4S4 The Claims of Agriculture, etc. [November, 



Virginia, tliis steady atropliy of the soil has gone on in many parts 

 to an alarming extent. Harvests of wheat and tobacco were obtained 

 for a century from one and the same field without manure; but now 

 whole districts are converted into pasture land, which without man- 

 ure, produces no remunerative crop. 



Leibig saySj"that from every acre of this land, there were remov- 

 ed, in the space of one hundred years, twelve hundred pounds of 

 alkalies, in leaves grain and straw." 



What improvident culture! and yet this is the kind of culture 

 now generally prevalent. Our rich and fertile lands are fast being 

 impoverished by the vandal system pursued, and present more the 

 appearance of an invading foe having swept over them, or an army 

 of locusts, leaving a desert in their track. In speaking of this vast 

 depletion, our reporter says: "One billion of dollars would not 

 restore to original fertility the one hundred million acres of lands 

 in the United States which have already been subjected to this ex- 

 hausting process." 



Now it is readily conceded that this impoverishment of soil is not 

 universal. The lights of science, and intelligent observation, have 

 enabled many farmers even to improve the fertility of their soils ; 

 and if this knowledge were universal, such results would become 

 more general. 



Who will say that under the provision of our constitution which 

 gives Congress power to provide for the common defense and^e/iemZ 

 welfare of the States, that it is without the grant or power to afford 

 relief. All must concede that the general welfare can in no way 

 be better advanced than by such means as will secure the largest 

 tesources from our soil, and have a wise reference to posterity in 

 the manner of using it. The occupants of the soil are but stewards, 

 and it should be required of them to be faithful to their trusts, and 

 for this they should be made capable. And here we would present a 

 view of this subject, different from that generally entertained by the 

 learned and the unlearned, or if not entertained, universally adopt- 

 ed in practice. We maintain that there is not a science nor an art 

 practiced by man which includes a greater variety of operations, 

 or involves a greater amount of scientific principles than farming; 

 and yet in fact almost every other art is popularly regarded as far 

 more technical and intricate, and as requiring far higher qualifica- 

 tions, and a far more systematic and prolonged course of prepara- 



