armraro 
THE STUDY OF OLD FIELDS 
BY DANIEL 
Alt, our fields, not less than our children 
and ourselves, grow old with increasing 
years. They differ, however, widely from 
persons and all organized beings, in the fa¬ 
cility with which they may bo rejuvenated. 
The life of man, when consumed, can no 
more be restored to him than light may be 
obtained from a candle that is burnt out. 
Human life is handed down indefinitely, from 
one generation to another, by Iho force of 
natural law, which appears to ordain the 
perpetual increase of our species on a limited 
area of ground, for the production of human 
food and raiment. Hence, it is only a ques¬ 
tion of time, when population shall press 
severely on all arable land for the means of 
No. Of 
Buie*. 
Weight., 
ll)H. 
aii.TJO 
2,(181,257 
subsistence. America presents so many ad¬ 
vantages for the rapid multiplication of man¬ 
kind, that the growth of the genus Homo in 
Europe, Asia and Africa, is no just rule by 
which to calculate our future expansion on 
this Continent. 
We arc educating young farmers, whose 
business it will be to raise from a long-culti¬ 
vated soil, a plenty to feed and clothe one 
hundred million people. IIow shall they d6 
this on land that their fathers and grand¬ 
fathers have depleted and impoverished? 
Now, we can rest our worn-out fields, and 
let nature slowly recuperate them, ns there 
is fresh land sufficient to meet the wants of 
some forty or fifty million souls, Hut double 
the present consumption in twenty-live 
years, and steadily augment the annual drain 
on all land in cultivation, and what will be 
the condition of American agriculture, and 
of the grand Republic, at the close of this 
century ? 
In place of resting old fields, restitution of 
the essential elements of crops will be the 
general practice. To this system of tillage 
and husbandry nil must come at no distant 
day. But what elements of crops is it essen¬ 
tial to restore to old fields? Their careful 
study must precede a wise answer. 
Salts of lime, such as land plaster and 
bone-earth, have long been used to increase 
crops grown on poor land. It is, therefore, 
fair to presume that, they supply elements 
essential to fertility, which are lacking in 
soils cultivated with defective or no manure. 
Some fields, however, are so poor in other 
essentia! elements of crops, that no amount 
of lime salts will impart fruitfulness. Potash 
and magnesia, in an available condition, are 
rarely abundant in soils long cultivated, and 
being found in all crops, they must be ap¬ 
plied artificially, or eliminated from day or 
sand that contains them in an insoluble form. 
Where soda or chlorine is deficient, common 
salt is the proper fertilizer. How is the 
owner of land that lacks some one or more 
elements of plant food, to know which are 
absent and which present? Certainly he 
cannot know this by intuition, nor by any 
possible manual labor. It is that kind of 
knowledge; which the careful study of facts 
applicable to the subject will alone impart. 
Subsoils, for many feel in depth, sometimes 
so abound in tiic mineral elements of plants 
that they servo as good manures, when 
spread over a poor top soil. 
Mr. Geddkh stated before the New York 
Farmers’ Club, that earth dug out of a cellar 
ou the drift formation on his farm in Onon¬ 
daga county, produced a fair crop of oats, 
without any vegetable mold. Mr. WII.I.IAMS 
of Ithaca, in the same State, has raised good 
wheat on naked subsoil, where the top-soil, 
for two tect or more, had been removed in 
grading near his dwelling. Genesee shales, 
dug from deep wells, have disin tegrated and 
yielded excellent, wheat and clover, with less 
than a halt per cent, of organic matter. To 
recuperate old fields that have rocks and 
subsoils ol this character, is a simple and 
easy operation. But suppose the subsoil is 
poorer m agricultural salts than it is possible 
to make the surface soil, as sometimes hap¬ 
pens? Much land invites experiment with 
any fertilizers one may have at his com¬ 
mand. Bone dust and gypsum, used with 
clover, may, or may not, give a fair stand of 
this renovating plant. It they do, then the 
improvement of the field is cheaply attain¬ 
able. 11 they fail, wood ashes and salt, or 
the nitrate of soda should be used in addition 
to bone earth and land plaster. 
To plow deep, and subsoil for lime, pot¬ 
ash, phosphoric acid, and oilier known fer¬ 
tilizing substances, where they exist in too 
small quantities to pay twenty cents a day 
Tor the labor expended, is nearly the point 
reached by our common knowledge of deep¬ 
ly impoverished fields. Some lime such 
fields with results that discourage the repe¬ 
tition of the practice in the same communities. 
It is not a part of the mineral constituents of 
plants that naturally poor soils require when 
long cultivated, but the whole of them, 
usually, with the exception of iron ; and in 
white pipe clay, as found near the cities of 
Augusta, Ga., and Hamburg, S. C., even iron 
BRINKERHOFPS NEW HA.NTD POTATO DIGrG-Hirt. 
Our engraviug represents a new imple¬ 
ment, patented in March last, of which live in¬ 
ventor—Mr. ,T. Brinkerhoff of Auburn, N. 
Y.,—furnishes us the following description: 
“This new and valuable implement (pat¬ 
ented March 2, 1869,) consists of u fork of 
sufficient width and length to lift out a 
whole hill of potatoes at once. It is provid¬ 
ed, as will be seen by the cut, with two 
handles, with an iron bail attached to the 
inside of each handle close to the head of the 
fork. After the fork is pushed Under the hill, 
by raising the handles, this bail swings to 
its place against the head of the fork, and 
forms a fulcrum, by the aid of which the 
whole hill, vines and all, is lifted out with 
ease and thrown upside down, leaving the 
potatoes all bare and ready to be picked up. 
A man with this digger can dig two or 
three times as many potatoes in a day as he 
can in the ordinary way, and with less than 
is wanting. The presence of pure clay and 
silicious sand gives little more than a place 
for the deposit of plant food. 
As one may have a deep well, both cool in 
summer and warm in winter, and no water, 
so he may have land by the thousand acres 
with much of the raw material for making 
grain, grass and cotton left out. These 
natural defects are not so easily remedied as 
those inflicted by the plow, and the removal 
of crops from naturally fertile soils. This 
distinction as to the origin of the eanso of 
infertility Is important; for where the subsoil 
is good, an old field may he made highly 
productive by plaster and rest in clover, as 
the writer has practiced with success. But 
where the surface soil is washed off and the 
subsoil is quite barren, the case requires 
other remedies, not lime from the kiln, 
mixed with salts from the ocean, and moist¬ 
ened to slake the lime, is likely to prepare 
the ground for grass, white or rod clover, by 
cultivating the subsoil. Any herbage, even 
moss that grows on a rock, Is better than per¬ 
fect nakedness. Grass and all clovers ac¬ 
cumulate plant food at and near the surface, 
to form in time a fair top-soil on the most 
denuded land. It is for this reason that the 
writer has so long urged American farmers 
to have less land in annual tillage crops, and 
more in the best perennial grasses and 
clovers. 
Tillage consumes vegetable mold; while 
rest from the plow, with a carpet of green 
herbage, produces a valuable crop of organic 
matter in the ground which acts as an in¬ 
valuable chemical force to develop potash, 
soda, lime and magnesia from their insoluble 
combinations. Carbonic add and ammonia 
evolved from stable manure have a similar 
force where such alkaline combinations ex¬ 
ist. The grand difficulty In regard to im¬ 
proving largo old fields by stable manure is 
the great expense of making and hauling an 
article so bulky and weak in power. A 
more concentrated fertilizer must be used on 
large farms or plantations to produce manure 
precisely where it is needed. On ninety- 
nine farms in one hundred, clover will do 
this cheaper than to buy and haul stable 
manure, were the supply ever so abundant. 
A few bushels of the best agricultural salts 
and a little clover seed, will manure a ten- 
acre field better than one hundred, or even 
two hundred, loads of common yard-manure. 
Compound salts for the poorest old fields 
should be prepared by competent manufac¬ 
turers. Human excreta and sea salts will 
form such a fertilizer. 
--- 
“IMPROVEMENT OF ROADS.” 
Ip the first five fines of the article with 
the above heading, in the Rural of May 1, 
could be oft repeated and made to sink deep 
into the minds of the people of this country, 1 
causing them to see and feel the truth, that j 
good roads enhance the value of our farms, , 
the day would soon dawn when we, as a J 
people, could boast of far better roads than 1 
we now enjoy. 1 
The season for making and repairing roads t 
is now witli us, and I would, through the t 
columns of your excellent paper, like to call < 
the attention of all lovers of good roads, and 
especially of those who are overseers, to the ] 
importance of some system in constructing i 
and repairing public highways. * 
In the first place, all roads should be made s 
and kept rounding. The ditches at the side I 
half the fatigue. It. is made of the best steel, 
is very strong and light., the whole weighing 
about eight pounds. It. costs but ten dollars, 
and will last a life-time. For further and 
more particular information, address J. 
Brinkerhoff, Auburn, N. Y.” 
Having recently witnessed the first public 
trial of this digger, and manipulated it with 
our own hands, we confidently commend it 
to the attention of formers as a valuable 
labor-saving improvement. The inventor’s 
description of the implement and its opera¬ 
tion wo think clear and correct,—and he is 
certainly entitled to the thanks of potato 
glowers for relieving them, prospectively at 
least, of a deal of back-ache, besides saving 
them much valuable time. Wo once heard 
Henry Ward Beecher say “ No man ever 
unearthed potatoes for the love of it,” but 
that was long before BrinkE iuroFF invent¬ 
ed this digger. 
should be deep and of such a grade that the 
water may quickly run off. A road con¬ 
structed in this manner maj’ be kept round¬ 
ing for a number of years by the frequent 
use of the large A scraper, drawn by four 
horses abreast. Perhaps this important road 
implement in some districts is an unheard-of 
contrivance. Judging from the looks of 
many roads, 1 think it must be so; and for 
the benefit of overseers in such districts, I 
give a drawing of the best large scraper T 
have ever seen, and the plan adopted by me 
some years ago for drawing the same. 
The scraper here represented is construct¬ 
ed of oak plank, eleven feet long, fourteen 
inches wide and two and one-lmlf inches 
thick, set. up edgeways, in shape of the letter 
A, with the top cut off. The rear cross-piece 
is near the end, and also near the top edge of 
the plank. The next is distant from the 
other one and one-half feet, and two inches 
lower, for the purpose of allowing the guide 
pole to pass over the rear one, and the end 
under the other, giving the other end the 
right height, to take bold of. The front cross¬ 
piece is also near the end, and in the center 
of the plank. The rear end should be one 
foot throat; the front any desired width. To 
the inside of the plank, at the lower edge, 
are bolted plates of cast iron five inches wide 
and one-half inch thick, the holes through 
the same being slots longest up and down, 
that the iron may be lowered as it wears away. 
The cut of the scraper may be altered by 
moving the draw clevis in tlie chain to one 
side of the center, causing one side to do the 
wholo work, as Is many times necessary. 
The greht advantage of tills scraper over 
others is that it continually draws the dirt 
toward the center, and leaves the road per¬ 
fectly smooth and rounding. d. b. 
King’s Ferry, N. Y. 
-♦♦♦- 
A Hiram Road Roller and a Steam Plow, built 
by Messers. Aveling & Porter of England and 
New York, were Lately exhibited at Beauvais, 
France. The Emperor ami Empress were pres¬ 
ent, and devoted an hour to an examination of 
Messrs. A v clings' machinery, and so pleased 
were they with the facility with which the ma¬ 
chines did their work that the F.njperor pre¬ 
sented Messrs. Aveling with a gold modal for 
their steam roller and another gold medal for 
their steam plow, which, at the special request 
of the Emperor, plowed up a portion of the 
highway, and without Breaking auy part of the 
machinery. A steam roller, similar to the one 
alluded to, has lately been supplied to the Com¬ 
missioners of the New York Central Park. The 
use of these rollers in England has effected a 
saving of from fifty to one hundred per cent, in 
the cost of preparing roads and repairing old 
ones. 
Intsbanbtn. 
H. 8. RANDALL, LL. D., EDITOR, 
Ok Oortijind VIM.AU8, Cortla.vd County, Nkw York. 
MR. CROSMAN’S SCOURED FLEECE. 
A LETTER from William Hayden, wool 
manufacturer, Auburn, N. Y., July 23d, con¬ 
tains the following: 
“ Crosman's lleoco weighed nine pounds ono 
and a hair ounces. It Is welt sooured. The water 
being high, Is sorter than when the State Asso¬ 
ciation wool was oleansod, and, consequently, I 
think it rather bettor cleansed, if tliorti is auy 
difference." 
A formal report of the process of scouring, 
&c., will doubtless be received in time for 
publication in our next. It. was delayed, at 
our suggestion, to include Mr. Short’s 
fleece in same report, provided it should be 
received by Mr. Hayden soon after the other. 
On receiving Mr. Shepard’s letter, pub¬ 
lished July 31, we sent Inquiries to Mr. 
Grosman In regard to the management of 
the ram “ Dixie,” which produced the above 
fleece, and received the following answer: 
“ Your questions regarding I ho care and keep¬ 
ing of my ram Dixie that sheared thirty-live 
pounds, two ounces on t.ho 8th of May last, I will 
endeavor to answer fully. The rams Dixie and 
Rocky Mountain wore bom on Iff about the 85th 
of March, 1867, as you will see by the statement 
in Rural New-Yorker, July 18th, 1808. They 
sucked their dams until about throe weeks old, 
after which the two lambs had another owe be¬ 
tween thorn. They sucked the throe ewes until 
• hey were about five months old, after which 
they ran with an older ram until the season for 
serving ewes was over. The ram Dixie served 
between fifty and sixty owes, and then they were 
put with a dock of twelve sheep, consisting of 
rams, ewes ami tegs. Dixie, on the 4th of May, 
1808, sheared twenty-eight and a half pounds. 
Ho continued to run With same tloelc until the 
last of August, and then was separated out and 
ran with three rams until about the 1st of No¬ 
vember, when be and Rocky Mountain were put 
in the barn for serving owes. He served seventy 
owes, and afterwards ran with the flook (of 
served ewes.) part of each day for a short time. 
He and Rocky Mountain wintorod in a stable 
with a Hock of thirteen, Consisting of rams, ewes 
and tegs. This dock took their grain out of 
doors, and remained out for exercise, as the 
weather would permit. Thoy never have re¬ 
ceived any care or food extra, or different from 
that ol tiic (loci, with whic h they ran ; and were 
never kept alone by themselves, except during 
the season of serving ewes last fall. With regard 
to housing, I have Intended to keep them pro¬ 
tected from all heavy storms, although t hey wore 
out in several hard rains last summer. I wish 
also to state, emphatically, that no artificial sub¬ 
stance whatever was ever used to increase the 
weight of fleeoe." 
Mr. Grosman does not state “ vvlnit and 
bow much feed, besides bay and grass, the 
ram received last winter.” We lake this 
omission to be casual, and from tho tenor of 
ills remarks, Infer that the ram has not been 
particularly high fed. 
There is but one case on record of a Meri¬ 
no ram producing an equal amount of scour¬ 
ed wool of a year’s growth. In this paper 
of July 25th, 1868, (vol. 19, p. 238,) is pub¬ 
lished in the official account of the shearing 
match of the Ontario and Livingston Co., 
N. Y., Wool Growers’ Association, the state¬ 
ment. that a three-year-old ram, owned by 
Levi Noble, yielded twenty-four pounds 
two ounces of wool, and that the scoured 
weight of his fleece was nine pounds three 
ounces. No one ever entertained a doubt 
that the officers of the Association conduct¬ 
ed their part of the business with fidelity 
and accuracy, and subsequent investigations 
fully satisfied us that the manufacturers who 
scoured the wool acted in good lUitb. They 
gave their process of scouring (see Rural 
New-Yorker, August I, 1868, vol. 19, p, 
246,) and certified that they took “ particular 
pains with cadi llcece to have it well scoured 
for their manufacturing purposes.” They 
stated they manufactured “ woolen goods of 
various kinds—heavy cassimeres, some fine 
cloth, flannels and stocking yarn—mostly 
for customers.” 
The only ground for doubting the thor¬ 
oughness of the scouring, was the alleged 
fact that mills of that class neither required 
nor practiced as thorough scouring as those 
engaged in making fabrics of a higher class 
for market. The public and experts were 
invited to state their objections to this mode 
of scouring, if they had any, and to examine 
the scoured fleece; but the matter attracted 
no further attention. 
According to our view ol the case, the 
present test—the scouring of .Mr. Grosman’s 
fleece—has demonstrated two things:—That 
there was nothing incredible or particularly 
improbable in the reported result of the 
cleansing of Mr. Noble’s fleece—and that it 
is now certain that a properly scoured Merino 
fleece has exceeded nine pounds In weight. 
Mr. Grosman lias great reason to congrat¬ 
ulate himself on this result. If it shows that 
a thirty-five pound fleece must necessarily 
contain a very large, and, as we view it, a 
very unnecessaiy percentage of “ grease and 
gum,” it also shows that his ram’s fleece con¬ 
tains more pure wool than any Merino fleece 
the scouring of which has ever been made 
matter of record in this country or any other, 
with such exception as we have stated above. 
THE WOOL TRADE. 
We present our semi-annual statement, 
says the N. Y. Journal of Commerce, of tho 
Imports of wool at this port. The quantity 
is some seventy-five per cent, larger than for 
the corresponding time in 1868, though tho 
entered value has increased but thirty-three 
per cent. As compared with 1867 the 
amounts are nearly equal, but a decrease 
ot .$ 1 00,000 in gold value is noticeable. Of 
the wool imported, tho greater portion has 
been coarse, suitable for carpet and blanket 
making; the duties on this grade are com¬ 
paratively low, and we do not raise in this 
country anything that, will compete with it. 
1 ho manufacturers have been large import¬ 
ers, and have purchased freely of lots to 
arrive. From the English market we have 
drawn heavily for our supplies of all descrip¬ 
tions of wool, where the price lias ranged 
unprecedentedly low. Fine wools have been 
brought in sparingly. A certain quantity is 
required by the manufacturers, lot Iho cost 
be what It will, but in most instances do¬ 
mestic wool has been given the preference. 
Of coarse wool the price has not varied 
much in the past six months, but tine wools 
have fallen materially. 
Imports of Foreign Wool at New York during the 
first SUj Months in 1909, and for the same time 
in 1868. 
1868. 
COUNTRY. N,°. of Weight, Entered 
Boles. in». Value. 
England. . .'77T777I -- 680 55?,§50 #65,163 
Argentine Kupublle. 2,80(1 1,803,373 218,109 
AfHra. 1.(42 405,001 70,248 
Brazil. . 1,1)53 751,082 90103 
Now (Irnnada.. .... 
put eh West Indies. 44 8,080 "b62 
Mexico. . 5 1.550 111 
plMjdatiin.- Republic,..., 317 68j(i5 81,731 
. 3,377 3,122,018 570,705 
BrUhli Kant [ratios. 
British Australia. 
British West Indies. 10 475 395 
. 429 210,963 20,561 
Hamburg..... .... 
Belgium... 
Bremen .. 
Chill. 
A zores. 
Aust ria . . 
_ Total. ,T....~~ .... T SffifT 6,790,567 ~fU u5,:u5 
Weight, 
Entered 
Value. 
#05,105 
1,803,878 213,109 
88j65 
3 , 122,018 
COUNTRY. 
1866. 
ICnghind. 8 . 5*6 
Argentine Republic.... 2,370 
Prance. 1,135 
Africa. 2,659 
Braill. 1,291 
New Orunudu. I 
Dutch West Indies. 00 
Mexico... ] 
Otsphmne Repnblic. 413 
Russia . . .. 0,616 
British East Indies. 
British Australia. 
British West Indies. 51 
Turkey. . 793 
Canada . 805 
Hamburg. 28 
Belgium. 377 
Bremen. 2 
Chili. (t> 
A^irla.. ..._. . 22 
Total.I 25,034 
Entered 
value. 
*5K3jS72 
21,299 
330,331 
53,574 
M 
186 
83,818 
lLtfei.fsi 
1T327,30S 
BROKEN LEG. 
Subscriber, Richmond, Va., writes:—"A 
neighbor has just had a valuable sheep’s leg 
broken between the knee and foot by the 
kick of a horse. Not knowing what else to 
do lie killed Hie sheep. Was this necessary ? 
1 am beginning to be a sheep farmer and 
wish to be ‘ posted ? ’ ” 
Unless the bones of the leg were very badly 
crushed or splintered, the cure would have 
been easy, and required scarcely any skill 
whatever. To quote our own directions in 
the. Practical Shepherd:— 11 The bones should 
be brought to their natural position and con¬ 
fined there with splints—thin pieces of wood 
shaped to the leg and wound with strips of 
muslin, which confine a layer of cotton bat¬ 
ting on tiic side next the leg. The splints 
are confined to the leg by winding twine 
around the whole when they are arranged 
in their places. * * * The limb is usu¬ 
ally sound enough to remove the splints in 
the course of three or four weeks—though 
there is no occasion for haste in this particu¬ 
lar. In default of other convenient materi¬ 
als, I have applied the bare splints over a 
wrapping of thick paper with cotton or wool 
laid evenly under It. Thick leather shaped 
to the leg when wet, will support it without 
splints.” 
--- 
Hhopherd Dogs.—We have received inquiries 
1'or Scotch colieys and other sheep dogs, from 
Wm. Wilks or Nashville, Tenn., arid from Wm. 
Lincoln of Worcester, Mass. Snob Inquiries 
are frequent. We do not know of a single ani¬ 
mal of the kind for mile. We would suggest to 
thoso breeding them for sale to advertise them 
in tho agricultural newspapers. We think a few 
persons could very profitably engage in breed¬ 
ing and breaking In pure blood shepherd dogs, 
on a considerable scale, keeping single ones and 
pairs, ready to be sent by express, at reasonable 
prices. 
-»« » 
Location of Sheep EtdAblWiuttrnt.—The most 
desirable place for Locating a prairie sheep es¬ 
tablishment is on the banks of some permanent 
stream, whore the land is high, rolling and grav¬ 
elly, the grass abundant and of a fine quality, 
small clumps of timber frequent, and a railroad 
to market near by I An undesirable one is a low, 
wet, level plain —or tv dry ono without water or 
timber— remote D om all present or prospective 
avenues to market.—Practical Shepherd. 
—■ » ♦ » ■ ■ — 
Sprain*.—The mode of treating sprains recom¬ 
mended In tho Mountain Shepherd’s Manual is 
tho only ono I hnvo ever heard of which waa 
attended with any observable success. The limb 
is immediately Immersed In hot water for half 
an hour, and this repeated several times a day. 
Tho cure is often rapid,— I ft. 
j* 
