124 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
abounding in lime and animal matters, the specific food of that grain. 
Ours is but partially a wheat soil, being principally transition forma¬ 
tion, and containing less, naturally, of the specific food of wheat. 
Another reason is, that our lands have been injudiciously cropped 
and impoverished. They have been made to carry wheat too often. 
A better system of management is obtaining among us, and the 
quality of our wheat is rather improving with good farmers, though 
the inducement for raising it is lessened by the facilities of the west 
for competing with us in this great staple. The valleys of the Hud¬ 
son and Mohawk, formerly great wheat districts, do not at present, 
we think, grow wheat enough for the subsistence of their popula¬ 
tion, throwing out of the calculation the cities of New-York and 
Albany. 
I. H. J. who appears to be a practical farmer, may render us a fa¬ 
vor, and possibly the community a service, by one or two experi¬ 
ments, no matter upon how small a scale. We have intimated that 
lime and animal matters are essential to the successful growth of 
wheat—that they constitute its specific food. These, it is believed, 
do not naturally abound in primitive formations, particularly in old 
fields. We wish to have the correctness of cur opinions tested, and 
our request is, that they may be artificially applied, separate and 
jointly, on different parcels of ground, to be sown with wheat, and 
that the result may be accurately noted and published. Crushed 
bones would supply both materials; or, if the lime is applied sepa¬ 
rately, slaughter-house manure, the urine of animals, soap-boilers’ 
waste, comb-makers’ shavings, fish, &c. would either of them sup¬ 
ply the other material. It is proper to caution against applying any 
of these materials in excess—as a small quantity will suffice, and 
the result will be more satisfactory if the fertilizing materials are 
applied to the crop which precedes the wheat. 
SPADE HUSBANDRY. 
We have no expectation of ever seeing spade husbandry adopted 
in our country, on any thing like an extensive scale. The price of 
manual labor forbids it. Yet we cannot refrain from noticing an in¬ 
teresting article upon this subject in the September No. of the Edin¬ 
burgh Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. A premium of £100 was 
given to Mr. Archibald Scott, “for the best plan of furnishing em¬ 
ployment for the surplus laborers of England.” Mr. Scott’s plan 
consists in trenching with a spade the ground intended for its grain 
crops, and thus substituting manual labor for cattle powrnr in culti¬ 
vating his fields. The plan is not merely theoretical, but has been 
reduced to extensive practice, and found to be highly profitable. 
Mr. Scott pays his laborers Is. 6d. per day, equal to about 33 cents, 
they boarding themselves. At this price of labor, the trenching costs 
him <£4.10 (about $20) per Scotch acre. The soil is 18 inches, the 
top of which is throwm to the bottom, and the whole well pulverized. 
The first experiment was made in 1831, upon 13 acres of summer 
fallow. The profit per acre upon the trenched ground, was £3.18s. 
9d. while that upon adjoining land, ploughed as usual, was only 9s. 
6d. It is to be observed that the ploughings were repeated six times, 
which must unnecessarily have swelled the expense. In 1832, Mr. 
Scott trenched 44 acres with like success. His account of expense 
and profit stands thus : 
By average of 44 bushels per acre, at 7s...£15 8 0 
To rent of land per acre,.£2 10 0 
Expense of trenching,. 4 00 
Seed,. 1 10 
Cutting, threshing and marketing,.... 1 10 0 
Profit,. 9 7 0 
£15 8 0 £15 8 0 
Thus leaving a nett profit per acre, of about $28. In 1833, Mr. Scott 
trenched about 100 acres ; and such was the apparent advantage of 
his method, that his example was being extensively followed in East- 
Lothian. The Scotch contains about a quarter more than the Eng¬ 
lish acre, or about 200 rods; and to trench this, it requires, it seems, 
60 days’ labor. 
The effect of trenching is to clean the ground, and to induce in¬ 
creased fertility, by turning the exhausted surface under, and effect¬ 
ing a complete pulverization. In gardens and other old cultivated 
grounds, trenching is sometimes resorted to even with us, and its 
advantages are found to repay the labor. The data furnished by 
Mr. Scott’s experiments are worth preserving. 
Gypsum. —Raspail has decided, as the result of a series of expe¬ 
riments, that “ it is not the leaves of the leguminous plants that ab¬ 
sorb the gypsum which is dusted over them, but the roots, when the 
dew or rain has washed it into the soil; and hence the advantage 
which has been found of applying this powder a little before the dew 
comes on.” It was the practice of John Taylor, conspicuously 
known as the author of Arrator, and one of the best practical farmers 
in Virginia, to sow his plaster, for tillage crops, before the last plough¬ 
ing, that it might be buried in the soil, where the roots of plants requir¬ 
ed it. In applying it to grass lands, he recommended, if our memory 
serves us, that it be applied early, that the spring rains might con¬ 
vey it to the roots. We have in the pamphlet of Judge Peters, up¬ 
on the application of gypsum, another corroboration of the correct¬ 
ness of M. Raspail’s conclusions: In many instances there nar¬ 
rated, where the gypsum was sown at the commencement of a 
drought, or late in the season, it produced no apparent benefit that 
year. It would be useful if farmers would satisfy themselves upon 
this head, by sowing a part of a field early and a part late, a part 
before the last ploughing, and a part upon the growing crop. So 
far as our opinions have been formed from practice, they are in fa¬ 
vor of sowing on grass in April, and for tilled crops before the last 
ploughing. 
HUMUS, HUMIN AND HUMIC ACID. 
These are terms of recent introduction into the vocabulary of agri¬ 
cultural writers. There has been much controversy as to the na¬ 
ture and properties of this substance, or these substances, for it is 
not agreed yet whether they are identical or distinct. According to 
some, humin is composed of carbon, or charcoal, and hydrogen ; and 
humic acid of carbon and oxygen.* For all practical purposes, it is 
sufficient to know, that these novel terms mean animal and vegeta¬ 
ble matters, upon which fermentation has exhausted its powers, and 
dispelled their gaseous portions, and that it is the identical substance 
which imparts fertility to our soils. “ It is,” says Mr. Tower, in the 
Quarterly Journal, “in point of fact, neither more nor less than the 
substance which constitutes the black reduced mass of an old fer¬ 
mented dung-hill.” Its origin and its properties are summarily ex¬ 
pressed by Van Thaer, the principal of the great Prussian agricul¬ 
tural school, in the following concise quotation. 
“Besides the lour essential elements of its composition, (carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen,) it also contains other substances in 
smaller quantities, viz. phosphoric and sulphuric acids, combined with 
some base, and also earths and salts. Humus is the product of some 
living matter, and the source of it. It affords food to organization. 
Without it, nothing material can have life. The greater the num¬ 
ber of living creatures, the more humus is formed; and the more the 
humus, the greater the supply of nourishment and life, Every or¬ 
ganic being in life adds to itself the raw materials of nature, and 
forms humus, which increases as men, animals, and plants increase 
in any portion of the earth. It is diminished by the process of ve¬ 
getation, and wasted by being carried into the ocean by the waters, 
or it is carried into the atmosphere by the agency of the oxygen of 
the air, which converts it into gaseous matter.”—See Thaer Grund- 
satze, du Rationellen Landwerlhschaft, 4 vols. 4to. 
Marl.—We have received for analysis, a specimen of marl found 
in Granville. It proves to be of little value for agricultural purposes. 
It has too much clay, and too little of carbonate of lime in its com¬ 
position. The rulo in England is, that unless marl contains more 
than thirty per cent of carbonate of lime, it is of no value to the 
farmer. “ Of all the modes of trial,” says Parke, “ the one best suit¬ 
ed to the farmer, is to observe how much carbonic acid gas the marl 
gives out, and this he will learn by dissolving a little of it in diluted 
muriatic acid, and observing what portion of its weight is lost by the 
escape of the air. Thus, if an ounce loses only from forty to forty- 
four grains in weight, he may conclude that the ounce contained on¬ 
ly 100 grains of carbonate of lime”—and consequently is not appli¬ 
cable in those cases where the soil requires lime. The marl should 
be completely dried and pulverized previous to trial, and both it and 
the acid should be accurately weighed before and after the test, in 
order to know the amount of gas which escapes, and which amounts 
from 40 to 44 in every 100 parts of carbonate of lime. It is to be 
borne in mind, however, that clay improves the mechanical texture 
* Raspail asserts, that these are “ simple alterations, either spontaneous or 
artificial, of the woody textures ,”—[New System of Organic Chemistry,'] pie- 
paratory to their entering into new organizations. 
