AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
83 
For the American Agriculturist. 
GUANO-NITROGENOUS VS. MINERAL MANURES. 
The failure of guano as a manure to light 
soils this hot, dry season, is noticed by a 
Washington correspondent of a Nevv-York 
paper. ’Tis true that the organic elements 
in stable manure, encumbered as they are 
with carbonaceous matter, have a much bet¬ 
ter effect on the soil in any season, and par¬ 
ticularly in a drouth, than the more compact 
concentrated guano ; hence it is that green 
clover plowed into the soil has a manural 
value beyon the nitrogen and other salts it 
contains ; not that its woody or carbona¬ 
ceous matter is at all necessary to supply 
carbonic acid to the crop, but solely for its 
mechanical action in the soil, and the water¬ 
forming process it aids in, in the process of 
its decay. Instead, therefore, of denounc¬ 
ing guano as a too stimulating or caustic 
manure for our hot dry climate, let those 
farmers who use it adopt the plan of com¬ 
posting it with carbonaceous matter, swamp 
muck, or even common earthy matter, be¬ 
fore it is applied to the soil as manure. It 
is now generally conceded that guano is 
chiefly valuable in proportion to the ammo¬ 
nia (organized nitrogen) it contains ; hence 
Peruvian guano, from a rainless climate, is 
the only kind worth purchasing. 
Notwithstanding all Liebeg has said of the 
omnipotence of the ashes of plants, or in¬ 
organic manures, I am more and more in¬ 
duced, by experiment, to believe that car¬ 
bonaceous matter and the compounds of 
nitrogen without stint, will make any drained 
soil give the maximum crop ; the addition of 
lime, when its carbonate is deficient in the 
soil, may be necessary, and its caustic prop¬ 
erties may also aid in decomposing the inert 
vegetable matter in the soil. The reason 
why river-flats bear larger crops in a drouth 
than uplands is, that bottom soils, owing to 
the finely comminuted vegetable and animal 
matter they contain, hold more water for the 
use of plants by their more friable mechani¬ 
cal porosity. 
No matter how well drained a clay soil 
may be, or how rich in calcareous matter, 
nitrogen, or the inorganic elements of plants, 
it will not bear a good crop of corn in a dry 
season, unless its compact mechanical struc¬ 
ture is ameliorated by that vegetable matter 
which alone gives porosity to the soil in the 
process of its decay, forming water in it by 
the aid of the atmosphere ; by such aid a 
clay soil will never fail to give the largest 
crop, in the dryest seasons known to our 
climate. 
Since the late rains, grass, cabbages, &c., 
have grown the fastest of the season. So 
much for the effect of copious rains on a 
long-dried and oven-heated surface. Say 
nothing about turnips for an American soil 
or climate, when you can get Sugar beets or 
Mangel Wurtzels free from parasite worms, 
five times the weight to the same calcareous 
surface ; I have them six inches and more 
in diameter, some of them standing eight 
inches above ground ; how much larger they 
will grow under the genial influence of the 
late rains remain’s to be seen. N’Importe. 
Waterloo, Sept. 18, 1854. 
DOCKING HORSES. 
We are glad to see that the abominable prac¬ 
tice of docking and nicking horses is getting 
out of fashioa. It prevails in no other coun¬ 
try in the world but England and the United 
States ; we got it from the mother country, 
and the sooner we leave it off, the better. 
It is wonderful how anybody but an ignorant 
narrow-minded block-head of a j ockey, sho uld 
ever have thought of it, being as offensive to 
good taste as a violation to every humane 
feeling. Has nature done her work in such 
a bungling manner, in forming that paragon 
of animals, the horse, that he requires to 
have a large piece of bone chopped off with 
an ax, to reduce him to symmetry—or that 
beauty and grace can be obtained only by 
cutting a pair of its large muscles. 
“ The docking and nicking of horses,” says 
an intelligent writer on Farriery, “ is a cruel 
practice, and ought to be abandoned by the 
whole race of mankind. Every human being 
possessed of a human heart and magnani¬ 
mous mind, must confess that both the dock¬ 
ing and nicking of horses is cruel; but that 
creature called man attempts thus to mend 
the work cf his Almighty, wise creator—in 
doing which he often spoils and disfigures 
them. What is more beautiful than a fine 
horse, with an elegant long tail and flowing 
mane, waving in the sports of the wind, and 
exhibiting itself in a perfect state of nature 1 
Besides, our Creator has given them to the 
horse for defence as well as beauty.” 
The same author relates an instance of a 
fine hunting horse owned by an Englishman, 
which could carry his rider over a five-barred 
gate with ease; but he thought the horse did 
not carry as good a tail as he wished—he 
therefore had him nicked, and when the 
horse got well, he could scarcely carry him 
over two bars.—“ Thus,” said he, “I have 
spoiled a fine horse ; and no wonder, for it 
weakened him in his loins.” Any man of 
common sense would give ten per cent more 
for a fine horse whose tail had never been 
mutilated, than for one which had been un¬ 
der the hand of a jockey. 
[Woonsocket Patriot. 
FALL AND SPRING TRANSPLANTING. 
A correspondent objects to the practice of 
those, “ who still continue in the old delu¬ 
sion, that fall is the best time for transplant¬ 
ing trees”—stating that “ some shrubs, and 
almost all plants, removed in the fall, when 
the sap, the great supporter of their life, has 
gone into their roots, vegetation ceases in 
them, and they, consigned to a new, cold 
soil, perhaps not a single fiber of the roots 
taking hold until spring, if, indeed, detached 
almost, if not entirely, from all nourishment, 
any life remains, are destroyed by fall trans¬ 
portation. Fruit trees, being more hardy, 
bear up, but they are forever stricken,” &c. 
In the spring, “ if the dirt is wet and packed 
solid around the roots, before they are dug, 
touching and injuring as few of the fibers 
and roots as possible, and carefully setting 
in their new bed, vegetation goes on,” &c. 
We give this quotation for the sake of 
pointing out a very common error, namely, 
that the sap goes down into the roots to 
winter Instead of this, the sap usually per¬ 
vades all parts of a tree alike, and while 
covered with leaves, these keep up a con¬ 
stant drain or escape. When the leaves fall, 
although vegetation has ceased, the roots 
still absorb a small quantity, and as there is 
no escape through the leaves, the vessels of 
the tree gradually become filled or distended, 
so that on the approach of warm weather, 
stimulating activity, the least wound is fol¬ 
lowed by a flow of the sap. As soon as the 
new leaves expand as a general rule, this 
flow from incisions ceases, in consequence of 
the drain afforded in another direction. 
Now it usually happens that removing the 
tree in the spring, cuts off in a measure the 
supply from the roots at the very moment it 
is most wanted—an evil quite as great as 
that resulting from any diminished supply 
in consequence of fall planting. Our cor¬ 
respondent speaks of the evils of “ a new, 
cold soil—are we to understand from this 
that the plant has warmed the bed in which 
it stood, and that it is chilled, like a human 
being, by a removal to a fresh bed 1 Is not 
the “new soil” as relatively cold in spring 
as in autumn 1 He speaks of life being 
“ destroyed by transportation”—this must 
refer to long distances ; yet the trees may be 
sent thousands of miles if well packed, with 
nearly or quite the safety attending theirre- 
moval to the next farm. Ample experience 
has proved this to be true. Why are we not 
allowed to take the same pains in saving the 
roots and carrying the earth upon them for 
autumn, as well as spring transplanting ? 
But throwing theory aside—we have in 
the course of our practice set out many ten 
thousands of trees of various sizes, both in 
autumn and in spring, and we are satisfied 
that more, by at least twenty-fold, depends 
on good soil, careful work, and especially on 
the subsequent culture, than on the season 
of the year ; nevertheless, if it were not for 
the liability to be thrown out or raised by 
frost, and the danger to half tender sorts 
from the cold of winter, we think the advan¬ 
tages would decidedly preponderate in favor 
of autumn, more especially because it is not 
accompanied with the check we have already 
spoken of, at the very moment the trees 
should commence to grow vigorously. We 
have never found hardy trees to succeed 
better, if as well, other things being the same, 
as when carefully dug up in autumn and well 
laid in till spring, when they are set out, 
without the above mentioned check. 
Shrubs and small plants, if inclining to be 
tender, are always made more tender the 
first winter by transplanting; hence they 
should be either protected, or the work done 
in spring. Hardy, early starting perennials, 
as peonies, pie-plant, &c., should always be 
set out in the fall; while tulips, and many 
other bulbs, require setting- a month or two 
earlier. The practice must be modified by 
circumstances, climate, and the habits of the 
various plants.— Country Gentleman. 
Hog’s Lard. —It is said that one establish¬ 
ment in Cincinnati, last year, tried out thirty 
thousand hogs. To carry on this immense 
business, they have seven large circular 
tanks of sufficient capacity to hold fifteen 
thousand gallons each. They receive the 
entire carcase, with the exception of the 
hams, and the whole is subjected to steam 
process, under a pressure of seventy pounds 
to the square inch, the effect of which oper¬ 
ation is to reduce the wh ole to one consist¬ 
ence, and every bone to powder. The fat is 
drawn off by cocks, and the residuum, a mere 
earthy substance, as far as made use of, is 
taken away for manure. Besides the hogs 
which reach the factory in entire carcasses, 
the great mass of heads, ribs, back and 
bones, tail pieces, feet, and other trimmings 
of the hogs, cut up at different pork houses, 
are subjected to the same process, in order 
to extract every particle of grease. This 
concern will turn out this season three million 
six thousand pounds of lard, five-sixths of 
which is No. 1. Nothing can surpass the 
purity and beauty of this lard, which is re¬ 
fined as well as made under steam processes. 
Six hundred hogs perday pass through these 
tanks one with another. 
The Largest Hog. —Martin Roberts, who 
resides on the river some six miles below 
Madison, in Kentucky, informs us that he has 
a hog that weighs upward of nineteen hun¬ 
dred pounds, which he has sold for two hun¬ 
dred dollars. This unexampled hog will be 
on exhibition at the Indiana State Fair, on 
the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th of October, and will 
no doubt excite as much curiosity as any 
other.— Madison Banner. 
This statement maybe true,but we should 
like to see that hog just to satisfy our curi¬ 
osity.—E d. 
