New England Farmer from Boston, Massachusetts • 1

wwi Ms few Mn ipf MM JkA jferel MrM PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK (AGRICULTURAL WAREHOUSE,) NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET. Vol. XXIV. BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 26, 1845.

No. 22. the haphazard results of a blind chance. If it were so, then indeed men might expect to gather grapes of thorns, and figs from thistles." Then for the most skilful, and economical management of a farm, the cultivator should possess a good knowledge of these laws or scientific principles that have been developed and brought to bear upon the subject, within a very few years past, by the labors and researches of numerous scientific men, both in Europe and this country. Chemistry and geology, as connected with agriculture, are of great importance to the farmer, and by their application to the subject, the reasons of many things that were once dark and mysterious, are revealed clear as the noonday sun.

In view, then, of this, you should study into the nature and uses of the some twelve or fifteen substances that enter into the composition of plants. You should make yourselves as familiar with chemical terms as you are with household words." You can do these things without going to college, or attending a regular course of lectures in geology or chemistry. Club together in town or school district associations, and purchase books treating upon these subjects. Employ rainy days and the long evenings of winter in study. It is loo late in the day, for one to rise up here and tell us the sun, instead of the earth, makes a 'diurnal revolution.

'T is too late for ignorance and prejudice to decry the application of scientific principles to agriculture. In pursuing these studies, you will be led from nature up to nature's God." And oh how unceasingly does He press this, His example not only of unbounded goodness, but of universal charity, above all other men, on the attention of the tiller of the soil Does the corn spring more freshly when scattered by a Protestant hand are the harvests more abundant on a Catholic soil and does not the sun shine alike, and the dew descend, on the domains of each political party?" Every step you advance, will more strongly impress upon your minds eidarged views of the benevolence, as well as wisdom and power of the Deity. Potatoes. A curious fact has been stated to us by a person ii the neighborhood of Carriagline. It is, that, having planted potatoes in beds dressed alternately with fresh seaweed and farm-yard manure, the potatoes on the latter are entirely destroyed by the prevalent disease, those in the beds dressed with sea-weed, have escaped untouched.

The proportion which the infected bear to the healthy roots, varies. In some places the destruction seems almost complete, and the progress of the disease is so very rapid, that in many others it threatens to become so. Even after brought home and housed, the potatoes suddenly rot. Several people who purchased in the market Inst week, and found them excellent for a few days, have since been obliged to throw the remainder out, so that it is impossible, from present appearances, even to guess at the quantity which may ultimately be saved from an acre or a field. Cork Advertiser, Oct.

9. turn it to me, and I will mix some lime with the guano and then, if you smell it again, you will understand all about ammonia and the mixing of lime with manure, and the loss you would suffer by doing it. Perhaps some may say, you told us just now, how you mixed lime with your compost, anil now you tell us it won't do this looks like blowing hot and cold with the same breath. I will try to explain this. When we mix lime with clear manure, it sets the ammonia free, and having nothing with which to combine, it flies off into the air.

the principle upon which I make my compost, is this: I mix the muck and manure; fermentation ensues, and the ammonia is set free from the manure, but instead of flying off into the air, it is imbibed by the muck. After several months, by shovelling over the heap and mixing lime with it, another portion of the nitrogen in the manure is set free, and the muck is more fully saturated, or the whole mass becomes of equal value. There is generally in swamp muck, sulphuric acid and other acids, which the amniorin neutralizes. From what ha been said, you understand the effect of mixing lime with your manure. I have once or twice alluded to plaster of Paris.

100 lbs. of plaster of Paris contains, or is composed of 4G lbs. of sulphuric acid, (or oil of vitriol,) 33 lbs. of lime, and 21 lbs. of water.

That 's what you buy when you go to the Depot and get an 100 lbs. of plaster. So you see it is very different from lime. The sulphuric acid has a strong affinity for alkalies. Now if you mix plaster of Paris with putrid urine, or fermenting manures, the ammonia combines with the acid and forms sulphate of ammonia a soluble, but not volatile substance like the carbonate of ammonia.

Hence there is no more danger of its flying off into the air than there is of common salt but like salt it will dissolve in water. For thesj reasons, I sprinkle my hovel floors, Sec. with plaster. Defore I close, I wish to say a few words to the young farmers of Merrimack county, upon the importance of becoming more familiar with what is called the Science of Agriculture. A physician knows if he binds a cord tight around the arm of his patient, just above the elbow, he can then open a vein below the ligature and draw a quantity of blood.

This is one fact connected with his profession and he knows, also, the why and the wherefore" it is a fact. Now the more of these facts he understands, the better he is qualified for his practice or profession. Will not the same train of reasoning apply to the farmer? Most surely it will. We all know or believe the whole planetary system is governed by certain fixed and inviolable laws, and by the labors and investigations of scientific men, these laws have been so far discovered, that an astronomer can calculate to the fraction of a secondj when celestial phenomena are to recur, after the lapse of long periods of time. Then is it not just as reasonable to suppose the vegetable creation is governed by laws no less certain and fixed You must all say yes.

You cannot believe the vegetable products of this earth are DISSERTATION UPON MANURES: Read heore the Merrimack Society, October 8, 145. By Levi Bartlett, of Warner. (Concluded.) Upon the application of manure to the soil, there seems to be a variety of opinions among farmers. Some plow ir. nil their manure others apply it wholly to the and harrow it in.

Some put it wholly in the at the time of planting. Each one thinks his way the best. "Try all things, and hold tc that which is good," is a maxim that the farmer may safely follow. Various experiments in the application of his even on a small scale, may pretty clearly point out to him the best method for his oun soil for I do not believe the same rule will apply to all soils. I do not think it good policy to apply all the manure to the hill, especially for a corn crop it has the effect to make the corn look well in the early part of the season, but it is rather apt to fit 1 1 short at harvest.

Gentlemen, you perceive I thus far have only spoken of what may more properly be called homemade manures. There are a great many other substances valuable for manures animal, vegetable, saline and mineral. Time now will not permit me even to name them. Should a kind Providence permit us again to meet with you another year, and should it he the wish of the Society to have me continue the subject, it would afford me pleasure to contribute my mite to the cause of agriculture in this my native county. There are a few subjects that immediately concern the farmers of this county, that I wish to speak upon, if I have not already wearied yen.

One of the is lime. Many, very many farmers have inquired of me if it would not be profitable to mix lime with their clear manure they having got the idea that it would enrich it, whereas the very reverse is the fact it will very much lessen its value. You will recollect I told you that manures were valuable in proportion to the nitrogen they contained this nitrogen, combined with hydrogen and formed ammonia; and the ammonia united with carbonic acid and formed carbonate of ammonia, and that was the principal substance that rendered Guano so valuable as a manure. One hundred pounds of limestone, if pure, as taken from the quarry, contains 44 lbs. of carbonic acid and 50 lbs.

of lime. When this limestone is subjected to the heat of a lime-kiln, the acid is driven off, and there comes out of the kiln but 5G lbs. of lime for the 100 put in. But this burnt lime has an affinity for carbonic acid, and if exposed to the air, it again slowly imbibes it, and time will become chemically what it was before being burned. If placed in contact with carbonic acid, it imbibes it sooner.

Now to illustrate this, and to show you the effect of mixing newly burnt or slacked lime with clear manure, I have brought a small box of guano, which I wish to have you that is, you who don't exactly understand what I have been telling you pass round and smell of, and then re What may he done at any time will, probably, be done at no time..