AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
39 
^certificate from the Japanese Commission, 
while your hand was in ? Why don’t 
you honestly say: “We have a lot of millet 
seed, which we want to sell at one dol¬ 
lar a handful.” The reason is plain. Millet, or 
Hungarian grass seed can be bought for a dollar 
*orso per bushel.—If our readers want any of the 
-article, let them buy it by its proper name— 
'don’t send for “ Japanese Wheat.” The “ 300 
bushels per acre” story, is too monstrous for any 
man of ordinary capacity to swallow. Messrs. 
Humbugs, you stretched that statement until it 
was transparent—all ought to see through it, 
.and discover the swindlers standing behind. 
Query—This scheme hails from the city 
■where the Honey Blade Grass swindle started. 
Is it an “operation” by the same parties who 
played that game ? Perhaps this is part of the 
old seed left over after the sale was stopped by 
the exposure of the scheme in the Agriculturist. 
P. S.—Since penning the above, a Western 
correspondent writes: “ The seed is here some¬ 
times called ‘ Mexican Rice,’ ‘ South American 
Wheat,’ ‘Sugar Cane Wheat,’ and other names 
too numerous to mention. It makes a flour 
somewhat similar to buckwheat, but not so 
good. The stalks can be used as fodder, but 
are not equal to corn stalks. The seed can be 
bought here at 50 cents per bushel!” 
Permanence of Bone Manure. 
The Mark Lane Express, in speaking of bone 
imanure, states, that one of the most valuable 
'qualities of bones is the slowness with which 
they decompose, and the length of time during 
which they continue to give out the phosphates. 
.Analysis shows that one pound of bones con- 
stains as much phosphoric acid as 28 pounds of 
wheat. How a crop of wheat of 32 bushels to 
the acre, contains only as much phosphate as is 
found in 70 pounds of bones. It is clear, there- 
tfore, that if bones are put on at the rate of 350 
# »pounds per acre, supposing them to decay 
rapidly, and give out the phosphates in propor¬ 
tion, a large part would be wasted. But the 
'.following circumstance proves that this is not the 
.case. A gentleman who occupied a large farm 
in Norfolk, finding that he was likely to have a 
quantity of bone dust left, if he distributed it at 
■the ordinary rate, directed his foreman to in- 
<crease the quantity per acre. On the following 
day he found that the man had doubled the al¬ 
lowance, and that, at that rate, he would not have 
^enough to finish the field. He therefore directed 
him to use about 4 cwt. per acre for the remain¬ 
der of the field. Now mark the result. Eleven 
years after, the farmer on riding over his land 
with a friend, came to this field, which was for 
the third time after the above occured, sown 
under wheat, and requested his friend if he saw 
.any difference in the growth of the wheat, to 
point it out. After riding a few yards, his friend 
.suddenly stopped and exclaimed : “ What in 
the world have you been after -here ? This wheat 
is six inches higher and as stout again as the 
rest.” The farmer then explained to him the 
facts above stated, which prove that by the de¬ 
liberate manner in which bones give out the 
phosphates in decomposition, they possess a 
more permanent value than any other kind of 
manure. 
Remarks. —We find the above in type, pre¬ 
pared by an associate. It needs a word of ex¬ 
planation. On wet, cold soils, bones in a coarse 
condition will often remain many years be¬ 
fore being fully decomposed, while their gradual 
decay will furnish some nutriment to plants 
from year to year. On warmer soils, they will 
decay speedily, especially if finely ground. But 
we attribute the benefit of bones mainly to the 
organic matter they contain, and not to the phos¬ 
phoric acid as stated above. Burned bones 
retain all the phosphoric acid they contained 
in their unburned state, but we have yet to learn 
of any material benefit from burned bones. 
When made into superphosphate, the added 
acid and other materials probably give the com¬ 
pound its principal value.— Ed. Amer. Agr.] 
-»-<--o#*——- 
How Mr. Jones Tilled his Land. 
(Continued from page 8, which see,) 
INSTRUCTIVE EXPERIMENTS. 
My first experiment was in deep plowing, in¬ 
cluding also the use of lime and manure. After 
the corn was removed, in November 1853, I 
plowed three acres as deeply as I could, with 
two yokes of heavy oxen and a horse as leader, 
say 12 inches deep. The next two acres were 
plowed about 10 inches deep; the next two 
about 8 inches, and the next two 6 inches, run¬ 
ning the furrows lengthwise of the field. In 
Spring the field was divided into three equal 
parts across the furrows, and corn, oats, and 
peas put on. This arrangement brought a por¬ 
tion of each kind of crop upon the different 
depths of plowing. Part of the rows of corn 
were treated to lime in the hill; part to a little 
barn yard manure in the hill; and a part had 
nothing applied. So, also, a part of the ground 
for oats and peas received a surface dressing of 
lime harrowed in; part received a light dressing 
of manure; and a part received nothing. 
Here is a plan of the field. It was easily laid 
out thus, by stakes on each side of the field. 
Nothing. 
Manure. 
Lime. 
Nothing. 
Manure. 
Lime. 
Nothing. 
Manure. 
Lime. 
O 
a 
co 
1 
CO | 
a | 
. ! 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
Plowed 
12 inches 
deep. 
CO 
£ 
10 
11 : 12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
10 inches. 
d 
19 
20 : 21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
8 inches. 
©» 
28 
29 : 30 
31 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 
6 inches. 
Corn. 
Peas 
O 
a t s 
. 
We did not stop to even measure it, but used 
fence corners as divisions or measuring points, in 
putting the stakes for plowing, applying manures, 
etc. You will see that by this simple arrange¬ 
ment I obtained 36 plots; the first nine contain¬ 
ing nearly k acre each, and the other 27 not 
quite i acre, all differing in the depth of plow¬ 
ing, or kind of crop, or manuring. The plan 
was sketched on paper, and the numbers marked 
with a pencil on the small stakes set up around 
the fence. No great accuracy was aimed at, in 
keeping them separate, yet each plot was suffi¬ 
ciently distinct to be easily examined. 
On the portions plowed 12 inches deep, (plots 
1 to 9,) the crops were all poor; those on 1, 4, 7, 
with no manure, were very poor. On the ma¬ 
nured plots, 2, 5, 8, they were a little better, and 
still better on the limed plots 3, 6, 9, though 
hardly good enough to pay expenses. The 
corn showed most benefit from the lime on 3. 
The oats on 5, with manure, were nearly equal 
to those with lime, on 6. The best peas on the 
12, mch plowing were on 9, with lime. 
Qn the 10 inch plowing, (plots 10 to 18), the 
crops were all better than on the 12 inch, but 
still the yield was not satisfactory. Nearly the 
same comparative differences were found as in 
the 12-inch plowing in the use of manure, lime, 
and no manure. The best corn was on 12, with 
lime; the best peas on 15; while the oats on 17 
and 18 were nearly alike. 
The best crops were on the 8 inch plowing 
(plots 19 to 27;) but here the manured plots 20, 
23, 26, were better than the limed plots, 21, 24, 
27. The poorest yield by one-fourth was on the 
unmanured plots, 19,22, 25. The corn and peas 
appeared to show better results for the lime 
than was exhibited by the oats. 
On the 6 inch plowing, plots (28 to 36,) the 
crops were considerably better than on the 10 
inch and 12 inch plowing, though the corn on 
the 6 inch and 10 inch were about equal. But 
on the shallow plowing, the manured plots, 29, 
32, 35, were plainly ahead of the limed plots 30, 
33, 36, and far ahead of the unmanured 28,31,33. 
The results of the above experiments were 
quite instructive to me, and furnished much 
matter for study and reflection. The poor show 
on the deepest plowing, 1 to 9, staggered me, 
and I was at first disposed to condemn deep 
plowing. But the fact that the crops on the 8 
inch plowed plots, 19 to 27, were better than on 
the 6 inch deep, showed plainly that partially 
deeper plowing was useful; and a timely article 
in the American Agriculturist taught me that such 
results might have been expected. The fact 
was, the lower six inches turned up by the 
deepest plowing, had never been exposed to the 
air, and being a heavy loam, and partly filled 
with what you called poisonous sub-salts of 
iron, it was not fit for any crop. It is probable 
that nothing would have grown, but for the 
fact that it was plowed in Autumn, and the ac¬ 
tion of frost and air during winter partially 
ameliorated it. The better results g’om the 
lime on plots 3, 6, 9, also showed the presence 
of poisons partly neutralized by the lime. 
The better results on the 10 inch plowing, 
where only four inches of new soil were brought 
up, confirmed the views you offered in regard 
to the necessity of the action of air upon a soil to 
fit it for plants. 
On the 8 inch plowing, the two inches of new 
soil brought to the surface were so thoroughly 
prepared by frost and air, even during the first 
winter, that, with the greater depth for the roots, 
the crops were by far the best—better than on 
the deeper or shallower plowing. 
Another noteworthy result, in the above ex¬ 
periments, was the fact that, on the shallow 
plowing the manure was more effective than 
the lime, while on the deeper plowings the lime 
was most beneficial. This showed plainly that 
the lime acted as a corrective in the newer soil, 
and was not so much needed on the old thin soil. 
The better yield on plots 30, 33, 36, where 
lime was applied, than on plots 28, 31, 34, where 
nothing was applied, showed, however, that 
lime was useful under any circumstances for 
my moderately heavy loam land, and I have 
since used it pretty generally—always with pos¬ 
itive good results, where a small portion of a 
field has been left without the application, for 
comparison. And I may add, that so far as my 
experiments go, the teachings of the Agriculturist. 
are correct, that a little lime, more or less ac-. 
cording to the heaviness of the soil, applied to 
every crop, or on the land before it is seeded, is 
preferable to heavy liming at long intervals. 
Before leaving the above experiments, let me 
add, that the deepest plowed portion of tha 
above field continued to improve rapidly, and. 
