Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-11-21

SENSIBLE REMARKS.

| at the maryland Agricultural FaH on tne
10th ult., we make the following extracts:
II protest against the current notion that
poor men must grow poor crops, unless they
have taken some monkish vow to remain poor
forever. Here is one who has inherited or
somehow acquired cot and few sterile
acres, but has no money, no team, no tertili-
zers what shall he do? answer: What
ever he may do, let him not cultivate one acre
more than he can so feed and till as to give
reasonable assurance of a good crop. Far
better work out by the day or month than to
waste our time and strength on cultivation to
no purpose. Let him have one acre plowed
and subsoiled thoroughly, fertilize it amply,
set few fruit trees along its north side, and
make each square rod do its best in the pro-
duction of roots, vegetables and Indian corn,
while working out by the day four or five
days in each week and six days during the
hurry and high wages of the summer harvest,
and he will get ahead much faster than by
half tilling ten or fifteen halfplowed, niggard,
unmanured acres, and thus growing what will
range, according to the season, from scanty
half crops to no crops at all.
The Fence Law.-One of the first elements
of successful renovation is law such as we
have in New York, compelling every man to
take care that his animals do not injure his
neighbor's crops-in other words, that we
must thoroughly fence our respective cattle
Yards and pastures. not our whole farms. The
saving in fences thus effected is immense; !;
but that is only one of its blessings. I value
above this the liberty accorded to each of us
to grow wood on our own lands wherever we
will, without being obliged to fence out our
neighbor's cattle, especially while roaming in
ravenous pursuit of food in early spring.
If you mean to renovate your farm, begin
by throwing out the acres you cannot fertilize
some some years ahead, and cover these with
wood as soon as you may. The very first step
in renovation to the average farmer is to limit
the area on which labor and capital must be
bestowed.
Deep Plowing.-IfI insist on deep tillage
as essential to good farming, you will under
stand that this, like every sweeping rule, is
liable to exceptions. For, 1. There is much
land too rocky, too precipitous, or too sterile,
to be cultivated at all and, 2. There is good
land so full Of stumps or strong tree-roots that
it should be got into grass as speedily and
cheaply as possible thus to remain till it may
be thoroughly pulverized without injury to
team or pillow. But any field that is to be
cultivated henceforth, continuously, or by fire.
quent alterations of grain with grass, ought
to be plowed deeply and thoroughly, by sur
face and subsoil, as preparation for pro6ta-
BILE tillage. Mind that say subsoiled, which
means pulverizing the subsoil and leaving it
subsoil, not turning it up to the surface and
leaving it there. I think I have seen even
this done with profit, especially where the
subsoil is clay, with several inches Of sandy
loan above it; but subsoiling is quite another
process-one very generally required while,
up to this hour, not one acre in each hundred
under cultivation in this country has ever been
subjected to it.
Manues-A. to fertilizers, I place gypsum
or plaster first on the list, without supposing
it to be of equal value everywhere, or even Of
ces. And yet doubt if hill or dry plain
can be found ten miles inland, on which a first
application of plaster to the extent of two
hundred pounds per acre, would not be repaid
in the very next CROP more especially if that
crop were clover. Wherever ground plaster
may be had for less than 500 per ton Gas it
can in most parts of the Union), hold that
each farmer who has not yet tried it should
buy at least one ton, applying it to ten acres,
in strips of two rods width, alternating with
like breadth left unsown, and carefully
watch the result. If no benefit is realized,
he may safely conclude, not that plaster is a
humbug, but his land does not need it, or that
he has not known how and when to apply it.
In my own case, judge that have bought
no other fertilizer that has paid so amply and
speedily as plaster.
AS to lime, am not so confident In any
district where it is burned, so that the refuse
from the kilns may be bought unslacked and
scarcely yet cold, for few cents per bushel,
there I cannot doubt the profit Of its applica-
tion on almost any dry soil, but especially
one well supplied with vegetable matter-a
drained bog or swamp for example. The
English apply it profusely to heavy clays to
break them up and render them friable; and
they would not persist in 80 doing without
reason, Wherever the spontaneous growth Of
sorrel and other acid plants indicate def
cheney of alkali there I judge that lime
would prove serviceable. If unleached wood
ashes could be had as cheaply, would much
prefer them, especially on sandy or gravelly
soils; but as no sensible cultivator of such
soils ever sold his ashes, they are rarely to be
had in considerable quantities, except in the
immediate vicinity of one Of the few cities or
larger villages which still relies mainly on
wood for its fuel. Plants need lime, feed upon
it, thrive by it, and 1 have known large crops
of wheat grown successfully on field where
of the soil for at least two feet downward was
at least nine-tenths broken limestone, resting
on solid bed rock of the same. apprehend
that lime is destined to play very important
part in the renovation of our worn out farms,
though it may never be used so bountifully
here as in England. The late Prof. Mapes
calculated that, since mineral particles act on
vegetation only by their service, and our lines
is many times finer than the British, an appli-
cation of fifty bushels per acre here was equiv
alent to one of the $50 bushels of that burned
from the coarser chalk of the British Isles.
have very high opinion of salt as fer
tilizer. It may not be wanted near the coast,
where saline spray is often driven inland
for miles but estimate its value at twenty
FIVE cents per bushel on my place, which is
some twenty miles from Long Island Sound
and nearly twice as far from the broad ocean,
That is to say, I consider ten bushels of salt
per acre, applied to my fields, one-half in each
of two consecutive years, about the best $3.50
worth of plant food that money will buy me-
And almost any farmer can obtain refuse salt
from importers, manufacturers, tanners, re-
packers, or grocers and dealers who buy salt
meats or fish by the barrel and sell them out
by retail, if he will but inquire and be pa
tiont