138 
DEAD ANIMALS.-A LESSON OX PLOWING. 
is a general rule to sow the seed in beds and then 
transplant. A recent and much superior practice 
is, to sow from three to live seeds in the places 
where you wish one plant to grow. In this case 
the largest and most thrifty plant only is left stand¬ 
ing. After it gets three to four weeks old, the 
other plants are pinched off or broken down. 
Grown in this way the heads are said to be much 
larger and finer than when the young cabbages are 
transplanted, as it is contended that however care¬ 
fully the process may be performed, the plant re¬ 
ceives a check in its incipient state which it never 
entirely recovers. There is reason and philosophy 
in this, and we should be glad if those engaged in 
the culture of cabbages would make experiments 
the present season between different rows, side by 
side, sowing the seed as above, and in the usual 
method, and then transplant. 
DEAD ANIMALS. 
At all seasons of the year dead animals are to be 
seen hung up on fences and on trees; and espe¬ 
cially is this the case in spring. On every farm 
where sheep are kept, dead lambs are suspended in 
the beautiful, blooming, and fruit-bearing orchards 
—how shocking!—to annoy the sight and smell, 
and w T aste the farmer’s means. Dogs and cats 
too are frequently hoisted into view in the same 
annoying and disgusting manner. If horses, cattle, 
sheep, or hogs die, they are drawn out of sight, 
but not out of smell, and are still sources of dis¬ 
gust. Why is all this ? If the farmer be so un¬ 
fortunate or so negligent as to lose an animal, 
should he be so wasteful as to permit the carcase 
to decay uselessly in the open air, to the great an¬ 
noyance of his family and every passer by ? Does 
he not know that animal matter is the best and 
richest of manure ? Animal matter contains every 
element that is necessary to grow every plant 
known. In it are phosphate and carbonate of 
lime, ammonia, carbon, in short, in the best form, 
all the essentials of vegetable growth. Its putritive 
power is great, and if added to the compost heap 
hastens fermentation, and adds greatly to its rich¬ 
ness. Whenever a fowl, cat, dog, sheep, pig, 
horse, or cow dies, let the carcase be cut up, and 
the bones broken, and the whole added to the 
manure heap. The carcase of a single horse will 
turn loads of useless muck or peat into manure, 
richer than any ordinary barn-yard dung. Why 
then suffer it to decay uselessly and annoyingly ? 
It is true it is not lost, for the gases that taint the 
air are appropriated by plants; but the farmer who 
owned the animal gets but a small portion of what 
should be all his own. Why, then, will he waste 
the dead energies of the horse, when he has lost 
the living ones ? If our readers will heed what we 
say, they will not suffer dead animals to annoy the 
eye and disgust the nose hereafter. Bury them in 
the manure heap ; add some lime to quicken decay, 
and charcoal dust or plaster to absorb the gases, 
and much will be gained to the good appearance of 
the farm, the quality of the manure, and the quan¬ 
tity of the crop-' grown; and much to the purse of 
the farmer. If your neighbor be so improvident as 
to waste a dead animal, beg it of him, that it may 
not be detrimental to health and useless to vegeta¬ 
tion. Laws should be passed to compel the saving 
’and use of this most powerful of fertilizers, when 
common sense and decency fail to do it. 
Whenever it is desirable to hasten decay, and 
rapidly turn animal matter into manure, sulphuric 
acid may be used. This would be too expensive 
(although the acid is cheap) for farm purposes, but 
may be employed for the garden, where expense is 
not so important. It is frequently desirable to have 
a rich manure in the garden, and it is not at hand 
Animal matter put into sulphuric acid will in a 
few hours furnish it. Every house will supply 
much refuse animal matter. To this rats, mice, 
moles, feathers, hair, bones, horns, &c., may be 
added. If the garbage of a slaughter-house can be 
got, it should be. All these will soon be reduced 
to an available state, be inoffensive, and will add 
great fertility to the soil where used. The requi¬ 
site quantity of acid may be ascertained by experi¬ 
ment—about 10 or 15 lbs. is usually allowed for 
100 lbs of animal matter. 
A LESSON ON PLOWING. 
Visiting the farm of Edward J. Woolsey, Esq., 
at Hellegat Neck, one day the past month, we were 
conducted over it by his manager, Mr. Samuel 
Pate. He has just begun his operations there, and 
will one of these days make it one of the most pro¬ 
ductive places that adorn this neighborhood. He 
showed us a field of about twelve acres, the most 
thoroughly sub-drained of anything we have yet 
seen in the United States. It was originally a deep 
morass ; now it is a firm, dry, meadow. But as we 
hope to be favored with an account of the operation 
from Mr. Woolsey himself one of these days, we 
forbear further observation upon it. 
Mr. Pate is a Scotchman, and having several 
Scotch plowmen, with Scotch plows at work, to 
gratify our curiosity he invited us to see them ope¬ 
rate. The work was not done for show, but was 
such as characterizes the every day operations of 
good plowmen in Scotland; and if all were not as 
well done at home, they would be dismissed by their 
employer for awkward workmanship. The field 
in which we found the men at work was about 40 
rods long, of a rich loamy soil, and coated with a 
tough old sward. Here the men set in and run 
their furrows from end to end, as straight as one 
could draw a line, turning them 6 inches deep, and 
11 inches wide, slightly lapped, and packing them 
up one after the other all day long, with a single 
pair of horses, each plowman driving his own 
team, and not varying throughout their work, as 
we could discover, a single inch in the thickness of 
width of their furrow slices. We have seen as good 
plowing in Great Britain, but never anything like 
it before, as a whole, in the United Slates, though 
we have often been present at the most celebrated 
plowing matches. There were no snake trails, or 
ram’s horns here, or half-turned sods, or untouched 
ground, or skipped places; but the whole was as 
thoroughly and evenly done as it would be possi¬ 
ble to accomplish with the most careful spading, 
and when harrowed with the fine double harrow, 
the surface of the field had the appearance of a 
well-dug and fine-ralced garden. 
People may say what they please, yet we con¬ 
tend that good plowing is not only the first, but 
the most important part of the operations on the 
