or four hundred pounds 

 more be harrowed in, after plowing for wheat, in 

 the fall of the same year. I have thus i ut 1600 to 

 1100 pounds on every acre, as it came in the order 

 of rotation. 



My conclusion as to the best method of improv- 

 ing farms at a distance from cities, which are, or 

 which should be, the great sources of fertility, is 

 this: To improve the soil by the liberal use of 

 phosphate introduced into the usual rotation sys- 

 tem, and then keep as much stock as the farm can 

 possible be made to bear. The phosphates com- 

 mence the fertility, the stock sustains it. The 

 produce of stock may vary, according to the prox- 

 imity — milk, butter, cheese, or raising stock for 

 sale. 



The advantage of the butter produce is that 

 nothing of mineral value is sold off or removed I'rom 

 the land, except the trifling amount in wheat flour, 

 and in the flesh and bones of the hog. For this 

 reason I have had a butter dairy for several years, 

 with the exception of one year, when a milk dairy 

 was tried. 



The following table of the gross sales of produce 

 of all kinds in successive 3^ears will show the influ- 

 ence of phosphates alone to improve farming land. 



Gross value Cost of feed Net^ profit St'k Cow^ 

 of sales. and Seed. on sales; and a bull. 



1861, $216 36 $40 00 $169 36 2 



1862, 235 23 40 00 195 23 4 



1863, 1 019 46 19 61 512 85 4 



1864, 1 019 41 175 96 843 45 5 



1865, 1 353 98 224 61 ] 129 37 10 



1866, 1 448 96 410 77 1 008 19 13 

 At the present time, June, 1867, there are fifteen 



cows and one bull. From thirteen milking cows we 

 have obtained during June an average of some 68 

 or 70 pounds of butter per week, which is an aver- 

 age of 51 pounds of butter per cow, per week. The 

 grass on which these cows have fed has been almost 

 exclusively produced by phosphates, and the cows 

 are the ordinary country breed. 



In order to have a fairer view of improvements 

 resulting from the liberal use of phosphates, I 

 should add that the value of the above stock should 

 be added to the profits of the j^car. The whole 



