AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Designer ta imyroto % Jfanner, tire f Imttx, anfr t\z (Sartretter* 
AGRIVULTURE IS TEE MOST \EEALTHY. TEE MOST USEFUL , AND TEE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN — WiesiNQTes. 
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY ALLEH & CO., 189 WATER ST. 
V 0 L. XI . ] NEW-YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1853. [NUMBER i o. 
im-FOR PROSPECTUS, TERMS, fyc., 
SEE LA6T PAGE. 
MANURE DRAININGS. 
Millions of dollars are lost every year by 
want of care and skill in properly collecting and 
using the drainings from manure heaps. Much, 
very much, has been written on this subject 
during the last ten years, and yet not one farmer 
in ten has taken any particular pains to save his 
liquid manure. Instead of aiming to preserve 
the barn yard wash, wc hesitate not to say that 
three farmers out of four, have taken particular 
pains to get rid of or waste it, by placing their 
yards upon sloping ground, or by ditching them 
so as to convey the wash into the road, or into a 
brook, or some low spot where it is not at all 
needed. 
Show any farmer that he is losing a silver 
shilling every day through a hole in his pocket, 
and he will very soon stop the loss by mending 
the old pocket, or by getting a new one, or if 
necessary even a new garment. However driv¬ 
ing his work, he will not go out in the morning 
till his pocket is secure against losing the silver 
shilling, and yet he will allow a shilling a day to 
escape unheeded from his barn yard, because it 
there has a different form and appearance from 
the little coin in his pocket. He does riot seem 
to appreciate that the purple stream from the 
manure heap can be readily converted into 
grain and thence into silver, by simply collect¬ 
ing and applying it to his fields. This can be 
done very readily by placing a simple manure 
tank in the lowest part of the yard. There are few 
situations where good manure is not worth fifty 
cents per load, but it is a well ascertained fact 
that manure, not properly covered and protected 
from washing and evaporating soon depreciates 
at least one-half in value. If then a farmer 
makes one hundred and eighty loads of poor 
manure a year, instead of the same quantity of 
good, he suffers a direct loss of $45 a year, or a 
shilling a day. And this loss is almost total, for 
the expense of preserving manure in a good 
state is comparatively very trifling. Speaking 
of this subject, Mr. Stocktiakt in his “ field lec¬ 
tures” says: 
“A farmer who does not carefully collect and 
preserve the urine of his house and live stock, 
acts like a miner who throws away dull, rich 
silver ore, because it does not shine like white 
silver.” 
“A farmer who buys guano, bone-dust, or 
other artificial manures, but does not look care¬ 
fully after his drainings, is an extravagant 
farmer; for he brings the same thing into his 
yard at great cost, which he might have for 
nothing, if he did not suffer it to flow or evapo¬ 
rate uselessly away from the same,” 
AGRICULTURAL TOUR IN GERMANY,—NO. 10, 
BY COUNT DE GOURCY. 
Translated for the American Agriculturist from the Journal 
<T Agriculture Pratique. 
The steamboat after a trip of an hour and a 
half, brought us from the opposite side of Lake 
Constance, and we landed at a little town 
called Lindau, which forms a part of the king¬ 
dom of Bavaria. The town occupies the entire 
surface of a small island, and is united to the 
main land by a bridge. The suburbs of Lindau 
are very pleasant, and a fine view may be en¬ 
joyed, embracing the lake Vorarlberg, and the 
Alps. During the first two stages from Lindau 
the country crossed is very agreeable, but its 
cultivation is greatly neglected, and the farther 
we proceed into the country, this neglect is 
more evident. The very small farms sell at 
from $80 to $100 per acre. We found many 
meadows, about an equal number in good and 
in bad condition. The cattle arc very fine, but 
not numerous; the neat cattle are of the Algau 
breed. I stopped at 10 o’clock, not wishing to 
travel during the night. I have crossed since 
my departure from Lindau, a hilly country, 
where the dwellings of the rural population are 
very spacious and well built. They are pierced, 
in the lower as well as the first story, with a 
multitude of small windows. 
At Kaufbayern, wc reentered the cars on the 
railroad now in course of completion. In two 
hours we were brought to Augsburg. The train 
coming from Nuremberg, conveyed us also in 
two hours from Augsburg to Munich. The 
plains which are crossed from Kaufbayern to 
Augsburg, and from Augsburg to Munich, dim¬ 
inish gradually in beauty and in fertility. In the 
second part of this journey, the railroad crosses 
a plain with a soil alternately flinty and parched, 
and peaty and marshy. Munich is surrounded 
with a desert tract of this nature. 
After visiting the garden of the Agricultural 
Society of Bavaria, I examined in a large room 
belonging to it, an extensive collection of agri¬ 
cultural implements, among which I recognized 
Belgian and English plows, such as those of 
Dom’oasle and Schwertz. Some of these imple¬ 
ments have been made for fifteen years. Two 
Dutch travellers, that I met with at Munich, 
joined me in hiring a cab, in which we ran over 
the fine country of Saltzburg for about twelve 
days. We found at each step meadows very 
perfectly irrigated. The women of the country 
of Saltzburg wear hats like those of men; and 
they cut the meadows as well as the workmen 
of the other sex, which I have never known to 
be the case elsewhere. All other crops of this 
district as well as the grain, flax, and hay, both 
from natural and artificial meadows, are dried 
by the following process. 
They fix firmly in ih? ground by moans of 
long hooks opening with an iron lever, stakes 
formed of young ash trees, from which the limbs 
have been cut at some distance from the main 
brancli, and these serve as hooks on which they 
hang sheaves of grain, bunches of flax, and 
fodder to dry. These frames placed in rows, 
loaded with bunches of flax or fodder plants, 
appear from a distance like ranks of soldiers, 
ranged for battle. I should mention especially 
a small plow much used in all these countries. 
It has a double mold board, two coulters and 
three handles. Its construction appears almost 
ridiculous to those who have not observed it 
in operation ; but after seeing it used across a 
steep hill, it performs such good work, that every 
one desfres its introduction into his own neigh¬ 
borhood. It costs without its front wheel, about 
thirty francs in the district where we saw it. 
I afterwards crossed a portion of Upper Aus¬ 
tria, a beautiful and fertile country, which ap¬ 
peared to me very well cultivated. The land is 
generally good, and almost all the farms belong 
to those who cultivate them. They seemed to 
me to have too extensive farm buildings for the 
size of the farms attached to them, which ap¬ 
peared to consist of about 45 to 65 acres each, 
and of which one-fourth is meadow. There are 
always on a farm of 45 acres two very large and 
valuable working horses, twelve or thirteen 
cows, eight or ten heifers, and several hogs. 
They generally pursue a three years’ rotation 
without naked follow, taking care to work the 
ground well in the interval between the grain 
crops. The cattle are kept permanently housed 
after the saving of the crops, and they conse¬ 
quently produce a large quantity of manure. 
A farm of this extent, with buildings in a 
good state of repair, and soil of good quality, 
is worth five or six thousand dollars. 
I have met with much woodland in crossing 
this hilly country. Pine wood is not as value- 
able by one-third as that free from resinous or 
oily matter. 
I visited during this little tour the large con¬ 
vent of the Benedictines, built on a height, 
which overhangs a pleasant valley, and a bor¬ 
ough called Cremse-Munster. 
I afterwards visited a town called Steuor, hav¬ 
ing crossed about twenty five miles of a rieh 
and densely peopled country. This town is 
well built and contains several small factories of 
common cutlery, scythes and sickles and a 
large number of fine dwelling houses. I was 
informed that a dozen of razors may be purchased 
here for about 30 cents. 
I proceeded from Steucr to Floriau, across a 
less variable and more fertile tract of country 
than I had examined in the morning. The clover 
crop was very fine, notwithstanding, as I was 
assured, the same ground had been cropped with 
it for three successive years. Root crops, which 
covered a large space, were not very carefully 
