266 
THE BOBAL NEW-YORKER 
improving the soil. About ninety-five per cent, 
of the mans of this substance is organic or veg¬ 
etable matter, in an undecomposed state, and if 
mingled with that soil in the form, it will, by.its 
subsequent decomposition, produce highly bene- 
ciftl results on its inorganic or earthy particles. 
These particles may contain the elements of 
plant-food in the form of silicates and insoluble 
matter, but the decomposing manure produces 
carbonic acid which, being in contact with them, 
changes them to carbonates and make* them 
available for plant growth. It* decomposition 
within it warms the soil, giving increased vigor 
to the rootlets of plants, and accelerating a 
round of chemical changes which generally im¬ 
prove St. It. also causes groat physical changes; 
makes heavy soils more light, open and porous, 
and therefore more easily aerated ; gives to the 
soil absorbing and retaining power, increasing 
the amount of dew-fall upon it, and enabling it 
to retain that, and the water of rain-fall. It 
gives it power to absorb and retain the fertilizing 
gases of the air and soil, and prevents the sol¬ 
vent mineral elements from being carried down, 
or leached away beyond the roach of roots. 
These are some of the influences of manure on 
the soil, and their results may all bo included in 
this expression: It is a gatherer and developer 
of plant-food. 
Second : Though manure, as manure, is not 
plant-food, yet, after passing through certain 
changes, plant-food is developed from its mass. 
Its ultimate value in this respect, depends 
mainly on the quality or composition of the 
plants of which it is the waste, but somewhat on 
the ago and condition of the animals by which 
they wore consumed. There is nothing in ani¬ 
mal excrements but what came from the food 
consumed ; therefore, the excrements of young 
animals, which are making bone, muscle and 
tissue, are comparatively poor as a fertilizer, for 
they have extracted a large per centage of its best 
elements to make their growth ; while that of 
mature animals is good, because it really con¬ 
tains all that was of any value in llieir food. 
The particular variety of animal has but little 
influence on the value of its excrements as a 
fertilizer. 
That the intrinsic value or manure as a fer¬ 
tilizer, or aR plant-food, may be fully appreciated, 
it is important first to understand what are the 
wants of plants in this regard ; what the food of 
plants is, and tho manner in which they gather it. 
On tho average, our agricultural plants are 
composed of ninety-live per cent, of matter ob¬ 
tained directly or indirectly from the air, and 
five per cent from the soil. The aerial elements 
are in exhaustless abundance, and with one ex¬ 
ception, plants have the natural capacity to 
gather all their wants require. Tho compara¬ 
tively very small quantity of soil materials which 
plants require, is composed of eight or nino sep¬ 
arate elements, some of which they tako iu com¬ 
paratively smalL quantities, and others in largo. 
Tboso which they use in small quantities are, as 
a rule, found in average soils, in such abundance 
that all their wants iu this regard, are naturally 
supplied ; but (hone elements which they re¬ 
quire hi large quantities are qnite generally defi¬ 
cient in tho soil, mid must be artificially supplied. 
Therefore, it is fonnd iu practice that crops can 
bo grown in great abundance if tho Boil is artifi¬ 
cially supplied with the three elements, nitrogen, 
potash and phosphoric acid. 
In this connection, the form in which food is 
presented to the plant, and tho manner in which 
it gathers it aro matters of importance. It never 
gathers, consumes and digests solid matter. 
However hard and enduring its structure may 
bo, nothing ever outers it hut in liquid or 
gaseous form; nothing but what it can absorb 
and diifnHe through imperforate coll walls. Sub¬ 
stances in mass, and iu most compound forms, 
however rich in the elements of nutrition, are un¬ 
available and valueless. If, now, this is the con¬ 
dition of our soil and air, and tho natural law of 
plant nutrition, it tells us in what tho value of 
yard manure, as the food ol' plants, consists; and 
it is in tho content therein of nitrogen, potash 
and phosphoric acid, and these elements sepa¬ 
rated from the gross mass, iMui made available 
by reduction to a solvent or gaseous condition by 
decomposition. It is apparent that the elements 
of plant,-food whioh must be artificially Supplied, 
and which are sufficient for plant produc¬ 
tion, form an extremely small portion of the 
bulk, or mass of crude manure. This substance, 
though very variable in composition and value, 
has been often analyzed, and chemists have ven¬ 
tured to give its average composition, which is, 
that iu one thousand pounds of the undeoom- 
posed mass, there are five pounds of nitrogen, 
six and one-half pouuds of potash, and two and 
six-tenths pounds or phosphoric arid. Or that 
only fourteen pounds of the thousand are essen¬ 
tial for plant production, to obtain which, how¬ 
ever, the farmer must haul and handle the en¬ 
tire bulk, though the same elements in amount, 
in a pure form, would produce the same result. 
This is the serious fault of yard manure as the 
food of plants these elements are not available 
until after they have been freed from the com¬ 
pound by decomposition ; and their propor¬ 
tion in the crude mass is very small. When we ag¬ 
gregate the value of its two modes of action, it 
appears to be indispensable as a means of fertili¬ 
zation, and if all our farm crops and products 
could ho consumed on the farms which produce 
them, and tho refuse returned to tho soil, no 
other fertilizer would be required to keep the 
land in tho highest stato of production. Butin a 
thickly populated country, like the old States of 
the Union, this is impossible. A large propor¬ 
tion of our people are located in cities and vil- 
J 
ft G, S,'£ /?;s y TU Altered . 
higher than the walk Frost penetrates further 
in windy than still weather. 
I send a plan for ventilators for root cellar. I 
would make two 18x18 inches square; one 
opeuing south of wall at A for entrance of cool 
sir extending down to floor, then across and up 
the opposite wall through the roof, for the exit 
of warm or foul air. I would have it perforated 
with holes from C to D. The amount of cold 
air admitted can he regulated by gate E. The 
gate F can he closed, compelling the air to pass 
through holes in tube which I think would not 
i 
FtQ.Z%\ Altered. 
JTor Description of' Plan, see 1st Page. 
lages and engaged in employments which do not 
produce food. The products of tho farms must 
ho transported there for sustenance, and the 
waste is not returned to sustain their producing 
power. As a consequence, they have gradually 
deteriorated until our Atlantic States cannot 
feed their people ; our bread and men t are the 
product of the great valleys and plains of the 
West. In this emergency, it becomes a moat 
important question whether our lands cannot 
he renovated, and abundant crops produced by 
applying to them the elements of plant-food in a 
purer and simpler form than that of yard ma¬ 
nure. But time and spaco require that the con¬ 
sideration of this question he deferred to a fu¬ 
ture opportunity. 
3jarm aojnrs. 
ABOUT ROOT CELLARS. 
In answer to Gao. Gahdner’s inquiry about 
“ Root Cellars, etc.” in the Bubal of Aug. 11, 1 
will make a few suggestions although I am uot 
an authority ” on this subject. 
It doesn't pay hero to raise roots to a great 
extent for feeding purposes, when, as now, we 
can buy good oats for 18 cents per bushel. In 
the new Western prairie farms, where cellars aro 
scarce, most people bury their vegetables in the 
ground, seldom losing any by rot, hut often by 
frost. One-half of them give no ventilation, 
but it is considered better to place in tho center 
of the pit. after vegetables have been put iu and 
covered with straw, some kind of tube. A piece 
of Btove-pipe serves tho purpose well, with one 
3 | ft OfiT CELLAR j 
v emulator 
CELLAR FLOOR 
end resting on the straw and the other above the 
ground. After the pit is covered, when the 
weather gets cold, stuff the tube full of straw. 
My cellar has a hollow stone and brick wall, 18 
inches high above the surfacojof tho ground, sup¬ 
posed to be tight. It will, however, admit the 
fro3fc if the wiud blows while the mercury is, at 
all, below zero, uuloss the place is well hanked up 
( be necessary. Door C admits escape of air 
above the roots. If too much cold air enters 
some straw can he inserted in tube A. Would 
make tho other ventilator like this with opening 
on opposite side. Each should be placed in the 
oenter of one-half of collar. In getting out 
roots it might be more convenient to have them 
run the other way. This can he effected by 
turning the course of enhance tube A and there 
might be elbows placed iu tube B if necessary to 
change its position. 
In regard to manure cellar or “pit," I think 
for your stock 20x40 feet will bo fully small 
enough. If I coukl 1 would havo it on “ in¬ 
clined” ground, with tight plank door opening 
out of the end, 8 h ot wide, where tho cart or 
wagon coukl he hacked in to remove the manure. 
It will ho easier to run manure up an inclined 
piano on a wheelbarrow and dump it into the pit 
Hum to lilt wet manure out of a deep pit to load 
it. I never measured it, hut guess that my 
cattle and hotRea, when stabled, make a cord 
cadi of manure every winter, hut 1 use a good 
deal of “ bedding,” as straw is cheap. I would 
arrange the pit so that if ever I saw fit, I could 
add another 20 feet to it. 
Feed your land (with manure), and it will feed 
your stock, which will produce manure and 
feed you, too, and “ keep the hall a-rolllng." 
Nath’l. Bobnuam. 
Amboy, Lee Co., Ill. 
-- 
JOTTINGS AT KIRBY HOMESTEAD. 
IiY COL,, F. n. COBTIS. 
How natural it is to begin a conversation with 
remarks about the weather. Wo like to he natu¬ 
ral. We havo had most remarkable weather. 
For nearly two months no rain. The bountiful 
harvest was gathered hetweeu the showers, and 
then the drought began. The grass soon stop¬ 
ped growing, and the aftermath of the mead¬ 
ows, which had sprung up thickly, ceased grow¬ 
ing too. When the grass does not grow, how 
quickly the fields are dennded of pasture! East¬ 
ern New York and New England, away from the 
fea-shorc, have suffered severely. This region iH 
liable to have an after-harvest drought, hut 
scarcely ever so severe as the one now haply ter¬ 
minated Ly the equinoctial. Late potatoes are 
less than half a crop, and hut for the great yield 
>f Eirly Rose and other early sorts, tho potuto 
■dunties would ship hut a limited supply instead 
if the thousands of barrels which now weekly go 
forward to the maiketa. Ou some farms there 
was no water at all, and the stock have grown 
lank and think, for without plenty of water they 
will not thrive. In one town near us, a supposed 
epidemic prevailed among the cattle; they hav¬ 
ing nothing to eat but tho dry stubble and with¬ 
ered grasses, a constipated fever set in, and 
many of them died. 
The loss caused by the shrinkage in the milk 
of dairy cows will amount to thousands of dol¬ 
lars. Farmers must learu to supplement their 
pastures with green forage—millet or corn; au 
acre—more would be better of either—this year 
would have made the cows smooth and sleek, 
filled the milk pails and been a most grateful 
panacea for the disease which has made the 
barn-yard desolate. 
A neighbor—whose name we omit, out of re¬ 
spect to the name—has practiced such continual 
cruelty to his animals, that the people around, 
being filled with righteous indignation, have con¬ 
cluded to write to one of Mr. Beegh’s agents in 
an adjoining town, and to demand that the full 
penalties of the law for the “prevention of 
cruelty to animals,” should bo enforced upon 
him. He ties his cattle and horses with iopes 
and fetters to confine them in the fields around 
which the fences nro so poor that they can step 
over them. He ties rope from the horns of the 
cows and the heads of tho horses to both hind 
feet, and so tight that they cannot raise their 
heads or straighten tlicir limbs. Thtu he fet¬ 
ters them besides, and thus fettered and ham¬ 
pered aud tortured, they go from day to day; 
and liis cows ho compels, thus shackled, to walk 
a half mile or more to be milked, and pounds 
them with dubs, to force them along in this 
pitiable conditiou. A rain storm causes the 
ropes to shrink, and sometimes they become so 
bedded in the swollen flesh that they have to be 
> cut away, leaving tho skin severed and the cords 
of the limbs lacerated. The tops of their heads 
—a most sensitive place—are also cut and torn 
by tho galling ropes. It does not seem possible 
that any one could be so systematically cruel, 
hut’(is too truo. As liomst Tat says, “ May 
the likes of him get their desarvings.” 
The beets which had their leaves killed with 
rust are now doing finely ; an entirely new set of 
leaves has grown onto? tho top of the beets, and 
now they look fresh and vigorous, with almost a 
mouth of growing weather ahead. 
Our Vergalieus (White Doyenne) have taught 
us a lesson—it does not pay to go hack on old 
friends. Now the Yergalieu—one of the richest 
and beat of the fruit, of the Pyrus communis— 
has tlie misfortune to bo old-fushioned. It was 
tho favorite of our grandfathers and grandmoth¬ 
ers. Of iato years, being such an old sort, I sup¬ 
pose, it has grown wrinkled and furrowed. We 
began to thiuk that the old friend was In the 
way aud a change for a new one would be la st; 
and now—just in time to point amoral—the Yir- 
galicu is ripening larger aud better than ever. 
Its red cheeks were never redder, nor was it ever 
more luscious to tho taste. We remember what 
an old gentleman said long ago, wheu we asked 
him what pears he cultivated. “ Only one kind,” 
he replied. “Why not more?” wo said. “ Be¬ 
cause,” said he, “ when you have got the best, 
what more do you want?” His were the Verga- 
lieu. 
A writer in tho Rueal thinks that blight in 
pear trees is canned by punoturea in the skin 
made by a Hinall insect. Ho is right and he is 
wrong. There is a form of decay—this is a bet¬ 
ter word than “blight”—which is prodneed in 
the manner he speaks of. It is not tho /Ire 
blight which is now raging so extensively and 
so disastrously all over tho country; and, more¬ 
over, his kind of blight we have never seen on 
young trees—we mean small trees; hut we have 
seen it ou trees where tlie hark was qnite thick, 
and generally on those of feeble growth. 
From seven acres of old orchard we get ten 
barrels of apples all told. Many of them are rot¬ 
ten. speckled, and hut few of them i re smooth 
and fair. The drought has ripened them at least 
two weeks earlier than usual. These apples will 
not keep well. What are we going to do this 
winter for the farmer’s good cheer, the pitcher 
of cider and tho basin of apples ? And the boys, 
what will they do when they cannot stuff their 
pockets to eat during noon time at school ? A 
dozen neighbors have already asked us to spare 
them sorno from our scanty store. Boys, it is too 
bad. Mother must make more doughnuts. 
WHAT SHALL BE HONE WITH THE DOGS ? 
The early lambs were all killed in mid-summer 
by the dogs, and last week three more canines 
started, fortunately in the day-timo, to finish the 
flock. The bleating of tho sheep told us that 
something was wrong, and hurrying to the range, 
there were somebody’s pets, each ono in full 
chase after a sheep. One of them overtook his 
victim, and was so eager to get its blood that he 
heeded not the approach of the man who got a 
good shot at him, and, ha! hal there is one dog 
less. The others—cute brutes!—didn’t like the 
situation, aud left too speedily for an introduc¬ 
tion ; so we do not know “ whose dog aro you,” 
aud of course nobody ever owned the dead one. 
But what shall ho done with the dogs ? Feed 
them ? Not one dog in a hundred would ever kill 
sheep if he had regular meals at home. Dogs 
are made the worst kind of tramps because they 
are not fed but left to starve or steal. A dog 
doesn’t fancy starving (who would ?) aud bo he 
steals. If ho cannot get at our hams or bread- 
dish ora stray joint, when our hacks are turned, 
why. he takes to the road and the fields, Roam¬ 
ing around half-starved, he crosses the sheep 
pasture, and the sheep, timid creatures! start 
up aud run aud Carlo goes for them. If we 
had shared our breakfast with him, he would 
wag his tail by our side all the day long, except 
he might have a little fun digging up a field 
mouse or scaring some chattering chipmunk or, 
