292 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
to be injurious to vegetation, but even tlie peat 
dug from these bogs is readily corrected, aud 
made valuable by composting with lime. Men 
who have once begun to tap the muck mines 
generally go in deeper every year, until the 
wants of their farms are fully supplied. The 
writer has derived so much benefit from the use 
of muck in his farming, that he has no doubt it 
is, to most farmers, the cheapest and best 
amendment of their soils. He would apply it 
in large quantities to all sandy and gravelly 
loams, and, when composted with other ma¬ 
nures, to all soils under the plow. So rare is it 
to find poor or poisonous peat, that the pre¬ 
sumption is, in every case, that a peat or muck 
swamp is a mine of wealth to the farm. We 
should not want to work land in any of the 
older States, that had not this source of im¬ 
provement upon it or very near it. If the 
swamp has never been worked, it is easy to test 
it in a single season. Throw out a quantity of 
muck, and if, after the first winter, weeds grow 
freely in it, it is a good article. Rank weed£ 
indicate luxuriant corn and potatoes. Or, take 
the weathered muck, and mix it with sand, and 
plant a few flower seeds in it. Or, better still, 
spread a few bushels of it upon the grass, and 
note the results. When you have found a good 
bed, work it largely, as if you had faith in it. 
If 500 cords are thrown out the present season, 
there will be use for the whole of it. It is of 
great advantage to have it dug, and drawn out 
upon hard land, aside from its improvement by 
exposure to the weather. It loses more than 
one-half of its weight in the water which drains 
from it, and this saves one-lialf the expense of 
cartage. Then it is always accessible, and a few 
loads can be put into the yards or stables, as 
wanted. It is ameliorated by exposure to the 
air, the rains, and the frost. The more fre¬ 
quently it is overhauled, the more rapidly it 
improves. If it is to lie upon the banks of the 
ditch or pit whence it is thrown out, boards 
should be put beneath it, to make the drainage 
thorough. Unless the peat is of very good 
quality, and in quite limited quantities, it is 
usually better not to dig more than six feet 
from the surface. There are several ways of 
using peat to advantage. Some varieties are so 
good that when weathered they can be applied 
directly to the land, as a top-dressing for grass, 
or be plowed in for hoed crops. But these are 
exceptions to the general rule. As absorbents 
are wanted, peat is often the most convenient 
article that can be used, and, applied in sufficient 
quantities, it prevents all loss of ammonia in 
the stables, sties, yards, sub-drains, and privies. 
It is a complete deodorizer, and could be profit¬ 
ably used for this purpose alone. Some have a 
gutter constructed at the rear of the stalls, and 
put about a bushel of muck in the gutter daily 
to each animal. This is thrown out every day, 
and mixed with the solid feces, and more muck 
is added to the heap of compost. Others keep 
a bed of the peat, say 10 inches thick, constant¬ 
ly under the animals, bedding well with straw, 
and renewing the absorbent every ten days. 
The animal heat hastens decomposition, and we 
know of no way in which peat can be so rap¬ 
idly transformed into a good fertilizer. Olliers 
have movable floors to the stables, and the 
muck is thrown into the pit beneath, which 
saves all the liquid manure. If the stables are 
in constant use, the muck should be re¬ 
newed every six months, or oflencr, if thor¬ 
oughly saturated. It is also much used in 
making a compost with stable manures. A 
layer of peat one foot thick is placed upon the 
ground. The heap for convenience in working 
should be not less than eight feet broad, four or 
five high, and of any desirable length. Upon 
the layer of peat put three inches of manure, 
then one foot of peat, and so on in alternate lay¬ 
ers, until the heap is finished. It should lie in 
heap for two or three months, and be forked 
over twice. We have found a compost made 
in this way quite as effective as stable manure. 
Various other articles are used for composting 
with peat, such as night soil, Peruvian guano, 
ashes, lime, dead animals, factory wastes, etc. 
Every farmer should owm Professor Johnson’s 
little work on “Peat and Its Uses,” where these 
matters are very fully discussed. 
Tillage During the Growth of the Plant. 
The stirring of the soil around cultivated 
plants is a very important part of husbandry. 
Just how much it will do for all our crops has 
never been satisfactorily determined by accu¬ 
rate experiments. If some have thought it was 
the one thing needful, aud tried to prove it, 
their experiments have not made a very deep 
impression upon the public mind, for intelli¬ 
gent farmers keep right on making and apply¬ 
ing manures at very great expense, showing 
that they have quite as much faith in manure 
as in tillage. Men are prone to ride hobbies, 
and tillage, perhaps, has been overestimated by 
a very few agricultural writers. We think the 
tendency now among our best farmers is towards 
a more thorough and frequent cultivation of 
crops, and their conviction is very strong that 
it pays as well as any other application of la¬ 
bor upon the farm. Our inventors have re¬ 
sponded to this conviction, and given us im¬ 
proved tools to cheapen tillage. The hand-hoes 
and scarifiers have reached the last limit of 
lightness and convenience. We have a variety 
of harrows and cultivators for horses, which, 
in many parts of the country, have almost en¬ 
tire!}'' superseded the hoe for field crops. These 
tools have greatly reduced the expense of culti¬ 
vation, and made it more frequent and thorough. 
The first office of tillage is to destroy weeds. 
These grow very rapidly in summer, especially 
where the land is foul and rich, and unless sub¬ 
dued, damage the crop. They want the same 
nourishment as corn and irotatoes, and, if neg¬ 
lected, will diminish the crop more than one- 
lialf, and make it cost more than it can be sold 
for. Many farmers lose money on their field 
crops from this neglect, and if they would make 
a careful estimate of the cost of labor bestowed 
upon a particular field, and compare it with the 
market value of the crop, they would see it. 
Tillage not only destroys weeds, but makes the 
soil ready to receive the full benefit of the rains, 
the dews, and the atmosphere. When the sur¬ 
face of the ground is disturbed by the hoe or 
cultivator, the particles are left loose, and drink 
in the rain and dew greedily. The air also cir¬ 
culates more freely in the soil among the roots 
of plants. Ammonia, in very small quantities, 
is brought down by the rains, and the roots of 
plants get the full benefit of it. Soon after cul¬ 
tivation, a thin crust forms over the soil, and 
the better the quality of the soil, the thicker this 
crust, and the more frequently it needs to be 
disturbed. Tillage is to a certain extent a sub¬ 
stitute for rain as well as for manure. Every 
careful observer has had occasion to notice this 
in times of drouth. The curled corn leaves will 
expand under the influence of the cultivator 
and the-hoe. Just how much cultivation will 
pay we may not be able to tell. But there can 
be no doubt that the crops would pay for much 
more than they get. The practice is increasing 
rapidly in England for farmers to sow their 
wheat with drills, and cultivate it. Thus they 
get a largely increased yield. In fact, the aver¬ 
age yield per acre is nearly twice the average 
crop that we get in this country, where wheat 
is almost never cultivated. Farmers who have 
the sulky cultivator sometimes cultivate their 
corn as many as six times, and get seventy or 
eighty bushels to the acre. They manure well, 
it is true, but they claim that their frequent cul¬ 
tivation pays as well as the manure, and we 
think they are right. The old-style farmers, 
who hoe their corn the third time, claim that 
the last cultivation is as profitable as the first 
and second. It pays not only in the larger yield, 
but in clean fields the next and following years. 
We have noticed in mechanics’ gardens, kept 
scrupulously clean by an hour’s work at morn¬ 
ing and evening, much better crops than in 
farmers’ gardens where there was plenty of ma¬ 
nure, but much less cultivation. The man -who 
hoed his cabbages every morning before break¬ 
fast carried the joke a little too far, perhaps, 
but he had a splendid crop. We are confident 
that once a week is none too often to put a cul¬ 
tivator between the rows of corn, until it gets 
too big for the operation. We should like to 
see an experiment tried on corn to show the 
difference in yield between twice cultivating or 
hoeing, which is the old-style treatment, and 
thorough cultivation six times, which some of 
our best farmers practice. 
•-- 
Medicating 1 Animals. 
Some of our domestic animals are removed 
almost as far from a state of nature as we 
are ourselves. Subjected to the influences 
of civilization, they are made liable to acci¬ 
dents and diseases which would never trouble 
them but for their association with man in his 
unnatural life. We may shield our animals 
from many ailments, by attending to their diet, 
the cleanliness of their quarters, to the purity of 
the air they breathe, to proper shoeing, yoking 
and harnessing, etc., but nevertheless they will 
occasionally become diseased, or injured, aud 
need medical or surgical care. We are'badly 
off for veterinary surgeons in this country, and 
in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred the own¬ 
er must do something for his sick animal, or 
stand by and helplessly watch the progress of 
the disease. A physician of large practice and 
experience told the writer not long since, in 
deprecating the habit of people drugging them-_ 
selves, and applying to apothecaries and phy¬ 
sicians for medicine, not being satisfied unless 
medicine be given, that attimeshe felt almost as 
if it would be a blessing to humanity if all taking 
of drugs could cease, and both patients and phy¬ 
sicians would be forced to prove the efficacy of 
good nursing aud attention to diet and the general 
sanitary condition of the system. Another phy¬ 
sician of great and good repute in New York 
City remarked if he could have his choice of 
hospitals in which to treat 100 patients sick 
with usual diseases, and could get a dry, sunny 
field, protected by a wood, and have canvas 
for shelter, he would much prefer the latter- 
place, and felt confident he would report a 
much larger proportion of cures. If these are 
tacts with relation to the human being, how 
much more important must it be for animals 
not to be injudiciously drugged, and confined 
indoors ! Every farmer ought to know how to 
recognize early symptoms of disease or dis¬ 
ordered functions in his animals, and be able to 
apply simple remedies. The best class of reme- 
