AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
73 
1801 .] 
For the American Agriculturist. 
A Profitable Dream—How to Pay- 
Interest Money. 
Mr. Editor : A dream, which I had a year 
ago last Summer, has. done so much good here, 
that the neighbors say an account of it ought 
to be printed. I there¬ 
fore send it, and a 
drawing representing 
the scene described, 
hoping it may walce up 
some others. One day 
in July, after a pretty 
good “nooning” pass¬ 
ed in reading some of 
the articles on ma¬ 
nures in the Agricul¬ 
turist ■ from which I 
was interrupted by a 
call to drive the cow 
and pig out of the 
corn field, I sat down 
to rest on a pile of 
straw near the barn 
yard, and presently 
fell asleep. The strong- 
smell of ammonia from 
the manure heap in 
the yard, together 
with what I had been 
reading and thinking 
of, probably gave rise 
to the singular vision. 
I was in great 
trouble in my dream; 
the day for paying 
interest money had come, and a large 
amount remained to be made up—which, by the 
way, had often been a great vexation. While 
trying to contrive ways and means to meet it, a 
man presented me a paper, on which was print¬ 
ed : “ Go look in the barn-yard!” Thither I 
went, and commenced digging with a shovel, 
expecting to find a pot of money. When a few 
shovelfuls had been thrown aside, a dense steam 
poured out, having such a strong smell, that it 
caused me to step back; when suddenly there 
appeared a wonderful phenomenon. The whole 
manure heap seemed alive with farm products of 
every kind, some of them in the most fantastic 
shapes, which came racing past me, trying to 
escape. First a huge pumpkin bounded along, 
and sprang into the air like a bombshell, then 
followed a noble cabbage, and after it a whole 
volley of roots. There were fowls that flew 
away cackling; bags of grain, bundles of hay 
and wheat, with grotesque heads and spindling 
limbs; and cattle, sheep, and hogs, all rushed 
out pell-mell, while I ran frantically to stop 
them and secure so rich a prize. My exertions 
awoke me, and I have not been asleep on that 
subject since, for this interpretation of the dream 
came like a flash: “ Every heap -of manure icasted 
by leaching away , or by escaping in the form of gas , 
is equivalent to a loss of a shock of wheat , or a bushel 
of corn , or a fat pig, or sheep , or milch cow. Then 
I remembered how often the Agriculturist had 
said, use muck to absorb the liquid manure, and 
to arrest the ammonia, and on the spot my mind 
was made up to put it in practice; for on one 
of the back lots of my farm are about three 
acres of as good muck as was ever dug. Ac¬ 
cordingly, in the Fall I employed all possible 
leisure in preparing a pile of it for winter use 
to mix with the yard manure, and last Spring I 
had a heap of compost that made the corn field 
sing —-to the tune of eighty five bushels to the 
acre, Before that I thought fifty bushels a.great 
yield. Besides this, there was enough to top- 
dress a meadow of ten acres, and increase the 
yield of grass from one tun to more than two 
tuns per acre; and such vegetables as my gar¬ 
den turned out, would do a market-man’s eyes 
good. I liacl no trouble , this year , vjhen interest day 
came round! Nor was this all. The neighbors 
who witnessed the results of using muck, 
liiwe commenced trying it, and there has 
been at least twice as much good manure made 
within two miles of here, this winter, as during 
any year before. Rip Yax Winkle, Jr. 
[Remarks. —A lucky dream indeed! It is a 
favorable omen that the Agriculturist is beginning 
to trouble people, even in their sleep. There are 
a good many Rip Van Winkles yet, that need to 
be. disturbed in their easy-go-along ways, 
and we are glad to see increasing signs of rest¬ 
lessness. But what shall be done for the great 
mass who are yet without the sphere of its in¬ 
fluence? We want to get the paper into their 
hands. Who will help in this matter ? On the 
last page of this paper the Publisher offers lib¬ 
eral pay to those who will this month take the 
trouble to hunt up some of the outsiders, and 
persuade them to try the Agriculturist for a year.] 
--•-«--- 
How Mr. Jones tilled his Land. 
(Concluded from, pages 8 and 40, which see.) 
After the removal of the wheat in the harvest 
of 1856, the field lay in stubble until late in No¬ 
vember. No clover seed having been sown in 
Spring, there was little feed for cattle, so that 
after the hogs had gleaned the stubble, there 
was nothing to tempt an animal to go upon it. 
I ought to have sown clover seed upon the 
ground in the Spring; the feed after the wheat 
harvest, would have more than paid for the 
seed, and I should have had some clover sod to 
turn under. I do not believe any farmer can 
afford to let good land ever lie idle. If clover is 
growing upon it when not in use for other crops, 
the clover leaves are constantly gathering ma¬ 
nure from the air, and storing it up in the roots 
and leaves ready to be plowed under. A dollar’s 
worth of clover seed on an acre is never lost en¬ 
tirely, and it seldom fails to return full ten-fold. 
In November I obtained a subsoil plow from 
New-York, (you, Mr. Editor, doubtless remem¬ 
ber getting it for me, as I could not find one in 
these parts.) I put a 
yoke of oxen, and a 
horse for a leader, 
upon a common plow, 
and started them a- 
round a wide “ land.” 
With another yoke of 
steady, strong oxen, I 
followed in the furrow 
with the subsoil plow. 
The first plowing was 
about ten inches 
deep—a little less on 
the part which had 
not been plowed deep 
in my first experi¬ 
ments. Owing to the 
frequent occurrence 
of stones in the deep 
soil, I had to go very 
slowly with my sub- ■ 
soil plow, and often 
stop and raise the im¬ 
plement, and I finally 
kept a man along, 
with a crow-bar and 
pick, to loosen and 
raise out some of the 
larger stones. They 
were left on the 
plowed surface, and gathered off during Win¬ 
ter, when the ground was frozen so as to bear 
up the team, but thawed enough on the surface 
to loosen the stones from the soil. 
The slow progress of the new implement gave 
opportunity for frequent resting by the forward 
team, so that the single yoke and horse were 
able to plow much deeper than if they had gone 
on steadily. For the first three days we did not 
get over more than half an acre a day. It took 
us nearly sixteen days to go over the ten-acre 
field. As there were three men, a boy, two yoke 
of oxen, and a horse, the expense would have 
amounted to nearly $80 if I had hired it done ; 
but at that time we had little else to do, and the 
whole actual expense, including cost of sub-soil 
plow, I set down at not more than $50, at 
most. 
The subsoil plow went down from five to 
seven inches below the other plow, so that the 
ground was worked mellow about 16 inches 
deep on the average. Of course, the sub-soil 
plow brought none of the under-soil to the sur¬ 
face. After the surface plow opened a furrow, 
the subsoil plow stirred up the soil below, and 
the next surface furrow was turned upon the 
loosened mass. 
During the Winter of 1856-7, I hauled out 
about ten wagon loads (say 30 bushels each,) of 
yard manure, and piled it in heaps. In the 
Spring, the field being under-drained, was soon 
dry enough to work. The manure was spread, 
and plowed under, and mixed with the soil 
about six inches deep. Corn was then planted 
in the usual manner, the corn being soaked in 
tar-water, and rolled in a mixture of lime and 
plaster. I had a splendid crop—better than any 
thing else in the neighborhood. During a dry 
spell, when other corn was curled by the drouth, 
this field was green and fresh, and grew vigor- 
