1871 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
135 
richest of manure would be obtained. It is 
much more economical to buy bran and oil-cake 
than to buy bone-dust at $50 per ton. 
. The present condition of the artificial manure- 
market in this country is eminently unsatisfac¬ 
tory to the farmer. The manures are mostly 
poor in quality and very high in price. If we 
could get Peruvian guano, containing 15 per 
cent of ammonia and 25 per cent of phosphates, 
for $60 per ton in gold, we could afford to use 
it. Formerly it was not difficult to obtain guano 
that would come up to this standard. But, as I 
understand the matter, the deposits of guano on 
the Cliincha Islands are exhausted, and the 
guano now sold by the Peruvian Government is 
very variable in composition, and of inferior 
average quality. Some cargoes are worth as 
much again per ton as others equally “ genuine 
as imported.” It is not the fault of the dealers. 
It is owing to the variable quality of the guano 
on the islands. There is but one remedy for 
this evil. The Peruvian Government should in¬ 
struct its agents to sell the guano in accordance 
with its intrinsic value, or in other words, ac¬ 
cording to its composition. Take, for instance, 
a guano containing 14 percent of ammonia and 
25 per cent of phosphates as a standard, and 
worth say $60 per long ton in gold. The am¬ 
monia would then cost us 14 cents per lb., and 
the phosphates 3 cents per lb. The Peruvian 
Government is selling some guano in our mark¬ 
ets at these figures, and all we ask is that it 
shall sell all its guano at the same rates. If the 
rates are not high enough, put them higher; say 
16 cents per lb. for the ammonia, and 3 cents 
for the phosphates. But whatever price is de¬ 
termined on, let all the guano sent here by the 
Peruvian Government be sold at one uniform 
price, according to its composition. We have a 
right to ask this; and until some such an arrange¬ 
ment is made, there can be no satisfactory trade 
in guano. I have no doubt that the United 
States would take 200,000 tons of Peruvian 
guano a year, if the trade could be placed on a 
satisfactory basis. Until then, our dealers should 
turn their attention to nitrate of soda. Cannot 
it be imported for $70 or $75 per long ton, in 
gold? Ordinary commercial nitrate of soda 
contains nitrogen equal to 19 per cent of am¬ 
monia. It acts quicker than guano, and I would 
be willing to pay 20 cents a lb. for the equiva¬ 
lent of ammonia. This would be $85.12 per tou 
for the nitrate. Cannot it be sold at this price ? 
I have an orchard of over two hundred 
Northern Spy apple-trees, set out about a dozen 
years ago. I want to keep it in grass, as it is 
very conveniently situated for pasturing my 
Cotswold sheep, and in hot weather the shade 
of the trees is grateful to the sheep. I have 
given it a liberal top-dressing of manure, but if 
I could get "nitrate of soda at a reasonable price, 
I would sow 50 lbs. per acre, two or three times 
a year, during showery weather. I should ex¬ 
pect to see the grass immediately assume a dark 
green color, and, when closely cropped by the 
sheep, the field would look as handsome as a 
well-kept lawn. And furthermore, if the grass 
could not take up all the nitrates, they would 
sink down into the soil and be taken up by the 
roots of the trees. I believe nitrate of soda 
will prove to be our cheapest source of nitrogen 
for some years to come. Let our manure-deal¬ 
ers turn their attention to the matter. 
M. S. Clark, of Vermont, has a piece of land 
that was in corn last year that he wishes to sow 
next fall with winter rye and seed down with 
grass. His object is to get a good permanent 
meadow or pasture. He has no manure, and 
proposes to sow the field this summer with 
buckwheat and turn it under, and asks my 
opinion of the plan. If the soil is clayey, I 
should prefer a good summer fallow. Make the 
land as smooth and mellow as a garden, and 
sow on the grass-seeds the last of August with¬ 
out any other crop. Mr. C. asks me “ how 
many crops of buckwheat would be equal to a 
dressing of 25 tons of barn-yard manure.” We 
have not the necessary data to answer this ques¬ 
tion, hut judging from what facts we have, I 
think it would take eight or nine average crops 
of buckwheat to furnish as much nitrogen as is 
contained in 25 tons of good manure. 
The New York State Agricultural Society 
offers a prize for the best pen of five spring 
pigs, without regard to breed. In the “ small 
breed” class the prize was awarded to me, for 
a pen of cross-bred Essex and Berkshires. We 
killed them yesterday, when they were just one 
year old. The following is their live and 
dressed weight, with the percentage of dressed 
weight to live weight: 
— 
Live 
Weight. 
Dressed 
Weight. 
Percentage 
of 
Dressed 
to Live 
Weight. 
fts. 
Ibs. 
No. 1 Barrow. 
430 
382i4 
88.95 
“ 2 Sow. 
438 
384 !4 
S7.78 
“ 3 Sow. 
461 
404 
87.63 
“ 4 Barrow. 
371 
321 V 2 
86.65 
“ 5 Barrow. 
3S0 
328 
86.31 
Average of the five Pigs. 
416 
304 
87.48 
There is nothing remarkable about these 
weights. In fact, they are insignificant in com¬ 
parison with the big hogs we often read about. 
All that can be claimed for them is, that they 
are quiet and docile, are good graziers, fatten at 
an early age, and make the choicest of pork 
and hams with a minimum of offal. As things 
now are, they are better for the consumers than 
for the producers. I question if the butchers 
will give me more than half a cent per lb. 
above the market price for them, and yet they 
are well worth three cents per pound more than 
ordinary hogs. The lard is well grained and 
remarkable for its whiteness and solidity, and 
the choice parts of the carcass are fully devel¬ 
oped, while there is comparatively little bone, 
ears, snout, and legs. The whole hog is prac¬ 
tically solid meat. A good many Western sub¬ 
scribers of the Agriculturist have written to me 
in regard to Berkshire and Essex pigs. The 
above facts will answer their inquiries. They 
seem to think that they are too small. They 
can judge for themselves. For my part, I think 
pigs that will average 364 lbs., dressed the day 
they are a year old, are large enough. The 
only objection I can see to these fine-boned 
pigs is, that they are worth more than we can 
get for them. But I live in hopes of seeing the 
day when the pork-packers will discriminate 
between good and poor hogs. And in fact they 
are now making more difference than formerly. 
As a rule, what is good for consumers will in 
the end be good for producers. And I believe 
that Berkshire pigs are as well suited to the cir¬ 
cumstances of Western farmers as any other 
breed. But they must judge for themselves. A 
Western breeder of Chester Whites accuses me 
of “ puffing ” the Berkshires from interested 
motives. He does not know that I do not breed 
any Berkshires for sale. If his hogs at a 
year old will dress over 87 per cent, I should be 
glad to know the fact. 
A subscriber of the American Agriculturist , 
in one of the Western States, says he has a 
neighbor who makes a good deal of money by 
raising mustard-seed, but he will give no infor¬ 
mation in regard to the business, and he writes 
to know if we can tell him how to raise and 
harvest the crop. I do not exactly see how a 
farmer can keep the management of a crop a 
secret. In this section my neighbors know a 
good deal more about what I am doing on my 
farm than I do. I supposed there were no 
secrets in farming, any more than there are in 
medicine—the secrets belong to the quacks. 
There is certainly no secret about mustard¬ 
growing. The chief difficulty is in harvesting 
it. It requires considerable skill, energjq 
promptness, ingenuity, and judgment, to cut at 
the right time, cure properly, and gather and 
thrash the crop. I know an English farmer 
who has had considerable experience in raising- 
mustard, and I will get him to write an article 
on the subject for the Agriculturist; and as lie is 
personally acquainted with our soils and cli¬ 
mate, he will be able to give just such directions 
as we need. The profits of the crop are some¬ 
times very large. A story is told of an English 
farmer who took a load of mustard-seed to 
market and got $2,500 for it. Mustard for seed 
requires rich land, and it should be got ready 
the year previous. If I was going to raise a 
crop, I should summer-fallow the best field I 
had, and manure it with well-rotted manure 
next fall, and drill in the seed in good season 
the next spring. The great point is to make 
the land rich and clean. The seed is drilled in 
rows one foot apart, and the plants are singled 
out with a hoe about ten inches apart. The 
young plants grow slowly at first, and, un¬ 
less hoed in good season, the weeds will 
smother them. Hence, the importance of rich, 
clean land. When the plants are hoed and get 
fairly started, they need no farther hoeing. The 
mustard grows so rapidly as to smother every 
thing. Nothing more is required until the crop 
is ready to harvest. There are two varieties of 
mustard, the white and black mustard. The black 
is the most pungent, and makes the best table 
mustard, but both kinds are used by the manu¬ 
facturers. The white is extensively grown as a 
green food for sheep. It is often sown after 
harvest on wheat stubbles, and is eaten off 
by sheep in September and October. 
-—«♦■———-- 
A Reclaimed Salt Marsh. 
In the summer of 1869, E. Cheseboro reclaim¬ 
ed about ten acres of salt marsh at Stonington, 
Ct. The principal part of the work was a dyke, 
eight or ten rods long, thrown across the nar¬ 
row neck of land that connects the marsh with 
tide-water. This and the tide-gate cost about 
three hundred dollars. Previous to the im¬ 
provement, the marsh was overflowed in the 
high tides, and produced but two or three loads 
of black marsh grass, very good for bedding 
and manure, but of little value for fodder. The 
past season it has yielded three or four times as 
much hay as before, and of much better quality. 
The blue grass is every where making its ap¬ 
pearance. Formerly, cows did not care to go 
upon the marsh to graze at all. Now they crop 
the aftermath with great relish. It only re¬ 
mains to top-dress with a light coat of soil and 
to sow grass-seed, to transform the whole into a 
productive meadow. Mr. Cheseboro considers 
the question ol reclaiming as fully solved. The 
following figures will very nearly represent 
