19 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
the barn-yard, and that to which every thing from the 
farm house, kitchens, and farming yards, and stables 
tends, I have a cemented cistern, or tank, capable of 
containing 250 hogsheads. The wind-mill and horse¬ 
power of the yard is connected with this tank, by pul¬ 
leys, straps, and chain buckets, so that if during the 
winter, spring, or summer, I think best to wet my com¬ 
post heaps, hog-sties, or any of the yards with those 
drainings, the power is conveniently applied, and by 
leaders, the draining is thrown back to settle again 
through the mass and return to the tank. The com¬ 
post yard adjoins without the barn yard—is so graded 
that if the drainings from the tank is thrown on to the 
heaps, after settling through, they return by box under¬ 
drains, into the yards and tank. If a surplus is still on 
hand, a cart, a hogshead and sprinkler is used, with 
which, in a four to one diluted state, I irrigate such 
grass lands as I think may be benefilted by it, or my 
grain crops, in such parts of a field as I apprehend may 
want it—an excellent method of readily adding to the 
manure, and of forcing those parts of a field which in 
the spring are perceived to want manuring—or my gar¬ 
den is fertilized and forced with it, to any state of fer¬ 
tility which can be effected by such an application of the 
stringent and most prompt in its influence of all manures. 
The last spring, in spots where my wheat did not thrive 
comparatively, applying it with a watering pot, the 
grain advanced and outstripped the surrounding parts 
of the crop, which before had afforded better promise of 
thrift. Pouring a pint of it into a hill of corn, of pota¬ 
toes, or of vines of any kind, will be found to give an as¬ 
tonishing impulse to them. 
The filling and driving of the cart—of sprinkling it 
on the field, or applying it to the hill or garden, is the 
work of the barn yard power, a boy, horse, cart, sprink¬ 
ler and watering pot. The cart and its sprinkler, in its 
form and use, is in all respects like those in use in cities 
for sprinkling the streets. To irrigate and manure 
drilled crops, the sprinkler should be taken from the 
rear of the cart, and two of them should be hung pa¬ 
rallel with the shafts and over the drills. 
During the heavy rains of the fall and spring, should 
the drainings of the yard accumulate and fill the tank, 
and not be otherwise wanted, the surplus is let off into 
a muck road embanked on the sides and filled to the 
depth of ten to fifteen inches with sea-weed, turf, turf- 
ashes and a small supply of manure, and made gradu¬ 
ally to percolate and settle downwards, through a dis¬ 
tance of from four to six hundred feet in length, and 
twenty in breadth, and through which muck road cattle, 
carts and vehicles of every kind, when it is not too wet, 
are forced to find their way, the better to commingle 
and break up together its contents with the drainings of 
the barn yard. Until the drainings of the yards have 
reached the farthest extent of this road, they must es¬ 
cape from applications to agricultural rises. Before 
driving my cattle from my yards, if it becomes neces¬ 
sary to do so, and always two or three times a day, when 
its surface is moist, a boy, as a standing order and prac¬ 
tice, drives them for exercise several times around the 
yards, the better to bring the manure in contact with 
the bottomings. I have other modes, not here explain¬ 
ed, by which I readily avoid the access to my yards and 
tank, of the excess of drenching rains, when storms 
are heavy and of long duration. This I may explain, 
if desirable, on another occasion. Within the last year, 
I have lost none— absolutely none !—of the leeching of 
my yards and stables. 
To this it will be said by some, it is laborious and ex¬ 
pensive. Not SO much SO as may be apprehended, or as 
would occur with others not assisted with mechanical 
powers and under-drains, as I am; but what I have 
thus done at some expense, others may do in a great de¬ 
gree at a mere trifle of expense, and in a way that I may 
hereafter suggest. 
I assume, as a standard, the fact that farmers with 
us pay 8s. per load for manure, and that is a criterion 
by which to form an estimate of the labor or capital 
which may profitably be bestowed in obtaining it as I 
do. If that be the true criterion for judging, every day’s 
labor I expend in producing it, is worth twenty fold the 
sum I pay my hands to effect it. 
Turf affords an incalculable medium for saving the 
waste of manure, and for increasing its amount and use¬ 
fulness, and is better than rich mould, earths, or the pear- 
mgs and bottoms of ditches, in this—that it is all vege¬ 
table, and in itself, strictly speaking, a manure, when 
properly prepared. 
The contents of stables, barn yards, and cattle and 
hog pens should never be exposed to the solar heat, or 
to fermentative evaporations, or its drainings lost, when 
turf, or any inert vegetable substance, or surplus farm 
materials of a vegetable or animal nature abound; nor 
should animal substances, fish or any other, be suffered 
to waste their effluvia in the air, when such materials 
can be had. Enough out of the soil, for all useful pur¬ 
poses, of the agricultural influence or effect of manure 
is produced as soon as vegetable or animal decay is sure 
to progress. From that moment, a compost should be 
resorted to, and the heat and action of the manure 
(which is sure and irresistibly powerful,) be brought to 
act on substances to which this propensity has not been 
sufficiently imparted. In this state, all that is ordina¬ 
rily wasted acts to a useful result in augmenting the 
mass—and it will be perceived, on referring their ideas 
as to all fermentative manure, to the principles of 
Lord Meadowbanks as to turf, that they are far more 
beneficial as to their substances, not so strongly resisting 
putrescent decay. 
It is a common practice to bury fish, preparatory to 
their use as a manure, in common raw earth. The most 
soluble of ordinary manures, it is soon dissipated by at¬ 
mospheric action, and leaves on the soil to which it has 
been applied, a raw earth in its then condition injurious 
to it. I find it far more beneficial to bury the fish in 
turf and in turf ashes, seven loads to one of fish, (in 
Loudon it is said, of turf alone, even 20 to 1,) which the 
decay of the fish will make an excellent and very pow¬ 
erful manure, and one which will endure long after the 
fish will have done their office in the soil and disap¬ 
peared. 
But I perceive I am making my letter so long as to 
trespass on your columns, and will stop, only adding, 
publish all, or such parts of it as you please, and if you 
desire it, more anon. Yours very truly, 
W. W. SEELY. 
3tf“We do desire “more anon.”— Cond. 
Carrot and Ruta Baga Culture. 
Richland, Oswego co. Jan. 22, 1839. 
J. Buel —Dear Sir—Agreeable to your request, I 
send you a few lines, describing my method of cultivat¬ 
ing the carrot and ruta baga. My opinion in regard to 
profit, is in favor of the carrot. As to the relative va¬ 
lue, I have entertained the opinion, that the same weight 
of carrots is worth, for stock, nearly double that of the 
ruta baga. I fed my work horses on carrots, from No¬ 
vember, 1836, till June, 1837, three span; they remained 
in good plight, and performed as much as I ever had 
any within that length of time—they ate no grain—no¬ 
thing but hay and carrots, thrown whole into the man¬ 
ger. I have raised one thousand bushels of carrots or 
over, yearly, for three years past, on an acre of land. 
In 1836, I raised between two and three thousand 
bushels of ruta bagas. They produced from six to se¬ 
ven hundred bushels to the acre. They grew very large 
—the largest one weighed 30£ pounds. The land was 
stony and gravelly, made mellow and ridged high with 
the plough, two and a half feet or over apart from cen¬ 
tre to centre. The seed was planted about the 10th of 
June, which I found to be late enough. Method of 
planting—one man goes forward with the hoe and makes 
marks for the seed, in the centre of the ridges, about 
twenty inches apart, which is very quick done, nearly 
as fast as a man would w r alk; another man follows as 
fast with the seed, and drops from four to five seeds in¬ 
to the place with his thumb and fore finger, and covers 
the seeds at the same instant, with the remaining three 
fingers. In this way I think a smart man would drop 
the seeds and cover two acres a day. 
The same year, 1836, I raised one acre of carrots, 
which produced over one thousand bushels. I measured 
one rod of the ground, where the carrots appeared to 
be the best—the produce of this rod was at the rate of 
over fifteen hundred bushels per acre. Multitudes of 
carrots from this acre measured four and five inches in 
diameter at the but—the longest one that we found 
measured over two feet. The soil was deep, gravelly 
and stony, originally covered with large sugar maple, 
interspersed with large bass and hemlock. I cannot 
admit that the whole expense of labor on the one acre 
of carrots, including the harvesting, was over thirty or 
thirty-five dollars. The land on which they grew had 
been occupied the year previous with carrots, potatoes, 
corn, ruta bagas, beans, and other garden sauce, and ma¬ 
nured with long manure on the one half, and hog manure 
on the other. Between the Istand 5th of May, (it having 
been previously deeply ploughed,) I commenced work in 
the morning with six or seven men and boys, three horse 
team ploughs and harrows; at 12 o’clock, M. the same 
day, the planting was finished. 1 have no doubt that 
Judge Buel, had he been present, would have considered 
the planting of the seeds to have been slightly done, but 
the crop was a good one, being one thousand bushels 
or over per acre. First we ploughed the ground very 
deep, and harrowed the furrows level; then took each 
man his hoe, reversing the edge of it, and expeditiously 
scraping or dragging the hoe along the surface of the 
ground twenty or twenty-four inches apart, bearing on 
the hoe sufficient to make a large mark or track, and to 
remove the stone and other incumbrances from the track 
of drill; and so on back and forth until the whole acre 
was marked out in drills;—then each man or boy took 
a small dish with seed in one hand, and stooping down 
so as to bring the other hand as near the ground as may 
be, to prevent the wind from blowing the seeds out of 
their place—walking quick-step, each one strewing the 
seeds according to their own good judgment—having 
previously received a good lecture from the master not 
to strew the seeds too thick. When this was done, each 
man took the hoe again, and half reversing it with the 
edge up, went through again with an increased move¬ 
ment, gently puddling or stirring the soil in the centre 
of the drills. A piece of board or stick four or five feet 
in length, will answer this last purpose about as well as 
a hoe. A great part of the seed sown by some farmers, 
is lost by deep covering. A shower of rain will fetch 
them up without any covering, where the soil is loose 
and well fitted. The ground between the drills ought 
to be brushed over with the hoe immediately after they 
begin to come up, or before, if you can see where the 
drills are, so that you can avoid disturbing the carrots. 
I think a man may cultivate three acres of carrots 
with the same amount of expense and labor, by keeping 
in advance of the weeds, as he can one acre in the com¬ 
mon way, with the weeds in advance of him a number 
of days. When the carrots get up ten or twelve inches' 
high, I plough betweeen the rows with a horse, again 
and again. When I harvest them, I run a strong team 
and plough as near the out-side rows as possible, and 
very deep, turning the furrow from the rows; the hands 
follow after, and pull them out by the tops with ease, a 
number at once, and throw them in heaps; and so I 
proceed until the piece is finished. If there was any 
difference in the crop, it was in favor of that part where 
the long manure was spread the year betore. I planted 
the same piece, in 1837, without any additional manure. 
The crop was about one-quarter less. I have no doubt 
that it would be a great benefit to our farmers who keep 
stock to cultivate the carrot, especially for milch cows. 
To those who are not experienced in the cultivation of 
the carrot, I would say, sow your seeds in drills, at least 
twenty or twenty-four inches apart; the earlier in the 
season the better, if your land is in good order ; if they 
stand thin in the drills, they will be large; if very thick, 
it will spoil the crop. Respectfully yours, 
THOMAS S. MEACHAM. 
Horse Harness. 
Canaan Centre, January 15th, 1839. 
Sir —The object of this communication is to call the 
attention of farmers to the inconvenience and needless 
expense they incur in using the kind of harness, for their 
common business, at present mostly in use among them. 
We are too much the slaves of fashion; and instead of 
studying economy", or our own convenience, in endea¬ 
voring to keep pace with the rich, or those in higher or 
different situations in life, we are often found with ar¬ 
ticles of dress or equipage, far from being convenient 
for our business or appropriate to our condition. It 
probably does not occur to many, that the harness used 
fifteen or twenty years ago, was more convenient, less 
expensive, and more enduring than that mostly used at 
the present day; being calculated for business instead 
of pleasure. The most objectionable part of the har¬ 
ness now used is the breeching, which was never calculat¬ 
ed for heavy loads, and is very unsuitable ; horses not 
being able to back or hold a load with half the ease as 
with those of the fashion of by gone days. The fash¬ 
ion of the breechingnow in use, was introduced into this 
country from England, some forty years ago, and was 
called the phaeton breeching; the name indicating an 
article for pleasure rather than convenience, yet we have 
almost universally adopted it for all kinds of heavy 
work. The Pennsylvania, or Dutch breeching, is far 
cheaper on account of its durability, than the phaeton, 
and far better adapted to the ease and convenience of the 
horse in any situation. Martingals, gags and checks, 
are also very objectionable for a business harness; tend¬ 
ing to confine a horse to one position, and of course cur¬ 
tailing the free use of some of his muscles; and requir¬ 
ing greater exertion in others, adding much to the per¬ 
formance of what is required of him. It appears to 
me, that it will require no logical demonstration to con¬ 
vince any reflecting mind, that where great muscular 
exertion is required, a free and unfettered use of all the 
muscles, as far as circumstances will admit, is very im¬ 
portant. The cheapest, most convenient, and durable 
harness, is made with leather tugs from the hame to the 
hind flank, about three feet long; with a ring in the end. 
Pennsylvania breeching, with a leather strap from the 
ring of that to the one in the end of the tug. Chain 
traces, with what is called a T, on one end, which goes 
in at the ring on the end of the tug. Whiffletrees, with 
rings at the ends, the traces passing through them and 
hooking to any required length. Scotch collars, iron 
bails to bold back, and wire snaps on the lines. Many 
farmers suffer much by neglecting to oil their harness 
seasonably and properly; though once a year, if done as 
it should be, is generally sufficient. The best way is, 
after the harness is taken to pieces and cleaned, to have 
a kettle of warm water and put your oil into that; then 
dip in one strap at a time, taking care to let the oil close 
up to the strap as you take it out. It will then require 
rubbing off with a dry cloth, and will remain soft for a 
year. The water should not be so hot as to scald the 
leather. Neats or pigs foot oil is the best; next to that, 
fresh butter if you can afford it, if not, hogs lard. Many 
farmers suppose nothing so good as curriers oil, but that 
should be the last used. Harness not used for a year or 
two, is greatly injured by becoming hard and cracking; 
for that reason, a new harness lying idle for any consi¬ 
derable length of time, is not worth as much as one 
carefully used the same length of time. Yours respect¬ 
fully. DANIEL S. CURTIS. 
Corn Crop. 
Trenton, Oneida County, January, 1839. 
Judge Buel —Sir—Enclosed I send you a statement 
of a piece of corn and potatoes raised by me this season, 
which I offer for a premium, tilled according to the di¬ 
rections of your valuable paper. I hired two acres, (not 
owning any myself,) of old meadow land, for two years 
at $6 the year per acre, with what manure I wished to 
draw on it. The soil is a strong gravel. I drew on 
manure two days, about 28 loads of the coarsest I could 
get in the yard ; some of it dry straw, and spread it even. 
I ploughed, rolled and dragged it well, and marked it 
out three feet each way, in fine order, and planted on 
the 17th of May three hundred rods with eight and 
twelve rowed yellow corn, six and eight kernels in a 
hill, the seed dry; the remainder I planted with pink 
eyed potatoes. When the corn came up I put on sixteen 
bushels of lime-kiln ashes; in a few days I run the cul¬ 
tivator through both ways and commenced hoeing: as 
soon as the hoeing was finished I put on two hundred 
of plaster; the second hoeing soon followed the first, 
when the plants were thinned'to four in the hill. I in¬ 
tended to give it a third hoeing, but the corn was so rank 
and stout I could not get through without damage to the 
