Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-07-16
FOR THE FARMER.
The Best Material for Mulch and tbs
Advantages That are Derived
1T.
Quantity of Milk Required for Butter
Care of Colts-Canada ThistIes
in Meadows.
YALuE OF MuLcHNG.

spread over the surface of the soil but
not incorporated into that portion OF
it where the roots of plants extend.
1t may be grass, old hay, straw, saw
dust, spent tanbark, forest leaves,
corn-stalks, peat, gravel, sand, coal
screenings, or farm-yard manure. II
may in fact be the upper layer of the
soil, that is kept from the part in
which roots extend by frequent soak
ing, or by disturbing it in any manner
so that plants will not grow on it.
Trees growing in forest or in other
sheltered places afford material for
mulching the soil in the form of leaves.
Most kind of bushes, tall grasses, and
clover also furnish material for mulch
ing the ground where they grow. 1t
is likely that the idea of forming an
artificial mulch was hint from nature.
Mulching is practiced much more than
it was few years ago, and it is likely
that it will receive much more atten-
ton than it does at present. In eli
mate as variable as ours mulch is of
value to plants in the winter as during
the summer. 1t has been found to be
valuable in the flower and vegetable
garden as in the orchard, vineyard
and field.
At first a mulch was only used over
the roots of small and newly-set trees,
bushes and grapevines; now it is ap-
piled to fields where fall-sown grains
are raised. During hot and dry sum-
mers, like the present one, a mulch
has been employed to excellent advan-
tage on ground devoted to potatoes.
Not few market gardeners use mats,
sort of movable mulch, for laying
over p1ant-beds at night, some being
taken up every morning. Many have
found that mulch is desirable for
fruit trees and bushes that produce
berries in all stages of their growth.
1t has also been ascertained that
mulch is highly beneficial to bearing
grapevines. What is known as ma
unreal mulch is prepared for grape
vines, fruit trees and bushes that pro-
duce flowers and berries. 1t generally
consists of coarse manure, that is not
rank like hog dung. It serves the
purpose of a mechanical mulch the
first season it is applied, but during
this time it ferments and rots, and by
so doing becomes most excellent fer
tilizer.
A scientific authority on the use of
mulch gives them as follows: Conser-
walton of the food, water, and heat of
II
ing it against the extremes of cold and
drought. The most perfunctory OBJ
server of the effect of sun, frost, wind,
or air in motion in direct contact with
the surface filth of the soil can not fail
to have noticed how rapidly food and
water and heat are dissipated by the
action of the sun, air and wind on the
surface. Each thirsty sunbeam, every
molecule of air, and every frost loos-
ems, iberates, steals something from
the surface. Now, just as clothing,
especially of wooden fabrics, conserves
the warmth of our bodies, so does the
mechanical texture of surface mulches
conserve the heat, moisture and food
of the ground. The mulch penetrable
to the warmth of the sunshine would
prove no barrier to the free passage
and copious loss of vapor or food.
Hence it follows that the great use of
mechanical mulches is that they tend
to strike mean between extremes of
temperature and plethora or scarcity
of food and water. In word, they
keep the roots warmer in winter and
cooler in summer, and help to supply
them with abundant daily supplies of
food and water without subjecting
them to alternate fits of famine and
plethora. They even do more than
this. They go very far, indeed, to-
ward rendering water famine at the
roots impossible. The surface mulch
prevents waste from surface washing.
greatly enlarges the storing capacity
of the soil, extends the area Of supply,
and delivers the water where il is
most needed. Thus, the surface mulch
a6r mi
traitor of our rainfall. But it also re-
calls the water after it las left the sur
face. A mere mulch, even of cold,
hard, utterly sterile stone, gravel,
sand, coal ashes, or sawdust, sets a
series of infnitesimal pumps, capil-
laries. or hair-like tubes in motion that
bring water to the surface from the
vast depths of the earth to supply the
wants of the growing roots.
A mulch should not be so firm and
solid as to ''shed rain" 1t should be
sufficiently porous to allow rain to
readily pass through it. In grape
vines, fruit trees, rose bushes, most
kinds of Towering shrubs, currant and
gooseberry bushes, there is no better
mulching material than coarse barn
yard manure. In fruit and ornament
al trees, old hay, straw, muck, OF for
est trees are preferable Sawdust and
spent tanbark may also be used to
good advantage, but they are rarely
obtainable on farms located in the
prairie regions. In mulching ground
occupied by strawberry vines there is
nothing better than freshly-cut fine
grass. 1t contains no seed to germin-
ate in the soil, is so clean that it will
not soil the berries or the clothes of
pickers, and forms so close a mat that
it will not blow away. Having served
its purpose during one growing sea-
son, it will decay and can be incorpor-
ated with the soil when the ground is
worked in the spring.
QUANTITY OF MILK REQUIRED FOR