AGRICULTURE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 720, 20 September 1870, Page 4

AGRICULTURE.

A good definition of a model farmer is one that makes his land do double duty without impoverishing it.

The relation, of forest surface to nude surface on the earth affects rainfall, health, happiness, and may check national development. A gravelly sandy soil soon gets tired and needs rest. Spread over it a sheet of manure, and a g;.een coverlid of grass sprigged with clover blossoms, and after a while it will awaken fresh and strong. The best grasses for binding sand are Psamma arenaria or sea-mat grass ; Elymns arcnaris, or sea-lyme grass; and Cynodon dactylon, or creeping dog-tooth grass. But these grasses would not grow on a mud bank, or at least not as well, or not nearly as well, as they do in sand. *'■ As every movement of the animal body is attended by a waste of substance, and as this waste can only be made good from materials supplied in the food, it follows that the greater the amount of exertion an animal undergoes, or the harder it is made to work, the more food it will require, and which, if not supplied, the health of the animal will be impaired. A a general rule, the aptest food of plants is the refuse of the food of animals or the decay of the bodies of animals. Nature moves in a great and admirable cycle. Substances, vile and refnsed of man, the off-scouring and excreta, are taken up by vegetable life, and by the kindly and subtle alchemy of nature wrought over into blade and flower and ear. The manures applied to grass land should be of a mild, slow-acting description, and all ammoniacal manures should be applied only in small doses, and evenly distributed, since anything like an overdose of ammonia tends to develop a coarse inferior sort of herbage. We notice this in the tufts of coarse grass that always spring up when the droppings of the larger animals are suffered to lie in masses on the pasture where they have been deposited ; for the same reason, guano, unless much diluted by admixture •with other substances, caunot be advantageously applied to grass land, and it is apt to excite an excessive development of a rank, inferior description. Genuine guano is an extremely light substance, a bushel of ifc weighing only 68 to 721 b. Hence, by this fact we are furnished with a rude method of ascertaining the genuineness of a sample of guano, since all other substances that are likely to be used to adulterate guano, add to its specific weighs Take a piece of saltpetre about the size of a pea ; put it into the pail before milking. The heat of the milk will disolve the saltpetre, which will effectually prevent the turnip-taste in either milk or butter. The following method has been tried with success : — Take a teacupful of sour cream, put it into the cream-crock after being properly cleansed, then empty the milk into the crock on tho top of the sour cream. It may not be generaUy known that potatoes may be successfully grown in tailings.. We are informed that any person desirous of indulging in the luxury of new potatoes of their own growth, may cultivate this useful tuber by the following direction : — Procure a load or two] of tailings from a puddlinprmachine, and by means of a pick loosen the surface of the soil intended for the patch. On this sprinkle some tailings, about an inch thick. On this lay the sets, and cover them with tailings, forming the whole into a ridge eighteen inche3 wide, and ten or twelve inches in height. We inspected a sample of new potatoes on Saturday last grown in this manner. As the season for potatoe planting is now at hand, this plan may be worth a trial. — M. and D. Advertiser. When manure is spread over the land, there is no necessity of immediately ploughing it in ; indeed, it is highly probable that, not doing so, the soil is more evenly mauured ; the soluble fertilizing materials contained in the manure are washed out by the rain, and distributed more uniformly throughout the substance of the soil, and, as before remarked, on soils that contain a fair proportion of clay, no anxiety need be felt for loss of manuring substances by this course of procedure. On the contrary, in sandy, light, or hungry soils, that possess every little retentive powers, the manure should be added in a well-rotted condition, and not be applied sooner than is absolutely necessary ; since every shower of rain will carry off a portion of the manure intended fur the crop. On soils of this description, the best system of manuring seems to be the application of small but frequent doses. It is chiefly for this reason that the system of liquid manuring succeeds best in light land?. The system of making manure in open yards is objectionable in every respect, perhaps chiefly on account of the facility it affords for the deteriorating influence of rain, wind, and and snow. By these agents tho manure produced is gradually extracted of all valuable fertilizing materials it may contain, and soon becomes next to worthless. In an experiment made on a large scale iv connection with an investigation for ascertaining the relative merits of the different systems of preserving manure, it was found that manure spread in the usual manner over open yards exposed, to the weather loses an enormous proportion of its useful materials ; and, as might be expected, the loss it sustains is the greater in those materials most useful to plarta. After twelve months' exposure, it was found to contain but a trace of material that could furnish ammonia, and a proportionately minute quantity of every other useful substance. After that time, two-thirds of the substance of the manure had been wasie ', while the remaining portion was next to worthless, consisting for the most

part of the woody matter of the straw U3ed as litter.

What we want in our agricultural education is a chance for young farmers — and for old ones too — to get information as they require it. You cannot force learning into a man and make it profitable. Good books and schools scattered among the people, and the practice of our best farmers, whether on ground attached to colleges or on farms — this is the light and the advantage that we want. We do not want to send our sons off on a long regular "course." If they prefer it, and the school a good one, all right. The boy at home having his few books, and the practice of good farming about him, if he has a taste for farming, will far outstrip his college associate ; he grows naturally into it, and has only that which practice has demonstrated, while he has learned his trade more thoroughly than his mate at school can learn it. There is not that interest at school that we find on the farm, where the man takes that maker to heart and makes his business his own, doing fov himself — learning much while the other is only learning (and that not necessarily thoroughly) and practising little- not in his own way and with freedom. The mind wants scope, freedom; it wants to be interested aud directly concerned. Our schoola can hardly do this at the best. It requires the farm to do it, the man working for himself and with his own. Then if he can get aid with what he has— aid as he needs it — this will advance him — this he will not forget, and he will get it better than he could otherwise get it.