28 
large house cart, etc. 
LARGE HORSE CART. 
The cut below represents a very useful farm and 
plantation tumbrel cart. It is much more conve- 
nient than a four-wheeled wagon in many respects. 
It can be worked either by one or more horses ; 
one or two additional horses can be hitched to it 
side by side, to draw outside the thills, or they can 
draw in tandem if preferred. It admits of easy back- 
ing or short turning, which is of great advantage m 
particular locations, and especially among thickly- 
planted rows upon the field. 
But its greatest advantage is in the facility of 
dumping, or upsetting, the load by removing the 
catch or staple, which confines the box upon the 
thiils in front, when a little effort sends the box 
nearly perpendicular, whirling over upon its axis 
(the axletree), by which the load is summarily dis- 
posed of. In discharging dirt, manure, sugar cane, 
and many other crops, this is an item of great con- 
sideration. Prices, from $50 to $80. 
TO KEEP UP A CONSTANT FERTILITY IN THE 
SOIL. 
The object which we have in view in manuring 
our lands, is to keep up a constant fertility, which 
will enable us to reap from them every year the 
largest possible crops. It is but reasonable to sup- 
pose, then, that constant cropping would speedily 
exhaust any soil, unless we return to it, in some 
shape or other, those substances of which we de- 
prive it; and that this is in reality the fact, every 
day's experience proves to us. It has often been 
demonstrated, that if plants, grown on any given 
space of land, be plowed into the soil whilst they 
are in a green and succulent condition, the fertility 
of that land is much increased. 
This proceeds from the quantity of nutriment 
those plants have abstracted from the atmosphere 
during their growth ; so that by their being plowed 
into the soil whereon they had grown, they afford 
to it a much greater amount of substances than 
Horse Cart. — Fig. 3. 
they receive from it, and consequently whatever 
excess they may furnish, so far enriches the soil. 
Some plants are much more remarkable in this 
respect than others, for instance, lucern, or clover, 
plowed into the soil previous to blossoming, en- 
riches it exceedingly. This is what is sometimes 
termed "green soiling;" and by it, the plant used 
is made the means of conveying to the soil the car- 
bon and ammonia, which in its growth it extracts 
from the atmosphere. It also appropriates to its 
own use the excrementitious matter deposited by 
other descriptions of plants growing in the soil pre- 
viously, and deposits its own excrement, which 
serves as food to others succeeding it. In the mid- 
dle and northern parts of the United States, and all 
cold climates this excrementitious matter, voided by 
plants, is much longer passing into putrefaction 
than in tropical countries; the necessity, therefore, 
of adopting a rotation of crops is much greater in 
the former than in the latter. 
All plants void excrements, which, when acted 
dti by air and moisture, putrifies and becomes con- 
verted into " humus," or vegetable matter in a state 
of decay. This deposit of organic matter is com- 
mon to all plants and exercises a very beneficial influ- 
ence on land, by furnishing it with asubstance capa- 
ble of being converted into humus, which is so de- 
sirable in a soil ; but plants cannot long he replanted 
in the same soil without being seriously affected by 
their own excrement ; so much so that at length 
they altogether fail. Artificial aid, however, in- 
duces a more speedy conversion of this matter into 
humus, than would otherwise take place, which is 
effected by frequently turning up the soil with the 
plow or hoe, so as to expose the excrement to the 
influence of the atmosphere ; and by irrigating the 
land with river water; as the water of rivers and 
streams contains oxygen in solution, which effects 
the most rapid and complete putrefaction of the ex- 
crementitious matter contained in the soil which it 
penetrates. — Organic Chemistry. 
Select Good Stock. — A great hindrance to the 
increase of good stock, arises from the farmer not 
being aware of the difference in the value between 
one breed and another. Many argue that " cows 
are but cows ;" and that if those they have are 
well kept and carefully bred, they would be as 
good as anv others. — R. Jardine. 
