THE CULTIVATOR. 
139 
contrasting very strangely with the richness and order 
that encompass it. Sheep, feeding upon turneps, check¬ 
ed off by light wooden hurdles, into patches of a few 
rods square, were frequently seen throughout the coun¬ 
try. Perhaps 20 confined to a patch; the fat sheep being 
turned on first, the store sheep following, and the re¬ 
maining bottoms grubbed up with the hoe. Your read¬ 
ers must remember, that there is scarce a day in thirty of 
a British winter, in which the ground is not as soft as in 
May; and cabbage beds are made up, and brocoli trans¬ 
planted under the winter solstice. I saw “ Prime Ohio 
Cheese, just arrived,” placarded in a shop window in the 
center of Birmingham! The market was well stocked 
with meats and with fish in abundance. From Birming¬ 
ham to Worcester, was gone over in the evening, but 
next morning, had (for a wonder in England,) a clear 
sky, and an April air, to look about the market. 
Every man who sells meat in England, pays for a li¬ 
cense, and he who sells meat, has no authority ex officio 
to sell fish. Hence, in nine cases in ten, the porkman 
has no veal, and the poulterer no beef, and the vegetable 
vender none of either. Each has his own stall, number¬ 
ed and ticketed, and wares displayed before him in most 
seducing shapes; from a single chop for 3d. to the leg 
for twice as many shillings, from a penny-worth of beef 
to the red and golden quarter, from a two-penny bunch 
of celery, to the bunch for half a crown. So I found 
them on that Saturday morning, (market day) at Worces¬ 
ter. Every avenue about the market house, and the 
streets in the neighborhood, were lined with country 
people, (most of them women,) who had come in upon 
their donkeys, or in horse carts; some with eggs, some 
with cabbage; all clamorous for the sale of their com¬ 
modities. That effected, the shop-keepers, or the stall 
women, who display all sorts of finery under a range of 
sheds near by, would relieve them of the few pennies re¬ 
sulting from their sales, and by the middle of the after¬ 
noon, the donkeys and the horse-carts are pouring in ev¬ 
ery direction, home. I was much struck with the pecu¬ 
liarly white appearance of the poultry, of which there 
was a profusion; the heads were left on, and passed un¬ 
der the wing: the feet also remaining, and trussed ready 
for the spit. The butter was rich to the eye, and the 
prettily stamped half pound cake, on my breakfast table, 
rich to the taste. The Herefordshire beef is preferred in 
the market, and the Yorkshire cows, I was told, were 
held in most esteem for the dairy. 
Worcestershire is famous for its hop culture; 4,000 
acres in the county being annually devoted to that crop. 
The “ Hop market” is a large area, enclosed by high 
brick walls in the center of the city. On the way to Glou¬ 
cester, the road passed through some of the plantations. 
Nothing was at that season to be seen but the poles com¬ 
pactly arranged in stacks, about the fields, and thatched 
over. The farm houses and cottages in the neighbor¬ 
hood of Worcester, are of every conceivable shape, all 
thatched, and presenting every variety of peak, window, 
and chimney top. 
In the afternoon, I walked through Spetchley Park, in 
the neighborhood, and took occasion to look about a qui¬ 
et farmery stowed away in one of its corners. The buil¬ 
dings screened on three of their sides by thickets of ev¬ 
ergreens, and arranged in very picturesque, though as it 
appeared, very serviceable disorder. The more recently 
erected of them, were of brick or stone, and slated, the 
others thatched; all in trim order. The farm house 
would have been a model in America for fancy town cot¬ 
tages; though its shape sat most gracefully upon its own 
green plat, (which lies before the door of every cottage 
in England,) and was separated by a light wood paling, 
from the broad park beyond. I approached the build¬ 
ings through the rick yard, where were some dozen of 
large stacks of wheat, barley, beans, &c. set up two feet 
from the ground upon stone pillars; underneath, the 
poultry were scratching after the dropping kernels. In 
the barn, two laborers were threshing wheat upon a slate 
floor, with flails similar to those in use with us. Before 
I left, the threshers suspended labor for dinner; and what 
was it ? Half a barley loaf, and a bit of cheese!—this 
eaten, squat upon the straw, and moistened with a jug of 
water, and cut in pieces with their pocket clasp knives. 
This is no joke; it was their dinner; and yet a stone’s 
throw away, lay the three hundred acre park for old oaks 
to fatten on, and herds of deer to dance over, and scores 
of hares to trip about, and breed, and die upon. Let our 
farmers and farm laborers, thank Heaven that they are 
not set down within the range of such odious contrasts. 
And yet, and it is a shame to every man in America, who 
has a spot of land and a soul—these same laborers, dining 
on barley bread, will save enough of time and of means, 
to put out the sweet brier at their cottage window, to 
train the ivy up their chimney side, and to keep the 
grass green and velvety at their door. What for ? Do 
you say what for ? “ Out of the ground , made the Lord 
God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.” But 
I must make another letter regarding stall arrangements, 
drainage, &c., at this farm of Mr. Berkeley’s, and half a 
dozen, I fear, out of a week spent in Devonshire. , My 
next, however, shall be of Jersey. 
Yours truly, D. G. Mitchell. 
MR. NORTON’S LETTERS—No. X. 
Multiplication and Analyses of New Manures—Guano 
from a new locality. 
Lab. of Ag. Chem. Association, Edinburgh, Feb. 27, 1845. 
Mr. Editor —As the mind of the agricultural com¬ 
munity is becoming fully aroused to the necessity of 
employing every available means for producing and sus¬ 
taining a high state of fertility in the soil, it is a natural 
consequence that the varieties of manures should increase 
with the demand; and that as new light has been thrown 
upon the subject, attempts should be made to imitate na¬ 
ture by artificial mixtures. More especially has such 
been the case in this country since the discovery of gua¬ 
no and the application of nitrate of soda and other saline 
substances. The farmers certainly cannot fail for lack of 
a variety from which to choose. Advertisements of ar¬ 
tificial guanos better than the natural, of patent inorgan¬ 
ic manures, of admirable seed steeps, meet him on every 
side. Judging from these highly colored pictures, no 
land can much longer remain barren. A few hundred 
weight per acre will remedy the worst evils. 
Fortunately for the farmer, he is not now obliged to 
trust wholly to the professions of interested parties; for 
in chemical analysis rightly applied, he has a weapon fa¬ 
tal to imposition. I may as an illustration, give an in¬ 
stance which has lately fallen under my observation in 
this Laboratory. A manure entitled the “ Cornwall Pa¬ 
tent Manure,” has attracted much attention for some 
months past, and circulars have been distributed, setting 
forth its virtues in unmeasured terms. One of them is 
before me, in which it is said (< to have an admirable ef¬ 
fect upon wheat, oats, barley, beans, peas, cabbage, po¬ 
tatoes, turneps, carrots, &c; to be an excellent top dress¬ 
ing for grass, and with the rain water, to forma solution 
destructive to animal life, destroying grubs and worms, 
to possess all the essential qualities of phosphate of lime, 
with the advantage of exerting a powerful chemical ac¬ 
tion in decomposing the rocks and soil, thereby affording 
potash and soluble silicates.” 
These are only a part of its alleged virtues, and it must 
be confessed that they make a goodly show. Unfortu¬ 
nately, however, for the credibility of such statements in 
this part of the country, a sample of the manure was sent 
by a gentleman not connected with its manufacture, to 
this Laboratory for analysis. The result was as follows*. 
Carbonate \>f lime,. 69.76 per ct. 
Hydrate offline,. 9.37 
Sulphate of lime,. 0.43 
Common salt,. 0.34 
Oxide of iron,. 1.67 
Alumina,. 1.93 
Water,. 0.65 
Insoluble siliceous matter,. 15.46 
99.61 
What a falling off is here. We have every reason to 
suppose that this was a fair average specimen; if so, this 
boasted manure is seen to be no better than some of the 
best marls. A great portion of it is probably shell sand, 
and it will be especially noticed after the above puff, that 
there are absolutely no phosphates. The whole bears 
