194 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE MANURES CHARCOAL UNDERDRAING. 
she should be allowed to attain the fullest de- 
velopment of her milking apparatus, milk veins, 
udder, &c., which does not occur till she has 
had her second or third calf. She will then, if 
spayed in the proper time and manner, and if 
properly fed, milked, and managed afterwards, 
continue to yield milk for years ; and when it 
is advisable to withdraw her from the dairy, she 
will fatten readily, economically, and give a 
better quality of carcass, when dressed. 
We should be glad to receive any information 
on this subject from practical men, who are 
familiar with the subject. The information will 
be valuable for our agricultural readers. 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE MANURES— CHARCOAL 
—UNDERDRAINING. 
Manure, made from a compost where fish or 
flesh is the fertilising basis, has ever been found 
to be greatly exhausted the first season after ap- 
plied to a growing crop. This is in perfect 
accordance with the principles of animal chem- 
istry, as that nitrogen which supports living 
flesh, also hastens decomposition in the dead 
animal, until it is dissolved and dissipated into 
its original elements, so that th^. three summer 
months give sufficient heat and moisture to de- 
compose thoroughly any animal substance. On 
the other hand, manure composed of animal ex- 
crements, ha}r, straw, or other refuse vegetable 
matter, is of much slower decomposition ; hence 
its favorable effects may be noticed in several 
succeeding crops. 
From close observation of the operations of 
nature, in her constant endeavors to fructify 
and reproduce, I have noticed that the seeds 
contained in stable manure, were continually 
sprouting into plants of considerable root ; thus 
organising the escaping ammonia and carbonic 
acid, not taken up by the roots of the growing 
crop. These young plants, or weeds, when 
plowed or hoed under the surface, commence 
another decomposition ; so that what would be 
wasted in the air, if no other vegetable life were 
present but that of the growing crop, is now oi'- 
ganised and saved up for another season. Many 
farmers advocate the practice of summer fallow, 
on the ground that it destroys weeds ; there 
man's economy comes strangely in conflict with 
nature, as her constant efforts are to cover all 
the waste places with organised plants, that 
nothing be lost which can add to the ultimate 
growth of the vegetable kingdom. If, in Eng- 
land, this plan of killing weeds by summer fal- 
low, instead of by weeding and hoeing, were 
pursued, the average yield of wheat there, in- 
stead of being sixty bushels to the acre, \\jould 
not probably exceed the average yield in this 
state, which is less than fifteen bushels. If 
a farmer would sow rye, or some other seed, 
between the hills of his corn, immediately after 
he has worked the soil for the last time, a fine, 
vegetable matting would cover the whole sur- 
face '. immediately after the corn is removed. 
This vegetable growth, plowed under the next 
spring, would almost supercede the necessity of 
any other application of manure. Wheat, I am 
told, has often been sowed in this way at the 
west, for a crop ; but such an experiment is only 
advisable in that loose, rich, virgin soil peculiar 
to new farms, which requires little or no plow- 
ing. Yet, some of the best pieces of wheat I 
ever saw, whose plants grew so strong and 
healthily as to distance every enemy, was sowed 
after corn with only one plowing. 
Charcoal. — I have seen ground where a coal 
pit was burned, continue without other manure 
to yifdd a much better vegetable growth than 
the rest of the field, for twelve or fifteen years 
in succession. Now, I take it, the charcoal gave 
up in its slow decomposition its potash and in- 
organic elements to the growing plants, while 
that part which still retained its mechanical 
structure, absorbed carbonic acid, and ammonia 
from the atmosphere, which were in like manner 
given up to the roots of plants. There are thou- 
sands of bushels of ground charcoal used by 
distillers and rectifiers in the city of New York 
alone. At Buffalo, thousands of bushels of the 
same article, after being saturated with the es- 
sentia], oil of distilled spirits, are thrown away as 
useless ; all of which might be transported any 
distance on our canals, at very small expense, 
as leached ashes are purchased along the line 
of the Erie Canal, to transport to Long Island 
for manure. It strikes me that ground charcoal 
might be made still more profitable. In a com- 
post heap, with menhaden fish, it must needs 
be invaluable. 
Underdrawing. — If subsoil plowing in a heavy, 
undrained soil is useless, it is almost certain 
that thorough underdraining, will enable us to 
dispense with subsoil plowing. Those who are 
disposed to deny this, let them go and examine 
the underdrained fields of John Johnson, in 
West Fayette, near Seneca Lake. All the 
ameliorating effects which are claimed for sub- 
soil plowing are there produced by sinking tile 
drains from two and a half to three feet in depth. 
When this business of underdraining becomes 
general, the surface of land necessary to sup- 
ply a family with its vegetable products will be 
small indeed. Con Amore. 
Waterloo, N. Y. 
£alius' JBqjavfmenl. 
YAUPON tea. 
" What sort of tea did you say, sir V Yaupon 
tea, ma'am. I cannot give you the exact orthog- 
raphy of the word. It may be yopon, yawpon, 
yuopon, or yoopon, as I have never seen it writ- 
ten, and it sounds from the mouth of different 
individuals, like each of the above words. 
" Well, never mind how it's spelled, but do 
tell us what it is like, and where it is used, and 
where it comes from, and all about it." 
Yes ma'am, and so I might as well begin at 
the beginning. Tradition says it was first dis- 
covered upon the desert coast of Virginia, south 
of the Chesepeake Bay, or upon the equally 
desolate shore of North Carolina, and for a long 
time was only known to one family of Indians, 
who used to prepare it, and sell it to the early 
