G 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
being less in compass than some of its predeces¬ 
sors, and therefore an improvement. As to the 
matter of the volume, it is various in character 
and value. The introduction by Commissioner 
Mason is sensible and to the point. We only re¬ 
gret that his good suggestions could not be fol¬ 
lowed by Congress, of which, by the way, we 
have no hope, so long as low politics and self- 
aggrandizement absorb the mass of our legisla¬ 
tors. Out of the seventy-five millions expended 
annually by the Government, in one thing and 
another, we are told in this Report, that seventy- 
five thousand dollars are appropriated to the agri¬ 
cultural use of the Patent Office, being just one- 
thousandth part of what our population—five- 
sixths of whom are farmers—having paid for Go¬ 
vernment purposes, get back again in the very 
equivocal commodities retailed through this Bu¬ 
reau ! 
The book opens with a lot of pictures—indiffer¬ 
ent indeed, but quite tolerable for a book printed 
by Congress; anil, in our opinion, the book 
would be quite as good without them, the Isother¬ 
mal map excepted. There are also several pa¬ 
pers contributed by D. J. Browne, the chief com¬ 
piler, and such an inveterate literary poacher is 
he, that it is difficult to say what is his own, or 
what belongs to others. His “ dairy ” matter, 
taken, as he confesses, from English authority, 
is worthless here, and what appertains to other 
things, little better. Robert Kennicott, of Illinois, 
has some pleasant contributions in Natural His¬ 
tory, of birds and beasts. Henry F. French, of 
New Hampshire, has an excellent article—as all 
his articles are—on draining. Doctor Jackson, 
of Boston, gives a sensible essay on fertilizers, 
and a short notice on Sorgho sugar and molasses. 
John J. Thomas, of Cayuga Lake, as is his wont, 
writes well on grafting and budding; and the 
“ Reports of the American Bornological Society, 
for 1856,” are given at length, comprising eighty 
pages. Then comes an excellent paper from 
Dr. John A. Warder, of Ohio, of thirty pages, on 
grapes and wine-making, followed, as are several 
of the previous papers, by flourishes of the afore¬ 
said “ D. J. B.” Then a short, illustrated paper, 
very well in its way, on implements and tools, by 
Townsend Sharpless, of Philadelphia, followed up 
oy a long study on meteorology, by Professor 
Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, illustrated 
by an Isothermal map, a subject of interest to 
those who are fond of tracing out the laws and 
action of the elements, as they traverse, in wind, 
and storm, and heat, and cold the northern half 
of the American continent. All these, with a few 
others not enumerated, closed up by sundry sta¬ 
tistical tables, of articles exported from the coun¬ 
try, make up the volume. 
On the whole, as the upshot of a year’s work 
in the Agricultural Bureau of the Patent Office, 
we cannot say much for the book. Half-a-dozen 
agricultural periodicals that we can name, give us 
an annual fund of information, far exceeding this in 
value, and reach ten times the number of readers 
ffiat the book will do, distributed, as it is, among 
the people, through the favoritism of the mem¬ 
bers of Congress. Tbe annual distribution of 
seeds by the department, also, through the mem¬ 
bers of Congress, by way of the Post-Offices, 
with few and far between exceptions, we consider 
an arrant humbug. We have had scores of pack¬ 
ages, in nine cases out of ten, only to try, and 
condemn them, as far as anything new was con¬ 
cerned. This practice ought to be discontinued 
instanter. It lumbers the mails, and frets the 
people who get 'hem with disappointment. If 
anything really new and important could be ob¬ 
tained liv the Patent Office, in that line, it would 
be well to distribute it among our farmers ; but 
when the purchase of seeds, common and unclean 
—as many are—is made a jobbing affair, for the 
benefit of a few favorites, instead of a public ob¬ 
ject, the less of it the better. 
We liked Commissioner Mason very well, in 
his official capacity—for we know nothing of him 
otherwise—and we regret that political needs 
should have displaced him for another, whose ca 
pacity in a like office has yet to be tested. 
Tim Bunker on a Hew Manure. 
Mr. Editor —I ha’n’t told you anything about 
my carrot crop, this year, and the way I aston¬ 
ished the natives, and myself about as much as 
any of them. It is seldom that a new idea gets 
into the heads of the people up here in Hooker- 
town, but they all declared they got one, when 
they come to see my carrot crop. I guess I had 
one myself but it was not exactly the same as my 
neigbors’. 
You know, last year, I told you about the sub¬ 
soiling of my garden, and the lots of garden 
sauce I put into my cellar, in the fall of 1856. 
That waked up some folks considerable, and Seth 
Twiggs in particular. One day, last spring, he 
come down to our house—pipe in mouth, as usual. 
Says he, “ Esquire Bunker, I am going in for 
some of them premiums, myself, this year, and I 
calculate to beat you on carrots, do your pretti¬ 
est.” 
“ Dew tell,” says I “and what are you going to 
manure with 1” 
“ Pig manure and a subsile plow. You see 
I’ve got Deacon Smith to subsile my garden, and 
I’ve got manure enough to cover the ground an 
inch thick, all over. You’re a gone coon, this 
time. Esq. Bunker, I shall beat you and the 
smoke rolled up in a cloud as he walked off, the 
picture of self-satisfaction. 
Says I to myself, after Seth had gone, “ a sub¬ 
sile plow is not the chief end of man. I’ll try a 
few tile drains and a trenching spade.” 
The lower end of my garden, you know, is 
bounded by a ditch, and has always been too wet. 
I got sole tile enough to drain a quarter of an 
acre, putting them down three-and-a-half feet 
deep, and thirty feet apart. Thinks I to myself, 
“ If Seth Twiggs gets the start of Tim Bunker on 
carrots, he’ll have to manure with something 
deeper than subsile plows.” After the tile were 
put down, I could see they were needed, because 
after every rain that came, they would discharge 
water into the ditch. Seth thought he was doing 
rather an extravagant thing, sir, putting on the 
manure an inch thick. It only showed what a 
fog his mind was in, about manures. I had a 
grand compost heap, that I had been making all 
winter—muck, night-soil, soap-suds, and a lot of 
bony fish—at least ten cords, and very strong. I 
had it all worked into that quarter of an acre with 
the trenching spades, full three feet deep. I then 
raked it all over with a steel-toothed garden rake, 
the teeth six inches long, making a seed bed 
about as soft as a bed of down. I sowed the 
carrots in drills, on the first day of June. The 
drills were fourteen inches apart, and I thinned 
them out to eight inches in the drill. 
When I was digging them, the week before 
Thanksgiving, Deacon Smith, Seth Twiggs, and 
Uncle Jotham Sparrowgrass, came along. The 
heaps were lying on the ground, about as thick as 
haycocks, and nearly half as big. 
“ Quite a crop, Esq. Bunker, says the Deacon.” 
“ Did you subsile. this year,” inquired Seth, his 
countenance fallen and woe-begone, as he eyed 
the yellow boys lying around, many of them 
plump thirty inches long 7 
“ Pray, what did you manure with,” inquired 
Jotham, as his eyes opened with astonishment!” 
“ With brains,” said I. 
“ Brains !” exclaimed Jotham. “ I never heerd 
of that manure afore. Where upon earth could 
you get enough for a load!” 
I could see that the deacon enjoyed Jotham’s in¬ 
nocence. and there was a sly twinkle in Seth’s 
eye, which showed that the idea was crawling 
through his wool. 
“ If you do not believe me, gentlemen, if you 
will walk down to the lower part of the garden, 
I’ll convince you of the fact.” 
“ There,” said I, pointing to the tile, which were 
then discharging water into the ditch. “ I put the 
brains of ten thousand bony fish on top of that 
piece of land, and down below, there, you see 
some of my brains running out.” 
Uncle Jotham Sparrowgrass got a new idea on 
brain manure then, and it is very well dissemi¬ 
nated in this neighborhood now. My own new 
notion is, that we have got a very imperfect idea 
oi the productiveness of the soil, when worked 
and manured with brains, f measured up 403 
bushels of carrots from that quarter of an acre, 
and I expect to beat it next year. 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown, Conn., Dec. 15, 1857. 
'O I ■■ii Tjgl Tiiw > ij n 
Gather Manure from tbe Roads. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Your paper of this month has been perused 
with more than usual interest and profit, although 
every number contains much valuable information, 
and many good suggestions, not only editorially, 
but from correspondents, which if acted upon, 
would be of incalculable benefit to the farmer. 
Notwithstanding the present season is not so fa¬ 
vorable for farm work, yet, as you say, there are 
a thousand things which are better done now than 
at any other season ; and it will be conceded that 
any man, especially the tiller of the soil, whe 
neglects to do these things now, will find that 
when he can illy spare time, they will have to be 
done. On such a day as the present, for instance, 
who has not repairs to make to the utensils of the 
farm, and what more profitably can be done than 
to take them to the barn, or work-shop, and give 
them a thorough overhauling ! I must confess 
that I have been guilty of neglect myself, and can 
see now why such work should be attended to 
when the time is not required for other work. 
But my object now is, not to write a disserta¬ 
tion upon points which receive so much attention 
in your paper, but to say a few words again in 
favor of my much-valued muck —my experience in 
which you published in your last. There are some 
farmers and gardeners who have not a muck pond 
to go to for a supply. It is to this class especi¬ 
ally that a word may be of benefit, for I speak 
from experience, and can testify that what I re¬ 
commend will pay. 
Almost every farmer has access to the road, or 
highway, and will admit that mud (orrnuck) makes 
a bad road. It is too often the case, that because 
this material is easily worked, it is drawn on to 
the road, and the consequence i3 that in dry weath¬ 
er there is much dust, and in wet weather much 
mud. Every farmer would be the gainer if he 
kept the road opposite his land in good order by 
carting on gravel, and carting back upon his land 
the mud, wash from the street, &c. A road once 
well made with gravel, will need but little yearly 
repair, and the wash of a road one-quarter of a 
