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A NOTE FROM SIR J. B. LAWES. 1 
- i 
THE LEACHING OP VARIOUS SUBSTANCES 1 
THROUGH THE SOIL. t 
- ] 
Some substances are held mechanically,some 
chemically, some are decomposed, one portion i 
is retained, another portion is washed out. , 
Clay has a strong affinity for various vege- i 
table substanees,many Of which are highly col¬ 
ored; the black water from dung heaps will 
therefore pass through a soil and become dear. 
Sulphate and muriate of ammonia and potash 
are decomposed in the soil, and the acids form 
soluble compounds with lime, which are washed 
away. So completely bad the lime been washed 
away on one of our pasture experiments where 
very large quantities of these salts have been 
applied for 30 years m succession .that the crop 
which used to cut four or five tons of hay per 
acre is now reduced to almost nothing. If we 
apply chalk or lime the crop will be as good as 
ever. Common salt passes through the sod 
unchanged. In our three drain gauges of 30,40 
and OP inches deep of soil, the amount of salt 
found in the drainage water every year is the 
same in quantity as that found in the surface 
gauge. Our annual i-aiufall contains very 
considerable quantities of salt; if our drain 
gauge were covered with vegetation a por¬ 
tion of tius salt would be used by the plants, 
but as we have no vegetat.iou, and common 
salt does not enter iuto combination with the 
sod it ad passes through in the water. Ad the 
salts of nitric acid are soluble in water aud do 
not combine with the soil, but they are taken 
up greedily by vegetation. The amount which 
leaches through the sod varies greatly. Ni¬ 
trates are farmed in the sod; they are also un¬ 
der certain circumstances destroyed in the soil. 
From 40 to 50 pounds of nitrogen pass 
through our drain gauges annually per acre. 
The. annual amount, varies with the rainfall, 
but we have no clear indication that the 
amount is becoming less from exhaustion 
of the nitrogen compounds in the soil. 
Some recent experiments appear to show that 
soils fix the nitrogen of the air. As the rain 
does not furnish more than five or six pounds 
of the 45 pounds of nitrogen found in the 
drainage water, our sod-, must have lost 500 
or 000 pounds of nitrogen per acre since they 
were under experiment, aud we must before 
long expect to find some reduction in the an¬ 
nual quantity removed unless the fixation of 
nitrogen by the soil furnishes a portion of that 
removed. _ j. b. lawes. 
Rothamsted, England. 
BUCEPHALUS BROWN’S NOTIONS AND 
IDEAS. 
Farmers' Pknuriousness.— Did you ever 
think that the alleged “penuriousness” of many 
old farmers is but one of the battle-scars of a 
long and hard fight with fortune! This pen¬ 
urious, this “stingy” man began life in a time 
when money was very scarce aud exceedingly 
hard to get. When he was young the richest 
farmers often found it difficult to obtain 
enough cash to pay their taxes. In the time 
when his habits of life were being formed, he 
could himself rai ely get together and keep more 
than si 5 or £20 in money in a year. A York sh il- 
ling was in those days a lugger coin than our 
“dollar of the daddies” {very rarely seen by 
the daddies though) is now. and harder to be 
got. If the old farmer is honest, industrious 
and neighborly, don’t give him a bad name 
because he looks stern, and says “No.” when 
he is asked to subscribe five dodars for the 
support of “the national game.” The national 
game, in his time, was played with a chopping 
axe, instead of a bat, and if he won in it,’twas 
by the hardest work, and without the help of 
any subscriptions. 
Eves Needed on the Farm— Nobody has 
any more need to use his eyes than the farm¬ 
er who wants to make his farming successful. 
“Whatare you staring at?” said a neighbor 
to me, as I was looking ac ross afield of nearly 
ripened wheat for a possibly profitable “ var¬ 
iation’' last August. The mining prospector 
travels hither and yon amongst the hills and 
mountains of the mineral regious, hammer in 
hand and pick od his back, his restless eyes 
ever uiert for “indications.” He stops and ex¬ 
amines any cropping and every vein of the 
ledges aud cliffs of the mountain side, and 
makes thousands of trials here aud there, 
knowing that it will not do to pass anything 
that, looks like a show A good farmer’s eye 
should be as sharp as a prospector’s. His land, 
his crops, his stock, everything about his prem¬ 
ises needs the sharp eyes of their owner con¬ 
stantly inspecting them as he goes about. The 
eyes see, but they see to profit only when the 
alert braiu behind them sees along with them 
and takes close note of what it sees. 
Political Economy for Farmers.—I i 
think the Rural would be improved by the 
introduction of a “Political Economy” col¬ 
umn. Fanners need instruction in this new < 
branch of science*very badly. Many of them i 
feel aud see that thiugs are not as they should i 
be. Their feelings are roused against certain i 
evils, especially against the various financial, 
manufacturing, transporting aud trading 
“monopolies” which have sprung up all over 
the country. We feel that they are drawing 
our means away from us, but we do not under¬ 
stand exactly how it is done, and still less do 
we see the wav of remedy. We hear of the 
Socialists and the Anarchists, of the Knights 
of Labor and many like organizations, but do 
not quite know what they are all after. We 
have a sort of consciousness that our inter¬ 
ests are not quite the same, nor are the reme¬ 
dies for the evils we endure identical with 
those demanded by the organized bodies of 
other workingmen. The farmer who owns 
his laud unites in his own person the qualities, 
the rights and the needs of both workingman 
and capitalist. He is a laborer and an employer 
of labor: he is a producer of raw material, but 
be is also, to some extent, a manufacturer 
and a dealer in both raw ami manufactured 
goods. Iu the farmer, then, must be har¬ 
monized many of the conflicting demands now 
being voiced on all sides of ns. When the 
farmers’ needs are met, in the adjustments of 
the world’s business, the residuum of justice 
unsatisfied will not bo large. In the hands of 
American farmers resides the power which 
can and must stand between capital and labor 
to do justice to both and to enforce the rights 
of each. Do not the farmers, more than any 
other class of citizens, need to bo taught the 
principles which underlie these great inter¬ 
ests so far as they are yet demonstrated, aud 
should not their leading newspaper do its part 
iu teaching them ? 
Artificial Fertilizers.— The use of these 
is increasing faster than the knowledge of how 
to use them, or how to make a profit out of 
them. Nearly every reading farmer now has 
some ideas about nitrogen, phosphoric acid 
and potash as necessary plaut foods. But 
farmers have much to learn about the source 
whence they come, their cost, the cost of then 1 
manufacture, their real value when manufac¬ 
tured, and the possibilities of getting them 
more cheaply aud using them separately or 
together iu the most, economical way. That 
they are good we know, but bow to get the 
most good at the least cost is not yet suffi¬ 
ciently known. ♦ 
farm 0001101114. 
THE LABOR QUESTION ON THE FARM. 
PROF. E. M. SHELTON. 
Paramount importance of rjood management 
of labor on the farm; farm hands to-day 
as good as in “j/e olden time','' 1 improved 
implements indispensable; even distribu¬ 
tion of farm labor ; advantage of being 
ahead of work, and of Fall plowing; value 
of timely work; ten hours' work enough; 
married, self-boarding help the best. 
In view of the fact that the prices of well- 
nigh all farm products have been steadily 
“hammered” down for years past, while the 
price of farm labor has during the same time 
at least held its own, the question of the use 
of labor on the farm seems to ine to be one of 
first-class importance. Indeed it may well be 
doubted if there is a single qualification of 
the good farmer, not excepting technical 
knowledge of the art or familiarity with 
those* principles which iu the aggregate we 
call the science of agriculture, which will pay 
in ready cash as does that nice business sense 
which enables him to get, all that is to be bail 
from the labor force which he employs, 1 am 
the last one certainly to disparage or in any 
way belittle scientific knowledge as related to 
farming; but when 1 remember the tremen¬ 
dous outlay of energy involved in inverting 
six inches of the surface of a field in the 
familiar process of plowing, or in cultivating 
or harvesting a crop, agriculture seems as 
much now as it always has been, and is 
• always likely to be, a question of doing rather 
i than thinking—a matter chiefly of work. The 
fanner will always be the “horny-handed” 
i one, “a son of toil,” but every year will show 
a more complete subordination of his work 
, to intelligence. 
I am not of those who believe that the qual- 
I ity of the labor employed on the farm has 
, degenerated in these latter days. It is true 
that the familiar boast of the farm hand of 30 
years ago—that he could cradle four acres of 
J wheat between “sun aud sun,” or in the same 
j time chop and pile two cords of four-foot 
i wood—is not now often heard, aud when 
heard sounds strangely enough in presence of 
modern harvesters and our depleted forests. < 
But a large proportion of our modern farm i 
hands may safely be trusted with a mower or 
even a self-binder, while not infrequently I ; 
find among farm hands a man com; k: tent to 
operate asmall steam engine or take charge of 
a herd of pure-bred cattle. What our farm 
hands have lost in one direction they have 
more than made up in others. 
How. then, may the fanner to greatest profit 
utilize the physical forces at his disposal? In 
the first place, he must employ, aud generally 
he must own, the improved labor saving 
machinery suitable to his needs. It is futile 
to talk of the great cost of improved plows, 
cultivators and harvesters. The farmer must 
use these, because not to use them will cost 
him vastly more than the price of the machin¬ 
ery. It is often possible for small farmers to 
own jointly expensive machines like the self- 
binder, but such joint ownership often has its 
disadvantages. 1 am inclined to doubt if the 
farmer who raises 30 acres of small grain can 
afford not to own a self-binder. The fanner 
who undertakes to raise his produce by baud 
must sell it at the prices which machine-made 
products have created. He is simply trying 
to compete single-handed with the most potent 
forces of the nineteenth century. 
The course of cropping should be so ar¬ 
ranged that the labor of the farm will be 
evenly distributed through the year. By this 
means help may lie engaged by the season or 
by tbe year, and day labor—the most ineffi¬ 
cient and expensive that tbe farmer em¬ 
ploys—cau be measurably dispensed with. In¬ 
creasing the live-stock of the farm, particu¬ 
larly cattle and sheep, is, under most circum¬ 
stances, attended by a corresponding diminu¬ 
tion of the hand labor required in its manage¬ 
ment. The absentee owners of the great Irish 
estates found no means so effectual in ridding 
the land of a too abundant tenantry a.s substi¬ 
tuting cattle for grain. The example is not 
oue for general emulation, but it ought, to 
give a useful hint. 
The importance of keeping ahead of the 
work, of pushiug it instead of been constantly 
crowded by the pressure of important duties, 
cannot be too strongly insisted upon. The 
farmer who keeps well abreast of the season 
is certain to do his work with the least effort, 
to do it iu the best manner, aud to secure the 
largest returns for his labor. I know of no 
practice nearly equal to fall plowing in start¬ 
ing the farmer right with his work iu the 
Spring, aud there is certainly no other useful 
farm practice so generally neglected by Amer¬ 
ican farmers. I know that it is urged that 
husking consumes ail the time of the farmer 
during the fall season: but husking may be 
done when plowing cannot, aud fall plowing, 
for oats and barley at least, should have the 
preference. The farmer who starts out in the 
Spring with the oat and barley ground iu 
readiness for the seed has a tremendous lever¬ 
age ou t he work of the entire season. 
Fanners too often fail to appreciate the ira- 
portanee of the element of time in connection 
with their work. I cau best show my mean¬ 
ing by an illustration: A field of corn may 
be thoroughly hoed by one man in 10 days or 
by five mm in two days; now, if one man 
alone does the work, before the 10 days have 
passed the weeds in the uuhoed portions of the 
field will have increased enormously in num¬ 
ber, size and vigor, aud the difficulty of eradi¬ 
cating them will have proportionately in¬ 
creased, to say nothing of the damage done 
the corn crop meanwhile. The man who does 
the work with the five men saves both time 
aud labor, both of which are “money.” I 
have in mind a neighbor who undertook to 
cut up a single field of corn single-handed. 
Before one-half of the field had beeu shocked 
the fodder uu the remaining half was in ruins 
from frost, sun and raiu. In some such ways 
as the above the forces of the farm may often 
be used cumulatively with great saving of 
time, labor and produce. 
There are other matters in connection with 
this “labor problem,” which equally with 
those referred to above, deserve tbe attention 
of Rural readers, but which can be only 
briefly outlined in this letter: 
The practice, known nowhere I believe ex¬ 
cept among farmers, of working men and 
teams from sun-rise till sun down seems to 
me to be one that agriculture should have 
outgrown. An experience of 13 years with 
the ten-hour system upon the farm has con¬ 
vinced me that as much or more is accom¬ 
plished, of a better quality in 10 hours than 
can be extorted under the old barbarous all¬ 
daylight pluu. Married men are the mast re¬ 
liable help aud these should be engaged by the 
i year or season, and cottages should be pro- 
i vided for them upon the farm. The home of 
i the farmer who boards his own help can never 
be a model farm home. I think of no spoe- 
■ taelo in connection with the farm quite as 
; unlovely and degrading to all concerned, as 
i that presented by the farmer’s wife aud 
daughters whose lives are largely given over 
to the abject drudgery of cooking and wash¬ 
ing aud bed making for hired men. 
Manhattan,' Kan. 
THE REFORM OF IRISH DAIRYING. 
PROFESSOR J. P. SHELDON. 
Agrarian and political troubles impedi¬ 
ments to progress; agricultural depression 
the source of discontent; increase of cream¬ 
eries; the reason ; Professor Arnold in 
England. _ 
TnE condition of the butter trade in Irelano 
is causing much concern among the leading 
friends of agriculture iu that country. The 
farmers are torn by various disturbing influ¬ 
ences, aud are not iu a frame of mind to take 
united action in such a matter as dairy reform. 
The question of land as an element of first-rate 
importance in the economics of the people, in¬ 
volving that of the law's Ity which that ele¬ 
ment is at present regulated, is altogether too 
potent and absorbing, too desperate in its bear¬ 
ings, too harsh mid grindiug hi its modus oper¬ 
and/,to admit of tenant farmers settling down 
iuto the earnest and sustained consideration 
which is necessary to bring about, the much 
needed improvement in the art ofbutter mak¬ 
ing. The country is too much disturbed by 
political questions to admit of the rank and tile 
of the people engaging quietly in the pursuit 
of manufacturing and commercial reforms, 
and the result is that no great deal of solid 
progress has hitherto been attained. There 
are, nevertheless, a number of patriotic and 
public-spirited men who, in the midst of chaos 
aud uncertainty, are doing their best to briug 
about a state of things which will have a ben¬ 
eficent and lasting influence ou the fiscal 
interests of the country. 
For it cannot be denied that agricultural de¬ 
pression has a great deal to do with the un¬ 
happy condition of the people. I say nothing 
about the behavior of landlords to their ten¬ 
antry, for this is a topic outside the scope of 
an article in an American agricultural paper; 
but it is, nevertheless, true that the inability 
of farmers to pay their way aud live is at the 
root of most of the mischief w hich occurs in 
the beautiful Emerald Isle. The abnormally 
low price of everything which the Irish farm¬ 
er has to sell, the most important of which is 
butter, is, as I have said, causing much con¬ 
cern to the friends of Irisn agriculture, aud 
these gentlemen, many of whom are practical 
farmers, the 1 tetter type of landlords, and not 
a few professional men, and soon, are endeav¬ 
oring to multiply the number of associated 
creameries or butter-factories. I tbiuk I have 
aforetime told the readers of the Rural New- 
Yorker of the dairy education which is iu 
progress, aud of the factories which have been 
established in Ireland; and I have now to 
speak about the greatoned impetus which is be¬ 
ing given to the movement, of the reasons 
which are at the root of it, and of the methods 
which are being pursued. 
The impetus and the reasons for it are close¬ 
ly allied. It is felt that the second or third- 
rate position as a butter-producing country, 
which Ireland feels herself to occupy, is a 
matter which admits of a remedy at once 
comprehensive and permanent. As a prelim¬ 
inary consideration it is well understood that 
tbe climate and soil of Ireland are unsurpassed 
on the face of the globe as factors in the pro¬ 
duction of thafinest butter; and this at once 
suggests the inference that man alone is to 
blame for the inferior reputation Irish butter at 
the present time possesses. Once n train of facts 
such as this takes possession of the minds of 
those who are accounted lenders iu dairy hus¬ 
bandry, the impetus is accounted for and the 
reason too. To realize the need aud feasibil¬ 
ity ol’ improvement Is the first step, and an 
indbpeusable oue, in the path of progress; 
aud this preliminary step has. 1 am glad to 
say, been well token in the sister island. The 
journey to bo traversed is, of course, a long and 
difficult one—more difficult ou account of the 
disturbing influences 1 have alluded to—aud 
cau only be accomplished by careful and sus¬ 
tained thought, energy and perseverence. It 
remains to be icon whether our Irish agricul 
tural friends, who have no warmer well-wish¬ 
er than 1, will bo aide to carry out their pro¬ 
gramme. 
It is known to American readers that the 
British Dairy Association, which has entered 
oti its second decade, aud has already done 
much good to the industry it represents, has 
recently begun the practice of holding confer¬ 
ences iu the more important dairy counties of 
England. Two of these gatherings have beeu 
held, the oue in Cheshire and the other in Der¬ 
byshire. At the second one your Professor 
Arnold, whose name is a household word in 
other countries than America, was present; 
