The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1877-02-01
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
ran IIanuring ana Flowing.

NY utoci fNo viz blShIb Va hl"h'hb
more money at the business than al
most any other man in the town
where he lives, said to us the other
day that he believed two loads Of
manure plowed or narrowed in the
fall is worth as much as three loads
plowed in in the spring, He has
been experimenting on the subject
for twenty years, and knows what he
is talking about. The practice that
he believes is the best he follows,and
it is this: The manure which is
made by his stock in the winter he
leaves in his barn cellar all summer.
1t is not left in heaps, but is spread
round over the cellar, and OCCASION
ally there is carted upon it a layer OF
loan or muck, 1t is then plowed as
one would pillow a field. In this way
the manure becomes pulyerized, and
whatever additions are made to it by
adding loan andlitter, are thorough
ly Incorporated with it during the
summer, and in the fall it is nearly
as fine as ashes. The ground which
it is intended to plant and SOW the
next spring, is plowed and the ma
nurc carted upon it and thoroughly
narrowed in. Then in the spring a
cultiyator harrow is run over the
land, making it mellow, and the seed
is put in. All the manure drawn
out in the spring is what is some
times put in the hill.
Land prepared in this way, our
friend claims, will yield 25 per cent.
more corn than that which is plowcd
and dressed with the same amount of
manure in the spring There are
other reasons why he favors fall
.plowing. 1t gives him two or three
weeks start in the spring, and ena-
blcs him to get his crop in much
earlier than he could if he had his
blowing to do and manure to haul
after the snow leaves He raises
wheat, and always has a good crop,
mainly, as he believes, because he
sows it nearly as soon ms the snow is
gone. Again, he says, the only way
to beat witchgrass, with which his
farm is well supplied, is to plow it
in in the fall. lie showed US two
sections of the same field, one of
which was plowcd in the fall and the
other in the spring Corn had just
been taken from both, and both had
been treated alike during the sum
mer. On the piece plowed last fall
there was little witchgrass to be seen;
but on the other there was excellent
feed, The experience of such a man
as this is worth very much, and it is
doubly valuable when it is founded
on established and acknowledged
principles. We all know that the
finer manure is pulverized the more
readily it is appropriated by crops
and the more valuable it is; and fine
manure, cannot by any process, be
got out of a new made heap in the
spring
But when left in barn or cellar
until fall it is easily reduced to a
very fine state. A few hours work
with the manure fork and pillow do
the business. Then the extra cult
walton which fall blowing gives the
land-for land plowed in the fall is
narrowed at least once more than
when plowed in the spring-adds
much to the crop, The suggestion
that fall blowing gives a man an
early start in the spring, will be APP
preciatcd by all thrifty farmers who
wish to keep ahead of their work and
do not like to be driven by it. As a
rule, farmers are less hurried late in
the fall than early in the spring, and
and to bring over part of the sum
mer's work to fall is a good idea, es-
pecially if it can be done with the
profit this man claims, AS to witch
grass, there is good hard sense in the
theory that roots which are plowed
up and left upon or very near the
surface in the fall will freeze to death
before spring, and that those which
are left by the pillow eight or ten
inches under the ground, though re.
tanning their vitality, viii not reach
daylight until the hood crops cover
the ground, and will help check and
choke out the weeds; while roots