<j6 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August j, 1888. 
can yield its nitrogen to effect new combinations. 
And no matter in what form the latter may present 
themselves, they are the roots above all, which aie the 
vehicle for their entrance into the economy of the 
plant. The phenomena of nitrification are located in 
the organic matters of the soil. 
The success which has followed the efforts of the 
Norwegian chemists Kohart and Jensen, but especially 
the latter, to utilize fish waste as a manure, is leading 
to the establishment ot a French company to act simi- 
larly in the case of the Newfoundland cod-fisheries. 
At the Loffoden isles, off Norway, the cod fish come 
during Jauuary into the sheltered fiords or creeks, to 
spawn, in such shoals, that they have been estimated 
to be as numerous as 120 millions to the square mile; 
equal to the rabbit seas in Australia say. The fish 
when caught are cli aned, boned, decapitated, ami 
docked of their tails : the oil is expresse 1 from the 
liver ; this detritus is dried and ground into a brown 
powder, po sessing the qualities of good guano ;ind 
bone dust ; that is, the two valuable fertilizing ele- 
ments of manures — nitrogen, to the extent of 11 per 
cent, and phosphoric acid to 6 per cent. Off the 
Loffoden Islands, 30,000 men and 7,000 boats capture 
annually 27 millions of cod fish, whose flesh when 
salted and dried is exported to Catholic countries' 
Later in the year the herring fishery takes place. 
The herriDg is not netted for exportation, but for manu- 
facturing manure. The fish is pressed by machinery 
for its oil, and the herring cake then dried and reduced 
to powder. The FreLch company intends to work up 
powdered charcoal in its fish manure. 
'The Minister of Agriculture has just established a 
practical School of " Agriculture." This is a noun of 
multitude and means, the breeding and rearing of 
poultry : their fatting and artificial batching ; the 
management of eggs, their preservation and prepar- 
ation for market, and the most advantageous races of 
poultry. The period of residence at the school is 
limited to three months: the fee 350 fr. board &c. 
included. The school is situated at Houdan, in the 
Seine and Oise department, a region famous for its 
races of barn door poultry. The male and female 
pupils are alternately received every three months. 
Since twenty years M. Marey has been advocating 
elastic traces for drought horses : habitually, traces 
are formed of rope, leather, or chains. These, owing 
to their inelastic nature, subjected the horse to violent 
shocks at the commencing pulls, as in carts, omni- 
buases, drags &c. M. Celler, engineer of the Great 
Eastern railway of France, has since six years em- 
ployed a saw age spring in the chain traces of the horses 
employed to pull the waggons and carriages short 
distances in the marshalling of trains. He attests, 
that the results are most gratifying ; fewer traces are 
snapped : the efforts of the horses are more measured 
and uniform, and drivers have no occasion to behave 
brutnlly towards the animals when they are unable 
to effect an immediate start as heretofore. The horses 
display less fatigue, because there is less violent ex- 
penditure of strength. Tbe spring will be applied to 
the traces of the parcels' vans. Germany has, in the 
Pferde schoncr, a kindred spring. 
Paris, June 9, 
Dutch farmers have been so deceived in their pur- 
chases of oil cake, that they now prepare their own 
linseed. They buy the latter direct from the merchant, 
aud when cooked, mix it with rye or m«ze meals, and 
give it to their milch cattle with marked advantage on 
their health and yield of milk. This is not quite the 
opinion of M. Mer ; he has instituted experiments on 
the feeding of cows with oil cake. The latter if 
given to a bad milker, will not sensibly augment tha 
yield of milk, nor prolong the milk-giving period. 
In this case the animal puts up fat. But if the cow 
bo a fair milker, and a little cake be given to sup- 
plement the ration of good hay, the yield of milk 
will not be increased ; but the yield will be maintained 
uniformly and for a longer period — and the cost of this 
extra ration will be covered by the supplement of 
milk, 
The same authority maintains, as illustrated by his 
experiments and analysis, that, contrary to the gene- 
ral belief, oil cake does not add to the richness of the 
milk. It is good to be given after the calving, but 
when the yield of milk his arrived at the porio 1 of 
its natural decline — 3 to 4 quarts — no cake will sensibly 
stimulate its augmentation ; the animal will put up fat. 
A well-fed cow in the opinion of M. Mer, will not 
produce a richer cheeso than a poorly fed cow. but 
its milk will produce a greater quantity of cheese. 
Why ? Because the relation between the divers 
elements of the milk remain invariable. However, 
the difference not the less exists, and is due to race, 
variety, and individuality. This must, not be uuderr-tood 
as meaning, that a cow poorly fed will not give richer 
and more milk if well fed ; but in the case of an 
animal of a good breed, intensive rations, according 
to M. Mer, do not augment the daily quantity of milk, 
but maintains tbe secretion at its n»rmal standard 
for a greater number of days. In this feeding two 
forces are in antagonism ; the milking and the fatten- 
ing qualities ; the former is at its hieght at the time 
of calving, but diminishes gradually ; whilst the latter 
is constantly augmenting, till the moment arrives when 
it gets the upper hand. 
The question of pasture land is intimately associated 
with a supply of water or humidity. The soil may be 
suitable, the manures appropriate, the seedings select, 
but without a command of the aqueous element neither 
natural nor artificial meadows can profitably exist. 
This explains, why England, Holland, Belgium, French 
Flanders, Normandy and the Vosges, bsing favored 
by a supply of water, are distinguished for their 
pasturages, while the South of France, and of southern 
countries generally, the absence of water, is their great 
drawback. Hence, why the French government is 
devoting so much attention to measures for creating 
reservoirs, to constructing dams, to canalizing, and to 
the sinking of artesian wells. The millions so expended 
will amply repay the Treasury. The reason why good 
natural meadow hay is so much in favor, is 
due to the greater variety of the grasses which afford 
stock an adequate alimentation ; now humidity tends 
to prevent those varieti' s from dying out. It is cal- 
culated that an acre of meadow ought to have 40 
millions plants of grass. In an artificial meadow, 
there are only five or six distinct grasses, and more 
generally but one ; while in a natural meadow there 
are from thirty to fifty, and these will generally be 
in harmony with soil and climate, but above all with 
the degree of moisture. 
Even in the case where permanent meadows have 
been laid down with all the conditions for success, 
they will dwindle in yield, and deteriorate in quality, 
if the land be not irrigated, cared and top-dressed. 
Good grasses being delicate, are in time suffocated out 
by worthless v&rieties. The sown grasses find at first 
all the essentials in the soil necessary for their growth, 
and display it in their vegetation ; gradually the soil 
hardens or cakes, and tbe raiu or irrigation water pene- 
trates more slowly, while it rises from the subsoil in 
dry weather in the form of moisture, with 'more diffi- 
culty. In time, a layer of decayed vegetable matter 
accumulates on the surface, souring the soil as turf ever 
does, while altering the mineral ingredients in the 
plant — feeding area, by the organic acids making 
these ingredients more soluble and more easily wash- 
ed into the subsoil. Analysis proves that the latter, 
in the case of permanent meadow land, contains a 
larger percentage of phosphoric acid and alkalis than 
in the surface .'oil. It is also true that grass and 
clover favor the accumulation of nitrogen in the soil, 
while grain aud root crops carry it off: hence, the 
advantage of a rotation, and of spacing the rest under 
meadow to three or more years following require- 
ments. 
Clay soils grass well ; but the grass does not grow 
so high as on medium soils, friable, and well-prepared. 
Peaty land produces plants of bad quality, while 
saudy soils coiimme their store of fertilizing elements 
very rapidly, and this voracity makes them expensive 
to keep rich, apart from their natural dryness. Cattle 
know well the good and appetiziug grasses, which 
