292 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
esting if ha once finds that it is intellectual 
work. Consequently, even though we were to 
tell our reader^ seriously that the grass of their 
fields is made of the sunbeams which dance 
upon the meadow, we should do them some 
good. They would soon find out that we were 
wrong, of course, but in hunting for proof of 
our error they would bring into play a spirit of 
investigation that would lead them to inquire 
what it really is made of, and tiiey would not 
stop thinking about it until they had learned 
some important facts which would make farm- 
ing for evermore a very different sort of occupa- 
tion for them from what it thus far had been. 
I hope we do some good to those who believe 
we are right, but I am sure we do more good to 
those who try in earnest to prove us wrong. 
Speaking of the composition of grass, I am 
reminded that it. is a very long time since I have 
seen in an agricultural paper any statement of 
the fundamental principles of the science of 
agriculture, which had such a fascination for me 
in the early days of my study, and that these 
papers may have some readers to -whom they 
will even uow be a revelation. To all, the}' 
have an importance that will justify th»ir re- 
statement. 
The object of farming is to convert air and 
water and earth into the materials on which the 
world depends for food and for the comfor.ts 
and luxuries of life — to turn matter from a use- 
legs lo a useful form. The agent through ■which 
we work is the laws of vegetable and animal 
life and growth. Nature furnishes the condi- 
tions for the constant operation of these laws; 
our office is so to influence their action as to 
cause them to produce the particular kind of 
growth that is best suited to our ends. The 
composition of all of the common plants is 
about the same : a little earth, more water, and 
a good deal of air. If we first dry and then 
burn a ton (2,000 lbs.) of meadow grass, cut 
when in bloom, we shall find that it contains 
about 1,400 lbs. of water and 48 lbs. of ash or 
earthy matter. The remaining 554 lbs. is com- 
bustible solid matter. It is the business of the 
farmer to cause these raw materials to come 
together in such a way as to produce the grass. 
The ash comes from the soil. It consists (ap- 
proximately) of potash, 12 lbs.; soda, 3 S / 10 lbs.; 
magnesia, 2 Violbs. ; lime, 5 4 /io ll»s. ; phosphoric 
acid, 3 lbs.; sulphuric acid, 2 4 /i» lbs. ; silica (or 
sand), 13*/io lbs. ; chlorine, 3'/io lbs. ; and sul- 
phur 1 '/m lbs. Just about this, and nothing 
more, the soil must contribute of its mineral 
matter toward the ton of grass. Some of the 
ingredients named may vary in quantity, and 
some may supplant each other, but for the 
illustration the list given will suffice. The 
quantities are small, but they are to the last 
degree important. Any soil that can not fur- 
nish the little that is needed must receive an 
artificial supply before it can produce its crop. 
The 554 lbs. of combustible solid matter consist 
of carbon (charcoal), oxygen and hydrogen (the 
constituents of water), and nitrogen — of this 
latter about 10 lbs. The carbon is taken entirely 
from carbonic acid — a gas of which the atmos- 
phere always contains an ample store — and the 
oxygen and hydrogen are abundantly supplied 
by the water of the sap; but the nitrogen can 
be furnished only by some product of organic 
decomposition, either already existing in the 
soil, or brought to it in the impurities of rain- 
water, or in manure. As in the case of the ash 
of the plant, it must be supplied by the soil. If 
it does not. already exist there, it must be added 
before the soil can be fertile, and if the soil be- 
comes exhausted of it, it must be added — natur- 
ally or artificially — before fertility can be 
restored. Man has to concern himself chiefly 
with about 10 lbs. of nitrogen, 3 lbs. of phos- 
phoric acid, and 15 lbs. of 'potash and soda (the 
other elements of the ash are abundantly pre- 
sent in all tolerable soils'). Given tliese twenty- 
eight pounds of matter, nature, — properly guided 
— produces two thousand pounds of grass. 
The proper guidance is the farmer's affair. So 
is the supply and guarding of the all-important 
twenty-eight pounds. Concerning all the rest — 
the 1,972 lbs. — he can only exercise a fostering 
care. The mass of material in the soil, the 
water that moistens its pores, and the winds 
that sweep its surface, supply it all. To prepare 
the land for the best action of the wonderful 
alchemy of growth ; to sow the proper seed ; to 
keep down the competition of other plants; to 
supply the needed nitrogen and alkalies and 
acids; and to stimulate in every way in his power 
the favorable action of natural influences — these 
are the duly of the farmer. It seems a short 
story, but it holds the kernel of practical farm- 
ing, which is only a slight aiding and a very 
constant and careful guiding of the impulse that 
is born of sunshine, moisture, air, and a fertile 
soil. Whether we turn the elements into grass, 
or the grass into flesh, we are handling tools 
whoso use should ennoble us, as what they per- 
form enriches us. 
Does all this sound a little hifalutin? Possibly 
it does; and where's the harm? There is enough 
in our lives that is humdrum, and stupid, and 
dull, to make a flight of the fancy, now and 
then, a relief and a delight. No man will be a 
worse farmer because he knows something of 
the principles on which his farming depends, 
and if lie will look oftener to the inner side of 
the picture — to the silver lining of his cloud — 
he will see that his occupation comprises more 
than he now believes of that whioh he envies in 
others. 
To return to my neighbor and his beets. We 
talked for sometime and failed to convince each 
other. He claims that he can clean and thin 
an acre with three days' labor. (If he can, his 
land is cleaner than mine.) I claim that the land 
would be benefited by repeated harrowings 
during all of May and June, and that my man, 
with a boy to drop, can set out an acre in two 
days. (He says if he can lie is a smarter man 
than he can hire.) And so we separated — he 
taking some of my plants to set out in his field, 
to see how the two will compare in their subse- 
quent growth. His are long, red mangolds, and 
mine are Lane's sugar-beets, but I hope to make 
at least half a convert of him, nevertheless, for 
I think it helps the growth of a beet to nip off 
the end of its tap-root and make it throw out 
more fibers. 
I wrote in my last of the field I had be- 
juggled with too deep plowing; this season 
has shown that it is not beyond the help of 
manure. Last year, Mr. Hand sent me a bag 
of " Phosphatic Blood Guano " for an experi- 
ment with cabbages. I planted four rows 
across the field in question, and had a passable 
result. It was a close race between good manure 
and poor land. I thought the land was a little 
ahead. This year that side of the field is in 
oats for soiling, but they hardly soil the 
ground. After two months' trial they have 
reached a brown eminence of perhaps four 
inches. Where the four rows of cabbages 
stood, there is a thick and luxuriant growth of 
oats, now ready for the scythe. Another part 
of the field was last year very heavily manured 
for beets with stable-manure, and that, too, is 
covered with a very good growth of oats. I 
think I have found out what will at last cure 
the disease, or, rather, I think the disease has 
been so far cured by time, that I can now 
commence to build up the patient's constitu- 
tion by the aid of stimulants ; and now follow 
the interesting questions whether the turning 
under of the surface soil to eo great a depth is 
going to make the land more permanently 
fertile, and whether the subsoil which has 
been brought to the top will finally — when it 
becomes well mellowed and well manured — 
have some of the productive power of a virgin 
soil. I think a favorable answer will eventu- 
ally be given to both of these questions, but it 
has been a tedious and an expensive experi- 
ment, and however good the land may become, 
its improvement will have cost more than it 
is worth. One half the cost in fallows and 
top-dressings would have had a better effect. 
The Dairy is thriving. We are now making 
about 150 pounds of butter per week — fully 
600 pounds per month — from 27 animals, old 
and young, big and little, sick and well, good, 
bad, and indifferent. This is very well for a 
breeding herd, in which no pains are taken to 
have the cows come in with reference to the 
flush of feed. Our maiu object is to turn out 
thorough-bred Jersey calves for sale, and we 
keep the mill going as fast as the health of 
the cows will allow. The result is that calves 
are dropped at all seasons, and there is no 
" flush time " with us in June, as with most 
farmers. Neither are we in the flush of feed ; 
that comes with us in September, when the 
fodder corn is in blossom. Just one quarter of 
the herd consists of two-year-old heifers with 
their first calves, and about another quarter of 
animals that are nearly dry, or that for one rea- 
son or another are giving but little milk— some 
nearly dry, and some very old. I don't brag 
about the quantity, but I am, on the whole, 
quite well satisfied with it. If I have a touch 
of vanity, it is stimulated by the quality and 
uniformity of the butter. It has never been 
more easily made, and never better ; and the 
advantage of the deep-can system was never 
better demonstrated. 1 am sure that any 
dairyman who makes even 50 pounds of butter 
per week, would be more than satisfied with 
his investment if he would rearrange his milk- 
room so as to set his milk in deep cans, even 
if he had to use a windmill, as we do, to get a 
supply of fresh cool water to set them in. 
There is one exception to the above state- 
ment about the time of having the cows come 
in. We try to have all our yearlings — say all 
heifers dropped before October — served by the 
bull in time to calve not earlier than April 15th, 
and not later than June 15th, of their second 
year, so that their first secretion of milk may 
be stimulated (and their milking habits formed) 
by the tender grass of May and June. 
We find it advantageous — having a pasture 
farm for our young stock — to turn the cows 
out in the daytime during the month of June, 
so that as much as possible of the men's time 
may be given to the crowding work of that 
month, and so that we may save for hay as 
much as possible of the grass on which we 
would have to depend for soiling until tdre 
oats are ready. With this exception we stick 
to soiling, and like it. 
