58 
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THE CULTIVATOR. 
the first of September, and sow your timothy seed after the harrow, 
eight quarts to the acre; then use a roller, which breaks the lumps. 
It may be fed off during the fall, by calves, colts, or sheep, without 
any disadvantage. If you intend it for wheat, sow it about the twenty- 
fifth of September, and follow the same method as with the rye : sow 
clover in the spring, when the ground is open in cracks, about six 
pounds to the acre. By following the above directions, I have al¬ 
ways realized a good crop of grain, and a great crop of grass ; and 
the ground may and ought to remain in sod six years, before plough¬ 
ed again. 
[From the Memoirs of the Board of Agritulculture ] 
REMARKS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF CATTLE YARDS. 
By J. Buel, of Albany. 
Vegetables, like animals, cannot thrive or subsist without food; 
and upon the quantity and quality of this depends the health and vi¬ 
gor of the vegetable, as well as of the animal. Both subsist upon 
animal and vegetable matter—both may be surfeited with excess— 
both may be injured by food not adapted to their habits, their appe¬ 
tites, or their digestive powers. A hog will receive no injury, but 
great benefit, from free access to a heap of corn or wheat, where a 
horse or cow will be apt to destroy themselves by excess. The goat 
will thrive upon the boughs and bark of trees, where the hog would 
starve. The powerful robust maize will repay, in the increase of its 
grain, for a heavy dressing of strong dung; for which the more de¬ 
licate wheat will requite you with very little but straw. The potato 
feeds ravenously, and grows luxuriantly, upon the coarsest litter; 
while many of the more tender exotics will thrive only on food upon 
which fermentation has exhausted its powers. But here the analo- 
y stops : For while the food of the one is consumed in a sound, 
ealthy, and generally solid state, the food of the other, before it be¬ 
comes aliment, must undergo the process of putrefaction or decom¬ 
position, and be reduced to a liquid or seriform state. 
I have gone into the analogy between animals and vegetable thus 
far, to impress upon the minds of our farmers the importance of sav¬ 
ing, and of applying, the food of their vegetables with the same care 
and economy that they do the food of their animals. How scrupu¬ 
lously careful is the good husbandman of the produce of his farm, 
destined to nourish and fatten his animals ; and yet how often care¬ 
less of the food which can alone nourish and mature his plants ! 
While his fields are gleaned, and his grain, hay and roots carefully 
housed, and economically dispensed to his animals, the food of his 
vegetables is suffered to waste on every part of his farm. Stercora- 
ries we have none. The urine of the stock, which constitutes a 
moiety of the manure of animals, is all lost. The slovenly and waste¬ 
ful practice of feeding at stacks in the fields—where the sole of the 
grass is broken, the fodder wasted, and the dung of little effect—is 
still pursued. And finally, the little manure which does accumulate 
in the yards, is suffered to lay till it has lost full half of its fertilizing 
properties, or rotted the cills of the barn; when it is injudiciously 
applied, or the barn removed to get clear of the nuisance. Again— 
none but a slothful farmer will permit the flocks of his neighbors to 
rob his own of their food ; yet he often sees, but with feeble efforts 
to prevent it, his plants smothered by pestiferous weeds, and plun¬ 
dered of the food which is essential to their health and vigor. A 
weed consumes as much food as a useful plant. This, to be sure, is the 
dark side of the picture ; yet the original may be found in every town, 
and in almost every neigborhood. 
It is surprizing, that under such management, our arable grounds 
should grow poor, and refuse to labor its accustomed reward ? Can 
it be considered strange, that those who thus neglect to feed their 
plants, should feel the evil of light purses, as well as of light crops'? 
Constant draining or evaporation, without returning anything, would 
in time exhaust the ocean of its waters. A constant cropping of the 
soil, without returning any thing to it, will in like manner exhaust it 
of its vegetable food, and gradually induce stertility. Neither sand 
clay, lime or magnesia—which are the elements of all soils—nor any 
combination or part or all of them, is alorte capable of producing 
healthy plants. It is the animal and vegetable matter accumulated 
upon its bosom, or which art deposites there—with the auxiliary aid 
of these materials diffused in the atmosphere—that enables the earth 
to teem with vegetable life, and yield its tribute to man and beast. 
I will now suggest a cheap and practicable mode of providing food 
for vegetables, commensurate to the means of every farmer of ordi¬ 
nary enterprise ; and that my suggestions may not be deemed the¬ 
oretical, I will add, that I “ pactice what I preach.” 
The cattle-yard should be located on the south side of, and ad¬ 
joining the barn. Sheds, substantial stone walls, or close board fen¬ 
ces, should be erected at least on the east and west sides, to shelter 
the cattle from cold winds and storms—the size proportioned to the 
stock to be kept in it. Excavate the centre in a concave form, plac¬ 
ing the earth removed upon the edges or lowest sides, leaving the 
borders ten or twelve feet broad, and of a horizontal level, to feed 
the slock upon, and from two or five feet higher than the centre. 
This may be done with a plough and scraper, or shovel and hand- 
barrow, after the ground is broken up with the plough. I used the 
former, and was employed a day and a half, with two hands and a 
team, in fitting two to my mind. When the soil is not sufficiently 
compact to hold water, the bottom should be bedded with six or eight 
inches of clay, well beat down, and covered with gravel or sand This 
last labor is seldom required, except where the ground is very po¬ 
rous. My yards are constructed on a sand loam, resting on a clay 
subsoil. Here should be annually deposited, as they can be conve¬ 
niently collected, the weeds, coarse grass, and brake of the farm; 
and also the pumpkin vines and potato tops. The quantity of 
these upon a farm is very great, and are collected and brought to the 
yard with little trouble by the teams returning forom the field. And 
here also should be fed out, or strewed as litter, the hay, stalks and 
husks of Indian corn, pea and bean haulm, and the straw of grain 
not wanted in the stables. To still further augment the mass, leach¬ 
ed ashes and swamp earth may be added to advantage. These ma¬ 
terials will absorb the liquid of the yard, and, becoming incorporated 
with the excrementitious matter, double or treble the ordinary quan¬ 
tity of manure. During the continuance of the frost, the excavation 
gives no inconvenience ; and when the weather is soft, the borders 
afford ample room for the cattle. In this way the urine is saved, 
and the waste incident to rains, &c. prevented. The cattle should 
be kept constantly yarded in winter, except when let out to water, 
and the yard frequently replenished with dry litter. Upon this plan, 
from ten to twelve loads of unfermented manure may be obtained 
every spring for each animal; and if the stable manure is spread 
over the yard, the quality of the dung will be improved, and the 
quantity proportion ably increased. Any excess of liquid that may 
remain after the dung is removed in thespring, can be profitably ap¬ 
plied to grass, grain or garden crops. It is used extensively in 
Flanders and in other parts of Europe. 
Having explained my method of procuring and preserving the food 
of vegetables, 1 will proceed to state my practice in feeding or ap¬ 
plying it. It is given, every spring, to such hoed crops as will do 
well upon coarse food, (my vegetable hogs and goats.) These are 
corn, potatoes, ruta baga, beans and cabbages. These consume the 
coarse particles of the manure, which would have been lost during 
the summer in the yard ; while the plough, harrow and hoe eradi¬ 
cate the weeds which spring from the seeds it. scatters. The finer 
parts of the food are preserved in the soil, to nourish the small 
grains which follow. The dung is spread upon the land as evenly 
as possible, and immediately turned under with the plough. It is 
thereby better distributed for the next crop, and becomes intimately 
mixed and incorporated with the soil by subsequent tillage. Thus, 
upon the data which I feel warranted in assuming, a farmer who 
keeps twenty horses and neat cattle, will obtain from his yards and 
stables, every spring, 200 loads of manure, besides what is made in 
summer, and the product of his hog-sty. With this he may manure 
annually ten or twelve acres of corn, potatoes, &.c. and manure it 
well. And if a proper rotation of crops is adopted, he will be able 
to keep in good heart, and progressively to improve, sixty acres of 
tillage land, so that each field shall be manured once every four or 
five years on the return of the corn and potato crop. 
From the New- York Farmer. 
CULTIVATION OF TARES AND SWEDISH TURNIPS.—BY S. HAWES. 
Mr. Fleet, —Having grown during the past season some tares 
and Swedish turnips, favorite crops with English farmers, I venture 
to send you some account of the culture and produce of both. About 
an acre of land in good condition, not having been recently cropped, 
was ploughed once, harrowed and then sown with three bushels of 
spring tares and half a bushel of oats on the 1st of May last. I had 
not the seed early enough, or the tares should have been sown by 
the middle of April. 
They grew most vigorously, and by the end of June, were in flow¬ 
er, producing quite as much herbage as I ever saw them produce in 
England—indeed abundant; more than twice as much as any clover 
