MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
S. 2( 
TWO METHODS WITH MANURE. 
Hon. Thomas L. Clingman of North Caro¬ 
lina is a pretty noted politician, but he has 
stepped to the front with a letter in the N. 
C. State Agricultural Journal which ought 
to give him a more enviable popularity as a 
benefactor to tire farmers of that State. It 
abounds in valuable suggestions, some of 
which we propose to quote hereafter, but, 
here is one which lies at the foundation of 
good farming and Is applicable to all sections 
of this country : 
I bate observed two modes of using ma¬ 
nures which are very unlike in themselves, 
and are followed by very different results. 
When driving out of Rome one day in an 
open carriage, the driver paused for a few 
moments at the outer edge of the city. Im¬ 
mediately opposite me on the left side there 
were two women with white aprons on a 
piazza, and in front of a house adjoining this, 
several men wore at work. Suddenly, the 
younger of the two women came running 
to the carriage, as I supposed probably to 
speak to the driver before he started again. 
She, however, got down on her knees, ex¬ 
tended her apron forward on the ground and 
with her hands rapidly drew into it, fresh 
and clear as it was, a pile of manure just 
dropped. As soon as she had scraped in 
every particle of it, she gathered up the 
edges of the apron and started back with the 
load. I heard a laugh among the men and 
on looking towards them, I saw one of 
them had a bucket and shovel in his hand, 
and had started to secure the manure. 
The time he lost In getting hold of his utensils 
enabled the woman, who wus already equip¬ 
ped, to carry off the prize, and the laugh was 
wholly at his expense. 
I had a momentary feeling of surprise, but 
on reflection, said “ this will pay,” It would 
not, perhaps require more than ten minutes 
of labor to restore the hands and the apron 
to a condition of cleanliness, while the article 
secured might be a dinner worth of vege¬ 
tables for several persons. 
Such was the Italian mode. And next con¬ 
sider the other or Buncombe mode. An in¬ 
telligent citizen of that famous county lived 
in the beautiful Swannoah Valley, and a 
clear mountain stream, called Bee Tree, ran 
just in front of his house. As the surface of 
the stream was almost level with the surface 
of ground, my fellow citizen being a gentlo- 
man of good intellect and considerable read¬ 
ing, saw on reflection that lie could with 
little trouble utilizeita waters. Reconstruct¬ 
ed his stable just as near to it as possible, 
and then cut a slight ditch to the stream, 
and with the aid of a hastily made gate of 
boards he could at will, let the water into 
his stable. When, therefore, his stable be¬ 
came rather full of manure, he had only to 
turn his horses on the pasture tor a day, raise 
his little gate, and in a few minutes the 
stream of water carried everything away, 
and left his stable much cleaner than it would 
have been if he had used a mattock and 
spade. His neighbors all admired his in¬ 
genuity in having been able to plan such a 
labor-saving operation. Indeed, this oper¬ 
ation brings to the mind of the classic reader 
one of the most famous achievements of the 
great Hercules. 
Which of these two methods is most ad¬ 
vantageous to a country ? Italy is certainly 
the most beautiful region that I have yet be¬ 
held, but this is not entirely due to its natural 
features, wonderful as they are. Old Bun¬ 
combe and its surrouudings possess a beauty 
marvelous to the human eye, but Italy has i 
had certain adventitious aids that place it far i 
in advance. i 
ter. In our correspondent’s locality it would 
prove valuable in both ways, and absolutely 
essential if he would grow a crop of wheat, 
which needs a considerable portion of lime. 
Of the effects of trying to grow wheat on 
land destitute of lime the (London) Mark 
Lane Express saysi 
To sow wheat on a soil which contains no 
lime or marl—either naturally or artificially 
—is sure to bring a poor return. A remark¬ 
able instance of this took place in Ireland 
after the famine. Jt is a fact well known 
by the more intelligent farmers in that coun¬ 
try that the extensive central plain which 
occupies the surface land at the foot of the 
mountains contains no lime or marl, and 
that dressings with these materials were at 
stated times applied when the culture of 
wheat was intended. The product from an 
average year was twenty barrels per acre 
(Irish), or about sixty barrels to the English 
acre. After the famine the poverty and 
want of heart to do their best by the land 
compelled those who remained on their 
farms, uumibdued by the famine and pesti¬ 
lence, to omit the usnal application of lime 
to the soil, and the consequence was that, 
instead of twenty barrels per Irish acre, the 
yield was from live to seven barrels, being a 
reduction from two-thirds to three-fourths. 
It is not alone nor chiefly on land wholly 
deficient of lime that it is valuable as a fer¬ 
tilizer. On many soils which will not nat¬ 
urally produce clover, that, great renovator, 
is made to flourish by frequent applications 
of lime. A great part of the clover-ash is 
lime, and it is possibly the lime it contains 
which makes gypsum so valuable a fertilizer 
for clover. Gypsum, however, is usually 
applied in very small quantities, only one or 
two bushels per acre, while lime requires lar¬ 
ger doscB varying from forty to one hundred 
bushels per acre. A principal object of thi 3 
heavy application is to cause vegetable mat¬ 
ters to decompose. Hence it has been found 
best to use lime after plowing under a crop 
of clover, or after heavy applications of 
coarse manures, which it speedily renders 
available. There is a prejudice against the 
use of lime from the fact that large applica¬ 
tions without manure or vegetable matter 
plowed in tends to exhaust the soil But it 
does this only as all successful cropping does, 
and if farmers will ouly follow their liming 
with clover, and make use of all the stable 
manure possible, the result will lie not only 
better crops but continued increase of fer¬ 
tility. Tlii* is the method adopted bjS* the 
best Pennsylvania farmers, some of whose 
fields after a hundred year's cultivation pro¬ 
duce far larger crops of all kinds than ever 
before. 
The effect of a thorough liming of the soil 
is felt as long as ten years, though it is cus¬ 
tomary to repeat the liming every live or six 
years. Newly turned under sods, either 
clover or timothy, are most benefited, and 
it is usually best to apply the lime in summer 
or early fall, so as to produce as much effect 
as possible before winter snows and rains 
carry the lime down to the subsoil. The 
lime is always applied to the surface, as the 
tendency to filtration will carry it down fast 
enough. It is, however, no use to spread 
lima on land completely “run down” and 
destitute of vegetable matter. There is no 
magic about jt to create fertility where none 
existed, as its chief use, and a very important 
one, is to make available the fertilizing ele¬ 
ments already present in the soil. 
UTILIZING THE GRASS CROP. 
APPLYING LIME TO LAND. 
Adams, N. Y., Aug. 3, 1875. 
Will you, or some of your correspondents, 
inform us of the best time to apply lime on 
land, and how many bushels per acre. There 
is no limestone on our land, and the soil is 
clayey and slate, and has been a little over¬ 
tilled. Your subscriber, 
Hen by Bailey. 
This subject is an important one, and its 
discussion is especially appropriate in this 
country where, except in a few localities, 
lime has been little used as manure. The 
best English farmers have long known its 
value. Probably more has been used in 
Chester Co., Pa., than anywhere else in this 
country, and we hope our subscriber in 
that locality will give us information re¬ 
specting the best methods of application. 
Lime is valuable as supplying an important 
mineral element in most crops, as also in 
aiding the decomposition of vegetable mat¬ 
The Live Stock Journal makes the follow¬ 
ing pertinent remarks on this subject: 
About three acres are devoted to pasture 
for oue to the meadow. But it is to be ob¬ 
served that the one acre of meadow keeps at 
least two-thirds of the same stock through 
the winter that the three acres kept through 
the grazing season ; which shows that the 
pasturage is not as well utilized as the 
meadow. It is just here the farmer must begin 
his reform. His ingenuity ought, certainly, 
to be equal to making the grass that grows 
upon an acre, and fed in warm weather, 
produce as great a result as the hay grown 
upon an acre and fed in cold weather. It is 
too great a waste to devote three times the 
amount of land to summering an animal ; 
when nine animals of the same weight, may 
be kept in summer on the same amount of 
food that would he required for eight in 
winter. Pasturing is the most wasteful of all 
old ways to use grass, yet the farmer goes on 
year after year, throwing away a large per¬ 
centage of the produce of liis fields, because 
he has not the independence to change an 
old wasteful custom. 
Soiling will double bis capacity to keep 
stock, and also largely increase his yield of 
grain from the extra manure made. We do 
not, of course, advocate soiling on rough 
lands which can be used only for pasturage, 
but there are millions of acres of grass upon 
tillable lands trodden down by cattle, pro¬ 
ducing less than half the net income they 
might if the grass was cut and fed to the 
animals. Every farmer who raises an acre 
of fodder corn, and feeds to big cows or 
other cattle, green, in the fall, mast see that 
this acre of green corn produces as much 
food as six to eight acres of pasture. We 
have soiled good sized cows from the 20th of 
May to the 20th of November, upon a half 
acre, when not less than three acres would 
have been required to feed them equally 
well on pasture. The wastefulness of the 
general system of pasturing may be seen in 
the fact that throughout the daily' region,two- 
thirds of each farm is devoted to keeping the 
stock through summer, and only one-third to 
keeping the same stock through the winter, 
beside* raising grain to put the family 
through the year. We do not advocate 
keepiug stock confined, for that is not at all 
necessary In the soiling system, but to give 
them a runway of a few acres, or the wood 
lot, or the broken land on the farm, and 
then feed them the grass ill racks or in stable 
three times a day. 
jtoraittt geprtment 
VALUE OF COVERED MANURE. 
At various times we have pointed out to 
our readers the profits resulting from cover¬ 
ing manure, instead of allowing it to get 
soaked by the rains or dried by the sun, as is 
generally done. We have given this advice 
from what wo have actually seen. When 
rough sheds have been built to cover the 
inanure-heap the crops fertilized by this pile 
have been increased in productiveness suf¬ 
ficient to pay for the shed-covering the first 
year, We have never seen any exact figures 
of the proportinate value of covered manures, 
that we remember until the following, which 
we find by Lord Kincaid, a Scotch land- 
owner and farmer. They present the best 
statement possible, we think, of the advan¬ 
tages of the plan : 
Four acres of good soil were ^measured, 
two of them were manured with ordinary 
barnyard manure and two with an equal 
quantity of manure from the covered shed. 
The whole was planted with potatoes. The 
products of each acre were as follows : 
Potatoes treated with barnyard manure : 
One acre produced 272 bushels, 
One acre produced 292 bushels. 
Potatoes manured from the covered sheds ; 
Oue acre produced 442 bushels. 
One acre produced 47l bushels. 
The next year the laud was sown with 
wheat, when the crop was as follows : 
Wheat on land treated with barnyard ma¬ 
nure : 
One acre produced 41 bushels, 18 pounds, 
(of 61 pounds per bushel.) 
One acre produced 42 bushels, 38 pounds, 
(of 61 pounds-per bushel.) 
Wheat ou land manured from covered 
sheds : 
One acre produced 55 bushels, 5 pounds, 
(of 61 pounds per bushel.) 
One acre produced 58 bushels, 47 pounds, 
(of 61 pounds per bushel.) 
The straw also yielded one-third more up¬ 
on the land fertilized with the manure from 
the covered stalls than upon that to which 
the ordinary manure was applied. 
. ■» ♦ ♦-- 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
llow to Kill Nettles.— A correspondent of 
the Rukal from Iona, Mich., asks the best 
method of killing nettles. He says, “ my 
lands are marsh five or six years drained 
and the thistles are coming in faster then I 
like.” We know no better way to kill 
nettles than to plow the ground and cut off 
the sprouts as fast as they appear, if possible, 
such treatment will in two or three months, 
destroy any kind of weed, Our correspon¬ 
dent is to be congratulated over his trouble¬ 
some customers. Nettles only grow on the 
very richest of land, and if his drained 
swamps or marshes are troubled with nettles 
it is a sign that they are rich enough to pro¬ 
duce any kind of a crop. Probably draining 
the soil has made it possible for nettle seeds 
which may have been dormant for years to 
grow. The first effect of all good farming is 
to increase the difficulty of destroying weeds, 
as they grow so much more readuy m drain¬ 
ed and highly manured soil. But when 
weeds are silled crops of all kinds do so 
much better as to well repay all the extra 
labor and expense. 
The Result of High Fanning. —Mr. Mechi, 
the celebrated English prize farmer, says 
tliut he yearly makes and sells 200 lbs. or meal 
from every acre of land, worth in the English 
market £7.10s. To this must be added other 
sales of farm produce and the constant en¬ 
richment of the soil by fattening so much 
stock. Probably nowhere in the world can 
this result be surpassed, but it has been 
attained through many years of good and 
careful management. 
t INSURANCE NOTES AND NEWS. 
Premium Notes of Mutual Fire, Insurance 
y Companies.— Most persons who effect this 
j kind of insurance and give their notes, both 
f in addition to and in lieu of cash premiums, 
j are not aware that in complying with what 
is represented to be a mere form, they arc 
in reality assuming a very grave responsi¬ 
bility. The decision of a New Hampshire 
court defines the liability of the maker of a 
premium note to extend to the payment of 
the entire sum with interest whenever called 
upon to do so. That the note becomes at 
’ once a part of the capital stock of the com¬ 
pany ; that it may be collected at any time 
j at the discretion of the directors ; that the 
funds accruing from it may be applied to the 
j payment not only of losses and expenses in- 
j curred after the note was made, but also for 
previous liabilities, including moneys bor¬ 
rowed by the company, and that when the 
total expenses and losses exceed the total 
amount of premium notes, the makers of 
such notes may be legally required to pay a, 
sum equal to twice the amount of notes 
given. This makes the insurance under a 
’ mutual policy pretty reliable, but holds the 
note-maker to a very heavy liability, which 
would not be so lightly and unhesitatingly 
' assumed if thoroughly understood. 
, Unwise Litigation .—For several years the 
, State of Pennsylvania has exercised the right 
* to tax insurance companies both home and 
. foreign, the heavier burden being laid, as 
s usual, upon the latter class. The amount of 
tax for the year 1875 falling upon the life 
[ companies, comprising what is known as the 
. Chamber of Life insurance, is not far from. 
. $125,000. This tax, it is said, the companies 
. propose to resist. We prefer to believe that 
their purpose is to test the constitutionality 
of some part of the enactment rather than 
, to array themselves against this or any other 
law. Nothing so impairs the confidence 
upon which insurance, especially life in¬ 
surance, lives and thrives as the spectacle of 
allied capital arraying itself in opposition to 
law, and using the moneys in its keeping, 
but not at its command, to evade the com¬ 
mon burden. Success, which is at best prob¬ 
lematical, in this direction will leave an 
unwholesome impression that individual pol¬ 
icy holders cannot hope to succeed when the 
power and authority of a sovereign State is 
successfully resisted. We predict that all 
this will end in oost3, fines and unpopularity, 
and hope that it will be abandoned. 
Matches. It is loomed from the statistics 
of fire insurance that u large proportion of 
the fires that occur either in city or country 
are caused by a combination of in ate lies and 
carelessness. Too little caution is exercised 
in handling, using apd keeping these useful 
articles of domestic economy. They are 
usually left either in the boxes in which they 
are packed or permitted to lie around loose. 
Many kinds may be set off by being trodden 
on. The phosphorus tempts the rats, that 
are fond of that article, to carry them to 
their nests and nibble them among the dry 
tow and straw, thu3 creating what is mis¬ 
called spontaneous combustion. Besides, it 
is too much to expect of an average child to 
resist the temptation to “ scratch ’em off” 
whenever opportunity offers. 
The Force of Habit —Until quite recently 
the life companies have enforced the for¬ 
feiture penalty. Now several of them in¬ 
dorse upon their policies the sums in cash 
that will be paid for them when surrendered. 
Though the greatest and best actuaries In¬ 
dorse the justice of this concession, and com 
mon prudence commends its adoption by all 
new asssu rants, such is the force of habit and 
the prestige of custom that it will take 
twenty years to convince the public that a 
plan that saves to the people fifteen millions 
annually is not some new trap for their 
money and confidence. 
A Widow’s Rights Affirmed.—A lady in 
Maryland holding a large amount of in- 
I suranceupon theme of her husband assigned 
it to a third party, who in turn assigned it 
to a fourth. After the husband’s death she 
sued to recover the amount uud succeeded, 
it being decided by t he courts that the rights 
of the assignee, or* fourth party, were limited 
to the recovery of ouly the sum invested— 
that is, that it $100 had been loaned to the 
widow no more could be recovered, even 
though policies to the amount of $100,000 
had been assigned by her as security. 
Incendiary Mllli Pirns.—Mr. Doane_ of 
Benson, Vt., lias learned, at a cost of $500, 
that apparently innocent milk pans may be¬ 
come exceedingly dangerous. He set them 
up to air and dry in such a position that they 
acted as concave mirrors in drawing a focus 
of the sun’s rays upon the dry clapboards of 
his house. After this we shall not be at all 
surprised to learn that somebody has been 
fatally inj ured by the explosion of a cabbage- 
head. 
