Review of Essays on Calcareous Manures. 159 



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formed by the alluvium of the numerous smaller streams, which wa- 

 ter our country. These alluvial bottoms, although highly product- 

 ive, are lessened in value by being generally too sandy, and by the 

 damage they suffer from being often inundated by floods of rain. 

 The best highland soils, seldom extend more than half a mile from 

 the river's edge, sometimes not fifty yards. These irregular mar- 

 gins are composed of loams of various qualities, but all highly valu- 

 able ; and the best soils are scarcely to be surpassed, in their origin- 

 al fertility, and durability under severe tillage." 



" The simple statement of the general course of tillage, to which 

 our part of the country has been subjected, is sufficient to prove that 

 great impoverishment of the soil, has been the inevitable conse- 

 quence. The small portion of rich river margins, was soon all clear- 

 ed, and was tilled without cessation for many years. The clearing 

 of the slopes was next commenced, and is not yet entirely comple- 

 ted. On these soils the succession of crops was less rapid, or from 

 necessity, tillage was sooner suspended. If not rich enough for to- 

 bacco when first cleared, (or as soon as it ceased to be so,) land of 

 this kind was planted in corn, two or three years in succession, and 

 afterwards every second year. The intermediate year between the 

 crops of corn, the field was " rested" under a crop of wheat, if it 

 would produce four or five bushels to the acre. If the sandiness, or 

 exhausted condition of the soil, denied even this small product of 

 wheat, that crop was probably not attempted, and instead of it the 

 field was exposed to close grazing, from the time of gathering one 

 Crop of corn, to that of preparing to plant another. No manure 

 was applied, except on the tobacco lots ; and this rotation of a grain 

 crop every year, and afterwards every second year, was kept up as 

 long as the field would produce five bushels of corn to the acre. 



Whe 



necessary 



expense of cultivation, the land was turned out to recover under a 

 new growth of pines. After twenty or thirty years, according to 

 the convenience of the owner, the same land would be again clear- 

 ed, and put under similar scourging tillage, which would then much 



end as before, in exhaustion. Such a general system is not 

 yet every where abandoned, and many years have not passed, since 

 such was the usual course on every farm. How much our country 

 has been impoverished during the last fifty years, cannot be deter- 

 mined by any satisfactory testimony." 



sooner 



