334 = 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
and will surely do it, if opportunity offers. In 
summer the Jay retires to the recesses of the 
forests to breed, where it builds a nest of sticks, 
moss, etc., in the midst of a thick-topped bush. 
The eggs are of a blue color, and from four to six 
in number. Returning, after the incubating sea¬ 
son, they bring their family with them, to pursue 
their free-booting practices with undiminished 
energy. The progeny take aptly to the disreputa¬ 
ble ways of the parents, and soon become experts 
at thieving and plundering. As may be infer 
red from its character, this Jay is not a favorite 
with the settlers, and is remorselessly pursued with 
guns, traps, poisoned grain, and any other agency 
which promises its destruction; but for every Jay 
killed, twenty others appear. Though war goes 
on, the ever present Jay appears still as numerous, 
and his capacity for feeding on the farmer’s crops, 
and the eggs of singing birds, as great as ever. 
Among ths Farmers—No. 20. 
BT ONE OP THEM. 
Making Manure. 
Such a season as we have been experiencing— 
showers every day or two, and often heavy rains, so 
that our light, gravelly soils are constantly moist. 
Such a season produces rank and abundant vegeta¬ 
ble growths, which may contribute much to the 
bulk of the manure heap. Weeds grow in the gar¬ 
den, along the hedge-rows, in the foundation of the 
old barn, long since pulled away and cleared up, 
and the problem is how to sucure the most 
Rapid Fermentation and Decay. 
There is always the danger, that in the decay 
which naturally comes on when succulent vegetation 
lies in masses through which the air can circulate, 
the mass will pack so tightly, that the larger and 
more woody stems will become enveloped in the wet 
mass, and so, the air being shut out, will decay no 
more, but remain like 60 many ropes, forming a 
mass which it is almost impossible to handle with 
forks or shovels. The remedy for this is simple. 
The contents of these weed compost heaps must be 
cut in foot lengths, just as we handle com-stalks in 
winter. The weed-stems may be cut with a sharp 
6pade on the ground. This works well, and is often 
the best way, because there is the least work in it. 
Another good way is, when there is a patch of tall 
weeds to be cut, to cut over the ground two or three 
times. The first time the mower clips off all the 
soft tops, a foot or twenty inches long, perhaps, 
then the stems are cut about eight or ten inches 
lower down, and finally close to the ground. This 
leaves the material in the best possible shape for 
the compost heap; it may be raked up and loaded 
upon the cart without difficulty, it may be laid up 
nicely in the heaps, and, when decayed, may be 
easily overhauled. 
The secret of rapid decay is no secret, so to 
speak. It is one of those “ secrets,” or “ hidden 
mysteries ” of nature, which, when we really come 
to investigate, we find we knew all about before. 
Dry things do not decay, neither do water-soaked 
things. When we pulled the old barn down, two 
or three years ago, I found some of the thatch, that 
had been turning the water for thirty years or more, 
sweet and dry, and used it for bedding in the sta¬ 
bles ; and on the other hqpd, Caesar’6 bridge timbers 
in the Thames, and the piles driven by the Lake- 
dwellers in Switzerland, the former 2,000, and the 
latter perhaps 10,000 years old, and still sound, in¬ 
dicate that water is a first rate antiseptic. Now 
air and water together being essential to rapid de¬ 
cay, our art is to lay up our compost heaps so that 
we can make them wet, and partially dry them al¬ 
ternately, bringing all parts under the combined in¬ 
fluence of air and moisture. A few layers of horse 
manure, thrown in as the heap is built, having the 
depth of about two inches each, greatly expedite 
the decay. As soon as the. first good heat is over, 
there will be a lack of water. The succulence of 
the plants themselves, afford moisture enough for 
this first and most active heating, and rains may 
supply water to keep the decay in active progress, 
for some time, but the heap will gradually dry out, 
and ought to be “ cut ” over and relaid with fresh 
material, and given a good soaking at least twice 
during the season. 
Swine as Manure Makers. 
When a sufficiently large herd of swine is kept, 
they make the best composters and workers-over 
of material of the kind of which we have been 
speaking, and a few are well kept at work. The 
weeds and vegetable matter, cut short, should be 
thrown into the pig pen, but they should soon be 
thrown out again. If the pen be cleaned out once 
a month, and the manure added to the compost 
heap, it will decay much better, for there will be 
better circulation of air through it; but it must be 
kept moist, and there is no plan for making a com¬ 
post heap, equal to building one over or near a 
tank or sunken hogshead, out of which water 
may be pumped to moisten the heap with. 
Hay Cured, not Dried. 
Every year the problem comes up, how green will 
it do to get in hay ? and every year our practice is 
to get it in with less and less drying. Cut between 
4 and 8 P. M. ; the next day, if heavy, shaken up 
and turned before noon, and once after, then raked 
up at 3 P. M., and got in the same afternoon, Is 
pretty quick work, and to accomplish it, and have 
the hay cured enough to keep without salting, re¬ 
quires a hot, drying day. I have just had excellent 
luck, cutting late one day, raking into windrows at 
about uoon, cocking up by three o’clock, and get¬ 
ting in the next forenoon, and using salt or not, ac¬ 
cording to the condition of the hay. This hay is 
cured and little dried, and there is very little work 
about the operation. Salt has a wonderful effect. 
I do not understand it. The hay “ sweats ” well, 
but if salted rarely molds, or gives off any but fra¬ 
grant odors. It does not seem to me that the salt 
could come in contact with the hay so generally as 
to affect it all, and yet every lock 6eems to be 
preserved. 
I have never used slllt upon corn-fodder, but I 
6hall do so this year, confident that four or five 
quarts to the ton will aid greatly in curing it, and 
prevent the necessity of so much drying. The 
finer the salt, the further it will go in salting hay. 
A handful of salt will penetrate through three feet 
of hay in the mow, as I have proved by experiment, 
and I presume if the hay were very dry, it would 
rattle down a good ways farther. 
Harrowing Growing Crops. 
I am old fogy enough to stand out pretty well 
against startling innovations. Though, I confess, 
like Daniel Boon’s coon, I came down from previ¬ 
ously held notions when John J. Thomas advocated 
harrowing field com, and invented a harrow to do 
it with; but this harrowing of spring grain, par¬ 
ticularly oats, has something in it so positively re¬ 
pugnant to general views of thrift, that I had no 
thought of giving it a trial, any more than of plant¬ 
ing an acre or two of Prickly Comfrey, or adopting 
either flat culture or the “ Ross system” for corn. 
We do not all think alike. Discussing crop pros¬ 
pects the other day with Mr. Devereux Pennington, 
of Bergen Co., he spoke of his oats, (everybody’s 
oats are looking well), and said that after having 
been harrowed seven times, they were standing very 
evenly, waist high, all over the field, and that there 
were almost no weeds to be 6een. 
“What,” said I, 
“ Seven Times Harrowed, 
“ What do you mean ? ” 
“I mean just that,” said he, “and besides,” he 
added, “ I have learned another thing in connection 
with this harrowing business, which I am surprised 
that you did not see the advantage in, as soon as 
the subject of harrowing spring grains was broach¬ 
ed ; that is, that top-dressing may be done at al¬ 
most any time, well along into the spring.”—Then 
he gave me the history of the particular field of 
which we were speaking, and afterwards a tran¬ 
script of the memorandums in his Farm note book. 
It seems the ground, which is light, sandy alluvial, 
was plowed last autumn, and this spring top-dressed 
with manure compost over about one-third of the 
field. When he was ready to sow, he did not wait 
to finish the manuring, but having determined up¬ 
on harrowing the crop several times, sowed the 
oats and harrowed them in, and then kept right on 
with the top-dressing. 
The following are the memorandums: 
“April 12th. Sowed 3 2 /6 acres with White Pro ta¬ 
stier oats, on ground plowed last fall, and part of 
it top-dressed this spring. Used 9 bushels of 32 
pounds, broadcast. (The balance of the ground 
was afterwards top-dressed).—April 13th. Rolled 
oat ground.—May 2nd. Harrowed oats 1st time; 
May 7th, 2nd time ; May 21st, 3d time; May 25th,. 
4th time ; May 28th, 5th time ; June 4th, 6th time ; 
June 12th, 7th time.—The oats are now looking 
very well, and promise a large yield of clean seed.” 
The oats top-dressed after sowing, had—so it ap¬ 
pears to Mr. Pennington—greater benefit from the 
manure than the others, where both manure and 
oats were harrowed in together, for it served as a 
mulch to them when just coming out of the ground, 
and being disturbed by the subsequent harrowings,, 
and knocked about more or less, the weeds starting 
up under its influence were more thoroughly killed. 
This seems reasonable. The harrow used was a 
heavy, long-toothed common harrow, but it was 
not dragged promiscuously over the field, but every 
time as nearly in the same tracks as possible. After 
once or twice this became an easy matter, and the 
teeth followed in the old tracks, as we go and think 
in old ruts, from habit.- Some oats were torn out 
at first, of course; some were buried past resurrec¬ 
tion, no doubt; the harrow teeth cut furrows 
through them, and ranged the plants in phalanxes 
as if put in by a drill, and then in passing through 
subsequently, few were disturbed. The ground 
was disturbed, and weeds were killed by wholesale. 
At the time of the last harrowing, the oats were 
14 inches high, and were, as might be expected,, 
pretty well flattened down by the operation. Still,, 
as the “pusley” (I quote the word as being ver¬ 
nacular—purslane is too respectable a name for the 
“pesky” plant,) was just starting— showing its 
minute red leaves above the surface, this last har¬ 
rowing wrought wholesale destruction by covering 
it with earth. 
The action of a harrow-tooth in passing through 
light soil, is to throw a perfect shower of earth to 
either side, so that harrowing not only loosens the 
soil about the plants—a very beneficial operation, 
admits air, and with it warmth and moisture, but 
effects a very thorough destruction of weeds by 
burying them in their most delicate and vulnerable 
condition, that of the seed-leaf. 
Not the least advantage of this system is being 
able to plow in the autumn. I have sometimes 
done this—that is, put spring grain on laud plowed 
in the fall without plowing again, but have always 
felt—and so have the oats—that the ground was not 
really half prepared, and it is much more apt to be 
weedy than spring-plowed land. On our light san¬ 
dy loams, we have to take care that the ground is 
not too much exposed to washing by heavy rains in 
winter, so there is much land on hill-sides which 
can not be plowed in the autumn under any cir¬ 
cumstances. The harrowing, however, may be 
done as well on spring-plowed as on fall-plowed land. 
Early Sowing of Grass and Grain- 
Winter grain and grass seed may, and should be 
eowed as early as the ground is clear after the first 
of August. Grass seed earlier. When land is to 
be laid down to grass, I find that early seeding— 
say sowing in July rather than in September, if the 
ground is rich, makes all the difference between a 
fair crop of hay and next to none the first year. 
One rich piece of moist land, well manured, was 
last year sowed with Timothy and Swedes, about 
the middle of July. A big crop of roots was taken 
off, and this year, Timothy hay, at the rate of two 
tons to the acre, I should judge. The Clover sowed 
in the spring making no great figure. 
Last year a piece of land of one of my near 
neighbors was manured in July for turnips, with 
manure from the barn-yard, which had accumulated 
since the yard was cleared out in the spring, and 
during the extreme drouth from which we suffered. 
A good part of the manure was rye chaff, mixed 
