250 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
August 
WHAT MANURE DOES THIS FIELD NEED ? 
This inquiry is beyond question one of the most fre¬ 
quent and important that presents itself to the far¬ 
mer. 
With the light which has, within the last-few years, 
been thrown upon the subject of manures, their naturej 
and the secret of their value, something like a practi¬ 
cal course has been revealed. It may be illustrated as 
follows: 
If a soil fails to produce a given crop, it is because 
it either wants the requisite texture , or it wants cer¬ 
tain essential inorganic ingredients, or it may be defi¬ 
cient in both. 
If vegetable refuse in sufficient quantity has been 
strown over and plowed in, the deficiency of one or 
more essential inorganic ingredients , must be considered 
the solution of the failures. 
Now how shall this deficiency be ascertained ? How 
shall it be determined what a soil needs ? 
It may need gypsum, or phosphates, or potash, or 
soluble silica, or lime. It may be benefitted by ashes, 
or poudrette, or guano, or fish. But it probably does 
not need all , and would not, probably, be equally bene¬ 
fitted by them severally. 
Which, then, shall be selected? How shall any one 
without aid, be enabled to determine what will benefit 
his soil most ? 
The following suggestions are made in general re¬ 
ply to this inquiry. 
Having prepared a few square yards or rods, so that 
the texture shall be all that is desired, let equal areas 
—six feet square each, for example—be accurately 
measured and staked. If the soil in the same field be 
variable, each kind may be treated for a separate ex¬ 
periment. 
Then let equal quantities by weight, of a thoroughly 
pure grain, wheat, or rye, or oats, or any other it may 
be desired to try, be sown and covered, in these seve¬ 
ral areas. Only one kind of grain will be employed 
in the experiment. If others are to be tried, let sepa¬ 
rate areas be selected and prepared—a suit for each 
grain. 
Then take small quantities of gypsum, potash, soda, 
ashes, bone-dust treated with diluted sulphuric acid, 
night soil, or any of the so called manures it may be 
wished to try, and put them upon or near the surface 
of the soil. If deeply buried, they might be dissolved 
by rains, and carried down beyond the reach of roots. 
Now all will receive from the frost, the rains, the 
dew, the sunshine, and the drouth, the same treatment. 
From the native soil they will derive equal measures 
of nutriment. 
But from the added manures they will derive une¬ 
qual advantage. Some of the additions will contain a 
desired ingredient—others will not; and the relative 
values will be indicated in the relative weights of the 
ripened grain at harvest. 
The seed was weighed. The harvest must be 
weighed. The better manure will be pointed out in 
the higher weight and plumper appearance of the 
grain. 
That the manures may be compared, and the relative 
profits of this or that readily estimated, positive quan¬ 
tities should be employed, that is, such, that by mea¬ 
sure or weight, the cost of that used may be accurate¬ 
ly known. ^ 
The weighing for the occasion, if not otherwise con¬ 
venient, might be made with the sugar and tea scales 
of the nearest grocer As the grain to be sown is, for 
each lesser piece of ground to be the same in weight, 
the quantity for one being determined, it may be placed 
in one scale pan, and the other parcels severally 
balanced against it. 
There is some trouble in all this care about quanti¬ 
ties; but if the conviction be deepened that a faithful 
attention to them is indispensable in experimentation 
that is to b© of value, it may perhaps be more cheer¬ 
fully engaged in. 
It sometimes, indeed frequently, happens that far¬ 
mers purchase large quantities of a given manure, be¬ 
cause they have learned that it had been found servicea¬ 
ble in particular cases. They hope to reap a profit 
commensurate, within certain limits, with the amount 
of manure employed; regardless of the greater or less 
correspondence there may exist between the soils upon 
which it had been found profitable and their own. 
They employ it. They are disappointed. The ma¬ 
nure does not contain what their soils need, though it 
may have been admirably suited to the improvement 
of others. 
What the producer wishes in making purchases of 
raw material, is, to obtain as much of that which can 
be used, and as little of that to be thrown away, in a 
given quantity, as may be. 
So with the grain grower. He wishes to pay for 
just that which will grow wheat, or corn, or oats. 
Other materials, of no service to the immediate crop, 
only to be washed away by rains before a seed 
demanding them shall be sown, he cares less to pay 
for. E. N. Horsford. 
Cambridge Laboratory , May , 1847. 
Nutriment in Different Substances. —Dr. War. 
wick, an English lecturer, gives an interesting compa¬ 
rison of the amount of nutriment contained in different 
vegetable and animal substances, and the time for their 
digestion'. Of vegetables, he considers that beans con¬ 
tain most nutriment. As to animal substances, he re¬ 
marked that mutton contained 29 per cent, of nutri¬ 
ment, beef 26, chicken 25, pork 24, cod and sole 21, 
haddock 18, &c. As to digestion, boiled rice occupied 
an hour, sago an hour and forty-five minutes, tapioca 
and barley two hours, stale bread two hours, new bread 
three hours, boiled cabbage four hours, oysters two and 
a half hours, salmon four hours. Venison chops one 
and a half—mutton three—beef three—roast pork five 
and a quarter—raw eggs two—soft boiled eggs eight— 
hard ditto, three and a half. 
Pumpkin Crop. —J. B. Noll, of Monroe county, 
Ohio, raised the past year on 97 rods of land, or a little 
less than five-eighths of an acre, about 19,000 lbs. of 
pumpkins, besides 70 bushels of potatoes, and 20 bu¬ 
shels corn. Most of the pumpkins averaged 21 lbs. 
each—five averaged 83 lbs. each. The pumpkins were 
at the rate of about 15 tons to the acre. 
Durability of Manure. —A writer in the Farmer 
and Mechanic states that he has noticed the bottoms 
of coal-pits, between 65 and 70 years after the burn¬ 
ing, so fertile that they invariably bore heavy crops of 
grass or grain. This manure, it is known, consists of 
burnt earth, ashes, charcoal, &c. Common barn ma¬ 
nure becomes nearly or wholly exhausted in a compa¬ 
ratively short period. 
