by one of the most distinguished agricultural writers in that
country--Arthur Young. It was a lecture read, a few years before,
to the British Board of Agriculture, of which Mr. Young was the
Secretary. Its title is, "On the Husbandry of three celebrated
British Farmers, Messrs. Bakewell, Arbuthnot and Ducket,"--all
eminent for genius, enterprise, application, and long experience. It
was to do honour to their memories, "and to bring to recollection
the means by which those celebrated practitioners, in the first
and most important of all arts, carried their agriculture to a
perfection unknown before," that the lecture was written and
published. And this, Mr. Young observes, would be more peculiarly
useful, because those men, "confining themselves to practice alone,
had left no register of their own meritorious deeds." I will
present to you the substance of the information contained in this
pamphlet, as in itself very important, and because the practice of
Arbuthnot and Ducket has a direct bearing on the points I am now
considering--DEEP PLOUGHING and MANURING.
"Mr. Ducket had sand, and sandy soils alone, to deal with; but
Arbuthnot's land classed among those harsh, wet, tenacious loams,
which are usually called clay, and ought to be esteemed such,
relative to every circumstance that attaches to difficulty and
management." Passing by what Mr. Young says of Arbuthnot's draining
operations, I content myself with mentioning the principal of that
improvement: "Lay your land dry, whatever may be the method pursued,
before you attempt any thing else."
"In respect to tillage, Mr. Arbuthnot carried it to great
perfection: He invented a swing plough for a pair of horses and the
general depth of six inches, and a much larger one with wheels, for
gaining the depth of 12, and even of eighteen, for some peculiar
crops, especially madder. Upon the advantages of deep ploughing he
never had the least hesitation; but always declared that in all
he had read or heard, he never met with one argument against the
practice that had with him the smallest weight."--"In the essential
operation of ploughing, he considered one earth [that is, one
ploughing] well timed, and of a right depth, as being much more
efficacious than that repetition of tillage so common in every
district."[12]
[12] The repetition of tillage here reprobated, refers, I presume,
to the numerous ploughing given by many English farmers, at that
period, preparatory to the putting in of their crops; which the
single, deep and "efficacious" ploughing of Arbuthnot rendered
unnecessary.--Were our ploughing for Indian Corn and Root Crops
alike _deep_ and _efficacious, before planting_, shallow tillage
(called horse hoeing) with light ploughs, during their growth, would
suffice.
A judicious rotation, or round of crops, has long been considered,
in England, essential to good husbandry: and so it is by skilful
farmers in our own country; particularly in the middle States,
where clover, so highly important in the rotation, has, for more
than thirty years, been rendered wonderfully productive, by the
application of plaster of Paris. The most usual course in England
has been (excepting on stiff clayey soils) first year turnips,
manured and kept clean by hoeing; the second year barley, with
clover seed; the third year the clover mown for hay; and its second
crop, at wheat seed time, ploughed in, and, where necessary to fill
the seams, the ground harrowed, the wheat sown, and then harrowed
in. This is called "wheat upon a clover lay."--But by the long and
frequent repetition of clover, (that is, once in _four_ years)
in their rotations, lands in England became (as they express it)
"sick of clover:" and I have been informed that some lands in our
middle States, long subjected to the like application of clover,
exhibit like symptoms of disease or failure. But Mr. Arbuthnot
introduced clover once in _three_ years, without suffering by such
more frequent repetition. "He attributed the failure of this plant
to shallow and ill-executed ploughing; the result (says Mr. Young)
justified his opinion."
Mr. Young mentions a lecture he had read to the Board of
Agriculture, "on the means by which a farm can be made, by a right
proportion of all the products, to support itself, without foreign
assistance, in a state of high fertility, a question depending on
the quantity or weight of dung resulting from the consumption in
litter of a given weight of straw." This lecture I have not seen.
But he considers the question as successfully decided, in Mr.
Arbuthnot's practice, in the following manner; 134 sheep and 30
lambs were turnip fed, in a pen on a headland, well littered with
straw: in six weeks they required nearly six tons of straw [to give
them clean and comfortable beds:] and in that time made 40 tons
of dung, equal to that brought from London [stable dung it is to
be presumed.] So every ton of litter produced near seven tons of
dung.--But this weight must have been obtained chiefly by the earth
of the headland absorbing the urine, of which, when fed on turnips,
sheep make great quantities, and being finally mixed with their
dung and litter. This recital reminds me of the recommendation, in
my address to this Society, in May, 1818, to carry earth into the
barn yard, once in every two weeks, from spring to autumn; adding to
every layer of earth a coat of litter. I should then have advised a
plentiful spreading of litter, had I not known that our courses of
husbandry in Essex yielded very little straw.
In the same communication to the Society, I presented my ideas
on the proper application of manure; to wit, _always to bury it
up quickly, when carried to the field_, to prevent great loss by
its exposure to the sun and air; remarking, that the essence of
manure was lost, not by _sinking_ into the earth below the roots
of cultivated plants, but by _rising_ into the atmosphere, and so
fleeing away. Here, also, I have the satisfaction of seeing the
theory I had formed nineteen years ago (in the manner suggested
in that communication) supported by the opinions and practices of
such eminent agriculturists as Messrs. Arbuthnot and Ducket. After
noticing Arbuthnot's cultivation of madder, an article requiring a
rich soil and extremely deep tillage, Mr. Young says, "there was
one circumstance in his management, which, being applicable to more
important articles, merits a more durable attention; this is, the
depth to which he ploughed in the dung: his tillage went to that of
eighteen inches; and he conceived there was no danger of losing,
by this circumstance, either _vegetable_ or _animal_ manures, as
_their_ tendency, contrary to all _fossil_ ones, was not to _sink_,
but to _rise_ in the atmosphere." Fossil manures are lime, marl,
plaster of Paris, and other substances dug out of the earth, which
increase the productive powers of soils.
Mr. Ducket's manner of applying dung, although his was a sand farm,
was similar to Mr. Arbuthnot's.--"Immediately connected with the
depth of tillage, is that to which dung may be safely deposited. He
[Mr. Ducket] had not the least apprehension of losing it by deep
ploughing; but freely turned it down to two or three times the depth
common among his neighbours." Yet Mr. Young says, that farmers (and
good farmers too) persist in a contrary practice. But he adds,
"Enlightened individuals, thinly scattered, know better: having
convinced themselves that Mr. Ducket's practice is not only safe but
beneficial;" and then names one who "ploughs in his dung as deeply
as his ploughs can go, turning it in nine inches, and would bury it
twelve, did he stir to such a depth."
Confirmatory of the correctness of the practice of these two
celebrated English farmers, is the fact stated by Mr. John Sinclair,
President of the British Board of Agriculture, in his account of the
Improved Scottish Husbandry. He mentions one farmer who ridged his
carrot ground, and buried the manure sixteen or seventeen inches
deep, the ridges thirty inches wide. This farmer preferred, as a
manure, a well prepared compost of peat-moss[13] and dung, ten tons,
or double cart-loads, per English acre. "The dung (or compost) being
at the bottom, makes the tap root of the carrot push immediately
down, and swell to an enormous size; the roots being often sixteen
inches in girt, and 18 or twenty inches in length."
[13] In Scotland their peat-lands are called peat-mosses.
To return to Mr. Ducket. His deep ploughing (says Mr. Young) was
not practised above once in two or three years, and the successive
tillage shallow. "By such deep ploughing, seldom given, Mr. Ducket
conceived that a due degree of moisture was preserved in his _light_
land, by means of which his crops were flourishing in seasons
of drought which destroyed those of his neighbours: and no one
could more severely condemn the ideas which governed the Norfolk
farmers, in leaving what they called their _pan_ unbroken at the
depth only of 4 or 5 inches.--The operation of ploughing he thought
could scarcely be given too seldom, provided when given it was done
effectively: and he always carried this paucity of tillage as far
as circumstances would permit: thus I have known him put in seven
crops with only four ploughings." In another part of his lecture,
Mr. Young says, "If I were to name the circumstance which more than
any other governed his (Mr. Ducket's) practice, I should say that
the whole was founded in trench ploughing; and that the principle
which governed this practice (a principle thoroughly impressed upon
his mind, as well as on the minds of those who draw intelligent
conclusions) was that of giving as little tillage as possible to
sandy soils."
"The next circumstance which I shall advert to (says Mr. Young)
in the husbandry of Mr. Ducket, is the use of _long, fresh dung_,
instead of that which in common management is turned and mixed till
it becomes _rotten_: and in justice to his memory, I shall read the
short recital of his practice, as I printed it three-and-twenty
years ago. "Dependent on the Trench-Plough,[14] is Mr. Ducket's
system of dunging. He conceives, and I apprehend very justly, that
the more dunghills are stirred and turned over, and rotted, the
more of their virtue is lost. It is not a question of straw merely
wetted; but good _long_ dung he esteems more than that quantity of
_short_ dung, which time will convert the former to. _Two_ loads
of _long_ may become _one_ of _short_; but the two are much more
valuable than the one. Without the Trenching-plough, however, his
opinion would be different. If long dung is ploughed in, in the
common manner, with lumps and bundles sticking out at many places
along every furrow, which lets the sun and air into the rest that
seems covered, he thinks, so used, it is mostly lost, or given
to the winds: in such a case, short rotted manure will be better
covered, and should be preferred. But with his plough nothing of
this happens; and it enables him to use his dung in such a state as
gives him a large quantity instead of a small one. The good sense
of these observations must be obvious at the first blush." Mr.
Young adds--"_The use of_ FRESH _instead of_ ROTTEN _dung, is, in
my opinion, one of the greatest agricultural discoveries that has
been made in the present age_." He then states a striking experiment
made by himself--67 small cart loads of fresh yard dung produced
two successive crops of potatoes, yielding together 742 bushels;
at the same time, the same quantity of yard dung, after 6 months
rotting, yielded 708 bushels, leaving [to the fresh long dung] a
superiority of 34 bushels. But had the fresh dung been kept as long
as the other, it would have required at least twice, perhaps thrice
as much, to have produced the quantity used." [That is, twice or
three times 67 loads of fresh long dung, if kept and often turned
and mixed to produce fermentation and rotting, would have shrunk,
or been reduced, to 67 loads of short rotten dung.] "If the crops
therefore had been only equal, still the advantage [of the fresh
dung] would have been most decisive."
[14] The Trench-Plough of Mr. Ducket's invention was so admirably
contrived as completely to bury whatever was intended to be turned
in. Mr. Young says he saw him turn down a crop of rye, six feet
high, so that not an atom was left visible; and yet the depth
did not exceed eight inches. Trench ploughing has sometimes been
effected in this country by a second plough following in the same
furrow after the first, and going a few inches deeper.
"I shall not quit (says Mr. Young) the husbandry of two men who
carried tillage, on soils so extremely different, to its utmost
perfection, without remarking the circumstances in which they
agreed. Both were equal friends to deep ploughing; both rejected
the common repetition of tillage, and reduced the number of their
operations to a degree that merits attention; both rejected
fallows; and both ploughed deeply for depositing manure, without
any apprehension of losing it. These are very important points in
Practical Agriculture."
To this account of the successful practices of these two celebrated
English farmers, it may be useful to subjoin a few observations. I
have thought it proper so far to present them in detail, in order
to develope principles; not expecting a _precise_ adoption of
their practices; which indeed, without their or similar superior
ploughs and other implements, would be impracticable: but with such
instruments as we possess, or may easily obtain, we can materially
increase the depth of our ploughing, and I hope contrive effectually
to cover our manure. _This should be wholly applied to Tillage
Crops_; for which the manuring should be so ample as to ensure a
succession of good crops through the whole rotation, without the
aid of any additional manure, especially for wheat, rye, barley or
oats: for besides increasing the seeds of weeds (with which all our
lands are too much infested) such additional manuring, _immediately_
applied to the small grain crops, renders them more liable to injury
from mildews. Of this I am fully satisfied, as well from numerous
statements of facts which I have seen in books of husbandry,
as from the circumstances under which remarkable mildews have
otherwise been noticed. One of our countrymen, who wrote a short
essay on the subject prior to the American Revolution, has given
the only solution of the causes of mildews that has ever appeared
satisfactory to me: perhaps at some future time I may find leisure
to show the correspondence of facts with his principles.[15]
[15] This essay, subscribed "A New-England-Man," is published in the
2d volume of the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture.
(To be continued.)
_To Farmers._--In the winter of 1818-19, a gentleman in this city
made the following experiment. He placed a turkey in an enclosure
about four or five feet long, two feet wide, and three or four feet
high. He excluded as much light as he could without preventing a
circulation of air, and fed the turkey with soft brick broken into
pieces, with charcoal also broken, and with six grains of corn per
day. Fresh water was daily supplied. The box or coop in which the
turkey was placed, he always locked up with his own hands, and is
perfectly confident that nobody interfered with the experiment.
At the end of one month he invited a number of his neighbours among
others two physicians. The turkey, now very large and heavy, was
killed and opened by the physicians, and was found to be filled up
full with fat. The gizzard and entrails were dissected, and nothing
was found but a residuum of charcoal and brick. To conclude the
examination satisfactorily, the turkey was eaten, and found to be
very good.
Last winter he again repeated the experiment with the same success.
The circumstance by which he was induced to make the experiment
is a very curious one. One of his neighbours informed him, that
being driven from the city by the fever of 1793, his family
recollected that some fowls that had lived in a kind of loft over
his workshop, had been forgotten in the hurry of their removal, and
would certainly be starved. They were absent six or eight weeks,
and on the retiring of the pestilence returned. To their great
astonishment, the fowls were not only alive, but very fat, although
there was _nothing but charcoal and shavings_ that they could
have eaten, and some water that had been left in the trough of a
grindstone had supplied them with drink.
[_Nat. Recorder._
_Introduction of Glass Making in France._
(From Parke's Chymical Essays.)
The government of France, in the early part of the fourteenth
century, took great pains to improve the manufacture of glass, and
ordained that none but gentlemen, or the sons of the nobility,
should be allowed to exercise the trade, or even to work as
artificers in the manufactories of this most highly esteemed
commodity.--In consequence of this injunction, a company of persons,
all born gentlemen, was incorporated, and obtained many important
privileges and immunities from the state; particularly that of being
allowed to work at this curious art without derogating from their
nobility. It is indeed asserted by the writer,[16] who is the best
authority we have on this subject, that there never was an instance
of any one being attainted, to whom these privileges had been
granted; for they conducted themselves so irreproachably, that these
orders were invariably transmitted inviolate to their posterity. In
the year 1453, Anthony de Brossord, Lord of St. Martin, and prince
of the blood royal, finding the business of glass making to be so
considerable; and knowing that it did not derogate from nobility,
obtained a grant from the Prince to establish a glass house in his
own county, with prohibition of any other; and in consequence of
this, the elder sons of that family continued uninterruptedly to
exercise the art till the latter end of the sixteenth century, when
the proprietor was killed while commanding a troop at the siege of
Chartres.--On the death of this individual the younger sons of the
same family undertook to carry on the art, and continued in it for
more than a century. Whether the trade continues still in the same
line, I have not been able to ascertain.
[16] Blancourt.
An ancient family of the name of _Vaillant_, also obtained the
grant of a glass house, as a recompense for their valour and public
services, together with a poignard d'or, on azure, for their
arms.--Mr. Blancourt, who long resided in France, likewise notices,
that at the time he wrote, they had many other great families among
them, who were descended from gentleman glass-makers that had
declined following the art; and that some of these had been honoured
with purple, and with the highest dignities and offices in the state.
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
_Anecdote of Anthony Benezet_,
Not inserted in Vaux's interesting Memoir of that Philanthropist.
Soon after the arrival of the Chevalier Luzerne, minister from
the court of France, Benezet called on him with a French copy of
Barclay's Apology, with a view of informing him of the principles of
the Society of Friends. The minister being a Knight of Malta, and of
course at enmity with the Turks, appeared much surprised that any
professed Christians should object to the destruction of the Ottoman
Empire--which increased on being informed that his profession
would not permit taking the life of any man: on which the minister
observed that it was _very good_, but too _straight_ for him to
object to killing a Musselman.
The interview prepared the way for frequent visits to the
embassador, who always received him with pleasure, the latter often
observing that he had but a small body; but added, extending his
arms nearly at full length, as if to embrace a large object--"_Oh
what a capacious soul he possesses!_"--evincing by his whole
conduct, that he valued him as an extraordinary man, possessing true
Christian principles.
G.
MISCELLANY.
_The English, a Foreign Tongue._--We extract the following from a
French paper:
"An etymologist has lately published the following analysis
of the English language. Its vocabulary, he says, is composed
of 6621 words of Latin origin, 4361 of French, 2068 of Saxon,
1288 of Greek, 660 of Dutch, 229 of Italian, 117 of German, 11
of Gaelic, 83 of Spanish, 81 of Danish, 18 of Arabic, besides
many others of ancient Teutonic, Hebrew, Swedish, Portuguese,
Flemish, Russian, Egyptian, Persian, Cimbrian, and Chinese!! The
same etymologist pretends, that in Shakspeare, Pope, Swift, and
Milton, _there are not many more than a hundred words purely
English_!"
So that it would appear, that when we meet an acquaintance in the
street, and accost him with "How do you do this morning?" and he
replies "pretty well, I thank you," we are probably speaking half
a dozen languages at once. What "learned Thebans" we must be! In
this way a man who has a tolerable understanding of _Dilworth's
spelling book_ must be no inconsiderable linguist while one, who
can read _Johnson at sight_, must be a perfect _Polyglot_. The poor
Burgeois gentilhomme was quite amazed to find, that he had been
speaking _prose_ all his life without knowing it; and we are no
less astonished on discovering that we had been talking _Russian_,
_Egyptian_, _Persian_, _Cimbrian_, _Teutonic_, and _Chinese_, for
years, without having ever dreamed of it. There have been great
controversies among the learned as to what was that formidable
dialect, which arose at Babel, out of the confusion of tongues, but
after this discovery we can have no doubt that it is that very
English which we all speak, and instead of High Dutch, which some
have supposed was the language used by Adam in Paradise, we do now
verily believe, that it was that _pure English_, of which so few
traces have been left!--_Lou. Adv._
"_A Stitch in time, saves nine._"--A celebrated French writer on
political economy, M Say, has this story:--'Being in the country,
I had an example of one of those small losses which a family is
exposed to through negligence. For the want of a latchet of small
value, the wicket of a barn yard looking to the fields, was often
left open; every one who went through, drew the door to; but having
no means to fasten it, it remained flapping: the poultry escaped,
and were lost. One day a fine pig got out and ran into the woods.
Immediately all the world was after it; the gardener, the cook, the
dairy-maid, all run to recover the swine. The gardener got sight
of him first,--and jumping over the ditch to stop him, he sprained
his ancle, and was confined a fortnight to the house.--The cook, on
her return, found all the linen she had left to dry by the fire,
burned; and the dairy-maid having run off before she had tied up
the cows, one of them broke the leg of a colt in the stable. The
gardener's lost time was worth twenty crowns, valuing the pain at
nothing; the linen burned, and the colt spoiled, were worth as much
more. Here a loss of forty crowns and much pain, trouble, vexation,
and inconvenience, for want of a latch, which would not cost three
pence, and all through careless neglect.'
_Rats._--The following curious mode of catching rats is extracted
from the works of Muller, an apothecary of Weringerode, in Germany:--