INTRODUCTION. 127 



ible. Nevertheless, the contrast in this respect to the picture before presented, 

 is full of encouragement. Barns and yards are now constructed with a view to 

 the accumulation and preservation of manure, and extensive experiments have 

 been made to ascertain the manner in which the greatest possible benefit can be 

 derived from its use. Discrimination prevails in the application of whatever is 

 used for that purpose, to the different species of plants. Indian corn and roots 

 are now cultivated with the immediate application of fresh manures, while the 

 grain crops are cultivated upon grounds previously prepared, by incorporating 

 the nutriment with the soil. Several substances are now extensively used as 

 manure with beneficial results, such as poudrette and peat, and especially gyp- 

 sum, which, although fifty years ago known to be a stimulant to vegetation, was 

 regarded as operating to exhaust the fertility of the soil. More gypsum is now 

 prepared and sold in the counties of Onondaga and Cayuga alone, than twenty 

 years since was used throughout the whole state. It has been found by expe- 

 rience that the deep ploughing, and complete pulverization, now performed with 

 ease by means of improved instruments, expose the soil more completely to the 

 action of the atmosphere, and furnish a better range or pasture for the roots of 

 plants, and thus operate favorably in regard to both the certainty and abundance 

 of production. The present mode of draining lands already capable of cultiva- 

 tion, is wholly a modern improvement ; that process having heretofore been 

 confined to swamps and marshes. The sub-soil plough has been invented with 

 express reference to freeing soils from water and deepening them, without bringing 

 to the surface the sub-soil which is unfit at first for purposes of vegetation. Our 

 agriculturists have also learned that the mechanical mixture of the earths, by 

 effectual ploughing, conduces to fertility. But in no respect has there been a 

 more decided advance in husbandry, than in the attention paid to the rotation of 

 crops. The practice of exhausting land with a succession of similar or varied 

 crops, and then " laying it by for old field," is no longer known. The impor- 

 tance of an alternation of crops with a seeding of grasses, as a part of the rotative 

 system, is universally acknowledged, and has not only been demonstrated by scien- 



