«_- G8 
2SS 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
OCT.23 
1ST 
com id cal is fed, they do not need so many 
potatoes. 
Too many potatoes are weakening, and bo 
are too many apples. When I was a lad, I 
was away from home at school one winter, 
and had the care of one horse, one yoke of 
oxen, and one cow, every one of which I 
had to card or curry every day. The horse 
had three puls of water, four quarts of 
oats, two quarts small potatoes, and two 
quarts of corn extra every day he worked, 
with what hav he wanted, and a stronger, 
and more active horse, of his inches, I have 
never yet seen. 
ofnipn dittoing. 
MANUB.ES AND THEIR APPLICATION. 
Mu. Conrad Wilson, a frequent contrib¬ 
utor to the columns of the Rubai., has the 
following valuable suggestions and illustra¬ 
tions showing the importance of liberal 
manuring. It Is a subject whereon lineup- 
on line and precept upon precept are not 
only appropriate but seem to be necessary. 
“Thorough and effective manuring im¬ 
plies something more than mere quantity of 
material. It implies quality and fitness no 
less than amount, and it also implies (what 
too many farmers neglect) variety of kinds. 
Experience lias proved that in feeding the 
soil, as well as in feeding stock, variety is 
one of the secrets of success. The effect of 
a single fertilizer is often nearly doubled by 
adding others of the right, kind. There are 
some manures which, while exerting but lit¬ 
tle direct Influence on the growing plant, are 
yet very useful in developing the activity of 
other elements. This fact will often account 
for the large and unlooked-for results ob¬ 
tained by blending different kinds, and it 
shows the advantage of making frequent 
trials in this direction. Although it is theo¬ 
retically true that, Borne soils, by their pecu¬ 
liar constitution, seem to require the addi¬ 
tion of only one or two nutritive elements, 
yet it cannot always be kTiuwu in idvaiice 
precisely how many and what kinds of plant 
food are needed ; and since the tendency of 
some manures is to develop and increase t he 
available quality of others, it is easy to sec 
that tv> augment judiciously the number ana 
variety of elements applied is to increase the 
safety of the crop and multiply the chances 
of a maximum yield, !<• is this variety that, 
gives to animal dungits conceded superiorit y, 
as it is known to contain, in a larger or less 
degree, all the elements of fertility, and is 
therefore equivalent to many fertilizers com¬ 
bined in one. Though the value of this ma¬ 
nure, as every farmer knows, depends great. 
)y on the care it receives, and on the quality 
of the feed from which it is produced, yet 
the poorest samples of it, even when dropped 
from lean and famished cattle, or damaged 
by exposure in neglected yards, still retain 
a sufficient number of its’ original elements 
to prevent it from being worthless, and to 
account for the prejudice in its favor. Still, 
even farm-yard manure is liable to some of 
the defects of other kinds. The availability 
of its different elements is very unequal, and 
in some eases very imperfect. Some of the 
constituents belonging to it are even more 
insoluble than they are found to be in other 
combinations. A tun of fresh horse dung, 
for example, contains nitrogen equivalent to 
nearly ten pounds of ammonia. Yet, accord¬ 
ing to D«. Voklckkr, not more than a few 
ounces of this ammonia is ready available for 
the crop. Again, in one of the experiments 
of Mr. Lawks, eighty-two pounds of nitro¬ 
gen obtained from a mixture of other fer- 
t.ilizers gave a better result on wheat than 
300 pounds of nitrogen contained in fourteen 
tons of animal dung. Hence it is clear that 
this manure forms no exception to the gen¬ 
eral rule, and that the effect it is capable of 
producing may be greatly improved by the 
addition of other kinds. This is forcibly il¬ 
lustrated in an experiment performed some 
years ago by Mr. Fi.emi.no of Barochan, iu 
which it was shown tuat animal dung alone 
applied to early American potatoes gave a 
product of twelve and three-quarter tons 
per acre, while, by adding to the above a 
combination of sulphate and nitrate of soda, 
the yield was eighteen tons. In this case 
the effect of barn-yard dung is increased 
nearly fifty per cent-, by the addition of com¬ 
mercial fertilizers. When the latter are 
honestly prepared, and rightly applied, they 
are invaluable Lo farmers, and if skillfully 
combined for definite objects are often capa¬ 
ble of striking results. “ Experiment,’•* says 
Prof. Johnston, “as well as theory, ittdi- 
ates that the application of several saline 
substances mixed together is more likely to | 
increase the product of the soil than a larger j 
addition of either applied alone.” In illus¬ 
tration of this, he cites the following experi¬ 
ment, which speak* for itself : 
“One hundred and fifty pounds of sulphate 
of magnesia alone, gave 13 Y tons of potatoes. 
One hundred and fifty pounds of nitrate of 
soda alone gave 16 tons of potatoes. One 
hundred pounds of each combined gave 22i£ 
tons of potatoes. 
“ In another case the increase resulting 
from a variety of manures is still more con¬ 
spicuous. In a trial of Fleming's peat com¬ 
post on turnips, as compared with a similar 
plot treated with guano, the yield of the lat¬ 
ter was eighteen tons per acre at a cost of 
$12.50, and the former twenty-nine tons at a 
cost of $7.50. The compost Included seven 
ingredients, viz,, dried peat, coal tar, bone 
dust, sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, 
salt and lime. It will here bo seen that 
while the single fertilizer (guano) cost nearly 
seventy per cent, more than the other seven, 
the latter gave the best yield by more than 
sixty per cent. In other words, the cost of 
the compost, in terms of the yield, was 
twenty-five cents per ton of turnips, and of 
the gunno about seventy cents. 
In every well-arranged system of manur¬ 
ing no class of fertilizers, nor any single one 
of known and tested value, should be over¬ 
looked. The farmer who is intent, on best 
results must be equally intent on best meth¬ 
ods. He cannot afford to limit himself to 
any single process, or to any kind of manure. 
Tf animal dung ranks first iu Importance, it 
does not follow that other kinds are useless. 
If green crops plowed under give in some 
cases surprising results, we are not. to infer 
from this that they alone are sufficient for all 
purposes. Though it may be proved that 
cultivation of the soil develops latent, fertility, 
no sane man will pretend that this fact su¬ 
persedes all other manures. In like, manner, 
if commercial fertilizers are found to have, 
in certain cases, an unrivaled value, yet no 
system of manuring founded on these alone 
would be either ra tional or safe. 
-•*-*-*■-■ 
INCONCLUSIVE EXPERIMENTS. 
The result of a farm experiment may oc¬ 
casionally lead to some definite conclusion. 
It is far more apt not to, and if it does, the 
conclusion is quite as apt to be wrong as 
right. Instanees of mistaken reasoning f rom 
experiment- are frequent, tout we believe 
they are less so than formerly, as people 
have learned that not one or two but a great 
number of causes combine to produce results 
iu a business embracing so wide and diversi¬ 
fied a field as that of the farmer. 
We have been often reminded, when on 
the farm, how easy it is to mistake the 
causes of success or failure of crops, or to 
judge of the value, of experiments of a single 
triai. A few years ago a neighbor in plant¬ 
ing corn tried the experiment of placing a 
little hen manure under each hill, niul slight¬ 
ly mixing It with the soil before depositing 
the seed. Exactly twenty rows wore thus 
planted, and these rows came up quicker and 
grew much more rapidly than the remainder 
of the field. At the time of earing this supe¬ 
riority was still manifest, the manured hills 
“tusseling” about a week earlier than the 
other, and seemingly stronger aud larger. 
Just at this critical period the corn was cul¬ 
tivated thoroughly both ways, the cultiva¬ 
tor cutting close to the hills, and, of course, 
cutting off many roots. The corn was ap 
parently not injured by this severe treat¬ 
ment, though wo had doubts of its advisa¬ 
bility even then. At harvest time the crop 
was unexpectedly poor. The ears were very 
short, poorly filled, and many not fully ripe. 
The crop was not more than half what had 
been expected. Coming to the manured 
strip, tiffs, instead of being better was rather 
inferior to the nnmauured rows beside it. 
What was the cause of this failure i It 
was decidedly interesting to hear the com¬ 
ments of the neighbor on the result. Hen 
manure was condemned as a fertilizer for 
corn, despite hundreds of instances where it 
had proved valuable. Some gravely argued 
that hen manure benefited the crop at first, 
but “exhausted” the soil so that the final 
earing was defective. Others thought that 
ben manure “lacked” something needed to 
perfect the grain, and was only useful in 
growing fodder. Jf the experiment had 
been made with superphosphate, ashes, salt., 
or even guano, some such conclusion as the 
above would probably have been generally 
acquiesced iu. Fortunately, the value of hen 
manure lias been tested by too many ex¬ 
periments to be discredited. Altogether the 
result was generally considered a mystery. 
And yet the probable explanation lies on 
the surface. The last deep cultivation evi¬ 
dently cut the corn roots too late for them to 
recover, possibly a dry spell followed which 
aggravated the difficulty. It is perfectly 
natural, under such circumstances, that the 
best corn should be most injured, for it was 
in the condition most liable to injury. Had 
the cultivation been shallow, or had it come 
two weeks earlier, the corn crop would have 
been doubled, and the corn most forward 
would have been as much the best in the 
crib «* it w as during the early part of the 
season. 
Possibly our explanation may be in:perfect 
in some particulars. It becomes everybody 
to be very cautious in stating the direct re¬ 
sults of a single experiment. We are often 
amused on bearing the positivo and dog¬ 
matic approval or condemnation of some 
practice by men who have tried it, perhaps, 
once, and straightway advise or condemn it 
altogether. In this way, if circumstances 
favor, we will agree to prove that barn-yard 
manure does no good—nay, more, is abso¬ 
lutely injurious—a statement, which, how¬ 
ever clearly it might lie shown from one or 
even two or three experiments, no farmer 
would believe. This habit of considering 
instead of jumping at conclusions is increas¬ 
ing among fauiners, and we more and more 
frequently hear the thoughtful remark that 
“ perhaps some other and unsuspected cause 
had something to do in producing the re¬ 
sultand this is one of the best signs for 
American Agriculture. 
edficid (S-nop. 
favorite one with him is shown by the follow¬ 
ing story of his early years as told by him¬ 
self. 
When I was a little boy on my father’s 
farm, I once took a little experiment on my 
own account, and carried it through secretly, 
for the purpose of enjoying the surprise it 
might create. With this view, as soon as 
father got through planting his corn, I 
selected and marked off, unknown to him, a 
small space near the center of the field. To 
each stalk of the corn planted on this space 
I gave special attention, for the purpose of 
finding out how much each grain planted 
could be made to produce by giving it extra 
manure aid extra hoeing. When the corn 
was gathered, the difference between my 
pel stalks and the rest of the field attracted 
my father's attention, and 1 remember how 
puzzled be was iu trying lo account for it. 
When at length I disclosed the secret, he 
instantly inquired how much extra work 
and manure I had applied. Tell me this 
exactly, said he, and 1 can tell the value of 
the experiment. I told him 1 bad simply 
doubled what he had given to the rest of 
the field. After examining the result and 
comparing it with the rest of the field, he 
found that bis yield was at the rate of 4t 
bushels to the acre, aud mine at the rate of 
69 bushels. Now, said he, if extra culture 
and extra manure are good for single stalks, 
it must be good for the whole crop. So the 
next year he adopted rny plan for the whole 
crop, and found that the gain was even 
larger, by several bushels, than in my experi¬ 
ment ; aud he also found that the cost of 
each bushel was reduced to six cents. 
DO WE SOW TOO MUCH GRAIN TO THE 
ACRE. 
■--■ 
SPUING GRAIN ON SOD. 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Rural World has 
been making some very interesting experi¬ 
ments concerning a matter which is just 
now gaining considerable thought among 
agriculturists. He writes: 
lu the grasshopper district, where every¬ 
body is looking for some substitute o£ late 
growth for their destroyed wheat, oats, Ac., 
aud where seed is not, and money to buy 
with about as scarce as seed, it is important, 
to know, not so necessarily how much seed 
to buy, as to know how little is necessary for 
a given number of acres. Seeking knowl¬ 
edge from old farmers who ought to know, 
and finding so wide a range of views as to 
quantity, 1 determined to weigh and count 
small quantities, and thus by calculation to 
arrive at about a proper quantity to plant. 
Beginning with turnips—purple top strap 
] ea f—I took one dram, avoirdupois, uud 
found, by actual count, it contained 1,007 
sound seed, or 20,832 in ono ounce, 4211 312 in 
one pound. One dram of millet contains 
1,155, one ounce 18,040 one pound 298,240, 
and one bushel 14,912,000 seeds. Two ounces 
(counted) of buckwheat contains 1,325, one 
pound 10,600 and one bushel 967,200 sound 
seed. Of this sample, 96 per cent, sprouted 
on trial. 
lu one acre there is 13,472 square feet, or 
173,889 six inch square blocks, and 0,269,968 
square inches. Supposing one turnip should 
grow on each six-inch square block, seven 
ounces will put one seed on each, and leave 
nearly 14,900, or one seed t,o every three 
square feet, to scatter promiscuously or be 
lost. On this same calculation, half a bushel 
of millet will place 1.19 seed to every square 
inch, or ISO to the square foot. Is that thick 
enough ? Plenty for hay, and half too much 
If sown for seed. 
This brings me to your half bushel branch¬ 
ing buckwheat. Taking 173,889 six-inch 
square blocks in an acre, and 967,200 seed in 
a bushel, as a basis, one peck gives 241,800 or 
67,941 more than one to each block—about 
j to every six-inch square or r> T .., seeds to 
each square foot. With only four, or even 
ion per cent, of worthless seed, J would like 
to see it spread itself. I have come—since 
counting seed—to the conclusion that seven 
ounces of turnip seed equals one-half bushel 
millet for grass, aud onc-founh to one-third 
for seed ; and one peck of buckwheat is au 
abundance lor an acre. Don’t we waste as 
much seed generally as is necessary to plant 
our farms ! In experimenting with seed I 
tried turnip seven years old, aud fiud that 
over ninety per cent, came up well and 
thrifty. 
---♦♦♦- 
AN EXPERIMENT WITH CORN. 
Mr. Conrad Wilson of Rockland Co. is 
an occasional and esteemed correspondent 
of the Rural New-Yorker as well as a 
thorough and practical farmer. He has 
offered a premium for the largest product of 
Indian corn, competitors to state the special 
culture and manuring by which it was 
secured. That this idea has long been a 
The usual aud generally the best practice 
is to precede spring grain with a hoed crop 
com or oats in god with manure plowed 
under. If well cultivated through the season 
this leaves the ground free from weed seeds, 
the sod thoroughly rotted and the manure 
aud decaying tod intimately mixed with the 
soil. But this plan is not always practicable, 
Sometimes farmers have fields which need 
breaking up and re-seeding but cannot find 
time or labor to plant so large an urea of 
hoed crops as this rotation would require. 
What shall fie done in such cases. To leave 
this laud unplowed a year is to fill it with 
weeds in place of failing clover and grasses. 
To plow iu the spring and sow barley'or oats 
on t he newly-turned sod will most probably 
result in partial failure of the crop. Fall 
plowing, giving the sod a chance to rot more 
or less in fall is the nqxt best preparation 
possible—better in some respects than a 
hoed crop the previous year - as there is 
nothing taken from the soil. This fall 
plowed land needs only to be cultivated in 
spring to be prepared for seeding in the best 
possible condition. 
It will facilitate retting of the sod if a 
bushel and a half per acre of rye is sown on 
the fall plowed land and dragged in. It 
will make a good lute pasture for calves, 
and a good early pasture for new milch 
Cows and ewes with lamb. Besides the 
covering which the plants will make will 
save the surface of the soil from being blown 
away. The young plants iu green leaf do 
not exhaust the soil much if any, and all the 
advantage from the fall or spring feed is so 
much clear gain from the slight outlay' for 
seed. 
-- — 
TEE MOST VALUABLE TOBACCO LEAF. 
The most highly valued tobacco iu New 
England is the thin, t ugh, elastic leaf, 
which burns readily to a dies. Those leaves 
containing the most carbonate of potash iu 
their ashes, burn the most freely and suit¬ 
ably. In some combinations potash does 
not favor the burning aud some tobacco 
manufacturers improve the flavor aud burn¬ 
ing quality by' artificially impregnating the 
leaf with acetate, citrate, or tartrate of 
potash, applying the latter in solution and 
then drying. Chlorine injures the tobacco, 
as also does nitric acid. Sulphuric acid, 
united witii potash, soda or lime, favors the 
burning of tobacco. The best tobacco is 
produced on well-drained, warm, sandy' 
lauds. It is believed heavy manuring in¬ 
creases the quantity of the crop generally at 
the expense of quality as regards texture.— 
Prof. is. IF. Johnson. 
COMPTON SURPRISE POTATO. 
Last spring I purchased seed of this much 
vaunted variety from two different *‘ reliable 
seedsmen.” and one has very dark colored 
vines with purple blossoms and an enormous 
yield of potato balls, ute other lias lighter 
c -lored vines tvllh pure white blossoms. 
Potato bugs seem exceedingly fond of the 
last, and will lr.rcUy touch the first. Could 
perceive no difference in the looks of the 
potatoes before planting. Will some one 
who is posted please inform me which is 
genuine Of course there must be a differ¬ 
ence when even the “bugs” detect it. 
Who will auowei ! NELSON ItlTTER. 
qj 
I 
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