1866 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
179 
Early Planting of Corn—Preparation. 
In the Northern States, May is often a cold, 
■wet, rainy month, and corn planted early, either 
does not come up at all, or it drags out a poor, 
yellowish,dwindling life, until the warm weather 
of June, while the farmer has to wage a steady 
battle with the weeds in order to see his corn 
rows at all. This is often the case at least, 
and we very much prefer to do other work in the 
early part of the month, meanwhile keeping the 
ground open by occasional harrowings, so that 
perhaps, two or three crops of weeds, will start 
up and be killed before the 30th or 25th, at 
which time we prefer to put in the main crop. 
An early maturing kind is best, and this can¬ 
not be too much insisted on both at the East 
and West; and we prefer not to go far out of 
the neighborhood for it, if we have not enough 
of such seed as we want of our own raising. 
Take perfect ears with small cobs, and well 
filled out. Use only the perfect kernels. If the 
ear is perfect and thoroughly ripe, all the kernels 
may be used; but if the ear is misshapen and 
the kernels at the tip not so ripe and hard as 
the rest, plant only from the middle of the ear. 
Soak the corn twelve hours, then change the 
water, adding that which is as hot as one can 
bear his hand in. To this add a little pine tar, 
and stir the whole until the corn is all thinly 
coated with tar. Pour off the water and roll 
the corn in slaked lime. Plant -svithin twelve 
hours, covering only about half an inch deep. 
------ 
Grass Land, How to Improve It, 
If you ask this question of many farmers, 
the only reply will be, break up and sod down 
afresh. Others will hesitate before giving this 
uniform answer. They will insist on looking 
at the land first, or at least will wish to know 
what is the matter with the present grass crop. 
Is some part of the field mossy or boggy ? or 
does it grow certain coarse grasses which indi¬ 
cate undue moisture at the bottom ? If so, their 
eyes will be opened, and they will reply, in med¬ 
ical language, that “ underdraining is indicated.” 
Nothing does the land need so much as this; 
nothing will do it material good, until this is 
first attended to. Plowing and manuring will 
be nearly all useless, so long as the land is clog¬ 
ged with surface water. 
If this is not the trouble, they will enquire 
whether foul weeds have got possession, to the 
exclusion of wholesome grasses. If not, but 
the trouble is simply an impoverishment of the 
surface by long cropping, they will advise to 
scarify the sward in the fitll with a heavy har¬ 
row, tearing up the mosses, and disturbing the 
soil a little, so that it will receive fresh seed. 
Then they will sow from 10 to 15 quarts per 
acre of clear Timothy and Ked Top in equal 
parts, and cover the same with a light harrow. 
We should have said, too, they will apply a 
good coat of old manure, before the seed sow¬ 
ing. In this way repeating the manuring once 
in two years, many a meadow or pasture can be 
brought up to a high state of productiveness. 
If, however, the land is infested with white 
daisy, dock, or thistle, the only way will be to 
break it up thoroughlj', cultivate it five years 
with crops and grain, and finally seed down 
again. Manuring should go along with this 
cultivation, of course. When seeding down, be 
not sparing of seed, but use half a bushel of 
Timothy and the same of Red Top, If Red 
Clover is desired, it should not generally be sow¬ 
ed until in the spring, as it is apt to winter- 
kill. If our farmer is a progressive man, per¬ 
haps he will enquire whether the grass crop 
could not be improved by irj;igation. We be¬ 
lieve that much is to be realized from this prac¬ 
tice during the next generation. 
Hew Enterprise—Don’t Sell Peat Swamps. 
There is at present a growing interest be¬ 
ing awakened among scientific and practical 
men, that may prove advantageous to many 
farmers. Owing to the speedy decrease of our 
woodlands, and the heavy expense attending 
the carriage of coal from distant points to the 
place of consumption, many parties have been 
trying to discover a substitute for those articles 
as a fuel. Their attention was directed to Peat, 
which is so well known as a fuel in Ireland. 
The great objection to its use was the expense 
of working it into a suitable form. The people 
of Europe who use it, cut it in square cakes, like 
large bricks, setting it up in piles to dry in the 
sun. This makes a great deal of handling, and 
in this country would be too expensive in prac¬ 
tice. The attention of inventors was directed 
to the getting up of a machine that would com¬ 
press the crude peat into a dry, dense, and easily 
transported shape.—Five or six machines 
have been recently patented for the purpose, 
some of which are -worked by horse power, and 
some by steam. It is not my purpose to draw 
comparisons between these machines, nor to 
particularize them. But I -wish to call the at¬ 
tention of farmers to the fact that many of them 
have valuable beds of peat on their farms, and 
that speculators are now^ engaged in buying up 
available property of this description. They 
try to obtain the beds, on various pretexts, for 
as little as ten dollars per acre, and have some¬ 
times succeeded. Others have given more, and 
they should all pay good large pi'ices. I will 
relate a few instances of the speculation. One 
party', in Northern New York, has been offered 
$400 per acre for a fine bed. One, in Ne^n' Jer¬ 
sey, ■R'as offered $35,000 for a bed of 28 acres— 
but, knowing its value, the owner j-efused. 
That the reader may understand the value of 
this property, let file state the particulars given 
by a member of a company owning one of the 
best machines. He says an acre of peat, if ten 
feet deep, will yield 5,000 tons of fuel. The 
cost of manufacture is less than three dollars 
per ton. It will sell at $6 to $8 ptr ton, leaving 
a nice little profit of from $15,000 to $35,000 per 
acre. Eighty to ninety tons can be made by one 
steam engine, and ten or twelve men, per day. 
There is one company', recently started in an 
adjoining county, that, instead of buying the 
bed, have bought the peat at ten cents a cart 
load. Three cart loads make a ton of the press¬ 
ed fuel. Therefore, at these figures, they are 
paying at the rate of $1,500 per acre. 
It may be said that this fuel will not bring 
such prices. It does certainly do so, and will 
doubtless compete very' seriously with coal. 
Before the Society of Arts, a Mr. Newton stated 
that peat, “if properly used, gave a calorific 
power greater than coal; but the use of peat in 
manufactures was.of greater importance than 
simply as a fuel for heating purposes. Every iron 
manufacturer knew that if he could get peat to 
stand the blast, it was infinitely superior to coal 
for their purpose, for the simple reason that it 
contained no sulphur. They could'produce 
iron by peat, from the worst brands, which 
would almost equal the best Swedish or Russia 
iron, simply owing to the absence of these de¬ 
teriorating chemical agents which exist in coal.” 
Mr. P. F. Murray read, before the Society of 
Engineers, at Exeter Hall, a paper relating to 
this subject, and stated that “at an assumed 
average of twelve feet, an acre would produce 
about 3,500 tons of dried jibat.” This is by the 
wasteful method of sun drying in vogue there. 
“ Trial of condensed peat has been made by Mr. 
B. Fothergill, on a river steamboat, in which 13 
c-ft't. were consumed in 2 hours and 30 minutes, 
the ordinary consumption of coal being 12 cwt; 
an hour. It saves half the time of getting up 
steam, and will do double duty as compared 
with coal. The absence of smoke and clinkers, 
and the preservation of the grates and fire¬ 
boxes from the effects of sulphur are important 
additional advantages.” 
According to the Syracuse Journal, a trial 
was made on the New York Central Railroad, 
a short time since, of peat as fuel for locomo¬ 
tives. “ The usual amount of fuel consumed by 
coal burning engines being a ton to every twenty 
miles, but, on the trial, it only took half a ton 
of peat fuel to runengineNo. 106 twenty miles.” 
Gas has been obtained from peat, in some 
respects superior to, .and nearly as much in 
qu.antity' as that produced from coal, oil or resin. 
Dr R.-, residing near Syracuse, estimates 
that fifteen acres, at an average depth of eight 
feet, will produce 40,836 cords. One cord is 
worth at least a cord and a half of hard wood— 
that will make it equ,al to 54,448 cords of hard 
wood to the acre. Estimating -wood at $6 per 
cord, and allowing two-thirds as cost for pro¬ 
ducing, there will reinjiin a net profit of $108,- 
896 as the produce of fifteen acres of peat. 
Now, brother farmers, j'ou can see for j'our- 
selveswhat an immense enterprise this is. The 
writer •u'.as called upon by parties desiring to 
purchase his “muck sw'amp,” under the pre¬ 
tense of cultivating cranberries. He, however, 
succeeded in drawing forth from one of them a 
slight hint on the subject, and, following out 
this hint, he has made investigations that have 
resulted in the above. Feeling it a duty to his 
fellow workers to let them also “ into the se¬ 
cret," he h.as chosen the columns of the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist as being the best vehicle for 
carrying this information to those whom it 
ought to benefit in preference to the specula¬ 
tors. Field. 
- - - .i. U O im . -1 €P 
Oil the Harness 
And have it repaired if necessarj', before a drier 
season sets in. Wash it thoroughly with warm 
soft water and castile soap, and brush out every 
particle of dirt before putting on the oil. This 
is the important point. Better not oil at all than 
to apply it on dirty leather. The harness should 
be taken apart and the pieces -washed and 
oiled separately. Rub on the oil while the 
leather is softened with the water. It can be 
applied at once if the leather is rubbed a little 
with a dry cloth. It should be soft, but not too 
■wet. After applying the oil hang up to dry for 
a few hours, till the oil is absorbed. Old har¬ 
ness, th.at has been neglected, and is dry and hard, 
had better not be oiled. It will do no good. 
The evil is already done. The fibres of the 
leather have lost more or less of their tenacity, 
and oil will not restore it. In fact, by softening , 
the leather it only weakens it—just as a wet » 
sheet of paper will tear more easily than a dry 
one. Oil does not add to the strength of leath¬ 
er ; it merely softens it and keeps it from crack¬ 
ing. It is a preventive of decay—not a restorer. 
Harnesses are now so high that it is more than 
ever important to take good care of them. 
Never let them suffer for want of oil; kept in 
good repair, they will last as long again. 
