28 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
SOILS AND THEIS MANAGEMENT--MANURES. 
The chief distinction of soils, in ordinary practice, is 
into heavy and light, v/et and dry, fertile and sterile. A 
volume might profitably be written on their management, 
but space can be alforded here for a few brief hints only. 
Heavy (or clayey) soils are easily distinguished by 
their adhesiveness after rains, by cracking in drought, 
and by frequently presenting a cloddy surface after plow- 
ing. They are not sufficiently porous for natural drain- 
age, but when thoroughly tile-drained, they become emi- 
nently valuable, as they retain manure better, and may 
be made richer than any other soil. 
Sandy or gravelly loams have less strength, and may 
be more easily worked. They do not retain manure a 
long time. With a hard subsoil, they also require drain- 
age, Sandy soils are easily tilled, but are not strong 
enough for most purposes, possessing too little clay to 
hold manure. 
Peaty soils are generally light and free, containing 
large quantities of decayed vegetable matter. They are 
made by draining low and swampy grounds. They are 
fine for Indian corn, broom corn, barley, potatoes, and 
turnips. They are great absorbers, and great radiators 
of heat ; hence they become warm in sunshine, and cold 
on clear nights. For this reason, they are peculiarly lia- 
ble to frosts. Crops planted upon them must, conse- 
quently, be put in late — after spring frosts are over. Corn 
should be of early varieties, that it may not only be 
planted late, but ripen early. 
Each of these kinds of soils may be variously im- 
proved, Most of heavy soils are much improved by 
draining ; open drains to darry off the surface water, and 
covered drains, that which settles beneath. An acquain- 
tance covered a low, wet, clayey field with a net-work of 
underdrains, and from a production of almost nothing 
but grass, it yielded the first year forty bushels of wheat 
per acre — enough to pay the expense ; and admitted of 
much easier tillage afterwards. Heavy soils are also 
made lighter and freer by manuring; by plowing under 
coatings of straw, rotten chips, and swamp muck ; and 
in some rare cases, by carting on sand — though this is 
usually too expensive for practice. Subsoil plowing is 
very beneficial, both in wet seasons and in drought; the 
deep, loose bed of earth it makes, receiving the water in 
heavy rains, and throwing it off to the soil above, when 
needed. But a frequent repetition of the operation is 
needed, as the subsoil gradually settles again. 
Sandy soils are improved by manuring, by the appli- 
cation of lime, and by frequently turning in green crops. 
Leached ashes have been found highly beneficial in many 
places. Where the subsoil is clayey, which is often the 
case, and especially if marly clay — great advantage is 
derived from shoveling it up and spreading it on the sur- 
face. A neighbor had twenty bushels of wheat per acre 
on land thus treated, while the rest of the field yielded 
only five. 
Manures, — These are first among the first of requi- 
sites in successful farm management. They are the strong 
moving power in agricultural operations. They are as 
the great steam engine which drives the vessel onward. — 
Good and clean cultivation is, indeed, all-important; but 
it will avail little without a fertile soil; and this feitility 
must be created, or kept up, by a copious application of 
manures. For these contribute directly, or assist indi- 
rectly, to the supply of nearly all the nourishment which 
plants receive; it is these, which, produced chiefly from 
the decay of dead vegetable and animal matter, combine 
most powerfully to give new life and vigor ; and thus the 
apparently putrid mass, is the very material which is 
converted into the most beautiful forms of nature ; and 
plants and brilliant flowers spring up from the decay of 
old forms, and thus a continued succession of destruction 
and renovation is carried on through an unlimited series 
of ages. 
Manures possess different degrees of power, partly 
from their inherent richness, and partly from the rapidi- 
ty with which they throw off their fertilizing ingredients, 
in assisting the growth of plants. These are given off" 
by solution in water, and in the form of gas ; the one as 
liquid manure, which, running down, is absorbed by the 
fine roots; and the other as air, escaping mostly into the 
atmosphere and lost. 
The great art, then, of saving and manufacturing ma- 
nure, consists in retaining and applying to the best ad- 
vantage, these soluble and gaseous portions. Probably 
more than one-half of all the materials which exist in the 
country, are lost, totally lost, by not attending to the 
drainage of stables and farm-yards. This could be re- 
tained by a copious application of straw ; by littering 
with saw-dust, where saw-mills are near ; and more es- 
pecially by the frequent coating of yards and stables with 
dried peat and swamp muck, of which many parts of 
our country furnish inexhaustible supplies, I say dried 
peat or muck, because if it is already saturated with wa- 
ter, of which it will often take in five-sixths of its own 
weight, it cannot absorb the liquid portions of the ma- 
nure. But if it will absorb five-sixths in water, it will, 
when dried, absorb five-sixths in liquid manure, and both 
together form a very enriching material. The practice 
of many farmers, shows how little they are aware of the 
hundreds they are every year losing by suffering this 
most valuable of their farm products to escape. Indeed, 
there are not a few who carefully, and very ingeniously 
as they suppose, place their barns and cattle-yards in 
such a manner on the sides of hills, that all the drainage 
from them may pass off out of the way into the neigh- 
boring streams ; and a farmer is mentioned, who, with 
pre-eminent shrewdness, built his hog-pen directly across 
a stream, that he might at once get the cleanings washed 
away, and prevent their accumulation. He, of course, 
succeeded in his wish ; but he might, with almost equal 
propriety, have built his granaTy across the stream, so a£ 
to shovel the wheat into the water when it increased oa 
his hands. 
All neat farming, all profitable farming, and all satis- 
factory farming, must be attended with a careful saving 
of manures. The people of Flanders have long been dis- 
tinguished for the neatness and excellence of their farms, 
which they have studied to make like gardens. The 
care with which they collect all refuse materials which 
may be converted into manure and increase their com- 
posts, is one of the chief reasons of the cleanliness of 
their towns and residences. And were this subject fully 
appreciated and attended with a corresponding practice 
generally, it would doubtless soon increase by millioBe 
the agricultural products of the country. — Illustrated An- 
nual Register of Rural Affairs. 
Waterproofs. — For hats, boil 8 pounds of shellac, 8 
pounds of frankincense, and 1 pound borax, in sufficient 
water. To waterproof cloth for sportsmen, dip it in a 
solution of acetate of lead, with a little gum and solutioD 
of alum (both solutions of the same strength.) For shoes, 
linseed oil 8 ounces, boiled ditto 10 ounces, suet 8 oz,, 
yellow wax 8 oz.: melt. — London Field. 
Sentiments. — A wise government will not be sk>w 
fostering the Agricultural interest 
^^Let every farmer who has a son to educate, remeia- 
ber and believe that science lays the foundation of every- 
thing valuable in AgrieuUure. ^ 
