tfO CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAEM. 



An experiment, whose object was to test the 

 comparative merits of the Ancient and the Modern 

 Fallow, seemed to some people almost unmeaning. 

 The superiority of a green crop over no crop at all, 

 providing that the land is dry enough in the winter 

 for eating or carting it oif when grown,* was one of 

 those public propositions that people had run away 



is concerned. But the farmer who would burn his dungheaps 

 for the purpose of spreading their ashes upon his land, to save 

 the labor of drawing them in bulk on to his fields, would find 

 but a poor compensation for his pains. The humus, or vege- 

 table deposit, contained in common barn-yard manure, which 

 is highly charged with carbon, that would escape into the 

 atmosphere by its decomposition in burning, is as necessary 

 in supplying its carbon to the roots of the plant by the aid 

 of water, which carries it*to them in solution, as the supply 

 of carbon obtained in the atmosphere through the. leaves. 

 Of the carbon taken into the plant, about one-third of the 

 quantity is supposed to be taken by the roots through the 

 soil ; the remaining two-thirds, by the leaves from the atmos- 

 phere. The rule of every farmer should be, the more " old- 

 fashioned " dung he can get on to his land, the better ; not 

 forgetting, however, the requisite supply of inorganic elements 

 to his soils, whenever they may be exhausted. ED. 



* Our author alludes to the turnip crop of England, which 

 is little cultivated iu America, and probably never will bo to 

 much extent. ED. 



