306 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 5 



there is but little uncultivated, (which until en- 

 riched) will yield any clear profit. Therefore, 

 eastern Virginia, in its present state, is fully po- 

 pulated^ and no increase can be expected ex- 

 cept from the improvements of the soil, and the con- 

 sequent increased means (f subsistence. We ex- 

 port provisions, it is true; this may at first seem to 

 indicate a surplus of the means lor subsistence, 

 and a fund lor additional population. J3ut such a 

 conclusion would be incorrect. Our surplus food 

 is exchaged (or clothing and other commodities, 

 which in fact, or from custom, are as necessary as 

 sufficient food. Our only consolation is, that our 

 excess of population emigrates to the west; in- 

 stead of starving, as in most fully populated coun- 

 tries. 



If private individuals can exert so much influ- 

 ence on the population and strength of their 

 country, how much more extensive must be that 

 of the government! A member of the legislature, 

 by a single vote, may retard ])opulation more 

 than by destroying the productiveness of all the 

 land in his possession. A single l;)ad law, which 

 cramps ingenuity and industry, or destroys their 

 honest gains, or what is worse, puts them into 

 others' pockets, causes more poverty and depopu- 

 lation than a thousand exhausting cultivators. 

 Man}' are the sins of this description, which have 

 been committed by our legislatures, both state and 

 federal; it is enough to name as examples, the 

 protecting duty policy, banking, and laws for the 

 compulsory support of the poor. The last, though 

 not the least of such evils, will hereaiter become 

 the heaviest. Poor laws impose taxes and penal- 

 ties on honest industry, and ofler rewards for idle- 

 ness, extravigance, drunkennesss, and debauche- 

 ry — and their inevitable consequence will be to in- 

 crease those vices, until their support shall have 

 absorbed the whole income of the industry of the 

 nation. England has already drawn near to that 

 dreadful situation, and with herexam|)le before us, 

 we are pursuing the same course to the same end. 



Appomattox. 



From Loudon's London Gardeners' Magazine. 



ON THE SYSTEBIS OF CROPPING KITCHEN 

 GARDENS ADOPTED BY THE BEST PRI- 

 VATE AND COMMERCIAL GARDENERS — 

 WITH AN ATTE3IPT TO REDUCE THEM TO 

 FIXED PRINCIPLES. 



The subject of cropping the ground in kitchen 

 gardens, embraces the preparation of the soil, the 

 insertion of the seeds or plants, their after culture, 

 the gathering of the crop, and the system accord- 

 ing to which one crop is made to succeed another. 

 As the discussion of all these points, however, 

 would involve the repetition of what is already 

 well known to every gardener, the article now 

 submitted to the reader, and for which his indul- 

 gence is enteated, is limited to what is properly 

 called cropping, or the succession of crops. Crops 

 in kitchen gardens, are put in the ground accord- 

 ing to three distinct plans or systems, which may 

 be termed successional cropping, simultaneous 

 cropping, and permanent cropping. 



Successional Cropping, is that in which the 

 ground is wholly occupied with one crop at one 

 time, to be succeeded by another crop, also whol- 

 ly of one kind: for example, onions to be followed 



by winter turnips, or potatos to be followed by 

 borecole. 



Simultaneous Cropping, is that in which severai 

 crops are all coming forward in the ground at the 

 same time; for example, onions, lettu(;e. and radish- 

 es, sown broadcast; or peas, potatos broccoli, or 

 spinach, sown in rows. 



Permanent Cropping, is where a crop remains 

 on the ground several years; such as sea-kale, 

 rhubarb, a^paragus, strawberries, &c. 



To these modes might be added, mixed ligneous 

 and herbaceous cropping, such as growing herba- 

 ceous crops among gooseberries, currants, rasp- 

 berries, and other fruit shrubs, and among fruit 

 trees. The practice of growing culinary crops 

 among li'uit shrubs is, however, nearly exploded 

 in the best gardens, on account of the injury 

 done to the shrubs when they are young and 

 small, by the roots and shade of the culinary crops, 

 and of the injury done to the culinary crops when 

 the shrubs are grown up, by the shade and con- 

 finement which they produce. For the same rea- 

 sons, cropping between trees, is by no means desi- 

 rable in small gardens, where the n-ees must ne- 

 cessarily be at no great distance from each other; 

 but in the case of very large gardens, such as 

 those of commercial gardeners, where trees are 

 planted in close rows at 20, 30, or 40 yards apart, 

 so as to shelter the ground, the cropping may be 

 carried on in the spaces between rows of trees, on 

 the principles which regulate successional, simul- 

 taneous, or permanent cropping, in ground where 

 there are neither trees or shrubs. 



The object to be attained by a system of crop- 

 ping is that of procuring the greatest quantity 

 and the best quality of the desired kind of pro- 

 duce, at the least possible expense of labor, time, 

 and manure; and, in order that this object may be 

 efi'ectually obtained, there are certain principles 

 which ought to be adopted as guides. The chief 

 of these is to be derived from a knowledge of 

 what specific benefit or injury, every culinary 

 plant does to the soil, with reference to any culi- 

 nary plant. It ought to be known whether par- 

 ticular plants injure the soil by exhausting it of 

 particular priciples; or whether, as has been late- 

 ly conjectured by De Condolle, and as some think, 

 proved, the soil is rendered unfit for the growth 

 of the same or any allied species, by excretions 

 from the roots of plants; while the same excre- 

 tions, acting in the way of manure, add to the fit- 

 ness of the soil for the production of other species. 

 The prevailing opinion, as every one knows, has 

 long been, that plants exhaust the soil, generally, 

 of vegetable food, particularly of that kind of 

 food, which is peculiar to the species growing on 

 it for the time being. For example; both, pota- 

 tos and onions, exhaust the soil generally, while 

 the potato deprives it of something which is ne- 

 cessary to insure the production of good crops of 

 potatos, and the onion of" something which is ne- 

 cessary for the re-production of large crops of 

 onions. According to the theory of De Condolle, 

 both crops exhaust the soil generally, and both 

 render it unfit for the repetition of the particular 

 kind of crop; but this injury according to his hy- 

 pothesis, is not efitjcted by depriving the soil of 

 the particular kind of nutriment requisite for the 

 particular kind of species; but by excreting into it 

 substances peculiar to the species with which it 

 has been cropped, which substances render it unfit 



