nterest to transport manures of all
kinds, at a merely nominal rate.

Many people will be surprised at the recommendation of Sir John B.
Lawes, not to waste time and money in cleaning poor land, before seeding
it down to grass. He thinks that if the land is made rich, the superior
grasses overgrow the bad grasses and weeds. I have no doubt he is right
in this, though the principle may be pushed to an extreme. Our climate,
in this country, is so favorable for killing weeds, that the plow and
the cultivator will probably be a more economical means of making our
land clean, than the liberal use of expensive manures. It depends,
doubtless, on the land and on circumstances. It is well to know that
manure on grass land, will so increase the growth of the good grasses,
as to smother the weeds. Near my house was a piece of land that I wanted
to make into a lawn. I sowed it with grass seed, but the weeds smothered
it out. I plowed it, and hoed it, and re-seeded it, but still the weeds
grew. Mallows came up by the thousand, with other weeds too numerous to
mention. It was an eye-sore. We mowed the weeds, but almost despaired of
ever making a decent bit of grass land out of it. It so happened that,
one year, we placed the chicken coops on this miserable weedy spot. The
hens and chickens were kept there for several weeks. The feed and the
droppings made it look more unsightly than ever, but the next spring,
as if by magic, the weeds were gone and the land was covered with dark
green luxuriant grass.

In regard to the use of potash as a manure, we have still much to learn.
It would seem that our grain crops will use soda, if they cannot get
potash. They much prefer the potash, and will grow much more luxuriantly
where, in the soil or manure, in addition to the other elements of plant
food, potash is abundant. But the increased growth caused by the potash,
is principally, if not entirely, straw, or leaves and stem. Nature makes
a great effort to propagate the species. A plant of wheat or barley,
will produce seed if this is possible, even at the expense of the other
parts of the plant.

For grain crops, grown for seed, therefore, it would seem to be entirely
unprofitable to use potash as a manure. If the soil contains the other
elements of plant food, the addition of potash may give us a much more
luxuriant growth of leaves and stem, but no more grain or seed. For hay,
or grass or fodder crops, the case is very different, and potas