FOREST LAND. 139 



forming and accumulating on its surface, and 

 of which the fertility is so great, that but little 

 labour and no manure is required to make it 

 bear, year after year, abundant crops of grain. 

 Every successive crop, however, abstracts a 

 portion of the vegetative principle the soil con- 

 tains, and in a certain time, longer or shorter, 

 according to the thickness of the covering, it 

 will be entirely deprived of its vivifying pow- 

 ers, and reduced to a caput mortuum. Whe- 

 ther after this, the land may be of any use, will 

 depend on the quality of the subsoil, and how- 

 ever naturally rich the subsoil may be, it will 

 before it will carry crops of grain have to be 

 fertilized by being brought to the surface and 

 fed with proper manure. How much better 

 then must it be, by a right mode of cultiva- 

 tion, to maintain the present valuable surface 

 soil in its fruitful state. 



There is not in the States, as there is in 

 Britain, that peculiar feeling of the amor pa- 

 trice which attaches a man to a particular loca- 

 lity, and probably induces him to use means 

 for establishing it as the home of his descen- 



