Statement of JOHN EICHAR, of Greensburgh, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. The only fertilizers in general use with us are lime, plaster, or gypsum, and barn-yard manure. Air-slacked lime and barn-yard manure are applied to land intended for wheat, oats, or corn, and are generally, though improperly, spread upon the ground after it has been ploughed. Plaster is principally used in the spring on our grass lands, at the rate of a bushel to an acre, which will increase the yield of hay about one third. Fifty bushels of lime and twenty-four horse-loads of barn-yard manure to an acre, renewed every three years, are generally applied for corn, oats, and wheat, which usually increases the yield 25 per cent., and the soil will be in good condition for the two following crops. Statement of STEPHEN H. SMITH, of Lonsdale, Providence county, Rhode Island. In all my applications of guano to grain crops, it has proved a valuable manure. Ten dollars' worth of Peruvian guano to the acre, well applied, will give an increase of 20 bushels of corn, or 12 bushels of rye. I apply it pulverized and mixed with soil, sowing it broadcast, on a deep furrow, and harrow it in. On a field that is ploughed deep, I apply it by ploughing it under three or four inches deep. It is preferable to use it very early in the spring, before the rainy season is past. If left until May or June, it will not diffuse its fertilizing properties through the soil. A portion will be lost from concentration, while another part will be evaporated by the summer's heat. I have had the best success when the guano was made on winter rye, sown early in September, and stocked down to grass at the same A field of twenty-four acres, from which 300 bushels of spring rye had been taken the season before, was sown about the 1st of September with 10 pounds of clover, one peck of Rhode Island red-top, (herdsgrass of the Middle States,) one peck of Timothy seed, five pecks of winter rye, and 400 pounds of guano. The result was, that the field produced 600 bushels of rye, worth 90 cents per bushel; 15 tons of straw, worth $10 a ton; and a large amount of pasturage besides. Statement of JOSEPH PARKER, of West Rupert, Bennington county, Ver mont. Guano, super-phosphate of lime, gypsum, and wood-ashes, are the principal fertilizers used in this vicinity. With the exception of barnyard manure, gypsum is the chief foreign substance used, though guano has been tried on corn with good success. Last season I tried super-phosphate on corn, by applying it to the hills previous to hoeing; and in order to test it more thoroughly, I applied it to a few rows after hoeing, but with no perceptible difference in its effects. The difference in the portion of the field to which super-phosphate had been applied could be distinctly seen at a distance, and the yield at harvest was often one fourth to a third more than the part to which no super-phosphate had been applied. I also applied some super-phosphate to an old meadow near the commencement of a drought, but I could not perceive any difference in the overgrowth of the grass where it had been applied. Statement of JOSEPH BOWDITCH, of Fairfield, Franklin county, Vermont. Our principal supply of manure is from the barn-yard. Gypsum is extensively used-guano but little. Barn-yard manure is carefully saved, and applied to a considerable extent as a top-dressing to our grass lands. Some draw it out directly from the stables in the winter season; others haul it as it thaws in the spring; but our best farmers keep it under cover until late in the fall, and then spread it over their meadows. In so doing, the grass starts early in the spring, before the scorching rays of the sun in June have robbed the manure of its ammonia. There is not that attention paid to compost heaps there should be. We apply from 5 to 100 pounds of plaster per acre. IMPROVEMENT OF LAND. CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE. Statement of SIMON T. ASHETON and ELIJAH MYRICK, Trustees of the United Society of Shakers, at Harvard, Worcester county, Massachusetts. Our meadows, previous to improving, had been cropped of their natural grasses for fifty years, until they were no longer worth cutting, when they were left to grow up to bushes three feet high, and with moss and bogs. First we commenced by ditching six feet wide to the bottom of the peat, as near each other as necessary to perfect a draining. The bushes were then mowed, the bogs cut up and burnt, and the ground turned over with a meadow plough in the fall. They were then planted similar to our usual rotation of crops, sometimes omitting corn. In September, 1852, we ploughed four acres of meadow similar to those described, which was left for the action of the frosts. Owing to the abundance of rain that fell in the spring, it was difficult to get a team on it until quite late in the season. It was the first week in June when we commenced ploughing. On the 10th the rains came on again, and it was difficult to draw over muck for manure. We succeeded however, in getting on ten loads per acre, which was put in the hill on planting our potatoes, and well covered in the usual way. Drought immediately followed the rains, and the potatoes did not make much growth until the first of August, when they com menced growing rapidly. They were dug about the middle of Sep tember, the field having been left to its fate from the day it was planted until harvesting had begun; not one hour's labor having been expended upon it with hoe or other implement. The field yielded 800 bushels of as fine potatoes as any one could wish, and is now in good order for any other crop suitable for a peaty soil. The whole expense of ditching, manuring, and planting, $15 per acre. Price of potatoes in Boston market, 50 cents per bushel. Cost of transportation by railroad, 123 cents per bushel. Three years ago we commenced a new plan of reclaiming meadows. First we mowed the bushes close to the ground, bogs and all, leaving the surface clean and smooth, and then burnt over the ground, which made an excellent manure. We next carted on about fifty loads of clayey loam, and harrowed it with a light harrow to mix the soils. Then three pecks of herdsgrass (Timothy) and red-top seeds were sown, which came up the following spring, and the yield was one ton of excellent hay. This season it was estimated, by competent judges, that there were 2 tons of hay on that same acre. Price of hay, $16 per ton. Cost of clearing, $5. Cost of carting, $10. This experiment exceeded our expectations, and we are about to prepare fifteen acres more in the same manner. Clay proves better on our meadows than any kind of earth we have ever tried. Statement of HENRY F. FRENCH, of Exeter, Rockingham county, New Hampshire. To show that reclaiming swamp lands for grass, if properly done, will pay, I send a condensed statement of my operations on a meadow in Exeter. The price paid for it was generally thought, at the time, to be very high, and probably no looker-on while my work proceeded, ever believed that it was other than a waste of money. I consulted a gentleman who had had charge of the land several years, and he said it had been examined by the best farmers, who had agreed that the most of it was entirely worthless, and could never be made productive. On the very part pronounced the worst, I have cut 3 tons of hay to the acre at one cutting. The account shows that my expenditures, and the interest on the cost, have exceeded $800 since I bought it, in 1844; and yet, that at the lowest price for hay, the lot has repaid it all, and much more. The soil is part a clayey loam, and part black mud upon sand. My account was kept very exactly, for my private use. hope that farmers may be induced to keep such accounts, and that their faith in the gratitude of mother earth to her sons for their atten tion to her may be increased, has induced me to publish it. I do not regard the work as very well done, and I know that 20 tons of hay might have been profitably raised, instead of 15, upon the lot, had I treated the whole as I treated part. I have sold most of the hay yearly, so that the weight was ascertained, and not merely estimated. The $639 00 $9 14 3 00 26 93 5 00 14 50 58 62 19 17 labor of men and oxen, ploughing, digging stumps, ditching, 79 30 grass-seed 2 25 $193 46 interest on balance of last year.. 39 00 1846. To grass-seed 1 barrel of guano.. 5 60 stable manure, hauling and composting.... 24 42 labor of men and oxen, ploughing and laying land to grass... 14 70 46 99 1849. To interest on balance of last year.. 10 00 49 69 46 97 1850. To interest on balance of last year.... 1851. To ploughing and laying one acre to grass, and manure.. 43 69 25 00 interest on balance of last year 40 70 1852. To 7 loads stable manure, hauling, composting, and spreading, for top Balance, being the present cost of the lot, after paying all expenses, and 504 54 1,460 24 The result of the operation, agriculturally speaking, is that the lot has paid all expenses of labor, fencing, and manure, 6 per cent. interest annually, and $134 46 more. But this is not all. More than half the lot was, when purchased, a worthless swamp, part filled with hassocks, so that six yoke of oxen were required to plough it, and part covered with stumps, from which the wood had been recently cut. Now, the whole is a clean, level, mowing-field, free from all obstructions except a few open ditches. I think the fair value of such land is about $200 an acre, near any good market; and to show that my opinion is not singular, it may be stated, that I have sold enough of the lot, since last haying time, at $166 75 per acre, to bring me $565. It adjoins no street, and was purchased merely for agricultural purposes, and was subject to an incumbrance, for which I had received $100. I also, in 1851, sold a little more than one acre for $40, a part of which perhaps was for fancy, though it is occupied only for farming. Farmers can make money by reclaiming wet meadows, and the foregoing statement shows it. This land was no better than thousands of acres which may be bought in New England at $10 an acre; yet I paid for it nearly $100, because it joined my garden where I then lived, and, like all land-owners, I like to buy all that joins my own. Farmers can attend to such work at times of leisure for themselves and their cattle. I paid $1 per day for every day's work of a man or yoke of oxen. The account will show that the hay, which was of the first quality of herds-grass, was estimated at only from $6 to $8 per ton until 1852, when it is set down at about $9. This is a lower price, by far, than the average in our region in past years, prior to 1844. This year I sold it from the field at $16. Again: every cord of manure is charged at $4, whether purchased or hauled from my own barn, and this is twice the cost of making it in most localities. Then, as usual, I followed no beaten path, but tried all sorts of scientific experiments in a small way, with lime and guano, and with barley, rye, and oats, on places where it was said they would not grow. Everybody knows that these experiments are expensive to him who tries them, however they may help the cause. Indeed, I flatter myself that, with the added experience of ten years, I can manage wild lands to much better advantage than this lot was managed. I sold a part, because my home is now on a new farm, where I am indulging my propensity to make rough places smooth, on land which cost me but $25 an acre; so that my interest account will not consume the profits. The three acres which I still hold of the "Court-house Meadow," are worth more per acre than what I have sold. Now, whether we regard the annual product of the land, or its selling value, it must appear that reclaiming swamps is, sometimes at least, a profitable business, and that is the proposition which my statement and remarks are designed to illustrate. Statement of experiments made by Dr. SIDNEY WELLER, of Brinckleyville, Halifax county, North Carolina. About three years ago I sowed, in the latter part of July, on a very poor spot of worn out land, some guano, at the rate of about 200 |