Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1861-03-02
Crops Without Manure.

they will apply with equal force to this
country:
Already we are spending $4,000, 900
year in torei On nanures, says the
London .Ners, and to have to increase
this expenditure will be Il co,lnterpoise
to any economy of grass at home. AS
if to meet this anxiety, agricultural art
is now showing that the greater part of
this outlay for foreign manures is need
less. When the agricultural knowl-
edge which is now enriching the few
has extended to the many, it will be a
subject of surprise and vcXation that
we should have thrown away millions
of money and years of disputation with
the Peruvian and other governments
ON foreign manureS, which have been
for the most part unnecessary.
IT is to the application of geological
and chemical science tia! we owe the
discovery of the waste we have been
making. AS an illustration take the
case of the Lois Weldon h,lshandry,
now at last exciting the attention which
it should have obtained a dozen years
ago. At Lois Weldon an agrculturist
has for seventeen years raised wheat
crops on the same soil--crops now
amounting to from tliriy-siX to forty
bushels per acrc-witlout the applica-
ton of any manure at all. This gem
tIcman, the Rev. :. Smith, understood
the composition Of our clay lands--thc
great OK panse of wheat land which we
have as yet hardly begun to develop.
1t was clear to- linn that the mineral
elements requisite for wheat production
had never been either developed or
husbandcd as they might be by our
traditional methods Of tillage and he
has proved. by Il continued success of
seventeen years, that he .julg gel rightly.
1t is enough to say here that he has
turned up an increasing depth to the
air. and that by this method half the
soil is left falow each year alternately.
He sows his wheat in triple rows with
the space of foot between them, and
leaves an interval of three teet--thc
stnhhle of each season being the fall
lows Of the next. The uncqualca quail
.ity of the straw thus airily grown, and
the excellence Of the grain it bears, arc
nndisputcd: and there can be no ques
lion as to the productivcMcSs when, in
fact, the moicty Of each acre produces
the quantity we have stated, on soil
which was at first Of only average
quality.
The economy of manure is even car
ricd further. Light soils, unsuitable
for wheat, are MANFRED with clay
merely, and thus raised to a wheat
bearing quality. improvements of a
kind like this open wide prospects of
economy and fertility at once, and
should raise our spirits more than any
bad weather should dcprcss them; and
when we see that seventeen years may
be required to teach us how to use our
own soil for the production of our daily
food, we may well question whether
our occasional difficulties from I'M
toward seasons arc not evils Whlcll'wc
may expect to ontgrow.
The improved hushandry is sufli-
cient answer to the apprclicnsions cx-
pressed 10y some melancholy men who
calculate the number of years that the
guano and other special manures will
hold out, and conclude that then we
must starvc.
SOUR MILK FOR CALvE>.-A writer
in the New England Farmer, says that
ID. NJ. Corwell, OF Massachusetts, took
ten hcifcr-calvcs last spring, and COM
mcnced feeding them on sour milk ut
few days old, keeping them on the
same kind of food during the summer,
taking good care to feed them uni
fonnly, but not very abundantly, so as
to keep them growing thrifty, with
out forcing too rapidly. In the fall
they were put in the stables, and fed
on hay and little meal, increasing the
quantity of the latter gradually, with
view of fitting them for beef in the
spring, at one year old or little under.
These ten calves now look like young
oxen, and are estimated to weigh 500
pounds each.
TREATMENT OF HENs.-Two focks of
hens were compared. One laid eggs
almost all the time the other scarcely
any. On examining their treatment,
the following differences were found to
exist; the former had a warm cellar to
roost in during the winter; the latter
roasted in the stable where the wind
blew in. The former had fine place
in all open cellar for scratching among
ashes, lime and earth the latter scratch
;ntr in tho mon,,ra hnor Or in tho cto