1862 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
333 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Quick Returns in Farming. 
Perhaps in no calling is capital so slow in 
fielding its interest as in husbandry, pursued by 
the old methods. This accounts for the extreme 
reluctance with which gentlemen of the old 
school make their investments in improvements. 
If they invest in bank stock, they are reasonably 
sure of seeing dividends every six months. But 
in farming, it takes a long while for the money 
to come back again. A crop of wood must grow 
twenty years before it can be gathered. The 
same amount kept at interest would have a 
chance to double twice. A horse does not reach 
his maturity under five years, and a cow must 
be three years old before she begins to pay her 
way. We have to wait nine months for the 
harvest of the winter grains, and three or four 
for the Summer crops. A merchant changes 
his money often, sometimes handling his entire 
capital four times a year, and making a hand¬ 
some profit each time. Every body seems to 
move faster and to get rich faster than the farmer. 
There is truth in these statements to a certain 
extent. We can not have great permanence and 
security in our investments, with quick returns 
and large profits. Yet something can be done 
to make the farmer’s sixpence nimble, while he 
lays his plans for twenty years ahead. He may 
get much quicker returns from some kinds of 
stock than from others. Poultry, pork, and 
sheep come to early maturity, and begin to pay 
the same season. The hen bought to-day, be¬ 
gins to lay eggs to-morrow, gives chickens in a 
month, which make good broilers in three 
months. The turkey’s egg of to-day is a twenty 
pound gobbler in six months, worth two dollars. 
A litter of pigs of ten or more, is worth thirty 
dollars at two months old. A lamb at three 
months is worth three dollars. These animals 
all yield meat for family supplies the year round, 
and make the farmer nearly independent of the 
butcher. They keep the butcher constantly in 
his debt, and make the dollars as well as the 
sixpences rather nimble. 
And then the dairy business need not be very 
slow in bringing money. Butter, of course, goes 
to market every week, and is everywhere a cash 
article. Cheese can go off once a month, and 
lighten the labors of the dairy woman, while it 
makes heavy the purse of her husband, if he 
have been so lucky as to marry a woman -who 
knows how to make a cheese. If the milk is 
sold there is a daily disposal of the products, and 
returns come in weekly or monthly. 
In grazing fat cattle the returns are less fre¬ 
quent, but it has the advantage of being a whole¬ 
sale business. Cattle bought in Spring are sold 
in the Fall, and generally bring profit enough 
to keep one comfortable through the Winter. 
In the management of manure, there might 
be much quicker returns, especially of fish and 
the concentrated fertilizers. The yard manure, 
which is generally a year in accumulating, might 
be spread upon meadows both in Spring and 
mid-summer, and bring crops within sixty days. 
This is an article that can not be safely hoarded. 
The roots of grasses. will turn it into money 
right early. We have sometimes spread manure 
in May, and seen it double the crop of hay cut 
early in July. We have spread it in August, 
and made the aftermath luxuriant for cows all 
through September and October. There is a 
great advantage in having this flush feed late iii 
the season. It makes a full flow of milk, and 
the butter and cheese are nearly equal to the 
products of June. By this process, the manure 
is turned into money in a very short time. 
Farmers upon the shore where fish are caught, 
have a great advantage in having manure al¬ 
ways accessible. We have applied fresh fish in 
the hill to the growing corn late in June with 
the best results. Manure is quite too precious 
an article to have it remain idle in the yard. 
An Eastern Farmer. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
When to Sell Potatoes. 
It is full one half of farming to know when 
to sell products. With many of small means 
the temptation is strong to sell as soon as the 
crop is gathered. The hay, the grain, and roots 
go immediately from the field to market. It 
saves once handling and the peril of loss from 
fire, rot and other causes. This makes potatoes 
cheaper in the fall months than at any other 
season of the year. Every body who raises po¬ 
tatoes wants to sell. The merchant who is 
shrewd, buys frequently of the necessitous farm¬ 
er, at thirty or forty cents, and sells in the Spring 
at wholesale for seventy-five or eighty cents. 
Any one who will trouble himself to look over 
the prices current of potatoes in years past, 
will see that the price is from fifty to a hundred 
per cent, higher in March and April, than in 
November. Five per cent, will probably pay for 
storage and handling. Farmers generally have 
ample store room for all they raise, and they 
may as well share the profits of the merchant. 
If the crop is unsound, of course the sooner it is 
sold and consumed the better. If in good con¬ 
dition, it will generally pay for keeping until 
prices are remunerative. Connecticut. 
[This depends much upon circumstances. We 
think five per cent, will seldom pay for risk, to 
say nothing of expense of storing and handling. 
If a farmer has had successful experience in 
keeping potatoes, it is generally worth while to 
store them. Our own observation is, that the 
loss from rotting, shrinkage, mice, expense of 
storing, and interest, averages from 25 to 30 per 
cent., taking the country together, in which 
case it would be as well to sell at 30 cents per 
bushel in Autumn as at 40 cents in Spring. 
Still, somebody must keep them, and the skill¬ 
ful farmer may better make the profit than any 
one else, if he can safely do it.— Ed.] 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Manuring without Manure. 
It often happens that a farmer wishes to ma¬ 
nure a field or two more than his dung heap 
will allow. It is sometimes the case, also, that 
he wishes to enrich a piece of" ground lying at 
too great distance from his barn-yard for con¬ 
venient hauling of manure. What shall he do ? 
In reference to the first, we say, if you do not 
wish to meddle with patent fertilizers, use muck, 
if your farm contains a bed of it, or if you can 
get it with reasonable cost of labor and money. 
To prepare it for use, haul it out into the mid¬ 
dle of the field, and mix it thoroughly with 
ashes or lime. One hundred bushels of hard 
wood ashes unleachedjlfwill neutralize the acids 
of thirty cords of muck, and this will manure 
two acres of land. The ashes will cost from ten 
to fifteen cents a bushel, and the muck if bought 
will cost, perhaps, fifty cents a cord delivered 
on the field: if found on the farm it will cost 
only the time and labor of digging. If this com¬ 
post is made up in the fall, let it be shoveled 
over once or twice before using in Spring. 
When ashes are not conveniently at hand, 
lime may be used. Take fresh, unslaked lime, 
mixing at the rate of half a cord of muck to a 
bushel 1 6f lime. Add a bushel of salt to six 
bushels of lime, dissolved in water enough to 
slake the lime finely, preparing the lime only as 
fast as wanted, and spreading it on fresh in lay¬ 
ers over tho muck. The layers of muck may bo 
about six inches thick. Spread on lime enough 
each time to thoroughly whiten the surface. 
Carry up the heap about six feet high, and as 
many wide, and make it as long as the amount 
of muck on hand will permit. In the course of 
a month, the muck will be well decomposed and 
sweetened, and may be shoveled over again 
and incorporated Well together. Then it.can be 
used whenever wanted, at the rate of fifteen 
cords, as required, to the acre. Supposing 
the lime to cost from twenty, to thirty cents a 
bushel, this excellent compost can be prepared 
at the rate of from $8 to $10 to the acre. 
For fields lying at a great distance from the 
bam, a manure of this sort, made on the ground, 
would be excellent. In the possible lack of 
muck, turfs from the fence-corners, forest-leaves, 
rotten logs, etc., might by turned to good ac¬ 
count. Of course, if a load or two of some high¬ 
ly concentrated fertilizer, such as hen-dung, 
privy contents, etc., be carted out and mixed 
into the heap, it would add to its value. * 
Shade a Fertilizer. 
One holds that darkness favors the depo¬ 
sition of nitrate of potash, which is a fertilizer, 
in the soil. Another, that shade brings in the 
earth-worm, whose perambulations benefit the 
soil. Wherever there is a flat stone, or board, or 
heap of rubbish, thither comes the earth-worm. 
He is a regular sapper and miner, boring the 
ground for a foot deep, with a multitude of 
holes, and leaving behind in his excretions a 
compost which is quite enriching. He is a Jeth¬ 
ro Tull, tilling and tilling the ground, and so 
fertilizing it with the gases of the atmosphere. 
Mending our Ways. * 
The common practice of throwing up dirt, 
annually, from the sides of the road into, the 
middle of the highway, is a very cheap and easy 
method of mending our roads, but a very poor 
one. For first, this provides no solid founda¬ 
tion for the track, and the covering is of the 
worst possible material for a road; it is better 
for the compost-heap than for the highway. 
The first want of every road is a hard bottom 
of some kind. In many localities it may be com¬ 
posed of small cobble-stones, or of broken boul¬ 
ders, or coarse gravel, or the slag of furnaces— 
anything that will stand firm under heavy 
pressure, and which will afford drainage in wet 
weather. An excellent practice—perhaps the 
best—is to take qff about'six inches of earth 
from the middle of the track over a space at 
least twelve feet wide; lay a good frost proof 
drain along the middle; then cart in loose stones 
from the field, or the refuse of the quarries, 
enough to'fill up this trench, putting the large, 
flattisli ones at the bottom; break the others in¬ 
to fragments of convenient size with long-han¬ 
dled stone-hammers, and pound them down 
compactly together. Now draw on gravel, from 
two to three inches in depth, rounding the 
whole off smoothly. It is of the highest im¬ 
portance that the middle of the track should 
be several inches higher than the sides, so as 
readily to turn off the water which falls upon it. 
Finish the work by making shallow, saucer- 
