stiffening mechanically, and the subsoil is 
stiff, then trench plowing may be profitable 
if done at the right time—early fall. 
but the wheat crop of that year, (which was 
an unfavorable agricultural year,) amounted 
to 000,000 bushels. The record is therefore 
stLi one of advancement for the young State ; 
and it is to be remembered that stock rais¬ 
ing, fruit culture, corn growing, and all other 
agricultural work advances equally with 
wheat raising. _ 
NEGLECTED FERTILIZERS. 
A whiter in the New England Farmer 
says:—My object, in this article, is to call 
the attention of the cultivators of the soil to 
one source of inanurial supply, which, If 
properly taken advantage of, would greatly 
add to their fertilizers—1 refer to the privy 
vault. This is too much neglected for either 
profit or health. Some neglect it from 
ignorance of its intrinsic value; others from 
false delicacy in handling and applying it, 
fearing it may taint or otherwise unfavora¬ 
bly affect the crop. Our nearest, blessings 
are thus often despised. We send abroad 
for guauo, while we neglect the deposits in 
our own hen houses and privies which are of 
greater value proportionally. Urate and 
poudrette are purchased from abroad, when 
we have the materials for the manufacture 
of the same articles at ourown doors, which, 
if thus utilized, would prove advantageous 
to us in more than one way. Urate is sim¬ 
ply human urine and plaster of Paris mixed, 
and allowed to stand and ferment for a 
week or two, and the liquid poured off and 
the solid part dried and pulverised. This is 
somewhat wasteful, for the gypsum does 
not absorb all the ammonia generated by 
the fermentation, as also the liquid portion 
thrown away contains many valuable salts 
in solution. 
If every family would provide a cask into 
which the chamber lye could be passed daily, 
and then as soon as it began to show fer¬ 
mentation be poured on a bed of dry muck, 
confined in a tight box under cover, and 
some plaster sprinkled over it, at the end of 
a few months we should have a line lot of 
rich and good fertilizer, valuable for any 
crop, and the expense is scarcely one-tenth 
of the cost of a market article of less value. 
The urine of a man is estimated to be one 
thousand pounds per year, and its composi¬ 
tion us follows:—water, 083; urea, 30; am 
iiiftl matter, 17; sulphate of potash, 4; do. of 
soda, 3; phosphate of soda, 3; do. of ammo¬ 
nia, 1.5; common salt, 4.5; other ingredients, 
4. The urea, which gives the urine its value, 
is a white, salt like substance, and contains 
nearly fifty per cent, of nitrogen, and is 
therefore richer than any other substance 
so highly valued for ammonia. 
Estimate from the above the great loss to 
agriculture yearly accruing from this one 
source, and calculate therefrom what ad¬ 
vantages would arise from saving and re¬ 
turning to the soil the whole. Why, if such 
were the case, the saving would soon equal 
the sum of our national debt, great us it is. 
The solid excrements found in our privies 
are beginning to be more highly esteemed 
and more generally used, but there is very 
little economy shown in making the most of 
them. If ever}- householder would but adopt 
the earth closet, or its principle with his 
present privy, provide a tight vault or draw 
and every time used throw down a small 
quantity of dry earth, and as often as occa¬ 
sion required empty the draw or vault, un¬ 
der cover, at the end of the year there would 
he an amount of valuable fertilizer which 
would astonish the negligent in this matter. 
As to there being any l'ear of using it for 
vegetable culture, there need be none to the 
most delicate, as it will no more impart to 
vegetables any taint than any of the other 
fertilizers used, it being a thing simply im¬ 
possible for the poudrette thus mode to 
transmit to vegetables any taste or taint 
whatever of the original night soil. Night 
soil seems to be the most abundant, neg¬ 
lected resource of the New England farmer, 
and fortunate will it be for New England 
agriculture when the prejudice against the 
use of night soil is overcome, and a more 
systematic mode fey its preservation is gen¬ 
erally adopted 
HAULING AND SPREADING MANURE 
SOW GRASS SEED IN THE FALL. 
The custom is general throughout the 
Middle and Eastern States, though spring 
sowing is frequently practiced. An article 
in the Ohio Farmer rather surprises us by 
intimating that spring seeding is so nearly 
universal in the Interior and Western States. 
We think the best results are usually ob¬ 
tained by sowing grass in the Call and clover 
in early spring. If sowed alone, it should be 
in as early as possible, and the clover may 
be sowed at the same time. The suggestion 
to scatter a few oats is a good one. It i3 
frequently done in putting down lawns, but 
the oats must not be allowed to get too 
rank or the grass will be injured. They can 
be mowed and left evenly spread over the 
ground. 
“ In a recent tour through a dozen or 
more counties in Central and Southern Ohio 
we found that farmers were very generally 
deploring the failure of their last spring's 
seeding of grass and clover, in consequence 
of the severity of the drouth. But the wheat 
crop was very fine, and this, together with 
the fair prospects for corn, keepsthe farmers 
in good heart, and they will ut ilize the bright 
wheat straw with com fodder to make up 
for the liny crop lost by the drouth, and 
many are inquiring how they can best rem¬ 
edy the loss of their spring’s seeding, which 
is a serious matter, not only in the it em of 
actual cost, but in the derangement of the 
system of the rotation of crops, which is 
practiced by every good farmer. One far¬ 
mer in Clinton County told us that his loss in 
cost of seed and labor was over £300, and 
there are very many, doubtless, who can say 
nearly the same. 
“ Fall sowing of timothy, after wheat or 
oats, is of course the first remedy suggested. 
We have not personally known of this being 
extensively done in Ohio, but from Our ob¬ 
servation we should not hesitate to recom¬ 
mend it where the soil is not fiat nor too 
clayey, so as to heave badly with frost in 
winter. Timothy seed sown in September, 
on laud well plowed and harrowed, will 
make a good start before winter, if the full 
is not unusually dry, and yield a fair crop of 
hay the next summer. Clover cannot so 
safely be sown in the fall, as the young 
plants are apt to be winter-killed ; but if a 
mixture of clover is desired, it can be sown 
lightly .on the timothy in early spring. 
“ In preparing the land for fall seeding, if 
it is at all poor, a dressing of old manure 
should be applied to the surface, after the 
first liarrowing, and harrowed in before 
seeding ; then the seed should be gone over 
with a brush harrow, or it Thomas' smooth¬ 
ing harrow. Sometimes a light sprinkling 
of oats is sown with the grain seed, as a 
partial protection from sun and winds, and a 
mulch during winter when the oat, plants are 
killed ; but this is not generally thought to 
be of much advantage. The weeds that 
may spring up with the young grass in au¬ 
tumn will of course be mostly killed by the 
winter.” 
Your correspondent, “Northern Ohio,” 
in Rural New-Yorker of July 25th, is ap¬ 
parently so well satisfied with his own wis¬ 
dom that he would scorn to hear the opin¬ 
ions of any one else in confirmation or re¬ 
jection of his ideas. At the risk of offending 
him still more, I will say that I entirely 
agree with him in advising that manure be 
spread on the surface instead of being 
thrown into heaps. I have practiced and 
advised for years drawing manure from the 
barn-yard early in spring and spreading it 
evenly over the surface, often leaving it 
three to six weeks before plowing under. If 
possible.1 would never plow under manure 
before at least one heavy rain had dissolved 
its soluble portions and washed them into 
the soil. Of course I would have this ma¬ 
nure spread instead of loft in heaps for this. 
What I meant by advising to haul manure 
in two wagons and throwing in heaps was 
to expedite work and save them iubor. 
Most fanners cannot in early spring spare a 
team of horses from plowing while they are 
cleaning their barn-yards at the rate of six 
or eight loads per day. By employing help 
enough so that one team can draw thirty or 
more loads per day the barn-yard may be 
cleaned and the manure saved from leaching 
and evaporation of one-half its value during 
the summer. Then it is in my experience 
much more advantageous to spread the 
heaps tliuu to stop the team while spreading 
from the loud. The heaps can be spread 
while the ground is too wet and soft for 
plowing, or for drawing manure over. In 
fact we often have a very limited time to 
draw manure from barn-yards in spring. 
It is only while the ground is frozen ( hat 
it can be done to advantage, and one day's 
bright sunshine will often convert the hard 
road bed iato a fathomless mass of mud and 
slush. Then is the time when your men can 
not be working with the team t.o spread the 
manure, if plowed within ft few days after 
drawing, if the manure is not too coarse, I 
would prefer to spread the heaps on the 
newly plowed surface and harrow in. Top- 
dressing is the natural and best method of 
applying most manures, and ill contact with 
newly plowed soil there, is little or no loss 
from evaporation. W estern New Y ork. 
DEAD SEEDS 
Noticing on article in the Rural New- 
Yorker of July 18, written by W. H. Mer- 
riman, Colton, Henry Co., Ohio, derogatory 
to the business reputation and honor of our 
enterprising seedsmen and fellow-citizens, 
Messrs. D. W. Ferry & Co., 1 consider it my 
duty to them, simply as one of theft* cus¬ 
tomers, to come .forward and give my own 
experience with their seed. Now, I know 
from the expression and tone of your jour¬ 
nal (having been its firm friend for nearly four 
years, and 1 would not part with it) that it 
is not your desire to injure any one, but on 
the contrary to dispense good to all. Yet 
it is your duty 1o expose fraud of every 
nature, and thus benefit your readers. 
In the case of Messrs. Ferry & Co., I am 
slow to believe that the fault is with them, 
because I speak from my own experience 
for the last four years, 1 have had the 
most satisfactory results from their seed, as 
well as from that of the Messrs. Bliss of 
your city. 1 know of others who have been 
equally successful. The past spring was most 
pnfavorable to the germinating of seed ; 1 
lost all of my first sowing, reserving half of 
my purchase for fear of failure-not from 
dead seed, but weather. The lost sowing 
was entirely successful, showing conclusively 
where the difficulty laid. I think that much 
of the fault laid at the door of the seedsmen 
should be placed elsewhere. Bound judg 
meut is necessary before committing the 
tender seed to the ground, as to whether the 
soil is in a proper condition to receive it, or 
the state of the weather just right. These 
matters cannot well be overlooked. I have 
had plants freeze hard under glas3 the latter 
part of April. Any one who could view, as 
1 do every year, near this city*, the 300-aere 
seed farm of the Messrs. PERRY & Co. would 
say, “ Certainly, good seed will come from 
such thrifty-growing plants and a little 
talk with the Christian, gentlemanly super¬ 
intendent will convince anyone that he is 
“ master ofHbe situation.” 
Detroit?, Aflet). • S. C. Browning. 
SAVE YOUR OWN SEEDS 
TOUCHING SUBSOILING 
Such is the doctrine of U. L. R. in the 
Rural New-Yorker of July 25, and to 
which I demur. In doing so, I will give the 
following as reasons': —It is not possible to 
grow and continue any one variety of seed 
in proximity to other varieties of its order. 
Again, few, if any, farmers or amateur gar¬ 
deners but use them mainly for the crops for 
the table, and not one in a thousand are 
willing to relinquish the eating of the first 
formed or largest fruit or vegetable for the 
sake of 10 cents’ worth of seed. Again, the 
care (even if They had space and time) of 
watching the period of ripening of the seed 
and gathering it in season will never pay. 
Once and again, all this ia done and daily 
watched by leading seedsmen, and as a rule, 
were it not for these energetic, improving, 
ambitious seedsmen, our advauce would be 
slow. It, is to them mainly that we owe the 
introduction yearly of new varieties, Some 
of the seeds do not sustain their commenda¬ 
tions, but many of I hem do ; and any one 
who has studied our American people and 
their desire to grow and show some new 
plant, fruit or vegetable, knows that the old 
farmers’ self-saving system is a line of back¬ 
ward rather than advanced culture. 1 have 
no desire to criticise any one, but haring for 
thirty and more years practised both sides, I 
confess that to-day I prefer to test the seeds 
of the careful, reliable, honest seed dealei-s 
rather than those of niv own growing, I have 
no confidence, however, in the seeds left for 
sale in petty grocery stores. A. Thorn. 
F. L. Bitterly of La Fayette, lnd., asks 
us questions touching the why and where¬ 
fore, depth, &c., of subsoiling, that if fully 
worked up in answer would fill all the pages 
of the Rural, First, we want to say to 
him, write your questions plainer; that is, 
so that we con plainly road your writing. 
Your first question is as to our idea of the 
value of subsoiling, and the proper* depths 
on clay and gravel. Well, in reply, we say 
that this depth depends upon the lay ol' the 
land. If it is clay, with a hard parr cf almost 
rock or yellow clay and nearly level, you 
should run your subsoil plow four inches be¬ 
low your main plow—that would be, prob¬ 
ably, ten inches.. Your furrows should be a 
central ridge twelve feet, and the land 
furrow dividing these ridges should be deep¬ 
ened with your subsoil plow to from sixteen 
to twenty inches, and its outlet, i. i'., at the 
twenty inches, should be into a deeper drain 
of tile. If your clay ground is on a slope 
where the surface water freely Hows, then 
subsoil as deep as yon can, but leave, as with 
the former, all the center furrows open. 
Upon those of clays let your work be per¬ 
formed early in autumn. 
If your land is gravelly, and as of course it 
is readily drained of itself, then do your 
work of subsoiling in the spring. In both 
cases, if you can, throw just as much of the 
subsoil Upon the surface as possible. Then 
the winter will do its own work chemically 
upon the clay, and you must use salt and 
plaster upon the surface of your gravel in 
early spring, sowing your salt first and your 
plaster two weeks or so thereafter. Harrow 
the gravel just before you sow plaster. 
There is much more to be said upon this 
subject, but we believe in short items, tak¬ 
ing one thing at a time. £. 
We do not agree with " E” in the forego¬ 
ing answer in one important particular. 
Neither on clay nor gravel soils would we 
throw the subsoil to the surface. The deeper 
it is stirred by a subsoil (not trench) plow 
the better, but there is not the least gain iu 
inverting it, and frequently much damage 
results to the first one or two crops succeed¬ 
ing. If the surface soil is light and needs 
WHEAT GROWING IN NEBRASKA 
This State is now attracting considerable 
attention as one of the best fields for settle¬ 
ment in the Union. In climate and soil it 
meets the conditions required for the success- 
frfl cultivation of all the productions of the 
temperate zone, and also some of the sub¬ 
tropical. 
It is not often that corn and wheat thrive 
equally well in any country ; but as it is in 
Nebraska, com is the first staple crop, of 
course ; but so soon as the fanner is well set¬ 
tled upon the land, he puts in wheat. The 
wheat of Nebraska fH in good favor ; and in 
the St. Louis and Chicago markets its price 
averages several cents per bushel more than 
the wheat of the neighboring States can 
command. In bread-making qualities the 
wheat of Nebraska only ranks second to that 
of California, with which it does not come 
into competition. 
The agricultural triumphs which have 
been achieved in Nebraska are the work of 
little more than ten years, and, as the coun¬ 
try is settled, and the position of the farmer 
becomes easier, wheat ranks higher among 
the crops of the country. Iu I860, when the 
population was 2S.000, the wheat crop 
amounted to 147,867 bushels, or about 5 ^ 
bushels per head : and, in 1870, when the 
population was 122,000, the wheat crop was 
2,125,086 bushels, or a little under 17>£ bush¬ 
els per head. 
The population of 1873 can only be esti¬ 
mated, and therefore it is best not given ; 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
ReconnoUering a Fence .—Your laughable 
illustration in a late number of the Rural 
of the ‘“Intelligent Farm Assistant,” who 
cut down the apple trees preparatory to 
trimming them, reminds me of an actual oc¬ 
currence hr my neighborhood years ago. A 
gentleman farmer left home and directed 
Fat to reconnoiter ft rail fence. When the 
owner returned he found his intelligent *‘ as¬ 
sistant” had reconnoitered the lence by 
pulling It all up and burning the same. 
Moral —Use plain language to help.— F. D. c. 
Plaster on Timothy.—A- ecu respondent of 
the Western Farmer says:—“ I find plaster 
benefits timothy nearly as much as clover 
when it is applied in the fall and worked 
into the land by the freezing and thawing of 
winter and spring.” 
GRASSES FROM KENTUCKY 
B. F. Bailey ;—The grasses you send for 
name are as follows : 
No. X—Lohum perenne ; called Rye grass, 
and Darnel 
No. 2— Agro-rim alba; called White Bent. 
No. 3 —Holcuxtanatus: called Velvet grass. 
There were but two or three pieces of 
broken chaff from which to identify the lat¬ 
ter species : and wo must again remind our 
correspondents that they must send good 
and perfect specimens of all plants, insects, 
and like things of which they desire names. 
We cannot determine the size and architect¬ 
ure of a building from a “ specimen brick.-” 
