134, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Apuil, 
seemed to think that I intended to “ show them 
how to farm,” and they very properly resented 
such an assumption. Of course I had no such 
idea. I have devoted my life to the study and 
practice of agriculture. I have a great love 
for country life. Few things give me greater 
pleasure than to see good crops and clean land. 
I like to see good animals. I like to be 
among them. I do not find farm life dull, 
stupid, monotonous, and lonely. And yet there 
is not one farmer in a thousand that is more 
isolated. Perhaps it is this very isolation that 
makes me feel such an interest in the letters I 
receive from my brother farmers in all parts of 
the land. Their letters are always friendly and 
sensible, and are well calculated to give one a 
high estimate of the enterprise, good feeling, 
and intelligence of American agriculturists. 
In regard to white mustard, it should be un¬ 
derstood that I have tried it only one season, 
and of course I am only warranted in saying 
that it “promises well.” I shall sow it more 
largely this year, and at different times. Last 
year I sowed three acres, July 26th. The land 
was an oat stubble that was seeded down the 
previous year and failed to catch. We plowed 
the land three times.' But, to please an English 
friend, the land was neither harrowed, culti¬ 
vated, nor rolled, until after the last plowing. 
I think this was a mistake in our climate. If the 
soil had been thoroughly harrowed and rolled 
after the first plowing, and then cultivated occa¬ 
sionally to kill the weeds, and then plowed just 
before sowing the seed, I think the fallow would 
have been in better.condition, and the soil finer 
and moister. As it was, the clay spots were 
quite rough, and the seed failed to germinate. 
No plaster or other manure was sown on the 
mustard. This was also a mistake. Still, on 
nine tenths of the land, where the soil was fine 
and moist, the seed germinated, and the crop 
grew finely, and gave us a large quantity of 
succulent food. The crop will do to turn on to 
in from six to eight weeks after sowing. By 
the first of October the plants on the average 
were about two feet high; and on the moist, 
alluvial land it grew from four to five feet high. 
I estimated the yield on this rich alluvial land 
at 20 tons per acre, and on the whole field at 
12 tons per acre. 
The composition of white mustard in the 
green state, according to Dr. Voelcker, is as 
follows: 
Composition of white mustard in its fresh state, ns com¬ 
pared with clover, Swede turnip leavos, rape, cabbage, and 
red clover. 
1 
ill 
Rape 
or 
cole-seed. 
Cabbage. | 
g g 
I 1 ! 
Nitrogenous 
compounds, al¬ 
bumen, etc ... 
2.87 
2.08 
3.13 
1.50 
3.30 
0.90 
Non-ni trogenous 
matter, gum, 
sugar, etc. 
Nou-nitrogenous 
matter, Vegeta¬ 
ble fiber. 
4.40 
4.39 
1.61 
5.64 
4.65 
3.56 
6.70 
2.00 
8.40 
4.50 
9.20 
5.00 
Ash or mineral 
matter. 
Water. 
2.04 
86.30 
2.29 
88.37 
1.61 
87.05 
1.20 
89.00 
1.50 
83.00 
1.10 
84.30 
It will be seen that mustard is rich in nitro¬ 
gen and mineral matter. It is wonderful how 
a plant can take up and organize such a large 
amount of these important substances in so 
short a time. Prof. Johnson, in his masterly 
and invaluable work on “ How Crops Grow,” 
gives a figure of a seedling mustard plant, 
showing its root to he thickly covered with an 
innumerable number of minute hairs. “ These 
root-hairs,” lie says, “consist always of tubular 
elongations of the external root-cells, and 
through them the actual root-surface exposed to 
the soil becomes something almost incalculable .” 
A crop of winter wheat yielding 40 bushels 
per acre organizes in grain and straw 353 lbs. 
of nitrogenous matter per acre. And the plants 
are in the ground about ten months. 
A crop of mustard, on land rich enough to 
produce 40 bushels of wheat per acre, would 
probably yield 20 tons of green food ; and this 
would contain 1,148 lbs. of nitrogenous matter. 
In other words, an acre of mustard plants can 
take up and organize from the soil in about two 
months more than three times as much nitrogen 
as an acre of wheat. 
Now, we know that on the greater number of 
our wheat-growing soils the element of manure 
that we most need to give us a large crop of 
wheat is available nitrogen. All our approved 
processes in agriculture tend to this one object 
of furnishing available nitrogen for wheat and 
other grain crops. If I have a field of wheat 
sown on the dry upland portions of my farm 
without manure, that will yield 15 bushels per 
acre, I should expect that 100 lbs. of available 
nitrogen per acre would cause it to produce 
from 35 to 40 bushels per acre. 
This is precisely what we want. We are now 
getting about 15 bushels of wheat per acre, and 
other crops in proportion. We want 35 bushels; 
and if our climate will give us 40, 45, and 50 
bushels, we want such crops. We have to pay 
so much for labor, implements, etc., that we 
must have large crops if we are to obtain a fair 
compensation for our capital, care, and labor. 
That we can make our land rich enough to 
produce from 30 to 50 bushels of wheat per 
acre, according to the season, is unquestionable. 
We must make our land dry and clean, and at 
the same time accumulate in the soil from 150 
to 200 lbs. of available nitrogen per acre, and 
other plant-food in proportion. And we can 
not get this nitrogen from natural sources with¬ 
out at the same time getting a full sufficiency of 
all other elements of plant-food. 
All our so-called renovating crops are rich in 
nitrogen. It will be seen from the above table 
that clover, rape, and mustard all contain more 
than three times as much nitrogen as Indian 
corn. All the cereals, such as wheat, barley, 
oats, rye, Indian corn, and the grasses proper, 
such-as timothy, red-top, etc., are comparatively 
poor in nitrogen. The cereals contain but a 
comparatively small proportion of nitrogen, and 
their roots are not provided with the power or 
means of taking it up in large quantity from 
weak solutions of nitrogen in the soil. Clover, 
peas, beans, vetches, turnips, rape, mustard, and 
other renovating plants contain, as compared 
with other ingredients, a large .proportion of 
nitrogen, and are provided with the means of 
taking it up from a soil relatively poor in nitro¬ 
gen. I do not know that I make my meaning 
clear. But I am very anxious that the matter 
should be understood. I do not believe that 
clover and other renovating plants take nitro¬ 
gen from the atmosphere through their leaves. 
There is no proof of it. The facts all point the 
other way. And yet these plants do get a large 
amount of nitrogen from a soil that will only 
produce 15 bushels of wheat per acre; and 
from a soil that when supplied with 75 to 100 
lbs. more nitrogen per acre will produce, with¬ 
out any other additional plant-food, 35 to 50 
bushels of wheat per acre. 
Whatever the scientific explanation of these 
facts may be, one thing is clear: If we want to 
raise large crops of wheat, barley, oats, rye, 
Indian corn, and timothy hay, we must devote 
a considerable area of our farms to the growth 
of clover and other renovating crops. And, 
contrary to the teaching of some writers, for 
whom I have great respect, I say emphatically, 
these renovating crops must be retained on the 
farm. We must not sell a pound of them. 
Sell the cereals; sell timothy hay if need be;, 
sell straw if you must; sell anything rather 
than clover and other renovating crops. The 
object of raising these crops is to take up the 
nitrogen that is diffused through the soil, and 
concentrate it sufficiently for wheat and other 
cereals to get hold of it. It is as poor economy 
to grow wheat and other cereals without rotat¬ 
ing them with clover and other renovating 
crops, as it would be to gather a light crop of 
hay with nothing but a fork. We first concen¬ 
trate the hay into windrows with a steel-toothed 
rake, and then use the fork for putting the hay 
on to the wagon. Clover is the steel-toothed 
rake. It does not create the hay, nor fetch it 
from another field; it merely gathers it into 
heaps for the fork—-or, in other words, for the 
wheat. The nitrogen is in the ground, but the 
wheat can not get hold of a good forkful until 
the clover has gathered it into heaps. 
But to return to the mustard. It is a far in¬ 
ferior crop to clover. Red clover is and always 
will be the grand renovating crop of American 
agriculture in all sections and soils where it flour¬ 
ishes as well as it does in Western New York, 
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana,Wiscon¬ 
sin, Minnesota, and other wheat-growing sec¬ 
tions. But this is no reason why we should not 
grow other renovating crops when convenient. 
There is no danger of our growing too much of 
them, no danger of getting our farms too rich to 
grow mangolds and Indian corn. 
Until we get hurdles or a good portable 
fence, and adopt the system of folding sheep on 
land, mustard will not be extensively grown 
here except for plowing under as manure. For 
the latter purpose its composition shows it ex¬ 
cellent. A medium crop of say 10 tons per 
acre would contain about 90 lbs. of nitrogen 
gathered from the soil, and when plowed under 
it would be more or less available for the next 
crop. On sandy soils, that are not specially en¬ 
riched by summer-fallowing, mustard could un¬ 
doubtedly he used to advantage as a green 
manure for winter wheat or for Indian corn the 
next spring. For wheat, I would plow the land 
in the spring, cultivate, harrow, and roll, until 
it was as fine as possible, and sow four or five 
quarts of mustard broadcast per acre the mid¬ 
dle of June. By the last of August it would be 
ready to plow under. 
I fear my readers will be tired of the subject, 
and I will conclude with a few extracts from an 
English writer in Morton’s Cyclopedia: “Mus¬ 
tard is considered obnoxious to the wire- 
worms. . . . We know that an abundant crop 
of mustard if plowed into the ground when just 
coming into blossom is an excellent preparation 
for barley or oats. The mustard is best plowed 
in during the month of October or November. 
The land gets the winter’s frost, and may be 
worked into excellent tilth in the spring, merely 
by the use of the scarifier.” 
The experience of the heavy-land farmers of 
Suffolk is in favor of sowing about a peck of 
white mustard on the long fallows in August or 
early in September, and plowing in the herbage 
about six or eight weeks from the time of sow¬ 
ing. The effect upon the barley crop is con¬ 
sidered by practical farmers as equal to half a 
coat of farm-yard dung, obtained at a cost of 
