Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-09-08
Experiments in Farming.


The value of science 10 agriculture is well
set forth in the following description OF the
Experimental Farm of Professor Mapes, in
this vicinity. which is furnished the Nation
al I%ntelligencer by a New York correspond
ent.-N. y. Tribune.
Science is gradually making its way to
the farmhouse and lending its powerful and
important aid to agricultural pursuits. As
an incentive to others 10 "go and do like
WISE" | will state very briefly what a prac-
teal chemist is now doing in this vicinity in
experimental farming. Professor Mapes, for
many years past a resident in this city, and
well known as a good chemist and scientific
man, concluded last fall to turn his attention
TO agriculture. For this purpose he purchas-
ed a small farm of about forty acres in New
Jersey. between two and three miles south
west Of Newark. He is now in the midst of
his first season, and yesterday ! went out TO
his place in company with some of the mem
beers of the American Institute, TO see what
sort of a start he had made in his new pur-
suit. The result was highly gratifying, and
left the impression that this little experiment
tai farm will help to give a valuable stimulus
to the agriculture of The country. The basis
Of his soil is principally a disinterested sand
stone, with a heavy mixture OF clay. The
farm had been occupied for some years past
by a mechanic, who had paid but little at
tention to it, and was in a low state of culti-
vation, thus making it a fair field to test the
results of chemical farming.
On our arrival, we were seated awhile in
the Professors snug parlor, where he gave
us a general account Of the farm, the nature
of the soil, the sources and the mode of pro-
curing, preparing, and applying manures, the
effects of various chemica action in the COM
position of manures, and their influence upon
vegetation. In short, it was an admirable
chemical lecture applied to agriculture. He
then took us over the farm to see what he
had done and what he was preparing to do.
At the barn we found two yokes of the hand
soonest and most powerful working oxen /
have ever seen.
"Where did you find such cattle2
81 called a man to my aid who was a first
rate Judge Of animals, and told him to go out
and look for them, directing him to bring me
two pairs of the best oxen he could find be-
tween New York and Bangor, regardless of
the expense"
The result was that he brought back these
cattle at about 5000 a yoke, "and cheap
enough at that" said the Professor. One
pair weighed about $500 pounds. We then
went into the field 10 see them plough, and
the ease with which they took the ploughs
through the soil seemed more like the work
of a powerful steam engine than Of animal
power. The first yoke cut a iurrow sixteen
inches in depth. The next followed with
the sub-soil plough in The same furrow, cut
ting and loosening the earth sixteen inches
below the first furrow. The Professor saws
deep ploughing is very important for large
crops. Some of the %ploughing is thirty-six
inches deep. His system Of preparing and
applying manures is scientific and important,
and, judging from present appearances, he
will produce remarkable results. The sci
ence of a succession of crops in the same
season, without impoverishing the soil, is of
vast importance. The Professor says that
from a single acre he shall take off this sea-
son eight hundred bushels OF potatoes, three
thousand five hundred cabbages, and six hun
dred bushels OF tnrnips, which must be worth
five or six hundred dollars at the lowest mar
ket prices. His crop Of cabbages this sea-
son he calculates at eighty thousand heads.
lie has a new variety Of potato, which he
calls the nutmeg potato, of which he ex-
poets TO raise this season eighteen hundred
bushels, which will be disposed of for seed
at one dollar a bushel. He calculates that
he will have a hundred and twenty thousand
nutmeg melons for market this season, which
certainly ought to average two cents apiece,
and at that price they would yield twenty-four
hundred dollars. There is on the farm a
great variety of other vegetables and crops to
which | make no reference.
Unlike most farmers, he does not leave a
strip of waste along by the side of his fences,
but cullivates every inch snug 10 the fence.
Against each post in the fence he sets out a
fruit tree, and midway between the posts a
grape vine, which, as it runs and spreads,
will rest on the fence. In this way he will
soon have three miles of grape vines and
fruit on ground hich ordinary farmers would
let run to waste. He uses his farm like a
giant machine of wonderful powers, if pro-
perly and scientifically handled. He en-
ploys upon it about twenty hands, but says
in a high state of cultivation i: wca!d give
employment to eighty.