8 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
cultivated for their seeds, as wheat, barley, &c. are often prejudiced 
by these volatile parts, which cause a rank growth of straw, without 
improving the seed. Hence the first mentioned crops may be fed on 
long manure without lessening its value for the second class, pro¬ 
vided they immediately follow, and hence unfermented manures are 
most economically applied to hoed crops. 
Different rules should govern in the application of fermented and 
unfermented manures. The latter should be buried at the bottom 
of the furrow with the plough, the former only superficially with the 
harrow. The reasons are these—unfermented dung operates me¬ 
chanically while undergoing fermentation, in rendering the recum¬ 
bent soil porous and pervious to heat and air the great agents of 
decomposition and nutrition, and the gaseous or volatile parts being 
specifically lighter than atmospheric air, ascend,* and supply the 
wants of the young roots. The next ploughing turns the residue of 
the dung to the surface, when it benefits on a different principle; 
for fermented manures consist of ponderable substances, which have 
a tendency only to descend. 
Manures possess a high value in a good farming districts, where 
the natural fertility of the soil has been impaired by culture. In 
most of our large towns, it is bought up at one to two dollars a cord, 
and transported ten or twenty miles by land carriage, and much far¬ 
ther by water. So essential is it considered in Europe to profitable! 
husbandry, that every material which imparts fertility is sedulously! 
economised, and applied to the soil. Among other things, ship loads! 
of bones are annually brought from the continent into Great Britain, 
and ground for manure. Bone dust is in such high demand in 
Scotch husbandry, that its price has advanced to 3s. 6<f. sterling per; 
bushel. 
We possess no certain data to ascertain the saving which may be 
introduced into this branch of farm economy ; yet if we put down the 
number of farms in the state at one-tenth of our population or 
200,000, and estimate that an average increase of five loads upon 
each farm might annually be made, it will give us a total of one 
million loads, which, at the very moderate price of 25 cents, would 
amount to $ 250,000 per annum. 
Farm implements .—We must all have noticed the great improve¬ 
ments which a few years have made in the mechanic and manufac¬ 
turing arts. Scarcely a process is managed as it was 20 years ago. 
Scarcely an old machine but has undergone improvements, or given 
place to a better model. Manufacturing operations have been sim¬ 
plified and abridged, and human labor has been reduced to a compa¬ 
rative cypher, by the substitution of machinery and the power ol 
steam. The effect has been a great reduction in the price of manu¬ 
factured commodities, and an increase in their consumption. We 
are assured that during the twelve years which elapsed between 
1818 and 1830, Sheffield wares—hardware and cutlery—experienc¬ 
ed an average reduction in price of sixty per cent, varying upon dif¬ 
ferent articles from forty to eighty-five per cent.f Cotton goods, 
books, and various other fabrics, have undergone a reduction no less 
remarkable within our time. These beneficial changes have result¬ 
ed in a great measure from the aid which science has either itself 
imparted, or which it has elicited from mechanic skill—for a useful 
invention often awakens latent genius, and calls forth successful 
competition, even in the unlearned. No sooner is an improvement 
in the manufacturing arts announced, than it is adopted whenever it 
can be rendered beneficial—such is the facility of intercourse—such 
the desire—the necessity— there, of profiting from every discovery 
which benefits their art. The farmer is less able and less willing to 
keep pace with the march of intellect. He has few opportunities of 
becoming acquainted with the improvements of others, except by 
slow degrees; and he is so liable to be taken in by the catch-penny 
productions of the day, and is, withal, so distrustful of new experi¬ 
ments, that he will hardly venture to buy new implements and ma¬ 
chines, nor to adopt new practices, however beneficial they might 
prove on trial. Mr. Coke tells us that his examples in farming, (and 
few men ever gave better,) only enlarged the circle of their influence 
* A friend made tliis experiment: He trenched a quarter of his garden, and 
deposited a layer of dry straw, three inches thick, one foot below the surface, 
ns the only manure, and planted it with water-melons. The crop, he said 
was the finest he ever grew. On examining the straw in autumn, he found it 
was completely rotted, and reduced to the condition of short muck. He was 
satisfied that his melons had been highly benefitted by the straw while under¬ 
going fermentation, and that, had the siraw rotted in the yard, the volatile 
portions of the manure would have been w holly lost. 
f Babbage on the Economy of Machinery. 
about a mile in a year. Hence, as regards this branch of improve¬ 
ment, we have mueh to do ere we can overtake the spirit of the age,, 
as exemplified in our sister arts. 
Many of our farm implements have undergone improvement; yet 
there are others which have been either but partially introduced, or 
are hardly known, that are calculated to abridge labor and to in¬ 
crease the profits of the farm. There exists a great disparity in the 
quality of implements. In ploughs, for instance, there is a differ¬ 
ence which eludes superficial observation, particularly in regard to> 
the force required to propel them that is worth regarding. I have 
seen this difference, in what have been termed good ploughs, amount 
to nearly fifty per cent, or one-half. The perfection of our implements 
is intimately connected with a correct application of mechanical sci¬ 
ence, a branch of knowledge hitherto too little cultivated among us. 
Mr. Many, the enterprising proprietor of an iron foundry in this city, 
has assured me that there are more than two hundred patterns of 
ploughs now in use in this state. Of this number some may be very 
good, but many must be comparatively bad. But what individual is 
able to decide upon their relative merits, or even to become acquaint¬ 
ed with the different sorts ’ It would be rendering an important ser¬ 
vice to the state at large, and especially to the farming interests, if a 
competent board was appointed, comprising men of practical and sci¬ 
entific knowledge to test thoroughly, by examination and perfectly sa¬ 
tisfactory trial, not only the ploughs, but the other implements ot hus¬ 
bandry now in use, or which may be hereafter invented, and to publish 
the result of their examination, and certify their intrinsic and rela- 
tive merits. Such board might meet once or twice in a year, and 
no inventor or vender who had confidence in the goodness of his 
machine would fail to repair to the place of trial. This would tend 
to call into action mechanical science and skill, in the confidence of 
receiving a just reward; the public would confide in the trial and 
opinions of the board ; good implements would be extensively intro¬ 
duced, and bad ones would bo discarded. The expense of the exa¬ 
mination would bear no proportion to the public benefit. 
Draining .—Few expenditures in husbandry are calculated tomake 
better returns than those made in draining, a branch of labor which 
has had a very limited practice among us, and of which we have yet 
much to learn. Many of our best lands are permitted to remain in 
a comparative unproductive state, on account of the water which 
saturates the surface, or reposes on the subsoil. To render these 
lands productive, even for arable purposes, it is only necessary, by 
well conducted and sufficient drams, to collect and carry off the 
surplus water which falls upon the surface, or rises from springs be¬ 
low. The rationale of draining is briefly this:—Air and heat are 
essential agents in preparing the food of plants which is deposited 
in the soil, and they are also necessary for the healthful develop¬ 
ment of most of the cultivated varieties. These agents are in a 
measure excluded from the soil by the water. The temperature of 
a soil, habitually saturated with spring water from beneath the sur¬ 
face, seldom exceeds 55 or 60 degrees at midsummer. Hence the 
grains and grasses, which require a heat of 80 or 90 degrees to bring 
them to a high state of excellence, can never thrive in these cold 
situations, where they find neither the warmth nor the food suited to 
their habits. But drain these soils, and they become light and po¬ 
rous, pevvious to solar and atmospheric influence, the process of ve¬ 
getable decomposition is accelerated, and a high state of fertility is 
developed. 
One of the modern improvements in draining, which tends very 
much to give permanency to the work, is to dig the trench with a 
spade adapted to the purpose, with a wedge shaped bottom, say three 
inches at the bottom and five inches at the upper surface of the low¬ 
er cut, and to fill this part with broken stone. The trench is dug 
two feet deep before this cut is made, and the wedge shaped bottom 
cleaned with a scraper fitted for the purpose. By concentrating the 
water, it acquires force, and keep the passage open. And if bro¬ 
ken stone is employed, not exceeding three inches in diameter, it af¬ 
fords no harbor for ground mice or moles, which otherwise get in and 
open passages to the surface, through which water and earth are apt 
to enter and choke up the drain. Drains of this description are 
very efficient and economical to keep the bed of a road dry, placed 
either at it sides or in the centre, having a fall to carry oft' the wa¬ 
ter. A cubic yard of stone will lay about 120 feet of under drain of 
the dimensions above given, and eight inches deep. The breaking 
ot the stone will cost three or four shillings the cubic yard. 
The acknowledged utility of irrigation, or of spreading, occasion¬ 
ally, the water from streams or the highways over lands, has led to 
