1850. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
163 
the forest. Often, too, a stone wall ora rail fence, 
bordering a wood-lot, will be half buried by an ac¬ 
cumulation of leaves in various stages of decay. 
Such deposites should be sought out and turned to 
good account. Last season I applied a compost, 
made of this vegetable mould and lime, to my pota¬ 
toes, and I never raised better ones. They came 
out in the fall large and clean, have kept well, and 
cook finely. 
Rich, thickly matted turf may be used for ma¬ 
nure. It should be dug about two or three inches 
deep, and placed in the yard in the spring, and fre¬ 
quently plowed and pulverised during the summer, 
and in the fall carted out and a new layer supplied. 
The hogs like it in their yards, and it is healthy for 
them. A lot of it may also be dug up and piled by 
itself, to rot, and then it can be more readily incor- 
porated with the manure from the stables. If the 
road-side does not afford good turf, it may be taken 
up near the fences in the fields. Where the farming 
has been bad heretofore, there will be high ridges or 
headlands beside the fences, and these maybe taken 
to the yards. Then there are hollows in the pasture 
and elsewhere, that receive riiore than their share of 
the riches of the farm; and by taking a portion from 
them to the compost heap, and from thence distribu¬ 
ting it back to the fields, the farmer may perhaps 
find his income increased. 
All waste vegetable substances, wherever to be 
found, should be gathered up and brought to the 
yards. A systematic saving of this kind, amounts 
to a very important matter, in the course of a year. 
In short, something must be used to absorb those 
portions of the manure in the stables and yards, 
which are too often allowed to escape beyond reach. 
To bring up a worn-out farm rapidly, such a ro¬ 
tation of crops should be adopted on the tillage 
fields as will give each of them a dressing of ma¬ 
nure at regular intervals, and those as frequent as 
possible. The depth of furrow should be gradually 
increased, bringing up an inch or two of the poor 
lower stratum at each breaking up, until a surface 
soil of uniform quality, of nine to twelve inches 
deep, is obtained. The compost should be spread 
on the top of well-turned furrows and harrowed in, 
and the land planted to whatever crop it is best to 
raise. The next season, the surface should be lev¬ 
elled and made mellow, without bringing up the 
sod, and sowed to grain and grass seed. The de¬ 
composing sod beneath will furnish food for the 
growing crops; it will keep the land lighter and 
mellower than would a half-dozen plowings and 
cross-plowings in the spring; it will hold moisture 
for the use of the young grass for several years, in 
consequence of the vegetable deeompositon beneath. 
Grass-seeds should therefore be scattered bountiful¬ 
ly at seeding-time, for thus the soil is filled with the 
kind of vegetation wanted, and a richer turf is 
formed with which to enrich the land at the next 
plowing. Clover should be profusely mixed with 
the other grasses, for by its system of large tap¬ 
roots it fills the soil, draws up a good portion of its 
sustenance from below the reach of the other grass¬ 
es, and the decay of its roots improves the surface 
soil. None of us like clover-for hay so well as some 
other grasses; but while our farms are poor certain¬ 
ly, and our object is to improve them, we cannot 
dispense with the advantages arising from the libe¬ 
ral sowing of it. 
I have often thought that if I had a poor farm to 
bring up, I would not at first attempt to raise much 
grain. In August or September, I would turn over 
as much of mowing-land as I could manure with 12 
to 15 loads of compost per acre, spread the compost 
on the inverted furrows, and re-seed immediately 
to grass, without taking a grain crop. This dres¬ 
sing would probably improve the land as fast as 25 
or 30 loads per acre would, if it were planted one 
year and sowed to grain the next, in the usual way; 
and thus all my tillage land could be sooner brought 
to doing something to remunerate labor. 
Worn-out pastures, level enough to plow, maybe 
improved as fast as leisure can be found to turn un¬ 
der two crops of buckwheat in a season, and then 
sow rye in the fall, and grass seeds on a late snow 
in the spring,—the rye to be fed off the following 
season, while the young grass is getting root. 
The rye should not be taken off in the form of a 
grain crop, for that would sap the land and defeat 
ali improvement. In the immediate vicinity of large 
villages, where pastures and pasturage are scarce 
and high, this kind of management would pay well. 
Steep unproductive hill-sides may be put into a 
more productive condition by planting them out to 
wood and timber; and in this day of rail roads and 
steam mills, no improvement can be made in some 
localities, that will, in the end, pay a better inte¬ 
rest. If planted to trees, these lands lay in a state 
of rest, soon the annual fall of leaves adds fertili¬ 
zing matter to the soil, the rains do not wash them 
so much as before, and thus they are gradually re¬ 
stored to fertility. If poor hill-sides are wanted for 
pasturage, they may be much increased in produc 
tiveness by planting out here and there the common 
white locust tree. It will improve the land and the 
quality of the feed in a very few years. 
Finally, there are numberless methods by which 
our poor old farms may be improved, and that too, 
in a way that shall pay as the improvements pro¬ 
ceed. I have taken up a subject that hardly has 
limits; but I will pursue it no further at this time. 
I will merely remark, that close observation, dili¬ 
gent study, and patient but strenuous industry, are 
the essentia] requisites to good farming in our older 
settled districts of country; and with these, the far¬ 
mer need not fear any rivals, no matter from what 
quarter they hail. F. Holbrook. Brattleboro’, 
Vt., March 4,A850. 
Improvement bg framing. 
Uiiderdrainmg. 
Eds. Cultivator —The subject of draining docs 
not as yet appear to be thoroughly understood by a 
great many farmers. They suppose that they have 
done all that is necessary in this matter, when they 
have furnished a furrow, or shallow channel suffi¬ 
cient to draw off the surface-water before it rots 
the seed, or scalds out a young crop of corn or other 
grain. I believe the want of suitable drainage, is 
the most common cause of the failure of crops; yet 
the disappointed husbandman is often seen looking 
around him in vain for some more remote cause, suf¬ 
ficient to produce the effect. We are familiar with 
the many causes assigned for the repeated failures 
of the potato crop; but any person who has obser¬ 
ved the careless mode of cultivation adopted with 
this vegetable, will not hesitate to assign, as the ori¬ 
ginal cause, the damp vegetable mould, so often se¬ 
lected for the potato patch. It has been a common 
practice with farmers to plant that portion of the 
field to potatoes which was too wet for corn. When 
we add to this, the fact, that the .seed used, has 
been raised in the same way, and that the same pro¬ 
cess has been continued for many seasons, we need 
not be surprised at the result. It is more than pro¬ 
bable that the rapid degeneration of grains, grasses, 
