112 
PRESERVATION AND APPLICATION OP MANURE.-—NO. 3. 
what one is about. I speak from experience, for, 
during a whole winter of six months, I burned two 
lamps in my parlor, one in the kitchen, and one 
which burned all night, without buying an ounce of 
fat for the purpose; and that year, we had neither 
pork nor beef of our own killing, but depended en¬ 
tirely upon bought provisions. 
To soften the beef and mutton suet, I mixed 
with it the fat of the poultry, carefully rendered : 
and all the grease from the kitchen, except that 
from smoked meat, was purified to answer the same 
urpose, by being washed twice or thrice in clean 
oiling water, and then strained through a cloth, 
to free it from salt, and other impurities. E. S. 
Eutawah. 
PRESERVATION AND APPLICATION OF 
MANURES.—No. 3. 
It may be laid down as a well established prin¬ 
ciple, that the alkalies, alkaline earths, and mineral 
elements, which enter into the composition of the 
food of man and beast, and thus serve to nourish 
the body, are all given back to the soil, in the form 
of solid and liquid excrements, except that portion 
which has served to increase the growth of the body, 
or rather solid parts of the body,for no parts of these 
elements which entered into the solid parts of ani- 
als, is, upon the death of such animals, restored to 
the soil. Thus no part of these elements need be 
lost to agriculture, except that which is contained in 
the bodies of the human species, which, of course, 
is buried in the grave. The nitrogen consumed in 
the food of men and animals, is also restored, with 
the exception above mentioned, but as this sub¬ 
stance is easily converted into ammonial gas, more 
care is required to prevent its loss, by escaping in 
the form of ammonia. 
From the principle laid down above, it is evident 
that if such care be used to preserve and restore to 
the soil everything which grew upon it, its fertility 
could not be diminished. Even the mineral ele¬ 
ments, which are taken from the soil, in the form 
of hay, grain, and other provender, for man and 
beast, if consumed on the plantation, could with 
proper care, be nearly all restored to the soil. But 
it must be admitted, that although every possible 
care may be used, the whole of these elements can¬ 
not be restored. As already remarked, a portion 
of them, though very small, is buried in grass, a 
much larger portion is consumed at a distance, in 
our towns and cities. Some is exported to foreign 
countries, and some part of them is unavoidably 
lost on the plantation. But on the other hand, it 
must be recollected, that a kind Providence has 
provided a means of compensating these unavoida¬ 
ble losses. In the first place, there is constantly, 
though very slowly, progressing a disintegration of 
various rocks, which furnish new supplies of these 
mineral elements; and in the second place; as 
shown in my former number, a considerable sup¬ 
ply of common salt, chloride of potassium, magnesia, 
&c., which by evaporation, and the winds, is carried 
over the whole earth. Of nitrogen, a considerable 
quantity is derived in the form of ammonia, from 
the atmosphere. These supplies were doubtless 
intended, by a wise Providence, to replace the una¬ 
voidable losses of the alkalies, and other mineral 
elements, which are so essential to the continued 
fertility of soils. But it was not designed that they 
should be so abundant as to supercede the care and 
industry of man. And hence the necessity of con¬ 
stant vigilance and attention to give back to the 
soil the elements, which are essentially necessary 
to preserve its fertility. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, 
&c., which are pastured on fields, which are in¬ 
tended for future cultivation, give back to them 
immediately, in the form of solid and liquid excre¬ 
ments, all that they take from them. This is, 
therefore, a most economical and judicious appli¬ 
cation of manure. If the fields, thus pastured, 
should be well set with old clover, this mode of 
applying manure would be particularly valuable, 
for Liching shows, in his XVlh letter, that with 
every 1000 pounds of carbon, we obtain from a 
field of wheat 21.5, oats 22.3, rye 15.2, and clover 
44 pounds of nitrogen. Thus the clover, in con¬ 
sequence of its numerous leaves, must have derived 
from the atmosphere, in the form of ammonia , more 
than twice as much nitrogen as wheat or oats, and 
nearly three times as much as rye. It probably 
also imbibed, from the atmosphere, a similar pro¬ 
portion of the elements furnished by the evapora¬ 
tion of sea water. As all these elements are so 
much added to the soil, it must be considerably 
enriched by each successive crop of clover, fed ofi 
on the ground. 
Corn is frequently cut up in the stalk, cured, and 
then hauled and fed on a field intended for future 
cultivation. Here all the elements contained in the 
fodder and corn are taken from the field on which 
the corn grew, and given to the soil upon which it 
is fed. Thus the latter is enriched at the expense 
of the former, by giving to it all the manure de¬ 
rived from another field. But as the field, upon 
which this grew, will, in turn, be sowed down in 
grass, and become the field upon which the corn 
will be fed, which is grown upon the field enriched 
as above, this is an economical application of 
manure. And if the fields should be kept a due 
proportion of time in grass, and especially, if 
kept in clover, their fertility would be procured, 
and may even be reinstated, after having been 
considerably exhausted, by making the grass crops 
occur twice or thrice (according to the degree of 
exhaustion) as often as the grain crops. But some¬ 
times cut-up corn is fed upon woodland, or upon 
grass land, too broken for cultivation. This is a 
great want of economy in the application of 
manure, as it is wholly lost to the cultivated fields. 
This practice, if pursued to any extent, is well cal¬ 
culated to exhaust, instead of preserve, the fertility 
of soils. A. Beatty. 
Prospect Hill, Ky. 
Culture of Barley. —The high price of this 
grain and the scarcity of good marketable samples 
the present season, should induce farmers to pay 
more attention to its culture. The best soil for it 
is a light, rich, loamj’ clay; and on this it produces 
most abundantly, and pays the cultivator as well, 
and often better, than any other crop grown. Much 
is said of the skinless barley, but, on the whole, 
we prefer the four and six-rowed kinds. On a pro¬ 
per soil, one and a half bushels is sufficient seed 
per acre. If desired, the land may be stocked down 
with grass at the time of sowing the barley. 
