720 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



experience to be too short for improvement. Must 

 the practice ol' hirino; a man for one year by a 

 a share of the crop, lo lay out all liis skill and in- 

 dustry in killing land, ami as lilile as possible in 

 improving it, suggesied by the circunislances and 

 necessities of seliling a wilderness among hostile 

 eavages, he kept up to commemorate the pious 

 learning ofmaii to his primitive slate of ignorance 

 and barbari'y'? 



Unless this custom is abolished, the attempt 

 to (ertilize our lands is needless. Under the fre- 

 •qnenl emigrations of owners from state to state, 

 and overseers from plantation to plantation, it 

 cannot be accomplished. Impoverishment will 

 proceed, distress will iollow, and famine will close 

 the scene. It is a custom which injures both 

 employers and overseers, by gradually diminish- 

 ing the income of the one, and of course the 

 wages of the other. Wages in amney would, on 

 the conirar}', correspond with a system ol gradual 

 improvement, by which the condition of both par- 

 lies would be annually bettered, and skill in im- 

 proving, not a murderous industry in destroying 

 land, would soon become a recommendation lo 

 business, and a thermometer of compensation. 



INCLOSING. 



The modes of fertilizing land form a system, 

 wholly unfit, as we shall see upon erjumerating a 

 iew of its constituents, to be enforced by an itine- 

 rant order, bribed to counteract most or all of them. 

 The most effectual is (bund, when we have found 

 the most copious fund of manure. Alanures are 

 mineral, vegetable or almosplierical. Perhaps 

 the two last may be resolvable into one. Mineral 

 manures are local and hard of access. But the 

 earth swims in airrosphcre and inhales its relresh- 

 ments. The vegetable world covers the earth, 

 and is the visible agent, to which its surface is in- 

 debted (or fertility. If the vast ocean of atmo- 

 sphere is the treasury of vegetable (bod, vegetable 

 manure is obviously inexhausiible. The vegeta- 

 ble world takes its stand upon our earth to extract 

 the riches of this treasury, larger than the 

 earth itself, and to elaborate them into a proper 

 form for fertilizing its surface. The experiment 

 of the willow, planted a slip, in a box containing 

 200 pounds of earth, and at the end ofa few years, 

 exhibiting a tree of 200 pounds weight, without 

 having diminished the earth in which it grew, 

 demonstrates the power of the vegetable world to 

 extract and to elaborate the atmospherical manure. 

 This 200 pound weigiit of willow, was a prodi- 

 gious donation of manure, by the atinosphere, to 

 the 200 jiounds weight of earth in which it grevv. 

 It was so much atmosphere condensed by the 

 vegetable process, into a Ibrm capable of being re- 

 ceived and held by the earih, and of being reduced 

 lo vegetable (bod*, during its struggles to return to 

 its own principle, through the jjasses of putridity 

 and evaporation. Vegetables, like animals, feed 

 en each other. Inclosing lor (he sake of rearing 

 vegetables lo enrich the earth, is the mode by 

 which the greatest quantity of atmospherical ma- 

 nure can be infused into it with the least labor. 

 It is prepared and spread Vi'ithoul expense. Cross 

 lences, those drawbacks of man's lolly from divine 

 beuevolence, are saved by inclosing to ((;rti!ize ; 



and if the laws for confining land under inclosuresj 

 for permitting animals to prowl at large, and for 

 punishing landholders (or the trespasses commit- 

 ted by these marauders on their land, were made 

 more conformable to justice, common sense and 

 common interest, the supplies of manure from the 

 vegetable world, would become combined with a 

 vast diminution of labor. Thus the two primary 

 objecis of agriculture, (to lisrlilize the land, and 

 save labor) would be both attained lo a measure- 

 less extent. Vegetables would collect from the 

 atmosphere, an inexhaustible supply of manure, 

 and spread it on land ; fencing and timber to great 

 extent would be saved, and agriculture would soon 

 aspire to her most elegant ornament and useful 

 improvement, live fences. 



Eut alas 1 we persist in the opinion, that lands 

 trespass on cattle, and not cattle on land. Out of 

 emulation I suppose of an ancient doctrine, which 

 the bayonet only could confute, that it was better 

 to fasten the plough to the tail than the shoulder. 



It is yet a question, whether the earth is enrich- 

 ed by any species of manure, except the vegeta- 

 ble or atmospherical, and experiments have hi- 

 therto leaned towards the negative. Without new 

 accessions of vegetable matter, successive heavy 

 dressings with lime, eypsum and even marl, have 

 been frequently (bund to terminate in impoverish- 

 ment. Hence it is inferred, that n)inerals operate 

 as an excitement only to the manure lurnished by 

 the atmosphere. From this fact results the im- 

 possibility of renovating an exhausted soil, by re- 

 sorting lo fossils, which will expel the poor rem- 

 nant of life ; and indeed it is hardly probable that 

 divine wisdom has lodged in the bowels of the 

 earth, the manure necessary for its surfiice. 



However this question maybe determined, the 

 impossibility of obtaining mineral manure in quan- 

 tities sufficient to enrich an impoverished country 

 leaves us no alternative; whilst the spasmodic 

 efforts it excites in the agony of death, are belter 

 calculated to accelerate the evil, and to aggravate 

 national distress by inspiring false hopes, ihan to 

 remedy the impoverishment of excessive culture. 



If vegetable matter is eitlier the only manure, 

 or the only attainable manure, capable of reno- 

 vating our countr}', let us cast our eyes upon its 

 surface, and discover the demand, by computing 

 the impoverishment. We want as much as we 

 have expelled, to get back to the state from which 

 we set out. We must retrieve, before we can 

 improve. The nation never dies ; it is the yoke 

 fellow of the earth; these associates must thrive 

 or starve logelher; if the nation pursues a sys- 

 tem of lessening the food ol the earth, the earth 

 in justice or revenge will starve the nation. The 

 inclosing system provides the most Ibod for the 

 earth, and of course enables the earth to supply 

 most food to man. It is time working on space. 



Let us boldly face the i'act. Our country is 

 nearly ruined. We have certainly drawn out of 

 the earih three fourths of the vegetable matter it 

 conlained, within reach of the plough. Vegetable 

 matler is its only vehicle for convej ing food to uf?. 

 If we f-uck our mother to death we must die our- 

 selves. Though she is reduced to a f keleton, let 

 us not despair. She ia indulgent, and if we re- 

 turn to the duties revealed by the consequences 

 of their infraction, lo be prescribed by God, and 

 demonstrated by the same consequences to com- 

 port with our interest, she will yet yield us milk. 



