196 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
the last week in August, and husked in Oc¬ 
tober. There were four hundred and thirty- 
six bushels of ears of corn, making two hun¬ 
dred and eighteen bushels of good shelled 
corn. I am confident that the tun of guano 
increased the crop more than one hundred 
bushels of corn, which, at $1,05 or $1,10 per 
bushel, amounts to $110. I sold the stalks 
in the field for $30, which, had it not been 
for the guano, would not have brought $10. 
So that $53 worth of guano gave me a profit 
of $76. If I had paid $100 for one hundred 
loads of manure, to say nothing about cart¬ 
ing it one and a half miles, my opinion is 
that I should not have had as good a crop. 
I made an experiment in my meadow by 
plowing in fifteen cart loads of good stable 
manure per acre; then sowing on five acres 
of it 140 pounds of guano per acre, and 
brushed it in as fast as sowed; also brushed 
the remainder of the field, but did not har¬ 
row for fear of disturbing the manure. 
Planted the corn the third week in May, 
three feet each way, and culivated it both 
ways, which lets in the sun, and requires 
not more than half the labor in hoeing. It 
was cut up and stacked the first week in 
September, and husked in October. I weighed 
the husked corn from the same number of 
hills upon one rod of each, and made an es¬ 
timate of the number of hills to the acre, 
and allowing seventy-four pounds to the 
bushel, and found the average increase per 
acre of the guanoed land was twenty-three 
bushels, so that $19,87 worth of guano gave 
an increase of 115 bushels good shelled corn 
and was eight or ten days earlier than the 
two acres that had no guano upon it. The 
land was all the same, and I have cultivated 
the pieces together for years, so that there 
was no difference, except the guano. 
I sowed half a tun of guano on my buck¬ 
wheat land, and harrowed and bushed them 
in together at the rate of 100 to 150 pounds 
per acre. The drouth affected this crop so 
that some fields would not more than pay 
for harvesting. It was so with mine where 
I used no guano ; but whei-e it was applied 
the drouth had very little if any effect; cra¬ 
dled it about the 20th of September with the 
leaves all upon it; in raking to set it up, 
where the guano was used, it produced nine 
bunches to one where there was no guano 
used, on precisely the same land with the 
culture, and sowed and harvested on the 
same days. As soon as it was cured, it 
was carted and housed. I estimated there 
to be more than five tuns of straw which 
was fed to my oxen, cows and young stock, 
and by them eaten more readily than good 
corn stalks, and was worth $6 per tun, 
enough to pay for the guano. It was well 
berried and weighed 50 pounds a bushel 
when well cleaned and screened. 
I have used guano upon all soils from poor 
pine plain to good meadow land, upon rye, 
beans, potatoes, turnips, and from 100 to 300 
pounds per acre, with grass-seed in August, 
and always with good success. 
THE ART OF CATTLE FEEDING. 
To the Editor of the Mark-Lane Express: 
Every reflecting mind will clearly per¬ 
ceive, and at once admit, that within the last 
few years science has rapidly advanced the 
art of feeding cattle. Let us view the Brit¬ 
ish homestead a short period back. See 
the innumerable inconveniences to which the 
farmer was then subject; while on the other 
hand, he has at the present day every facility 
afforded him. 
The importance of properly maintaining 
our cattle and horses is well understood; to 
effect which, their food must be properly 
prepared, and this will doubtless become 
general, as all the resources of science are 
directed to economize its use. 
It is universally admitted that when the 
grass is cut, the corn crushed, the cake 
broken, the turnips, chaff, &c., also cut and 
steamed, not only an immense saving in first 
cost is thereby effected, but the animal is in¬ 
credibly improved, both in health and ap¬ 
pearance ; and these are considerations well 
worthy the attention of the practical farmer. 
In short, it is to these several processes 
of cutting, bruising, steaming, &c., that he 
must look for the crowning of his labors 
with success. “Practice with Science.” 
SALT-GUANO-POUDRETTE-SUPERP H0S- 
PHATE. 
“ A Practical Farmer ” details, in the Ger¬ 
mantown Telegraph, experiments with the 
above fertilizers, from which we make the ex¬ 
tracts given below. This is but one set of ex¬ 
periments, during one season—a dry one— 
upon a particular soil, and a repetition of the 
experiment on the same soil might produce 
an entirely different result another season. 
He does not describe exactly his method of 
applying the guano. If put on above the 
corn in the same manner as the salt was 
applied, probably the first shoots were in¬ 
jured by coming in contact with it. We do 
not offer these remarks however, to discour¬ 
age the trial of salt. It is often a valuable 
fertilizer—when and where can be best 
known by trial. In this instance, as in others 
where corn is planted upon sod, some of the 
beneficial influence is to be attributed to its 
preventing the ravages ofthe cut wire worm. 
In order that I might secure results which 
would be perfectly satisfactory—so far at 
least as the efforts of a single season might 
be deserving of reliance—1 selected a piece 
of light, loamy land which had lain for sev¬ 
eral years—four, I think—in grass. It was 
perfectly level, with few stones and those 
few of small size, and withouta single stump 
or bush on the whole piece. This land I 
broke up to the depth of ten inches in the 
fall, bringing to the surface a very small por¬ 
tion of the subsoil which was of a light, grav¬ 
elly nature, with a slight admixture of sand. 
After plowing, the land was carefully har¬ 
rowed and rolled, and in that condition it 
was left till the subsequent spring. The 
winter was a severe one, characterized by 
intense cold, but with very little snow till 
near the middle of January, so that the soil 
which was exposed without its usual winter 
covering up to that period, was maintained 
in an almost continual frozen condition, and 
in this state it remained till late the follow¬ 
ing spring. 
As soon as the frost was fairly out, and 
the surface had become sufficiently dry to 
admit of its being worked, the land was 
cross-plowed—care being had not to disturb 
the turf—and reduced to a fine tilth by 
working with the cultivator and harrow. I 
think that, as a general thing, farmers do not 
pay sufficient attention to the pulverizing of 
their lands. Although every observing cul¬ 
tivator must be fully impressed with the 
conviction that the finer a soil is, the more 
favorable will it be to vegetation ; yet very 
few who rest under this conviction bestow 
more than half the labor upon their fields 
that is essential to secure fertility. 
The crop selected for my experiment, was 
Indian corn. No rotted manure was used, 
nor did I apply any substance whatever be¬ 
fore planting the seed. The rows were 
drawn with a* horse-plow, and checked off 
carefully so as to have the hills equi-distant 
with the rows running both ways. Com¬ 
mencing on one side of the piece, I dropped 
five kernels of corn in a hill, and continued 
till I had dropped five rows, of forty hills 
each. Then with a common hoe I drew on 
one inch of fine soil, and compressed it very 
slightly over the corn with the back of the 
hoe; after which I applied one and a half 
table spoonfuls of common packing salt, and 
finished off with another half inch of soil. 
The next five rows were planted without 
any manure of any kind. The next five 
were dressed with poudrette, one half pint 
to the hill, under the seed, but with just 
sufficient soil over it to prevent contact. The 
five rows next succeeding, were dressed 
with half a pint of guano, and the next with 
one gill of superphosphate of lime —the same 
precaution to prevent contact with the seed 
being observed in the last two cases as were 
adopted in that of the poudrette. The corn 
throughout was covered one and a half 
inches deep, with the soil above it slightly 
compressed, and the whole was planted on 
the same day, and without any previous pre¬ 
paration by steeping or otherwise. The 
seed germinated readily, and the plants made 
their appearance above the surface on the 
same day, but from the very first there was 
direct and palpable indications of the superi¬ 
ority of the salt; and this superiority was 
demonstrated by the result. 
At harvest the salted rows produced one- 
fifth more corn, by weight, than the rows ma¬ 
nured with the guano, and one-quarter more 
than those manured with poudrette and su¬ 
perphosphate, while the yield compared 
with that of the five rows on which no ma- 
nurial application had been made, was as 
nine to one! I do not think there was a 
single spear of the first five rows touched by 
the corn worm or any other insect, while the 
rows manured with guano and poudrette, 
were not by any means exempt from their 
ravages, though they suffered but little after 
the first week, and were not thinned suffi¬ 
cient as to abridge the yield. The five rows 
on which nothing was bestowed, were con¬ 
siderably thinned, probably one-fifth part of 
the whole was destroyed during the first two 
weeks. About the same difference was re¬ 
markable in the weight of the fodder on the 
several pieces, as in the weight of the grain. 
The cost of the salt was less than one-third 
of the cost of guano, poudrette or phosphate. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
MUSTARD GROWING-POTATO ROT. 
In your paper of the 10th of May, is an 
article taken from the Mark Lane Express, on 
the cultivation of mustard. This article was 
written for England, and might lead some 
of our young farmers into an experiment 
which, in this country, might not be attended 
with profit. 
The mustard grown in this country is the 
Sinapis alba or white mustard. This plant 
in its habits and growth very much resembles 
the Sinapis arvensis, or charloc which is nev¬ 
er found growing wild, to any great extent, 
except upon deep alluvial soils ; this should 
be a hint to farmers in selecting lands for 
sowing the white mustard. I have sown it 
upon upland drv soil several times, but nev¬ 
er have succeeded in making it a profitable 
crop. I have seen crops of it upon deep al¬ 
luvial soils that produced forty bushels to the 
acre, which sold at two dollars and a half per 
bushel. 
At page 133 of same paper is an article on 
the Potato Rot, from W. Fugate, in which 
he ascribes the cause of this disease to a 
small insect. I believe the cause of disease 
is now ascribed by our most observing sci¬ 
entific men, to the growth of a small para¬ 
sitic plant, or rust, which commences upon 
the tops of the plant. Cutting off, and re¬ 
moving the tops as soon as any rust appears, 
I have known in many instances attended 
