; • t r : - li - K, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURES I’. 
5>08 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Cheap Building for Storing Boots. 
Seeing plans for keeping turnips in former num¬ 
bers of the American Agriculturist, prompts me to 
give to my farming brothers the benefit of my 
plan of a very cheap and safe house for storing 
potatoes, turnips, and all other roots intended for 
Winter use. It may be built by any farm hand, 
with proper instructions, with but little more la¬ 
bor than is required to bury a few hundred bush¬ 
els of roots in the usual way. In the first place, 
I dig a cellar of a size to suit the quantity, say 16 
feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 feet deep, which 
will hold about 700 bushels. Over this, a top or 
cover is built thus : Take two logs, each 20 feet 
long, and two others each 14 feet long ; hew two 
sides of them, shoulder them together, and lay 
them on flat stones around the cellar, which will 
leave a space of l£ feet from the edge all around. 
Next take two logs of same length of the short 
ones, hew one side and lay on the top of them, 
saddle the ends and put a pair of long ones on, 
(after the style of building an ordinary log house). 
Build on up until the sides come together at the 
top, by placing each log inside of the one below 
it, giving the sides a slant of about 40 degrees. 
Carry up one end slanting like the sides, and the 
other one perpendicular, in which cut a door2jx4 
feet. Fit a box in the back end, as a funnel to 
use in filling the house ; cover the sides and back 
with flat rails, or rough boards put at right 
angles with the logs; put on straw, or leaves to 
keep the earth from rotting the timbers, and cover 
with the earth that was dug out, about a foot thick; 
fill in the front between the logs with mortar. 
Top off with green grass sod, and you will have 
a mound in your kitchen yard, that will be pleas¬ 
ant to look at. With the mercury far below 
zero, potatoes keep in my cellar with perfect 
safety. If deemed advisable, a small ventilator 
may be put in (be top, to take off the moisture 
without risk. (This will be needed at least until 
hard freezing weather.— Ed.) P. T. S. 
Sandy Spring, lid. 
Manure Cellars. 
Often as we have set forth the importance of 
these cellars or pits for the manufacture and 
preservation of manure, we feel that the half has 
not been told. Our own successful use of such 
a cistern induces us to speak of it now. The 
farmer must prosper, if at all, by sayings as well 
as by gainings. If the banker’s vault should 
have only a small hole where his deposits could 
he constantly filched away, it would diminish his 
annual gains decidedly. So if the farmer’s stock 
of manure is continually wasting in sun and 
wind and rain, he is a great and continual loser. 
Manure mixed from time to time with straw, 
leaves, and other refuse matter, in the open 
barn-yard, is better than that which is uncared 
for ; but dung, both liquid and solid, carefully 
saved in a covered pit, and mixed every few 
days with plaster, charcoal-dust, dry muck, etc., 
absorbing every particle of urine, and preventing 
the escape of ammonia, is better still. 
Our readers are, perhaps, somewhat familiar 
with the different methods of making these col¬ 
lars. We will, however, briefly say, that they 
may be dug out of the ground, four to six feet 
deep, and as wide as may be wanted, then 
planked up firmly, or laid up with hewn logs, the 
crevices rammed with clay, or they may bo built 
of stones, laid in water-lime cement. They may 
be put underneath the stables, or partly under 
and partly outside, but constructed so as to re 
ceive the daily cleanings of the stalls. If under 
the barn, the floors overhead should be made very 
tight, so as to prevent the rising of pungent odors 
into the stalls and lofts above. 
The providing of good absorbents for use in 
these cellars, is a very important matter. If one 
has access to a peat-bog, he is well off. If not, 
let him go to the borders of his several fields, 
where the plow and hoe do not reach, and where 
the turf has become thick and rich ; let him cart 
off an abundance of this, and stack it up under 
the barn where it will be kept dry. As his ma¬ 
nure is thrown into the cellar, let this also go in 
to keep it company, a little at a time, and often. 
Or, lacking such turf, let hirn use forest leaves, 
rotten chips, scrapings from the road side, or 
saw dust, or spent tan bark. Be sure and provide 
as much in bulk of this material as there will be 
of manure. 
This work of gathering up materials for com¬ 
post may be done at odd spells, when the regular 
labors of the farm do not press. Gather up 
everything, and remember that every little helps. 
We are tired of hearing farmers complain of 
their hard lot, their scanty manure, bad seed, bad 
tools, bad horses, bad land, bad everything, when 
the farmer is more to blame than all beside. Let 
such fault-finders bestir themselves and act with 
more energy and forethought. As to manure 
saving, we have suggested, above, one method, 
and a good one ; but the method of this and many 
other things is not so important as the doing of it. 
Who will do it 1 * 
----- 
Hints on Green Manuring. 
A Pennsylvanian wishes to know what crop 
w'ill afford a good bite for the cows in the Spring, 
and also answer to turn in for wheat in the Fall 1 
It is somewhat difficult to pasture a crop, and 
plow it under at the same time. One can not 
very well eat his cake and keep it too. Itye fur¬ 
nishes good feed earlier than almost any other 
crop. But if one expects to make manure of it, 
it should be left to grow until in blossom, and 
then be plowed under. If fed through May and 
June, the growth must be small, and not much 
benefit will arise from plowing it under. The 
better way in husbandry is to do one thing at a 
time, and to do it thoroughly. If the land needs 
manure, and is so far from the barn that fertil¬ 
izers can not be carted economically, it is brought 
into good heart by turning in green crops. When 
this is done, we should make a business of it, and 
turn in two crops in a season, or one crop of full 
growth. 
We may sow Fall rye on the corn stubble, as 
is proposed by our correspondent, turn it in, the 
last of June or first of July, and sow buckwheat 
immediately, which will be fit to turn in the last 
of August. Or we may sow clover in the same 
way, and follow with buckwheat. This will 
give two full crops, and restore a very large mass 
of vegetable matter lo the soil. The rotation 
which our correspondent mentions, viz.; corn, 
oats, wheat, and grass, would be improved by 
one year in potatoes or some other root crop. In 
a farming district so near a good market as Bucks 
county, Pa., we doubt very much whether green 
manuring is economical. There ought to be a 
steady and remunerative demand for animal pro¬ 
ducts—beef, pork, mutton, veal, lamb, butter, 
cheese, eggs, poultry, etc., and every vegetable 
product should be consumed upon the farm, and 
large quantities of manure be manufactured to 
keep the land in a highly productive state. Where 
there is a good market for animal products, it is 
much better economy to manure with animal 
fertilizers, than with vegetable. If, while the 
ground is in corn and in roots, it is manured 
with fifty or more loads (half cords) of good ma¬ 
nure, it will bear a crop of wheat, and two or three 
crops of grass without manure. 
The best roots for feeding are carrots, beets, 
mangel wurzel, and turnips, one, or all of them, 
according to the circumstances of the farmer and 
the kind of stock kept. These fed out to stock 
with -hay and grain, make large quantities of 
manure, and keep the land in good heart. 
-- nq ^ltna--►-<*.- 
"What our Neighbors Think of Us. 
FOREIGN OPINION OF AMERICAN FARMERS. 
America is a great country no doubt, but there 
are some things to be learned yet from our ob¬ 
serving neighbors. The following extract from a 
report on our agriculture made by Mr. Irvine, of 
the British Delegation, to the home government, 
contains truths we have repeatedly set forth, but 
which need to be continually “kept before the 
people,’’ until a reform is effected. Mr. Irvine 
says: “The immense extent of territory, and 
the comparative scantiness o^ the population, 
have induced a good deal of carelessness in the 
cultivation of the soil. The price of land being 
low, the proprietors have found it more econom¬ 
ical to work out their land, than to expend their 
capital in manures and other means for preserv¬ 
ing its productive qualities ; and when the soil 
has become exhausted, the owners have left it 
for some new settlement. The consequence of 
this has been that, instead of full and abundant 
crops, in many parts of older settled portions of 
the country the fields do not yield at present 
half as much as formerly, and in many localities 
not a third, nor even a quarter, as much ; and 
that, notwithstanding the advantages of climate, 
the facility of transport to available markets, and 
the lightly taxed condition of farmers and plant¬ 
ers, the ratio of increase in agricultural products 
of the United States is not in proportion to the 
increase of population.” 
---- — - « - 
For the American Agriculturist. 
On Management in Farming. 
One defect in some of the younger farmers of 
this day, is want of good management. They 
begin their errors, perhaps, by buying too much 
land, and running into debt for it. And this mis¬ 
step they follow up -by other misjudgments in 
buying tools, cattle, seeds, manure, etc. No 
sooner do they begin their year’s work, than the 
interest on their borrowed money begins to accu¬ 
mulate ; it rolls up, day after day, in rain and 
sunshine, Summer and Winter, and it eats up no 
small part of their earnings. They get discour¬ 
aged, and, as a consequence, work less hopefully, 
less energetically, and with less success. 
Somebody has remarked that in England, 
where taxes are laid upon everything, it costs 
about as much to rent a farm, as it does in Ibis 
country lo buy one. This compels the farmer to 
be ve ry economical, industrious, and careful in 
his management of all the details of bis year’s 
work. Not a particle of manure is suffered to 
lie out in the sun and rain, or to leach off into 
the brooks. Not a square foot of ground is al¬ 
lowed to lie idle, certainly not to grow noxious 
weeds. Not a hired hand or member of the fam¬ 
ily, who does not keep busy at work, contributing 
something, directly or indirectly, to the general 
stock of income. These things, ourbrethren in 
the old country are compelled to do, to live at all 
by farming. Now, why should not we do some¬ 
thing like it from choice, and in order to prosper ! 
