320 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
of a light lead color below, 4 to 4 I [ 2 inches long, 
the tail being about 'js the length of the body. 
The engraving also shows the light colored 
meadow mouse, described in the New York 
State Natural History, which is probably on- 
ly another variety of the same species. 
"Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 45. 
We finished thrashing wheat yesterday. 
There were 316 bushels from 17 acres of Amber 
Michigan, and 264 bushels from 12 acres of 
"White Whittaker. The latter yielded the better, 
but the Amber was the larger and plumper 
berry, and I think it will make the whiter 
flour. The White Whittaker wheat, if mine is 
the genuine article, is not white at all. It is no 
whiter than good Amber. The chaff is white, 
and it has large heads, and looks very hand- 
some when it is growing, but the berry is rather 
small, and the miller would pay no more for it 
than for the Amber. In fact, two or three of 
our best millers pronounced the latter the better 
wheat. I sold the whole crop for $2.50 per 
bushel. Some of my neighbors who thrashed 
early got $2.75 for Soule's wheat. 
One reason why the white wheat yielded the 
better, is owing to the fact that three years ago 
the land received a dressing of five or six hun- 
dred pounds of bone-dust per acre, applied to 
corn. It did comparatively little good on the 
corn the first year. But the land was full of 
thistles, and we planted it to corn another year, 
followed by barley, and then with wheat seeded 
down. I think the bone-dust helped the corn the 
second year, and also the barley, and now the 
wheat has yielded about 4 bushels per acre more 
than that on land, in the same field, not dressed 
with bone-dust. And I expect the clover will 
show a still greater difference. Phosphatic ma- 
nures, as a general rule, have a better effect on 
clover than on the cereals. Last year my wheat 
that was dressed with an ammoniated superphos- 
phate gave a fair crop, due entirely, I think, to 
the manure. Still the effect was by no means 
as decided as it is this year on the following 
crop of clover. A heavier crop of clover is 
seldom grown, and the second growth is now 
very fine, promising a good 3'ield of clover seed. 
The increase of the wheat may hardly pay for 
the manure, but taking clover and all, the appli- 
cation will be quite profitable. 
Mr. Wade, of Port Hope, C. W., was here a 
few days since, and he thought my clover very 
fine, but says we do not cut the first crop early 
enough. One of his neighbors last j'ear raised 
70 bushels of clover seed from ten acres, and 
sold it for $7.00 a bushel in gold. Five bushels 
per acre is thelargest croplever heard of before. 
" Will not these ammoniacal manures run out 
your land ?" asked a gentleman from Virginia, 
who was here last week. Such, he said, was 
found to be the case in his section before the 
war. Farmers in Virginia who used Peruvian 
guano, got excellent crops for a few years, but 
it left the land poorer than it was before. On 
the other hand, a mixture of Peruvian guano 
and a phosphatic guano like Swan Island, gave 
equally good results, and kept up the fertility 
of the land. Peruvian guano, he thought, con- 
tains too much ammonia in proportion to the 
phosphates, and it was better to add more phos- 
phates in the form of bone-dust or Swan Island 
guano. It is not improbable that such is the 
case, and if so, use the mixture. It is cheaper 
than Peruvian guano. But buy the guanos or 
bone-dust separately, and do your own mixing. 
In manipulated guanos you are not always sure 
of getting just what you bargain for. 
But in regard to guano impoverishing the 
land, there is a good deal of misconception, 
and more or less prej udice. Tou can, of course, 
impoverish your land by the use of guano. 
Take the field where I sowed 300 lbs. per acre 
of the ammoniated superphosphate on wheat, 
two 3'ears ago this fall. It gave probably an 
extra yield of eight or ten bushels of wheat per 
acre. Two crops of clover would probably 
give two tons of hay extra. Then plow it up 
and plant corn, and there would be still some 
increase from the extra amount of clover roots 
in the soil. After the corn, sow barley, followed 
by wheat in the fall. Now, then, suppose I sell 
all the wheat and the straw, and also all the 
clover hay from the two crops, together with 
the seed. Suppose, too, I sell the next crop of 
corn and the stalks, and serve the barley and 
straw in the same way, and also the next crop 
of wheat and straw, would it be surprising if 
the next crop of clover is hardly worth cutting ? 
Would not such a course impoverish the land ? 
And the larger the crops at first obtained from 
the 300 lbs. of ammoniated phosphates, the more 
plant food I should export from the farm, and 
the more rapidly would the land be impover- 
ished. But, on the other hand, if I sell only the 
wheat and make the straw into manure; if I 
plow under the clover, or feed it out and return 
the manure ; or if the corn and stalks are all con- 
sumed on the farm, and the barley straw is also 
fed out and made into manure, and this care- 
fully preserved and returned to the land, will 
not the extra amount of wdieat straw, and the 
extra crops of clover, and the extra crop of 
corn make an extra amount of manure, and will 
not the land, after the manure is returned, give 
me an extra crop of clover, and this in turn, 
supply a large quantity of plant-food for the 
following crop of wheat, and if the system of 
growing clover is continued, — of making it and 
the straw, and corn, and stalks, with an occa- 
sional crop of peas, into manure, — will it not 
greatly increase the fertility of the soil ? The 
guano will give me more clover, and this will 
make more manure, and when the yards are 
filled with rich manure in the spring, it will not 
be long before larger barns will be required to 
hold the crops in the fall. So that while an in- 
judicious use of artificial manures may impov- 
erish your land, their proper application, coupled 
with a judicious rotation of crops, and a right 
system of feeding animals, and saving and ap- 
plying manures, will prove permanently advan- 
tageous. The principle is equally true in regard 
to the use of plaster. Whenever plaster in- 
creases the growth of clover, it affords the op- 
portunity of making more manure, and of en- 
riching the land. But sell the clover and all 
the grain and straw, and the use of plaster will 
tend to impoverish the farm. 
John Johnston's remarkable success as a farm- 
er might be attributed to his underdraining, and 
to the large quantity of plaster he used for many 
3'ears on clover. But this would only be a 
partial statement of the truth. His success is 
owing, first, to the man himself— to his rare 
good judgment, combined with indomitable en- 
ergy, persevering industry, close observation, 
and prompt, intelligent action. Second, to un- 
derdraining. Third, to the free use of plaster 
on clover. Fourth, to consuming all the clover, 
straw, and corn, on the farm. He has raised 
3,000 bushels of corn in a year, but none has 
ever been exported from the farm except some 
which he gave to be sent to Ireland at the time 
of the famine. He never sold a busJiel. It has 
all been fed out with the clover, straw, stalks, 
etc., raised on the farm. In addition to this, he 
has bought large quantities of oil-cake to feed 
to sheep and cattle, and this has added greatly 
to the quality of the manure heap. Fifth. He 
bestowed great care on his summer-fallows. 
They were not allowed to grow up to weeds, 
but w T ere repeatedly plowed and harrowed, anil 
rolled and cultivated, until the stiffest clay was 
reduced almost to as fine a tilth as an English 
turnip field. Such thorough tillage is itself 
more than equivalent to a heavy dressing of our 
common strawy manurer 
Underdraining enabled him to work his land 
thoroughly and in good season. This thorough 
tillage set free the latent plant-food in the soil. 
The clover took it up and organized it into good 
food for sheep. The sheep extracted the fat 
from the clover hay, and left the nitrogen and 
mineral matter in the manure heap. So of the 
corn, straw, and stalks. They all found their 
way back to the land, with oil-cake in addition. 
It is easy to understand why his land is vastly 
more productive than when it first came into 
his possession. Underdraining, good culture 
and good manure will make any land rich. 
A few days since I received a letter from a 
subscriber of the Agriculturist in Kentucky, 
who wished to get for himself and half a dozen 
of his neighbors, some of our leading varieties 
of wheat. Their plan was for each to sow one 
variety, and if it proved good, to distribute the 
product among the others. The idea is a capi- 
tal one. He says they have been raising the 
" New Tork Premium " wheat. Wheu they 
first got the seed from this State, the crops were 
excellent, sometimes 40 bushels per acre, but 
the}' have grown it so long on the same land 
that it has degenerated, and the yield is now 
very light and the quality poor. 
A miller and farmer in Maryland writes to the 
same effect. He has introduced a great man}' 
varieties of wheat, and for a few years they do 
well, and then run out. Is such really the case ? 
Do not farmers, when tliev get a new kind of 
wheat from a distance, select their best land, 
give it extra care and culture, and consequently 
get good crops; while after a few years, when 
the seed is common, they bestow only ordinary 
culture, and get only ordinary crops ? 
John Johnston writes me, July 23c? ; " My 
Deihl wheat is pretty good. One field may yield 
about as well as last years; the other, not. 
Cause: Not manured for many years." The 
variety has degenerated on the one field, but 
not on the other ! Mr. J. adds : " If plenty of 
manure were applied, there would be less loss 
from midge. All that is needed to insure good 
crops is more and better manure. Deihl wheat 
is excellent for rich land, but not good for poor." 
This is not a popular doctrine, but it is true. 
Breeders of improved stock tell us that it costs 
no more to raise a good animal than a poor 
one. The nurserymen assert that it is as easy 
to raise a choice variety of fruit as a common, 
inferior kind ; and some farmers appear to Hunk 
if they send to a distance for a celebrated kind 
of grain, they are sure of good crops. Now, 
the truth is, if we want any thing that is really 
good, we must work for it. But when we get 
it, it will be so very good that we shall esteem 
the extra care and labor nothing. We ought 
not to expect to raise a barrel of large, well 
grown, highly colored Northern Sp}' apples as 
easily as we can a barrel of common seedlings, 
or even Baldwins. We can not raise a Sheldon 
as easily as a Choke pear. I question if the 
