AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 327 



and twenty-five thousand dollars for artificial manures. He uses the teeth 

 of sheep and cattle for scythes, and fattens them with oil cake. The pro- 

 prietor of Canning Park applies nearly one hundred tons of water, with 

 five hundred pounds of guano dissolved in it, at a single dressing, upon a 

 Scotch acre of land growing rye grass, and he makes five such applications 

 in a season with profit. 



On a hilly portion of my farm the land was top-dressed with solid stable 

 manure, on both sides of an irrigating gutter. Pure water was shed over 

 the lower part immediately, and the manure washed in ; while that on the 

 upper side, above the water, consolidated into hard lumps, and the herbage 

 became brown, coarse, yellow, sickly and useless, that on the lower side 

 presented the most beautiful green, luxuriant appearance imaginable. 

 Toward fall I turned up a spit on the lower side, and found a rich black 

 deposit of mould three-quarters of an inch thick, and a darkened soil six 

 inches below, I then turned a spit above the gutter, and found the soil 

 the same from the surface downwards, a pale gray, without the least sign of 

 penetrating manure. It is entirely unnecessary to make any comment on 

 the great contrast presented in the same field, with the same quantities of 

 like manure, growing the same variety of grass, only separated by a water 

 gutter twenty inches wide, — the only difi"erence being the use of liquified 

 manure on the lower side, and solid on the upper. There are many thou- 

 sands of acres of land, within a few miles circuit of this great city, now 

 considered as waste, that may be immediately, cheaply, and profitably cul- 

 tivated by draining, and the distribution and application of lime, soils, and 

 manures in solution and suspension in water, moved to any part where they 

 may be required, even where the plow, harrow and cart cannot penetrate. 

 Enterprise, capital, and water, being the chief requirements to convert these 

 barren lands into fields of green and nutritious grasses. 



I am at a loss to know why it is that the capitalists of our country are 

 always ready to loan money for every hazardous scheme that can be desired 

 by the art of man, except where agricultural improvement is the objeet. 

 Can it be for the want of confidence in our farmers, or do they not desire 

 to see our soils improved, or is it because the laws of the land do not au- 

 thorize a proper channel for the investment of money in the improvement 

 of agriculture ? Let a company be formed, with sufiicient capital to pur- 

 chase the waste lands of New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester county, 

 which can be bought for a song, comparatively speaking, and drain, clear, 

 plow, and crop them, then rent them. Let this company receive from the 

 corporation of New York, the amount expended last year for cleansing the 

 city, for the term of ten years, with the promise to construct proper receiv- 

 ing reservoirs connected with the sewers, to flush all the filth of the city 

 into the sewers with Croton water, between the hours of twelve and four in 

 the morning, and never, on any consideration, to permit one quart of it to 

 flow into either of our rivers. Let these enrichers be placed upon their 

 lands, and every acre of it will yield a clear profit, to speak immeasurably 

 within bounds, of one hundred dollars. 



