Agrarian Nation Update 2015

Dateline: 5 March 2015

By: Herrick Kimball

Apple picking into the ox cart
This 1880 photograph is one of my favorites 
from the archives of this web site.
(click for a larger view)

I have ceased publishing new information to this web site, and am now focusing my efforts on a new web site called Agriphemera. 

All the Farmer's Calendar excerpts that were on this site have been removed and will be incorporated into the "Farmer's Calendar Project" at Agriphemera.com

But this web site is still full of many other wonderful excerpts from the Agrarian Nation. Here are links to just a few of the most popular posts...

Food Preservation: 1826 to 1874

Culture of Roots: 1871

Walnuts: An Excellent Family Medicine: 1826

Connecticut Farming in 1875

Hogs Fattened on Sweet Apples: 1849

Rules For Making A Wife Happy: 1877

The Milch Cow: 1825 to 1849

Jerusalem Artichokes: 1861

What Young People Should Know 1867 (Part 1)

What Young People Should Know 1867 (Part 2)

Eric Sloane Speaking About The Agrarian Nation

Corn: 1835 to 1889

Growing & Harvesting Corn By Hand

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Check the archives (right column, at the bottom) 

for many more excerpts from the Agrarian Nation!

—1869—Earth Ovens

#122

Photo Link

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The following excerpt comes from The Cultivator & Country Gentleman magazine of January 7, 1869

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EDITORS, COUNTRY GENTLEMAN—
In answer to an inquiry as to whether bake ovens could be constructed of clay, you give a negative answer. I refer to the article on page 396 of the last volume, where you say: “We have never known of building ovens with wet clay.” My pioneer experience in Central Indiana  is different from yours, as I have seen dirt ovens, and helped build them too, as well as eaten of the incomparably fine bread baked in them, the memory of which puts to flight the triumphs of the latest improvements in the cook stove.

The platform or base of these ovens was generally built of clay, sufficiently thick to prevent the burning of the wooden foundation on which they were constructed. On this is built a pile of chips and bark precisely the shape of the inside of the oven. This is the framework, around which the wall of the oven is built of well worked mortar, in which the requisite amount of straw has been worked to give it additional strength, and prevent cracking in the process of drying.

The clay thus prepared is worked into “cats” or balls by hand, and placed in the wall, carefully uniting and cementing the whole firmly together. After the wall is up and the “keystone” placed, then comes the finishing, which is generally done by dipping the naked hand in a bucket of water and slicking up the job, thus putting on the finishing touches, the builder of course not omitting so good an opportunity to inscribe his own name with his finger on the plastic wall, as well as the date of erection of the oven.

After the wall is thoroughly dried, the bark and chips may be fired and burned out, and when the heat has sufficiently subsided to indicate the proper temperature, it is ready for the baking of bread, pies, or whatever else may be deemed necessary for the next “log-rolling” or “barn-raising.”

In the rapid march of refinement, the dirt oven has long since been numbered with the things that were, and though many improvements have been introduced in baking, yet nothing that I have ever yet seen produced better loaf or finer pies than that dirt oven.

A. Furnas
Danville, Indiana

—1874—Flax Culture

#121

Flax in flower (photo link)

Flax was a common crop in the Agrarian Nation, especially in the northern states. Flax produced seeds for oil and fiber for cloth.

Cloth made with flax has a remarkable coolness to it. Hold a piece of cotton cloth to your cheek on a hot day and it will be warm. But a piece of flax cloth will be noticeably cooler. Someday I'd like to buy a shirt made of flax (linen cloth) just to experience the coolness of it.

The following excerpt comes from The Cultivator & Country Gentleman of March 26, 1874.

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Your correspondent G., on page 168 (March 12) asks for some instruction as to raising flax, time to sow, and the manner of harvesting, threshing, &c. 

In this locality, it has been our practice invariably to sow at the last quarter of the moon in May. For one acre, one bushel of perfectly clean seed is plenty.

Sow evenly. To do this, sow both ways, taking a still time when there is no wind. Be careful not to fill your hand too full; otherwise you may lack seed at the cross sowing.

The land should be a sandy loam, that was planted to corn or potatoes and well manured the previous year, and kept clean from weeds; plowed fine and smoothed evenly with a fine-tooth harrow; then sowed as directed and covered with a light brush.

Flax bolls (photo link)

The time to harvest is when the bolls are well filled and begin to turn yellow. Pull and keep the buts even; tie up in small bundles; set up in small stooks; and when perfectly dry, draw to the barn and put away in the stables adjoining the barn floor, threshing at some time before your second harvest comes on.

Stooking flax (the buts don't look even to me)

Have your barn floor swept perfectly clean; take a five-pail iron kettle or an empty barrel; place it in the middle of your barn floor, and set the boys to whipping the bound bundles over the edge of the barrel or kettle, keeping the buts even; throw the threshed bundles out in your yard, and if it rains on them before spreading, all the better.

Rotting by spreading is our practice. (We have never tried water-rotting in ponds.) Draw out on a smooth, dry meadow, well protected from stock of all kinds; then commence spreading on the upper part of the meadow. One man to unbind and "handful" out, and one man to follow and spread, are sufficient. Keep the buts even and spread smoothly; no lapping of one gavel or row on another is allowed.

Dew-retting (a.k.a., "rotting") a field of flax in France.

When rotted nearly enough, turn over the gavels with a pole eight or ten feet long, running it under the tops and and turning it over.

If grown for seed, we get twelve bushels from a bushel of seed sown. 

Flax seed (photo link, with good flax-growing information)

When rotted enough, rake up in good sized bundles and bind; keep the buts even and draw to the barn on a very dry day; pack away over your barn floor under the roof.

A word as to "getting out flax," as they call it here. When March comes, have your "break" and "swinging board" and "swinging knife" ready, and go at it (a dry day is best); unbind and "handful out," and let the sun shine upon it a little. Finish it all if you can this month. A barn full of flax and no hay the first day of April is rather a poor sign in this locality.

R.M. Berkshire County, Mass.

A flax break. Click Here to see more flax tools.

—1873—The Kerry Cattle

#120

This installment of Agrarian Nation comes from the April 3, 1873 issue of The Cultivator & Country Gentleman newspaper. I am posting it for my friend, Richard Grossman, who raises this fine old breed.

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To the Editors of The Country Gentleman:

It will be remembered by many of your readers that in 1860 Mr. Arthur W. Austin of Boston imported a herd of Kerry cattle. They were selected for him by the late Sanford Howard, who wrote a full and very interesting account of the breed, and the particulars of the cattle selected by him, which was published in the Agricultural Report of the Patent Office for 1862.

In 1865 I purchased eight of the descendants of the above herd, from which I have since been breeding, having made some few additions from other families, and frequent sales.

A few months before his death, I had a correspondence with Mr. Howard, in which he manifested great interest in the breed, and at his request I promised to write him an account of the result of my trial of them. The statement which I would have made to him, I will now give to you.

But first let me mention that during a recent visit to England and Ireland, I was surprised to find that so many Kerries were found in different parts of those countries. I saw them not only in their native hills around the beautiful lakes of Killarney, but on the grounds of noblemen of England, and in many of the fields along the railroads that I traveled. The finest herd that I saw were in the Park of Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough. They were ranging together with a lot of massive Short-Horns, which made them look even smaller than they actually were. The Kerries all wore little bells, to enable the Duchess (as my guide informed me) to find them more readily. He said they were her pets.

I shall not undertake to give a history of this breed, or a minute account of the animals. Those of your readers who may be sufficiently interested in the subject, can find all that in the Agricultural Report to which I have referred. Suffice it to say that they are small, compactly built, and very hardy animals, not ugly in form, as some suppose (as the Jersey cow comes to be, for instance, as she gets old) but symmetrical in form, with (generally) a straight back and always fine limbs. The horns are long, but gracefully curved and tapered. The head is the coarse part of their bodies, especially in the bull. Their horns are perhaps a little longer than the Devons, but not much, and they resemble that breed more than any other in their general appearance, excepting in color. The Kerries are, or should be, always “jet black,” though sometimes they are red or brindle. Black is the color that is sought and bred for. They have a soft, mellow hide, which is covered with a thick coat of hair. The “milk points” of the Kerry cow are remarkably good. In my herd there is not one that has not a fully developed “mirror,” high and broad, what the Jersey breeders are always seeking for and seldom find, and the udders are of the most approved form, with teats well and equally placed.

They are not large milkers—that could hardly be expected of such small animals. They yield on the flush say from eight to fourteen quarts per day, but they are persistent milkers, and that is their great point of excellence. What I mean by persistent milkers, is that they continue giving milk long into the winter and near to the time of calving, and without what is called extra feeding. For example, as my favorite way of judging the merits of different kinds of stock is to keep them together, and as nearly as may be under the same conditions of food and care, I have in the same building with the Kerries a herd of pure bred Jerseys and some “natives.” For several seasons I have watched them, and have always found that in the latter part of January, the only cows (of those that are to calve in the following spring) that are giving milk are the Kerries, and this notwithstanding they receive no other food than hay, while the Jerseys have to have some meal and bran to keep them from “running down.”

As for the quality of their milk, I once made the following trial: For one week I had the milk of three Kerries and three pure bred Jerseys kept separate and carefully measured. All was made into butter, which was weighed and compared with great care. The result showed that it took 8-3/4 qts. of Kerry milk to make a pound of butter, and 8-7/8 qts. of that from the Jersey cows to make a pound.

The above you will say is rather a “rose-colored” account, but then there is never  a rose without its thorn. The thorn—the drawback— in the case of the Kerries, is the fact that they mature very slowly. They could never be profitable for raising veals. The calves are small, and seem to devote all the good milk they consume in their infancy to laying the foundation of a good, hardy constitution for later usefulness. In all my experience with the Kerries, I have had but one heifer drop her calf during the season that she was two years old. They generally come in at three, and afterwards are not as quick to develop into the full usefulness of the mature cow as some other breeds. I believe, however, that a herd of mature Kerry cows will make more milk and butter in a year on the same feed than the same number of cows of any other breed.

D.F. Appleton, Ipswich, Mass

—1876—Patents onFruits & Plants

#119

From the Cultivator & Country Gentleman magazine 

January 27, 1876

A correspondent lately sent us the printed copy of a bill introduced in Congress last month by a member from this State, entitled “a bill to encourage the production of new and valuable fruits and plants.” We are asked to publish it at length, or if that is impracticable, at least to express our views as to its merits. The purpose of the proposed act is to secure “the originator or discoverer of any new and valuable fruit or plant,” &c., “the sole right and liberty of growing, propagating and selling such plants for the term of seventeen years.”

On former occasions we have quite fully stated our conclusions on this subject and the reasons on which they are based—to the effect, in brief, that we can conceive of no method of accomplishing the objective above specified which must not involve greater injury to the community, and delay and vexation in the introduction of new varieties, than the value of all the “encouragement” it will give to the introducers.

Should such a law be enacted, our most earnest advice to all farmers and fruit growers would be not only to abstain from purchases of anything purporting to be thus protected, but also to be extremely careful about buying plants or trees which they suppose themselves to have been familiar for years. The very frequent cases of annoyance and extortion under our present patent laws, where it would be supposed that safeguards for the protection of the public could be devised and put in force, we should regard as sufficient reason for such advice.

We find nothing in the present act to change these views. Farmers and horticulturists everywhere would be completely at the mercy of all who chose to enter upon a career of swindling them. It would in all ordinary cases be easier and cheaper to submit than to appeal to the courts for protection.

If the time comes when an intelligent community fails to appreciate a good thing when introduced, or to take sufficient interest in improvement of labor for its accomplishment from other motives than that of getting a royalty on the fruits we eat, the grasses of the meadow and the flowers of the garden—we shall hope the public will be willing to rest satisfied with such poor varieties as we already possess, in preference to fettering their hands and pledging their purses, in the manner indicated by laws of this kind. Their result, we believe would be only evil, and that continually, as well for the introducers of new varieties as for the whole rural community.

Since the foregoing was written, we find a brief notice of the proposed law in that excellent journal, the New-England Farmer, from which we take a sentence or two to show its purport.

“The question is, who will be most benefitted by it, the inventor of the new apples and potatoes, the cultivators who buy the right of producing and selling them, or the lawyers who settle the disputes arising between the two parties? Deliver us from growing any fruit we cannot give away if we choose.”

“If every squash or pumpkin we buy for the table must have the seeds destroyed to prevent them from sprouting, for fear of infringing on somebody’s patent, deliver us from the patent laws, or the pumpkins.”

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I was very pleased to discover this particular excerpt from America's agrarian era. The wisdom and foresight expressed by the editors of the Cultivator & Country Gentleman paper is remarkable. 136 years ago, these men saw patenting of plants as a dangerous slippery slope—as "only evil, and that continually." The bills were eventually passed, and more have followed.

Such laws paved the way for the rise and domination of Monsanto over world agriculture. 

"Only evil and that continually."

—1869—A Remedy ForCanada Thistle

#118

A young Canada thistle

From the Cultivator & Country Gentleman magazine 

May 20, 1869

.

The large fields covered with thistles on many farms, and the small amount of labor that can be spared for their destructions, are at variance. We must find some cheap and sure remedy, or pay a thistle tax beyond all computation. Canada thistles bear seed in abundance, some years more than others, and it is scattered by the winds and planted by the frost and rain, so that any acre of land in this neighborhood poorly tilled, will show Canada thistles. Now for a remedy.

In pasture lands, stock heavily, so as to feed close, either with cattle, sheep, or horses, or all together. Carry into the lot twice the quantity of salt that your stock would eat, made into a weak brine and put a little on a thistle here and there until it is gone. Repeat this once or twice a week for a single season. It induces the stock to eat the thistles. They become fond of them and will eat them quite clean.

N.P. Hedges
Wales Centre, N.Y.

Cows eating Canada thistle (photo link)

—1876—Comb Protectors

#117

(photo link)

From the Cultivator & Country Gentleman magazine 

January 13, 1876

.

A correspondent gives the Fancier's Journal the following description of a hood for protecting the large combs of Spanish and Leghorn fowls, in order that they might not be disqualified from competition at shows, by loss of combs from freezing:

I generally make them out of cotton-flannel. Take two pieces of cloth and pin them together. Then lay on the pattern and cut the hood out, and sew it around the edges, leaving a space for base of comb. Then take a piece of narrow tape or cord rubber, two and one-half inches long, and sew the ends on the base of the hood, one and one-quarter inches from the front of the hood, and it is finished.

Then catch the bird and hold its head firmly. Pull the hood on the comb, pulling it well on till it reaches the base of the comb. Then put the rubber throat latch under its bill. Then place the bird on its feet and I defy all cold to freeze it. I used them on my fowls last winter with perfect success.

 *****

You can buy diapers for your chickens but as far as I know no one sells hats. Chicken hats would not only serve to protect combs from freezing in winter, they could also protect a  chicken's head from being pecked by other birds. And, of course, they would be very stylish. 

So here's an idea for some imaginative and enterprising person. There isn't a doubt in my mind that you would be able to sell chicken hats on the internet, and probably more than you might imagine.

—1871—How To Use Your Currants

#115

Black, red, and white currants. (photo link)

 

The following article, titled "How To Use Your Currants," comes from the 1871 Cultivator & Country Gentleman newspaper

Currant Jelly

For currant jelly, gather the currants when fully ripe; wash thoroughly clean from soil, squeeze the juice through a flannel bag, having first poured a teacupful of boiling water upon ten or twelve pounds of fruit. Measure the juice, and to every pint of it add one pound of the best lump sugar. Boil together twenty-five to thirty minutes, skimming off all the froth that rises; (this should go into the vinegar jug, that should sit behind the stove, ready to take in all such things.) When perfectly clear, strain through a jelly strainer or sieve, into cups or tumblers. When it is cold and solid, cut round pieces of white paper, dip them in alcohol and lay over the jelly; then paste stiff brown paper all over the tops of the dishes, and label them, with the date. There is no need of removing the stems for jelly, if the currants are well washed.

Currant Wine

Take fully ripe berries on the stems, put them into the fire and let them become heated through; then press out the juice through a flannel bag. If a quantity of fruit is to be prepared, wash the clothes wringer thoroughly, and put the bag containing a portion of currants, through its rollers. To every gallon of juice add two quarts of hot water and four pounds of white sugar. Mix all together; put into a jug and tie millinet or lace over the mouth to keep out the insects. Set in a warm place to ferment. In a month or six weeks the wine can be corked up. Let it remain in the jug, in the cellar, until April, then pour off the clear liquor, and bottle tightly.

Currant Vinegar

A good article of vinegar can be made from the mash that is left from jelly and wine. Pour boiling water over it but not too much; let it be quite colored with the juice; then to every gallon of it add one quart of molasses; set in the sun to ferment; and in three months, if not sooner, you will have a delicious vinegar.

Spiced Currants

These make a relishing accompaniment to roast meats, etc. Take the stems from five pounds of currants; add to them four pounds of brown sugar, three tablespoonfuls of ground cinnamon, two tablespoonfuls of ground cloves and a pinch of salt; add one pint of vinegar. Boil in a porcelain kettle for one hour; keep in jars tightly covered.

Currant Preserves of Jam

take the currants from the stems and to every pound of them put three-quarters of a pound of white sugar; mash them up with a pestle, and boil for half an hour, skimming well. This is a good substitute for cranberry sauce with poultry.

Dried Currants

Take seven pounds of currants, one pound of sugar, and cook till completely broken up; strain through a colander; boil the juice down to a thick syrup; add the currants that were left in the colander; cook as thick as possible without burning; spread on platters to dry in the hot sun, or an oven not too hot to dry slowly; one day is usually enough for one side; cut up into small squares; turn and dry on the other side. It is deliciously flavorful and agreeable to the mouth of a fevered patient. Lay a small bit on the tongue and let it dissolve, or dissolve it in cold water for a refreshing drink.

Iced Currants

Select large, full bunches of currants; dip them in the white of egg, and then roll in powdered sugar. A very handsome dish for dessert or supper.

Currant Ice

Squeeze out two quarts of currant juice, add it to one pint of cold water and three pounds of white sugar. Put into the freezer and beat into it the whites of three eggs, whipped to a stiff froth; freeze the mixture. This makes an elegant dish for dessert, as it freezes in a pink colored foam, which is very delicious.

Currant Syrup

That three quarts of currant juice and three pounds of white sugar; boil for twenty minutes, and bottle while hot, sealing the corks tightly with a wax made of rosin and tallow. This affords a pleasing beverage when mixed with ice water, and is valuable in the sick room.

—1877—"Cherry Bounce"

#114

Wild Black Cherries

Procure wild black cherries; pound them, in order to break the pits. Then mix them with sugar [and] good whiskey or rum, in the proportion of a gallon of spirits and two pounds of sugar to a couple of quarts of cherries. Put the whole in a tight cask. Shake it up once every day for three months; then let the liquor run through a thick cloth twice to clear it. Keep it, well strained, in casks or bottles. This is very good for bowel complaint, and a fine tonic.

[The Cultivator & Country Gentleman]

—1871—Sunflower As A Field Crop

#113

Isaac Leuty of Sanilac Co., Michigan, states in the Western Rural that he has cultivated the “Mammoth Russian Sunflower,” as a field crop, with great success. He plants in drills 4 feet apart, and 18 inches in the drill, requiring two quarts of seed per acre. Many of the stalks grow 16 feet high. They want rich land. From eight to ten tons of leaves have been gathered from an acre, making good feed for cows, horses and pigs. The first leaves are pulled in July, going up 3 or 4 feet high. The next pulling is as high as a man can reach. They make good green food when pastures are dry. The tops with the seed are cut with a sickle, as high as a man can reach, putting a dozen bundles in a shock, as soon as the seed glazes. In winter, the seed is threshed with a flail, the main heads reserved for seed and the small ones threshed separately. The main heads gave 31 bushels per acre, and the small ones 16 bushels—47 per acre. Have any of our readers had similar success?
[The Cultivator & Country Gentleman]

—1748—Molasses From Sweet Apples

#111

Today’s Agrarian Nation excerpt is a real gem. It comes from the February 25, 1875 edition of “The Cultivator & Country Gentleman” a popular weekly agricultural newspaper of the 1800’s. I own several, bound, yearly volumes of the oversize periodical and am slowly making my way through them, looking for tidbits of interesting information, just like this.....

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To The Editors of The Country Gentleman—The following is from an old book published by B. Franklin and D. Hall in 1748, at Philadelphia. At this time, when there is such a superabundance of apples, it may be suggestive, as well as interesting for its antiquity. H.B.O. Whitinsville, Mass.

A new sort of Melasses made of Apples; the Account communicated to the Royal Society, by Paul Dudley, Esq; of New England, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, Numb 374.

The apple that produces the Melasses is a Summer Sweeting of a middling size, pleasant to the Taste and full of Juice, so that 7 Bushels will make a Barrel of Cyder. The manner of making it is thus; you must grind and press the Apples, and then take their Juice and boil it in a Copper till three Quarters of it is wasted, which will be done in about 6 Hours gently boiling, and by that Time it comes to be of the Sweetness and Consistency of Melasses.

Some of our People scum the Cyder as it boils, others do not, and yet there seems to be no great Difference in the Goodness.

This new Melasses answers all the Ends of that made by the sweet Cane imported from beyond [the] Sea. It serves not only for Food and Brewing, but is of great Use also in preserving of Cyder; two Quarts of it put into a Barrel of rack’d Cyder will both preserve, and give it a very agreeable Colour.

The Apple Melasses was discovered a few Years since, by a Gentleman of my Asquaintance, at Woodstock, in this Province, a Town remote from the Sea, and where the West-India Melasses is dear and scarce; he ingeneously confesses the Discovery was pure accidental, but ever since he has supplied his Family with Melasses out of his orchard, and his neighbours also now do the like, to their great Advantage. Our country farmers run much upon planting Orchards with these sort of Sweetings, for fatening their Swine, and assure me it makes the best Sort of Pork. And I know the Cyder made of them to be better than that of other Fruit, for Taste, Coulour and keeping.

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The "Melasses" (Molasses) spoken of in today's excerpt is what became known as boiled cider syrup, and was once a very popular item in the Northeastern U.S. In addition to making hard cider and cider vinegar, making boiled cider syrup was a way of preserving the apple harvest without refrigeration. Another way of preserving the harvest was to make pure cider jelly. Apples are full of pectin and if you boil cider to just the right point, pour it in a jar and cap it, the cider will jell. No sugar is added. It's nothing but apple, and by all accounts it is delectable.

You can learn more about making boiled cider syrup and pure apple jelly at my Whizbang Cider web site. Here is the link: Boiled Apple Cider Syrup & Pure Cider Jelly

—1876 & 1883—Clover For Manure

#110

Clover in Full Blossom

-1876-

Ploughing Under Clover 

For Manure

.

The venerable John Johnston, of Geneva, who is now eighty-four years old, and who says he thinks the average of all his wheat crops would be not less than twenty-eight bushels per acre, while he has raised, many times, over thirty-five bushels, and occasionally forty-two bushels, thinks it indispensable to success in wheat-growing to plough under clover.

It may seem at first an absurd project to attempt to improve land by ploughing into it what has just grown out of it. If the clover drew all its nourishment from the land alone, this would be true. The clover, however, has the property f drawing large quantities of nitrogen from the air which are stored for the use of the grain crop following, which can absorb nitrogen only by its roots. Clover, then, is to be regarded as the cheapest known source of nitrogen and organic matter, carbon, &c., but it cannot restore to exhausted land either potash or phosphates; and if our land is deficient in these essentials, we must add them to the clover before we can expect a good yield of grain. In New York this has not yet proved necessary, as the clover alone, with such manure as could be easily obtained, has been able to maintain the fertility of the land, under judicious rotation, for scores of years. Experience may prove that we may need in addition to use some potash and phosphate. Now, the potash can be had cheaply in the German potash slabs, and super phosphate can be prepared of good quality so as to be sold at $25 per ton, if it were not mixed with any nitrogenous manure. It is the nitrogen that cots, and which can be cheaply supplied by the farmer himself by ploughing under clover. The manufacturer of so-called super phosphate generally mixes some nitrogenous compound with the super phosphate at a cost which the farmer can ill afford to pay, even if he gets an honestly-mixed article—the purpose of the manufacturer being to get a manure which will produce a visible and immediate effect upon foilage when applied to farm crops. The farmer can buy his nitrogen, by ploughing in clover, at a price with which no trader can ever possibly compete, with the additional advantage of loosening the soil by the decomposing vegetable matter. The clover should be ploughed under when in full blossom. If the  land will produce two crops, the first may be cut for hay, and the second ploughed under for manure.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

(photo link)

-1883-

Clover as a Green Manure

.

Why don’t you sow more clover? Both science and practice dictate the more frequent use of clover as a green crop to be ploughed in for the use of subsequent crops. It is not a very expensive mode of fertilizing land. So let us try it, and do it thoroughly. Use plaster freely to induce a heavy growth, and then resist the temptation to cut and cure the crop for hay, plough it in when in full bloom, and follow it with some grain crop, watching the result.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

—1889—Guernsey and Jersey Cows

#109

This picture comes from the August 19, 1875 Cultivator & Country Gentleman magazine. I own several years of this magazine and would like to someday make a collection of notecards with with the old cow illustrations. 

Fashions change in farming and stock-raising almost as much as they do in millinery, though perhaps,not quite so often. We are always aiming after something that is new, something that everybody else hasn’t got. Every farmer will remember that a few years ago, the Jerseys were regarded as the “fashionable” breed, and their merits were claimed to be greater than could be found in any other class of cattle, especially for the butter dairy. The enthusiasm for them led to frequent and extensive importations, and it must be admitted that they have exercised a great and important influence on the common or native stock of New England, which they have, no doubt, greatly improved.

More recently the Guernseys have rather taken the lead, and many claim for them the very first place at the head of the dairy breeds, upon our farms, as being better adapted for general purposes than even the Jerseys. The Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey are only about twenty miles apart, but the cattle of the two islands have been kept quite distinct for very many years, no animal of the bovine species having been allowed to land alive on the island of Jersey for nearly a century, while the Guernsey farmers have been equally jealous of all contamination of their neat stock for centuries. The result is that they are reaping a rich harvest of profit for their long and jealous care, just what the islands of nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard might do here by taking the same care.

The Guernseys are somewhat larger than the Jerseys, and the butter made from their milk is of a deeper yellow. Their color is most commonly a shade of orange, with some patches of white. The horns are short and often turn upward and inward, giving them a rather unique and stylish appearance. The general look and outline of the two breeds, and Jerseys and Guernseys are similar, and the color is very much the same, as well as other general characteristics, like the quality of their milk. Both are eminently fitted for the butter dairy. On ordinary keeping many Guernseys have yielded from fourteen to twenty-two pounds of butter a week, enough, certainly, to satisfy the ambition of any reasonable dairyman. The number of pure Guernseys in this country is now about equal to that upon their native land.

[Thomas’s Farmer's Almanac]

—1864—Urine, Muck & Other Matters

#108

On most farms there can be found located somewhere upon the premises a muck hole which for ages has been filling up with decomposed vegetable matter. Shovel this muck into piles, to remain until dry, then it should be carted into the barn yard to be used as circumstances require. In mixing it with the manure in the yard, select the lowest places to spread it on, so that the drainage from the higher parts of the yard, or urine from the stable may flow upon it. Spread a quantity of it every night as litter for the cattle to lie upon. This earth, impregnated with urine, kneaded under the feet of the cattle, will lose nothing which has been given to it. 

Soap suds, and all the urine, &c., from the chambers, should be mixed with the manure heap composed of earth. The result of observations shows that a man renders per day at least three lbs. of urine and other matters; this, multiplied by 365 days, gives a yearly product of 1100 pounds per person, or 11000 pounds for ten persons who ordinarily live upon a farm. 

We hope the few foregoing remarks on manure making will serve to lead the industrious farmer into new channels of operation

[Leavitt’s Farmer's Almanac]

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This old almanac entry speaks of something that was common in the Agrarian Nation—the use of "night soil." Night soil is human excrement ("other matters") used for fertilizer.

In my extensive collection of "Cultivator & Country Gentleman" magazine from the late 1800's there are ads for "Poudrette."  Poudrette is defined as "a manure made from night soil, dried and mixed with gypsum, charcoal, etc."

It's interesting to note that "poudrette" is still being sold to farmers. It is municipal sewage sludge and it's now called "biosolids." 

I have no problems with using properly treated "humanure" as a fertilizer, but sewage sludge has all kinds of potential toxins in it. I'll bet the biosolids of today are a whole lot more toxic than the poudrette of the late 1800s. You can learn more about sewage sludge used in agriculture at this link: United Sludge-Free Alliance.