660 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 11 



soil, may furnish principles capable of becoming 

 a part of the gluten in wheal. 



In considering what vegetablep are likely to he 

 profitable on a particular soil, it is necessary al- 

 ways to attend, not only to the mean temperature 

 of the climate, but likewise to the summer's heat 

 and winter's cold. Thus, maize, or Indian corn, 

 and the vine, require a very hot summer ; and the 

 olive would be destroyed by our winter. It is un- 

 necessary, therefore, to say any thing of these 

 plants, or similar plants, in relation to a British 

 system of cultivation : but, in some of our colo- 

 nies, particularly the Cape of Good Hope, almost 

 all the vegetable productions of Italy, Portugal, 

 or Spain, are nr may be raised. The wines of the 

 Cape may be doubtless iniproved by a proper se- 

 lection of soils, and by employing peasants from 

 the vine countries of France in cultivating the 

 grape, and in the manufacture of wine. The fla- 

 vor of the juice of the grape changes as the soil 

 is different ; and in selecting a place for a vine- 

 yard, much may be gained by analyses or che- 

 mical examination of the soil, and by comparing 

 it with the best soils of the best wine provmces 

 of France, Germany, and Spain. This is a sub- 

 ject not unworthy the attention of our govern- 

 ment. 



Though the general composition of plants is 

 very analogous, yet the specific difference in the 

 products of many of them, and the facts stated in 

 the last lecture, prove that they must derive dif- 

 ferent materials fi-om the soil ; and though the 

 vegetables having the smallest systems of leaves 

 will proportionably most exhaust the soil of com- 

 mon nutritive matter, yet particular vegetables, 

 when their produce is carried ofi', will require pe- 

 culiar principles to be supplied to the land in 

 which they grow. Strawberries and potatoes at 

 first produce luxuriantly in virgin mould recently 

 turned up from pasture; but in a few years they 

 degenerate, and require fresh soil ; and the organi- 

 sation of these plants is such, as to be constantly 

 producing the migration of their layers : thus the 

 strawberry by its long shoots is constantly endea- 

 voring to occupy a new soil; and the fibrous ra- 

 dicles of the potato produce bulbs at a considera- 

 ble distance from the parent plant. Lands in a 

 course of years often cease to aflbrd good culti- 

 vated grasses ; they become (as it is popularly 

 said) tired of them ; and one of the probable rea- 

 sons for this was stated in the last lecture. 



The most remarkable instance of the powers ol 

 vegetables to exhaust the soil of certain principles 

 necessary to their growth, is found in certain fun- 

 guses. Mushrooms are said never to rise in two 

 successive seasons on the same spot, and the pro- 

 duction of the phenomena called fairy wings has 

 been ascribed by Dr. Wollaston to the power of 

 the peculiar fungus which forms it to exhaust the 

 soil of the nutriment necessary for the growth of 

 the species. The consequence is, that the ring 

 SOntially extends, for no seeds will grow where 

 their parents grew before them, and the interior 

 part of the circle has been exhausted by preceding 

 crops; but where the fungus has died, nourish- 

 ment is supplied for grass, which usually rises 

 within the circle, coarse, and of a dark green 

 color.* 



* Some effects attributed to exhaustion of soil may 

 be owing to excretions from the roots, injurious to the 



When cattle are fed upon land not benefited by 

 their manure, the effect is always an exhaustion 

 of \hr. poi! ; this is [)articularly the case where 

 carrying horses are kept on estates ; they consume 

 the pasture during the night, and drop the greatest 

 part of their manure during their labor in the 

 dav-time. 



The exportation of grain from a country, unless 

 some articles capable of becoming'manure are in- 

 troduced in compensation, must ultimately tend to 

 exhaust the soil. Some of the spots now desert 

 sands in northern Africa, and Asia Minor, Avere 

 anciently fertile. Sicily was the granary of Italy ; 

 and ihe quantity of corn carried off from it by the 

 Romans is probably a chief cause of its present 

 sterility.* In this island, our commercial system 

 at present has the efit^ct of afl^'ording substances, 

 which in their use and decomposiition must enrich 

 the land. Corn, sugar, tallow, -oil, skins, furs, 

 wine, silk, cotton, &c., are imported, and fish are 

 supplied fron". the sea. Amongst our numerous 

 exports, woollen, and linen, and leathergoods are 

 almost the only substances which contain any nu- 

 tritive materials derived from the soil. 



In all courses of crops it is necessary that eve- 

 ry part of the soil should be made as useful as pos- 

 sible to the different plants; but the depth of the 

 furrow in ploughing must depend upon the nature 

 of the soil, and of the subsoil. In rich clayey 

 soils the furrow can scarcely be too deep; and 

 even in sands, unless the subsoil contains some 

 principles noxious to vesretables, the same prac- 

 tice should be adopted. When the roots are deep, 

 they are less liable to be injured, either by excess 

 of rain, or drought; the layers shoot forth their 

 radicles into every part of the soil; and the space 

 from which the nourishment is derived is more 

 considerable, than when the seed is superficially 

 inserted in the soil. 



There has been much difference of opinion with 

 respect to permanent pasture; but the advantages 

 or disadvantages can only be reasoned upon ac- 

 cording to the circumstances of situation and cli- 

 mate. Under the circumstances of irrigation, 

 lands are extremely productive, with compara- 

 tively little labor; and in climates where great 

 quantites of rain fall, the natural irrigation pro- 

 duces the same effects as artificial. When hay is 

 in great demand, as sometimes happens in the 

 neighborhood of the metropolis, where manure 



plants which have yielded them, and yet beneficial to 

 other kinds of plants : in one instance acting; the part 

 of a poison, in the other of a manure. Vide Phisio- 

 l()e;ie Ve<;eta]e, pp. 248 and 1474, for some curious 

 mformation on this important subject, the investiga- 

 tion of which is only just begun. — J. D. 



* Sicily is still abundant in corn, and produces more 

 than is sufficient for the use of its inhabitants. If its 

 fertility is diminished, which there is reason to believe 

 is the case, since the best times of the Romans, it may 

 be referred to a bad s)^stem of agriculture, connected 

 with an oppressive government. The corn-lands of 

 the adjoining little island of Malta, well cultivated, 

 are wonderfully fertile, yielding often a return of fifteen 

 fold of wheat, and sometimes of thirty-two fold of bar- 

 ley; whilst in the Ionian Islands, especially at Cerigo, 

 where the soil is similar, but where manure is not 

 used, and the same land is yearly under the plough, 

 the produce of wheat seldom exceeds five fold ; and 

 in all these islands, from time immemorial, corn has 

 been imported, the most fertile of them not yielding 

 sufficient for six months' consumption. — J. D. 



