1866 .]. 
AMKBICAN AaRTCUT.TTTRlST, 
247 
Marketed Cotmwel.—“A” thinks that 
he does not profit miioh by reading agricultural articles 
ns “ Statenipnls are made by the learned ivritere one, 
week to be flally contradicted tiie next.” We jndse 
from his quotations that he reads the reports of the 
Farmers’ Club, which i.": g’-eal on flat contradiction. It 
cannot be expected that m“n from the sandy portions of 
.Long Ls'and and New Jersey should agree with tliose 
from Westche.ster Co., iiiion manuring strawberrips. or 
anything else. Whether it be true that Isabeila Grapes 
” will make a pig squeal.” we cannot .'ay. Those we 
hud last year, from Crooked Lake and Doct. Underhill, 
were loo good to waste in .such experiments. 
f*ois4>sai»4l Floiu-—C/'aaitSoaa. to Mil* 
lers. — A'« hole communiiy in Orange Go., N. Y.. have 
been poisoned, some fatally au'l mo't of them .serhuisly, 
by means of lead which was introdttced into their flour 
through the almost crimuial carele.ssness of a miller. 
The lead was u.'pil to fill cavities ia an old mill .'tone, 
and ill llie process of grinding 'vas of course rubbed to 
powder and mixed with the flour. In this way, some 
SOO per'.sons have been subjected to more or less severe 
lead-poi-oning. If oilier inilter.s are in tlie habit of re¬ 
pairing their .'tnne.s with learl, let tliem take warning. 
Tlip lead in lliis case was .'o finely divided as lo be in¬ 
visible, and ils presence v\as only .snspecle! from the 
cases presenting ilie symotoms of leud-poi.'oniiig. 
TtfsiMsplasitiisg' C)sari*ols.--“ L. H. C.” 
asks, if it will pay to transplani Carrots. Probably not, 
as a general tiling, thoiigli in tlie small way in llie gar¬ 
den, it may be well to fill wide gaps in this way. To 
succeed, it must be done when the plants are very small. 
"ITliicls is Hest? — Mr. Hat’es writes: “I 
have no tame grass yet. Which i.s best for corn fod¬ 
der ; to plant in lillls. take off the ears and out ihe stalks 
in tlie usual Way. or to plant tliickly In drills and cut 
stalks and all ?’’—The latter usually, for most fodder. 
Sheaves'! to llriTC Away 
Rais.-.At the suggestion of a friend, tlie writer, wuth 
iiltle faitli ill tlie measure, once tried laying Aliillein 
leaves around tlie rat lioies in hi.« cellar, to drive the rats 
away. In a short time, tlie leaves were mainly gone. 
More were laid down, but were not taken away. The 
rals were gone. These are tlie fads in that case. Why 
the rats went, is not known, unless the leaves gave them 
pain or alarm.—Oilier like experiments will be easy, 
where Mullein grow-s. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm. 
No. 31. 
A few days ago I received the following letter 
from our friend, John Johnston: 
New Geneva, N. Y., May 17th, 1866. 
Dear Sir.—“ Draining on the brain ” will never 
hurt farmers. They will gain grandly during the 
disease, and get fat after they get over it, that is, 
if it has continued long enotigh.—I believe if 
I had 3 ’ou here for an hour I would give you 
another brain complaint that would ultimately 
help to fatten j'ou. True, I could write out the 
prescription, in a way, but I can tell you there 
is nothing like seeing to make people believe. I 
would meet you any morning .at the depot for the 
early train, bring you over to breakfast on ham and 
give a dinner of the same; take j’ou over 
for the 4 P. M. train, and if not satisfied with what 
you have seen, you can charge me }'our fare back.” 
I went, and, of course, had to pay both ways ! 
I think it was Walter Scott who said he was never 
thrown into the comp.any of any man, however il¬ 
literate, without learning something useful. And 
certainly he must be a dull scholar who can visit 
a farmer of over forty years’ experience, without 
picking up information that can be turned to good 
account. I have A’isited John Johnston a great 
many times, and wish every j'oung farmer in the 
country could enjoy the same privilege, He is so 
delightfuilj. enthusiastic, believes so thoroiiglilj’ in 
good farming, and has been so eminently success¬ 
ful, that a clay spent in his company connot fail to 
encourage any farmer to renewed efforts in im¬ 
proving hLs soil. “You nimt drain,” he wrote to 
me when I commenced farming, “ I never made 
any money till 1 began to underclr.ain.” But it is. 
not underdraining alone that is the cause of his 
eminent success. When he bought liis farm, “near 
Geneva,” over forty years ago, there was a pile of 
manure in the yard th.at had lain there year after 
year till it was, as he said, “ as black as my hat.” 
The former owner regarded it as a nuisance, and a 
few months before young Johnston bought the 
farm, had given some darkies a cow on condition ’ 
that they tvould draw out this manure. They drew 
out six loads, took the co%v—and that was the Last 
seen of them. Johnston drew out this manure, 
raised a good crop of wheat, and that gave him a 
start. He says, he has been asiced a great many 
times to what he owes his success as a farmer, and 
he has replied that he could not tell, whether it was 
“dung or credit.” It was probahlj* neither. It 
was the man—his intelligence, industry, and iroocl 
common sense. That heap of black mould was 
merely an instrument in his hands that he could 
turn to good account. 
His first crop of wheat g.ave him “credii,” and 
this also he u.sed to advantage. He believed that 
good farming would pay, and it was this faith in a 
generous soil that made him willing to spend the 
monej’ obtained from the first crop of wheat in en- 
riciiing the land, and to avail himself of his credit. 
Had he lacked this faith—had he hoarded every six¬ 
pence he could have ground out of the soil, who 
would liave ever heard of John Johnston ? He has 
been liberal with his crops and his animals, and has 
ever found them grateful. This is the real lessou 
whlcli his life teaches. 
On my return home, I got from the post office a 
book entitled “High Farming without Manure.” 
I tlionght, when I first saw it, that it was jirobably 
an account of the Rev. Mr. Smith’s experiment in 
raising whc.at year after year on the same land 
without manure, in which he succeeded in raising 
heavy crops simply by good tillage. There are 
many examples of the same principle in this 
country with corn, on rich liottom land. Good, 
clean culture has given, for many years in succes¬ 
sion, large crops of corn. It is well itnclcrstood— 
or rather it ought to be well under.«tood—that good 
tillage, or stirring the soil, decomposes the orgttuic 
matter in the.se rich lands, and enables them to 
produce large crops without manure. But in re¬ 
ality the manure is in the .soil, and, working tlie 
ground simply makes it available. The jirinciple 
is true of all naturally good soils, uiiland and allu¬ 
vial. It is a great truth, and those farmens are wise 
who recognize it, and keep the cultivators ruuniug. 
But shall we depend ou tillage .alone? A man 
may be so placed that for a year or two he has 
notliing else to depend upon. He may h.ave taken 
a “run down” fiirm, and cannot get manure. In 
this case he will cultivate a portion of his land in 
the best manner possible. He will kill the weeds, 
and make the soil clean .and mellow, and if the soil 
is naturally good, and the season favorable, lie will 
get a lair crop. But will he adopt this as a system ? 
Not he. I will guarantee that any farmer who h.as 
energy and intelligence enough to work his land 
thoroughly, who will cultivate his corn, for in¬ 
stance, every week or ten da3''3 as long as he can 
get a horse through it; such a man, I say, will not 
stop here. He will make all the manure he can. 
And so on the other hand, if you find a man who 
takes special p.iins to make and apply manure, you 
will find that he also cultivtites his land thoroughly. 
I have never known an exception. 
As a general rule, there can be no .such thing as 
“high farming without manure.” Were such a 
thing profitably possible, our barn yards and prem¬ 
ises would soon be reeking with decomposing 
matter, and noxious gases would pollute the air. 
We should lose one of the grand incentives to 
cleanliness, and notliing but the fear of some ma¬ 
lignant disease would cause us to keep our prem¬ 
ises sweet and clean. But now the very tilings 
which are most injurious to Iiealth, arc the vciy 
tilings of most value in increasing the crops. De¬ 
pend upon it, no discovery will lie made whereby 
we can profitably dispense with manure. 
“ But 3 'ou did not tell us what Mr. Johnston 
wanted to show you.” I am coming to it. Mr. J 
makes a great deal of manure, and what is better, 
he makes good manure. He fats a flock of sheep 
every winter, giving (hem corn and oil cake, and in 
the .spring, after he has sold his sheep, he throws the 
manure uj) into loose piles, and inriis them once 
or twice till tiiey are thoroughly rotted. This ma¬ 
nure he spreads early in the fall on his grass land 
that he intends breaking up for corn in the spring. 
This is his usual practice. But a year ago last fall, 
when sowing his ivheat, lie put on a slight dressing 
of manure on two porthnis of the field tliat he 
tlionght were rather poor. The whole field was 
seeded down with Timoth\ in the fiiil at the time 
of sowing the wlicat. No clo-ver was sown. This 
spring those portions of the field dressed with ma¬ 
nure are cowered vjUha splendid crop of doner. You 
can see ihe exact line in both cases wliere the ma¬ 
nure reached. It looks very curious. No clover 
seed was sown, and yet there Is as flue a crop of 
clover as one could desire. 
On looking into the matter more closely, we 
found that there was more or less clover all over the 
field, but where the manure was not used it could 
hardly be seen. The plants were small, and the 
Timothy hid them from view. But where the ma¬ 
nure w.as used, those plants of clover had been stim¬ 
ulated in their growlli till they covered the uTOnnd. 
The leaA’es were broad and vigorous, while in the 
other ease they were small and almost dried up. 
This is doulitless the right explan.ation. T'le ma¬ 
nure did not “bring in the clover”; it simply in¬ 
creased the growth of that already in the soil. It 
shows the value of manure for grass. 
This is what Mr. Johnston wanted to show me, 
“I might have written and told you, but you would 
not have got a clear idea of the matter.” This is 
true. One must see the great luxuriance of that 
piece of clover to full 3 ' appreciate the effect of the 
manure. Mr. J. said the manure on that grass was 
worth thirty dollars an acre—tliat is on the three 
crops of grass before the field is again ]iIowed. I 
have no doubt that this is true, and that (he future 
crops on the land will also be benefited—not di¬ 
rectly from the manure perhaps, but from the clover 
roots in the soil. And if the field were pastured, 
the effect on future crops would bo very decided. 
I spend an liour or so on Mr. Sheldon’s beautiful 
farm—looking at his splendid herd of Sliorlhorns. 
As I drove up I passed the finest field of young 
gr.ass and clover I ever saw. 1 asi;ed a man who 
was at work near it what Mr. Sheldon had put on 
the field that made the grass so big. “Notliing, 
as I knows of,” he said, “ it’s capital land.” Is this 
high farming without manure ? Not a bit of it. The 
field,—about twenty acres,— was manured heavily 
in the fall on the sod, and plowed up and planted to 
corn, receiving good culture. It was then sown 
with oats, followed by W’he.at, and seeded down 
with a peck of Timothy in the fall, and six quarts 
of clover in the spring. The wheat received a good 
dressing of manure. And those acquainted with 
Mr. Sheldon’s mode of feeding, will know that tho 
manure is not simply rotted straw. It is as ricii as 
can be made from stall-fed sattle. This is the secret 
of the magnifleent crop of grass. It will doubtless 
cut three tons to the acre, at least—and this fed 
out will give more manure, and so the land is kept 
continually improving. Good grass and clover 
arc the bases of good farming. 
What a pest red.root is! You have heard me 
make that remark before! Weil, if you .suffered as 
much from it as I do, you would excuse me. You 
recollect where I had beans last year. No land could 
be cleaner. It was in wheat the yetir before when 
I took the farm, and was so full of couch-grass 
that I concluded not to seed it down, but to try my 
hand at killing the quack. After the wheat was off, 
I plowed the land and harrowed it, and just be ore 
winter set in I plowed it again. In the spring I 
run the cultivator through it, and harrov.’ed ; then 
plowed again, and harrowed, and eultivnted again, 
and tben.liarrowud and raked up the quack into 
heaps, and burnt it. I then planted it to beans, 
and kept them thoroughly cultivated and hoed. 
Last fall I sowed it to wheat. I do not think there 
is a root of quack left, but the red root came up by 
the million! 
Now what I ought to have done is this : Instead 
